Getting Hard (Journey of a Tank)

I maintained a distance of about five meters to the side of the Cragodons. But it was still dangerous business. As the Cragodons plowed the forest, trunks came down like guillotine blades, and broken branches and leaves became a blizzard. I tried to avoid the thicker trees—they could probably hurt me. But even the smaller ones could trip me, so I had to be careful with my steps. The shaking ground didn’t help. If I stumbled at this speed, I’d roll along like a cartoon character. Wouldn’t be surprised if I became a huge snowball.

Speeding up with [Horde Stampede], I got ahead of the Cragodons and saturated their path with poison. But the Cragodons moved too fast, zooming through the poison clouds in a couple of seconds despite their hulking bodies. The poison didn’t have time to latch on. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the Cragodons had resistance to negative status.

Using retribution was out of the question. Even if I could survive a few hits—and I really doubted if I could take even one—I’d die way before the Cragodons did. There was only one way to whittle them down.

“Too bad I don’t have targeted poison skills,” I said, swerving in front of them.

I left behind [Tongues of Flames] in my trail. The fiery tentacles whipped at the passing Cragodons, tickling them with laughable damage—that was if they even hit. But there were many tentacles and each successful strike had a chance to Burn, Freeze, and Poison. Tiny flames and purple bubbles danced on the Cragodons' rough hides. Because poison dealt percentage damage-over-time, I could damage these bulky bastards.

Then came a new problem. The Cragodons were quite fast and could easily catch up with me. Actually, they really wanted to catch me because I drew their aggro by attacking them.

I plopped Totems behind me to slow down the Cragodons. Braking with their massive bodies took a few seconds. Then they had to return to the Totem that taunted them, destroy it, and accelerate again to chase me. They also crashed and crowded each other trying to stomp on one tiny Totem.

Since they were chasing me, they no longer pointed the way to my party. But that was no longer an issue. Hunting Tokens and other loot began trickling—I was getting close to my party mates. The sounds of battle reverberated through the forest. Several more seconds later, I sighted explosions and other bright lights through the gaps in the trees.

I broke through a line of trees and entered a clearing where my party mates fought hills of muscles and horns.

“Herald Stone is back, everyone!” I shouted. “Kill these guys following me, please, and thank you! I already damaged them.”

I didn’t quite catch Megan’s excited reply because of the loud crash as trees got toppled and crunched by burning and poisoned Cragodons with half health. Nitana’s fairies flew over my head. Explosions behind me followed. I didn’t look back—that was against the rules. Also, I had to keep running because the Cragodons weren’t dead yet. With enough time, I could’ve killed them on my own through DoTs, but it wasn’t worth missing out on the rest of the battle.

Megan and Nitana continued attacking the Cragodons while I traced the perimeter of the clearing. I led the Cragodons through trees to slow them down, letting them close enough for me to taunt before I pulled away. If I didn’t keep the Cragodons on me, they would go for Megan and Nitana.

Mournful bellows. The racket behind me disappeared. A cloud of sparkles told me that the Cragodons who wanted a piece of my armor-covered ass were dead and I could stop being bait.

I surveyed the rest of the battlefield.

Kezo and Paritor were in the middle, tangoing with the Alpha Cragodon and five of its smaller normal kin. Kezo had the Alpha’s aggro, tanking it and relying on his massive lifesteal to sustain himself.

Was this the same Alpha that I saw earlier? It had about a fifth of its health left. Couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be strong enough to survive Kezo this long.

Is Kezo intentionally not finishing off the Alpha Cragodon?

I realized that he merely kept its aggro with taunt and occasional hits, giving it time to regenerate so it wouldn’t die. Kezo and Paritor instead focused on killing the other Cragodons. As one or two fell, its replacements emerged from the forest to answer the call of their big daddy. While Kezo held the Alpha, Paritor used his flaming hounds to taunt the regular ones. Paritor’s minions weren’t sufficiently tanky for the task—they easily died to powerful AoEs and bleeds—so he had to continually resummon. It was a precarious situation.

Thankfully, Melonomi was there to help. She stalked the outer part of the clearing, poking in and out of the battle to throw potions at Paritor and his pets, mostly the latter. She healed and buffed the summons to make them last longer while dancing through the legs of rampaging Cragodons. She was quite good at keeping herself out of trouble while supporting the party.

Nitana returned to the others while Megan waited for me. Megan waved at me to hurry up and follow them.

“Why aren’t they killing the Alpha?” I asked her. “Does it spawn more of the Cragodons?”

“Yep, you got it. Kezo’s idea. When the not-Alpha Craggies stop showing up, we kill this really big one. We’ve got lots of Hunting Tokens and other loot already. This Great Hunt is really fun!”

“Wish I can say the same myself.”

“What are you talking—Oh! The loot wasn’t shared with you because you were far away. I’m really sorry. I should’ve stopped Kezo from dragging the Cragodons.”

