"MEDIC!" the wolfman croaked desperately.

He was completely stained with blood, a visible portion of his insides were outsides.

A look of agony was present on his face as Bromy slid down the tench-like cracks in the fighting-arena to preform some healing magic.

As Bromy placed a hand on his chest the green light radiated from within.

A fizzing noise could be heard as the wounds healed themselves almost perfectly.

The only thing that remained of the wound was blood and a scar that could be treated in a less dire situation.

The dark red sandstone rock below mixing with the blood to form an unpleasant slurry.

As soon as the wounds were closed, Bromy helped the injured player up.

"Thanks, man!" The wolfman exclaimed as he spat out some remaining blood and got to his feet.

"No problem... I'll go see if there are more injured people..." Bromy said as he turned away from the wolfman and continued his work of healing players, to conserve mana he left the wound's scar unhealed.

The wolf-man looked up and saw the millions of rocks flying like a storm of razorblades above, he waited for the right time to leave the trench.

The "The Rude Sandstorm" was an AOE ability taking up the entire cavern, it was a massive open area about the size of the entire jGuardian base.

Littering the zone were cracks and pools of water forming trenches for players to evade the Boss' abilities.

From above JohnWillStab watched.

"If there's a need I'll shadow-step down there, for now, the height-advantage helps me command the others..." thought John looking down at the army of players.

"Still... I wish I didn't have to stand here safely while everyone is getting reduced to minced meat..." John though looking at the boss's intimidating figure.

Opposite the entrance, across the entire cavern dotted with pitfalls, cracks and pools of water stood the monster.

A massive golem made from red rock and ore the glistened hues of red and green in what little light filled the arena, it was clade in brass-looking armour attached to its body with chains.

Its eyes were glowing gems and its arms looked bigger than Bonifacius and John combined.

"YOU ANTS ARE HARD TO CRUSH!" it exclaimed as it was forced to take a second to regenerate some mana.

As soon as the rocks stopped being created by the monster, JohnWillStab saw their opening, he scanned the zone for any height advantages or cover in a matter of a couple seconds.

"Alright! Go!" JohnWillStab commanded from the distance as the boss took a second to take another deep breath.

All the players charged towards the enemy, in the front were the tanks,

"Jump down to the crack on your right, it'll let you walk right up to the boss!" JohnWillStab exclaimed pointing towards the crack in the ground located on their right.

Like a path leading towards the boss, they could make their way directly to the boss without dealing with the AOE!

Seeing their movements the boss fell down to one knee.

"NOT SO QUICKLY, MORTALS!" it bellowed as it plunged its arm down into the comparatively soft sandstone of the cavern which shook the cave causing a few rocks to loosen.

"What the hell is he doing?!" thought John looked down as the boss as from all around the cave sprouted dozens of green crystals.

They broke through the rock walls and swelled in size until they were about car-sized.

Soon they began to shake before they ejected themselves from the walls and flew at the raiders.

"YOU CANNOT DODGE MY EMERALD SPLASH ABILITY!" cried the monster as from every direction flew dozens of green emeralds, they shattered upon impact with the ground as the sharp shrapnel exploded cutting everyone.

"MY EYES!" exclaimed one raider as Crown ran towards them, casting a quick healing spell.

"Hang in there!" she said almost done with the spell.

Neon-green flies lay atop the player taking a lot longer than Bromy's magic, even though Crown was a druid of the spring, a healing type while Bromy was a druid of the harvest, a damage-dealing type, she was still far from his level of healing power.

"Fuck that hurt!" they exclaimed rubbing the blood from their eyes.

Seeing this new ability of the boss, John felt he had to act.

"This must be phase two..."

"Group one, continue heading towards the boss!"

"Group two and three, retreat into the crack leading to the boss, heal up and switch out with group one!"

The raiders followed John's instructions.

The golem let out a long sigh as it stood up, seemingly exhausted from its relentless use of special abilities.

"THE RUDE SANDSTORM!" the boss exclaimed as JohnWillStab's (already cold) blood ran cold.

"It's using a phase-one attack in phase two?!" he looked down and saw Bonifacius and the rest of team one charging at the oncoming wave of rocks.

