Kaldalis led the charge again, but he angled towards the firefly ant thing first this time.

He swept his glaive into the creature’s thorax between two of its legs on its right side, dealing twenty-nine damage and applying a stack of gust. It made an angry insectoid chittering sound as it turned on him.

But instead of whirling away to pick up the other enemies, Kaldalis held his ground for a moment longer. He danced away from the snapping of its small mandibles before moving back in to strike it a second time. His glaive bounced off of the thick part of its armored exoskeleton, but he still dealt damage.

There was no stack of Gust this time, but the damage to build enmity was what mattered. The second blow was the signal for Myrin and Haldir to start in on the creature, and the pair rushed in to do so, even though Kaldalis still hadn’t touched the other two enemies.

The vendragora seemed content to stay in plant mode for now, but the leviabeetle was rushing over with its head down. Its giant pincers approached ramming speed. The creature was charging the space just behind him, and so he stepped forward at the last moment to avoid taking the shot as the creature tossed its head to snap at him with the pincers.

Unfortunately, it meant he took the hit from the bioluminescent ant, suffering sixty-two damage.

Kaldalis wanted to strike the ant again to try and build towards a proc of the Gust debuff, but he had to start on the other mobs before Balrim had to heal him.

If he didn’t establish aggro, the giant beetle could attack anyone. And then history would repeat itself.

Kaldalis danced back from the firefly ant’s next attack before striking the leviabeetle, thrusting the head of his glaive into the beetle’s side hard enough to trace an enormous groove in the shell there. The creature took the forty-six physical damage from the blow, and Kaldalis was pleased to see that the stack of Gust stuck this time.

The beetles seemed to be particularly vulnerable to Gust, since the stack was applied on every hit.

Kaldalis wondered if the researchers had more information about the various mobs he’d encountered. If he could discover the strengths and weaknesses of everything and develop a big pile of weapons, he could always make sure he had the best tool for the job.

For now, though, the beetle’s attention was on him, and the giant pincers slashed through the air towards his chest. Kaldalis took the hit, determining the HP loss to be a worthwhile sacrifice to strike the firefly ant again and keep its ire focused on himself so that Haldir and Myrin wouldn’t have to slow down their attacks. He dealt damage to the firefly ant thing and got his second stack of gust onto it. He wondered how long they had before the vendragora joined the fray, but what was more pressing was the timer on the firefly flash that would summon more adds that would charge Balrim and send the fight into chaos mode.

Kaldalis danced away from the ant’s mandibles, giving ground. The leviabeetle followed, snapping its pincers at him, and Kaldalis kept moving back. He’d put his back to the stationary vendragora, and so he was inching his way closer to the third enemy in the room. He panicked for a moment when the firefly ant didn’t follow, and instead raised its glowing abdomen. Rather than continue backwards, Kaldalis stepped back in, moving around the leviabeetle to strike the firefly ant again.

Haldir and Myrin had also taken the positioning as a sign to redouble their attack on the giant bug, though for their part it seemed they were already doing all they could. Myrin grunted with effort as she whirled her greatsword around for a solid strike, and Haldir’s sword was hacking viciously at the creature’s other side as fast as his arm could move it. He even saw one of Balrim’s arrows zip across the room to strike the creature. Kaldalis joined them shortly, driving the tip of his spear into the creature’s raised abdomen as soon as it was in reach, hoping against hope that he could get lucky.

And luck was on his side.

The attack applied the third stack of his gust debuff, and the blast of wind from the point of impact almost flipped the firefly ant creature over entirely. Its abdomen gave a low-intensity flash, but when the creature scrambled back up to its feet it lunged back at Kaldalis with its mandibles instead of trying to return to position to spawn the adds.

“Nice move,” Balrim called from across the room. “But watch out behind you!”

Kaldalis checked over his shoulder and saw that the vendragora was unfolding itself and readying to join the battle. Kaldalis wanted to keep his focus on the firefly thing, knowing they only had a few moments before the next time it tried to summon adds. However, he had lost about a quarter of his hit points and Balrim hadn’t thrown him a heal yet.

