Jacob

Vance tried to pull us to the front of the crowd, with other teams all jostling to get a good spot to hear whatever mission the guild must have been offering. The man was useful, if nothing else than to help clear a path with his higher than average strength. We almost made it to the front, but Vance couldn't get past the more experienced dungeon teams, who had obviously been to the lower floors, as evidenced by their expensive looking weapons, armor, items, and builds. I allowed myself a moment of envy, before I tried to pay attention to what the guild official was saying.

"... Be a large-scale raid conducted on the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors! To any and all teams able and willing to participate, your reward will be substantial, as the target of this raid is marked as high priority by the guild! While I cannot divulge the full details of this raid, I am allowed to tell you that the enemies encountered during this raid will likely be a few times stronger than what they normally are! It's been found that goblins and orcs alike are grouping in higher numbers, as are the skeletons on the second floor! Their tactics are different, and it is likely that you would face situations you aren't used to encountering! However, as I stated before, the guild is offering substantial rewards to all those who participate! Before I continue, are there any questions?" The guild official read from a scroll, attempting to project his nasaly voice out across the crowd.

"What do you think, Jacob? Sounds like a pretty good job to me. All we have to do is face some stuff that's a bit different than what we normally deal with. If we have enough people, we could stand to make some good coin from this. Maybe hit the sixth floor by the end of the month." Vance whispered conspiratorially to me, while Serena glanced over. Lilly continued paying attention, ever the dutiful support.

"Let's wait until we have some more information. There's something they don't want to tell us here, that's obvious enough." I whispered back, as others started to shout out questions.

"What do you mean different tactics? You can't expect us to rush in there blind!" A deep voice rumbled from the crowd.

"From the information I'm allowed to divulge, it seems that the goblins have taken to massing in groups, as some of you may have seen! They've been deemed to be on par with the monsters on the lower floors that tend to swarm dungeon teams! However, they can still be dealt with at range by magic casters and ranged classes alike! The only danger from them is if the frontline classes cannot hold! If you believe your team has a guardian class that wouldn't be able to hold, then I would advise you either seek out an extra guardian class dungeoneer, or abstain from participating!" The guild official seemed to have been prepared to answer these questions, although I could still hear others murmuring from the crowd at his response.

"Gods, does he think guardians grow on trees?"

"Sure there are several out there, but half of them are barely experienced enough to handle the first few floors of a normal dungeon, much less unusual enemy tactics expected from lower floors."

"I think I could handle them on my own! Of course, it would still be nice to find an extra pair of hands..."

The official began speaking again as he slowly began losing the crowd. "While I know that guardians aren't the most common among dungeon teams, this doesn't mean that each team must work alone! As I stated before, this will be a raid, and as such, teams will need to be able to work together to overcome this mission! If you believe that you will be unable to find another guardian to fill that extra slot on your team, then my own personal recommendation, is to find a team to work with, so that both may cover for each other if the situation deems it necessary! I will consider that question to have been answered! Does anyone else have any concerns that I or the guild can help with?"

The crowd quieted down a little at that, but now people were discussing about which teams they could work with, and who was willing to work together. Jacob wasn't worried about his own team's reputation, as they'd had to help out some of the much less experienced teams before. They'd be able to find a team to work with, so long as they looked hard enough. However, he was still feeling a bit concerned about the monsters using different tactics. The Blueberries had been fighting stranger goblins and orcs for awhile now, so he wasn't sure if the different tactics meant that the goblins and orcs were becoming even more difficult. If that was the case, they might not be able to break through the lower floors for a few months, and that they might have to go back to the second floor to get stronger.

"You can't possibly get enough teams from the upper floors to participate in this! Will we have any support from the teams on the lower floors?" A woman's voice shouted from amidst the throng of people.

"We have indeed enlisted the aid of a few skill teams! We will be sending a single team per floor to handle any supremely dangerous situations that may appear during the raid! You will be able to count on their support should anyone run into something that only those teams should be tasked with! We will not needlessly sacrifice anyone to accomplish this raid!" The official sounded confident, but I personally wasn't so sure that we would be safe, since if their information was true, one team per floor might not be enough to handle everything. I glanced over at Lilly, but I was really thinking about her brother Nick, and team Nightshade, who had participated in the previous purge. If I could get Nick alone with the rest of us, we might be able to adequately prepare for what we would be dealing with.

"It's looking like they'll need people to pad the numbers out, so there will definitely be casualties in this raid. Where are the other high level teams? They can't have all gone on another expedition to try and reach the lower floors. They'd have been gone for too long if that was the case. I think that if we can select the floor we go to, that we should get one of the upper floors..." I whispered this to Vance, my voice almost too quiet for him to hear above the rest of the crowd. He stared at me, searching for something I couldn't fathom. Maybe confidence, maybe insanity. Finally he simply sighed, before nodding in assent.

The guild official was forced to answer several more questions before finally, the crowd seemed to accept that precautions had been taken to keep most of the participants safe-ish while completing what I saw as a now monumental task. "The raid will be in three days, so if you would like to participate, please head to the nearest guild office to sign up! The rewards for this mission will be well worth the risk, so please consider it!"

As the crowd dispersed, some teams went looking for others to work with them, while some went off in the direction of the guild building, while another few teams just headed straight for the dungeon. Serena was still looking at her staff, but now it was less that she was looking at it like it was the best thing she had ever seen, but now it was more of an evaluating stare, as if she wasn't sure whether or not it would be enough. Vance was looking around, sizing up other teams, as if he was debating on who would be a good fit for our team. Lilly was staring downward, contemplating the information that she'd just heard.

"I think we should find your brother, Lilly. Nick should be participating in this, since he was part of the purge. He might know something we don't, and if we can get that information out of him, we'll be able to better prepare for this, if we decide to join in. If we can't get it out of him, we might be able to get it out of one of his teammates, if we're lucky."

Heading away from the dungeon, none of us were dispirited about not heading in for an expedition. Instead, we were hopeful that we might be able to learn something about the upcoming raid that might give us an edge in the event that we encountered something unexpected. It was for this reason, that we went to the guild hall first, to see if we could find Nick, or any other members of team Nightshade.

What we found instead, was a rather large amount of people crowding around the reception desk, attempting to sign on for the upcoming raid. Most were less experienced parties who were hoping to gain some fast but risky money to kickstart their own careers. There were a few veteran groups in the mix, but seeing them so few and far between made me somewhat nervous about what might happen, if we ended up getting lumped in with the less experienced groups. They might be safer, but they might also be used to overwhelm the majority of the monsters with sheer numbers. I could never figure out how the analysts knew the best way to deploy people in terms of a raid. Sometimes it was at the back, sometimes it was right in the middle of the most intense fighting.

Regardless, it wasn't what we were here for. We went toward the left of the guild hall, where a bar had been established to help contain both the more rowdy, and the higher leveled, as they could cause much more of a commotion at other taverns, pubs, and inns. To do this however, they needed to constantly have a good supply of good quality alcohol, food, and somewhat decent entertainment in order to keep people from flocking to other establishments. Some of the pubs didn't like that the wealthiest customers were taken from them, but most appreciated not having broken tables and holes in the walls.

It was here that we found Nick slumped onto a table sleeping, deep into Gods knew how many mugs of ale. "I swear he's going to die of alcohol poisoning..." Lilly grumbled, clearly debating on whether or not she wanted to knock him about the head with Serena's new staff.