Chapter 560: Plains Expedition Returns |
It was the day where the expedition to the plains would start up again and Joshua found himself waiting at the guild hall in James Town alongside Henry, Julia, Isabella, and Natalie. These were all the people that did most of the planning before expeditions and Joshua had just come along for the ride for the most part. He was fine with giving commands in the moment during the heat of battle, but he wasn't nearly as good at planning things out as these four had proven to be. It was only an hour or so before everyone was supposed to meet up and prepare to depart, but right now they were figuring out how exactly they planned to go about the expedition.
It didn't take the five of them all that long to come to a consensus on how they wanted to start off the expedition this time around. They planned to start exactly where they left off and try to find the two remaining guardian sites before they challenged any of them. There were a couple of reason for this. The first was that it would allow them to explore the full scope of the prairie and give them a decent idea of what they might end up having to go up against in the dungeon. Any hints of that beforehand would help them prepare for the hardest challenge of the prairie ahead of time instead of going in completely blind.
The other reason that they planned on exploring the prairie and searching for all of the guardian sites without challenging them right away was for everyone to gain some levels. Not everyone made it to the final portion of the tournament where they were given levels as a reward, and even those that had didn't make it as far as Joshua had. After the break the system had given everyone, there was a month long boost in experience gain that was given to all explorers. There was a ten percent experience boost for all explorers at the moment and an extra twenty percent added on to that for those who were either healers or support roles. Since they weren't able to participate in the tournament this was a way for them to catch up in levels to a degree.
There were still plenty of members in the main expedition force that were nearing level eighty that could use the push forward before they even thought of going into a dungeon that would likely have level ninety beast inside. Those types of beast would put too much pressure on anyone under level eighty so they wanted to use the first two weeks of the expedition exploring the prairies and then taking down the guardians. By the time they accomplished this they should all be strong enough to advance towards the dungeon. Even if Joshua had the strength to go in the dungeon along with a few others, he didn't want to put anyone into a situation where they weren't ready.
Joshua also planned to use the first few days of the expedition to get their two new companions some time to adjust to fighting alongside the others. Celia needed to learn how to fight alongside other tanks outside of Joshua who could be considered a crutch with how versatile he could be. On the other hand everyone else needed to get use to the capabilities of both Thomas and his beast companions. At this point they hadn't even seen Imperia in action yet which was something else that Joshua wanted to witness before they took on any really powerful enemies. The bat was still only level seventy-five just like Tails and Thomas and going against level eighty plus beast would be a good challenge for them.
It didn't take very long for other members of the main expedition force to start arriving. By the time it came around for the expedition to begin everyone was officially there including Vince and his four partners. Everyone was geared up and prepared for the expedition to begin so they headed to the edge of James Town and Joshua created a portal to the last place that they had been at inside of the prairie. They appeared in the more desolate looking location where the coyote guardian site was located. The barrier was still up so they couldn't see the guardian, but Joshua could still distinctly feel the unease of being so close to a powerful beast.
The area was completely vacant of any beast just like the first guardian site had been, but Joshua also knew that once they got outside of the immediate vicinity of the guardian site there would be several coyote groups wondering around the area. This was their main territory in the plains so it would be hard to spot any other beast around for a while. Joshua figured this was a predominately good thing mainly for the two new recruits. Everyone else had been accustomed to fighting the different beast in the prairie outside of the giant bison creatures and deer like beast. So fat they had encountered an array of different beast such as coyotes, prairie chickens, snakes, bobcats, and the annoying vultures. There was a huge variety of beast in the plains they had most likely not even seen up to this point. After all they still hadn't approached the center of the prairie up to this point and there were likely to be even stronger beast in that area.
Once they all moved through the portal and checked their surroundings they got into formation with Joshua, Jayce, and Ivan taking the lead as the main tank force. Abigail and the Carsen brothers all stayed back near the mages and healers to defend them just in case an ambush occurred. Celia being new to the group stood just behind the main front line tanks so that she could help out if needed, but mainly so that she could learn how they fight and defend the group together. Joshua also planned on having her work alongside Abigail at some point so that she could learn how defending the back line would work as well. With her danger sense ability Joshua felt that Celia could be a versatile tank that could fill in several different roles with the group when needed.
Thomas on the other hand was in the back line alongside Lily at the moment. Although he personally fought with daggers Joshua knew there was no way that Thomas was proficient enough in close combat to fight against the type of beast they'll be going up against. Instead Joshua wanted Thomas to focus completely on using his beast companions when it came to fighting and supporting them instead of fighting alongside the other close combat fighters. At the moment Thomas could only have two beast companions out and only one whenever he used bestial fusion. He was currently up on top of the back of Tails while Imperia was on his shoulder in her shrunk down form. Although both of his beast companions were strong with a lot of potential they would be going up against beast that could be over ten levels higher than them. For the most part Thomas's beast companions would be used as long range support rather than anything else.
"Celia can you sense anything with your ability?" Joshua asked as he kept his eyes straight ahead not looking towards the direction where he could feel the aura of several beast.
"I can't say what it is per say, but I'm definitely feeling a threat from that direction." She responded as she pointed in the exact direction that Joshua could sense the aura of several coyotes coming from. There were about a dozen of them which was normal in this area since they ran in large groups. They seemed to be cutting across the territory to head towards another portion of the prairie to look for food, but the way they suddenly shifted directions and started coming towards them told Joshua that they had caught their scent. The coyotes were rather aggressive and would go after bigger beast than themselves if they felt like they had the numbers advantage.
'Everyone get ready we've got about a dozen coyotes headed our way. They won't be sneaky about things since this is an open field, but they will probably attempt to surround us.' Joshua said through the mental link so that everyone knew what was going on. 'Lily don't bring out any other beast than Momo until the fighting starts. We wouldn't want to scare them all away after all.' Lily nodded in response as she commanded Momo to keep her calm even though the ferret could already smell the approaching trouble coming their way.
They kept moving forward as a group, but the tanks were a bit more spread out ready to protect the group once the fighting began and Joshua could already see that everyone was tense and ready for the moment the fighting would begin. That was when they all could see a large approaching dust cloud coming their way as several coyote silhouettes could be seen within it. There was one silhouette that was bigger than the others which was most likely the leader of the group that was following behind the rest. As the coyotes approached Joshua's group came to a stop and got into position for the upcoming clash.
