Kieran

  Kieran resituated himself after the minor jumpscare courtesy of Kaitlyn, and pulled her into his lap. Raucous laughter carried through his headphones as the party laughed hysterically between their victory and his yelp of fright.

  “I’ll be right back.” He said flatly, and muted his microphone, took off the headphones, and placed them on his desk. The message [Scenario Cleared] was still displaying on his screen as he hadn’t clicked it away yet. It had popped up almost the same instant that the city gates had closed behind the party.

  Kieran pointed to the massive metal gates on his screen. “You see that big door?” He asked Kat.

  “Mhm.” Kat nodded.

  “Me and my friends were getting chased by the bad guys and had to run into the city before they caught us.” He said, then spun his camera with the mouse to show Kat the whole of Clan Nettle Tea in the midst of celebration.

  Firo was dancing back and forth, as if his player was mashing the A and D keys. Fiona, Aleister, Nyx, and Evie were all running in a circle chasing one another. Mellody and Hibiscus were doing two different dance emotes that simply did not sync up at all.

  Kieran typed in “/cheer” and hit the Enter key to make Caoimhe put her hands up and cheer happily. Kat giggled at the scene.

  “So you won?” She asked.

  “Sorta.” Kieran said, resting his chin on the top of Kat’s head. “We won that part of the big quest, but there’s still more for us to do.”

  “What’s the big quest?”

  “We need to save this town.” Kieran said.

  "From what?” Kat asked, curiously.

  Kieran didn’t exactly want to tell her about the mutated, animalistic creatures that were the Fomorians. So instead, he just said, “Some bad hyenas,” thinking back to the mostly hyena-like [Rruk].

  “Oh.” She said seriously. “Like the ones in The Lion King.”

  Kieran chuckled. “Yeah, just like that.” They had only recently started letting Kat watch some of the classic Disney movies as she was finally getting old enough to enjoy them. She didn’t really understand everything very well, but the songs and animation were big selling points for her. And she liked animals, so some of the classics were particularly well received with her; she particularly loved The Aristocats.

  “Can I stay and watch?” She asked, tilting her head back to try to look at her father. She only managed to end up placing his chin on her forehead, and she giggled at the scratchy feeling of Kieran’s trim beard on her face.

  “You can if you want,” he said, moving to kiss her forehead where it was getting mildly scratched. “I don’t think it’s going to be very exciting right now though.”

  “No fighting?”

  “No fighting.” He confirmed. Kat and Aoife both liked watching the action on occasion, but were always bored when he was just running around a city or town. Unless he was letting them do the running, but he wasn’t sure that was safe right now.

  “Okay.” Kat pouted, suddenly downcast.

  Kieran glanced at the clock, figuring it should almost be time for Aoife to return from school. And he was right. “Aoife should be home soon. Why don’t you hang out for a bit and wait for her. Then when she gets home, I’ll make you two snacks?”

  Kat perked up immediately when snacks were mentioned, her eyes shining with interest. “I can do that!”

  “Good.” Kieran grinned.

  “I want apple slices and peanut butter!”

  Kieran laughed. “I can do that.” There were certainly worse snacks she could ask for.

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  “And I want the apple with a spiral cut!” She cheered.

  “Okay, okay. Go watch your show for now, and when Aoife gets home, we’ll do that.” He said. They had an apple corer and slicer tool in the kitchen that they used pretty regularly for such snacks. Kat really liked the way it cut the apples into a spiral, and had been requesting them pretty often. Not that Kieran would complain; apples were solid snacks.

  When he gathered his headphones and got them back in place, he heard everyone discussing how else that last scenario could have gone.

  “We have to assume we bypassed a boss somehow, right? There’s no way that the entire scenario was just to get to the gates safely, and if you do it carefully, there’s no real threat.” Evan said.

  “I would typically be inclined to agree with you, but we haven’t seen enemies or adds randomly spawn in the middle of a fight here, yet. So wouldn’t the boss have been somewhere on the field from the beginning?” Nyx said.