Moments before impact, Oofgod, the healer form team two appeared, casting Elemental-Barrier in front of team one.

"QUICK! I CAN'T KEEP THE BARRIER MUCH LONGER!" cried Oofgod as the entire party rushed towards the safety of the crack.

"Bah! Enough of this!" cried Bolst, the tank of team two as he charged out of the crack and ran face-first into the boss.

He was dressed in silver mail, no one part of his skin was visible, one thing was for sure, he looked like the typical "Deus vult" crusader from the popular game Dank Souls.

In his hand was a massive blade with emitted a white light he charged his way through the rocks.

"Light beam!" he announced the name of his skill as a laser-like beam of pure light flew from his blade and towards the boss, it cut through his rocky-body like butter.

"HA!" cheered the crusader mid-slice.

However, as soon as the laser reached the boss' armour, it was reflected, flying across the room and burning a few players to death there and then.

"What the -!?" the crusader cried as the boss echoed a deep laugh, he buried his hands into the earth once more.

"EMERALD SPLASH!" it cried as from all over the cave flew green crystals that killed a dozen more players, two of which were healers.

JohnWillStab shadow-stepped down to help with the fight only to hear the words he wanted to hear the least at the given moment.

"THE RUDE SANDSTORM!"

A few minutes later, no player remained alive, everyone respawned beside the entrance to the raid, visibly traumatised.

Twenty minutes later...

JohnWillStab sat at the wooden bench inside of the cave-like pre-boss room, he was eating some of Pedecree's freshly made soup as he scribbled in his notebook (which was really a cluster of empty quest-pages)

Seeing this Bonifacius approached him.

"JohnWillStab, are thou feeling alright?" he asked jovially as he sat down with a wooden bowl of Pedecree's soup.

JohnWillStab looked up from his notes.

"Yeah..." he didn't look alright.

"Cheer up, friend! Thou did better than thou had any right to, considering this way the first time thou faced this boss, let alone faced him for real!" Bonifacius assured him.

"Even so... it sucks that I can't apply the only talent I have to help the raid..." he sighed.

"If I can't strategise, what's the point of my character?! Will I be killed off, or reduced to play the straight-man to better characters?!" John thought frantically.

Bonifacius crossed his arms.

"Thou can't think that natural talent is enough to breeze through every task!" he laughed.

"I may be a stout tank nowadays, however back in the past, I couldn't manage to keep threat on a single boss, our healers would always be targeted and end up getting killed!" he explained.

"Bromy would just heal the tank and completely neglect the others!" he laughed.

"When pedecree started cooking as a profession, his food was near the lowest rank, he would fail to even boil rice to its perfect state!"

JohnWillStab looked up.

"So... it's not talent... you guys practised and got really good!" John replied.

"JohnWillStab, I think talent is nothing more than an initial stat-boost to our abilities, if we do nothing to expand that skill we will fall behind in no time!"

"Imagine thou started at level one with thirty strength!"

"For the first few zones, thou would be god-like, but without proper improvement, thou would become average by level thirty!"

"However, if thou practices thy talent, thou would have sixty strength by level thirty, thou would be even more outrageously strong!"

"..."

"You should consider a job as a motivational speaker..." John laughed.

"Tis one of the talents I possess!" he laughed.

"Alright, I'll stop moping around and try and figure this out!" John said filled with newfound confidence.

"Great!" Bonifacius began eating his soup.

"Watcha' talking about?" asked the thief sitting down next to John with a basket full of break-like hardtack.

"Oh, nothing!" John assured her.

She placed the basket on the table.

"Pedecree ordered me to bring you guys some pseudo-bread since you went off without it," she laughed.

After finishing his food Bonifacius stood up, "Alright, I should go check on the other!" he said.

"Eh? You literally just sat down," John looked up to him.

"So, how'd strategising go for you?" asked the Thief.

"...I mean... it could have gone worse?" John said uncertainly.

"I think the biggest flaw in your plan is the way you never attacked the boss..." speculated the Thief.

"..."

"..."

"Ok, I'm no strategist, but I think that might help us kill it!" the Thief said defensively.

"..."

"..."

"...Fuck..." John said aloud.