Forming the Company (Alpha World Book 2)

by Daniel Schinhofen

  A moment after everyone started attacking, the gnoll slapped his shield with his hammer. That caused those in melee with the gnoll to end up stunned for three seconds. While everyone was stunned, the gnoll healed itself and then got a decent hit in on Gerald. Marysue had been standing back, out of range of the stun, which meant she was able to keep Gerald healthy even with the critical hit the gnoll landed. Gerald used his Shield Bash to stun the gnoll, but it shook off the stun thanks to some ability.

  The fight didn’t take long with all of them ganging up on it. Once it dropped, the group shifted over to the dazed gnoll. Before anyone did anything Alburet spoke up, “Hey, why don’t we have Tiny hold it at the start? That should make it use its stun right away.”

  The others agreed and everyone got ready for the fight to kick off. Tiny put his shield and axe away then grabbed the gnoll’s two unresisting arms. As soon as the gnoll snapped out of the daze it growled and ripped its arms free of Tiny. “You can’t hold me, I am a Champion of Ulloc,” the gnoll spat as it turned on Tiny.

  Gerald was the first to respond as they were all mildly shocked at how easily the gnoll had broken free. Gerald taunted the gnoll to him, which got him hit by the gnoll’s hammer. Everyone else paused to let the aggro to build as Tiny got his weapon and shield equipped again, a snarl on his face at having failed his mission to hold the gnoll. Aside from the surprise of the gnoll pulling free from Tiny the fight went the same as the first one.

  As they looted the two corpses, Gerald shook his head, “So I guess they really meant it about holding mobs coming down to strength and dexterity.”

  Tiny growled softly at the words before he stomped over to the portal, glaring at it with his back to the others. Bob shook his head slightly and spoke in a soft voice so Tiny wouldn’t hear him, “I think that is the first time he’s failed you, master.”

  Alburet nodded as he stepped over to Tiny, “Tiny, you alright?”

  Tiny’s eyes shifted to Alburet then away, “I failed. Will you dismiss me now for another?”

  “Idiot,” Alburet sighed. “No, a single failure doesn’t mean you’ll being replaced. You would have to intentionally fail multiple times before I even considered that option. As it is, these things happen. The gods changed the way the world works just a while ago. We now know that currently you won’t be able to hold some monsters from level twenty-five and up. You will get stronger when I get the ability to upgrade you, until then we do what we can. So don’t treat this as a failure, treat it as a learning experience.”

  Tiny nodded before standing up to his full height, “As the master wishes.”

  “Good. Now let’s go get some payback, shall we?” Alburet chuckled.

  “We good?” Gerald asked.

  “We’re good to go,” Alburet replied motioning towards the misty white cloud that covered the cave opening.

  They filed in after Gerald, Fluff and Karen each patting Tiny on the back as they went by. Stacia gave Tiny a quick hug, “Ya still be me protector, Tiny.”

  Tiny mellowed slightly at Stacia’s words before Alburet stepped through the portal. They found themselves in a very dim cave with natural light coming in from a few small shafts. The walls and floor were covered in green moss which was damp to the touch. The sounds of guttural speech could be heard echoing from deeper in the cave.

  Quest: Bring proof of defeating an optional boss to the Gnoll Watch Fort

  Rewards: Twenty gold per boss and an item from the Gnoll Watch Fort quartermaster

  Gerald gathered the group around, speaking in a hushed tone. “During beta, this cave had the primary boss and two optional bosses. One of them is an earth elemental, mostly a straight forward fight. He has high defense to physical attacks and most magic so it’s an attrition fight, we just need to outlast him. The other boss is the real pain, it’s a giant plant with tentacles. The tentacles will grab people, inflicting damage to them until they are free. Even worse, the whole area will have a poison cloud which means we’ll all be taking damage the entire time. That fight is a real pain for healers. Add in the fact half of our damage can’t be healed normally and it will be even tougher. The one time we tried to skip the optional bosses in beta the Shaman ended up with extra abilities. So, we really need to take out the optional bosses first. Any preference?”

