The only one to not react with shock to Audrey's outburst was Tara, instead she put her hands on her shoulders and told her that she and her would have some girl talk first before they confronted Ash together. Surprising everyone, this worked and they walked away far enough that no one would hear them. The four left behind were at a loss for words, they had all expected Tara to smash the girls head in, or chew her out or whatever. But now it looked like they were sharing secrets about boys under the bleachers at a high school football game. Stevens cleared his throat and finally broke the silence.
"I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I REALLY want to know what they are saying." Stevens said.
"Do you know who the new girl is?" Bethany asked everyone.
"Let's just say she saved me from a trap after the tutorial ended, so I gave her some magic pointers for a week. The last time I saw her, she was supposed to be keeping watch while I worked on a new skill. When I was done she was gone," Eli tried to explain.
"I have a feeling that that girl is going to tell that story differently," Bethany said. "She was mad."
"I have no idea why," Eli said, "Any ideas Stevens?"
"The fact that Tara wasn't mad, and even seems to be on your side makes me think it's some kind of misunderstanding. Or, Tara got her far enough away to kill her for calling her barbie," Stevens said
"Yeah, I thought for sure she was going to smack that girl into next week for saying that. Hey, what was that thing that Derks called her, where she threw him through a tent when we were in Yemen?" Eli asked.
"The first time in Yemen or the second time?
"Second time, I heard what he said the first time, I almost demoted him for that."
"Oh, he called her a…." Stevens was cut off by an axe landing directly between his legs and burying deep into the ground.
"That's enough of that," Tara said as she and Audrey returned to the group. "Audrey would like to speak to you alone Ash." Tara started to usher people away making sure that Eli wasn't the one who had to move, just another way to make sure his dominance in the group was obvious to anyone watching.
"First, I'm sorry about yelling, I know it's not really your fault, but I was really mad, like, really really mad." Audrey said until he held up a hand to stop her from rambling.
"Just tell me why you're mad, and we can talk about it," said Eli.
"Well, you know how I was always injured, I was fighting late at night in under 16 matches, I used what you taught me to win so I faced more difficult fights. The problem was that my fight name was 'Disciple of Ash', and I would brag about you all day to drum up bets for my fights. Then when Lord Ash went around threatening half the safe zone, EVERYONE wanted to talk to me, I barely escaped as they were talking about how to use me as a bargaining chip. I had a good thing going until you had to screw it all up by threatening everyone, and the worst part of all is that you are strong enough to back up your threats. They didn't believe me that you could until they saw this destruction in under a day." She got that all out very quickly and in a panic.
"Well, that seems like a whole lotta not my fault right there," Eli said with a joking smile.
"Tara said you would say that," Audrey said, "Are you and her a thing?"
"Yes, very much so, why do you ask?" Eli asked. "Do you have a middle school crush on me? You haven't even seen my face." Eli thought he was joking around and being funny but she looked embarrassed.
"Well yes I do, but I ask because your magic is different, there's a lot of hers in yours. Oh, and I can sense magic now, it took a lot of meditation but I got there using what you taught me." Audrey said.
Eli got down on one knee facing away from the others, took off his mask, and looked at Audrey deep in her eyes. She blushed a fierce red and shyly smiled.
"I am very proud of you, that is truly an accomplishment. As far as the crush stuff goes, I'll let Tara handle that. She will know what to say other than the fact that you are too young. I'm not so good with the emotional details." Eli said as he then stood and put his mask back on. "Are you going to stick around? We have a lot of stuff going on, but if you clear it with Tara I don't mind."
He waved for them to come back so they could discuss the plan, he guessed that they had less than 5 hours until it started. Eli explained the plan to them, which was pretty simple: he would be out at the outer edge of his destruction in the middle of the area he was defending. From what he understood, during a horde event every monster that spawns runs straight for the nearest human, so he would just have to be the nearest human. The rest of the group would stay inside the barrier and keep an eye if anything doesn't go for him and take it down as a group. Stevens, Bethany, and Cory would take the west edge, and Tara and Audrey would take the east side.
Audrey couldn't really fight much but she could help Tara keep an eye out, at least that is the excuse she used to convince Tara to let her stick around during the fight. Eli broke down what he expected the event to be.
