Much as I might want to just jump on the assault and get this behind us, that way lies death. With our little training montage behind us, I called both parties together at the Adventurer's Guild, "Alright, everyone. We're about advanced to the point now that the current area's a cakewalk for us. We busted it out this past little bit, and now we're on to actually making good."

The assembled parties looked on quietly, some nodding along. Getting our stats up, even as non-conventional as our method was had buoyed everyone. This was a game, stats were everything, so our numbers being substantially higher than others brought not only advantage but belief in our ability to move forward, our ability to survive and overcome future challenges of the game, "I want to stress to you all how far we've come already. We know how to advance better now, get our stats up when we need to pull ahead of the curve, and how to better operate as a team.

"Our Crafters have advanced, and now, they hold as the best on the server. That means they can start pulling down gold on the auction houses, simultaneously lining their pockets and helping gear up others. For those of us adventuring, we're high on stats now, as well as gear, and we have at least some bonuses from Runic Enhancements."

Everyone was clearly pleased with themselves, and I'd started this off that way on purpose. This next part might be a bit harder to take, "That makes it critical that we take down Kyron's fortress. The better we do at this, the more it will put it in people's heads that they can also overcome. In a normal game, this would just be an achievement for the sake of fun and entertainment, but for those of us trapped here, it means so much more. I have full faith in all of you to be able to do this, but faith isn't enough on its own. We need to know what we're up against. I'll yield the floor here to Temur, who has collected information on the battle ahead."

Temur rose from his chair and came to the front, looking out over the assembled players, while I walked behind him to a large section of parchment we'd hung on the wall for the presentation. He gave me a moment to ready myself before beginning, "Okay, the basics: Kyron's fortress is built on an old mine. The first full section is above ground, a fortress modeled after a Motte and Bailey castle. For those unfamiliar with the design, it's a basic fortification built around two structures. The Bailey is the larger circular structure here, constructed of large logs to form the walls, with a large ditch around the walls. The dirt from the ditch has been added to the floor of the bailey to raise it up further from the surrounding landscape.

"It has only a single entrance, controlled by a wooden drawbridge that can be raised and lowered by guards stationed inside what is called the Barbican. The Barbican is a gatehouse, but built specifically to trap invading forces between two gates, and force the besiegers to have to contend with two gates instead of one. Murder holes inside the Barbican can allow spears or crossbows to lay in damage without exposing their forces to mass attack."

I drew out the specifications he was talking about, and looking back, I could Denise and several others getting nervous. Khargol, however, raised a hand, "So yeah, if the controls to the Barbie Gate are inside, can't we just send the shoulder dragons in to drop those guys and storm through?"

Some chuckling at "Barbie Gate", but Temur grinned, "Actually, that's a good catch, Khargol, but there's some risk there to the dragons. They've been trained up as well, but we'll need to distract the archers on the wall to keep our path clear to storm through just as you've said."

Denise was looking plaintively at me, but I just shrugged, "Look, it sounds scary, but remember, this has been taken down before in beta. This was designed to be a beatable dungeon. This isn't some endgame boss here, it's just good defenses."

Temur nodded, "Yes. Now, in a standard siege, if you can secure the outer walls, the defenders would stand down, but that won't happen here. The testers managed to overpower the scenario in beta by using extreme amounts of ranged DPS. Given our knowledge of the system now, that trick won't work again. Expect them to be ready for that.

"That said, once we take down enough of the protecting soldiers, we'll trigger off the first boss of the dungeon field. That's Uk- yes, pronounced OOK- and while he's not exactly the sharpest marble in the sack, he is big, strong, and tough. He has high resistance to damage. His biggest advantage, though, is the bandits. When he comes out, we'll have squads of bandits on the field trying to kill us while he's ripping into us. His weapon of choice is pretty simple, just a big-ass maul. His movements aren't complicated, and they don't need to be. Even with the testers cheesing, their Tanks went down. The Maul is a plate mail breaker, and it will start shredding armor. I don't really have an answer for that one yet."

There were low grumbles all around, even from Denise. She might not be a gamer, but giant hammer make squish isn't that difficult a concept to take. If we didn't focus on taking him out quickly, we'd lose our Tanks, and if we did focus on him, we'd get torn up by the bandits. We weren't feeling great when Umbaar, our youngest member, anxiously raised his hand, "Uh, c-can't we just overwhelm him with numbers?"

Temur shook his head, "The fortress is a limited dungeon, up to eight PCs-"

"N-no, I mean..." Umbaar fiddled around in his inventory, and produced his militia whistle, "I didn't think of that part, but couldn't we just use our militiamen?"

