Seena patted Li’l Ur’s head while the others just tried to take in everything they’d learned about the lich’s history. It had been a strange story. Knowing Li’l Ur now – having travelled with him – it was hard to imagine the horrors he claimed to have committed. That he would’ve kept committing if they hadn’t stopped him.
And what had driven him to doing all of that – the loss of a friend.
Could the Fallen really have a similar story? Could their crimes have started with good intentions?
“I know the name of the A-Rank dungeon,” Left said over the party chat, though his voice was quiet. He’d probably heard everything Li’l Ur had said.
Hiral looked over at Seena and the lich, and the party leader gave him a bare nod.
“What is it?” Hiral asked.
“A Fallen Hope,” Left said. “Clearly it’s connected to Vorinal and the others, so I went to check what the name of the S-Rank dungeon is too.”
“And?”
“The Final Sunrise,” Left said.
“That’s not ominous at all,” Seeyela said.
“It is an S-Rank dungeon,” Hiral reminded her, then told Nivian and Wule the dungeon names, since they didn’t have access to the party chat.
“Any idea what’s in them?” Wule asked.
Hiral shrugged. “We wouldn’t know unless we went in. From the names? At least the first one has something to do with the Fallen. Might tell us more about how they went from the people we met in the dungeon, to the people who tried to take over the world.”
“You sure you don’t want to at least take a peek?” Seeyela asked her sister.
“I’m sure,” Seena said. “It’s tempting, really, but let’s stick to our priorities.”
“Fiiiiiiine,” Seeyela droned with a roll of her eyes. “When did you become the responsible one?”
“When I met somebody who takes enough risks for the whole party combined,” the party leader said.
“Who’s thaaaa…?” Hiral started, only to find Seena – and everybody else around the cookpot – looking directly at him. “It’s not that bad.”
“It really is,” Right said, not even defending him. “It’s like your allergic to playing it safe.”
“Also,” Left said over the party chat, thankfully saving Hiral – at least temporarily – from further bullying. “We couldn’t go into the A- or S-Rank dungeons even if we wanted to. They both have requirements like the Rise of Fallen Reach dungeon did.”
“Advanced classes?” Seena asked. “We have those. Unless we each need a second one?”
“At least one advanced class, yes,” Left said. “As well as being A-Rank, which we aren’t yet.”
“Hrm,” Hiral said, thinking about it and looking over to both Romin and Gran. Like the vampire felt his gaze, her hood turned, red-and-blue eyes meeting his own.
“What?” she asked over the party chat.
“Nothing urgent,” Hiral said. “Just checking on you.”
“I’m fine, boy.” With that, the healer turned back to her knitting, though her hands hadn’t stopped – or even slowed – for an instant.
“We’re going to need to get them advanced classes,” Seena said quietly to just the group around them. “Both our parties, if we want to go into these dungeons with them.”
“We will,” Nivian agreed. “Nobody – other than me and Wule – has one in our group.”
“Neither Romin nor Gran in ours,” Seena said, slowly spooning some stew into her mouth as she thought.
“If we’re going to be farming for experience…” Seeyela said.
“They’d have to get the advanced class before they hit A-Rank. Means either here or in the raid zone.”
“Might be harder without a Seed of the Lost,” Hiral said. “We really don’t know how much those contributed to our advanced classes.”
“I don’t think we can afford to try and slow down for them,” Seena grumbled, clearly a little torn between the options.
“We can’t,” Hiral agreed. “This whole thing is bigger than them. Or us. Just my opinion here, but if they can get an advanced class and run the dungeons with us – great. We aren’t even sure we’ll need to run them. That said, if for some reason we need to go through them…”
Hiral looked over at Nivian and Wule. “We’ve got a tank and healer with their own advanced classes.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You’re saying,” Seena said, nodding as she spoke. “If, for some reason, we have to go into these A- and S-Rank dungeons, we can split the parties to bring Nivian and Wule back into ours to go through?”
“Get the team back together,” Seeyela said. “It’s an option.”
“I’d feel bad about the others having to sit out,” Seena said, then nodded again. “But, Hiral’s right. If we need to go in, we have a way to do it. Assuming you two would be okay joining up with us again?”
“Who’d the party leader be?” Wule asked, face completely serious.
“Obviously…” Seena and Nivian both started at the same time.
“Me,” Seena said.
“Seena,” Nivian said.
The two party leaders looked at each other, then everybody sort of chuckled.
“Then we’ve got a plan,” Seena said, turning her head to Hiral. “And, that’s why you’re the raid leader.”
“Thanks,” Hiral said. “Still, the others have got some time to get their own advanced classes. Something tells me this raid zone will be a good chance for a lot of people to grow. Once we know how many people are allowed in. And who’s coming.”
“Who do you think the Makers will send?” Seena asked him.
“Ilrolik for sure,” Hiral said. “She’s a powerful B-Rank Shaper, and one of the strongest supporters for working with the Growers. I’m sure she’ll have her own party by now. Hopefully Loan, too. I wouldn’t mind seeing him.”