"My best guess from what I've seen from the system, will be that it's a steady stream of monsters. But they go on for 12 hours not stopping, appearing randomly around the safe zone and rushing toward the nearest humans. We will be the only ones out here so they should all come to us, you may only need to fight one or two at a time, but it will be endless, for the entire time, maybe a finale at the end. Again, this is a guess, but I would say that the monsters average level would be 25 to 30, some lower in groups but some higher. If you run into trouble let me know, I have a few skills that let me move quickly or cause damage instantly," Eli explained.
"Our best shot is to conserve magic, use it if you are topped off but try not to let yourself get below 50 percent if you can help it. I want us all to survive this, so if you are in trouble come to me or flee into the safe zone until you have recovered. None of you should worry about me." Eli said that last part while looking right at Tara.
They spent the remaining hours going over some basics that Eli and Tara had learned so far when it comes to fighting. They spent about an hour going over things with Audrey and how she should get involved for levels if it's an easy monster, otherwise she should use her blur spell to hide if she gets into danger. Bethany asked for some help and Eli gave her instructions in basic balance and weight shifting during close combat. Tara was giving her dagger stares as he had his hands on her hips showing her how to position them, but she ignored Tara and focused on trying to learn.
Finally, the time had come, there weren't any warnings or timers or buzzers or system windows. But Eli could feel the change in the magic around them and told everyone to get in place as fast as they could. He got to his spot in a few jumps and took out a dagger from his inventory and cut a line across his chest, if the monsters could smell, they would come for the smell of blood. As the magic changes were coming to a peak, he got a feeling that something was wrong, like there was real danger coming, and the sounds that followed that feeling confirmed his fear. This was going to be harder than he thought.
He had been wrong, this wasn't going to be a steady stream of monsters spawning, it was going to be in waves. And from the sounds coming from the forest, it was probably an hour's worth of his previous estimates. He sent a message to Tara for her to collect the others and come to him as fast as she could. Then he conjured his cudgel, making it quite heavy and with all of his strength, and without using anymore magic, he threw it to his left. It crashed through trees making terrible noises and finally impacted the incoming monsters after ten seconds of crushing everything in its wake. He did the same to his right and prepared for the ones right in front of him to come charging at him, he got his old bone mace out since he wasn't sure how much magic he was going to need and got into a stance.
It wasn't until he had smashed his way through hundreds of monsters that the others caught up to him and helped him finish off the wave. He managed to keep his magic above 50 percent but just barely, he could kill any of the monsters he had fought with in one good swing but there were so many of them that the damage he was taking had added up. He had swung his mace non-stop at everything from alligator-wolves to tiger-monkey things with poisoned claws. The worst was a group of ants that came up to his waist that spit acid, they took two or three hits to bring down and if enough acid got on him it would melt him to the bone.
His cloak hid his injuries from the others, but he had to swing with his left hand for a while waiting for enough of his muscle on his right arm to grow back so he could use it properly again. They had a bit of time to rest so while they were recovering, Eli decided to ask about what the others had seen. They said pretty much the same thing, most had come to him, with a few stragglers headed to them, and that no more than 20 or so got past them on each side. This made him optimistic, but he knew that the first wave would be the easiest.
"Let's talk about a new strategy, obviously I didn't see the wave thing coming, does anyone have any ideas," he said while still trying to catch his breath. "I could use your perspectives, while trying to get a new plan lined out."
"We stick together, fight back to back, Stevens and Audrey in the middle?" Tara offered, without a lot of confidence.
"Lord Ash and Tara take the front, and we support," Bethany offered.
"We should move," Audrey said in barely a whisper.
"Speak up, what do you mean?" ask Eli.
"Well, if we move then we keep them in front of us, then my Lord Ash and Servant Tara can stay in front and we can support without getting surrounded," she said while fidgeting and blushing.
"First, don't call me servant when it's just us ok, second, do not call Ash 'My Lord' unless you plan on following him. And lastly, that is a good idea, you may have a gift for tactics," Tara said with a hand on her shoulder.
"Ok, so this is Audrey's plan so she will call it as we move, which direction and how fast," Eli said. "There's only a few minutes left until the next wave comes so prepare yourselves, it's only going to get harder."