timewalk

  Knowing how to equip yourself effectively is a skill that bees less and less optional as the monsters grow more challenging. The first pce this is typically noticed is with your tank, where a poor choice of gear cause instah, followed shortly after by the entire group being decimated by a rampaging monster. Assuming a petent healer, the most crucial aspect of tanking is mitigating uedly rge spikes of damage, and the most important tool for this is arguably the lowly shield. Be it a simple pnk of wood attached to a forearm, a signifitly fancier work of steel and magic, or a specialized skill, blog is crucial to effective tanking.

  Blog an attack may not seem that effective at first gnce; without a signifit iment in support skills, the amount of damage prevented by blog be retively small. However a blocked attack ot do critical damage, and critical hits are often the most dangerous source of uable damage.

  - Excerpt from The Adventurer’s Guide, Third Edition

  Sabri

  Sabri sat off to the side on the damp moss by herself, cheg her gear and gng nervously into the rge chamber and at the Kobold boss who waited within, while the important people discussed strategy. It was dank, dark, and the air smelled stale. Enclosed spaces and her were not best friends. She had seen the unnaturally rge Kobold and its minions once before – when she had e down to use the css shrine – but this would be her first time fag it – fag any raid boss in fact – in bat. An ice-cold drop of water nded on the back of her head with a soft spt. Somewhere in the background, Theon’s loud voice cut over Brena’s as the leaders hashed out some tentious point of strategy.

  She had spent hours p over the notes Aiden had writteailing the strategy the previous team had used to defeat this boss, and that knowledge had made her rather more nervous than less. She had even tracked him down and asked him a few questions directly, and every sign poio a sharp increase in difficulty and risk pared to the other monsters in the sewers – mohat had bee progressively easier as the group she had been assigo had earned experiend leveled up.

  At the very minimum, Aiden’s notes had strongly reewo groups, or at least ten people, even though his group had mao successfully pull it off with one non-bat member.

  Sabri’s gaze drifted to the adventurers gathered for the fight – the people she would be risking her life with. Of the roup, she knew nobody. She had seen them in csses and the Adventurers Guild lounge, of course, but all of them were well-ected and had their own friends. They had little time for the pirl from the wrong side of the border. Even within her group, she really only talked with Brena. Cai spent most of the time he wasn’t fighting sitting cross-legged iation with his quarterstaff resting across his legs, a small ruby fme h in front of his heart – just like he was doing right now.

  Malise stood in the shadows up against the ying with her ice-daggers, her catkin eyes glowing softly in the dark. She always liked shadows. Sabri was holy scared of her – she might be a fiend in bat, but Sabri always felt like she ehe violence just a little too much.

  The argument among the leaders ceased and moments ter Theon appeared, striding fidently back to their group with Brena scrambling to keep up with him. His expee armor creaked and ged as he walked, plemented by the devastating two-handed hammer he kept strapped to his muscur back.

  “Ok, here’s the pn,” Brena said, the savvy gnome a little out of breath fr to keep up with Theon’s long, unpromising stride. While Malika had been friendly and had helped her out a lot, this diminutive gh her blue hair, potent lightning magid formidable intellect was the only real friend she had here in Myrin’s Keep. Not that I had any friends ba Kezda either, she thought. She admired Basir and Ha, but she never really talked with them much.

  “Their team’s tank is a hybrid and has some magical resistance, so they want us to tank the rogue and the warrior while they tank the mage. The kill order is the same as in Aiden’s notes: healer, mage, rogue, and then finally the warrior,” Brena expined.

  “I’ll tank the rogue,” Theon said. “I want to see if I kill it by myself.”

  “Don’t fet you’re also our healer,” Brena said.

  “No problem, Kobolds are weak, they don’t hit very hard,” Theon said, his voice filled with fidence.

  “It’s a raid boss. I have a spare shield you use…” Sabri said, the words spilling out before she had a ce to think about what she was saying. She had spent so much time studying the notes and one sistent fact had beeerated; that the rogue and the warrior hit very hard.

  I don’t know if he’s even read it.

  “Don’t be daft,” Theoed, his face twisting in distaste. “I won’t be able to do any damage with a stupid shield. Look, I know some people put dumb ideas into your head about defensive skills and gear, but until you do real damage, you won’t amount to mu this group. You should get one of these.” He pulled his enormous hammer from his bad grou in front of himself with a booming crash.