Temur shook his head, "No, we..."

He paused suddenly, and his draconic tail swished back and forth, "No... it can't be that easy..."

I got it, "They're bandits. Doy. By nature, they're enemies of Farrelston and Valoria with a fortress... and the testers never did the faction-grinding, so they came at it without the ability to call in reinforcements."

Temur and I just sort of glared at each other. We hadn't even considered it as a possibility. The militiamen were low-rank, they didn't level with us. We'd discarded their use to train, to maximize earned XP, and then discounted them because they were nowhere near as powerful as us now. Temur clicked his tongue, a sound I'd heard only rarely when he was upset at himself, "Yeah, okay, my bad on that one. Yes, we can totally use the militiamen, but there is a slight downside. Someone needs to mark Uk as a criminal, so they won't be able to summon militiamen."

Khargol was about to volunteer, but Layala beat him to it, "I'm staying on buffs and debuffs, so I won't be able to concentrate as much on running four NPCs anyway."

Temur nodded, "Okay, we have a firing solution on that one. We'll use the militia on Uk. He'll tear through them, but that'll give us time to take out his bandits. Once the militia is down, though, we won't be able to call them back in for the rest due to cooldowns. Great idea, Umbaar."

The Dracon child was beaming with pride. He'd helped. He got fistbumps, high fives, and shoulder pats all around while Temur got back into his discussion, "Now, once things are finished up with Uk, he'll have some drops. The big thing we want is his maul, it's a major item for now, and it'll give one of our tanks a huge advantage going into the next leg. Umbaar, it's yours."

The teenager shook his head, "No. I'm the off-tank. It should go to Khargol. He'll get more damage in."

Khargol just shrugged at Temur. Umbaar wasn't wrong, it was far more useful in the hands of the main Tank. Temur nodded, "Fine, but we'll cut you in a bonus for your contribution. You saved us a ton of resources, and that should be acknowledged in more than words."

Umbaar nodded, pleased with himself. Temur moved on, "Okay, once we're past Uk, we hit the second leg of the dungeon: Taking the Motte and keep. The Bailey is the main structure, but the Motte is where the keep is housed. You'll notice a slight ditch both inside and outside the structure, and then it leads uphill, what's called the Scarp. At the top of the Scarp is another length of wooden wall, so we can't just run up the Scarp.

"Instead, we'll go up what's called the Flying Bridge. It rises at a sharper angle, with another drawbridge/Barbican combo. Here, we will get held up for a moment, because the drawbridge will be up and the gates of the Barbican will be closed. The dragons won't be enough to get us through."

Denise's hand went up this time, "Um, speaking of dragons, couldn't we just burn the fortress down if it's made of wood?"

Temur shook his head slightly, "I love where your head's at, but the testers did try that trick. The walls are treated, so they won't burn, not with anything we have to hand right now. Also, it would burn a ton of loot that we need going forward. But again, it's a good thought, the devs just had that thought first."

She nodded, a bit dejected, but plenty of others had thought of the idea around her. I spoke up, "Denise and I can take care of it."

My sister was startled at the mention, "Why us?"

Temur smiled, "You're the only two here who have the dragons. If I had to guess, he's thinking that you two scale over the walls just past the second Barbican, and lower the bridge from there, then open the gates. It's risky, you'll be under fire from this next section. It's a small corridor that runs up the Scarp, raised and walled on either side, and you'll have archers firing down on you both along the sides of the corridor and from the walls at the top with nowhere to hide. You two going gives you the equivalent of four heading over, while the rest of us hunker down to come through as soon as you've opened the path."

Denise blinked, "Wouldn't there be stairs inside the corridor to climb up?"

The Dracon shook his azure, azure scales rippling, "No. There are ladders, but they'll be pulled before we can get in there. They'll pretty much pull them as soon as the assault begins, which brings us to the top of the Scarp. From there, it's one more Barbican, and then the keep itself. We'll be coming in under fire from all sides, so make sure shield users are spread out to protect as many as we can. The keep is three stories, so once we pick off the exterior units, we'll need to break through the door of the keep. In this case, the keep is more like a big house. Expect there to be some archers firing from windows and arrow slits, but don't spend too much time on them. The faster we get inside, the better.

