The clattering sounds grew louder as the swords continued to clash against each other. Occasionally the man’s speed could break through Gardenia’s guard but is wasn’t without hope. The holes that she was leaving were guarded by chainmail and the hits were fast but had minimal force.

Still she was losing hp slowly but she was not the only one. While she left opening so did the assassin. His movements were quick but light, Gardenia was able to activate sword arts to barely break through his guard and cause minimal damage to him.

“More or less. I am having another friend look into the origins of the assassins and where to find their lair.” Gardenia filled Norra in on the details about who the assassins might be and Moira’s backstory.

“I see. Quite the plot that is unfolding. You were right to call an additional team member. Although, you will probably want to call in some more. This might end with use having to raid Darkside Maw, it is probably inevitable. That is just they way these kinds of quests go. There is also another super important thing that needs to happen.”

“I guess it makes sense that NPCs are taking more of a role in training the new players since it is probably harder to form a group, especially given how many different starter towns there are. The man who trained you didn’t mentioned who was going to come after Mr. Pots so it stands to reason that he did not know who it would be.”

It took Gardenia several days to come to her decision. Eventually she met up with the rest of the Forgotten Saviors so tell them.

“I apologize but I am going to leave the Forgotten Saviors.”

Drake was silent but Perfect Zanth said, “What? You will be leaving us? But we need our tank. What is a healer supposed to do without a tank?”

Steela just nodded and said, “If that is the decision that you came too.”:

Gardenia did her best to smile back at them but it was also hard for her to leave. This place had started to become her home since she had joined.

Once the Dragon has regained its footing to returned to fighting. The main different was that ever moment was potentially lethal for everybody. The blood that has been rare before was now practically flowing from the giant monster. More and more of the battlefield became toxic pools of blood which could not be fought in.

They crept forward through the ash. There was no obvious lair for the dragon to dwell in however this was obviously a place that it lived. The heat grew hotter the farther into the area the moved and Gardenia cast her fire resistance spell on every member of the party before quickly drinking a mana recovery potion.

“Hold.” Called out Pristallia who had the skilled needed to notice things quickly. “This is sloping down. You can barely see it but there looks like there is a hole just over there.” She pointed and others could barely see the black sliver.

The team followed the man who lead them through the jungle to a set of huts surrounding a large raised wooden plateform. The man motioned for Drake to step onto the platform and Drake obliged him by stepping up onto it and swinging his large spear back and forth several times.

After a few minutes an extremely large man stepped out of one of the huts. He was wearing crude armor which seemed to be made of large insect carapace. He also carried a hatchet and a shield covered with scales.

Since she used a crossbow, Pristallia had the alertness skill but against traps in an intermediate zone that alone was usually not sufficient. Given a slow enough travel speed she could notice the traps before they triggered but that would have slowed the journey to a crawl. Eventually the team had to progress following Gardenia who continued to have physical enhancement spells active.

While Plate was the normal equipment choice for tanking it was practically impossible to create plate armor with bonuses to spellcasting or agililty. Since Gardenia’s method of tanking required her to heal herself she had taken to using chain instead. While the bonuses to casting weren’t as good as wearing cloth armor it was a nice middle ground.