Zoe

  “What do we think about having a tank stop the charge long enough for us to dash out of the circle?” Caoimhe asked.

  “We could probably do that. We need to pump everything we’ve got into that tank though. Shields, regens, heals - everything.” Mellody said.

  “Fiona went down because we didn’t think it would work so we weren’t ready to heal when it did. I think we can do it right this time.” Evie said.

  “Murder! I was murdered because people I thought were my friends didn’t believe in me!” Fiona wailed.

  “Well get your sorry ass back in there and give us something to believe in!” Mellody laughed, as he and Evie layered protections on Fiona.

  “Aw, man. I wanted a shot.” Aleister whined.

  “When Fiona dies, you’ll be up, Aleister.” Evie said, still throwing buffs at Fiona.

  “When? When not if?” Fiona shouted. “Oh, you guys are so dead once we’re out of here.”

  “Like I said. Prove us wrong.” Mellody said again.

  “Guys, stop bickering. We’re running out of time.” Firo said.

  “Let’s go!” Fiona said, as she approached an edge of their shrinking safe zone. She balked a few times, allowing the party to get close and ready to run before finally stepping into the boss' path, shield up.

  Once again, [Spio] was stopped in his tracks, spinning against Fiona’s shield, the sharpened spikes on his armor smacking against the shield in a distinct rhythm.

  The party members wasted no time trying to escape as they funneled out behind Fiona. Mellody and Evie went first, and immediately turned back around to start healing the tank as quickly as they could.

  And the damage Fiona was taking was no joke. Even with shields and mitigation, holding back the boss was basically like taking a massive [Bleed], with Fiona’s HP dropping by 6 or 7k every tick or so. With the healers prepared this time, they were managing alright, but if the defensive mitigation wore off before the clash ended, the sudden loss of 30 or 40% worth of damage reduction would spell certain doom for Fiona.

  Once the party was safely outside the circle, Evie asked, “Now what? Can you move or anything?”

  Zoe watched as Fiona shuffled experimentally from side to side. “A little? There’s no prompt to do anything, but I’m pretty sure if I stop blocking, I’ll die.” She noted that as Fiona moved, [Spio] rotated to face the shield.

  “Shift a little more, until your back is facing away from us.” Zoe said. “The boss’ heading shifted with you; I think you can aim it.”

  “And then what? Die?” Fiona asked wryly, but still did as Zoe said, turning to face the boss toward the middle of what had been their circle.

  Zoe considered the situation for just a moment before drawing her [Knives] and hitting the boss with [Ankle Pick], her [Knockdown] skill. As Nyx did the animation of the spinning low kick to sweep the enemy’s leg, several things happened in succession.

  First, she immediately noticed the lack of the hollow ping sound denoting a lack of damage, which meant her attack worked. Second, she took a ton of recoil damage, dropping Nyx’s HP from a healthy 10, 328 to a less healthy 4,829.

  And third, most notably, [Spio] completely spun out of control. The [Knockdown] seemed to force him to open up and lose the neatly fitted ball shape. In the process, he bounced off of Fiona’s shield and spun off to the side, sprawled out on his stomach and spinning like a cartoon.

  The party cheered at first, but it quickly devolved into laughter as the group saw the way the boss slid across the ground, like a deer on ice. Zoe only had a chance to say “Um -” before the healers both noticed her HP and got her back up to full.

  [Spio], for all the danger that he seemed to pose moments before, slowly got back to his feet and shook out his head as if he was dizzy. But he still had plenty of his HP left, considering making him spin out like that had done little in the way of damage. But at least the party was out of obvious danger.

  “What’s the move now?” Firo asked. “We should plan for more attacks like that.”

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  “Noted. Also, I think physical attacks while he’s rolling like that are bad.” Mello said.

  “No shit?” Aleister laughed. “Nyx touched him and nearly died.”

  “Firo and Bisky, you guys specced for knockdowns?” Zoe asked. “That’s what did it.”

  “I have Tremor.” Firo said. “It’s a ground targeted AoE, so it takes a second for me to place it, but I have one.”

  “All I’ve got are roots. They might work, too, though.” Bisky said, curious. “It feels like they should, at least.”

  “If all else fails, we can just throw bodies at it. It was only like 6k damage, and that was unmitigated.” Mellody said.

  “I vote Caoimhe gets thrown next.” Zoe nodded.

  “I vote Caoimhe gets thrown next, too.” Caoimhe shouted proudly, and then dashed off toward the boss. “Also, we’ve been standing here like idiots talking strategy while the boss is targetable and vulnerable.”

  “Oh. Yeah. We’re on a roll tonight, guys.” Bisky said.

