MAZE - The endless Quest

Leo's skill was a bit odd. The spikes that shoot out of his prey harmed more the area than the actual frog. It looked like the spikes were created after the muscles, near the monster's skin. The holes were very superficial, but the thorns shot out fast. A tree nearby the fight got holes almost halfway through the trunk.

Alex had swapped one of her daggers for a longer one with a curved blade. It was close to a cutlass, but shorter, just about the size of her forearms. Using the wind enchantment, it increased the sharpness of her weapon by quite a bit. Now she could cut deep into the frog's skin and even make a considerable gash on the bone.

Blue was more effective than expected. The more she moved, the stronger the electrical current became. Since she was always spinning around, dodging, and blocking, it didn't take long for the electricity to be enough to stun the frog for a few moments. The fact that the monsters were always wet also helped a great deal.

Hera showed how the poison spray worked. She put a considerable amount of mana in the spell to make sure it would kill it fast. In just three minutes, the frog was too weak to fight back. In another five, it finally died.

The last to show off was Mark. He was already a decent shot, but his aim improved a lot during the previous couple of weeks.

"Since I already was in the guild, I kept practicing every day. They even let me use one of the ATRs because of the tokens we found during our test," Mark explained as he removed one arrow from a frog's eye, "The one issue is going to be having to carry the arrows. Jasper gave me a blueprint for them as a graduation gift, worst-case scenario I can make some arrows on the fly, since I have the materials. But the ones I make in the city will be much better," he tapped on one of the pouches he carried as he was talking.

For the first time, Hera took a moment to look at Mark's gear. He was wearing a small green hood that seemed to be a separate part of his outfit. Boots with a knee guard and baggy parachute pants tucked inside them. A beige short-sleeved T-shirt and two different belts, one on his waist and one going from the hip to his shoulder. The straps were filled with small satchels, and on his back, attached to his waist belt, was the quiver filled with a dozen arrows.

"The only problem with all that is that you can only shoot 12 times. Can you protect yourself if someone gets closer?" Leo asked.

Confident in each other's abilities, the group decided to look for some frogs to hunt together. If they wanted to work well as a unit, they needed to practice. Initially, they found a couple of small groups with just four to six frogs. Using the familiar method, Hera and Alex circled around the monsters and quickly killed the ones farther away. Mark shot two arrows at the front frog, and Leo finished dispatched it with one swift strike in the middle of the eyes. Blue held the last one back while Bonnie hit it with a few air fists. They could finish the creature off by themselves, but it would still take some time. Hera and Leo attacked the beast from behind, delivering the killing blow.

Leo looked at Tiger, who wasn't able to help during the fight, "Sorry, buddy, It's kind of hard to give you room with this many people," he turned to the group, "Say, can we go after a bigger army? This is a bit too easy."

They had to agree. The fight was way too easy, and it wouldn't have been different, even without Mark. They had figured out a nice rhythm for the battles. As a group, the frogs were hardly a challenge. They took five times longer harvesting the parts they needed for Mondy than actually fighting.

"Guys, I know that we still need money, especially Mark, since he just got here. But could we just hunt for a while?" Hera asked. While she fought, she could forget her thoughts, but doing something less intense like butchering the frogs allowed her mind to wander.

"Honestly. I'm in. I can get some pretty decent pay if I work in the forge. And it helps a lot with my role too," Mark was the first to reply.

They all agreed with the idea. Bonnie wasn't worried about money anymore, and the rest wanted to test their limits. Searching the woods, they found an army of frogs big enough to be a challenge. A dozen frogs were sitting near a pond, with a large green one in the middle. It was almost as big as the toad Hera had fought the night before.

Agreeing to use the same tactics, Hera and Alex spread out and went after the ones on the edges of the group. Bonnie started to create the cold bomb while Mark notched an arrow.

When an opportunity arrived, Leo sent the signal for the group to start. Hera rushed towards the frog in front of her, getting ready to attack the creature's head. Before she hit it, Bonnie hit a cold bomb in the front group of frogs. That made all the monster turn towards the researcher. The movement made Hera miss her first strike, with her chakram she quickly slashed the frog's leg to stop it from going away. With a follow-up move, her handaxe sunk into the monster's back.

Hera took advantage of that and used her weapon's leverage to swing around the frog's face and open its neck with her chakram. The frog still took a few steps before the loss of blood made it fall onto the ground. At the same time, Blue and Leo intercepted the frogs coming towards Bonnie and Mark. Surprisingly, Tiger, the small rain frog, held back one of the frogs on its own. The small creature would do some hit-and-run tactics, spinning around in the air to hit with its back instead of its head.

