FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

**Back in Action

By: VeronicaFoxx

For: Dreixes**

"Alright, y'all ready?" Charlene inquired, getting an affirmative from each member of the party before she activated the dungeon portal.

Shodan grinned, her chest swelling with anticipation as they marched through. It was surprisingly good to be back. Not just back in the game, but back in training. They were putting together a new team, and there was one spot open that they'd need to interview for and fill, but April was fine with taking it for the time being. The squirrel had made it very clear that she had no interest in joining the competitive circuit, but Charlene had been amenable, Foo Foo literally jumped at the chance, and Kaliya was happy enough to be back in a combat role, even if it was only an alt while her main job was still working on the farm. Shodan was running heals as usual on a little kobold cleric, with April tanking as a kobold monk. Charlene was a lizardfolk barbarian for off-tank and dps, Kaliya was back as a wolfkin ranger, and Foo Foo had decided to pick up a weaselin spellblade, giving them stealth and additional magical potential. It was a good group, but this was a test to see if they could work as more than just a group.

A competitive team needed to do more than just fill roles; they had to work as a single unit, anticipate each other and instinctively know exactly what was needed at any given time to maximize survivability and minimize time spent to down enemies. They had each leveled to twenty, which could be easily done in a single day if you knew what you were doing, and all of them knew that much at least. April wasn't intending to stick around, so they would need to replace her soonest so as to ensure proper practice time with whoever took over as tank, but Charlene also hadn't done any serious dungeoning or raiding in years. Foo Foo and Kaliya were both used to raiding, but there were some serious differences between that and competitive dungeoneering. For one, you only got the gear that was provided by the dungeon, putting everyone who entered on an absolutely level playing field as far as stats were concerned, no twinking allowed. For two, they stripped out your inventory so that you only got what health, mana, and buff potions you could pick up along the way as well. For three, unless you were in practice mode, as they were now, character death was permanent. Some tournaments ended up being decided by how many characters were still available on the bench because everyone ended up wiped in the more difficult dungeons.

You didn't just need to know the attack rotations of a single character and class, because losing people could easily create glaring blindspots in the team. Everyone was allowed five on the bench and one active, and no two of them could be the same race and class, which made the current meta to have split-purpose classes all around, though some people tended to be better in certain positions than others. So, here they were, for the very first practice run, just to try out the feel of the group, and Shodan was absolutely jazzed to get going.

The air rippled before her as she stepped through the portal, feeling an electrical tingle pass along her skin. That seemed to crystalize her excitement into a tight knot in her chest, and she wanted to let loose a cackling war cry, though she held it in. April was still extremely nervous in the tanking position, though she'd chosen the monk in the hopes that she could use her taekwondo training to help her rotations be more fluid. She hadn't been going very long, but Shodan wasn't about to shoot her down; the squirrel was still regaining her confidence and equilibrium. She had opened back up a lot recently, though Shodan thought that might mostly have been pushing herself to do it, trying to get back to her old self before her parents visited. It had worked while they were there, but she had crashed pretty hard almost immediately after, sinking into a pretty severe depression that thankfully only lasted for a few days. And then she'd wanted a long, hard torture-fuck session after. It was a cycle of overreactions and overcorrections that Shodan didn't know how to break, though April's therapist said that they were working on it. She had been advised to just keep doing what she was doing and to let the therapist know if April wanted anything that would be permanently harmful.

The hyena was broken out of her worrying by a shrieking cry as the kobold monk launched herself through the air towards the nearest group of enemies, and then she was too busy to think of anything but keeping her team alive. April tagged the largest first, as they had discussed, then gave each of the minor enemies a quick slap to get their attention while Charlene charged in with a bellow that buffed her damage and debuffed the enemies. Foo Foo had vanished entirely, but that was her job. Shodan could hear Kaliya quietly counting off seconds and popped a quick heal-over-time spell onto April before starting a bigger heal spell to refill the monk's hitpoints. Then all hell broke loose.

