THE FLAGBEARER

• BOSS
• THE MOON
• PHASING

THE FLAGBEARER is a boss on THE MOON, a place of ghosts.

It senses you through walls and drifts straight through them; the dead do not respect stone.

The first man to walk here, who planted the flag, learned what it was planted on, and never went home — while a copy grown in a tank on the ride back shook hands and cut ribbons for forty years. He has kept the watch alone ever since, and he only ever loses to the worthy.

Where you meet it

THE MOON

It is placed by hand on THE MOON and waits at its post until you come close.

What to know

• HOVERSHas no legs and never touches the floor — it drifts over it, casting its shadow down.
• PHASINGWalks through walls and hunts you through them.
• HOW IT ENDSIt hovers, so the blade goes up through it. The suit fails, what was inside vents out of the breach, and the empty suit is what falls. The hero: "FIRST MAN UP HERE. SOMEBODY SHOULD HAVE COME BACK FOR YOU."
• LEASHEDNever strays further than 460 from where it stands.
• WHAT IT WAS CARRYINGA shift's pay, and only about one body in five is carrying any of it when it falls.
• WHEN STRUCKIt comes apart in ectoplasm. A blow that overwhelms it bursts it, and the goo it was holding together goes everywhere.

Mechanics

Every dangerous move is telegraphed — it roots, it winds up, and you get the beat you need to be somewhere else.

• SLAMWith you inside 75 it roots for 0.9s and then smashes the ground for 120% of its contact damage to everything standing in that circle. A jump sails clean over it. Once every 8s.
• LASER EYESIt roots for 1.1s first — its eyes light, and the bearing LOCKS on wherever you were standing when they did. Then a beam sweeps 80° across that bearing over 1.5s, reaching 150, burning for 50% of its contact damage every 0.4s you stand in it — and leaving the floor it crossed ON FIRE for 5s, biting 22% every 0.7s. The sweep travels one way, edge to edge, so the answer is to move AROUND it — toward the side it has already passed — rather than across it. Once every 11s.

Below 40% health it switches to:

• SLAMWith you inside 80 it roots for 0.7s and then smashes the ground for 130% of its contact damage to everything standing in that circle. A jump sails clean over it. Once every 6s.
• ENRAGEBelow 40% health it fights like a cornered animal for the rest of the fight — 1.4× speed and 1.25× damage, permanently.
• LASER EYESIt roots for 0.9s first — its eyes light, and the bearing LOCKS on wherever you were standing when they did. Then a beam sweeps 105° across that bearing over 1.6s, reaching 175, burning for 55% of its contact damage every 0.4s you stand in it — and leaving the floor it crossed ON FIRE for 6s, biting 25% every 0.7s. The sweep travels one way, edge to edge, so the answer is to move AROUND it — toward the side it has already passed — rather than across it. Once every 8.5s.
• FLAG PLANTIt roots for 1s first, then drives its flag into the ground 60 in front of it. The flag stands for 22s and calls the dead up out of the ground the whole time, and it will plant another the moment this one is gone. It is a body like any other: break the flag and the tap stops. Once every 16s. Only from NIGHTMARE upward. It calls THE PLANTED FLAG.

What it drops

Every kill pays one piece of gear, 2 medkits, one repair kit and one XP scroll.

Its drops roll 35% better on the rarity ladder than the level's ordinary loot.

Guaranteed pieces by rarity: 1 magic, and a 50% chance of one more and a 50% chance of a rare. A rarity the monster's own level has not unlocked yet is skipped, so the same fight pays better on a harder rung.

Always drops

• MACHETE

Named relics it can roll

Gated to the rung you beat it on, and rolled against the monster's own level, so the deeper rungs open names the shallow ones never see.

EASY

• THE LONG VIGIL
• PALEGRAVE

MEDIUM

• THE LONG VIGIL
• PALEGRAVE

HARD

• THE LONG VIGIL
• PALEGRAVE

NIGHTMARE

• THE LONG VIGIL
• PALEGRAVE
• SENTINEL'S GREAVES
• MAREWALKERS

JESUS CHRIST!

• THE LONG VIGIL
• PALEGRAVE
• SENTINEL'S GREAVES
• MAREWALKERS
• THE FALLEN STANDARD

What it says

Spoilers for this fight, covered until you ask for them.

What this scene is part of — everything said and found around it — is its chapter of the story.