I crisscrossed among the Mirdabon-sized toads with violet shards protruding out their backs, aggroing them to me with [Enraging Call]. Those out of my taunt’s range, I stopped from fleeing with Totems. They barely did any damage to me or my Totems. I placed [Gnawing Rot] where they gathered. Nitana was quick to react, sending her fairies to the densest clumps of the noisy toads.

Blighted Token came rolling in.

“Heck yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!” Lavender yelled, raising her war hammer.

“And what exactly was that?” Jani snidely piped up. “I didn’t hear you talking about anything.”

“It’s an expression, you prick.”

“Tone it down, you—” Nitana stopped mid-sentence, suddenly calling for me. “Herald! The pond!”

A portion aggressively bubbled as if the monsters below had a bad case of gas. Something large shot out of the sludge. I raised my shields and recast [Greater Pyro Shell] even if it hadn’t popped. The black blur collided with my shields and bounced off. The armored ball that looked like a rolled-up armadillo unfurled itself.

The [Lvl 37 Arcane Blighted Fleagant] had bands of plates overlapping over its back. Bristles jutting out its exoskeleton glowed green and excreted slime. Three pairs of legs grew from its sides, the hindmost ones twice longer than the others. It lowered its body, folding its multi-jointed legs like compressing coiled spring.

“Watch out!” I warned, trying to cast [Withering Brand] to slow it down, but was too late. The Fleagant kicked off the ground.

It soared over Nitana and me, landing in between Jani and Kai. The latter two, experienced players themselves, were already galloping to me as I rushed to their aid. I managed to catch the Fleagant with a taunt as it cannonballed Jani’s way. Nitana dispatched the Fleagant while it positioned itself for another dive.

“That disgusting pest is targeting weaker players!” Nitana said.

“Who’re you calling weaker players?” Lavender pointed at Jani. “You’re talking about him, aren’t you?”

“Ha-ha. Also, ha,” Jani retorted, running back to his position behind Nitana. “I bet it’s going after the lowest health—that’s me.”

“I’ll catch them as they appear,” I said, being my heroic self. “Before they change target to you.”

More Fleagants burst out of the slime pool. [Greater Pyro Shell] exploded from the heavy hits.

I angled both shields left so the Fleagants would bounce off to one side. Then I plopped a Totem in their midst to hold them while I galloped over. It took them a few seconds to wind up for their big jumps, so they couldn’t instantly kill my Totem; my retribution couldn’t deal much damage either because of that. I had to rely on Nitana, diverting her attention from the precious Toady Tokens.

I wanted to hold the Fleagants longer before calling for help. But their ramming attacks were quite painful. I couldn’t spam [Greater Pyro Shell] for protection because my Ancestral Shroud regeneration couldn’t keep up. This was shameful for Herald Stone!

And it was impossible to avoid the Fleagants. I could put [Withering Brand] on only one of them. They were fast and came from all sides, and my Evasion sucked.

In MCO, attributes directly affect a player’s body. Higher Might wouldn’t simply add damage but also make a player feel stronger. Someone with heavily penalized movement speed would pitifully shuffle along no matter how hard he’d will his legs to run. Similarly, my negative Evasion Rating cut into my inherent physical capabilities. I could predict the trajectory of the zooming Fleagants but was annoyingly sluggish to twist out of their way.

What I did was zip back and forth, relying instead on my high movement speed, hoping the Fleagants would miss.

This was also my strategy against the last phase of the Blighted Mud Golem that turned itself into a pinball, furiously whizzing around the boss area. It was like spamming buttons on the arcade, praying that a combo would happen.

An Evasion tank might be interesting to build, I mulled over as a Fleagant collided with my broadside.

“Herald!” Megan called from across the sludge pool. She roasted Toady Tokens left and right. As I had predicted, the Fleagants mostly went to our side. “There’s a weird thing!” She pointed with her wand—she didn’t need to say more.

It was hard to miss her concern.

Another oversized insect emerged out of the sludge. The [Lvl 38 Detonating Blight Tick] dawdled on thin legs balancing its engorged body. I didn’t know what was inside its abdomen and wasn’t interested in finding out.

I stopped it in its tracks with a Totem—the name ‘Detonating Tick’ was enough to tell me what it might do. It nibbled on the Totem. I had to Totem Juggle to keep the Tick back while entertaining the Fleagants. We needed some extra-strong pesticide here!

After a few seconds, the bulbous Tick exploded.

Divine Bovine! I had just run out of its AoE. The Detonating Tick turned nearby Toady Tokens into sparkling lights of Essence and Gli.

Only a few more monsters emerged from the pond, and then its surface stilled. Our party looked at each other, shrugged, and moved on to the next. Slowly but surely, we pushed to the middle.

The fights became tougher with sludge puddles positioned near each other. It was sometimes unavoidable to disturb two or even three of them simultaneously, resulting in pandemonium—Toady Tokens hopping everywhere, Megan and Nitana chasing them. At the same time, I herded the Fleagants and Ticks trying to kill us.

