Age of Victoria, page 20
When we marched back towards the camps, the Colonel seemed to grow more and more warry, glancing at each of us as we unconcernedly approached the horde. I had been waiting for the Colonel to say something, but when we stepped under the shade of the trees, he set his face and held his saber to his side with a grim look. The Colonel seemed to have made up his mind to let me lead, and he would hold back while I did so. Some of the respect I had for the Colonel was returning. I might have had a rose-tinted view of him before, but not all of it was unjustified. Despite the worry he obviously had, the man was not a coward. Letting someone lead, someone you didn’t entirely trust, that took bravery, though of a different sort.
None of the camps we had emptied had been refilled while we had been gone. The goblin horde was still pushing out along the tree line and setting up camps. The champion was still waiting at the campfire while eyeing us. Sitting on the ground, Gibbles’ short legs splayed out in front of him, his hands resting on his rotund belly and his elbows resting on a log. Gibbles was the picture of a barbarian relaxed in repose.
We avoided the champion and instead targeted a different campfire nearby. We had discussed it and decided to clear out multiple camps around the champion’s before we attacked Gibbles. We knew that unique enemies, and Gibbles was undoubtedly that, tended to pull surprises. The last thing we wanted was whatever surprise Gibbles would present combined with additional goblins from a camp.
Our plan worked without a hitch, I aggravated the goblins with a war cry and a few well-placed swipes, being sure to hit each goblin at least once. Moving backward while fighting the lower level goblins, I kept tagging each as I went. Emma would pick an enemy and use her skeleton to harass them while I chipped away at them in a round-robin fashion. Eventually whichever goblin Emma had attacked would become annoyed with the skeleton and turn to attack it instead of me. This was Annie’s signal to drop a fireball at my feet. Whatever was left would almost invariably charge towards Annie. Emma would snare them, and I would taunt them. Robert would heal, and then we would repeat the process. Each fight was taking a minute or so, and we had fallen into a stable pattern. By this point we didn’t even need to say anything, we just did it and then prepared for the next.
What I hadn’t counted on was the Colonel’s response to my taunt skill.
“What in god’s name is wrong with you! I ignored your clothing, as needs must, but this is uncalled for!” the Colonel shouted after the last goblin was dead.
I didn’t even bother to turn around, in my mind he was yelling at Annie for throwing a fireball at my feet. Trying to avoid chuckling I turned around to watch Annie’s response when I realized the Colonel was staring at me. It took a moment of staring at the Colonel’s outraged face before I understood what was upsetting him. By that point, I was blushing a deep red. I had long become used to the horrible things I said or did while using the skill and no longer even thought about them. They had become routine, an idea that would have horrified me before the apocalypse.
His tone of voice and the look of outrage is what caused me to do what I did next.
“Focus on me and use your taunt skill,” I said in my sweetest voice.
The Colonel gave me a sour look, I would assume from my blatant ignoring of his question, but he then leaned forward while staring into my eyes. The next words that dripped from his mouth would have made the crudest of dockhand from London gag in disgust. Turning slightly green from the suggestion, I looked away and out to the campfires. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been staring into my eyes when he said it. My little prank on the Colonel ended up being on myself as well.
“I’m sorry,” said the Colonel in a subdued voice.
“No, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for and I am ashamed by my behavior. Please excuse me,” I said while stepping away and into the forest for a bit of fresh air.
Usually, Emma or Annie would approach me and try to comfort me after I was insulted or derided by a man, my masculine and offensive behavior being well known and well ridiculed. That is, they would approach and comfort me when I was unfairly harassed. This time I deserved it and would neither seek comfort nor accept it. My actions were uncouth, and I earned rebuke for them. The Colonel didn’t deserve to be embarrassed in such a way, and it was my childish behavior which had led to it. Taking another deep cleansing breath and a few more seconds to stare into the brightening sky, I turned and marched back to my party in preparation for the next fight.
Look to each of my party members I continued my apology, “Right, please everyone excuse my behavior. It was uncalled for, and I will try to do better.”
Emma had nodded while trying to hide her smile. Robert had nodded as well, but I thought I could see a frown hiding behind his straight lipped look. I could understand that. Robert respected his uncle, and for a good reason, and of late I seemed to be unable to keep from butting heads with him. Annie just smiled as she watched the other camps. I don’t think Annie really cared either way. In what little discussion we had while clearing camps, Annie had expressed more and more of a desire to experiment with her spells and to travel. The social conformist who had demurely navigated the turgid waters of London’s social scene was officially gone.
“The only other warning I have for the taunt skill is to use it only when you need to, having it reserved to be able to grab the attention of a monster is vital. I think it’s the entire point of the warrior class. We place our bodies between the creatures and our softer team members, drawing the fire of the enemy allows them to do the damage needed to win,” I said.
Realizing that I had almost devolved into a lecture, I snapped my teeth closed and faced back towards another campfire.
“Very well, Colonel, I would have you assist on this next fight, though do try to avoid drawing them off of me, we are excessively leveled for these enemies while you are not.”
Without waiting for a response, I moved forward and plunged back into combat.
