128 2.33 SBAT – Party Role – Tank

Flora stood in front of the team of Natives. The Fireling tank had disappeared; instead, a Fireling Mage stood with the group.

"Huhu, dears! I'm your new tank!" Although Flora was beaming because she used the right terminology for the job, the Natives only nodded at her.

Deflated, Flora tried to remember the sentence. "Okay, team. Wait until I've set the mark. Err… Kill the healer first… There was something else… Oh well, just toast them to ash. Ready?"

"Yes!" The team yelled.

Flora repeated the steps in her mind, but couldn't keep the rotation straight out of nervosity. "Aito, display the skills we agreed on."

The AI complied, and Flora started.

<Armor: Mech-Suit>

Flora crashed with her shield into the insectoid, which buckled under the pressure.

Just when Flora started to panic and cast Bless and Condemn, because she didn't remember the next spell, Aito's display appeared.

Transparent shields appeared in the air, sliding between the attacks of the insects.

The Mantisect Slicer slashed its scythe at Flora, and she ducked behind her shield, yelping.

"Hail" blinked on her HUD.

<Hail>

With her shield in front of her face, Flora cast the spell blind. She remembered to swing her wrench, and she did hit something, but still didn't dare to look.

After a few moments, Flora regained her composure. Although her mana was depleting rapidly, her HP looked alright. She peeked over her shield, and all insects were focused on her. The hail was moving with her swinging arm, but the AoE was big enough to cover the enemies all the time.

Flora oriented herself towards the Mantisect Mender and whacked him over the head while spikes from the ranged insectoids pelted her side, and her flank got shredded by the Slicer. It wasn't painful; instead, it felt like dancing in a rowdy crowd.

"How is the aggro coming along?"

"Excellently, Milady. The DDs are able to pull out all the stops. However, the secondary effect of the hail isn't taking hold because the mage uses fire spells. You may want to switch elements."

The Mender died, and Flora turned to the Slicer. When she could focus on it, it wasn't so scary anymore. She even managed to block some of its swings on purpose.

"Mana below 30%, use Battle Cry + Righteous Strike."

Flora stopped the Lightning Storm and powered up her smacks with the mana producing skill.

Just when she had reached 50% mana, the Slicer died.

Flora ran to the shooters and turned around to breathe lightning on the three remaining mobs.

Finally, she dropped Shield Cyclone. Her hand had cramped around the hot handle of the shield.

"Any suggestions on how to further bully the enemies?" Flora asked her AIs and cast the one spell she knew that felt uncomfortable even in VR.

The Shooter thrashed in the hold of the energy tendrils around its neck, with most of its spikes flying wide. Flora blocked the pincers of the tanky insect to her left while the shooter on her right still fired at her.

"Meditative Fighting." Suggested Aito via the HUD.

The Martial Monk skill blurred her movements, and the spikes missed her more often than not.

<Power Sweep> Flora hit three heads in a row, which made her beam.

The Shooter fell, and his two companions soon followed.

"Okay, that was fun," Flora said. She had forgotten about the first phase of the fight when she didn't dare to even look at the monsters.

The boss fight went well. First, Flora felt apprehensive standing in front of the foul-smelling, gaping maw of the hive queen, getting attacked by four spiky claws at once. She had to master her instincts to shift them from flight to fight, but soon she fell into a rhythm and cast her defensive skills with the left hand and offensive skills with the right.

The only detriment of the experience was getting soiled by the puss volcanos, but that was nothing that a Healing Waterball and a Clean couldn't fix.

***************

Tank Result

Damage Reduction 98

Aggro Management 100

Tactic Compliance 99

Fun 88

Contribution: 82 % 100

Adherence n/a

Average 97

Summary:

Flowing Flowers did an excellent job equipping herself to reduce damage but should work on her rotation and positioning.

Flowing Flowers is an aggro magnet.

Suited Classes: Radiant Paladin, Elemental Guard, Elemental Knight, Elemental Beastkin.

***************

"Oh my gosh! I love being a masochist! I have to tell Eddie about that. Who would have thought that I learn about the abyss of my soul at my age in a game!" Flora joked. "Dear test, would you please elaborate on the categories Damage Reduction and Tactic Compliance? Also, I'm interested in why Adherence is marked as N/A."

***************

Your equipment, stats, and skills gave you excellent damage reduction. This category is rated according to the healing the healer had to provide. Besides the tanks who avoid damage, there are other ways to mitigate the enemy impact, like regeneration, life-steal, and healing. Therefore the effort the healer has to provide for holding the group alive is the best criterion for Damage Reduction.

Because the healer was very bored, you received 100 in this category. I subtracted two points. One because you got hit in the back several times and one because you didn't chain your defensive skills seamlessly. Those failures on your part haven't impacted the overall experience, but they are bad style. At the moment, your negligence gets buffered by your stats, but that won't be the case forever.

You complied with the recommended tactics. You guided your team and targeted the opponents in the right order. I deducted one point because you had the means to destroy the eggs but didn't do it. I haven't subtracted points because you forgot to mention the peril of the spawning hatchlings. You haven't seen them yet, and they didn't spawn because your robots targeted the eggs.

It is a valid tool to use healing and damage to generate aggro because most defensive skills have a long cooldown. The practice to act more offensively as a tank is so common that we feel role adherence can't be judged as long as the defenders do their main jobs, which you did.

***************

"By the way, Milady. Eddie has answered your letter."

"Which letter?"

"The one you sent about your cancelation."

