Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II

by Joshua W. Nelson

Everyone was ready for my “plan” once we were all logged in. I had been thinking about how to approach the problem all night, and I felt secure in my thinking. The first step would be figuring out where the mobs were located and whether Dan would be able to get a solid shot off at them with his bow. If Dan couldn’t get a shot off from outside the cave, this plan was dead in the water before we even started.

  I activated my Conceal/Stealth and made my way toward the cave. As I entered for the second time in Conceal/Stealth, I was thankful to see the trap did not activate. The Trolls were arranged in a pentagram-type layout within the circular cave, with the entrance at the base of the star and a troll at the top of it. The cave was large, which hampered Dan’s ability to get a shot off, but it was ideal for kiting mobs. Once I determined that the mobs were still Blue, I returned to just outside the cave where my group was waiting.

  “Dan, I want you to get up to the edge of the cave but not inside it. I will go inside and target one of the mobs on the far side. I want you to approach the edge and shoot that mob with one of your arrows when I say the word.”

  After getting the nod from Dan, I went back in and targeted the mob that was to the left of the center positioned mob. With that Troll targeted, I returned to just outside the cave and told Dan to take his shot while engaging the mob I had targeted. As I hoped, Dan’s shot landed, and the Troll came right up to the edge of the cave.

  As soon as Dan’s shot was launched, I started the timer. Tyke’s group was slightly off, and the mob remained at the entrance to the cave for exactly 12 seconds. Excellent.

  “Alex, we know that isn’t going to work. As soon as we get the guy up to the edge, he is going to boomerang back to his starting location and return to full health,” Wayne said.

  “That would be the case if we were going to try and take them at the edge. Even we don’t have the DPS to finish them off that quickly. So we are going to implement a three-part attack.

  “We need to get all our buffs going and then wait until we have full mana. Dan, no Broham for this pull.”

  “No worries there, dude. Once Broham is killed, I can’t bring him back for 24 hours. It sucks, but those are the game mechanics.”

  “That will work for now. Once everyone is buffed up and whatnot, I will go through what will go down.”

  It only took five minutes before everyone was ready and eagerly looking my way for the solution to our problem.

  “I’m going to enter the cave and target the first mob. It’s going to be the same one you just shot Dan.”

  Our Ranger nodded his head in my direction.

  “Immediately after you take the shot, I will switch to a different target. This will be the guy to the right of the center Troll. As soon as you fire, switch targets and take the second shot. That will bring two of the Trolls to our position here in front of the cave.”

  I looked over at Jason and gave our Cleric his instructions. “Jason, hit Dan with the protection buff you normally give to Wayne. He is going to need it.

  “As soon as both of those guys are at the front of the cave, hit each of them with Snare. As soon as the second one lands, call it, and all of us will enter the cave, activating the trap. You are going to get hit at the beginning, but with the protection buff you should be ok. Run into the cave, away from the Trolls at the entrance and target the guy directly across from us. All you will have to do is switch to my target. I’ll have it ready to go.”

  I looked around to make sure all of the guys were tracking. So far they were following my logic. More importantly, none of them were questioning my plan.

  “As soon as you get to the middle, hit the third guy with a Snare and then start running them around the outside of the cave. Kite those bastards for all you’re worth. Don’t worry about hitting them with any arrows. Just keep your Snare fresh.

  “Wayne, as soon as you enter the cave, go to the left and Taunt the Troll there. Then, run to the guy on the right and give him a good Kick to his balls. Then take both of them into the center of the cave, and you and I will bring him down to nothing. After that, we take the second mob, and so forth. We should be able to clean up like this. Any suggestions?”

  “Just one. Instead of taking them into the center, how about I take them just outside of the kite range but close enough that I can Taunt one of the kited ones while it passes. This way I can build aggro while we are fighting the other two and pull the third off of Dan with more ease.”

  “As long as you can maintain aggro on the two that will be on you so that Allister doesn’t get a beat-down, I’m good with it.”

  “I got it. The day I can’t maintain my aggro is the day I hang up my War Hammer and switch to a Bard.”

  “While I would love to see an almost 7-foot Bard, I think I would prefer just fucking up these Trolls. Let’s make it happen.”

  I remembered the adage “No plan survives contact with the enemy,” but I was pleased to see this didn’t hold true to our second foray into the Trolls’ cave. I could go into excruciating detail about how each part of the operation played out, but suffice it to say, there were no hitches in our scheme. The Trolls had a moderate amount of hit points and a crazy amount of regeneration, but we were able to whittle them down in due order. With our weapons and our increased levels, our damage-dealing abilities were above average. This was enough to win the day.

  It was only five mobs, Blues at that, but you would have thought we had received the most epic of loot when we downed the fifth Troll. Everyone was cheering and patting each other on the back. Speaking of loot, there was none—just a few pieces of Gold, but we didn’t care in the least.

  Following our victory, I showed the guys our path. During my initial investigation of the cave, I had found the passageway that led from the entrance and deeper into the complex. As soon as everyone was healed up and had full mana, I activated my Invis and started making my way into the tunnel. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. After two steps into the tunnel and away from my friends, I activated my Blacksuit and progressed deeper.