  Karen gave her opinion, “Let’s go for the earth guy first. That sounds like a straight up damage check, so we can see how we stack up.”

  Fluff agreed with Karen, “She makes a good point.”

  Alburet shrugged, “I’m good with that.”

  Gerald looked at Marysue, who also shrugged. “Okay then, the main tunnel leads to the Shaman. The right one leads to the plant, so we want to go left to the earth boss. There will be at least two packs of smaller earth elementals. I don’t think Stacia will be able to daze them. If she can’t, then bring up a second Tiny to help tank the adds. Focus them down one by one, starting with the one that Tiny has. Questions?”

  No one had any, so Gerald started them down the main tunnel then split off to the left. The tunnel stopped having moss after a few feet, going back to roughhewn rock in a vaguely circular ten-foot diameter. The minimal light was provided by small shafts that seemed to be open to the sky, but they were so small even Bob wouldn’t have been able to squeeze into them.

  They started to hear the scrape of stone against stone as they followed the tunnel. It continued to go off away from the other two tunnels while also having a gradual decline. The light started to wane as the light shafts stopped appearing. In their place a kind of luminescent sheen started on the ceiling, which gave the same over-all lighting after a few more feet. The floor of the tunnel was smooth, while the walls and ceiling had bumps and outcroppings that gave it a more natural look.

  After a few hundred feet the tunnel curved hard left. Gerald had the rest of the group stop while he looked around the corner. The sound of stone grinding on stone was very loud. He turned back to the group, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the grinding. “Two elementals around the corner, each has about three thousand health so it’s going to take a while since they have high damage resistances. Any questions?”

  “Am I even going to be able to hurt them?” Bob asked grumpily.

  Gerald shrugged, “No idea, we’ll find out. Stacia, I don’t think they can be dazed but try the further one to be sure. Tiny, if she can’t daze it then pick it up. If Tiny has to tank, all of you kill the one he has first. Alright, let’s get this party started.”

  Gerald went around the corner first, followed by Stacia so she could try to daze one of the two mobs. Tiny followed her in case he had to tank it. As each of them rounded the corner they saw a circular room about thirty feet across. Rumbling around the room were two ten-foot-long quadrupedal creatures. The creatures were the same color as the rock around them, but unlike most four legged critters these had neither tail nor head. One end had a foot-wide hole that seemed to have large flat teeth made of metal. They only stood maybe three feet tall, and were about the same wide. Their legs were easily a foot wide each, simple solid tubes that emerged from each corner of the roughly rectangular creatures. As the Earth Eaters moved, they barely lifted their legs which is what was causing most of the grinding sound.

  Gerald started for the closest one which was heading vaguely towards them, while the further one seemed to be rubbing its mouth against the wall. As Alburet took this all in, he dimly noted they didn’t appear to have any eyes. He was just about to comment on it when Stacia started singing at the furthest one. The Earth Eater furthest from them pulled back from the wall, turning towards them and coming at them fast. The closer one also came towards them at speed, reminding Alburet of an avalanche.

  “No good,” Stacia said as she pulled her blades.

  Alburet slapped Tiny with buffs before he stepped back. Gerald attacked the closer one, turning it away from the group as he did. Tiny took a small step forward, hacking at his target when it got in range. His axe clanged off it
, doing minimal damage. Karen, Fluff, Stacia and Alburet all started to circle around it. Alburet knew he had to wait longer than the others due to how much damage his axe did, so he tried to find any weak spots on the Earth Eater as they moved. After another few seconds, the women started their attacks along with Bob.

  “Only twenty damage a hit?” Fluff seemed puzzled after her first two attacks.

  “Yeah, outside of my first attack from stealth, I’m doing maybe ten a hit and I can’t poison it either.” Karen groused.

