[center][h1][color=red][u]G R A V E S[/u][/color][/h1][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]  • Tʜᴇ Dᴜɴɢᴇᴏɴ • [/center][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

Graves didn't know how he felt about Rael's little theory. If this dungeon was just the beginning of another tier of monsters, with more intelligent AI and actual tactics, what did that mean about the rest of the game's difficulty? Would there be more dungeons like this one? The playerbase would need to adjust their expectations on how monsters should fight every time they approached certain raids. If they couldn't adapt, as their current ragtag team had somehow managed to, they'd die. [color=red][i]'Pariah was gettin' a lil' too easy anyway.'[/i][/color]

[color=ed1c24]"Good idea. You and flower boy can take up the rear. I'll keep covering the front. We should keep close regardless. Both flanks need 'ta be able to cover each other when shit inevitably hits the fan again. Oh, and don't...don't call us 'wayfarers.' Makes you sound gay as hell. Just call us players."[/color] Graves wasn't a fan of the original plan to keep themselves split into two fireteams anyway. It left them exposed and weakened. Splitting up was never a particularly bright idea in a dungeon; and now that the monsters were using ambush tactics, the danger was multiplied several times over. [color=ed1c24]"Yo, Orchid!"[/color] The Blood Knight shouted, turning to Ochre. The craftsman was going through the rather disgusting process of picking apart the corpses for materials. Graves grimaced at the sight, but he didn't comment on it. [color=ed1c24]"I want you in the back with the little girl. Keep our rear covered. You think you can handle that?"[/color]

The team's resident pyromaniac and psychopath might've gotten on Graves' nerves to the point where he wanted to wring her neck, but she had a point...for once in her life. They shouldn't be feeling pain. Not with the same intensity that followed when Graves was struck by a goblin's arrow earlier, anyway. It was certainly cause for concern. The tank had reacted violently to the sensation. It was...alarming, to feel the barbs strike him and lacerate his flesh. Graves didn't fight like the other tanks. Rael was swift enough to avoid most blows. Ochre and Vulcan wore armor that protected them from harm. Graves? His power to survive came from magical potions. He regenerated his wounds by bleeding his enemies. Graves was exposed to every crushing hit of a club, and every biting stab from a blade or arrowhead. He was a tough son of a bitch, but not [i]that[/i] tough. 

Graves would be damned if he complained and showed weakness to the rest of these maggots, though. He tore the barbs from his back, blood spurting out. Each broken arrow brought an angry curse to Graves's lips, and a grimace to his face. He cleared his naked flesh of the arrows, allowing their resident healer to scar over the wounds. Everyone was shrugging off the passive magic of the dungeon like it was nothing. Graves remained silent on the subject, though he bore an increasingly sour disposition- nothing unusual for the hardened man. [i][color=ed1c24]'Easy for you all to say when you're barely getting hit.'[/color][/i] He thought to himself with no small amount of contempt for how easily his party members were shrugging off this awful new sensation. The old system never hurt this much.

[color=ed1c24]"Alright. We've spent enough time jerking ourselves off here. Let's fuckin' move out."[/color] The crass tank ordered. If they actually followed or not, Graves didn't much care. He took his pike in his fist and started back down the dark halls of the dungeon anyway, even if he was going alone. They would follow; that's how they worked. All it took was a little bit of yelling and some physical prompting, and Graves could get anyone moving along.