Kieran

  Once the party wiped, it was unanimously decided that the group was going to call it a night. They did all respawn, and returned to life in the courtyard with [áine], prepared to commence the fight.

  The whole group breathed a collective sigh of relief at confirmation that the fight wasn’t a one-attempt trial, and vowed they would return the following day to take her on again.

  Kieran spent a little time after logging off with his wife and children, just relaxing on the couch before bed. The raid crew’s ending time left him with around an hour before the girls’ bedtimes, so it wasn’t long before they were in bed, and he and Natalie followed shortly thereafter. They rarely opted to stay up late outside of weekends, preferring to go to sleep and wake up earlier. And even then, it was rare.

  Kieran’s Wednesday passed slowly, but uneventfully. Unlike the previous week, Mag Mell wasn’t all consuming in his thoughts, and he was able to get through the work day normally. Wednesday was one of his later days, while Natalie’s office closed up earlier, allowing her to get the girls from school.

  Kieran arrived home around 5:15pm, which left him some time with his family before the raid would be convened. But after dinner, around 6:30, he gave his wife a kiss and moved toward his study. Halfway there, he dashed back toward his daughters, and ruffled their hair, leaving them both a mess before he retreated again with a laugh.

  As he sat down, he could hear Aoife and Kaitlyn begging their mother to brush out their hair to help fix it and he grinned. He knew that Nat loved having the girls in her lap and brushing them out, so it was a win all around.

  Once he was situated and ready to go, Kieran found he wasn’t the only one there early. In fact, everyone except for Firo and Evan was in chat and logging in. When everyone appeared back in the courtyard together, while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive, they opted to warm up with some friendly PvP matches, rotating through the group to keep the fights fresh while they stretched out their fingers.

  It wasn’t long before the whole group had arrived, and everyone was ready and even warmed up before 7pm rolled around. They were ready to tackle the Queen again.

  “Before we get rolling, I wanted to mention something regarding the chain lightning we died to.” Nyx said.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I kept going over it in my head, and I’m like 90% sure that there were only three instances of the lightning bouncing around the group. Not four - despite there being four total áines at the time.”

  “So…you think we avoided the fourth attack somehow?” Ash asked.

  “Yeah. And I think it was distance.” Nyx continued. “We were all called to the real áine by Fiona, and I was the only one on the opposite copy at the time. And I used Shade Shift to teleport closer in the rush, so I think we were just all really far away from the one áine clone.”

  “So you’re thinking distance.” Evan said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So…we gang up on one of the copies, kill it, and stay the hell away from the other two and the original, then.” Firo said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking. As a party, we could definitely do enough damage to one of the clones quickly enough to kill it. And that opens up a safe zone if we crowd as far away from the others as possible.” Nyx said.

  “I like it.” Ash and Firo said, echoing one another.

  “Let’s say we target the true north one, then rotate clockwise if it turns out to be the real one?” Marissa offered, and everyone agreed easily.

  “Just as a quick note,” Evan said, “I did try to Stun and Interrupt her cast. Neither worked. So if we do find the real one first, don’t bother trying to status her into stopping the cast. I don’t think it’s worth it.”

  “Sounds good. Shall we?” Marissa asked, turning toward [áine].

  “Bisky, we need to buff first, girl.” Jazz chuckled, as the food prep station appeared in front of Aleister.

  “Oops.”

  “Won’t be the last time one of us forgets, no worries.” Evan said, dropping the smithy workbench as well. It only took a few moments for everyone to be buffed up and ready to go. There was a short discussion about which food buffs would benefit the group best for the encounter, but in the end, they just defaulted to the same balanced option that they had used for most of the raid fights so far.

  Once the group was fully prepared, Bisky approached [áine] and got the fight underway.

  The whole thing started very similarly to their first attempt. After the battle with [Scathach] being so variable in structure, no one in the party was quite sure what to expect against [áine], especially with her apparent penchant for tricky mechanics.

  Still, as they moved through the opening phase, things went as expected. The group was able to avoid the opening volley of vine attacks without issue, all while continuing to put out solid damage.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Fiona had even been able to get a handle on [áine’s] basic attack patterns, and was able to [Perfect Block] several of them, despite the attacks not coming very often, and only functioning as filler between [áine’s] big spell casts. Still, the [Counter] damage that Fiona was able to get thanks to the blocks was significant enough that the group was better off for the successes.

  When [áine] began her casting of the wind-based spell that had been the first ‘tricky’ mechanic in the first attempt, everyone was on high alert for it to change. The initial display for the AoE had been for a point-blank AoE rather than the larger donut version, and the whole group was standing right on the edge of the safe zone, while the melee party members fought for their uptime.

  When the AoE never did the fuzzing effect that they had noticed the previous day, everyone backed out of the danger zone, leaving [áine’s] spell to surround her in a blast of wind. No one got clipped by it, and Kieran could hear everyone mutter silent cheers to themselves through the otherwise silent chat.