“It’s fine, Megan. I knew he did it to avoid another party KSing you.”

“Herald!” Kezo waved his swords at me before bringing them down to deal the final blow to a Cragodon. “Did you get the Ichor?”

“I did,” I answered, charging into the fray.

A Cragodon gored a pair of flaming hounds, sending them back to whatever dimension they came from. The Cragodon was about to charge Paritor but I stopped it with a Totem, giving him time to get more minions out.

“Many thanks for the assistance, Herald,” Paritor said, giving me a thumbs-up. Kezo must be rubbing off on him. Paritor continued, “It was a hectic task holding them all.”

“I’ll share the load,” I said. This was supposed to be my duty as a tank, after all, I added in my head.

“Hey, Herald. Did you kill the Frost Imp’s boss?” Megan asked.

“That’s something,” said Nitana. “I told Kezo we should just finish this Alpha and go help you because I didn’t think you’d be able to do anything to that annoying pest. But Kezo refused.”

“Because I know Herald can do it!” shouted Kezo, as the Alpha Cragodon roared again to call more friends. “And he did. Let me guess, retribution, and poisoning through retribution?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“I saw how you farmed the Frost Macaques,” he said, “so I knew you weren’t helpless. But enough talk. We need to squeeze every drop from this Alpha before other players come. And they eventually will.”

“Squeeze?” Megan wondered. “Cragodons produce milk? Where do—?”

“Less talking more fighting,” said Nitana as she summoned more fairies.

“Here you go, Herald.” Melonomi showed up by my side and buffed me. Then she galloped away to a safe distance before I could thank her. Such a weird woman.

A pair of Cragodons emerged to our side. I charged the nearest one. It lowered its head to meet me. I swerved right to evade its horn attack digging a deep ditch in the ground. Running parallel to the Cragodon’s flank, I cast [Compelled Frenzy] to taunt it. I then led it to another one that just appeared. I ran circles around them, debuffing them and mixing in Totems to make them stay. Nitana and Megan bombarded them with spells. Their AoE spells became more effective with the two targets right next to each other and stationary.

Even though I couldn’t facetank these behemoths, I smoothly fulfilled my role of controlling the mobs. It’s not the hardness that counts; it’s how you use it. That didn’t sound like the correct quote.

We quickly dispatched that wave of Cragodons and rebuffed while waiting for the next one. Kezo estimated we could get maybe two or three more waves before the Alpha would stop summoning. He told us stories of troll players killing Alphas to stop other players from farming Cragodons. In any multiplayer game, there’d be some people who’d find a way to ruin the experience of others. In any social situation, actually.

“Only three Cragodons?” I said. “Shouldn’t there be a couple more?”

“The others are probably late,” Nitana said. “Hear that? I think they’re coming now.”

“Along with the reason they’re late,” I muttered, raising a brow.

“Oh, no!” Megan exclaimed, pointing at the forest. “Our secret spot got found out.”

Many trees had been felled saw we could easily see the Cragodons that didn’t reach us. And the players attacking them. Judging by the distinct sparkles of Essence and Gli, they already killed one and soon the other. Because we could see them, they could see us.

“Let’s finish this last one before those people come here,” said Kezo.

“Shouldn’t we kill the Alpha too?” I asked, as my teammates hammered the normal Cragodon to oblivion. “They might steal our kill.”

“Let’s see first if they’ll bother us or not,” Kezo replied.

He continued to tank the Alpha Cragodon. But since he had nothing to attack and lifesteal from, his health continued going down. Melonomi and I were quick to react and heal him.

“It’ll be great if we can continue peacefully,” Kezo continued. “Gathering allies would be helpful in later parts of the Great Hunt. It’s quite normal that the remaining participants in the last couple of days divide into factions. If we have to share some Cragodons, so be it.”

“Just kill the Alpha and move on,” grumbled Nitana. “Treat everyone as suspicious. No need for alliances and stuff. It’s not like we’re tryharding the Great Hunt.”

“We’re going to do our best here, aren’t we?” said Megan.

“Trying hard and tryharding are different,” Nitana explained. “How can we be so sure we can trust them?”

Megan frowned. “I’m not sure… I’ll go with what all of you think.”

The other party was approaching us. Suspicious. But I could also be just too distrustful of people.

“Whatever you guys decide,” said Melonomi, “I just don’t want drama.”

“Herald? Paritor?” Kezo turned to us. “Any inputs?”

Paritor said, “I generally conduct my business alone. Joining this party was a huge change for me. I was fortunate that you are good people.”

“Aw, thank you,” said Megan.

“I’m up for sharing and finding allies,” I said. “But we also prepare for betrayal and competition. Don’t use your powerful, high-cooldown spells—save them for the last hits. Also, Melonomi… if you throw your health potion at the enemy, will you heal it?”