Slaine was in the jungle by the fort and was exploring the areas close to it. He was mapping the area and marking the various monsters that would be in the various parts of the area. It was a common thing when any guild occupies a certain area.
The members of Crimson Realm had formed about 70% of the populace of the city, so they were bound to occupy certain areas and map them when they have the advantage. Though Slaine was doing something important, he was convinced by Balthazar as soon as he suggested that they would probably find a lot more equipment at the bandit camp.
Given that he didn't find anything else at that time, he decided to join them. "I will get someone to take my place. Give me ten minutes," said Slaine as he ended the call and immediately contacted Perennial Light so that he could take his place.
"Slaine will be joining us in ten minutes, probably might get a few more players. Why don't we try to check Merlin's hypothesis till then?" suggested Shadow.
"Yeah, we can try that. I will form a team with Shadow and attempt to attack only at vital points, trying to avoid claws, tusks and the like. You three choose another monster and fire at different points on its body. Try to cover the whole of its body. Let us try it out and check if the loot corresponds to his hypothesis," suggested Bitter Beast.
"That is fine. After a few attempts, we can make precise attack and you two attack randomly. We need to check multiple scenarios," said Mob agreeing to Bitter Beast's plan.
"Precise attacks? With a staff? That is almost impossible for me," said Grenadier Mage. He never cared about such things before and as long as his attacks hit the target, he never had to worry where it hit. So, this exercise was something, he was sure that he couldn't do well. Moreover, even his basic spell, firebolt causes fire damage which doesn't make it possible to avoid attacks in an area. Only, when an elementalist learns wind blades at level 15, it would allow for such precise attacks at a small area on the target.
"Yes, using fire bolts or frost bolts, would be quite an issue for something like this. They would cause fire and frost damage," agreed Bitter Beast and Shadow.
"Yes, you stick to the team that does damage all over the body. The rest of us will be switching between the teams," said Mob.
Shadow soon found a stag which he first crippled by a hit on its knee joint with his unique weapon. Once, crippled Bitter Beast focused his hits on the vital point like its eyes. Moreover, with the level difference of three levels, it was easier to deal high damage to the leopard while trying to hit only the vital points on it like its eyes.
The loot as expected was better than the usual when they foraged the corpse of the monster. They repeated the attempt with a couple of other stags and found the results consistent with Merlin's hypothesis. With the initial attempts confirming Merlin's hypothesis, they decided to try and repeat their experiment and forgot about Slaine and the others.
"Who are the new guys and why are you forcing this crazy training on them at this place? Did you get used to being a coach in the force and were missing those moments?" came the snide voice of Slaine from behind them suddenly, pulling their attention of the experiment that they were conducting.
"Thanks, dumbass. That was extremely helpful. I didn't tell any of them about my job and I don't coach anyone in the force," messaged Shadow to Slaine before he accidentally revealed anything else.
"Oh, my bad," messaged back Slaine. "So, who are the new guys?"
"These are Merlin's friends. They joined his adventurer team recently. You saw their names in the announcement, right?" asked Shadow.
"Hi, I am Psychotic Mob," said Mob shaking Slaine's hand. "These are Grenadier Mage and Bitter Beast," he continued pointing at the other two, who waved their hands in response. "We used to be in Magus Shrine in Merlin's team. Just joined the adventurer team he started in vita-nova. So, you guys are all from Crimson Realm?" asked Mob trying to make conversation.
The introduction continued for a few moments and then, they sent friend requests to one another, before they made their way towards the Bandit camp. Though, the Kanterbury plains had a decent number of players, by the time they reached the bandit camp there weren't any players visible other than their own group.
"No one is here as we expected," said Slaine.
"Obviously, anyone who is at level 9 and has a chance of reaching level 10, attempt to reach the White Heart City and once there, they find a number of new things to explore. Even, we who have been at the city overnight have forgotten about it," said Shadow.
"There are two watchtowers at the camp," continued Slaine looking at the camp through his scope. "We might need to take them out before we get in. Else, they might sound the alarm. Any ideas?" he asked Shadow as he knew that Shadow had already explored the camp a bit.
"i have no idea, how to get an entire team in. The last time, I caused a diversion with my clone to divert the attention of the guards. We can just go and attack them. We have more than 10 members and all are at the very least in level 11 and have pretty good equipment," said Shadow.
"Let us fire at the lookouts and guards first, we can get them into the grass and see. if we can kill them easier with an ambush," suggested Slaine.
"I think, it isn't necessary to go through all of that, but there is no issue in trying," said Mob. "How about my use of spirit wolf to get their attention," he continued as he made his spirit wolf run towards the gate of the camp.
Both the lookouts on the watchtower immediately started firing at it and the guards also ran towards it. "I suggest you flank the two bandits. I am getting the wolf to the grass," said Mob as he made the wolf ran towards the grass.
The bandits were quite fast almost on par with the wolf which was at level 12. Summoners have two different types of summons. One is like the spirit wolf and spirit bear which they can summon frequently. The other types of summons require a lot of effort and materials and these are usually summons which are at a much higher level than the player. The second type of summons are also sometimes required special methods and need multiple summoners.
This was the main advantage of summoners, especially when they work in tandem in a group. The second type of summons were usually used to kill a field boss by guilds or in guild wars or large-scale campaigns.
