I began to use the Grow Nettle spell, selecting the half of the cave where the battle was taking place as the area of effect. At the same time, I wrote in the group chat, 'No healing for 5 seconds. However, what was the point of the healing? I could restore 85 health every two seconds. It was clearly not enough to save someone from death. While I was using the spell, a glowing animation surrounded me, but since I was under water the people around me didn't pay any attention to me. But when the Evil Nettles appeared from under the ground, my opponents started swearing loudly.

Immediately the enemy Assassin jumped behind my back, using his class skill. Now I had no problem identifying his primary profession. Except that this chosen skill was deeply mistaken. I was now lying face-up on the surface of the pond, so the Assassin was at my back in the water mass. That made all of his movements slow by half.

I immediately turned around and cast a Discharge on the bewildered opponent, and then began to poke him with my spear. He had no foothold, so he simply couldn't dodge, and only managed to hit me with a poison spell in return. That was the end of his success, and he died before he could get out of the water. However, I didn't have much to do with it, because when he attacked me, he had less than half of his health.

While I was beating the Assassin, I managed to cast the Righteous Shield on the Son of Bitch, who was already near death. I didn't have any fast-moving skills, so I had to get out of the water on my own. At the same time, I threw a heal on the same ally and started using Paralysis on the mage, simultaneously writing about it in the chat. The mage was now being attacked by Berserk, who stopped attacking him in time. Since the warrior didn't use poison, it was impossible to 'wake' the mage. We will kill mage at the end of fight.

I was barely finished using Paralysis when one of the enemy Warriors slammed into me. I was intentionally standing so that I was covered by the Last Gasp, so the only way to interrupt me was to go around him. Only this time my Resilience showed itself in the best way. The Warrior who had slammed into me used a skill that didn't knock me down but rather stuns the enemy, but since it was a 'move' skill, the 'recoil' from it hit the user himself, and the Warrior stunned himself. In game mechanics, normal hand attacks didn't do damage to enemy, but they could still affect the enemy's movements. I quickly put my spear away, grabbed my frozen enemy and threw him into the pond, then jumped on top of him, striking him with my spear.

As a result of my unexpected intervention, the battle changed its course abruptly. The assassin died, the mage stood in the corner of the cave in paralysis, the warrior was floundering with me in the water, and another warrior and a priest stood in a thicket of nettles against three Ninjas and a Berserker. Though one of my allies was one hit away from death, he wisely hid behind the backs of his comrades while I healed him while I was in the water.

When the priest 'died', it was clear that we would win. The warrior I'd been carefully perforating with my spear was finally able to get away from me, and used one more quick-move skill to 'leap' right at our barely-living Son of Bitch, driving him into the red health zone again. But he didn't have time to make that last hit, because White Fluffy Fox used a stun on him, and the two ninjas used their strongest skills, killing the enemy instantly.

While our trio was pushing against the last warrior, I began to climb out of the water again, healing my ally. The mage was going to 'wake up' soon, and I had to make sure he couldn't kill any of us. Only barely had I crawled out of the water then I foresee in the future that another group of players flew out of the passage that had brought us here, and immediately began to attack us.

“Urgently kill the mage!!! Warrior is last.” - I texted into the chat, diving back into the pool that had already become familiar to me.

My comrades didn't ask any questions, but immediately switched from killing the half-dead Berserker to the 'whole' but puny Destroyer. The warrior had not expected such a change of purpose, and therefore could not prevent Fox, who literally 'smashed' into the mage, smearing him on the cave. And the three ninjas again used their skills simultaneously, hanging poison on the Destroyer. I had already realized that the mage had only a few seconds to live, so I focused my attention on meeting the 'guests'.

From the hole, the same group of players that we'd passed by the previous few minutes came falling down toward us. At that time they were beating the worm, pretending to be on a mission, but now it was obvious that they were ‘messengers’, informing them that we were coming downstairs. It was determined simply by the name of their guild. Both groups showed off their 'Age of Glory,' indicating that they were minions of Zinovia Reinhardt, my most arch-enemy in the game. Therefore, I had to kill them all.

