The black rain fell onto Longdale.  But now that the Town Stone no longer existed, there was nothing to resist its effects like there was in Allur Forest.  Staying inside a building and out of the rain would only delay the process, and those who were stuck outside would be the first to succumb.

A Thief skittered back and forth through an alleyway.  Like most Thieves in Longdale, he was a solo operator.  He relied on bribes to get himself in and out of Longdale, but now things had gone south.

Not that this was bad for the Thief.  After all, when things do go south, is when a Thief makes their profit!

But how does a Thief make a profit in this situation?  Simple.  They make a profit by gaining power.

This Thief was scurrying around not to avoid the rain, but to drink the water.  It didn’t matter if it was a pot left out, or a pothole in the road.  He would drink it regardless.  If the rain turned one into an , then it was reasonable to believe that drinking the rain would make one a stronger .  And he wasn’t wrong.

The more he drank, the stronger he could feel himself changing.  But he fought back.  He didn’t want to change immediately; like a few other Thieves he had seen.  They simply turned into , but he wanted to turn into something greater!

The name Basr would one day rock the world!

***

Utter chaos spread across town.  Most individuals were trying to flee, but some stayed as they were seeking the rewards or to satisfy their sense of Justice.  Others became demons, not able to resist the temptation of power.  Those who succumbed at first were the people who did not have the talent or perseverance to level up and hone their skills.  They had already been abandoned by the many organizations, and the Riwa Kingdom just didn’t care.

The different organizations were making their moves at this time.  Most choose to pack up and leave, but those who choose to stay congregated towards the Temple.

The Temples purpose was to send a message to the Sender.  Their goal had never been to fight off .  But since they were a righteous group and provided help to many people in need, they were chosen by instinct to be the gathering place of all who wanted to fight back.

The first person Jude met when he arrived in this , Morgan, was taking a leading role in the offensive.  He was a level 30 Warrior and a level 30 Monk; this combination made him a level 39 Human.  Getting past level 30 in a particular class was not easy, and no one in Longdale had done it.  Morgan had been with the Temple since his youth.  He had been one of those who was seduced by the temptation of becoming a Thief.  But he was one of the few that successfully survived the process of having the Thief class removed.  From that time forward he worked for the Temple and dedicating his life to helping others the same way he was helped.

“Listen up!” Morgan shouted over the buzzing crowd inside the hall.  At the sound of his voice, they all quieted down.  These were the various leaders of those who were willing to fight.  Braziers had been placed along the walls, and a large table had been moved into the center of the room.  On the table consisted a map of Longdale along with the various hot spots of activity.

Morgan continued, “Our scouts have found that most of the have congregated at the ruins of the citadel.  The west wall of the citadel still stands, so we will break up into three Major Raid groups and attack from the North, South, and East.  The East group will contain the primary force, while the North and South groups will be there for containment.”

“Have we ascertained their numbers?  And what is the level of the ?”  Someone asked.

“We have not.  All scouts who got close enough to do that did not return,” Morgan replied regretfully.  “This is why we are going to treat this like a Disaster Level beast from the northlands.  This means that all Warriors need to be in the and continuously use .  Close range Rogues are to make stealth attacks on weaker targets, but retreat when necessary.  Long ranged Rogues need to snipe weaker targets and only target elites when ordered.  Wizards are to converge their attack on any elite target they see.

“These are standard tactics that everyone should be familiar with.  As long as everyone stays in the created by , our casualties should be little.”

“What about attacks from behind?” Another asked.

“We will be moving three thousand fighters through the town.  If you kill every you see along the way, there shouldn’t be any large groups that form behind.” Morgan insured.  “However, every Major Raid leader should take one of their subsidiary Raid groups to protect their back.”

A group consisted of 2 to 6 people with 5 considered optimal.  A Raid was when more than 2 groups joined together, but the maximum size of a Raid was 100 people.  Multiple Raids could join up together and form a Major Raid consisting of 6-12 Raids.  When a was used inside a Raid, it would mitigate the damage that the front line received and spread HP loss over multiple individuals.  Raids also unlocked communication skills between Raid Leaders to Group Leaders and Group Leaders to Group Members.

“Now I will begin to assign everyone to their respective Major Raid…”  Morgan then started to hand out troop assignments. 

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***

Theodwin boldly strode through Town as two giant clockwork golems followed behind.  They were a head taller than everyone else and covered in shiny platemail.  The only reason why it was evident that they were clockwork golems was that of the sound they made.  With them, Theodwin’s safety was assured.  In fact, he didn’t even fear the .

Not that he knew where the was.  Getting information was proving the be difficult.  The guards at the gate had abandoned their posts.  Or perhaps they had turned into , or they were killed.  It was hard to determine anything in this chaos.

“Aaarooo,” sounded a grotesque dog as it charged toward Theodwin.

A sword flashed between him and the as the dog was split into two.

Theodwin sighed, “Even the animals are turning into .  Could it be that the old texts were right, that are truly that terrifying?”

He had lived for a long time and researched many topics along the way.  One was a legend that hailed from another .  That had been completely consumed by the after the failure of their summoned hero.  That was how the knowledge of came to this world.

