With a roar, Garrus cleaved through several demons in front of him. He got the telltale pings from slaying the scum before him before moving his attention to the next quarry.
This entire half of the operation was a complete clusterfuck. Nothing had gone as it was supposed to.
What was that giant portal?
Why was there such a powerful demon here?
Why weren’t any demons coming through the portal?
Dozens more questions raged through his mind as he plowed through the hordes before him. As it stood they looked to be outnumbered roughly three to one in this engagement. Although he wasn’t sure if that would end up mattering in the long run.
Plenty of people in the lower levels would still die, and a smattering of people in the third tier like Garrus would fall as well if only due to their own hubris in the situation.
What really mattered was if the Guildmaster was going to be able to handle the big one. For that matter, where was the Guard Commander? The fact that he wasn’t engaged in combat with the demon left Garrus fraught with worry.
He quickly quashed his feelings down and focused on the moment. George was watching his back so he was able to focus on the foes before him without worrying about being stabbed in the back while his attention was diverted.
Garrus knew far too many people who bit off more than they could chew in situations like this and ended up dying for it. He would make sure his group was not one of those people. Although getting Penny to follow his protocols sometimes was more trouble than it was worth, she at least understood that her actions were reckless and usually restrained herself if her actions would put more people at harm than just herself.
Garrus waded through the thickest parts, counting on his passive defensive skills to protect him from glancing blows, and slashed his greatsword with impunity.
He never once glanced over his shoulder, confidently trusting George to have his back, and continued his onslaught on the foes before him. The demons quickly fell before his lightning-fast slashes and thrusts while he dodged and weaved through their attacks in turn.
Despite his best abilities and the fact that the demons weren’t receiving reinforcements through that portal, they were still slowly being overrun. Garrus could see soldier after soldier fall, adventurer after adventurer succumbing to a death by a million cuts.
“This isn’t going to work,” He said out loud to no one in particular.
“Unless the guildmaster can slay that demon sooner rather than later we’re going to be overrun.”
“Even if that’s the case,” A familiar voice yelled, catching his attention, “It’s not like they’re going to be particularly dangerous to us, less people fighting them means more levels for us after all.”
Garrus turned to see Penny and Karif carving a path through the demons towards him and George.
His eyes narrowed on her.
“Penny. Where’s Alex?” He asked with a faux calmness.
She hesitated slightly, “I uh, let him go to the healers camp on the outskirts of the forest? He left before he was even close to the combat, so the demons would’ve had to get past me to even get to him in the first place.”
“You were supposed to stay with him regardless.” He sighed, “We can worry about that later, you’re here now so there’s not much we can really do-” He quickly slashed through a trio of demons, relieving them of their heads. “-do about that right now.” He finished as if he’d never been interrupted.
“So what’s the plan boss? As much as I just enjoy killing them indiscriminately, you’re right in the idea that this isn’t going to pan out the boss for the guild. And while I’d like to solely claim all the rewards for killing this many demons, I'd rather not have our economy irreversibly go down the drain because too many guardsmen and adventurers died today.”
Penny spoke with a relaxed air, but to Garrus it was obvious she was concerned. If they failed here that meant that there would be demons free to go after the healer camp where Alex currently was situated. That was the last thing we all wanted. He may not necessarily be a prodigy in terms of skill, but he’s been blessed with a strange power through the system. Definitely something they wanted to hold onto.
“I think for now we should stick together. As it stands we’re slowly going to get more and more overrun as more people fall, the last thing we need is to be caught on our own facing attacks from too many angles to counter.”
The rest of the group nodded and didn’t argue and immediately got into one of their practiced formations.
Depending on the situation they had several formations. For example, facing off against enemies that could only come from the front, Garrus, and George would stand shoulder to shoulder while Karif and Penny would be behind them taking shots.
In this situation, Garrus sat in the front while Karif and Penny were in the middle and George brought up the rear. The last thing the group needed was them getting flanked, and while Penny could put up a good fight in melee it wasn’t exactly her forte. She could easily kill many more opponents with her bow if given the wiggle room she needed. Sometimes she just didn’t always get that opportunity.
The demons seemed to realize their little group was a threat to them. Unless there were any demons in the fourth or fifth tier they were going to be unstoppable. They carved a bloody swath through the horde that slowly started to congregate more and more upon them.
