Factory Raids 3

Entering the barrier of the second factory on our list for the night, I look around quickly and find myself relieved when it looks very similar to the last one. I turn to my guild to give the orders when I see a red flash out of the corner of my eyes. Turning to look in the direction of the flash, I find myself staring at Belle, her usual outfit and red hair looking just as stunning as always, and who seems almost as surprised as I am at the situation.

She smirks menacingly at me, strutting up to us with the confidence of somebody who owns the place. “Ah, what a surprise. The Gamer and The Centurions. I wondered when I’d see you again.” She says, looking over my guild. All eyes are fixated on her, unsure what she wants or what she’s going to do.

Belle raises her eyebrow slightly upon seeing Olivia with us. “The lady of monsters, how interesting. You’ve come out of retirement then?” She remarks, phrasing the sentence as a question. Olivia smiles thinly at the red headed woman. “Indeed. They are worthy of that.” She replies shortly. “You two know each other?” I ask, looking between them.

My teacher stays silent, but Belle has no problem answering. “We go way back. We used to work together, trying to cleanse this place of undesirables. One day she got soft, wanted out. Said the way I did things was ‘inhumane’.” The red headed woman scoffs. Olivia speaks up in a tone I’ve never heard her use before.

“You are inhumane! You have a callous disregard for life that I can’t condone!” She says, her tone angry but her voice low, for fear of alerting the gang inside the factory. Belle rolls her eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? Ending people like this saves countless lives!” She retorts, in the manner of a mother chiding her naive child.

My head snaps back into gear as I realise that I need to take control of the situation or risk it escalating. Interestingly, I find once I start paying attention that Belle’s magical aura is no longer so oppressively strong. We’re definitively approaching her level, or at least I am. I don’t know how much stronger than me she is, but I can feel that between the six of us, my guild would stand a chance at beating her.

“Stop it, both of you. We’re here to take down a mana factory, not argue. Belle, we’re gonna need you to do things our way.” I assert as best I can. She looks at me and raises an eyebrow, marching up to me. Belle is taller than me, so she looks down on me by a fair height. I stand my ground, refusing to show fear.

“What makes you think you can order me around girl?” She demands, the tension between us dangerous. I keep my cool. “I can’t order you around. But we’re wasting time. I can feel the gap between us has diminished, and you can’t push us around anymore. We do this my way, without avoidable casualties, or we kick up enough of a stink to alert the gang.”

Belle furrows her brow, more than a little annoyed. “You would let those creatures escape in favour of fighting me to spare their lives?” She asks. “Yes. If we engage in cold blooded ****, we are no better than them.” I state firmly. She snarls at that response.

“What use is honour and morality in the face of these shitstains?! You spare them here, they’ll set up shop somewhere else and do it all again!” She hisses at me. “Maybe. But we don’t know how many people in there are just people trying to survive by attaching themselves to a stronger power. If we slaughtered them all, we risk killing good people ourselves. I’d take a ‘what if’ over murdering people who would be better under better circumstances.” I rebuke firmly.

Belle snarls again, looking me in the eyes, searching for any sign of weakness. I give her none. After a long few seconds contemplating, she steps away. “Fine. It’s not worth coming to blows with you over this. But I warned you.” She says. I breathe a sigh of relief internally. Standing up to her is nerve-racking as hell.

“Same strategy as last time. Blow open the doors, go in full ****.” I order. Nods all round. Paige gathers up earth from the ground beneath us. I give the signal and she throws it against the door, hard. Skylar and Belle throw twin blasts as soon as Paige lifts her boulder, ripping the door inwards properly. Belle and I storm inside, the rest of my guild in tow.

Belle heads straight for the office, clearly hoping to find and subdue the owner as quickly as possible. Well, **** would be her preferred method, but the points stands. Leaving her to it, I busy myself with the various guards around the place.

Focusing on fighting the guards lets me understand once again just how hopelessly I outclass them at this level. I’m fast and skilled enough to shoot a small clamp of ice at somebody, pinning their wrist to the wall. I conjure a sword of ice and lock blades with another guy. I marvel at the clear difference in our speed and reaction times.

