Bonifacius looked at his group, the two tanks, Chaz and Abutron.
Large alligators charged at them, smashing into their weapons relentlessly.
Chaz gritted his teeth, he held his one-handed sword with both hands, blocking the beast from getting any closer.
His brown coat now dirty and wet from the constant fighting in the muddy swamp, layers of dried-out algae crumbled off his clothing and the light of the sun only made the humid swamp harder to breathe in.
His glasses becoming fogged up.
Meanwhile, Abutron was doing much better his scythe keeping the scaly creature at bay with ease, a wide grin on his face.
He was clad in fur trousers with a chain for a belt.
He refused to wear a shirt.
No matter the explanations, the advice, the environmental reasons, no person could convince Abutron to put on a shirt.
His shark-like wolfman teeth fixed into a permanent grin.
“Both of thee are doing great!” Bonifacius remarked.
The two tanks didn’t reply, too focused on their task.
He tasked them with fending off their foes without attacking them – that way they could focus on the defence instead of offence.
After a few more minutes of training, Bonifacius instructed them to finish off the reptiles.
Abutron severed the alligator’s head in one, swift slash.
Chaz jumped back, using the alligator’s own momentum to drive his blade into its skull.
“That was tough…” Chaz remarked.
“Mm,” Bonifacius nodded.
“Indeed, by taking away thy ability to cut the battle short – thou are forced to strengthen thy defence!”
“You’re ignoring the fact you won’t only be fighting in a raid!” the voice of a harpy remarked, they sat atop one of the branches of a tree, swinging their feet back and forth.
Bonifacius turned to the source of the sound.
“Don’t worry – I’m just an explorer, I’m not going to attack you guys!” the person assured.
Bonifacius breathed a sigh.
“Thank goodness! What brings thou to a swamp such as this one?” Bonifacius questioned.
The light-green feathered harpy jumped off the tree and landed in the muddy ground with a wet squish.
“Well, I heard about your guild back when this was a game, I’d be interested in helping you pass on your abilities!” the harpy explained.
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He wore a yellow tunic and brown-orange shorts.
“For the sake of the world, of course!” he added.
“I see, thy words are too kind however, our guild hasn’t done all that much!” Bonifacius replied.
“Really? If my sources are to be trusted, I believe you have taken part in some major endeavours!”
“The fall of the jGuardians,”
“Alexander’s game,”
“A certain continental take-over,”
“Ajuan,”
“Arth-” Bonifacius cut the man off.
“Alright, thou seems to be attributing the achievements of individuals to the whole guild, however – I do still question how thou got this information,”
The tensions rose as the green harpy fell to the ground, lowering his forehead to the ground and clenching his eyes shut.
“Please don’t hurt me, I’ve been stalking you guys for a few weeks already!” he exclaimed.
Bonifacius breathed another sigh of relief.
“I see… thou should have just asked if thou wanted to know something…”
“I was sitting here and I really wanted to let you guys know that there is more to tanking than dungeons strategies,”
“The world has a lot of baddies nowadays, and you can’t afford to stand around and soak up the damage in those situations!” he explained.
Bonifacius nodded.
“Mm, I suppose thou are correct, one must make a decision about whether or not they will attack or defend in a given situation, however, such decision-making skills come with time and experience, there is no simple rule for it!” Bonifacius explained.
The harpy got off the ground and patted their clothes clean.
Meanwhile…
JohnWillStab and his group sat around the main camp.
“You guys now know what I know about DPSing, all you have to do now is practice with your weapons, increase your stats and level up!”
“All that stuff was… pretty obvious…” Alistard remarked.
WeabooMike nodded.
“Though it’s good to know!”
Sepukku4me_n_u also nodded.
Alistard quickly pulled out his gun pointing it into the distance and firing it, several bullets flew out, most of which struck their target, a single, oversize crocodile.
JohnWillStab looked over to the now hole-ridden reptile.
“Nice!” he exclaimed.
Alistard grinned as he placed his gun back on his back.
“Heh, guess I’ve gotten pretty good!” he said smugly.
“Yeah, you managed to hit the target!” WeabooMike exclaimed.
“He actually did it!” Sepukku4me_n_u remarked.
“DON’T SOUND SO SURPRISED!” Alistard cried as he grabbed Sepukku4me_n_u by the scruff of the shirt.
JohnWillStab let out a yawn.
Suddenly, quick footsteps could be heard.
Alistard drew his gun and pointed it into the woods.
“Hold on, it sounds like two feet, probably a person…” John commented.
“Just how high is his perception!?” Alistard thought looking over to John before lowering his gun.
Out from the woods appeared a person.
Upon closer inspection, JohnWillStab recognised the witch-like attire belonging to Emuhlee.
“Yo, witch-hat person!” John exclaimed.
“JohnWillStab?” she questioned stopping for a second before looking back into the forest.
“Yes! I am!” he replied giving her a thumbs-up.
Emuhlee looked out-of-breath.
“You guys need to get out of here, the Ladderhome guys went mad!” she exclaimed.
JohnWillStab’s expression looked uninterested.
“Gasp…” John said in a monotone.
“Cult did cult things…”
Suddenly, out of the blue JohnWillStab felt a sharp pain in his gut.
“Ah, shit!” he looked down and saw that his guts were spewed out on the ground, a massive hook and chain were sticking out the front of his torso.
His muscles contracted as lighting ran through the metal chain and into his body causing JohnWillStab to fall to the ground, passed out and with smoke flying out of his mouth.
“…”
“…”
“HE CAN GET HURT?!” Alistard demanded, he grabbed his gun and aimed it into the woods to where the chain came from.
“EAT LEAD ASSHOLE!” he called out, firing a constant stream of bullets, cutting trees in two and lighting up the night as WeabooMike rushed in, slashing his chain-scythes at the chains in hopes of breaking them.
“It’s not working!” he exclaimed, then as his weapon struck the chain one more time, the electricity arced into his hand, burning it badly and causing him to fall backwards onto the ground.
“Weaboo!” Sepukku4me_n_u cried, he pulled his bow back, he fired it at the chain.
The arrows became stuck in the soil, pinning the chain in several spots.
“If we can’t touch it, we can keep it in place!” he exclaimed.
“Nice thinking!” WeabooMike exclaimed out-of-breath and a little crispy.
Suddenly, the chain was pulled back, the arrows, as well as the unfortunate trees in the way, were reduced to splinters
“JohnWillStab!” exclaimed several members in his group as from within the forest came several weak magic projectiles.
Fireballs, thunder strikes, shadow bolts, croissants.
The group fell to the ground for cover as the fireballs rained down, burning a few of the trees.
Luckily for the group, they weren’t in the water when the electricity hit them.
When the battlefield went silent Alistard jumped to his feet.
“COME BACK HERE, COWARDS!”
He began firing into the woods blindly.
Sepukku4me_n_u leapt at him, pushing the demon to the ground.
“QUIT TRYING TO GET US KILLED!”
Alistard crossed pushed the human off him.
“What the hell do you mean!? They took JohnWillStab – I don’t plan to sit around doing nothing!”
Emuhlee lay near them.
“Ehh, well, you should know they discovered a new magic that lets them delete souls!” she exclaimed doing her best to look convincing.
“…”
“…”
“You made that up on the spot, didn’t you?” WeabooMike asked.
“Tch – no! I’m serious!” she stood up, seemingly no longer worried about the chain and magic users.
Without saying another word, she ran off into the woods.
“…”
“…”
The three DPSs looked at each other, not sure if she was lying or really shy.
“I know! Let’s go find the other two, the healer and the bearded guy!” WeabooMike exclaimed.