Chapter 144

No Rest For the Wicked (III)

The ghastly scenery continued as the group of sixteen entered the canyon below the plateau; the surrounding walls were lined with gray and dry moss and with jagged rocks protruding from the cliff sides like knives, while the road was full of holes and head-sized rocks strewn about. The apparitions continued to float above and around them, whispering inviting pleas, but the group kept their heads together and ignored the calls to the best of their abilities.

It was quite depressing, walking through the world of shadows and shades, with the sky above cloaked in a layer of ash and desolation. Their pace was somewhat slow but steady and they religiously stuck to the 'road', however faint it may have been. They heeded the Shopkeeper's warning to the fullest, not wanting for this trip to be their last ever taken.

Emma took the front while Kramer took the rear, two main tanks ready to stop whatever may come, while Lukas and Belric, Kramer's secondary tank, took narrow flanks while the rest of the group cradled around those four. Nobody was quite in the mood to chat, yet they almost felt obliged to do so since the silence was eerily invasive and corrupting, like an invisible knife slowly skinning them.

They didn't talk about anything in particular, mostly sharing tips and tricks about the classes, loot, and such. It was mostly a distraction rather than a genuine discussion, and a welcome one at that. Emma suddenly came to a stop, prompting others to do the same, hairs rising on their arms as they held their weapons tighter.

Luckily, it was not an enemy; rather, stuck between two cliffs forming a canyon was a massive, icicle-shaped rock, its edges rough and uneven, shaped like an obelisk from bottom to top. At the very front, just in her line of sight, was a wooden, downtrodden-seeming plaque hanging sideways, runic inscriptions all but washed off of it. Even if it was whole, however, she would be unable to read it. She merely paused out of curiosity and told others the same as they resumed their walk, rounding the massive rock.

The path continued just the same on the other end, winding in curving lines through the canyon. They felt rather small underneath the surrounding behemoths, yet somewhat safe at the same time -- it was like the two cliffs were shields from the terrible world beyond them, cradling their small group inside a singular vestige of security present in this world.

"Stop," Diya whispered softly at Emma, prompting the latter to come to an immediate halt, the rest of the group following right after.

"What's wrong?" Emma asked with a faint frown.

"We... we are being watched," Diya said.

"Watched? You mean the ghosts?"

"No," Diya shook her head. "Inside... inside the cliffs. I don't know what... but there's something -- lots of somethings -- watching us."

"Big? Small?" Emma asked, eyeing the cliffs warily.

"I don't know," Diya sighed and shook her head. "Their Mana... is not strong. Very weak, actually."

"Group tighter and call Kramer over," Emma told Daniel who sprinted to the rear while others corralled closer together. Kramer arrived just a few seconds later, a worried expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.

"There are some creatures watching us," Emma replied. "From the cliffs."

"From above?" he mumbled, looking up.

"No, from the inside of the cliffs."

"Oh..."

"What do you think we should do?" Emma asked both Kramer and Diya at the same time; the former deferred to Diya, surprising Emma for a moment.

"... I... I think we should drag them out," Diya suggested. "They're weak, but if there are more further down the road... we might get overrun."

"Kramer?"

"Let's go with that," Kramer said without a second of hesitation. "We'll pretend to stop for some rest and hopefully they jump us."

"Alright, but we need to reconfigure the formation a bit," Emma said. "You and I will take flanks -- we can't be too close together or they might get spooked. Make sure Diya, Amelia, and Dylan are at an even spread and not together. Amelia on me, Dylan on you, and Diya for the rest."

"Hm," Kramer nodded. "At least one of the Assassins should pretend to scout ahead. We'll form a hexagonal formation with four tanks evenly spread out to cover as much room as possible. Healers between us in a triangle, DPS spaced evenly between us and healers."

"Yup," Emma nodded. "Diya?"

"It sounds good," Diya nodded. "As soon as they attack... we... uh, how do you say it? Tight up?"

"Tighten the formation, yes," Kramer nodded. "We'll have less room to maneuver but it will be easier to cover for each other. Safety above everything else."

"Alright, we'll resume moving forward so we don't raise suspicion," Emma said. "Inform everyone else within five minutes and then we stop for the rest."

"Alright."

"Yes."

The group continued walking the same way as before rather than immediately changing the formation; Emma and Kramer took the front and the rear still as they made their way forward through the canyon. Slowly, the word spread around throughout the group as stealthily as possible, but nobody reacted overtly, keeping whatever they felt in the moment to themselves.

Roughly five minutes later, Emma stopped and called out: "Alright, let's take a break!" before the group tightened slightly and everyone slowly shuffled their positions. Daniel was tasked with 'scouting' forward so he moved a few dozen feet away from the group before dropping in stealth, routing back immediately, and hiding next to Diya, having been tasked with protecting her during the initial clash.

