Wrath’s point of view
“It’s finally in sight! Gobber get up here and check this out.”
We’ve spent a good 2 hours hiking through a forest filled with monsters to get to the entrance of this raid. I say hiking but it was just us sprinting while mowing down any enemy that was unlucky enough to cross our path. Looking down into the raid is something far different than the forest type raid Kite has done before.
This is an earth type raid so the entrance is a giant crater in the earth. A series of ropes lead down to the bottom and would most likely be the first test to see if a group is ready for this raid. Falling from the top would guarantee death. I see a group headed down almost at the bottom and get a funny idea. I yell out towards Gobber but not loud enough for the group to here.
“Jump off near the group Gobber, I’ll catch you at the bottom!”
I jump off the cliff right above the adventurers climbing down. Once I’m in ear shot I yell out as panicked as I can.
“D-DRAGON ATTACK!”
I shift into a dragon at that moment and dive bomb towards them. I unfurl my wings and give a good flap as I meet with their eyesight. My flap shakes the rope they are using to climb down and all of them who haven't looked up yet do now. The looks on their faces.
At the very top must their leader. He has the few beneath him attached by another security rope and he looks to be a middle aged warrior. The three in the middle are nobodies from the looks of them. Judging from their clothing it looks like another warrior, a black mage and a druid. I see the mages eyes roll into the back of his head as he passes out and the 2 above him try to support his weight. The bottom three however…
The closest to the other men is an extremely buxom women. Judging from her clothing… I’d guess an archer. The one underneath her looks to be a white mage, she looks very innocent and the look sort of reminds me of Kattie with golden hair. The final one looked to be an even younger adventurer. She has no determinable equipment looks to be the embodiment of a beginning adventurer. This group would quickly die, this adventurer would most likely be the first to go. With the females all at the bottom of this group climbing it is most likely because they didn’t want the men looking up…
The leaders hands shake as he pulls out a sword and points it at me. I think the adventurer girl wet herself by the sight of a dragon. I know Kite would put a shorter leash on me if I accidentally killed these idiots so I speak up now.
“Alright, I’m just playing around. I’ll help the girls get to the bottom!”
I move in and bite the rope connecting them together and throw the three girls onto my back. It’s barely big enough to fit all three but I manage. The wetness I feel confirms that the new adventurer girl did what I thought. I fly towards the ground and the girls scream bloody murder as we free fall to the ground. The height was almost survivable for a human to fall from but it would still be terrifying to be carried down to the bottom.
I flap my wings and throw them off when we land. I look up in time to spot Gobber jump from the cliff face and begin to fall. That’s enough time for me to shift back into my human form and slow him by controlling the wind. He flies past the and I hear him yell now.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! CATCH ME!!!!!!!”
I slow him as much as I can with wind. It’s hard for me to use magic to the same ability as Kite… That weak fucker relies too much on magic to stop himself from dying. I can’t even remember half of the skills he knows, keeping it to some light magic that I don’t have to know the spells for seems to be the best way for me to use this body and mind. The final gust of wind brings him to a complete stop a few feet from the ground.
I look at the girls one last time. The white mage has begun to vomit while the archer has started running towards the rope, possibly to try and climb it to get away from me. Finally the little adventurer is flat on her ass crying very hard. I can’t help but laugh because of their reactions. I don’t bother looking at the men still on the rope, I just yell towards Gobber.
“Come on! We don’t have forever to do this place. Kite is going to want this body back eventually.”
He nods as he catches his breath and walks towards me. I turn towards the entrance of the raid and see a person outside of it. I sigh and get ready to deal with this asshole next. He tries to stop the two of us. I already know what he’s going to say. “Stop, there is a group inside already. You two going in would increase the difficulty blah blah blah.” I push him to the side and walk in.
The entrance is a very long corridor with no enemies in it. We slowly make our way inside when I get another idea.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hey Gobber, you want to make this more interesting?”
Raid leaders point of view
It’s been two days since we’ve entered. Making our way to the first boss was far harder than I thought it would be. The group chemistry is shaky at best. Our healers are slow at best and don’t bother with the smaller injuries we’ve sustained in combat. Our archer is inaccurate and really shouldn’t be here. Finally the other tank continues to draw extra groups on accident that continually stress our groups foundation. I think he’s trying to impress me.
We’ve hobbled to the entrance of the first bosses room. Our thief managed to scout the room. The first raid boss appears to be a giant sand worm… I doubt all of us will walk away from this fight alive. We should have started with the tier one raid to the north. We’re running out of food now as well… I… I don’t think even if we all manage to live through this… Some of us might starve… I should have planned better... I’m going to have to… I might have to kill some of my men if we manage to all live through this fight.
We start the fight. The shriek from the giant worm as it burrows through the ground makes me shutter. The ground shakes from the massive beast. I let the other tank take the brunt of the threat as I bark out orders. He is the one I’ll let die to save the rest of the group. The worm almost flies from the ground and slams down barely missing a few members of the group. Out of sheer luck the most inept person of the group managed to avoid being crushed.