“Help! I’m too pretty to die!” Lavender shouted. A Detonating Tick ambled after her. It seemed she had backed too close to an uncleared pond, awakening its occupants.

“Just leave her on her own,” Jani said, chuckling as he ran close to Nitana. “That’s her fault.”

“I’m bringing you down with me!” Lavender headed to Jani with the Detonating Tick in tow.

“Cut it out, you guys,” Nitana said as she summoned new fairies.

I laughed as I planted a Totem to hold the Tick for Nitana to kill. It reminded me of the ancient days of playing MMORPGs with my childhood friends; we’d mess around, trying to get each other killed. Usually, it’d be me dragging the monsters to them.

Past the sludge-congested middle, the fights became easier. Not only were the pools spaced further, lowering the chances of mistakenly aggroing monsters, but our party had adjusted to the dungeon’s mechanics.

Megan and Nitana played exceptionally well, a stark improvement from the days we ran like headless chickens from the Living Statue. No one needed to be told what to do, and no one had to ask for help if in danger because the others immediately reacted. We were a well-oiled machine clearing sludge puddles one by one.

I had gotten comfortable dealing with Detonating Ticks that instead of holding them at a distance with my Totems, I taunted them myself and dragged them to the other monsters. I courted death a couple of times to test the timing of their explosion. But when I got the hang of it, I killed many Fleagants and Toady Tokens as collateral damage. It was a double whammy for them because the Ticks’ explosion would also destroy my [Greater Pyro Shell]—the blast radius was too large for me to escape—adding more AoE damage. I might not beat Megan and Nitana, but I got many kills.

What made me scratch my head was that not all Fleagants would die. Were some tankier than others? I didn’t bother standing my ground to fight the survivors because I had to pull more Detonating Ticks.

If Megan weren’t so absorbed in hunting Toady Tokens, she’d certainly fuss about my tactics.

“Herald!” She had turned my way and seen what I was doing. “Don’t put yourself in danger!”

“It’s fine,” I replied. “I can survive the explosion.” Then I quickly changed the topic. “Which pond haven’t we cleared yet? That one?”

“This, over here,” Megan said, pointing with her foreleg to the sludge puddle to her left. “Keep safe, okay? We really can’t have you dying.”

“I’m not going to die,” I said. Herald Stone? Die? Preposterously preposterous!

“You’re healing fast as heck,” Lavender commented.

I had come out of a Detonating Tick’s explosion—no looking back, of course—with three-quarters of my health and [Greater Pyro Shell] gone. My health bar was back to half when I passed by Lavender.

“I have to since I’m a tank.” I cast [Healing Touch] to show off. A few more seconds, and I was back to full.

Jani whistled, impressed. Most tanks would have their own heals or some form of sustain—lifesteal, for example—but they wouldn’t be able to beat healers. In my case, I wasn’t tanky, but not much since my build also leaned into being a healer. I had to rely on [Greater Pyro Shell] for most of my survivability. Thank you, Big M!

“Sorry, our party has no dedicated healer,” Kani said. “We should’ve found one before roping you in. I know some tanks gonna kick up lots of drama ‘bout that.”

“Total divas, some of them, yeah,” Lavender chimed in.

“We’ll reimburse you for the potions you used,” offered Kani. “Feeling a bit guilty leeching off of you though we just met for the first time.”

“No need,” I said. “I’m not using any potions.”

“Eh? Really?”

“Don’t worry, Herald got really high regeneration and heals,” Nitana said. “And we’ll pay him. We’re not moochers.”

“You don’t have to pay me,” I said. “If anything, consider this as me returning the favor for helping my quests.”

We finished off the last of the Toady Tokens and cleared all the ponds, about a few hundred Blighted Tokens richer. But that wasn’t enough. Chief Nogras’ rewards cost thousands of Tokens to claim, the better ones ranging in the tens of thousands. The Shard I aimed for required fifty thousand Blight Tokens; I was halfway to it. If I still had time to farm, I might be able to get good Link Shards. There weren’t any aura skills that caught my eye just yet.

We passed more Snorf-invested tunnels and collections of sludge pools. It was monotonous, but we weren’t looking for excitement while farming. And repeating the same thing made the next pass faster.

The umpteenth tunnel we exited led us to a cave packed with Mardukryon players who had just finished their own quests.

“And we’re done…” Megan heaved a deep sigh as if she carried the weight of the world. I could feel her stress oozing. She didn’t even shoot her traditional sparks in the air to celebrate. “You guys ready for the next one?”

“Wait a moment,” I said, noticing a beeping notification in my interface. “It’s my driver—I mean, the cab driver is calling me. I think we just arrived at my apartment. Give me five minutes.”

“Five minutes? You sure you don’t want—”

“Five minutes, I’ll be back, or my name’s not Herald Stone!”