Duty Session 9: Gnoll it All

By the time the group has reached the forest location, the sun has begun to set on the horizon, long shadows sweeping through the forest. Kaydon has taken point, as he had already scouted out the area ahead of time and knew the location of the gnoll camp. It wasn't hard to miss.

The sounds of the hyena men barking and growling at each other over meat, the sound of weapons being sharpened or tested on some animal bones, it could be heard easily as the group approached the clearing where the gnolls had built up a small camp. Kaydon held up a fist, indicating that the group should hold position, and then he shifted into his were fang form, resembling the very creatures he was leading them to attack, "Do me a favor. Don't hit me when we get in there." He says, with a faint grin.

He then looks to Shiroe, "You're the planner, what do you think? Spread out and hit them from different sides at once? Have one of the tanks jump up and try to draw them all in? Or just scream our name and run in swinging with no warning?"

Following after the group, is a black garbed Cait Sith with a decent idea for his attire. It would not be hard to tell that he probably managed to buy it off of a crafter, because it's got some bad threading to it, and various buckles are a bit out of place. But right now, there's a plentiful series of potions hanging from it.

He's lugging a cart behind himself, coated with strange feathers. He then puts the cart down for a moment, raising his hand in greeting. Knowing the typical etiquette, he is quick to note; "Astrologian with Alchemist. Don't stand in the red circles, and I'll make sure to heal you." He remarks with a toothy little grin that has his right feline ear twitch, causing jewelry to jingle.

He then motions to his cart. "I managed to find a few apples, if folk want a quick snack before we go at this." He then adds.

While the others had shared information about their classes and abilities, Mikage hadn't been present for that. Then again, the fact that she is dressed like someone from the wilds and wields a sword suggests she is some sort of druid/blade-wielder concept melding. She moves along relatively quietly, her lynx trailing at her heels.

As the sound of gnolls hits her ears, she stops, crouches, and just listens for a time. "Sounds like a lot of them." She offers, her voice quiet. As Kaydon calls them to stop, she actually blinks as he shifts. Though being a Were Fang, herself, she doesn't know all the tattoo markings. "So... that explains why you wanted to go after them, first."

"I'm a Guardian. Air and water magic primary, though I can use a sword pretty well." She explains to those who are being tactical.

    Mizuki cheers on Naotsugu, "Yeah, let's do this!" She follows the group out of the city, and once they're out of sight of town equips the thief-type armor that was one step up from newbie gear: Leather Pants. When equipped by a male, it includes, well, leather pants, as well as a cuirass that, admittedly, bares a bit of midriff.

    On a female, it's just a leather codpiece accompanied by a 'cuirass' that would barely cover as much as a sports bra if it didn't show cleavage.

    And yet, it provides more defense than the newbie outfit. Maybe if she doesn't mention it noone will draw attention to it.

    "Geeze, since when does this game require so much walking?! Who designs a game where it takes you /hours/ to get to any dungeons?!" But, they're finally there.

    "Running in screaming would kind of defeat the point of playing a stealth class..." Mizuki observes. "But uh, if someone else wants to distract them first, Mizuki is ready to pounce from the shadows!"

    Her ears perk up and her tail bristles. "Oh fudge, they saw us. Well, time to do my thing!" She clambers up a tree with her claws, ready to drop down on the hyenas from above once the party engages them!

Shiruba crouchs down behind one of the trees. It was getting late, but darkness wouldn't bother the Cait Sith too much since being a wolf variation did give her stronger senses. She doesn't say anything, just gestures back to Kaydon that she's ready.

An arrow is pulled quickly from her quiver and notched in place, the string of her bow shimmering just faintly as her fingers hooked around it.

Looks like there was a patrol on the camp perimeter. Makes sense. Kaydon did say the Gnolls were already on edge. She starts lining up a shot, waiting for someone else to get their attention first before firing.

The group of adventurers, stopped where they are, suddenly find themselves in the path of a patrol of three of the gnolls. Seems like the demi-humans were smart enough to send out a patrol instead of just waiting for someone to come attack them.

The group doesn't seem to have spotted the adventurers yet, but one of them lifts his head and sniffs at the air, moving towards the group while the others follow. Seems like they know something is afoot.

The first one they spot is Kaydon, who, since he also looks like a gnoll, they were initially content to ignore, until they spy the others behind him. They snarl and look like they're moving to attack! The team better figure out their plan quick, because they're closing the gap fast!

    Naotsugu had been huffing and puffing the closer they got to the Gnoll camp! When they finally made it, there were all the Gnolls... they had spotted the, rather loud, group and... he was not having any of it! He stepped up as some of the others were being physical with them... and Naotsugu got right in those Gnoll's faces! "YOU LISTEN HERE, YOU LITTLE SHITS! I'm getting really sick and tired of you being all murder-hobo and whatnot! You either get your shit straight, or Daddy Naotsugu's gonna show you how pissed off he really IS! Your choice!" For some reason, he seems to kinda be holding onto some item in his pocket as he says this...

