TQG 40. Raiders

I stepped into the swirling red motes and experienced a brief disorientation.

You have entered a unique instance of Zhesa Castle Raid

Unique first time clear bonus available

Difficulty has been adjusted

Do you wish to continue?

Yes

No

This was the third time I’d gotten this message, and I’d always selected yes.  I didn’t know what would happen if I selected no.  Would I be shunted out of the core instance, able to run a dungeon like a normal Traveler?  Or would I simply be removed entirely?  Though curious, now was not the time to find out.  I selected yes, and abruptly I was surrounded by nearly two hundred men and women in mighty armor or fanciful outfits.

Tarisha stepped up next to me and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.  “This will be dangerous, My Lord, but I shall keep you safe.  I believe it would be best, however, if you ride piggyback on me.”

“Piggyback?” I inquired.  Tarisha looked at me funny for a moment, then she looked sad for a moment longer.

“I mean on my back.  Like this,” she squatted down.  “Put your arms around my neck, and then--”

After she had guided me into position, I clung to her tightly.  Around us, the Travelers grouped up into teams of ten.  Some of them were mixed squads, while others were  specialized to the point where they were wearing the exact same outfits.  When I realized that each of these Travelers was at least as powerful as Tarisha of Miami, I began to feel intimidated.  I was proud of my level and my class, but compared to these people, I was an annoying fly that they could squash at any moment.

After a moment, Grandfather and Father both stepped through the portal underneath the eastern gate, which was the side of the castle we had entered.  Grandfather nodded at me, while Father seemed to be distracted, talking to the air with words I could not hear.  Grandfather had changed clothes; he now wore his crown, and carried his scepter, and wore vibrant blue robes that hung open over a shirt of chainmail.

Abruptly I felt a surge of righteousness and duty, and in checking my status I realized that Grandfather had activated his [Royal Aura] ability.  Out of curiosity, I couldn’t help but pull up my own status screen to see the effect.

[Blue boxes]

I blinked in disbelief.  Everything had increased by at least thirty percent.  Not only at the increase to my base stats, but to my Spell Damage.  And a new stat was shown, Attack Power.  I did some math and figured out that Grandfather’s Mandate of Heaven was increasing my Spell Damage by two hundred.  That was more than all of my base stats combined!  And two hundred was simply a percentage of his Charisma!

“Alright folks, listen up!” Father said.  He did not raise his voice, but what he said was carried to the ears of all present through Raidchat and the coversations quickly died.  “This is exclusive guild information.  Well, not completely exclusive, <Peasant’s Revenge> beat us to it, but they’re unable to exploit it, so their loss is our gain.  We have a few new members tonight.  If you’ve checked your status in the last thirty seconds, you may have noticed holy shit where did all of those points come from!  Well, gentlemen, that is thanks to our good friend here, King Rain.  It turns out that [King] is the most potent class for raid buffs!  Ah, if only we could have him every kill, right?  We’d shatter all the records. But something tells me we’ll be needing the status boosts he’s granting us tonight.”

Father paused, and there was some susurration from the gathered raiders.  He gave them a moment to calm down before continuing.

“As exclusive information, the power of the [King] class is covered by your confidentiality agreement.  Before I move on, there is one more ability our good friend Rain has that everyone needs to know about called [Royal Decree].  The orders he issues give an effectivity boost.  The more specific the order, the bigger the boost.  So if you hear King Rain give an order, try to do it, okay?  Because from what he tells me the bonus is significant.”

“That said,” Father continued, “We are not going for first clear of this dungeon.  Which means that this is not a speed run.  It is a full clear.  We will be killing all of the mobs, all of the patrols, all of the bosses.  All of the things.  We will be taking our time and moving nice and slow and hopefully staying alive.  Any death from standing in the stupid is an automatic fifty dee kay pee minus!  That means you, Penelope!”

Some of the assembled raiders chuckled for some reason.

“This is an unknown raid.  We are making a number of assumptions, and you know what they say about the umptions.  The first assumption is that we will be facing primarily golems, and as such a number of our archer classes, pyromancers, and lightning elemental classes are on the bench.  Melee will be equipping their blunt force weapons for this dungeon.”

“Aside from a full clear, there are three major differences about this raid.  The first is our guests.  No, I’m not talking about the crazy hot chick from Miami.  This is an escort quest, people.  The king and his grandson need to be guided to the magic stone that will destroy the raid and put us in the history books.  Again.  However, we also need to keep them alive.  Both are to be protected at any cost, up to and including personal sacrifice.  Such actions, if I deem them necessary and appropriate, will be rewarded with dee kay pee.”

Father paused another moment, then chuckled.

“We are assuming a raid threat level of ess plus plus, people.  This place is not only completely unknown, but the king tells me that we can expect anything from additional one-time bosses to waves of adds at inopportune times to everything simply being ten times tougher.  We don’t know what to expect, but we can expect that it will be hard as hell.  Now that everyone is sick and tired of hearing me speak, are there any questions?”

“Yeah!  Who invented liquid soap and why?” Someone asked.  The raid collectively groaned.

“Tanks to the front!  We move to the courtyard first.  In the dungeon version, there were combat dummies that--”

A screech interrupted my father, and from the top of the keep came a wave of gargoyles.  There hadn’t been gargoyles on the castle before it had become a dungeon – at least I hadn’t thought there had been – but they were certainly present and numerous now.  I lost count at fifty.

