Kieran

  Kieran turned his camera toward the explosion sound, but the visual of the explosion actually calmed him down.

  A huge blast of shadow seemed to consume the light beyond the trees, and there was a cascade of massive creaking and crashing sounds. He was just barely able to make out some shifting in the canopy of trees in the distance as a group of trees fell.

  “Holy crap.”

  “When do we get attacks that can do that?” Evie laughed.

  “Level 100?” Marissa suggested with a chuckle.

  “So…in the first expansion, yeah?” Evan asked.

  “Assuming we get a level cap raise…and they don’t arbitrarily stop us at 99. “ Firo said.

  “They already randomly chose us to stop at 90 as is.” Kieran said. “I still don’t think that gets talked about enough. Why 90? You’re so close, you may as well just go to 100.”

  “I know, right?” Nyx laughed.

  As the shadow among the trees seemed to dissipate and vanish into the air as though it were mist, [Uathach] came bounding through the trees back to the enemy camp. Once she crossed the threshold, she seemed to notice the party and ran toward them.

  “You're still in fighting shape, then? Well done!” She called while approaching. “Regnu is also defeated. My assault is bound to attract attention, though - so we need to move fast.” She motioned toward the commander’s tent that [Bufon] and [Regnu] had originally walked out of. “Let’s see what sort of information they had here and then retreat.”

  She kept her sword in her hand, but hung her round shield on a hook on her back. Her left hand, now free, curled around the necklace she wore that would eventually be used to signal the group’s retreat. “Come. Let’s see what they have squirreled away here.”

  As [Uathach] moved toward the tent, no blue barrier of any kind formed so the party simply meandered after the NPC. Kieran was wary of the lack of any sort of checkpoint being apparent.

  “I don’t like the lack of break.” Jazz said. Kieran smiled wryly to himself - apparently he wasn’t the only one still on guard.

  “If they -” Firo began, but Evan cut him off immediately.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say another word.”

  Nyx snorted. “Keep your eyes peeled, guys.”

  As the group, led by the NPC, moved through the flap into the massive tent, Kieran whistled. Despite it being a tent, the interior looked very impressive. Not necessarily magically impressive, but it would’ve taken work to bother decorating a tent like this in real life.

  There was a massive map table in the center of the room, with miniatures and a detailed map laying out the battlefield, as they all had probably expected. Beautifully crafted wooden chairs of varying sizes were arrayed around the table, clearly laid out for discussing broad strategy.

  “There’s simply no way that [Regnu] or [Bufon] was the leading commander out here. But this map clearly is laid out for overseeing the full battle, not just a battalion.” [Uathach] said, as she got close to the table.

  “Man, if this was a single player RPG, there’d be so much crazy loot in here.” Evan said, as Fiona spun in place as he rotated his camera around.

  “No kidding.” Nyx said, “Weapon racks, there’s chests over there, two fucking wardrobes. Why would you carry wardrobes with you to a battle like this?”

  “I imagine lore-wise, magic does a lot if not all of the heavy lifting.” Evie said, as they watched [Uathach] skirt around the edge of the map table.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “True. Don’t forget, our inventories function in lore, too. We basically have magical storage bags that can carry whatever we touch.” Kieran said, recalling the early game explanation.

  “Wait, what?” Marissa asked.

  “Yeah, you damn cutscene skipper. It’s part of like the third or fourth quest you do, when you unlock your inventory. It’s a magic bag that you can transfer items into with a thought, so long as you touch the item.” Kieran snarked.

  “Huh. I guess that’s cool.” She shrugged. “Not exactly important, though.”

  “You never know what might be important at some point.” Kieran said.

  “Sure. But magical bags like that break lots of things. Why couldn’t we touch, say…I don’t know, the ladders that the Fomorians were using to climb the city’s walls and just poof them away?” Marissa asked.

  “Usually, it’s because there’s limitations. You can’t put living things in the storage, or you need to be the only living being touching the item, or some such.” Firo said.

