Kaldalis had a lot of questions.

And absolutely no answers.

First of all, how had it grown so much in such a short time? It had been eight feet tall before, but now it was closer to twelve. Maybe even fifteen.

Did that correspond to it leveling up?

Perhaps the act of gathering its raiding party gave it some kind of boss monster status. Or did it gain levels over the course of the fight? There were certainly a large number of defeated adventurers around.

And then there was that howl attack. Was it going to keep doing that? Was there a trigger? Was it going to come too often for Balrim to keep up? Were there other new attacks to look out for?

He had to step up and help. Answers or no answers.

The talsar researcher - the name Ikzoz came back to him now - looked to be in a rough way. And if he fell, it would all be over.

Kaldalis rushed forward, charging the beast with a yell. He jammed his spear into its thigh and was slightly disheartened by the strike. He only did ten physical damage with the blow. Sure it was more than the nine he was doing when he fought this same creature earlier, but with the debuff yellowing its fur, he had expected it to be closer to the sixteen he’d been doing to the others.

Damn. Even with the debuff, it was still extremely powerful.

Just the same, the beast whirled on Kaldalis, claws lashing out at him. He ducked under the first swipe and then threw himself backwards to avoid the follow-up from the four-fingered hand. He almost toppled over, but a flick of his tail kept him upright. He grunted and pushed in again, driving the tip of his spear into the monster’s furred gut this time. It was only another ten damage, but he hoped it could solidify his hold on its attention and save Ikzoz.

“It’s got so much defense,” Myrin yelled from nearby. Her and Aurigeant had joined the ship captain and Onirioago in pounding damage into the creature. “It’s not taking near as much damage as the others.”

“We can take our time,” Kaldalis called back. “We can outlast-”

“We can’t!” the expedition leader shouted, interrupting him. “The warbanner won’t last much longer!”

Kaldalis caught a hit from those wicked black claws. The momentary distraction of Onirioago’s dispute meant that a claw slammed into his shoulder, driving in so deep it felt like the tips would be poking out of his back. It dealt one-hundred and seventy-two damage, and while Kaldalis could take that kind of hit, it was dangerously close to what it was doing before the debuff had hit.

This creature was nearly as big a challenge with the debuff as it had been when he’d fought it alone.

“It hits like a raid boss,” Kaldalis grunted as he jammed his spear into the creature’s palm - another paltry ten damage felt a poor trade - and broke its grip before the claws could rip their way out of him in its own time. “If this is a raid boss, then we need a raid group. Balrim! Get help! Like… get more people over here! If this one is still here when the debuff wears off, we’re all dead meat!”

Balrim looked to the finnian healer beside him, who gave a curt nod before producing a potion and healing most of the damage Kaldalis had taken. The rust-scaled talsar took that as permission to leave the healing to him, and bolted back the way they’d come.

“Raid boss!” Balrim’s scream for help was the perfect mix of plaintive and demanding. “Ell-eff-emm for the raid boss! To me! To me for an invite, and then to the gate! Hurry! Hurry!”

“Fucking Balrim,” Kaldalis heard Myrin curse under her breath. “He actually fucking said ell-eff-emm out fucking loud.”

“Focus!” Kaldalis chided her, even though he was suddenly filled with the desire to laugh. “The clock started ticking when you lit that incense. If we fail, this will be worse than a raid wipe. This will be the end of the whole game!”

He had to follow his own advice and concentrate on what he was doing. One of the black claws ripped through the air just an inch over his head, briefly scraping against his horn. He barely had time to lean back to prevent the follow-up swipe from ripping the nose off of his face. A deep rumble came in the creature’s throat, and he wondered if it recognized him. Was it frustrated to see him alive again, after it had torn his chest open like a bag of potato chips?

There was barely enough time between avoiding the strikes to keep track of what his allies were doing. He knew he couldn’t afford to take too much damage from the creature with only the one healer, and so he had to keep yielding ground, gradually being pushed back away from the front gate. That meant that the quartet of damage dealers had to move along with the beast to keep striking it.

Myrin seemed to be having the most trouble; her slow strikes with the greatsword needed the most wind-up and timing to avoid missing as it lunged for Kaldalis. The ship captain and Onirioago struggled as well, but for a different reason. The expedition leader bore a sword and shield, and the captain had twin daggers. With their reduced reach, they had to get and stay much closer to the beast to dish out their damage.

Aurigeant seemed to be having no such trouble. The reach of his spear meant that his positioning could be the most lax, sometimes even dropping all the way back behind one of the others and jabbing at the furred monster over their heads.

The talsar researcher - the other tank - was hanging back, obviously catching his breath. His official-looking researcher robes were badly torn apart, and where they weren’t bloodstained, they were visibly drenched in sweat.

Kaldalis didn’t begrudge him the break.

The finnean healer also was staying at a distance, despite the well-worn quarterstaff in his hands. He was focusing on producing his periodic healing potions.

He occasionally had another potion, besides the usual red healing ones. There was an orange potion that he tossed to one of the others in the group, and Kaldalis saw him produce a green potion like the one he’d first provided during sparring. When he threw that one, everyone’s HP bars ticked up at once.

