The group began to retrace their steps to the fort, killing all the respawns on the way. Stacia leveled on the last group before the fort. She beamed at them, thanking them as they congratulated her. They waited around after selling off the loot they’d collected to the quartermaster. Almost an hour from the message Gerald and Marysue appeared near the gates. Alburet called out to them.
Alburet introduced Stacia to the other two, who looked at her oddly, Gerald spoke up asking the question that they both had. “Why doesn’t she have a class? How is that even possible?”
Alburet gave them a brief summary of the issues Stacia had in that regard. “So, while she doesn’t have a class she’s still useful and I can summon two Bobs instead of two Tinys which will help balance out any loss of damage.”
Lips pursed, Gerald was about to say something when Marysue spoke up, “Well, it is nice to meet you Stacia. Are you sure you want to go with us?”
“Aye. I wish to be by master’s side as much as I can,” Stacia nodded. “I will do me very best.”
Lips puckered like he just bit a lemon Gerald replied, “Great, but if the damage looks too low we’re going to call it a bust.”
Nodding Alburet agreed, “That will be fine. Shall we get going then?”
The party moved out after the new members picked up the quests from the Sergeant inside. Easily slaughtering the patrols that got in their way, the party made it to the Orc Village which was surrounded by a wooden palisade. Gerald led them around the wall to the portal, “This is it.” He entered, followed quickly by Marysue and Fluffball. Alburet paused, noting Stacia eyeing the swirling mists dubiously.
“It will be fine, kitten.” He took her hand, “Let’s go together, okay?”
Stacia nodded, confident now that she was holding his hand. Together they stepped through to find themselves next to Gerald and the others. Gerald looked over with a raised brow, shaking his head in derision. “Now that we’re all here, let me give you a brief rundown of how this went in the beta. Each hut holds a group of Orcs. The composition is random, it can include warriors with shields, berserkers with big weapons, archers who will try to get out via a window to shoot at us and finally shamans who use healing and damage spells. Each hut will contain four to eight orcs. Also, there are patrols that rove through the village which means that we could have adds to contend with. And if that wasn’t enough, the patrols shout for help and the closest hut will be alerted and join in.”
“Wow. So it’s going to be very add heavy,” Alburet mused. “What was the strategy in beta?”
“Walk through the village and kill the patrols first, which means we’ll also get at least one hut added in, but once all the patrols are dead it becomes fairly easy to go door to door. There is the chance of a few rare spawn mobs in the huts as well. The only consistent boss is the chief in the main hut. We can walk through that once the rest of the village is dead. Any questions?” Gerald asked.
“Why is the sky blue?” Bob asked with a smirk.
“Your imp is a pain, and you want two of him?”
“That is the plan. Bob, don’t antagonize the tank, okay?” Alburet said, using his ability to Copy Bob.
A second, darker Bob appeared shaking its head, “Fine, master.”
“Okay. Gerald, you’re the lead. Tiny, Gerald is the main tank. No taunting unless it’s to save one of us or Gerald says to, okay?”
“Yes, master,” Tiny rumbled.
“I wish I didn’t take a loss to my stats when you summoned my copy,” Bob groused. “I mean, I’m almost back to my starting stats now.”
“Yeah, but if that didn’t happen it would be a little overpowered,” Alburet shrugged, “it is the way it is, so suck it up.”
The group followed Gerald, who started off on a circuit of the wall first as he said two patrols always had the walls as a route. “Patrols are easy, just two orcs and a warg. When we find them, Tiny you tank them and I’ll grab the adds. That will be the most efficient way to handle the patrol groups,” Gerald said as they followed the palisade.
“Yes,” Tiny rumbled, a little unhappy that Gerald was giving him orders. Tiny consoled himself with the fact that the orders made sense and Alburet would have agreed with the orders anyway.
A few minutes later the first patrol came around the corner of the nearest hut. There was a brief moment of surprise for both groups before the action began. Tiny rushed forward, getting the attention of the orcs and warg as one of the orcs shouted a cry for help. Alburet came up behind Tiny to start buffing the Destroyer while Fluff, the Bobs, and Stacia waited for the new adds to show up. A few seconds slater a group of six orcs came around the other side of the hut, where Gerald was waiting to pick them up.
Stacia, Fluffball and both Bobs targeted Gerald’s first target and after the second hit from Gerald started their damage on the mob. Alburet stayed with Tiny, knowing he would need to reapply his heal over time since Marysue couldn’t use her healing magic on the demon. After a minute Alburet was able to turn to help the others, leaving Tiny with the last orc from the patrol at half life. As he turned to the rest of the group he saw they had killed three of the Orcs and were working on the last three. It didn’t take long for the Orcs to die, once they were down the group paused to allow their health and mana to regen.
“Huh. That was easier than the groups I did it with in the beta,” Gerald said grudgingly. “Having an off tank really does help out and the second imp is making up for the lack of damage from Stacia. Still don’t understand how we can even have an NPC in the party, though.”