The first type of casual summons which summoners could summon without much issue and they could be learned through skill books. The advantage with them was that they could have summons which were at a higher level than the players. Their level can only be increased on repeated usage or special materials or magical tools.
With the use of his skill point on the summon skill, Mob had already upgraded his summon skill and thus, the spirit wolf was a level higher than him and it also reduced the cast time of the summoning.
"We shall go and attack the guards, Roll and Shadow will handle the bandit lookouts," said Slaine as he as he made his way through the grass towards the wolf to attack. The two lookouts were focused on the wolf and didn't observe Roll and Shadow who made their way towards the watchtowers in stealth.
"Hold on. I will have the wolf run around till they both get to the lookouts. They could have some means to signal the bandits. We will ambush them once, they give the signal," said Mob halting them from attacking the guards that followed the spirit wolf.
"We are on the ladder of the watchtower. Let us get to the top and we will signal you," said Shadow on the team chat.
"Get it done fast. It is hard to avoid their arrows while keeping the guards at bay," replied Mob. If he just had to maintain the spirit wolf avoiding four guards, it is not much of an issue as speed was the spirit wolf's forte but avoiding the arrows of the lookouts was a bit hard.
Balthazar had moved as fast as he could to reach the top of the watchtower. Once, there he began to wait for Roll to take his place as the other lookout would probably notice when he attacked one of them. "Attack as soon as you can. I am already in place and Mob says that he is unable to keep his spirit wolf evading the arrows," he messaged to Roll.
As soon as Roll reached the top, their attack started. Shadow who was looking at the other tower immediately told Mob to start and all of them simultaneously jumped on to their targets. Shadow and Roll both had to keep the lookout busy and stop them from giving any warning before the other took out the guards.
There were a total of 8 guys on the ground each of whom were above level 11. So, they managed to quickly stop the four guards from escaping and pinned them down in the grass. The hardest problem that the players would have with the bandits was that they were a different race called Quingol.
There had the head of a rat, extremely sharp teeth and a body the shape of humans, but the worst part was that they had an exoskeleton like an insect. This made attack one of them an extremely daunting task. Physical attacks that didn't land on joints or vital points cause almost negligible damage unless they are the strong ones that had a blow back effect. This made it very hard to kill them.
Shadow knew that he would have to help them and decided to take down his lookout as fast as possible. He morphed his unique weapon to the shape of piolet directly struck the blade into the lookout's neck and pulled the bandit lookout throwing it off the top of the watchtower.
Even though they had an exoskeleton which protected them against many physical attacks, the joints and face of the quingols were their week points. Both Shadow's attack on its neck and the fall from about 5 meters from the top of the tower caused it significant damage and also put it in a stunned state. The attack on its neck also caused a strong bleed and cripple effects.
Shadow immediately slid down the ladder, so that he could finish the bandit lookout. Sliding down ladders or ropes is much faster than climbing up as one could let gravity move them down fast while only using their hands to grip the ladder occasion to regulate their speed from getting too fast. Else, their own speed could cause them damage.
Once he reached the ground, he ran towards the fallen lookout which was still stunned and lying on the ground without any movement bleeding from its neck. He quickly delivered a few more attacks killing it within 10 seconds. The fall itself had cleared half its health and the remaining was slowly draining due to the bleed effect. With the additional attacks from Shadow after he reached it, the lookout was easily killed.
With his target taken care of, he ran towards the other watchtower. Roll too made a sudden attack on the lookout, managing to kick away its crossbow off the top of the tower. This was very important as without the crossbow, even if he failed to subdue the lookout, it wouldn't be able to attack the other from the watchtower.
The space on the watchtower wasn't very large. Roll was hesitant to attack with full force as he didn't know the nature of the bandits. If it got into an aggressive or berserk state, there is a high chance of them falling of the tower and that would cause a lot of damage. So, he was just trying to stall the lookout till the others kill the guards and join him. He was counting on Slaine and others with the crossbows that they found from the fort, which could support him. He planned to keep it occupied, till the other join in his attack and kill the lookout easily.
Shadow noticed Roll fighting with the lookout and understood that it was a good tactic, but he had little time and didn't want to let them all take their time to kill the monsters. Moreover, Roll was waiting for support from others, so he was sure that Roll wouldn't feel bad if he joined the fight.
He made his way up the ladder and that the lookout would probably be focused on Roll. He didn't even care to get into stealth as that would reduce his speed and as he reached the top of the ladder, he jumped onto the platform and immediately swung his weapon towards the lookout who was using his dagger against Roll. He hooked the piolet at one of its knees and this time jumped down dragging the lookout with him.
In mid-air, he swung the lookout beneath him with all his strength. This increased the force at which the lookout crashed into the ground and also provided a bit of cushion for him to land on. As he fell on the lookout, both he and the lookout received fall damage.
Balthazar didn't care because he wanted to complete it as fast as possible. He didn't care at all to even roll and reduce the damage, but land hands first on to the lookout's head. His hands held his weapons with their blades stabbing into the lookout's head as he reached the ground. He wanted to use the fall to cause more damage to the lookout by piercing his daggers deeper into its head.
This time Shadow's falling attack cause a lot more damage to the second lookout, putting it in a critical health state while also inflicting it with stun and bleeding effects. By the time, Roll came down the ladder, the second lookout was already dead.