Before we entered the tower all the parties were reshuffled so that the raiders with similar roles were put together. There were four roles altogether, the first group was six melee fighters, including me, who would be using our mobility to do as much damage as we could while not getting hit. The second group, which contained Yuvus, consisted of five tanks that would use their [Taunt] abilities to keep the monster's attention on them as much as possible.

The third group had eight ranged combatants, including both Thejeon and Aerith, who would stay at the back of the battles with the healers and would act as artillery in the upcoming battles. The last group was four healers that would heal anyone that needed it while also buffing as many frontline fighters as they could if they had the spare mana. Yuvus may act as our healer but he prefers to be a tank so that was the group he was put into.

Since we had gone over who would be in which group the day before we started the raid it took less than five minutes for everyone to get into their groups. Once everyone was ready we entered the tower to see a barren floor with a staircase going around the edge of the tower until it reached the next floor about six metres above us. We had heard about the tower from a few scouts that managed to get this far but seeing it for myself made it much more real.

We didn’t stop to take it in though as the tanks took the vanguard, followed by the melee fighters and the ranged fighters with the healers in the back. As we walked up the stairs I started to feel anxious, we had no idea what we were going up against as the furthest the scouts had made it was the third floor, this whole thing could be futile. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down by reminding myself that we could always try again and that the monsters might not be too strong for a proper raid.

We had to walk up the stairs in pairs but after going around half the tower we had reached the first floor and was presented with a huge glass door. On the other side of the door was our first encounter as a proper raid, this was five goblins and a hobgoblin fighting seven kobolds. There were a few dead bodies scattered around the floor in various states of decomposition and the monsters all had a multitude of scars on their bodies, these two things put together made it seem like this battle had been going on for a long time.

We couldn’t just stay here and look forever so the tanks approached the door but before any of them were close enough to physically open it the door slid open as if by magic. This surprised us for a second but we quickly recovered and started to charge into the room. A wave of various attacks that ranged from mundane arrows and bullets to large boulders that exploded into shrapnel immediately shot through the air and rained down on the unsuspecting monsters.

This instantly injured half of the monsters while even killing a goblin and a kobold before the fighting even truly started. Quickly following the attacks the tanks charged into the middle of the battle before simultaneously using [Taunt]. This may seem like a bad idea as once the taunts were over they wouldn’t have any other taunts to keep the monsters attention but doing it this way made the range and effectiveness stack so that all the monsters couldn’t resist the taunt or be out of its range.

We would just have to kill all of the monsters before the taunt ended. It was instantly obvious that this had worked as the tanks were surrounded by the monsters while they completely ignored the rest of the raid. We could have used the fact the goblins and kobolds were fighting to our advantage but that would be way too risky as there were too many variables involved.

Instead we decided to distract them all long enough that the rest of us could take them out before the fight could turn too chaotic. Now that the tanks had been surrounded various spells started to go off around them, all originating from various sources, the only one I recognised was a spell from Yuvus that would maximise the healing of any allies that were inside of the spell’s radius.

It was one of his stronger spells so he couldn’t keep it up for long before running out of mana but we wouldn’t be needing much time as the melee fighters had already surrounded the distracted monsters. I swung my sword through one of the goblins two times before it fell to the ground with blood coming out of its nose and eyes. I stepped back and saw that we had managed to take down three more kobolds and one other goblin.

All that was left was the two leaders, two goblins and two kobolds but they were still under the influence of the tanks’ taunt so they continued to try to attack the tanks even as they were being taken down one by one. Most of the monsters’ hits were blocked completely and the few lucky blows that got through their defences were immediately healed by the various healers.

Thanks to us taking down so many monsters the tanks were able to strike back twice as hard as they were getting hit, quickly taking down the rest of the underlings as the two leaders fell to the melee fighters. The fight had gone extremely well so we only took a minute to catch our breath before moving on to the next floor of the tower and repeated the process.

An hour later and we had made it all the way to the final floor, for the most part the fights had been pretty easy since we had been prepared for what was in store for us. However, the consecutive fights had started to wear down everyone’s stamina so we had to start taking longer breaks, luckily we managed to get here without anyone going down. Everyone was nervous as we stood in front of the massive glass doors.

