Chapter 56: Chapter 56: Raiding The Guardian Beast Part 1

Because it had been announced on fairly short notice, it would take a little while for all of the raid participants to arrive. Thus it was decided that those who had arrived early would do a first attempt.

They were aware that they were essentially a sacrifice, but someone needed to go in, check out the mechanics, and let them know what to prepare for. It was the first time anyone had raided this boss, so everything about it was unknown.

That morning four groups had entered the woods to scout. Their task was to map out the eastern part of the zone, and look for the boss's den. They had been a little dubious whether this whole 'alliance symbol' thing would work, but they had been able to walk about without the wolves attacking them. At least that part had turned out to be true.

By chance one of the groups had actually run into the boss as it roamed about, and had been able to Identify it. It had the Beast class, usually reserved for stuff like mythical creatures, and it had a vast range of abilities. Based on the skills alone it seemed like it would be a tougher opponent than the one in the south forest, but with an impressive name like 'Guardian Beast' that was probably to be expected. It seemed like they needed to prepare for a spell barrage, but since it would be the only caster it should be manageable.

The bigger problem was that it was hard to maintain full aggro control with pack mobs like wolves. It was almost inevitable that some would slip by the tanks, so they needed to have interceptors ready to safeguard the squishies at the back.

They knew from doing other world boss raids that the boss would typically retreat to their den to await the raiders once the encounter started. The developers wanted the players to be able to learn mechanics, and have a fairly consistent encounter, so certain convenience features had been implemented.

While it was a little expensive, it was typical for world raids to acquire a portable respawn point. So long as it wasn't a total party wipe, then dead members would be able to respawn with the raid party after they were out of combat. And thankfully experience loss from dying while part of a raid wasn't as bad as regular overworld deaths. Which was nice since everyone involved expected at least one wipe.

Scott McScot had managed to secure spots for himself, and two other Guild of Unusual Taxonomy members, who would all be taking part in this first attempt. Though he kinda wished he had been with the scouting group who had gotten to see the boss. None of the party members had been recording, or streaming, but they'd grabbed a screenshot of the information to share freely on the forum thread.

It was the first time Scott had actually been part of a world raid, so he wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but Mages typically had pretty simple roles in parties. A bit of support, a bit of control, but mainly doing damage.

He was mostly excited to get to see this wolf in action. He was convinced it had to be the same wolf that they had encountered in Merwyn, even though it was hard to convince the others of the same thing. Le Hoot was the only one who was 100% on board with the idea, but at least several of the other guild members were willing to entertain the possibility if nothing else. They just needed more proof.

There was a split in the guild regarding whether it was necessary to participate in this raid, but understanding bosses, and boss mechanics was another of the goals of the guild. It was just that some believed more in it than others. Still, having different people wanting to do different things tended to bring in more information overall.

Once everything was prepared, and roles had been assigned, they marched into Nyolund.

[ Raid Mode Initiated. Checking Participants. Number Registered. Zone Boss HP increased by 100%. Sub Boss HP increased by 50%. Boss buffs increased to 30%, and 15% respectively. ]

The system announcement appeared before all of them. Moorhold Online had inherent difficulty scaling for certain things as one of its features. Dungeons were always set, since there was a limit to how many party members they allowed to go in together, but for world raids there were several tiers of difficulty depending on how many people took part, and how strong they were.

More members still typically meant an easier time regardless, but the developers didn't want the players to be able to just one-sidedly stomp any overworld bosses. While it wasn't exactly perfectly balanced yet, the difficulty scaling was meant to retain a sense of challenge even with more people taking part. The official message was that it would improve as the system acquired more data, but only time would tell if that was true.

Though what form the increased difficulty took varied between encounters. The big constant was the boss getting stronger, but otherwise you wouldn't know until you saw it for yourself. More adds, and added mechanics were the more typical options.

What interested Scott was that it specifically mentioned Sub Boss as well. Maybe that was just part of the default text, but the possibility that there was at least one more unusual mob in there excited him.

