Raven Hunters (P3)- Encounter
The party had travelled 2 hours through the level 1-3 zone that surrounded the Iron Bastion clearing out many groups of mobs and beating an extra 8 wild bosses that capped at Level 5 within the zone and as a result had raised their levels to Level 2 with 261 exp out of the 300 needed to level up. They were surprised that they hadn't encountered the group of bandits at all until this point. Still, eventually, they got to a Cliff side that dropped a kilometre down into a valley with the only way forward being a 500-metre-long stone bridge that brought them to another conclusion.
Darius made a rough guess that the zone before them was a Level 2-4 zone based on how games like this usually structured themselves. Little did he know how wrong he was. Think about it: If this specific region was Rated SS, why would it follow the norms and customs of other, much more normal games of this genre? But ignoring his naivety, the group pressed on inspecting the bridge properly before beginning to cross.
Only once Darius, a few metres ahead of everyone else, passed the 200-metre point did the situation change drastically. A group of 5 climbed up behind them on the bridge while another group of 5 emerged at the exit boxing the party in on this 50-metre-wide bridge. Considering that even back at level 0 the slowest members of this party could clear twice that distance in a second it was very limiting.
You would have to be running full speed in a straight line to achieve this but that didn't take away the fact that at Level 2 this was very inconvenient for them. Had they not been fighting together for 2 hours and getting even more synchronised with one another in this fight, the group would have been shaken up by this development. In all fairness to them, after levelling up again they looked like this currently:
ID: Basilisk Age: 30 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Riot, Cleaver, 5 Bronze coins, Tattered Jacket, Tattered Pants, Worn Boots & Belt Sheath HP: 170/170 MP: 25/25 Sta: 35/35 Atk: 35(+25) M.atk: 60 Def: 50(+60)(+5)(+5) M.def: 75 Str: 20 Spd: 15(+3) Agi: 9(+3) Int: 5 End: 30 Luck: 5 Stp: 0 Skp: 85
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Focus
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: None.
ID: Enemy Soldier Age: 22 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Iron Bow, Chipped Arrows (*60), Leather Gloves, Leather pants, Hunter Vest, Leather Boots & Worn Quill HP: 160/160 MP: 25/25 Sta: 25/25 Atk: 40 M.atk: 65 Def: 40(+5)(+5)(+2) M.def: 65 Str: 20 Spd: 20(+5) Agi: 15(+5) Int: 5 End: 20 Luck: 5 Stp: 0 Skp: 85.
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Quick Draw
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: None.
ID: Stellar Blade Age: 20 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Sword Apprentice Set & Argent HP: 140/140 MP: 40/40 Sta: 40/40 Atk: 30(+5)(+20) M.atk: 70(+5) Def: 40 M.def: 80 Str: 20 Spd: 10(+5) Agi: 5(+5) Int: 20 End: 20 Luck: 10 Stp: 0 Skp: 70
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Ignite & Dash
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: 1% chance to trigger a Magic Attack.
ID: Cruel Silence Age: 28 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Deus, Cloak, Basic Adventurer set & Small stamina Potion HP: 140/140 MP: 15/15 Sta: 15/15 Atk: 50(+25) M.atk: 65 Def: 20 M.def: 35 Str: 10(+5) Spd: 40(+5) Agi: 15(+10) Int: 5 End: 10(+5) Luck: 5 Stp: 0 Skp: 70
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Critical strike & Stealth
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: 5% chance of invisibility outside of combat.
ID: Mighty Bjorn Age: 32 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Rusted Tomahawk, Leather Chest Plate, Leather Pants & Leather boots HP: 170/170 MP: 25/25 Sta: 30/30 Atk: 40(+30) M.atk: 65 Def: 45(+30)(+5) M.def: 70 Str: 20 Spd: 20 Agi: 10(+5) Int: 5 End: 25 Luck: 5 Stp: 0 Skp: 85
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Vigour.
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: None
ID: Guerrilla Queen Age: 25 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Iron Bow, Basic Bowman set & Worn Quill HP: 120/120 MP: 25/25 Sta: 20/20 Atk: 35 M.atk: 60 Def: 25 M.def: 50 Str: 15 Spd: 20(+6) Agi: 16(+6) Int: 10 End: 10 Luck: 5(+3) Stp: 0 Skp: 85
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Sprint
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: None.
