Risen World

Chapter 294: Large Town Expedition Planning

Joshua found himself sitting at a large table surrounded by everyone who had gone on the canyon expedition along with Naomi and Nathan. These were all the core members of the exploration side of the alliance outside of the twins who were there to discuss the gear that would be used in the expedition. Joshua was glad that everyone involved would be the people that he was familiar with at this point. The last time around he had to prove himself to Madalyn's guild members since they didn't believe in his leadership ability. Avoiding that entire process would make things go much smoother for this expedition.

"Well since everyone's here I believe it's best to get things started." Isabella said as she brought out information that she sent through the system for everyone to see. It was like having a computer or something, but since the system was something everyone could access or react to, it was much easier to use. All it took for all of them to view the information was a quick tap on the system in a similar way to how they accessed things from their inventory. Joshua could see that he got the message from Isabella and opened it to see a bunch of planned out information delivered. "This is everything that we know about our target area so far."

Joshua started browsing through the information and the first thing he noticed was the town was so different from the ones he had previously been through during the first phase and his time gaining his own territory. The first major difference was the fact that the size of the town was far bigger than his territory. James Town had a capacity of around five thousand people tops. It was big enough to serve its purposes for his guild for now, but in comparison to this town it was like looking at a village instead of a town. The town they planned to go after this time around had at least enough space for fifty thousand or more people. It put this new place on an entirely different scale.

The second thing that Joshua noticed while browsing through the information and some of the pictures that the guilds scouts had taken of the area was the difference in the haze. Of course the haze was still spread out and purple in color, but the major difference was the thickness of the haze. The portion of haze near the edge of the town was nearly as thick as it had been towards the center of the last haze filled area he had been too. This meant that the haze was far more powerful in the area and the creatures thriving in it probably gained a lot of benefits from that. The one thing that looked good from what he could see of the town was the fact that there were lots of buildings around which would give them places to hide or areas to use grappling hooks.

"From what we've found out about the area so far nobody has attempted to clear the town yet which is a good thing for all of us." Isabella said while taking a look over the data herself. "If another group had gone into the area before us in a similar vain to how the world government guild tries to clear territories then we'd have a much harder time."

"That's true. If that were the case then there would be a lot of explorer empowered zombies which could bring a whole new angle to the upcoming expedition. We should still be careful though since some explorers could have checked the place out on their own and gotten killed in the process." Henry said with a small frown.

"Even so with such a large town I'm certain that there will be several zombies from the first phase inside of it that have special abilities that we'll have to watch out for. They aren't smart, but it might be a good idea to distract all of the zombies before going after the boss class haze creature in the territory. If it somehow called them all back to help it out then we'd all be in a pretty terrible position going forward." Laura said as she looked over towards Isabella.

"So how do we want to go about this expedition?" Madalyn asked getting everyone's' attention. "Do we want to take it slow with big numbers, or do we go in with this current group in a more stealthy operation? Either way as long as we kill the boss the haze will start to vanish and then we can take out the dungeon to claim the territory."

"You say that like it'll be something easy to accomplish." Adam said with a frown as he thought over the two different approaches. "Either way we'll have to take down a high level boss just to get access to the dungeon and one that is cruel and vindictive with powers we won't know about until we fight it."

"Not to mention we don't even know what the thing looks like at this point." Julia offered getting nods from everyone.

"True, but I think we'll have to go with a mix of both approaches if we want to make this work." Henry said gaining everyone's attention. "First off we'll need the large scale approach to handle the zombies and haze creatures. We'll needed to have members of the guild take on the small fry while staying on the fringe of the town. It'll give our group a better chance to take out the boss without to many distractions."

"We can't forget about the sub-boss either. I'm sure we'll want to take that thing out so it can't come and help the boss out in the middle of our fight with it." Aito said getting nods of agreement from the others.

"Well how are we going to choose which people will be coming along with us as the large group to deal with all of the normal haze creatures and zombies?" Adrian asked as he looked over to Laura and Madalyn since all of those members would belong to their guilds.

