Chapter 146 - 146

The afternoon group has begun to gather by the time Cain returns to the Guild House, forming an organized group outside and chatting happily. Much of the banter is about the new items that had have gone up on the market for discount prices. Sellers names are hidden by default, but it looks like one or more of the defectors was a Guild officer and cleaned out the bank or the Guild vault before they fled. Now there's a lot of equipment available, and those with money have geared up. 

The hidden stats in the gear get a big upgrade at level 100, so the preferred route is to find the high level gear, but Cain can see that many of the members grabbed up the lower level gear to be fully equipped, as there are distinctive item appearances from the Naga dungeon showing on this group. The Guardians confiscated everything when transfers showed up in the city, so this sight is a new but familiar one to Cain. 

As he approaches, the group splits into three, with four reasonably equipped tanks and six healers. There's also a number of transfers off to the side that aren't part of the raid, and Cain is a bit confused.

"We're planning to run the 5 man dungeon but we're short a Healer, we were hoping to borrow one from the raid if they had extra." A Paladin explains, stepping forward in his heavy plate armor. At this level, a healing tank is nice to have, but generally far from enough for the whole group. 

"Oh, hey Marcus. Didn't know you were running this afternoon or I would have signed up for a different spot." One of the healers says, giving Cain a pleading look. 

"Go ahead. And if any of you want to join the other two groups, please do so we can get everyone going. I can make up the difference with summons in the Raid. Tomorrow I'll have a regular group finding sheet out front as well, for everyone to see what is lacking and quickly organize runs."

Two more split off and Cain sees an old woman come forward, clearly not intending to fill one of the vacant spots. 

"I'm Martha, your neighbor across the road. If you'd like I can organize the sign up sheets and keep the random groups going. My place is a pawn shop, so the system gives me the ability to direct message those who do business with me."

That would be incredibly handy. Find a group, buy random items you might need and discount pawn things you want to get rid of, all in one spot? 

"Sounds like a deal to me. I'll talk to the rest of the council tonight and see if we can get you paid as a public service. Something to cover your time so you don't have to charge for the sign up." Cain suggests and the old woman nods before returning to her home. Without her saying so, Cain would have never known it was a pawn shop, perhaps it wasn't sanctioned by the Guild before so she had to operate under the radar. 

Three more transfers are called over by group members as Cain decides he might not have to lead these Raids much longer. A day or two for the group finder to work out any bugs in the system and Martha should be able to take over his job here. There's a lot of groups gathering though, and not nearly enough healers. Word spread in seconds that Martha was running a group finder, but most of the healers in town have already done a run today, or are currently in one. 

"Hold up a moment, I've got an idea." Cain smiles at the afternoon group. 

There are five well geared groups waiting on healers now, so Cain heads over to Martha's place with his proposal. If they still haven't found anyone after he's done his second run, Cain will send cloned healers along with them to make up a Raid group. They can run with his summons while he rests.

The idea doesn't seem terrible to anyone there, five tanks and five healers is way more than most Raids get. Heck, two of each is considered a passable group, though a third Healer is preferred.

Cain would split them between Raids, but for the [Advanced Supporter] to join a group, Cain himself must be in the group. So no matter how many extras he has, they can't all join different parties. 

"If you need, we can join other parties." Vala says, indicating Nemu and Laura. If Cain didn't know better he'd think Vala was reading his mind. Though come to think of it, in a way she can, summons sense his intentions to follow silent commands. 

"Being Epic Companions, or maybe your [Advisor] skill lets us operate fully autonomously. Laura can cast some healing magic, or she can trade the Ice Drakes for Woodland Drakes that can heal like a Druid, and my group heals are pretty good. I'm pretty sure the Oath Breakers can too, or anything you pick as a Legendary Golem." Vala finishes and Cain sinks into thought for a moment while Laura looks upset at the thought of changing her Drakes to be healers. She likes freezing everything. 

"One moment while I call some summons, I think these ladies would like to do a separate instance instead of helping clear ours." Cain says, confusing the others. After all, those are clearly his Companions, and they've never seen Companion type summons do anything like that before. 

"Hey again Oath Breaker. Can you join whatever group you want? The girls want to do two separate runs, and I was going to send you with them." The interface is not a big believer in giving useful information about skills, so in cases where the summons can talk, it's easier to simply ask them. 

"We like that idea, three dungeons at once is the way of the future." The oath breaker agrees and Cain uses Lesser Demon Army to raise their numbers to twelve. 

"We will do this differently today. Five each go with Vala's teams, which the Companions will form, two will come with me and we will try out the [Merger] skill and see what kind of increase that provides." Cain says and the fearsome demons split between the groups. Honestly, if Laura is using Drakes that can heal, their groups are likely going to be just as overpowered as his team even after the rest of his summons appear. 

The two Oath Breakers staying behind come over to Cain, ready for the Merge. 

[Merger complete]

[Skill Gained: Deadly Shadow] All attacks hit any or all targets in range of this skill. 

So that's how they are killing everything without anyone noticing them? It's just a selective area attack skill. But they're insanely fast to begin with, so nobody could tell.

[Merger Complete] 

[Multiple Mergers have reduced efficiency] 

Not exactly a full and helpful description, but Cain will have to test it out when he's in the Raid. 

"I'm ready, let's head out." Cain notices his voice has taken on the creepy tone of the Oath Breakers, and he moves to jog to the raid portal, finding himself there in mere seconds, with the group far behind. The physical benefit from Merge skill really is huge. 

[We are powerful] comes a faint Oath Breaker voice in his head, followed by laughter. 

The group catches up a minute later, looking at him in awe and Cain nods a greeting as if he meant to do that and enters the Raid to call the rest of his Summons. 

The group follows behind him and Kone is stretching her limbs like something is off.

"What's up? You feeling alright?" Cain asks, worried about the little Beast Lord. 

"When you merged something changed in the [Assigned Companion] skill. I think some of the bonus is based on your stats and the change made me a bit off balance, like everything is too easy." She tries to explain before giving up. Su, her leafy scaled dragon companion agrees with her though, flexing her muscles in appreciation. 

Today's dungeon is one of the mind breaking ones Cain hates. The whole thing is warped and shifting colors like a hallucination, even the monsters in here look like they're straight out of a bad acid trip. But he gets a new Demon type on the very first pull, a large, feathered humanoid Demon with multi colored wings like a Parrot and two crow like heads. The Record Keeper as it's called is an incredible Mage, and an Epic Demon, flagged as having the increased durability of a boss monster. 

A bona fide Raid Boss was stationed at the front doors. This run is going to suck. Cain begins to fire multi shot, finding it takes virtually no mana at all while merged, the blue globe in the bottom right of his interface doesn't even dip as he spams multi shot. 

To his eyes the shots explode with a black Mist that covers dozens of meters in every direction, the [Deadly Shadow] skill effect, but there's nothing else to hit. Each arrow hits significantly harder than a swing from the Oath Breakers Claws, taking chunks out of the Record Keeper's health a dozen times a second. 

"Are we fighting this boss too, or just staring?" One of the tanks teases the group, finally getting into position as the Demon has lost a third of its health. Three seconds isn't a long time to recover from the shock and charge the boss, but at the rate Cain is firing Arrows, he was still almost too late and had to [Taunt] to get it to pay attention to him. 

Even the Wrath Bringers were a step behind him, arriving as he was speaking to circle behind the boss and leave the front open to attacks. 

A barrage of spells follows, and no other melee fighter manages to land a blow.