  “That’s fine, we’ve been at it all day. And we made solid progress.” Caoimhe said, as everyone started hammering away at the boss again.

  “Why’s that sound like you’re about to quit on us, old man?” Cass joked. “Is it past your bedtime?”

  “Eeh, it’s getting there.” Caoimhe responded. “But more than that, I was just thinking that if we’re going to call it quits for tonight soon, we should go out with a bang, yeah?”

  Zoe eyed [Spio’s] remaining HP warily. “Bro, the boss is at 70%. What are you suggesting?”

  “Dying in a big fiery explosion of glory, then calling it a night to come back tomorrow?” Fiona offered.

  Caoimhe clicked his tongue. “No, you dolts. Winning. I was suggesting we win and leave on a high note.”

  “That’s a big ask with…69% of the fight left there, bud.”

  “Nice.”

  “Nice.”

  “Nice.”

  Zoe fought the urge to rub her forehead at the chorus of responses, instead choosing to just let the moment pass and focus on DPS again.

  “C’mon idiots, focus up.” Mellody said.

  “Thank you, Mello.” Zoe said flatly.

  “But also; nice.”

  “...really?”

  “Just focus.” Bisky said finally, and it seemed like everyone finally did.

  They had been mostly just working away at the fight as they chatted, with the boss not doing anything particularly noteworthy. Fiona was in the zone, regularly getting [Perfect Blocks] and [Counters] during [Spio’s] regular attacks, evidently having adjusted to the tells and rhythm.

  Zoe grinned, leisurely going through her rotation. [Dirge], being focused almost entirely on dealing its damage through DoTs, didn’t have much in the way of a burst phase. Outside of using her damage amps and the few high damage attacks she had, which was a grand total of basically six skills, Zoe was able to be fairly relaxed while doing her job.

  Whereas [Knife] had a huge burst every minute and a half or so, where Zoe had to be on top of every single button press, and then spend a minute doing relatively little, [Dirge] required about 70% of her attention at all times. It was far less stressful, but she had a ton of timers to watch and make sure she refreshed her DoTs on time.

  When the boss wound up for a set of ground-pounds for raidwide damage, Zoe quickly hit [Debilitating Pierce] to keep everyone a bit healthier. So far, she hadn’t seen many mechanics that had prompted her damage reduction skill, so she wanted to use it wherever felt even remotely useful at this point.

  After the damage went out, and while Evie and Mello were getting everyone back to full, [Spio] reared back in the animation for the tank buster.

  “Shit, sorry. I DP’d the raidwide.” She said quickly, instead throwing [Hemlock Drip] at the boss instead. While it wasn’t nearly as good as [DP], it would reduce the target’s [Strength] by 15%. On a [Strength] based attack, that reduction worked out to around a 7 or 8% reduction in damage, usually.

  “We’re good, we’re good.” Fiona reassured, and popped a mitigation skill before [Perfect Blocking] the attack flawlessly. The [Counter] skill that Fiona followed the block with was a hefty one, too. [Countermeasure] was a skill that Zoe recognized because it was a well known one - its [Might] scaled based upon the amount of damage blocked before the attack. And it scaled very well, making it the de facto [Counter] for tank busters in most situations.

  “Nicely done.” She said, and returned to her DoT-refreshing duties.

  Not five seconds later, an attack pinged off [Spio’s] armor again, as the creature rolled up into a ball again. Everyone backed up and spread out as he started to rotate quickly in place.

  “We discussed this briefly, what’s the plan?” Firo said. “I’ve got Tremor, but I’m pretty sure someone needs to hold him like before for it to work.”

  “Do I just jump straight in front of him and hope for the best?” Fiona asked, sounding like she was about to just do that.

  “Not yet!” Mellody called. “We should learn the attack patterns first. And it doesn’t look like he’s about to do the whole fly-down-the-street thing he did before.”

  Mellody was right. The animation was a little different, with [Spio’s] spinning already wobbling a little. And he was kicking up an enormous amount of dirt and mud behind him as the spikes on his armor dug into the ground - but somehow cut through it instead of propelling him forward.

  “Shield me!” Caoimhe called, and Mellody answered, almost as if he had expected this. As soon as the shield and a little bit of mitigation was in place, Caoimhe launched forward with [Wild Swing]. The attack connected with a thud that was subtly different from the no damage sound while [Spio] was still revving up in place. Caoimhe took the kickback damage, dropping her below 4,000 HP.

  And [Spio] was launched like a pinball away from Caoimhe - straight at Nyx.