Foo Foo slammed her dagger up the big hobgoblin's ass, which drew his aggro hard. April attempted a taunt, but he resisted, and Charlene was too busy keeping the attention of the lesser goblins to notice. Shodan redirected her heal onto Foo Foo, popping the ferret-furred weaselin back up to full while Kaliya let loose a distracting barrage that got the hobgoblin charging towards the ranger instead. April did another jump kick to steal the aggro back, which succeeded thanks to Kaliya's distraction, but it also gave Foo Foo a chance for another sneak attack, which she then performed for a huge chunk of damage, building her threat level right back up to the top of the list. The hobgoblin let out a shout that called the goblins to him, and they de-aggroed on Charlene, charging in to protect their leader. The gator waded in, doing her best to rescue the swarmed pair, and Shodan popped every heal that she had available at her level. It was never going to be enough, not when they didn't have proper aggro management going on. Kaliya just sighed and plopped onto the ground, summoning a non-combat wolf pup to pet while they waited for their eventual demise. The cleric could only sigh and shake her head. That had gone... about as well as could be expected, she supposed.

They respawned a few minutes later, and Foo Foo was already bitching.

"Holy fuck, do you have no idea how to tank?" the rabbit demanded, and April cowered under the furious verbal assault. "Get the fucking aggro and hold it, you fucking idiot! What the hell is wrong with you? I gave you five whole seconds before I attacked! How -"

Her tirade was cut off by Charlene wrapping a large hand around the weaselin avatar's head and squeezing. The ferret-like body writhed and small limbs flailed and beat at the scaled fist for several seconds before finally calming and going limp. Charlene released her, and Foo Foo was silent but very obviously still grumpy about the whole thing.

"Girl, I done tol'ja ya better behave yerself," the gator warned, shaking the heavy head of her warhammer beneath the weaselin's nose.

Foo Foo pouted and offered a sullen, "Sorry."

April looked on the verge of tears, and Shodan made a note to spend some extra cuddle time with her once they were done, but the squirrel was holding it together for the moment. She gave the monk a quick hug and a rubbed cheeks before addressing the party as a whole.

"Okay, so this is the whole point of practice. What did we learn from that? First, we need to give the tank a few more seconds to get aggro. April's still used to being a fighter and relying on taunts rather than needing to build aggro based on dps, so bear with her. Second, Foo Foo needs to watch those dps spikes. We need to down the hobgoblin first and fast, but you triggered him to panic. We'll never make it to the boss if we keep getting swarmed by all the mobs along the way. You need to make sure to time your strikes to let the initial armor break wear off, otherwise you'll do over a fifth of his health on the second hit and make him panic. Remember, this is a low level dungeon; they're all prone to panic, and then things get messy. If one of the goblins panics, then we're gonna end up with two or three groups to deal with all at once.

"Charlene, Kaliya, you two did beautifully for that first run. Kaliya, especially, really good call for that distracting barrage. It gave April a chance to try and rebuild aggro, but make sure you keep an eye on Charlene as well. Charly, remember to pop your battle shout again the second it comes off of cooldown, and make sure to switch up your targets, too. You need to keep about half the goblins on you, but you need to let the other half bounce. Kaliya will be sapping aggro, so just keep an eye on what she's targeting to make sure to snag it if it comes for us instead of April."

She looked around to make sure they'd all taken it in, and that April was still holding things together, then ushered them to reset for a second attempt. Foo Foo was already in stealth, still sulking but ready to go, and Charlene looked like she wanted to pop the little cunt in the ass, but they were as ready as they were going to be. Shodan gave April an encouraging nod, and popped a preemptive h-o-t on her as she launched herself towards the enemy group. And things went a good bit better this time. The spellblade managed to steal aggro once with a spell-charged sneak attack, but Kaliya dumped the aggro almost as soon as it happened, and Charlene was able to get aggro long enough for Kaliya's cooldown to come up and let her dump it again to pass back to April. And Foo Foo was smart enough to hold her damage until April had firmly established a hold on the hobgoblin before starting her rotation again. Once the enemy group was dead, they gathered back around to do a second review of the fight.

April was the first to speak up. "I really think I should switch to Swampertpailduck. At the very least, I know his rotations, and I know that I can hold the aggro. I'm really sucking at this whole monk thing."

