System Change

He stepped forward and spoke in agreement with Edgar. “Since it’s a low difficulty beast wave, it is the best opportunity for levels. It will be good for those of a lower level with decent AOE attacks. I say we choose those, along with a high-level healer and support. I think Vanessa should take command. Her shadows are flexible. She should be the more than capable of keeping watch over everyone.”

After that, there was another small discussion and Vanessa, Elena Webb, and Kieron Dawson were selected as the high-level participants. Elena Webb was a level 250 healer, and Kieron was a level 245 support. The remaining participants were all level 230 or lower and included both Shae and Walter.

Soon, with everyone in agreement, Vanessa stepped forward and touched the trial orb. “We’re off,” she said, then ten people disappeared from the surroundings.

Edgar and Derek then looked at one another.

“What now?” Derek asked.

Edgar shrugged. “I guess we should set up camp.”

***

Vanessa couldn’t help but wonder how she ended up in the position she was in. No, she wasn’t complaining; she was actually happy about finally being able to disconnect herself from the Assassin’s Guild. The guild had treated her well, and she had worked her way up to the top, but because of the contracts, the freedom wasn’t really there.

Being captured so swiftly, like she was, she was then thrown into that forsaken prison to be interrogated by that monster who had easily gotten around her contract to the Assassin’s Guild. And, since she had done everything she could to avoid capture before giving up, the contract that was broken didn’t cause any sequela. She was also lucky, as her contract didn’t have as many conditions as most members because of her status in the guild.

As long as she didn’t speak of any of the internals of the Assassin’s Guild to anyone, now that she wasn’t a part of it, she would be fine. Luckily, that monster of a woman didn’t seem too interested in the Assassin’s Guild, only that creepy old man.

Vanessa hadn’t looked too deeply into any of her clients. It’s not good for an assassin to be nosy, after all. However, hearing what that old codger may have been a part of even left her disgusted. As an assassin, she didn’t have any qualms about killing for money, as long as the target was of age, but trafficking was another story.

Leave it to the assassin to draw a moral line in the sand. She thought to herself as she appeared with the nine others in a desolate field.

She was now part of the kingdom. She had some pretty heavy oaths and contracts, but she felt as free as she ever had. This was her first raid dungeon ever, and her first dungeon in quite some time. She was honestly a little excited, even if she did her best not to show it.

The fact that she had been given the task as the leader for the first trial was surprising, but she was up for it. She needed to prove her worth to the young prince. She was glad that the odd man was the one who made the suggestion, as well. He seemed to have quite the pull with the young prince. Other than her few interactions with Derek Hunt, she didn’t know too much about him. But after seeing just a bit of his power and skills, she knew he was dangerous.

She quickly took in her surroundings. There was nothing. Just an empty battleground with barely any flora. She waited, as vigilant as ever, before the notification finally appeared.

Trial #1

Survive the beast tide for ten days.

Time Remaining: 9 Days 23 Hours 59 Seconds

“Form up!” She yelled at those around her. “Tank up front, followed by melee damage, then ranged. Support and healers, stay in the back.” She commanded as a pair of shadow wings formed on her back and she took to the skies.

She flew in circles over the battlefield, waiting for the appearance of the beasts, all the while keeping an eye on the trial timer. It was still ticking down, so the beasts would come any time now. Finally, in the distance, she saw a group of around two hundred wolves spawn out of nowhere. Vanessa quickly looked around everywhere else, just to see if they were going to be surrounded.

It looked like the first wave was just that group of wolves.

“Look alive! Wolves at 12 ‘o’clock!” Finally, Vanessa flew close enough to the beasts to use Identify, and let out a sigh of relief before flying back and landing with the rest of the group. “The first wave is level 165,” she announced to the group.

Everyone else seemed to let out a sigh of relief, just like her.

“It’s not all a good thing,” she said. “The levels will surely grow, and we’re going to be here for a week and a half. We’ll be fighting level 250 hordes in no time. Prepare yourselves for a long fight.”

We should have brought that monster along. With his mobile prison, he would have been able to all but ensure the survival of everyone. Vanessa thought before quickly removing it from her head. He wanted this trial to be used to help the lower level fighters grow, and she was sure it was a test for her, as well.

