Marissa

  The enemy camp was in disarray as the rush of their group’s initial charge died down. The NPC riders were still moving around the camp, trying to catch the stragglers and stopping any potential runaways from making it into the woods where it would be harder for the cavalry to give chase.

  “Warriors, to me!” [Uathach] called, thrusting a sword in the air from the back of her mount. She was stationed toward the middle of the camp, waiting outside of the biggest tent in the camp, with the telltale little blue circle around her. As the group turned to move, the high energy music that had accompanied the battle petered out into something more subdued.

  “Alright, I guess the fun is over.” Evan chuckled.

  “Or just beginning.” Nyx said, as she moved her ghostly horse toward [Uathach’s] shadowy, smokey mount. “Next time I’m playing a different Path,” she muttered. Clearly she didn’t enjoy being stuck with a [Crossbow].

  “Is everyone ready for a real fight?” Marissa asked, also moving Bisky toward the circle.

  “Yes ma’am.” Kieran said as everyone else started migrating toward the circle as well.

  “Don’t you ma’am me.” Marissa shot back with just a hint of venom. “I’m not that old.”

  “I really hate to break it to you, Bisky, but we’re getting to the ‘ma’am’ age.” Jazz said. “I hear it at work all the time.”

  “...Shit.” Marissa muttered, to a few stray chuckles in the chat. “Whatever, let’s get this fight rolling.”

  “Aye aye.” Kieran said.

  “I don’t think you guys are that old.” Firo said helpfully.

  “Bro.” Evan said, laughing.

  “You don’t need to rub it in, college boy.” Ash said. “We’ll take the compliment though?”

  “I didn’t mean…Well, whatever. Let’s just get this going.”

  “You think we should dismount?” Evie asked, the last one standing outside of the blue ring. “I don’t know if we can fight well while mounted, but I also don’t want to dismount and have Mongie run away.”

  “Mongie?” Nyx asked.

  “Yes, Mongie. My war panther.” Evie said haughtily.

  “You named your war panther. Knowing full well we probably don’t get to keep these mounts?” Nyx asked.

  “Shut up.” Evie snapped. “I didn’t hear an answer.”

  “I feel like if we need them at any point, they’ll stay around if we dismount, right? Having them vanish if you accidentally hit the dismount button would be bad design.” Firo said.

  “Also, mounts don’t usually disappear unless you actually dismiss them, right?” Evan offered. “We don’t have that sort of ability with these guys, so I think it should be fine?”

  “Who wants to risk it?” Evie asked.

  Marissa watched as Firo hopped off his crow-pegasus, and stood beside it. The creature just idly kicked at the dirt, but stood where he had gotten off of it.

  “Problem solved?” Firo asked.

  “Yeah. I’m going to put Mongie over here.” Evie said, and walked her panther a little ways off to the side, outside of what she felt would be a normal size boss arena. Once she hopped off her mount and started walking back toward the party, everyone else moved over to where she had dismounted and followed suit, leaving their group of mounts together within a short dash’s reach.

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  Everyone else moved into the circle, but this time Marissa held back, just outside of it.

  “Anything else we need to address before we start this?” She asked, and got nothing but silence in return. “I’ll take that as a no,” she said, and crossed the threshold.

  “Well? Come on, then!” [Uathach] shouted immediately. “I was told Fomorian commanders were dangerous and straightforward! Yet you won’t come out and fight?” She taunted toward the tent.

  A deep growl came from the tent as one of the flaps was pushed aside. A pale man emerged, thin and spindly, but armored. He was clearly some kind of fae, but looked washed out, as if he had been drained of color. He had four wings on his back in a dragonfly style, but two of them - one on each side - had been torn and were missing half of the wing.

  He sneered at [Uathach], then looked around at the whole group arrayed before him. “Nine of you? And you’re calling us out for not fighting you ‘fair’?” He asked, his voice was smooth with a slight hint of some kind of accent, though Marissa wasn’t sure it was a real one.

  “Yo, he sounds hot.” Jazz said.

  “...Really?” Ash asked as the tent’s flap moved again.

  This time, a large bear emerged. At first, Marissa had expected a monstrous, twisted bear like the enemies that had accompanied [Spio] when they defended the wall, but this one was wholly different.

