Kieran

  When the loot window popped up for Kieran, he moused over the item’s image to take a look at what they had been gifted for their trouble.

  [Firestarter’s Staff]

  [Staff]

  [Intelligence : 17]

  [Accuracy : 4]

  [Parry : 3]

  [Speed : 2]

  [Invested Effect : All fire based skills gain a small [Damage over Time] effect.]

  [Flameskin Hide Gloves]

  [Leather]

  [Defense : 1]

  [Slash : 1]

  [Pierce : 1]

  [Blunt : 1]

  [Invested Effect : Gain [Quench Flames] skill.]

  Most high level gear that wasn’t regular vendor gear had [Invested Effects]. These were special skills or effects that were granted by that piece of equipment when it was [Invested], and each character could only choose three pieces of gear to [Invest] at one time. You could change which pieces you had [Invested] freely, so long as you were not in combat.

  Kieran checked the [Quench Flames] skill, which apparently was a unique skill that would remove fire-related debuffs from the user with a two minute cooldown. It would make their next encounter with [Rruk] vastly easier if someone was able to cleanse themselves of the [Burning] debuff every two minutes. It may not see much use outside of very specific fights, but there was no doubt it would be useful.

  And its stats for gloves were passable. They weren’t amazing, but in the right scenario, the [Invested Effect] would make all the difference.

  Most [Paths] didn’t have access to real cleansing skills outside of tanks, and even the ones that tanks had usually had significant drawbacks. Relying on them was not reliable, and could often lead to dangerous but otherwise avoidable situations.

  Of course, they could also lead to winning the fight, too. So it was all a toss up in the end.

  “So? Who’s after what?” Kieran asked.

  “Well, I imagine we should funnel the staff to Firo?” Jazz said.

  “I don’t mind taking it, but I don’t know how much use I’ll get out of it. I’m not a big fan of how Vine plays, and they’re the only magic class that uses a lot of fire magic.” Firo said. “I’m curious how the Invested Ability would work with Witch spells, too, given most of the fire spells have a DoT component already.”

  “There’s a Claw spec that is pretty fire focused, isn’t there?” Nyx asked. “It may be worth considering for Caoimhe at that point?”

  “I don’t think it’s as good as my current Claw weapon, given this one has no Strength on it.” Kieran said. “Unless the DoT it adds is really significant. But Claw still uses Strength for most of its attacks”

  “Oh, right.” Nyx said. “Well, I’m good giving it to Firo, even if it never sees any real play. Clearly no one else can get good use out of it, so…”

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  “Works for me.” Evie agreed, followed by the rest of the group.

  “Then we’re settled on that one.” Kieran said, hitting [Pass] on the [Staff].

  “And the gloves?” Evan asked. “They’re leather, so I assume it’s going to Caoimhe, Nyx, or Bisky?”

  “Probably a good assumption.” Jazz agreed.

  “Who gets the most use out of a cleanse?” Ash asked. “None of you have one by default, right?”

  “Nope.” Marissa said.

  “Sure don’t.” Kieran agreed. “But I’m not sure we’d gain anything by giving it to me. My vote would actually be to have Nyx take it.”

  “Oh?” Nyx said, surprised. “I’d take it, but my current gloves slot gives me one of my most used Invested abilities.”

  “I figure it’s only real use will be when we have to come through here and reclear [Rruk] again. And you have the most party support abilities by leaps and bounds among us leather wearers.” Kieran said.

  “I’m inclined to agree with him.” Marissa added. “Your damage is good, but you offer the party more by staying alive. Hell, just Pierce alone could make the difference.”

  Ash asked whether there were any objections, and received none, so everyone turned and passed on the gloves as well, letting Nyx take them. Once the two items were claimed, the shimmering glow from [Rruk’s] body faded away.

  “So, now what? I didn’t see a clear message or anything.” Evan asked. “Should we just push forward?”

  “I think so.” Marissa said, walking Bisky toward the far end of the square from where we had entered. There was a way forward there that had been previously covered by a wall of flames and a burning building. Now the building had collapsed and the fire had sputtered out, leaving the area safe to walk over.

  “I think we’re just supposed to push through to the city, right?” Firo said, as Kieran moved his camera to try to see the city in the distance. Truthfully, it didn’t look all that far from this little port town, but it did look like there were plenty of obstacles in the way.

  “Let’s get moving then.” Evie said. “If nothing else, we should be careful. We don’t know what will happen if we wipe now.”

  “Surely they would put us back here, right?” Nyx said.

  “Are you willing to take the chance?” Evie laughed. “I’m not.”

  “Fair point.”

  The group gathered up at the egress point that Marissa had pointed out before venturing out together in a pack. This side of the town had already basically been burned to the ground. The houses had collapsed, leaving a huge mess all around, but the lack of height made the sightlines fairly open.

  “Looks like we’ve got patrols.” Firo pointed out.

  “Makes sense. I bet this first instance is cleared when we leave the city.” Ash said.

  “What do we think? Engage?” Evan asked.

  “Tough to say. It’s needless danger, but we don’t know what their drops look like.” Ash said.

  “Why not pull one to a safe area and wipe them out? We’ll see what they drop and decide from there?” Jazz suggested.

  “You would suggest jumping straight to ‘merc them’, wouldn’t you, hun?” Ash chuckled.

  “Tell me I’m wrong.” Jazz challenged while snickering.

  “Aleister is right. We should take out one of the patrols just to see what happens, at least.” Marissa said.

