Kaldalis led the charge, moving first to the vendragora. He slashed his glaive through the thorny brush, but didn’t stick around for the plant monster to unfold before moving to his next target. The leviabeetle was nearest at hand, so he dove that direction next, lashing out at it. His weapon struck its leg so hard the creature stumbled and nearly fell in its haste to whirl around at him.

With those properly aggroed, Kaldalis activated his Jump ability and whirled vaguely in the direction he remembered seeing the ant-firefly thing. The vendragora was nearly on top of him by that point, but Kaldalis kicked off the ground. He cleared well above the top of the brambled branches, even as the beast lashed upwards at him.

When he landed, the ant creature was already turning towards him, its mandibles clacking threateningly. Kaldalis only grinned and smashed his weapon into the beast. He only dealt twenty-nine damage to it as his weapon scraped into the side of the creature’s thick shell, but the damage applied, and the creature lunged in at him. Kaldalis managed to barely duck aside, and he started the careful dance of trying to split his attention between the three monsters assaulting him at once.

Based on the previous fight, he determined that the vendragora was the biggest threat. The firefly ant thing was unknown, but killing it first would mean that they wouldn’t learn anything about it, and it might surprise them in the future if there were more than just the one. He wanted to know what its damage output was, and he wanted to get familiar with how it moved and attacked.

When he struck the vendragora the second time, Myrin and Haldir were there in a flash. Myrin cleaved into it deep enough that Kaldalis was convinced she’d scored another critical hit, while Haldir set about the now-familiar careful weaving of his sword arm, every motion intended to get the most out of his weapon despite its smaller size when compared to Myrin’s.

For his part, Kaldalis tried to keep it going like the last fight had, standing his ground when he could dodge in place, and then dancing away when he couldn’t. He focused his attacks on keeping the vendragora’s aggro, but kept most of his attention on the glowing ant thing, and he was surprised at how non-threatening it seemed. Its only method of attack was the mandibles on the front of its head, which were only about a foot long. They were threatening, sure, but compared to the enormous pincers on the leviabeetle, they were a far cry from an effective weapon. Kaldalis was sure he would get through the whole fight unaffected by the creature, unless it did something new. He focused instead on keeping the attention of the three monsters he currently faced, and reducing the incoming damage as much as possible with careful mobility, just like normal.

It seemed to be going very smoothly for a surprisingly long time.

Kaldalis was just starting to feel comfortable.

Right before it all went wrong.

Kaldalis danced back from a swipe of the vendragora, and while the thorny creature and the leviabeetle stepped up to follow, the firefly ant thing didn’t this time, instead hunching down and raising its luminous backside. Kaldalis hesitated for barely a second, preparing himself for some kind of acid spray or blinding flash or bull rush.

The creature’s bioluminescent abdomen began to pulse, and Kaldalis averted his eyes to avoid getting blinded in case the expected disabling burst of light came. His flinch meant that the leviabeetle caught him with the pincers, and he cursed under his breath at how distracted he’d let himself become. The firefly ant thing didn’t even flash that bright, and eventually went back to normal, surging forward to snap at him with ineffectual jaws.

“What was that about?” Kaldalis asked no one in particular. “Just a terrible distraction?”

“Focus on what you’re doing,” Balrim said, chucking a potion to Kaldalis to top him off again. “This is still just trash pulls. Don’t expect boss mechanics from this.”

As the potion took effect, restoring Kaldalis’s hit points, the mistake in Balrim’s words became clear.

There were only two of them at first. They were about three feet long and two feet tall, and they charged right for Balrim. They seemed to appear from nowhere, either having dropped from the ceiling or scrambled out of some unseen opening somewhere. They were miniature versions of the firefly ant, but their abdomens were semi-translucent, with no light emanating from them. Their unexpected lunges meant that Balrim didn’t have time to react, and while he managed to flinch away from one, the other got him, biting his shin with its mandibles. In the upper right of Kaldalis’s vision, a sizable chunk of Balrim’s hit points vanished.

Kaldalis struggled for a moment to figure the next course of action. His healer was in danger, and he was obligated to respond to that threat. His Jump ability had already expired, and had minutes left on its cooldown, even though he only had seconds to get over there. The three creatures he was already fighting were in between him and Balrim, and he had to get over there fast. Even just the two of them were going to rip through Balrim’s health in moments if Kaldalis couldn’t get their attention.

The first thing Kaldalis did was activate his Endure cooldown. He was going to eat some damage getting to Balrim’s side, and so reducing that damage would likely prove critical to pulling through the fight.

He pushed his way between the thorny vendragora and the leviabeetle, taking hits from both of them. With Endure active, though, he only took sixty-eight total damage from the beetle and seventy-three from the vendragora, although the poison stack that he got from the plant monster seemed to be at full effectiveness.

Gratefully, this time Balrim stayed put, and Kaldalis was able to grab the nearest of the two mini-ants before it could strike a second time. The other one lunged for Balrim again, catching the talsar’s foot as he was kicking at it to try and shoo it away instead of trying to bring his weapon to bear or use any of his other abilities to handle it. Kaldalis struck this other one a moment later, getting its attention stuck on him instead of Balrim.

“I’ve got you,” Kaldalis said in a strong tone. Almost as if he believed himself. “Get clear. We’ve got this under control. We’re fine.”

The talsar took the opportunity to back off. He drew out another potion, but this time used it to heal himself, undoing most of the damage he’d been dealt by the two bites.

Kaldalis focused on repositioning himself - dancing around the little ankle-biter ants - to get all the enemies on one side of him. The vendragora was shambling a little slowly, having had one of its limbs removed by Myrin’s enormous blade, and he hoped they could finish it off before things got any more out of-

The firefly ant thing was lagging farther behind still, its abdomen raised. It was already flashing again.