“Or him seeing you?” Seena said.
“Or that,” Hiral said. “He spent a lot of his time and energy training me all those years. I want him to know it was worth it.”
“You think your sisters will come?” Seena asked, and Hiral opened his mouth to answer before the words reached his brain.
His sisters? His first thought was no way, it’s too dangerous. Then… then he remembered who he was talking about, and the fact the raid zone needed people of all Ranks. They’d been working hard when he’d left.
“They just might,” Hiral said with a sigh. “I hope they’ll be okay. We don’t know what we’re getting into.”
“They’ll have you to protect them again,” Seena said. The arm looped through his squeezed for comfort, and he pressed it between his elbow and chest.
“The two of them made a lot of progress in the dungeon we ran them through,” Seeyela said. “If they come down, I’m sure they’ll do fine. Should be D-Rank, right?”
“Should be,” Hiral said. “And, I know. You’re right. They’ll be fine, but it doesn’t stop me from worrying.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Wule said. “You all ran a dungeon with Hiral’s sisters?”
“Kind of?” Seena said. “Hiral kill-stole most of it.”
“I did not,” Hiral said.
“A Mid-Boss and a Boss,” Seena reminded him.
“Oh, this I have to hear about,” Wule said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He kept his bowl up close to his mouth so his spoon didn’t even have far to go between each bite.
“Anything else more important we need to talk about first?” Seena asked, and when nobody had anything, she jumped into the details of the Crawling Pits. Compared to some of the more serious topics they’d had on hand recently, recounting the tale of the dungeon made for several good laughs.
But, soon enough, it was time to rest. Rest, and then farm.
Which is exactly what the party did. With Healthy Living in place, the two parties returned to Tomorrow’s Vigil, powering through the Sentinels as quickly as they could. Not bothering with the trapped hallway – of the Mid-Boss on the other end, they instead went straight for the Scorpinator. The Scorbalests on the way to it provided decent experience, and a bit of a warm up, but the Mid-Boss itself was the real show.
There, with more than two-and-a-half hours until the dungeon spit them out, Wallop charged the large construct, and the party went to work. First, the tail got destroyed – though it wasn’t quite as easy as they’d hoped – and then they moved on to controlling the Mid-Boss while focusing on killing its adds.
Domains got rotated in and used on cooldown, with Yanily’s and Seena’s proving to have the highest kill-rate for adds. After those, Hiral threw up his Domain of the Sun+ and Left’s Banner of Courage to reduce the cooldown on the two abilities, as well as add some buffs to keep them moving. He didn’t use Double Trouble+ – because he didn’t want to also double his domain’s cooldown – but it was still plenty powerful. Resonance of Heroes and Seeyela’s summons came after that, though the artillery spiders lasted a good deal longer than most domains.
Even with all that, and the plan going in, the fight didn’t go quite as smoothly as they’d hoped. More than two hours of non-stop fighting was a lot, even for their B-Rank bodies. Gran, Wallop, and Romin all more than proved their worth as the damage dealers lagged under the strain of the constant fighting.
Right and Left had to even be dismissed from time to time, allowing Hiral to recharge their solar energy, since they couldn’t do it on their own. Through it all, though, they’d found more efficiencies and ways to use their abilities.
The Rune of Exchange was – as Yanily liked to put it – very OP. And the more Hiral practiced with it, the easier and faster it got to use. It got people in and out of position or danger in a flash, and thanks to Hiral’s sensory domain, he didn’t even really need to be looking to use it. The only downside was the cost, but even that he was improving on. Braiding in his other runes to everything he was doing improved the solar costs, and this kind of practice was exactly what he needed.
Left even gave his Equilibrium tattoo a bit of a workout, as they learned he could use it to redistribute the entire party’s solar energy – or health – evenly among the group. If one person got really low, a quick application of the tattoo – no matter the range, at least inside the Mid-Boss area – would instantly bring everybody to the same level. They used the function more than once.
All in all, it was a beneficial experience, despite leaving them to drag their exhausted bodies over to their sleeping bags as soon as they were finished. Not that Seena gave them long to rest. Three hours, that was it, before they headed back in.
Like that – dungeon, rest, dungeon, rest, dungeon… – they farmed the Mid-Boss area fifteen times within the period they had before they had to get to the raid zone. Even Yanily was tired of it when they were finished.
It’d been good, though. Hiral had reached level seventeen, while Yanily, Seena, and Seeyela, had reached sixteen. Romin wasn’t far behind at fifteen, with Gran sitting at fourteen. The two newcomers had caught up quite well, especially since they benefitted from Momentum and Allied Killing Spree. Nivian’s party still trailed a bit behind, mostly at levels twelve, with Finotol being the highest at thirteen.
It was interesting to see how the lower levels gained more base experience per kill, without taking the experience boosts into account.
On the unfortunate side of things, however, nobody had been offered an advanced class. That left Seena with only three levels to get her second one, while Romin and Gran had a bit more time.
Time they would probably be spending in the raid zone.