The raid leader took charge of the situation by stepping forward and being the first one through the doors and into the boss arena, this gave everyone confidence and we all quickly followed. As I walked through the doors my earlier anxiety had been replaced with anticipation as each fight had been pretty easy so I didn’t expect this to be too hard. If I could be part of the first group to clear this raid then it would be a massive achievement for my party and will be a stepping stone to help us achieve much greater feats.

As soon as everyone had walked through the doors the monsters turned to face us before each of the raid bosses roared at us before turning back to each other, continuing their fight instead of attacking us. It seemed that the roar they had let out was to tell their underling to charge at us as they started to do just that, even ignoring their former enemies. We were quite happy with this though as two of the tanks went to stop the goblin’s charge while the other three tanks stopped the kobold’s charge.

As they clashed the sound of metal against metal reverberated around the arena. making it hard to think. Unfortunately this battle was a lot more chaotic than the previous ones so all of the melee fighters started to panic and split up randomly to start fighting any monsters they could get to. I didn’t have time to corral them plus that wasn’t my job so I started to look for Yuvus and saw him next to a giant goliath while fending off six hobgoblins that were each almost as big as the goliath was.

The goliath was wearing a full set of darksteel armour and was almost twice Yuvus’s height. I ran over to him and started to cleave through one of the hobgoblins, it was under a taunt so I got two good hits in before it broke out of the taunt and attacked me, forcing me to retreat. It had broken out of the taunt because it was a  higher level and that it was only under the effect of one taunt.

As I looked at it I couldn’t even tell if it had been dealt any damage which told me that these hobgoblins were exceedingly strong. We had been expecting that to be fair, but it was still nerve-racking to see my attacks be so easily shrugged off and some of my anxiety started to return. It started to charge at me as I retreated but Yuvus went to stop it, seeing this I quickly shouted, ‘I’ll deal with this one you focus on the other five.’

This caused Yuvus to stop for a split second as he looked up at me before nodding and letting it go. I decided to have trust in my raid mates and blocked out the screams and clangs of war going on around me to focus entirely on the hobgoblin in front of me. As it reached me it threw a wide swing at me with its longsword that I easily dodged by rolling out of the way before springing back up behind it and thrusting my sword through its back.

I saw it flinch a little before it turned around to face me, my hit had caused one of its eyes to burst a blood vessel which unnerved me slightly. Seeing that I was nimbler on my feet than its previous opponents, the hobgoblin switched its tactic from large powerful attacks that took a while to charge up to small quick attacks that it could throw out constantly. Most of them I managed to dodge but two managed to get through the first layer of my shield and went into the second layer, shattering it.

I wasn’t entirely on the back foot though as its tactic required it to go entirely on the offensive meaning that every time I dodged its attack I had a split second to retaliate and hit it. This meant that after thirty seconds, and three strikes, I had finally managed to bring it down with my sword through its head. I looked around and saw that the chaos I had experienced was going on everywhere as a few of the melee fighters had retreated back to the healers as they were close to dying.

I even saw a spirit that marked where one of the raid members had been taken down, most likely a melee fighter that had gotten overwhelmed. It wasn’t all bad though as I saw about half of the monster underlings on the floor dead. I couldn’t spend all day taking in my surroundings as I saw that Yuvus was still fighting three hobgoblins, two being taken down by another melee fighter and some of the ranged archers.

I ran over and pulled another hobgoblin out of the melee by attacking it a few times, alleviating the two tanks’ load enough that they could focus a bit more on being offensive instead of just blocking or dodging attacks. The hobgoblin was already wounded and I was starting to hit my stride so it quickly fell to my sword and I turned back to Yuvus to see that the last remaining hobgoblins had also been taken down.

There were only two kobolds remaining but everyone had realised that the raid bosses would join the fight once they were taken down so almost everyone was getting as much rest as they could, leaving four raiders to deal with the kobolds. We were proven right as when they fell the two bosses let out a roar and started to charge at us. Since the last time I checked one of the tanks had turned into a spirit and the other four tanks were already heavily injured.