“Brace yourselves!” she yelled as the wolves approached. “There is no retreat on this first wave. Don’t worry about your backs, just focus on the front.” With that, Vanessa took to the skies once more and swiftly summoned a shadow wall behind the fighters. There was no way a few hundred of such low-level beasts would be able to breach her wall.

Sure enough, the wolves that found themselves moving around the tank and damage dealers to flank the group couldn’t even move an inch through her shadow wall. At first, the group hesitated, unsure of whether the wall would hold, but as they saw it not only hold, but not even shake, they became more confident in focusing on the fight ahead.

Vanessa then chose to float above the battlefield and observe. First, her eyes fell on the tank.

Sachiko Sato was a curious person. Standing just over five foot three, she was a full-on tank. Once the trial started, her head full of short brunette hair was covered by a worn looking, but well maintained, plate helm. Once the helm was on, her entire body was covered in the heavy armor. She held a kite shield as tall as she was on her left arm and had a longsword gripped in her right hand.

Obviously, she had faith in Elena Webb, as she was a level 250 healer, because as soon as Sachiko’s taunt was off of cooldown, she would cast it again, keeping dozens of the beasts on her at all times. Though, she wasn’t struggling and Elena wasn’t actually doing much to help out, currently.

Healing the tank had actually fallen to the old disgraced nobleman… well, formerly disgraced nobleman. And he was doing quite the job. He would send an occasional single target heal onto Sachiko as she took damage, but would also drop an area heal occasionally when one of the damage dealers, particularly Ciera Cook, a dual blade swordswoman, moved in too close and got injured.

It seemed that the healer, known as Walter, also had some other interesting skill and spells to his repertoire. When Ciera moved in too close and a wolf bit right between the joints of her light armor, a pretty bad bleed status appeared on the woman. The bite itself wasn’t too bad, but Vanessa knew how grating the bleed status could be.

Surprisingly, with a quick flick of his wrist, the bleed healed before it could cause any real damage or discomfort. Vanessa guessed that the old man had some kind of status heal as well, along with regular heals. If he could pump up his level and get some more stats into Wisdom and Intelligence, he would be a very welcome member to the raid.

It’s no wonder he was allowed to join, even with such a low level. Vanessa inwardly praised the man.

Of course, those two weren’t the only ones doing their jobs, just the standouts. Wolf after wolf fell to the spear of Shae Holmes, but Vanessa would expect nothing less of the Guild Master of the Savannah Adventurer’s Guild. If he couldn’t do this much, even at his relatively low level, he wouldn’t have that position.

Felix Ayala bombarded the wolves with fire magic, as expected from a pure fire mage. He was neither unimpressive nor outstanding, just a pretty average fire mage that was good at following orders. The same was true with Louise Bonilla. She was a good archer, but she hadn’t shown anything great yet. Though the battle was still young and there were ten days of fighting to be had.

Kieron Dawson was a level 245 support class, and he went ahead and buffed up the whole party before the battle before standing back and allowing John Newman to focus on dishing out debuffs to the wolves.

Overall, the group had little to no problems dealing with the first wave of wolves. Which was good, because the second the last wolf fell, another group was summoned and began their charge. This time, they were at level 170 and the pack was larger than the previous.

Still, the wolves were like an egg hitting a brick wall. They did nothing more than leave the battlefield messy and most of the fighters bloody. Fortunately, once the second wave of wolves were dealt with, nothing else came.

“Those of you who have spent Stamina, Health, or Mana, meditate and recover. Those who have not, remove the corpses from the battlefield. Whether you choose to incinerate, store, or move them to the side, that is up to you. Just do it quickly, we don’t know when the next wave is coming,” Vanessa gave the command, and the group got to work. “If you have leveled up, I suggest using your stats now. None of you are new to this. I’m sure you know what you need to do.”

Five minutes later, and the battlefield was clear. Nobody thought much about the corpses of level 170 and lower wolves, so they left the job of incinerating them up to the fire mage. They would obviously fight higher level monsters that were worth much more later.

Fifteen minutes later, Vanessa spotted the next wave of beasts appear. Mentally, she noted that they had received twenty minutes of rest between waves before she began to command once again.

“Ready!”