Legends of Equestria online

by tut895

Raid- plague: part 1

I open the doors to the old castle and look around to see Will and Xavier standing next to a map they placed on a table, and watch as they use a marker to highlight certain areas as they chat.

"...and so, if we can just figure out what's in this middle section, we might be able to figure out an easy path to take." They're voices come into focus as I walk up to them, and I notice that the map they're marking away at is the map of Canterlot: what's probably the next major dungeon.

"Oh, hey Jake," Xavier looks up and waves to me, before giving a questioning glance as he looks around me. "where'd Ed go?" I look around and notice that Ed isn't with me. Come to think of it, he wasn't with me when we got off of the train either.

"Ahh balls," I say, pulling up my friends' list and looking for Ed. "He went back to Ponyville. He wasn't exactly feeling good after the, we'll say talk, he had with Steven." I turn my eyes away from them as I examine the map. The only areas that aren't just a shaded blob are the entrance to the dungeon, and the areas we discovered during the Gala. Which, compared to the big gray blob of undiscovered territory, isn't a whole lot.

"so," I say, trying to change the subject, "what info do we have on the enemy types?" Will doesn't miss a beat as he begins describing what enemies he was able to uncover.

"Changelings. Based on what bit of field experience we could gather they're extremely weak individually, but tend to stay in groups. They have a strong preference for ranged attacks, but they're melee attack seems to inflict some kind of status effect similar to that of a poison effect from Pokemon, where the effect doesn't go away, even after they leave the dungeon.

"Alongside this, as you can see by the map, the dungeon is pretty massive, so we're going to need to mount a large-scale offensive, roughly double that of what we did with the Everfree forest, and we'll have to go altogether instead of in groups. Our main source of damage is gonna come from magic and ranged D.P.S. classes, primarily they're A.O.E. attacks, and a lot of stun effects to keep our melee classes, which will need to focus on defense rather than offense, safe."

I nod repeatedly as Will explains every possible angle they have so far, and look down at the map again as he points to the chokepoints and potential safe areas he has marked with an X. He goes on about his plan so far, involving melee classes acting as more of a distraction than a source of damage dealing, and how any melee attack from the changelings could easily take somebody out of the fight.

"Alright!" Will finally claps his hands and looks toward me, "That's everything we were able to plan out from our short time in there. Our main goal for this raid isn't to complete it, though that would be nice. Our main goal is to figure out what's in the center, and to figure out where any bosses may be in that area, alongside the location of the dungeon's boss, which I'm guessing will be Chrysalis. I'll go get Ed. Jake and Xavier, you guys get the raid party ready and inform them of everything I just told you. We'll meet at the train station in front of the dungeon and divide the guild into our raid form there."

I nod, and turn back to call the rest of the guild to action. But Xavier gets to it first, unfortunately, and shouts at any guild members in earshot.

"Alright bum buddies! We got our raid party ready so let's go before Despair releases another bullshit update and screws us over."

"Bum buddies?" I look at Xavier and raise an eyebrow.

"I found a couple of them frick-fracking in the bathroom, and the nickname just kinda grew to include the entire guild." I shrug and go to repair my armor before the raid, and watch as Xavier begins to almost literally shove people onto the train.

---

---

I hear the train whistle blow, and look over to see Will, looking a bit more stressed, stepping off of the train alone.

"Where's-" I begin to say, until he brings a hand up to my face.

"-He's in pretty bad shape right now. We're gonna need somebody to go cheer him up once this is all through." He tromped over to the gates of the city, covered entirely by some kind of green barrier that's encasing the city, and he splits us all into groups.

Once we're all split up he addresses us all.

"Alright," he gives a slight groan before saying his next words disgustedly, "bum buddies, you've all been briefed on-"

"We were supposed to be briefed?" One of the archers raises his hand and shouts his question.

"Yes. You were. Did Xavier not tell you what you need to know?"

"I dunno, did we need to know his favorite position in bed?"

"No. You needed to know that melee characters will act as more of a distraction, and that you need to avoid being hit by the changeling's melee attacks at all costs."

"Oh. Then no, he didn't tell us that." Will looks at Xavier angrily, but he just shrugs and slowly scoots away from us and attempts to sneak into the crowd.

"Eh forget it. Let's just go." Will waves his hand as he turns around and enters the dungeon. I watch as he appears to evaporate once he enters the barrier, and I walk in after him.

Within seconds, almost the entire guild is through and I'm looking at a sea of changelings. Almost everything is covered in black, from the walls of buildings, to the road, and even the sky.

"You sure weren't lying about strength in numbers, huh?" I look over to Will as he sits down and begins calculating... something.

"Yeah, no shit. They can easily be killed with a one-shot though, so numbers are the only strength they have. You'll see when the fight begins."

"So, what are we waiting for?"

"Me to figure out a good starting strategy before we begin. All I can think of right now is to use the ranged classes to clear out an area that we can use to form a defensive circle and take out the next area. Yeah, that's what we'll do." He gets up and turns to the rest of the guild, calling them into order before telling each class where to stay.

