1??????????????Soul Bound
1.1????????????Finding her Feet
1.1.5??????????An Inscrutable Mastermind
1.1.5.21???????Getting your G.O.A.T.
A moment later, the tension was broken by an excited squeal:
“Kafana!”
A tall woman with an impossible hour-glass figure flew forwards and lifted Kafana up in a hug and twirled her around. She appeared to have more strength than Tomsk and more dexterity than Bungo.
“Mary-Lynn!” Kafana managed to gasp, putting any thoughts of revenge for posting the video about Kafana out of her mind. The girl was a killing machine, and had at least 4 different weapons strapped to her.
Mary-Lynn turned back to the others, who were now relaxed but still watching: “Y’all, this is the one I was telling you about. She’s the one who taught me magic and how to cook healing food. For free. She even gave me recipes and her own rabbits. Much of the healing you’ve received over the last 3 days, you owe to her generosity.”
Kafana: “Let me introduce the rest of my party. This is Tomsk, who I think was born with a sword in his hand, and probably strangled vipers while still in his cradle. This is Alderney, who can make anything the crafters in the city can, but better, faster and with added cats. This is Bungo. He’s insane, but that’s fine because he’s also our tank, and that’s a job requirement isn’t it? This is Wellington. If you have a combat plan, he can improve it for you, guaranteed. Lastly this is Bulgaria, who I won’t introduce because he enjoys being mysterious.”
Mary-Lynn, not to be outdone, put on her professional commentators voice:
“First in the ring, the fearless Char who will rock your world.” Char was slim, feminine, with graceful, fluid movements. Char made a low bow which then turned into a flip that ended in a head level kick.
Tomsk: {Oh, hey, I recognise that move. I think I’ve seen Char on the kick-boxing circuit in Thailand.}
“Next is brutal Blaze born in blood, whose thirsty knives are ever drinking.” Blaze was compact and muscular, with dark hair that looked like it had been hacked short. She wielded curved blades the length of her forearms as she performed a kata that mixed slow balanced stances with lightning fast changes between them.
“Our third melee offense sees your crazy and raises it. She used to be a mercenary but that wasn’t exciting enough for ChocolateTrain.” ChocolateTrain had tied coloured ribbons to her twin swords, and more to her elbows, knees and tight dark braids. It made an odd mix with her leather armour.
Alderney: {I like the sense of style.} Alderney got out a pad and started sketching something.
As ChocolateTrain finished her demo, Tomsk observed {Mixed martial arts, heavy on the capoeira, with eskrima and something else thrown in. Unpredictable.}
“Nastya I won’t introduce. Not because she is mysterious. It’s because I always enjoy watching people under-estimate her.” Nastya appeared to be in her 40s, and didn’t stand out much. She smiled, tightly.
“And lastly, our noble leader, the Ice Queen, the Danish Doom, the guild-slayer, the head of Fra Gamal, the …”
“Enough, Mary-Lynn. I’m CrimsonMoon. Pleased to meet you all. I take it you’re here for the boss too?”
Bulgaria: {Wellington, could you go talk to the headman please?}
Wellington: {Ok.}
Bulgaria: “Well, possibly. What we’re really after are some goats. There’s an orphanage full of children that don’t have enough to eat, and we were hoping to pick up some goats for them as a reward for this quest. I suspect you’re quite a bit higher level than we are, and you might be able to solo the level 40 boss if everything goes smoothly. But if you’d like what help we can give during the fight, just as a precaution, I have no objections. Mary-Lynn helped us with one of our quests, so we owe her one. Besides, it would be fun.”
Alderney went over to ChocolateTrain, and showed her the design she’d sketched.
ChocolateTrain let out an exuberant exclamation that included a wonderful extended ‘R’ sound. “You could make that? For me? Trabalhador milagroso!” then turned to CrimsonMoon “Boss, we gotta work with these guys. This Alderney, she is a true Alme Artistica.”
CrimsonMoon sighed and looked at Bulgaria as if to say “You see what I have to put up with?”
Wellington: {I have the quest. There are 9 bridges, one troll hidden under each bridge. I’m guessing the big daddy appears once you kill the last of his sons.}
Bulgaria: {Ask the headsman if we may borrow one of his goats, and while you’re at it, explain about the orphans.}
CrimsonMoon: “Fra Gamal generally take down bosses by ourselves. No insult intended. It is just our thing. We’re battle junkies. We’ve got more first kills than any clan in Divine Mountain. If there’s a raid, a battle between cities, or a world boss, we’ve been there and done that.”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Nastya: “We have a 60% chance of taking this boss today, which will be not just the first kill of this boss, but also of any party boss on Covob. If we wipe out or retreat today, we’ll level up a bit more and come back tomorrow. Those of us in employment have all taken a week’s holiday off for this. We’re grinding out 10 levels a day, and as our legacy skills kick in, we should be able to keep that up at least until level 50.”
Wellington: “What do you estimate is the chance of another guild getting the global rep for first server boss kill within the next 24 hours, if you don’t succeed today?”
Nastya: “80%”
Wellington: “So if we could only increase your chances from 60% to 61%, you’d prefer to take that risk in return for the prospect of keeping all the glory. But if we could raise your chances to 99%, sharing the kill with us would be the right choice.”
Nastya: “And somewhere between that +1% increase and the +39% increase is the break-even point. Exactly.” Nastya and Wellington shared a look.