  What I found was more in line with the traditional “dungeon” set-up for Resurgence. There were a number of tunnels and several mobs, but nothing looked like it was going to cause another ambush. To be on the safe side, I planned to have Dan shoot each one from a distance and make them run toward us. If one got stuck, we would know it was hitting the edge of an ambush.

  I didn’t travel too far, since I didn’t have a comprehensive map of the cave network. Thankfully, this “dungeon” actually had the map available. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to travel as far as I had.

  The relief on the faces of the guys was clear when I told them I hadn’t found anything that looked like more ambushes. I gave them my thoughts on engagement, and they agreed. Once we were all buffed up and full of mana again, I made my way back down the same hallway.

  We pulled singles and doubles and did not find another ambush. By and large, the Trolls weren’t difficult; they just took a long time.

  I was starting to think we might just sail through the rest of the dungeon and call it a day. I expected the dungeon boss to be tough, sure, but not anything we couldn’t handle.

  As we crept down the tunnels, my map started showing me that I would be coming upon a large room. Large rooms were good. Dan could kite in large rooms with no problems.

  Not about to make the same mistake again, I made sure my Blacksuit was activated, and slid my way in.

  “You have got to be shitting me!”

  All my happiness went right down the drain as I took a long look around the room, trying to count all the damn trolls.

  *

  “Well that doesn’t sound promising.”

  “No, Dan, not promising at all. Give me a minute, guys. I have to count up all the mobs in here.”

  “What the hell do you mean ‘count?’ You see three mobs, you say three mobs.”

  I didn’t bother to answer Dan. Once I gave them the final number, it would be obvious what I
meant by count.

  The room was large, alright. It had to be. When I stopped counting, the total was 10 Blue mobs and one Red. No problem guessing what the Red one was. The way the room was laid out, all of the mobs were on the far side of the room, packed together, directly across from the entrance. There were no mobs to either side of the entrance. The only other things of note were several fire pits laid out within the room. At first glance, they looked like cooking fires, as there were a number of bones splayed out around the fires.

  Apparently, even Trolls want to cook meat before they eat it, at least when it came to eating bipeds. There were all kinds of easily identifiable bones from various humanoid species.

  I relayed what I found and told the guys to slowly move up to my position just outside of the large room. I wanted them all to get a good look at what I was seeing and figure out if anyone else could come up with a way to tackle this room.

  After one quick look, Dan let us know there was no way he could pull singles—or even doubles—in this place. They were way too packed together. If he tried to pull just one or two, he would likely get the whole group.

  I couldn’t see any way around just going at them straight on. That was obviously not the answer. There was a riddle here, and I was sure it would involve the fire pits. Everyone knows that Trolls hate fire, since it is the only thing that can stop their regeneration. While they may use it to stay warm or even cook food, they will try to avoid it at all costs. The problem was, I couldn’t possibly see how we could light the fires before we were overtaken by all the mobs.

  “Anyone else notice that we had our maps this whole time?” Jason asked suddenly.

  I nodded along with the rest of my team. Having the map meant that if someone was outside of the cave, they would still likely get experience from a kill. That didn’t really help us here.

  “Ok. Give me a second and let me try something,” Jason said as he went back further into the tunnel.

  After only a couple of seconds, Jason gave out a long sigh. “Oh well, it was worth a try. I thought we might be able to summon our horses if we were still connected to the map. But I am getting the message that you may not summon a horse within this area. It’s the same message I get when we are in a dungeon.”

  “It was worth a try, Allister.”

  Wayne kept looking back and forth between the cooking pits and finally said, “It’s obvious, I think, that we need to use fire against them. So far we haven’t had to worry about their massive regeneration rates. But you can almost be certain that the boss’s hit point regen is going to be astronomical. Can we start those fire pits from here?”

  “I don’t have any fire arrows or anything like that,” Dan contributed.

  “We all have fire-making tinder boxes, but we would need to be right on top of the fires to get them started and it isn’t like we have practiced this skill all that much. It’s impossible to say how long it could take,” I added.

  “Dan, does your direct damage spell have a fire element?”

  “Afraid not, Allister.”

  The fact that Dan called Jason by his in-game name, not some variation, was evidence of how serious everyone was looking at the problem.

  “The thing I don’t like the most here, Alex, is that we have no idea how the mobs are going to react. If one of us runs into the room and over to one of the corners, will the whole pack follow that one person? Or will they auto-aggro the next person who comes in?”

  “Yeah, even I don’t want to try one of my experiments here. What does the manual say about starting fires?”

  “Give me a second to look it up.”

  The rest of us continued to look inside the large room trying to gauge the best way forward. While Dan scoured the manual for anything about lighting fires with our tinder boxes, I reestablished my Invisible status and crept back into the room. This time, I headed over to the fire pits themselves and got a better look.

  There was room between and around each of them. It was unclear how large the fire would get or if we could safely run around the outsides of them without taking damage.

  “Well, this looks to be all you, Alex. The skill calls for a check against the player’s Dexterity. On top of that, there is a certain amount of luck—meaning Chance—of the player lighting the fire.”

