Evan, thankfully, did check in with his wife Sam before giving the group a more firm yes. They were pretty sure that by the time November rolled around, they would be in a position to allow Evan a little break for a few hours a few nights each week.

  Even as it was, Eli was just over five weeks old, and Evan and Sam were already starting to adjust somewhat. Yes, they were exhausted and wiped out most days - as was expected - but they were starting to come out of the new baby haze a little bit. Insofar as they were trying to socialize here and there. Evan had been completely AWOL for the first couple weeks, but had been checking in a bit more regularly as time went on.

  The whole team knew that Evan was a competent video game player, and a great tank. Even after being mostly away for a few months, they trusted him to perform well once he had a more set schedule and Eli started sleeping through the night. With some luck, that would be around when the raids were released. With some bad luck, it could be three or four months beyond that.

  But there was hope.

  “We’ll be glad to have you, Evan.” Kieran said. “For now, though, please go do whatever you have to do.”

  Evan chuckled, but it sounded thin. “I will do that. Thank you, guys. I will be sure to be in touch, at least.”

  “Boy, you have a new-ish-born baby. Go take care of yourself and your wife.” Jazz said, full of good humor. “Worry about us when you’re getting at least six hours of interrupted sleep a few nights a week.”

  “Then I’ll talk to you all in a year. Good night.” Evan said, and was gone before anyone could respond.

  “He really does sound tired.” Marissa said.

  “You can’t be that surprised.” Kieran laughed. “Remember how I was when Aoife and Kat were born?”

  “No, I don’t.” Marissa said brightly, “Because I barely heard from you for weeks at a time.”

  “I think you just made my point.”

  “I did.” She said. “And with both of your kids, you started to show up again online after a month or two. Going by your experiences, we should be fine as a team.”

  “Yeah. I’m not too worried.” Kieran agreed. “We can always reassess closer to release if things don’t seem to be looking up.”

  “That just leaves us with one other thing I wanted to discuss tonight.” Marissa said, taking charge again. “Whether we want to form a Clan around this or not.”

  Kieran had spent some time thinking about it since Marissa brought it up the previous night. There were solid reasons both for and against it.

  Obviously, the members of the team being all in one Clan meant some convenient bonuses. Mag Mell’s Clan system offered people in a Clan the ability to give bonuses to all of its members. They weren’t big ones and were mostly for convenience, but they were worth considering.

  Each Clan could have three of the boosts active at any one time, and those were selected from a list of almost twenty. Having such direct control over the Clan buffs with just 8 members meant that the team could always have exactly which buffs they wanted.

  However, Clans with more members had access to stronger versions of the bonuses. It wasn’t an unfair amount, but it was enough to be worth considering as a variable. With a Clan of eight members, the team would only ever have access to the second tier of bonuses, while fifty members had access to tier three, and one hundred members meant tier four.

  Saying that raid team members were required to join a Clan made up of just the team probably wouldn’t be a problem, but it might limit the potential recruits if they wanted to join a larger Clan instead. Or, of course, if they were already in one.

  The opposite end of that was exactly that. By choosing not to form the team into a Clan, they could recruit just about anyone they liked, so long as they worked with the schedule. And it would also free everyone up to join larger Clans if they liked.

  Of course, Kieran knew where he fell when it came to that. “I’ve not really joined a Clan so far because while the bonuses are nice, they’re hardly game defining. If we want to solidify ourselves as a team by making a Clan, I’m good with that.”

  “I’m with Kieran.” Ash said. “I’ve not joined a Clan because I simply haven’t bothered. But if you’re considering making one, then I’d rather be a part of it than not.”

  “All in favor of making Marissa our new queen?” Jazz laughed. “I’m in, too, of course.”

  “I also vote that Marissa gets to be our fearless leader.” Kieran joked. “She’ll keep us safe, as long as there aren’t any spiders.”

  “Fuck off.” Marissa said, without any real bite. “Besides, I was planning to be our leader, anyway.”

  “So, Ms. Fearless Leader,” Jasmine said haughtily, “whatcha gonna name us?”

  Kieran smirked to himself. He, like Jasmine and Ash no doubt, knew that Marissa was notoriously bad at naming things. Her rather ruinous choice paralysis made her agonize over naming things for ages, usually culminating in a choice like ‘Hibiscus Jade’ for example.

  “Well?” Kieran prompted cheekily.

  Silence permeated the chat for a long moment before Marissa cleared her throat. “I’ll worry about the name when we get there.” She declared. “Now then, with that out of the way, what do you three have planned for tonight?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Nothing in particular.” Kieran said.

  “We were planning to game tonight.” Ash said. “It’s Saturday and we both have tomorrow off, so…”

  “Great. We only need four to create a Clan, and there’s supposedly a pre-req quest involved that brings you through a special dungeon.” Marissa said. “It scales to the team’s level, so it should be good light exercise for us.”

  Kieran shrugged and started prepping Caoimhe for a quick dungeon delve. “Works for me; not like I had other plans. Any idea how difficult it’s supposed to be?”

  “Dunno.” Marissa said. “Jazz? Ash? Any idea?”

  “None here.” Ash said.

  “Nope. Never looked into it because I never expected to be running it.” Jazz added. “I assume it’s not going to be too hard, given it’s got a social feature locked behind it.”

  “I mean, it’s not really locked behind it. You can join a Clan without doing it.” Marissa needled. “But you’re not wrong. I also don’t expect it to be anything too interesting, since it’s only accessible through this questline. 99% of players will never see it.”

