Imp Nest

When everybody met back up Lil was no longer riding on my shoulder but instead riding on the back of a leisurely hopping adult male nightwing that was almost five inches bigger all around than my own. I was a little upset by the size difference but it turned out that the difference in stats were not that great with mine having the higher Agility, Intelligence, and Luck while hers had the greater other stats. She named hers Darkwing and I ironically had to name mine Duck.

The place where we met up looked like any other part of the forest, now, but was where my group had fought the imps and ferecats on the way to the Elder Oak. From this location were five more compass point icons in the area. One was a campfire that probably belong to more goblins but the others were icons I had yet to discover.

"This one," Skooma announces after a few seconds after everybody was back together again, facing the opposite direction from the campfire icon. "The icon with the clawed door is a monster nest, usually. It's where our dusk imp mission took us and that was where a young queen and a few warriors were trying to start a colony."

"This one will be short a few warriors, but it'll still be a colony that has been functioning for a little while," I inform the group while heading off in the direction that Skooma picked out. "If they're doing their spring cleaning this early, that means they'll be bearing soon. If we can kill the queen without damaging the harem we should be able to capture the lesser females. I'm taking one no matter what, whether or not you guys have to count me out of the final fight."

"Five of us have magic resistances, you're one of them," Skooma points out, specifically pointing at my armor. "You, Agnes, Your friends, and our sorcerer. You and your friend Go will have the be the front lines in that fight. The rest of us can hold the warriors and hunters back so you guys can rush the queen. Once she's dead, the harem stops mattering. We were porters on an imp capturing mission when we first joined the Guild."

I had read online that some imp queens were strong enough to drain the entire life force from the lesser females they enthralled and use it for large-scale magic. Unless it was fire, our goblin gear only gave us an overall ten percent resistance to magical attacks. That was a lot for this early in the game but that did not mean it was enough to fight a magic mini-boss.

The elemental affinity for dusk imps was darkness, so even though fire was the most basic element there was a chance we would be attacked with darkness. However, any fire attacks would be reduced even more because of the overall fifteen percent of fire resistance in our armor. My fear was the large-scale attack, that would surely be their element of affinity.

After the quick division of duties in which I wondered whether or not to point out the blessed armor of our paid-for paladin, our combined teams that neared the party cap of twelve set off. Like Lil had said, it did not take more than a few minutes before we came in view of a large naked hill on which only grass grew. There were several fallen trees around the hill and all of them had short and ruined root systems.

From the side we approached we could only see the hill and trees that had already browned and lost most of their leaves but among those trees around the tops of the hill were a small group of four warrior imps. They were probably all the imp warriors left in this colony. Even though they were called a colony, they were only as big as their homes.

Just around one end of the long hill was the entrance to the nest, a large hole full of torn and broken plants and roots with clumps of crushed sod scattered around. It was too dark to see inside the hole but there was often the random sounds of hissing and shrill grunting noises from inside. A few moments later, a trio of wounded imp hunters came running out of the hill and into the wilderness without every noticing our group.

Because the plan had been for everyone with resistant gear to go for the queen, Skooma and Papi led the rest of our teams out from the shrubbery and to the hill while yelling to provoke the enemy. As soon as they made themselves known the warriors on the hill started hooting like monkeys and almost a dozen hunters of various healthiness and ages out of the hill. Even the trio that had just left came running back.

Right behind the trio came my mixed group and I, running straight for the hill with Lil in the lead with a ball of fire above her head for a torch. For characters like her and Agnes who chose tiny and adorable avatars, entering the hill only involved a little bit of crouching before it opened up. For people like Go who was two meters tall or me who was their actual height, we had to crawl even after it opened up.

The inside of the hill was a lot bigger than I thought with fifteen feet of entrance that led straight throat before two turns appeared to either side. Both of them were just large sleeping areas with small shallow dugouts in the ground. This was probably where the hunters slept during the day.

Twenty feet deeper in we came across two more similar chambers that had tall dugouts in the wall. Lil said that this was where the warriors slept. While standing, like warriors.

