After successfully clearing the troll village, the Misfits decided it was finally time to steal the tanker ship from the pirate city. While they might meet the minimum level requirement to kill the mini-bosses that were immediately outside the tankers, that wasn't the only challenge. There were a number of technical difficulties they needed to overcome first: clearing the city of its inhabitants so that the Misfits didn't need to kill innocent bystanders, figuring out how to move the ship (most ships were crewed by AI and robots), and figuring out a way to navigate the ship once they were at sea without any modern electronics.

The first hurdle would be relatively easy to overcome and Smashit had figured out an easy way to distract the city's inhabitants right away – a fire in a key location such as at one of the food storage warehouses they city kept in order to feed its residents would get everyone's attention away from the guild's activities. The second hurdle was one that Cheezus had figured out during his scouting expeditions onto the large tanker ships. It appeared as though the mutants onboard had devised a way to guide the large tanker ships in and out of the port to ferry goods back and forth between here and Brisbane using a magical device on board. The Misfits would just need to capture and figure out how to use that magical device in order to power the ship. The last hurdle was one that Sean had mulled over the most before realizing there was an ancient and very simple way of solving their navigation problem – they would travel by the stars. After consulting with Aeon on how to go about doing this, he had also assembled a very crude sextant and some other basic navigational tools with the help of some of the surviving miners and a blacksmith who kept all their equipment functional.

The Misfits gathered in the evening twilight on the plains outside the city. Smashit looked around at his guildies with anticipation of the coming fight. Everyone wordlessly nodded at him that they were ready. This time they had fully prepared to the take the fight to their enemy. Cheezus had set the fire and returned – go time.

Smashit heard the screams of the townspeople as they rushed out of their homes and businesses to gawk at their food supply going up in smoke. The Misfits ducked into an ally to allow more of them to pass. So far, they had gotten about halfway through the winding streets towards the port undetected. However, at that moment a small mutant boy, ran into the alley and into Smashit’s armor. Shit, he thought. However, he recovered quickly and as he saw the boy's eyes widen he brought the pommel of his sword down onto the boy's temple, hopefully knocking him out and not killing him. He didn't have time to check as there were more people rushing by and this was their chance to make a break for it.

Out into the streets they crept along with Cheezus taking point to guide them. None of the rest of the guild would have been able to pass here undetected except for the cacophony of the fire burning nearby. The smoke had started to become choking in the last few minutes, so they needed to make their way to the port as quickly as possible or they would become overwhelmed by the thick sulfurous cloud. Smashit checked his stamina – it was getting depleted by the second. He and Cheezus exchanged a silent nod and Cheezus started booking it towards the port while Smashit indicated to the others that they needed to run as quickly and quietly as possible. Unfortunately, being silent wasn't really a thing while running in plated armor.

Coming round a corner, Smashit saw Cheezus fighting three of the city's guards. They had been extremely fortunate to make it this far without encountering a patrol but apparently the time for stealth was past. The guards had him flanked: he faced one of them, his daggers locked with the mutant's sword, while the other two were swinging their weapons towards his unprotected back. Smashit charged in simultaneously with Thag and they each stunned the guards that had been attacking Cheezus' back just a moment before. Smashit followed up his stun with a devastating sword attack:

-325 slashing

Instakill

Smashit had gained some levels in the past week but he was still only level 35. He was surprised that a level 30 guard would go down that easily; however, he didn't have time to admire his own awesomeness. The Misfits had finished up the other two guards while he killed his and now they were all continuing their run toward the port. There would no doubt be more guards following these ones very shortly and they didn't want to get caught fighting the entire city guard on their way to the docks.

Their next big challenge was right ahead of them – the massive elites that guarded the tankers. From Cheezus' reports these creatures were a lot tougher and considerably smarter than the other city inhabitants. They were also decked out in full pirate regalia: swashbuckling sword (that was probably 12' long), pirate clothes, and one of them even had an eye patch. Cheezus had not over stated their massive size – each of the four creatures was easily 15 feet tall and heavily muscled. Smashit looked at the status bar over their head that showed them as Level 50 Elites. This was going to be the tough part. Fortunately, Cheezus had done some early scouting with his Discover Enemy Weakness. Apparently, these particular mutants were weak against fire magical attacks. Too bad they didn't have any casters with fire spells. Deathberry was limited to unholy magic and Linca was limited to holy magic. So the Misfits were going to have to do things the old fashioned way.

