The two attacks Kaldalis landed on the water monster gave him an unprecedented amount of weapon skill with his sword and shield. When he skilled up his spear shortly after levelling up, his skill incremented in factors of 0.1 of a point at a time, with a rare 0.2 of a point gained on occasion. These attacks gained him more than a full point from each skill. The first was 1.2 points, and the other was 1.3 points. If this was the way things would go, it wasn’t going to take long to unlock the shield block ability.

Skill gain speed was greatly exacerbated by the speed with which he could attack. It felt like he was waving around a long wooden dowel. The weapon was unfamiliar in his hands, and occasionally he struck only a glancing blow against the watery monster, which didn’t register damage, but a failed strike wasn’t a great loss, as each one didn’t represent a huge physical investment.

The arm sprouting from the monster’s face moved less like a trunk and more like a tentacle. It was fast and maneuverable, and Kaldalis struggled to keep track of it while still watching the monster’s four beady eyes.

When it struck, it did two hundred and forty-three physical damage, and forty-six water damage. It was apparently enough to wake up his healer, who had finally put away his book to start throwing potions at Kaldalis.

The boss used its strange freedom of movement to perform its charge attack twice more. It was funny to watch because while Kaldalis was content to wait for the monster to come back to him, Myayuan wouldn’t accept any amount of downtime. Every time it charged away before circling around to charge Kaldalis again, she would give chase, snarling curses the whole time. It sent Voron into gales of laughter to watch her splash through the low water.

Within the first two minutes of the fight, Kaldalis’s skill gain started to drop. But not before he unlocked Shield Block at skill level twenty-five. The skill caused attacks intercepted by the shield to affect a new resource: Shield HP.

Shield HP was equal to seventy-five percent of his own hit points, and would regenerate rapidly if it took no damage for a few seconds. If the shield was broken through entirely, though, it would remain at zero for an extended time before it began to regenerate. Managing the resource would be a careful game, and while it would give him the ability to absorb a lot of damage, it would still require him to avoid attacks to allow the resource to regenerate. Seventy-five percent of his maximum HP seemed like a lot, but the damage in this game scaled in such a way that a lot of his survivability came from avoidance rather than straight-up blood tanking. It would still be destroyed in only a few hits when he was back home and up against Infernal Horde again. Shield Block was strong, but far from overpowered, especially when he considered that it was going to have to compensate for his complete immobility.

He gave it a try in this fight, and found that it fit into his fighting style easily. When he couldn’t dodge an attack, the shield came up and caught the damage. His incoming damage nearly ceased entirely. He accepted a hit on occasion when he needed his HP’s shield to regenerate, wanting to keep it fresh in the event of an emergency.

After Kaldalis learned Shield Block, his skill gain rate dropped. For the beginning of the fight, he was gaining around a full skill point per strike. The lowest he gained was 0.9 of a point. Once he got up to twenty-five, his skill gain dropped, and for the rest of the fight against the water elephant thing, he gained skill per strike closer to half a point. It was still much more than he gained from his spear when he was freshly levelled, but it was a reasonable slowdown. The fight would be over before he gained his next skill at skill level fifty.

True to that expectation, the monster started to shudder, water running off of its form. As the group’s attacks continued, its size diminished, and eventually it let loose one last deep rumble and lost cohesion and splashed back into the water from whence it came.

The game notified him that it was creatively called an Aqualephant. The party was rewarded with a small chunk of exp, and Iarsa gave them a bunch of false praise about their strength, bravery, and tactical skill. Kaldalis didn’t blame her for it. She was just here for a paycheck.

“So what was up with the eyes?” Kaldalis asked when she finished her fantastical description of them as paragons of the craft. “What was I supposed to be watching for?”

“Sorry about that,” Iarsa said with a big smile. “But someone brought a weapon with the Seal property, which locked the monster’s water burst ability. If any of you come back in the future, you’ll have to be careful for that nasty surprise.”

Kaldalis did feel a new appreciation for the Seal property. He’d suspected it was a dud, but if it shut down certain enemy attacks - especially big AoEs - it might be more useful as a tank to bring the property to every fight. His job, after all, was to facilitate his team doing their jobs. If every boss in the game had at least one ability that he could just halt outright, it might be the biggest brain move he could make.

There was a chest at the far end of the room, and Kaldalis got his final confirmation that he was overleveled for this dungeon. The charms here would be higher level than an appropriate group for the dungeon, but these were only item level ten. If a sword and shield dropped, it could be an upgrade to what he was using, but it was just a couple of charms and a few bottles of Living Fluid, which was a crafting material. Kaldalis didn’t care for any of it, so he let the others take what they wanted.

“So, uh,” Kaldalis said, looking at his party. Despite the fact that they’d just taken down the first boss, they still felt like perfect strangers to him. “Is anyone else game to take this dungeon seriously?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Iarsa asked.

“I don’t know,” Myayuan said, looking to Voron, “but I’m intrigued.”

“Whatever, man,” Voron said with a shrug. “You’re the tank. You do you, bud. As long as you don’t get us all killed.”

Kaldalis reached up, scratching his head with his shield hand, pretending to think. “No promises.”

He took off at a sprint.

The tunnel came up out of the room, so he was soon up and out of the water as he ran down the next tunnel. The path diverged from the river, but the sound of rushing water was still audible in the caverns. Uneven stone made for uneasy footing, but the unconscious lashing of his tail kept him upright.

Iarsa started to yell in protest, but the party was already running to catch up. Jerporbernit, the healer, was bringing up the rear, but he looked like the excitement was actually getting his attention. Iarsa seemed to be torn between trying to encourage him to slow down and shouting out the scripted lines she was supposed to say when he got onto certain marks. The stone tunnel started to turn farther away from the river, and she had to say something about how the river used to go through this tunnel until something like eight million years ago, before warning that rushing into the next room could be dangerous. Kaldalis was pretty sure that was an exaggeration. While several levels too high for the dungeon, with both Shrug Off and Shield Block ready, he felt basically invulnerable.

The next chamber opened up and obviously represented a change in scenery from the smooth natural caverns. The floor of this room was scattered with actual dirt, and at the far side the exit to the room looked less like a water-cut cavern, and more like a rough-hewn cave. It was as if someone had started to cut a mine out of the natural caverns. Or as if a mine had cut its way into here by accident.

The room had a quartet of monsters here, and while they were sized roughly like large wolves, just under four feet tall at the shoulder, their features were much closer to foxes with a generally more pointed and dainty appearance. They had pointed snouts and a slimmer, less muscular build than a canine of their size would normally have. Instead of blue like the soakanines, these were a shade of lilac purple, nearly white, darkening to a deeper purple around their feet, and the tips of their tails, ears, and snouts. Additionally, they had little nubs of pointed horns sticking up off of their heads, right above their eyes. They were like little purple devil foxes, and Kaldalis could already imagine Monsoon making literally a million dollars selling plush versions of them.

They reacted to his appearance with immediate aggression, which suited Kaldalis just fine. His talwar flashed out, catching the first two right as they approached, and he quickly lunged past them. He had to admit that he was missing Sweeping Strikes as he had to individually tag the other two instead of just sweeping his weapon through the whole group twice and being done.

As soon as he’d struck them all, though, he turned his back on them and bolted out the other side of the room.

“What the-” Myayuan said as she stumbled, her sword passing through a space that had just been vacated by one of the fox things chasing after Kaldalis.

“What are you doing?” Iarsa cried out, clearly more confused and distraught than she was actually looking for an answer.

“Wall to wall pulls!” Kaldalis whooped over his shoulder as he ran down the next tunnel. “Try to keep up!”