  It was a massive brown bear, with battle scars all over the place. Their snout was marked by old claw-inflicted wounds, and one eye looked milky white, as though it was blind. It wore armor as well, and carried a massive warhammer that looked more like an anvil on a flagpole.

  “Now, that’s not fair, [Regnu]. It’s two to nine.” The bear said in a gruff, gravelly voice.

  The Fae glanced toward the bear as it stood up on its hind legs and hefted the hammer onto a shoulder. It absolutely dwarfed the human-sized fighter.

  [Regnu] scoffed. “Fine, [Bufon]. But we’re still outnumbered.”

  [Uathach] slipped from her smoke-like horse and leveled her sword at [Regnu] as the horse behind her puffed away to smoke. “You want single combat, then I can give you that as a courtesy. I think your friend there is equal to more than one of us, so he shall fight them.” She said, motioning toward the party.

  “[Bufon]? Thoughts?” The Fae asked.

  “Fine by me.” The bear grumbled. “I don’t mind crushing some [Tuatha] flies before we need to leave.” He said, letting the hammer fall from his shoulder. The head slammed into the ground and made a small crater.

  [Uathach] turned to the party and said a bit more quietly, “I’ll deal with the Fae. Take the bear down. The rest of the company should keep the rest of the Fomorian army from realizing what is happening here for a little while at least, but don’t take long. We’ll need to retreat quickly, so don’t let the fight drag out.”

  “Now, now,” [Regnu] sneered, “no secret meetings right in front of us while we’re waiting to play!”

  As soon as he finished his line, he all but teleported right in front of [Uathach], who blocked the strike with her sword. It was a single one-handed weapon, and she carried no shield, but a shadowy mist flowed from the blade, hiding the weapon’s form and length.

  When they clashed, [Uathach] shouted “Fight well!” and then the two of them were gone, with flashes of their fight moving off into another area of the camp, which was now mostly clear of living folk.

  [Bufon] rolled a shoulder and grabbed the massive handle of his hammer. “Right then. I’d say good luck to you, but I’d rather have it for myself. Prepare yourselves!” And then he leapt into the air.

  All at once, the fight had begun in earnest. A new music track kicked in, a heavy, lumbering rock arrangement with a heavy, driving drumbeat; it sounded brutal and earthy. The party scattered in their ingrained directions, allowing Aleister and Fiona to stand where they had been gathered, while the rest fanned out. When [Bufon] came crashing down, his hammer once again broke the ground as the tanks had stepped to either side of the strike.

  Fiona quickly smashed into the bear with her own [Warhammer], trying to build up [Threat]. Having swapped to [Tower] for the better mounted weapon left Fiona in a less-than-optimal situation, given how much Evan preferred [Aegis]. However, that didn’t mean that [Tower] was ineffective.

  The massive attacks that the two-handed weapon offered generated [Threat] quickly, and [Bufon] zeroed in on Fiona immediately. Rather than relying on [Blocking] and [Counterattacks] like [Aegis], [Tower] was more focused on rebuffing attacks with their heavier armor while punishing the enemy for ever attacking in the first place.

  Functionally, it meant that Fiona’s HP would be bouncing up and down a bit more than usual without steady access to mitigation through blocking, but she would actually have better skills to shrug off bigger hits with [Tower’s] toolkit.

  As soon as Fiona had [Threat] established, the rest of the party immediately began their openers. Marissa had to fight against her muscle memory from going through her [Seeker] opener that she was so accustomed to. [Keeper’s] rotation wasn’t entirely different, especially when she mapped equivalent buttons to the same keys, but it still required a slightly different order of operations to get the most out of her secondary [Dedication].

  [Nature’s Oath] was first, the [Keeper] version of [Critical Eye]. It gave her a boost to all of her [Nature] typed damage, and upgraded the effect of her related spells and skills. [Bramble Arrow] was first, of course, and she placed the shot well. The arrow struck the bear’s back dead center and exploded outward with thorny vines. Rather than the healthy green vines she had seen previously, under [Nature’s Oath] they came out with bloody red tips and dripped a purple substance.

  The buff added a pretty significant DoT effect to the attack, as well as altered the [Root] effect - instead of pinning the enemy to the spot, it made the enemy take big chunks of damage if it moved while under the effect, which was actually a huge upgrade against big enemies that could usually ignore the [Root] anyway.

