Kaldalis let out a sound that was definitely an extremely manly battle cry. To the untrained ear, it might have sounded like the wail of a terrified infant. But it was definitely a battle cry intended to rally his strength and strike fear into the heart of his foe.

On instinct, he wrestled his shield into position over his head and face, hoping to avoid a paralytic kiss - even though he knew that Jormongumo venom could be delivered anywhere his skin was exposed. Obviously, this looked like him flailing his way into a fetal position like a coward, but truly it was an intelligent and tactically-considered move.

The flailing panic was rewarded as something impacted the shield with such force that the shield smacked into his face. It would have struck him right in the throat otherwise, which was just as terrifying as the jump scare itself.

Somewhere nearby, Balrim echoed his shriek. It was just as manly and fearsome.

Myrin, at least let out a sound that was much more a battle roar.

The many-limbed monster on top of Kaldalis created a rattling cacophony of its armor against his. It grabbed onto his shield, trying to pry it away. Kaldalis focused on keeping his protection in place above all other concerns, dropping his sword and grabbing the shield with his free hand to hold it over his head.

It took a moment to realize that he was still screaming in terror.

The pull was too strong. Inch by inch, his shield was pulled out of the way.

It wasn’t a Jormongumo.

Kaldalis had never been more relieved to be staring into slavering insectile mandibles.

The monster on top of him was the right size with the right number of limbs and eyes. But instead of hands, its legs ended in sharpened claws. Its forelimbs were not bearing weapons, but were giant pincers. And instead of a snakelike tail, its rear was segmented, ending in a poison-dripping stinger.

“Oh thank fuck,” Kaldalis said, almost involuntarily, “it’s not a fucking cannibal.”

“It’s still trying to eat you!” Myrin yelled from somewhere nearby. “Less relief, more fight!”

It took Kaldalis a moment to parse that she was behind the monster, gripping its tail. Her disproportionate strength meant that it couldn’t bring the poison stinger down on him again. Somewhere behind him, Balrim was still shrieking in terror.

“It’s okay!” Kaldalis called back to the healer as he scrambled to find his sword. “It’s not a Jormongumo!”

“He’s scared of scorpions!” Myrin grunted as she dragged the giant bug back about a foot with raw muscle. It was just enough that the snapping of its pincers didn’t take Kaldalis’s arm off before he could get a hand on his blade.

In a moment, Kaldalis was on his feet, sword and shield at the ready. Cutting the giant scorpion with his blade established aggro, and applied a stack of the Slow debuff, making it a little easier to keep ahead of the lightning-fast stinger as Myrin let go and took up her own weapon, ready to create some destruction.

With the element of surprise wasted, the three of them handled the giant monster quickly and efficiently. It wasn’t a boss level enemy, it was just another giant bug monster. It took a little longer to kill than some of the other foes they’d faced, but that was as much because Balrim couldn’t stand to look at it long enough to attack it as it was because of the defensive value of its chitinous exoskeleton.

The creature died with an angry chitter.

It took some doing to get Balrim around the monster’s corpse to collect his share of the medicinal herbs, but Myrin’s prodigious strength let her drag the corpse out of the burrow so that he could get to the flowers without having to approach the giant bug. It also would serve as a warning to anyone else on the quest of what to expect. Kaldalis didn’t want Courbois, Reno, and Ess to get ambushed the same way he had. Especially in case one of them had the same feelings about scorpions as Balrim.

“I’m not sure why you were so calm,” Myrin remarked to Kaldalis as the trio moved on to the next quest area. “I thought you were an arachnophobe.”

“Oh yeah,” Kaldalis admitted. “But that was a scorpion. Not a spider. I don’t like insects, but I’m not afraid of them. They’re just icky. Actual arachnids, though, scare the daylights out of me.”

“Scorpions are arachnids,” Myrin pointed out.

Kaldalis had to think about that for a moment. But when he did, he realized that he very much wanted to stop. The giant bug couldn’t paralyze him with fear retroactively. He didn’t think the new information would affect his performance in future fights, if he had to deal with more giant scorpions.

But it would certainly affect his temperament.

As a tank, he had a responsibility to stand up to whatever the game threw at him. But that didn’t mean he had a responsibility to not be crying, shrieking, and pissing himself the whole time.

“Anyway,” Kaldalis said, changing the subject, “what quest is nearest to here? More Lataxinan ruins? We should check out some more ruins, in case the Jormongumo migrated there for some reason.”

The next quest in line was gathering Lataxinan scrap metal, which was easy enough. They just had to find the ever-present building filled with big metal barrels and collect some of the less-rusted fragments of them. The ruins were crawling with kismeleons for some reason, but the tree-dwelling felines weren’t even a threat to Balrim alone, and the group stuck together anyway in case of the appearance of a larger threat.

By the time they moved on to thinning the pack of snappers and gathering paint pigments, they’d all but forgotten about the scorpion ambush.

Kaldalis, though, couldn’t push past the more ominous detail.

The Jormongumo ruins were empty. Where had they gone? They had to still be alive somewhere. Had Dalgaard sent them away, forcing them from their homes until the advance of civilization eventually caught up with them again? Or had they allowed them to join the population of the local towns, permanently disguised as humans?

Unfortunately, the only way he could get an answer would be to head east instead of west and track down Dalgaard to ask. Curiosity alone wasn’t reason enough for that, though. The more important thing was to grow powerful. Delaying his advancement for the sake of an unanswered question was not worth it.

The next quest actually presented a reasonable challenge. They were straight north of the town, where an increase in the population of irritators threatened to turn the lowbie-friendly areas around town back into dangerous wilderness.

“Is this a good thing, though?” Balrim asked as they followed the monstrous tracks in the jungle mud to find their first giant foe. “We’re pushing back the higher level monsters. Don’t we want more of those? Won’t that make us stronger to have them closer to town?”

“Yeah, in theory,” Kaldalis whispered, gesturing for them to lower their voices as they tracked the monster. “But in practice these things will shred the newbies if they come out here alone. That’s how I met Dalgaard. They were getting absolutely wrecked by two grizzled dragons. If they’d run into an irritator, I’d never have had time to come to the rescue. They’d just be dead.”

“They’re one of us, though,” Myrin pointed out, “they’d have respawned.”

“But not all adventurers are,” Kaldalis said, holding up a hand and bringing the trio to a halt. There was a clearing ahead, and through the brush he could see something big moving. “If Haldir existed, then there has to be someone like Haldir, but just starting his career grinding mobs on the frontier. I don’t want those people dying out here because we don’t want to walk a few hundred extra yards to where the higher level mobs are.”

Instead of letting the argument continue, Kaldalis charged into the clearing, lunging at the Irritator before the giant theropod knew he was there. As soon as he struck it - establishing aggro - more than just his friends emerged from the undergrowth to help. They were back in the same territory as the more common quests, and so Kaldalis put his game face on and focused.

After all, they were here to help everyone, not just themselves.

The irritators were a challenge to face. They were large and vicious, and their poison debuff was one of the stronger ones Kaldalis had faced outside of dungeon bosses. But considering how many DPS adventurers jumped out of the undergrowth once Kaldalis started the fight, it was over quickly.

And as soon as it was done, one of the others called out to him, pointing him towards where some more reckless souls had engaged with one and needed help.

“What are you telling me for?” Kaldalis asked. “Get over there and help! We’re all on the same team here, right?”

Despite his words, Kaldalis rushed to help, though he was grateful to see that he wasn’t the only one.