“Yes. It guards the entrance to the caves. We will kill it, go out the other side into the common area and start farming worms.”
I felt like an idiot. It turns out that I alone killed the group boss and thought it was an ordinary monster. After which I turned back without even checking to see what was next. I'm an idiot! A 100% idiot! I should have read the guides.
Meanwhile, Fox continued his instruction to the newbies.
“The boss has a strong attack with earth spikes. You have to hide from it behind the rocks. That's where you'll see them. I'll warn you when this spell is about to cast. You will have two seconds to hide. Cheater, you'd better stay close to the rocks the whole time so you have time to hide. The worm uses spikes without cooldown if this attack doesn't hit anyone. Therefore, I will purposely expose my hand. The area in front of the worm's mouth is non-shootable, so I will stand there. If something happens, you can hide behind my back. The rest of the time, you beat him with what you can. Also, I need to be healed. If I yell 'pause,' then you stop hitting the boss, or he'll start spitting acid. If that happens, then again, hide behind the rocks. Do not think to dodge - the damage area of the spit is very large. That's it. Now we're going forward. You hide behind the rocks and wait for the attack with the spikes, and then you start attacking it.”
Yeah. I guess my way of killing the boss was pretty perverted. If I'd guessed the safe zone in front of its head, I could have killed it a lot faster.
“Yeah, Cheater, if the boss chases you, run around in a circle, hiding between rocks.”
“Oh, I can do that.” - I laughed bitterly.
“Okay, let's go.”
White Fluffy Fox went forward, looking out for his enemy. The cave was slightly different in appearance this time, but overall, it was still the same cave that was gradually expanding. The well-fed Earthworm was found in its place. As it crawled toward to our tank, we hid behind rocks. I looked out from behind cover, though, to see what Fox would do. He waited until the boss got close to him, and then he jumped back out of the range of his attack.
The worm slammed its forepart to the ground, thought for a moment, and began preparing to spit acid, inflating the area around its mouth. Fox used his stun skill to interrupt the use of this ability, then hit it with his axe a couple more times. The worm began to grow spikes and shot them out a few seconds later. Berserk only caught a couple of them, causing his health to drop a bit. The damage could have been more, but I managed to throw a shield to him in time.
“Hit it!” - Shouted the tank, starting to shred the worm with his axes. It made head pokes that were pretty easy to dodge.
I healed the tank, cast a Nettle bush, and lunged at the worm with my spear. It only wriggled back irritably, preferring to fight a berserker. This time the boss's life was dropping rather quickly. Fox looked at my amateurism with visible displeasure, but said nothing. This hat is handy, though. I could tell at once what the leader of the group was thinking.
When I saw the worm's future use of spikes, I ran to the rocks to hide behind them. Three seconds was good enough for me. Seeing the spikes bulge on its skin, the ninjas synchronously 'jumped' each to their hiding place. It looked like the three of them worked well as a group. And yet on the outside they were the real silent ones. After the spikes hit, we went back to the worm again and continued chopping it to pieces.
“Spit!” - Fox shouted.
In the future I saw that he did not have time to escape and would fall under a stream of acid, losing most of his health. So, I didn't retreat with the ninja, but stayed behind to beat the worm. And when it was about to spit, I interrupted it with the Discharge. The stun lasted only a quarter of a second, instead of the planned half, but it was enough to interrupt the spit. As a result, the tank remained intact.
“You shouldn't have done that.” - Fox said calmly, turning back to the boss and continuing to attack it. – “Now it will spit spikes and acid until it kills someone.”
“Let it kill the nettles. I didn't feel sorry for it.” - I nodded. I knew from experience that after killing nettles, the worm would stop spitting and just run after me, shooting spikes.
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“Hide!” - Immediately my plan was adopted by Fox.
We retreated abruptly and hid behind rocks. The worm wiggled its head around, then gathered its wits and spat into the meadow of nettles. He immediately started charging the spikes, but when they shot out, I just stuck my hand out from behind a rock and 'caught' one of them. The spike couldn't even fully remove the shield on me. After that, the worm crawled forward, and the tank got in front of it again, attracting attention.
I noticed that the boss only had fifteen percent life left.
“Let's finish this!” - I shouted, rushing to the attack.
