She decided to play it safe and de-summoned the skeleton wolves, tagging them for repairs. To her shock, just tagging them triggered her mend skill, removing what minor damage they had received. The difference between her stamina usage when she repaired them inside versus outside of her inventory was negligible.

The papers fell, Beavers came. At this level of the raid, they were no threat. It was repetitive, attack, attack, attack, or casting Force Fields whenever her mana refilled. It was all going well. Almost no one was injured, so Jennifer felt no pressure to pass her healing potions out.

The sky blended colors from red to orange.

Jennifer realized that the town had moved past the easy raid because the rodents were now wearing dark gray padded vests. The attacking beasts now had a layer of protection on.

Kevin bit down on a padded vest, he was no longer able to defeat the attackers in one bite. The larger armored beavers were attacking faster but not enough to be a threat. She knew she was the team’s support system, and focused on her role in the battle. The Force Fields were coming down more often, which put a slow drain on Jennifer’s mana. It never fully recharged.

Kevin had his shadows, which made him harder to hit. Large Soup Bowl had his ninja vanish, which briefly made him impossible to target. Jennifer had a skeleton bodyguard. Sarah only had her tailored suit and Jennifer’s Force Fields. In terms of protection, the one from the company was dressed for success in the boardroom not the battlefield. Eventually, Jennifer could no longer cast the Force Fields on anyone besides her team, but none of the other groups seemed worse for wear.

The beavers were tougher and hitting harder. Jennifer did not feel any sense of fear. She focused on helping her friends with her powers and abilities.

She was casting a new protective bubble when a car honked and an engine revved. At the noise, the battle stopped as everyone looked for the vehicle. It turned out to be a large, black car with the word Taxi written in silver on the front hood. Several more taxis followed the first.

Jennifer stared in wonder.

The taxis were not stopping as they raced out onto the field. With their high beams on and gaining speed, the vehicles raced right for the raiding party.

Chapter 12 (13): Gotta Keep Moving

Ever feel like a deer in headlights. A whole raid group was feeling like that.

Jennifer was willing herself to move faster and get out of the way, but she was so much slower than the taxis. She kept thinking, faster, faster! only to realize she was also yelling it to the other defenders.

The taxis sped closer with every heartbeat. They were too close and too fast for her. Feet became inches, and she saw the fear on her face in the reflection of a windshield.

The taxi executed an impossible swerve, hitting a beaver, then another, and another. Her eyes went from wide-eyed shock to wide-eyed realization. The vehicles were attacking the rodents with hit and runs.

The orange sky melted away into green, her mind barely registering when the sky was yellow. The taxis were escalating the raid quickly and forcing the defenders farther apart from one another.

It could have only been seconds since the taxis joined the defense, but those distracted seconds could have cost some defenders their lives. Realizing she had not moved in some time, Jennifer shook her head and checked on her own party using her menus. Not only were they still alive, their status bars showed they were safe and doing well.

Woozle stood beside Jennifer, and her spider sat on her shoulder, but she did not see any of her other teammates around. She brought up her mini map. Sarah was the closest, so Jennifer rushed towards her. Woozle jogged along beside her as they ran around the mayhem of the fighting. She let Woozle and her skeleton wolf attack anything hostile around her.

Jennifer met up with Sarah as the sky showed the threat leave go from green to blue. The scenery would have been picturesque if not for the carnage. The noise of the battle and cars was too great for anyone to communicate verbally. Jennifer pointed at Sarah, and put a thumb up. After a blast from her laser watch, Sarah returned the jester.

The new wave of beavers had heavy armor, thick helmets, and looked like they spent most of their time in the gym. Plus, they either had a thick black stick with a ball on the end or a futuristic handgun. The blasters came with lots of silver add-on parts and shot a blue shot of something that did damage and slowed people down.

She quickly cast Force Field on Sarah and checked her health. So far, Sarah had taken less than ten percent damage. Her healing potion would heal more than Sarah needed, so she should save the potion until later. Sarah made eye contact with Jennifer while she attacked. Between the taxis, beavers, defenders, and other random noises, it was too loud to talk. Jennifer waved to Sarah to follow, moving towards the next closest companion, Large Soup Bowl.

