The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Kieran

"Again." Marissa said sourly.

Jasmine laughed. "Just accept the loss already, Bisky. He's beat you three times."

"Hey, I don't mind winning again." Kieran said. He lounged back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head despite the pose being just for himself. "But we probably should let someone else play."

Marissa growled in frustration. Not only had she lost three times in a row at chess, but she had been solidly defeated. It was a one-sided obliteration each time.

Well, obliteration in that she stood no chance. Kieran was giving up pieces often enough that it didn't necessarily look one sided if you just looked at the captured pieces on each side.

"Fine." She said eventually. "Anyone else wanna play?" She asked.

"I'm good." Firo chuckled.

"Same." Nyx said. "I know I'm bad at chess. Don't need a thrashing to tell me that."

"I'll play against Bisky, if she wants." Evie said. "Caoimhe would destroy me, though."

"Oh, but you think you can beat me, huh?" Marissa grumbled.

"Well, I think I actually stand a chance against you, at least. Pretty sure my showing against Caoimhe would be worse than yours." Evie said.

Kieran, deciding to lean into being a little shit in the moment, had Caoimhe stand from the chess board's seat and do the typical super hero's pose with her arms on her hips.

"I'd say I'm gonna make you regret that," Jazz said, "but I'm pretty sure you'd kick my butt too."

"Well, let's let Evie and Bisky play for now." Kieran said.

"I don't mind playing Evie." Marissa said, "But I'll get you back later, Caoimhe. Maybe I'll beat your sorry ass in a PvP match."

"I'd love to see you try." Kieran laughed. "Enough of that for now, focus on your game."

"Yeah, yeah."

"You got this, Evie!" Nyx cheered as they began. Jazz quickly chimed in her support for Marissa, while Ash and Kieran remained mostly silent. Firo kept gently guiding the players away from obvious mistakes with random noises like sharp intakes of breath or long 'Eeeh's. He was actually doing a remarkable job at keeping the game going strong.

As the game continued, Kieran wandered away from the table with Caoimhe, looking for other fun activities for the group within [Ley Park]. Admittedly, while the basic idea of getting the group to be social in a casino-like setting was admirable, it seemed like in practice it wasn't going to work very well.

For the most part, the place was designed to be wandered alone. Most of the interactive games were single-player affairs, with only a handful of things offered for a group to play, and most of those were for two players only.

Kieran idly hoped that DanuSoft would eventually add more multiplayer options to the area. As it was, as he walked around, it really just dawned on him how much it was designed to be an easy time sink for individuals who wanted stuff from the prize shop.

To be fair, there were a lot of great [Glamour] options squirreled away in the prize shop. Kieran had gone after them pretty hard in the first few months of the game, but had most of what he wanted by now. He knew that Ash, however, had bought literally everything on offer in the prize shop.

"Ugh, damn it!" Marissa yelled, denoting the end of the game.

"I honestly shouldn't have won that." Evie laughed. "Firo's little interventions saved my queen from my own stupidity twice."

"You say that like he didn't do the same for me." Marissa grumbled. "Thank you, by the way. I would've lost much earlier without you, Firo."

"Same here; Thanks, Firo." Evie agreed.

"You're welcome." Firo said. "But I don't think the two of you are cut out for chess."

"Oh, damn." Jazz said, laughing. "That might be the most inadvertent burn we've had all night."

"I didn't mean -"

"You did, though." Kieran said, chuckling. "And that's okay. Given the amount of backseat warnings you were giving, I think it's fair to say they're both pretty bad at chess."

"Hey, I never said I was good at it." Evie protested. "If anything, I said the opposite."

"Alright, alright, already! Let's just play something else." Marissa said before anyone else could say more.

"I won't lie, I've been wandering around the area while listening to you two play. There's not really a lot on offer here for groups." Kieran said.

"Yeah, and having seven of us is an awkward group number." Jazz said.

"One of these days, we'll get Fiona back." Ash said, sounding more sure than Kieran thought any of them felt right then. "Until then, we'll just have to make do."

"Well, do we hunt down a rando for some large party content, or do something else?" Marissa asked.

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"I wouldn't be opposed to finding a rando." Evie said, "But I have to admit, something you said earlier got me thinking, Hibiscus."

"Bisky is fine." Marissa said.

"Bisky, then." Evie corrected. "You said you would kick Caoimhe's butt in a PvP match. I think doing some round-robin PvP could be fun."

"And we'll get to see what everyone is made of. At least a little bit." Nyx agreed. "Most of the available large party stuff right now is kinda…meh, anyway. Nothing difficult enough to really show your stuff."

"True. Most of the large party content right now is pretty superfluous content designed to be fun but easy. PvP could be good though." Ash said.

"I'm in." Kieran said. "We'll have to find a good spot for it, though. PvP is off limits in Ley Park."

"I know just the spot." Jazz said.

"The rock?" Marissa asked.

"The rock." Jazz declared.

"Alright, everyone; follow me!" Marissa said as Hibiscus took off down the path toward the Park's exit.

The whole group followed, falling into easy and friendly chatter as they walked. Everyone called out challenges to each other, while shit-talking flew around, aimed equally at everyone.

Kieran was glad that Firo, Evie, and Nyx seemed to fit neatly into place within the group. Not everyone took to friends talking smack at one another quickly or easily, especially in a new group. But it seemed that half of the group being pretty direct with one another set the tone for everyone else to slip in easily enough.

