Congratulations! You have learned a new ability “Rescue”

Sacrifice yourself to absorb an attack for another player.

You gain 0.5 Valor

You are defeated.

Ah well, at least I got something out of it. In my state of death I finally have a chance to check the monster that destroyed me.

Gruzug

Legendary Monster

Level: ???

Gruzug the King of the Mountain Trolls is rumored to have slain the great sandworm Torrumott to create his legendary crown of teeth. His great hammer is said to have been forged in the heart of a mountain and is a gift from the dark Earth Goddess Tarrena.

Affinity: Earth

Guess I was wrong about the dragon teeth. I didn’t even know worms had teeth! But at least I know what LM stands for now. I check my combat log and see that it hit me for 1342 damage. Ouch! I pan my vision above my flattened corpse so I can see the massive battle now taking place.

Val Helena is at the forefront going toe-to-toe with the massive creature and against it even her massive form looks diminutive. She activate a bunch of abilities, which I presume are defensive as they all involve some kind of blue or green geometric shape briefly forming over her body as the ability goes off.

Gruzug bashes Val Helena with its hammer and her health bar go down by about a quarter. She responds with a bash of her own, from her shield, and a double slice with her sword. The big monster’s health bar doesn’t move. Before it can attack again though, a burst of white light glows around Val Helena, a spell cast from one of the healing mages and her health bar is topped up just in time for Gruzug to take it back down by a quarter.

I then take in what the other members of her team are doing, which, now that I check them, all seem to be in the 40 to 50 level range. The party led by Zeke has a couple of warriors and a thief…all damage dealers. They stay mostly behind Gruzug, bashing away at its legs while Val Helena keeps its attention focused on her. They perform abilities as well, which I assume are special attacks for more damage. Every so often a normal Troll will spawn and the damage dealers would leave Gruzug to chop it down in a few seconds and then come back and unleash a flurry of special attacks that remove a noticeable sliver from the big troll’s health.

But the really big damage comes when a massive ball of lighting from shoots across the cavern and slams Gruzug for a good chunk of its health. I check the combat log to see how much.

Thanus casts Thunderball!

The Thunderball hits Gruzug for 10513(8940) damage.

Holy cow! How many hitpoints did this thing have?

I’m not entirely sure why there are two numbers with one in brackets, but I guess it’s some kind of damage mitigation from the troll’s armor. Or maybe the number is the brackets is the real damage and the higher number it’s actually some kind of bonus damage for being lightning or something. I remember the trolls having Earth affinity. With lightning being strong against earth, it did kind of make sense.

The cycle keeps going on like this. Val Helena tanking the big slow hits and the occasional double attack, the celestial mages healing her back up, while the melee go all out and the elemental mages make step changes to the LM’s health bar with massive damage spells. It’s all quite impressive to watch and entertaining despite me being dead for over 5 minutes.

And then something changes.

A room wide message appears.

Gruzug readies Mountain Buster!

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