Balrim gave Kaldalis a smooth smile that did well to cover up the panic in the talsar healer’s eyes. Not hide it completely, but it was masked. “We can’t all be Sam,” he said. “What we can do is all concentrate on whatever this thing you woke up is!”

“I didn’t wake up jack shit!” Kaldalis lied.

“Name dropper.” Balrim grinned wide before tossing one more potion his way. “Less talk-y, more tank-y!”

Kaldalis couldn’t argue. Now that he knew Balrim’s healing was behind him, he wasn’t quite as afraid to step up. He needed to respect his healer’s cooldowns, but he'd been without his friends for so long that just having them back at his side was enough to boost his flagging confidence.

Especially with the potion Haldir handed him. He downed it quickly to get that extra two-hundred and thirteen hit points to get him solidly into the safe zone.

The giant silverfish seemed unfazed by the addition of three more adventurers joining the fray as it rumbled up to Kaldalis, rearing its head up to strike again. Myrin sprinted around to its right side, carving deeply into it with her greatsword. Haldir came in on the left, weaving his sword into a flurry of blows that sent flakes of chipped shell flying with every strike.

Kaldalis still had his Endure cooldown rolling, but no longer being alone made him feel revitalized, and so he danced away from the boss monster’s attack, letting it smash the stone in front of him. He jabbed his glaive into the creature as fast as he could, getting his twenty-five damage, though missing out on the next gust stack he wanted. He’d technically been building aggro for a minute or so by now, so he was probably a ways away from needing the burst of damage to hold the monster’s attention. That meant that Haldir and Myrin could do their thing on the creature’s flanks and his damage contribution would be suddenly much less valuable.

The creature reared up to strike again, but stopped halfway through the attack with a shudder. It started to shake itself, and Kaldalis knew it was dropping poison again. He backed off, but hesitated when he saw Myrin and Haldir still laying into the creature.

“Back up!” he shouted. “It’s going to spawn a poison puddle under itself!”

“Well move it out of it, then!” Myrin said, though she was already backing up.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Kaldalis said as the purple puddle dribbled from the creature’s shell, spreading quickly. One of Balrim’s arrows thunked against the armored shell. At least one of them wasn’t terribly inconvenienced by this. “Heads up: it’s going to stay put and throw out some big rock blasts for a bit.”

“This is nice,” Balrim said, cheerfully. “I like coming into a fight with some information. Just like those hypothetical guide videos we talked about!”

“Well, let’s all be sure to stay grounded,” Kaldalis said with a grin. “We don’t want to start getting toxic with each other. If we start butting heads to the point where we’re seeing red, then this fight might ruin our resolve!”

Balrim cackled at that, and while Kaldalis wanted to continue - the back of his mind almost had something about rubble - he had bigger things to focus on.

Like the geyser of stone that was about to erupt beneath his feet.

He dodged the first blast backwards, and then jumped left for the second, and then dove into a forward somersault for the third, coming back up to his feet to charge back in on the monster.

Kaldalis stepped up to the edge of the giant poison puddle and held position for the extra second it took to evaporate away and leave the subway-sized bug open to attack again. He moved in as soon as he could, hoping that it would be fast enough to stop the monster from using its charge ability.

He’d thought he might be close enough last time, but he was still about fifteen feet farther than he was now. Maybe it was enough?

Unfortunately, the charge was apparently hard scripted into the behavior, and hadn’t been triggered by his distance from it before. He did catch a lucky break that it put its head down for the charge with a slight pause before it started, and Kaldalis had just enough time to scurry out of the way

“Hey!” Myrin barked as the boss monster rumbled away. “I’m not finished with you yet!”

“Be patient,” Kaldalis said, “it’ll come back around.”

The charging insect - or perhaps it was an arthropod, considering the number of legs - circled around to rush at them again. It was targeted clearly at Kaldalis, so he positioned himself to draw the beast on a path that would take it right past Myrin and Haldir to let them take a hit on the beast’s way by.

