Anika stood to Epona’s left with just enough space between them for Lily. The three of them looked in different directions as giant squirrels ran towards them from the woods. In Anika’s view, she could see three squirrels on her side of the circle. Two of them were coming in closer to Philip and would likely try to attack him while the third was closer to where she was.

  “Philip! There are two squirrels coming behind you!” Anika shouted a warning to Philip, who was focused on the boss squirrel, before focusing on her own situation. “Lily, how many are on your side of the circle?”

  “Three! I’m going to use my new spell on them!” Lily answered

  “Okay, do it!”

  Anika was glad Lily’s definition of “a bunch” was only 6, not the 12 that had originally spawned in the clearing, which meant they should be able to handle them relatively quickly. She adjusted her grip on the dagger in her right hand, holding her left hand out to cast Splash and taking a step forward towards the squirrel coming towards her. Once the squirrel entered the short range of her spell, she unleashed Splash and immediately followed it with a swipe of her dagger. The gush of water, more controlled than it was when she first cast the spell, hit the squirrel right in the face. The dagger, on the other hand, whiffed past the squirrel’s side as it leaped towards her leather-clad left leg.

  When she had swung down with the dagger, she’d taken a half step forward with her right leg, but hadn’t transferred her weight fully onto it, so when the squirrel lunged at her left leg, she shuffled backwards awkwardly, instinctually, and unsuccessfully, trying to yank her left leg away from the squirrel’s rabid bite. Not my best move, Anika thought as she tried to regain balance with a squirrel now attached to her left leg. The squirrel, thankfully, did not seem to notice that it was biting into her leather armor and not her tender leg muscles, giving Anika a chance to strike with the dagger at the now unmoving target. That was thankfully enough to kill the squirrel, which Anika noted had a blue aura. She kicked the now limp squirrel off her leg and saw Philip blocking the boss squirrel with his shield while striking at the second of the squirrel adds with his trident – the first little bugger to attack his ankles was already dead.

  Anika whirled around, readying her dagger and preparing to cast another Splash at the squirrels she knew were coming at Lily and Epona. She hadn’t heard any sounds of Epona bashing squirrels with her hooves, but she figured she had been hyper-focused on her own squirrel and may have ignored the sounds of Epona’s destruction.

  That turned out to not be the case, however, as Anika stopped dead in her tracks as her eyes focused on the scene around her. Lily, standing in front of three slightly larger capybaras.

  “Uhh… what?” Anika knew she probably should ask a slightly more intelligent question, but the unexpected change in scene had left her just a little confused.

  “My new spell!” Lily squeaked happily “I can turn monsters into capybaras who fight on our side! They’re even in the party!”

  “So… you polymorph them and turn them into pets? That’s a little OP” Anika muttered the last bit, as she thought about her weak Splash spell, the same level spell that Lily’s new polymorph was. She now also noticed that there were three small capybara faces on the bottom of the party listing.

  “Yeah! They are new friends!” Lily said excitedly.

  “We definitely need to discuss this more later… can you make them go help Philip? We need to kill this boss!” Anika turned back towards Philip, noticing that Epona was already heading that direction.

  As Anika moved towards the boss squirrel, she assessed Philip’s position. It didn’t look like he had taken any damage from the distraction of the small squirrels. He still wasn’t getting a lot of opportunities to attack when the giant squirrel had both a bite and swiping claw attacks, but now that they all realized the adds were less troublesome than they could have been, Anika could return to the original strategy and attack the squirrel from behind.

  When Epona was a few feet away from the squirrel to Philip’s right, Anika noted a shimmer in the air between the pegasus and the boss squirrel, who staggered slightly to the side, giving Philip the opportunity to swipe at the squirrel’s left side. She must have gotten a new ability too, Anika thought. At the same time, a trio of capybaras passed her, rushing the boss at a far less cautious pace than she used to approach. While she wouldn’t have necessarily recommended a rush strategy, it would offer plenty of distraction for her to dodge in and out between the polymorphed capybaras’ bodies and Epona’s hooves.

  Philip cast another Dirt Discs, pushing the squirrel back a step and stabbing forward with his trident as he did. Anika took the opportunity to rush forward and Splash the creature’s back before retreating out of the squirrel’s range. The cooldown of Splash was short, but Anika was not about to stay in melee range if she could help it. The boss hadn’t shown any sign of turning to attack Epona or the capybaras – yet – but Anika didn’t want to take chances. The squirrels-turned-capybaras were much better fodder than she was if the boss decided to aggro someone other than the tank.

  Lily moved up behind Anika, close enough for her Calming Presence to impact the boss but not close enough to be in melee range or interfere with Anika’s movement in and out of range for Splash. Capybaras didn’t exactly have the best natural weapons, as shown by the trio of controlled capy’s ineffectual swiping at the tough squirrel’s hide, so it was best for Lily to wait it out. Even if her new ability didn’t do much damage, the crowd control provided by the ability was incredibly helpful in the wave of adds they had faced, and more targets to soak boss spells and abilities would be a boon in later battles.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Anika dodged in and out of range for Splash again twice more before Philip cast another Dirt Discs. Epona’s new attack had a similar cooldown to Dirt Discs, and she timed her strike immediately after Philip’s Dirt Discs. Between casts, Epona kicked forward at the left side of the squirrel, preventing it from attacking with its left fore-claws and making it easier for Philip to block the biting attacks and swipes from the creature’s right arm. Philip had not taken any significant damage, and Epona deftly avoided any attempted swipes from the beast.

