Winter Wood

Our Fast Travel ended what seemed like only two or so hours after it began when the dragons came to the end of the roadway and required manual guidance through the reigns and potential reinforcement.

Since it was getting late we decided to make camp here at the end of the road while Conansson logged out to check in with his family and do stuff. While the opportunity was available, all of the adults except for Agnes logged out to take care of their own businesses. Ivana, Go, Lil, Skooma, Agnes, and I were left to set up camp by ourselves.

Camp was once again nothing more than releasing the dragons to wander while setting up a fire area and some pavilions and our own bed frames.

However, in this area that was level par not only to us but the pampered stable dragons who were only now around level fifty, we could not impair the dragons by hobbling them. Here, we had to corral the camp with two rows of rope to contain the flightless dragons within thirty yards of the circle of four wagons and three pavilions. A pavilion layered with hides for the boys, one for girls, and one for familiars.

Once all of this was complete, we took out some bundles of incense sticks and special tallow candles to place around the perimeter of our camp. Once lit, they would supposedly ward off various forms of mundane and magical beasts of various types and grades. Used together, they produced enough noxious smoke that they had to be lit with magic from a distance.

Because each of these items would remain burning for at least six hours apiece and the others would take two or so hours of game time to return, we decided to leave the camp in the hands of Dew, their familiars, and the largely capable dragons while we went hunting.

However, our general strength and numbers as a single group might present a problem for us. Because of this, the six of us divided into three teams of two. Lil and I, Go and Agnes, and Skooma with Ivana. Since Go and I were hogging the healers, I divided my familiars with the other two teams so that Go and Agnes had Hermes to power level them while Skooma and Ivana had Cweeper solely for support.

To help minimize the risks, instead of picking the main cardinal directions we all went in northeastern directions so that we would fan out by about a mile or so from each other for every mile we traveled. In this way, our maps would show our positions as party and clan members so that we could always retreat to another party if things go south.

It was more likely that Lil and her familiars would have to run away to the others while riding Hermes' armored tree dragon as I held off a sudden wave of overwhelming numbers because of the game's rating for me. Just the one kobold event location that was potentially ranged between forty and fifty instead of starting at fifty had proven how difficult my enemies could be.

I mean, they were easy for me because I was hella buffed with Imperial Order, but for creatures like the armored tree dragon Lil's warrior imp of the younger generation or even Duck despite all of their accessories would not be able to safely fight in such numbers.

Luckily, this trip was only to scout the next few miles of territory we would all be traveling through. Tomorrow, we can send everybody else- except for Conansson who was still only level fifty and even only had level twenty class skills- ahead to scout for ten miles and reconvene while we negotiated the wagons. If I sent them out in a tighter formation with Stonewall, Hermes, and Cweeper in point, I doubt anybody would complain about the experience splashing around.

As well, without my two demigods around, I could somewhat hog all of the kills while they swell in levels.

Once we had finally fanned out more than a hundred yards from one another, Lil and I ended up taking point in a V formation as traces of light and then sound from our left and right revealed the others experiencing a confrontation. Hopefully, they would be experiences more than one type of regional beast to broaden tomorrow's horizons.

We ourselves did not receive any combat alerts for another few minutes and then it was to find that we had come across a scattering of C grade 'frostberry' trees containing the ice birds I had already experienced. However, these were slightly larger than the immature versions I dealt with and caught and instead of just wearing scales over their feathers and daggers on their talons they could throw substantial feathers of ice that struck like blades.

While Lil trained her already high Agility by deflecting the attacks aimed at the weaker members of the party, I carefully threw out thick streamers of adhesive cordycep 'silk' through the surrounding tree limbs and trunks.

Once there was no escape and several ice blades had smashed against my armor or stabbed between the plates for less than one percent of my health apiece, I flicked out and twisted my silk into long whips with which to swiftly flick out onto the bodies of the birds. Once stuck to some part of the whip, I would drag the bird low, step up onto the whip, and then anchor the adhesive whip onto the frozen ground before tearing my end free.

Seven birds in the air soon became seven birds hovering above the ground while tiring themselves out. Surprisingly, to me, it turned out that Melpomene had included several rank blessing to the guild positions that I was not aware of. Fodder were granted a bonus ten-percent experience until level thirty where it became five percent, Elites were granted one permanent familiar slot and the potential to acquire non-restricted mastery skills at a higher rate.

Elders were granted the same plus-one familiar slot and a mastery skill that would usually be class-restricted but was instead converted into a Clan Elder's Pastime with halved experience gain. I, as a clan founder, did not receive general clan currencies from events but instead gained experience alongside event currencies. As the Guild Master, not only did Go receive the same experience, pet slot, and pastime mastery skill he also got to choose from one of the Clan Founder's skills.

Restricted, of course, by things such as the spinal alignment of spin specialist or the racial skills related to CordAniCol. However, this bloody genius chose MY very own Beast Mastery skill as well as Guild Master's Summoning Pastime. His magic stats were now on par with his physical stats, he could summon two low level or one intermediate spirit beast for an hour every three hours, and he had three more familiar slots.