  Sabri shut her mouth, mortified, and looked down at her feet. Malika said shields and good armor were important. It was a defiant thought, but she knew better than to speak it. She was beginning to wonder if she had been steered wrong. Ohing was certain; Theon ectacurly good with his hammer, and his padin css provided their group with a mueeded heal that they used after bat to minimize the wait time between fights. He had easily proved himself to be the most effective member of their little group.

  I shouldn’t have tried to tell him what to do, she thought, his rebuke still smarting. She had been so happy with her css at first, but she struggled to kill anything on her own. Without the support of people like Theon and Brena, with their much more powerful csses, she would have fallen way behind.

  Instead, she focused her attention on Brena, who was going over where the Kobolds would be tanked, and what the other two members of their group should be doing. Cai simply nodded, and Malise’s agreement sounded more like a purr than on.

  Sabri got up to get in position and Brena stepped up o her. “Don’t worry about Theon,” she said. “He knows what he’s doing. Just focus on tanking the warrior in the right spot and it will all be ok.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak anymore, and moved up to the front of the assembled adventurers, taking her pce beside Theon and the other team’s druid who had shifted into the form of a rge, muscur panther.

  “Let’s go,” Theon said. In spite of her feelings, she couldn’t help admiring his easy fidence – it was like his broad shoulders were fed for the mantle of leadership, to be standing out on the frontlines of battle.

  She followed along, feeling small behind him as he strode fidently into the chamber, his heavy hammer banced casually over one shoulder.

  The room erupted into a sudden chaos of noise and light as the Kobolds attacked and the rest of the adventurers focused their magid arrows on the Kobold healer. She ig all, smming her shield, lit with her soul magito the green-scaled, reptilian face of the Kobold warrior that was charging past her. Immediately it turned and sshed with a dark, serrated bone shortsword that crashed into her armor, denting it, and knog her stumbling backward.

  Ouch! Aiden’s report had said it hit hard, but nothing had prepared her for this. Her ribs were certainly bruised, and blood trickled down her side. Without Kavé’s well-crafted pte armor, she might have lost something important. She blocked the strike with her shield, preferring to retaliate with her sword as she backed away from the boss, slowly drawing it out of the ter of the chamber and up against a wall.

  She had known she would be tanking the raid boss himself. She had uood her task well enough. A was only now, uhe onsught of his sword and shield, that the full reality of his size and sheer pan to impress itself upon her.

  She ducked a shield sm aimed at her face, but in the moment it blocked her vision, an unseen sword thrust sliced deep into her thigh. ing; perfectly timed. She grit her teeth, thankful for the points she had spent on endurance, aurhe strike, drawing a small trickle of dark blood through the Kobold’s tough gleaming green scales. The Kobold warrior shouted, its booming voice crashing into her, weakening her body as a skill took hold, but there was nothing she could do about it, she simply attacked again, trying to avoid his heavy armor, and keeping her shield ready to block at a moment’s notice.

  A booming crash resounded, and she was showered with moss and rock fragments as Theon’s vast overhead hammer smash khe nearby Kobue sprawling, shattering the crumbling brick at his feet. She wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it, but she felt a pang of jealousy at the demonstration of his immense power.

  Sudden panicked shouts from the opposite side of the room caught her attention and she snapped her head up to the sight of an intense ball of fire growing rapidly rger as it filled her vision. She reacted instinctively, dropping into a crouch, shield raised, taking a brutal sword strike to the shoulder, and the world exploded in a deafening roar of heat and fme. Her body smmed into the wall behind her, knog the breath forcibly from her lungs while her skin seared and blistered iense fmes. She coughed and choked as the acrid stench of burning flesh, leather, and hair and a scorg bst of air forced its way into her lungs, burning as she struggled to breathe. The pain lingered even as the fme died, and her ringing ears dimly registered distant shouts and screams. Desperately, she brought her shield up to bloother sword strike from the Kobold boss who had not relented in the slightest.

  Out of the er of her eyes, she saw a scorched and burnt Theon slowly rolling to his knees, aomach ed at the overwhelming stench of burnt flesh. A shadow shifted behind him, and the dark shape of the bck-scaled Kobold stepped out from it, wickedly curved daggers raised.

