The demon fox’s attack pattern was very reminiscent of the Malum he’d fought in Cotanaku. It attacked each cycle either three or four times, and the attack used seemed to be on a cycle. As the fight went on, he started to develop a feel for which was coming next. If he was far enough away, it used its claws before lunging to close the distance, and when it was close, it used its teeth.

Kaldalis could reliably dodge the first two strikes. He was fast enough and it was slow enough. But the third attack - and subsequent fourth, where applicable - were blindingly fast on the heels of the second. The only way to avoid them was to leap entirely clear of the beast after the second swing, and keep moving as it lunged.

Moving away wasn’t an acceptable plan in Kaldalis’s mind right now, though. It had been his modus operandi for the entire time he’d been in this game, but he wasn’t in desperate fear for his life right now. This was a relatively low-level dungeon. Between his Endure and Shrug Off cooldowns, he had the capacity to absorb a lot more hits from this boss than he could against something at-level, and his Shield HP was able to fill in to keep his HP within range for the agitated low-level healer to keep up.

And if he could stick to the boss and keep slashing at it with his curved sword, his damage would go up and up. Stepping away for any period of time would cause him to drop his Combo stacks. If he wanted to finish the dungeon faster, then he would have to do his part pushing out damage. Meanwhile, sacrificing safety for damage had another benefit. Kaldalis’s Sword and Shield skill was still ticking up and up with each hit. He might successfully cap it out during this boss fight.

Despite his reckless behavior, his HP stayed steady. Accepting more hits meant he was taking considerable poison damage as the fight wore on, but the shield effect from Shrug Off ate most of that up, and Jerporbernit was actually paying attention to the fight now. They were just throwing healing potions at Kaldalis on cooldown, which only meant that Kaldalis wanted to take more damage, so that he was never topped off completely, wasting precious resources to overhealing. Not while he was so efficiently turning his own HP into damage.

After a little while, he finally fell into the rhythm of the fight, and he managed to push his Combo stack to the limit. Ten stacks of the personal debuff meant that each strike did 20% more damage. Instead of hitting for one hundred and twenty-one damage, he was hitting for one hundred and forty-five. It didn’t seem like much, but the speed of the light blade meant that the extra damage was being multiplied by his attack speed. In between accepting the monster’s gleaming canine teeth to his head and shoulders, he was dishing out more damage per second then he ever had before, and he was doing it with a much lower-level weapon.

Despite that, the monster never slowed down its attacks for even a second. At the same time, Jerporbernit never slowed down in their complaints, either.

“What are you doing?” they snapped, over and over again. “You’re going to get us all killed!”

Kaldalis wanted to point out that the only way he was going to get them all killed is if the healing stopped coming. But the last thing he wanted to do was give the healer any ideas. They were clearly aggravated enough that they might indulge in the traditional method of healer revenge. A wipe now might give him a moment to explain himself, but it would be a waste of time. And considering that he still hadn’t heard from Iarsa, and it made him anxious about what she might do when the fight came to an end. At least for now, he suspected that their failure might mean the monster would turn on her after cleaning up the rest of the party. Once they won the fight - proving that this wasn’t an impossible task that they were supposed to skip - she might be a little more amenable to a conversation once it was clear he hadn’t killed them all with overconfidence.

Thanks to the seal property on his weapon, the monster didn’t employ any special attacks. Kaldalis suspected that at higher levels it wouldn’t remove all mechanics from a fight, but it seemed to remove a minimum of one mechanic, and bosses with just one special attack could be locked out, dramatically simplifying the fight.

The battle didn’t take long. With Kaldalis outputting great damage, and everyone else inspired to push themselves to their limits because they thought they were doomed, cuts and scrapes started appearing on the boss within a couple of minutes. Its attacks became more frantic, the pause between attack cycles getting shorter and shorter. Kaldalis actually started to feel threatened for a few seconds before the monster stumbled, staggered, and fell.

The boss - called an Aquarius Fenrus - was only worth thirty-five experience points. Despite the hype it hadn’t actually been that threatening. But his party cheered at their victory with the same relieved enthusiasm that Kaldalis remembered from the actually desperate fights against the Infernal Horde in Cotanaku and Panbu.