  There was silence as the group quickly moved through the town’s ruins, Fiona leading the way while everyone else kept a lookout. And it didn’t take long before they had navigated nearby a patrol.

  “Alright.” Ash said. “Pull them. Let’s do this quick before another patrol comes -”

  “For science!” Jazz yelled as Aleister ran out and launched a volley of dark purple energy projectiles at the group. It was a ranged AoE attack that got the entire group’s attention, as planned. Half a second later, Aleister was running back to the group with a small group of gnolls on his tail.

  When Aleister had run about half the distance back to the group - around 3 seconds - one of the gnolls in the back stopped pursuing to swap what was in its hands. It sheathed the shortsword that it was carrying to pull out a horn.

  “Bisky!” Kieran said. “Reinforcements!”

  “Crap, I got him.” Marissa sighed, having to let her [Master’s Shot] fly at a closer target. She had begun charging it when Aleister pulled the group, but hadn’t triggered any of her major buffs yet. The shot landed in the pursuing pack while Bisky darted further forward, lining up a quick shot on the one in the far back.

  Marissa launched a quick [Dazing Shot], an attack that did almost zero damage but would [Interrupt] actions. It was similar to a [Stun], which could do the same, but [Interrupt] didn’t cause any effect beyond stopping the action currently underway.

  In Bisky’s case, the ability to [Interrupt] at a range was far more important than a [Stun] or damage, so even though it dealt no appreciable damage, it was a very important skill.

  Once the gnoll with the horn was effectively silenced, the encounter went by quickly. The enemies didn’t put up much of a fight - in fact, they went down faster than a similar sized pull in a dungeon.

  Once the last enemy fell, everyone stood around in the little hidden alcove we had chosen as a battlefield, a little listless.

  “That was…”

  “...a murder?” Nyx laughed.

  “I can only assume the real danger with the patrols is the one calling for reinforcements.” Ash said. “Especially given none of them dropped anything.”

  “I think you’re probably right.” Jazz said. “No drops is a good sign that we aren’t meant to bother with wiping out the patrols but should just forge ahead.”

  “I’ll keep my finger on the Daze button.” Marissa said. “Everyone keep your head on a swivel, I guess? The only real danger we’re in is probably the patrol noticing us before we notice them.”

  “We’ve got pretty clean eye lines around the rest of the town.” Firo said. “We should be fine.”

  “Agreed.” Evan added. “Just keep your eyes out.”

  “Okay, let’s move.”

  The group started moving toward the town’s gate; with all of the downed buildings, they could see its location pretty easily. Aleister and Fiona stayed a little to the front, just in case. The part that made Kieran chuckle, however, was watching Hibiscus basically spinning like a top in the middle of the group as Marissa kept moving her camera.

  As a whole, they didn’t have too difficult a time avoiding most of the patrols. They did end up needing to fight one other patrol that was distinctly in their way, and didn’t appear to deviate from that particular path.

  And then they arrived at the gate. It looked like it was undefended, although there were plenty of patrols and other enemies running around in the area between the gate and [Gorias], the city they were meant to reach.

  “Oh.” Evan perked up when Fiona crossed the threshold of the gate. “We’re done.” He said. “It just needs us all to cross the gate.”

  “Neat.” Kieran said, as the whole group moved toward the town’s exit with relief.

  And sure enough, once they had all passed through the exit, they all received the victory message across the screen.

  When they finished dungeons, they received a [Dungeon Cleared] message. Typically, most of these sorts of messages used typical gaming lingo, and not specific Mag Mell lingo to reward them. Knowing that, the message that ran across Kieran’s screen left him curious.

  [Scenario Cleared]

  “Scenario, hm?” He wondered aloud.

  “I wonder if that means there were other ways for us to get through there?” Evie said.

  “I think there must have been.” Evan said. “Remember, I was able to walk through the fires on the side? We could’ve taken an entirely different path through the town.”

  “I wonder if there were other bosses, or if we could’ve just avoided [Rruk] altogether?” Firo wondered aloud.

  “I guess we can find out next week when we go to reclear?” Nyx asked. “Unless someone wants to search it up online.”

  “I’m more than happy to wait. Seeing new surprises with everyone for the first time is part of the fun, right?” Firo said.

  “The first reaction only happens once, yeah.” Marissa chuckled. “I’m happy to wait.”

  Once everyone loaded back into the staging area, there was a collective release of tension.

  “And we’re back.”

  “Everyone talk to the dude, let’s get the second quest and get in there!” Jazz said.

  “Hold on, hold on.” Ash said. “It’s a little after noon; we should eat something. And we should probably just generally take a short break and stretch.”

  “No objections here.” Firo spoke up first. “I haven’t eaten or drank anything yet today. I could do with a donut and some coffee or something.”

  “How long are we talking for a break?” Marissa asked. “I could use a shower.”

  “How does everyone feel about, like, an hour?” Kieran offered. “I wouldn’t mind taking a while to eat lunch with my daughter.”

  “Oh, is Kat home with you?” Evan asked.

  “She is. We figured since I was taking the day, there was no reason to pay for daycare.” Kieran glanced back over his shoulder to check on the girl, who had been quietly watching one of her kids shows on the TV in the room. “I bet she’d like to eat lunch with her dad, wouldn’t she?”

  Kat’s eyes snapped over from the TV and she nodded. “Can we? I’m hungry.”

  Kieran smiled. “Is that alright with everyone?”

  A round of agreements came back.

  “See you all in an hour then.”

  “Enjoy your foods!”