ID: Immortal Lancer Age: 29 Race: Human Class: None Subclass: None Rank: 0 Lvl: 2 Exp: 261/300 Titles: Adventurer. Status: Normal. Items: Halberd, Basic Adventurer set & Spear Holder HP: 150/150 MP: 30/30 Sta: 25/25 Atk: 40(+25) M.atk: 70 Def: 35 M.def: 65 Str: 20(+5) Spd: 20(+5) Agi: 10 Int: 10 End: 15(+5) Luck: 10 Stp: 0 Skp: 85
Race Skills: None
General Skills: Feather Walk
Subclass Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None
Resistances: None
Special effects: None.
While this was an improvement from when they first started encountering mobs, it wasn't nearly enough to help their current situation for reasons they can't see yet. Observe:
Name: 5th Wing Age: 45 Sex: Female Race: Human* Class: Specialised Subclass: Bandit Titles: 5th Bandit Captain Items: Bone Shard, Basic Armour set (7/8), Circle Shield & Raven-whistle Lvl: 10 Rank: 0 Status: Intoxicated Hp: 530/530 Mp: 105/105 Sta: 95/95 Atk: 105(+35) M.atk: 210 Def: 110(+40)(+20) M.def: 215 Str: 60 Spd: 45 Agi: 30 Int: 45 End: 50 (+10) Luck: 15
Race Skills: None.
General Skills: Desperate Charge
Subclass Skills: Intimidation & Dissuasion
Non-combat Skills: Command
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: Silent Signal.
Name: Claws Age: 18-30 Sex: Male/Female Race: Human* Class: Specialised Subclass: None Titles: Ravens Items: Short Sword & Basic Adventurer set Lvl: 7 Rank: 0 Status: Intoxicated Hp: 240/240 Mp: 85/85 Sta: 75/75 Atk: 80(+20) M.atk: 165 Def: 90 M.def: 175 Str: 50(+5) Spd: 30(+5) Agi: 20 Int: 35 End: 40(+5) Luck: 10
Race Skills: None.
General Skills: Group Pressure
Subclass Skills: None
Non-combat Skills: None
Trade Skills: None
Item Skills: None.
Darius took a closer look at most of the Bandits around them seeing them set at SS difficulty rating, meanwhile, the one who was observing the 10 bandits from the other side of the bridge with a neutral look on her face had a question mark where her rating was meant to be, any fairly experienced gamers knows for a fact that when facing an enemy, a question mark was never a good sign. The ones on the bridge were 5 fairly fit men and women, respectively, but the woman who was observing the group stood out more regardless of the difficulty.
She stood at 6 ft 1 with a lean Athletic build, she wore an incomplete basic set of armour seemingly preferring to let her neck-length brown hair flow in the wind. She was fairly pale for someone who robbed people in such a sunny region and her dark brown eyes held a level of contempt for the adventurers that dared to come before her today.
Darius frowned when he saw the question mark above the Bandit Captain's head as he realised the possible implications of such a thing, they were at a point where the "mobs" were all as strong as "Captains" of previous groups they had fought, frankly, they would likely need to go all out against each enemy individually talk less of when they were forced into a group fight like this.
This belief was further reinforced when 3 layers of suppression were put on the party at the same time; firstly their base stats were suppressed by 8% because of level suppression, then their attack and defence would then have another 50% debuff stacked on top of it due to class suppression, and finally, All attacks they received from the Bandit Captain specifically would be guaranteed to ignore defence entirely and deal 100% true damage. They didn't even know the last two parts and would only suffer them when the 5th Claw took the initiative to attack them herself.
Lancer and Bjorn moved to cover Queen and Soldier respectively as Darius held the point closest to the other side allowing Silence and Blade time to judge what their respective priorities should be in this situation. As things stood Darius would more than likely be able to barely defend against the attacks of most of the 'mobs' among this bunch when using normal attacks. However, even with his defence build, so long as the 'captain' of this bunch attacked with her weapon, he would take damage.