Penny’s arrows rained death from above as her skills caused them to multiply when they came back down causing an inviolable tide of death from above. Karif supplemented that by placing a buff on the arrows that she shot, and then when they multiplied that buff split to all the new arrows as well causing them to easily cleave through the demons instead of piercing and then stopping the second they hit bone.
George made sure nothing came up behind them firmly and indomitably weathering every single attack and striking back out with vicious accuracy. Each strike from his longsword brought down one demon. His skills left over from his previous class still provided him with an unbreakable defense making his shield seem to cover a larger area than it should. Attacks ranged or otherwise, that shouldn’t have been blocked instead stopped and fell to the ground.
Anyone that had been looking close enough would’ve had questions for him about that, thankfully other groups were too busy trying not to die.
Garrus did just what came naturally. He mowed down every single demon in front of him. Slashes flashed faster than the eye could track bisecting demons, thrusts impaled them on the end of his greatsword to then be launched at their kin landing with bone-sickening crunches never to get back up.
When lethal blows weren’t an option he aimed to maim instead, cutting through arms and legs so when they inevitably came back to get their revenge he had an easier time dispatching them.
He bade no concern for how quickly he was unleashing his skills. Even with unleashing a skill with every other attack to guarantee he was keeping the front clear from being overrun, he wouldn’t be overstretching himself.
Normally launching skills at this rate would tire someone at his level out within thirty minutes give or take a few. Garrus could keep this up for hours though. In turn, he traded a bit of offensive power for it, but being able to win a war of attrition was a much better deal in his mind.
Being able to outlast the opponents he was fighting against and wear them down over time instead of just being a one-man powerhouse for ten minutes appealed way more to his sensibilities and his life expectancy on the field of battle.
At the rate he was currently using his skills he could keep this level of attack for another few hours, much longer than the rest of his teammates would last. At the time they started being unable to launch their skills he’d start a fighting retreat to get them somewhere they could rest for a while and recover their resources to then jump back into the fray with.
And if he was correct in his timing they should be reaching that point pretty soon. Karif would usually run out first followed by Penny. Karif had more mana than Penny had in endurance but he had more people to care for, he buffed the entire party rather than just getting to single-mindedly launch spells at the enemy the way Penny got to do with her arrows.
And sure enough Karif’s call came, “George I’m starting to run low! Cover me while I recover!”
Naturally, no reply came from George, but they knew he had heard him. He was just reliable that way.
“Penny work with me to help cover the slack while Karif drinks his potion!” Garrus yelled to her over the raucous sounds of combat.
Penny didn’t respond either but the entire group formed into a triangle around Karif. Penny had traded out her bow for her dual knives that would serve her better for defending a target.
After what seemed like an eternity but was realistically only close to thirty seconds Karif was finally back into the action. He stood up straight again and immediately gave the group a once over, making sure none of his support skills had failed in the meantime before throwing out some spells to clear out a large swathe of demons and give them a little breathing room.
“All good!” Karif yelled.
Diligent that one is, Garrus thought to himself. It was obvious that he was ready to re-engage but he still took the time to verbally clear it with the rest of the group. A level of discipline that was definitely needed in the current situation, however.
And it was back to slaying demons. Spells were launched with impunity, arrows were loosed in a hail of fury, and swords cleaved through flesh and bone like they were made of grass.
Garrus spared a glance around him and it wasn’t looking good. Coming into this engagement they had been outnumbered ten to one. And while the adventurers could certainly handle more given that their average tier was three as opposed to the guardsman's tier two, they were still slowly losing the engagement.
What it really came down to, like every other combat in history, was that there just weren’t enough healers on their side to turn the combat.
Garrus quickly carved through a clump of demons in front of him with a few quick slashes, before sparing a glance in the direction of the guildmaster. As it stood that big demon was another of the problems here.
With either the commander here or the guildmaster they should’ve easily been able to win this as well, but their attention had been distracted by an opponent on the same level as them.
Garrus frowned, what was such a powerful demon doing here? It’s almost like… They had planned for this combat, almost as if they knew the combat potential of Vinwood and had accounted for the two highest-level fighters in the city.