"No, you're not, babe," Shodan reassured her. "You're doing great, and you held onto things perfectly that time around. Everyone showed good attention and adaptability that time when the hobgoblin got loose, and we didn't trigger a panic. Besides, the rest of us need to learn to handle any type of tank up front. You can swap out on the next run, but can you stick with Dumpling for now?"

"Okay..." The squirrel agreed, but she sounded miserable about it, and Foo Foo just rolled her eyes with a derisive snort.

The hyena held in a growl at the weaselin, though she did allow herself a moment to ponder just how far she could get the head of her mace up the spellblade's ass. "Foo Foo, good job on managing your aggro that time, but remember to watch the big pops. You're better sticking with a good average rather than trying to chunk it. Charlene and Kaliya, keep doing what you're doing. The only thing I'd say is that you can both pick up your damage a little bit. Any questions, comments, concerns? No? Cool, let's move up and keep going."

They got themselves ready, April got the fight started, and Foo Foo immediately fucked it all up. On purpose. Instead of going for the hobgoblin, she popped a fan of blades to hit everything with a max-dps, long-cooldown attack drawing all of the aggro onto herself. She went down before Shodan could even get through casting a heal. Kaliya called out her sabercat, which had been kept despawned to prevent aggro confusion, and Charlene set herself back-to-back with April as the group collapsed on them. Kaliya was... good. Shodan had known that already, having raided with her for years beforehand, but she had forgotten just how good. Even at such a low level and in the gear provided by the dungeon, she was able to make up two thirds of the dps they had lost by Foo Foo's demise. Shodan was able to keep both the tanks alive in the meanwhile, and they managed to kill the group just before she would have run out of mana.

When the weaselin spellblade came slinking back up to them after respawning, Charlene was understandably upset. "Girl, we gonna have a long talk after we're done with this. There was no cause for that shit. You better straighten right the fuck up this second, or I promise yer gonna get it bad later tonight."

"Yes, ma'am," the avatar murmured, hanging its head and apathetically padding forward towards the next group.

Shodan had a feeling that there was more going on here than she knew about. Maybe she had been too caught up in her own life lately. She would have to make a point of talking with the gator sometime soon and catching up, especially if they were really going to try and make this work. If there was some drama going on behind the scenes, not only would it fuck with team cohesion, it might well hurt one or more of her friends in the real world. It would be good for them to all sit down for a frank talk afterwards, whether they ended up clearing the dungeon or not.

They moved up to the next group, and Kaliya kept her feline pet on standby rather than despawning it, just in case. Shodan trusted her to know when to send it in or hold it back; the wolf had obviously not lost her touch during her time on the farm. Kaliya had rightfully earned the pride she'd previously displayed in her class and abilities. It had only ever been her abrasive attitude of smug superiority that had gotten her disliked to the point of being sent to Charlene for some adjustment. Shodan had to admit, especially now, that it really had worked. Foo Foo's outburst was characteristic of what Kaliya would have done in the past, but the wolfess hadn't even made a single snide comment. She seemed a lot more... focused. And at ease. There was a lack of tension in the wolfess that the hyena only noticed because of its lack. It really made a huge difference in how she was perceived, quietly competent and sure of herself rather than trying to flash her "betterness" in front of everyone's face. It was really nice to see.

The third group went down without a hitch. Foo Foo held her dps down to a level that didn't ride up over April's and draw aggro this time, and they moved up to the two groups just before the first boss of the dungeon. This was where things got tricky, so Shodan took a moment to review the fight before they set things off.

"Okay, here's the first real test for us. These groups are going to be very different. There's a hobgoblin and a bunch of goblins, yeah, but these ones also have two shamans each. Kaliya is gonna pull the first group off to the right so it doesn't aggro the second in the process. She'll peg one of the shamans and hold onto it. Foo Foo, this is where we need you to go all out. They'll both cast a cloud of darkness, so you can use your cloak of shadows for extra dodge bonus to keep from getting hit too much. Kaliya, did you pick up a flare gun from the drops?" The wolfess nodded, but Shodan passed over the one she had looted as well. "Good, have this one, too. This time around, Charlene is gonna be on the hobgoblin, and April will have to manage the goblin mobs. Kaliya, Foo Foo, this fight is all on you two, since I'll be busy keeping Charly and April alive. You have to kill the shamans as fast as possible. They will panic and draw in the other group, so they both need to be dead before the second group joins up with the first so that you can both hop onto the new shamans. Then we down the goblins, and leave the hobgoblins for last if Charlene hasn't taken them down by then."