Joining the rest of the group as they move forward towards the trio of Hyenes which are on patrol - guarding the approach to the makeshift Gnoll camp. Shaggy and flea-bitten as they are, scarred and all, the come for them.

The youth joins the rest in their assault. Trying to slam his cart into one of the Gnolls, only to forget he's /level 1/ now, and can't so easily lift the cart. He skids a bit and fails to get a hit in, almost slipping. Luckily, Naotsugu yells loudly enough at the Hyene coming for him that he doesn't get to taste the retaliation for that mistake.

"Sorry guys. Still getting used to being level 1 again." He apologizes.

As the party moves, Mikage hovers somewhere towards the back of the pack. When she moves, it's almost silent, making sure she steps on only solid earth, not even rustling the leaves. The sight of the hyenas has her hopping up onto a rock, giving a low whistle that seems to be some sort of command.

A moment later, there is a blur of white as her lynx launches itself forward, seizing onto the face of one of the hyenas. It latches on, claws fully out, jaws chomping down onto the hyena's ears. The hyena yelps, tossing its head back and forth, sending the little cat flying backwards.

Luckily, cats land on their feet, and the lynx lands nimbly, then races back towards his master. "Good boy, Rama."

When the gnolls are distracted by Kaydon just being a gnoll, Naotsugu yelling at them like an angry Alpha, and a cat getting personal with one's face, that's when Shiruba makes her move. She lets her arrow fly, aimed for another gnoll's neck to hopefully keep this fight short and sweet. As well as keep him from having the breath to shout a warning.

Gwen knowning she's with a more experienced tank and she'll fall in up near front ready to deal with additional monsters that might charge in. She knows how adds work after all and they are always a notable danger. There's a bit of a grin on Gwen's face and her stance changes. It doesn't look like any standard stance form the game but she seems to have an idea of how to use her sword. Soon she fins a number of animals coming after them and she moves to intercept the Hyenas hacking and slashing also using her shield to slam them as she goes.

"BAD FAKE DOGS!"

    Mizuki drops out of a tree and stabs a hyena with her blades! She looks rather surprised at Naotsugu making some of them back down with words. "Wow, that actually WORKED? Hyenas aren't dogs..."

The sudden yelling from Naotsugu makes the trio of gnolls freeze dead in their tracks. They're confused, and a little scared. That makse them easy pickings for the rest of the adventurers. The one on the right suddenly finds himself with a battle cat attached to his face. He screams and runs in a circle trying to pry it off, but before he can he falls to the ground and bursts into sparkles and loot.

The second one manages to dodge getting hit by Cyrus, only to take an arrow to the neck for his trouble. He stumbles, only to get slammed in the face by a shield from Gwen and collapse in a heap, disappearing like his partner.

The third one, realizing he is now rapidly outnumbered, rushes for Kaydon, only to get bashed in the head with the pommel of his sword, stunning it and leaving it as easy prey for Mizuki to drop down and obliterate it with those blade.

The group moves onwards after collecting their gold for the encounter, only to come across something quite unusual, as there's a gnoll with a spellbook in hand! He's laughing to himself in that high pitched hyena cackle that gnolls are known for, only to look up from the book at all the noise and spot the group headed towards him. He starts rapidly flipping through pages, clearly looking for some kind of spell to cast at the group!

    After proving his ability as an Alpha, he looked at Mizuki. "It's all about showing dominance. Show you're not afraid, be big and intimidating, and any feral creature will see you as the Alpha. That's how I was able to tame a Gryphon!" And with that, he stepped into the next area.

    Upon entering the next area, he sees this weird Gnoll with a book... "Whoa... you don't see that everyday..." But seeing a creature with a book... usually a book means some sort of magical casting thing... and there was one. A mini-boss? "I got this one, Gwen! You get next!" And Naotsugu rushed forward, shield high as he raised his sword and shouted: "ANCHOR HOWL!"

Gwen calls back to Cyrus "Don't worry about it we all are!"

The next encounter is not quite what she expected a goll mage of some sort?

"Yeah, that is how it goes' doesn't it, Naotsugu? I said they were fake dogs, Mizuki!"

She now sees the next one hearing the call out to handle the next she understands and falls back as Naotsugu makes his move with Anchor Howl? She'll start chanting the spell, god is this the right words? She knows what she wants to do and she finishes casting. A massive pillar of earth form trying to catch the Gnoll within, she also dodges to the left trying to avoid the spells coming her way in turn.

"Shir pin it down!"

"Good job guys. Let's keep this up," Shiruba replies encouragingly, before darting ahead and then ducking behind a tree.

