Kieran

  Kieran was warming up to the new {NTEA} Clan tag next to Caoimhe’s name.

  He had been playing Mag Mell for more than half a year without one, so he had thought it would be weird seeing it there - and it was. But only for a short time. In just a day, he had more or less gotten used to seeing it.

  Marissa hadn’t gotten around to making a Clan Crest yet, so he couldn’t make use of all of the clothing customization options that being in a Clan allowed quite yet, but he would. It would be awesome to show up to a dungeon as a party in matching gear. Maybe take some pictures with the picture tools, too.

  But for now, Kieran needed to run his dailies. He skimped out on too many days this week, and with the reset on Tuesday, he only had today and Monday to finish up his weekly allowance for rewards.

  Which, to be fair, wouldn’t take all that long in the end. But he still needed to spend the time and do them.

  For now, that meant using the [A-P System] to find a party and do some random dungeons. It was still early Sunday morning, so Marissa wasn’t on yet. She was probably either down in the Flour Basket baking, or - if she was lucky - relaxing for the morning and catching up on some of the TV she missed throughout the week.

  Ashton and Jasmine regularly had brunch on Sundays with some of their New York friends, so they were probably still out with them. Or doing whatever else they did on the weekends, as they were often busy with various plans. Of their little group, those two were easily the most socially active.

  As for Evan…well, Kieran was sure the poor guy was tied up with baby Eli. Evan and Sam were a great team when it came to parenting from what Kieran had been told, but that meant they were both equally tired and exhausted pretty much all the time. Yes, they both did their best to give each other some free time where possible, but even then it mostly just amounted to a free few hours here and there to either nap, read, or watch TV.

  Given Kieran’s own experience, that usually meant an attempt at reading or TV that ended up in a nap when you inevitably fell asleep on the couch.

  The first two months after Aoife was born had done a real number on Kieran’s back from how many times he slept in poor positions on the couch. And it never mattered how much he tried to position well; he always ended up in a position that left his back twisted and just generally in poor shape.

  He took a deep breath and sighed. All in all, it all just meant he was at the whims of the [A-P System] today. Doing a random dungeon through it was one of the ways to get progress toward his dailies and weeklies, but usually he tried to at least get half a party together before queueing into it so he had some party members he knew he could rely on.

  Leaving it all up to chance usually went fine. But sometimes, getting that one nightmare person could ruin not just that dungeon run, but even the whole day.

  Kieran learned that the hard way when some random player in the game had just generally been an asshole all around for an entire dungeon, leaving Kieran in a bad mood. Just after finishing the dungeon, Nat had come in to ask what the plan was for lunch and dinner that day, and Kieran had snapped at her in frustration.

  He apologized immediately, realizing that of course it wasn’t her fault, but the whole thing had left him feeling sour the rest of the day. Nat understood what happened and never blamed him for it, but still. Having someone randomly able to just ruin your mood for a whole day like that wasn’t pleasant.

  When his queue for the dungeon popped up, he hit [Enter] and was mentally gearing up for a boring slog. He had at least lucked out with a slightly higher level dungeon, which meant things wouldn’t be too boring. At least the bosses would have some basic mechanics.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] : Heya. o/

  Kieran said his hello in the chat. It was around a 50/50 shot at getting a reply for each person, but usually the chat in a random dungeon like this was pretty quiet.

  [Firo Strix] : Hi! o/

  [Tiny Human {RTRO}] : Yo.

  Kieran smiled to himself. Two friendly responses was pretty good, and hopefully an indicator of how the dungeon would go.

  As the quiet tank, an Elf [Blade], dashed ahead, everyone followed on the well trodden path. Most players at this point knew most of the dungeons available like the back of their hands, and everyone in the current group was already level 90.

  While running toward the first trash pull, Kieran checked the other two party members who had said hello. Tiny Human was, in fact, a Fae designed to be a very short human character. They were a [Seer], a [Dedication] of [Omen], which were shielding focused healers.

  Firo Strix was the other DPS with Caoimhe; an [Invoker], which was one of the two [Mage] options - basically just a classic wizard with arcane magic. Notably, arcane magic in Mag Mell did not include elemental magic, which fell under the nature category. Instead, it was mostly more ‘raw’ magic flavored. But it did come with some very flashy attacks.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] : Hey, Firo. Are you spec’ed for damage?

  [Firo Strix] : ???

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  [Firo Strix] : Ya, why?

  Kieran smiled to himself. [Invokers] were almost invariably built for raw damage. They could alter their skills to have some minor support-like abilities, but Kieran couldn’t remember ever playing with one that didn’t go for just raw damage. And, even better for the moment, most [Invoker] skills included AoE damage in every attack.

  And Kieran still hadn’t altered his skills back to the more common damage build that most [Tyrants] favored. Instead, he was still set up to immobilize and disable their enemies.