She looked around to make sure they all understood and was greeted with a mixed bag. Kaliya had her cat stealthed and ready to maneuver out for the pull, with a tanky turtle companion prepped and on standby. Charlene seemed ready to crack some skulls, but April was very obviously nervous. On the plus side, the monk wouldn't need to worry about others stealing aggro for the first half of the fight. Foo Foo, on the other hand, had both daggers out and her weaselin jaws gaping, fangs dripping saliva. She had obviously activated the racial bloodlust ability already, which decreased her armor rating but restored some hp with each successful hit. The weaselin had been a good choice since it could also naturally see through the magical darkness, negating the to-hit penalty without the need to carry one of the flare guns.

With no one asking questions, Shodan nodded for them to get things going. Kaliya sent her pet out to the right in a roundabout route so that the first group would be drawn well away from the second when she aggroed them, and Foo Foo snuck up to stand near the midpoint in preparation to ambush her own target. The feline combat companion pounced from the shadows to deliver a lacerating bite to the first shaman, temporarily silencing it and giving it a bleed debuff, then dashed back out towards the right before turning back towards the party. Foo Foo landed a stunning ambush attack which took her out of stealth, but the cooldown on the stun debuff was longer than her stealth cooldown. Since she wasn't engaging the rest of the group, she was able to hop back in for a double-damage backstab to chunk her shaman for a quarter of its maximum health. Charlene and April both launched themselves towards the rest of the group, the lizardfolk barbarian leaping high to come down with a skull-cracker that lowered the hobgoblin's damage and armor rating while the kobold monk started gathering up the smaller goblins with aggro ramping punches and kicks.

Kaliya surprised Shodan by throwing her turtle out almost as soon as Charlene and April engaged. The cat was a much higher dps, meaning the shaman would die much more quickly, but the wolfess also pulled out all the stops on her personal damage. Rangers tended to focus down either buffing their pets or their personal damage for general PvE play, or down the trap and evasion tree for PvP, but the ranger seemed to have specced herself both ways. That wasn't great at low levels like these, but as soon as her turtle had a good aggro hold, she swapped the cat back in while still laying on a brutal barrage of arrows. Because of the swap, rather than the turtle dying, the leopard picked up the aggro that the turtle had gained and continued to hold it through overwhelming dps. While Foo Foo had to chunk her target at opportune moments, Kaliya was managing a steady dps that was devouring the shaman's hp at an almost equal rate, and she popped her flare gun with mere milliseconds to spare on the buff to keep the cloud of darkness at bay and prevent herself and her pet from taking accuracy penalties. It was rather impressive.

April took an unfortunate crit that took her down to ten percent health just as Foo Foo's shaman panicked and ran towards the second group, and Shodan shouted out, "Drunken master stance, April!"

The kobold pulled out a keg that was half as large as it was and began chugging, making her an immobile target for the goblin horde, and Shodan popped her largest heal before throwing on a h-o-t for good measure. It would give the squirrel time to finish the brew and gain the dodge bonus that the stance conveyed, though it decreased her aggro generation by a large percentage. Charlene helped by letting out an encouraging warcry that granted the party temporary hit points on top of the healing, and Kaliya sent her cat into an impressive pounce that helped kill Foo Foo's shaman just as it called out to its companions. Unfortunately, that left Kaliya with her original shaman still alive, though badly hurting. Her cat managed to duck into stealth along with the weasilin spellblade, and they ambushed the new shamans almost in unison, temporarily stunning and silencing them. The ranger, meanwhile, was busy running her ass off in a wide circle around the area, leaping in the air to spin and pop a shot off, then landing to keep moving and out of range of the shaman's debilitating debuff spells.