That AoE healing was a huge help. Especially as the creature’s chest puffed up and it roared again. The moment of its inhale gave Kaldalis the chance to jab his spear hard into its gut for that precious ten points of damage. The others took advantage of the moment’s pause to land their own hits, but no amount of poking it interrupted that horrible scraping noise.

Another seventy damage came through across the whole group.

The talsar gasped and it honestly looked as if he were about to pitch over. Kaldalis feared that he might die before the finnian could spare the time to restore him.

About then was when the first of Balrim’s invites came through. Another health bar appeared on the left of Kaldalis’s vision. And then another. And another.

After a moment, an arrow streaked through the air to plunge into the furry shoulder of the beast. And then a bhogad with a greatsword ran up and joined the fight, hacking away at the beast. A potion crashed against Kaldalis’s back, healing him from the opposite direction than the finnian.

Help was here.

They had a raid group.

More people were arriving by the second.

Just in time.

“Healers! Spread the healing around!” Kaldalis bellowed as more people arrived. “There’s a raid AoE shout to keep up with! Everyone else, just burn it! Now!”

The space around the monster’s legs was soon a flood of people. At least fifteen. Maybe twenty. More, if he counted those standing at the edge of the fight with bows. Everyone was jockeying for position, carefully rotating in and out, presumably along with whatever DPS cooldowns they had.

At least, he hoped they were. They needed all the focus they could get. On the periphery of the fight, he could see where the other tanks were - they were gathering any monsters that tried to come to their boss’s aid, and either kiting them away, or holding them still to keep them from disrupting the boss fight in progress.

Kaldalis did his best to avoid the creature’s strikes, but as the battle grew more hectic, he had to take some damage in order to keep his hold on the beast’s attention with his own attacks. Only now there were plenty of healers to attend to him. He took a hit and a flurry of potions smashed against him like he had just stepped into the middle of a particularly nasty water balloon fight.

The creature’s howls did an incredible amount of total damage - the list of health bars on the left of his vision all plummeted every time - but the storm of healing that came after kept everyone alright.

They were going to win. They were going to drive it off. The camp was saved. Balrim had done it. There was enough help here. He could hardly believe it.

They were doing it. They were going to pull it off.

The creature inhaled for another howl, and the flurry of damage that smashed into it in that moment of vulnerability had to be tremendous. Kaldalis didn’t get a readout for every hit, but there were so many people-

Just before it howled, the creature’s skin suddenly blanched from the sickly yellow color to eggshell white.

The howl came out, dealing eighty-eight damage. It was a relative pittance for Kaldalis’s health pool, but for the non-tanks, their lower defenses multiplied the damage increase. Myrin and most of the other damage dealers were knocked down below half hit points. The other tanks taking on the adds went from riding the line of safety with the split attention of the healers to critical danger. Their attention was too focused on the spectacle of Kaldalis solo tanking the raid boss to give the other tanks the support they needed.

Kaldalis’s spear struck the monster and his damage per strike went from ten to six.

A cry of anguish went up from the damage dealers as their own attacks no doubt met a similar decrease in damage. Only one word came through clearly.

“Doomed.”

As in we are.

“We can still do it! Don’t give up!” Kaldalis yelled at the top of his voice. “Push! Everyone shut the fuck up and push!”

He tried not to scream as the creature’s claw caught him across the face, ripping four deep rents across his cheek. He felt the pain of needle-sharp points scraping against bone. Two-hundred and four damage ripped into his hit points.

Just that and the howl together had him below half of his hit point maximum.

Healing potions didn’t come to him immediately.

Chaos was starting to take hold as the group saw their hope for victory slipping away. Healers were panicking and healing themselves. AoE healing became overhealing on targets that were looking out for themselves. Healers were finally giving attention to the tanks handling the adds, but that meant Kaldalis didn’t get topped off.

The next claw rent through the air before him, forcing him back.

A follow-up attack came in blindingly fast, and his instincts screamed that it was over. The blow would finish him. He had to run away. Let someone else take over.

It was the end.

Kaldalis snarled and forced down the panic. Instead of stepping back, he stepped forward. Dropped to one knee and let the sweeping attack over his head. He drove the tip of his spear into the creature’s foot, and he was gratified to feel the scrape of bone on metal through the haft. It was only six damage - he didn’t doubt it was enduring worse from the dozens Balrim had gathered to help - but it felt like an act of defiance, and he felt his inner reserves of strength well up within himself.

Doomed or not, he would not run.

“I will not fall,” Kaldalis snarled, voice low as he looked up into the syncoresi’s sunken eyes. “We will not fall.”

He twisted the weapon and ripped it out. Before he could react, the creature’s next attack struck him.

In hindsight, stepping in against a monster using wickedly curved claws was a mistake.

The claws sank into his back, doing another two-hundred and three damage. They felt so deep inside his body he knew he would have been biologically dead in moments in the real world.

Between the previous attacks and his reduced hit point maximum from dying earlier, he had only a little sliver remaining. Less than the eighty-eight he would need to survive the next howl.

Even if someone else picked up the monster’s attention right then, what were the odds someone would give him enough-

But then, it happened.

It happened.

The creature’s enormous blue-black pupils shrank. Its grimacing snarl of rage went slack, its mouth dropping open into a small O of fear.

It dropped Kaldalis, letting him fall to the ground.

And then it turned and fled into the jungle.