34 – (season 1) Dwindling numbers
As the parties slowly came back from their respective portals, three of the parties did not make it back. Everyone waited one day to recuperate. The system marked 24/30 demon sealing pages. The main portal leaked less and less demonic energy as more sealing pages were collected. All the groups decided that the remaining groups were most likely not going to return. With only ten groups left, the parties reorganized to make six parties. Jakes party did not receive any additional players as they were the first group to return with all of their players showing their strength. Instead, the church of damian’s joined the weakest three groups and one group was dissolved to merge into another group. Before everyone was set to enter their respective portals, a small group of 10 players from the church of damian requested to join Jake’s party. Jake did not object but was wary of the church’s intention. They were either trying to gauge Jake’s strength or have an ulterior motive.
As everyone entered the portal, they braced for their next environment. As they entered the portal, everyone felt a strong heat wave. The temperature rose and it looked like they entered a desert.
The first order of business, Jake built a quick make shift tent using the wood from the previous two explorations. Unfortunately he did not have any sheets to make a tent but he had a lot of wood which he used to make a square house to provide shade. The church was impressed at not just his preparedness but also what his storage system. Everyone guessed that he must have a rare storage bag or item. Luckily, everyone had a cloak for anonymity which provided shade. The church discussed with Jake as they did not have any water which was a priority for them. Nobody panicked as Jake’s group knew how much water they have. He demonstrated the vast amount of water available by providing everyone water before they depart. The church’s opinion of Jake improved significantly as they were ready to depart. Before they departed, the church took out a compass to determine which direction to depart as it looked like an endless desert in all directions.
The party leader Michelle from the church of Damian requested 10 minutes to find the direction to walk in. Jake quickly used super sight and found multiple mana signatures about 80 miles north of their camp. Every other direction did not have any mana signatures. Jake told the church that they will be heading north soon but didn’t mind waiting 10 minutes to confirm.
As 10 minutes flew by, the compass projected a holographic needle pointing north. As they agreed on a direction, Michele and Jake discussed battle tactics and strategies. The church consisted of 2 healers, 3 tanks, 2 ranged and 2 melee and 1 support. Michele was the support provided holy buffs to the team increasing their strength by 20 percent, the same amount Jake could before stacking his clone to potentially provide a 30 percent buff. Jake did not disclose the ability of his clone to stack buffs but shared his buffing skill. Michele and the church was impressed. As they were walking about an hour, Jake detected long creatures moving below the earth. Their mana signature showed their body was similar to a long worm and he instantly through of sand worm. Jim told everyone to get ready for battle. The church moved into position and both Jake and Michele started praying. Both players provided buffs which stacked. Everyone received a flat 40% buff allowing their to feel confident of their skills. 6 sandworms surfaced above the sand standing 20 meters long. The church decided to take care of two of the worms while Jake decided to take care of the remaining 4. The tanks in the front received the damage in front without getting pushed back. The damage was minimal thanks to Jake and Michele’s buff. Jake’s group slowly whittled down 1 of the sand worms while the tanks blocked the other 3 sandworms. They were able to kill the sandworm within 5 minutes.
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Jake was inspecting the sandworms for weaknesses. He tried using fire, earth and water. All three elements did not do any damage. However, he did notice that the area where he attacked with water softened their armor and a player was able to slice the worm in half with ease. With 3 worms remaining he told the everyone to distract the other three sandworms taking as little damage as possible. Everyone followed his command and started attacking focusing more on dodging then dealing damage. Jake ran up to the sand worm and collected the water held in the corpse through the time ring. In a few seconds, he collected as much water as it could.
He manifested two golden hands which he sat on and flew over the remaining three sandworms. He told his group to back off. Once everyone retreated a safe distance, Jake released the water he collected earlier and released it on the worms. Everyone including the church was confused as to why he would waste so much water, but before they could finish their thoughts the 3 worms were roaring with what sounds to be pain. They were thrashing on the ground trying to wash the water off with sand. Before Jake gave them a chance, he summoned to large golden palms which moved in closing the space between the worms. The golden palms performed a slap squishing and killing the remaining 3 worms.
Jake quickly collected the water from the dead sandworms and did the same thing to the worms over by the church. The church was able to kill the monster quickly once they were hit water.
As Jake was collecting the corpses, the church did not have an objection as they did not have enough space to collect the worms. Everyone asked how he knew water was their weakness. Jake responded by saying that he wasn’t just praying, he was also testing different elements against the sand worms to find a weakness. Everyone’s opinion about Jakes leadership had risen over the battle. The church admitted that they didn’t bring enough water and requested Jake to share his water during the battles. Jake did not mind sharing the water and only requested to keep all of the corpses after battle. The two side agreed and continued to walk north.
After travelling for a day, the sun started to set and they decided to set up camp. Jake assembled his wooden house again and started to create fireplaces for heat. While the desert might look like you can sleep without heat, Jake knew the temperature would drop significantly. As everyone was discussing topics, the church members came to sit with Jake.
Michele said “I would like to discuss privately about the real mission of this raid”.