To me, he looks like he’s moving through water. He draws back, surprised. He makes to swing again, and I let him, noting the poor form in addition to his slow speed. He’s gripping his sword too tightly, keeping his muscles tense. He’ll tire himself out quicker, increase his risk of straining himself and is more jittery in his motions.

I don’t even need a weapon. I catch his hand and stop the blade in mid air, as easy as lifting a glass of water. Balling my hand into a fist, I punch him straight in the gut. He bends over double, clenching his stomach at the impact. I sidestep him and a bare tap on the back sends him onto his knees. I move on, looking over the rest of my guild.

These guys are weak enough that Mia can just blast them backwards with some strong winds. Skylar is knocking people around with her constructs, Paige is doing the same with a small pair of rocks, and Olivia is swiping at people in her Tetramand form. Ivy has a two guards confined with vines, but is otherwise just watching the fight, waiting to see if anybody needs healing.

Due to how overwhelmingly more powerful we are than any of the guards here, nobody needs healing. We’re all in the realm where we can easily shrug off most hits from people at level 30. We all move fast enough that none of them can strike more than glancing blows anyway.

Beating them is therefore, not much of a challenge. It’s fun to see how far we’ve all come compared to the average abyssal. Mia is the fastest out of all of us, although I’m a close second, as is Olivia in her aeroray form. My enhanced perception allows me to easily track her movements as she dodges and weaves, blasting people back with her magic.

Even with her relatively low strength, she can still deliver solid punches to them. Ducking under a punch thrown by one guy, she hits him with an air blast that sends him flying backwards into the wall. There’s a cracking sound as multiple ribs are broken. To him, the whole thing must’ve happened in the blink of an eye. To Mia, it’s like a relaxed walk in the park.

And just as quickly as it started, the raid is over. Belle drags a limp body behind her into the main factory, and my temper flares. Just as I’m about to raise my voice to ask her what she did, she catches my eye. “Relax, he’s ****, not dead.” She says, rolling her eyes. “You people and your morals.”

“Thank you.” I tell her, my protest dying on my lips at her words. She nods curtly, still very much annoyed at having to do things this way. I can understand, even if I don’t share her point of view. We go through the same process as last time, giving the guards and owner a warning, sending them on their way, then freeing and healing the slaves, and giving them some cash to help them get back into the world.

Belle departs the barrier without another word, shooting me a look as she does. She seems to be both pissed off at doing things our way and letting them go, but also somewhat satisfied at having taken out another mana factory. Olivia shakes her head. “I’m glad she’s gone. She’s very talented at getting on my nerves.” She voices.

I whirl my head around at those words. “Did you just use contractions?” I ask. The lady of the beast sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I suppose I did. She is the only person alive who annoys me such that I forego these habits.” She says, sounding tired.

Mia chimes in. “I didn’t think anything could get that silver spoon out of your ass!” It’s Olivia’s turn to whirl her head around. “I do not have a silver spoon in my rectum!” Mia cackles at her response, and I can’t help but giggle. Our mentor shoots the air mage a poisonous glance as my girlfriends giggle around me. I’m distracted suddenly by two windows opening up.

4 levels is really good for something like this. I have no idea why Gaia is being so generous today, but I’m really glad she is. If things keep going the way they are, I’m going to be level 100 by the end of the night. I wonder if there’s going to be an achievement for that too? I hope there is. I put all 24 points into Wisdom, leaving me at a cool 132. With Ivy’s 20 points, 10 go into agility to get her up to 50, and the rest go into Intellect.

Sweet, that works very nicely towards the goal of having her more able to track higher level opponents in melee fights. She’ll never be a favourite in a 1 on 1 melee, courtesy of her powers, but this way she’ll be a lot less outmatched. With the statpoint allocation done, and the banter of my guild in the background, we head off to the third and final mana factory, to the tune of Mia’s celebrations. “We’re on a roll, nobody can stop us now!”