  In a dungeon like this, as long as their tank was good at keeping the enemies packed together, this combination should be absolutely explosive.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] : I’ve got a neat little present for you, I think. Be ready.

  [Firo Strix] : ???????

  When the tank pulled the first group of enemies, Kieran held back just a moment. Firo let his opening few attacks go while the tank was still grouping the mobs. But as soon as the tank seemed to have things under control, Kieran hit [Damnation]. Caoimhe performed the massive overhead slam, sinking her massive weapon into the ground. No matter how many times Kieran saw it, it always felt so satisfying.

  And then he grinned when half a second later there was a [Triple Cast] [Arcane Detonation], which was one of [Invoker’s] highest damage options for AoE.

  Following that, he saw Firo hit two self-buffs and then launch [Soul Shatter], [Invoker’s] actual strongest raw attack. It dealt massive damage but required the caster to target a small ‘soul’ visible in the center mass of the target for a full second before the damage was applied. If the targeting reticle left the ‘soul’ during the charge time, the spell was lost. On a success, it also had no cooldown, allowing you to chain casts of it if you maintained perfect aim.

  Caoimhe’s altered [Damnation] was an 8 second stun, and the pack of mobs was 6 total creatures.

  Firo’s player, evidently, had good aim.

  Firo went through each target quickly, leaving the whole group around 20% of their HP in 10 seconds since the pull began. Caoimhe had hit a few simpler attacks while waiting for her stun to end while Firo went to town on the enemies.

  As soon as the stun ended and Firo was back to a more normal rotation, Caoimhe hit [Knockdown], a 150 [Might] skill that swept enemies off their feet, and [Punishment], bringing the pull to a close in half the time it would have taken normally.

  There was a moment after the pull where no one moved forward. Kieran chuckled at what he imagined was everyone typing.

  [Tyr Mistletainn] : A supp Tyrant?

  [Tiny Human {RTRO}] : What was that stun?

  [Firo Strix] : Holy shit! Thank you for that present. Lol

  Kieran laughed as he responded.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] : Sorry, was playing with some friends yesterday and forgot to alter my skills. I’m built for KDs and stuns right now.

  [Tyr Mistletainn] : If all the pulls go like that one, I’ve got no complaints.

  [Tiny Human {RTRO}] : ^^^^

  [Firo Strix] : Bro, if I can land another round of soul shatters like that, I will pay you in items or gold or sumthin

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] : Damnation’s cd is really long because of the stun time, so it’ll be every other pull at best. But I’ll do what I can.

  [Firo Strix] : o7

  The rest of the dungeon went incredibly smoothly. Kieran had expected complaints about not doing enough damage, but he lucked out that he had been partnered with an [Invoker] prepped for high damage. If it had been an [Athame] or a [Dirge] that excelled more in damage over time or single target damage, the stuns would not have been nearly as helpful.

  Even the bosses went down easily. The minibosses were able to be stunned and knocked down, so Caoimhe showed her worth in those fights too, stopping a few actual mechanics by stunning bosses out of them. One particularly annoying mechanic that required a ton of movement and would’ve severely hampered Firo’s damage was stopped with a nicely timed stun.

  To be fair, most tanks have access to at least one stun, but [Blades] do not - so in a slightly different party composition, that wouldn’t have been his job anyway.

  Still, the speed at which they made it through the dungeon was great. It was nothing game changing, but it was certainly markedly fast. It felt good to cruise through a dungeon like that now and again, especially with random, uncoordinated players.

  Goodbyes were said in chat and Kieran was off again. His first move was to head back to Falias and [Ion the Tyrant] to alter Caoimhe’s skills back to a more normal damage focused build.

  While on his way, though, Kieran received a whisper from Firo.

  [Firo Strix] > That was awesome. Do you mind if I friend you?

  [Firo Strix] > I still owe you payment for all those soul shatters, too.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > Feel free.

  [Friend Request]

  {Firo Strix}

  [Accept?]

  [Yes] [No]

  Kieran hit [Yes] and went to send another message before stopping and considering.

  Firo had been a good player. Even accounting for the stuns, he had reliably landed [Soul Shatters] back to back, which was something…well, maybe not remarkable, but it still put him probably in the top 15% of players skill wise. Certainly potential raid material, at least. And he had no Clan tag.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > Hey Firo, how do you feel about the upcoming raids?

  [Firo Strix] > Looking forward to them, why?

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > Have a group for them yet?

  [Firo Strix] > Nah, was gonna a-p them.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > You can’t.

  [Firo Strix] > ?? What?

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > You can’t A-P them. You have to find a complete party to go into them.

  [Firo Strix] > Well that sucks

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > A few friends and I just started our Clan with the express purpose of putting our team together.

  [Caoimhe Phadraig {NTEA}] > We have DPS slots. Interested?