Infamous Biscuit and Heilong winked into existence at almost the same time.

Looking around at their surroundings, Heilong commented, “Looks like the woodsy part of Central Park.”

“Nice to meet you,” Infamous Biscuit said, approaching K13. “Freya said that you needed some help with a quest-–hey, are you hurt?”

He looked at Freya’s arm. Crackled scabs covered her shoulder and upper arm.

“I accidentally stumbled into the practice field I mentioned. K13 helped me out. My arm is okay now. It was worse before.”

“Still, heal!” Infamous Biscuit said, pointing his staff at her.

Green light surrounded her wound. The scabs fell away. A light tingling sensation of new muscle knitting together passed through her bicep. Freya flexed her arm. She couldn’t believe less than an hour ago this same arm had its flesh ripped off to the bone.

“Thanks, I think it’s completely healed now. Your healing works better than mine.”

“Well, fortunately or not, you haven’t had the chance to level up your Self-Healing much. Plus, I am supposed to be the designated healer. Now, what’s all this ‘doing a practice field to complete a quest’?”

Freya explained what K13 had told her. He was on a quest to record the birdsong of a loneswell. They were very rare and hard to find, but they liked chestnuts. It was likely that the large chestnut grove with the dangerous squirrels was the perfect place for a loneswell to hide.

“So, it’s not a guarantee a loneswell is there,” Heilong concluded. “But I agree, it does make game sense.”

“It’s worth a try,” Infamous Biscuit agreed.

K13 looked at them all, then looked at the ground. In a quiet voice, he said, “Thank you for helping me.”

“Well, thank you for helping Freya,” Infamous Biscuit said.

The shorter man shook his head, “I was just drawn to the fight.”

“Oh, that’s right, you’re in the berserker class.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Freya asked, confused.

“Berserkers can’t ignore a fight going on within a certain radius of them. Eventually, they’ll go crazy and join in even if they don’t want to.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Anyway,” Infamous Biscuit clapped his hands together. “Let’s strategize. You said the squirrels were level 14, right?”

Freya nodded but clenched her fists, “I should have been able to take them on myself.”

“What do you think made them hard to fight?” Infamous Biscuit asked.

Freya reviewed the fight in her head. She didn’t want to think about her failure, but she needed to know what went wrong if she wanted to do better.

“I just made a lot of mistakes,” Freya said. “I should have immediately redirected its bites, so I didn’t get injured. I let it control a lot of the fight by letting it charge me instead of the other way around.”

Infamous Biscuit scratched his beard, “Standing your ground is good for tanks. But for you, yes, the better strategy would be to deliver damage than try to mitigate it. Well, with a tank you won’t have to think about that as much.”

He turned to K13.

“Could you tell us what skills you have? We’ll share our skills as well, that way everyone is on the same page.”

~~~

Freya walked behind K13 as they entered the chestnut grove. Flexing her newly healed arm, she eyed the overhead branches.

Beep!

[Now Entering: A Little Nutty Practice Field]

Leaves rustled above them.

Squeak! Kuk! Kuk!

K13 centered himself below the movement. Using his innate berserker class skill, he began to emit a red aura to attract enemies. Now focusing solely on K13, the squirrel leaped down.

[Greater Chestnut Squirrel]

[Lvl 14] [600/600]

K13 cast a barrier over himself, making the squirrel appear to hit an invisible wall above him. He dismissed the barrier and stepped back. The squirrel dropped to the ground but immediately leaped to attack. It bit down on K13’s shoulder pauldron armor while K13 struck it with one ax.

Freya aimed a kick on its exposed stomach. An arrow whizzed out past her left, alerting Freya to another squirrel.

“I’ll hold down the far squirrel,” Infamous Biscuit shouted, casting vines. “Heilong set up a stun trap over there.”

Focusing on inflicting as much damage as possible, Freya and K13 worked together to finish the first squirrel. Gathering up qi, Freya viciously punched the demon and sent a Shockwave through its body. K13 followed up with a flurry of ax swings turning it to dust.

Heilong stood in front of her stun trap and shot arrows at a third approaching squirrel. With its attention focused on the marksman, the squirrel fell straight into her stun trap.

The second squirrel finally struggled out of the vines and charged K13. Infamous Biscuit delivered blows with his staff while K13 kept its attention. Freya helped Heilong subdue the stunned squirrel.

“Two more incoming,” Heilong warned.

Kuk! Kuk! Kuk!

Infamous Biscuit looked up at the incoming furry demons. Backing up, he said to K13, “Now would be a good time for your berserker skill.”

Everyone waited until the two squirrels made contact with K13. Then they all used different skills at once: Heilong used her Marked Down skill on one, Freya hit with her Shockwave, and K13 used his Brawler’s Madness.

Wildly swinging his axes, K13 almost instantly killed the squirrel with Heilong’s Marked Down. Then he turned his fury on the remaining squirrel. Freya now understood what Infamous Biscuit meant when he described Brawler’s Madness. The temporary state increased one’s speed and damage output, but it also made the player incapable of higher reasoning. If she stood too close to an enemy, she might be hit along with the intended target.

“One more coming!” Infamous Biscuit announced. “I’m going to use my watermelon bomb.”

Pointing his staff, a large green watermelon appeared above the incoming squirrel. It dropped like a brick and exploded on the demon. The pink spray attracted K13’s attention. It wasn’t part of the plan, but it worked out well; K13 moved to attack the new squirrel that would have gone after Infamous Biscuit.

Freya took over the fight K13 had been fighting. With a few strong punches and a Sweeping Kick, it aggroed to her. Readying her Hit Redirect, she charged straight for the squirrel’s head. Baring its teeth, the demon lunged, but Freya was one step ahead. She deflected its bite.

Off-balance, the creature stumbled. With a triumphant smile, Freya punched and surged her Shockwave through the greater chestnut squirrel.

She watched it vanish into dust. A loud clunk sound made her turn around in time to see another smoke cloud grow. Two arrows and an ax were left buried in the ground at its center.

Finally, stillness overtook the smokey chestnut grove.

.........................................

~Info Corner~

Class Descriptions:

[Berserker]

[Suitability: Tank, DPS]

[Giving into the berserker way of life can allow one to throw their full rage into battle. Berserkers thrive on bloodshed and chaos! A true berserker will rush into any battle!]

[Innate Skills: Red Aura, Brawler’s Madness, Whirlwind Wrath]