Marissa

  Marissa was well past ready to play when raid night rolled around on Tuesday. She had spent most Friday, the weekend, and then Monday working and running errands, sparing only a couple hours each day to game and get her dailies done.

  She knew that once the raid calmed down a little bit she would be in a better mood for the type of maintenance gameplay that MMOs usually worked on - grinding, dailies, repeatable quests, and the like. As it was, with how excited the entirety of Clan Nettle Tea was, Marissa was willing to bet that no one was excited by daily quests. They wanted to do all the new stuff.

  When it was finally just about 5 p.m., Marissa sat down in her chair, mug of hot tea in hand, and spun to her computer. She had turned it on before she had washed up after work, as was her usual procedure. She slipped her headphones on over her still damp hair and loaded up the game. As the program launched, she also joined the Nettle Tea chat.

  “What’s up, guys?” She said as she clicked through the opening screens of the game, displaying the developers and publishers names.

  “Just hanging,” Nyx chuckled.

  “She’s lying.” Evie said immediately. “We’ve all been doing our damnedest to relax and wait.”

  “Fuck you, Evie.” Nyx shot back. “We all want to get in there. You included.”

  “I know!” Evie laughed. “Some of us are just better at patience, I guess.”

  Marissa glanced at the list of people in chat. “Just waiting on…Firo?”

  “Yeah.” Kieran said.

  “I really expected to be waiting on Fiona, not going to lie,” Ash said. “But he’s actually been one of the most punctual so far.”

  Evan just laughed in response. “What can I say? I’m trying to take my life back from my adorable little noise and poop machine.”

  “I feel that,” Kieran sighed. “But it does seem like you’re doing pretty good so far, given how reliable you’ve been.”

  “I think scheduling things ahead has helped a lot.” Evan mused. “If someone just said, “Hey, we’re going out tonight for so and so,” I’d almost definitely immediately turn around with, “Can’t, baby calls.”. But knowing that I have plans, and Sam equally knowing I have plans, has made it easier to deal with.”

  “I guess that’s good?” Jazz said. “I do think having standing plans usually makes it easier to do things. Sucks when you have so many standing plans that you have no time for spontaneous ones, though.”

  “That was me two years ago,” Evan agreed. “Online tabletop games two nights a week, raid for three. Standing lunch and/or dinner date on Saturdays. I was basically only able to make new plans on Sundays.”

  “Yeesh.” Nyx said.

  “I’m still not sure whether it was a good or bad thing, to be honest.” Evan mused. “I actually rather enjoyed knowing that, not only would I get to talk to friends reliably almost every night, but I also would have something fun to do. Sure, I didn’t have the option of easily just being like, “I’m gonna do ‘x’ tonight,” but eh.”

  “I can see the appeal.” Marissa said. “Admittedly, with how much I work it might not work out for me because I’m always a bit scatterbrained, but still. I like knowing exactly what I’m doing any given day.”

  “I guess I could see the upside of the reliable schedule, sure,” Nyx allowed. “It’s mostly that I like being spontaneous enough that I don’t think I’d like having all my time spoken for.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “And that’s a totally valid take.” Kieran said.

  “Hey! Sorry I’m late!” Firo said quickly, starting his sentence before the chime indicating he joined the chat even finished.

  “You still have about twenty seconds, Firo. You’re cutting it close, but you’re not late.” Ash chuckled.

  “Phew!” Firo said dramatically.

  “So…has anyone looked at whether or not we have reclears to do?” Evie asked.

  “Nope.” Marissa said, as she stared at the interior of [Gorias], where she had logged out after the previous week’s raid. Even when she logged in to do dailies, she didn’t actually need to go anywhere because they were all instance based activities. “I’m still in Gorias, though, so I’m not sure.”

  “Do you see the quest markers around or anything? If there was a weekly reset, it should have happened today, right?”

  “Yep. And I do see the quest marker - floating over Uathach’s head by Scathach and Cu.” Marissa said.

  “Well, let’s party up and see what the deal is.” Ash said, while Marissa was already in the process of pulling up the Clan roster and sending out party invites from it.

  When she saw the [Large Party] message pop up, denoting that they had eight party members, she strode over to [Uathach] and interacted with her.

  [Permission to Fly]

  [Continue]

  [Note: You may continue the scenario from where you left off. However, you will forfeit any reward from the previous quests available for this week.]

  Marissa read the note aloud to everyone, then said, “So I guess we can just keep going forward, or we can loop back to the beginning for more loot.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “What do we think is the move here, then?” Ash asked. “We’ve had some pretty big hits for gear, like the Puddle Jumpers, but we’ve also gotten a fair bit of gear that’s sitting in storage already.”

  “Honestly? I think we just keep pushing.” Jazz said. “While the gear we’ve been getting has had some fantastic abilities attached, the stats haven’t been so much better than what we already have that the upgrades are worth it just for numerical boosts, so we’d be playing a lottery.”

  “I’m fine either way,” Firo said. “There’s the potential that we’d get some crazy good loot from the fights we’ve already done, but we’d be spending our time in return for the potential loot. I don’t think we’d get stuck on reclears, but there’s no guarantee we didn’t get lucky on our first clears, or trigger something by accident that we’d be unable to replicate.”

  “Going back and doing the first few scenarios differently could be fun though.” Evan said. “Not that I’m necessarily in favor of it, but...just saying. It seems like we could do all of the stuff we’ve already seen differently if we wanted to keep seeing new fights.”

  “I think my vote is solidly in the move forward camp.” Nyx said. “I’ve been dreaming of fighting Scathach all weekend. Being forced to do reclears was something I was mentally prepared for, but if we’re being given the choice? Fuck that.”

  “Very well put. I agree.” Evie said.