The first stretch of the woods was quiet. Eerily so. There were a couple of deer they had to 'shoo' out of the way, but they didn't seem to be part of the raid. There were no wolves wandering around, which felt a little unsettling to those who had been in there before. Some of them started wondering whether there would be no 'trash' mobs to fight at all. Maybe it was a clear path to the boss encounter. That was the case with some bosses.

When they passed the edge area, and into the main part of the zone, they were proven wrong. A pack of wolves rushed out of the forest to challenge them. There were only twelve of them, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Or so they thought.

As the tanks intercepted the wolves, spells started raining down from above.

"What the hell?!"

One of the tanks was instantly put into critical health by getting hit with four Dark Arrows at once, after which the wolves quickly finished him off while he was staggered.

"Up above! It's Night Ravens!"

"Why are they part of this?!"

"Shoot them down, quickly!"

Only a few of them had actually heard, or paid enough attention to what the Temple had to say to have heard that the Night Ravens were part of the alliance, and none of them had connected the dots that they might take part in the raid.

Scott had to quickly focus his attention on the ravens, since it was hard to hit them with anything except ranged skills. It was a fascinating development. He had heard that in real life wolves and ravens sometimes worked together, but to see that in a game was just fascinating.

"Argh!"

Suddenly there was screaming from behind as well, as two Shade Wolves appeared out of nowhere to ambush the healers. Interceptors had to rush to save them, which left other squishies open, but thankfully there weren't enough Dire Wolves to take advantage of that. Even with one tank down the raid was able to mostly lock them down.

By the time the raid managed to finish the first encounter, they had lost seven members, and had to wait for them to respawn.

"Yikes. I guess we let our guards down on that one," one of the party leaders said. No one could really deny that, but it was a common thing for first attempts, so no one felt too bad about it either. Just a little annoyed.

"In hindsight I guess it makes sense they wouldn't put us against only one type of mob. It'd be a pretty boring raid if that was the case," another added.

"What a nasty combo, though..."

"I guess we need a rearguard in case of more Shade Wolves, and we need to focus the Night Ravens as quickly as we can... did anyone bring magic resistance potions?"

"Yeah, but I was thinking of saving them for the boss itself," one of the tanks said. Apparently all the tanks had thought the same, and there were a few others who had been on that line as well.

Scott hadn't thought to bring anything of the sort, but as a Mage he didn't need it as much. A magic power buff was better for him.

On the upside the ravens were worth more experience than the wolves, so a couple of the raid members had managed to level up. It probably wouldn't make a ton of difference, but every little bit would help, and at the very least it helped even out the loss from dying.

Once everyone was rested up, and ready, they proceeded onwards.

According to the map they were at about the halfway point between the first wave, and the den when the second, and much bigger group attacked.

They counted eighteen wolves in front, and six ravens flying in from above. No Shade Wolves showed up right away, but they were probably lurking nearby. However the worst part was that one of the wolves was Named.

[ Kathleen The Intrepid (Fighter Lvl 29) HP: 298/298 ]

Aside from being notably bigger, it didn't look drastically different from the rest of the Dire Wolves, but that wasn't too unusual from other Named Mobs. They might have some different colouration, but usually extra size, extra stats, and extra skills was enough.

Kathleen was a surprisingly mundane name, but on Scott's part that just intrigued him even more.

Even though the raid party were more prepared for what to expect this time, actually executing a successful strategy was a different thing. The increased number of mobs, plus the Named Mob barrelling into them was too much to handle, and once the three Shade Wolves showed up to complicate matters, order quickly fell apart. The healers weren't able to keep up, or stay up.

As they numbers dropped too quickly, they weren't properly able to deal with the Named Mob, or the bombardment from the Night Ravens to avoid a total party wipe. They only managed to down roughly half of the mobs by them time the last raider fell.

And so the first raid ended without even reaching the boss.

* * *

"They couldn't make it past you?" Sara asked.

