“One of the core game play loops in a virtual world is grinding monsters or mobs for loot and experience. There are days that you don’t want to think too hard and just want to enjoy hours of mindless killing to advance your skills. Unless you’re higher level than the crowd, finding these stress-free killing zones can be difficult. Often you must kill all the other players first before you can enjoy a quiet and peaceful day of slaughtering animals. It’s much like the old subway in New York City.”

  Taken from a forum post titled “A Guide to Grinding”

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 24, 07:00

  The sun was still low on the horizon as the group moved towards the road building team. The scouts had informed them of knots of monsters gathered near them. They were too far away to bother the road crews and perfect for Torgon and the others to farm. The freshly improved road hastened the pace of their travel, allowing the running skills to be used to the full effect.

  They veered away from the road as they neared the active construction. Their pace slowed as they examined their surroundings carefully to identify potential tracks for the monsters they sought. Small groups of monsters appeared and were taken under fire. Wolves, boars and the occasional ferocious rabbit fell under the might of the party. They pushed deeper into the forest near the border of the broken hills. The landscape switched to uneven terrain. Trees topped rising hills and the breaks grew larger, allowing longer sight lines. Ovarrix halted the party as they finally spotted their quarry.

  Dozens of large brown bears moved in groups of two and three up and down the hills. The density of the monsters was the highest that they had seen. Ovarrix spoke, “We’ll setup here. Torg, you can pull a cluster with your bow, and we’ll work on chopping them down to size. When we have a group under control, grab the next one. We’ll see how many bears we can chain pull. They’re level 5 and we’ll see how long it takes to clear them and how often they respawn. The density is like the wolves we saw early on. There’s probably a lair around here too, but we can worry about that after we farm them for loot and xp.”

  The group took their positions on a hillside. Dusty was to the front with Ovarrix and Allestor to her sides. Hyperia and Torgon were behind them, ready to support as needed. They all had bows out initially. Torgon took aim at the nearest group of bears and fired. He had a second arrow in the air before the first hit and the team engaged the beasts with arrows. One of the bears died before reaching the group and Dusty and Allestor intercepted the other two. When the second bear died, Torgon fired at another group of two. The team found their rhythm in the combat, killing bears, healing and recovering as necessary.

  They killed nearly fifty bears before taking a pause to recover energy and mana. It only took them twenty minutes, less than half a minute per bear. Their damage spiked high enough to overwhelm the defenses of their foes. Looting the foes was quick and as they continued, they made sure to only kill the bears near their position. Stacks of bear pelts and bear meat began to fill the inventories of the team. At the thirty-minute mark respawns started. There were enough bears in range for continuous fighting.

  Torgon and the others kept up the pace for hours, slaughtering hundreds of bears. At the eight hour mark the respawn rate began to slow. Ovarrix motioned the team forward, “Let’s push up to the hill in the distance. I see a cave there and I’m betting that’s the lair.” They advanced cautiously letting Torgon pull clusters of bears in their path and dealing with them decisively. The cave mouth loomed larger than their initial impressions. The opening stretched more than thirty feet across with the floor covered in dirt and trampled bones. They hesitated at the entrance, glancing at each other before moving inside.

  “You are entering a common lair, The Lair of the Forest King. To clear the lair, you must kill all the creatures inside. Current kills 0/100 minions 0/1 boss. The minimum pain threshold requirement for this lair is 50%”

  The cave mouth opened into a large chamber filled with roaming bears. Allestor narrowed his eyes and shared some information, “These bears are level 7. I didn’t think monsters that high level were supposed to show up in this zone.”

  Dusty pursed her lips before speaking, “We’re on the border with the broken hills. That might affect it. Also, it does say that this is the lair of the forest king, maybe it’s the strongest boss in the zone?”

  “Great, that sounds like fun,” Hyperia deadpanned.

  “It’s a common lair,” Torgon spoke. “We know we’re the first so we should get a common lair core at least. We need those to level up our guild buildings. It’s not like we’re going to leave it alone after finding it in any case.”

  Allestor looked at Torgon with wide eyes and a spreading grin. “You know Torg, this really is an opportunity. You’ve been eaten by a zombie alligator and now, if you’re lucky, you might get eaten by a giant bear!”

  The others barked out laughter and Torgon found himself smiling too. “Yeah yeah, let’s go see who gets eaten.” He fired his bow, pulling the first of the bears to the team. Dusty and Allestor manned the front lines with the rest applying ranged damage and they moved smoothly through the cave. The higher-level bears took longer to go down, but they found themselves facing a large passage at the back in a little over an hour and a half. All one hundred of the minions were dead, and only the boss remained.

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  Dusty led the way into the final chamber of the cave system. The room was massive, over two hundred feet across with stalactites and stalagmites, some intact and some broken, filling the space. A large mound of branches and leaves lay in the center of a midden heap, piled high with bones. The mound began to shudder and stir. It slowly rose into the air, nearly twenty feet tall. The Forest King was awake and he was angry.

  The Forest King looked like a mix of tree and bear. Its fur was intermixed with branches and leaves, giving it a mottled brown and green appearance that would naturally camouflage it in the woods. It stood on its hind legs and roared, shaking dust from the ceiling of the cavern. Torgon started firing on the bear immediately and the rest of the party joined in. The bear charged into the team, bowling Dusty and Allestor over.