This wasn’t good at all, they had very clearly walked into a trap. Not that there was much they could do about it now, the only option they had was to push through and overcome the engagement by pure force of arms.
Garrus pushed forward with a mighty swing taking down a demon that strayed just a little too far from its pack. His blade cut cleanly through its midsection bisecting it horizontally causing its blood to wet the ground next to it.
His exhaustion was slowly starting to creep up on him, even if these demons were significantly weaker than himself quantity was a quality unto itself. At this rate, they would be slowly overpowered… Something needed to change and soon.
Garrus moved to step over the demon he had just cleaved in two when it suddenly lunged upwards swiping at his face.
Garrus quickly raised his arm to block the attack, his armor not doing much to stop its sharp claws. The claws carved a deep line through his forearm before he managed to throw it back, thrusting his greatsword forward through its skull with a growl.
The telltale ding sounded in his head as the demon finally died this time.
“Penny, cover me while I bandage this!” He yelled at her before taking a few steps back and kneeling down while the rest of the group closed formation around him.
He worked quickly with practiced hands pulling out a roll of cloth quickly binding up the part of his arm that had been injured before taking a dagger at his waist and severing the cloth from the rest of the roll and tying it off tightly so it stayed bound tightly around his arm to help staunch the flow of blood.
He quickly put the roll away before standing up wielding his sword giving a few soft swings to test his arm, it flared with pain. However it wasn’t something he wouldn’t be able to push through, he would also just place more of the strain on his other arm instead to help alleviate the issue.
Garrus then moved to take his place again at the front of the formation, Penny once again stepping behind him and sheathing her daggers to once again pull out her bow and continue raining her death upon clumps of demons.
“Garrus! We’re gonna need to come up with a different plan soon, this isn’t working and we’re slowly getting overrun!” Karif yelled at him.
Garrus let out another growl in response. He was right, the problem was that Garrus didn’t know what to do. Several adventuring groups had fallen, and while the numbers said that it wasn’t a huge loss, the power that each group brought certainly made a difference in the grand scheme.
There had been roughly three hundred guardsmen coming into this, now there was around half of that number still up and standing on the field. The rest either having been killed or moved to the healer’s to be hopefully patched up and brought back into the fight.
As it stood they had collectively taken out roughly half the demons, and given that there weren't any reinforcements coming on their side they wouldn’t have to worry about them replenishing their numbers making this fight any harder.
The same problem existed on their side as well, however. They weren’t receiving any reinforcements so they weren’t able to gain the upper hand that they needed. This fight would’ve been a lot easier if that tier five demon hadn’t been here, but the fact that it was caused a lot of problems. There wasn’t even a guarantee that the guildmaster was going to win.
Garrus’ mind whirled with his thoughts as he tried to formulate a plan, there just wasn’t something they could easily pull off that could change the course of the fight. On the other hand, there was something pretty dumb with an insane risk of dying that would maybe give them a chance to turn things around, as it was, it was the only plan he had.
“Alright-” Just as Garrus turned around to address the rest of his party a mighty roar rose up from the edge of the conflict.
Immediately his head snapped over to the direction he heard it from and charging from the forest he could see a force numbering roughly one hundred strong pushing forwards into the fray catching many of the demons by surprise and drawing a huge amount of attention.
The guardsmen, despite their low levels, were not weak or even remotely uncoordinated by any stretch. The rest of the guardsmen left in the field started making their way over to them to join up and consolidate their fighting force to better push forward and strike out with.
Garrus smiled, “Aye, it looks like our lad is doing his fair share as well!”
Good work lad, Garrus thought to himself. You’ve created the perfect opportunity for us to do something stupid.
“Alright listen up!” Garrus yelled to be heard over the din of noise coming from around him.
“I have a plan, it’s incredibly stupid and is probably gonna get us killed. But… Well, we’re dead regardless so we might as well go out with a bang eh?” He yelled with a smile.
Penny had a malicious grin on her face, the battle junkie in her desperately wanting to hear Garrus’ mad plan. Karif and George on the other hand grimaced but didn’t object. They both knew the situation was untenable and that something needed to be done to change the outcome.
Garrus looked at each of them seeing no objections forthcoming he nodded.
