The rest of the dive didn’t actually take long after Micky took charge of the party. Having already experienced commanding parties with his spells the party almost looked like a well oiled long standing party, almost. The archer and juggs were still downright pissed with Micky. However, Micky just needed to place the right buff at the right time, or clear it, to make them understand what they wanted. Only occasionally did he have to remind the juggs not to run off on his own. For some reason when Micky yelled at him he went pale and had more fear than stomping off into a horde of enemies…
Micky didn’t need to use his [Command] ability for the rest of the trip through the dungeon, and only had the occasional grumble when he forced a string onto them and would make them check out the occasional secret door that Squishy found. The fact that they would also find a small, and in one case large, secret stash of war preperations quickly swayed everybody else in the party though. This lead to the archer and the juggs to be outnumbered and outvoted, and even to argue with each other, divide and conquer and all that. Micky hoped he didn’t ruin their relationship… but he also kinda didn’t care either.
Micky’s crew wasn’t fast or slow, though it was in the upper end of the groups finishing the labyrinth. Luckily, no group with a support had arrived before Micky had so they could at least pretend that they weren’t starting to favor him. News would get out soon enough that Micky was a low ranking noble in service to the count of this territory but that still didn’t mean that the class needed to know. Micky had seen the pandering that the kids of the ‘no-rank’ nobles were getting and was not impressed by the attention. He also didn’t need somebody to jump out at everything, whether it be a commoner walking across the street, or a random stone on the road in one occasion, telling them that they were getting uppity and ‘do you know who we are?’. Micky wouldn’t admit that last one would stroke his ego like a villain from his favorite hero scrolls, but he would be way to embarrassed to say that anywhere that wasn’t back at the village with Jimmy playing heroes and villains.
Micky told the teacher in no uncertain terms that he did not want to be paired up with that archer and tank pair again. He laid out what they had done, what he had done, and did not sugar coat it. Though Micky was aware of what his precarious position with the class was. If he pushed too hard events he would not want could happen. This was one of the reasons he allowed himself and Prin to be separated on occasion as he was a non-healing support and she was a variable range DPS that could count as an OT at best. However, he wasn’t about to risk himself or Prin to people like those that almost caused a wipe. The instructor didn’t apologize but looked apologetic. Anyone that made it this far in the class at least had some skill, but that didn’t make them the best. From now on would be the real work of teaching, everything prior to this was just things that they would learn eventually, just with a lot more death invovled.
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Micky, Prin and eight other of the top most class members were in a raid together. The instructors would ‘be there’ but they wouldn’t help even if they [Dead] and only if the group was going to completly wipe. One exception from the norm aside from Micky himself was the first tank to arrive. They were what’s known as a dodge tank. They were interesting in that they were not something that would normally, or should normally be considered a tank. They were a type of cloth wearing mage variant of the warlock tree. However, they used their patron’s power to infuse their flesh instead of creating a summon. From there the man used the power of a succubus to [Tuant] and [Charm] a perspective monster while also dodging and debuffing them.
Micky was happy with the members. Aside from himself, Prin, and the warlock tank, the rest of the members were the top of the class. Those that were in the top and could argue felt it was only fair as they were not fast enough to place, this did not mean there were not complaints however, just that they had no argument considering those that did place. Micky was happy to see that Archer the archer was not among them. As it turned out he had ‘accidentally’ engineered the injury of some of those that were here and ‘didn’t place in time’ in order to steal the command position from the goblin extermination. This happened to be the first time they could ‘reward’ him for his good sportsmanship and comradery so they took their time. There were many that were grumbling about not being placed in his group…
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Micky looked around the other members of his crew. One of them was the dual shield wearing spartan he had seen before. The spartan had increased his armament a now had full bronze grieves, bracer pauldron combo armor, and a cough armor that connected his pauldrons to his helm. However what was notably missing were any armor on his chest and back.
There was a [Witch] that simply went full on ‘witch’. She was waring a black ‘dress’ that looked like black raggs dipped in char that simply made up the basic shape and form of a dress. Of course, saying that she was showing skin would be a misnomer as he skin was covered in black oily char that made the dress look grey. This char was made into all sorts of wonderful patterns that made her look like she was wearing an elegant dress under her raggs. To top off her gear she had burnt branches placed in symmetrical but random patterns with a deer skull atop her oily mop of hair. The skull was also decorated in charr patterns, because deer skull was so last witch hunt.
The healer was a young woman in a skimpy priest robe. She had an unfortunate flat chest and a pretty but exceptionally clean face what you would find on most commoners. She probably even took a bath regularly. The kind of healer you could find anywhere that was trying to attract a young noble into marrying them. Of course, any healer that could make it into the top of the class could do better than that. She introduced herself as “Hello, you may call me Mr. Heals or Mr. Bubbles or Carl. It is very nice to meet you all!” he said in a deep baritone.
The second healer was a much more common [Blue Mage] using water HOT spells to heal up the body. By pumping in nutrients and supercharging her spells with quick delivery potions she could modify and improve the effects of the spells. Apparently, after Micky asked her about how the whole water healing worked, there were two parts, one, many waters had healing properties of their own, and two, most bodies were made up of mostly water with slimes being 99 parts water to 1 part other things. In addition, Micky was more then happy to talk to her because she, unlike the unfortunately effemenate male healer, was very much female. She had all the right curves in spite of her trying to cover them up with her heavy dress. Her face was the kind of Pudgy cute that didn’t go with the sexy body, but she made it work. However, she was clearly saying a hard no in spite of their conversation due to her apparent prudish nature. That didn’t prevent the three ‘women’ he brought along from being ‘physicaly jealous’ of him talking to her though. Even Prin was jealous, though that was probably mostly her figure… definitely?
The last of the three tanks was a much more normal tank. With his golden hair, glorious muscles, and charming attitude that was at the perfect height for Prin to have to look up into his dreamy eyes, truly perfect. Ahh, yes he was also a magi-varient tank of the paladon variety. As in an actual [Squire Paladon]. Now it was Micky’s turn to elbow Prin for talking to somebody a little too long and a little too intense, though it was mostly vengeance… Micky was secure in his masculinity? Maybe…
The three other DPS were a [Red Mage] Specializing in fire summons, a dwarven archer variety that Micky actually didn’t hate on principle and got along with called a [Sharpshooter] that used something called a clockwork repeater crossbow, and finally young boy that played with dolls called a [Doll Master]. The boy was also 47, but he was a part of the immortal elven species so aged slower than most species. His family had apparently moved away from the elvin lands after getting tired of the constant green and moved to the more colorful human cities. However, they forced him out of their basement after he became something called a ‘NEET’ and told him to get a job or they would cut him off. He had said all he wanted to do was create more dolls and paint them. But he couldn’t bare to sell even a single doll so adventuring was the way for him.
With this raid group the labyrinth and it’s dungeon boss didn’t stand a chance…
… Literally, it did not. The boss was a six people tall minotaur that had a scar over one eye. It wielded an axe that was taller than it was but that didn’t help. As it turned out the dodge tank warlock was the MT for this scenario, though the paladin could tank it if it had to heal himself and didn't need healers as well as DPS, but aside from that it was hack and slash. The group partied well and had enough experience to PUG with anybody they needed to. Micky was the party lead because he had the [Basic: Commander] skill and was in the best position to. The dungeon master was a demon like being that came out in the end but wasn’t worth mentioning. He was apparently an isekai and had just wanted to spend some time with his oversized minotuaresses and live the ‘NEET’ life with his slave harem. In his words “Is that too mush to ask?” To this the females and one male priest unanimously said “Yes” before he was executed by the MC *Cough* MT paladin.