Not to mention that half of the fighters were getting healed and the mages were starting to run out of mana potions while all of us were incredibly exhausted by the long fight. Another wave of anxiety swept over me as I was unsure of how this fight would end. As the thought went through my head I felt a smile appear on my face from all the adrenaline pumping through my veins, this was the exact sort of fight I loved.

I couldn’t stand around examining the battlefield as the bosses had almost reached us. The four tanks stood in front of them, two on each. This managed to barely stop the bugbear but the high kobold just jumped above the tanks before flapping its wings a few times, aiming at the healers. I looked around but it seemed like no one else could do anything so I started to charge at the high kobold myself.

Dropping my dark blade I used one of my hands to take out some diamond dust from a pouch that I kept at my side. My other hand created a fire whip that shot at the kobold before wrapping around its thigh. As I saw the whip hit the dust in my other hand burned and a wave of arcane strength went through my arm and into my body as I tugged down on the whip, bringing down the flying lizard.

I then charged at the kobold and started to grapple it, making sure it couldn’t get past me. Even through the spell I felt as if I was going to be thrown aside like a pebble, luckily the spell had increased my weight enough to stop the raid boss in its tracks. Our fight quickly devolved into a wrestling match where we tried to overpower our opponent, a part of me thought that it was incredibly unmagelike to throw punches but I was having too much fun to care.

Even if I wanted to cast a spell I didn’t have the time to concentrate on it. From the corner of my eye I could see that half of the raid members had come to reinforce me while the other half went to help the goliath with the bugbear. They hit the raid bosses with everything they had, swords were stabbed into it, arrows flew through the air and turned it into a pin cushion, a multitude of spells rammed into it.

But it wouldn’t budge as I started to feel my spell starting to fade and after a full minute of holding it in place I finally ran out of mana causing my body to return to its normal state. I was immediately thrown into one of the walls with so much force that I lost all the air in my lungs and I lost half my total hp, leaving me with a sliver left. I took a few breaths and looked up at the raid bosses as I hobbled back towards the healers.

Both of them were now surrounded so they couldn’t start a charge luckily but that wasn’t saying much as my fellow raid members were still getting thrown about like they were nothing. I saw a new wave of delvers that had finished being healed arrive at the melees as the most wounded fell back and quickly ran to get healed as fast as they could so that they could rejoin the fight.

Unfortunately the new wave only made up a quarter of the forces we entered with as half of the raid had been reduced to spirits that could do nothing but watch. I didn’t lose all hope though as I noticed the bosses starting to slow down, the end was in sight. As I reached the healers I was proven right as a massive wooden spike grew out of the ground and into the high kobold, finally finishing it off.

The Bugbear quickly followed its rival when a halberd found a weak spot in its armour and cut through an artery causing it to quickly bleed to death. The fight was finally over as a loud cheer erupted throughout the room and a giant chest appeared in the centre of the bloodstained arena. We all agreed to wait for everyone to be reconstructed by the dungeon before opening the chest and distributing the loot via the usual system that was used when multiple parties took part in one quest.

About five minutes into the hour I was fully healed, thanks to an amazing druid, and started to look around for my fellow party members. We had all gotten out of it alive but incredibly exhausted and we spent the rest of the hour laughing and boasting to each other about how well we did. Eventually the hour was up and the loot split between the parties, unfortunately there wasn’t enough for everyone to choose what they wanted but we still got three good pieces of loot and about 10 gold coins each.

With everything finished everyone went through the final door and left the dungeon. It was around noon meaning we had spent a good thirty six hours in the dungeon, which wasn’t really much as some dungeons were big enough that they could take months to go through every level that it contained, the biggest one was even said to take a year but no one had done a full run through of that dungeon in decades so no one knew for sure.

As everyone left the dungeon they were in pretty high spirits so we went to the guild hall and drank to our fill and had a great time, tomorrow we would be leaving this small village in search of our next big adventure.

Lucins

And that is the end of the first arc, I hope ya'll liked it. I will be uploading an epilogue next week that will serve to set up some of the next arc and then my hiatus will start.