  “And yet,” Kieran noted, “it’s one of the few quests that has a fully scaling dungeon. That would imply it is something special, given most dungeons make you scale down to their level instead.”

  “Fair point.” Marissa said, sounding more curious than anything else. “I guess we’ll see. I’m going to drop by Falias to grab the quest.”

  “Got it. Any idea where we need to go to meet you?” Ash asked.

  “No clue. Just hang out and I’ll let you know when I have it. In the meantime…” As Marissa trailed off, a pop up showed up on Kieran’s screen.

  [Party Invite]

  [Hibiscus Jade]

  [Accept?]

  [Yes] [No]

  Kieran clicked the [Yes] button, and the party’s status bars popped in below his own. He smiled at the familiar names.

  [Hibiscus Jade], of course, was currently set as a [Seeker]. No surprise there.

  [Aleister Damien], Jasmine’s character, was currently an [Ebon] - her favorite [Path] for her character.

  And lastly was [Mellody Softsong], Ash’s character, registered as a [Revel].

  With Kieran’s character, [Caoimhe Phadraig] the [Tyrant], rounding out the team.

  Altogether, it was a great team composition. Caoimhe and Aleister were both front line fighters, while Hibiscus and Mellody were solidly backline. They had a good balance, and being split the way they were gave them some flexibility when it came to doing mechanics correctly. It wasn’t necessarily a problem that came up often, but a group with too many close range or long range characters could end up overlapping their positioning too much.

  Kieran had moused over Caoimhe’s abilities a few times, just to remember how he had everything currently set up. He toyed with the [Alter Skills] menu so often that he often forgot how he was currently specced. Going into this dungeon, it looked like Caoimhe had a particularly fun party-focused set up. He actually couldn’t remember right then what he did last, but it must’ve been with his friends.

  “Okay, got the quest. The dungeon is apparently just right outside of Falias.” Marissa said, finally.

  “Oh, perfect. Which gate?” Jazz asked.

  “Closest to the East Gate, looks like.”

  “On my way.”

  “Same.” Kieran echoed, moving that direction. It was really convenient that it was just right outside the city they were all waiting in. “So what’s the deal with the quest?”

  “Apparently the whole deal is that Cu Chulainn doesn’t want any Clans registered under the Tuath De banner without them proving their mettle first, so we’re being sent to this place as a test.”

  “That’s neat, I guess?” Jazz said.

  “I knew that Cu Chulainn was in charge of the Clans, broadly speaking, but I didn’t think he’d actually show up in any of the quests yet.” Kieran said.

  “Well, he didn’t actually show up yet. The Clan Registrar just mentioned him by name. Though, to be fair, Cu’s name is one that even I recognized.” Marissa said.

  “Makes sense. He’s probably one of the most well known Irish folk heroes. Appeared in a bunch of other games and stuff.” Kieran said.

  “Well, maybe he’ll show up at some point. I can only assume we'll get to see more of the major characters as we get closer to the raid’s storyline.” Jazz offered.

  “I hope so.” Kieran said. “Alright, I’m here.”

  As he dismissed his mount, Jazz and Ash were also coming around the corner to meet them.

  [Aleister Damien] really did look like a vampire. Or at least an edgy equivalent. Jasmine had designed him as a tall and thin Fae. He was remarkably pale with white hair and dark red eyes. Appropriately dark makeup gave him the air of a vampire, but it didn’t do as much as the gear he wore.

  Mag Mell had a rather extensive cosmetic system when it came to gear. You could freely refashion any piece of gear to look like any other piece that went in the same slot that you had ever had in your inventory. And each piece had several dye channels to allow the player to alter it to their liking.

  Aleister’s gear was fashioned to look like a fantasy, Elizabethan noble, all dyed black and red. It was striking, and the intended look was obvious.

  Ash’s [Mellody Softsong] was almost a polar opposite. Mellody was a cute, little Cait-Sidhe. She had light brown hair with cat ears and a fluffy tail to match. Her forearms were likewise covered in light brown fur.

  Gear wise, Mellody wore a nice dress that had a rather simple silhouette, but looked ornate. It was a deep blue with eye-catching silver filaments running through it in very intricate designs. And slung at her hip was a brilliantly silver flute, which matched the silver in the dress.

  Kieran knew that Ash had opted to make Mellody the shortest possible Cait-Sidhe, to really sell the contrast between the tall and imposing Aleister and the tiny and cute Mellody. But even the shortest Cait-Sidhe was still roughly equivalent to a short human, and more than head and shoulders taller than Caoimhe. It made him chuckle every time they stood by one another.

  Hibiscus turned toward the massive stone that she had told us to gather by. She used an item that required a cast time - Kieran recognized the animation - and then a large hidden doorway slid down the rock to reveal a hidden staircase. Laughter came over the chat.

  “Hidden in plain sight. Fair enough.” Jazz chuckled.

  When Caoimhe approached the new doorway, Kieran saw the light blue lines that denoted an area change.

  “Looks like it’s instanced.” Kieran said.

  “Alright. We may end up right in the thick of it. We should prep out here first.” Marissa said, naturally taking charge. No one argued with her, though, as everyone set about checking their preparations.

  Kieran leaned back in his chair and stretched, before settling back in and sitting up, a bit more invested now. It was time to actually play the damn game.