Marissa

  “Oh, god damn it. Again?” Kieran wailed as Bisky flew through the final ring before Caoimhe once again, by about half a body length.

  Marissa just cackled. “Are we still saying a mil per win?”

  “Bro, you really should’ve quit while you were ahead.” Evan said.

  “As if Bisky would’ve let me.” Kieran said. And he was right - Marissa lost the first two races by just a hair. She won the third. And the fourth. And the fifth and sixth, too.

  She was currently up two million gold, if they were counting. And the winning put her in a good mood, too - she was struggling not to grin from ear to ear. If nothing else, once she got a handle on how the flight controls worked, her fears about flight in Mag Mell feeling clunky were entirely alleviated. Racing felt great.

  Moving at speed toward her targeting reticle as long as she held her forward button was the basics she needed. But with the way her controls were set up, she moved in every direction relative to her reticle and camera facing, so even simple maneuvers like strafing and quick turns felt very natural.

  “I’ll let you cut your losses at 2 mil, if you'd like.” Marissa chuckled. “Or, if you really wanna, I’ll go double or nothing on the target course.”

  “Hmm…” Kieran sounded like he was considering it. There were a few moments of consideration before he said, “Alright, let’s do it.”

  Marissa grinned widely. There was simply no way Caoimhe could keep up against a ranged attacker on the targets.

  “I will, however, be nominating a champion to fight in my place, per classical medieval law.” Kieran said, clearly trying to hold back a laugh.

  In game, Firo stepped up toward Bisky. “I will fight in Caoimhe’s place.” He declared, putting on a deeper, grand voice.

  “What a bold strategy, Cotton.” Evan said, acting as a faux MC.

  “Let’s see if it pays off for them, Fi.” Nyx responded naturally. “I expect we’ll hear some complaints from the challenger on this ruling.”

  “Now hang on,” Mairssa said, taking her cue. She even paused to allow her friends to continue their joke.

  “And there it is!” Evan called out.

  “As expected.” Nyx nodded along.

  “I will take the change of competitor in stride,” Marissa said, “but I would like to go first, then.”

  “Be my guest.” Firo said. “You can’t win, Bisky. I hope you know that.”

  Marissa glared at her screen. Unfortunately, Firo was right. She had watched him throwing out spells at the targets while they were all messing around. His big AoE spells were capable of hitting multiple targets pretty easily, which meant he would need far less individual attacks to clear all of the targets.

  Marissa weighed her options. There was a chance - a small one - that with just incredible aim, and maybe a bit of luck, she could spam her basic attacks and simply take out the targets quicker because she could get several arrows out in the time it took Firo to cast a single spell.

  But to do that, she’d need to have perfect aim.

  The second option was to swap to [Keeper] for its magical AoEs. That seemed to be her better option; and luckily for Marissa, [áine’s] palace seemed to count as a safe zone.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  In a flash, Hibiscus became a [Keeper]. Her gear didn’t really change all that much, with just the exception of her bow and some accessories changing to add to her magical attack stats.

  “Ah.” Firo said.

  “We’ll see how this goes.” Marissa said. She tried not to sound too prideful, because she really had no idea how playing this out on [Keeper] would go. Most of her AoE skills weren’t targeted AoEs, but were ones that would explode when her attacks hit a target. If she wanted to make good use of them, she would need to place her hits well, and watch for when several of the targets moved close to one another so she could hit several at once.

  Firo had the ability to target his AoEs in the air by placing a big sphere outline wherever he wanted it as long as he had his flight skill active, which would let him put the center of the AoE where he wanted it to hit a bunch of targets with much less finicky-ness.

  With their task set, and the party cheering them both on, Marissa took her turn first. She spoke to [áine] to start the challenge. The targets were reset to a default starting location, and Hibiscus was turned to face a specific direction toward the targets before a countdown began. This would at least ensure that both competitors got off to the same start.

  As soon as she saw the word go, Marissa took off and did what she could to get as many targets down as she could. Unfortunately, there were less chances to use her AoEs than she would have liked. She did take out groups of three or four targets at once a couple times, but most were single targets with her basic attacks.

