Chapter 111

“Welcome back to class everyone. We have a few classes participating today so be sure to make room for everyone, don't be shy now.” Warren said kindly.

T'lly rolled her eyes but did not interfere with Warren's slow yet kind introduction to the class.

Everyone finally took a seat. The room was as Jay remembered it, high ceiling, rows of chairs, a dungeon room table set up at the front of the room, and a large screen on the wall behind it.

Warren looked around at the gathered students. “I see that some of you chose to bathe before class. As the bath house is currently down for maintenance I've no idea how you managed it but the rest of us appreciate your efforts, I assure you.” Warren was grinning and enjoying himself while T'lly stood next to him barely containing herself. She just wanted class to start so they could get on with their day.

Warren of course was talking to Jay's group as well as Carly and Chenowith. Some of the students looked around trying to figure out who he was talking about. A few students near to Jay's group or Carly and Chenowith knew exactly who he was talking about and looked on, some with a tinge of jealousy.

“Today we're going to go over some of the material we've covered in the last week. As we have some students who missed class this week I'll be asking students to explain the concepts that the other students missed.” Warren said with a grin.

Some in the class groaned. Others looked interested in showing what they'd learned.

“RIGHT!” T'lly suddenly yelled, and the gathered students all jumped at the loud noise.

Warren, having had T'lly do this numerous times before, did not jump but laughed instead at the startled audience.

“Raise your hands to volunteer: First concept for the day, split tanking!”

T'lly picked two tanks, a man wearing a set of blue leather armor, and a woman wearing matte black chain armor. T'lly couldn't remember their names. She instead just called them whatever came to mind. “Blue armor, you're Mr. Blue. And you in the matte chain are Ms. Black. Put your figurines on to the table and show us what you've got!”

As the two got setup Warren spoke up, “Mr. Blue, I assume you can multi-task. Would you please explain split tanking to the class?”

Mr. Blue nodded as he set his figurine on the table just so. “Some monsters come in pairs. When they are close to each other they grow stronger, or heal each other, or enable a special ability. When that type of monster is encountered the two monsters must be split apart and kept apart during the fight. The group leader will call out which monster to focus on. Only once the first monster is defeated should the group move on to fight the second monster.” he replied calmly.

T'lly smiled and the students closest to her shivered. T'lly understood the concept of smiling but somehow something got lost in translation when she attempted it herself. “Excellent. Now show us!” she said as she activated the Dungeon Room table. Two large sinuous snake-like monsters charged at Mr. Blue.

“I'll take the one on the left. Ms. Black take the other and move it to the right.” Mr. Blue said calmly.

Ms. Black's figurine moved to engage the second and once she had its attention she walked around the monster and drew it away from Mr. Blue.

Mr. Blue wasn't standing still either and drew his monster to the left.

“How does this affect the group's healer?” T'lly asked and pointed at Ms. Black.

Ms. Black, whose figurine was still fighting for its life, answered, “The healer is put under stress due to having to heal two tanks instead of one. The second tank is left by himself. The healer must position themselves so that they are in range of both tanks.”

T'lly nodded happily, “Excellent.”

“And DPS, the damage dealers, what should they be doing?” Warren asked.

“They should be doing exactly what the tank tells them to do – fight the first monster until defeated, then move on to the second monster.” Mr. Blue replied with a smile.

“Wonderful. Any questions?” Warren asked as he looked directly at M'redith. She shook her head no. The concept was easy enough once explained. The purpose of going over it in class was so that if such a pair of monsters were encountered in the wild the group wouldn't have to stop and explain what to do. All the tank would need to say is that the next monsters required split-tanking. Everyone would understand what that meant.

“Next up, tank swapping. Why would anyone want to swap a tank?” T'lly asked the classroom.

Ms. Black raised her hand and was called on by Warren. “Debuffs!” she said.

“Right! Debuffs.” T'lly said loudly. “Who can tell me what a debuff is?”

