Marissa

  By the time the party made it to the southern gate, they were ready to go. They had taken a short detour away from all the other players into a quiet little section of the city on the way to repair their gear and let Evan [Hone] and [Polish] everything up, given those buffs had fallen off ages ago while they were all offline.

  Similarly to earlier in the day, Ash cooked them up a balanced set of food buffs, giving them the same loadout they had all had when they walked into the first section of what was turning out to be a very strange raid.

  As they finally neared the gate, the sound of the armies outside got louder and more all-consuming. The banging of stomping, the clanging of metal weapons on shields, and just the general noisiness of an unrestrained army was deafening.

  Or at least it would have been if Marissa couldn’t just turn down the game’s volume.

  As they came out into the main road that led to the gate, Marissa could see a large, glowing circle nearby the gate which must have been where they would start the next section of the raid.

  “Everyone ready?” Nyx asked.

  “Anyone need a potty break?” Kieran asked. “Last chance before we’re stuck in the car for a while again.”

  “I’m gonna go refill my water.” Evie said, and the sounds of her getting up followed.

  “Alright, everyone take five real quick. If you need something, get it now.” Marissa said, as she got up, too. No reason not to refresh her own drink if they had to wait. She left her headset on as she wandered into the kitchen to retrieve more hot water from her kettle and threw an extra tea bag in her mug.

  Today she was just using cheap chamomile tea, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a lovely, calming drink. And the warm liquid was perfect for the nippy, chilly air. Even if it wasn’t all that cold, it was just enough for the tea to be pleasantly warming.

  When she sat back down in her chair and spun back to face her PC, Marissa bashed her knee into her desk and immediately yelped with added expletives as she held onto her knee in pain.

  “Bisky! Language!” Evan said, laughing, then tacked on an “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Shit, that hurt.”

  “What hurt?” Evie asked as she also returned, and settled in again.

  “Bisky stubbed her toe.” Evan said.

  “No, I smashed my knee into my desk when I tried to pull my chair in.” Marissa said, bending and unbending her knee to make sure it was okay. She didn’t hit it that hard though, it just hurt.

  “Ouch.” Evie said. “Hopefully that’s not a sign of things to come.”

  “What, that we’re going to all hurt ourselves?” Nyx asked snidely.

  “No, that we’re about to get kneecapped.” Evie said with a snort.

  “Honestly?” Kieran said, “We’ve more or less waltzed through the first few fights. I expected them to be much harder. And if the siege on this city is actually finally starting for real with this one -”

  “Maybe we finally get our teeth kicked in.” Evie finished. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Only one way to find out. Is anyone not back yet?” Marissa asked, to no response. “Firo?”

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  “Present.” He responded.

  “Okay, I think I’ve heard everyone else’s voice. Let’s go.” Marissa said, and trotted Hibiscus down toward the starting location.

  Once everyone formed up into the little blue circle, Marissa received the prompt to start the next fight.

  [Large Party Gathered]

  [Commence [Scenario]?]

  [Begin] [Wait]

  When Marissa clicked on [Begin], her screen darkened into a loading screen.

  “Here we go. Focus up, everyone.” Ash said.

  And then the shouting and clamor of the Fomorian army was the next thing she heard, before the screen brightened up again. It remained dark for a moment as the noise got louder and more distinct as the army cleaned up their shouting into a chant in some made-up language.

  And then an NPC shouted “Here they come!” with the text box showing up on the black screen, before finally, the screen cleared up.

  Their party was standing in the spot they had started the quest from as [Tuatha Dé] soldiers swarmed about them, running to the walls and the gate itself. It seemed like everyone around them seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going.

  And no one was giving them directions.

  “Uh…” Nyx said, making her character run in circles.

  “What do?” Evie laughed nervously.

  “To the wall for now? Let’s see what’s happening.” Evan said.

  “Move.” Ash said, and they did. The party surged with the soldiers surrounding them toward the stairs up the wall. Everyone was [Sprinting] to get to where they hoped they needed to be.

  As soon as Hibiscus crested the top, Marissa moved her straight to one of the arrow windows in the rock so she could see. She was already charging a [Master’s Shot] just in case. When she saw that she could aim at the enemies on the ground approaching the wall, she did so, letting the attack fly.

  “Looks like we can hit them.” She said, looking out at the ranks upon ranks of enemies. “Not that it’s going to do any good. Holy shit, there’s so many.”

  “So what do we do?” Firo asked. “I can throw spells from here too, but I’m not sure that would make any real impact either.”

  “Surely we’re meant to do something here to dictate the battle somehow, right?” Jazz asked.

  “Keep the ranged attacks going, I guess?” Ash said. “Focus your fire near the gate to hinder enemies getting close to it.”

  “Reinforce the gate!” called some guards that were holding themselves against the gate.

  “Perfect timing.” Jazz snickered.

  “Yeah, well, let’s get to it.” Ash said. “Focus on anything trying to break down the gate. As for the rest of us…I dunno, let’s go down there?”

  Fiona simply leapt off the stairs and landed in the middle of a bunch of soldiers moving toward the giant, metal reinforced doors. She followed the mass of rushing soldiers as the others dashed down the stairs. Mellody was even kind enough to throw a heal at Fiona to cover the fall damage.

  “Oh shit, there’s a prompt at the gate.” Evan said. “We can help to hold it.”

  “Do that.” Ash said.