It takes a very long time, slowly whittling the bosses health down. We make it to 50% and then the worst happens. The worm lets out another shriek. This one reverberates throughout the entire boss room. Within seconds of bellowing I feel something shift under my feet. I jump back just as another tiny worm emerges from the floor. Dozens if not hundreds of worms come out of the floor and ceiling now.
I miscalculated. We’re not going to lose a few of our members, there is no way that we can survive this! I crush a few of the ones that pop out near me and swat a few that fall from the ceiling before they land. I have to abandon my group, if everyone dies because I ran away so be it. Damn, DAMN IT! I regret my luck entirely… The doors blocked off by a wall of the worms.
We’re all as good as dead. The thought of survival is the only thing going through my head right now. I need to protect one of the healers, if I can then we stand a small chance. The other tank is still managing to distract the mother worm. The healers are separated, both are trying their best to keep the worms off themselves. The farthest one from me is starting to get help from our black mage. I think she might have also realized the severity of this situation.
The other tank takes a rough hit, he was only distracted for a moment but it was enough to catch him off-guard. He’s knocked off his feet unto some of the smaller worms who don’t waste time attacking him. He be eaten quickly by the main worm since he’s down and then that will be the end of our group. We won’t be able to handle the main worm plus keep the tiny worms off of the squishier members of the party.
I’m on the verge of giving up when I hear what sounds like an explosion coming from the door. I start to turn around but I can’t before I can a person rushes past me. And then another rushes past. I blink from the wind pressure the two blurs make as they move and turn my head towards where they were running. Two paths are clear of worms now, one going towards the healer who was on the verge of being overcome by the worms. All of the worms in this persons path were torn into pieces. All of the worms on the healer are gone now. As if time has slowed down the only thing I see is bits of gore and blood slowly falling to the ground.
The other path leads right to the giant worm… Which now has a significant sized hole in the middle of it. Standing in front of the worm is a single person. For just a moment I’m relieved but then I think about it more. We’ve spent a good portion of the last hour slowly whittling the worm down to almost half health and this person suddenly shows up and punches a hole big enough to see daylight through in a single stroke. This person is far more dangerous than the boss.
The two people blur around crushing the remaining worms. I can now hear them yell out numbers. “36” “11” “50” “39” “70” “68” “100”
They both stop now. The green blur yelling “105” and the red blur yelling “104”
The big green one I can now clearly see as a hobgoblin… Wait what!? How is he so strong? And the other is just a regular human. That can’t be possible! I must have died or hit my head and I’m dreaming this. Both of the men start arguing now.
“Hah! I beat you!”
“That isn’t fair, I spent a good portion of my time killing that big worm! He should at least count as 10.”
“No that isn’t what you said when we started. When you saw the worms blocking the entrance you said whoever could kill the most with there bare hands would win. You even let me go through the door first killing the ones blocking! If you didn’t want to give me such an advantage you should have not made the bet.”
The red haired human grumbles as he pulls out a huge chunk of meat and hands it to the hobgoblin who tucks it into his backpack. The chunk of meat could feed a group of people for days but they casually handle it like it doesn’t weigh a thing. The red haired man looks at me now.
“There were 14 worms dead already when we entered. If you lot would’ve just died without putting up a fight I’d have passed him in the end!”
Fear shoots through me as this crazy man yells in my direction. He stops yelling and now he looks more closely in my direction. It feels like he’s scanning me completely, I almost feel naked with his eyes upon me. He walks over and pulls out another one of those giant slabs of meat. The green one questions.
"Why are you giving our basilisk meat!? I had to beat you in a competition to get it and you just give it to these people."
"Sorry Gobber but these morons are about to run out of food. If we don't give them something they might turn on each other getting back to civilization."
He turns away and walks towards the extremely injured thief now and casts a heal spells instantly. What!? That would make him a white mage and a time mage at least! He points at our archer now without looking at him.
“That low level fool shouldn’t be here. You’re the leader you should have noticed his equipment was of a starting adventurer and you should have known better than to bring him to a raid. You almost cost your group their lives by coming here… Get the fuck out of this raid and tell the other group to leave as well. None of you have the right to be here with how unprepared you are.”
I can’t help but feel embarrassed as he yells at me. He walks over to the boss and goes through the equipment it dropped. He looks at his friend again and says.
“All garbage drops. Lets head towards the next boss.”
He tosses the hobgoblin a tiny knife now while saying.
“The next boss we’ll fight with these tiny daggers. Whoever can land the last hit gets the next chunk of basilisk meat.”
The both take off running towards the opening in the cave leading deeper into the dungeon. I look around at my group. All of them are as shocked and confused as myself. We all slowly compose ourselves and our thief checks the boss drops. I hear him gasp as he puts his hand over his mouth to cover his shock.
I move towards the downed worm to look at the equipment now as well… There are 4 rare quality pieces and an epic mixed into this loot. I look on in amazement, I’ve never even seen an epic piece of equipment before then it dawns on me. That person said that the loot was garbage… Just how strong do you have to get to overlook epic gear when you see it...