  She ended with a time of 41 seconds total to wipe out 35 targets. It was the best she had done in their fifteen minutes of messing around in the testing chamber, but she was pretty sure that Firo had already done better.

  When he took his own turn, he placed his arcane explosions and line AoEs in such perfect spots, that Marissa was honestly just impressed when she got soundly beaten. Firo’s total time for the 35 targets was 24 seconds, almost halving her time.

  Kieran cheered in response to the win, while Evan and Nyx kept making silly comments on the contest. Even Jazz and Ash were cheering for Firo, simply because his performance was really just that impressive.

  “I suppose our accounts are washed, then?” Marissa said.

  “That seems to be the easiest way to handle this, yeah.” Kieran said. “But you still owe me two mil from before the patch when I bought you that glam gear. Don’t forget that.”

  “....Damn.” Marissa said. “I was really hoping you forgot about that.”

  “Silly girl.” Kieran laughed. “You should’ve taken the two mil before the target race and called it even.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Marissa sighed. “I’ve learned my lesson. What’s the plan now?” She asked, hoping to change the subject. Maybe with some more time, Kieran would forget the two mil she owed. It’s not like she ever had much gold in the game anyway. Marissa knew she was terrible at holding onto gold. She would regularly spend it on gear that she liked the look of to add to her potential [Fae Glamour] options, or other stupid things that simply didn’t matter much.

  “We’re running right up on our end time, right?” Nyx asked, checking the clock. “Oh, yeah. It’s almost ten.”

  “áine clearly has the ability for us to move on, if that’s the move. She’s had the quest marker over her head the whole time. As soon as we feel like we’re ready to leave, I just need to tell her.” Marissa said. “But I also know that people probably want to get to bed, too.”

  “I actually don’t have any super early classes tomorrow, so I don’t mind running a little long just to get back to the Human World and see where it leaves us.” Kieran said.

  “If we don’t go over long, I don’t mind either,” Evie said. “I can deal with being a little tired on a Friday morning at work.”

  “Same,” Nyx said.

  “No classes until the afternoon, here.” Firo said.

  “We’re both good, too.” Jazz said. “Mello and I won’t actually go to bed until like 11 anyway.”

  “Then…I guess let’s get it?” Marissa asked.

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Let’s go!”

  Marissa nodded, swapped Bisky back to [Seeker], and walked up to [áine], ready to move the story along.

  When she clicked the dialogue option that told [áine] she thought the group was ready, the Queen nodded seriously. “Very well. If you’re all prepared, I will open a gate for you.” She began casting a spell, but suddenly stopped. “Oh! I still need to teach you all the spell to return here. You’ve made for good playmates, so I don’t plan on losing you all just yet.”

  Marissa saw a pop-up window on her screen that told her she unlocked the [Fae Circle] spell for [The Seelie Court - Courtyard].

  “Hell. Yes!” Evan said. “I will see you again, my Queen!”

  “Fiona, just ask her to step on you already and get over it.” Nyx laughed.

  “Hey.”

  Once Marissa clicked through the window, accepting the new spell, there was a moment where she had to wait before [áine] continued. She assumed it was until everyone else in the party cleared the window, too.

  “Now then. Let’s get you all on your way.” [áine] said, and a cutscene began. The screen showed [áine] begin casting her spell. It carried the same kind of effects that most players did when they opened a [Fae Circle] gate, but with some other colors mixed in. Marissa just assumed that crossing between the worlds layered the spell a bit, but the game didn’t call any real attention to it.

  “I’ll send you back near [Gorias].” [áine] said while still casting. “I don’t have access to anywhere inside the [Dagda’s] compound, so you’ll have to make do with what I can manage.”

  There was another few seconds of her casting, and then the image showed her frown. “Something is interfering with dropping you all off in the city. Hm. I didn’t think the Fomorians were good at teleport magic, let alone interfering with it.”

  Another few seconds, and [áine] seemed to stabilize the spell. She nodded and stepped back from the gate. “There we are. Best of luck, new friends. Do come visit.”