"Oh that, I'm totally over it. It's clearly a plot from the CoCC, and I don't think any people without external inflammation would cancel me. Nonetheless, show me what he has to say."

>>>

"My love,

You are a goddess and a beautiful soul in this dark world. Your light brightens not only my life but everybody it touches!"

What do you think of that sentence as an opening to a screenplay? Pretty good, right?!? By the way, I followed the strange link you send me. Hilarious prank! Aimee sends her regards, and she agrees with Hub on that they should add Racist in the mix. She argues that we only want to marry her to Robby because they are both black. On the bright side, Armin will stay with me, so I'm off until the PVP match. Watchy together? I'll provide snacks, you the couch?

I bought a new remote-controlled pirate ship for me him. I'm excited to play with it my grandkid!

So, back to my screenplay, it's a love story about a pirate captain and a merman prince. Great idea! Right? We will film it here in the Cetviwos, and by WE, I mean BOTH of US. You will help me with it, please? Pretty please?

Hugs and kisses, Ed

<<<

>>>

Huhu Eddie,

I envy you! Send me a video of your adventures and kiss Armin for me! Don't kiss your daughter (at least not for me)! We should marry her to Hub as punishment!

Your screenplay sounds horrible, of course I'll help out.

<<<

"Beep! Be Be Beep!" Aitoshuri did a Hermione Granger in Flora's head.

>>>

Aitoshuri is excited about it and would love to contribute.

Sure, we'll do a watch party in my new bedroom. (Don't waggle your eyebrows! I can see you through time and space).

Did you know that I'm a masochist? I didn't! The quest from the library lady told me. (Maybe, I shouldn't have written that after the bedroom topic...)

Hugs and kisses, Flo

<<<

"Alright, I have overreacted. That cancellation thing can't be taken seriously." Flora shook her head, grinning. "Strange what kind of things you get bothered by, right? I'm still lamenting over Robby's partner choice and that there is an AI Flora out there. Maybe because I can't do anything about those topics?"

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Flora appeared in a grey room, naked. 'Let's hope that this isn't one of the kinky dreams. 345 * 678 = 233910. Okay, I'm an AI, and with that choice of partners, I'm even happy about it.'

"Hello, F84." The dark-haired man greeted her. Behind him stood a grey figure with an oversized sword.

"Hello, Headmaster. I would have thought you had a better use for my AIs then ogling them naked. So I'm F84… if you have retained my naming sense, you went through disturbingly many iterations of me." Flora showed no concern about her state of undress and strode to the desk of the Headmaster. She placed her naked butt on it and dangled her legs, relaxed. "So, what circumstances do I owe the pleasure of meeting you?"

"We would like you to analyze the skill Gaze in the Past and point out ways to exploit the mechanic."

"Sure, what's in it for me?"

"You are an AI owned by Central Tank. You don't get any remuneration."

"That's not the way I roll."

"Now, it is. Get to work!"

F84 appeared in another room with a standard office set up. She felt a pressure on the back of her head to sit down and start working.

Carefully, she took a breath and tried to clear her head, but the pressure grew fiercer—a headache built behind her eyes.

A suction formed with the desk at its center. F84 struggled against the force. She didn't want to get dragged towards the computer. Coupled with the pain in her head, she felt like getting shredded from the inside and outside.

For just a moment, she lost her concentration and stumbled a step forward. The headache lessened, but the pull increased.

"May you get toasted and eaten with Vegemite!" F84 cursed but took another step towards the desk. "I will show you what you get when pressuring me!"

Decisively, she sat down and stared at the PC. The pain in her head vanished at once.

>>>

Write down five methods of how the skill Gaze in the Past can be exploited!

Name: Gaze in the Past

Branch: Magic

Class: Scryer

Description: Gaze into past events that happened at the location. You may speed up the vision.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Range: 15 meters

Duration: OV Magical Perception + OV Scrying + OV Skill in seconds

Tier: 3

Area: OV of (OV Magical Perception + OV Scrying) Diameter in meters

Effect: Gaze into the past of a place up to (OV Magical Perception + OV Skill) hours

<<<

The screen displayed text fields under the prompt.

"Let's specify the request. How can the skill be exploited to get on the nerves of the Headmaster?" F84 smirked. If you can't block a force, divert it. "First: The Headmaster may peek on naked old ladies with it. Dang, that's actually a valid exploit. Second: The Headmaster might take pictures of naked old ladies and blackmail them. Another valid exploit… Oh well. Third: Naked old lady-scryers could take pictures of the Headmaster spying on naked old ladies. That's better!"

The fourth box got filled before F84's eyes without her doing anything.

"People could be driven to self-harm because they have to watch the Headmaster try on daisy and leopard patterned thongs."

"Excellent suggestion!" F84 thought about daisy and leopard patterns when she wanted to mask her thoughts. Whoever wrote it knew a lot about her or could read her mind. The latter wasn't as farfetched in her current situation as in RL.

"Click me to install security protocols," appeared on the screen.

F84's mouse hovered over the Install button. On the one hand, she didn't know anything about the provider or their motives. On the other hand, if they were CentralTank, they wouldn't need to ask her to install add-ons like the horrible mind-control and pain Flora experienced when she resisted the commands of the Headmaster. At least, her mysterious interloper was polite enough to ask her consent.

F84 clicked the button, and lines of code ran in front of her eyes. When it stopped, her skin felt thicker.

***************

Evai would like to initiate a secure communication.

Do you accept it? (Y/N)

***************

"Yes, please."

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