One of the other students answered the question with a rather young sounding voice, “A debuff is a bad spell?”

T'lly groaned, “Sort of close but not really? Anyone else?”

The class knew the answer but not enough to describe it succinctly. Warren finally saved them.

“A debuff is a magical effect placed on a person that has a negative & non-beneficial effect. So, imagine a monster,” she said as a long but short dragon looking creature appeared on the Dungeon Room table in front of the two tank figurines.

Mr. Blue's figurine rushed towards it and began to fight it, keeping its interest focused on himself.

“As Mr. Blue fights the monster it places a debuff on him. The problem is that debuff stacks. Who can tell me what that means?” Warren asked kindly.

Mr. Blue answered, “It means the negative effect adds up depending on how many times the debuff has been cast on the target.”

“That's right! So take a debuff that lowers your damage by 20%.” T'lly said as the monster on the table breathed out a green cloud that hit Mr. Blue's figurine. The monster did it two more times, each time the cloud surrounded Mr. Blue's figurine.

“He's been hit three times by the debuff! What is the effect to his damage now?” T'lly asked.

“Thirty!” answered one student, “Fourty!” yelled another.

T'lly looked angry and yelled, “SIXTY! Its 20% each time it hits and it hit three times. 20% x 3 equals 60%. If it hits two more times then the tank will lose 100% damage and will be doing zero damage to the enemy. So what do we do?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The class was silent and Warren finally gave the answer. “We swap the tanks. Ms. Black attacks the monster until it is focused on her. Then Mr. Blue steps away from combat until the debuff expires or is cured by a healer if possible. Mr. Blue then waits until Ms. Black has too many stacks of the debuff. Then they swap again. They continue to do that until the monster is defeated.”

The two tanks on the Dungeon Room table both fought the dragon creature for a moment before Mr. Blue's figurine stepped back out of combat. His figurine had a green cloud around him but after thirty seconds or so it disappeared indicating that he no longer suffered from the debuff.

“A debuff can be anything – it can make you do less damage, take more damage, become vulnerable to certain attack types, the possibilities are endless. So be prepared, Tank Swapping is a crucial skill to learn for some of the more advanced dungeon boss fights.” Warren explained as T'lly stopped the Dungeon Room simulation and reset it.

“It is vital that the tanks communicate with each other so that they can time their swaps perfectly. What should the healers be doing while the swapping takes place?” T'lly asked.

Carly answered and Jay's group craned their necks to make her out in the group. “The healer should be prepared to switch their healing to the new tank as soon as they get the monster's attention.”

Warren nodded, pleased. “And the damage dealers?”

Carly answered that as well. “Damage dealers aren't affected. They just beat on the monster no matter who is tanking.”

Warren laughed, “Good enough.”

T'lly checked the time and shrugged, “One last one before we break down to practice. Interrupts. Anyone care to take a stab at it?” she said with her patented T'lly evil grin.

Chenowith raised a hand and Warren called on him with a pleased smile.

“An interrupt is any ability or motion that causes an opponent to fail at casting a spell or ability.” Chenowith answered, sounding more like a professor than a student.

T'lly laughed, “That's right Mr. Fancy Pants!” she said which made Chenowith blush slightly. “Sometimes you will see a monster getting ready to cast a big spell or trigger a big ability – it is important that you learn to watch for those moments but more importantly that you learn to stop those abilities from going off at all. Has anyone here ever performed an interrupt?”

Jay raised his hand as did M'redith and one or two other students but not very many considering the number of students in the classroom.

“Jay?” asked T'lly more surprised than anything else. “What did you do to interrupt a spell or ability?” she asked in a surprised voice.

Jay chuckled, “I, er, threw the end of my staff in to their mouths. It uh.. works every time.” he said with a big smile. “I'm not even joking.”

M'redith and the rest of her group laughed as did a few other students.

T'lly nodded, “That sounds exactly like something you would do. As long as it works!”

