Kaldalis lunged before Ara could say any more creepy bullshit. She tried to intimidate him, baring her fangs and hissing loudly, but he forced down his fear. He ducked low, going into a slide and leading with his spear, jamming the weapon into her abdomen right where her lowest left arm emerged from her red-orange robe. The attack only did seventy damage, but it wasn’t about the damage.

“I’ve got aggro,” Kaldalis snapped. “Wake the fuck up, mercenaries! We got a boss to burn!”

As one, everyone else rushed forward. The spell of terror Ara’s killing of Voker had cast was broken. A hail of arrows came now, followed shortly by everyone else charging in with weapons drawn. They were, after all, no longer in danger of being targeted. As long as Kaldalis didn’t die.

Ara lashed out at Kaldalis immediately, her claws reaching for him. Despite the turn in the situation, she still had a wicked grin, as if she still felt like the odds were in her favor. Kaldalis quickly dropped back, and overworld aggro rules forced her to chase. As a handful of DPS - with Myrin leading the charge - crashed against her sides and started to hack away, she was still only allowed to attack him. She lunged, reaching for him with blackened claws, the red sheen in her eyes locked on him.

One of her claws clipped Kaldalis’s shoulder, making it abruptly very obvious that he should avoid letting her do that at all costs. She dealt nine hundred and eight-three physical damage, and one hundred and seventy-three dark elemental damage. He could only take three attacks of that magnitude. The third would kill him.

More than that, her claws stuck in him, gripping on. She tried to get in close, not to attack, but to grapple, and all of his worst fears came rushing back. He jammed his polearm into her chest, using the strength of the weapon’s haft to physically hold her back from closing with him. In addition to the seventy damage, he actually got a lucky early poison proc. He was grateful for that. As low as the damage would be against her prodigious defenses, if she had any sort of aggro reset mechanic, he could hope that the DoT would glue her right back to him.

Assuming he survived.

To that end, three potions struck him immediately as he managed to push Ara way. Dalgaard, Balrim, and Yosini all had his back. He had plenty of healers on hand. He just needed to give them time for their cooldowns to come back before he ate another of her vicious claws.

“Good,” Ara hissed, reaching for him. “You know how I hate when it ends too soon, dearest Kal.”

“Don’t worry,” Kaldalis said, struggling for a moment to swallow the bile creeping up the back of his throat. “You always get finished first, don’t you?”

“Fuckin’ gross!” Myrin remarked from nearby. Despite the comment, she didn’t miss a beat, still carving into Ara’s side with her greatsword. The camaraderie among DPS had a few of the others laughing at that.

Kaldalis activated Shrug Off again. It wouldn’t absorb two of Ara’s attacks, but it would give him a little wiggle room, which he found himself desperately needing as her attacks came in again. When he’d fought her before, her many claws were clumsy and slow, as if she had been actively holding back from killing. Those days were gone now. Eight hands worked in perfect harmony, churning the air as they reached for any part of Kaldalis that they could get a grip on. He physically could not stop moving. Every time he dodged two claws, two more were reaching in the direction he dodged. And after dodging those, there were two more coming at him unexpectedly again.

If he faced Ara in a dungeon, where aggro rules required him to keep hitting her, he would have failed outright. He simply could not stop long enough to plant his feet and mount a proper attack. Not without letting her hit him. Even if the damage wasn’t deadly on its own, if she got a firm hold on him, he would only survive long enough to scream if she let him.

Her claws raked right across his face, tearing through the shield offered by Shrug Off. Despite the shield, the sharpened fingertips came away wet with his blood, and she paused her endless assault just long enough to lick the blood from her claws. Kaldalis planted his feet firmly and jammed his spear into her for another seventy damage, trying to twist the weapon to get any kind of reaction from her. But she seemed almost entirely unfazed.

“So sweet,” she said, her claws reaching for him again. “Let me have another taste, love.”

Kaldalis tried to circle to the left, but Ara’s reaching claws stopped him. He’d been backing up so furiously that he almost had his back to the wall. If she cornered him, he was going to be out of room to run.

“Is this all you have?” Kaldalis said, struggling to sound defiant and angry, even as fingers of fear were creeping back into him. “Eight claws and a dream? You can’t win with just that!”

Ara stopped abruptly and turned away from Kaldalis, spreading her claws. He jammed his spear into her back, but she didn’t react at all. She couldn’t attack the DPS while he had aggro, so what was she-

“Scoot! Scoot scoot scoot!” Myrin lunged at Kaldalis from her spot behind - now in front of - Ara, shouldering him over. “Stack on me! She’s gonna do something nasty,” she bellowed. “Everyone! Quick!”

Myrin’s instincts were right. Before anyone else could respond, dark energy sprayed from Ara’s claws. Giant fans of roiling purple-black light blocked out their view of the rest of the ballroom. She slowly brought them together, creating two twin waves that washed over most of the room before meeting in the middle and fading with a clapping sound.