Chapter 30
Without meeting anyone's eyes, the Colonel said, “This isn’t working.”
I was a bit bewildered by his statement. It had come after a few solid hours of silent killing where we had emptied camp after camp. We had made substantial progress. True, we hadn’t seen another wave indicator change in the event window, but that was likely because we had not tackled the champion, Gibbles.
At my confused look, one that the others shared, the Colonel waved his hand to the side as if to cast away the confusion.
“Check the logs, our level difference causes an experience penalty for all of us,” the Colonel said.
Checking my logs, something I had not done since the day before, I noticed he was right.
Victoria [Warrior lvl 9] - at level 10 NPC's will no longer be zone locked.
Victoria [Warrior lvl 9] - Grouping with low-level members (Markus) incurs an exp penalty.
The message repeated over and over again for each of our kills. When I checked my experience bar in my character sheet, I tried to work through where it was versus where it should be, but I couldn’t determine how off it was. The hours had begun to blend together into a constant slog of killing.
Annie stared into space unseeing while biting her lip before she spoke, “He’s right, we have only gained about half the experience we should have.”
“I’m almost level four, when I hit it, I think I should return to the mansion and work on further defenses. I doubt that my gaining a level would be worth more than if all of you gain another.”
The Colonel seemed calm with his announcement, but I could see the white knuckled grip on his saber. He was worried that we would see him as a coward, that it would look like he was running away from the fight.
Robert approached Markus while he was facing out towards the occupied campfires. This was a habit we had slowly started to mimic. No matter if we knew the enemy would only act in specific ways, keeping a watch on them was now routine. Grasping his uncle’s shoulder tightly and giving him a slight shake Robert smiled at him and nodded. Of course, I was no longer constrained by nobility or his idiotic masculine avoidance of emotions. Instead of a refined pat on the shoulder, I ran over and hugged the Colonel around the stomach, lifting him in the air slightly and giving him a spin.
“All right! Ha! All right you! Put me down!” the Colonel shouted as he tried to seem upset by my outburst, though his deep manly chuckles belied that intent.
After the discussion, and the Colonel’s departure, there was a period where our rhythm had been disrupted. My attacks didn’t start at the perfect moment, Robert’s heals had been mistimed, and Annie was a tad too eager to lob her fireballs into the enemies. But after a few fights, we settled and returned to our regular routine. This was something I would have to be prepared for in the future. Extra healing and caution were needed when starting and stopping after fighting for long periods. It takes time to return to a routine, and a routine can be easily disrupted. I had known it intellectually, but combat had a way of making someone viscerally aware of a fact.
Clearing through camps was quick, but even when the sun had reached its zenith, the event counter had failed to tick over.
I had become a bit tunnel visioned into killing more camps, but Annie brought me out of it. We had discussed this very situation though, Annie was designated the ‘big picture’ woman during our fights. If we become too focused on some detail of the battle, she would direct us into focusing on something else. Most of her time at the beginning of any fight was waiting to avoid angering the enemy early, before throwing out a massive explosion. This gave her time to watch for this kind of behavior.
“Vick, we need to think about this. We aren’t making progress on the event.”
Pulling my sword out of the skull of the last goblin, I jammed the tip onto the ground and then rested my head on the hilt.
Leaning my cheek on my sword, I eyeballed my teammates before I spoke, “Do you think it’s because we haven’t attacked the champions?” I asked.
Emma nodded then spoke up, “If the next wave can’t start until the previous champion is defeated, that means we have to defeat the champion before the wave counter updates.”
Straightening up I responded, “If that’s true…what if we kill all the champions and then just leave the wave enemies? I’m sure we could handle groups of goblins even if a wave had double the number of these camps. If you snare, that is. We could repeat our actions as with the Arena Master.”
Robert was smiling and nodding with the suggestion, “We might have to run around with the last enemy in the wave for a long time to regain mana, but we could string things out and fight at a pace we could survive. Worse case we fall back to the mansion and kill from the doorway like the Colonel’s plan.”
Just to confirm that everyone understood the idea I outlined the new plan, “So, we are agreed? We focus on killing towards each champion and leave these normal wave enemies till the end?”
The nods all around said we were all on the same page. I was uncomfortable trusting that we understood the logic of the event. As twisted as the logic was, it seemed to match what we experienced, and either way, killing the enemy was the plan so it could only help.
Gibbles was our first champion, and he was situated in a camp that we had cleared wide around. Sitting in his camp all alone he had eventually become bored watching us move around him and had fallen into a light dose, his body still resting against his log with his feet up and waiting. If I had known he was resting, we could have snuck up and attacked while he was sleeping, but we had made the mistake of stomping through the light underbrush on our return. When he noticed us focused on him, he rose and stretched in preparation. From a small bag at his side, Gibbles pulled out a massive club with metal bands. Resting his club on his shoulder, he grinned his sharp smile at us then scratched his back with his weapon.
I was still uncertain about the surrounding monsters, so I called for Emma to snare Gibbles and let him race toward us and away from the other campfires. If more monsters attacked, we would have a bit of distance to root, snare, or run.