If Shodan had been watching it rather than living it, she probably would have been laughing her ass off at the wolfess. It was a seriously noob tactic, but it was actually effective in this case. She stopped bothering with her own shaman other than to keep its attention, using her flare gun to light up the one her cat was attacking. Charlene managed to gather up the new hobgoblin, but she got the second goblin group on her as well. April was still in drunken master stance, which was helping wear down the first set of goblins through attrition, even though it was only maintaining her aggro hold on them. Still, Shodan was managing to keep up with the healing demands, just barely. The barbarian dealt a lot of damage but had a very low armor rating as a trade-off. Thankfully, Charlene had put half her points into being a beeftank, so it was working out.

At least until Kaliya shouted out, "I only have one flare left!"

"April, switch to flying fist and engage the shaman on Kaliya's tail!" Shodan called. "We need it dead, now, then swap to the one her cat is on. Foo Foo, you, too, before they panic and aggro the boss!"

April swapped stances, but she was slightly shorter than the goblins. It was an understandable mistake when she locked onto the wrong target and launched herself towards the one Foo Foo was busily killing instead of the one that was still chasing Kaliya. The high aggro kick drew its attention, letting Foo Foo get off a fresh backstab that took the shaman down to below its panic threshold. The goblins that April had been holding onto came piling into the fight just as the shaman took off, leaving behind the cloud of darkness as it did its level best to get them all horribly murdered. Charlene started wading towards the struggling spellblade and monk, bellowing out another warcry to buff their hp while Shodan struggled to keep up with the damage that was starting to dogpile onto both Foo Foo and April. The monk couldn't see through the darkness and was losing aggro fast with the spellblade's high dps taking priority as the weaselin tried to rip a path through to chase the shaman.

That was when Kaliya came in with a seriously pro play. She shot the last flare directly at April, since she could target a partymate even through the magical cloud, which lit up the area around the monk and let her land hits to start reclaiming aggro. When the wolfess landed, she immediately whipped out her bola, the lowest level trap skill and the only one available without specializing in the trap/evasion tree. She barely got it spinning before she chucked it towards the fleeing shaman, tangling its legs and halting its escape towards the boss with only a few feet to spare before the big hobgoblin reaver would have aggroed. She landed, enraged her cat so that it grew large enough to literally eat the shaman it had been attacking though at the cost of half the ranger's hitpoints, then recalled it and dropped her turtle on top of the shaman she had originally engaged. The enrage carried over. The turtle couldn't eat the goblin shaman, being herbivorous, but it could grab the small creature in its beak, which it did, then charged over towards the weaselin and monk.

Kaliya switched her attention to finishing off the bola'd shaman to finish it off, the turtle's warrior-like abilities let it taunt up aggro off of everyone else, and all three of the melee attackers dogpiled the shaman trapped in the turtle's jaws to end the last magical threat. It was all down to cleanup from there. Kaliya lost her turtle, probably on purpose, which dumped the hobgoblin and goblin aggro back onto Charlene and April. The monk managed to drag her group away from the taller opponents and gather up the remaining goblins in the process, though she was struggling badly to keep up. Foo Foo started taking out the goblins one by one as Kaliya's leopard sprang back into the engagement, and they managed to complete the battle without actually dying, though it was a very near thing.

Shodan set up a campfire amidst the scattered corpses, which was entirely unnecessary but pretty much a meme in the game at this point, and they all gathered around to sit panting and chugging down various fluids while they caught their breath and regained stamina.

"Kaliya for fucking MVP," Shodan suggested, raising her mana-restoring brew towards the wolfess who sat feeding her turtle treats to regain its affection after reviving it. "Shit, girl, I forgot how damn good you are. Pro gamer moves all the way around. Why the hell haven't you gone pro before now?"

The wolf wilted under the praise, tucking her ears and focusing her attention solely on the task of comforting her resurrected pet. But her tail was wagging furiously despite that, and Shodan knew it meant she was uncomfortable but very happy and proud of herself.

"H'okay, so that didn't go quite as planned, but we did a damn good job for a first run. I don't think we want to take on the boss just yet; I honestly didn't expect us to do this good on the first try, so I didn't review his cycles. I thought we'd have more struggle with the first groups, and probably get wiped several times by the shamans. Anyone mind if we call it here?"