  The squirrel, meanwhile, was starting to show some signs of wear, having taken several hits from Philip’s trident as it tried to avoid the nuisance of capybaras at its back. Several lines of blood wet its coarse fur, and its left arm had a nasty gouge near the shoulder and looked like it was likely broken from Epona’s rearing attacks that saw her crushing down on the squirrel’s left side with her front hooves. Despite the damage it had taken, it showed no sign of giving up or running away, and continued to snap viciously at Philip with its jaws as they battered it with attacks from three sides.

  After another volley of spells, the squirrel stomped down with all fours, throwing up a cloud of dust around it. Anika reflexively covered her mouth and nose with her arm and squinted to prevent the dust from impacting her sight or breathing. Philip also took a step back, not sure what to expect from the creature. The trio of capybaras at its feet sniffled their noses adorably and stopped attempting to hit the boss while the dust covered them in a cloud.

  From inside the dust cloud, Anika could hear the same squeaking sounds that had summoned the additional squirrels last time. Unlike the first time the boss made the call, this time the call continued longer than it had before and was more frantic.

  “I think we are going to have more friends coming in!” Anika yelled as she fell back besides Lily, ready to protect her companion. They had handled the previous wave of adds because Lily’s ability had polymorphed three of them into capybaras, and two had attacked Philip. She wasn’t sure if Lily would be able to turn more of them into capybaras or if they would have to handle all the adds this time, as they hadn’t had a chance to discuss the mechanics of Lily’s new ability.

  “How many are coming? Can you turn more of them into capybaras?” Anika asked as she arrived next to Lily.

  “There are more than last time! And I can only have three,” Lily said sadly.

  More than last time wasn’t a great scenario, but Philip did still have his Warp Earth spell they could use on them. The problem was, Anika wasn’t sure how friendly fire worked with spells like that. It would be hard to position the mobs in a way that they would take damage long enough without Anika, Lily, and Epona being at risk as well. They were likely to come from all sides again as well, which would make it even more difficult to corral them into one AoE when they started out surrounded.

  Anika saw the giant squirrels begin to appear from the edge of the forest. Her heart sank. There was triple the number of squirrels as the first time the boss had called for adds - maybe more than that. This must be some final death call that had the power to summon one last rush of minions to save the boss.

  “There are 20 or more squirrels coming!” Anika cried at the others. “Philip, you are going to have to cast your Warp Earth spell to take care of them, but they are going to surround us!”

  “Epona says to stay with her,” Philip called as he stabbed through the dust at the shrieking boss.

  “I don’t think she can drive off all these squirrels,” Anika said, looking wildly around at the squirrels that were closing in on them. She watched as Epona turned towards her and Lily, giving a mighty kick with her back legs at the head of the boss as she did, her hooves connecting with a loud crack.

  The sound coming from the boss changed from a shriek to a death knell as Philip stabbed forward again to skewer the boss on his trident when the force of Epona’s kick sent the boss tumbling quickly forward. The boss struggled briefly, but its life faded quickly away as Philip struggled to free his trident from the corpse of the oversized squirrel.

  Unfortunately, the real world didn’t work like video games where defeating the raid boss ended the encounter and adds disappeared. The boss’s death did nothing to deter the rabid mass of squirrels charging at them from the trees. Anika set herself in what she thought was a defensive stance next to Lily and held tightly to her dagger. Epona stood between them and Philip as the squirrels raced forward.

  Suddenly, Anika felt herself being jerked upwards as Epona leaped into the air, spreading her wings and shooting skyward. Lily squealed next to her as she, too, was dragged into the air next to Epona. Philip lost his grip on his trident, still firmly stuck in the corpse of the boss squirrel, as he, too, raised into the air.

  “What is happening?” Anika yelled at Philip.

  “Uh, Epona said she could get us away,” Philip replied, looking over at Anika and shrugging.

  Anika looked down at the squirrels piling up below them as they raised higher into the air. Now around 7 feet off the ground, they were safe yet still in the area of combat; there was no need to escape and waste all that experience.

  “Well, don’t look at me, use your Warp Earth to kill them!” Anika shouted back at Philip.

  “Oh! Right!” Philip replied, looking back down at the ground. Epona stopped flying up and hovered when they were approximately 10 feet from the ground, waiting for Philip to cast his spell.

  The obviously extremely intelligent squirrels did not make any move to escape as the ground roiled and moved beneath them. They were, instead, intent on their quarry who were now out of reach. Several tried jumping and climbing on each other to try to reach their prey, but there was little chance of the oversized rodents making it to the group hovering safely in Epona’s ethereal grasp.

  The ending to the battle came slowly and anti-climatically as the mass of squirrels stopped moving, with lower-level squirrels dying first, over the approximately 20 second duration of the Warp Earth spell. The group watched silently. Anika somehow felt worse about them dying as they clawed and hopped hopelessly towards the sky than when they had killed them from the trees. At least then they could pretend like they had a chance by running after their attacker. As the ground stopped moving, Epona lowered them back to the ground.

  “Well, that was exciting!” A voice echoed from across the clearing and Leka appeared as if she had been there all along.