Though everyone tried to appear as relaxed as possible, the tension was palpable; eyes inadvertently kept glancing toward the cliffs, and the conversations all about died out.

Emma felt like she should do something, but didn't know what; tell them to relax and just chat normally? Even she couldn't do that. It wasn't because they lacked confidence in themselves, but a combination of other elements -- the Shopkeeper's stern warnings, the general look and feel of this place, the fact that this was a whole new world that they've never seen before... all those little and larger things added up slowly and were virtually impossible to shake off.

"They're coming..." Diya whispered softly, yet used Mana to carry her voice toward everyone. She, smartly, didn't say it too early -- but a mere second before the stern silence was broken, not giving anyone enough time to panic.

Screeches blasted out into the open as the cliffs shook; tiny, dog-sized creatures that crawled on all four, made of gray bones and a few patches of rotting meat, came sprinting out of the countless tiny crevices within the cliffs, converging onto the party.

"ON YOUR FEET!!" Kramer shouted from the top of his lungs, rallying everyone and startling them out of the temporary stupor. He slammed his hammer against his shield and drew the attention of a dozen or so crawlers. From the quick estimate, there were roughly forty-five of them, which meant that each tank would have to draw at least ten or so toward them.

Emma yelled right after, slamming her warhammer into the ground and using the basic area-of-effect taunt ability, causing another dozen crawlers to veer from attacking the center toward her. Lukas dug his gauntlets against one another and roared as well, while Belric, being a Bulwark, rooted himself in place and summoned out a massive, wide shield that covered his side almost entirely and also had an added effect of being quite 'attractive' to the creatures in the Tower.

All forty-five crawlers were re-routed onto the tanks and slammed forward as the four engaged in a spitfire battle for a second before damage dealers also started using their skills.

The three healers just finished the round of buffing up everyone and rapidly switched onto healing the tanks; the priorities were Lukas and Belric since their gear and levels were slightly worse than Emma's and Kramer's -- Dylan and Amelia focused those two, while Diya took the responsibility of keeping everyone else topped off. She continuously kept casting her shields, prioritizing Emma and Kramer on refreshes, while occasionally tossing a ball of light at a group of creatures -- an ability she got at level 40, 'Blinding Surge' which, as its name suggested, temporarily blinded all creatures hit by it.

Seeing that the formation held even thirty seconds into the battle, damage dealers started going all out; Senna repeatedly summoned her swords and wrung them to the crawlers' behinds and spiked them through the backs of their skulls; Ryu repeatedly charged blasts of fire above him and was shooting them as though he was a machine-gun; Jamal was a bright, white star amidst the gloomy gray as he didn't stick to one group but rather kept moving in a circle around each of them, sending shimmering arrays of starlight to purge through the groups of crawlers.

This was the first time Kramer and others truly saw the other group fight, and most wound up with their mouth ajar, jaws hanging low; though there wasn't anything like a 'DPS' meter, there were health bars attached to the monsters -- and, from that, it wouldn't be moronic to conclude that Emma's group was responsible for roughly 65-70% damage despite the fact that they only had three actual damage dealers -- Senna, Jamal, and Daniel.

While the former two showered the groups of crawlers in impressive, over-the-top attacks, Daniel's were far more subdued, but what he lacked in fireworks, he made up in firepower as he was able to cleave through a single crawler within six seconds at most.

The battle ended just as quickly as it began, and the group realized they barely broke a sweat. Though the crawlers may appear somewhat scary, they were surprisingly weak, each sporting around 150 Vitality, which was basically nothing. It was also then that the group realized that the queer crawlers were actually just level 30 common creatures, realizing that their previous fright was entirely due to a case of severe paranoia rather than caution.

"Alright, clean up the battlefield," Emma called out. "And then we rest for real. Geez, I blew through almost all my skills... these bastards were so weak..."

"Seriously?" Daniel shrugged. "I used only one Skill that entire battle. Everything else was pretty much just basic attacks."

"Yeah," Jamal sighed, lamenting. "I realized I was overkilling it a bit by the third group. Oh well, at least I think I looked fairly cool, eh?"

"Tsk..."

While Emma's group joked around as they cleaned up the battlefield, Kramer and others stared strangely at the group of six. When Cain told him that every member of his group could easily beat Kramer and others without breaking a sweat, it was a hard thing to believe; yet, now... he was all but certain -- it was like pitting together a fairly talented, but still a novice soldier against a similarly talented, but also woefully more experienced one.

Geez, Kramer sighed as he smiled bitterly. Even two spots is pretty much a gift... do these idiots even need us?