Large Soup Bowl was harder to track because his ninja vanish made him invisible on the mini map. But Jennifer knew roughly where he was, and since his health was only down a sliver, she wasn’t worried. She and Sarah defended themselves as they ran. The attackers were no longer going down easy.

With a sickening crunch, a beaver’s long black weapon hit Sarah in the left arm, stopping their small party and blocking their path. With too many of the rodents around them, the pair was unable to run from their attacker. After two of Jennifer’s Dark Pulse attacks and Sarah’s two gunshots and a laser blast, they only left small dents on the beast’s armor. The jaws of a great wolf and her familiar appeared, teeth first on the sides of the beaver’s neck. It struggled, trying to dislodge them. Afraid to use her range attacks, Jennifer used the only option remaining. Her mop.

Whacking her opponent in the face was the distraction Sarah needed to unloaded her pistol at close range into the unarmoured sections of the attacker. Not staying to watch the animal fall, the group rushed to find Large Soup Bowl.

Stopping in her tracks as the sound of a deep howl came from another direction, her bones chill at the howl. It was a howl of sadness, long drawn-out sadness. The icon on her mini map showed her that the ninja was heading to the sound of the howl.

Jennifer recast Force Field on Sarah. Around the group was a lull in the battle. Jennifer sucked in a deep breath. She had no idea if this would work, but she felt what she was about to do was a good move. Letting out a howl of her own, she channeled her fears and anger into the howl. She poured all her strength into her lungs to make the howl as loud as possible.

Kevin stood beside her before she finished the howl, adding his voice to call. Other groups headed toward her as well. The beavers and taxis were dealing with each other while other groups found members, forming a new line of defenders. Jennifer smiled and felt proud at how well her first howl was so effective.

Jennifer used the tip of her mop to draw a circle in the ground then a larger circle. In equal spacing around the outer circle, she drew smaller circles then arrows pointing counter-clockwise from one circle to another. She put a larger J in the inner circle, and an approximation of a healing potion on the side closer to Jennifer. On the opposite side she put on a scary face with large rodent teeth. She hoped everyone would understand this, as she made eye contact with her teammates. Her group took their places and prepared for the beavers to charge.

Jennifer looked around her and saw that other teams seemed disorganized while grouping together, just holding their weapons and waiting for the beavers. Jennifer saw one of the taxis explode before hearing the booming noise. For a moment, all she heard was the ringing in her ears as she looked around in confusion. She did not have much time before the fighting resumed.

Looking around but not sure who she was looking for, she searched for someone who would be able to organize the defenders quickly. Jennifer pointed at someone that she hoped would fit the role nicely.

The mayor had a dumb look on his face as he pointed at himself.

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Jennifer smiled broadly and beckoned the mayor over, flinching as another taxi exploded. As the mayor came closer forward, Jennifer made eye contact with another member from another team and beckoned him over.

As the two were moving towards her, she got back to drawing out her plan in the dirt at her feet. Jennifer drew a line in the dirt. On one side, was where the big teeth and scary face was. On the other side of the line was her already drawn plan for her team. Jennifer drew two more circles, one for each line of defenders on either side of her team.

As expected, the mayor and his team got to Jennifer first. When he arrived, Jennifer pointed at herself then at the middle circle. She pointed at the mayor then at the circle on the right. A look of understanding crossed the mayor’s face before giving her a questioning look.

After the second group came up, Jennifer repeated the process. The other person she had summoned was a large teddy bear with a black beard, red cape, and a permanently stitched on jovial expression on his face. The bear seemed to be the leader of the second group. At the very least, she would be able to call others over, give them a plan while preparing for another round of combat.

The stuffed bear took his group to the left, and the mayor took his group to the right. After the mayor waved his team into position, he moved back behind Jennifer. Strangely, the mayor’s desk appeared between them. She did not know what the mayor was going to do, but she turned so the beavers were in front of her and the mayor and his desk were behind her. A good leader was an excellent communicator, and she hoped that in the fog of war, he would still be able to get the word to the remaining defenders.