After that the path widened up a bit and started heading down at the back of the hill. Here the tunnel was tall enough that Lil and Agnes in the lead could stand comfortably but Go and I still had to move forward while crouched. This, though, inspired me to switch to my Simple Bow with only a single arrow while I had the opportunity.

Lil extinguished her fireball when she saw the tunnel level out ahead, which was good because not far ahead from there was a pale grayish blue light on the ground. Lil quickly posted a written message about the queen's cavern containing some kind of mana crystal. This was a complication because that meant the queen would be even stronger than normal.

Ivana and I traded places with Lil and Agnes for our ranged stealth attacks and moved on ahead to where the tunnel leveled out. Once I could see into the next part of the tunnel I found another chamber slightly taller and bigger around than all the others centered around a forked prism of what could have been quartz but was suffused with a bright magical light. The queen was currently sitting by this crystal with their back to the entryway without a care in the world while eating.

Creeping slowly one step and one person at a time, we get far enough down the tunnel to confirm the location of the harem off to one side eating what looked like bones and scraps. At least they got fed better than the hunters, who were barely fed at all. Sharing a look and nod with Ivana, we both nock and draw our arrows at the same time.

The queen and the other females were all about the size of warrior imps but built a little broader and heftier for birthing. The queen herself usually birthed a pair of warriors while the lessers would bear hunters or a hunter and warrior combo, so the queen was noticeably larger than the others even without the ratty furs she wore.

Hunched over what looked like the remains of a small ferecat, I could not safely aim for the head that continually bobbed up and down so instead tried to aim for the spine and heart. Ivana handled the countdown because her class made her stealthier than my buffs, tapping her foot one… two… and three times before we fired. Both of us must have been aiming for the same area because both arrows landed to either side of the queen's spine and punched deeply her clothes and into her back.

[x2 critical: vital strike]

[x2 stealth attack: Snipe]

Only thirty percent of the queen's health depleted when her bar appeared as I rushed into the room, despite two stealth critical attacks from people buffed or spec'd for critical stealth attacks. This old girl was going to be a tough fight, but luckily she was still ticking damage two percent at a time even while turning around with a wave of her hand. Behind that waving hand flew a wave of liquid fire that washed through the air in and AOE sweep toward the entrance.

Since it was just fire and I had switched to Blackened Fuller Haunting, I simply held my breath and cut into the attack as I took the damage head on. My goblin skin armor flickered briefly with flames, draining more HP after the initial forty, but the damage was only one percent and it only lasted for a few seconds. Now, though, I had halved the distance.

An arrow streaked through the air from off to the side of the tunnel, passing only a foot or so away from me as it homed in on the imp queen. The arrow struck into her lower side for almost ten percent of her health, cutting off another magical attack that crackled with dark purple lightning. That one would have hurt.

Feinting a sidestep to one side after getting close, I let the queen hop to the opposite side before leaping straight down the middle while turning in midair. Performing a natural backhanded spinning slash as a combination of natural orange and unnatural dark gray flames flew out from the tunnel, I land just behind the queen and immediately perform a 360 Edge to shove her forward into the fire attacks and right toward Go.

After the Elder Oak Passage challenge ended I had checked my new combat skill to find it performed one hundred and twelve percent of my true damage with a one-yard knockback affect.

Compared to similar skills various warrior classes acquired early on which started at one-twenty-percent and grew, mine had to be initiated like a blessing with one hundred uses before it can start leveling.

After the twin sets of fireballs finished lighting up the imp queen's health bar down to fifteen percent, Go's hulking character finally arrived before the blinded and burning queen with his ax held out wide to the side. He dove in and struck beautifully, somewhat copying my passing spin attack by getting on the queen's side and spinning in to cleave his giant wood-ax clean through her neck.

[+45XP*2]

"Lil, Agnes, get topside and see if the others need any healing," I say as soon as the experience notification appeared, reaching into a pocket to take out a handful of drying meat. "Tell Papi and Skooma to get down here with their muscles, too! We're taking the damn crystal with us. Ivana, you've got the snooping skills and imps are as attracted to shiny shit as goblins are so go check the other caverns. Go, take this cordage and help me Capture these lesser females," I add, taking some tendon binding material I had made previously in bulk from my player inventory.

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