By the end of it, the defense classes have formed a defensive circle around the others. with a layer of pegasi behind us. Behind them lay the archers and mages, with the healers in the center. To be honest, if you looked at us from above we'd probably be the world's most boring kaleidoscope, but if it works, it works.

"Oi guys," Will raises his voice above the small whispers of the crowd, and signals to the ranged attackers to begin the fight, "Let's go."

Within seconds The area above my head is filled with arrows, bullets, and spells. They fly over towards a large group of changelings, and almost all of them die from the initial impact. Will was definitely right about they're lack of fighting ability, since some of the spells were seriously under leveled and dealt only 100 damage. The changelings fly in all directions, some of them comically smacking against buildings and other changelings, but the gap left is almost instantly filled back up as the changelings are drawn in by our aggro, and begin to come towards us.

While our ranged attacks are doing a good job at swiftly killing most of them, we aren't killing enough to keep them entirely away from us, and I'm quickly doing my best to block the ranged attacks while either quickly jabbing or shield bashing any changelings that get too close. Another changeling, this one being covered with more armor than any of the others, comes my way, and I quickly stab it in the chest. He manages to survive this though, and even pushes into my blade menacingly while hissing.

I bash a few of the other changelings away before thrusting my knee into the changeling, forcing it off of my blade before a fireball whizzes past me and explodes in it's face, killing it for good. The next few changelings come at us, and I look down to my guild chat as a message from Will, telling us to push up whenever possible, distracts me briefly. Unfortunately, it's long enough for one of the changelings to slip past me and go after one of the people I'm supposed to be defending.

I try to ignore it and begin slowly moving forward, but eventually a large pang of guilt hits me as I hear Xavier let out a small yelp in pain. I can't look back to see if he was hit by one of the melee attacks, but I quickly try to keep the thought out of my head as another dozen changelings rush towards me.

I quickly activate Flair, it's surprising that that skill is still useful, and take the small amount of time to slash away at the stunned enemies in front of me. We're able to take small shuffle steps whenever any opening prevents itself, but the small ones that do don't last long enough for us to decide on if the risk is worth taking, and because of that the changelings manage to slip through every now and again, leading to more and more people in the center shouting as they're hit by one of them.

Thankfully, we manage to make it to the first safe zone without any casualties, but I hear Will give a groan as we all take a rest and check on our guild. He comes to me, sits down, and gives the hair on his head a hard tug as he gives a small shout.

"I can't get the exact numbers," he says, letting go of his hair and looking at me with a slightly depressed look. "but we have way too many people who've been hit by the melee attacks we stressed so hard to avoid. I got a message from the people who were monitoring the one guy who got hit by the melee effect during our scouting mission, and he's in pretty rough shape. He's been stuck in realism mode, with no way of getting him out, and he's been going in and out of blackouts and coughing his lungs up, blood and disturbing sounds included. So far it doesn't look like a major problem, but if it happens to the people who're with us right now, we'll be in a pit. our best bet right now is retreating and figuring out a new strategy. We didn't come prepared."

I perk my head up at this, and turn to him with a confused glance.

"But we came at this dungeon with every player we had available at the time. How could we do any better?" Will gives a large sigh and lays on his back before responding.

"We'll probably have to get some support from another guild, or maybe get better gear and try again. Since these dungeons have an unlimited player count, so long as you're in the same party or guild, we'll have to find the perfect balance between player count and enemy scaling to do a proper raid."

I nod my head and disappointedly shuffle back towards the train. As people look at me with confusion, Will gets up and informs them that we're retreating. They follow in suite and begin walking back towards the train with me.

---

---

"Well, that could've gone better." Xavier sits down on the train's chair as Will closes our car's door and slowly places a tray on the table in between the two rows of train seats.

"It might have," He says as he flops onto his own seat. "but based on the way things were going, we couldn't take that risk. By the way, I saw you get hit by one of the changelings, so how're you doing?" Xavier just shrugs and takes a piece of Watermelon from the tray before he responds.

"I mean the bite area is still a bit numb but-"

"-You got bitten!?" Will and I bolt up and immediately start looking for any source of where the bite could've been.

"Yeah. I'll be fi-" Before Xavier can finish his sentence, he begins to cough heavily and falls to the floor in his coughing fit. Will goes straight to the guild menu and looks at each guild member's statistics before slamming his fist on the ground as a bunch of health bars slowly drop from their full bar.

"Ah Jesus," He says, frustration and rage blanketing any other possible emotion he could be feeling right now. "we have about 300 people who are affected by this damn thing right now. How the hell did so many of them manage to punch through?"

I look to the floor as guilt begins to sink into me, and I'm stuck to doing nothing but watch as Xavier struggles to inhale due to his endless coughing.

Author's Note:

Oh my god I'm still alive!?

And I updated a story!?!?

What is the world coming to!?

Comments

[Charedfirescale]

0.0, rabies!!