“So, this is what we wanna do…”
With a roar, Garrus cleaved through several demons in front of him. He got the telltale pings from slaying the scum before him before moving his attention to the next quarry.
This entire half of the operation was a complete clusterfuck. Nothing had gone as it was supposed to.
What was that giant portal?
Why was there such a powerful demon here?
Why weren’t any demons coming through the portal?
Dozens more questions raged through his mind as he plowed through the hordes before him. As it stood they looked to be outnumbered roughly three to one in this engagement. Although he wasn’t sure if that would end up mattering in the long run.
Plenty of people in the lower levels would still die, and a smattering of people in the third tier like Garrus would fall as well if only due to their own hubris in the situation.
What really mattered was if the Guildmaster was going to be able to handle the big one. For that matter, where was the Guard Commander? The fact that he wasn’t engaged in combat with the demon left Garrus fraught with worry.
He quickly quashed his feelings down and focused on the moment. George was watching his back so he was able to focus on the foes before him without worrying about being stabbed in the back while his attention was diverted.
Garrus knew far too many people who bit off more than they could chew in situations like this and ended up dying for it. He would make sure his group was not one of those people. Although getting Penny to follow his protocols sometimes was more trouble than it was worth, she at least understood that her actions were reckless and usually restrained herself if her actions would put more people at harm than just herself.
Garrus waded through the thickest parts, counting on his passive defensive skills to protect him from glancing blows, and slashed his greatsword with impunity.
He never once glanced over his shoulder, confidently trusting George to have his back, and continued his onslaught on the foes before him. The demons quickly fell before his lightning-fast slashes and thrusts while he dodged and weaved through their attacks in turn.
Despite his best abilities and the fact that the demons weren’t receiving reinforcements through that portal, they were still slowly being overrun. Garrus could see soldier after soldier fall, adventurer after adventurer succumbing to a death by a million cuts.
“This isn’t going to work,” He said out loud to no one in particular.
“Unless the guildmaster can slay that demon sooner rather than later we’re going to be overrun.”
“Even if that’s the case,” A familiar voice yelled, catching his attention, “It’s not like they’re going to be particularly dangerous to us, less people fighting them means more levels for us after all.”
Garrus turned to see Penny and Karif carving a path through the demons towards him and George.
His eyes narrowed on her.
“Penny. Where’s Alex?” He asked with a faux calmness.
She hesitated slightly, “I uh, let him go to the healers camp on the outskirts of the forest? He left before he was even close to the combat, so the demons would’ve had to get past me to even get to him in the first place.”
“You were supposed to stay with him regardless.” He sighed, “We can worry about that later, you’re here now so there’s not much we can really do-” He quickly slashed through a trio of demons, relieving them of their heads. “-do about that right now.” He finished as if he’d never been interrupted.
“So what’s the plan boss? As much as I just enjoy killing them indiscriminately, you’re right in the idea that this isn’t going to pan out the boss for the guild. And while I’d like to solely claim all the rewards for killing this many demons, I'd rather not have our economy irreversibly go down the drain because too many guardsmen and adventurers died today.”
Penny spoke with a relaxed air, but to Garrus it was obvious she was concerned. If they failed here that meant that there would be demons free to go after the healer camp where Alex currently was situated. That was the last thing we all wanted. He may not necessarily be a prodigy in terms of skill, but he’s been blessed with a strange power through the system. Definitely something they wanted to hold onto.
“I think for now we should stick together. As it stands we’re slowly going to get more and more overrun as more people fall, the last thing we need is to be caught on our own facing attacks from too many angles to counter.”
The rest of the group nodded and didn’t argue and immediately got into one of their practiced formations.
Depending on the situation they had several formations. For example, facing off against enemies that could only come from the front, Garrus, and George would stand shoulder to shoulder while Karif and Penny would be behind them taking shots.
In this situation, Garrus sat in the front while Karif and Penny were in the middle and George brought up the rear. The last thing the group needed was them getting flanked, and while Penny could put up a good fight in melee it wasn’t exactly her forte. She could easily kill many more opponents with her bow if given the wiggle room she needed. Sometimes she just didn’t always get that opportunity.
The demons seemed to realize their little group was a threat to them. Unless there were any demons in the fourth or fifth tier they were going to be unstoppable. They carved a bloody swath through the horde that slowly started to congregate more and more upon them.