Before Hera finished her frog, Mark had already shot four arrows towards the largest one of the group, hitting the monster in one eye. Two other arrows sunk deep into the frog's face, but the last one was broken by its tongue when the creature lashed out, aiming at Leo. The hunter took a quick step to the side and lunged at the frog in front of him, his spear piercing the creature's mouth. Leo pushed the monster towards the larger green frog in the middle of the group, and several thorns flew out of the one he stabbed.

Four frogs were showered in spikes. At the same time, Blue grabbed a frog and tossed it over her shoulder, making the monster hit a large rock head first. She kicked the creature to the side and dashed towards the next one. Her static buff already making her hair stand up. Mark kept flinging arrow after arrow towards the fray. He aimed at the ones farther away from the group to avoid hitting anyone in the middle. Yet, one of the arrows flew by just a few centimeters over Alex's head, as she appeared behind a frog stabbing its head, killing the monster in a single blow.

Bonnie kept using her Air Fist spell to attack any frog that got close, giving room for her and Mark to change positions.

In a little over five minutes, the only frog remaining was the big green one in the middle. Leo and Tiger were spinning around the creature, taking turns attacking it. Mark was busy taking back the arrows when Blue called to him.

"Mark, keep shooting. We'll get your arrows later."

"Nah, let Leo practice with his pet," Mark waved off.

"Honestly, you need more practice than them." Alex rolled her eyes.

"Are you seriously telling me that I need more practice than the frog?"

"Well, the frog didn't almost hit me!"

Mark opened his mouth a couple of times trying to come up with a response, but gave up and started to shoot the giant green frog, mumbling under his breath the entire time. The last frog finally died a few moments later.

After a few minutes, the group was discussing what they could do better next time.

"I think you need a way to give us a warning when you are using that skill, Leo. The thorns almost got me," Blue commented.

"Ok, but how? If I scream or just say, watch out, it might scare away the monsters."

"What if you say the name of the spell you are using?" Hera suggested.

"Yes please, Let me get a video from it too. Are you going to scream while you charge up too?" Mark was already grabbing his tablet from the holster.

"Yeah, not gonna happen. Not only because of that," Leo pointed at Mark," But because if I have to scream, the monsters might be alerted. Not to mention that when we fight things that can understand us, that would give us many other problems."

"Ok, then what?" Alex asked.

"What if you call the name of someone who is not in the group? Like 'Eddie, behind you?' It would still be a loud noise, but the tone seems less aggressive," Bonnie suggested.

"Maybe... It still feels weird. I wish I could get the coms that the coalition use," Leo scratched his head.

"Why? What do they do?" Bonnie asked.

"They work as an overlay when you connect various communicators together. It's a visor with an earpiece. The basic one can already track your group's position, and you can use it as a walkie talkie. The ones that are only available for the higher ranks can show the silhouette of your group even through walls, link your compendium to the display and even show how long your buffs and skills can last. It turns the combat into something from MMO."

Hera watched as Bonnie and Mark got more and more excited hearing the description. Their eyes were glimmering by the end of Leo's explanation. Hera had to admit that is seemed very useful, especially the part of linking with the compendium.

"We can check the stores in the city later for something like that. I doubt something that useful is exclusive to Leo's group," Alex suggested.

The group agreed with the idea and went back to hunting. The next few armies of frogs were dispatched relatively quickly. But Mark was feeling down for being the only one without magic. Seeing how much it bothered him, they all agreed to go to the Arcanist Lookout so he could learn how to feel mana with the ruins. According to Bonnie, she could help him more than the trainers in the ATRs.

At the Lookout, most of the group stayed near the ruins to increase their mana. Hera and Alex were the only two that wanted to keep hunting. Leaving the group, the two women kept killing the frogs in the surrounding area.

After about three hours of hunting, Hera noticed that Alex seldom needed a second strike to kill one of the frogs.

"Do you have a skill to increase your damage?" Hera asked.

"Sort of, its part of my role skill. My hide got a buff. If my target doesn't notice me, I can deal more damage with my attacks. It increased one rank since we came here, so now I deal about 30% more damage if my enemy doesn't see me, but they take 70% less damage if they find me while I'm hiding."

Hera considered that for a moment. As Berthellemy said, Assassins could be much more effective when hunting on their own. But the penalty for being discovered was rather significant. Although even without the advanced [Hide], no frog was able to detect her before she attacked. Not only that, if she could hide well, she would also be able to go to dangerous places without much of an issue. Thinking back on what she had learned about how to get a new role skill, Hera had no idea how to start learning it. Turning to her friend, she asked.

"Do you mind telling me how your role test was?"