Mama Ice Rat

Because hers was a middle-weight healing, magic, and warrior class, Lil taking point was actually her most effective position if you did not use her crowd damaging skills from a surprise position in the back row. Even without those skills, the basic single target attack of fireball and her class's intermediate single-target attack of Wind Cutter were strong enough to make most beast mobs keep their distance.

Then add to this all of the magic skills that she had learned on her own or from Ferithar.

From my position about thirty feet above the ground using cordycep silk to move silently from one tree to the next, I had the perfect view from which to watch her and the others enter the event location. As soon as they entered the area we all received full red flashes and Imperial Order kicked in because I was in the same fight.

Not only did Cweeper and Hermes begin glowing even brighter than before but even the others had the same shimmering as their level-one Divine Bow Hunting shots. Then, from the surrounding fallen and hollowed trees, a few dozen large Frosted Quill Bears began coming out of the snow and ice and trees. Thankfully, they all came out at ground level.

Lil was the first to react and attack, using Quick Quake through her staff for am amplified effect after stabbing it into the ground ahead of the team. Even with an amplified effect and all of her current buffs, the frozen terrain made this Quick Quake only about as strong as the usual quakes used by my companions in the plains region.

So, only about ten yards out from them in a broad semicircle broken down and loosened up for the large and heavy bodies coming forward to sink into. Of course, her Quick Quake was not alone and thus quickly followed by slightly weaker versions from Skooma and Go. Thanks to her having broken ground first, their skills traveled more easily and thus a few yards farther out from her own.

By the time the first ice rat reached the quaked ground and snow, it sank up to its neck and shoulders in the ground before its companions quickly followed. After the first few, though, the ice rats simply started climbing over one another to get closer and closer before getting sucked into the loose ground. Disregarding this as arrows and magical attacks began finding targets among the press of bodies, the tree of them continued surrounding themselves in entrapping soil.

After three or for rows of large bodies had gotten stuck, though, there were enough rats in the quaked soil to start using each other as stepping stones to finally reach the leading trio.

While several had died to some critical arrows, most were still alive and struggling to get out from under or around their comrades under the constant assault of various elements. Then, as Go and Skooma intercepted the first rats to come within reach, Lil unleashed her 'old reliable'. The rock shower spell.

Each rock turned out to only hit each enemy for three or four percent of their health bars, the spell was now so enormous that it covered all enemies to the front with at least ten stones apiece. For everybody who had been splashed with magic or just one arrow, this was a recipe for death in DPS. Almost half of the few dozen giant rodent bears stopped their struggles or advancement in the few seconds that the spell lasted.

Now, though, there suddenly came a jarring thud that even I felt through the trees. Then, a second combat alert that covered the entire field of view in red for a fraction of a second flashed. After that second finished out and the once charging enemies began backing away from the small 'death radius' around Lil's trio, the ground once again shook but this time the ground just a few yards ahead of Lil began to rise up in a broad mound.

From around the mound the ground simply fell away into the warrens where these animals lived, revealing a slowly expanding hole of broken ice, wood, snow, and soil about seven feet deep. Lil and her trio did not even have the time to see what had caused this. From my vantage point almost directly overhead, though, I could.

Roughly three times the size of the other ice rats so that it was around the size of a grizzly or even Kodiak, a real boss instead of just an elite had woken up and simply stood up to destroy the warrens. Sitting back on its haunches that were only partially buried in the collapsing ground, the big bear was still almost ten feet tall as it looked around at the hole that had only expanded by around ten yards without catching anybody.

Then, it looked around at the dead quill bears surrounding it in the collapsed ground before throwing it head back and roaring so loud that all of the soft snow in the area simply flurried away.

[Frozen Mama Quill Bear has awoke from Brumation]

Unlike the smaller frosted versions, this giant frozen mama version was outfitted with an entire body of short prism-like blades of ice that curled about their giant elongated head like a natural helmet. It even had an immense chain-like tail of pure ice that now swept out over the upper ground toward my companions as it started climbing out.

Oh, my bad, I forgot and let it attack.

Dropping down from the tree while holding Hauntings in both hands, I activate Replicate to grow large plates of heavy Hardened Hickory around my hands and forearms to increase the weight of my attack. Then, just a few yards from the mama bear, I activate Flying Guillotine and whisper, "Geist," as soon as I feel my blade meet resistance.

My Hauntings cleaved and melted straight through the thick coils of magical ice surrounding the mama bear's neck from above and even bit down into its thick and fatty body to breach the surface. Then, a storm of numerous Geist blades erupted from around Hauntings.

