Turning in all the underwater quests proved Myrin right. Each quest was worth an immense chunk of experience points, owing to their difficulty.

Kaldalis found himself within sight of level 19, and with 10 minutes left on his ring’s effect. If he could kill a bunch more strong foes, he might be able to make it there before its effect ended.

“I’m gonna take a quick jog,” Kaldalis said to Balrim and Myrin after they handed over the shipwreck fragments. “I’ll be back in ten or so.”

“Aren’t you going to hang out and wait for the others?” Balrim asked. “Stuff down there was pretty hard.”

“You’ll have Courbois to tank,” Kaldalis said. “And you two have the information for them, right?”

“And what are you off to do?” Myrin asked, a teasing tone in her voice. “Gonna go catch up with someone?”

“I’m gonna go back out to the north,” Kaldalis said with a sigh. “If there are still people out there fighting the irritators, I want to be sure that they’re not struggling too much. Seeing high-level monsters underground - so close to town - got me nervous, so I want to make sure we’re pushing them back successfully.”

“Sounds smart,” Balrim admitted, tapping his scaled chin with a clawed finger. “Responsible even. So where’s the real Kaldalis? What have you done with him?”

“I told you,” Kaldalis said with a laugh, “he grew up.”

Before they could try to pry his ulterior motive out of him, Kaldalis activated Nyxlas’s Augment to enhance his Jump ability and launched himself out to the north, aiming himself well over the wall and into the jungle. He crashed into the jungle canopy, but found footing on a branch before going all the way through to the floor. A bit of recalibration and he pushed himself northward in a second huge jump.

Steering in the air wasn’t exactly doable, and he landed in the middle of a particularly dense-branched tree, but another - much shorter - jump got him from where he wanted to be. He didn’t see any activity in the area from above, so he aimed for the nearest clearing, which he recognized as where they’d fought that first irritator earlier in the day.

“If I was a giant feathered killing machine, where would I be?” Kaldalis asked himself, feeling more than a little pressure as the timer on his ring’s effect was ticking down.

There wasn’t anyone nearby, nor did he hear the sounds of combat in earshot. That didn’t mean much. He remembered when he first came out here and attacked the first Irritator, other adventurers had come out of the woodwork in numbers to help. It was possible that as soon as he started a fight, a clown car worth of damage dealers would pop out of the undergrowth.

All he had to do was find a target.

With no irritator present, Kaldalis leaned on his developing tracking skills. It only took a quick moment of scanning the clearing to find signs of something large pushing through the jungle, heading farther north. As the duration left on his ring’s effect ticked away, he started following the trail at a jog, going as fast as he could without losing the trail.

Luckily, the giant predator’s footprints were hard to miss.

Kaldalis didn’t find the irritator in a clearing. He was in the depths of the jungle when he caught a glimpse of its plumage through the trees ahead. It was bent down over a stream, taking a drink of fresh water. Briefly, Kaldalis entertained the idea of ambushing it. Then he remembered that he was jogging in heavy armor. The giant feathered monster raised its head to seek out the source of the noise before Kaldalis could even start to slow down.

Instead, he sped up, breaking into a full sprint as he drew his sword and shield. He only had a few minutes left on the clock. If he was going to get enough kills to make it to level 19, he didn’t have time to play games. He charged right for the monster with shield raised and sword ready.

The monster gave a roar of challenge, and Kaldalis hoped it was loud enough to attract any nearby adventurers. It was enough of an opening that he was able to dart up right up to the irritator’s side and slash across its leg with his blade, dishing out three hundred and sixty-eight damage. He was lucky enough to inflict a stack of slow, and he knew from experience that the early advantage was going to help keep the fight swinging in his favor. The attack also activated the Sword and Shield passive ability Combo, which would make his next hit against the same monster slightly harder.

It wasn’t much, but it would add up, though he hoped that help was on the way, so that he wouldn’t have to do it all himself.

The monster whirled and lunged at him with its enormous jaws. The single stack of slow gave Kaldalis just enough time to slip to the right of the giant teeth as they smashed closed barely an inch from his ear. Purple fluid he knew to be poison dripped from its lips as it tried to bite him again, forcing him to back off if he didn’t want a limb-sized chunk taken out of him.

Kaldalis’s blade slashed up at the monster’s lips at the second bite. It was a clumsy strike, but it was aimed at a very sensitive area, and his blade cut deep into the gums there before it could open its jaws for another attack. He did three hundred and seventy-five damage this time, as his combo stacks grew, but he didn’t get another Slow stack to proc, which he cursed as the monster roared in pain, rearing back too fast for him to land a follow-up attack.

With the clock ticking on both his ring and his Combo stacks, he couldn’t play defensively. He lunged forward, diving for the nearest of the monster’s ankles and slashing it across the shin for just over three hundred and eighty damage, drawing a new roar from the monster. This time a little less pain, and more rage.

It was all the warning Kaldalis got before the monster raised its leg and tried to stomp him flat. The one stack of slow he’d gotten was the only thing that saved him, giving him time to raise his shield straight up and activate his Block ability. The supernaturally stalwart nature of the ability caused the stomp to glance off of him, its toes slamming down around him instead of atop him. As soon as the attack was blocked - the damage deducted from his shield’s separate hit point bar - he jabbed the monster in the arch of its foot with his blade. He dished out three hundred and ninety damage this time, along with his second stack of slow.

He couldn’t keep blocking like that if the monster just tried to tap dance on his head - his shield wouldn’t hold up to many more strikes - so he had to dart out from under the monster, hoping that it would pursue so that he could maintain his combo debuff to avoid losing the damage bonus.

Luckily, the monster lunged towards him. Unluckily, the brief moment ducking away from melee let Kaldalis get a look around. Despite the monster’s roars, he was still alone. Not only was no one beating on the monster with him, but no one was running to his aid. The dense jungle near the stream meant that he couldn’t see very far, but as he thought about it, it occurred to him that it would also dull the sounds of combat.

Maybe nobody was coming.

He lashed out at the oncoming fangs again with practiced ease. Fighting several of the monsters earlier with his friends meant that he knew the exact motions to keep ahead of their attacks. It had made the fights into something of a boring routine. But now that the clock was ticking, things felt a lot more tense.

He slashed at the monster’s nose as soon as it was in reach, but he stopped paying close attention to the damage output. It seemed unlikely that his damage output alone could fell the beast before his exp gain buff was over. As much stronger as he was now than the last time he soloed an irritator, these particular foes had been targeted because they were higher level as well. Myrin was starting to reach quadruple digits with her damage output, and without that kind of power at his side, the clock was his most dangerous foe.

So he was stuck with a choice. He could fight it tooth and nail to race the clock, pushing himself to the limit to get it done, or he could start running through the jungle with the monster chasing him, praying that he would happen upon some help fast enough for them to take it down.

Considering he’d just applied his third stack of the Slow debuff to the monster, it seemed like he’d already hosed himself out of his second option. He could lead the monster on a chase, but it was going to be going a lot slower than normal.

“Alright,” Kaldalis grumbled, reaching for his inventory. “Solo tank DPS check. Let’s go.”

He produced one of the Ire Potions he’d received from stream donators and chugged it down as fast as he could.

When he lunged at the monster again, his attack was dramatically increased.

Hopefully it would be enough to win the race.