The dungeon itself had two optional bosses and the Town Headman. The first optional boss was the Carver, the town butcher. He had a stun he was able to use every minute and a hard-hitting attack called Cleave which did significant damage if not blocked or mitigated. He didn’t have any adds unless you counted the random goblins that came in from the street, as they hadn’t cleared all of those first. The second optional boss was the Street Sweeper, who turned out to be a pain in the ass. The group had just about killed off all the random goblins when they found him. The Sweeper was pushing a blue cart and carried a shovel over one shoulder. He had two abilities. The first one wasn’t horrible, a stun that also did damage to anyone in melee range as he whipped his shovel around his head. The second ability was called Filth Call, which summoned some of the ooze from his blue bin. It hit the entire group with a DoT poison debuff that did damage per tick. Luckily, Marysue’s Cleanse Sickness removed it from them.
With both of the optional bosses dead, they went to the big building in the center of town, the Town Hall. It was surrounded by a wall smooth enough to stop them from climbing over it, as was the single gate. They were also unable to damage the gate. Beside the gate was a small sign and a red button. The sign read, ‘Push to speak with the Town Headman’.
“Why is it always a red button?” Marysue asked.
“It is just one of those things,” Alburet chuckled. “People can’t help but push red buttons.”
“Any idea what he does?” Gerald asked.
“The last two bosses had stuns, so he probably will as well,” Fluff guessed.
“We’re over leveled for this place, so why don’t we just summon him and find out?” Karen shrugged.
“Sounds good to me,” Alburet said and reached out to push the button.
A minute later the front door of the Town Hall opened and the largest goblin they’d seen to date walked out of the building. It was almost Orc sized, but still clearly a goblin. It stopped on the other side of the gate. “Who summons me and why?”
“We have come to cleanse these lands of your kind,” Gerald spoke up. “The King of Stormguard has decreed it should be so.”
The Town Headman sneered at Gerald, “Does one of you challenge me to one on one combat? Or are you going to attack me as a group?”
Gerald paused as a pop-up appeared. “I have a pop-up asking if we wish to send just one person in to fight him. It says that we will not be allowed to interfere if that option is chosen.”
“Is there a reason why we should do so?” Marysue asked.
“Says here it triples the experience earned for the party, however if the champion fails we’re banned from the town for a full day.”
“Meh,” Alburet shrugged. “We can just gang tackle him and call it good.”
“I’m with Alburet on this one,” Karen added. “No reason for us to risk not clearing this dungeon.”
Gerald tapped his pop-up and replied, “We decline your offer, Headman.”
“Fools,” the Headman sneered. “In that case you shall face me and my guards.” The doors of the Town Hall opened again and ten guards marched out to stand behind the Headman. “I give you one more chance to face me in solo combat.”
Gerald turned it down, “Nope, we all want a swing.”
The mass of guards came charging at them. Stacia was waiting for that and got two Ally abilities off, taking two of the guards out of the equation and sending them after the Headman. She targeted two more of the guards and Dazed them, reducing the number of guards the group had to deal with right away to six. Gerald and Tiny split them three and three as they backed to either side of the gate.
Working together as they’d learned to do, the DPS helped focus Tiny’s mobs down first. Luckily, the only ability the guards had was a stun. Tiny and Gerald endured one set of stuns from their targets as Fluff, Alburet and Karen worked their way through the guards on Tiny. The second round came as the group switched over to help Gerald while Tiny moved in to take the Headman. The Headman had already killed one of the two Allied guards, and the other one was badly wounded. A minute later the group had finished off the guards and moved in on the Headman as he killed the second Allied guard.
The Headman had one other ability, which raised his dead guards with a third of their original life. Gerald turned on the zombies to tank them while Tiny stayed with the Headman. The DPS went to town on the zombies, quickly cutting them down. Tiny called out a warning as his life began to ebb away faster than Alburet’s spell could heal him. When the zombies died Tiny had just a fraction of his life remaining. Gerald taunted the Headman away from Tiny as Alburet rushed over to reapply the heal.
“Thank you, master,” Tiny wheezed.
“You’re welcome,” Alburet called out as he went back into melee range with the Headman. “Sit the rest of it out, Tiny.”
A minute later they had killed the Headman and looted the body. As they healed up after the fight, Gerald pursed his lips. “I wonder what the fight is like if you accept solo combat?”
“He was hitting you pretty hard,” Marysue said. “If that fight had gone on much longer I would have needed a mana potion.”
“He also had a decent health pool,” Karen added.
“Maybe a tank could do it, or a skilled ranged caster who can kite him,” Alburet shrugged.
“We be done?” Stacia asked.
“Yeah, just need to go turn in and collect our rewards. Hand off anything we want raffled,” Alburet told them. “I’ll have Kim or Vanessa put it all together for us and I’ll send out a message to the guild tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” Gerald replied.
After getting their rewards and handing off the stuff to Alburet, the group broke up to do various things. Gerald wanted to take Marysue to dinner, Fluff was going to get all of her stuff together to move, as was Karen. Alburet and Stacia were the last two in the fort’s courtyard when Chris, Deidre and the other three Alpha Company members came in through the gate.
“How did it go?” Alburet asked them.
“We did well,” Chris answered. “We completed the quests, minus the Town. We are going to do that after we sell off our loot.”
“I made it to level ten,” Deidre said with a smile. “I will be goin’ to train me ability while they sell off the loot.”
“I wish you good luck, then,” Alburet told the group, shaking hands all around and giving Deidre a hug. “I hope you all have a good time.” Finally, Alburet and Stacia used their Homestones to return to their house. “That was a fun day.”
“Aye, Asthore,” Stacia replied. “I be needin’ to get dinner started and check on the other room.”
“I’ll go get Kim started on the raffle and be along in a few,” he told her.
They parted with a quick kiss. Alburet entering the guild hall to find Ironhand’s group there. “What’s going on?”
Kim looked up, “They are having a bit of an issue and were just asking for an officer.”
“Lucky day for me, then,” Alburet replied with a wry smile. “Okay. Vanessa, take them to the meeting room, please. I’ll be there in just a minute.” He watched as the group filed into the back before turning to Kim. “I have another task for you, Kim.”
Kim shook her head, “I’m not surprised. What do you need?” Her smile took all the bite from her words.
“We have gear that we want to set up as a raffle,” Alburet told her. “It is from the 12-24 range, so they know ahead of time. Set the ticket price low and let people buy as many as they want. Day after tomorrow we can pull the tickets and let the winners select their prizes. We’ll have even more stuff after tomorrow.”