"We've already decided on only using members from our guild that have passed level fifty-five in the large group. The leaders of these groups will be in the sixties level wise though." Laura explained. She knew that it would limit the number of people they'd have in the operation to around six- to seven hundred members, but anyone below that level would be at a high risk of dying to even the regular haze creatures. They would most likely be in the level seventy range all the way up to eighty so having explorers lower than level fifty fighting them would be pointless.

"They'll be attacking from the fringe of the town for the most part so the danger to them is greatly lessened, but the specialty zombies in the area could be a problem for them if they have strong unique powers. Luckily the large group can retreat out of the haze at any time and attack from afar if things start looking bad. We wouldn't want to go with quantity when it comes to our members and just end up getting them all killed." Madalyn said with a sigh.

"It's a good enough amount for a distraction without putting our lower leveled members in too much danger." Natalie said with a small smile. "That's better than most guilds would offer in a similar situation."

"Plus this is a chance for them all to grind levels. The level gap will make sure they'd get quite a bit of experience while the danger is far less than diving into a dungeon on their own in small groups." Devin said with his usual lazy attitude. "It'll make them all stronger by the end of it."

"Well I think that will probably be the best approach for us to take going forward, but it's basically impossible for us to plan out how we want to take on the boss or sub-boss without knowing anything about them." Joshua said as he changed the subject to something he was thinking about. "I think we're going to have to scout the bosses out before we try to take them on if we want to avoid any unforeseen issues."

"You don't mean like during the first phase when you went ahead on your own and attacked the boss while telling us to run do you? Because that won't be happening this time around." Laura said with a frown as she looked towards Joshua.

"Similar, but not the same." Joshua responded while shrugging. "I don't plan on attacking the boss on my own like last time, but I think I should go in with Marcus and Becca to scout out the area. They're the best at doing such things and I have my blink and presence detection to avoid most trouble. We can get as much information as possible of the lay out of the town and the types of creatures the boss and sub-boss are basing themselves off of. It'll help out when we all have to go in to take the thing down."

The entire meeting room went quiet as everyone seemed to be thinking about Joshua's proposal. It made since for them to scout out the large town before trying to fight inside it. Plus the more information they had before taking on the final boss the better off they'd be when the time came to take it down. "I agree with Joshua on this one." Marcus said with a small nod.

"You sure Marcus? It's a pretty dangerous job." Jayce said with a little worry for his friend. Marcus and Becca weren't exactly the strongest members of the group and could get into trouble if something went wrong.

"We're the best two members of the group for this type of job. Joshua might be able to get around the area on his own, but he's not as good at scouting out the area as us." Becca explained getting a nod from Madalyn who agreed with her view point. "I think it's a good idea and could end up saving us from the issues we could have from charging into an unknown fight with no advantages."

"Fine, I agree, but don't do anything outside of scouting." Laura said with a sigh. "Well then I guess that's about all we can do when it comes to planning out the set up for this expedition without the other members that we'll have to bring in soon. Are we doing well on gear?" She said while turning to look at Naomi and Nathan.

"So far I've pretty much figured out all of the blue prints at this point. I should have all of the main groups gear finished in a few days. I've got other blacksmiths in our guild working on the gear for the other members of the expedition on a large scale." Naomi explained.

"In my case I shouldn't have any problem completing all the enchantments on everyone's gear before the expedition. It's my primary focus at the moment." Nathan said with a small smile.josei

"That's good. For now it seems that we have everything in order before the last meeting before the expedition. We'll most likely have that meeting in the auditorium since there will be so many people involved. It would be helpful if you're all there so that we can explain how things will go for all the guild members involved." Isabella said while standing up and walking over to one of the walls in the meeting room. "There is one other reason why we've decided to have this meeting today."

"Another reason? I thought this was a planning meeting?" Joshua asked with a little confusion.

"That was mostly the case, but it turns out today there is also another meeting going on that I figured you would all like to watch together. It could be something of importance for the future." Laura said with a small smile as Isabella brought something up that displayed the news channel that Joshua was watching the other day across the entire wall. It was the news station that was backed by the world government guild and they seemed to be preparing for some kind of big broadcast. The news turned to a reporter that was standing in some sort of a large meeting hall in a similar fashion to the one Joshua's group was currently in. The camera was slowly turning so it could capture everything in the room.

"Let's see just what the world government guild is up to this time around." Madalyn said with a big grin.