He currently wore a basic mage outfit and had a staff for a weapon. He hated staves, in his opinion all they were was two handed blunt sticks. He’d rather have a sword but the decent ones were already taken.

After laying out the bedrolls and tents they had the skeletons set up everything while the guild headed into the town. It had started getting dark so they took some torches. They had been hard to find because they all used night seeing rings before ‘The Fall’ as they called it happened.

Moving in a large group they watched all fronts, they had no idea what could have taken up residence in this place. Moving towards the center of town they were headed to one of the few previous landmarks of the town, the burnt down inn.

“When we get there basic 3 group split. Pyron and Harkin leads. Look around and explore, if you see something kill it quick and quiet. If you run into trouble Pyron send up a fireball, Revenance flaming arrow. Both other groups will try to get to you as soon as possible. Use potions as needed.”

Even before arriving at the inn the group had split apart. Each group was well rounded so they handle any situation they encountered. At least that was the idea but in the past some of the groups had quickly been slaughtered by the unexpected.

Pyron took his wife Ekra the Ice Mage, Wills the Aeromancer/Archer, and Reg the Warrior/Warlock. They headed down the street further with Reg in the lead. Their group was specialized towards ranged combat. If Reg was higher level he could someone his Infernal Guard to keep anything from getting into melee range with them. Just starting out he didn’t even have his imp familiar.

Harkin who was a Bard/Tactician took Griggs the Engineer, Natas the priest, and Legion and Morthius the two necromancers. Legion and Griggs could make plenty of minions to support the group. Harkin and Natas could buff the players and minions while Morthius would cast curses on enemies letting the minions beat them down. While fully buffed the minions turned into very formidable opponents. Natas could then take the damage anyone took around her and turn into healing power thanks to her God of Violence and Hatred Kreatsus. They would quickly overwhelm small groups of monsters and players with the number of minions they usually put out.

Serion had Drecksis backing him up with Revenance the Ranger/Raider, and Tombe the Terramancer/Duelist. His group would cloak itself thanks to Serion shadow magic and then strike a group in close range with Serion or Revenance supporting at range usually obliterating their targets before surrounding themselves with shadows to do it all over again.

Each group was made to function by itself and as a larger group. Pyron’s group would start a fight hitting from a distance while Serion’s got into position. Harkin would distract the enemy in a full frontal assault with plenty of minions. Then like a knife in the back Serion’s group would descend on them.

As each group disappeared down a street Serion was a little worried because the groups wouldn’t work how they were designed and used to, but there was little they could do about it.

The biggest problem they always had was there were no fully dedicated healers in their guild. Sure Natas could heal players when fighting was going on and Reg steal and redistribute health but in a prolonged fight they had always relied heavily on potions to keep them going. Half the guild had the profession of alchemy to make sure they always had potions available. Now since they were all reset to 1 in the profession levels it could take a while to start producing more which meant each health potion was very valuable and unreplaceable.

“Let’s start with the Fiery Hog Inn. We’re here already and it’s one of largest buildings in town.”

From the front the inn looked like it had escaped the worst of the damage the rest of the town had sustained. Stepping inside it was obvious that was not the case. While the front of it still stood the middle and back were just a skeleton of their former glory. Large wooden beams were charred and debris covered the floors. The rooms that had been on the second floor were gone entirely, Serion could see the sky from the interior. The furniture that had once crowded the interior was nothing more than ash now.

“We have a trapdoor behind the bar,” Revenance spoke.

Serion didn’t want to leave the topside so soon as he wasn’t sure if the other groups would run into trouble. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“Drecksis take point. Tombe follow him. Rev guard our rear.”

Stepping over what was left of the bar he looked into the hole in the floor. He cast Arcane Light and climbed down. This area at least seemed well preserved from the inferno that had happened topside. There was only one direction to go, a door set several feet away. Drecksis opened the door and Serion cast another Light into the room. Dreck and Tombe charged in finding a table and several chairs but nothing of real interest. He heard Rev hit the ground behind him.

“Hold up. This table has food on it, several days old,” Tombe observed. He was right, it looked like it had come from a large rat carcass. The intestines were gone leaving bones and skin.

“Alright gentleman we have something down here to kill after all.”

Repeating the door, light, charge technique they found more empty rooms including plenty of drained kegs. Someone had a party at one time.

Coming to a room with several doors they picked the right hand. This time when the light brightened the room they heard a screech. A group of rats the size of large dogs were gnawing a corpse of some kind.

Without hesitation Drecksis slammed his sword into the closet one before charging another with his shield bashing it backwards.

Tombe shot a hand sized rock into one standing beside Drecksis.

Serion quickly cast Veil of Shadows on the closet and followed with an Arcane Spear into the largest rat.

Revenance even got a shot in with a quick arrow.

4 rats now remained and attacked the closest target Drecksis. Each of them sprang at him biting at his legs. Covered in mail armor it didn’t look like anything got to flesh. One of the rat’s teeth even broke off.

He slammed his sword down on the largest rat. Blood and guts burst from its ruptured body. He then kicked another rat smashing it against the wall. After another Arcane Spear and rock launch they all lay dead. Serion went back out to join Rev while the others looted the corpses.

He looked for an experience prompt but nothing appeared. Going on a hunch he opened his adventurer’s handbook. After all the details of his character he found a page with the details. Looking further back he could see his failed flying lessons. 4 life points had remained. Note to self: Kill Jerry.

6 Giant Rats killed.

22 Experience Gained.

“Even the book tells us how much experience we got, just 22. But it looks like we need 100 for level 2. We don't even get a bonus anymore for pain.”

Tombe came up holding the loot, “A few coppers altogether and it looks like they were eating some kind of humanoid corpse.”

When they were all ready again they assaulted the next room, a few more rats that quickly died to their overwhelming attack.

When they broke into the third room they were quite surprised to find a group of goblins staring right back at them.