Zoe

  After things had managed to spin entirely out of control on the last pull, the party had simply let the invading army rush through the open gate and wash over them like a wave. Without putting up any sort of struggle, the entire group found themselves once again looking at that lightly glowing blue circle at the start of the scenario.

  Laughter was still echoing through the group as well, given how spectacularly things had gone wrong. Zoe was struggling to get control over her laughter as she watched the screen. Not a single party member moved; she imagined everyone was like her, struggling to control themselves, unable to focus.

  “Well, lesson learned,” Caoimhe wheezed, “don’t try to smack the boss while he’s spinning up.”

  “And don’t launch him at the gate.” Fiona said, sounding mostly together. “Obviously that was an accident this time, but I’m willing to bet he’ll actively target the gate later in that fight.”

  “Agreed. I’m more curious about what Nyx said earlier, though.” Bisky added. “About whether or not knocking down more ladders would’ve let us skip the fight. Or maybe we’d get a different boss?”

  “I guess the follow-up to that question is what now?” Cass asked. “Because we can try to down more ladders this time and see what happens, or we can try to do the same thing again to fight the same boss. At least then we know roughly what to expect.”

  “Part of me is definitely in the ‘try the same thing over again’ camp, because obviously doing what you know is safest. But also, knocking down all four ladders didn’t seem that hard if we knew what to do going into it, and if we could skip an entire boss fight that way…?” Firo mused.

  “I think we should risk it for the biscuit.” Aleister said. “If there’s any chance at all that we bypass a boss fight because we out maneuvered what is essentially an extended trash pull, then I’m all in favor of taking the shot.”

  “To be fair, Mag Mell does seem to be the kind of game that would take that into account.” Caoimhe said. “I’m sure that there will be something a bit more involved than just knocking down all the ladders to skip an entire fight, but I’m down to try it.”

  “This is probably our last run of the night, given the time,” Mellody said. “Does anyone want to try to fight the iron hedgehog again?”

  “Honestly, not really.” Firo said.

  “It was kinda boring, the death spiral aside.” Zoe agreed.

  “It’s the last run of the night, right? Let’s try something stupid.” Fiona said.

  “Alright. Then we try to push for knocking down all the ladders. Knowing what we do now, are there any other strategy alterations we want to make?” Mellody asked.

  “Bisky and Firo, how confident are you two that you can keep the mages contained like last time?” Fiona asked.

  “Unless something changes, I'm confident, I think.” Bisky said, with Firo following her with a grunt of agreement. “Focusing on them while the others bomb the group closer to the gate was pretty easy, honestly.”

  Fiona took a deep breath, audible over the mic. “Then I think Aleister can act as a flex. Without the explosions at the gate, I don’t think I’ll have an issue holding it alone, and I think a tank up there with aggro abilities might help.”

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  “I think it will too.” Zoe said. “If a tank can keep the mobs off me while I destroy the ladders, I imagine it would actually be rather easy.”

  “And that’s why I’m assuming there will be more to it.” Caoimhe said. “Could still be the way to go, though, and we won’t learn anything without a little experimenting.”

  “Or looking it up online.” Firo said. “Not that I think we should do that.”

  “Ten bucks says at least one party has tried to jump down in front of the gate and fight off the enemies there.” Fiona chuckled.

  There was a moment of silence as apparently everyone considered that course of action. Zoe didn’t think it would work well, but given how easily they had cut through the mobs that had climbed the ladders…

  “We’d definitely need to have at least one tank still holding the door, and one ranged taking out the mages. Both ranged DPS should probably stay on the wall, actually.” Mellody murmured.

  “That still leaves a tank and two DPS on the ground defending the front. And Nyx and I were basically able to hold the wall on our own against the ladder climbers.” Caoimhe said.

  “Healing spells should be able to reach from the wall to the people down in front of it, if they stay close.” Cass said. “If we were to leave one healer on the walls just in case, and let one go down to enter the fray, we’d basically just be splitting up into two small parties.”

  “We’re not actually gonna do this, are we?” Bisky laughed.

  “We did say we should end tonight with a bang, right? This is a whole ‘nother level of bang.” Aleister said, a smile clear in her voice. “I’m honestly so here for this.”

  “Can’t deny that it sounds like fun.” Zoe said, grinning to herself. “If we do this though, I’d like to request we back out. I’m not bringing Dirge into a mass melee like that; I need to swap to Knife.”

  “Seconded.” Mellody said. “If Evie is alright with it, I’d like to take the on-the-ground role, and I’ll run Skald. I think the survivability would be really good.”

  “Agreed. Soul doesn’t have any good ‘in-the-thick-of-things’ Dedications, so that spot’s all yours.” Cass agreed immediately.

  Zoe nodded along, thinking about the plan. Putting aside how general stupid the idea was, the changes were probably positive ones. She knew [Knife] would be much better for handling the weaker mobs, and she had already felt that pain in the last run.

  [Skald] was the close-range variant of [Muse], which would offer Mellody significantly more survivability if enemies jumped on her. The main drawback was that her [Musick] skills would be much shorter range, but with a small party of melee only, it wouldn’t really be a problem.

  “Alright. Let’s go make the swaps and then come back.” Bisky said, and then she simply disappeared. Others followed as Zoe also popped up the in game menu and clicked [Abandon]. The screen went dark as she was loaded back into the same location, but no longer in the instance.

  “Anyone else swapping?” Aleister asked. Zoe quickly hit the [Dedication Swap] button on her hotbar, and it looked like Mellody did the same. While Nyx’s gear was virtually identical between [Dirge] and [Knife], Mellody’s [Skald] gear was very different from her [Revel] gear.