  “At least you can do damage,” Bob sulked as he stopped casting at the mob.

  “I do less than ten meself,” Stacia added.

  Tiny was taking damage, but not a tremendous amount luckily. Alburet’s heal over time was still not keeping up with the damage Tiny was taking. Alburet cast Demonic Vitality onto Tiny again before he triggered his flame ability for his weapon. Pausing for another second, he swung hard into the side of the monster. He blinked as he only got a little over a hundred damage from the weapon and only half of the fifty fire damage to go through the monster’s armor.

  “Well fuck, these things really do negate a lot of damage,” Alburet said, in agreement with the other’s complaints.

  It took a few minutes for them to drop the one on Tiny before they could move over to help Gerald, who had done minimal damage to his in that time period. Everyone piled in except for Bob, who was standing next to Marysue and sulking. Two minutes later the second Earth Eater fell over dead for them. The group let out a collective sigh of relief before Gerald bent to loot the corpse.

  “This sucks,” Bob stated flatly. “Until master gets to twenty-one and gets the spell to summon a stronger version of me I am useless for these rock things. They don’t have soft points for me to target to get damage in.”

  “Do you want to take a break until we’re done with this side of the dungeon?” Alburet asked as he dismissed the copy of Stacia to summon a copy of Tiny instead.

  “No, I want to help,” Bob groused before he looked away. “I just don’t like being useless.”

  “Well, when we go after the next two wings of this dungeon I’m sure you’ll get your chance,” Alburet told Bob. “Until then, go ahead and head on back to the Infernal plane for a bit. Find a succubus and see if she’ll help ease your mind.”

  Bob shrugged, “Fine.” He vanished in a puff of smoke.

  “A sulky imp, now I’ve seen it all,” Gerald chuckled. “Only coin on these two, but it was a nice bit of silver. I think there’s another room like this one, then the boss room. Now that we’ve fought them does everyone understand what we’re looking at?”

  Karen nodded, “If the boss has the same kind of armor it’s going to be a bitch to kill him.”

  Fluff pulled a two-handed hammer out of her bag, “I’ll try this on the next set.”

  The group moved on down the tunnel until it came to the next room, where two more Earth Eaters moved about running their mouths over the walls. Alburet was able to see small chunks of the wall break away and be devoured.

  “So, they eat rock and are made of rock?” Alburet muttered.

  Gerald nodded, “Yup. Also, I’m sure you guys noticed they don’t have eyes. The best guess we came up with during beta was a tremorsense ability. So, the more noise you make the easier it is for them to find you. Though they do follow regular mob logic and attack the person with the most aggro. We ready for round two?”

  The next fight went almost the same as the first, but this time it went a little quicker as Fluff was able to get almost fifty damage in at a go with the two-hander. Once the coin was looted, the group paused to recover mana and health. As they waited Fluff nodded, “A good point to keep in mind, two-handed weapons in here are almost a must to really do any damage.”

  Karen sighed, “Tell me about it. At least the gnolls will have weak points and will be susceptible to poison.”

  “Gnasher is next,” Marysue said a little hesitantly. “We only took it down once during the beta, we were level twenty-five when we did. We also brought the best damage we could get at the time.”

  Gerald frowned, “That’s true Mary, but I think we can do this. Alburet can do the damage of two people with that axe right now. Gnasher is a twenty-foot-long version of these guys, it also stands five feet tall. The real issue is that it has twenty thousand health and is just as hard to damage, if not harder, than the trash we just killed.”

  Alburet checked his axe’s durability, nodding as it was still over half. “Then this is going to be a real fight. Five minutes plus from the sound of it. Tiny, do you have any two-handed weapons you can use?”

  Tiny shook his head, “No, master. My kind only uses shields and one-handed weapons.”

  “Ah, well. Do your best then. Stacia, are you able to do any damage with your blades?”