This had yet to summoned heroes in the past to fight neighboring countries, but the power of the hero was not always a blessing.  If you summoned an unscrupulous person, they were as likely to wipe you out as the enemy.  In fact, Riwa Kingdom was one such kingdom.  It was founded by a after he destroyed the nation that summoned him.

He was also the one that destroyed many of the places to advance levels passed 30.  Between level 30 to 50, there simply was nowhere to grind out levels.  But now wasn’t the time to ponder such things.

Theodwin wasn’t a saint.  His primary interest was finding the secrets of the world and experimenting with them.  But it didn’t mean that he didn’t have lofty ideas either.  He was interested in improving the world with his findings for at least the benefit of the elves.  However, this situation was troublesome.

Leaving would be the smartest idea.  After all the saying goes, Live to fight another day.  But staying could mean pulling out a weed before it had grown.

Indecision kept him going through town and eliminated any that he came across.  He ignored those fleeing and others fighting, even those looting.  He had already stored away everything in his shop, so he didn’t go there, but he did stop by the Heroic Retribution HQ just to see if it still stood.

Someone or something had broken in the front door, but when he looked inside, all there to be seen was dead .

“… not bad,” Theodwin commented.

Finally, he headed toward the citadel.   The black cloud like pillar rising into the sky was a dead giveaway to where he needed to go.  But even he, in his confidence, felt dread the closer he got.  Perhaps this was why he had taken the longest route possible.

He sighed to himself.  It was best to get this over with.

***

Heroic Retribution formed a small Raid group with Jude as the Raid leader.  Jude was pretty sure that Krinn would be better suited for the task.  But as the head of the company, it was his only option.  His command group had two warriors, a close ranged rogue and a healer.  The other groups were arrayed similarly, though not exactly as they didn’t have an even number of each class.

The formation was 5 wide 3 deep with the rest behind as ranged support.  Krinn and Wen both took leadership of a group each.  The last two groups were led by promising trainees.

This left the craftsman, who would follow them out of Allur Forest, but seek refuge outside of Longdale itself.

By this point, everyone had been raised to level 20, yet their skills had not yet caught up.  Jude had previously worked his other jobs up to level 20 so that he could raise everyone’s skills.  So he decided to delay the approach to Longdale so that everyone would have a better chance of surviving.

Jude was tired to the bone by the time they were ready to leave.  But after drinking some Gib Dei, he was passable for a human once again. 

They left Allur Forest a distance away from Longdale so the crafters would have the best chance possible.

“Alright everyone,” Jude shouted, “Let’s move out!”

“Don’t forget you can use the Raid functions to communicate,” Krinn’s voice sounded through his mind.

“I’m trying to be inspiring,” Jude said mockingly.  But he did forget.

Just as they were about to leave the crafters behind a voice sounded out.

“Wait!” Ellie’s voice sounded.  “I want to go too!”

“I know we’ve fought together before,” Jude said, “But this time it will be even more dangerous.”

Ellie smirked, “I guess you haven’t heard then.”

“Heard what?” Jude asked.

“My class evolved, and now I have fighting skills as well,” she said proudly.

“Really?” he asked as he turned to Krinn.

“It’s true, but I was hoping that she would stay behind with the other crafters,” Krinn replied grimly.

“Hey!  I can fight as good as any of you!” Ellie glared at Krinn.

“Well at least tell me your abilities,” Jude asked.

“I have a mixture of close combat and ranged abilities.  Also with , I can do some minor heals and curing disease like this corruption.” She said eagerly to Jude.

Jude gave her an incredulous look, “Isn’t that a little overpowered?”

“That’s something coming from you!” Krinn laughed.

“Fine,” Jude said, “you can come into my group, but focus on ranged attacks. Okay?”

“Okay!” Ellie said.

“To think, she’s only nice and girly when Jude’s around,” Krinn whispered to his sister.

“I assumed you liked them feisty,” Wen joked.

“Geh, everyone’s against me today!”

***

was fully charged yet again.  Guudnash licked his lips at the anticipation of raising his power yet again.

One had to know, that in the Riwa Kingdom it was very hard to advance any class beyond level 30.  Even though Guudnash was already working on his 3rd job to level 30, he had still been stuck at Human 39.  But once he became a , he immediately rose to level 50.  He had lost his previous classes, but still retained some of the skills.

If his guess was right, he would soon become a .  Just thinking about the power he would then hold made his heart palpitate.

“It is ready,” Lerhadar said at last.

Guudnash stepped forward to receive his reward, but Lerhadar stopped him, “Not yet, let the other enter first.”

Rage built up in Guudnash, few of the promises had been kept since he joined the .

“You will get your turn,” Lerhadar, the , said.  “A great battle will soon take place, and you will have no problem surviving it.  But many of the others will die unless they get advanced to the next stage.  Now is the time that we must lay our foundation, otherwise we will not survive.”

Guudnash swallowed his anger and grunted his agreement, backing off.  What he didn’t know was that Lerhadar had yet to solidify his own abilities fully and was worried that Guudnash might take this time of weakness to dispose of him.  As he could easily control the lower ranks of , but someone like Guudnash was too powerful for the new undeveloped skills.

“ begin walking though.”