Jennifer took in a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. Even with her eyes closed, she could see her menus. Thanks to the taxis, her team had recovered their health and stamina. Her stamina was partly grayed out, but her other status bars were full. The summoned wolf skeleton’s health was down to slightly below half while her de-summoned skeleton was back up as full as she could make it. She switched out the wolf skeletons and started the repairs.

When Jennifer opened her eyes, the sky was blue, with the last taxi speeding towards Jennifer. Looking to her right and left she saw other teams setting up to re-engage the beavers. With more teams taking up their positions, time slowed. With the last taxi headed her way, her mind worked faster. Jennifer had no idea what the intention of the taxi was but trusted it would not attack any of the defenders. Risking a look, she glanced over to see what the mayor was doing. He was at his desk, writing messages and handing them to those strange blue birds.

Jennifer turned as the taxi swerved to a stop. A tall dark-skinned man stepped out of the vehicle with a dark blue fedora in one hand and the neck of an electric guitar in his other. He smiled warmly, put on his hat, and walked by Jennifer.

The beavers were too close for her to focus on him. Jennifer cast Force Field on the two teammates in front of her, Kevin and Large Soup Bowl, just as the beavers hit the line of defenders.

The battle was on them now. The line held but barely, and the Force Fields were going down faster then she could cast. After Kevin’s shield went down, he ran behind Jennifer as Sarah took his place and finished off the rodent.

The beavers were now wearing shiny, thick body armor with dark-visored helmets that covered their heads completely. Half of them were attacking with glowing, blue, long swords that shot bolts of crackling lightning when they made contact. They that attacked at range were either wearing wizard hats and casting flying wooden stakes that flew at high speed at the defenders or with large shoulder mounted cannons shooting blue bolts.

Jennifer cast Force Field on Kevin when she heard the electric guitar play behind her. Loud, clean, complex, and rich in sound, she did not recognise the tune, but it had a good beat. She saw two new icons showing two buffs in her menu, Perfect Timing, and Eclectic Rock Blues. The buffs affected her entire team. She did not have time to check what the buffs did, but she was able to cast Force Field faster, both in how fast she could cast and between castings.

Each time a teammate’s Force Field went down, they would retreat behind Jennifer until she could recast it. With the use of the protective bubbles, her teammates only took a few points of damage. At any given moment, two of her teammates were in front of her with one behind. Even with the musically induced decrease in casting time, Jennifer never had time to cast the protective bubble on herself, Woozle, Jennifer’s skeleton, or Kevin’s goblin. All three were acting as Jennifer’s bodyguards and attacked if any of the raiders got close to her. Jennifer’s mana was slowly going down because she was casting faster than her mana could recover. Since her summoning and repairing the skeletons was draining her stamina too, she needed to be careful.

The music played, and; the battle continued. If it was a movie, it would have been awesome. Jennifer was terrified. Beavers were screaming as they attacked. She could barely keep up with her Force Fields, and her teammates were taking damage. They were winning every fight but were on track to lose the battle. The attacking rodents were unending, and defenders were going down slowly.

Her teammates were getting hurt. Sarah was the first one to lose enough health for Jennifer to hand her one of the two healing potions she had in stock. As soon as the potion was drunk, the vial swam through the air, returning to Jennifer. As soon as the vial was back, she recast a healing potion, which dropped her stamina below the halfway mark. Weighing the odds, she downed a stamina potion. The green contents of the container recovered her stamina, but it would just add fuel to her tank for a short time.

Jennifer was in a good position with stamina and health, at the moment, but her near constant casting of Force Fields had her mana below the one third mark. She had no way to recover it. If this kept up, she would be useless. The only thing that kept her going was her refusal to give up.

Two loud chimes rang out over the battlefield, and a cheer rose up from a lot of the defenders.

