New Enemies: Elves

After Skylar arrives and we get the pleasantries out of the way (there are getting to be a little more of those with her lately, it’s nice), I inform her of the news. “So, we have four new enemy types that we can test today. Elves, dwarves, wolves and ogres. Any preference?” She thinks for a few moments before answering.

“Anything you can tell me about them?” “Again, we haven’t gone in at all, but here are my best guesses: wolves seems pretty self explanatory, we’d be fighting wolves. Elves in fantasy media are usually quick and agile, often using bows and knives as their weapons. Dwarves are usually portrayed as being short and stocky, often using axes as their weapon of choice.”

“As for ogres, I’d guess they’ll be fairly big and difficult to take down. They might use clubs, but I have no idea.” She mulls over the options for a few seconds before making her decision. “Lets try elves first and see how we feel afterwards.” She suggests. We’re all in agreement, so I open the dungeon and we start our first encounter with elves.

The elves dungeon is a bit different from the others we’ve run so far in that it’s less straightforward. When we spawn into the dungeon and take a look around in our immediate vicinity, we notice that there aren’t any enemies around. Instead, we’re the middle of the clearing, surrounded by a forest.

After some confusion about where the enemies are, we notice a gap in the trees and a trail that goes through the forest. With no other options and figuring that it’s where we’re supposed to be going, we start to make our way through the path. We stay on our guard, the trees and shrubbery lining the trail make for a lot of easy hiding places for enemies.

As it turns out, we’re right to be on our guard. Barely a minute into our trek to who knows where, an arrow comes whistling out of the overgrowth. Ivy stops it from hitting my back with one of her shields, and I rapidly search for the attacker. Another whistling arrow impacts the ground near Skylar, and Mia sends a cutting wind attack in the direction the arrow came from.

My eyes finally spot the elven attacker as it slumps from it’s vantage point in the trees. It seems to be a relatively small one, although not as small as the goblins. From my estimate, it’s about 1.3 metres tall. The pointy ears mark it as undeniably like fantasy elves. The observe sheet says that due to it’s smaller stature, it was selected by it’s tribe to wield a bow.

From that encounter, it’s fairly easy to guess how the rest of the dungeon will play out. We’ll go through the trail, being occasionally ambushed by elven archers hiding in the trees, before we make our way to a clearing, where the boss battle will occur. Given that prediction, I decide that the best strategy would be for our group to walk in a formation. Me at the front, Ivy behind me, Mia behind her and Skylar bringing up the rear.

Our new formation ensures that we’re relatively protected from attacks from behind, since Skylar is the most reliable person for barriers and shields. With Ivy in between Mia and I, she can adjust quickly to cover either of us from attacks from any direction or heal us if she needs to, with Skylar being able to lend a hand on that front. With that sorted, we press on.

As we traverse the trail through the forest, we find that our strategy works fairly well. It helps that the elven archers use whistling arrows. Neither Ivy nor Skylar find that they can replicate Ivy’s quick reaction the first time, and we’re all hit with a couple of arrows from various enemies. Luckily, with Ivy’s healing and a few well placed spells from Mia, Skylar and I, we manage to not take a whole lot of damage.

It takes us a fair amount of time to actually get through the forest, we’re walking for a solid 45 minutes, occasionally encountering enemies along the way. Eventually, we finally reach a clearing, as I predicted. The boss notification says that the boss is called “The Elven Army”, so it sounds like it’s going to be a horde style fight.

As the enemies spawn in, I try to immediately hit some of the elves with a couple of spells. They seem to have no effect, which figures. Bosses are often invincible during their spawn animation. I take the time to look around and observe the different types of enemies spawning, and try to plan our strategy.

Directly in front of us, stand a small platoon of elven soldiers wielding spears and small shields, standing taller than the archers we’ve seen so far and wearing fancy looking armour. Lining the sides of the clearing are a row of elven archers on each side, along with what looks to be elven catapults. Assessing the situation quickly, I call out our strategy.

“Skylar, go for the catapults. Work on disabling and destroying the machines first, don’t worry about taking care of the operators. Mia, focus on the archers. Disrupt their aim and take them out. I’ll handle the spear people. Ivy, watch our backs.” I barely manage to finish giving the orders when two of the catapults launch giant boulders hurtling towards us.

“MOVE!” I yell, thankful that I decided to raise my agility as I sprint towards the spear wielding soldiers and out of the way of the boulders. I can feel Ivy close behind me, while Mia and Skylar move off to the sides. My agility a significant amount higher than hers, I start to pull away from Ivy as I ready my axe. With each of the individual soldiers being level 25, I’m hoping I can take them.

I send multiple waves of frost towards the soldiers immediately in front of me, visibly slowing them down and leaving ice developing on their clothing. I swipe my axe through the air, cutting towards the closest soldier’s head. I briefly meet some resistance before the soldier disappears into dust. I sidestep immediately, dodging the spear thrust from another one, before blasting it with a mana bolt and putting a large hole through its chest.

A loud crashing down indicates Skylar working on one of the catapults. “I’m trusting you to be my lookout here Ivy! Let me know if there are any boulders coming!” I tell her, as the whistling of arrows and the rushing of Mia’s aeromancy adds to the cacophony of battle sounds. I feel a wave of agreement from her as she stands back out of range of the soldiers, surveying the clearing.

A spear stabs into me and I cry out in pain, dislodging the weapon from my leg and firing a mana bolt at the offending soldier. My physical wound heals immediately, thanks to my abilities. My HP hasn’t suffered too drastic a loss, so I keep fighting.

Slashing, blasting, dodging, cutting, taking hits occasionally and returning them twofold, I tear through the defensive line of elves. The shields and the sheer number of enemies do give me some trouble, but between my magic, my skill with an axe, and Ivy healing me when needed, I surprise myself with how well I handle myself against this boss.

Four times, I find myself having to dodge out of the way of boulders launched at me. Skylar does her job well though, destroying each of the catapults with ruthless efficiency. Mia does an amazing job at disrupting the aim of the archers, to the point where none of us get hit by a single arrow. I find myself enjoying this boss fight because of the sheer brutality of the melee combat.

Working together, we decimate the elven army.

2000xp

The last enemy fades to dust and I turn back to see Mia and Skylar, both breathing heavily. “Fucking shit, that was fun.” I tell them. Mia laughs, and even Skylar gives a small smile. We collect the random pieces of loot that we can find (nothing interesting, for the umpteenth time), and exit the dungeon to take a break and have a snack.

After some debate about which of the new enemies to test out next, we eventually settle on going for dwarves next, then wolves, and ogres last. Ivy fixes us some snacks while we rest and recover our resources, and half an hour later, we’re ready to get back to it.