The rain of shimmering fists resumed, unabated. Kaldalis focused his all on avoiding each strike.

Despite the creature’s size, the attacks came so fast he almost expected anime sound effects to accompany them. He was able to just barely stay ahead, but only because it was an overworld mob and not a dungeon mob. Kaldalis didn’t have to trade blows to maintain aggro on the boss. It also didn’t feel necessary, since he would only be adding tiny pokes of damage just barely into double digits.

In the overworld, his job was to make everyone else’s jobs easier. If the boss had its back to the DPS and the healer wasn’t screaming for mercy, he was doing good.

Focusing on his movements made him almost invulnerable.

Almost.

He still caught an occasional strike for two-hundred and eighty-three total damage, but his fumbles were infrequent enough that Balrim was able to keep pace.

What concerned Kaldalis most was the darkness blast attack. The accountant part of his brain was estimating that if the damage was consistent between the regular attack damage and the special attack damage, it would deal almost four hundred damage. That could leave him the only one still standing at a single stroke - and not by much.

If they missed the flicker timing just once it would be the end of the fight.

And the end of Haldir altogether.

While the rest of them would respawn after a little while, Haldir had finally (sorta) copped to being an NPC.

If he died, it was forever.

Kaldalis spared a glance at the NPC in question. If Haldir was still shaken by his brush with morality, he showed no outward sign of it now. He was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Myrin and contributing his damage to the battle as best he could.

Myrin, meanwhile, was visibly enjoying herself. She was wildly carving away with a sword as tall as she was, with a big goofy grin on her face. He wondered what her damage numbers looked like, that sparked such glee in her. Then again, for some DPS players, seeing any numbers at all was all it took.

The creature stopped attacking to begin pulsating again, and Kaldalis was glad for how long it went between blasts; it meant that his Flicker cooldown had been ready for a while now. He didn’t know if they had all gotten identical cooldowns on their abilities - it seemed a bit more tank-oriented, in his opinion - but he was confident that they could do it again.

“Keep going,” Kaldalis said, waiting for the right moment to Flicker. “We’ve got time for a few more hits.”

“More dots!” Myrin yelled across the melee with a mad cackle. “More dots!”

“Okay stop dots!” Kaldalis called, and then, for Haldir’s benefit, he added: “Flicker, now!”

Within seconds the quartet floated together in the void for a moment, though Kaldalis wasn’t sure if Myrin was going to make it. She had a hand clamped over her mouth and was clearly trying not to laugh. He didn’t think the old reference was that funny, but apparently it hit her funny bone just right at just the worst time.

Kaldalis wasn’t too worried about her suffocating, though. They were only going to be in this featureless void for a few seconds, not long enough to pass out.

They popped back into the real world just in time for the giant monster to punch Kaldalis in the face, and he regretted splitting his focus. He needed to worry about the very real threats to his own safety rather than imagined ones on his DPS players.

The strike wasn’t enough to send the fight spiraling out of control, and between Kaldalis’s dodging and Balrim’s periodic healing, things got back under control in record time. It was only a few moments later that the boss broke away from them, abandoning the fight to flee into the jungle.

“Do we chase?” Myrin asked quickly, dancing from foot to foot, clearly only waiting for the most tentative approval.

“We have to save the encampment,” Kaldalis said. “We’re on a rescue quest, not a kill quest, remember?”

“No. This is our chance,” Haldir said with a toss of his head. “We have to kill it. A boss monster like that is the real threat to the town. One fewer of those could be the difference between victory and defeat!”

Kaldalis looked back towards Balrim. He wasn’t quite sure why. He supposed it was just in his nature as a tank to check with the healer before making any rash decisions.

The talsar gave a quick nod. “Don’t forget,” he said, “if we can get a core from it, that’s our key to the censer that will keep a third raid from ending the game.”

“Alright. Go,” Kaldalis said.

The word wasn’t even out of his mouth before Myrin was off like a shot, her mobility letting her sprint so fast she was almost flying. Someone didn’t care about turning an ankle.