The group that coming to us was full of strength, whereas only I was more or less healthy, and the rest of the group's health was in the red or yellow zone. The first person to come down on my head was a 'tank' with a shield and a mace. He was also a berserk, but with a somewhat 'alternative' choice of weapon. Perhaps he was going to take Palladin or Fanatic as his second profession, so he trained in advance to play the role of heavy infantry. The only problem was that in water, the game mechanics slowed down such 'massive' characters the most. They did not go to the bottom, as they would in reality, but simply began to move four times slower than usual.

The pool in the cave was irregularly shaped and had different depths in different places. Near the platform it was a little more than waist-deep, but under the 'hole' it was up to three meters deep. As soon as the tank fell on me, I immediately grabbed him from behind by the waist and dragged him to the bottom. The enemy could not resist and was not even able to hit me. I didn't hit him, but just left him on the bottom, and turned him upside down.

The second to fall out of the hole was a Healer. He tried to use Permanent Healing on the last player of the first group, but I grabbed his leg, used the Discharge, and dragged him to the bottom, leaving him with the tank. The tank still couldn't turn around, and was just struggling helplessly in place. The healer wasn't as boneheaded as his predecessor, but he was unlucky, underwater the Discharge spell had a chance to stun the target for twice as long, and that chance came to him. As a result, in one second of paralysis I was able to drag my opponent down to me, clinging to the 'tank’ with my legs, then pushing Healer with my legs away, plunging him down, while I floated myself up for a portion of the air I had already run out of.

As I reached the surface, I saw one more berserker 'jumping' behind the back of our long-suffering Son of a Bitch, literally changing his trajectory in midair. This indicated that this player was not a novice or a 'crab' at all. I could do nothing to help there, so I quickly threw my Shield spell on the most injured ally and concentrated again on meeting the next 'passenger'.

This type of opponent was my favorite. A mage with only 450 HP fell directly on my spear. Three quick strikes with the spear, and he was dead before he even realized what was happening. But I had no time to rejoice, because another enemy was falling on me. I could not immediately determine what his profession was. He was dressed in leather armor, but armed with a one-handed sword. The first thing he did was try to stun me and poison me. I successfully ignored the stun, and avoided the poisoning by throwing a Discharge, which again 'disabled' the enemy for one second, after which I simply ran away, swimming toward the most convenient place to climb to a hard surface.

To my surprise, when I got out of the pool, the berserker that had so swiftly attacked my allies was already dead. But the Warrior from the first group was still alive, albeit his HP was in red zone. My shield and healing again fell to the same ninja, after which the enemy shouted something like 'Holyfuckingsonofabitch!!!' in an irritated voice. Alas, this cry of the heart could not help him in any way.

To my surprise, Fox stayed behind to control the Warrior, and the three would-be assassins jumped into the water, where they began to circle around the scout warrior rather expertly, playing the part of sharks. I didn't dive into the pool again, but stayed to provide backup, using the healing spell and occasionally poking with my spear an enemy who was trying to get to land.

Half a minute later the warrior and the healer died from the poison, Fox finished off the tenacious Warrior, and the 'tank' died in the depths from lack of air. Our whole group had already climbed out of the water and stood, looking down, observing the idiot as he made random movements, staying in one place. When the enemy let out his last breath, we looked at each other and laughed in sync, releasing the tension of the fight.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! That's a nominee for Darwin Award, isn't it?” -White Fluffy Fox laughed.

The phrase immediately brought me to my senses, no worse than the electric shock. Only an inhabitant of Earth, or its reflections, would know about Darwin in this world. Which meant that Fox is another game figure. I didn’t show any additional expression, but only laughed with everyone else. However, I no longer consider my companions as 'almost friends’. I don't know if Fox realized who I was, but I will not turn my back to him.

“You're pretty strong, aren't you?” - Fox said to me, after he laughed. – “If you weren't here, we'd be dead in the water.”

“Yeah, I'm cool.” - I grinned back. – “Let's get a move on before someone else falls on our heads, shall we?”

“Yeah, let's go.” - Fox waved a hand, and the three Ninjas quickly disappeared into the corridor leading out of the hall. – “Looks like someone from the old servers decided to trap someone who knows about this passageway.” - He began to explain as we walked through the tangled mazes. – “The big guilds have their own knowledge databases, which also describe the dungeons of Crab Island. If you catch the main squad of the other guilds doing quests, you can hold them off long enough to gain an advantage for yourself. At the very least, this will give you a chance to get bonuses for first time raiding dungeons.”