Nick didn’t have to wait long, the conversation seemed to wrap up not too long after he got there. The man from the Parklands got up and walked out, a team of similarly dressed folk going with him. These people dripped strength, their hardened faces, coiled muscles and numerous scars were enough to make Nick feel weak in the knees. Whoever they were, Nick certainly didn’t want to be in their way.

Then Paige came by, far more relaxed than than everyone else in the room.

“Hello Nick, fancy seeing you here.”

“Just had something to talk to Doyle about, business stuff ya know.” Nick replied. “Can you guys wait around, I’d like to run with ya’ll if that’s cool?”

Paige giggled. “I love a bit of business, and sure, Rina would be delighted to have you around.”

Nick didn’t have much to talk to Doyle about, he just confirmed that Maddy was okay with everything then asked about who Doyle would actually be sending. He wasn’t sending the 71st Roamers, but one of his other teams, this one had only one 3-3 and a couple 2-2s but Nick agreed with Doyle that it should be more than enough. Happy that everything was sorted out, Nick left the kitchen and went to find Paige and Rina.

He found them sitting around a table with the three recruits, eating. Nick watched as the recruits would lift their masks to put food in their mouths, he wished he hadn’t seen their faces. Their skin looked mottled and diseased, far closer to the Infected than he was comfortable with.

“Are you guys okay?” He asked as he approached, forgetting they couldn’t reply.

The trio looked at each other and then they all just shrugged at Nick.

“It’s not a pleasant ordeal, I can certainly attest.” Paige answered. “But it comes with its benefits.” She finished with a grin.

Rina didn’t speak but she didn’t look entirely on board; it seems that Maddy’s groupings of Executioners was pretty spot on.

“Fair enough I guess. What’s your plan for the day?” Nick wasn’t really in a position to judge, he wasn’t aware of the wider context behind this stuff.

Rina seemed glad for the change in subject. “Well we’re here to get the recruits some combat training, getting them used to their new classes. So, it’ll just be hitting as many challenge rooms as we can find.”

Now that sounded like a pretty good plan to Nick, he wasn’t going to say no to a whole bunch of combat. He was also pretty interested to see what the recruits could do. The group finished up their meal then they set out, the opposite direction from the way they’d been yesterday. Rina was working off some sort of map, when Nick asked about it she explained that it highlighted some key challenge rooms the Exes like to use. Yesterday they had been going through training with Brute specific rooms, and today they were going to focus on Horde rooms.

It wasn’t Nick’s favourite opponent type but he knew it would be good training for him, he couldn’t just shy away from unfavourable matchups. The group walked through room after room, and Nick got to see how the other teams responded to the presence of the Exes. There wasn’t any open disgust or repulsion that he’d been expecting after his talk with Maddy. He actually noticed reverence and fear as two major reactions, it seemed them being the strongest faction had its effects. After a while of walking the groups once again dwindled and the rooms became more empty. Rina began to take a few twists and turns and eventually stopped at a particular door.

Challenge room doors didn’t look too different from any other door, but Nick began to pick up on the signs of them. While they wouldn’t have a lot of visible differences there were other cues, the audible ones were the most apparent. There was also the feeling, the space around the challenge room doors just felt off. Nick couldn’t quite put his finger on it, it wasn’t the same feeling as an aura, but there was a similarity there.

“Well this is it, I think.” Rina said. “The Wasp Horde.”

The fucking what sorry? Nick wasn’t overly scared of wasps or anything, but a horde of them? That was enough to make a grown man cry. Nick began to have second doubts about this choice.

“Yeah this is the right one. I remember coming here after my own recruitment, such fun times!” Paige said with a giggle.

“I uh, I’m not sure how useful my skill set is here.” Nick spoke up.

Rina slapped him on the back and pushed him through the doorway.

“Don’t sell yourself short Nick! I’m sure you’ll do great, this is what combat training is for anyway.”

The three recruits had already set themselves up in a formation, the shortest of the bunch had taken a shield off their back and stepped forward. Standing next to them was the tallest of the bunch holding a sword. The last member stood behind the other two, having taken a bow off their back. Nick decided to join their formation, putting himself in front of the archer, so that the three front liners were fanned out between them and whatever was about to attack them.

Rina and Paige positioned themselves in a far corner of the room, behind the group, as to not draw any aggro. A small message floated up in front of each member of the group.

Wave 1!

Ready?

The four fighters looked between each other then nodded, the challenge was accepted and Nick watched in horror as the monsters spawned into creation on the other side of the room. They were the wasps straight out of a child’s night terror. They were each about the size of a person’s head, their carapace an off putting mix of black and purple that made them look far eviler than they needed to be. Wasps were evil enough. Each of the wasps had a stinger the length of Nick’s fingers. Nick began to seriously think about just quitting. What was he going to do? Punch a flying wasp?

Nick was pulled from his thoughts as an arrow whizzed past him, he watched as it swirled through the air, a strange black mist emanated from the arrow head. He was then shocked as the arrow shot through the group of wasps, at first he was disappointed as the arrow didn’t hit any of them. Then he watched as any of the wasps that came into contact with the black mist began to drop from the air. It wasn’t a large group and most of the wasps were eliminated from that single attack. Nick was impressed, it must have been some sort of skill that turned the arrow into an area of effect spell of sorts.