  “Ok. That actually makes sense.”

  I took one more look around the room and ran around the fire pits at full speed. I had no idea how the mobs would react to what I wanted to try, but I didn’t see any choice for us.

  “Just to be sure everyone knows, this plan sucks.”

  “I can’t believe he finally admitted it.”

  “Shut up, Dan. My plans are almost always awesome.”

  “The plan, Alex?”

  “Right. As you can all see, there are six fire pits, running in a line, with a good size gap in the middle. Let’s label them 1 through 6. So you have, from left to right, fire pits 1-3, then the gap, then 4-6. My plan is to set myself up all the way over by pit 1. At my signal, Wayne will enter. I’m pretty sure that will aggro the mobs.

  “As soon as he enters, he will start running toward me. I’m hoping that while the mobs are running toward him, I will have time to light this fire. Everyone following so far?”

  This wasn’t rocket science, so I wasn’t surprised to see everyone’s look for me to get on with it.

  “Right. So as Wayne gets to me, he runs around the far side of the fire pit and then heads toward pit 6. As soon as I have pit 1 lit, I will run toward 6 myself. The idea is to slow down the advance of the Trolls and make them run a longer way around the room. That should give me time to light the fire and for Wayne to perform the same maneuver.”

  “There are a whole lot of ‘ifs’ in there, Alex.”

  “I know, Allister, but what other choice do we have? You can’t heal Wayne at any point or the aggro will switch to you, and then we will have some mobs running toward you and others toward Wayne. The only way this works is if we can funnel them through that gap.”

  All eyes turned back to the layout of the large room and how the fire pits were set up.

  “You know, if the fires get large enough, that might actually work. Only one would be able to get through that gap at a time.”

  “That’s my hope, Wayne.”

  “So what happens on the last pit?”

  “Instead of running around to pit 1 or 6, you will run right past pit 4. This one won’t be lit. They will, hopefully, follow you through and into the area they are all standing at now. However, once they cross that threshold, I will light pit 4. You then sprint for pit 1 or 6, and they will be forced to come out of the opening gap.”

  “Hmmm. Doesn’t look like I would make it back in time to engage the first mob that then turns to come out of that gap.”

  “You won’t. We’ll have to engage them before you get there and can take over.”

  “I’m not too keen on sacrificing any of us, man. There are too many mobs for us to lose a 1/4 of our strength before even taking one of them down.”

  “You’re right, Wayne. That’s why Dan will engage the first one that comes out of the gap, stopping the flow. As soon as he starts to engage, he will do nothing but cast self-heal on himself. Allister will only shoot off a quick heal if Dan gets down to 40 percent before you can get there. Naturally, as soon as you arrive, Dan will disengage while you throw a Taunt, Kick, and Bash into his mob. Dan will stand there and take his beating until the mob turns off him and engages you.

  “Once that happens, you turn the mob at a slight angle so I can get shots off without getting hit with counter damage. Dan will back away and focus on shooting arrows at the mobs. Hold off on that first mob for a bit once Wayne has aggro. We don’t want to reset aggro.

  “If it does happen, for whatever reason, just Snare and kite. It will take us a lot longer to finish these guys off, but that’s the only choice we have.”

  “What if the Boss is the first one through the gap?”

  “With
special abilities likely to go off as it loses hit points? Then we probably die.”

  “Aren’t you just powered by optimism?”

  *

  It turns out there’s a reason they say that most plans don’t survive first contact. I realized this as I watched my well laid out plan go utterly and horribly tits-up immediately after Wayne entered the room.

  The plan was sound—except for the part where I didn’t factor in my likelihood to aggro half the mobs in the room when I dropped my Invis, which is exactly what happened.

  As soon as Wayne saw half the mobs change their trajectory, he surprisingly followed my call to run back into the hallway with Dan and Jason. Unfortunately, as soon as Wayne crossed the threshold, it was impossible for him to run back into the tunnel. We met our end bunched up at the entrance, with all the mobs beating on us mercilessly. All but the boss. He stayed stationary through the whole thing and didn’t show aggro on me or Wayne. I made sure to check as Wayne and I watched our hit points dwindle to nothing. That was good to know.

  Thankfully Jason could cast that wonderful holy spell of his, regaining 50 percent of our lost experience. More importantly, though, the spell would return us to our bodies, meaning we wouldn’t have to run back from Kich’s Keep again.

  Wayne and I gave Jason permission to drag our bodies back into the cave tunnel, and within minutes we were fully geared up again, just minus some experience.

  If this was going to happen, it was going to require all of us to enter the cave at the same time. Well, all of us minus me in my Blacksuit. I could enter early without triggering the trap, but as soon as I let it fall, I would be caught in the large room.

  “So, new plan.”

  “Yeah. You were right.”

  “About what, Dan?”

  “That plan sucked.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. Dan was right. The plan did suck. It ended up getting both Wayne and I killed, and we didn’t take down a single mob. And if they thought that plan was bad, they really weren’t going to like the next one.

  “This is going to be a do-or-die moment, guys. With the traps set up the way they are, we will either win or all of us will die. I don’t see any way around that.”