When Emma’s snare spell grasped onto Gibbles, he roared and sluggishly moved toward the necromancer.
Annie called out as Gibbles began his lethargic march, “We look to be clear, it’s just him attacking.”
As if to mock us, this was when Gibbles’ pet dropped down from the trees above. The large scaly creature resembled a panther in structure but sported large triangular green scales, the edges of which were jagged and stiff. The large reptile landed behind me and casually swiped its barbed tail across the back of my legs in passing as it lunged at Emma. Our necromancer was surprisingly agile, she jumped backwards while sending her pet in to attack the creature.
I only had a moment to decide, should I attack Gibbles or his pet. With the champion approaching, I was tempted to attack him, but instead, I turned and engaged the panther-like creature. Triggering the details window for the pet failed to clear up its nature.
Shan-Dar Clan
Sud-re-kel - Pet - Elite
Warrior - Lvl 3
This opponent is beneath you.
“Emma! Keep Gibbles chasing you, I’ll get the cat thing,” I called out as I bashed my shield into the back of the cat as it tried to pry an arm bone off of Emma’s skeleton.
“Got it!”
Spanking the cat with my shield garnered an instant response, the lizard feline thing spun around and tried to claw my face as it turned. Luckily, instead of catching me aside my head. My sword was up for a downward slice, and the sudden spin had me jerking back in surprise. The cat’s claws met the edge of my sword instead of my face. I hadn’t intended to slice the cat’s paw as it spun, but I wasn’t opposed to the red forty-five and the snare debuff the unprecedented attack gained me.
I was worried about the amount of damage the cat would do while I was in offensive stance, but I didn’t dare switch to defensive because if it decided to attack another party member, it was unlikely I would be able to catch up to it. As a compromise, I switched to my neutral stance and hoped it would balance out the dangers. After taunting the cat by hissing at it, I struck it across the nose. Unfortunately, while a real cat would have had a soft button nose, this thing had a hard horn-like ridge for a nose, and my blow mostly bounced off of it. Despite the dismal damage numbers from my attack the cat still yowled and retreated with watery eyes.
A grunt, followed by rough words from Gibbles, distracted me for a moment. I recovered my focus when a green cloud floated past me and attached itself to the cat. The cat’s eyes shifted from their black orbs into glowing pits while its claws began to shine a sickly green. I didn’t know what was coming, but I could sense that it would be trouble. Ducking behind my shield was almost enough to save me from the frantic flailing of the cat’s wild swings. One of the mad swipes had reached just beyond the shield, and when the cat pulled its paw back, the nails dug into my fingers as they gripped the shield's handle. The pain was surprisingly sharp and different from the normal strikes and bites I had become used to, and it caused me to holler and strike at the cat’s hooked limb.
My spastic strikes had come at the cost at a few extra injuries from the cat trying to dislodge its claw, but my wild swings also severed the animal's limb. The cat creature hizzed as it limped around me trying to rejoin its master, but I was unwilling to let it through. I wasn’t sure why it wanted to meet up with Gibbles, but if it wanted to, then I was against it. After multiple false lunges and attempts to outmaneuver me the pet gathered its courage and tried to charge through my defense. I bashed the creature on the side of the face and knocked it off course. This proved to be the last straw as the animal lost its footing and landed on the stump of its severed limb. With the cat collapsed on the ground, the skeleton tackled it while Annie’s spells tore away the last of its life.
When I looked to Gibbles all I could see was a mound of burnt goblin. Annie and Emma had finished Gibbles together and then turned to assist me. I felt a little self-conscious about not doing as much damage as the others, but I just had to remind myself that we all had roles and mine was to be there for my family.
With Gibbles dead, the Champion counter and the Wave counters both advanced, but that was nearly unimportant compared to what happened next. Annie’s amputation debuff faded. When the debuff disappeared, her maximum health returned to normal, though she was still not fully healed. When Robert cast his heal spell, Annie's arm visibly regrew in seconds. Before she had been fully restored we surrounded my sister and began to cry and hug, even Robert appeared misty-eyed, though I doubted I could get him to admit it.
After a few minutes to regain our composure we turned to face the camps and look to find the next champion.
Chapter 31
Changing our plan to hunting champions, and leaving the non-elite monsters for when the event started, meant we had first to find each goblin champion then clear the camps where they were resting. At first, it was simple. A goblin that was double the size of any other tends to stands out. Once we fought our way to the second elite champion, we hesitated before attacking him. To our surprise, the warrior elite was no more a challenge than a regular elite inside the dungeon. This left us a little off-kilter wondering if something was going to jump out and surprise us while fighting. This concern only lasted as long as it took to end the next camp of goblins.
“Does this seem too easy to anyone else?” I asked in concern.
Emma gestured at me quickly, but to my apparent confusion, she sighed.
“Vick, one thing you learn is never to ask if things are too easy. That just gives the world a chance to notice and correct the mistake,” Emma said with a much-aggrieved expression.
I nodded to Emma’s concern but turned to the others, “Robert, Annie? You know what I mean though? It just feels like something will go wrong at any moment. This is just working too well.”