And then realizing the tree is blackened and charred. Leans a little to peer around it. Who gave a gnoll a spellbook? Fortunately it looks like he's straight spellcasting, so they've got a window to hit him before he can whip something up. She pulls a different arrow, and as she murmurs the incantation under her breath runs scribed in it's shaft begin to glow. She pulls back, and actually aims a little low with this. Instead of shooting the gnoll directly, she hits the arrow into the ground at his feet. It releases a brief but violent shockwave as it impacts, throwing off his stability and focus to delay his casting.

    Oh shit, spellcasting gnoll! But it's only one... which means it must be a midboss! Mizuki nimbly dances out of the targeting circles, waiting for Naotsugu to do his thing, then she stops and does a ninja hand sign, a magic third eye briefly opening in her forehead, auto-targeting a weak point for her next attack!

    They're fighting for real, after all, so there's no reason to hide her dire fire tiger werefang bullshit.

    Mizuki follows up with another hand sign and takes a deep breath, and then... breathes out a line of firey energy which blooms into flame where it impacts!

    MISS reads the damage indicator. "Oh, COME ON!"

Perhaps the one thing that Mikage hadn't expected to find here, is a gnoll gone crazy with magical power, deciding to just trash the place. "I don't think you'll be able to help here, Rama." She says, motioning back behind her. "If you want magic... let's see if you can handle some magic."

The druid holds her sword out in front of her, focusing arcane energy which flows down along the length of it. However, perhaps because it is such a low level weapon, or simply because of the caster's low level, something starts to go wrong. Rather than the ice energy gathering around the blade slashing out towards the Gnoll, it instead seizes, covering the entire sword with ice.

"Ahh! Fuck." She immediately drops it, waving her hand in the air. "Shit. This sword won't let me focus my magic properly. What the hell..." She looks around, then pulls her cloak off, using it to wrap around the sword in order to not have to leave it behind.

A guardian belongs to a group called 'Tanks', whose role is to protect their allies by intercepting attacks.

Anchor Howl.

Anyone affected by this skill becomes unable to ignore the user.
They second they try, they're hit with a powerful counterattack.


Cyrus considers the situation as the boisterous tank takes the front lines. But it does mean that all the attacks are being directed towards the Tank. "I've got this." Cyrus announces, pressing two rings on his fingers against a cord that is keeping up a potion, and throws it right to Naotsugu's head. It sparks apart into rainbow like sparkles the moment the glass loses all of its lifepoints, and splashes the healing liquids onto the tank - quickly healing Naotsugu's health back up, after taking some of the punishment.

"It's okay, we've got this." He calls out to the rest of them. "As long as I've got potions, I can heal any damage you take. Don't get anxious, it'll affect your focus." The youth sounding like someone who has been in a lot of situations just like this.

"I didn't know gnolls could read." Kaydon says, as they spot the spellcaster. Of course, things rapidly spin out of control, as they are prone to do. With this being a lone gnoll however, Naotsugu is able to draw the full attention to himself with his Anchor Howl. The gnoll stops and searches for a different spell, compelled to find a single target one to strike at the tank with despite the large group facing him down.

With the gnoll occupied, the group can unleash everything they have upon the mage. Unfortunately for the group, some of them still aren't quite used to working at level one again, as it has been quite a long time. Shiruba's arrow strikes true, landing between the gnoll's legs and knocking him off balance, which unfortunately pushes him out of the way of the flames from Mizuki. The mage gets his spell off, striking the tank with a bolt of lightning, but it spares the rest of the party the fireball he had been planning on casting.

Gwen's pillar of earth rises up out of the ground, slamming closed around the gnoll. He lets out a pained howl before going silent, and leaving Kaydon standing there holding his sword and not having done anything like an idiot, "Wow. Uh. Nicely done guys." He was totally caught off guard by that. He'd never seen a gnoll with magic before.

The momentary respite is short lived, as the gnoll shaman emerges from the woods a few moments later, massive warg barely held back by the chain. He calls out a warning to those further into the camp and releases the warg, which charges the group.

    Naotsugu sees the oncoming Warg and puts his Shield in front, blocking the initial charge as he swung his sword towards the beast. It did next to nothing against the larger creature! "COME ON! This is stupid! I want my gear back, damnit!"

    The others drop the mid-boss, barely. "Is anyone hurt?" She turns to look over the party, but then her ears perk up and she whirls to see a charging warg. "Oh f--" She clenches her fists, breathes in, and then spits a fireball at the warg! Like, the magic spell fireball, that explodes in a great conflagration!

    So startled by the sudden attack and focused on counterattacking though, she's a bit slow on the dodge if they don't drop it...

So far the party is making process, they got some coin so far not much but hopefully enough to cover upcoming out here. "I guess some of them can, we need to watch out for that in the future. I'm going to presume everything will be different in any dungeon we knew before or anywhere for that matter."

Then something happens with Gwen as she's moving in on the Gnoll Shaman which has shown up with a warg. Gwen moves sin and she's not using any called out abilities oddly she moves left then right and then moves in trying to strike at the Warg with a powerful slash.