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Sheathing his sword, Smashit rushed the first of the towering creatures with a burning torch. Linca and Thag threw burning pitch onto the creature and Smashit lit it up:

-75 fire

-90 fire

-82 fire

Burning tar wasn't magical fire so this was going to take a while. Smashit dodged as best he could while holding aggro on the first creature. The other three turned from their posts and charged. Thag finished throwing burning pitch on the rest of them and then pulled out her demon sword and attacked. The two of them spent the next several minutes just holding off the enemy and trying to survive. Each of the creatures had four arms and they hit like a truck:

-417 bludgeoning

-378 bludgeoning

-477 bludgeoning

-524 bludgeoning

Smashit's health dipped into the red. He was down to 8% health and nearly dead at this point. He activated his shield wall effect to keep him on his feet. The next eight attacks did only miniscule damage through the barrier while Linca bombed enhanced healing light on him repeatedly. After his shield wall expired after thirty seconds he was back to half-health. “Switch,” he called out quickly in raid chat.

Thag took over with a howling death AOE that pulled the four creatures to her. Quickly, her health bar started depleting while Smashit worked to recover his health and continued applying his torch to the mutants, trying to keep them on fire. Deathberry and Cheezus had managed to get one of them down to 4% health with their repeated attacks and the fire damage slowly chipping away at their health. The damage on Thag continued unabated except for the enhanced holy lights that landed on her every several seconds and the small amount of self-healing that Demon Knights did as they DPS'd their opponents.

Finally, he and Thag switched again after she had activated her tank ability demon shield, which consisted of all the souls she had killed stepping in front of her to absorb the damage. The higher level the Demon Knight the more souls they had to come to their defense when the ability was activated. Unfortunately, the next phase would be more difficult. Smashit only had one more tanking ability left and then after that he'd have to wait another minute until shield wall was off cooldown. It was the same situation for Thag. They needed to end this fight quickly if they hoped to survive and take the tanker.

When they were down to two opponents one of the creatures retreated and jumped into the ocean behind them on the docks. The flames were extinguished; however, they were also down to just one opponent. “Thag can you secure the ramp on the tanker, while Deathberry starts up the magical engine?” Smashit asked in raid chat. “Cheezus, Linca, and I will finish off the last one.” Everyone sprang into action and the two other Misfits headed to the tanker to help speed up their escape. Smashit realized how difficult this was going to be with just one tank when the mutant who had jumped into the ocean returned much faster than he'd anticipated and rejoined the fight. This one was no longer on fire and Deathberry was no longer there with the pitch to relight him up. “Focus on the one that's on fire and down at 30% health,” Smashit ordered.

Their opponents had gotten a lot smarter, Smashit realized with some trepidation a few seconds later. Not only was the nearly unhurt mutant no longer on fire, but it had broken out of Smashit's taunt several times to put the hurt into Cheezus as he had continued to whittle away at the more damaged creature. Linca had to drop precious healing lights onto Cheezus to keep him standing and that took mana and time away from healing him. Smashit was down to less than 10% health and he was out of cooldowns. Things were looking grim for the Misfits. He managed to stunlock the nearly unhurt mutant and that bought Cheezus some precious time to finish the other one. Suddenly the final mutant was free from his stun and came in with four brutal attacks on Smashit:

-237 bludgeoning

-478 bludgeoning

Smashit was down to 2% health and he was practically on his knees from the pain of the sustained hits. The next two arms came down to crush him and he knew this was going to be the end if he didn't do something fast. Looking at what abilities he had off of cooldown he took a risky gambit and charged right between the creature's legs and back towards the pirate city. He knew that he had seconds to spare before the remaining mutant hit Cheezus instead, so he threw his sword at the creature trying to distract it. Linca continued to heal him as the creature turned away from Cheezus and rushed towards him. Obviously inspired by Smashit's own bold crazy action, Cheezus picked up his sword and before the mutant could reach Smashit, he drove the sword though one of the creature's legs and into the soft wood of the pier they were standing on. The mutant screamed in rage and clawed at the sword but in the meantime, Cheezus renewed his attack. Smashit's shield smash was back off of cooldown and he charged the creature pinning it to the deck with the force of his charge and shield smash abilities. Largely immobile and blinded with pain, Cheezus was able to finish the creature off, slitting its throat.

Smashit turned and saw about two dozen guards from the city rushing to join the fight. Apparently, they had finally stopped the warehouse fire and heard the fighting at the docks. “Time to go,” Smashit told the raid. Thag was standing at the top of the gangplank, with the blood of a dead mutant still dripping from her demon sword and a huge grin on her face. “Deathberry's got our boat running, let's motor,” she told the raid.