Half of the mercenaries were dead. Some of them had tried to use Jump to clear it and failed, while most of the others had stood in the middle, hoping the attack would stop before nowhere safe remained. Many had managed to weather the attack, but they had been badly wounded.

“I don’t have the AoE heal yet for this,” Balrim announced, hitting himself with a potion. “Anyone else?”

“It’s at level 35,” Yosini called back. “Pretty sure only the Alpha fuckers have it.”

“Don’t waste your healing,” Dalgaard snapped. “Yourselves first, but hold as much as you can. If we don’t have enough to keep Kaldalis on his feet, we’re all worse than dead.”

Kaldalis considered it lucky that the healers had survived. Then again, given how damage calculations were done, it was possible that it was intentional. If the giant wave of damage was purely elemental, healers had higher Affinity stats, which would reduce the damage significantly compared to what a DPS player would endure.

Ara whirled on Kaldalis, but as soon as she picked a direction to turn, Kaldalis went the other way, running behind her back to avoid getting cornered against the wall. Ara only met a grinning Myrin, who jammed her greatsword into her face with a gleeful cackle.

“Nice trick,” Kaldalis said as Ara kept turning until she could lunge at him again. He quickly ducked under the next claw, and jumped back from the one that followed. “Bet you can’t do it again.”

“Don’t provoke her!” Balrim cried. Despite the aggravation in his voice, one of his arrows thunked right into Ara’s clavicle with enough impact to foul her next swipe.

“Come on, grumpy pants!” Myrin called. “Wouldn’t want this to get too boring, would ya? Besides, we only need the three of us. We can take this bitch!”

“I can’t take another,” Balrim said warningly. “Not yet, at least.”

“Focus,” Kaldalis snapped as one of Ara’s claws caught him across the chest, wiping out the last of his Shrug Off shield and carrying over a few hundred damage into his normal hit points. “Not much longer now!”

Ara’s good humor was fading fast. She didn’t stop to lick the blood from her claws. Her wicked grin was gone. Her attacks became frantic, and Kaldalis activated Jump and used the cooldown to empower his dodges, keeping well out of her reach. The constant movement made it so much harder for the other mercenaries to keep up. And in their wounded state, they were inclined to hang back, waiting for the healers to get to them.

“Surrender,” Kaldalis said again at last. “This doesn’t have to end like this.”

Ara snarled wordlessly, reaching for him desperately. Her claws closed just a half-inch shy of his throat.

“This is your last chance,” Kaldalis warned, keeping his voice too low for Dalgaard to hear. “You don’t get up again after this one, remember? The end of such a long life would be a crime. You’ve seen things. Things I need to know about.”

“All those memories,” Myrin added, grunting as she cleaved into Ara’s back. “Lost. Like tears in the rain.”

Myrin’s blow was accompanied by a flare of flames. A critical hit. Ara gasped, reeling. For a moment, she paused. Time seemed to stop between them as her eight eyes met his two. In a satisfying turnabout, the fear was in her eyes, not his.

Six eyes closed. Six arms retreated into her body. Her serpentine tail shriveled and shrank. Ara dropped to her knees as they formed under her, bowing her head to Kaldalis.

“No,” Dalgaard yelled, storming towards Ara. Their daggers were drawn. “This is over. You don’t get to-”

Dalgaard gasped as Myrin stepped in between them and Ara. They tried to shove her aside, but the spectacular strength of a DPS character against the wimpy arms of a healer meant that with a single quick motion, Dalgaard was on the ground, with Myrin standing on their chest, pinning them down.

“Not yet, kid,” Myrin said. “Come on, Kal. Let’s see some diplomacy.”

The mercenaries started to move forward to Dalgaard’s aid, but Balrim stepped between them and Myrin.

“Easy,” Balrim said, waving a potion at the badly wounded mercenaries. “A big shiny potion for all of you who stand back and let this unfold. Considering the situation - and the Jormongumo who are still outside this building - I think it’s a pretty good deal.”

They hesitated. All eyes went to Yosini, who was staring at Kaldalis. The other healer could break this stalemate, now that hit points were the most valuable currency in play. For a moment, he wasn’t sure how this was going to go. He didn’t want to reach for a War Weapon and turn to violence. Not when he was here to try and do the right thing.

“A good tank respects their healer,” Yosini said with a grimace. “And a good healer respects their tank.” He looked over at the other mercenaries. “Stand down, men. We’re getting paid either way.”

Kaldalis grimaced at that. Without the specifics of Dalgaard’s promises to them, he wasn’t sure what this was going to cost him if he couldn’t talk Dalgaard down. Regardless, he had a shot. Between his friends and his enemies, he could finally do what he came here to do.

Improvise.