Running myself ragged trying to keep up with the spawns of Volatile Feathertearers, I dash from target to target, cutting them down with single strikes and avoid the inevitable explosion that follows as best I can, but still find it difficult to come away completely unscathed with how many of them are manifesting from whatever space this black sludge contains. If there's an end to how many that The Scavenger is able to summon, I'll die of exhaustion before I see the sun through the pile of sticky, lukewarm bodies.

Gritting my teeth, constantly braced against the series of explosions erupting in my wake, and those on the other end of the plaza killed by Miss Leovoldt, I cast a quick glance towards the miniboss and note that it's started to seriously struggle to maintain the cohesion of it's form. Sensing an opportunity, I immediately activate Bull Rush, abandoning bomb squad duty on a gamble that one last big hit will topple this thing.

Barging past a freshly spawned pair of Feathertearers, I roar and swing with a Brutal Strike at The Scavenger's exposed midsection, a sense of finality suffusing both mind and sword.

-404 damage dealt to The Scavenger!

My Terrorsteel Horrorblade slices cleanly through, trailing a crescent arc of black sludge, a wedge-shaped gap carved into it's body. The Scavenger ripples, shaking and vibrating. At once, with no indication it was anything more than liquid, it collapses under it's own weight, with a crash like ocean waves, leaving a large pool of foul black gunk 8 feet wide.

Congratulations! Your party has defeated The Scavenger!

Awarding 12000 experience and 1000 Siege Contribution Points (Temporary-Limited).

 

The alto peal of a bell chimes in the area as the barriers of junk collapse, leaving the pathways open once again. As expected, the item dropped, just as it did last time, likely a guaranteed reward for defeating it aside from the contribution points.

 

 

Right. Forgot that basically everything noteworthy is made a World Announcement prior to RotA. The spam of announcements for people in different starting zones has lessened significantly in recent days, mercifully. It's also interesting that Henna isn't credited as a participant, but I'm getting distracted.

A silvery blob coalesces in the centre of what remains of The Scavenger. Not caring too much about any potentially negative consequences, I march across the pool and take the item in hand - a ring. Before looking at it's stats, I survey the group - all haggard and out of sorts, a little disbelieving that we managed to pull it off.

"We've got to kill two more of these fuckers?" Jade groans, "Fuuuuck...offfff..."

Miss Leovoldt plods over, hunched over, "I hear that."

Tiredly, I raise a hand in greeting, then address the group, "All in all, very nicely done. Ran over the time limit a bit, but we just about pulled through."

Too dizzy to stand, Jupiter's knees buckle from under him, "Yeah'm fuckin'....awesome job guyyysss...Angieee mana potion pleasethanksloveyouman...pl-platnic-like..."

Rolling his eyes, Angelus shuffles over the delirious Wizard with a phial in hand, "...Don't you have a Skill for dealing with this exact situation?"

"Use-used it 'fore start..." He grumbles, accepting the potion weakly and chugging it down after picking at the wax seal with his thumbnail, "Ambrusha. Am...amrosia...fuck...hate this racial pass."

"...What's wrong with him?" Henna questions, taking a seat on a relatively dry patch of ground.

"Mana deprivation hits us Silva rather differently," I inform her, "As you can see."

In all honesty, I'm feeling a little anaemic myself. For Silva, our blood basically is our MP, more so than most other races.

"I heard about it," the Merrow native nods thoughtfully, "First time seeing it happen to someone though. Silva ain't common 'round these parts, and mages less so."

"So, what drop did we get for all that, boss?" Windy subs in for the loot gremlin currently stuffing her face with half-stale bread rolls.

I raise the ring up, pinched between thumb and forefinger, "Silver-Tier Ring."

"Can you identify it with your Monocle?" Angelus looks over, taking a deep quaff of a waterskin from his Inventory.

Defeated, I shake my head, "No, unfortunately not. Iron-Tier is the limit, and that's with penalties applied. We need something stronger than 'Lesser' if we want to know what it does."

In other words, we can't do anything with it until a certain NPC we rescued comes back to the city. He can handle up to Silver-Tier Appraisals, but it's stupidly expensive at 25 Stone Gold for Silver-Tier Appraisals. Yes, Stone Gold. NPCs do not shy away from draining players of their hard-earned money.

Maybe since we saved him from a slow death in jail we'll get a discount on appraising this, but I wouldn't bet on it being a permanent discount for all items we bring to him.

Regardless, it's Silver-Tier so it'll be worth the price, though I either don't know or don't recall what it actually does. I don't think it was ever publicised, and by the time Trom returned the hype of the Event had already passed by, so it may have been buried under other goings-on.

I toss it to Windy, "Keep ahold of it, would you? I'm a little tight on space with all the Terrorstone and such I'm lugging around."

Angelus and Jade are holding on to almost as much of our extra loot as me, on top of that. After we get the Guild sorted, I'll be looking into renting out a Warehouse space to tide us over until we get a proper HQ to store Guild resources.

She fumbles the catch, then quickly stows it away, "Nailed it."

Jade looks around, "Any of this crap worth taking with us, or is it all just junk?"

"Don't bother," I shut the idea down, "It's not worth the hassle, and most of it's just scrap wood now anyway."

"You sure?" she questions, reluctant to let it all go to waste, "Pretty sure I saw some jewellery floating around."

"It's all tagged as stolen goods, so you'd just be painting a target on your back if you tried to fence it," I explain, "We're doing this to improve our reputation, not get jailed for a few trinkets. Just let it go."

Huffing, Jade throws her hands up, "Aight, fine. Only wanted to get a little extra for the effort. Waste not, want not and all that."

"I know. I have to think long-term as well, however," I clear my throat, "We should be safe to take a break for a little while before we move on to the next target. How are you all holding up?"