  As Marissa watched her party members walk through the portal to the other side, she grinned, excited to get back to more fights. Right as she watched Bisky step through the portal, she heard and saw one last line from [áine]: “I hope you like making an entrance.”

  There was a black loading screen that followed, and Marissa was waiting to see exactly what that was supposed to mean.

  “The heck does that mean?” Jazz asked, putting words to what Marissa imagined they were all thinking.

  There was just a beat of silence before the picture came back. They were still in a cutscene, apparently, because the camera swept over a shot of the city of [Gorias], and the ongoing siege. From what they were shown, it didn’t look like either side had gained an upper hand yet. The Fomorians were still outside of the walls, and the city’s forces were still holding them back. The supposed incoming wyverns were nowhere to be seen, yet.

  And then the camera swung upward to the sky. Through some fake shaky-cam, the camera zoomed in on an empty patch of sky.

  And then a [Fae Circle] gate appeared in the middle of it all. And Marissa watched as, one by one, her party tumbled out of the portal into the open sky.

  “Oh shit.” Evie shouted. “That’s what she meant.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing we just learned how to fly.” Ash laughed.

  “No kidding.”

  “Did we learn how to land?” Nyx asked. “Because right now, we’re all falling, not flying.”

  “Just give me a second, alright?” Kieran laughed. “We need to get closer to the ground before we try to slow the fall, or we’ll end up losing the flight ability too high.”

  “Don’t talk like you’re in control right now, dumb ass.” Jazz said.

  “Yeah, fine. It’s a cutscene. They won’t kill us in a cutscene. Is that better?” Kieran shot back.

  “Yep. Now shut your face.”

  The whole group watched as the party on each of their screens hurtled down from higher up in the atmosphere than they felt was necessary. Marissa would've loved the chance to give [áine] shit for dropping them from so high up, but she imagined going by the lore, such a trick was literally part of the Fae woman’s very being.

  As the party got within a few hundred feet of the ground, Marissa saw them all trigger their various forms of flight. Each character in the party had their own individual shot of them activating the skill, that looked like it was dependent on some combination of the character’s race and [Path], and perhaps even gender.

  She couldn't help but grin widely when Hibiscus made a full forward flip in the air before spreading her wings to catch the air. She immediately pulled back with the air resistance and then her wings shimmered to life with magic as she began to actively control the flight.

  The scene was similar but different for everyone in the party, and they each got to watch everyone else, too. When they finally had all taken their turns, the camera pulled back to watch the whole party land gracefully on the top of the [Dagda’s] large home.

  The center of the build had a large tower that looked to be crafted around a huge tree - and it was on the top of that tower that the whole party landed in various spots and poses. Marissa was helpless against her desire to snap a screenshot, so she did.

  “Damn.”

  “Okay, how many of us just screen capped that?” Evie asked.

  “I think we all did.” Nyx laughed. And no one refuted her on it.

  The camera made one more sweep outward to show the whole party on top of the tower and then centered behind them so the party was looking out over the city and the sea of enemies beyond the walls.

  And, in the sky near the horizon, Marissa could see the flying wyverns flying toward the city.

  “Oh hell yeah.” Evan said, as the cutscene finally came to an end. They all regained control of their characters while they stood on top of the tower. They could presumably jump down or fly away if they had wanted to, but the raid quest wanted the group to climb down normally and go see the [Dagda].

  “You know,” Kieran said, “we said we’d continue, but I don’t think it’s gonna get better than that.”

  “Call it a night there, and come back on Tuesday?” Marissa said, satisfied with that. She could wait a few days before they continued after that - it was about as satisfying a conclusion for the week as she figured they could get in the middle of the raid storyline.

  “Works for me.” Firo said.

  “Sounds good.” Evie agreed.

  Marissa let her camera sweep out once over the horizon from their vantage point and grinned.

  “Yeah. See y’all next week.”

  Sword and Snow! My other series will be resuming with the third book, and the first two books are already fully released here on Royal Road.