  “Theon! Behind you!” she yelled.

  But she was too te.

  The dagger glinted a malevolent red in the dim light of the dying fire, burying itself up to the hilt in his neck. A spray of crimson arced into the air as the dagger was withdrawn, held aloft in the grasp of bck-staialoned fingers. With a sudden blur of speed almost too fast to follow, the hungry daggers flickered and stabbed, feeding more and more blood to the first spray. The way Theon’s limp, lifeless body colpsed, his hammer nding beside him with a crash, Sabri knew with absolute cold certainty he was dead.

  A sudden shrill scream rang out over the gor of battle.

  She stared at Theon, once so vital and brimming with fidenow dreng the mossy ground with a slowly growing pool of his own blood. Sabri was ner to death, of course, however, never had it been so personal and shogly sudden. The Kobue retrieved his daggers, casually ripping them free from Theon’s neck, blood dripping from the bdes as he searched the room for his prey. In silent horror, Sabri followed his gaze, meeting the stark certainty of mortal terror in the wide eyes of the Dwarven priest from the other team.

  Her heart thumped audibly in her chest, breaking the moment, and the Kobue sprang into a, sprinting right past Sabri and the boss she was tanking, his eyes carrying murderous i for the Dwarf.

  He will die if I don’t help. Sabri k with utmost certainty. And I will die if I do. This too was certain. She was already hurt and struggling against the Kobold warrior; to deliberately attract the attention of the rogue too – that would be suicide. Theon’s fresh blood spttered warm a against her cheek as the rogue flicked his dagger, and Sabri found her voice.

  She shouted.

  Her voice reverberated through the chamber, empowered with the full force of her Soul Shout skill. All arouhe air shimmered and vibrated with the magic of her attack. Bricks splintered and cracked uhe onsught. For an instant, her life and that of the dwarven priest hung in the bance upon the narrow knife-edge of choice, and the only thought in Sabri’s mind was that she regretted not asking his name.

  The Kobue stopped as if he had run into a granite wall. He turned, lips curled back from wicked fangs, rage sm in his reptilian eyes. And then those hungry daggers leapt for her throat with speed she could barely credit.

  She blocked, but the rogue’s daggers were so fast that many of his attacks simply bypassed her guard, stabbing into vulnerable gaps her armor did not cover. She retaliated with her sword, but the warrior took advantage of the opening and sshed her shoulder open. Her health spiraled down as she bled from the sudden flurry of cuts and sshes as the rogue and the warrior teamed up to fnk her.

  Help! She was suddenly hurt and alo the mercy of these two impossible monsters. The warrior and the rogue were more than she could fight by herself, simply too fast and powerful for her to blod survive.

  What was I thinking? She desperately tried to block faster, attack quicker, suddenly far too busy and frantic fret. But her health tio spiral out of trol, plummeting rapidly past halfway, and then down to a quarter remaining.

  She could sense her immi death furiously rushing toward her when an unusual warm sensation filled her bruised and torn body. It pulsed with a soft pure white radiand her health jumped, just a little. Her injured arm moved just a little quicker and she blocked awo dagger strikes before the third pierced through her armor, slippiween her ribs and puncturing her lung. Panic rose within her as she struggled to draw breath, getting nothing more than a gurgling sug noise as her airway filled with blood. Her health dipped again. The warmth pulsed ile terpoint, and her health rose, the flesh slowly knitting around her wound, allowing her a small desperate gasp of air. The warrior pressed his attack with a powerful smash of his shield and strike of the sword, tearing a long gash in her arm. The warmth pulsed again, causing her health to eke upwards once more.

  What is that? By all ats, the st several attacks should have finished her off, a, against all odds, she was still standing. Still bleeding. Still struggling. She barely had enough attention to face both Kobolds and their vicious bdes; there was no ce she could spare the focus to figure out what was happening to her.

  Suddenly, her vision fred with pure white, and she was filled with a surge of energy so powerful she almost dropped her sword. Her wounds instantly closed. The bleeding stopped, and her health skyrocketed. And a sudden crity nition desded upon her like a hammer blow.

  The Dwarf healed me… in bat?

