Least lame way to put it, Garath thought to himself as they reached the north end of the Guild Hall. Nailed it.
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” she said seriously. “I can actually kind of relate to that. It’s always been easier for me to be myself behind a keyboard.”
People were already gathering near the old school building's north doorway. Garath and Athios nodded and waved as they passed.
“Well," Garath continued as they walked past the building and onto the asphalt that had once housed outdoor basketball courts on the south end of BoTH HQ, "their group wants to join us to take the Dungeon. Between those four, you and me, and the growing list of hopefuls that have messaged me since our little town hall meeting, we have almost 20 people that want to join the Dungeon team."
"That's great," Athios said. "Isn't it?"
"It is," Garath agreed. The Necrologist pointed as the World Boss came into view, plodding its steady path north. "But the Dungeon has a 10-person maximum.”
“I think I see the problem.”
“I don’t know what to do about it," Garath said. "I mean, obviously we’ll have to trim some hopefuls to meet the group composition requirements from Alice but…”
“Actually," Athios said, absently pushing her wet bangs out of her eyes, "maybe this isn’t a problem at all. We may be looking at the rare and coveted best-case-scenario."
“How so?” asked Garath, coming to a stop at the asphalt's end, where bent and broken fence poles stuck out of the ground at awkward angles. "And where the hell is Warrion?"
“We’ll probably need to do more little-d dungeons to Level up and get gear to fill our raiment slots, right?” she asked.
Garath nodded along, waiting to see where she was going with this.
“Tryouts!”
“Tryouts?” came the disembodied voice of Warrion. The short, but somehow still gangly assassin appeared out of nowhere a few feet in front of Garath and Athios.
“Tryouts!” Garath agreed. What an obvious and perfect solution.
“Yeah!” she confirmed, getting more excited as she worked out the details in her mind. “Garath, you’re definitely going. I’m definitely going, because you'd probably die in ten minutes without me there to save your ass. Let’s assume your friend Auto is definitely going too, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Garath confirmed, nodding. “He’s one of the best gamers I’ve ever played with.”
"I came in late, are we talking about the Dungeon team?" Warrion asked. The Assassin screwed up his eyebrows. "Hey! Why didn't you include me in the definitely going list?"\
“You can always try out for the team," Athios told him, smiling deviously. Then she turned back to Garath. "Do you know when your friends will get here?”
“Best guess, evening, day after tomorrow. Or maybe the next morning.”
“Okay. So either you, Auto, or myself go on a little-d dungeon run with a few hopefuls and see how they do in group combat. We can score them each on performance and use a combination of that score and the necessary group composition to come up with our team.”
"You guys are really going to make me try out?" Warrion asked incredulously.
Garath ignored his gangly friend, chewing on his bottom lip as he thought about Athios’ proposal. “I think this is a really good idea, Athios.”
Athios smiled proudly. "All of my ideas are good ones,” she said with uncharacteristic confidence. Then she turtled back into herself sheepishly.
“No doubt,” Garath said appreciatively. “I was planning on grinding all day tomorrow anyways, so we can start then. We got some solid experience from Aquawood, so I'm not opposed to using little-d dungeons for Leveling. I’m also going to do some research tonight to see if anyone has come up with a better way to power Level. Either way, the Leveling method isn’t going to be a factor for tryouts. You’re right, we need to see how people perform in group combat." Garath wiped some rainwater off his brow then scratched thoughtfully at his chin. "I’ll put a plan together later tonight and schedule the tryouts to take place over the next few days.”
Athios smirked.
“What?” Garath asked.
“Not a leader he says,” she mocked playfully.
Chapter Seven – Bird Brain
Two hours later, Rum’bah finally rumbled his way over the asphalt south of the old school building. As the World Boss neared, Gary came out to join Garath, Athios, and Warrion as they waited to provide the rest of their community waiting on the opposite side of the building with some kind of update. Everyone had taken a few minutes to make sure they relocated anything they would terribly miss into their Items panels in the case they were forced to leave the stronghold. Garath was still hopeful they wouldn’t have to, but it was a reasonable precaution.
The four of them stood in the invisible 10-meter perimeter that was supposedly included in the building's inviolate status. The small group watched in nervous silence as the burnt-orange turtle came to a stop only one giant step from the unseen line in the sand. At least, Garath was pretty sure it stopped. The damn thing moved so slowly it was almost hard to tell. The pillar of smoke that followed the giant turtle went out a short second after. Rum’bah gave no hint as to what it might do next.
"This is probably a good sign, right?" Warrion asked.
Garath just nodded, never taking his eyes off the World Boss. "Yeah, I think it is. If it was going to burn down the building, it wouldn’t have stopped."
Garath could feel the heat radiating off the wondrous beast standing a little over ten meters away. Its steady, slow breathing was, an infernal breeze drying the rain clinging to his skin with each exhale. It appeared to be considering what to do about this new obstacle in its way. After half a minute of just watching the motionless World Boss, they looked at one another with the obvious question written on each of their