Penny’s arrows rained death from above as her skills caused them to multiply when they came back down causing an inviolable tide of death from above. Karif supplemented that by placing a buff on the arrows that she shot, and then when they multiplied that buff split to all the new arrows as well causing them to easily cleave through the demons instead of piercing and then stopping the second they hit bone.
George made sure nothing came up behind them firmly and indomitably weathering every single attack and striking back out with vicious accuracy. Each strike from his longsword brought down one demon. His skills left over from his previous class still provided him with an unbreakable defense making his shield seem to cover a larger area than it should. Attacks ranged or otherwise, that shouldn’t have been blocked instead stopped and fell to the ground.
Anyone that had been looking close enough would’ve had questions for him about that, thankfully other groups were too busy trying not to die.
Garrus did just what came naturally. He mowed down every single demon in front of him. Slashes flashed faster than the eye could track bisecting demons, thrusts impaled them on the end of his greatsword to then be launched at their kin landing with bone-sickening crunches never to get back up.
When lethal blows weren’t an option he aimed to maim instead, cutting through arms and legs so when they inevitably came back to get their revenge he had an easier time dispatching them.
He bade no concern for how quickly he was unleashing his skills. Even with unleashing a skill with every other attack to guarantee he was keeping the front clear from being overrun, he wouldn’t be overstretching himself.
Normally launching skills at this rate would tire someone at his level out within thirty minutes give or take a few. Garrus could keep this up for hours though. In turn, he traded a bit of offensive power for it, but being able to win a war of attrition was a much better deal in his mind.
Being able to outlast the opponents he was fighting against and wear them down over time instead of just being a one-man powerhouse for ten minutes appealed way more to his sensibilities and his life expectancy on the field of battle.
At the rate he was currently using his skills he could keep this level of attack for another few hours, much longer than the rest of his teammates would last. At the time they started being unable to launch their skills he’d start a fighting retreat to get them somewhere they could rest for a while and recover their resources to then jump back into the fray with.
And if he was correct in his timing they should be reaching that point pretty soon. Karif would usually run out first followed by Penny. Karif had more mana than Penny had in endurance but he had more people to care for, he buffed the entire party rather than just getting to single-mindedly launch spells at the enemy the way Penny got to do with her arrows.
And sure enough Karif’s call came, “George I’m starting to run low! Cover me while I recover!”
Naturally, no reply came from George, but they knew he had heard him. He was just reliable that way.
“Penny work with me to help cover the slack while Karif drinks his potion!” Garrus yelled to her over the raucous sounds of combat.
Penny didn’t respond either but the entire group formed into a triangle around Karif. Penny had traded out her bow for her dual knives that would serve her better for defending a target.
After what seemed like an eternity but was realistically only close to thirty seconds Karif was finally back into the action. He stood up straight again and immediately gave the group a once over, making sure none of his support skills had failed in the meantime before throwing out some spells to clear out a large swathe of demons and give them a little breathing room.
“All good!” Karif yelled.
Diligent that one is, Garrus thought to himself. It was obvious that he was ready to re-engage but he still took the time to verbally clear it with the rest of the group. A level of discipline that was definitely needed in the current situation, however.
And it was back to slaying demons. Spells were launched with impunity, arrows were loosed in a hail of fury, and swords cleaved through flesh and bone like they were made of grass.
Garrus spared a glance around him and it wasn’t looking good. Coming into this engagement they had been outnumbered ten to one. And while the adventurers could certainly handle more given that their average tier was three as opposed to the guardsman's tier two, they were still slowly losing the engagement.
What it really came down to, like every other combat in history, was that there just weren’t enough healers on their side to turn the combat.
Garrus quickly carved through a clump of demons in front of him with a few quick slashes, before sparing a glance in the direction of the guildmaster. As it stood that big demon was another of the problems here.
With either the commander here or the guildmaster they should’ve easily been able to win this as well, but their attention had been distracted by an opponent on the same level as them.
Garrus frowned, what was such a powerful demon doing here? It’s almost like… They had planned for this combat, almost as if they knew the combat potential of Vinwood and had accounted for the two highest-level fighters in the city.