There was no point in creating a new clearing of nettles. At five percent health the worm was about to spit acid again, so I interrupted it again. It didn't have time to fire its spikes, because our combined attacks lowered its health to zero.
Although there was a lot going on during the fight, the fight itself only lasted a minute. Yeah, that's not my solo masochism.
“Good job.” - Fox nodded to his fellow guildmates. – “Cheater, why didn't you retreat when I yelled 'spit'?” - Our commander came up to me.
“You didn't have time to escape, so I decided to interrupt the worm.”
“And how did you know about that?” - He asked incredulously. – “You couldn't see the worm's head from where you were standing.”
“But I could see yours.” - There was a look of bewilderment on Fox's face. – “I saw that you were frightened, so I assumed you were too late to see the attack.” - I let it slip out.
“Yes, I did. Now I see you got the title of hero for a reason.” - Fox nodded.
“He's got three more records.” - Toothbreaking Brick told.
“All right, that's enough talk. Grab the loot and let's move on. How do we divide the loot, by the way?”
“Equal.” - I answered. – “One item each in turn. The blue stuff and above will be a lottery, or we'll give it away as negotiated.”
“Good.” – Fox nodded, heading forward.
“That shit worth a lot?” - I asked him.
“What shit?” - He didn't understand.
“The crystallized excrement of the earthworm.” - I dictated the full name of the resource we'd knocked out.
“Ah, crystals? Silver coins apiece, on average. Shit. Ha! Don't say that in front of an Earth adept. There'll be so much trouble afterwards. They don't like to call things by their proper names.”
“Ha-ha. Oh, that's right!” - I agreed.
After walking about a hundred yards, we reached another portal through which we found ourselves in a spacious cave with hundreds of worms crawling around in it. There were thousands of players, too. Every worm that appeared was immediately attacked by several groups of players, who didn't shy away from killing their opponents or pushing them away.
“Let’s go, there's nothing to catch. I know a short passageway to a place where there are almost no players.”
Fox led us away, turning into some narrow passages where worms were almost absent. As we walked past one worm that was already being beaten by a group of players, I got a good look at our future prey. The worm looked exactly like the boss, but it was at most three meters long. Even its skills were the same-spitting acid, attacking with earth spikes, and head-butting.
After five minutes we came to some nook, where a hole about a meter in diameter hole was gaping in the floor.
“Let's jump down.” - Fox commanded, glancing around to make sure there were no other players around. Looks like it was a secret passage indeed. - Don't worry, you won't get smashed. But you'll have to walk back. The elevator only works one way.
The ninjas silently stepped forward and quickly disappeared into the darkness of the gap. They decided on a jumping order without making any unnecessary movements.
“Are they telepaths, or what?” - I asked Fox.
“Ha-ha.” - He laughed. – “No, just a private chat. They are learning to communicate through it. You can't talk or even whisper during sabotage, so the assassins communicate through the chat.”
“Wow. Cool!” - I marveled as I jumped down.
The well curved pretty quickly, turning into an incline. We spiraled through it, and then jumped out into a small pond that could even be called a deep puddle. Except that when I emerged from the water, I heard the sounds of clashing blades. Quickly navigating the game interface, I used the shield and healing on the Son of Bitch, who had less than half his health left.
“Hit the healer.” - I heard a voice, and a spell came at me at once, which should paralyze me. There seemed to be a mage among my opponents, who started using Paralysis on me as soon as I entered the hall.
I quickly went over my options for the future, analyzing the situation. There was a group of five players against us. And they certainly weren't here for a quest for a profession. There were two Warriors, a Scout, a Destroyer, and a Priest. I couldn't see the professions of the Warrior and the Scout, but their equipment spoke for themselves. The Destroyer was now hitting Fox with a specific spell, and the Priest was actively casting shields on his allies. Their levels were eighth and ninth, which meant there was nothing for them to do in this dungeon. The cave we were in was not very large. Half of it was taken up by the 'pond' I was swimming in, and the other half was occupied by all the enemies, Fox, and our three ninjas.
As I looked into the future, I noticed that if I would not attack my enemies, they would not attack me. Most likely, the enemies simply thought I was paralyzed. After all, I'd caught the Paralysis spell. No one here thought my Resilience would be enough to ignore the effect of the spell. So, I decided not to get all hot and bothered, but to use my advantage to the best of my ability.