The small army was on the move the next morning. True to his word, Zracks had provided a large contingent of his lizardmen to assist the Misfits and the Survivors. The Misfits had started this journey with just the six of them and now there were about forty raiders all told. Smash and Rygor setup officer channels in raid chat and organized a chain of command. He would serve as the raidleader, and Rygor second in command. Officers included Cheezus, Deathberry, Kantala, and two of the lizardmen: Sysus and Grak. The chieftain had sent them with detailed maps of the area that their scouts had put together. The tower was located up in the Berkeley hills and according to Zracks there were other mutant forces up there that they would likely need to contend with on the way.

Based on the geography it was very likely that they would not be able to approach the tower unseen. Since the chieftain’s scouts had reported a high number of patrols in the hills it was going to be a difficult battle just getting to the tower. They were going to need some additional edge, like they’d been able to obtain against the cyclops.

As the army started to move out into the city, Smash talked with the officers, “Based on what we’ve seen from Zrack’s reports, we are going to encounter heavy forces up in the hills. It’s going to be a difficult approach since they have the high ground. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can minimize the damage to our forces?”

“I’ve been working on a new spell effect that can disguise a small area. Depending on how far apart they are it would cover five to ten people,” Deathberry offered. “I used the same principals back on the island to modify a light spell. I believe this can be used to create an illusion that bends light away and into an unholy realm. Anyone viewing them from a distance will believe they are allies – although it won’t stand up to a close inspection.”

Smash and the others considered the possibilities of that. Perhaps they could send a small strike force to get into enemy lines. He had already planned to send Cheezus and a small contingent of their most stealthy fighters to scout ahead and see if they could eliminate some of the patrols that the wizard had setup to protect the tower. If nothing else, they would be able to alert the rest of the raid to what was coming.

Cheezus nodded his head in approval. “I like it. Still, I think we’re going to need a bit more than that to get inside. If that stegosaur group is still in the area perhaps I can lure them to the tower to cause some further chaos,” he offered. Smash thought that idea had promise although if they were controlled by the wizard it would be a problem.

He replied, obviously thinking along the same lines. “I wasn’t sure if the idea had merit until I went and scouted their pod this morning. They were attacking a random group of mutants who’d obviously gotten a bit too close,” Cheezus said. Perhaps while both groups of mutants were controlled by the wizard, they didn’t all necessarily get along.

Kantala chimed in. “That’s a highly risky strategy. You aren’t thinking of luring that pod by yourself, are you?”

“If you’re volunteering to help, I won’t say no,” Cheezus replied.

After that the plan was ironed out and the advance force consisting of Cheezus, Kantala, and a few of the stealthier lizardmen was assembled. Deathberry would go with them as well even though Smash had protested at first. He’d reasoned that there was no way that the pod would follow Cheezus and Kantala if they looked like mutants. They would only be enraged enough to pursue them if they knew that it was the ones who had killed its mate yesterday. Deathberry would cast the disguise on them once they got close enough for the tower’s scouts to notice. There were a lot of things that could go wrong with this plan, Smash thought. If they’d had another week or two to plan he might have been able to come up with something better but he knew they didn’t have forever to complete their task. They still hadn’t found Mr. Tiel or heard anything about his whereabouts. Time was running out.

While the advance force snuck into the city to make its attack, Smash and Rygor assembled the rest of their small army. They weren’t a large group and splitting up might be advantageous to aid in the distraction that Cheezus’ group was planning. Smash split the remaining forces into four parties and instructed them to start making their way northeast towards the hills. The goal was to try to make themselves a bit less conspicuous. “Seona can you work with your natural magic to try to ease our way through the forest up ahead?” Smash requested. She nodded and moved towards the front of the group to begin casting. They were as prepared as they were going to be.

They were nearly in position when Smash heard the enraged roar of the stegosaurus. He could only hope that Cheezus’ crazy plan worked. Once of the lizardmen scouts returned to him and Rygor and saluted, “We’ve managed to lure the creature to the tower and it is attacking the mutants down there.”

