"One hundred per cent perfect. No issues whatsoever. I have no notes."
"Oh, do fuck off, you snarky bitch." Lorelei's poor mood was not improved by her most recent cast of
Ignoring Hild, who was now conducting a slow handclap, Lorelei looked around the street to take stock of how their first - strategically planned - attack on a bunch of hostiles had gone.
*
They'd decided to go after a small group of what her Guide had told her were Graffiti Imps. They were small chittering creatures who manifested in the form of animated graffiti; crucially, however, after a good few minutes of observation, they did not seem to be especially threatening. There were perhaps twenty of these imps, all Level 3, darting along the walls of an abandoned street just down the road from their pub safehouse. Their vibe was to cause minor vandalism to the various shops and buildings and general confusion to any humans they encountered.
"To be honest, I'm surprised to see any people at all wandering around," Zorrobar had said. "We can't be the only ones to have realised parties are the way forward."
Lorelei hadn't answered that but looking at the quality of the waifs and strays on the street, she assumed these were probably the guys no one wanted but hadn't yet been eaten or XP-farmed. She had kept this to herself, though, sensing this wasn't the sort of 'good news' anyone needed right now.
As they had watched, it became clear that the Graffiti Imps thrived on chaos, smearing paint and creating strange illusions to mislead the poor passersby. While they didn't appear to cause direct harm themselves, their antics were obviously disorienting and frustrating, especially when they led people towards more dangerous parts of the street . . .
"Fucking hell," Steffan said as they watched a nightmare shadow detach itself from a dark corner. It swooped in to swallow up a Level 2 Ranger who had been driven to distraction by the Imps buzzing around her. There was a soft pop, and then the shadow retreated back to its spot, leaving an empty bag of skin lying on the ground. The imps cackled with glee.
***Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid Message***
Oh, nasty. For your information, that's a Level 7 Urban Shadow. I would politely suggest you do your best not to tangle with it. Not until a few of your group display some game, at any rate.
Lorelei had relayed that to the rest of the group. Considering they were, at best, 50/50 about the attack on the Imps in the first place, this did not do much to increase the can-do attitude.
"Perhaps there'll be something a little easier to practice on?" said Red Shirt #1, demonstrating an admirable instinct for self-preservation. He was, however, shouted down.
"Look guys, Steffan is right about all this. If we cannot coordinate a bit better against an easy foe, someone will get killed sooner or later." Kris said. "That shadow thing is a decent distance down the street. Let's concentrate on the imps, ensure we don't get lured towards the Big Bad, and just get some decent practice under our belts of fighting as a team."
After that, there was a grudging agreement to give it a go - Lorelei would have liked to see Steffan be a bit more pro a plan that was, ostensibly, his - and they'd moved into their various starting positions.
The idea was pretty straightforward. Pete would use
"I like Plan A," she had said, swinging her axe in anticipation.
Once the imps were all aggroed and the tanks appropriately protected, the damage dealers would then be free to 'unleash hell', as Michael insisted on calling it.
They'd split the rest of the party up into three groups who each had a channel to work. First up was Steffan was a group on his own. Well, Steffan and his Zombie cheerleader army. The plan was for him to direct them to attack from the left. Lorelei wasn't clear about the offensive abilities of the cheerleaders, but - hey - it was Level 3 Graffiti Imps. What was the worst that could happen? Steffan would keep an eye on any damage his Zombies were taking and had his own healing Skills for his minions to call on should any of them take a pasting.
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The mages, headed up by Zorrobar, would go straight for the middle of the pack, and Kris would keep an eye on them health wise. However, considering the Imps would have to go through Pete to get anywhere near them, it was hard to see how even one of the Red Shirts was going to manage to lose a limb on this one.
Finally, the two Veiled Stalkers, Michael and Michelle, would get to swoop in from the right and violently mop up from that direction. In theory, Monica would keep their health under observation, but it was understood Hild was there in case anything went wrong.
That just left Lorelei at the back, who was in the 'support utility' position.
"So, you're just stood there doing fuck all again?"
"It's probably best to consider me the emergency backup solution. As in, if I'm having to get involved, one of you will have fucked up so badly, it's worth risking me casting. Just try to exceed the very low bar for expectations I have for you, Hild, and all will be well."