“It’s spawning adds again!” Kaldalis yelled. “New plan! We need to take that one down right now! Forget the vendragora!”

Myrin and Haldir jumped as they looked over the shoulder and saw the firefly ant flashing again. They quickly turned their attention to it, and Kaldalis had to push back through the vendragora and leviabeetle again on the way back to the real threat. He took another relatively big chunk of damage, but it was only a little more than fifteen percent of his hit points, while the Endure cooldown was still rolling. Way less than what Balrim had taken a moment before. He had no right to complain.

By the time he got to the add-spawning firefly, Myrin’s damage output had outstripped the paltry enmity generation Kaldalis had established. It took a chunk out of her with its mandibles before Kaldalis could strike the creature again to try and get its attention back.

About then was when Balrim yelped. Two more of the mini-ants were charging him already.

Kaldalis had to make a snap decision. If he didn’t keep on the firefly ant, Myrin was going to get its attention again quickly. But if he didn’t rush to Balrim’s side, his healer was going to get knocked out, leaving them all with no chance to survive.

“Get to Balrim!” Myrin yelled, smashing her weapon into the creature again. There was a flash of heat behind the strike, and the crack it opened in the creature’s exoskeleton leaked a semi-translucent purple ooze. “We need him more than we need me!”

“Just-” Kaldalis paused, grimacing since he was already moving to the talsar’s aid. “Just try to dodge! I’ll pick it back up when I’ve got the healer.”

Balrim was already moving towards Kaldalis with the two new small ant monsters, and Kaldalis picked up the first one instantly with a sharp thrust of his weapon. It took a moment to get into a position where he could strike the other one as the train of mobs chasing him through the room caught up.

Kaldalis had to keep moving, dancing away from the swarm of insects attacking him. Meanwhile, Balrim pitched a potion at Myrin, and Kaldalis decided now was a good time to re-engage the time-honored strategy of kiting. He couldn’t afford to take any more damage with Balrim splitting his attention.

“Just finish it!” Kaldalis called out to his DPS. “I’m going to get overwhelmed if I try to stand and fight these all at once!”

“We got this!” Myrin called back. Her hit point bar lost another chunk that told Kaldalis that she probably didn’t have this. “Just stay alive until we get this one down!”

Kaldalis ran a brief circle around his party, leading the four mini-ants and the leviabeetle hot on his trail. The vendragora was still lagging behind, but was an ever-present threat, as its attacks represented the most damage output.

For a moment, Kaldalis thought they were going to make it. They were on the razor’s edge with this, but-

Myrin fell.

Dead. Kaldalis knew her stats just couldn’t deal with the sustained damage, and her heavy weapon limited her options for defense through mobility.

Shortly after, there was that same pulse of light as the creature raised its abdomen, as if in defiance of Haldir’s efforts to kill it.

Kaldalis got hit with a potion, and that was enough for the leviabeetle to turn its attention back to Balrim. Kaldalis struck the creature to get aggro again. But doing so meant the mini-ants all lunged, their five-inch mandibles clamping onto his calves. The attacks chunked him for sixty-two damage apiece. None of them applied elemental damage, but one of them applied a debuff to him called “Seal” that he wasn’t familiar with. Four strikes at once was nearly a quarter of his total hit points. And he was already hurting a little bit.

From there it only spiraled more out of control.

They just had no ability to recover.

Two more of the mini ants charged at Balrim, and the healer didn’t have a chance. Kaldalis didn’t have his Endure cooldown anymore - and his Jump cooldown was still a little more than a full minute away. The creatures surrounding him gripped onto his legs, weighing him down, and while the flick of his tail kept his balance, he was nearly immobilized.

Balrim had time to heal himself once more before the little ants overwhelmed his meager health pool.

Once he was gone, the pair of them rushed towards Haldir, who was struggling with the full-sized ant-firefly thing. For his part, Haldir was doing an okay job of employing his shield defensively and keeping the pressure on the larger monster. But apparently blocking with shields still let chip damage through, and without a healer, Haldir had a limited amount of time.

Kaldalis had his own problems with the monsters already on him, and he had no tools to answer those problems. He could either chip away at them in turn as they traded his meager strikes for huge chunks of his hit points, or he could run around on a merry chase and hope Haldir came out on top in his encounter.

Without the Jump cooldown, he didn’t even have an effective escape ability to try and leave the room entirely, not that he believed these creatures would ever stop chasing him.

The syncoresi had taught him not to count on that.

His decision was made for him, though, as the tiny firefly ant things clung to his legs. By doing so, they didn’t seem to be doing damage, but their weight kept him from running effectively. He stabbed down at them, knowing that upon applying the third stack of his gust debuff, they would likely be blown off, but he didn’t really have time. The leviabeetle’s pincers were already clacking and snapping at his gut, looking to rip him open. Kaldalis brought his spear to bear against the larger creature instead, but without the ability to effectively dodge, it struck him just the same for its full eighty-five damage.

And then again, freely.

It was all over for him once the vendragora caught up while he was thus restrained.

Kaldalis was briefly aware of his insides being ripped apart by a thorny appendage before he found himself as a spirit again. At least the beasts didn’t stick around to tear apart his body, though he didn’t feel that much better about it when they turned and rushed towards Haldir.

The other vathon didn’t go down without a fight.

But he did go down. Eventually.

As a spirit, Kaldalis realized he could see both Balrim and Myrin as ghostly shapes standing over their own bodies, and the three grimaced as they watched Haldir get swarmed. A moment later, the group of insects dispersed and Haldir’s spirit stood there where his body had been a moment later, wearing a similar grimace.

That could have gone better, Kaldalis tried to say, though he didn’t have the ability to put voice to the words as a spirit. And I bet I’m going to hear all about it as soon as we rez up.