Tiny went charging in at the Claws while Stacia dazed both spell casters. Fluff was two steps behind Tiny as he ran in, while Karen was a shimmer that followed along behind her. Alburet left Bob casting his Fire Bolts to chase after the others while both Stacias stood next to Bob, singing their songs. Tiny hit each of the Gnoll Claws before switching back to the first one, blocking one attack while taking the other three.
Alburet winced watching Tiny’s health dip from that attack, rushing forward to get the heal he had onto Tiny. Fluff paused, waiting for Tiny to hit his target again before she attacked it as well. Karen popped into view as her blades hit the gnoll from behind, easily out-aggroing Tiny and making it spin on her. Tiny taunted the gnoll back to him, allowing the second Claw hit him again and stacking more bleeds onto Tiny.
Alburet got there and slapped the vitality buff on Tiny, hoping it would help keep him up longer. The bleed damage was adding up, as well as the raw damage from the hits. After getting the buff on Tiny, Alburet slid around the side and got a better view of the two gnolls they were fighting. The Gnoll Claws didn’t have the plant growth on their backs nor were they hunched, standing at their full seven-foot height. They were not using weapons, instead using their namesake claws which looked razor sharp as they sliced at Tiny again.
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 g
uys?” 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.”
“Hmm,” Alburet interrupted to help Fluff out, “think we should put in two cents for the duo?”
“Marysue and Gerald?” Fluff asked, getting a nod in return. “I already did. It seems Marysue was on the list already but they didn't have Gerald on it. Once I pointed out how tied together they were, the person I talked to said they would see about adding him in, but it means one of the people they already asked needs to decline.”
“See, that’s what I am talking about, right?” Karen pointed out. “Just who do you know to have that much input?”
Fluff looked around nervously, “Umm, well... I know the head of the art team there. She’s a very nice person. Please don't tell anyone else.”
Karen's smile became sharp, “Oh? Does this mean you’ve done some work for them?”
Fluff gulped, her eyes darting about rapidly as she fidgeted in place, and began to groom her ears. “Well... the thing is...”
“Fluff,” Alburet said softly, catching her eye with a soft smile, “it's okay. You don't have to tell us anything. If you do, we will keep it to ourselves.”
Karen's lips compressed slightly but she nodded, “I agree. I’m just interested in what you’ve done before. I know you have a hard time with people, but I want to know a bit more about you. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
Fluff looked up, meeting Karen's eyes before she gave a very small nod, “Okay.” Taking a deep breath while she closed her eyes, Fluff spoke in a very soft tone, “I did the work for the cafe we went to, when we celebrated forming the guild.”
Alburet smiled, “That place is awesome, Fluff. You did great work there.”
“Wait, you did that cafe? Wow, it really is well done, Fluff,” Karen added with sincerity.
Fluff opened her eyes, looking at them to see if they were telling the truth. Seeing only open and honest smiles she went red as she stammered and turned her face away. “Oh... it... was nothing.”
Stacia piped up, “It is a very nice place. But how did ya have a hand in it? Tha' place has been there since I was a kid.”
The trio all blinked as they all looked at Stacia, before Alburet spoke up. “That is a very good question actually, and I don't know if we can answer that.”
“Err, yeah,” Karen said as she tried to think of how to explain the concept of the entire world being a game to Stacia.
“My soul is old,” Fluff said softly. “Before I was in this form my soul drifted around this world helping those who needed inspiration for things. I helped a few people with the ideas behind the things they built. My soul then went to the other world and I live there now. I visit here in this form, now.”
“Ah. Well, it be a very nice place. I be glad ya helped with it,” Stacia said, taking Fluff’s explanation with all seriousness.
“Thank you, Stacia,” Fluff said as she stood up and brushed off her pants. “Shall we get back to slaughtering gnolls?”
The group all got to their feet and set off for the closest encampment. As they went, Alburet winked at Fluff, mouthing the words to thank her. He would never have considered what she said as a possible explanation.
