Olnok's Eyes

**Olnok's Eyes** is the penultimate boss in Marrow.

## Description

The boss itself is the one of the Haunters that defend the passage to Familiar. There's a pair of Olnok's Eyes above him.

The boss lies in wait below the pit in Cinders. It is preceded by the four Haunters of the Broken Spheres urging the player below. Upon entering the fight, the player will be greeted by Olnok's Eyes. He is completely stationary and will only fire projectiles at the player.

There are two platforms on either side of Olnok's Eyes that raise and lower periodically. In order to kill Olnok's Eyes, the player must stand atop these platforms and use the extra height to attack its eyes and core.

Lightning will constantly strike throughout the room. There is no pattern to the lightning and it is completely random. The face in the center of Olnok's Eyes will groan before firing one of two possible projectiles. Its first projectile will split into four directions, traveling vertically and horizontally while its second projectile will split into eight, traveling vertically, horizontally, and both diagonals. There is no way to tell the difference between the two projectiles as their appearance is exactly the same. Olnok's Eyes has two methods of firing these projectiles. It will either fire it directly from its mouth, attacking the player as they stand atop the platform, or it will either fire a preliminary projectile that will fall to the floor before bursting into either of the two variants. Its eyes possess their own attack and will occasionally summon phantom eyes that patrol left and right at the top of the screen. They will be inactive for a few seconds upon first appearing, but will soon begin to fire several projectiles from above onto the player. These projectiles are impossible to avoid without the use of the Resonant Orb. They will fall as one of the five colors and must be blocked with the correct note of the orb. When one eye has been destroyed, this attack will only possess one eye, and once both eyes have been destroyed, it will not come at all.

After the eyes have been destroyed, its core will become vulnerable and its eye sockets will begin firing the same projectiles as the mouth. Its core will flash between blue and yellow, indicating when the player may strike it. Should the player strike it while it is yellow, they will suffer damage backlash and Olnok's Eyes will take no damage. In this second phase, lightning strikes are also much more frequent. Once the core is destroyed, Olnok's eyes turns pale and the floor disappears, dropping the player into the area before the fight with Familiar

## Strategy

The strategy for defeating Olnok's Eyes is straightforward, but can quickly become tedious depending on its attack patterns. The player must stand on top of the platforms in order to damage it, but can easily be knocked off by either lightning, or one of Olnok's Eyes impossible to predict projectiles.

Immediately upon entering the arena, the player should stand atop the platform and allow themselves to be raised to the first of its eyes. If the player does not get knocked off, it will take three separate cycles of the platforms to destroy each eye assuming they are in possession of the Tendril Sword. When boss first summons its phantom eyes, they will harmlessly travel to the right, and go all the way to the left before starting to fire, giving the player ample time to finish the first eye before needing the defend themselves. It should be noted that while the resonant orb protects the player from the eye's attacks, if the player is standing atop the moving platforms and is pushed upwards while there are projectiles above, they will still take damage, bypassing the protection of the orb because the projectile will be pushed inside of the shield before it can be blocked due to the player's upward motion. The left eye is killed in much the same way as the right, except when the phantom eyes are summoned, the player does not have as much time as on the right because they will begin firing right atop the player. With the Tendril Sword, the player must hit each eye 13 times.

Once both eyes have been defeated, its core will become vulnerable. This is the most difficult part of the fight. Lightning and projectiles are much more frequent and make it very hard to remain on the raising platforms without being knocked off. On top of the increased projectiles, the core will occasionally shield itself, completely wasting your few chances to stand atop the platform without being knocked off. Lightning will frequently strike directly on the platform. When this happens, the player should remain patient and quickly step off the the platform and await their next chance. Because lightning does twice as much damage as the projectiles, it should be avoided over every other attack. When the core is vulnerable, attacking it without falling off the platform is very difficult because the player must jump forwards in order to be in range unlike the eyes. It is possible to hit it three or four times without before it lowers, but the player must time their jump strikes perfectly so that the sword tip barely touches the core before strafing backwards back onto the platform. The core will take 15 hits from the Tendril Sword before being destroyed.

## Lore

Olnok was a mysterious ancient scientist with an appearance of a half-human and half-snake (perhaps, it's a consequence of marrow mutation). He's also leader of the Haunters of the Broken Spheres and creator of the Familiar.

Olnok is the one who responsible for Stulands corruption, and the one who helped them with creating the Familiar. After Olnok realized that Familiar is a part of the Wanly and a threat to all world's existence, he's imprisoned it in the Cinders, killed everyone involved and buried everything under a mountain of dirt.

To be sure that Familiar shall not break through, Olnok left his five subordinates, Haunters of the Broken Spheres, to be it's watchers for eternity. The last one of them it's the boss itself that's got a pair of Olnok's Eyes.

## Notes

Olnok's Eyes theme is *Olnok's Eyes:* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0v4BdmmSrI