I'm in favor of letting teams go after packs, but I'm not sure how that strains our grief cube supply.
I didn't say we'd lose cubes fighting packs, I said we'd lose
girls. And we're still not guaranteed to get every Youma in a pack before they run, even with casualties on our end.
I'd like to come up with an idea regarding a low Grief-cost solution to splitting demon packs. Perhaps having multiple teams in loose coordination that can split a pack's attention? Demon's are said to be at most not too intelligent, so it's possible to lure some into traps (like having a girl or two play bait for a pack to lure them into a coordinated position). Having girls play bait for larger teams lying in wait might be something worth trying.
The problem there lies in the risk to the bait, since even Kyouko would be hard-pressed to
survive under the weight of three or four Youma's miasma
and attentions at once for long enough to get a full team in position, and that a demon's innate meguca sense has a far wider range than we have (it's why I
had to institute stealth fields for the Serena team in my bait plan). We'd have to burn cubes like crazy to support that strategy, and it's liable not to work anyway.
I don't know why we planned on spending the last week hunting low-class demons, though, considering we'll not have the teleport advantage and they will. Hunting without eliminating the damn beholder is, if not impossible, insanely risky.
[X] Learning Experience
-All that's left now is to try to destroy the beholder demon. Coordinate with Nagoya to the best of our ability so that they can take advantage of our battle to hunt Youma without fearing teleport interdiction, or in case any of them are willing to lend themselves to the attack even with Serena's aura present.
-Tracking it down: Acquire as much advance info from Kyuubey as possible about it's movement patterns and and prepare the attack for when it's least likely to be near other Youma, preferably inside of five days.
-Fighting it: Due to the mystery and lack of information regarding the beholder and it's abilities, killing it is a secondary priority to figuring it out. If the beholder demon runs,
do not chase it if significant casualties have been inflicted on our side first. There is no room for a judgement call, as Serena's aura makes accurate judgement calls of it's remaining strength impossible. Youma who interfere in the attack are to be prioritized over killing the beholder, and taking advantage of any possible slavish loyalty to the beholder to kill youma is encouraged. Otherwise, the fight itself will have two stages, with the
entire encounter to go on no longer than twice the average Youma encounter's duration.
--Probing for weaknesses: The first half of the fight will consist of probing for magical, elemental, or body-location weaknesses on the beholder, in part to speed up killing it and in part to have more information for future attacks. If
more than one in five participating girls become casualties, or if more than
one in ten participating girls are killed outright, begin retreating from the fight without moving on to the second phase.
--Slaying: After
any two significant weaknesses have been found or, barring that, half the time allotted is spent, attempt to overwhelm the beholder's regeneration, targeting areas of interest if any were found.
-This process is to be repeated to seek out a second encounter, using stealth fields if necessary to get close enough to the beholder.
Only attempt a second encounter if the death count from the first encounter didn't cut it short.