And perhaps even better, their new friends seemed to give as good as they got without batting an eye. No one seemed too scared to take part, which was a very common occurrence when meeting new people online.

Not that there was anything wrong with it, but Kieran had been part of an online social group where someone joined voice chat, stayed basically quiet for several hours, then left again far too often. It was nice to get people that actually talked.

It took almost ten minutes of walking time to get to the eponymous 'rock', but that was fine. Friendly duels deserved good ambiance.

'The rock' was a large, flat but angled stone formation a little outside Falias. The flat top of the rock was a great size to function as an arena for one-on-one duels.

"Okay, so a brief bit of rules." Jazz said as she took the lead of the procession up the rock. "Two ways to lose duels at the rock. Hitting zero HP, as expected. But also, if you fall or get pushed off the rock, that's equally a loss."

It was something of an honor rule their group had set up within the first month of the game when they dueled. It was entirely possible, with the right set up of skills, for some classes - like [Seeker] - to simply kite an enemy endlessly while dealing little damage. At one point, a duel between Hibiscus and Mellody had gone on for fifteen minutes without a winner, because Hibiscus was able to stay out of Mellody's range, but couldn't do enough damage from that distance to outperform Mellody's self healing.

Ever since, they used the rock as a makeshift arena boundary to keep things at least somewhat manageable, without needing to actually travel to one of the various in-game arenas.

"That seems fair." Nyx said.

"Agreed. Having area boundaries helps keep things fair." Evie said.

"We learned that the hard way a while back." Ash said.

"So, Caoimhe and me first?" Marissa asked, as Hibiscus trotted to the center of the rock.

"I don't mind knocking you around a little bit first." Kieran said as he pushed Caoimhe forward. Not that anyone could see it, but he sat up straighter in his chair and rolled his shoulders a bit, working out a little of the stiffness.

"Bring it on, jackass." Marissa taunted, as the pop up showed up on his screen.

[Duel Challenge]

[Hibiscus Jade {NTEA}]

[Accept?]

[Yes] [No]

Kieran clicked the yes button, and a stone cairn popped up between them, denoting the accepted duel. It would tumble apart to signal the start of the fight to anyone watching, while the fighters received an on screen countdown.

Caoimhe and Hibiscus both drew their weapons. There was a ten second countdown to the start of the fight, which gave entrants ample time to try to buff or otherwise prepare.

Caoimhe didn't really have much in the way of preparations to make. She could use [Weapon Focus], which was a channeled skill that boosted the damage of whichever attack skill was used next by 30% when fully charged. However, it took 8 seconds to fully charge, making it basically useless in most situations. Essentially, it was relegated to being a simple downtime skill designed to be used when bosses weren't targetable, just so they could do something.

Hibiscus, on the other hand, had a suite of skills to use before the fight began. Kieran knew she wouldn't open the fight with [Critical Eye], as it was too risky, but she was definitely going to have a fully charged [Master's Shot] ready to go. She also probably laid a few [Trapper Snares], which would root Caoimhe if she stepped on them. The 50 [Might] wasn't so much a concern, but the root would be. Bisky would have three of those available at the start.

Kieran was positive that Marissa would block off the direct approach with a trap. But where she laid the other two were up in the air. They were invisible to enemies, so Kieran would need to guess or simply pray. There was a decent chance that the fight would end immediately if Marissa reacted to the trap triggering quicker than Kieran did.

With how many times they had dueled, they both knew each other's tricks forward and back. Any given duel with them was a coin flip.

When the timer hit zero, Caoimhe stepped to the left, then pushed straight forward with [Driver]. The attack didn't actually reach Hibiscus, but she was still in Bisky's face in seconds, although she did also eat the charged [Master's Shot] for a solid chunk of her HP in return. Given it only dropped Caoimhe down to 7,500 HP, Kieran guessed that Marissa missed the weakpoint.

Hibiscus quickly hit [Slithershot], which dealt a little bit more damage to Caoimhe, but the backstep was the important part of that. Kieran, fully expecting that reaction, hit [Wild Swing]. The forward movement included in the skill was almost enough to keep pace with Hibiscus, but with the additional reach of Caoimhe's weapon it was enough to make contact.

Hibiscus was [Knocked Down], and Caoimhe immediately followed up with [Punishment], hoping to get the bonus damage on the downed target. Bisky was ready, though, and hit [Quick Recovery], one of [Seeker's] reversals that got her back on her feet while dodging an attack. It invalidated [Punishment], leaving only the 2,000 or so damage from [Wild Swing].

"Dad!"

"Oof."

Before Kieran could make any sort of follow up attack against Hibiscus, Aoife ran into the computer room and all but tackled him from the side. The jostling made him misclick [Slide Cut], which was an attack with a sidestep built in.

It landed him squarely in one of Hibiscus' traps. Kieran knew he could probably hit [Tyrant's Pride] to escape the trap, but Aoife standing there was more important. The [Critical Eye] - [Master's Shot] combo put Caoimhe on the ground.

"I think I heard interference!" Ash called, laughing.

"Nah, man." Marissa said haughtily. "That was a special skill of mine called 'Summon Daughter'."

Kieran pulled the girl into his lap and kissed her on the head. "Hey there, you. What's going on?" He said, chuckling.

Aoife repositioned herself on his lap to more fully face her father and said, "Mom was yelling from your bathroom asking if you remembered to get toilet paper on your way home."

Kieran went quiet; he had not.