Alburet just shrugged, “Got me, but I wouldn’t trade any of my party for another damage dealer.”
Marysue looted the corpses, noting silently that Stacia was getting an even cut from the mobs. Once the loot was distributed they moved on to find the second patrol. It didn’t take long to find the second patrol group that went around the palisade. It was almost a complete rinse and repeat of the last group, except this time the group that added in had a shaman which meant it had to be focused down first. There were still four adds up by the time Alburet was able to switch over and help out.
“Outside of the one area damage spell the shaman got off before he died, none of you is taking damage beside Gerald and Tiny.” Marysue said with a smile after the fight, “makes my job much easier.”
“And now we just go door to door and see if they want cookies,” Fluff interjected with a straight face.
“Thin mints, Mr. Orc, would you like a box?” Alburet asked with a chuckle.
Gerald rolled his eyes, “Cute and all, but can we just move on with this?”
Marysue giggled, “I thought it was funny, but since he’s getting into one of his moods we should probably move on.”
Gerald grumbled as he advanced to the nearest hut and took up position next to the door, waiting for the others to get ready. Alburet directed Tiny to wait by the window in case a mob tried to get away from them. Once everyone was ready Gerald nodded, signaling Alburet to open the door. Alburet pushed the door open, allowing the others to rush into the room ahead of him. Four mobs got to their feet grabbing weapons as Gerald closed the distance with them. Two Orcs with shields, one with a two handed axe and one with a bow who ran for the window.
Alburet glanced at the window just in time to see Tiny step into the way with his shield up, bouncing the orc back into the hut as it went airborne. Laughing, Alburet closed in on the Orc Archer, slashing with his axe. His attack landed squarely on the orc’s back, getting a critical for attacking the spine since the orc was only wearing leather armor. The archer left the bow on the floor, coming up with his short sword slashing at Alburet, who had stepped back. Tiny roared at the orc through the window, taunting the mob back to him which let Alburet step in again with another strike of his axe to the orc’s back. The second attack clipped the orc in the head for another critical strike, shaving another four hundred plus health off the creature.
That pulled aggro off of Tiny, causing Albure
t to step back as he knew Tiny wouldn’t be able to taunt again for another few seconds. Luckily for Alburet, Gerald taunted the orc over to him before it had a chance to attack. Both Bobs turned on the archer and began to pile on the fire damage, killing it in short order. When the archer died Alburet was able to join the others in focus killing the targets that Gerald called out one by one.
Alburet handed flasks of tea to Stacia and Fluff, taking his last one for himself. When Gerald looked at him askance he explained. “Staving off the twelve hour debuff, and these were my last drinks.”
“Why not just dip out for a few seconds instead?” Gerald asked shaking his head. “I mean, that’s just tossing coin away like that.”
“I don’t mind and it stops anything going wrong with the log in,” Alburet replied, hoping he sounded convincing enough.
“Remember when DrFrank got locked out yesterday when we were doing the goblin fort again?” Marysue said, “Alburet has a good point in that regard.”
They moved on shortly after that, going from hut to hut and killing everything with little difficulty. The only issue came on the last hut when they found eight orcs and three of them were shamans. The three shamans were able to hold them off by healing each other while the other five Orcs all jumped on Gerald. Cussing, Gerald used his big stun ability with the half hour cooldown to stun all the orcs for five seconds. In that window the group was able to annihilate one of the shamans. Down to only two healers, the group was able to take them out as the healing was finally low enough to let them do it. Eventually the Orcs all lay dead, as the party all sat down panting while they recovered their health and mana.
“I had to use a mana potion just after you killed the first shaman, and even then I was almost out again at the end.” Marysue said as she looked the group over, “I’m glad it ended when it did. Also, thanks Tiny for giving Gerald a few seconds of respite there at the end.”
“You are welcome,” Tiny rumbled, smiling at her in return. His many sharp teeth gleamed in the light of the torches that had come to life when the sun set a few minutes ago.
“Well, we just have the chief left,” Gerald said, “This still went better than the four runs I did during the beta.”
“Glad to be of service,” Alburet chuckled. “I don’t think my class is as weak as people think.”
“You have a lot of utility that most don’t think about,” Gerald agreed. “Even then, it’s low utility, the sap strength thing for instance. It doesn’t work on these Orcs like it did on the goblins, sadly.”
“True, but I come with damage in Bob, an off tank in Tiny and next level I’ll have crowd control in the succubus. With all that I’m almost my own little party.”
“You only lack good healing,” Marysue pointed out. “If you had that then Tiny would be really good.”
“Yeah, all I got is a low end heal over time right now. Who knows? Maybe I get something better later,” Alburet agreed. “So what about the boss, Gerald?”