Smash nodded. So far, so good. He instructed the parties of the main army to split and move into flanking position. They wanted to ensure that the mutants would stay distracted and seeing an entire army move up the mountainside would give the entire thing away too easily.

The various parties of the larger force made their way into position and from this vantage point, Smash could see the tower below them. It was situated in a small valley nestled between hills on three sides. At the base of the tower the pod that had nearly killed them yesterday was raising havoc with the mutant army the wizard had assembled. He couldn’t see where Cheezus and his team were but his health bar in the corner of the raid window was full, so clearly, he wasn’t in any immediate danger. Smash and Ryogor gave the command to the main forces – attack.

They charged down from the hillside where they’d been hiding and engaged the enemy forces. Smash came upon one of the enemy mutants and cut it down in two blows with the assistance of one of the lizardmen archers in his party. He continued forward and saw that Cheezus was engaged with a large mutant at the base of the tower, near its entrance. Rushing in, he quickly picked up aggro on the creature and assisted Cheezus. “Where is the rest of your party?” Smash yelled over the din of the fighting.

“They’re already inside, except for Kantala who is keeping the stegs busy,” he replied. Sure enough, Smash looked over and saw that the brave young archer was actually riding the largest stegosaur, the mate of the one they’d killed. The pod had done a fantastic job of distracting the enemy’s army and now the concern was what it would do to their own. Fortunately, Kantala had taken the initiative and was now keeping the monstrous creature busy trying to dislodge and kill her. The other two stegosaurs were attempting to help their parent but were doing more damage to themselves than they were to her.

Smash gave the order to the rest of the army to try to get to the tower as quickly as possible. As Rygor approached he looked questioningly at him and glanced towards Kantala. “You go ahead and have Thag offtank and I’ll catch up later.” Smash wasn’t going to argue – they certainly were benefitting from the distraction. But there was no way that she could get away from those creatures by herself. Rygor took a couple of his guildies and they headed towards the stegosaur pod. He hoped he would see the enigmatic leader again at the end of this fight.

He stepped into the tower and saw a wide spiral staircase on the other side of the circular room. The raid had already engaged in combat with two stone golems that had probably looked just like statues moments earlier. Thag and one of the burlier looking lizardmen were tanking the creatures, while Cheezus and Deathberry directed DPS. “What’s the 411 on these baddies?” Smash asked in officer chat.

“Typical stone golem types: immune to fire and damage resistant to most physical attacks,” Deathberry responded. “Interestingly they must have some magic connection with the master of the tower since they were not fooled by my illusion.”

Smash took up position assisting as off-tank. It had been a while since he’d assisted that way because he was typically main-tank for most of their raids. Off-tanks in a way had a harder job – they had to be ready to pick up the boss at a moment’s notice and in this case, he was helping both main tanks so he had to be completely focused on when the damage debuffs would get too high on each tank. These golems had a stacking damage that they did which wasn’t terrible at first but eventually rendered the tank’s armor completely useless. Before the debuff got too high it was necessary that an off-tank pick up the golem and let the main-tank drop their stacks. Fortunately, he’d come in to the fight fairly early before stacks had built up too much on either tank.

As the rest of the raid filed in, Smash noticed that the small parties that he and Rygor had formed earlier on were paying off. The parties were small enough that each group could work in unison and they avoided the raid-wide AOE damage better than he had expected for a random group of players working together. He and the Misfits had been raiding together for so long they almost didn’t need to communicate verbally anymore, so well did everyone know their role and each of their fellow guildmates’ strengths and weaknesses. The problem with raiding with strangers was that nobody knew what the other players would do and sometimes your own teammates became a hindrance. They probably weren’t going to down Cermillion with this group but so far, they had done pretty well. Early on, Smash and Rygor had encouraged the officers to be more vocal than they normally would be about calling out commands and he was happy to see that everyone had taken that to heart.

The golems went down quickly under the raids’ well-coordinated attacks. While he was happy to see that they’d gotten to the tower and downed the creatures so easily, Smash suspected that things were only going to become more difficult as they progressed through the tower. Who was this wizard at the top of the tower and how powerful would they be?