Kieran

  Thankfully, the party wasn’t made to wait all that long. While they had expected a Fae, perhaps even [Awsta], to return to pick them up and show them to whatever [áine] used as a throne room, they ended up without any sort of guide.

  Instead, the beautiful white wall opposite of the door they had come in through began to open. Kieran hadn’t realized it was a door, and even as it swung open, he decided that there was simply no indication of it being one. While it was carved nicely like the door outside had been, the design didn’t appear to be mirrored or even planned around the door that was opening.

  As soon as Kieran could make out the next room, however, the door and the awkward waiting room was immediately put out of mind.

  The next room looked a lot like the indoor forested room where they had met with the [Dagda], albeit a little more controlled. It looked more like a curated garden, and less like an overgrown forest, with plants well taken care of and manicured for a palace. As the party slowly moved into the new space, a new track of music started up, sounding natural with woodwind and string instruments, with a whimsical, upbeat melody.

  Kieran grew less and less certain what they were walking into as they moved. “Is this the throne room?” He asked, as his camera was spun around to take in the gorgeous garden. Between the visuals and the music, he wasn’t sure what this room was supposed to be.

  “Wow. Yeah, I think so - look to the left.” Marissa said, as they walked down a wide, walking stone path. The stones weren’t placed in any obvious design, simply placed on top of the grass here and there. Kieran moved his camera up to the left to try to see what Marissa was referring to - and the large dais and throne was immediately apparent.

  It looked like the path they were walking on was one of three that eventually led to the center of the room, and then to the throne. If the throne was in the north of the room, the doors leading out were at the other three cardinal directions, and the rectangular room was longest from north to south. They had come in from the ‘west’ door in Kieran’s mind, and were walking toward the center of the room.

  Putting the throne out of mind for the moment, given there was no one in it, Kieran focused on what he could only consider a henge in the center of the garden. There was a lovely fountain spraying vibrant blue water in the center, surrounded by a stone patio. The edges of the patio, however, were decorated with plant and ivy-covered stone that had been shaped into pillars and cross beams at varying heights.

  Kieran imagined that it could have been what Stonehenge may have looked like if it was in pristine condition, and built with less purpose and more whimsy. When the group finally approached the area, he noticed there were benches and seats arrayed nicely around the area, including benches and a few nicer chairs.

  He reconsidered the haphazard arrangement of chairs in the waiting room - maybe they really were meant as an insult in some way.

  “Hello, wingless! You are the ones that the [Dagda] sent, yes?”

  Kieran turned his camera upward to see a Fae floating in the air above the party. They were slowly floating down toward the group, although the translucent, opalescent wings on their back didn’t seem to be moving at all. More importantly, the text of the voiceline was attributed to [áine].

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  “I’ll take that a yes. Follow me, so we can have your talk.” [áine] said, and floated off toward one of the large sections of plants and hedges - the northwest one, in Kieran’s mind.

  “I guess we should follow?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah? What else could we do?” Marissa said.

  “Attack her while her back is turned.” Jazz said, jokingly.

  “Oh yes, because that’s what an envoy should do. Kill the person they’ve come to speak to.” Marissa said flatly. “Come on, Aleister. That one was weak, even for you.”

  “Sorry.” Jazz apologized, but it sounded far from sincere. “I’m just getting tired of all of this cutscene stuff. I want to fight something! Give. Me. Content!”

  “Hun, this is content.” Ash laughed. “It may not be the content you were looking for, but it still is stuff to do.”

  “Fine. But if we talk our way out of fighting her, I’m gonna be pissed.” Jazz said.

  “Stop crossing your arms and slouching like a petulant child; no one can see you do it, and I know you’re doing it just to make a point.” Ash said.

  “You can see it, jackass,” Jazz muttered, while moving Aleister forward with everyone else.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Kieran rolled his eyes at the couple, then focused on taking in his surroundings. They were being led through a beautiful hedge maze, crafted mostly with thicker hedges that were then further decorated with other plants. Every few feet, the color of the hedge changed, whether it was from a vibrant red of one flower to a dark blue of another, the color changes were always high contrast every time, and the ever changing color palette was striking.

  [áine] was also drawing Kieran’s attention. The Faerie Queen was dressed simply in a white one piece dress, which her wings stood out against. Even more than that, however, was her long braid of fiery red hair. It was an entirely unnaturally vibrant red, which made the color draw the eye more than even the color-changing of her wings.

  It didn’t take very long for [áine] to lead the group to a nook at the center of the hedge maze that looked designed for small meetings like this one. There were plenty of chairs for everyone to take a seat, as well as a round table in the middle already set with snacks and cakes as well as cups and a pitcher of some kind of drink.

  “Please, have a seat.” [áine] said, indicating the chairs around the table. As she floated to the ground, her wings seemed to hide themselves somehow and she gently took a seat that was clearly made to be hers during meetings. It was slightly larger than the others, with a little bit more space between it and the rest.

  Kieran had Caoimhe sit in one of the seats across from the Queen and noticed that the food and drink was interactable, and within easy range of each seat. Kieran was hesitant to do anything with the food given the whole nature of the Fae issue they had been warned of.