The sky was blue, The beavers did not change, but even more papers fell from the sky. The music kept Jennifer in a rhythm of casting, handing out healing potions as needed, or eating something rather than taking her last stamina potion.

Before she knew it, a few things happened . First, Jennifer ran out of mana. With her mana recovery, she would only be able to keep up a single force field about half the time. Since Sarah did not have any dodge abilities and had taken the most damage, Jennifer decided to focus on her.

The second thing to happen was the defense line fell. She only found out at a later time, the other defenders not only moved back but many fell in battle. In her mini map, she saw the other defenders as blue dots and the attacking beavers as red dots. The green dots were her team. With the battle escalating, blue and red dots were blinking out while her team was still at full.

Finally, she got a new notification, Full. Jennifer could no longer eat to recover stamina, and she was in one stamina recovery position. She smiled, right now they were going to lose and she had no intention of giving up or abandoning her team, no matter the cost. She was not going down without making them pay in fur for every inch they took in their onslaught. She had already faced a scenario like this today, and she would not let this new threat stop her either.

The man with the guitar belted out a song. “Got to keep moving, got to keep moving, there’s a hell hound on the trail.” The words sounded a bit off, but Jennifer felt a new buff. Got to keep moving Jennifer’s mana and stamina moved from draining to recovering, but it was not enough.

A Green dot went down, but she refused to give in. Kevin’s pet was no longer throwing stones. Somehow, the little goblin had gotten a hold of one of the blue energy spouting blasters. She smiled as she kept pulling the trigger, missing more than she hit, but every little bit helped.

Jennifer continued the triage for her team. Her teammates were below half in terms of health, while she was at full health having not been injured by an attack. Large Soup Bowl had less than half on his health bar, but his mana never moved, and his stamina remained over seventy-five percent. With his ability to ninja vanish, he was by far the hardest to hit.

Kevin had the most verified attacks, along with his goblin. This made him the highest damage dealer, but he paid the price for it. He took most of the potions but his health was only around one third, and his mana and stamina were below half while his armor looked like it was going to need repairs.

Sarah had no dodges but seemed to be able to take attacks the best. For some reason, Sarah was attacked the most. Sometimes when the rodents were attacking others, Sarah shot them and they would charge her, leaving themselves open for whoever they were attacking before. She had a little over ten percent health. Her mana was around three fourths, and her stamina was about the same.

The blues player’s chorus of “Gotta Keep Moving” was Jennifer’s mantra. Not stopping, not pausing, she kept on going. She was huffing and puffing in spite of having done the least damage. The summoned wolf skeleton was around twenty-five per cent, so Jennifer switched them out. She wanted to start repairs, but that was not a good idea, and Jennifer knew it. The battle had become a blur. Her movements on repeat. Cast forcefield, healing potion, return, on a circle. The only attacks Jennifer had made were with her mop when a beaver got past her minion protectors because she could not spare the mana for her dark attacks. Her arms felt like jelly, with each action she took weaker than the last.

The beaver’s battle line was thin, but so was the defender’s. Jennifer could not tell who was falling faster at this point. Thankfully, no more papers fell from the sky. The revitalisation from the song was helping, but not much. She could cast one more craft healing potion before tapping out and becoming a liability rather than an asset. She just needed to keep moving, keep going, and not to stop.

At the start of the battle, Jennifer estimated that there were around two hundred defenders. She estimated that there were around fifty left. She was still standing and defending, Sarah, Ninja, Kevin, his goblin, and a wolf skeleton were remaining.

The beavers suddenly stopped attacking and reverted from rodents back into paper. The papers turned into ash.

Jennifer dropped to the ground in exhaustion, breathing heavily.

The battle’s anthem stopped playing. The blues man packed up his guitar, got back into the taxi, and left without even a wave goodbye.

She cast her final craft healing potion, as she called to Sarah.

Sarah rushed up to Jennifer. “No time for rest. Now it’s time for the hard part.”

Jennifer felt her breath caught, but she was too tired to display her reaction on her face. “That was the easy part?”

Three chimes rang out over the battlefield followed by the words,

Raid Boss Incoming.