There is a certain matter of pride that has Mikage not revealing the burn on her palm from her own weapon. Instead, she just carries the blade under one arm, still wrapped up in her cloak. She moves along to catch up, the momentary spell failure causing her to fall behind.

It means that the druid is left skidding to a hault as the huge warg comes towards them. Without time to react, she raises the sword in a defensive posture, still holding it through the cloak. It is all but useless, causing her to get slammed backwards, skidding along the ground.

This time, there is no cry of pain, only a grunt as she moves to right herself, reaching a hand to wipe a bit of blood from a now bleeding nose. Her brows narrow, "I'm fine." Just a bit of stubbornness shows thorugh in that moment.

There's a faint grin on Shiruba's face as Gwen's earth pillar slams the mage gnoll into submission. That combo was always good against spellcasting enemies. If they weren't still on the move she'd give her friend a high five.

But there's no time for that yet, as they've got plenty of foes to contend with yet. This one turning a giant beast of a canine loose on them. She could... no, no, just shooting this one isn't going to accomplish as much.

Instead she reachs down to pull her hunting knife from the sheath strapped to her leg. It was barely big enough to count as a weapon, even as a secondary.

But she makes use of it, as the warg charges into the group she hops in, and thrusts the knife into the beast's foreleg in an attempt to cripple it.

Cyrus throws a small healing potion at Mikage in a nice arc, smashing against her head without any ache to it, and splashing her with healing liquids. She didn't even have to ask for a heal, the youth just carries on to grab a second potion by kicking his cart, causing four red thin vials to end up between his fingers.

"Fire Bomber!" He calls out, throwing the flasks. Some of them spreading a fierce flame near the warg, but failing to make contact. "Tssk." He grunts, glad to be able to rely on the team for a matter like this. Playing a support class like he does, it's always a risk to be stuck with a party that doesn't know what it's doing.

But right now, they're managing!

"Naotsugu, Gwen, are you feeling comfortable with my healing?" He calls out in the middle of it all.

    An undead Gnoll! Rotting flesh, putrid smell of decay... yup! That was a walking corpse! Well... he figured he might as well try that healing ability to see if it'd work! Undead die from healing... at least, that's how most MMOs treat it...

    But as he finishes casting Fairy Healing, it actually seems to strengthen the Undead creature a bit... "Ah fuck! Guess this isn't like most MMOs...!" He then sees Gwen get up ahead and use Anchor Howl as he tried to help fend off the Undead creature as best he could alongside the other Tank!

The warg slams into Mikage first, knocking her back and then turning and slamming into Notsugu's shield, his sword barely nicking its health bar. It bites at the shield several times, trying to rip it away. The shaman is chanting and yelling, causing the warg to get riled up.

Kaydon moves around to the side, appearing next to the Shaman gnoll proper, "Shut the hell up!" He calls out, before swinging his two handed sword in a wide arc, and seperating the shaman's head from his shoulders, both of which disappear in a spray of sparkles.

Shiruba manages to put her knife to good use, and jams it into the warg's leg, making it howl in pain. Without it's master, it's attacks becomre more erratic. The withering attacks from the adventurers eventually bring it down, however. It goes down, and now the gnolls are starting to get worried. They're not attacking the group, watching from the shadows. Plotting, perhaps? Or worried about dying like their comrades have?

The adventurers find themselves in a narrow clearing, and an undead gnoll shambling towards them, "They have necromancers now too?!" Kaydon says. He really should have read the patch notes better, apparently.

An UNDEAD gnoll? That was not something Shiruba would of expected at all, and it shows in the way she actually gawks for a moment. Was this new? They had been so hush hush about content with the new patch, so there was no way of knowing if this was a new developement, or a bug from that weird darkness event or...

... Crap it's attacking!

Reflexively Shiruba jabs at it with her knife, but being undead it has little for her to slash and gut. "This one wasn't expected! Back off!"

In other words, run and hopefully get out of it's aggro range.

They are making good progress and then comes an undead Gnoll, thing do not go well for Gwen, even with still having access to Anchor Howl the boss comes hard fast and more than even that ability can handle thankfully things are not entirely going to hell but this enemy might not be something they can beat and she'll move to withdraw.

She will withdraw from this fight and fall back with the rest of the party and now they find something else? Another Gnoll one very nasty customer of a Gnoll. He's rather horrible and Gwen will move in trying to keep herself between her allies and this boss.

Despite their best efforts, the party seems to be ineffective against the undead gnoll. It doesn't respond to any of their attacks except by stumbling forward and biting for them. It lands several hits with its claws and teeth, forcing the group to decide that discretion is the better part of valor and run away. Thankfully they can run far faster than it can shuffle.