  “Yeah, that’s nonsense.” Marissa said, still just watching [Uathach] look over the map. “You know it, I know it, we all know it. We regularly put plants and fish and our inventories, and they aren’t just always dead.”

  “Maybe it has a required intelligence threshold?” Evie offered.

  “Still bullshit. What about-”

  “Wait. This can’t be right.” [Uathach] said suddenly, looming over the map. As the cutscene started in earnest, Kieran heard the chimes as his friends deafened themselves to the chat, immediately cutting whatever conversation they have had short. He did the same though, wanting to focus on the cutscene.

  As Kieran watched Caoimhe walk around the table, peering at the map, the camera moved to focus on [Uathach], who wasn’t looking at the map anymore, but rather a mess of papers beside it. She hunched over them, the look on her face stricken and disbelieving.

  “This is not going to go over well. They’re deploying wyverns.” [Uathach] said, shuffling through papers. “We’re going to need flying forces of our own. Maybe we can get some flyers of our own…The Fae though…” She trailed off, still shuffling through papers as Caoimhe approached with a few other party members behind her spread around the map table.

  “It may be time to talk about having [áine] and the [Dagda] rescind the anti-flight order…”

  Kieran’s ears perked up at that. Several of the races had some form of wings, but no in-game way to fly, despite it being said in multiple places that the races were, at least at one point, capable of it. Marissa hadn’t brought it up much recently, but she was still upset that she had picked to have wings during character creation, but flight hadn’t been included in the base game.

  [Uathach] took a deep breath and gathered up the papers she had been fiddling with. In a blink, they vanished in a flash of bluish light, being moved to her storage bag. “I wish we had a way to move this map with the miniatures without disturbing the pieces. No such luck.” She sighed, then took out a charcoal stick to mark the map.

  “This will have to do.” She said, as she began circling the bases of the miniatures to mark where they had been placed. Caoimhe, Nyx, and Firo stepped up to assist in Kieran’s cutscene, and eventually [Uathach] made the map vanish from underneath the miniatures as well.

  “Let’s make our retreat. Gather your mounts while I call for the [Fae Circle].” [Uathach] said before strolling toward the tent’s entrance. She turned back and motioned the group to follow. “Hurry, now.”

  As the cutscene ended and Kieran regained control over Caoimhe, he undefined the chat to hear Marissa squealing as he had more or less expected.

  “Finally?” She said, her voice an octave or two higher than normal, “We finally get to fly?”

  “Sounds that way.” Firo sounded far less excited.

  “You don’t like it?” Kieran asked as the rest of the party members undeafened as well.

  “I’m just hesitant,” Firo shrugged. “Flight has been done very poorly in enough games that I’m more concerned that it will feel awful to play than anything else.”

  “That's a valid concern.” Evan agreed. “More games get it wrong than right for sure.”

  “I have faith.” Marissa declared. “But either way, we should get moving. We still don’t have the Scenario Cleared message, and I don’t want to accidentally land us in danger because we took too long to get out of here.”

  “Good call.” Nyx said. “Nothing in here is interactable anyway, despite it feeling like we should loot the fuck out of this place.”

  “Can’t be helped. Let’s go.” Evie said, nudging her friend onward.

  The group quickly flowed from the tent and back into the clearing of the enemy camp. [Uathach] was a little ways away, standing in a large empty area in the direction that they had come from when they initially charged into the camp. It looked like she was holding her crystal in both hands and praying - probably calling for extraction.

  The party’s mounts were still idling off to the side, waiting to be gathered. The group didn’t say too much as they mounted up and walked their mounts over to [Uathach].

  “I really hope I get to keep Mongie.” Evie muttered, causing a few scattered chuckles.

  “I honestly hope we can keep them too. The mounted options they gave us in here were really fun, and it would be a waste to make them all a one-off thing.” Ash agreed.

  “Oh man, you think they’ll make us actually name them?” Jazz asked.

