While Karl was resting comfortably in the fort that Rae had made for them, Dana was having a much different mission experience.
Her team had been deployed to the far side of the battlefield, nearly fifty kilometres from where Karl had originally been stationed, but they hadn’t managed to stay there for long.
Her team was not a group of devoted veteran mercenaries like Karl had gotten, she had been assigned to a team of slackers with a Commander Rank Priest in charge of them.
They treated the mission more like a prison sentence, complained constantly about every task they were assigned, and during the first battle were nearly outsmarted by a group of Goblins.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she had two Golems, they likely would have been overrun when the Goblins circled the clearing, as their warrior was next to incompetent, and was more interested in selling her on his new multi level marketing startup than actually protecting the group.
The others were supposed to be rogue classes, fast and deadly, but in reality, they were all slightly chubby IT guys who worked at the same company.
In short, the entire mission was a nightmare, but they had to keep moving because their group was so loud that it continually drew monsters to them.
“Can’t you just cast that holy light circle around us and keep it up for the night while we sleep?” The warrior whined as the sun went down at the end of their third day on the mission.
The Priest nodded. “I can stay up all night and keep the circle active. However, the light will draw monsters to us constantly, like a beacon. So, as soon as I fall asleep, you will have a few dozen Ogres and a thousand or more Goblins to deal with, but without a healer.
If you can handle that, I don’t have a problem being your nightlight.”
Dana hid her smile at the way that he managed to say that without a hint of sarcasm in his voice, though it was clearly implied.
“What’s the point of this anyhow? We’re just out here getting attacked by monsters, instead of making money. Do they have any idea of the amount of market capitalization that my group has missed out on because I wasn’t there to help pitch new members this week?” The warrior complained.
Dana glared at the man, and the Priest leaned over to whisper in her ear.
“Friendly fire is generally frowned upon, but if you have to, I understand.” He whispered.
She smiled back at him. It was obvious why he had been sent with this group. Not just for his strength, but because he was unendingly patient with slackers and idiots.
“I wonder what Karl is up to.” Dana muttered as she started her watch that night, hoping that he didn’t have to deal with a group like this.
Rae would probably kill someone and pretend that they ran away.
It was decided that she would take the first watch, and the priest would take the second. Each of their watches was three hours, so there were only three a night, but nobody slept well when anyone but Dana or the Priest was on watch.
They were rapidly becoming exhausted, but everywhere they were forced to move to, they ran into more Ogres and Goblins. It was like they never ended, and just kept reappearing. Unlike the Mackenzie siblings, her group didn’t know that they were really reappearing daily.
They had been tasked to clear the area, and that was what the Priest was guiding them to do, but he had decided that it would hurt morale too much to inform them that the job would never actually end.
The priest looked asleep, but he turned her way as she muttered to herself.
“He’s with the Mackenzie brothers. I heard on the radio yesterday that they were reassigned to an Ascended area, which was suffering from attacks by groups led by Commander Rank Giants. They’re likely fine, the Mackenzie brothers are solid, and Brother Doug, their cleric, is a good friend of mine.” He replied.
Dana turned to face him. “Commander Rank Giants? Isn’t that a bit overkill, even if the group he’s with are Ascended?”
Her cleric shrugged. “From what I hear, only the top performing Ascended were sent, so whoever is with him and the brothers might include a Commander, or maybe two powerful damage dealers. Your friend might not be having any more fun than we are, but at least his group is reliable.”
A crack of branches in the woods caught their attention, and then the stench of Ogre reached their noses.
“Everyone up, we’re under attack.” The Priest whispered as he shook the others awake.
“We just went to bed, can’t we do this later? I swear, if I have to sleep in armour for one more day, it’s going to chafe right through my skin.” The warrior complained.
Dana’s two golems intercepted the Ogre, and she hit the monster in the face with a magic missile, blinding it while the Golems hacked it down using the holy blades that the priest had created for them with a spell.
“See, they’ve got it. Just let me sleep.” The warrior muttered as he curled up in his blankets.
They hadn’t been assigned a zone, they were just told to kill as many monsters as possible, so the next morning the cleric had them move out, slowly working his way back to the base camp, where he was hoping to be able to trade a few of the useless ones for a decent teammate or two.
They were hiking through the woods, following a goblin trail toward the regional camp, when Dana spotted a considerable area of trees covered in spider web. The strands blended into the surroundings, but the scent of blood and the academy body lotion that Rae preferred for Dana to wear caught her attention.
There should be another student around here, and there had been a battle, she was certain of it.
“I smell Academy lotions and blood.” She informed the others.
The priest sniffed at the air for a second, but only looked concerned.
“Everyone spread out. There might be a group in trouble nearby. Don’t get out of sight of each other, but there might be an injured member hiding in the trees.” He ordered.
Dana realized that she forgot to mention the web when one of the rogues began to shout in panic, and she could hear him flailing.
“It’s a spider web, you idiot. Just cut yourself free and stand back up.” One of his buddies called.
“You try it. My blade isn’t cutting through it.” He complained.
“Then use a skill. It’s likely from a spider monster.”
Dana sent the golem to cut him free with the magical blade, and noticed a collection of items sitting at the bottom of a huge redwood tree.
Then she looked up and saw that there was a rope ladder sitting in the branches, and some sort of fort above them.
“There is a fort here. Look up in the tree. It has a ladder, so it was made for humans, but it’s made of spider silk.” The priest informed the others as he noticed it.
“A druid?” One of the rogues asked hopefully.
“Possibly. It doesn’t seem that they’re here anymore, but we can check if they left anything behind.” The cleric offered.
“Other than box tree spiders?” Dana asked, with a gesture up the tree.
“Votes for getting the fuck out of the creepy spider forest?” The warrior asked.
The rogues’ hands all went up at once, and Dana shook her head as the cleric laughed.
“Well, at least we know that someone was in the area. That should explain why there are so few monsters here today. Let’s keep moving, and we can inform the other groups of what we found, and warn them about the spider webs when we get to the base camp to resupply.” The cleric decided.
That level of web control reminded Dana of Rae, and she wondered if this was where Karl had been stationed when he first arrived. If they had built a fort, they weren’t being forced to run from anything in the area. Of course, if she had competent members, they wouldn’t have had to keep moving so much either, but her and the cleric could only hold things together for so long on their own before they were too exhausted to continue.
Maybe they could just ditch these idiots in camp and join another team. That would be nice.