Rillik watched as the dense pack of mercs floated over the water on a shield toward land. He shook his head.
“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Elly asked, uncharacteristically soft-spoken.
“No,” the golgari said, his voice flat.
“I find their tactic questionable,” Lacos noted, a hint of curiosity in his tone. “If they did not find success yesterday when attacking in numbers, why try again with an even larger group?”
The leader of the crew unclenched his hands from the railing at the edge of the the deck and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension there.
“Let’s head down into the boat. We can talk on the way.”
The other two nodded, and together they checked their gear before climbing down the rope ladder into the waiting dinghy. Once they settled in their seats, Rillik picked up the oars, pushed off the ship and resumed his speech.
“There’s two schools of thought when it comes to tackling weak monsters in large numbers. One way is to split wide and pick at them from the edges. If they try to swarm you, there’s space to just pull back to prevent getting surrounded. It’s slower, but much, much safer.”
“And the other way?”
Rillik grunted.
“Go all in. Ball up in numbers and dive into the middle. The theory goes that the number of enemies doesn’t really matter beyond a certain point. With enough people, you can layer shields, support and firepower to the point where the weak monsters can’t touch you. It can work well enough under normal circumstances.”
“Normal circumstances?” Lacos asked.
It’s possible that people have run into intelligent swarm monsters before, but I’ve never
“They obviously disagree.”
too greedy. They got a few kills yesterday and the
He shook his head.
potential haul is so huge they aren’t thinking about what it costs to get the little
monsters before they went in, standard delve tactics. A smaller number had been more
of death amongst mercs,
quietly, “unless they retreat early. The moment they go underground,
felt his frustration rise but he tried to let it go. He’d
they
—----------------------
lively there, lad!” a
as he raised his blade and sent another
the side, allowing the blade light to scatter across the terrain. He grit his
“Damn monsters,” he grated.
unnerving. The ants were huge. Heavily armoured beasts, the frontline insects were durable beyond the mercenaries’ expectations, shrugging off a lot of punishment and retreating when they took
fine!” Hartos shouted. “Ball up, stay together, and we’ll be
to push back the waves of
that we haven’t been surrounded yet? If they get in front of us, they
they trying to invite us deeper?” Drake asked, a hint
Hartos grinned savagely.
We’ll smash them to bits and
crew leader turned to roar over the
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
The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!