The next four hours were a continuation of the previous hunt. The only difference was Tiny dying once due to bleeds stacking high enough to negate the Vitality buff. Alburet's old +2 intelligence ring also broke during the fighting, which he shrugged off as it didn't make much difference to him. When they called a halt because Alburet and Stacia had to get back to the city, Alburet had leveled to eighteen.
“Tomorrow Stacia is going to be with her mom all day. As such, I think gnolls are not going to be a thing. The day after that we’ll be a little busy with something else as well. Maybe you two can hook up and hunt together, which might help you catch up a bit.”
Karen glanced at Fluff, “You want to hunt with me the next two days, Fluff?”
Fluff nodded, “It should be fun. It will be different without Tiny there to hold things for us.”
Tiny rumbled, “Be safe. I want to see you both alive again.”
“Yeah, it would be a waste if you two hotties died,” Bob added with a wink.
Shaking his head, Alburet dismissed his demons, “We’re done for the next two days guys, go home and enjoy yourselves.”
“Yes, master,” Tiny rumbled before he vanished.
“Such a waste. I won't be able to see the women if you don't summon me. Oh well, guess I can see about hunting up a succubus for a spot of fun,” Bob vanished as well.
“Ladies, have a good couple of days. If anything changes I'll use the Guildstone and let you know.” Alburet said, giving them both quick hugs.
“Okay, see you later,” Karen replied before using her Homestone and vanishing.
“Have a good couple of days,” Fluff said as she held her Homestone. “Err, and thanks for being my friend.” She vanished as well.
“We headin' back to clean up and get ready, master?”
“Yeah, but no fun times in the bath as we don't know when the carriage will show,” Alburet said as they both used their Homestones.
As they appeared in the graveyard Stacia pouted, “Tha' will nay be as much fun, but as the master wishes.”
Chuckling, he slapped her ass, “Go get the bath ready, Kitten.” He watched her hurry off into the inn as he followed behind, admiring the view.
Alburet
Human Summoner
Level 18
Strength: 23 (18)
Agility: 23 (18)
Constitution: 30
Intelligence: 52 (7)
Wisdom: 63 (18)
Charisma: 35
Health: 1200
Mana: 1530
Spells:
Demon Skin-Rank 2
Demonic Retribution- Rank 2
Summon Least Imp
Fire Blast- Rank 2
Sap Strength- Rank 2
Demonic Haze- Rank 2
Summon Lesser Destroyer
Demonic Vitality
Fire Burst
Summon Lesser Succubus
Abilities:
Personal Spells
Flame Weapon
Copy
Chapter Nine
Alburet tugged at the jacket, straightening it while Stacia put her red dress on. He admired her determination to put on the overly complicated dress, helping her with the ties in the back when asked.
“It looks good on you, Kitten. It really complements your hair,” he complimented her as she finally finished with the dress. “Now for hair?”
Stacia smirked at him and closed her eyes. Her brow furrowed slightly as if in concentration. Alburet blinked as her hair shifted and became an elaborate coiffure piled on top of her head. She placed a hand gently on it while using her other to slide two thin metal spikes into it at opposite angles.
“Aye, now I be ready, master,” Stacia beamed at his raised eyebrows. “That just be part of me innate succubus magic.”
“Anything else I should know abou
t it?” Alburet asked, curious now as to what else she could do.
Smirking, she closed her eyes and concentrated again. Her hair shimmered, going from red to blonde. “I can make sure ya never get bored of the same woman. I can even shift me form a touch, too. Nay in this dress though or it will take forever to get it to lay righ' again.”
Alburet shook his head, “Dear gods, that is going to take some getting used to.”
Stacia concentrated again, shifting her hair back to its normal vibrant red. “I tested it a little before getting breakfast this morn. It is somethin' Ma' told me about while ya was back on the other world.”
He presented his arm to her, “Well, my soon to be bride, shall we?”
Taking his arm Stacia smiled softly, “Aye, master of me heart and soul.”
Forming the Company (Alpha World Book 2) Page 12