One of the male Claws rushed at the group from up ahead with an excited grin on his flushed face as he brandished his shiny short sword to try and kill Darius. Darius timed his block to perfection triggering the Perfect Block effect, dealing 102 damage, and stunning him for a moment, yet when Darius followed through and slashed the Male Claw's neck did no damage despite triggering a regular critical hit.
Luckily, Soldier emptied 3 arrows into the male Claw's head dealing 30 damage in total after triggering 3 back-to-back perfect criticals, 3 piercing damage in total and inflicting a bleeding effect on him. The male Claw was forced out of his intoxicated state and removed the arrows from its head, taking 3 more damage. Silence took the chance to cleave his neck, dealing 48 damage, doubling the damage dealt by the bleed effect and extending the time the male Claw was under this status effect in that one attack.
The bleed effect triggered once dealing 20 damage as the male Claw slashed out at Darius who was too slow to perfectly block, instead, only barely blocking it and doing 2 damage to the Claw's weapon. With a tsk Soldier planted an arrow in the Bandit's throat dealing 10 damage and 1 piercing damage after triggering the critical effect; As the male claw stumbled backwards the bleed effect triggered again dealing another 20 damage, sending the Bandit's HP deep into the red with only 36 HP left over.
Before anything else could be done the 5th Claw appeared beside the Bandit the party had just fought and cleaved his head clean off in one swift motion making him drop his weapon as he slumped over. "Next", She said before returning to her original position in a flash. The party got 4 exp for the kill but then got a subsequent 14 exp as a quest notification- Seeing that, Darius realised that the exp rewards they saw in brackets were likely system-supported and didn't need them to turn the quest in for them to see the rewards.
Thinking along those lines Darius saw how potentially abusable the specific set of quests they had selected were, especially as players with no real stake in the matter- If he was coming over to this game as an interested party who wanted to establish himself he would be singing praises for his luck to encounter such a quest. Mind you, Bandit groups filled up their numbers fairly quickly despite how scorned the job was, this very fact paired with how easily the leader of this group slaughtered one of her men prompted Darius to check the quest progress, and like he thought there was new data to be found that the original quest sheet did not reveal.:
Quest: Raven Killer
Quest Type: Raid
Quest Difficulty: Bronze Rank (12.5%) ((Gold Rank (1.2%)))
Quest Description: The Ravens Bandit group Branch Near the Iron Bastion is rumoured to have 2 Outer members of the Divine Hall under its protection, Raid the Bandit hideout and kill the 2 Divine Hall members, Bring the crest of the Branch head and the soul badge of the 2 hall members as proof of completion.
Completion Percentage: 0% (0/2)| 13.27% (0/1) (0/2) (1/10) (15/100)
((0% (0/10)| 0% (0/1)/ 0% (0/10)/ 5% (1/20)| 0.15% (150/1,000)))
Rewards: 1 Gold coin + 250 reputation with the Kingdom of Europe ((+ 100 exp per [Claw]+ 1,000 exp per [Wing] + 5,000 exp per [Eye] + 10,000 exp for [Bandit Head]))
((25 Gold + 2,500 reputation with the Kingdom of Europe (+250 exp per [Claw] + 2,500 exp per [Wing] + 10,000 exp per [Eye] + 25,000 exp for [Bandit Head]))
Grade: TBD
He was right, no 'small' and 'struggling' group regardless of callousness would be able to afford to kill off one of its own like that unless they were assured that it would mean nothing or that they were truly desperate.
Tell me, If you were a military person seeking refuge from your enemies while you recover your strength and make plans, would you go to some equally desperate and struggling group of nobodies to help you fight off your enemies from a task force from the U.S military?? No you wouldn't, you would likely try to provide something of value to a group like the cartel to hide you away until your strength recovered and you could either return to service if you were loyal, or flee like a dog if you weren't.
According to the progress, not only was the Raven Bandit group strong, but they were growing in strength almost constantly and could easily afford to kill off these nobodies who were likely brought here to either train or prove their worth to the group. Why else would the system re-evaluate the difficulty of this quest to Gold rank, 10 times more difficulty than the Iron Bastion predicted? It was so inaccurate that the system itself readjusted the rewards privately for players to allow them to benefit more.