He knew he was being baited, but Alburet asked anyway, “What else do you care about then?”
“Well, since you asked,” Bob snickered. “I care about breasts, legs, hips, thighs…”
“Enough,” Alburet cut him off. “Anything besides women?”
“Explosions and killing things,” Bob replied, sulking a bit.
“Well then, you’re in luck. We are going after the gnoll shaman today. That means there should be plenty of killing to be done, and as a bonus you can always watch the women work.”
Perking up a little Bob nodded, “Okay, master.”
Gerald sighed from the front of the group, “He reminds me of a teenage guy, only interested in sex.”
“But, I don’t think you were that way, Gerald,” Marysue added after a short pause. “You turned down a number of girls in high school as I recall.”
Gerald’s face tinged pink before he responded, “True, true, but most teenagers are.”
“Which means Gerald there probably had his sights set on a certain someone already, right? That’s the only way I can think of for a guy that age to not succumb to temptation.” Karen opined as they walked along.
“Huh, I wonder who then?” Marysue mused. “I don’t recall him going after anyone. He was always helping me out and never seemed distracted.”
Alburet blinked as he finally realized why these two didn’t have an obvious relationship. Marysue was as dense as stone. He wondered if he should hint or nudge Marysue about the obvious. As he pondered that he caught Gerald’s eyes, the man shook his head once. Alburet gave back a small nod understanding that Gerald didn’t want that. He was content enough it seemed to just be near Marysue.
The group came to a halt when Stacia started to sing her song. Gerald looked back, then glanced where Stacia was looking. A Gnoll Wanderer had just come around a bend in the trail. The group started up the same routine they had done before to kill off the single gnolls. Once it fell dead, they looted it then started on again, coming to the first gnoll camp. Using the same tactics they had previously honed, they started to kill off everything between them and the cave.
Close to an hour later they stopped on the edge of a clearing backed by a hill. The cave entrance was there, the white mist denoting the instance entrance. Just outside of that stood two Gnoll Champions, wearing chain for the most part but solid iron helms and breastplates. Each of them bore an image of a large plant emblazoned on the chest plate. Each also had a shield equipped with the same image, their weapons were a hammer. The Champions were level 25, which meant that they were considerably more advanced than the other gnolls they’d fought.
“If I recall correctly,” Gerald told them in a soft voice, “these are paladin types. So, high defense, a little healing and holy offensive abilities. Tiny, these guys are going to hurt you rather badly with your aversion to holy magic. So, I am going to suggest that Stacia focus on the right one, while we go after the one on the left. I think they have a short area stun as well, so make sure to stay back unless you’re melee. Everyone ready?”
Once everyone was ready Stacia began to sing, causing the gnoll on the right to slouch a little as it got dazed. Gerald charged out, using his taunt ability to get the attention of the one on the left and stopping it from glancing back at the other gnoll. Slapping the two buffs he could onto Gerald as they closed the distance, Alburet made sure his axe was ready to go. Gerald got the first hit in, but it hit the shield doing negligible damage to the mob. Everyone else circled around it as Gerald established his aggro. Once he gave the go ahead everyone attacked, except Alburet who hung back for another second.
A moment after everyone started attacking, the gnoll slapped his shield with his hammer. That caused those in melee with the gnoll to end up stunned for three seconds. While everyone was stunned, the gnoll healed itself and then got a decent hit in on Gerald. Marysue had been standing back, out of range of the stun, which meant she was able to keep Gerald healthy even with the critical hit the gnoll landed. Gerald used his Shield Bash to stun the gnoll, but it shook off the stun thanks to some ability.
The fight didn’t take long with all of them ganging up on it. Once it dropped, the group shifted over to the dazed gnoll. Before anyone did anything Alburet spoke up, “Hey, why don’t we have Tiny hold it at the start? That should make it use its stun right away.”
The others agreed and everyone got ready for the fight to kick off. Tiny put his shield and axe away then grabbed the gnoll’s two unresisting arms. As soon as the gnoll snapped out of the daze it growled and ripped its arms free of Tiny. “You can’t hold me, I am a Champion of Ulloc,” the gnoll spat as it turned on Tiny.
Gerald was the first to respond as they were all mildly shocked at how easily the gnoll had broken free. Gerald taunted the gnoll to him, which got him hit by the gnoll’s hammer. Everyone else paused to let the aggro to build as Tiny got his weapon and shield equipped again, a snarl on his face at having failed his mission to hold the gnoll. Aside from the surprise of the gnoll pulling free from Tiny the fight went the same as the first one.
As they looted the two corpses, Gerald shook his head, “So I guess they really meant it about holding mobs coming down to strength and dexterity.”
Tiny growled softly at the words before he stomped over to the portal, glaring at it with his back to the others. Bob shook his head slightly and spoke in a soft voice so Tiny wouldn’t hear him, “I think that is the first time he’s failed you, master.”
Alburet nodded as he stepped over to Tiny, “Tiny, you alright?”
Tiny’s eyes shifted to Alburet then away, “I failed. Will you dismiss me now for another?”
“Idiot,” Alburet sighed. “No, a single failure doesn’t mean you’ll being replaced. You would have to intentionally fail multiple times before I even considered that option. As it is, these things happen. The gods changed the way the world works just a while ago. We now know that currently you won’t be able to hold some monsters from level twenty-five and up. You will get stronger when I get the ability to upgrade you, until then we do what we can. So don’t treat this as a failure, treat it as a learning experience.”
Tiny nodded before standing up to his full height, “As the master wishes.”
“Good. Now let’s go get some payback, shall we?” Alburet chuckled.
“We good?” Gerald asked.
“We’re good to go,” Alburet replied motioning towards the misty white cloud that covered the cave opening.
They filed in after Gerald, Fluff and Karen each patting Tiny on the back as they went by. Stacia gave Tiny a quick hug, “Ya still be me protector, Tiny.”
Tiny mellowed slightly at Stacia’s words before Alburet stepped through the portal. They found themselves in a very dim cave with natural light coming in from a few small shafts. The walls and floor were covered in green moss which was damp to the touch. The sounds of guttural speech could be heard echoing from deeper in the cave.
Quest: Bring proof of defeating an optional boss to the Gnoll Watch Fort
Rewards: Twenty gold per boss and an item from the Gnoll Watch Fort quartermaster
Gerald gathered the group around, speaking in a hushed tone. “During beta, this cave had the primary boss and two optional bosses. One of them is an earth elemental, mostly a straight forward fight. He has high defense to physical attacks and most magic so it’s an attrition fight, we just need to outlast him. The other boss is the real pain, it’s a giant plant with tentacles. The tentacles will grab people, inflicting damage to them until they are free. Even worse, the whole area will have a poison cloud which means we’ll all be taking damage the entire time. That fight is a real pain for healers. Add in the fact half of our damage can’t be healed normally and it will be even tougher. The one time we tried to skip the optional bosses in beta the Shaman ended up with extra abilities. So, we really need to take out the optional bosses first. Any preference?”