After over two hours of walking:

"JohnWillStab: This is a lot further than I imagined…"

The party was slowly trudging through a wet, humid swamp.

Roots and underwater vines tangled together to form a bridge over the deep, dark waters. The music from the other zones was replaced with the buzzing of insects.

Large trees stood like towers burying deep into the green mist above them. Smaller trees littered the islands between the still water.

"XxFoxlyxX: I’m not sure why we have to go through the swamp… can’t we walk around it!?"

"Bromy: You’re one to talk, frog, you don’t even have to deal with the speed de-buffs."

XxFoxlyxX’s character swiped at his neck as they desperately tried to fend off the hordes of mosquitos

"Bonifacius: Tis not that bad! Personally, I enjoy the sight of nature’s beauty!"

Bonifacius was submerged deeper than the rest, on his shoulders, he carried nothing short of two tree-trunks along with a few lengths of rope and some metal bits.

"♕: You could have asked some of us to carry that stuff in our inventory if yours is full…"

"Bonifacius: Tis quite alright, I take the least speed penalty for carrying the building materials, besides, Bromy is all but carrying a lab on his back!" he exclaimed along with a laughing emote.

From inside of the water a frog-like creature emerged, massive teeth stuck out like tusks, its four eyes accompanied by four tentacle-like appendages which moved back over the eyes, like a monstrous eyebrow.

Its greyish-red skin contrasted the black tongue with which it snatched a massive insect out of the air, an insect which much to everyone’s horror, nobody noticed.

The frog proceeded to leap several meters high and into another pond where it sank.

"JohnWillStab: Thank god they’re neutral!"

"Bonifacius: Indeed, though the same can’t be said for many other creatures in this land, for example, the bullsharks."

"JohnWillStab: The what!?"

Bonifacius pointed into the distance where a pack of dog-like creatures ran across the land, leaping over fallen trees and jumping rock to rock, little actual land remained thanks to the heavy rainfall, thus tall rock-islands formed.

They had no eyes, their heads were completely smooth with a beak on the end of their heads, the white beak aside, their skin was black and looked scaly, their tails splitting in two with sharp stingers on the end.

"Bromy: Don’t worry, corpse – Luckily for us, they rightfully despise the scent of rotten flesh, that’s because to them, rotten flesh signifies that something strong enough to kill and not desperate enough to eat its prey lurks nearby."

"JohnWillStab: How do you know this?!"

"Bromy: I spent a long time writing in-game books about animal behaviour before I found my true passion, which is medicine."

"JohnWillStab: So they actually have programmed behaviours?"

"Bromy: Yep, though if you get too close they will become hostile, even to you, coffin boy."

The party proceeded through the forest until they reached a massive clearing in the forest, just a large open and relatively flat area covered in five inches of water.

"♕: This place looks weird…"

"Bromy: It’s either a crab nest of its filled with beach-ants… in which cases we’re in trouble."

"JohnWillStab: …"

Bromy took one step forward and as soon as his foot touched the ground their screens shook before a dozen insects appeared, their skin a metallic blue that looked green at certain angles, their eyes numerous and tiny, dozens of tiny hairs covered their bodies.

"Bromy: Kill them before they summon the queen!"

As instructed the party readied for battle, XxFoxlyxX started throwing seals onto the battlefield, though unlike the usual ones, these seals floated on the water and were a darker colour.

JohnWillStab targeted the nearest group and slashed at the insect dealing about one-sixth of its total health, the fact he was able to deal any damage was a good sign, it would imply the monsters in this zone were around level thirty.

The ant attacked back, its pincer-like jaw biting down and holding on as the ant trashed around dealing more damage before more of them joined in.

Effortlessly, Bromy cast a spell which summoned a swarm of mosquitoes to attack the ants dealing enough damage to suck them dry, the spell healed JohnWillStab too.

"JohnWillStab: Thanks for the help!"

"Bromy: Try to stay in one piece, corpse…"

Meanwhile ♕ created a swarm of neon-green flies which bit and stung another few ants to death.

"Bromy: A fellow druid, I see!"

"♕: Yep, though I’m a spring druid to be technical."

"JohnWillStab: There are multiple types of druids?"

As another two dozen ants spawned and made their way towards the party, Bonifacius charged in while giving John a general rundown of the different druid classes.

"Bonifacius: Technically there are only two druid classes, druids of the spring and druids of the harvest."

"Bromy: It’s a life and death sort of thing."

"♕: Though in practice it just means I heal better and the other guy does more damage"

Bonifacius’ charge into the ant’s territory awakened another group, no less than forty ants were present when XxFoxlyxX detonated his seals creating several spheres of water which sucked the ants inside. As the water started churning a foam appeared turning the entire ball of water and ants white, it then popped releasing a minced ant-paste.

"Bromy: Nicely done, frog."

"XxFoxlyxX: It’s my go-to move!"

From the centre of the ant-minefield, a massive pair of pincers emerged, with them a winged worm, its jaws leaking blue ooze and its long body covered in massive legs, each one ending in sharp, needle-like bits.

The creature had no eyes and let out a roar waking the remaining dozen or so ants from their slumber and to their queen’s aid.

"Bromy: Now, we have a problem..."