The last few of the wasps were quickly dispatched by follow up arrows, they didn’t even get close to the group. It seemed that Nick was about to get carried through the first few waves, at least until the numbers grew much more substantially.

Nick was proved right when it wasn’t until the fourth wave that the wasps finally had the numbers to make it past the initial onslaught from the archer. The first wave only had five wasps and it grew by five each round. Nick was seriously impressed by the skill of the archer behind them, both their accuracy and their actual skill, the AoE one. As soon as each wave spawned the archer would cleave a huge number of the wasps right out of the fight.

Now that there were enough wasps to actually survive that initial attack Nick got ready to deal with them. He wasn’t sure what he planned to do but it followed one major guiding principle, don’t get hit by one of those stingers. He didn’t want to know what it would do to him if he got jabbed by one. It was only as they approached that he saw their mandibles were just as frightening as their stingers.

Nick didn’t get the chance to fight any of the wasps in this wave either though. The wasps aggroed towards the shield user and the swordsman and Nick got to see them in action. Both of their weapons took on a dark wispiness about them just before the wasps made contact with them. The swordsman made short work of the two wasps that approached him with a single slash. The shieldbearer simply slammed the shield into the wasp that approached them and it fell to the ground, they finished it off with a stomp.

Nick was beginning to feel pretty out classed. These people fought like professionals, he was just a dude that liked to get in fights. It was in the next wave that he finally got his chance to take on a wasp of his own. Far more wasps made it to the group this time and Nick had to deal with two of his own. Nick royally messed up when he swung a punch at the first one. He had expected far more resistance than he got, he threw a far too heavy hook into the wasp and threw himself off balance as the creature was shot off into distance. Nick managed to catch himself and narrowly avoided getting stung before dispatching the remaining wasp with a much more controlled punch.

Just punching Brutes for the last day had seriously messed up his sense of resistance. Of course a flying bug wasn’t going to offer as much resistance as a giant turtle. Once he adjusted for this, Nick found himself dealing with the wasps just as easily as the other members of the group. He was fast enough to strike them before they could do much. Nick would only be challenged if there were too many for him to deal with. At present, Nick could just dispatch them as they flew towards him. Each of his punches did more than enough damage to take out each wasp with a single blow.

It was only at the 10th wave that Nick even worked up a sweat. This time there were 50 of the wasps and while the archer's skill could take out a solid chunk of them, a lot of wasps still made it to the group. Nick had to move for the first time, kiting out of the way of some of the wasps so that he wasn’t just surrounded. Thankfully they stayed aggroed on him and didn’t switch to the archer, Nick would have felt like a bit of an ass if they had. Still, the wave was pretty easily taken care of. The shieldbearer had some sort of skill that seemed to slow down the wasps that got close to them, which would buy the swordsman time to finish off whatever wasps came towards them, then focus on those attacking the shieldbearer.

The three recruits seemed to be a pretty synergistic group, a tank, a melee fighter and then an archer. They were also very competent with their weapon of choice, each of them showing a solid mastery of their weapon. Nick did notice that some of their movements felt off though, their bodies not acting as fast as they seemed to expect, the swordsman had almost been hit a few times because of it.

The next wave was something different, there were only five wasps again. These wasps were bigger than the previous ones, they looked a lot sturdier and of course, meaner. Their mandibles were much larger than before, looking like a much more serious threat. The archer’s skill didn’t manage to take them completely out of the fight, though it did seriously damage them. The archer was able to finish them off with a few more arrows, though Nick could tell the next wave would be making it to the group.

Nick’s prediction was correct, the archer’s normal arrows weren’t enough to take out the wasps in a single shot any more and a couple of wasps made it to the group. Thankfully the swordsman’s sword was still enough to dispatch them easily enough.

It was in the next wave, the lucky 13th that Nick got to deal with one of them himself. Nick threw a more solid punch and felt his fist dent the monster’s carapace and it crashed out of the air onto the floor. Nick didn’t have to throw his hardest punch and could still dispatch them with relative ease.

Even in the next few waves Nick found himself holding his own. He had to distance himself from the group a bit, as he kited around keeping the wasps from surrounding him. He found himself falling into a flow, slipping and rolling out of the way of the giant wasps and their swoops at him. Nick was actually beginning to enjoy himself.

During the next wave he took a more proactive approach and made his way towards the swarm after the archer had used their skill. He would draw the aggro of a chunk of the wasps and then clear them out himself as the group dealt with the rest. If he wasn’t done by the time they finished their part the swordsman would come over and help. As the numbers grew, Nick found himself moving more defensively, focusing on the slips and rolls, only punching out occasionally. It slowed down his rate of clearing them, but as it only took one of his strikes to take a wasp out he could still steadily make his way through them. If he was ever caught in a tricky position, he could activate Hasty Escape and use the buff to give himself some distance.

Whew, if it kept up like this, Nick would be earning easy loot rewards.