Everywhere I turned, ugly Garg-Ants and their pinchers met me. I couldn’t see Paritor or Melonomi or the cavern anymore. Again and again, my health dropped to a sliver, an inch away from death, only to zoom back up. The red indicating danger permanently tinged my sight. Add that to the heaps of Bastions locking me in place; all I could see was red.

I’m too handsome to die like this!

Suddenly, a brick—a Garg-Ant’s head—fell off the wall of monsters surrounding me. Another followed, and then another. I shoved at the Bastions, putting my shoulder into my shields to widen the gaps.

Through them, I saw spirit hounds of roiling blue flames attacking the Bastions, wide-open jaws lined with blazing fangs biting down on hard armor. Their red auras drew several Garg-Ants away, saving me from my impending end.

But it wasn’t the time to celebrate.

The hounds struggled to stay afloat in the sea of Bastions—too many enemies from all sides. They couldn’t set up a defensive formation. Even the giant toad was munched on by the Garg-Ants. Paritor did his best to save his pets, with Melonomi chipping in with her potions, but it wasn’t working.

One by one, the poor blue doggies died, followed by the goblins coming up behind them.

Paritor hastily resummoned his pets but couldn’t keep up the attrition. The fire spirits were too weak when they’d pop into existence, lacking buffs and protective spells, quickly dying to the Garg-Ants. Paritor couldn’t juice them up because he was tied trying—and badly failing—to increase their numbers. Melonomi’s potions fell on wisps of smoke, remnants of the vanquished spirits.

Seeing this, I found myself agreeing with Luds—Paritor’s build took too long to ramp up DPS, compared to an archer, for example, who’d spray and pray arrows. Many spells were required to bring his strategy up to speed, several pieces to set up before a strong army could materialize that’d steamroll the enemy.

But Paritor got the Buttresses off my back. That was enough.

I could hear the horns of battle. The heavens rumbled my name—Herald Stone, the Tide Turner! It was time for a comeback. I cast my buffs before the blue Garg-Ants set their large compound eyes on me again. It was on me to salvage the situation.

“Target the Buttresses and Brios!” I bellowed. “The Bastions are mine!” Casting [Enraging Call], I charged into the fray, taunting the Bastions away from the dying hounds.

The Asipu summons disengaged and pushed through the Bastions to reach the Brios and Buttressses in the backlines. Paritor rounded the cavern, sticking to the walls, away from the melee in the middle, to meet up with his pets and support them. I sighed with relief as the green and blue Garg-Ants targeted the hounds with their bullshit dispels and debuffs.

“Now, it’s just me and—one, two, three—a whole lot of you,” I told two dozen Bastions. The urge to laugh maniacally rose, but I didn’t want my prospective Great Hunt invitees to think I was crazy.

I seeded [Tongues of Flames] under clouds of [Morabodry and [Gnawing Rot], showing Bastions the strength of the pesticide brand ‘Damage-over-Time.’ Melonomi was on point with her healing and defensive support. And given that [Greater Pyro Shell] and [Healing Touch] weren’t in lockdown, I was as safe as could be, [Mantle of Kindling] replenishing my AS without fail. I also placed [Withering Brand] on the Bastion attacking me with the highest health, and used [Cloak of the Plaguespreader] to share my minor food debuffs. It’s something.

Lvl. 6 Withering Brand: A long-forgotten incantation that targets an enemy with a curse, reducing its Movement Speed, Attack Power, and Magic Power by 30%.

Cost: 75 Energy

Duration: 15 Seconds

Cooldown: 7 Seconds

Lvl. 1 Cloak of the Plaguespreader: Chosen as a servant of a sealed carrion lord, you increase your resistance to diseases while spreading them to those who dare touch you. Negative status resistance (+4%) and a 10% chance to inflict any negative status you have on an attacker.

Cost: 45 Energy

Duration: 40 Seconds

Cooldown: 10 Seconds

Paritor decimated the Brios and Buttresses while regrowing his small army. The Bastions lost their supporting sisters. Soon, Essence and Gli swirled in the air. Saddled with DoTs and shredded by retribution, the Bastions dropped like flies. Like ants, I guess… but ants don’t fly. Other Garg-Ants replaced their dead in attacking me, but it was clear that the tide of the battle had turned—as expected of Herald Stone, the Tide Turner!

With room to breathe, I diverted half my attention to studying Paritor—he was doing something peculiar.

As party mates, I could see not only his health bar but also his Energy and Ancestral Shroud. Nothing notable with his Energy pool; only a few of his spells needed it. The two other resource bars got me curious.

Since Paritor’s build centered on the Asipu Form Ocadule from Mehubanarath, he mainly used AS, just like me. Most of his other Ocadules and Shards cost AS as well. Not surprisingly, his AS bar would rapidly diminish as he brought his army back to full power. His AS regeneration was impressive, but couldn’t keep up—summoning the giant toad alone cost a third of his AS, while each hound cost a fifth.

Whenever Paritor’s AS ran out, he’d use a skill that chunked off a quarter of his health. He wasn’t near any Garg-Ants, so I was sure he damaged himself. His AS bar would then get replenished, no doubt using converted health.

That’s a nice trick, I thought.

Paritor’s playstyle meant he was safe, away from the front lines—his health was untouched. It was a stagnant resource he decided to use, like investing money rather than letting it sleep in the bank, eroded through time by inflation. This was what I intended with my health protected by [Greater Pyro Shell].

