Having received their new marching orders, the party promptly left the chief's residence. As they had previously decided, the first lord that they would look for was going to be that infuriating otter. At the same time, they would also talk with any group of adventurers they ran into in the hopes that they could convince enough of them to help the chief with his secondary request. Speaking of said secondary request, the party was somewhat confused about the path required to obtain this legendary fishing line.
The quest itself had been rather easy to get, as one only had to speak with Rob and do a couple of simple requests. However, if the party was understanding things correctly, actually getting in the fishing line was an incredibly difficult task. Because honestly, if someone was brave enough to attempt to steal the fishing line, something the party didn’t think was doable, since the item likely did not exist until specific criteria were met. Then it meant that they had to actually earn the favor of the chief.
Such a task would appear simple at first, but from what the party had seen, in order to even have a chance of being able to earn the chief's favor, the chief had to be losing in the first place. After all, if his faction was winning, he did not need any assistance from other adventurers beyond the usual requirements to progress the event. This meant that to gain the chief's favor, his side had to be losing, which in turn meant that the adventurers in question would also be losing. And from what they knew of adventurers, it wasn’t likely they would stay with a sinking ship, at least in the circumstances where the ship didn't really matter, since it had no impact on the real world.
Then, as if that wasn't enough, the party figured that not only did they need to be losing at first in order to gain the chief's favor. However, whatever party was attempting the quest then needed to somehow help the chief win so they could eventually receive the fishing line. Of course, there was the option that if they joined Victor, they might be able to acquire the fishing line in some other way, but the trio doubted the dungeon would allow this.
From their conversation, they came up with the idea that not only did they need to be losing the event to begin with, but then the party in question had to turn things around and win the event at the end, so that they could be given the fishing line. All while also gaining the chief's favor to ensure that he would indeed pass on his precious line. Of course, that in itself wasn't impossible, as a very dedicated party or multiple parties could indeed pull an incredible victory through sheer coordination and strength. It was also possible for a multitude of adventurers to essentially rig the event by purposely causing Victor to lose even if he had been winning the entire time.
Then there was the trio, as they knew that due to their sheer power, it was likely they could pull a win. However, the issue was that due to the sheer size of the lake, the party could only be in so many places at once, and even if they were strong, the end of the event didn’t come down to the sheer strength of adventurers but the speed at which they could gather the Beast Lords. It was yet another example that sometimes one didn't need quality, but rather sheer quantity, and that was why the trio was hoping to slowly establish a reputation within the dungeon. However, they were still rather far from that point, and as they approached an adventuring party, the trio changed the conversation, hoping to recruit the adventurers into helping the chief.
Dan had been listening to the trio as they spoke about the fishing line quest, and he had to congratulate them as they were correct. Of course, Dan had made the quest difficult for a reason since getting the quest from Rob was incredibly easy. That being said, there was another reason why Dan had made the quest difficult. This reason was that the lake was one of the easiest areas of his dungeon.
See, the quest that Rob gave didn't always start the adventurer in the lake area, and sometimes they have to go to other areas to retrieve other parts for the fishing rod. Due to this, Dan had to determine how difficult it would be to obtain the different parts for the rod. And in all honesty, he had rather liked how the entire system of quests had come out, as it forced adventurers to think in a long-term fashion, even if sometimes the adventurers needed to learn the hard way.
The lake was a good example of this, as the area itself wasn't too difficult to navigate, given that the event was relatively safe. In fact, the only real difficulty that the adventurers faced when in the lake was the water. So much so that Dan believed without a doubt that if the same event were done solely on land with the exact same rules and restrictions, the players, or rather the adventurers, would find no challenge. This was because Dan had added too many restrictions to his bosses and the general quests in order to let the adventurers do the event underwater, which was the main problem they would face. For this reason, Dan had chosen to make the quest that Rob gave incredibly difficult, at least when it was for the lake.
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See, either the adventurers would get lucky and somehow find a way to get the fishing line, or they would be forced to hold off on the quest and continue on with the other areas. Either way, they would gain good experience as they increased in power or learned about the different events. Then, when they were powerful enough, they could return to the lake where they had already been and easily retrieve the fishing line, albeit with some level of cunning needed.