This wasn’t good at all, they had very clearly walked into a trap. Not that there was much they could do about it now, the only option they had was to push through and overcome the engagement by pure force of arms.
Garrus pushed forward with a mighty swing taking down a demon that strayed just a little too far from its pack. His blade cut cleanly through its midsection bisecting it horizontally causing its blood to wet the ground next to it.
His exhaustion was slowly starting to creep up on him, even if these demons were significantly weaker than himself quantity was a quality unto itself. At this rate, they would be slowly overpowered… Something needed to change and soon.
Garrus moved to step over the demon he had just cleaved in two when it suddenly lunged upwards swiping at his face.
Garrus quickly raised his arm to block the attack, his armor not doing much to stop its sharp claws. The claws carved a deep line through his forearm before he managed to throw it back, thrusting his greatsword forward through its skull with a growl.
The telltale ding sounded in his head as the demon finally died this time.
“Penny, cover me while I bandage this!” He yelled at her before taking a few steps back and kneeling down while the rest of the group closed formation around him.
He worked quickly with practiced hands pulling out a roll of cloth quickly binding up the part of his arm that had been injured before taking a dagger at his waist and severing the cloth from the rest of the roll and tying it off tightly so it stayed bound tightly around his arm to help staunch the flow of blood.
He quickly put the roll away before standing up wielding his sword giving a few soft swings to test his arm, it flared with pain. However it wasn’t something he wouldn’t be able to push through, he would also just place more of the strain on his other arm instead to help alleviate the issue.
Garrus then moved to take his place again at the front of the formation, Penny once again stepping behind him and sheathing her daggers to once again pull out her bow and continue raining her death upon clumps of demons.
“Garrus! We’re gonna need to come up with a different plan soon, this isn’t working and we’re slowly getting overrun!” Karif yelled at him.
Garrus let out another growl in response. He was right, the problem was that Garrus didn’t know what to do. Several adventuring groups had fallen, and while the numbers said that it wasn’t a huge loss, the power that each group brought certainly made a difference in the grand scheme.
There had been roughly three hundred guardsmen coming into this, now there was around half of that number still up and standing on the field. The rest either having been killed or moved to the healer’s to be hopefully patched up and brought back into the fight.
As it stood they had collectively taken out roughly half the demons, and given that there weren't any reinforcements coming on their side they wouldn’t have to worry about them replenishing their numbers making this fight any harder.
The same problem existed on their side as well, however. They weren’t receiving any reinforcements so they weren’t able to gain the upper hand that they needed. This fight would’ve been a lot easier if that tier five demon hadn’t been here, but the fact that it was caused a lot of problems. There wasn’t even a guarantee that the guildmaster was going to win.
Garrus’ mind whirled with his thoughts as he tried to formulate a plan, there just wasn’t something they could easily pull off that could change the course of the fight. On the other hand, there was something pretty dumb with an insane risk of dying that would maybe give them a chance to turn things around, as it was, it was the only plan he had.
“Alright-” Just as Garrus turned around to address the rest of his party a mighty roar rose up from the edge of the conflict.
Immediately his head snapped over to the direction he heard it from and charging from the forest he could see a force numbering roughly one hundred strong pushing forwards into the fray catching many of the demons by surprise and drawing a huge amount of attention.
The guardsmen, despite their low levels, were not weak or even remotely uncoordinated by any stretch. The rest of the guardsmen left in the field started making their way over to them to join up and consolidate their fighting force to better push forward and strike out with.
Garrus smiled, “Aye, it looks like our lad is doing his fair share as well!”
Good work lad, Garrus thought to himself. You’ve created the perfect opportunity for us to do something stupid.
“Alright listen up!” Garrus yelled to be heard over the din of noise coming from around him.
“I have a plan, it’s incredibly stupid and is probably gonna get us killed. But… Well, we’re dead regardless so we might as well go out with a bang eh?” He yelled with a smile.
Penny had a malicious grin on her face, the battle junkie in her desperately wanting to hear Garrus’ mad plan. Karif and George on the other hand grimaced but didn’t object. They both knew the situation was untenable and that something needed to be done to change the outcome.
Garrus looked at each of them seeing no objections forthcoming he nodded.
“So, this is what we wanna do…”