"While the entrance to the mine is in the basement of the keep, we need to get to the third floor to take on the second boss first. Rawenna White is the name of the second boss, and her gimmick is battlefield control. Pay attention for damage puddles, the orange circles, squares, and triangles on the floor. Tanks need to get the aggro and turn her away from everyone to keep her central blasts limited. Supports, keep a weather eye on the Tanks to make sure you keep them on solid HP, at least 25%. Even with her directly cut off, her various tricks and traps around the boss room are still going to be an issue, so don't get caught. Each mechanic you get caught in gives a debuff stack alongside the damage, so the more you get hit by it, the more you're going to take on subsequent hits. Her main drop is her magic staff, and I'm laying claim to it on the first run."

A hand shot up, this time from Velgres, our other healer, "Can't we just reroll the dungeon until everyone has everything?"

Khargol's hand shot up, "Can I wife her?"

Chrysta smacked him playfully, and put in herself, "I mean, it makes sense darlin'. If I'm rememberin' the streams proper, there's a ton o' loot to be had."

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Temur and I looked at each other and shrugged. Finally, I nodded, "Sure. If folks are up for doing multiple runs, then far be it from us to poo-poo loot-grinding these guys."

In most ways, a meeting like this was superfluous. In most MMOs, we would just run into the dungeon and clear it as fast as we could, but with death a real concern, we had to be sure everyone got what we were doing. Temur was loving it, though. He rarely got to do actual strategy sessions like this, and frankly, he'd studied all this medieval stuff that rarely came up in other games, "Once we take her down, we'll get the key to enter the mine proper, and we'll be on our way to the last boss. There'll be scattered groups of bandits, but we should be fine here if getting a bit tired from the rest of it. The final boss room holds Bandit Lord Kyron himself, and this one gets tricky. The other two bosses are essentially trainers for this one. He'll have traps throughout his boss room, as well as extra forces and being able to lay in some serious damage on his own. His weapon of choice is a special dueling sword/buckler combo, which is the main drop we want from him, but there is a secondary objective here, our first mount whistle. They're a rare drop, so if we want to start having horses, we'll need to roll through here multiple times like you guys wanted."

The mention of getting mounts sold whoever remained who was apprehensive about grinding the dungeon. Khargol raised a hand, "Can we pass off items to others?"

My head bobbled, not quite a nod or shake, "For basic items like bandit gear, yes, but anything like the mount whistles and boss-specific gear, no. Those items are soulbound. We can break them down later for Runes and at least some mats, but otherwise, no, we can't hyper-arm the server with cracked-out boss gear. There will be other loot, however, such as the bandits' treasure hoard. It won't be much once we split it up, but it'll give us what we need."

My sister's hand went up, "Won't future runs get more difficult with that adaptive AI thing you keep mentioning?"

I considered how to phrase this, "The AI adapts to tactics, but it doesn't change the stats. Dungeons have a lot of XP in them, so we'll be advancing with each run until they're a trivial concern. So to an extent, yeah, they'll get better at fighting us, but on the other end, we'll be getting better at fighting them. We also have an advantage the system doesn't have in the Job Change system. At any point, we can switch over to a better Job for what fighting we're doing. For instance, when you and I go to scale the Flying Bridge, we'll be switching over to Vagabond for the stealth and agility bonuses."

Khargol had another question, "Can we launch the invasion at night? Might be easier to get closer to the drawbridge, and cover the stealth."

I nodded, and we confirmed waiting until nightfall to launch our strike. With no other questions being asked, we dismissed everyone to get ready for the final push. At sunset, it was finally time for Chrysta's party to head back to Farrelston, a moment I'd been dreading. I took what time I could with her, but it wasn't enough. It never felt like it was enough time. We lingered at the edge of Rosewater until we finally said our goodbyes and after embracing, went our separate ways, her to Farrelston, and the rest of us turning to head into the hill country to the east. Khargol patted my back hard, "Ah, it's alright. We'll see her again when we get back."

"Uh-huh."

That assumed any of us remained to go back. We had a solid strategy, sure, but it wasn't like nothing could go wrong. Some or all of us might not make it out of us. The party stood as follows: Khargol and Umbaar on Tank, Layala and Velgres on Support, Myself and Temur on Ranged DPS, with Shalera and Denise for Melee DPS. I worried about Umbaar. He wasn't just new, he was a child, and much as he seemed willing, risking him went against the grain no matter how logically it made sense that he should be here or how good his suggestion had been.

Temur nodded, acknowledging my thoughts, and hung back with me, "I know. I want to switch Sylvain in for Velgres, and Chrysta in for Umbaar. They're known quantities."

