The parties had now formed a raid. They formed a battering ram for the front hall removal and fast dodge tanks for the rear. In addition the ranged DPS would be shooting out the rear. This was because the front was not very easy to avoid friendly fire, but due to diminishing ranges shooting out the back end would see greater splash DMG and a reduced arc. While the front would see a longer arc and increased range but an easier time splashing fire all over the raid. It was an age old decision that even their longest ancestors had to face. And choose they did.

Micky being a support would be in the center. His job was to keep up. He would be applying mostly [Mass Accelerate] and [Mass Cleanse]. This would keep the group moving. He would of course be using [Mass Enrage] before any engagements as well. But mostly the support’s job was to keep the move on.

The plan was to pinball down the halls, pick up any group they might come across Alpha anything that isn’t a friendly and run like hell. They were treating this as a timed run, because essentially it was. Already in the middle of the discussion they had faced a dozen different groups of the black beasts, and a few small contingents of zombies. Clearly these black beasts were respawning abnormally.

With all the gear checked and ready and all the supplies stowed for transport the raid was ready to move. They picked a hall that was in the general direction of the boss and went for it. They charged down the hall directed by the pathfinder classes (via vote) and the adventurers moved in behind them as they moved out. The melee in particular tanks, followed by pathfinders followed by the supports who kept in range of the groups to keep them all in range, followed by the ranged followed by the dodge tanks.

The zombies in the hall didn’t know what hit them. They literally ended up as splatters on the walls and ceiling, then there was the squish and crunch under boots as the raid moved past. Micky felt horrible. He knew that they were just zombies, but there was something about the humanoid monsters getting crushed that made you sick to your stomach seeing them crushed like this. It wasn’t the worst feeling he ever had, but being distinctly humanoid shaped and getting crushed by human wave tactics, it was not a good feel. And this was something Micky usually enjoyed doing to monsters in general.

Micky kept up his [Accelerated] stacks on the front and rear lines. This was his first real workout for his [Accelerate] spell. He usually leaned on [Enrage] so this felt weird to him. Like he was doing something, or forgetting something, or supposed to carry something that wasn’t there, and just felt wrong.

As the raid rounded the corner of the hall and saw the room open up. They grouped back up and charged in formation. The battle was intense but short, the front lines charged in, while the rear alphaed the monsters and the dodge tanks caught up. There were some complaints from the rear melee but these were quickly overruled, this was not the time to worry about divvying out XP, even if this was supposed to be a training exercise. That was how people died, and you needed to be alive to worry about XP.

So the group quickly moved on from the room in the direction the pathfinders indicated. They were on a new mission, find the Instructors in front of the boss room in the shortest time possible. No chests, no alternate routes, no side rooms or bosses unless they were unfortunate and stupid enough to walk into their path…

This of course broke down at the second chest found. The first chest was in a side room and was pointed at, destroying the formation, but otherwise ignored. No, the second chest was in the middle of a cleared room, three corridors down from where they started. A good half of the raid ignored it, including all the tanks. A good half of what was left looked on with longing but otherwise neutral expressions, Micky was among those, he didn’t know where the rest of his party was except for Prin who was amongst the tanks.

No it was some idget of a healer and a few ranged. It was of course booby-trapped, and worst it was also a mimic should said trap go off. While this dungeon had very obvious traps it wasn’t called a learner dungeon for no reason. If you did what you were told in the way and the order you were told to, you would be fine. If you did not, you would be punished severely, this is also why it was called a skill type dungeon, as opposed to a rated dungeon, that just meant if you had a certain rating, and did your job, you could beat the dungeon 10 out of 10.

Which meant that now there was an incapacitated healer and several ranged in range of a mini-boss, also known as a game boss, with no tank in sight. Of course, that broke the formation terribly.

So now the tanks, both front and rear tanks, were charging towards the mini-boss. And low and behold, when things got bad they also get worse. The boss also pulled all uncleared mobs in all corridors from the side, this is excluding the black beasts that were, even at this moment, charging the group with respawns. Now the tanks were charging the mini-boss with their backlines exposed to the mobs. Micky just wanted to cry, the tanks just wanted to cry, the healer and his cronies just wanted to cry. Nothing to it but getting back to work.

Luckily there were still some ranged DPS still hanging around to kite tank the mimic before it could finish off their allies. The healer still crying, and at that point trying to crawl away from the mimic, saw the mimic pulled off of him and started healing himself and his allies. They promptly got back up and started to help kite the mimic as well.

This gave half of the tanks the excuse they needed to block off the mobs. Prin of course, chased down the mobs that were going into the general direction of Micky. By the look on her face and the bloody aura from her racial ability, Micky felt sorry for those mobs. Now that the raid was back into fighting formations the battle was fairly quick and organized. Everyone knew their roles, just a spot of greed caused a slight hiccup.

So the raid got a move on again. And this time people stayed in formation. Which was the next problem. The saying no plan survives contact with the enemy could be said to be the motto of this raid. Because mobs, of course, chose the most inopportune time to charge out of their side rooms and make contact with the raid. Which was of course, the rows between the ranged DPS and the supports.

With no tank this was when the groups had their first casualties that couldn’t be patched up with a quick heal. The zombies didn’t take that long to take down, but they had inflicted a magical [Zombification] debuff. The healers could take care of it, but it would not be an instant cure.

This caused a reshuffle of the formation. Now there would be some non tank DPS that would stay on the flanks of the ranged and supports at all times. This weakened the charging power of the front lines, but it was a necessary sacrifice.

And of course, two rooms down was another chest. You would think that the raid had learned their lesson after chewing out that healer who thought he was one of the untouchable classes. This didn’t happen, but this time they realized what was happening before it happened. After all it just took a little bit of looking to see the DPS that was trying to sneak over to the chest nonchalantly. If he succeeded nobody would know and he could keep all the loot for himself afterall.

He did not, and was thus excluded from the loot. The raid even put him on a shortlist of reduced loot offenders. But the raid did learn it’s lesson though. And any chest that was so blatant as to be tripped over would be looted, by the rogue tree classes, anything with an actual lock picking skill.

Finally, the raid was a well oiled machine, with all it’s kinks and crimps worked out. There were no less then seven more chests, twenty three more raids on the supports, and five more injured, but they made it to the boss room door…

But the instructors were not there.