Unfortunately, the group runs straight into a wide open area that has been cleared out for the massive moster that is the boss of this gang of gnolls. Haggar rises up to his feet, and snorts loudly, "More adventuers means more food!" He roars out, grabbing his axe and swinging it around with one hand. He cackled loudly, leaving the group to face off against him as the other gnolls chanted and cheered for their leader.

The team was totally surrounded now, leaving little option but to fight as the big beast was coming straight for them. This is what the Hunter's Guild sent them here to do, though. So time to do it!

    Having to run a different path away from the undead Gnoll... Naotsugu in front considering he'd taken the least amount of damage... "Gwen! Let's do this!" And he'd shield up next to the other Tank, casting Protect upon them to help bolster their defenses!

    The oncoming Barbarian's charge is thwarted by the combined defenses of Gwen and Naotsugu, halting the enemy with little damage taken to them! "Hurry... it up...! Geez, this guy's tough...!"

A radiant potion is thrown at the undead Gnoll, but it simply doesn't burn as much as it should. "I think this Gnoll may be a named monster or something." He calls out to the others, and bolts along with the rest of them. Circumventing that encounter. "Let's hope the boss isn't this nasty." Dealing with the Undead is always a problem.

    Mizuki's fur bristles as she realizes that she was slow on the dodge. Getting rammed by that warg would've sucked... but they killed it fast. She tries to pet her fur back down as they move on, then draws her daggers again as they see the gnolls around, but... refusing to attack? Odd...

    Ah. They're staying away from THIS thing. Mizuki adopts a hit-and-run strategy with the undead gnoll, trying to circle around it, leap on its back, cut with her daggers, then leap away, but it turns mid-leap when she's commited, and bites her instead! "NO! OWW!" The call is given to retreat, and holding her daggers in her teeth, she scampers away on all fours. Hopefully someone can get her a heal before they run into--

    This thing screams boss monster! Mizuki leans into the roleplaying to keep her spirits up: "So, you're the big nyasty boss monster threatening the nearby towns? Mizuki is gonna cut you down to size!" She swipes her daggers through the air a couple of times and drops into a ready stance.Mizuki doesn't really have a special plan, she knows she's DPS and her job is to stay out of the way of attacks and then hit it hard whenever she can.

    As she dodges about, fighting for her life against the first (well, perhaps second after that undead one...) actually dangerous monster she's encountered since the Apocalypse, she's suddenly keenly aware of this body's inhuman traits. Ears turn to hear the softest sounds as the boss makes even subtle shifts in position, and pinpoint the location of things like tightening the grip on its weapon in preparation to strike. Her whiskers catch the air currents, and even in the forest at dusk she can see everything clearly. Powerful muscles move faster and work harder to jump and strike with superior speed and might. A flexible spine allows for bending and twisting in impossible ways to dodge. The stunts she's been doing, pouncing across the battlefield, climbing up buildings and trees, it's kind of exhilarating! Sam could never move like this in real life. He feels so alive!

    Dodge, dodge, fireball, dodge, dodge, strafe, pounce, strike, dodge, dodge, strafe, pounce, strike, dodge, dodge, strafe, pounce, strike, dodge, whoops--

    The axe catches her right in the gut, leaving a glowing red mark and flinging her to the ground. She cries out in pain, then raises her daggers as if blocking with them would do ANYTHING useful against this beast. "No no NO NO NO NO NO!"

    Sam feels so dead, and is starting to panic!

Sometimes the better strategy was to retreat and regroup when a problem comes up you're not well equipped to deal with. This really feels like one of those times. Fortunately the undead gnoll is slow, so withdrawing from the confrontation works pretty good.

Regrouping... that part doesn't go so well as they end up running right into the boss lair.

Shiruba skids to a stop. And despite not being as short as her human player would be still has to crane her head back to look up at the behemoth of a gnoll as he hoists his axe. "Uh..." Her tail snaps behind her, doing that bristle things animal tails do when startled. "... I think we found out why people are having such a hard time with this."

She grabs the first blunt thing she can find, whips it at Haggar, and scrambles on hands and feet to get moving in the opposite direction.

The object just bounces off the axe as it's swung, knocking her feet out from under her as she tries to bolt past, and the wolfgirl eats dirt.

Don't know what's hurt more. Her body or her pride.

It has been a long time since Mikage was this low level, and it is showing. Even with Cyrus' healing, the pale girl looks like she has taken a beating. "I said I'm /fine/." She nearly growls in cart-wielder's direction. Though it is more anger at herself than at him.

Forced to retreat and then find their way straight into another boss. She looks up, and up. Did they always make the gnolls this big? Knowing that this is the monster they'd been sent after, she reaches into her cloak and, despite the searing pain that touching her frozen sword causes, she takes the blade and thrusts it into the ground.

It causes the ground beneath the huge goll to begin to tremble. Rock shards spear up in places, catching at his feet. However, it isn't enough to stop the beast from slamming that giant axe into her. Mikage's HP bar sinks into the edge of red, causing her vision to go blurry. A glowing line of pixels appears across her belly as she sinks to her knees.