I took a single slow breath, "Yeah... that's not why we want them here, and we both know it. I'm just stuck on this path now. Everything's falling on me, and this plan of mine. Sooner or later, I'm getting someone killed. So do I risk the actual fucking child or the woman I'm terrified of losing?"

He didn't have anything for me on that one, but one of the odd traits I liked with Temur was that he was always direct, and he didn't spare feelings. Khargol would build you up, but Temur would give hard truth, not brutal, just honest. We just walked along for a while, and both of us spared glances back in the direction of our people. We were hesitating, and it wasn't good. I shook my head to clear it, "Right now, they're safe back in the city. We're the ones we have to worry about."

Temur nodded, and we picked up the pace as twilight descended, and we saw the first dots of torchlight that outlined the fortress. Night was definitely the best time to go at this. The field before us had only short grass around the fortress with a hundred yards of clearance on all sides. In daylight, we'd be seen with ease and could be dispatched by archers on the way in. With visibility decreased, we wouldn't need to worry until we were far closer. I jogged up to where Denise was and called a halt, "Alright, gang. Everyone switch over to your stealth jobs, and we'll head in. Once the dragons hit, switch back and charge. We'll have a limited window before more guards get on the drawbridge."

Everyone shifted, and Temur passed around little canisters of grease paint that gave a small bonus to stealth. We all made use of it, and I will say, we looked the part of a covert unit, all in mottled black clothing that we'd made for this, adding further small bonuses. Layala gave us a further buff for the skill, and we set off across the field. We would know if we'd gotten caught pretty immediately, so we concentrated on getting to the drawbridge. When we got to the point where we could see the gatehouse properly, we stopped, and Denise was crouched next, "Send them up?"

I nodded and signaled Yndress. She soared up into the night sky, and were it not for my Falconer abilities, I wouldn't know where she was. The two flew in the direction of the gate, then dropped steeply as they crossed over. We saw them for a moment in the torchlight as they dropped past the top of the gatehouse, "Now!"

We took off as fast as we could, and I spotted two outer guards standing on our side of the drawbridge. They were there to alert the fortress. I Double Nocked with flame arrows on the left-hand guard, while Temur fired off a guided bolt of magic into the other, triggering their aggro. We wouldn't stop to fight them, everyone just laying in hits and kiting them as we passed by. The two guards were alright at first from the two opening shots but dropped as Khargol and Umbaar laid in their hits. We could see in past the Barbican as the two operators for the gates and bridge were trying to deal with the dragons, and we all activated our Sprint ability, closing through the open gates and finishing what our dragons had started.

Stealth was gone now as an option. The whole field was suffused with lanterns and torches. From the inside, we could see some of the changes to the layout now. Before in the testers' runs, the walls had just been basic archers, but they were different now. In strategic locations, open-top barrels were placed. As well, a short rampart ringed the interior of the wall now, cutting down open shots at the archers up top. There was also now a roof to the battlements, an erected barrier to stop overhead shots where the testers had originally been lobbing grenade weapons, "Hold on the militia! Wait til Uk shows himself! Melees! Take the walls!"

On the ground, there were several buildings, a smithy, barn, stable, and a larger building that would be where Uk would be coming out of. I moved forward as the conflict going in earnest to drop snares right outside it. The snares wouldn't hold him long, but it would be enough time for us to summon our militia units.

Temur came up with his own inventive plan. He shot fire bolts onto the walls, targeting the barrels rather than the archers. It took a couple of shots, but he caught one of the barrels, and it exploded, taking out the two archers producing their own flaming arrows from it. While it wouldn't catch the walls, the oil itself continued to burn.

Denise and Shelara, meanwhile, were ascending the inside of the walls while Umbaar and Khargol went after the guards in the Barbican. The focus was to force all of our enemies to the same side of us, cutting down the ability to go after our backline people. Unfortunately, that meant that the half of us that were the backline were currently exposed as bandit warriors came in from around the Bailey. Across the field, we could see the drawbridge going up. At the very least, more reinforcements wouldn't be coming from there.

I started firing as fast as I could with Velgres backing me up with her bow, while Temur concentrated on taking out the rest of the oil barrels, and Layala was buffing all of us that she could. She focused on buffing first, saving her debuffs for when we started having problems. The key was focusing fire until more closed in, then switching to AoE as the enemies massed up. We managed to kill several bandits before the larger mass of fighters closed on us, and Temur broke off long enough to unleash a small explosion of flame after Layala cut down the enemies' fire resistance with a greasing spell. The training had paid off.