  “I really have no idea.” Marissa said, trailing off in thought. “When we first spawned into the scenario, could we see the enemies that were the closest to the city gate, you think? Maybe there was a boss up here waiting originally, but when we triggered the swarm scenario it despawned?”

  “Could be.” Kieran said.

  “Oh, welcome back.” Ash said, and several instances of ‘WB’ were typed in chat to not interrupt the conversation.

  “I don’t think we’ve really seen enough overall to figure out how the scenarios really play out yet.” Kieran said. “But I feel like Bisky probably has the right idea.”

  “That there was a boss waiting for us, but something we did made it go poof?” Evie asked.

  “That makes the most sense to me, at least.” Kieran affirmed.

  “At the very least, I agree with Evan.” Ash said. “I highly, highly doubt that we would have simply snuck our way into the city if we moved carefully. There must have been some kind of challenge that was removed when we triggered the different option.”

  “Uh, guys?” Firo said, “I’m down to keep discussing this, but we should probably grab the loot and get out of the instance, just in case.”

  “Good call.” Ash said. “I think Fiona should open it this time.”

  After getting agreements all around, Fiona stepped up to the lead cavalry rider that had defended the party on their run into the city. The female Fae was sparkling the way an enemy would when they had loot to claim. Although it wasn’t common, there had been some occasions where NPCs had acted as treasure chests like this before, when talking to them would grant the loot and end the instance.

  When Fiona interacted with the NPC, the loot window popped up.

  [Puddle Jumpers]

  [Cloth]

  [Defense : 1]

  [Slash : 1]

  [Pierce : -1]

  [Blunt : 0]

  [Invested Effect : Gain [Puddle Jump] Skill]

  [Banner Shield]

  [Kite Shield]

  [Defense : 15]

  [Resistance : 16]

  [Parry : 18]

  [Invested Effect : [Rally] type skills receive boosted effects.]

  “Well, those feel almost targeted.” Evan chuckled.

  “How so?” Jazz asked.

  “Well, I died at the end because I don’t have any movement skills besides Coda Step.” Ash said, referring to the [Puddle Jumpers], and their attached skill that granted a forward dash.

  “And the Banner Shield would have been great for dealing with large groups of enemies when we’re outnumbered.” Evan said. “I’m 200% not specced for Rally skills though since I put everything into Counter skills instead.”

  [Rally] skills were unique to the [Plate] [Path] and functioned as buffs for nearby allies very similar to the way that [Muse] functioned - except [Rally] skills were almost entirely based around survival. They would have been very useful to the party if they didn’t have Mellody playing [Muse] virtually all the time.

  “I don’t think there will be any argument about giving the Puddle Jumpers to Mello. That just makes sense, given the additional safety for a healer is always good.” Kieran said, and indeed, no one objected to it.

  “What about the Banner Shield?” Firo asked.

  “Well, it’s a Kite Shield, so it’s distinctly a tank item,” Nyx said. Some of the DPS [Paths] could use shields, but [Kite Shields] specifically were a tank-only type. “The defensive stats are really good, so it is pretty usable even on a non-Plate path.”

  “True.” Evan said. He didn’t sound too enthralled with the item to begin with.

  “Aleister?” Marissa asked.

  “I…could use it.” Jazz said, unsure. “I don’t currently have one-handed weapons to pair it with but it could feasibly work well on Plague if we found a good one-hander for it.”

  “What do you think, Fiona?” Ash asked.

  “I’ll leave it up to a group vote.” Evan said. “I don’t necessarily think I’d use it normally, given my normal build. However, Mello, if we’re ever in a position where we need you on Omen and we want me to swap into a Rally focused build, it could be a significant booster.”

  “Let’s let Fiona have it.” Jazz said, before anyone else could speak. “I have my Plague fully geared and wouldn’t be able to use it without tracking down other gear. Having it in our Plate’s back pocket if we ever need feels like a better decision.”

  “Fair enough.” Ash said.

