Tiny was only able to block two of the four attacks. Fluff was able to parry one with one axe, while attacking with the other. One more stack of the bleed effect got through, adding to those already on him.
“I’ll focus on stopping this one from getting hits on Tiny,” Fluff said, shifting so she could have the chance to parry both attacks.
Alburet finally got his axe into play, slashing into the one Tiny was focused on. The axe hit the gnoll square in its chain covered back, still doing close to 200 damage. With Tiny’s hits, Karen using both blades on it, Bob’s Fire Bolts and now Alburet adding in his attacks, the gnoll was dying quickly. The problem was that at least one attack routinely got through, adding another stack of the bleed on Tiny. By the time the first melee mob died, Tiny was at half life and hurting badly even with the heal over time on him due to the number of bleeds he had.
“Fluff, lock this thing down,” Alburet called out, “you should have enough strength to do it.” As he called out to her he slapped a Sap Strength onto the gnoll to help her as well.
Fluff dropped her axes and put the gnoll into a full nelson from behind. As the gnoll’s arms came up, Karen slid both blades into its neck while Tiny dropped his shield and axe to slide around next to Fluff. He reached over and grabbed the gnoll, as she was struggling to hold it.
“I have it, Fluffball. You can attack again.” Tiny rumbled as Fluff’s grip slipped, but by then Tiny had it firmly in hand.
They all piled onto it while Tiny held it. Alburet saw that even Tiny had to strain to keep the gnoll in place for them. Once it dropped, Alburet hit Tiny with another Demonic Vitality as the bleeds had finally dropped off. “You okay for another minute, Stacia?” Alburet asked. Stacia nodded and kept singing.
“Okay. Take a second get your health up Tiny, before we grab the Soul Render,” Alburet said. They moved over to the next target ready to ambush it with high alpha damage.
They waited for the buff to wear off Tiny and Alburet to reapply it. Once he had, they all hit the Soul Render pulling easily half its life off as the daze broke. No sooner had they done so than vines sprang up around them, locking them into place as a Wanderer made itself known at the edge of the encampment. The Stacia who had just finished her daze effect targeted the new enemy and sung to it, dazing it as the group focused on the Soul Render.
The Soul Render got a DoT spell onto Tiny before he was cut down. The DoT was outstripping the heal that Tiny had, taking a decent chunk of life away as it ticked. That was the only spell it got off though before it was cut down by the group.
“Wanderer first?” Karen asked.
“No, it just added. Let’s get the Spiritualist first,” Alburet said as he reapplied Vitality on Tiny as the DoT finally ran off. They got themselves around the next target with Alburet behind it as the Spiritualist, like the Wanderer, had plant growth on its back. When everyone was ready he attacked first. His flaming axe hit it square in the back, setting the plant growth on fire as the others all sliced into it. That initial attack took close to half its life off.
It let out a scream and a very bright flash of light erupted from it. The group all reacted with various yells as they were temporarily blinded. As they waited for their vision to clear, Fluffball let out a leonine yowl. As their vision came back, blurry, they saw the Spiritualist cowering in place. They all swung at the huddled gnoll. The hits put it down to a fraction of life, while also ending the fear effect that Fluff had affected it with.
They cut it down before it could get another spell off, then paused for a second. “Good to know that one has a blind effect,” Alburet said as they moved over to the Wanderer and quickly dealt with it as they had the ones they’d attacked earlier.
“That shows we can do the encampments if we play it safe,” Karen said as the group looted the bodies.
Altogether they found a chain coif, two spring vines and a handful of silver. With the experience under their belts they headed off towards the next camp.
They spent the next three hours going from camp to camp, killing off the gnolls. After that they wandered into the woods, finding a spot to take a break. Once they found a good spot Alburet dismissed the double Stacia as she reverted back to her human guise. He handed out tea and jerky to Fluff, Karen and Stacia before seating himself.
“This is going okay. Grats on your levels, Fluff and Karen,” Alburet raised his tea to them. “They are giving good XP, probably because they’re higher level than us.”
“Well yeah, they should right?” Karen agreed, “A few minor hiccups in the early going but now we have our feet under us.”
“Once we figured out to burn the plant life off the caster’s backs it got easier,” Fluff added as she chewed her jerky. “Tiny seems to take a beating with the groups.”
“I am fine,” came Tiny's rumbled reply. “I can take anything that needs to be done.”
Shaking his head, Bob cut in, “Stupid, you’ve been under a quarter life, multiple times, because of the bleeds stacking on you.”
“Doesn't matter. I live only to protect the master.”
“You can't protect him if you’re dead, you giant oaf,” Bob snapped. “You need to think more about stopping the damage from stacking on you and less standing there like a lump.”
“Woah, Bob, calm down,” Alburet cut in. “He is right to a degree though, Tiny. Once you have a good solid lead on aggro focus more on defense, please.”
“As master wishes,” Tiny rumbled, sitting there with the same placid expression on his ugly mug.
Bob harrumphed, turning away from Tiny, “I’ll be more useful once you unlock the spell that makes me stronger. Only being able to do a little over twenty damage a go is just sad at this level.”
“It is one of the reasons Summoners are thought of as weak,” Stacia added softly. “We know better, Bob. Once ya gain more power and the master upgrades ya, then ya will do a lot more damage.”
“Damn right,” Bob said puffing out his chest, liking the thought of being more powerful. “Monsters will fear the name of Bob the Mighty.”
Karen snorted as she bit back her laughter, which got her a sharp-eyed glance from Bob. “Sorry, had a frog in my throat,” Karen said with a cough, her lips trembling as she hid her smile.
“Summoners can upgrade their minions?” Fluff asked Stacia.
“Aye. Da' told me about the tough decisions he had to make back when he was hunting with the others. Take a new ability for him, or upgrade one of his minions. I wonder just what the choices are. Da’ never said just what he gave up to make his minions stronger,” Stacia said before popping the last of her jerky into her mouth.
“He’ll have to give up different abilities to upgrade you guys?” Karen asked, interested.
“Aye, according' to Da' that is,” Stacia snuggled into Alburet's side. “I do nay worry as master will do what is best for us as a group.”
Alburet chewed his lip for a second at this information, “Guess I should talk to Stewart and see if he can clue me in ahead of time. If that’s true though, it really means making my minions more powerful or me more powerful which is going to be a rough balancing act.”
“Your gloves let you keep up the damage, though,” Fluff pointed out. “At this point you’re more melee than caster because of them.”
“Point,” Alburet conceded, “I don't really blame people for calling my class weak. My single target spell does minimal damage and my area of effect spell hurts everyone except my minions, which is just fucked up.”
“On a different topic,” Karen said, looking over at Fluffball, “how did you get word to Mindblown to help me get in?”
Fluffball looked away, her cheeks only lightly pink, “I just know someone there is all, no biggie.”