Peter grabs his shell and stretches while yawning. “So after that quick break we can head out. There should be some more swarms just out of range that you guys can play with. I want you to try and not get surrounded this time though. Be more proactive and keep mobile. You guys apparently have some ridiculous stuff going for you, so give it a shot.”
Jason rubs his eyes, “Will we even be able to reach the next waystation today? I know we suspected that we would have to camp out overnight, but honestly it feels like we haven’t gone all that far. We could probably retreat to the previous one and be back within a few hours.”
Peter laughs, “We totally could. In fact, it would be quite reasonable. If anything, the guild would prefer that as it would lead to you culling more swarms. That isn’t what we will be doing though. Since I’ve been committed to helping you three, we will rough it tonight. I need to see how you guys handle camping out. When it comes time to set up camp, I will disappear into the background so just do whatever you guys usually do.”
The group look at one another and roll their eyes before they begin to travel again. Not for long though as they soon meet another swarm just as Peter had predicted. This time they knew it was coming, so had prepared better for it. Courtney had already buffed Rosha while Jason opened up the harness Lily was staying in.
They walk over a small rise and there are the swarm cats. This time unlike the previous swarms, the cats had all laid down and were stretched out in the sun. While this was unexpected Jason didn’t want to lose a chance to get a solid hit in. He crouches down and takes a flying leap. The swarm is a distance away but with the difference in height and some surreptitious use of his movement skill to stretch out his air time Jason makes it.
He comes crashing down on the edge of the swarm just as the threads burst out of his war stomp. Caught unaware, the swarm is unable to protect themselves properly and a good thirty of the cats are pierced by the threads. Of those cats twenty of them die while the other ten vomit blood and bits of their organs as the swarm’s collective health pool heals the continuous damage being dealt out.
Behind Jason, Rosha slams into the swarm just moments later. While the cats are more aware of the threat, she still sweeps away a good 12 or so cats. Three of which are directly killed. Then they both pull back and start to move around the swarm in opposite directions.
With their attention split, the swarm takes a few crucial moments to decide which of the two to target. Taking this chance, Courtney sends out another stream of illusionary fire over their heads. All the while Rosha continues to sweep her staff into the mass of cats, bashing away three to five a swing. Jason has a harder time of adding to this but he can still duck in a couple times to blast away at the cats nearest him.
This disparity in damage dealt the swarm as a whole turns toward Rosha after it recovers from the fiery distraction. Jason was waiting, though. Now ignored, he drops low and sweeps low with a blast empowered kick.
It throws tens of cats into the air and more than a handful suffer the brunt of his skill, dying from the massive damage. This sudden explosion of damage attracts aggro right away and the swarm turns back towards Jason. He was expecting it though as the cats bunch up to attack him the foot he used to kick out finishes its rotation.
Jason pivots and adds on to the momentum, slamming his heal out towards the piled up cats. This time though, instead of never ending threads, a flower blooms. With the cats gathered up, the razor-like petals are able to pierce through multiple targets. This attack really stacks up the damage. It is to the point that the swarms health pool backfires as overkill damage is transferred over to cats that didn’t get hit.
Off to the side Peter whistles. “Nice! You generally need some swarmbane gear to get damage to transfer. That’s a killer skill you have going on. Now hurry up with the cleanup. I’m going to watch the rabbit so don’t get yourself killed or some such.” And Peter turns away from Jason and back to where they first hit the swarm.
Lily had jumped off of Jason’s shoulder at some point while he was there and she stayed behind to fight. With her being so small, much of the swarm’s offensive power has been robbed. Having to actually try and land their attacks shows that individually the cats aren’t worth all that much. Lily though is having just a ball of a time. Back and forth, to and fro, she hops and bounces around.
The cats can’t stop her and with paws sheathed in Energy, Lily attacks with wild abandon. While she isn’t a skilled fighter her high levels of agility make up for it. Her attacks aren’t quite enough to burst down any specific cat but she is adding a steady stream of damage and chipping away at that pooled hp total the swarm has going on.
Then, as the fight continues, the cats start to run out of that health. Jason and Rosha don’t notice too much of a change but to Lily it is blindingly clear. Now despite her claws not doing all that much damage, the cats are falling right and left. With this the swarm just isn’t able to stay cohesive and the cats break apart, fleeing off into all directions. This could even be seen as them having fled too soon as it forces Peter to deal with a couple stragglers to get the numbers down enough.
Bun.