Just because they were available, he ran over to choose the weakest bird on the premise of making it the strongest and tamed it and our clan, of course, offered plus-five-percent stats, speed, and experience during combat in a buff called 'Cold Bench' to pets.

How was this insanity possible? Our clan's 'homepage' in the game and on the forums when looking up clans in the Social tab or in reality had these big bold words that set it apart from all of the common clans. 'PATRON GOD: MELPOMENE'.

Melpomene had told me that after the game switches currencies and goes through a minor overhaul, there would be an in-game meeting of certain groups and people. Groups and people related to the gods of the game like my clan and I.

Right now, though, the ice birds were loaded up stuck along the length of the armored tree dragon's tail that grew with its level the a gecko's tail grew with weight. Eventually its body would proportion itself out every five or ten levels before naturally evolving somewhere that was once speculated to be around or above fifty for this creature's current stage.

Currently, it made a great rack to tie captured critters to in its upper forties while the familiars rode comfortably on three or four yards of equally long but much broader body. Because we took our time, though, I could see the vague glow of my demigods less than two hundreds yards out while their groups caught up to us. Even through the misty cold winds, I could easily make out their divine glow.

By the time we were not only a mile out from camp but from each other, I had long since lost sight of my familiars and even before then I had lost the sounds of their random action. However, whenever one of them actually fought, I could still make out the lasting flashes of their sword strokes.

Lil and I had also faced two more confrontations within the last hour, facing groups of large icy blue and actually frosted scorpions called 'Frozen Sting King' all above level fifty in the first fight. In the second fight we faced a combination of small bear-like rats with long icy quills about their arms and backs that were supported by a few young frostingales.

The giant scorpions had three-foot legs with body heights averaging and three-and-a-half with body lengths of four to five feet. Their long curling tails were no less than two feet longer than their bodies and they each had three-pronged pincers each as long as my arm from elbow to fingertips. In armor.

On top of having a warm-to-freeze reactive magical venom in its tail that could ice a limb or partial the entire body from a body sting they also had a pesky ability to patch their breaking bodies with ice armor. Luckily, this was a damage-reactive trait that only increased their defense after being injured. If they encased themselves from the start, they would have lasted longer.

While Lil's spear was the discovery of this trait, my own Spirit Slashes caused critical true damage to their faces and killed in a single blow so there was no freezing reaction.

[2x Critical: Bisection]

[One Hit Kill]

[+130x2XP]

Even my base Fire Cutter instead of the fused Blazing Wind Cutter option one-shot a sting king. Just to let Lil have some fun, I only let myself kill three of the six ice ice related mobs. I still got some experience for every kill but not with any multipliers.

Not only was each of these sting kings worth around one-thirty experience, they also dropped a steady forty-gold apiece.

As for the inter-species group, the combat style of the 'Frosted Quill Bear' was rather unremarkable despite the fact that it turned out to have high health and defenses. In front of true damage, though, it took two swings to clear one of the rats. Go then handled the rest while I rounded up the young and physically weak birds with regular cords.

Each rat handed out one hundred and fifty experience from averaging at fifty-five and fifty gold. Now it seemed like the enemies were given gold amounts in proportions to their levels. Somewhat.

Right now, though, Lil and I found ourselves faced with an event location that I was not entirely sure of. Even with my appraisal skill the only information I received from the hollow fallen tree and stump icon on my compass bar was the name 'The Warrens'. This, of course, made me think of the giant ice bear rat things.

However, a home base event like this where we just waltz up to the house of some monster species was sure to have both numbers and an elite or boss of some form. As well, it was entirely possible that there would also be ice birds involved. Against enemies of that type and level, their overall magical firepower should be able to deal with large numbers of these mobs just in Lil's class skills.

Especially considering I had spent a few hours today doing crafts and activated everybody's near-perpetual mana and physical recovery as assistants and the designer. With my natural buffs as Melpomene's chosen and champions, those same skills had much shorter cools than usual. Lil herself was my first magic artillery unit which came with a certain level of reliability.

Before Agnes joined and Oleander made it to Sierra, Lil was my party's first healer and mage character. Just her most basic earth skill was enough to cut most mobs down by a third of their health if they were level par. With her accessories and her new bladed staff, that same spell should drop half a crowd to half health.

In the short time she had owned it she had already taught her frostingale how to use its ice armor magic on her own body or the other familiars. With a dedicated defense buff, I had even less to worry about since the ice armor increased the wearer's ice and water magic resistances for a few minutes at a time. However, this still left the question of how strong would a true elite monster of these levels be?

Plus, even if our small group was strong enough then the others would almost certainly be upset with us for having been greedy. So, I could only use my magic whistling skill to make a few sharp and shrill alarms to summon the others. Then, only around ten minutes later, the other two teams had joined us.

"Go, Skooma, guard me," Lil says once everybody and our familiars were together, claiming the point position for herself. "Agnes, Ivana, you guys will hang back with the familiars and focus on either side of us to keep us from getting surrounded. Leo is going to go up into the trees and stealth kill the elite mob since monsters in this region seem to have ice magic and the lead mob here might AOE all of us into slow-motion somehow."

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