  “I don’t think we should touch the food.” Ash said aloud.

  “Agreed,” Kieran said. “I’m still not sure what we can trust or do with all this. We’ve been told not to trust the Fae here, but like…it’s also a game?”

  “I’m just going to play this straight like it’s a tabletop RPG and my GM put us in this position.” Evan said. “And I definitely would not eat any food provided in this case.”

  “You know, I think that’s a good approach.” Evie said. “We don’t really know what the devs are looking to do with this raid series, or to what level of effect this can have on us. If there’s even a chance of ruining my character somehow, I’m not chancing it.”

  Once everyone picked a seat, a cutscene began, and Kieran immediately heard the sounds of his friends muting and deafening in their voice call. He moved to do the same as [áine] spoke.

  “Right then. I know you all are here to talk about various things happening in the [Human World]. The [Dagda] gave me a very simplistic explanation on the situation there, and I have to say, I’m intrigued.” [áine] smiled, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant one. It felt more like a predator had found its mark.

  “What exactly makes you think that anyone on our side would help you? After the way we were treated last time, we learned our lesson. The [Aes Sídhe] don’t deserve flight. They don’t deserve our help. And while they may not simply deserve death, either, I’m not convinced it’s my place to assist in that either.”

  There was a moment of silence in the cutscene as the camera panned over the party in their seats before [áine] continued. “What? Did one of my Fae steal your voices on the way here? I thought you came to talk. Or beg.” The Queen rolled her eyes before continuing, “Let’s do it this way. Pick someone among your group to do the talking. I’m sure someone warned you against choosing a speaker for a group, but let me assure you. Right now, I see no reason to try to trick you into anything. You have my word that I will not misuse your chosen speaker. I swear it on my true name.”

  As [áine] made the oath, a breeze kicked through their little meeting place, as if the world was accepting the bargain. And then a prompt showed up on Kieran’s screen.

  [Who will speak for your party?]

  [You]

  [Fiona]

  [Aleister]

  [Mellody]

  [Evie]

  [Nyx]

  [Hibiscus]

  [Firo]

  Kieran chuckled as soon as the prompt came up and he immediately heard people returning to chat. He followed suit - there didn’t appear to be a timer on the decision, so they could discuss who would make the decisions.

  “- vote is for Caoimhe. I’m confident he knows the most about the lore.” Firo was saying as Kieran turned off the deafen.

  “I was between Caoimhe and you, Firo, so if you think you want to defer to Caoimhe, I’m okay with that.” Marissa said. “If nothing else, Aleister, Evie, Fiona and I shouldn’t be in the running here. We’re all chronic cutscene skippers, even if we pay attention here and there.”

  “I also pay attention to the cutscenes, and am a bit of a lore fiend, but I’m not as good at quick recall as I think Caoimhe is.” Nyx said. “I like the lore a lot, and have a bunch of notes on it, but if you asked me questions about it, I’m not confident in my ability to answer without consulting my notes.”

  “Yay.” Kieran said flatly. “So y’all’re just going to leave it up to me, then?”

  “I wouldn’t say that…” Jazz said, “We can convene before you answer things just like this, right?”

  “Right. We can make group decisions together, and you can just be the button pusher.” Evan said.

  “You know I like pushing the big red buttons…” Kieran said, thinking back to some of his tabletop games. While he didn’t consider himself an agent of chaos in the same way that Jazz or Marissa were, if there was an interesting option in front of him, he was usually in favor of taking it.

  In a table top game, though, he knew what the stakes were, and trusted whoever was running the game would make it fun for everyone. In this setting, he wasn’t sure what the potential outcomes were.

  “You guys don’t actually think the devs would soft lock a party’s characters or something because of a decision here, do you?” He mumbled. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one risking all eight of their characters based on his choices.

  “I’m not going to say there’s zero chance.” Ash said. “If only because this game has done some weird things and the devs seem to be a little…let’s say eccentric. But I don’t think they would want to risk turning some of their legitimate players away from playing the game like that.”

  “I don’t think they would risk that either,” Marissa said. “But even if they do - Caoimhe, I think you’re the best option we have to trust out of the eight of us here. Hell, I think you’d be the best option out of everyone I know that plays this game.”

  “Bisky, all those people are in this party,” Jazz quipped.

  “Shut your face.”

  When the rest of the party, including Jazz, endorsed Kieran as who they saw as their best option, he had to relent. While he wasn’t happy with being given the role of party speaker, being told he was probably the most trustworthy for it still felt nice. He liked being relied on.

  Kieran sighed. “Yeah, alright. Vote me in, coach.”

  If nothing else, he at least agreed that he wouldn’t have voted for most of the party to take the position. His vote would have been for Ash, though, even if the man didn’t have the lore knowledge that Kieran did, he thought that Ash’s even-keel personality might have been good for what was shaping up to be a dialogue-based boss fight.

  Just for good measure, Kieran clicked on [Mellody] because he didn’t feel comfortable voting for himself anyway.

  There was a pause after he picked his answer before [áine] responded as everyone else selected their votes. And then the Faerie Queen turned straight to Caoimhe.

  “Very well then. Shall we begin, Speaker? What exactly are you wingless here for?”

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