Meanwhile, and as a very loose example, since Dan couldn't say whether there was a quest for the area. If the adventurers headed towards the rolling hills because the quest for Rob had them collect an item from that area, not that there was one there, then said adventurers would likely get curb stomped. As previously established, the rolling hills would be one of the most challenging areas for adventurers to do. So, if a party headed there way too early, they would get sent packing and then be forced to head to one of the easier areas, which in turn would end up getting them the knowledge needed to much more easily gather a fishing line or whatever other item they might need.
Focusing back on the party, Dan watched as they successfully recruited a group of adventurers to help guard the town. It was good that they were taking the quest seriously, as that was indeed one of the ways they could gain favor from Chief Ribbiton to maybe eventually get the fishing line.
After speaking with the one adventuring party, the overpowered trio continued on to a couple of other parties that they spotted around town. For the most part, they did rather well at convincing them to join, but there were one or two who denied doing any extra work. Of course, it was obvious to Dan, as well as the overpowered trio, that the ones who accepted were trying to cozy up to them, something that they were smart enough to use.
Finally, after they had spoken with everyone they could find, the trio decided to head towards a specific island. From what Dan could tell, their plan was relatively simple, and they would try to get another otter to take them to where Otterson was. That specific mechanic was something Dan was proud of, as monsters didn’t really know where their Beast Lords were. However, when adventurers attempted to gather information by speaking with them, the system would sometimes intervene and reveal the relevant information. It was something Dan himself had done on Earth when playing tabletop games. After all, there was no realistic way that a random bird had actual clues about the big bad the party was after, at least unless the dungeon master decided the bird actually did know something.
Anyways, after the party made it to the island, they proceeded to beat the crap out of a bunch of otters before finding one that would actually talk to them. This time around, Dan intervened and made sure that the otter knew precisely where to head. So, with directions in hand, the party followed the otter towards Otterson. Dan was now sure that they would indeed head towards the boss, zoomed in on the creature's location, and found that he had just sent a group of adventurers packing. The otter was damaged along with its companions, but was still alive. Usually, this would have been a problem as the party would have found the otter damaged and could have easily finished it off. Luckily, Dan had created a mechanic specifically for this type of scenario.
All right, it wasn't a mechanic for this specific scenario, but one generally used to make sure that the adventurers couldn't win all fights via sheer attrition. Dan was fine if they ended up teaming up against a boss or if, by sheer speed or luck, they stumbled upon a boss after it had just fought. However, what he didn't want was groups of adventurers bullying his monsters by purposefully staggering when they approached a certain boss, like Chuck, who was stationary. Not that this type of bullying occurred often, but he had created the fail-safe in case it did.
Essentially, when a boss had just fought, there was a small window of time where it could reach out to the system. This would allow the system to heal the boss completely as long as there were no adventures too close to it, and sometimes even if there were, again, a fail-safe for abuse. And as expected, Otterson reached into the system and was promptly healed, except that Dan stepped in and did a little more tinkering. He wanted to give the overpowered trio a decent fight, but more importantly, he wanted to make sure that no other adventurers got near the area when they were fighting. To accomplish the first task, he increased the power of two of the eight otters that followed Otterson and made them Mini-Bosses. As for the second, well, he created a large bubble around the area where Otterson was. The bubble would subtly guide adventurers away from the area, allowing the boss and the trio to fight without interruptions. Also, it went without saying that the bubble would not affect the trio, who had just entered its area of effect.
Following the otter, the party didn't question how it knew where its Beast Lord was; all they cared about was that it could take them to it. Finally, as the trio was starting to get impatient, they finally spotted the Beast Lord in the distance. The lord also spotted them around the same time, and they stopped at a good distance from each other. As they came to a stop, both groups stared at each other, the lord likely waiting for the trio to let his kin go. However, unlike last time, the party did not let their otter go, and when the lord realized they had no intention of doing so, he finally spoke up.
“Are you idiots going to let my friend go or what!?” The lord yelled at them.
Hearing the lord, Adriana tensed as she closed her eyes, because Alexion had given the small otter the go-ahead, except that before it could swim less than a few feet, Alexion mobilized his magic, causing the water to crush the small fur ball. Seeing this, the Beast Lord stared for a few seconds, giving the party extra prep time, before it let out a squeak of rage and charged at them just as they had hoped.