  “Aye, master,” Stacia responded, “minimal, but some. Also, would ya mind iffin I gave Bob a good hug when he gets back? It might cheer him up.”

  “That’s fine, Kitten,” Alburet added, giving her a squeeze with one arm.

  “Heh, we can tag team him and make his head explode,” Karen chuckled.

  “Can we focus on the boss first?” Gerald asked, derailing the talk of making Bob explode. When they all quieted down he nodded, “Okay, then. Is everyone ready?”

  Once everyone nodded Gerald led them down the tunnel. It twisted down and around a bit before they came to a football field sized cavern. The glow from the ceiling in here was brighter, allowing everyone to marvel over the crystalline lattice that was laced through the walls. What really caught the eye, though, was Gnasher as it slowly moved about the place. Alburet figured if it was real it would easily have had the same mass as an earth hauler at a mine. Each step the thing took caused a grinding noise that was just short of painfully loud and shook the floor under their feet.

  “That thing is fucking massive,” Karen breathed out in awe. “Makes me want to get a saddle and a twenty-millimeter autocannon strapped to it. Am I right? I know I’m right.”

  The image she conjured with those words brought a snort of laughter from Alburet. “It’s broad enough to mount multiple swivel guns to the sides. It could easily carry a handful of passengers that way.”

  “Guild transport?” Gerald chuckled before shaking his head. “That would so break the game, but damn, it would be fun.”

  Marysue pursed her lips, “I guess I would steer it, then. Goodness knows I don’t want to shoot stuff.”

  Fluff giggled, “I can just see it painted with the guild emblem. Marysue driving while the rest of us lay down fire along the sides, blasting undead in the Dead Lands.” The whole group chuckled over the image for a moment, the tension they had felt on seeing Gnasher evaporating.

  “Okay, this is it. Is everyone ready?” Gerald asked, getting nods from the others. “Okay. I’ll lead off. It didn’t have any special mechanics during beta. I hope they didn’t change that.” He twisted his shoulders slightly then started into the room, leading with his shield.

  Everyone followed him in, the damage dealers all spreading out some, so they could get at the sides of the beast when Gerald engaged it. Marysue stopped a few yards back, making sure she had everyone in range for her healing spells. When Gerald got to within twenty feet of Gnasher it turned its mouth towards him and started forward. Gerald bashed his shield into the side of Gnasher’s mouth as they collided. A horrible scraping sound echoed briefly through the room as metal teeth slid off the metal shield. The normal grinding of Gnasher as it moved any foot was so loud as to make conversation all but impossible.

  Alburet stopped next to Gerald, reaching out to buff him with Demonic Vengeance to help do all the damage they could to the boss. Once Gerald got three hits in, Fluff, both Tinys, Stacia, and Karen all started attacking it. Alburet held back another few seconds before he triggered his flame ability on his axe and swung at the beast. His attack pulled a little over a hundred health off plus a little more in fire damage.

  Alburet kept
an eye on Gerald, noting that even with the shield he was taking a fair amount of damage from Gnasher. Marysue was keeping up with it without issue at the moment, so Alburet went back to focusing on the boss. A little over a minute later they got Gnasher’s health down to 14,987/20,000. When they kicked it under the fifteen thousand mark, Gnasher let out a horrendous roar before launching itself a few feet into the air. When it came down, the shock of it hitting the ground knocked the group onto their backs as well as pushing them back a good dozen feet.

  Gnasher wasted no time attacking Gerald as he tried to regain his feet, forcing Gerald to stay on his knees to block the attacks. Tiny got to his feet and let out a roar himself, taunting Gnasher to him. Gnasher turned around striding towards Tiny, finally allowing Gerald to regain his feet. Marysue used her area heal to give them all back the few hundred life they lost from the stomp attack. Tiny blocked the first attack by Gnasher as Gerald taunted it back, snarling at the pain Marysue’s spell inflicted on him.