The Valkyrie had turned to Steffan. "Remind me what we need her for?"
Kris had stepped forward at that stage. "You have the same quest as the rest of us, Hild. We accompany her to Lichfield Cathedral, or we're all going to die. You don't have to like her, but perhaps keep it to yourself a little bit? You're starting to give off distinct Iceman vibes." Lorelei's crush for the monkish Healer went up another few notches as Hild's brow furrowed, and she returned, muttering under her breath, to her position.
Steffan looked around, making sure everyone was ready. "So, we're all good. We have Plan A, Plan B and Lorelei doing . . . whatever she does as Plan C. Does anyone have any questions?"
No one did.
It turned out it might have helped if they had, particularly about whether 'left' and 'right' meant facing towards the imps or from their quarries' point of view . . .
*
Things kicked off pretty well.
Pete proved himself to be a stone-cold legend of a tank, and with a loud shout of "OOOOEFFFGE AUUOSOSOOS!" he taunted all of the imps towards him in one go. It was actually quite creepy how they all fell silent, turned towards him as he bellowed, and then exploded at the tank in a riot of colour as if he'd said something about their sisters.
As planned, Kris threw up the shield around Pete and dropped a
It was Plan A all the way, and as Hild had little need to kite any of them away to relieve pressure, she just smashed into them, battering away with her giant axe. To be honest, they should have just left it at that. At his low level, Pete had relatively few valuable attacks, but with the imps focused on him - and sitting safely under Kris' watchful eye - Hild would probably have been able to finish all twenty imps off herself.
And that's where the first issue occurred. Because Michael and Michelle could smell an opportunity for XP and weren't going to let the two tanks get it all themselves. On its own, this would have been okay. However, the second, more pressing issue was that they attacked down Steffan's side.
Red Shirt #1 and Red Shirt #2 had discussed their approach to this confrontation at length. They were aware that the rest of the group was not sure they were in it for the long term and were determined to show they could get through a battle without requiring life-saving surgery. "Go big, or go home," was their mantra, and both of them had massive openers primed for when Steffan gave the heads up to attack. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making them pretty trigger-happy. Which was an enormous issue when two unexpected figures popped into being in the left of their peripheral vision.
*
Kris read the situation faster than anyone else.
The bloom of unexpected fire to his left - and the scream of cooking Rogue - grabbed his attention, and he channelled
The Graffiti Imps were largely ignoring the two smoking bodies, so he didn't need to worry about getting caught up in that part of the battle. At least until the Zombie Cheerleaders waded in.
*
Steffan had wanted to make a big entrance.
He sensed that the group needed to see a bit more from him. He understood that he was in charge mainly because he commanded the zombie army. That was the sort of advantage that few were keen to argue with. However, it was Lorelei who had come up with most of this plan, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be the guy who took credit for someone else's ideas. So, it was important to him that his part of it all came off strong. Thus, he'd pumped his Cheerleaders full of
Which - as he watched in horror - became protected by first Michael and Michelle, who subsequently went up in flames, and then by their only decent Healer, who charged, heroically, into the middle of the shitshow. Kris’s arrival at the sides of the two rapidly expiring Veiled Stalkers could hardly have been better timed to line him up for a rampaging Zombie horde.
*
"Fuckadoodledo."
Lorelei watched Kris take an absolute mauling from the Zombies, doing his best to cast heals on himself as he backpedalled out of their zone of destruction. Which backed him up into the middle of the pack of Graffiti Imps just as Zorrobar - who was the only person on DPS duty not to shit the bed thus far - dropped a massive fireball into the middle of them.
"Guide, is there some sort of Catastrophic Bad Luck debuff emanating from me?"
***Help Message***
Your guess is as good as mine, butterlicious. I'd be tempted to agree with you, but I think your group is just shite.
Plan C it was, then. Lorelei went with a
Numbers go Brrrrrrrrrrr: Everyone loves it when the stats go up, so all players and mobs in the casting area are now, I don't know, let's say Level 40. All appropriate Level skills are now in play. Let's . . . play . . . ball.
Things became pretty intense after that.