The outer wall of Panbu was mostly just chunks of jagged wood sticking up out of the ground, surrounded by the splintered remains of what had been broken. Kaldalis was - fittingly - the tip of the spear, leading the column of adventurers in through the widest gaps in the broken wall.

Once they had breached the paltry remains of that barrier, the group started to spread out. Kaldalis’s army split into the respective smaller parties. Tanks went to work gathering up the Infernal Horde, making ready to chip away at them.

As soon as they were inside the walls, a new quest appeared to the left side of Kaldalis’s vision. He assumed that everyone got it, and it gave him hope that getting this battle done would give them more than just a sense of satisfaction.

More than a Shot

Execute a successful raid and reclaim the ruins of Panbu!

Beneath the message was a little progress bar. It was currently empty, and the best assumption he could make was that killing or chasing off the Infernal Horde present would tick it along.

As fights started to break out around him, Kaldalis wanted to jump right in alongside them. There were so many enemies, so he felt obligated to pick up his fair share of enemies and manage them for the sake of the group.

He had to force down the urge, though. Without a Seal weapon, he might end up doing more harm than good. And until he had the Xorn Captain in his sights, he wouldn’t know how much he could handle while he was dealing with it.

Kaldalis finally found the Captain near the center of the ruined camp. It was standing in the remains of the town hall, angrily stomping on the pile of stone blocks that had been the building, its huge metallic feet slowly churning the broken bits of stone to gravel.

It was surrounded by a complement of other Xorn, who were still busily grinding the surrounding buildings to dust as well. About four Globins were scattered around the area, their clawed red hands picking through the rubble of the town hall that had already been crushed to bits, as if searching for something.

The remaining adventurers that had stuck with Kaldalis went to work.

Martok was using twin daggers, enabling him to activate his Sprint ability to hurtle around the area to gather up the smaller foes. Courbois was on hand with her new sword and shield to pick a few mobs out of the pack he was building. She targeted the Globins, separating them out and pulling them aside.

As the Captain turned its attention towards Martok’s efforts, Kaldalis activated a charge of his Jump cooldown and leaped to meet the challenge it represented.

Hurtling over the train of mobs Martok was building, Kaldalis raised his glaive high, bringing the curved blade down in a diagonal slash. The weapon’s reach was just enough to carve a line across the four-armed behemoth’s metallic gray chest.

The strike only dealt seventy-seven physical damage and five earth damage.

But Kaldalis didn’t need to do damage.

It would all be undone by the first pulse of red energy off the nearest Globin anyway. Instead, he just needed to get its attention and keep it away from where everyone else was working their way through the health bars arrayed against them.

“Target just the one,” Courbois called. She had the four Globins arrayed against her, along with three Xorn, and she was trying to direct everyone onto one of the Globin. “Focus it down!”

“Spreading damage around is useless,” Kaldalis shouted, adding his voice to hers. “Single target! Follow Courbois! Focus on whichever one she’s keeping the Seal debuff on!”

The distraction was just enough that a huge fist crashed into his shoulder. One hundred and ninety-seven physical damage, along with fifty-two darkness damage were chunked out of his health bar.

Kaldalis was grateful that the food buff had persisted through his death. The extra defense and hit points were likely going to be a big help in the fight to come.

The strike sent Kaldalis scrambling back, and the Xorn Captain gave chase. It closed the distance with just a few strides of its long legs. The malice focusing on Kaldalis from its featureless face hit him like another physical blow, unnerving him.

That was fine, though. He needed to be avoiding damage at all costs, after all. The fight-or-flight instinct that filled his mind was the perfect response to what he was facing.

Kaldalis ducked the next strike, a huge fist that came down in an overhead chop. Fragments of rock and wood from the town hall’s construction filled the air around him at the impact, and he had to raise one hand to deflect the sharper bits of wood from flying up into his eyes.

Through the cloud of debris, another hand lashed out. The haymaker punch would have been impossible to dodge if Kaldalis hadn’t had his Jump cooldown running. He was able to fling himself straight up into the air before the attack could land. Kaldalis cackled as he flew over the punch.

Unfortunately, that set him up like a baseball on a tee. As he emerged from the cloud of dust he saw a huge silvery hand sweeping across horizontally. The damage was still the two hundred and forty-nine total damage of the first blow, but this impact was so sudden and solid that Kaldalis’s vision was full of stars as he hurtled through the air.

His vision barely cleared in time for him to land on his feet instead of his face when the ground finally came up to meet him.

Even landing on his feet, Kaldalis didn’t have time to rest. The Xorn Captain was closing the distance faster than he could get his balance. He had to turn and use the last few seconds of his Jump cooldown to bound away, getting as much distance as he could as fast as possible.

Kaldalis knew he was getting farther away from his healers, but he’d told them not to worry about him. Seeing Martok and Courbois’ health bars ping-ponging around warned him that even if he went back to them, they wouldn’t have the resources to spare.

His objective was underway. He just had to keep the Captain busy.

Kaldalis used the last few seconds of his Jump cooldown to leap over the lopsided remains of a wooden building. The Xorn Captain smashed through it with a vicious body slam almost at the same time as Kaldalis landed on the far side of it.

“Yeah, just keep this fucker busy,” he muttered to himself. “Easy as pie.”

Kaldalis broke into a full sprint, and was dismayed to find that the Xorn Captain wasn’t as slow-moving as the other Xorn. It couldn’t keep up with him, but that seemed to be because when it got within striking range, it slowed down to try and line up a punch. He was able to keep ahead of it, but every time he had to run around or scramble over any bit of rubble or ruin, there was a terrifying moment when it cast its long shadow over him, fist raised and ready for him to stumble for just a quarter-second longer.

As Kaldalis fled from the monster, he had the chance to observe the fights going on elsewhere in the camp. For the most part, things seemed to be under control, but that was in the loosest sense possible. Nobody was dying yet, but the tanks all looked battered and the healers all looked desperate. Most tellingly, though, was that the progress bar hadn’t moved yet. Was nothing dying? Was the seal debuff not enough?

Did they need another change in strategy?

Were they about to fail again?

There wasn’t time to consider that. A pulse of red energy passed just a little too close by, and Kaldalis barely kept the Xorn Captain from getting healed by it. He’d only landed the single strike and wasn’t anticipating another opportunity to land another. But he needed to get into the habit of keeping ahead of the healing waves. If they were going to be fighting these monsters together again in the future, it was a good skill to develop.

He circled around to his own party again. It had been a few minutes, and it looked like very little progress had been made. Courbois was visibly making use of the block ability the sword and shield granted her, while Martok was doing careful laps around the ruined town hall with the xorn. None of the Globin had fallen, or even bolted and ran.

Kaldalis realized the mistake after the Xorn Captain blundered through the scene behind him. And now he was too far along to do anything.

The Seal debuff was likely doing its work. But at the same time as they’d added it to the equation, they’d lost so much more.

The damage was all spread out. It was being dealt in small pockets.

Courbois had warned the group against spreading their damage out among seven targets.

But now, the damage was being spread out between as many targets as they had tanks.

They were doing dungeon party damage to a raid group scenario. Once that snapped into focus, he knew exactly why nothing was dying.

Well, not nothing.

There was a desperate scream up ahead, and Kaldalis braced himself for what he was going to see on this second lap around the camp.