“Flying gargoyles!  Ground them!  Bolas and nets to the front!  Ranged dee pee ess, go crazy!” Father shouted.

“Mages!  The gargoyles are weak to frost damage!  Cast your ice spells with wild abandon!” Grandfather’s booming, regal voice echoed.  “Knock them from the sky so that our warriors might crush them!”

The sky exploded with frost as the [Cryomancers] and [Elementalists] filled it with magic.  Others pulled from their inventories large nets and bolas which they began swirling, waiting for the gargoyles to come into range before launching them.  Many of the projectiles missed, but many did not, and dozens of the enemies fell to earth, shattering the cobblestone where they landed.

The melee surrounded the fallen and began ruthlessly beating them with their maces and clubs while the gargoyles tore themselves free of their bindings.  The casters of the raid, meanwhile, ignored the ground battle entirely to focus upon those gargoyles who remained airborne.

With a natural precision that came from extensive practice and teamwork, the raid subdivided the battle into several smaller fights.  With [Crippling Blows], the melee crushed the wings of the grounded gargoyles to prevent them from returning to the air.  The tanks and rogues and damage oriented warriors smashed and crushed their opponents without mercy.

The gargoyles who were not trapped by the nets and bolas were not idle, and they continued to haul large stones and even boulders to drop upon the raid until finally the damage from the mages grew too heavy.  Many of them burst into pebbles right in the sky as their health hit zero.  I rode on Tarisha’s back as she leapt out of the way of each oncoming projectile, keeping me well away from danger that could have dealt my entire health pool’s worth of damage in an instant.

The battle lasted less than ten minutes from the moment the gargoyles appeared until the last one turned to rubble.  Through the entire thing my grandfather and my father continued to call out orders.  My grandfather while pointing his scepter about meaningfully, my father while leaping about in his silver armor with a mighty warhammer.

“Okay people, that was new.  Good job.  We don’t know if that is standard or if the Raid is already throwing curve-balls at us, but I’m not going to jinx us by saying that if that’s all this place can throw at us it’s going to be easy.  Oh shit,” Father said.

We proceeded to move to the courtyard, where I had spent uncounted hours practicing swordsmanship with the other boys of the castle.  In the center of the practice yard was a giant practice dummy.  One of the new ones that Malkios had added after I had destroyed the standard straw-stuffed versions with my magic in a fit of pique.  Previously, they had been enchanted to repair any damage taken within seconds, and Father recognized that immediately.

“Okay folks, it looks like a harmless tank and spank, but looks can be deceiving.  Keep an eye out for tricks.  I am assuming that this is the first boss, but it might just be another trash pull.  In the dungeon version, this was a low threat dee pee ess check, but we don’t know for certain that is still the case, so stay alert!”

The melee charged the giant target dummy, and the mages began casting their ice magic.  Father leapt forward to join the melee, but as soon as the first spell hit the target everything went wrong.

“It’s a reflector!  Mages, stop casting!” Father shouted as the magic of the first wave bounced off of the giant golem and crashed into the charging warriors.  “Healers, top us off!  Melee, looks like it’s up to us!  Ranged, I have a feeling you’re not out of the fight.  Keep an eye out for adds.  If you have support spells, cast them as able!”

The target-dummy golem picked itself out of the ground and began laying about itself with its sword, which was a sharp bastard sword rather than the piece of pig-iron-with-a-handle that it had been before.  It caught one unlucky – or perhaps he was simply unskilled – rogue in the midsection and the Traveler burst into motes of green light.

“Watch the fucking sword people!” Father shouted.  “I shouldn’t have to say that!  That’s a fifty Dee Kay Pee Minus!”

“I think he’s joking,” Tarisha whispered to me.  “That accent sounds like he’s making a reference to something.”

“What’s an accent?” I asked.

“It’s – never mind, we have incoming,” she said, and true enough another wave of gargoyles came flying in from over the keep.  There were only thirty of them, but the melee was too busy with the target-dummy boss to repeat the bola and net strategy, allowing the flying golems to drop stones upon the raid with abandon.  Fortunately the ranged dee pee ess had nothing better to do than to pick them off one at a time.  They coordinated their fire – or rather their ice – and one gargoyle after another burst into pebbles and fell from the sky.  Unfortunately the pebbles themselves hit the ground like they had been launched from a catapult, and while it wasn’t enough to kill a raider, it was enough to threaten my life.  Only Tarisha’s skillful avoidance of the falling projectiles kept me safe.

Grandfather was amazing to watch as well.  He always seemed to know just when and how to move to avoid the falling rocks, and he was always calling out orders to those nearby.  He somehow learnedthe raid members names and abilities mid-battle and calledout increasingly specific actions for them to complete, which they eagerly complied with after realizing how significant the bonus damage from his [Royal Decree] was.

The gargoyles were thinned out by the mages, but always at least ten were overhead as constant reinforcements came from somewhere.  The fight lasted for more than twenty minutes as the melee bruisers struggled and fought with the dangerous dummy-golem, until at last their collective dee pee ess managed to overcome the boss monster’s innate regeneration and it exploded.

Its explosion animation was a lot like what had happened to the straw dummies I had destroyed.

A moment later it turned into motes of dark mist and was gone.  A large chest spawned a moment later, and Father’s satisfied voice filled voice chat.

“Okay, lads and lasses, good job.  Only one death, and I was just joking about the dee kay pee thing, so Evan you can stop freaking out.  You know how this works.  Alright people, let’s see what loot Are En Gee has provided for us tonight!”