  It was typically a good sign, when the party comms were clear. It meant everyone was concentrating and paying attention, especially when lesser noises like breathing and mutters could be heard. Dead silence usually meant people were muted and that wasn’t always good.

  [áine] moved into her next spell fairly quickly; the ice-based spell that would be some damage and the rime-slick floor.

  “Eyes up.” Ash said, as he and Evie threw out some shielding for the party. Fiona and Aleister also sent out some party mitigation, but didn’t over commit as they had in their first run, holding back some of their better buttons for later on. The ice spell hadn’t been all that heavy on damage, instead relying on the slippery floor to cause chaos for the following mechanic.

  When the spell casting finished and the blast of cold encased the room, the entire party was ready for it. No one moved, and the shields had done plenty to keep everyone healthy. A single AoE heal from Evie was enough to get everyone nearly back to full.

  And then, as expected, [áine] began casting her follow up attack, which would summon the vines with the large line or cone AoEs.

  As the massive green vines grew out of the icy floor, Kieran watched the AoEs like a hawk, prepared for the inevitable type swap. And sure enough, as soon as he saw the initial set of AoEs fuzz slightly, he called it out before moving.

  “They’re gonna swap,” He said, at the same time as Ash, Nyx, and Firo all called out similar warnings.

  The group had fully held back their sliding movement until they were sure, and many of their party members had slid to the same point, which left five of them sitting together in a spot where three of the line AoEs overlapped.

  “Hey, Caoimhe!”

  “Heya, Evie. Bisky. Fancy meeting you here.”

  As the AoEs swapped, they suddenly found themselves standing on regularly icy ground again. And as soon as the vines’ attacks went through, the ice melted away leaving them on normal grass once more.

  “Alright! No Befuddled stacks yet!” Evan said, as he pushed Fiona back toward [áine] near the center of the room.

  “Fiona. You’re gonna jinx us.” Firo joked, having heard the same line enough times from Evan.

  “Right? Shut your face, Fiona.” Kieran said, adding fuel to the fire, and then laughing when Evie, Nyx, and Jazz all jumped on him too.

  “Okay! My bad, my bad!” Evan said as everyone converged on [áine] in the middle. Without the confusion of the [Befuddled] stacks, they had a short period of time to get more damage on the Queen before she began moving into her next cast, which should be the clones.

  When her casting began, showing the same white-silver particle effects they had seen before, Ash called out the cast. Everyone pumped out as much damage as they could before [áine] vanished in a puff of white smoke.

  As before, there were four total [áines] that appeared, each in a different corner of the room. As they had decided before, the group surged toward the northern section of the room, and the copy that was there, casting the lightning spell.

  Nyx made it there first, as the fastest moving [Path] in the game. Between the slightly faster movement speed and [Shadow Slip], she was already mid-combo against the [áine] close when everyone else arrived. And the damage they were doing clearly indicated that this one was indeed a clone.

  Kieran watched with satisfaction as the HP dropped to zero in seconds, and the [áine] copy puffed away to white smoke. The party huddled up where it had been casting while waiting for the real [áine] and the remaining two fakes to finish their spells.

  There was no text box for it, but an overly cute “Aww” voiceline came over the music as the copies puffed away, and the real [áine] gave up her chain lightning spell, unable to find any targets.

  Kieran let out a deep breath, and he heard several others do the same.

  “Okay, now we’re blind again.” Evie said, as the group moved to meet [áine] in the middle again. The real one had been on the east side of the room, so once Fiona met her half way, she dragged the boss back to the center of the room, while the DPS did their jobs.

  “Keep your eyes on the AoEs. I have to assume that she can make any or all of them fake us out.” Ash said.

  “Agreed.” Kieran said. “But there’s gotta be more to it than that.”

  “With the strange effect that Befuddled causes, I’d be shocked if she can’t apply that automatically.” Firo said.

  “I swear to god, if she can do that shit automatically, I’m gonna flip.” Jazz said.

  “You really didn’t like that, huh?” Marissa laughed.

  “I think messing with your players like that is just mean.” Jazz said petulantly.

  “She’s just mad she got hit by the AoEs and had to deal with it.” Ash laughed.

  “Hey! I got hit by them too.” Marissa shot back, “if you feel bad about it, that’s like saying I should too! And screw that.”

  Before Jazz could respond, [áine] began casting her next spell. She was surrounded by a fiery effect, with embers floating off of her, and Kieran recognized the stance she took while casting it.

  It looked like Evan did too, as he whooped excitedly and positioned himself to make sure that there was no one behind him. The party, as soon as they realized what was coming, was more than happy to vacate the space behind Fiona.

  “Good luck?” Jazz said.

  “We’re ready with a rez if you need it.” Evie said.

  “Just so it’s been said,” Evan chuckled, “we might be making a dangerous assumption that she’s going to target the tank with this.”