Hard being back to level one, even if you are aware of it, you may try certain abilities you thought you still had on muscle memory. Or just forget how to use the lower tear abilities as effectively as you use to before they were replaced or upgraded. This is the case for Gwen, she's getting smacked up pretty badly and when she sees Mizuki panic she's going to move to interpose herself between the boss and the panicking adventure. She will take several bad hits which cause jagged wireframe injuries to appear on Gwen's body. It' hursts but she' surprised it doesn't hurt as bad as it should. Sounding pained still.

"You all right kid...?"

She will move to counter-attack the Gnoll slamming into in full force run. It's hard going but it looks like they have done it.

    A groan escapes Naotsugu as he just collapses on his back right then and there once the last enemy is down. "Ugh... that... sucked... a lot more than it should have..."

Haggar is no joke. The big monster is clearly a far higher level than the players that are taking him on. The big creature slams into the two tanks at once, stopping for a moment, before swinging his axe in a wide arc. It deflects off of Naotsugu's shield, but with more than enough force to send both of the tanks flying.

Kaydon rushes in with his blade, slashing at the beast's legs and back, trying to bring him down, slow his movement and render him an easier target. Another wide sweep of the axe catches both Kaydon and reflects the thrown object back at the cait sith Shiruba.

Mizuki's hit and run tactics seem to be working, whittling down the health of the giant gnoll bit by bit, until Haggar notices a pattern and strikes her with the axe. It seems that the team as a whole is bringing him down, but not nearly as fast as any of them should be used to.

Kaydon is back on his feet by now, jumping up and slamming his blade into Haggar's back, dragging it downwards as he lets gravity do the work for him, "Shiruba! Hit him with some arrows! Aim for the eyes!" A moment later Kaydon is thrown off of Haggar and slams into a tree, his health bar rapidly dropping into the red.

The stone spikes further reduce Haggar's health bar, and he roars in annoyance, his axe finding Mikage's torso and practically putting her out of the fight with one swing.

After a combined, if uncoordinated effort from the crew however, the beast roars and collpases before dispersing, rewarding each of the members of the team with a fine monster pelt, along with XP and gold! The rest of the gnolls scatter and disperse with their leader dead.

"No kidding. That was not fair." Cyrus remarks in annoyance, as he hurries along with his cart, carrying it by winding his tail through the handle and running along. Thankfully, being an Adventurer means that such a maneuver doesn't actually ache.

It's not long before they end up right before the boss. "I will have no complaints about me healing you over - we don't know what happens if we die!" He warns Mikage. "I'm not letting anyone die under my watch, and let this world claim you."

"DARK BALL!" He calls out, sending a fierce ball of darkness at the enemy - which blasts against the thing and staggers it, right before a blow comes his way and drops his HP. He's quick to use a potion at himself. Before looking at the others. His brow furrowed as he tries to organize and mentally catalogue who to heal first...

No..

No, unlike before, he can't let someone drop to 10%, while the tank needs to be topped off at 75%...

He can't ressurrect anyone.

He recalculates. A potion smashes over Gwen's head, healing her. His focus remaining on ensuring peoples' health remain high enough...

Until finally, the team gets the thing under control and crushes the Gnoll Barbarian.

The youth falls to his ass and lets out a long groan. "Uuuurgh... I've never felt this stressed doing a simple mini boss battle..."

Shiruba gets her wits back in order, rolling over and grabbing her bow as she kicks back up onto her feet. The only thing that saved her from getting brutalized completely is she was already moving in the opposite direction so the axe blow bowled her over but didn't catch anything important.

Still took a big chunk out of her HP regardless.

Right now she really wishes she had one of her fancy defense breaking techs, but no luck. Will just have to make due with the standards. She draws an arrow with yellow fletching and nocks it into her bow as she turns back to the titan of a gnoll. "Definately a named monster," she mutters under her breath. Takes aim for Haggar's ugly mug. "One good shock deserves another!" And fires the lightning arrow to help finally take the beastman down.

Then immeadiately slumps against a tree, wincing at her side where she got smacked and then slammed into the ground. "I don't remember early quests being so rough..." She needs a moment to catch her breath and claiming the loot.

    Before the apocalypse, Sam would have been much more nonchalant about this. 'Oh well, see you again in a few minutes.' or something. But with everything that's going on, how real this all seems, Sam is afraid of immanent death for the first time he can remember.

    And Gwen leaps in and tanks what might be a killing blow. How sure was she that she'd survive that?!

    Sam can only stare in shock for a moment. He lost control of the situation and someone else had to put her life in danger to save him. The thought 'I'm not a kid, I'm 26' drifts through his head, and then he remembers how to kip up... but now he keeps his distance, blasting Haggar with Fireball whenever his MP recovers enough. Too scared to close again.