  She quickly launched her other [Keeper] skills - or at least the ones that had added [Nature] damage, as they would have their effects boosted. [Oaken Arrow], [Thorn Shot], and [Wisteria Needle] were the main skills she launched, then swapped to her limited list of actual spells. [Nature’s Wrath], [Vine Pummel], [Bark Blast], and [Thorny Cascade] rounded out her [Nature’s Oath] window.

  As Marissa finally moved into her standard [Arrow] skills - [Silver Arrow], [Heartstopper], and the like - [Bufon] finally seemed to get the real fight started. The expected ground slam raid-wide had already gone out, and now he was winding up for something that was bound to be more dangerous.

  Fiona hit [Stalwart], [Tower’s] [Dedication] skill. It lasted for just a few seconds, but was a solid 50% damage reduction to most attacks. It was a little trickier to use than simply [Blocking], but also had a massive upside - it didn’t interrupt other actions. Fiona continued to swing through her basic combo, ready to weather the attack headed her way.

  [Bufon] slammed his hammer straight down on Fiona. The damage was much higher than the previous attacks, but didn’t quite feel like a tank buster, even with the 50% mitigation.

  And then the massive bear stomped. It was some kind of proximity attack that caused the players nearby to be [Off-Balance]. It was functionally a [Slow], making the players move around slower, but also incorporated an effect that made them unable to take significant actions, like attacking or using most skills.

  While Fiona was [Off-Balance], the boss held his hammer in just his left hand, while his right moved across his body to tap on the left shoulder plate of his armor. The design engraved into the armor began to glow, and [Bufon] swept out his hand, the glow of red light following the movement.

  A mass of red light swept out from [Bufon’s] extended hand, flying toward Mellody. While it was unclear exactly what the ability would do, this early on, Ash clearly didn’t want to take any chances. Mellody vanished as [Coda Step] was triggered, teleporting her away to a safer distance.

  The red light surged over where she had been, but dissipated shortly thereafter to no effect. [Bufon] grunted, then turned back toward Fiona to re-engage in the brawl. The bear used a rather graceful looking three hit combo that ended with an over extended swing with one arm holding onto the hammer. Once again, his free hand brushed over another of his armor plates that began to glow with a different pattern.

  There was a similar red glow, but rather than following the hand that activated the skill, the glow intensified for a moment before flowing down into the ground.

  “I don’t like that.” Evan said. “The attack vanished.”

  “Everyone watch your feet!” Ash called, as he was pushing Mellody to run back into the area where they fought.

  “It’s me, it’s me.” Firo called, as he saw the ground beneath him begin to splinter and glow. He hit a quick dodge roll that put him just out of the range of the attack as the ground erupted. Mud and dirt exploded upward as a blast of red energy shot up, looking similar to a volcano eruption.

  “Bet that hurts.” Evie said. “Nice dodge.”

  “Not bad.” [Bufon] said, his grumbling voice cutting through the music and chatter. “I hope you don’t think this is it, though.”

  Once again, the bear hefted up his hammer and struck Fiona with yet another three hit combo. The movement was still strikingly graceful for the bear’s size, but it was an entirely different set of motions. It did, however, end with a hit swinging the hammer in a single hand while the free hand grazed over another piece of his armor.

  The glow was red once again, and this time flowed out from the vambrace he touched, and into the head of his hammer as he continued into a fourth hit for his combo.

  “Buster. Gotta be.” Evie called, and Fiona acted quickly, smashing [Stalwart] as the hammer came down in a brutal overhead swing. It crashed into Fiona’s armor and scraped against it all the way down until it impacted the ground and exploded in muddy shrapnel.

  The initial hit itself had shaved Fiona’s HP down into the 6,000s, though she hadn’t been quite at full HP. The resulting explosion caught her both melee DPS - who hadn’t been expecting such a huge cleave - and Aleister.

  Caoimhe and Nyx were flung away from the blast, and just dead. Aleister, who hadn’t had any mitigation up at the time, not expecting to take a tank buster, just barely survived with under 1,000 HP. Fiona was also still standing, thanks entirely to her hefty 50% mitigation, with just over 1000 HP.

  “Found the buster.” Evan said flatly.

  “Hey guys, not too sure, but I think it cleaves.” Kieran answered in the same tone.