  “I’m going to stay up top, just in case.” Evie said. “We really don’t know what to expect, and they may need a healer up here.”

  “I’ll stay too.” Aleister said. “Same reason, since Fiona went down already.”

  “Sure, two small party split for now then. See what you can interact with.” Ash said.

  “I can’t touch the doors.” Kieran said urgently. “No prompt for me.”

  “Ok, look around for other interactable prompts, then. Fiona, what was the range on the prompt?” Ash asked, as he directed Mellody around the area looking for anything to do. In the meantime, she was alternating between her various [Musick], trying to see if there was a reaction to any of them.

  “Uh, it wasn’t very far. I had to get pretty close before the prompt came up.” Evan said, his voice coming through strained.

  “You alright?”

  “They’re making me button mash to hold the door.” He said, this time the clicking in the background coming through the mic as well. “I can also see the gate’s HP bar. This isn’t looking great, guys.”

  “We’re focus firing the best we can!” Firo called. “There’s a lot of enemies clustered around the door.”

  “They’ve got a shield wall, too.” Marissa growled. “I haven’t really been able to land a solid hit on any of them. Dammit!” She yelled as she saw another arrow get deflected by a shield held over an enemy’s head.

  “Aleister, you find anything you can do up here?” Evie asked, as she ran around the wall walk.

  “Nothing.” Jazz sighed. “I don’t think I can do anything up here, so I’m headed down.”

  “Same.” Evie said, as she turned toward the nearest set of stairs. “I can’t believe they want us just waiting while the enemy tries to break in.”

  “There’s no way.” Ash said. “We must be missing something.”

  One of the soldiers on the wall yelled “Incoming!” and Marissa saw a [Take Cover] prompt come up, which she did not hesitate to hit. Hibiscus ducked under a nearby soldier’s shield, as several of them held up their shields to cover from arrows.

  A huge cheer came from beyond the walls, but under cover, Marissa had no way to see what the cause was. She was torn between peeking and staying safe when Evan cursed.

  “Fuck, guys, there’s no way I can hold this.” Evan whined. “Oh shit.” He shouted, and then all hell broke loose.

  The gate fractured inward as a huge blast of magic shattered the higher portion of the gate. Shouts of “Hold the line!” and “Rally to the gate!” sounded from the soldiers, as everyone in the area rushed to defend the breach. Even several of the archers on the wall moved to defend the broken gate.

  Fiona had been thrown back from the magical explosion. Marissa could see that Fiona had not only taken a solid hit with only 4,000 HP left, but was also [Stunned] and [KnockedDown] somewhere in the crowd.

  Soldiers were rushing to try to hold the gate, but they were crowding it so much already that the extra bodies didn’t seem to have any effect as the huge booms of some kind of battering ram kept reverberating through the area.

  “I’m down for fifteen seconds.” Evan said.

  “I still have no idea what to do.” Kieran said. “I can’t find anything to interact with, and there’s no enemies to hit yet.”

  “Same.” Nyx said. “I’ve literally been running around the edges of the walls trying to see if something catches. But so far, I just feel like an idiot running into walls.”

  “I’ve been buffing the NPCs, but that’s it so far.” Ash said. “There’s gotta be something we can do.”

  The soldiers defending the ranged fighters on the wall dropped their shields as the rain of arrows finally stopped, and Marissa and Firo were finally able to see the battlefield again.

  “Oh no.” Firo said. “That’s not good.”

  “What?” Ash asked.

  “They have a cave troll.” Marissa said flatly. Some laughter followed, but when a second explosion rocked the gate, blowing the upper portions of wood clear off the metal supports, the laughter stopped.

  Hibiscus and Firo, along with several of the NPCs on the wall, were knocked back off the wall and fell when the explosion hit, taking a fairly big hit and ending up [Stunned] like Fiona had been.

  “We’re getting overrun!” Some of the soldiers called, and then the gate was ripped open. Not pushed through with a battering ram as Marissa had expected, but wrenched open outward with some kind of large metal harpoon. Marissa thought the head of it looked like a grappling hook, almost.

  And then the Fomorian army flooded into the street. The first line of NPCs were obliterated by the first line of enemies that poured in. The Fomorians had led with large troll-like creatures that Marissa hadn’t seen before, and they were able to knock away the NPC soldiers with wide sweeps of their maces.

  Bodies went flying as they were knocked aside. Hibiscus and Firo were all but squashed underfoot when the enemy reached them while they were both still [Stunned]. They barely even stopped.

  Marissa just laughed. The others joined in as the Fomorian army basically tore through their comrades like a hot knife through toilet paper. It was barely thirty seconds after the gate broke, and the party had been completely wiped out, with the instance resetting to the beginning.

  Once again, they all stood inside the little blue circle, while the NPCs all around them waited for them to begin the [Scenario]

  “We must be missing something. We gotta be.” Kieran said eventually.

  “You think?” Marissa laughed.

  “Let’s just sit here for a minute and regroup. And maybe stretch.” Ash said, still snickering.

  “And stop laughing.” Jazz added.

  “Y’all, that was a spectacular failure.” Nyx said, still trying to stop her own laughter. “We should at least appreciate that.”

  Marissa leaned back in her chair, looking at her blank ceiling. They had been completely and utterly destroyed and she didn’t feel like they learned anything at all from that first run.

  But as the laughter still echoed between all her party members, she smiled. At least morale was high.

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