As it approached, he scrambled clear himself with just enough time to turn and slam his glaive into the creature’s flank. He got his twenty-five damage, but also got his next stack of gust, adding another twelve damage to the hit. The blast caused the creature to tilt a bit, and after a moment of its charge continuing forward, it tipped onto its side and slid across the courtyard. He heard Haldir and Myrin take their strikes at it before it skidded into a building, smashing it to rubble with the sheer weight of its charge.

“Heads up,” Kaldalis warned as he took a quick glance around. “New mechanic. Look for a glowy red thing!”

“What?” Myrin was already running towards the boss as it struggled to get back to its feet. “But now’s our opening!”

“Because if we don’t poke it, we all die, most likely. Didn’t test my luck with that one.” Kaldalis spotted the glowing red wisp off towards the western end of the courtyard. “Over there! Balrim, can you get to that?”

Balrim immediately turned and nocked an arrow as soon as he saw it.

“No, not like that,” Kaldalis said with a hysterical chuckle. “You have to touch it, like with your hand!”

“Right, right,” Balrim said, lowering his bow and breaking into a run. The talsar’s passive move speed increase would get him there pretty quick. Not that Kaldalis was jealous. He had plenty of his own tools that also didn’t mean babysitting a cooldown to keep some idiot tank alive.

Like clockwork, a clawed hand slapped through the red wisp, and the bubble of light trembled and dissipated.

“Keep an eye out for those,” Kaldalis called before returning his attention to the boss, “they seem to spawn when it hits the wall like that.”

Myrin was already on top of the boss, hacking away at it as it struggled to get back upright. Haldir only a little behind. Kaldalis caught up to them a few seconds later, but the monster was already on its feet again before he could strike. The trio of melee fighters had to hop back as its tail end whipped around when the creature whirled to menace Kaldalis with its horned front end again.

Kaldalis focused on dodging the creature’s snakelike strikes, while keeping the beast as still as possible to let Myrin and Haldir work most efficiently.

He felt a great sense of relief when a potion crashed against his side and another two-hundred hit points were healed up, finally bringing him above half health again.

“Boom!” Myrin crowed as she landed a blow that flared with a flash of flames. “Headshot!”

“I’m no entomologist,” Kaldalis said, grunting as he barely ducked aside from the beast’s smashing horns, “but I’m pretty sure the head is up here.”

“It was a crit, okay? Let me have this!”

“Not much more to go,” Haldir said from the other side of the boss, “but this isn’t over!”

Kaldalis noticed that the creature was starting to look more seriously damaged. Armored plates were looking cracked, with openings in the hard outer shell leaking bluish-green blood. From the last boss, he knew that meant it was close to downed. And from the first boss, he knew that reaching that state would mean it wouldn’t hold up very long to everyone on it at once - he hadn’t even noticed when the beetle had made a transition to a visibly wounded state before it fell.

“Let’s push, then!” Kaldalis said, standing his ground and smashing his glaive up to meet the next attack. “Finish it!”

Myrin let out a yell of effort with every swing, her huge weapon sweeping back, forth, up, and down with every carefully-metered kiai. Hadir’s grunts of effort were much less melodramatic, but told Kaldalis that they were giving their all.

He hoped they would be enough to finish the job before it shook out another pool of poison.

For his part, Kaldalis was still low enough on hit points that he didn’t want to tank hits haphazardly, but he had to add his damage wherever possible.

He swept his glaive into the creature’s head after dodging its strikes, but it took so much effort to coordinate both moves before it withdrew its head again. Kaldalis knew he just didn’t have the practice with his weapon to do it reliably. He could set his weapon against the blow and hope the ninth gust proc would interrupt the attack, but he hadn’t had the best proc rate.

But perhaps he had another trick up his sleeve for that.

“Nobody panic,” Kaldalis said as the beast raised its head again. “I’m going to try SCIENCE!”

The strike came down, and instead of dodging, he reached deep within himself and activated his newest ability: Kaia’s Flicker.