The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

By the time the middle of the afternoon rolled around, the party wasn't sure where they were at. They had come within a hairsbreadth of clearing the second add phase, and had gotten most of the phase well in hand.

After doing it so many times, the swordsman and halberdier were going down regularly, then the shieldbearer and the mages were next, and they weren't too bad either. Once everyone had gotten in the habit of how dodging everything worked, it was pretty easy. There was an enrage built into that part, though, and if they couldn't kill the shieldbearer fast enough, the mages would cast a huge AoE and wipe the party automatically. It had happened a few times, but generally speaking, it wasn't an issue.

The secondary part of the phase that began after the shieldbearer went down was easy, too. It barely changed anything, instead just making the mages and archer launch the attacks more quickly with less downtime. And because the downtime for the archer was even less than the mages, it made the timing between the two attack patterns different - but while it was tricky, it wasn't exactly more difficult to deal with as long as everyone remained on their toes.

Once the mages went down, focusing on the archer was painful. He called in backup from the flying encirclement, which came in the form of more AoE bombardment. The attacks were seemingly entirely random, never stopped, and didn't guarantee safe zones. It felt like playing a game of DDR, requiring near constant movement to avoid the danger.

Meanwhile, because the archer continued to fire arrows that bounced around the mirrors still lining the edge of the platform, there was still the danger of [Confusion]. On top of that, the archer remained mostly hovering and moving around the edges, which made it difficult for the melee players to actually do very much, leaving them mostly focused on dodging AoEs while Bisky did the lion's share of the work. Even Firo had trouble, because he barely had any chances to cast spells amidst the hellfire of AoEs.

The group had wiped to that part of the phase multiple times - and multiple times with the archer only having a few percent of HP left. They had gotten so close enough times that the group was teetering on the edge between "We're so close, let's get this done!" and "Ugh, I can't do this anymore," with morale walking a very fine line.

As it was, Zoe had called for a short bathroom break and to grab another drink. It seemed everyone was happy with that idea, and Bisky called for a more formal fifteen minute break to let everyone get up and stretch after the 3 or so hours they had been at it.

Zoe had walked to her little kitchen to grab a drink, but stayed there for an extra minute, using the refrigerator door as a base to hold while stretching out her back and legs. Even once her stretching was done, she was rolling her shoulders and stretching her neck out on the way back to her computer chair, feeling tight and like she needed a better stretch.

She took the chance, once she placed her water bottle by her PC, to stretch out on her bed, letting her upper body lean over the edge to really stretch out her back. Something popped and a moan escaped her as the feeling of relief spread throughout her lower back. She rolled around a bit more to stretch out her sides before getting up and returning to her computer. And laughter in chat.

Zoe hit her headset's mute button to unmute it and asked "Uh, what did I miss?" as she settled back into her seat. When no one responded, she probed around her headset again, and realized that when she sat down, she had actually muted herself, not the other way around. She clicked her mic on, having a sinking suspicion regarding the laughter.

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"You guys heard me, didn't you?" She asked, defeated.

Fiona snorted. "Sure did. What did you do? That was one hell of a moan."

"I was stretching!" Zoe cried, her face going pink. "Something in my back popped and -"

Cass mimicked her moan over the chat, which not only made Zoe's blushing worse, but the sound was also annoyingly erotic.

"Look, you assholes, I was just stretching over the side of the bed and my back popped, alright?" Zoe said, fighting down her blush.

"Oh, were you doing that thing where you lean over the side of the bed and let your back stretch toward the floor?" Fiona asked.

"Yeah."

"You know? Understandable. That one always feels great." He said.

"It does." Cass agreed. "But damn, Nyx, that moan was still insane."

Zoe rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure you'll have more chances to hear it yourself." Caoimhe said, sounding like he was just returning to the chat, especially when he followed his statement with "What'd I miss?"

"Caoimhe!" Fiona burst out laughing, while Zoe closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

"Dude, too far. Too. Far." Cass said, trying to sound scandalized, but she was clearly on the verge of laughing too. Zoe just put her head in her hands and took a deep breath.

The first pull after the break was a dumpster fire. They didn't even make it to the second phase, thanks to everyone making minor mistakes that snowballed into a wipe before they saw the phase transition.

The second pull went much, much better. It seemed the awful failure that came right before was a bit of a reset for everyone, or perhaps they all just got the mistakes out of the way. In either case, they fought their way through the second phase almost perfectly cleanly.

In the end, Caoimhe made a minor mistake and got clipped by one of the archer's arrows in the very end of the phase. Groans of defeat echoed around the chat immediately, fully expecting the pull to go up in flames thanks to the [Confusion] debuff.

"Wait! I'm not dead!" Caoimhe shouted, excitement clear in his voice.

"How the actual fuck did you manage that?" Fiona laughed as the party focused on burning down the last remaining bit of the archer's HP. There wasn't much to go.

