Peter laughs, “But those are small things. Overall, the three of you did fine in your fight. Especially with how fluid you guys were in switching between herds. And Courtney, don’t feel bad about only getting one herd with your illusion and how it woke up so quickly. Even though it didn’t stay under long, it ended up behind the other herd. This let them separate. If they had stayed together, things would have been much more difficult.”

“Now let’s repeat this a couple more times before your final exam. I set up a bit of a fight to challenge you all, and I can’t wait to see if I will need to step in and help. Anyway, on to the next set of yubjubs!”

The group continues on and over the next handful of hours they go up against three more pairs of yubjubs. Under Peter’s guidance, the group improves their coordination once again. While they had done alright against the swarm cats, they were a little too coordinated. Even the yubjubs don’t provide the best experience with fighting a large number of opponents, but at least they can react differently between groups.

Then, as the day is closing, Peter stops the group. “Okay, this upcoming fight will be the last. I hadn’t intended for such a battle, but life doesn’t always give you what you want. My guess is that whoever placed the yubjubs here put a large grouping by the city to make it look like more of a problem then it is. Anyway, this will be the biggest fight of the entire trip.”

“Unlike the previous fights, I won’t be judging you by how you clear the monsters. Rather, I will judge you by how long you can last before I have to step in. There is no chance of the three of you beating them all.”

Rosha rolls her eyes, “Okay, out with it. How many of them are there?”

Peter shrugs, “Not too many when you compare it to how the yubjubs normally gather. The herd has 30 in it and they have between 50 and 80 yubs a piece. So say about two thousand yubs? While the number of yubjubs is high, they have less total yubs because they are all young adults. A natural herd will have about 16 yubjubs but almost ten thousand yubs.”

“So yeah, just a few to fight. You are going to be beaten down by attrition. I doubt enough of them can attack at once to alpha strike any of you down. I’ll be off to the side anyway, so I can jump in as needed. Now we are only a few minutes away from them, so get read.”

Jason looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “You’re actually giving us a heads up instead of telling us right as we get there?”

Peter laughs, “This time I don’t have to tilt things more in the monster’s favor. After all, they have quite the numbers advantage.”

Jason shakes his head, “Fair enough”.

As they walk the last few minutes to the fight Courtney prepares her magic. Her shadow form and life drain are sustained buffs, so they go last. Besides that, she has several other buffs that only last a certain amount of time. While casting them now means they won’t last as long during the fight, she feels it is a decent trade off.

Then the massive herd of yubjubs comes into view. It isn’t quite a carpet across the landscape, but they sure are attempting to be one. Courtney shakes her head, “I don’t think my illusion spells will be much use. While there aren’t that many enemies, they are way to spread out.”

Jason nods, “It would be ridiculous if you could cover that much area at this level. Your spells would fall more under siege warfare at that point.”

Courtney nods and finishes out her buffs. With that, the group is ready and they charge forward. And though it only has half a minute left, they are much faster because of one of the buffs. Enough time for them to break into the large herd of yubs, penetrating well into the center of the monsters.

Leading the charge is Courtney. While she isn’t the tankiest of the trio, she has the best sustain, especially with the life drain. While it won’t recover her stamina, she will at least be able to keep her health topped up.

Right behind her is Rosha, who is using her staff to keep the flanks clear of monsters. Though unlike usual, she grips her staff near the center. With much more control, she can keep the area right next to them clear. While this sacrifices keeping a broader area free of enemies it is more important to her that she can keep both sides clear instead of one at a time.

Then of course bringing up the rear is Jason and Lily. Jason is focusing on his punches. While having his feet clad in his war stomp is effective, he doesn’t have as fine a control of the Energy being used. In fact, he is restricting himself to punches as he has the most practice with it.

Lily on the other hand isn’t holding back at all. Not that she doesn’t understand the situation. Rather, she has a different strategy worked out for the fight. Because she has a place to retreat to, the harness, she can go all out and then rest when needed. With her fur charged, she romps around at Jason’s feet, taking on a similar role to what his war stomp had been covering.

For the first part of the fight, things go smoothly, if slow. With none of them going all out the yubs are much slower to die but that is fine for the group. At the moment they can keep the yubs at bay while preserving their stamina. Still, as the fight drags on, more and more yugs crowd around them, ready to strike.

Akhier

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