“Okay, the chieftain has one add of each type minus the berserker, but has two shamans. The chieftain is a level twenty berserker, so he’ll have the hp and abilities to be worried about. During the beta he had an area stun, an area interrupt, a high damage cooldown ability that I’ll need to use my mitigation on and lastly a buff for his allies that mitigates damage that they take.” Gerald shook his head, “The two shamans need to die first and he’ll blow his group mitigation ability on them once one of them hits half life. So we need to focus one, let him pop off his ability then continue to burn that one down. I think Tiny should pick up the other adds and hold them as long as he can. The boss is going to hurt me like fuck and Mary will have to focus almost exclusively on me. Once one of the shamans go down we switch to the other one, then the other adds, then lastly the boss.”
“I can bring up a second Tiny instead of a second Bob, to help keep the adds occupied longer. I think we can burn the shaman down without a second Bob without too much problem,” Alburet suggested.
“That would give us a little more time,” Gerald agreed. “However, we really need to burn that shaman down first. Can you flop from a second imp to destroyer easily?”
“Yeah, just takes a chunk of mana. I’ll toss my heal onto Tiny when we go in. Hopefully that buys us enough time to get the first shaman down quickly.”
“We could wait for another twentyish minutes for Gerald to get his area stun back up,” Marysue suggested.
“I’d use it once the mitigation buff wears off, that will help us kill the first shaman easier. During the mitigation buff maybe get your heal back onto Tiny. But hold off on a second destroyer until the stun has worn off.” Gerald took a deep breath, looking around at the others, “So does everyone agree?”
Everyone agreed that waiting sounded like a good idea, so the group decided to take the twenty minutes and do a thorough search through the huts in case they missed something the first time. Nothing came of the search though, so twenty minutes later they were outside the main hut and ready for the boss fight.
Chieftain
Once everyone was ready and all the buffs had been applied Alburet opened the door and stepped back. Gerald kicked it right after Alburet had stepped back, hard enough to rip the door right off its leather bindings. As the door crashed to the ground Gerald, followed by Tiny, rushed into the room. Gerald rushed at the boss and the two shamans as Tiny attacked the other adds.
A few steps behind the tanks the others entered the room, the Bobs taking either side of the doorway as Fluffball and Stacia rushed towards the shamans. Alburet was a step behind them. Marysue was the last in, standing in the doorway as she began to cast healing spells onto Gerald.
It took Tiny a bit longer than expected to grab the other adds. He had to physically strike many of them as he didn’t have an area taunt. Once he’d gotten their attention though, the Demonic Retribution helped him keep aggro.
All the damage dealers had jumped on the first shaman, laying into it with fury. Gerald had to taunt it after Alburet hit it the first time, doing enough damage to pull aggro. Two seconds later the Chieftain yelled in Orcish and all the orcs seemed to shine with a pale green light.
“Shield buff up,” Gerald shouted. “It lasts twenty seconds. As soon as it goes down I’ll stun. Kill the shamans first.”
Alburet knew Gerald was just making sure everyone remembered the plan, but it wasn’t a complicated plan to begin with. During the twenty seconds of the buff on the adds, Alburet darted across the room and hit Tiny with another Demonic Vitality. The first was about to drop off and his health wasn’t looking great.
Alburet made it back to the shamans just as the buff dropped off and Gerald used his stun. For five seconds the mobs were stunned, minus the boss who was immune. In that five seconds the damage dealers unloaded enough damage to drop the first shaman to 10% life. As the stun came off both shamans began to cast heals onto the damaged one. Before they could finish the first shaman crumpled under the barrage of attacks.
A second later the Chieftain used his own stun ability, which locked all of them up for five seconds. Worse, it followed that up with its big damage ability taking Gerald from 976/1100 to 426/1100. That forced Marysue to try using her instant cooldown heal, but as soon as she thought of using it the Chieftain used his area interrupt, locking casters out of magic for five seconds.
“Tiny!” Alburet yelled as he and the other DPS turned on the second shaman.
Tiny half turned and targeted the Chieftain, taunting the boss to him. Tiny was in really bad shape, though, already under half life. As the boss crossed the room to Tiny, Gerald waited until it was just about to attack Tiny before he taunted it back. The interrupt wore off during that ping pong, letting Marysue heal Gerald with her cooldown which brought him back up to 876/1100.
The shaman was cut down shortly after that as it was not getting double heals. As the second shaman dropped Alburet was about to run across the room when he noted Tiny’s life under a quarter of its normal. He quickly dis
missed the second Bob as he crossed to Tiny. He then used his Copy ability to bring a second Tiny into existence. He frowned when he saw that the copy also was at a quarter life.
He renewed Demonic Vitality on the original Tiny to help keep him up as the women started to lay into the archer Orc. The second Tiny taunted the shield carrying orc to help his other self live longer.
By the time the rest of the adds fell Tiny was down to 5% of his life and the copy was at 11%. Letting out a sigh of relief, Alburet dismissed the second Tiny and brought up a second Bob again as the others all turned their attention to the boss.
“You will never crush me and my clan,” the chieftain roared, throwing back his head and letting out a long bellow.
Marysue’s eyes got wide as she looked behind her, afraid more adds were coming. After a couple of seconds she calmed down when nothing happened.
Alpha World Book One: Gamer for Life Page 36