  “Please, no.” Marissa murmured. “I hate naming things.”

  “There’ll probably be a random button or something?” Firo offered.

  “There wasn’t one during character creation.” Ash said. “Which actually kinda sucked; I was hoping they would generate some random, lore-accurate names so we could see some examples.”

  “That would’ve been nice, yeah.” Evan agreed.

  Suddenly, a massive red pillar appeared right in front of [Uathach]. It wasn’t a [Fae Circle], but Kieran assumed it was the signal that would call for one to be created.

  [Uathach] turned back toward the party as her horse seemed to step into place next to her as if stepping out from behind the air itself. She quickly swung up into the saddle.

  “My mother and [Cu] will create the portal here. Be ready to ride through as soon as it appears.” [Uathach] said as the sound of galloping horses thundered in approach.

  The other riders from their unit appeared from the trees in every direction, riding toward the massive pillar of light. There was no doubt it would also alert the enemy to the group’s presence here, so they couldn’t linger.

  The portal itself appeared just a few seconds later, the area by the stables that they had left from appearing on the other side.

  “Let’s go. We will cover the others’ retreat from the other side of the gate.” [Uathach] said, and trotted through the portal.

  The party followed, then stood guard with [Uathach] as the rest of the riders flew through. The enemy seemed to be approaching, but they hadn’t been nearly fast enough; when the last of the visible allied riders crossed the portal, it was closed.

  The square they were in erupted in cheers of at least a small victory among the riders, though [Uathach] didn’t cheer. She dismounted and walked toward [Cu] and her mother. As the party dismounted and started looking around for what came next, Kieran noticed two of the riders in the group glowing with the sparkles that denoted loot.

  “Uh, guys? I think we’ve finally got our loot?” He said hesitantly, walking toward the two riders. They hadn’t moved far from where the gate had closed.

  The NPCs both waved to Caoimhe as she approached, and an unvoiced text box popped up.

  “It seemed like you all left in a hurry and forgot to take these with you!” The rider said, and Kieran interacted with them. The loot screen that they had been waiting for finally popped up, displaying their spoils for fighting [Bufon].

  [Rune Hammer]

  [Warhammer]

  [Strength : 28]

  [Accuracy : 6]

  [Speed : 8]

  [Parry : 9]

  [Invested Effect : Gain the [Rune of Skill] action.]

  [Rune Gauntlets]

  [Plate]

  [Defense : 8]

  [Slashing : 8]

  [Piercing : 7]

  [Blunt : 6]

  [Arcane : 6]

  [Invested Skill : Gain the [Blast Rune] and [Timer Rune] skills.]

  “Well that’s some tank gear if I’ve ever seen some.” Kieran said.

  “Yup.”

  “I want that hammer.” Evan said hungrily.

  “What a coincidence. I want the gloves.” Jazz said, more than happy to not need to argue over the loot.

  “Perfect.” Firo said. “No problems with assigning them, then.”

  “As long as you are all okay with me taking the hammer even though it will only be used when I play Tower.” Evan said. “But the Rune of Skill action allowing me to use three skills without triggering their cooldowns would be nuts for Tower.”

  “No complaints here.” Jazz said. “The Blast Rune and Timer Rune skills seem perfect for Ebon, even if they do share a cooldown.”

  “One lets you turn your next single target skill into a cone AoE, and the other makes the next skill’s effect be delayed by five seconds…” Marissa read aloud, “Those both sound awesome.”

  “I bet I can break a few encounters by delaying a few Ebon skills. Like Spine Crack.” Jazz said, in relation to her magic based [Stun].

  “Well, I’ve passed on the stuff, so you guys roll and get your things.” Kieran said. And once the loot was given out, another pop up appeared.

  [[War Horse (White Beauty)] Skill added.]

  [Please name your [War Horse (White Beauty)]

  [ ]

  “Yes! Mongie!”

  “Oh, goddamn it.”

  Twitch in the mornings, if anyone would like to come hang out.