"Dunno!" Caoimhe returned. "I just stood still and got lucky? None of the AoEs hit me."

"Pft. Lucky bastard." Mellody muttered, which got a chuckle out of some of their friends.

"And there…we…go!" Bisky cheered when they finished the archer off, but squeaked afterward when there was another bombardment of AoEs. Thankfully, without the archer's additional arrow zooming around, it wasn't difficult to deal with, and everyone slid into safety easily - especially when there was no target to focus on attacking.

"What's next?"

"No idea."

"Circle up, then." Mellody said, and began casting a few quick defensive spells. Evie joined in, and together they layered some solid shields onto the party, but held back on their mitigation. HP shields lasted for a decent amount of time before falling off if they didn't take damage, but mitigation was much shorter.

"Big boom for a second transition?" Firo asked.

"Not sure I like this gap." Aleister said, just in time for the Fae that surrounded the platform to begin a coordinated cast again.

Like before, there were no AoE markers to denote safety, so it felt like another bit of damage they had to just take and deal with.

"Mit?"

"Yup. Hold it until you see the spell take shape." Mellody said, as the party watched as the enemies gathered and coalesced their magic into a roiling ball of purple and silvery energy that surrounded the tower, concentrated mostly directly above them.

"Now!"

Mellody, Evie, Fiona, and Aleister all used some form of party mitigation as the enemy spell activated. The purple energy in the spell gathered above their heads and shattered the sky with a huge spray of lightning that grew downward like a reverse tree, striking all over and around the tower.

The damage from it wasn't an immediate death, but it was still a lot, leaving everyone but the tanks around 30%, even with all of the mitigation and shields they had used.

"Heal! Quick!" Evie said, immediately casting three instant, area of effect healing spells to quickly help the party get back up. Mellody said nothing, but did the same, blowing several cooldowns to get the party back to full with some additional shields.

"Oh, shit." Caoimhe said.

"Yup." Zoe laughed as she watched the roiling silver cloud on her screen. With the lighting gone, only the silver of Fae magic remained in the cloud. It flashed once, a single warning, before the magic descended on them.

As the cloud fell, it looked like it came down in sheets, or perhaps falling blades. White completely took over Zoe's screen, wiping out vision of everything that wasn't her UI. The whiteness seemed like it expanded suddenly, flying away from the tower in a gust like it had been thrust outward with an explosion of force.

The damage to the party was clear. No one had more than 15% of their HP - which meant the fast and sudden healing had been necessary or they would have been toast.

"That one hurt…" The voice line from [Áine] displayed clearly on her screen, and she could see the barrier that was surrounding their ally flicker. It remained in place, but this was clearly a sign that they would need to keep an eye on her in the next phase.

"We gotta keep an eye on her, then." Firo said.

"Yeah, probably." Bisky said.

"Still no HP bar for her, though, so that's something." Cass noted.

"Cheers for that, then." Mellody said flatly. "But also, look at the enemy."

Zoe did so, shifting her camera. Most of the Fae that were still around the tower looked exhausted after the massive attack. They seemed slumped and droopy, despite being in the air. They looked like they were in no state to fight at all.

"Get yourselves under control."

The voice that came through the headphones was thin and grating. Zoe immediately pictured a slimy businessman, the smarmy voice really not matching much else.

"I'll handle them in the meantime. Join the fray when you can."

A single Fae rose from below the edge of the tower and floated gently just off the edge. He wore some kind of lighter armor, but carried no noticeable weapon, yet. His arms were splayed wide, as if welcoming the party to something.

"I will fight you." He said, his voice still remarkably grating on Zoe's ears. "Until my allies have recovered enough to strike you dead, you will contend with [Uris the Walking Armory]!"

"Oh, nice title." Fiona said as the name plate and stat information appeared over the new enemy.

"And don't think I don't see you back there, [Áine], you witch. You're next once we remove this rabble."

"You never could get anything done on your own, could you, [Uris]?" [Áine] said with a chuckle. "Well, I suppose I couldn't either, in this case. But I have faith my friends will deal with you long before I need to."

"We'll see." [Uris] said. He clapped his hands together in front of himself, then spread out his hands again. Behind him, weapons made of silver appeared, floating over his shoulders. The blades all pointed down, as if he was wearing a cape of weapons, and there were many types represented. Swords of all sizes, polearms, axes, maces, staves, he had plenty of weapons to choose from.

"Come then! Allow me to prove that witch wrong."

That seemed to be the end of the transition, as Zoe was once again in full control of Nyx, while [Uris] floated near the edge of the platform. He hadn't attacked yet, so she guessed they had a little bit of leeway before the fight started without them.

She took a deep breath as Fiona asked, "Everyone good?"

"We think this is a check point?"

"Dunno. I think it'll depend how hard he is." Caoimhe said.

"I'm inclined to say no, but I guess we'll see." Mellody agreed.

"Alright, Fiona. On your mark." Bisky said, and Zoe prepared for Fiona's to pull the new boss.