There were shaken heads all around, but April had more to say than just agreement to call it quits. "I really, really don't like tanking like this. I'm gonna bring Sir Swampertpailduck next time, if we do this again before you can find a permanent replacement. I know you said it gets easier at higher levels, but... this is way too stressful right now. I still barely know the class, and maybe I can come back to this again once I've gotten more experience with it under my belt, and know taekwondo a bit better, but I can't handle this right now."

Shodan nodded her understanding. "Noted. Charlene, Foo Foo, any comments? Also, Foo Foo, good job with the shamans this time around. I barely had to heal you until the goblins got on you, and it was just h-o-t's even then. Way to work the cloak of shadows and bloodlust, girl. Good fucking job. And Charly, I had no idea you could build that much hp at this level, so damn good job on your part as well. We probably wouldn't have come through this if you weren't able to shrug the damage so well."

"Thanks," the bunny said, though she was still obviously down and upset about something. She was also drooling all over the place since she hadn't turned off the bloodlust feature, but Shodan decided not to comment. "I'll make sure to watch my damage in the future if we have a monk tanking. I didn't know that they don't have any taunts at this level. I'm used to having warriors or paladins, and sometimes barbarians, so I didn't realize they need to build aggro mostly through damage. I won't go off like that again. Promise."

Charlene reached over to give the weaselin avatar a pat on the back that sent Foo Foo sprawling. "Good girl. Apology accepted, but we still gonna talk."

The spellblade gave a miserable nod, and Shodan made another mental note to catch up with what was going on as soon as she had time. Meanwhile...

"Okay, so I'll show April how to review the fights and what to look for, how to give constructive criticism on how we did, and we'll meet back up tomorrow for a full review?"

It was agreed, and they made their way out of the dungeon. Shodan and April 'ported back to her safehouse and logged out of the game, reloading into a framework shell that they could alter as needed for the battle review. Shodan began loading up the recording and the various programs that would let them manipulate it, with the squirrel standing off to the side in her more realistic avatar now that they were out of the game environment.

"Hey, uh... sweety, can we chat about something?" the squirrel hesitantly inquired, and the hyena turned to face her. She had expected this after Foo Foo's outburst, and she would entirely agree if April didn't want to face that again, but that wasn't the topic that her snuggle bundle wanted to talk about at all. "Do you remember the Paulies?"

"Heh... how could I forget?" Paying them off for the brands had been a memorable experience. "What about them?"

"Well, you know how they can only cum together? They've got those augments that prevent them from... getting there unless it's both of them together, yeah?"

Shodan scrunched her brow, wondering where this was going, but she nodded agreement. "Yesssss, I remember. It was... kinda weird, fucking them and knowing that they wouldn't get off from it. Felt kinda wrong, except for the fact that I knew they like it that way."

"Well... I was thinking of having something like that done." At Shodan's expression, she rushed to add, "Just to me, not to you! I've been thinking about things, especially since we met them. About... Hal and what happened. The way that I am, the things that I like, it makes me afraid that if I end up in a similar situation, I'd end up enjoying it even though I didn't want to and didn't like what was happening. If someone just... grabbed me and started raping me, rough and hard and deep, I don't think I'd be able to help myself. It would feel good, even if it wasn't good, if that makes sense. And I don't want that. It would feel like cheating on you, betraying you, and myself. I don't want someone else to be able to do that to me. I've been talking with the Paulies, and we were able to figure out a solution that would work, but I won't get it done unless you agree."

Shodan blinked and... couldn't think of anything to say about it, had no idea how to feel, except that she really needed to tell Dr. Strauss. She hoped she was managing to keep her expression neutral as offered a slight nod.

"Well, I'm glad you're talking to me about it first. Why don't we take care of the review, so I can show you how the software works and all, and we can discuss that more in depth later, huh? I just need a little bit to process this, and I want to get the review done while everything's still fresh in my head, okay?"

April offered a shy grin and moved up to hug her, snuggling her cheek into the hyena's stomach. "Okay, love. Thanks for not shooting me down out of hand."

"Of course, babe. We'll talk it out later." After she informed the squirrel's therapist.

The End