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"No, boss," Kathleen said while wagging her tail.

"Maybe I set the difficulty too high," Sara pondered.

Based on the reports it seemed like a third of the raid had fallen to the first wave, which was more than she had expected, and then they'd wiped on Kathleen's wave. Maybe that was just how things went on the initial attempt. She hadn't been a raider in the previous MMOs she had played, so she only knew what she had heard from others. That was why she hadn't been sure how to set the difficulty properly.

Maybe I underestimated Kathleen's strength, as well. If the raiders come back, I'll attempt to make things more balanced, but this might require trial and error on both sides. Maybe it's good they didn't succeed on the first attempt, but still...

She could only hope she hadn't scared them off. Just in case they were coming back, she intended to have everyone on standby for a couple of hours before telling them to go back to their usual routines.

If she didn't get to do anything at all, it would be somewhat disappointing. It was her moment to shine. Or at least it should be.

* * *

While there was some annoyance among the raid members, overall they weren't taking the defeat too hard. So far only one of the five world bosses they had successfully raided had been cleared on the first attempt, so it wasn't really expected that they'd do so this time. Some of the newbies felt demotivated, but those with prior experience tried to cheer them up.

All they could do was fix their gear as needed, look for useful things in their storage boxes, buy some potions, and then try again. More people had arrived, so the raid had grown to 34 members for the second attempt.

The initial plan had been to wait for everyone before starting in earnest, but since they had wiped before even reaching the boss, there was a majority that voted for doing a second attempt. They knew what to expect now, and the additions to the line-up would let them cover more bases. There were even a couple who had gotten their second class change among them. If they could reach the boss, and see the mechanics, they would be even better prepared for when everyone arrived.

If they ended up beating the boss... well, there would be some sour faces among the ones still on the way that they hadn't gotten to take part in the world first kill, but they could just go for a second clear if it was that easy.

Scott felt like the atmosphere was more serious this time, and while the reality of raiding had surprised him, he was still determined to keep going. Seeing a Named Mob as the Sub Boss made him feel more secure that his decision had been the right one. There had been no documentation about that one until now, and he had scribbled down a bunch of notes while waiting for everyone to get ready again.

And then the march back to the forest began.

[ Raid Mode Initiated. Checking Participants. Number Registered. Zone Boss HP increased by 150%. Sub Boss HP increased by 75%. Boss buffs increased to 40%, and 20% respectively. ]

The first wave wasn't too bad that time. The numbers had risen to 16 Dire Wolves, and 6 Night Ravens, but still only 2 Shade Wolves showed up.

One of the tanks fell to the initial focus fire again, an interceptor got combo'd in a nasty way, and the Shade Wolves both attacked the same target, so they had three initial losses, but with better control they only lost one more member to the actual fight.

It didn't take them long to recover, ready up, and head on to the second wave.

This time they found the Named Mob, 20 Dire Wolves, and 8 Night Ravens waiting for them. While it was an increase in numbers, it wasn't as much as many of the raid members were expecting. Some of them got the feeling that the difficulty might have been lowered since the first attempt, but it had only been a couple of hours.

Was the system really capable of adjusting things that quickly? That hadn't been a noticeable factor in previous world raids as far as they were aware, but maybe it had been a secret part of the 1.1 update.

The fight started, and with the Named being even tougher than the first time, they needed two tanks working together just to hold back that one, while everyone else had to manage the rest. It would be harder to stop the regular wolves from slipping past.

Only 2 Shade Wolves showed up at first, but while the rearguard rushed to deal with them, another 2 struck in the openings they left behind. It almost seemed like they were using strategy.

Scott remained on Raven duty, since ice spells were extra effective against flying mobs. If they were slowed they couldn't move their wings as fast either, and had a chance to drop to the ground. Night Ravens had higher resistances than regular birds, but it was still an effective tactic. Though since he got a bit of tunnel vision on that, he ended up leaving himself exposed, and an easy target for a trio of wolves that had torn away from the aggro range of the tanks. The interceptors nearby were just barely able to pull him out of it, but a Night Raven that spotted its chance for revenge sniped him right in the head with a Dark Arrow, and he fell before he could be healed.