  “No arguments there.” Evie agreed.

  And the loot rolls went on as decided, with Mellody getting the new boots, which were swapped in immediately, and Fiona putting the Banner Shield in storage for now.

  Once the loot was handled, the lead rider spoke again.

  “Well met, all of you.” She said, dismounting from her warhorse. She hadn’t had a nameplate visible until now, but when she dismounted and removed her helmet, one appeared.

  [Uathach, Shadow’s Daughter]

  “I am Uathach, the leader of these riders. It is a blessing to see even a few reinforcements arrive before the siege begins; I hope you bring good news.”

  After the lines of dialogue were delivered, the screen faded to black as the party was removed from the instance. Kieran leaned back in his chair, expecting the docks of [Esras] to reappear. But instead, the party reappeared basically right where they had been inside the instance, just inside the gates of [Gorias]. [Uathach] was even still standing there, with a quest marker over her head. Evidently, they had some story cutscenes to work through before the next [Scenario] was available.

  But more than that, it was what popped up when they all loaded in that caught everyone's attention and caused a cheer.

  [In Defense of Gorias, Part One]

  [Clear]

  “But also, what does that mean?” Nyx laughed. “‘In Defense of Gorias’ was the name of the quest we all accepted to do the raid, right? I don’t think it mentioned being part one?”

  “It didn’t. And the quest isn’t cleared.” Ash said, directing Kieran’s attention to the side of his screen where active quests were displayed. And sure enough, [In Defense of Gorias] was still listed, unchanged. Except the current objective was [Speak with Uathach]. Not really a surprise there.

  “I guess the part one notice is just to let us know we’ve made it through a complete section of the overall raid?” Evie said.

  “That’s my guess as well.” Firo said. “I’m expecting some story content next. Cutscenes, a bit of plot and lore, that sort of thing, before we get the next scenario.”

  “That makes sense.” Marissa said. “How’s everyone doing? Do we want to keep going?”

  “I think I need a break.” Ash said. “Unlike Caoimhe, I didn’t take a nap after lunch and my eyes are starting to hurt.”

  “Ditto.” Evie said. “I’m all for taking a nice extended break for a few hours.”

  “As the one who delayed us all earlier, I apologize.” Kieran said. “But I’m in agreement. Aoife should be home soon, and I promised snacks to Kat when her sister gets home.”

  “Alright. Meet back up for normal raid time tonight?” Marissa asked, and dissolved the party in the meantime.

  “Let’s say an hour into it?” Evan offered. “We’ve made solid progress today, and I don’t think piling in another three hours later will be that important, especially when we still have tomorrow and Thursday. Let’s take it kinda easy tonight.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “Sure.”

  “Alright. That gives us like a five hour break.” Kieran said, glancing at the clock and doing some quick math.

  “Let’s try to each get the cutscenes done individually?” Marissa asked. “So we can hop right back when we reconvene?”

  “No can do, boss lady.” Evan chuckled. “I tried clicking already. Same message as before - it needs to be triggered in a large party.”

  “Welp. Guess we gather up and get through some cutscenes before we get to the next fight then.” Evie chuckled.

  “Alright. See you all in a bit.” Jazz said, before Kieran heard the chime that sounded when someone left chat.

  “Damn, she got outta here fast.” Evan noted. “Peace.” And then he was gone too.

  “Alright. See y’all later.” Kieran said, and disconnected, then sat back and watched the names in the chat disappear as everyone else left.

  “Dad!” Kat shouted. “Aoife’s not home yet.”

  “That’s fine,” Kieran said, standing up and stretching. “She should be any minute now. Wanna go get started on your apples?”

  “Yeah!” She cheered and leapt from the couch, dashing out of the study and toward the kitchen. Kieran chuckled and followed, hearing the unmistakable sound of the school bus stopping outside.

  “Ah, perfect timing.”

  over on Twitch if you'd like to come hang out. It's admittedly just a mostly quiet stream with some calm music going in the background, but it'd be cool to see some of you there.