Kaldalis and the others scrambled, trailing far behind Myrin as she ran into the jungle after the boss. He worried for a moment that they would lose track of her, but as soon as they were in the forest behind her he realized that it wouldn’t be a huge concern. The enormous boss monster had left a trail of huge footprints and crushed plants so easy to follow that it was almost comical.

His only concern was for Myrin to wait for them to catch up before re-engaging so that he could establish aggro and keep it from pulverizing her.

It turned out his faith in her was well-placed. The monster didn’t run very far. They came upon it in a second clearing, kneeling down next to a stream. It appeared to be scooping up the water in its hands and cleaning the wounds on its gelatinous legs, even though it didn’t seem to have any blood to be cleaning off.

Myrin was waiting on the edge of the clearing, keeping a careful eye on it. “Let’s go, let’s go,” Myrin whispered as soon as the other three caught up to her. “I don’t know if it’s healing from doing that, but if we’re fast, we don’t have to find out.”

“With me, then,” Kaldalis said, and broke into a charge at the creature’s back.

He was tempted by the opportunity to belt out a battle cry, but he couldn’t afford to alert the creature to his oncoming charge; he had to get his first hit in or else he might never get the chance to establish aggro again.

Instead, he opted to activate his Jump cooldown and hurl himself into the air, sailing towards the boss glaive-first. He slammed into it hard, thrusting his weapon into its back almost a foot deep. Despite the depth of the wound, it still only did eleven damage, and while he got a stack of Gust off of it, it had been so long since the last application, it became the first stack of a new chain, the old stack having fallen off.

The creature let out a low rumbling noise that must have been its version of a roar. The vibration didn’t come from a voice, but instead from its very form, and Kaldalis almost lost his grip on his weapon as it shuddered from the roar. He had planned on staying on the creature’s back as long as it took for it to throw him off, but he was going to lose his grip immediately, and so he chose to rip his weapon out and jump back down to the ground.

The creature swept in at him with its fists at blinding speed, and Kaldalis had to abandon any attempt at a follow-up attack. He ducked first left, and then right, and then had to leap back from an unexpected third swing. He almost overbalanced and fell on his ass at that third punch, but the frantic efforts of his tail kept his feet under him, and he was able to prepare for the next flurry of blows.

Kaldalis backed up a bit, maneuvering the boss to face parallel to the stream so that his friends wouldn’t have to stand in the water to damage it. As soon as it was in position, Myrin and Haldir were there with weapons raised, slashing away at its calves and thighs as if they hadn’t just taken a five minute run for a change of venue.

Kaldalis followed their lead and fell back into the rhythm as well, focusing on his movement. He was ready to call out the Flicker timing for the next dark blast, but none was forthcoming.

After a few moments, the creature’s form started to shudder, but it wasn’t undulating.

It was losing consistency.

Bits of gelatinous mass sloughed off of it as it swept its fists at him. He supposed that that was the visual marker that it was nearing death.

It didn’t try to run again. Eventually it was reduced to a comically thin frame of shimmering goop resembling a stick figure. Haldir landed the final blow, and it collapsed into an oozing pile of mush. It shook and rumbled once more - the sound reduced to something more like a wet fart than a roar - and lay still.

The creature was called a Malum Captain, and worth twenty-seven experience points.

Haldir didn’t hesitate. The blue-green vathon tossed his sword and shield aside and dropped to his knees, driving his hands into the red-orange mess. When he stood back up, his arms were covered up to the elbow with disgusting fluid, but in his hands he held an orb. Despite the monster’s size, it was about the size of a tennis ball. It was the same color as the shimmering goop, but as Haldir wiped his hands over it, clearing away the gunk, it was hard and perfectly spherical, like a glass bead.

“What’s that?” Kaldalis asked before he realized how obvious the answer was.

“Our salvation,” Haldir said, hands visibly shaking on the precious Infernal Horde core. “That’s what it is. Our deliverance from these fiends.”

“Wow,” Myrin said with a sage nod. “Very melodramatic delivery. Four and a half stars. Next time I expect a peal of thunder in the background.”