Danger Looms on the Horizon

Once the squad had reassembled, and had a night of sleep uninterrupted by bandits and other dangers of the night, they continued their seemingly long journey back to the farm to complete their first quest.

It was around midday by the time you could see your home, and therefore the end of this trek.

But it would seem it wasn't time to close the book on it just yet as a glowing block of sym... no, letters appeared before you.

WORLD QUEST ONGOING: PROTECT THE FARM!!!

A wolf pack is attacking the farm. Band together to protect the denizens!

WARNING, THIS IS A RAID QUEST!

TIME REMAINING 3:24:16

"Come on, we gotta hurry!" Pollick ordered, breaking into a sprint, his shield clanging noisily against his thigh. The rest of the group hesitated only a second before running after him, you yourself taking a little longer to build up into your top speed before you started gaining on them.

"A Raid Quest, what's that?" You heard one of the three younger adventurers asked between panting breathes.

"Raid Quests are kinda like roaming events. Typically, they come in two varieties, Raid Bosses and Raid Defense. Raid Bosses are super powerful Bosses that can randomly appear in the wild, when one does, all nearby adventurers get a popup letting them know. You're supposed to work together with large amounts of other adventurers to defeat them within the time period. If you succeed then you can get some pretty cool loot, but you only get one shot at them. You die and you'll respawn back in town, but you won't be able to participate in the attack." Pollick shouted back, not seeming out of breath at all.

"So, you shouldn't fight them then?" Dickhead added, "It seems like the smart thing to do is just hide and wait it out, so long as the game thinks you're participating in the fight you'll still get the rewards, right?"

"No, the devs thought of that. You're graded based on how much damage, or healing you put out during the event." Pollick answered.

Whatever had been about to be said, you charged into the conversation, scooping up Kaelynn first, as she was lagging the farthest back. You may have a berserk button where mounts are concerned, but you recognized enough of the words in that box to push that anger aside.

This wasn't the first time wolves had attacked the farm, although as far as you knew, it had never been some big event for adventurers. If things were that bad, it was better that you get there as soon as possible, and the questers too.

Having said that, you steered towards your next target, Dude/ Man, lowering your head as you barely tossed him up, allowing him to roughly land on your back as you kept charging.

"But I thought you said we had to defeat it, wouldn't some high-level player just be able to snipe it then, and keep all the loot for themselves?" Kaelynn, asked as you slowly caught up to Brandon. You saw him fingering his axe, and rather than allow him or his weapon anywhere near your head, you ran up alongside him, allowing the boy to grab ahold, swinging onto your back.

"Well, defeat is a relative term... a certain damage threshold has to be cleared for it to be 'defeated'. The damage is treated on a percentile basis, is you individually are capable of dealing 25% of the Raid Bosses hp, stuff like that." Pollick said, not even blinking as you came up on him, jumping into the air as you ran under him, allowing the divine adventurer to land securely on your back.

Surprisingly, he weighed about as much as the other three combined, perhaps it wasn't that surprising given he was decked out in metal armor as opposed to cloth robes, like Kaelynn, or piecemeal leathers, like Dickhead, or just barebones like Brandon. All the same, all this weight on your back caused you to slow down slightly, but you dug deep and kept charging, the fence visible as you crested another hill, even from this distance, you could see greyish blobs darting around the pasture.

"Having said all that, I doubt this is a Raid Boss, more than likely it's a so-called Raid Defense, which basically boils down to guard duty." Pollick said, clutching his holy symbol as it gave a light glow.

"Guard duty?" Brandon asked, still fidgeting with his axe, as the sounds of battle reached your ears.

"Hmm, the goal is to protect the target area, the farm in this case, from the invaders, the wolves. The event lasts until the timer runs out, or we kill all the wolves. Unlike Raid Bosses, if you die, you can jump right back in." Pollick said, the glow spreading down his arm as he hefted his shield.

You reached the top of the final hill, the fence line 30 feet away...

20 feet...

10 feet...

You weren't great at jumping, but you more than made up for it by applying the age-old approach, if you can't go around it, you'll just have to go through it.

So, with a loud bellow of challenge that caught the attention of more than one wolf, you lowered your horns and rammed full speed into the wooden fence, the planks giving way easily before your mighty power!

As if timed perfectly, as you smashed through the wooden fence, Pollick leapt from your back, bringing his shield down on the side of one the circling wolves, signaling your entrance into the battle.