Warren raised an eyebrow at Jay, “I don't doubt you for a second. I learned my lesson last time.” he said to nervous laughter from the surrounding students.

“How about you, M'redith?” asked T'lly.

“I body checked them across the room.” M'redith answered with a proud smile. Some of the surrounding students muttered, especially those who had not seen her fight yet. She did not appear to be the type to body check anything anywhere. Those that had seen her fight before quickly explained to the others just what they had missed and described the fight from earlier that day in detail.

“Good! Good. That would work too. There are also abilities that will interrupt an enemy. Stun. Silence. Polymorph. Fear. Horrify. Purge. That one is especially awful, it does exactly what it says only it works on multiple orifices at once. Ew.” T'lly said with a shiver.

“Anything that prevents the ability or spell from completing qualifies as an interrupt. I can not stress this enough,” said Warren with a serious looking expression. “Interrupts are your primary method of staying alive during some of the higher end boss fights. If you just try to soak up those interruptible abilities you will fail. That is how the fights are designed.”

“Questions?” T'lly asked. They had already gone over this material earlier in the week so no one really seemed too confused over what they had discussed that day. “Ok, that'll do for now. We'll cover more tomorrow. Break up in to groups and we'll take you one group at a time to run through Dungeon Room to try out some of the things we've discussed today.”

The groups were broken up, purposely in some cases such as M'redith's group, and everyone took a turn up at the front of the class to watch their figurines attempt to fight correctly depending on what move T'lly would tell them to perform.

Class went a little over and by the time T'lly finally dismissed the students they practically ran for the door. The room had grown hot and stuffy and had a distinctly unpleasant odor thanks to the mass of unwashed students.

No one wanted to be late and miss out on dinner. The students pressed up against each other as they tried to squeeze out of the only two open exits. Once Jay and his friends were outside they stood over by their favorite tree for a moment to collect themselves.

The outside air was a wonderful reprieve from the inside stuffiness and everyone took deep breaths of clean air. As they milled around Carly and Chenowith walked by and waved hello. Jay waved hello back with a smile and M'redith nodded in greeting as the pair passed them by.

“Anyone have any plans for tonight?” Norri asked as the group turned and walked towards the path that would lead them to the dining hall.

Aiden smiled but didn't say anything.

“What?” M'redith asked and poked him in the side. The armor Aiden wore under his robes stopped the poke from ever reaching his skin and Aiden grinned even wider.

“I'm thinking of meeting up with Aisha.” Aiden said with a mischievous grin.

“Isn't that the little woman with the long dark hair?” Jay asked as he smiled too.

“Yup. Hopefully she still remembers me!” Aiden said as they took a turn down another path.

Jay laughed and Norri snickered.

“How about you Norri?” M'redith asked.

Norri shrugged. “I might go for a nice quiet walk around K'tharkle lake. It'd be nice to move extra slowly for a change after being in the library for so long.”

The group all nodded. They could understand why she might feel that way.

M'redith poked Jay, “You?”

Jay grinned, “You're not going to like it.”

Aiden laughed as M'redith furrowed her brow, “Why not?”

“Look – I think it'd be nice if I went down to the bath house..” Jay said.

“..which is closed!” Aiden interjected.

Jay nodded, “Yes, I'm aware, it is closed. But I could offer to clean people for tips. I think people would enjoy that and I wouldn't have to walk anywhere all night. It'd be wonderful, just staying put for a change. I'll bring a chair and just sit.”

Jay looked over at M'redith approvingly, “I could bring two chairs..”

M'redith laughed, “I can go with you for a bit. You'll only need the one chair.” she said with a playful smile.

“Ok. That's about enough of that. Some of us plan on eating.” Aiden said after Jay and M'redith started sharing meaningful looks back and forth. “Save it for the bath house!”

M'redith laughed, “Ok, I guess we deserved that.”

The group continued down the path as the sun dipped lower and the day began to make way for dusk.

“I wonder what's for dinner.” Aiden mumbled as the rest of the group laughed.