Olaf paused and took a deep breath. Then loudly he said, “Let me be clear. This is the first Dungeon Raid. At least, it’s one of the first Raid Dungeons that I’ve heard of in the World Tree. We are not expecting this to be easy. We do expect to wipe multiple times. Don’t get disheartened if we don’t one-shot every boss and mob from start to finish. This will be a grind, starting with securing the graveyard and the Flatlands Camp. Any questions?” Olaf asked, looking over the assembled players.
After a minute of no questions, Micaela smiled brightly and shouted, “Alright, now let’s go kick some undead arse!”
Chapter 29
Hurlig Flatlands – Level 25-35
The Hurlig Flatlands is a rocky and desolate territory, rendered dead centuries ago by the dragon Reksoni. With the awakening of the Lich Xan, this province has been overrun by the undead that have begun invading nearby provinces. *Warning! Warning! Chaos Controlled Province! Imminent Danger!
I reviewed the message that greeted me upon entering the province once again. It only confirmed what I already knew. Seeing Eagle Eyepatch appear, I closed the message again and focused on his report.
“I counted 4 lich servants and maybe two-dozen undead villagers. They all ranged between level 27 and level 32 from what I saw,” Eagle reported to Olaf and Micaela.
The Flatland’s Camp was only a few hundred yards away, but we were all mentally and physically exhausted just getting that far. The idea of going that much further and needing to fight more of the undead was . . . unappealing. It had been a tough slog to fight our way through the sheer number of undead that stood between Hurlig Ridge and the Hurlig Flatlands. After fighting through the normal undead wolves, condors, mountain lions, and drakelings, all of which we’d gotten used to fighting, the Flatlands introduced us to drakes. The drakes were the drakelings larger, meaner, and altogether nastier elder siblings. We’d seen them in small groups or sprinkled in with undead Kobold hunting packs.
Kobolds are a race of lizard people who claim they are descended from dragons. To be clear, they are not Lizardmen, a Kobold is a different thing, they are far more bestial. They did not have opposable thumbs like most humanoids. Instead, they had three fingers on each hand that were more like the talons on a bird, same for their feet. They were also about as tall as the average Dwarf.
Mack helpfully informed us that the Flatlands played home to several tribes of Kobolds. Before being turned undead, they were mostly peaceful with the Flatland’s Camp. Some of the Kobolds went rogue on occasion, but they were generally easy to deal with. When asked about the number of tribes and how many Kobolds in each, Mack grimaced before telling us there were probably around a thousand spread out between sixteen tribes. Anyway, the main theme of the province seemed to be dragons, now undead dragons.
Then there were the scorpions. Not undead but actual living creatures. And like their cockroach cousins, they could survive just about anything. Anything included the disease that made everything else that lived into the undead. Oh, and did I mention the scorpions were the size of a German Shepherd dog on steroids? Because they were. I was honestly surprised we never saw undead versions of them, not that I needed that nightmare fuel.
“Okay, Duncan, it’s going to be up to you and the healers to heal up the lich servants and expel those things from their hosts, tanks will do their best to hold their attention, but no guarantees. Once the Lich Servant Soul separates, they die pretty easily. As for the other undead,” Olaf paused to let out a regretful sigh, “best we put them down.”
While I wasn’t technically a leader beyond being the ‘Lore hound’, as Micaela called me, I was allowed to listen in on the decision-making process. I knew myself well enough that if I had anything to add, I would.
“Try to keep the groups small,” Duncan said. “I’ll have Baby focus on healing the lich servants one at a time, and I suggest not trying to deal with more than one of them at a time. We don’t know what kind of abilities they are going to have,” Duncan explained before holding up a hand to stop Olaf from speaking, “Yes, I know, you fought one before. That doesn’t mean their abilities will all be the same. Their abilities might be unique depending on the host. We won’t know until we get into the fight.”
Olaf couldn’t really argue the point.
“Rose, how do you want to split this up?” Olaf asked.
Rose frowned. “If the lich servant’s ability is the same as before, there isn’t really any tanking it. That leaves Rock, Heavy, and me just picking up the villagers. If we can keep the pulls small, I would say two villagers per tank and go from there. If we can’t keep the pulls small, I would say no more than four per tank. And if these servants do need to be tanked, as long as it’s just one, I can handle it. If it’s more . . . we’ll figure that out when the time comes.”