Two buttons were available to him.

[ Raid Alliance Respawn (Available Once Combat Has Ended) ] [ Respawn Immediately ]

The second button would take him to the respawn location he had currently registered, which was in Komeron. Since that wasn't a good thing in the current situation, he intended to wait for the raid respawn to be available instead, or until they wiped again. There was also the timer.

[ Respawn Timer: 19:24 ]

If they didn't clear the encounter within a certain time after the members dying, they would be forcefully respawned at their registered location. The time varied based on the character level, and zone they were in. For this place it was 20 minutes, which should be more than enough time.

Thankfully one of the conveniences of being in a raid was that he could keep spectating, though he couldn't move his vision from the spot he died. Yet between his point of view, and what he could see in the raid chat, it looked like they were pulling through.

After the Night Ravens were downed, most of the Dire Wolves were gone too, and the ranged DPS was free to focus the Sub Boss with the others joining in as they were able.

They ended up losing 11 members, basically a third of the raid, but they managed to defeat the wave. The Named Mob's final howl as it fell almost sounded frustrated. Most raid members didn't really notice though, and were just happy they were able to move on. They weren't sure if there would be another wave, or whether the boss was next, but beating the second wave did a great deal in lifting the spirits of those who had wiped the first time.

They'd even gotten some good loot drops from the Sub Boss, but they would divide those up afterwards. It wasn't uncommon to sort that out after each boss in a dungeon, but there were a lot of people in the raid, and they preferred to keep going until the end.

The raid party marched on until they reached a large clearing that was filled with mobs waiting for them. And on top of a hill at the back was the boss itself, looking down at them. There was a certain pressure from it that made some of the players shiver a little. It wasn't any bigger than the other wolves or anything like that, but there was still something imposing about it, and the calculating way it was looking at them.

While it was a little far away for a regular Identify, there was a magic monocular that extended the range, and the information was posted in the raid chat. It looked like it matched what the scouting group had posted on the forum thread. There were several spells to look out for, but it had strong close combat skills too, so it wasn't necessarily safe even if you managed to close the distance. And for bosses it wasn't unheard of for them to have special moves, or to unlock more abilities as their HP went down, and they entered new phases.

[ Nyolund Guardian Beast (Beast Lvl 30) HP: 585/585 ]

Scott had never seen anything with that high HP before, though he knew it was because of the raid buff. He tried calculating backwards in his head, and it seemed like the base HP of the Guardian Beast was still over 200. If it was truly a magic-based mob, that was quite impressive.

There was sharp tension in the air as both sides stared at each other. There were six Night Ravens sitting up on the hill next to the boss, and more in the trees to the side of the clearing, so it was hard to say for sure for how many there were total. Maybe 10 or 12. And on the ground underneath the hillside there were 24 Dire Wolves. With no indication of how many Shade Wolves might be hiding nearby.

Then they got to see something they had never seen a non-humanoid mob do before: shapeshift. While different forms were on the skill list, they were still quite surprised when they saw it turn into Tree Form.

Which then turned to confusion as they saw the boss take out a blackboard, and a piece of chalk from somewhere. It wrote a short message on the board, and then held it up for them to see. Only people with particularly sharp vision, or something like a monocular or binoculars could see it.

"What does it say?"

"Uh... it says: 'Do your best!'..."

"Is the boss cheering us on?"

"No, it has to be a taunt, right?"

"Why does it know how to write?"

"They said at the Temple they've been communicating with it."

"I thought that just meant they had used Druids, not that it could actually write messages..."

"It's writing something again!"

"... 'I hope you're prepared!'..."

The boss put the board away, then unleashed its Pack Leader's Howl, firing up all the wolves and ravens, and then the mobs charged at the confused raiders, who had no choice but to rapidly respond.