  “Thirded,” Kieran said. “We’re here for content before loot, I think. So who needs gear when we’re already well geared enough to do that fight? I say we just go.”

  Marissa shrugged. “I’m also in favor of just going, so that puts us at four solid votes in favor of pushing onward. Are there any strong opinions in the other direction?”

  The only responses that Marissa got were noncommittal ones and no one was actively against just continuing on.

  “Alright then. Let’s get our buffs up, get our gear and Dedications prepped, and get that bread.” Marissa declared.

  And the party did exactly that. They walked a little bit away from the NPCs as well as the players that must have been at the same point in the raid as their party. Once they were off the beaten path and a little more secluded, they dropped their portable crafting stations and got to work.

  Everyone that actually had party buffs to offer knew their role and how to do it all quickly, so it didn’t really take all that long to have everything applied and ready to go. In just a few minutes, the party emerged from their little hideaway between some buildings prepared for the fight they knew was coming.

  After asking for confirmation that everyone was ready, Marissa walked back over to [Uathach] and started the [Scenario]. The party chatted idly about their weekends as they watched the cutscene play out. They had already seen this one, so no one felt the need to deafen or otherwise pay attention.

  Once the declaration of the test had been made and [Scathach] walked into the center of the field again, the party began to recenter and focus again. Marissa took a deep breath, eyeing the pasture that would be their arena warily.

  There was plenty of room for her to keep at a distance, but [Scathach’s] attacks clearly had massive range and could hit the whole area, so simply keeping distance wouldn’t really help her much here.

  “So…did we have any plans for this fight, exactly?” Firo asked.

  “Well, the mechanic that wiped us last time seemed fairly easy to counter. Someone taking the hit removed that part of the blast, so we just stack behind the tanks and let them both absorb a portion of the attack.” Kieran said.

  “Okay, so we’ve got our normal small party line ups then. We want to stack North and South, or East and West?” Ash said.

  “I think East and West?” Firo said. “That way we can preposition a little bit, but Fiona can keep the boss pointed true North during the normal phases.”

  “Works for me.” Evan said. “My party on West?”

  “Sure. My group on East, then.” Jazz said.

  “Any other plans?”

  “We didn’t really see enough of the fight last time to make any solid countermeasures yet.” Marissa said. “I think we need a few pulls to get our bearings.

  “Agreed.” Nyx said. “Until we’ve seen more of the mechanics involved, there’s no point in worrying about too much. But even more than that, we still don’t know what the goal is here anyway.”

  “True. Bisky, you said something about a previous fight only requiring you to survive, right?” Evie asked.

  “Yeah. When we made the Clan, we had to fight Cu. At the end of it, he used a massive AoE that killed everyone that it hit. I survived mostly by luck, and it seemed like my living through it was enough to clear the fight.”

  “Given the story set up here, it wouldn't surprise me if we’re going to see something similar here.” Kieran said. “It’s also maybe worth noting that in the myths, Scathach was Cu Chulainn’s teacher, so she may have similar mechanics. Maybe.”

  “I guess we’ll see.” Marissa shrugged. “Everyone ready?”

  When she got the okay, Marissa strode onto the field, followed by the rest of the party. They moved as a single unit into the little blue circle that would trigger the start of the fight.

  [Scathach] began the same way that she had started the first time. She formed her spear and sword from shadows, said her opening line, and vanished in a puff of darkness.

  The party spiraled out from one another, favoring the small party sides, already getting prepared for the massive AoE that killed everyone the first time. [Scathach] reappeared right in front of Fiona, who had been standing the most forward in the circle, and struck out with her sword while keeping her spear tucked under her right arm.

  The attack that hit Fiona still dealt nearly half of the tank’s HP in one atack, despite being blocked. As the healers worked to keep Fiona alive and the DPS moved through their openers, [Scathach] scraped her sword along the haft of her spear, triggering the massive, shadowy explosion that operated as a raidwide.

  Like the first time, the damage was severe, leaving the party near death. Mellody was prepared for the attack this time, and had opted to use a stronger party mitigation and shielding skill, leaving the party members’ HP average around 2,500 instead of the 800 it had in the first run.

  Two more basic attacks pounded against Fiona’s shield before shadows gathered around the sword for the third hit.

  Marissa was stunned as she watched Fiona trigger a skill she almost never used - [Shielded Step] - that was functionally a quick movement skill that also blocked everything that hit Fiona while she moved. Rather than use it for the automatic blocking function - which was by far the most common use - Fiona had backstepped away from [Scathach’s] attack.

  “Ha. Saw that coming, did you?” [Scathach] laughed, and then vanished again, appearing in front of Fiona to continue her basic attacks.

  “The hell was that?”

  “It was the attack that stunned me the first time, with the follow-up that killed Aleister. I had a feeling she needed to land the stun before she’d use it.” Evan laughed. He sounded far too cocky about his little play.

  “Well, the big one is coming next, probably.” Ash said.

  A few attacks clashed with Fiona’s shield again, before she raised her sword above her head, gathering shadows around it again. As the first time, the blade warped into a massive, single-edged monstrosity before she spun and unleashed the massive, expanding circular saw of shadow.

  “And here we go!” Firo said as the party lined up as they had planned. Fiona and Aleister triggered some mitigation skills and blocked the hit, which brought them down to 3,380 and 6,700 HP respectively. As the group had surmised, the section of the attack that had hit the tanks was broken, and the rest of the ring expanded until it dissipated near the edges of the pasture.

  “Very good, very good.” [Scathach] purred, sounding genuinely excited to have not murdered the party.

  “God damn, she sounds hot.” Nyx said.

  “And I bet all the shadows and dark colors work for you, too, yeah?” Marissa laughed.

  “Do you even need to ask?”