I spared a glance up to where Denise was fighting the archers. The hesitation from her first bandit kill was gone as she charged into the first of the archers. Weapon swapping took a moment, and the first went down before the rest could complete the change out to melee. The fight was still in her favor, though, with a number having to try and close through the fires of the destroyed barrels or go around, "Denise! Kick the ladder!"

She moved to do it, while on the other side of the walls, Shalera had already cut off her own ladder. Instead of taking them on one at a time, she relied on her character's enhanced reflexes to move over them by doing a wall-walking flip between the first two. It wasn't necessarily the safest idea, but she had the advantage that both archers she was fighting weren't able to properly defend themselves with bows in their hands, "Velgres! Tanks are dropping!"

The dracon healer turned and sent wound cures in the direction of the gatehouse as I watched the Tanks' HP bars start to fill back up. All the while, I was keeping up my damage, firing as fast as I could. My new quiver held much more ammunition than the old one had, allowing me four full stacks for four hundred arrows. My previous quiver had held only the single slot of twenty, a starter quiver meant to be quickly abandoned for upgrades.

We were just starting to get the field under control when we heard the bang from Uk's building. The time had come. We were now coming into our first boss. He ducked under the door frame, coming out of the hall at about a forty-five-degree angle, a towering behemoth. The snares activated as he kicked off his rage, and his extra units came pouring out of the hall with him. While he was trapped by the snares, they were free to advance. I didn't even have to call it out, Layala blew her whistle, targeting Uk as an enemy of Valoria, and as the first blast of the whistle rang out, everyone took a moment to summon their militiamen, twenty-eight in all since Layala had sacrificed hers to mark Uk.

They began rushing Uk as he roared, bringing up the massive maul even as he stood in the snare, and a red nimbus of energy surrounded him. The militiamen ignored the lesser bandits that started coming out of every building, heading for their assigned target. They wouldn't be able to bring him down, but they could hurt him a bit, and keep him off of us while we dealt with his minions. Our central group was just starting to get overwhelmed as Umbaar and Khargol returned from the gatehouse.

Shalera and Denise finished up the work on the walls, diving over the flaming bits as they worked their way through the archers. If they stayed on their current path, they would be able to come up on the flanks on the invading bandit forces.

Meanwhile, we saw the orange cone effect appearing on the ground ahead of us, a warning that an AoE effect was being tripped off by Uk. He raised his maul high up, and slammed it down, the force sending a shock out, ripping through five of the militiamen caught in the midst of it. They were low-grade NPCs, they were accomplished dodgers, and nor were they possessed of much in the way of hit points. The upside of the moment was that they had Uk's aggro, forcing him to deal with them first.

We formed up behind our Tanks and backed between two buildings. It cut off our firing arcs for the most part, but it also kept the bandits from being able to get around us without the Tanks proccing their enmity generators. They could have used them, but it would draw Uk, pulling him off of the units he was already fighting. We needed to keep that from happening until the militiamen were done, or until we ran out of other bandits.

Every swing of Uk's maul dropped a militiaman, and while we were focusing on the bandits mainly, I kept an eye out, timing his swings, and when he did bigger moves. His first opening move was to go to an enraged state, followed by the maul slam that killed five. After that were several normal swings, but each of these killed a militiaman on contact. It was significant damage even on the individual swings, and then he created a circular AoE puddled, a spinning assault that killed another five militiamen, this time all the ones that had been standing in front. Khargol was also paying attention, "Everyone remember to drop back on that one!"

It was an all-around hit, rather than directed. Not as much damage, but we still didn't know the exact damage output of a normal swing since they were straight-killing the NPCs. That meant they had to be hitting for at least... twenty-seven damage- twenty-three HP, and four for the armor reduction. I called it out to people, and there were nods all around. If Uk was taking any significant damage, I couldn't see it. He had to have high damage resistance for where we were at right now.

Umbaar was doing a great job, holding his shield up and holding it at a slanted angle to keep everyone behind him from getting targeted from range while standing closer to Khargol to take advantage of Khargol's shield. The rest of us sent our shots out through the gaps to their sides, Temur focusing on AoE, while I hit them for arrow and recurring flame damage. The numbers came down, and then some at the back turned. Shalera and Denise had finished up on the walls and were in the fight from the other side now.

It couldn't come fast enough, as the last militiamen standing were about to eat it. We had to clear the last bandits and get clear of the alley before Uk came after us. Only a few remained as the last of the summoned militia fell, and we pushed out of the alley, Uk bellowed out, and leaped, his maul coming up, and half the field turned to orange beneath us, "Fuck!"