“Switch!” Robin bellowed, calling for Liam to take her place and taunt the oversized, six legged, two tailed, three headed rodent beast boss.

Liam stepped up, smacking his sword against his tower shield and yelling, “Over here!” With that, he effectively took the beast’s attention from the beargirl and onto himself. Liam was a boarboy, stout but strong and very well armoured. His armour spoke of wealth and his attitude spoke of ignorance about the world.

I ran alongside the beast, scoring a long bloody line through the thick quills that covered its hide, taking a few scratches as I passed. I dove under the first tail swinging at me, rolled and jumped sprawling through the air as the second tail sailed under me. I landed on my belly on the soft loam then rolled across the ground to avoid the returning tails. If one of those tails hit me, covered in spiky quills as it was, it would have certainly killed me.

There was a sudden shriek of pain from the beast as one of the tails was finally cut free and went soaring through the air from the momentum of trying to kill me.

At the base of the beast, where the tail was previously attached, was Coach Liv, grimacing as blood sprayed from the open wound. He was moving quickly to get away from the suddenly thrashing beast.

I looked back to where Liam was taking a beating from the beast’s wild swings. Then I glanced over at Robin, where Al was both working feverishly to heal her. I knew that as soon as she was healed, she and Liam would switch again, and the healer would need to focus on Liam.

Meanwhile, Seth and Sam worked on burning or freezing the beast from a distance as Leonardo peppered the beast with arrows that did almost no damage. It didn’t help that Leonardo was trying to shoot the beast in the eyes. Eyes that were protected by quills that formed bars over them. There was little chance one of his arrows would get through that gap. He would have been better off shooting it in the nose.

I clambered back to my feet and prepared to make another run. I positioned myself a few metres behind the tanks and near the healers while Coach Liv was supposed to be positioning himself near the beast’s rear end, out of range of the tail but close enough to run in and chop the offending appendage off.

“Switch!” Liam half-barked, half-grunted.

And that was my signal. I ran, forming slightly longer knives as I ran. My Shadow Blade had ranked up to Intermediate during the third wave of beasts almost a week ago now. This was the boss of the eleventh wave. The blades became stronger and sharper, but there was an increased mana cost with that improvement, made worse due to my Shadow Manipulation not advancing. Still, they were the only weapons I had and I made use of them.

My long knife cut into the side of the beast, slicing through quills and flesh alike, making the beast bleed and more importantly, drawing the attention of the tail. The spiked tail whipped through the air, looking to end me with a single blow. As it came for me, I hoped Coach Liv was moving for it. Why did I volunteer to be the bait? What was I thinking?

I jumped over the tail as it struck at me, landing on my feet, and continuing to run, even knowing the tail was rapidly approaching from behind. I trusted my ears to tell me when to jump or dive. I heard it coming toward my head and dove to the ground, sliding in the mud and muck as it passed over me, a couple quills skating harmlessly across the back of my armour.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then I rolled as the tail swung back around and tried to smash me into the ground. The tail went up once and kept going, flailing wildly through the air. I barely heard the cheer from the rest of my team as I scrambled to avoid the fall of the giant appendage. It landed just behind me with a wet plop and a splash of mud where it continued twitching.

I turned to see the beast thrashing about wildly again, striking out at anyone that came near it. I could smell the blood pouring from the wound where its tails used to be. In the days we’d been in here, we learned early on that every boss had a tail like this and that tail was its weak spot. Cut off the tail and the boss would eventually bleed out and die. We just needed to survive up to that point. That’s not to say we didn’t try to make it die faster.

Five minutes later, we watched the fight go out of the three headed rodent beast until at last, it collapsed under its own weight. Coach chopped off the heads just to be sure and we cheered for our victory. I wanted nothing more than to get some rest, but first we needed to clean up the stragglers from the waves that preceded the boss. There were always a few that wandered about aimlessly. The chests wouldn’t spawn until they were dead. Then we’d get our rewards, including a supply chest which always held a safe zone pillar and food. The safe zone lasted until the start of the next wave, which was always twenty-four hours after the previous wave. It also meant that the quicker we got through the wave, the sooner we got to rest.

Unfortunately, the reward chests were generally very stingy. After that first chest, we’d regularly get mana potions and healing potions or one time use armour repair scrolls. It was rare that anyone got anything else. Seth and Sam both got skill stones for a mystic skill called Flame Geyser that caused the ground to explode in a gout of flames, which worked fantastically well against the early waves of beasts as the spell was apparently low cost and touch activated. It allowed them to set the field with dozens of the spells before every encounter and still recover mana before the wave began.

With the boss dead, Leonardo and I set out in different directions to hunt down the stragglers. I found six wandering by themselves and quickly eliminated them. It was more than the previous wave. Each wave of rodent beasts was also taking longer to deal with. This wave took almost six hours just to get to the boss. That was six hours of almost nonstop fighting. We’d killed thousands of rodents by now, making our barricade much taller and harder for the heavier and heavier rodents to scale. I was certain we’d kill thousands more before we finished the lair.

There had been a few close calls. Robin almost died twice and Liam once. Even Coach Liv almost died once when he fell from the barricade and was immediately swarmed by dozens of rodents. After his near death, it was decided we should work more closely with each other.

I returned to see Coach Liv had planted the safe zone pillar and was already setting up the fire and spits. Knowing I needed to get everyone their rewards I walked up to the first plinth, “Comrade Alphonse, this one is yours.”

Al trudged over to the plinth and opened his chest where he pulled out a pair of skill stones.

“Poison Resistance and Disease Resistance,” Al said, letting us know what he got and naturally earning a frown from Seth who was more than eager to get to his own chest.

“Those are rare skills,” Coach Liv advised as he continued working on the fire. “They are passive and will automatically activate to help you cleanse yourself of poison or disease, using some of your stamina to do so. However, I am more worried that you got those stones at all. This place is not known for either poison or disease afflictions. I hope this does not mean that is changing.”

I moved quickly to the next plinth and called Robin over. She got the same skill stones. Everyone got the same skill stones.