“Alright,” Olaf said, rubbing his face. “Eagle, see if you can pull just one of the servants to us.”
Eagle Eyepatch nodded and moved off toward the camp.
The camp, or Flatlands Camp, reminded me of the old moving cities I learned about in history class when they talked about the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in America. Tented cloth roofs with log cabin style walls made up the only two large structures in the camp. Tents made up the rest. Though, given how nice my own tent was, it was entirely possible they were more houses than actual tents.
I watched as Eagle jogged forward before vanishing from sight, his ‘Stealth’ skill removing him from view. A minute later, I heard the distant soft twang of an arrow being released. An action that also broke Eagle’s ‘Stealth’. He didn’t wait around long before he was running back, a pair of lich servants and about a dozen of the undead villagers running after him.
“Rock, four on the left,” Rose barked. “Heavy, three on the right. I’ve got the four in the middle,” she ordered, clapping her shields together and locking the Shield-Wall into the larger form in anticipation of charging into the mass of monsters closing in on us.
“Damage dealers hold for a five count then let them have it, target the undead flatlanders unless told otherwise,” Olaf yelled, cocking his hand-cannons in anticipation of firing.
As Eagle ran past the front row of tanks, Rose yelled, “Charging,” then activated her ‘Shield Charge’ skill. Rock and Heavy were quick to join her. Their shields slammed into one or two of the undead, drawing immediate aggro.
Rock struck the ground with his Egyptian crook, causing the area around him to light up, resulting in the few undead that stood within the light to start burning as the now consecrated ground inflicted holy damage. It also solidified his aggro on the four undead that surrounded him as he quickly started using his shield to block attacks and counter with his crook to the best of his abilities.
Heavy swung his ax, cleaving left then right and left again. Slashing at all three of the undead in front of him. It was tanking in its purest form. Hit the enemy and get hit. Granted, he was rather good about making sure his shield was what got hit. I thought his block ability might have even been better than Rock’s.
Standing between Heavy and Rock, Rose stayed back and blocked, moving her shields quickly to take the blows. With each hit, I saw a tiny cut open up on the undead, drawing out black coagulated blood. It didn’t look much like real blood, but I knew that’s what it was supposed to be. I was almost certain she was using her new skill, ‘Bloody Thorns’. I wasn’t sure how to feel about her leveling up the skill during a raid, but as long as she could maintain aggro, I couldn’t complain. Plus, she had her ‘Exsanguination’ spell as well that drained HP almost every time she got hit. At least, as long as she had the mana to continue casting the sp
ell. It was my opinion that between ‘Bloody Thorns’ and ‘Exsanguination’, she had it covered. I wondered if she was also using her ‘Decay’ spell. It would be a good opportunity to level it up, again, if she had the mana to spare. Rose had a couple really good weeks as far as gaining valuable skills and spells went. I might have been a little jealous if I hadn’t gotten my own upgrades.
“Alright, kill them all,” Olaf shouted, firing the first shot.
I didn’t even have a chance to jump in when spells filled the air over my head and the gaps between the player next to me and myself, hammering into the undead. Spells that prevented me from leaping into attack. If I went even a foot into the air or to the left or right, I would have gotten caught in the crossfire. Instead, I needed to run in like all the other melee damage dealers. I would definitely be having a discussion with Olaf about positioning, there were better tactics available if we bothered to use them.
Thankfully, the fight against the undead citizens didn’t take long and the lich servants had the same abilities as before. The undead flatlanders were simple melee fighters, more akin to zombies. Though they did appear to be quite strong as the tanks’ HP moved up and down rapidly with the damage and healing. As for the servants, only one of them managed to use its ability to entrance others, successfully enthralling Rock, Heavy, and a handful of other players. A single healing spell from one of the healers on the lich servant interrupted the effect. After that, the writing was on the wall for the lich servants. They didn’t need to be hit with the most powerful healing. A simple, light healing spell was enough to interrupt whatever they were trying to do.
A few minutes later, a bewildered and confused
“Nice work, everyone,” Olaf called out when the fighting ended. “Replenish your mana or stamina, we’ll pull the next group shortly.”