"Sore," Windy says bluntly, "It'll pass, but I'm going to be low on MP for a while without potions."

"Same here," Miss Leovoldt concurs, "Spent most of my MP spamming Slaughter Claw on The Scavenger whenever it came off cooldown."

Henna sighs, tired, "I could use a break m'self. Can any of you spare some water?"

Angelus complies without hesitation, "Here."

"Ta," She takes several long draughts, "Elseways, I'm pretty satisfied with how things've turned out. Feels like I'm making real progress."

"Good to hear it," I smile, "Might not have been able to do it without you."

How much of a difference an extra damage source made in consideration of the health and damage buff including an extra combatant added to The Scavenger is up for debate, but I'm happy to see her doing well.

"Well," I sheath my sword and remove my helmet, "While we recuperate, what say we talk about our next target?"

"We really going after three fuckers on the same level as that asshole?" Jade grumbles, reluctant.

"Yes and no. If I had to estimate, I'd say that The Scavenger is actually the most dangerous overall out of the four Lieutenants Geronil loosed on the city," I admit, "Not to say the other three are weak, by any means."

"You mean to say we went after the last boss first?" the Harrier is a little incredulous, "Wow, if you ever look for work outside this, I implore you not to consider a career as a swimming instructor, else the deep end of the pool will have a reef made out of drowned kids."

Miss Leovoldt snickers, "On the bright side, it's all downhill from here. In a good way."

"Yeah, sure," Jade rolls her eyes.

Rubbing my eyes, I reiterate what I said earlier, "We came after The Scavenger first specifically to take Unstable Feathertearers off the table as a threat. There'll still be a few wandering around the city leftover, but once they're dealt with, we'll have a much easier time traversing the city. At least this far away from Geronil's holdout in the east, which is guarded by traps and barriers."

"So, killing Desperate Embrace next will stop all the Pathetic Graspers and the elite variants spawning in?" Windy hypothesised.

"Yes," I confirm, "And since they form the bulk of the ground troops, besides Subjugated Citizens who are barely worth mentioning, with both enemy types cut off from reinforcements, the danger levels will plummet. If Rambling Rose manages to take down The Brand in a timely fashion, we won't even need to worry about Subjugated Citizens in the first place."

"Wouldn't killing The Brand cut off all supply for the other minibosses to make their specific troops, though?" Angelus questions.

"No. They can still do it on their own, just at reduced rates," I correct him, "Plus, The Brand is...annoying to deal with since it attacks primarily with Psychic damage and a horde of weak fodder. Our team isn't best equipped to deal with mental interference at present, while Rambling Rose has more Hedge Mages than us."

"Alright," the healer backs down, satisfied.

Before I begin, I clear my throat and check in with Jupiter, "Jupiter, are you ok for me to start?"

He waves weakly, "Ye."

Cocking my head, and choosing to take his word for it, I start explaining, "Desperate Embrace is...how to describe it?"

Tapping my elbows after crossing my arms, I hit upon it, "It's kind of a Bull and Matador fight if you understand the analogy."

"So it just runs around bumping into walls and stunning itself?" Windy guesses, removing her own helmet and running her fingers through her hair to shake out the matting.

I give a thumbs up, "It doesn't really give a shit about aggro. It just keeps on schlepping and rolling around the plaza until it fixates on something at random and charges. If it hits you, it'll do a large amount of damage and if you're the one it sees as viable prey, it'll restrain and attempt to absorb your flesh into itself. Otherwise, it doesn't attack or fight back at all. Just a big mound of oily body parts."

"Oil..? Fire?" Jupiter mumbles.

"It's probably pretty vulnerable to it, but odds are it'll just become a flaming ball of flesh barrelling down on us instead," I surmise, "Which'd make getting caught be it even deadlier. It's only real 'strength' is it's absurdly high health pool."

"There multiple phases on this thing as well?" Miss Leovoldt checks.

"Likely," I nod, "I don't know what it involves if there is, though. We'll have to improvise on the spot."

"Woo," Jade snarks from the peanut gallery.

Angelus raises his index finger, "How do we deal with the fixation?"

"Stand in front of a wall and move out the way at the last second, or else deal enough damage to it when it grabs it's victim," I guess, "The second option is only hypothetical though."

"Not many walls in the marketplace," Henna muses, "Y'think they can take the abuse?"

I consider it, "Reckon they can take at least two full-force hits from it before crumbling. Meteo City was built to last, which as a side effect also made it difficult to expand and upgrade it's Tier. Cheaply built, but sturdy, in other words. Regardless, don't worry about making a mess of the place. In fact, it'll be better if we performed some impromptu 'demolition' with this living wrecking ball."

"Why's that?" Windy cocks an eyebrow, the rest of the group lean in, curious.

"Once the Siege ends, City Hall will need to organise a recovery effort to bring the city back into proper operating condition," meaning Quests for the player base and a chance to learn the Architect subclass, "So, more work means more profit. A little callous and dishonest, I'll admit, but unlike appropriating any of the junk around here, it's entirely legal and easily justified should anyone question it."

Henna's mouth twists in mild disapproval, "So long as the damage is kept away from Stone Arsenal, I suppose I can play along."

"Easy enough," I agree, "Fortunately, in this case, you're not situated in the marketplace itself, just nearby."

"For once, I can be glad of that, yes," Henna smiles dissatisfied.

From there, we spend close to an hour chatting idly while our MP and Stamina recover. Even with all the extra time, however, there is no second announcement denoting a victory for Rambling Rose over The Brand. It's difficult to say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but any unfortunate souls that got sent to the Cathedral will find themselves freed in a few hours, at the very least.