“Uh,” Kaldalis said, looking around, “where’s Iarsa?”

Nobody had an answer for that, but Myayuan pointed out a wooden chest by the exit to the chamber, backlit by the daylight streaming in. The others were instantly distracted by it. Kaldalis wasn’t impressed. He instead focused on his surroundings. The chamber didn’t have any places for a wayward guide to vanish, and so he had to assume that she had gone on ahead. There was, after all, nowhere else to go. Even going backwards would be impossible. He couldn’t imagine pushing the cart all the way back up the tunnels, let alone shoving off with enough force to get back across the downward-sloped track over the underground fissure.

Even if she’d abandoned them, he still had work to do. The party lay claim to the charms in the chest, and Voron crowed triumphantly as he pulled a new bow from the loot. Kaldalis couldn’t have guessed how big an upgrade it was over his current weapon, but judging by the little dance he launched into, twirling around with the bow like he’d just been reunited with a long-lost love, it must have been pretty good.

“Um, tank guy,” Myayuan said, holding out a small satchel to Kaldalis. “We took all the gear, so I guess you should take this?”

“Kaldalis,” he said, accepting the sack. “And thank you?” he peeked into the pouch and found that it was full of bleached and cleaned animal teeth. His menu identified it as being the gleaming fangs of the Aquarius Fenrus. It was weird to be handed a bundle of teeth, but he recognized that it was crafting materials, and this pile of materials could go into dozens of charms. “Yes! Thank you. This will help.”

“Cool. Cool, cool,” Myayuan said. “Cool cool coolcoolcool.”

Kaldalis updated his internal categorization. He didn’t know about the other two, but she was definitely a PC.

“Anyway, we should get moving,” Kaldalis said, “the dungeon isn’t going to finish itself.”

Kaldalis was, unfortunately, wrong about that.

The passage ahead turned and opened up to the sky once more. Kaldalis expected to find himself in a box canyon or on an isolated beach. Instead, he received an unexpected notification.

Raging River Fissure

Cleared!

Clear time: 45 minutes, 48 seconds.

Clearing this dungeon with a full group who has previously cleared it will result in reduced drops.

For a moment, Kaldalis was confused. That was it? The dungeon was done? There were only two bosses, and they’d spent more time wandering through caverns listening to Iarsa talk about history and geology than they’d spent actually fighting. Suddenly the 15 minute world record wasn’t quite as ridiculous as he’d thought. If he’d pulled wall-to-wall from the start, and moved at a run from the outset instead of listening to the guide’s scripted lectures, the dungeon could be easily done in under half an hour, and he could maybe even push it down to twenty minutes. Literally any skips or movement tech could get time down near the record.

Obviously though, Kaldalis wasn’t going to be able to get a record-breaking run here. The only way he was going to do it is if his party was on board with the idea. To do that, he’d need to bring his friends along, meaning they’d be waiting weeks for their run. He knew he couldn’t stomach staying in Baimer for that long.

Also he needed the guide to be cool about it. It was possible that Iarsa could have called for an end to the dungeon earlier if he’d started misbehaving from the start, instead of waiting until the boredom became too much.

As they exited the dungeon, they found themselves in a small open-air marketplace. To his right, he could see Baimer close at hand. They were technically outside of the city, but only by a few hundred yards. The space appeared to be something of a farmers’ market, built around a small building that was labelled “Raging River Fissure Gift Shop” in such a way that Kaldalis felt sudden capitalism-induced whiplash. As much as he wanted to believe that they were fighting for their lives, it was all just a packaged experience. A walking tour.

“Glad that mess is over,” Jerporbernit muttered. “Let’s get our deposits back and then never see each other again.” Though they added quietly: “if I should be so lucky.”

Kaldalis wanted to ask what the fuck their problem was, but honestly, he had to agree that he’d be happy to never see that kid again. He couldn’t hold it against them if they felt the same.

Disappointing or not, the dungeon run was over. It was time to finish up the business end of it. It might be the least aggravating part of his day, after all. There was no way turning in a receipt was going to be more of a headache than what was coming tonight when he and Garyung went to the Zaran War Council meeting.