“I’ll ask him about it,” I muttered, tearing my eyes away from Paritor and concentrating on my own fight. I caught a pair of mandibles going for my left flank, sliding it to my front with an angled shield.

A couple more shell explosions later, Paritor returned to me, having finished dealing with the blue and green Garg-Ants. By then, only eight Bastions remained, half heavily bruised, shortly succumbing to poison before the fire goblins could attack them.

“Did you kill the other Bastions?” Paritor asked. His four eyes searched the surviving Bastions, more calculating than surprised. “I suppose that’s a dumb question, as you evidently did. DoTs and retribution?”

I nodded. “Goes well with a tank. Outlasting the enemy.” That’s what she—wait, who’s the enemy in that context?

“They were ten levels above you, and there were many of them. Impressive, this build of yours.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you taking out the healer Garg-Ants.” It sounded like I was being humble and inclusive, but it was actually bragging. “And Melonomi too. Your healing is awesome. Thanks, you two. We make a good team.” Hint, hint.

“My healing is awesome?” Melonomi chuckled. “Haven’t heard anyone say that before. It just looks like I had powerful healing because you’re half my level. If you were the same level as me, you’d do a lot of complaining.”

“I don’t think so. I would’ve died when I got surrounded if not for you.” And if I did die, I couldn’t whip out the blame-the-healer schtick as I didn’t want to alienate her. A relief that everything worked out in the end.

“Actually, I’m kinda surprised at how much I healed you. Do you have a high Healing Received?”

“Yep. One of the stats I’m working on.” I had [Cleansing Flames] stacks to thank for that.

“So that’s why… You made me feel like an actual healer.”

“You are an actual healer,” I said, mustering my motivational side. “And you did your job well.” I turned to Paritor. “Your Asipu summons are very strong.” I considered giving him a thumbs-up à la Kezo, but that might come off as patronizing.

“That they are.” Probably thinking he looked too prideful, he awkwardly added, “Your… tanking is likewise impressive, especially given your level. And you managed to fix my mistake.”

“It’s not a—”

“It is a mistake on my part,” he interjected, “to have my summons charge ahead of the tank. If this quest had a higher difficulty, I would’ve messed up everything, wasting everyone’s time. I thought my summons could handle the number of enemies—I didn’t know plenty more would come out of the holes. Making matters worse, I wasn’t aware of the Garg-Ants’ skills.”

“No harm done,” I said. “Let’s clean up the Garg-Ant eggs. They hold Blighted Tokens.”

Our clearing operations of the other egg chambers proceeded smoothly.

Paritor didn’t overextend his summons. I’d pull a few packs simultaneously, dragging them back to the hounds and toad waiting on top of the healing potion-soaked ground. Paritor turned off the hounds’ taunt skill, and I handled all the Bastions. The Asipu toad’s auras and buffs affected me, making me even tankier. More than before, I wanted Paritor and Melonomi to join us for the Great Hunt.

“I hope you won’t take offense to this question,” Paritor asked while we observed the new players with us testing their skills on the unmoving Garg-Ant eggs.

“What is it?” I tilted my head.

“I don’t know how to put this tactfully, and I apologize in advance for any misunderstanding. But were you whipping yourself? During the fight in the first room, I saw you change your shield for a whip and hit yourself. I thought I imagined it in the heat of battle, but you repeated it in succeeding fights.”

“Oh, I was wondering about that too.” Melonomi trotted over, apparently eavesdropping on our conversation. “I thought it’d be weird if I brought it up.” She squinted at me. “You weren’t doing it for a weird reason, were you? If the answer is yes, then nod, and we’ll move on.”

“I was thinking nothing of the sort,” Paritor hastily clarified. “My speculation was that it’s related to an obscure mechanic. But I was trying to phrase it in such a way that you wouldn’t take it as—” he nodded at Melonomi “—what she meant.”

Melonomi snorted. “Yeah, right, that was what you thought.”

“Paritor’s right,” I said. Their brows furrowed in disbelief. Paritor was obviously making excuses for his question but stumbled on the correct answer. I opened my Akashic Configuration and shared the details of my Mardukryon Cidule with them. “Do you still remember Ancestral Consitution?”

“Nope,” Melonomi said. “I took Corporeal Conflagration thinking to make a DPS character. Then a pushy friend forced me to be the healer for our party. At first, I was miffed. But after trying potion brewing, I’m happy, I guess. Sadly, the first skill of my Cidule is useless to me.”

“I also chose Corporeal Conflagration, with a summoner build as my goal,” said Paritor. “Their attacks are considered my own and stacked physical damage counters that increased fire damage.”

“Well, I’m a tank, so Ancestral Constitution for me,” I said. Then I explained what I was doing with it, fiddling with PVP settings. “It’s like with your summons, Paritor. They’re squishy if they spawn into battle unbuffed. Rather than wait for the enemy to attack me and pile the stacks, I do it beforehand.”

“Taking Ancestral Constitution crossed my mind,” Paritor said. “It goes without saying that a dead summoner can’t summon. But I was turned away by the prospect of putting myself in danger to stack it. Your method didn’t occur to me. If I had met you then, I would’ve chosen Ancestral Constitution.”

“Well… you met me now. And I’ll tank for your summons.” How sweet. I was sending out feelers to invite him. “The eggs are all destroyed. Let’s finish this quest and move on to the next one.”