Bungo: “Let’s have a race! We’ll start on the bridges from the city end. You start from the other end. We’ll meet at the 5th bridge. Win or lose, we’ll both have fun, and it will give you guys a basis to decide whether you want our help or not.”
CrimsonMoon gave a small nod. “Done. Let’s move.”
Within seconds Fra Gamal were out of the village and running fast.
Kafana ate one of her few bits of skill level buff food remaining, while the headman fetched a goat on a leash, and Bulgaria showed Bungo how to pick it up and hold it.
Then, with Bulgaria and Wellington backing her she cast skill buff, coordination buff, skill buff again and the strongest movement speed buff she could manage. They ran off, much faster than Fra Gamal had. So fast, in fact, that they found running in a line with Bungo’s shield first and Tomsk helping push made an appreciable difference because of the slipstream. Wellington estimated they were doing a good 100-120 km/h, and warned Bungo not to try stopping or turning too suddenly.
Kafana cast more buffs as they ran, with Wellington sketching runes for them on the fly. The first she tried was a variant of her air manipulation one that she’d used when they’d jumped the bridge, which she modified to still the air around them so her voice would carry clearly while running. Next was mana regen, and she was pleased to see her mana bar rocketing back up. Putting most of her new stat points into INT had made a big difference. She checked the blue bar above Bulgaria’s head and saw that they were joining with the meditation and getting the effect too.
They’d passed 3 bridges now and Bungo started slowing down. She concentrated on not falling over. When they came to a stop by the last bridge. Bungo took the goat out onto the bridge and let its bleating echo loudly. Meanwhile Kafana cast yet more buffs. Damage, dodging, luck for criticals, reduced threat presence for her casting team. Just in time.
Over the side of the bridge crawled a long armed monster, 5 meters tall, with a thick green hide covered in slimy warts. Bungo grabbed the goat away from it and roared a challenge at it as he jumped back, floating high in the air before landing back on the bank. The troll charged Bungo, and Kafana sang a final buff, putting all the troll’s attention not onto Bungo but onto the goat.
Then, once she was sure the troll was going to ignore her and she was well out of the way, she took out her previous violin and started playing “the Blue Danube”, by Strauss, concentrating on pouring a measured stream of mana efficiently into the glowing runes carved into the air by Wellington. She visualised the troll’s movement slowing down, becoming a graceful predictable slow motion dance.
Tomsk and Bungo picked up on what she was doing. Tomsk timed his sword strokes from behind one-two, one-two, to coincide with the accent strokes from the violin’s bow. Bungo turned his evasions into a curving counterpoint, like he was dancing with the troll, retreating in time with the troll’s steps forwards. What really took the piss was Alderney, whose bouncing leaps far above the fray to drop daggers down turned into a Grand Jeté from ballet, complete with arm and leg poses.
With Tomsk getting in 2 critical hits every second, the Troll lasted less than a minute, despite being 10 levels higher than they were. It died, they lined up, and they ran while Kafana cast maintenance on all the buffs.
They reached the 5th bridge before Fra Gamal. Alderney bounced extra high and reported the other group were on their 3rd troll and would still have to kill a 4th before joining the Wombles. Also that they were covered in slimy mud, because they were fighting under the bridges rather than luring the trolls up.
Tomsk positively grinned at the news. “Do you guys remember when we watched a film that showed an ancient computer game called ‘Pong’? “
Bulgaria: “The one with a white ball going from side to side, and each player slides a bat up or down, trying to bounce the ball back to the other side?”
Tomsk: “Kafana, how about you lay out a picnic blanket and some food and drink, while Alderney and I lay out a court with stones and rope. Alderney, I want two large objects we can pretend are bats, suitable for sending Bungo from one side of the court to the other.”
Kafana got busy, and 2 minutes later had laid out an impressive spread for 12 people over 4 decorative blankets from the overnight gear Villa Landi had supplied to them. Bungo had draped himself in a white sheet, and practiced jumping high, making sure it didn’t trip him up and the goat was secure. Bulgaria poured himself a glass of wine, put on his most elegant set of clothes and readied himself for his role.
Alderney: “They’re 4 minutes out. Action stations.”
Bungo lured the troll, Tomsk and Alderney procured the large bats that Alderney had hurriedly improvised, the troll stepped onto the court after Bungo, and Kafana landed the aggro control buff, before switching to her violin.
2 minutes later bloody girls from Fra Gamal, dripping with slime, charged towards the bridge, to be met with the sight of Tomsk and Alderney laughing gaily and miming sweeping forehand strokes that nearly connected with Bungo, and Bungo each time leaping high over the head of the Troll, curled up in a white ball around the bleating goat, while Kafana played the Blue Danube, Bulgaria lounged on the blanket sipping wine, and Wellington with a serious face held up two pads on which he was keeping score in the game between Tomsk and Alderney. Tomsk was 30 to 15 ahead.
Blaze dramatically put her face in her hands and sank to her knees.
Char said, disgustedly: “You’re even clean. We’re covered in freaking slime, and you look like you’d stepped off a magazine shoot.”
Nastya swore at Mary-Lynn, and handed some money over to her. Mary-Lynn pocketed it with a satisfied expression on her face.
ChocolateTrain whooped and said “We kill it now, yes?” Tomsk beheaded it from behind, before ChocolateTrain reached the troll, then said “Whoops, sorry. Next one’s yours.”
CrimsonMoon walked over to Bulgaria and sat down. She raised a glass to him and said, wryly “To the victor. If your victory had been any more comprehensive, I’d be thinking that it should have been us begging you to let us aid you.”