He needed to establish hate on the monster, or else things would go off the rails just as surely as they would if - or rather, when - the mini-ants were added to the encounter.

Kaldalis backed off of the two insects, darting in at the plant monster behind him. It was on its feet and ready for him, so he drew up short right before reaching it. A thorned limb slashed through the air right in front of where he stopped, and Kaldalis whirled his spear and drove its tip into the monster’s brambly center. The thirty-seven damage he dealt didn’t include a stack of Gust, but it was enough to get its attention, which was all he needed.

Kaldalis danced away from the vendragora’s swiping counterattack, and almost blundered right into the leviabeetle that had rushed up behind him. Luckily, the giant bug’s pincers were no more ready for him than he was for them, and he was able to dive out of their grasp before they could snap shut on him.

One of Balrim’s potions hit the ground nearby, and while Kaldalis thought it was too far away to affect him, he was relieved when his hit points jumped back up again. It undid most of the damage he’s taken, and because he’d established enough hate on all of the active monsters, nothing rushed towards Balrim.

“Watch out!” Haldir yelled. Kaldalis looked over in time to see the flash of the firefly ant’s abdomen as it called for adds.

Well, nothing rushed towards Balrim yet. Instead, the adds spawned nearby and skittered towards him.

Kaldalis wasted no time, activating his jump cooldown and launching himself across the room. He landed a few feet shy of Balrim’s side, but he was able to dash the rest of the distance. He whirled his polearm around on his left side, using the momentum to sweep it upwards into the nearest of the smaller dog-sized ants. As soon as he struck, he planted his feet and swept his second attack straight across at the other one, smashing straight down.

The vendragora and leviabeetle were charging past the firefly ant towards Kaldalis. The larger ant thing was starting to make its way back towards Kaldalis - who still held aggro despite Myrin and Haldir standing on either side of it smacking it over and over again - but it was battered almost beyond recognition. One of its legs was dragging behind it, and a giant crack in its abdomen was leaking glowing fluid. It made it three steps before it slumped, shuddered, and dropped to the ground.

“Got it!” Myrin crowed, turning her attention to the other mobs. “We got this!”

“Then get over here and get it,” Kaldalis yelled back at her, dancing back from the remaining enemies. “Fight’s not over yet!”

Despite his impatience, it was true that the fight was effectively over with the death of the firefly ant - called a firemicid, and worth 30 experience points.

The remaining foes were routine. It turned out that the mini ants had the same damage output as the larger one - and would clamp down on Kaldalis’s legs when they procced their “Seal” debuff - but they had relatively few hit points, and were easily managed.

In a few short moments, the fight was over with the party victorious this time.

“Okay. Good job, team,” Kaldalis said shakily. He picked a dislodged ant mandible out of a spot between two of the armor plates in his leg. “And now we know. Firemicids summon adds. Focus them down on the double.”

“You did a great job of responding to what spawned that time, though,” Balrim said. “Better than the first time at least.”

“I need to stop using my Jump ability to showboat on the pull,” Kaldalis said with a grimace. “As long as it’s active, I can be anywhere on the battlefield in a second, but it has a three minute cooldown, so I might not even be able to use it in every fight unless we want to sit on our asses in between each one.”

“Or we just need to keep grinding levels,” Haldir offered. “At some point spear-wielders learn to reduce the cooldown of their Jump ability.”

“Yeah?” Kaldalis asked. “When?”

Haldir only had a shrug for that. Kaldalis suspected that it wasn’t going to be any time soon. At the current rate, he was only one fight off of getting to level six, but considering he’d gotten nothing from level one to five, he didn’t expect much.

“Alright. We good?” Everyone nodded. “Let’s go, then,” he said, shaking himself a little before moving towards the shadow-shrouded far side of the room. “We won’t get anything done standing around here.”