32. Stay Calm

"The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." — Bertrand Russell

As he looked around, Paul noticed that his teammates were mentally compromised. All of them were enraged or horrified, and even Eagle's Light seemed scared about the dungeon's setting.

Noticing Holly's distress, Paul, her trusted companion in the game, decided to step in and offer his support. He knew they had plans to run activities together, and he was determined to help her through this challenging moment. 

He quickly opened a private message tab and messaged her as the fight was in the early stages.

-Take a deep breath, Holly. Remember, the game is designed to challenge us, but it won't cross certain boundaries. If you venture into the outer reaches of the dungeons, you'll find no horrors, just bandits and their captives. The game's rating ensures it won't push past heavy suggestions.

He could visibly see the girl relax as she read the message; it was clear the mental burden was the most challenging part of the dungeon. 

The game's environment set up a tricky challenge with dungeons like Blaire's Retreat; very few players were accustomed to the mental strain that hearing and imagining such terrible things would put ordinary people under.

This was also something that many people criticized about the game for a long time.

Out of their group of five, only Eagle's Light had ever done the dungeon before; clearing it was the only reason Bob and Off Botton had come to begin with. Having done the other dungeons they had completed before they were here because it was more challenging to find people to run dungeons the higher your level, it was also tricky to do dungeons on level people like Paul and, to a lesser extent, Claire being somewhat rare being able to do well while only a level or two ahead of the enemies.

Realistically, Bob planned on waiting until he was level 30 to try it before his cousin invited him to join. The same was true for Off Botton; if she had not seen Paul recruiting to run them, she would have focused on leveling up more before trying to find a team.

With that in mind, the boss fight was more straightforward than the previous dungeon they had done. That was because the difficulty was stacking in the DPS checks, which their group excelled in compared to the extremely dangerous attack-all mechanic Eldrin used previously. 

With that in mind, after failing to stop the health refresh the first time, they could easily pushed through and kill Ruth, the NPC who healed Blaire.

After that, Blaire was not much of an obstacle since he had no particularly troublesome mechanics.

Without issue, they were able to kill him without anyone dying.

After the boss died, the group breathed a sigh of relief; although the fight went smoothly, it did not mean it was easy for them.

"That was not that hard but very stressful."

Bob sat down before even looting, taking a moment to calm down.

Walking over to the loot, Eagle's Light looked somewhat disappointed.

"It seems I didn't get much of use; you can have it, Holly."

Looking over Holly, Off Botton, Lazarus, and Bob, after a short time, went over to complete the dungeon quest, then headed to the boss to check their spoils. 

Looking over the loot Blaire dropped, Paul got a piece of Retreat Raider's Battlegear.

"Here you go; if you have any other gear you don't need, I'll take it to deconstruct."

"Sure, this set seems to be for healers so you can have it."

They quickly traded gear while everyone else finished looting.

Looking over everyone, Eagle's Light spoke to everyone. 

"Well, we finished around an hour ahead of schedule and completed everything we originally wanted to. Let's call it here and return to the other zones we were around before."