  Kieran laughed at that, because Evan was right. He hadn’t even considered this attack would target anyone else. And he wasn’t the only one laughing, either.

  [áine] had gathered the flames in her hand into the larger ball and had nearly condensed it down fully when Fiona began layering her mitigations.

  “If I die, Aleister, you better get in there quick.”

  “Duh.”

  [áine] aimed her palm straight at Fiona and the beam of fire swept out fast. As she had shown before the fight began, the beam was more like a condensed, liquid fire than a blast of fire. And it still looked just as dangerous as it had when sheared straight through the tree.

  Fiona hadn’t been holding her [Block] before the attack was launched, and had barely had enough time to get her shield up once the attack was hurtling toward her. However, the speed of the attack and Evan’s reaction time were matched up in such a way that Fiona [Perfect Blocked] the attack by sheer luck.

  The extra damage reduction from the [Perfect Block] combined with the mitigations that Fiona had spent while hoping to eat the attack was enough to leave her standing defiantly as the beam crashed against her shield.

  “Healing! Healing!” Evan shouted, as the attack hadn’t simply stopped. Fiona was in a clash animation with it, as [áine] continued the assault with her spell. To their credit, Mellody and Evie were quick on their feet, and blasted Fiona with some of their bigger healing cooldowns quickly to keep her alive.

  It was a near thing, and Fiona was struggling with around 4,000 HP when [áine] swept the attack off her shield after several ticks worth of damage.

  However, the Fae Queen didn’t simply stop the attack. She swept the beam in a semi-circle to her right, as if swinging a weapon with her right hand.

  Unlike when she tried to drill straight through Fiona, the attack swept over Caoimhe and Firo, both of whom were diagonally behind [áine], but the 180 degree arc she carved with the fire beam was enough to catch them both.

  The sweep wasn’t an instant death, but it did leave Caoimhe with just over 1,000 HP, and Firo with around 2,000 HP.

  They were also both on fire with a [Burning] debuff.

  Mellody and Evie reacted quickly, getting their HP back in the green with emergency skills. Thankfully, as the two DPS had only been grazed by the attack, even the [Burning] effect only had a few second duration on it. It would have been enough to kill them if the healers hadn’t reacted quickly, but they would be fine.

  Fiona was in much worse shape. The clash had left her with 45 seconds worth of the [Burning] debuff, as well as two stacks of [Befuddled].

  “Aleister? I need you to main tank, please!” Evan called, mostly just hoping that he was even attacking the right [áine]. Evie was able to put two [Regen] effects on him, which was enough to counteract the [Burning] damage, so long as she refreshed the effects periodically.

  “I’ve gotcha.” Jazz said, as Aleister slipped right into place in front of [áine], and hit [Dark Lash] to [Provoke] the Queen. [áine] did seem to refocus and angle toward Aleister, but she was comically shaking off her hand as if it were on fire after the beam attack.

  As the party moved back into their standard positions, Fiona was able to tell pretty easily where the real [áine] was, given all the others standing around her. Aleister blocked two basic attacks that did practically zero damage before [áine] thrust the butt of her staff into the ground in apparent frustration.

  There was a visual effect that accompanied the move, that made the ground look like it rippled the way water would where the staff touched, and then she moved into casting her next spell.

  The effects surrounding her were clearly water droplets, and the party prepared for whatever she might throw at them. When the cast finished, however, she swept her staff out to the right, and the particle effects were flung off screen with no noticeable effect. No AoE markers, no damage, nothing.

  “She threw water to the east. Remember that.” Kieran said, not sure what it meant, but positive that it would come back to bite them if they forgot.

  [áine] immediately began casting again, rather than do the filler attacks as she had up to that point. The particle effects consisted of flower petals, and the grass below bloomed vibrantly, which Kieran guessed meant a plant-based spell was coming.

  And sure enough, she swept her staff to the West, conjuring a huge tangle of thorny vines. The dangerous looking plants quickly spread to cover most of the western side of the room.

  “Move east. Move east, move east, move east.” Ash called, but Kieran was already moving, having recognized the pattern from plenty of games. He had no doubt in his mind that the water spell [áine] had cast would come back as a tidal wave and knock them all toward the vines.

  As the group quickly dashed toward the side of the arena, he heard [áine’s] giggling echo around the room, and connected the dots too late. The playful chiding sounds that usually accompanied a finger wagging clued him in to the group being tricked, but they didn’t have the time to react to it.

  [áine] snapped her fingers, and the entire room flipped. Suddenly, the group was running toward the vines on the east side, and he heard the water rushing at them from the western side.

  As the water pushed the whole party ruthlessly into the vines and the thorns all but tore them apart, Kieran just hung his head.

  He should’ve expected such an obvious trick like that.

  Twitch. I don't really know how it'll go, but feel free to stop on by.