Quantum Leap - Vol. 11 Camp Salvation - New Vagabond Army

C006 Fame Sure Travels Far And Wide

"He is just a humble trader, sir. That's all..."

"A humble trader does do battles, especially the ones that you mentioned. Those are not party roads because they don't have many drops but only to eliminate the opponent off the face of this earth. What was the level of those demons you fought?"

"The Battle of Vrod was at level 60 max I think and War Of The Scorching Sands was level 90. There were 300 of them against 80 of us."

"WHAAAATTT...?!?! Level 90 and 300 against only 80 of you? Are you kidding me or what?"

"Actually it is 84, with our captains and Sir Robyn in the heart of the battlefield."

"How could I ascertain this...and what level are you? With your hidden stats and your plain Common class armour, you must be what...level 8 or 9?"

"Actually, sir...use your interface to look for Band of Vagabonds and lookup battle status, and from there you can see how many battles we had fought and also the number of monsters we had eliminated, both under battle mode as well as in skirmishes."

The leader of Flaming Arrows quickly searched his interface and got it assessed as he stared at the results with wide-eyed stupefaction. His lieutenant has to push his leader's chin to close his mouth.

"By the way sir, we are only Level 5..." the sergeant swordsman replied as he UNVEIL his status from HIDDEN and it was plain sight that his Level 5 stats are even higher than the Flaming Arrows lowest ranked member.

=*=

"WHAT...?!? All of you are Level 5 and yet your attributes surpass the lowest ranking member of our Band at level 7 or 8...!!!! What did you have on you right now?"

"Actually Sir Robyn doesn't wish us to disclose our stats in public. What we have is just Rare ordinary weapons and also Epic ordinary armour as you can see and every single piece of our weapons and armours had been socketed with ruby, sapphires and emeralds and our coat of arms alone had 5 diamond sockets." answered the sergeant swordsman casually when he exhibited his stats and then HIDDEN them once again.

"You mean you can have the money to socket every single piece of equipment on you and HIDDEN the status from everyone. Why do your leaders want to you all to do so?"

"Actually all these Common equipment had been upgraded since Sir Robyn is a Crafter and a Gem Master. All these upgrades had been done by him and the gems had been given by him as well. It pays to be modest if not everyone all wanted to have a piece of cake from us since our Sir Robyn is a very gracious and down to earth man."

"Yes, I agree to that, Young man. I was once too proud and full in the head to challenging him and in the end, I lost my adored equipment during one of the duels with him. I wish to meet him but you said that he is in York, right now?"

"Yes, Sir Robyn and our Captains are in York right now. I could send you a friend request and you could get in touch with him. There are so many Robyns listed as adventurers that it's hard to find him just by a search. Even in the battle stats, his name is hidden as well."

"Thank you, I would add him right now. By the way, we are in a party raid right now, would you mind to join us?"

"What level demons are you encountering and do you have a battle technique? Where is the party raid taking place and how many adventurers have you got right now?" asked a Barbarian.

"The demons are Level 80-90 and right now we would be tanking them from a small chasm from where they are coming out from. These demons were known as Brigade of Storm and SisterHode of the Universe. They are made of female liches and a mix of orc and imps."

"We don't have a strategy at the moment and we think of them when we are there. The party raid is taking place at the Ruins of Duggagurd, just 10km from here. We have been at it for some days already."

"So far our current strength is just about 150 or so, made entirely of Paladins, Bishops, LongBows, Sorcerers and Druids. We had reached a standoff and decided to leave that place for a while. We would regroup once we had more crew. Would you like to join us?"

"Sounds very tempting, but I think we better give it a pass. Furthermore, on every battle, Sir Robyn would make a minimap and places them on the table to actually plan out the roles, a pattern of assaults and mode of our actions so that it would be coordinated. Do you have such a plan with you?"

"We do not have such things with us. It seems your leader is a very coordinated and organised battle Strategist. I would like to see how you go about dealing with battles in the future. Ah yes, I have added your leader to my friends' list and awaiting his response."

"Ah, send him a PM, he got more than 3000 friends list all listed and he might miss your request. Its better that way and you'd get a faster response."

"I see... I might as well do that. So you guys won't want to join the little party raid with us?"

"It's alright, we might even find ourselves a party raid just for ourselves. It's part of training to us so we might be taking those at Level 65 demons for a start."

"In that's the case, I bade you farewell and good luck. Till we meet again then. We hope to be able to unite forces one day with your leader and captains of course."

"Yes, leader of the Flaming Arrows, we hope to someday."

....

Soon, the sergeants took off and rallied the men and walked around to see any kinds of wares that would prove advantageous for them in the battles to come. They visited the Peddler and as expected, he had held to tomes that are not readily available in other smaller towns.