  Rather than the vibrant dress from earlier, Mello’s [Skald] outfit was a very nice looking set of heavier armor. She wore padded greaves and gauntlets with metal reinforcements, paired with a military uniform-like scale mail hauberk. A [Heater Shield] appeared on her back, and a [Mace] on her left hip.

  Zoe whistled in appreciation. Mellody had never actually played [Skald] with the group before, despite having it ready to go for months. “Damn, Mello. You look ready for war.”

  “That was rather the point.” Mello laughed. “I know I don’t play it often, but I do love [Skald]. It’s a pretty big theme swap, though.”

  “Dropping instruments for banging on your shield and war shouts, yeah?” Firo said. “Seems like it’ll serve us well for this, though.”

  “Just gonna reiterate to you guys that there is no way this works,” Fiona said, “so if you have any other dumb ideas, we may as well do ‘em all at once.”

  “Fuck it.” Aleister said, and then she also had her gear changed in a flash. “May as well do a little Ravager.”

  “Zerker?” Zoe asked, looking at the wickedly pointed, massive axe on Aleister’s back.

  “Yup. With as many enemies as we’re about to face, Zerker’s health drain mechanics should keep me alive better than War would.”

  “Fair point.” Caoimhe said, and Zoe locked her camera onto Caoimhe, expecting her to swap [Paths] too. She didn’t though.

  “Alright, we ready to get back in there?”

  A resounding “Yeah!” followed. And so they did. Bisky queued the group up, and once everyone accepted, they were once again back in that little blue circle.

  Zoe rolled her shoulders as she rotated her camera to look at their battle area again. “So, before we just run out ahead, what exactly is the plan?” She asked.

  “I think we keep it simple, right?” Caoimhe chuckled. “Our little group of idiots beeline up to the wall and jump off it. Fiona will run to the door, and Bisky and Firo will go up to the wall with Evie, and then we just…vibe?”

  “We just vibe.” Bisky repeated.

  “Yes. We just vibe.” Caoimhe replied, sounding far more confident in the not-plan.

  “Can you guys at least help me get an extra barrel of bombs up there first?” Evie asked.

  “Sure, why not?” Aleister said. “Is everyone ready? I’m itching for this brawl.”

  “Yeah. This should be very interesting.” Zoe laughed.

  “Alright. Let’s go!”

  As everyone charged across the line, the little blue perimeter vanished and everything around them sprung into motion. Aleister and Evie made a beeline toward where the barrels of firebombs were kept, and grabbed one each to run them up the stairs to the wall.

  By the time they got there, Bisky and Firo were already launching attacks off the wall at their declared targets. Nyx, Caoimhe, and Mellody were simply waiting for Aleister to arrive before they leapt off the wall.

  Aleister didn’t even say anything before dropping the barrel he had carried up for Evie and leaping over one of the crenellations and falling in front of the gate.

  “Welp. Last one down is a rotten egg!” Caoimhe shouted, and followed.

  Zoe had Nyx follow right behind as she said, “What are you, twelve?”

  “As if a twelve year old these days would say that.” Mello chuckled as he also followed. “You should call him old, instead.”

  Zoe was going to make another quip in response, but when she landed in their hot zone, she needed to focus quickly.

  Aleister going first had been smart, as he was already basically entirely surrounded by enemy mobs. He fought them off well, and wasn’t actually getting overwhelmed by damage yet. If anything, he seemed exceedingly healthy thanks to [Zerker’s] ability to heal when it dealt damage.

  And when its healing was based upon the number of enemies hit with its wide sweeping attacks, being dropped into a mob like this might have been about as cozy as a blanket for a [Zerker].

  Despite how easy Aleister was making it look, their situation was immediately as dire as expected. Nyx and Caoimhe filtered in behind Aleister, with their backs to the city wall, and immediately tried to work on the enemies. There were plenty of weaker mobs just swarming around, and they all went down with minimal work.

  Mellody placed herself in the middle of their little wedge formation, keeping her [Musick] up. Whenever an enemy tried to break into their formation, Mellody was the one that pushed them back. Despite being a support, [Skald] was also an adept melee combatant. They didn’t deal a ton of damage, but against mobs like this it simply didn’t matter.

  And while they did lack damage, they didn’t lack useful combat skills. [Skald] had access to lots of trips and shoves, helping them excel in the thick of combat, even while lacking DPS level damage.

  Once the wedge was in place, things were under control for a few moments.

  “This isn’t - “

  “No.” Mellody snapped, interrupting Aleister. “Don’t you say it.”

  “I’m managing the gate well enough, but if you guys could cover the area directly in front of the gate, that would be great.” Fiona said.

  “We’ll try to migrate that way, but it’ll take some time.” Mellody said.

  “I’ll start moving that way.” Aleister said, as the group ever so slowly started inching to the right.

  “Everything on the wall seems fine.” Bisky said. “We’ve got the mages well in hand, and I’m watching for the ladder bearers.”

  “Right. Those should be our first priority down here.” Zoe said. “Once we clear the ground with the battering ram, anyway.”

  “Bold of you to assume we can manage that to begin with.” Aleister laughed.

  Zoe just snickered. “I dunno, I think we’ve at least got a shot.”

  “I’m watching you guys from the wall.” Cass said. “You’re pretty close to the ram crew, and some of them are breaking off toward you.”

  “I see ‘em.” Caoimhe said. “Nyx, they’re on your side though.”

  “Yup, I’ll take care of them when they get close.” Zoe said, keeping her basic attacks going. She wasn’t exactly sure how difficult the batter ram defenders were, but she was ready for them.