  She had seldom experienced healing in the middle of a fight, and never without her needing to beg for it. In additioenacious aptitude had triggered in respoo being healed while below half health. She raised her head and saw the Dwarf downing a mana potion, sweat beading his brow. His was so set his beard jutted out nearly at right-ao his chest. His hands were glowing with holy light and his previously terrified eyes held nothing but pure focus and tration as they looked ily her way.

  Sudden hope bloomed withiheon had alreferred killing the monsters with his hammer, reserving his heal spell for after bat. This dwarf had just saved her life, healing her while she faced the overwhelming threat of two raid-level monsters simultaneously. And he looked like he wasn’t about to let up.

  I ’t let these Kobolds get to him, she thought. She drew in a deep breath and shouted again, her magic rippling through the air and the two Kobolds in front of her, kig up a bst of brick fragments and dust. That’s right, I’m here! Attack me! she thought, shing out with her sword.

  It seemed like she had been blog and striking forever. Her focus remained locked owo oppos, challenging them, again and again, to destroy her while she pestered them with small cuts, slices, and shield sms whehe opportunity preseself. As she battled, an unspoken bond formed with the unnamed dwarven priest, as if they got to know each other through a aion. He respoo her damage and injuries, learning how much she could take before she needed his healing magic. She khe exastant when he realized she had the Tenacious aptitude. And when he realized precisely at ertage it triggered. After that, he always let her dip below half before nding an enormous heal that filled her almost pletely. For her part, she learo trust him, even when her health dipped. He had her covered, and all she had to do was block so that the rogue couldn’t nd critical strike damage, and make sure that the two Kobolds ook their eyes, cws, and ons off her.

  By the time Malise appeared with her gleaming ice daggers aatic grin, and Cai began ying into the rogue with his fme-wreathed quarterstaff, Sabri had finally identified the feeling growing deep inside her. Beh the yer of heart-pounding ay, and the pain of the stant stabs and sshes, Sabri knew with certainty that she mattered. Even if it was only to one Dwarf.

  The Kobold warrior finally colpsed on the ground, as the full force of their raid turned on it, and the sound of several chimes echoed within her mind – trasting starkly against the deafening silence of the chamber.

  Yroup has defeated Acolyte – Kobold – level 10.Yroup has defeated Fire Mage – Kobold – level 10.Yroup has defeated Dagger Rogue – Kobold – level 10.Yroup has defeated Warrior – Kobold – level 10.

  Soul Defender has reached level 12 (+3)+30 attribute points.

  Sabri’s momentary excitement at the notifications faded as her eyes were drawn away from the scaled corpses of the Kobolds to the lifeless form of Theon lying sprawled on the mossy brick of the sewer.

  Brena was bent over him, cheg in vain fns of life.

  “I saw it happen,” one of the archers spoke from nearby. “He took a fireball, and the rogue took advantage of it to stealth and Ambush him from behind. If he had been up against the wall, and using a shield to block, he wouldn’t have taken the critical damage. Stabbed him right ihroat.”

  The chilling truth cut through her like a knife. Why didn’t I insist that he use the shield? Why did I just let him tell me it’s stupid? Sabri’s heart writhed in turmoil. She hadn’t liked Theon and knew he would only have ridiculed her further, but she always backed off when he overrode her opinion. She always felt weak, but she had hought her opinion mattered. Certainly not pared to his power and fidence. And now he was dead, and she had had the answer before it happened. She had simply been uo insist. I should have told Brena, she would have made him use it.

  She looked up at the sense of someone approag, surprised by the tears running down her face. In front of her stood the Dwarf in his dusty brown acolyte robes.

  “Maybe a bad time?” he asked gently.

  Sabri shook her head, trying to wipe the tears away, embarrassed that he would see her in such a state.

  “I’m Belmar,” he said. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “You… you’re wele,” Sabri managed. “I couldn’t have do without you.” Why is he thanking me? He is the one who healed me the whole time. But her heart couldn’t deny the genuine gratitude and hoy in his fad voior the kinship of two people who had just faced certaih together a had somehow, inexplicably, survived.

  His grin was so big, it threateo split his impressive beard in half. He said, “You are a phenomenal tank. Anytime you need a healer, just let me know.”

  She stared after him as he walked away, her gaze eventually l to Theon’s corpse once again, uo think, or even process her own feelings.

  ----------

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  timewalk