[Critical: Decapitation]

[One Hit Kill]

[One Hit Boss]

[+210+1.25xXP]

With the death of the mama bear the lessers entered and enraged status in which their physical and magical parameters went up by half while their speed increased by twenty percent. This was not much compared to me as the beasts loped across the crater to their mama bear's corpse. In comparison to my companions, though, no arrows managed to hit a target as they crossed thirty yards of hole in the ground.

Taking up the aggro position from atop the mama bear's corpse, I waited until Lil and Agnes had emptied their AOE skills in the crater before unleashing two broad Spirit Slash attacks. Then, in the shower of parts, fluids, and ground debris flurrying up from the crater in the wake of my attacks, I ran away. Right behind the back line of my team's familiars.

With Hermes and Cweeper at either end of the back row formation of mounted and aerial familiars, I had little to worry about in regards to their safety. However, I did not want to continue hogging all of the experience after over four hundred experience from the one kill.

I only needed about two thousand more before I would reach the fourteen thousand and five hundred experience required to reach level fifty-eight. Then I needed fifteen thousand. Level sixty was speculated to increase by an entire thousand but nobody was entirely certain.

Yet. At the rate I was going, I was level fifty-eight by the time the last bear fell to the combined stationary artillery fire of my team and only their familiars. Then the loot notifications rolled in and I was very pleased with my gains.

[Acquired Title: Frozen Quill Collector]

[150XP]

[Frozen Quill Collector: Rare. Passive. After managing to acquire all of the loot parts available from a boss Quill Bear on the first kill, you have been awarded the recognition of Frozen Quill Collector. Permanent +5% Loot/XP/PATK/ while facing Quill Bears of any kind. +10 Imperial Reputation]

Not only was the title a good award for facing future ice rats, I acquired not only the mama bear's quills, coils, plates, hide, fangs, claws, and the rest of its head, I also acquired four very nice surprises. One was the mama bear's core, the next was the mama bear's frozen heart as a necklace accessory that increased ice resistance by twenty percent, five hundred gold, and the mama bear's chain tail shrunken down and stiffened into a much smaller but still enormous chain sword.

This weapon had a Strength requirement of one hundred so it was only enormous to anyone too weak to use it. In my hands after picking the seven-foot weapon up, it shrank down to an overall five feet of length like an old European Zweihander. However, in the hands of somebody like Stonewall it would probably retain its original dimensions.

Even though Skooma claimed to really want the sword for training his two handed skill because the sword he made for himself only came out to fifth tier physical damage while the Frozen Chain Claymore was in the upper end of sixties, I opted out of giving him the sword because of how likely we were to find more that he could kill and claim for himself.

Instead, I placed the primitive magic weapon in the clan store where its contribution or clan coin values were set at one thousand apiece. Skooma followed suit by 'contributing' the materials from all of his quill bear kills to the clan. Each hide provided ten points while the lesser pieces provided one or three apiece for the quills themselves. He only amounted to about two hundred contribution from the entire event and I now had crafting access to all of his materials from it!

Next, while he begged his sister for materials only to be scolded like a dog and lectured about being tricked into giving up his materials that had much more monetary value than contribution. If he wanted to get contribution, he should have contributed money instead. The exchange rate was current five-to-one on contribution-per-gold.

One thousand gold later, Skooma was equipping himself with the chain claymore while bragging about being safe from any more of my schemes while his sister simply shook her head sadly. To make her feel better more than him, everybody else- including me- donated a thousand gold to the clan for the five thousand easy contribution.

Of course, since the game's currency values were still in their original simplified state now was the smartest time to invest money into the gold instead of materials and items.

Hell, just placing the chain sword in the clan shop had given me the one thousand contribution I priced it at. The others did not need to know about that, though, since proper items and equipment offered much more contribution than materials. Then Skooma really would become invulnerable to my petty tricks just by trading silk standards.

After clearing one event location, we split up once more by fanning northeast for another mile while mostly evading locations and tackling confrontations. Until, of course, our middle line once again came across another hot spot.

This time, though, it was a grove style location surrounded thickly by wall-like frostberry trees in full dark blue and light purple bloom. The white and pale blue bark of the tree mixed with snow white leaves filled with random bunches of small blossoms were actually very pleasing to the eye and afforded the area to only vaguely bitter smell of berries ad blooms.

Just from the berries alone we could assume that there would be numerous ice birds in the grove. From the ice birds we could automatically assume they will be paired- at minimum- with some form of ground tank. However, I personally doubted we would be so lucky as to meet ice rats once again or a boss of their level.

Calling the group together once again to rest and snack outside of the grove of trees, we prep the familiars by checking their equipment and levels before leading the way into the grove. Because of the aerial enemies potentially involved, we chose a simplified two-row formations of people in front with a magic and melee fighter paired together and familiars in back. Cweeper and Hermes once again maintained flank positions while I used my cordycep body and silk to sneak into the trees.

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