  Torgon dipped behind a stalagmite to avoid a strike from the bears claws. The rock formation shattered at the top, spraying rock fragments around the room. He rolled under another swing and sprinted away from the bear. The forest king turned slowly but was distracted by a taunt from Dusty. She stabbed her sword deep into the bear’s flanks and forced it to focus on her. Allestor moved to the opposite side of the bear and began slashing away at its bark covered flesh.

  Hyperia supported the team with force bolts. She stood half behind another stalagmite and double cast the spells to impact the bear with magical fury. Ovarrix tried to position himself in the middle of the group, keeping his aura of leadership active on as many of the party as he could. He used his bow for flexibility but kept his sword handy if he was going to be forced into melee combat with the bear. Torgon rained arrows into the beast while it swiped at Dusty.

  The bear’s health dropped steadily. When it reached the 75% mark it let loose a roar that stunned everyone. The bear savaged Dusty with its claws and pitched her into the cavern wall. A snapping sound could be heard as one of her arms fell limply at her side. The beast turned on Allestor and he broke free from the stun barely in time to block a claw swipe. He desperately parried and dodged the furious beast.

  Torgon cast heals on Dusty as she rose to her feet unsteadily. On the third heal, he could see her arm move back into place. She pushed back to the bear, attacking it ferociously from behind to draw attention from Allestor. The bear ponderously turned to face her again while the team kept putting as much damage as possible into it. The flanks of the bear bled freely, a curious mix of red tinged with green. Everyone slowed their pace, recovering as much energy and mana as they could while the health bar of the bear crept towards 50%. The moment the bar touched 50%, everything changed again.

  The bear spewed a foul green liquid from its mouth, whirling around faster than it ever had before. It coated Dusty, Allestor and Ovarrix and rapidly began draining their health. Foul mist rose from their bodies as the liquid began dissolving their gear and flesh. Torgon hurriedly cast stream of water to clear away acidic goo. Hyperia switched to healing while they struggled to pull back from the brink. Dusty’s health fell below 20% at one point before they stabilized her and she was able to grab a healing potion to recover her health above the 50% mark.

  The team resumed damaging the bear, pushing its health lower and lower. They had figured out the regular attack patterns and now just braced for the fresh hell it would unleash at the 25% mark. Ovarrix passed instructions along, “Take it easy until it drops below 30% then dump the highest damage attacks at once. We’ll try to chunk it below the 25% mark and go as fast as possible to kill it then. We’ve got this, just keep alert.”

  The health bar dropped steadily, bringing it below the mark for launching their strongest attacks. Torgon fired off a double shot while the melee used double strikes and Hyperia used her double cast. They chunked the bear’s health down below 25% and it paused before roaring loudly and freezing everyone in place. The bear began to glow red and swelled in size. The stun broke as the very large and very angry bear tried to rip Dusty to shreds and devour her.

  Ovarrix groaned, “It’s a berserk phase, of course it is. Use all your consumables, burn it down.”

  Dusty moved between stalagmites, using the rock to mitigate the incoming attacks from the bear. Every swipe of the paw crushed more stone, leaving fewer places for her to take cover. The others fired off their most powerful attacks and drank energy and mana potions in between. Torgon alternated between using his bow and throwing ranged heals on Dusty to maintain her health. The size of the bear worked against it. It couldn’t turn and deal with the smaller and faster Dusty. She kept the pressure up, making the angry beast focus all its fury on her while her team whittled it down.

  After more than fifteen minutes of pure combat, the bear collapsed to the floor and stilled in death. A ragged cheer erupted from the lips of the team as they celebrated their victory. They took a rest to top up their depleted health, energy and mana pools then they moved to loot the beast. The bear itself dropped nearly fifty silver coins and a single large vial of Forest King Bloodsap. The description of the material promised that it would enhance the growth of any tree it was applied to and allow the appointment of a forest protector. Torgon hoped that the faeries would know more about it and that it could be used to enhance their tree.

  The deepest wall of the cave contained the chest for completing the lair. It was oaken and covered in glowing golden chains. Torgon approached the chest and reached his hand out to it. When his fingers touched the wood, the chains parted and he lifted the lid with ease. He pulled the items from the chest and shared the loot information with his party. “The chest has two common lair cores and two common lair writs. There’s also a blueprint for a wooden bear golem at level 10.”

  System announcement followed the opening of the chest,

  “Congratulations! Your party has successfully completed a Common Lair. Each member is awarded 2,000 xp and 20 silver. The group is awarded two Common Lair Cores, Two Common Lair Chits and a writ that expands a guild base’s wood nodes by 50 basic and 10 common nodes”

  “Regional Notification. A Party from the guild Risk of Injury has defeated the Forest King’s Lair”

  “Congratulations! For being the first party to complete the Forest King’s Lair, each member of the party is awarded 5,000 xp, 50 silver and 250 reputation with the town of Miller’s Crossing. The group is awarded 6 Common Lair Cores, 6 Common Lair Chits, and a bear cub that can be raised into a ferocious combat pet at a Tamer’s Hall.”

  Torgon blinked rapidly before the haul sank in. “Well folks, it looks like we can upgrade the base and then we’re going to need to sit down and plan out what we’re doing. Let’s haul ass back to the base and get ready for the night. It will be a long one.”