"JohnWillStab: What do you mean? you guys are max-level."

"XxFoxlyxX: Yeah, the problem with that is that this is a world-boss…"

"JohnWillStab: ...it wouldn’t happen to work like a dungeon monster?"

"Bonifacius: It does exactly that! The damage it deals and is dealt in return scales with each player!"

"♕: DON’T SAY THAT LIKE IT’S A GOOD THING!"

The beach-ant queen let out a cry which caused the other ants to suddenly shatter their metal-like armour and reveal two pairs of wings, JohnWillStab looked at the monster’s status bar, “Elite” was one of the effects, it made them function much like a regular dungeon monster would, meaning that they too would be fearsome foes.

The dozen (now flying) ants spread out into four groups of three, each one flying up and swooping down onto their targets.

Bonifacius cast his roar spell to catch the attention of the monsters, and as he planned they swooped down and attacked him, though their dodge stat was too high and he was unable to attack them.

"Bromy: Crown, I’ll handle the healing – you focus on the damage dealing."

"♕: You sure you can handle this much healing alone?"

"Bromy: This is nothing."

With that Bromy started casting a spell as the water around him started changing colour, the very water the party stood in was becoming dark green, filled with algae, this not only healed the party but also dealt minimal poison damage to the queen.

♕, upon seeing the sheer healing-power Bromy had at his disposal turned offensive, casting swarm after swarm of the green insects, picking off the flying ants and occasionally striking their wings so that the poisonous waters could do the rest for her.

Unbeknownst to ♕, one of the insects took enough damage to change target and instead of clawing away at Bonifacius, it flew down planting its jaws on ♕, and before anybody could react a loud crack echoed as her limp body fell down into the water, moments later the ant was shot down by JohnWillStab who threw a knife at it causing it to land in the water and quickly succumb to poison.

He looked through his spell bar realising there are a good few new spells which he never saw before. Manoeuvre was an attack allowing John to temporarily restrain a creature and switch their positions while being immune to the given creature’s attacks.

He cast the ability at one of the ants near him, his character grabbed the creature by the head and twisted both his and the ants body such that he ended up in the ant’s position just in time for him to try out his other ability Kick from above technically this was just a passive spell which made the kick ability play a different animation, deal more damage and push the creature down, though you could choose to cast Kick from above specifically if for some reason you wanted to.

Another passive spell was counter-attack it let John have a chance to dodge and attempt and attack almost instantly against a melee fighter using a weapon, it was optional, meaning he was able to disable or enable it if he wished.

The ant queen let out a cry as she began casting a spell, knowing gut-punch was useless against boss-type enemies, JohnWillStab prepared to dodge an attack instead.

"XxFoxlyxX: Incoming AOE!"

From the queen’s jaws flew out six of so balls of glowing blue slime, it rained down all around the players creating bubbles and a sizzling sound as it landed.

"♕(Dead): Three more ants left before we can focus on the queen!"

Everybody’s health was mostly stable, though the splash damage from the acid and the constant biting of the ants would reduce their health to zero in no time if Bromy was to stop healing for just a few seconds.

Another volley of acid rained down on everybody, one of the balls striking XxFoxlyxX directly causing bits of his bones to temporarily become visible before the water healed him back.

"XxFoxlyxX: THAT WAS CLOSE!"

Bromy kept an eye on everybody’s health, though this was the optimal strategy for the given situation, other AOE healing spells wouldn’t heal as well as the druid’s algae, and while single-target healing would make a given player borderline invincible, the rest would die in no time.

And there was no time to experiment, given the long cast time of the spell he was using.

Bromy kept thinking about the optimal strategy to keeping everyone alive when suddenly his eyes focused on the round blob of acid nearing him.

“Shit, I can probably take the hit… the healing water should fix any damage, right?” he thought before his character contorted into an unusual shape appearing a meter or to the side, JohnWillStab used the manoeuvre ability swap places with Bromy, though his range wasn’t great enough to completely remove their healer from the range of the acid splash, it was safe to assume he’d survive the AOE damage.

John on the other head was reduced to a pristine skeleton within seconds, since his base health, even when scaled up to account for the boss, wasn’t enough to survive a direct hit.

"♕(Dead): You’re immune to poison not acid, dumbass!"

"JohnWillStab(Dead): I couldn’t let the healer die!"

"Bromy: That was stupid, I could have probably taken the hit."

"JohnWillStab(Dead): HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!?"

"Bromy: True, your decomposed brain may be struggling to keep up."

"Bromy: Hold on a second, I’ll resurrect you once this boss is dead, corpse."

John’s Spell List / Reminder!

Slash: Basic attack which deals damage at close range.

Kick / Kick from above: A secondary melee attack, ideal for combo attacks.

Gut-punch: Deals little to no damage, but interrupts the casting of spells.

Dagger parry: Chance to block non-magical and non-projectile attacks.

Blade throw: Throwing of the blade.

Disarm: The ability to remove a weapon from your opponent.

Manoeuvre: Switch positions with a nearby target.

Evasion: Increase your chance of dodging attacks for a limited time.

Counter-attack: Allows the user to dodge an attack and immediately retaliate if the enemy is using a weapon.

Sprint: Allows John to run for a short time.