It dawned on him in that moment that he hadn’t struck the bramble monster yet.

Fuck.

The only thing he could have expected was that it was going to charge the next person who did literally anything.

As logic dictated, so had it come to pass.

Kaldalis had been playing MMOs as a tank for a very long time, and had encountered many healers in his time. There was a large range of reactions to a monster running at them, and Kaldalis had seen them all.

Some stood their ground.

Some ran to him for help.

Some just hurled vitriol at the tank regardless of who was to blame.

Balrim, it seemed, was the most common sort.

He let out a yelp and started to run away.

Kaldalis struggled for a moment to consider his course. He wanted to yell for Balrim to stop and run back to him for help instead of away from everyone, but as he opened his mouth, the other leviabeetle’s pincers smashed into his chest, knocking the air from him and robbing him of the words. Just a moment later, Haldir’s assault shattered the carapace of one leg, and the follow-up strike split the creature’s thorax open. The chittering creature fell still a moment later.

It was a lucky break; being relieved of the other two monsters, Kaldalis could focus all of his attention on rescuing the healer.

Who was almost to the entrance to the hall by now. And looked to be intending to just keep running.

Kaldalis cursed.

Balrim was covering a lot of ground in a shorter time than Kaldalis expected. He had to catch up to him, and fast, or else his healer was going to kite this thing back up to the dungeon entrance before anyone could stop him.

Luckily, Kaldalis had a tool for just such an event.

With a small mental command, he activated his Jump ability and launched himself towards the thorny monster on his friend’s tail. He traversed half the distance to Balrim in a single bound, and the second leap landed him right behind the bristle-covered thorn monster.

“I have you now,” Kaldalis crowed. Heedless of the creature’s thorns, Kaldalis slammed his glaive down on the ambulatory skeleton plant.

His attack did thirty-seven physical damage and applied a stack of gust, but what was important was that it instantly whirled on him, its attention finally drawn away from Balrim.

The thorned monster lashed out at Kaldalis, and his first instinct was to jump back - he needed to draw it back away from Balrim, and get it back into Haldir and Myrin’s reach. However, he underestimated his jump distance, and instead launched himself ten feet away. The unexpected distance made him lose his footing and he fell backwards on his ass, the compensatory flick of his tail only managing to keep him upright enough to keep a hold of his weapon instead of sprawling full-forced from the clumsy maneuver.

He scrambled back up to his feet as the creature skittered after him.

Kaldalis barely got to his feet before the next swipe of a clawed appendage. He didn’t have time to get clear, and thorns landed on his shoulder, raking over the metal armor over his collarbone, only an inch shy of ripping out his throat. It dealt ninety physical damage, but no elemental damage.

Kaldalis guessed that meant it inflicted a debuff, but he’d somehow avoided suffering it. Perhaps that was thanks to the extra debuff affinity afforded by his Fortitude charm? He made a mental note to value affinity stats on gear in the future.

Haldir and Myrin caught up a second later, rushing past him to get behind the monster. Myrin’s blade bit deep into the spindly creature’s wooden skin. It looked like the blade was going to glance off the core of the creature’s thin branches, but there was a flash of fire damage in the strike, and it bit through entirely, shearing off the creature’s rear right leg.

The beast shook, making a susurrus sound of thorny branches scraping against each other. It whirled on Myrin instantly, lashing out with one of its remaining limbs. The strike landed and Myrin grunted in pain, moving to back off for fear of taking another hit.

On the right side of Kaldalis’s vision, her health bar was chunked out of nearly a third of her total.

He wasn’t sure what stunned him more - that just one strike drew its attention off of him, or how absolutely squishy she was. But he didn’t have time to ponder either.

Kaldalis whirled his glaive around and slammed it into the mass of branches his brain interpreted as the creature’s head. Or body. Whatever. It was the thickest clump of the creature’s brambly branches where its remaining limbs seemed to sprout out of. His hit dealt damage and applied a second stack of gust.

The creature turned back to face Kaldalis, and while he wanted to celebrate getting the monster’s attention off of Myrin before it could strike her again, he didn’t have time to pat himself on the back. A thorny paw whipped by just an inch shy of his gut, and while he knew it was just going to deal a damage number, he couldn’t help but imagine those hooked thorns ripping his stomach open and spilling his guts to the floor, even through the cosmetic armor.

With a heavy gulp, Kaldalis whipped his glaive straight down in an overhead chop. The creature tried to skitter to one side of the blow, but it moved too soon, and Kaldalis was able to correct his weapon’s course and struck it for another thirty-seven damage. A blast of wind blew out at the point of impact, slamming the shrublike monster into the mossy stone floor.

Haldir’s blade thrust forward in that moment of vulnerability, and there was a ripping sound as it plunged into the bushy mass of the creature’s body. Instead of getting upright, the creature shuddered violently. And before it could do anything else, Myrin came back in, dropping to one knee as her greatsword came across in a horizontal cut that didn’t just finish the beast off, but ripped through its remaining branches, shearing them.

As the monster finally lay still, the edges of every one of her cuts smoldered with a little bit of smoke.

The creature’s death told Kaldalis that it was called a Vendragora. It was worth the same 25 exp as the beetles had been. Even if it was way more annoying to deal with.

“That could have gone better.” Kaldalis blew out a sigh of relief.

“We lived,” Myrin said, almost cheerfully. She eyed the creatures on the floor. “That’s all we need to do. Just don’t die.” She cackled, almost manically. “Easy.”

“It was a near thing, though,” Balrim said. The talsar pulled out one of his potions and tossed it at Myrin. It restored the damage the spined thing had dealt to her. “Sorry about the momentary panic. That thing was…” He gave the downed stick monster a glare and kicked at the corpse. “It was unexpected, was all.”

“No, it was my mistake,” Kaldalis said. “I didn’t establish enmity on it when it jumped into the fray. If I’d just tagged it once, we would have been fine.”

“Well, then it was my fault,” Myrin said, “I got aggro on that beetle right when the Vendragora popped up.”

With a stern throat clear, Haldir stepped forward. “We all could have played that out a little better.”

“What’s important is that we learn from our mistakes,” Kaldalis said. “We just have to bring our tactics in line with the systems at work here, right?”

“Right,” Balrim said with a nod. “Oh, one sec.” Balrim paused for a moment, nodding his head silently for a few seconds before producing another of his healing potions and restoring a sizable chunk of Kaldalis’s hit points. “So what’s the new plan, then?”

“Well, first of all, if you get something’s attention,” Kaldalis said, directing his words to Balrim, “either stand your ground and I’ll come to you, or you have to come to me. The only way anything is going to stop chasing you is if someone else is there to get its attention.”

“Right.” Balrim nodded, a serious look crossing his scaled face. “I’ll be ready for it next time, so don’t worry about that.”

“Secondly, we need to focus,” Myrin said. “Haldir and I should focus our attention on just one monster. If Kaldalis only has to worry about aggro from us on the same thing, we can avoid any more minor fuckups.”

“And third, I need to hit everything once before anyone does anything,” Kaldalis said. “So no healing, and no attacks for the first few seconds. As soon as I hit one thing for the second time, you all go wild.”

He expected Myrin to argue that point, but she nodded along with the others. Kaldalis was relieved. He’d spent a lot of time fighting with DPS to get them to show the slightest bit of patience for the benefit of the whole group. But Myrin seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. Sure, she was a little violent and seemed to get bored pretty easy, but she was at least willing to listen to reason.

For now.

“Alright. New fight, new plan, right?” Kaldalis asked. “We have the plan. Let’s find the fight.” He turned and made his way across the room, keeping his eyes open for the next pack of mobs.