    And then at last it's over. Mizuki can relax, and take a breather, and try to process what happened. She looks up at Gwen (man she's tall, although Mizuki is also pretty short). "Thanks. You, uh... are you alright? I-I guess we're all alright now that we can wait for our health to recover... Thanks. I already said that. I um..." She looks away. This whole situation is kind of awkward. "You risked yourself to save me. I guess trapped in the game, we find out who we really are..."

Something in Cyrus' words cut deep, and the glare that the Were Fang casts in his direction is absolutely icy. It's hard to tell what is going on behind those intense eyes of hers, but she certainly doesn't snap back at him. It was his job to be the healer, afterall.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long before she needed that kind of healing again. Her hand wraps around her belly, a measure of pain on her features. Still, when the monster goes down, she still has HP left in her bar. That is enough. Survival. Slowly, the druid gets to her feet, "You want to do your job then, Snow?" Her voice is a little harsher than necessary at the Cait Sith.

Then, pulling her cloak around herself, she grunts. "That was harder than I was expecting. Still, I think we all probably dinged a level, there." Her familiar is running around her legs, obviously worried. As she approaches the treasure chest, a glance is cast at Gwen, "Do you think this will help? It ... doesn't look that useful for getting ships. Unless maybe we could trade it to some landers for gold."

Gwen says "It's my job right? I'm a tank when I'm not making people look great." She wondersd about what Mizuki said.

"You may have a point there Mizuki..."

Kaydon lays on his back for a couple of minutes. It doesn't HURT like, a ton...But it also hurts more than it used to. He eventually pushes himself back up to his feet, "Okay.." He looks around at the group that remains, and then at the scattering gnolls.

"That should be enough to turn in the quest to the Hunter's Guild. Lets get the hell out of here." He puts his sword away, taking time to get some healing done. He'll have to limp his ass back to the Hunter's Hall sooner or later.

"Look at the bright side," Shiruba pipes up as they regather to head back to town. "Now we've got a better idea of what we're actually dealing with in the new state of the world. Learning is just as important as the leveling experience."

Next time she won't be so hasty to assume it's going to be a casual encounter just because it's low level duties.

    "'Your job.'" Mizuki echoes, looking up at Gwen again. "I bet it was easier to put yourself in harm's way when it was a game. Ah, sorry... we all are though, aren't we?" She rubs the back of her head nervously. "We were all putting ourselves in harm's way coming here... It's a risk of my job too, exactly that happening when I fuck up." She looks away. "If we wanted to stay safe, we'd all wait in town or something. But if everyone did that, we'd never get out of here..."

    Also, it would be boring as hell, she thinks. But she doesn't say that.

    She looks up at Gwen. "And noone would rescue those trying to escape Ezzo." She forces a smile and points her thumb at herself. "They need us. We can't let them down! And we're gonna save them. Let's keep going!" She pumps both fists in the air, sheaths her weapons, and is ready to follow the others back to town.

"I've been thinking about that a lot, actually." Kaydon says, as the group walks, "In regards to helping Ezzo. We need ships. And we can't take a lot of them out at once because of the Leviathans...But I know Fourland has a massive navy that could probably do battle with the Leviathans."

He rubs the back of his neck a bit, "The issue is we're on an island, so even to get there we'd still need to brave the oceans and run the risk of running into one of the Leviathans. It's a major issue. I don't suppose somebody has invented flight in the last twenty-four hours, have they?"

"That still means someone getting to Fourlands to ask for help," Shiruba replies, tail twitching in annoyance. "Either way, someone's going to have to risk sailing. Though one ship to ask for help might have a better chance of getting by the Leviathans? They did say they were attracted to big groups mainly."

    "Leviathans?" Mizuki echoes. "Wait, then how do the different islands usually stay in contact with eachother? Or is this one of those gameplay says one thing, lore says another things where NPC merchants just mysteriously don't get attacked by Leviathans? If so, maybe we can find some way to use that... maybe there's a quest that'll warp you across the ocean just to keep things moving..."

"We had these things called Chaos Gates which could warp you to other gates." Kaydon explains, "But the one I was headed towards in the Town of Beginings was destroyed by the black wave that took our all our gear." He shakes his head, "Ships were always an option too, they were slower but more direct. Now it seems like they're our only option."

Gwen says "They were not there before the patch, so far as I was aware if we were not tipped off it could have ended bacdly for us."

She smiles at Mizuki for a moment longer bfore she looks over to Kaydon.

"Right, no but we have some better ideas of how to do it, Neva was able to plot a route that shaved several days off the tranist time. We also have some other major movers getting involved."

SHe looks to Shiruba. "Right I'll see if anyone in my guild has connections there. We also need to get ahold of Kite with this new information. I'm a little wary but he's been acting in good faith so far with us."