  Zoe muttered a curse and hit [Shadow Slip] in her panic. Just before the rolling ball of metal made contact, Nyx poofed into smoke and reappeared behind the boss, who continued to speed off into the distance. Unfortunately, that distance included several friendly NPCs that were immediately torn to shreds by the passing cannonball.

  “Well. I’m never doing that again.” Caoimhe said sardonically, as [Spio] rolled up the side of the outer wall briefly, only to turn and come back down, speeding toward the party with a vengeance. The attack appeared to be coming straight at the party this time, without the side-to-side wobbles from the previous attack.

  “You better not, asshole.” Zoe hissed like a startled cat.

  “Cover me.” Fiona said and stepped up into the middle of the path with her shield raised.

  “No, not yet. Dodge this one.” Mellody said. “Bisky, pin ‘em.”

  “Can do.” Bisky responded quickly, and immediately took aim while everyone else scattered to the sides. As they expected, the boss hurtled straight through the group without so much as a twitch in any other direction.

  Bisky was well positioned to take her shot, standing just to the side of the expected trajectory, making the target almost stationary to her aim. She let the [Pin] fly; the attack hit but had no noticeable effect. “Nothing.” She confirmed, as the rolling ball whizzed by.

  Almost in the same instant that [Spio] hit the edge of their makeshift arena, he stopped suddenly, halting as if propped up on two or three of his spikes. It looked wholly unnatural. And then the spinning reversed, to throw him back toward the party.

  As he spun in place building up speed, his trajectory seemed to bounce around between the party members individually, skipping the tanks.

  “Shit. Tanks, pick your targets to defend and ready yourselves.” Mellody said, and everyone shuffled around, breaking into their designated small parties - Aleister prepared to defend Bisky, Nyx, and Mellody, while Fiona covered the rest.

  [Spio] finally picked a target and launched forward.

  “Oh yeah, come here you big bastard!” Fiona shouted, putting up two mitigations skills alongside the shield. Firo, the designated target, stood directly behind Fiona to hopefully make the catch easy while Evie and Mellody threw some shields and regens at Fiona.

  As before, Fiona was able to stop the boss’ charge while Firo took the chance to scramble away.

  “Okay, now Tremor - Fuck, Caoimhe, do something!” Mellody noticed the predicament a breath late. Firo had to spend the time getting out of the way to avoid being splattered across the ground, and couldn’t cast [Tremor]. Nyx was too far away to get to the boss in time to [Ankle Pick] before Fiona was overrun, especially since her [Shadow Slip] was still on cooldown from moments before.

  Caoimhe was their only chance, positioned nearby to Fiona as part of the same small party. But because of the weird positions they had been in before, Caoimhe had ended up in the rear.

  Fiona, having been the main tank for basically the entire fight until this point, had run low on mitigations. Under normal, planned situations, the short length mitigations skills Fiona had used to take this charge should have been enough - it would have been, had someone been close enough to get the easy [Knockdown].

  Caoimhe’s [Wild Swing] was still on cooldown from being used in the earlier attempt to send [Spio] spinning out, when it launched him instead. That meant she needed to land [Knockdown] which was a much closer range attack. And to close that gap quickly, Caoimhe used [Driver].

  In the heat of the moment while trying to figure out what the boss’ mechanics were doing, Mellody hadn’t healed Caoimhe after the first instance of recoil damage. Evie had, but as was fairly normal for a DPS taking damage, she had thrown a [Regen] on Caoimhe, allowing Evie more flexibility while Caoimhe’s HP would tick back up.

  Caoimhe’s HP had ticked back up by around 2,000, to just under 6,000. Zoe wasn’t sure if Caoimhe didn’t notice what her HP was, or if she had misjudged the distance, but [Driver] barely connected with [Spio] at the end of the gap-closer. And the recoil damage killed Caoimhe.

  That left no one in position to hit the boss with a [Knockdown], and Fiona without any recourse but to simply be run over.

  “Well, shit.” Fiona and Caoimhe said in tandem as they went down like dominoes. [Spio] simply went off in the direction that it had been facing when Fiona died, with it’s speed increased after trying to fight past Fiona.

  “This is still recoverable. Get up.” Mellody said, as both healers immediately began casting their [Resurrection] spells.

  Like before, the boss shredded through several NPCs in its path as it hurtled toward the gate.

  “No way.” Firo said, disbelief in his voice, mixed with a wry laugh. [Spio] crashed through the NPCs and into the inside of the gate - which promptly broke open, as [Spio] spun off deeper into the Fomorian army. Admittedly, he did take out a fair number of enemy mobs.

  “You gotta be shitting me.” Fiona laughed incredulously.

  “Yep. That’s not recoverable.” Zoe laughed in turn. “Wipe it up, boys.”