Cain does eventually notice their antics, when Nemu gets so into it that only one of them is playing a combat buff.
"What are you doing? Stop stealing Misha's spot and get back to casting. You can take the other side if it means that much to you." He says, thumping the Felian on the head before petting her ears and returning to the fight. The happy look on Misha's face doesn't go unnoticed by the other ladies who share a meaningful glance at the two.
Mythryll knows they've casually shared a bed more than once in every sense of the phrase, but now that she has a rival, the laid back cleric seems determined to move things into a more solid direction. While Nemu is sweet and cuddly in her own way, the Mage is still cheering on Misha's chance to land herself the man she wants once and for all. Now that she's finally decided to make her move that is.
Unlike Nemu, who needs to play an instrument constantly for one of her buffs, Misha has some free time on her hands. The why of that is simple, an overlooked interaction between Vala's new Pestilence Skill and her ability to heal the group for a percentage of damage done. The widespread Pestilence is sending a significant amount of healing outwards, but the gear they picked for her adds forty points to every heal she does. So every half second when the pestilence effect sends a raid wide heal out, it gets enhanced.
The transfers are all well geared, but unlike Cain with his huge reserve of health, three hundred HP is all most of them have. A third or more of their health passively every second leaves the healers free to cast whatever damaging abilities they have and only intervene when someone takes a particularly hard hit or gets Poisoned or cursed.
There's a lull in the fighting while the Ogres regroup and the raid party moves around the corner from the west wall to the north, so Misha takes a page out of Nemu's play book and rubs up against Cain, which he responds to with an arm wrapped around her waist and a smile before kissing the top of her head.
Nemu makes a disgruntled noise at what she views as an unfair use of her techniques, attracting attention from many raid party members, most of whom don't know that Nemu is a Summon and only see two women fighting for the Puppet Master's attention. The sight brightens their mood, if the strongest among them have time to flirt and play around, certainly the city can't be in too dire of a state.
The North Wall has already been over half cleared by the combination of rapidly spreading debuffs and the archers on the walls, leaving Ogre bodies littered all over the ground. The raid group pushed hard into the survivors, targeting the leaders and healers as much as they can, knowing that without organization this offensive against the city is doomed.
The sound of siege weapons has become sporadic too, so the fight at the other sides must not be going too badly. Cain hasn't seen any Royalty or special units yet though, so unless they're all with the siege weapons, this offensive is unlikely to be the last one in the immediate future.
Disappointment awaits them when they meet up with the other raid party in the Northeast corner of the city, no senior command elements were found. Which can only mean this was a test of Sunnybrook's defenses and they're going to return. Finding the base camp of the Ogres has proven extremely elusive though, stifling all attempts to head off the attacks. Many scouts have been sent out, but most returned having found no sign, like the Ogres simply vanished. The rest simply vanished themselves.
That is the topic of conversation in the Darklight Host Guild House today.
"I say I head out with whoever wants to accompany me and search for signs of a hidden dungeon. If Elven scouts can't find them, there's a good chance they're not keeping a massive army out in the open. The guards near the known dungeons haven't been attacked, so they're not hiding in one of them." Cain begins.
"So like the one we found in the woods on the way here? The one with the hot springs in the final boss room?" Mythryll nods her understanding. That dungeon wasn't entirely unknown, they'd heard rumors of it, but it was unguarded and hidden in the woods. In fact, it might be close enough to be included in their search.
The biggest problem will be finding signs of the Ogres. They don't have a Ranger skilled in tracking within the Guild, and anyone else might miss the signs mostly covered by magic as the Ogres retreated. This is a conundrum for Cain. Should he post a quest? Try to recruit someone into the Guild?
"We need a Ranger with good tracking abilities for this. Any suggestions?" he asks the gathered Guild Members.
"Spirit Folk Rangers get an even bigger bonus to tracking monsters than Elves do. The Elves get a bigger bonus to tracking humans and animals." Kone points out.
"I know where we can find just the right Ranger. Want me to go invite them to the Guild?" Char asks hopefully. Cain isn't sure if this Ranger will be smol and cute or if it will be fluffy, but if Char thinks they're prefect they're almost guaranteed to be one of the two.
"Sure, bring them by and if nobody objects we will have a new Guild member." Misha nods, as Cain looks lost in thought. Char hurries out, as the day is beginning to get late, and the others chat about possible locations for a hidden dungeon that wouldn't have attracted attention.
In under an hour, Char has returned with her chosen Ranger. At first Cain thinks she's brought them an Elf, but the ears aren't long. No, the girl she brought appears to be a human, every bit a ragged as Kone was when they first met. Her equipment is of good quality, so she's obviously been to at least a few dungeons, but it's pretty beat up and covered in dirt and mud.
Are they perhaps running a goodwill for unfortunate young ladies? Because as far as Cain can tell, that's almost all they seem to attract to the Guild.
"This Ranger here has the best nose in the Elven woods. A transfer, not a local. Go ahead, introduce yourself." Char pushes the short human forward. Upon closer inspection, she's not a child, just very short for a human. She must have set her character parameters all to minimum except her breasts. The sort of thing Cain would expect a guy playing a female class in a game to do, but the transfer system locked them to only one sex or the other. He couldn't pick any female class options.
"Hello everyone. My name is Belle, I'm a level 55 Ranger, with Maxed tracking, and some Concealment skills. I prefer Archery, but I do have some melee combat affinity."
Elmira, their sugar loving Pixie is circling around her head, giving her an inspection. "You're not a human are you? You look like one, but you don't feel like one." She insists, poking at Belle's face as it it would change or break an illusion.
"I'm actually a werewolf. I used the random character creation and got a basic class, but a hidden race." She confirms.
That really might be perfect. Aren't Werewolves supposed to have a really great sense of smell? Cain smiles in victory.
"I think Char was right, you're just what we need. Would you like to join the Darklight Host, Belle?"
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