The Archers saw something they had a preference for, it was called 'The Patriot' tome and it was an auto targeted arrow delivery system and all they have to do is to sit back and relax, pull their strings of the bow and let loose their arrows in the air without even targeting. The arrow would automatically aim down on each enemy's vital parts such as the head and heart on the battlefield without much effort. The cost of the tome is 15 gold coins for 'The Patriot'.

The Mages also saw something fresh that they loved and its called 'The Juggernaut' tome. It is a spell system and has no cooling time and its effective time is 15 seconds, and each level is an increment of 2 seconds and there's up to Level 100. 'The Juggernaut' is a spell to raise shafts and talons of ice from the ground to mutilate the enemies, obstruct their incoming paths or simply lay an ambush for them. The cost of the tome is 12 gold coins.

The Assassins saw several tomes that interests them and they are 'Augury of Death' a spell that inflicts Deep Wound condition for 10, 20 and 40 seconds for 5, 15, 25 damage

'Black Lotus Strike' a spell Lead Attack. Deals 10, 27, 35 damage for every strike. Assassins gain 5, 15 and 18 Energy if target foe is hexed.

'Black Mantis Strike, a spell Lead Attack. Deals +18, 29, 38 damage. Inflicts Crippled condition for 5, 15, 25 seconds if target foe is hexed.

Each of the tomes sells for 10 gold coins and each has a cooling time of 1 minute.

Lastly, the Swordsman and Barbarians saw what interest them most. It is the 'Doppelganger', a shadow clone of themselves that has 50% of their abilities when summoned and would help to aid in the frontline in either to tank or frontal assault and has a cooling time of 2 minutes. This applies to Level 1-35 and every level up gave them an added 1% ability to the 'Doppelganger'. The tome costs 15 gold coins.

Everyone made a note of the tomes they need and send a PM to Robyn of their findings. This would enhance their future battles with higher-level demons.

They had been deploying physical attacks and had been successful so far and to be par with the rest, they had picked a few times that would enhance their prowess in defeating the enemies in a more efficient manner and quicker times too.

Only the Assassin had been given the basic skills such as Shadow Step, Blink and Dash that would enable them to have an added advantage over their enemies in terms of speed and agility. Shadow Step is one skill that enables them to move forward and strike and then return to their original position after a period of 5 seconds. All these have a cooling time of 2 minutes.

After walking around in the city, they noticed several announcements placed on the bulletin boards that announce the type of party raids based on the size such as small, medium and large and upsize, the type of demons and their levels. A small sized is a 1:1, the medium is 1:1.5, large is 1:2 while the upsize is 1:3.

The announcements also added a multiplier reward system for demons level 41-50 at 1.15x, demons level 51-60 would be at 1.25x, demons level 61-70 would be at 1.35x, demons level 71-80 would be at 1.55x and demons level 81-100 would be at 1.80x.

Their drops may be minimal but the rewards are quite enticing since the 80 adventurers would be looking into further investments and they have 5 days during their lull period. An estimate of 25%, 35%, 55% and 65% gold coins would be awarded to successful raid parties.

"Do you guys want to have a go at these? We could take on a small one, and get paid 25% gold based on the number of participants. We have 80 of us, and we would get 20 gold coins per successful raid."

"Its rather small but we would be gaining experience points as well. If we take on demons level 51-60, the reward would be 1.25 more, means its 25 gold coins per raid."

"Well, we just look at this way, we should be gaining experience points as we go along and there are so many stages too. Why not take the 25% reward and the lowest demon level. Once we had gained nothing from there, we moved to the next higher level."

"Just like the way we grind the monsters back at our Camp. Seems a feasible idea. Want to take a look around guys? There's no entrance fee and we could do the community service to get rid of these demons."

"Ake sihambe sibulale amademoni athile ... !!!" cried the Amazonian Fighters as they raised their spears in the air amidst their jiggly melons that seems to excite the rest.

"Its settles then, let's go... In the name of the Band of Vagabonds... HOOAHH..."

=*=

The 80 adventurers had gone through 3 small party raids against demons level 51-60 and had gotten a total of 75 gold coins so far. They had decided that it is time to move up to another level where they had gone through 5 small party raids with demons from level 61-70 and were rewarded with 27 gold coins for each round.

After the 80 adventurers had gone through 8 small party raids, they had accumulated a total amount of 210 gold coins so far. "We still have a long way to and we got 5 days at it. Why don't we take a break and then we continue?"

They all went to the tavern and sat down and occupied every single seat that's available and they can't help to be noticed by some battle-hardened adventurers and newcomers as well. A whole army wearing identical armour and coat of arms paints a rather magnificent view and they talked softly among each other and there was no demeanour of arrogance at all.

"Hello there, I've heard about you when I joined this adventure, you're from The Vagabonds, right? Would you mind me asking you a few questions?" a young adventurer in cloth armour and welding a common class sword asked.