“Olaf,” I started.
“What’s up, Bye-bye?” Olaf replied, taking a swig from a canteen.
“We need to form better ranks,” I said. “There was way too much friendly fire damage and too many spellcasters trying to cast spells over and around the melee damage dealers.”
Olaf groaned and rubbed at his lower back, “Tell me about it. Pwn hit me during that. I want to say he did it on accident, but with Pwn, you never know. Still, I’m going to choose to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Knowing Pwn, it was probably intentional. Also knowing Pwn, he didn’t necessarily do it out of malicious intent but more to let Olaf know there was a problem. That was just his way of making sure the Minotaur knew it. On the other hand, the man might just be that vindictive.
“Melee should be behind any of the undead. Range should be firing into the arc between the melee and the tanks,” I said.
“I know,” Olaf said. “Look, all the fighting of this trash is about getting better coordination. All those undead before now we’ve basically handled as small groups. Icyhot’s assigned group, our group, and Heavy’s assigned group. Now, we need to shift gears and work on fighting as one large group. We don’t know what kind of tactics we’re going to need in the tower, so all of it needs to be practiced. This is our chance to work some of it out. That said, I should have coordinated this pull better.”
I nodded along. I didn’t mean to sound like I was complaining or chastising him. Still, I was glad to hear his reasoning.
Olaf seemed to accept my nod as he yelled, “Alright, gather around children. Uncle Olaf is about to teach you all a little something about positioning.” The players chortled while some looked displeased with the patronizing tone. “First, anyone who fights at a range of thirty or more yards, over here,” he said, walking about thirty yards from the tanks and to the right as we were facing the camp. He gave the players a few minutes to move and assemble. “Now, spread out a bit so you’re not casting into each other’s backsides.”
“Alright, mid-range damage dealers and healers, over here,” Olaf said, walking to the left and toward the tanks, stopping about fifteen yards short of them. The Healers,
“Next up, Melee fighters,” Olaf said, walking further left and parallel to the tanks. There were just six of us.
“Or steamed!” Icyhot called out jokingly.
“Or steamed,” Olaf agreed with a chuckle. “The point is your chance of getting hit by one of their spells or one of my bullets is greatly reduced. Understood?”
There were nods from the various melee damage dealers.
“Now, tanks,” Olaf moved on to a position just across from the melee. “Your job is not just to get aggro but to position the monsters so that all the damage dealers can hit them without hitting you. Got it?”
I could see Rose wanted to say something witty but managed to hold her tongue.
“Right, so this is the basic formation we’re going to use for large groups of enemies. If we can manage smaller pulls, we will break into our
prearranged groups to deal with them,” Olaf finished, hoping everyone understood the set up for the raid. “I shouldn’t need to say this, but always be ready to adjust. Now, what do you say we try that again?”
Eagle went out again to pull. Personally, I would have sent someone with a higher level after the last pull. There was a good chance that Eagle’s low level caused the pull to be so much larger. Monsters tend to smell weakness. In other words, low-level players make attractive targets and have a habit of pulling more monsters as a result. But Olaf and Micaela were in charge. They led and we followed.
Just as before, Eagle came running back with a small horde of undead on his heels. And once again, as soon as he ran past the tanks, Rose ordered the start of the attack with a shout, “Charging!” Her form blurred from view and she met the first of the undead flatlanders with her Shield-Wall, followed closely by Rock and Heavy doing the same.
“Maintain positions,” Olaf barked out, anticipating the time to strike. “Tanks, get those undead in position.”
“Heavy, move first,” Rose grunted as she blocked two of the undead with her shield. She saw the third moving to attack her but was unable to do anything about it except grunt through the hit.
“Got it, boss,” Heavy said, taking a few steps back in a slight arc, one that the undead followed until they had their backs to us.
“Rock, go,” Rose ordered next.
And just like Heavy, Rock moved backwards in a short arc just as Heavy had, until he stood next to the Warrior tank. The movement allowed him to expose the backsides of the undead to us.
Rose moved last.
“Damage dealers go,” Olaf ordered. I don’t think the words even finished leaving his mouth when the first of the spells flew past and impacted with one of the undead Heavy was tanking.
World Tree Online: The Order of Epic Grinders: 4th Dive Page 50