    Mizuki's ears splay and her tail droops at the news that the leviathans are an intentional new addition. "So they disabled the gates AND made travel ultra-hard... mouuu, even if the people who trapped us here aren't the same as the ones planning new content, who the hell thought THAT was a good idea? Seriously, locking travel behind water battles? When has fighting in the water EVER been good in an RPG, aside from ship-to-ship combat??"

    She looks over at Gwen and taps her own ear. "Can't you call him on the chimlink?"

"Kite." Mikage repeats the name as she makes her way closer to the others, one arm still arond her belly as she moves. Though the game does dampen what would be a ridiculously painful wound if it were real, it still hurts! "That's the one you were talking to the other night. The one Balmung was shouting at."

She didn't really catch most of the aftermath of that, having been up on the roof, trying to get a view of Ezzo. "So... is he really involved in all this somehow? He seemed to say otherwise, but..." The Were Fang pulls her hood up, as if she felt more comfortable with it covering herself slightly.

"Though if he's trying to help, I'm not really about to turn it down. Especially if the people in Ezzo's lives are on the line."

"We're not really in a position to turn away help based on intentions we're not even sure of," Shiruba agrees. "Best to do is keep an eye open for trouble."

'Snow', aka Cyrus, lets out a long sigh and chucks a health potion right for Mikage's hand, at the comment of doing his job, slumped over a little, sitting on his cart. There's a bit of darkness beneath his eyes. He looks truly /exhausted/. He glances up at his status window. "That 'Exhaustion' status is going to be the death of me." He comments.

"Good work everyone." He then remarks, getting back up at Kaydon's call to get out. He follows the group, bringing his cart with him.

"Fourlands is actually my Kingdom. But I am not looking to 'fast travel' by getting killed." He remarks idly. Clearly having considered that in the past.

"I do think that guy was right... we're trapped here. I don't think his is an event, you guys."

"I hate to admit but I agree." Kaydon says, in response to Cyrus, "And because of that, we need to figure out how to work with the system. We have no idea how long we're going to be stuck in here, or if others can even rescue us from outside. People may need to find ways to rescue themselves." He does take a moment to think about Nevarri and her being able to see, "Some people may not even want to be rescued."

He would admit that the idea of going back to working some lame job instead of killing monsters doesn't sound that appealing to him, either. But he understands people are scared. Because he is too.

Shiruba doesn't have much to add to that conversation. Sure, they're stuck here.

But is it stuck when you're not sure you want to go back? Shiruba hasn't entirely decided. Her brother was probably worried, because Hinoke had always been closer to her. Her father was probably having a tantrum over being right that the new advances in rebuilding technology was going to ruin everything again.

...

Every time she thinks about that she feels a little less towards wanting to get back to 'real' life...

    Mizuki's ears splay and she lowers her gaze to the ground ahead as her thoughts also turn to Navarri.

    But... if this is possible, then it can't be long before technology can restore her sight, right? And even if a few are happy here... certainly, this adventure has been more exciting than anything Sam has ever experienced in two and a half decades of real life. But it's also the first time he's ever had to fear for his life. This world is dangerous. The real world was once, too, and people worked hard for millenia to make it less so. And those people who worked so hard... it has to have been the right thing to do, right? And if making the real world safe was the right thing to do, then isn't getting people BACK to the safe real world also the right thing to do?

    Mizuki walks wordlessly as she thinks about this.

Cyrus makes a thoughtful sound, considering the folk present, and then motions his hand. "Any of you people want my Friend contact, so you can Chimlink me?" He inquires with them.

    Mizuki perks up, stirred from her reverie. "Oh! Yeah, sure. The more people we friend the more easily we can communicate, even if not all of you are coming to Ezzo." She sends Cyrus a friend request.

"I'll take the friend invite, sure." Kaydon replies, "The bigger network we can build, the easier it'll be to pass info around."

Shiruba opens her menu to bring up the Chimlink contact list to get Cyrus and anyone else in the group that wants to added. "Who knows what's working or not out there so it's best to have our own communication structure set up and keep in touch."

As the health potion is chucked at her, this time Mikage catches it. She carefully uncorks it, then slams it back as if it were an alcoholic beverage. Her health bar immediately begins to climb back up, the injury fading away and replaced with the regular exterior of her avatar. She offers it back almost immediately, though her expression softens ever so slightly. "Yeah, here. Here's my friend code." Despite the slight antagonism, she offers it easily enough, making sure the menu is open for him.

Eventually the team makes their way back to the Hunter's Guild and turns it in for the rewards. XP and gold, and whatever they managed to salvage from the fight in the forest. At least nobody died!

Cyrus goes through the people that offer friend invites, and one by one, goes through accepting their friend invites. Luckily there's a little organization category, so he marks it off on there based on this little event. That will help him remember their names better.

"Thanks you guys. Let's hope we avoid that undead one on the way back." He remarks, as he takes the empty potion bottle, and accepts Mikage's friend code as well.