“Don’t worry. During two of the boss fights there are adds that you’ll be in charge of picking up,” Alburet said.
“Right,” Tiny said, his teeth gleaming as he smiled.
“That’s gonna be about the best you can expect from him,” Bob said, shaking his head.
“Do we want to grab one more first?” Fluff asked.
“Sure, we can grab the two between us and the portal,” Alburet said with a laugh. “Tiny, grab the two between us and the fort’s main doors. We’ll be killing them just to the left of the portal.” He slapped buffs onto Tiny as Tiny ran forward yelling.
“He really does love to yell,” Fluff laughed as she followed after Tiny, trailed by Bob and Alburet.
The battle was longer than the others and Tiny took a bad beating but was still alive when both mobs died. As Tiny regained his health after combat, Alburet saw Gerald and Marysue coming through the main gates so he disbanded the group, waving to them.
Gerald, Marysue and the other DPS ran over to them as Gerald sent them invites to the group. “Everyone inside,” Gerald said once Fluff and Alburet accepted the invites.
Stepping through the portal, Gerald turned to Alburet, “Get rid of the destroyer please. He’ll taunt the mobs off me.”
“No, he won’t. He has been told not to,” Alburet said evenly. “He will add to how fast we can kill things, unless the other DPS is a melee type.”
“Call me Franz,” the unknown DPS said. “I’m an Elementalist, so I won’t be in the thick of the fight.”
“So Tiny can get around the ones you have aggroed and help add in more damage. Besides, in the two boss fights we’ll want him to help with the adds.” Alburet said.
“If he taunts once outside of the boss adds then he is out,” Gerald said firmly.
Alburet felt his anger start to rise and did his best to stomp it out, “Sure.”
“We only ran one more time after the first run,” Marysue said as they advanced to the first corner. “When the Shieldbearers have their shields up they take a lot less damage. That made each fight take longer. We even wiped on the two bosses that summon adds.”
“Alburet, you’re up,” Gerald said, his voice strained as if he wished Mary hadn’t said what she had.
Smiling broadly, Alburet nodded before turning to Tiny. “Tiny, attack the mob Gerald is attacking after he has hit it twice. Switch targets when he does as well. No taunting unless I tell you to. Got it?”
“As the master says,” Tiny rumbled, gripping his axe tighter.
As Alburet looked around the corner he caught a whisper from Marysue, “My goodness, that voice is frightening.”
“He’s just a lovable attack demon,” Fluffball replied softly with a giggle. “He didn’t let me take a single point of damage while we were farming.”
Alburet ignored the rest and pulled the first group by putting Sap Strength on the Shieldbearer. “Here they come,” he said as he ducked back well behind Gerald.
With the first group Alburet leveled to ten to the congratulations of the others. As he distributed his stat points, Gerald asked, “You don’t mind waiting on your ability until after the run, right?”
Alburet chuckled, “Not in the least actually. I doubt it would make a huge difference and it would take a while to make the trip, so I’ll wait. Shall we continue on?”
They cleared the floor of adds quickly. The mobs were dropping even faster than the previous day. They staged up next to the first boss as Gerald went through his description of the boss for the Franz. “When the adds come in, Tiny will be picking them up. All DPS switches to them and kills them first. He goes berserk at 10% life at which point Alburet, if you could, get Tiny to taunt off me at some point so I don’t die.”
“Hear that Tiny? You get to save Gerald at the end,” Alburet said.
“I will save squishy human,” Tiny replied.
“Anyway, are there any questions?” Gerald asked, a little peeved at being called squishy. When no one replied he turned to Alburet, “I’ll go once you get the buffs up.”
Alburet buffed Gerald who rushed in followed by the others. The fight didn’t take long and Tiny did his job perfectly, collecting each set of adds as they appeared. They did find out why Bob had told Marysue to not heal him the day before, though. When the first set of adds died Marysue had tossed a healing spell to Tiny, damaging him even more and causing him to roar in pain and spin around to find the one who had hurt him. Alburet got Tiny to attack the boss and shook his head at Marysue, who looked shocked but nodded in understanding. Tiny had just a sliver of health when the boss enraged, but Gerald was at full life since he hadn’t been getting pummeled by adds during the fight. Alburet called Tiny to him and away from the boss, not wanting the minion to get killed. The boss died shortly afterwards under the barrage of damage from the party.
“I’m sorry about that, I didn’t know it would hurt him.” Marysue said as she came over.
“I forgot all about Bob telling you not to heal him yesterday, so it’s partially my fault as well.” Alburet said.
Bob snickered, “It’s not like it did any real harm to him.”
Alburet shook his head, “What if we had forgotten about not healing you?” Bob looked away without answering, which prompted a chuckle from Alburet. “So healing spells don’t work for my minions obviously. Makes me hope I get a way to heal them soon.”
“Hey, the loot is a leather helm, +2 Constitution,” Gerald said to get Alburet and Marysue’s attention. “I got a good enough helm from yesterday. So who wants to greed the item?”
All four of the others opted to roll for it, using the pop-up to do so. Alburet found a set of ten sided dice in his hand, making him smile as he knelt down and rolled them as the others had already done. He laughed when his came up as a 1. The others laughed as well. Franz took the helm, his 87 the high roll. “Wow, talk about rolling low,” Alburet joked.
“Says the guy who got a unique set of gloves yesterday,” Gerald said, shaking his head. “I would think that would be enough luck for the first fifty levels.”
“Meh, I took a gamble and it paid off. We doing the Jailer next?” Alburet asked as they left the room.
“That is the plan. If your imp can free the one prisoner again we should be golden,” Gerald replied. “Luckily we had a Trapsmith with us on our second run and he was able to free the one slave. We didn’t get any extra rewards that time, but the DPS with us did. And it does make the fight easier.”
The group decimated the next few packs of trash in short order, pausing outside of the boss area for Gerald to explain the fight to Franz. “Okay Alburet, buff me and in we go.”
“Bob free the one prisoner at the start. Tiny no taunts on this fight.” Alburet said before buffing Gerald to kick the fight off.
The Jailer went down just as easily as before, but Tiny taunted the boss at 5% life giving Gerald the chance to get some life back. Gerald pursed his lips looking from Alburet to Tiny but not saying anything as he looted the boss.
“Tiny? Why did you taunt?” Alburet asked.
“Squishy human Gerald was close to not having enough life to survive, so I saved him. I am ready for your retribution for disobeying you,” Tiny said with stoic calm in the longest speech he’d ever made.
Alburet looked to Gerald, “Any issue with him taunting there?”
Gerald shook his head, “Not about helping make sure I survived, no. I thought they were supposed to obey you, though.”
“I have noticed that as long as they are Content on the happiness scale they do a little more to help out.” Alburet replied with a shrug before turning to Tiny, “As you saved Gerald I will not be punishing you, you did the right thing even if it did go against my order.”
Tiny bowed his head, “Thank you, master.”
Fluffball giggled but shook her head when Alburet raised a brow her way, “It's nothing.”