The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Ashton

[The Shrieking Caverns] was a very interesting place. It felt like being in a dungeon, despite it being a full sized zone. The Caverns were a huge mess of labyrinthine tunnels that were notoriously difficult to navigate, even while using the map.

Given that maps in Mag Mell were displayed as if they were drawn on paper with only shading to hint at elevation, the way that the caves criss-crossed one another constantly at varying depths underground made the map nearly useless.

Nearly.

It was still possible to map out a travel path if you carefully went through and followed a single path. It wasn't easy, and there were a few spots that were tricky - like a path turning back on itself rather than crossing another's path like would be expected, or spots where paths were almost entirely on top of one another.

Because of its awkward map and difficulty when it came to traversal, players already more or less steered clear of the caverns to begin with, but the lack of any dungeons in the area even meant it was an unpopular place to level.

This left the entire zone often eerily empty, as it was now. There were several world bosses that were in the area, but they were by and large left alone at this point in the game. Of the eight bosses that could be found in various places in the Caverns, six of them dropped materials that went into crafting specific [Glamour] gear - that is, gear that had near useless stats but were unique in designs specifically included for their appearance.

Those six bosses had been farmed pretty relentlessly in the first few months of the game for those gear pieces. Ash, Jazz, Marissa, Kieran, and Evan definitely all had the full sets. Ashton couldn't say for sure if their new friends did, but given that no one asked for a quick detour, it seemed they either did or didn't care.

That only left the remaining two bosses as being significant to most of the player base, and their uses were very specific.

[Trinn of the Shadow] was one of the two bosses. She was a tricky Fae, and her fight revolved around fake out and illusory mechanics that were simultaneously fun and frustrating to fight. Their little group had teamed up with some random other players to farm [Trinn] pretty early on, and she dropped some very useful weapons for [Ebon] and [Plague], both of which they wanted to get for Aleister.

The second boss, and the target they were after now, was [Vaivru the Cave-Wing]. He was a fairly large cave dwelling wyvern that made his nest on the far side of the Caverns. He was the most difficult fight in the zone, though not much harder than [Trinn]. His drop table, however, was much more lucrative for several classes.

Lore-wise, [Vaivru] was basically a greedy dragon type. Many valiant fighters came into the Caverns to hunt him down, and none returned. To that end, [Vaivru] had a massive hoard of treasure containing all types of things, many of which were useful items.

The downside was that many of the items in the drop table were consumables. Useful, yes, but many of them were not only craftable by high level crafters, but many of them were also sold by those same crafters. Which meant the items weren't really worth the hassle of the fight.

But, a solid portion of [Vaivru's] drop table was dedicated to useful end game gear for several [Paths], mostly the ones that could be viewed in the lore as 'knightly' in some way.

[Book] was one of those. It was a [Dedication] spun off from [Omen], the shielding-focused [Benefactor]. [Books] were flavored as war mages that utilized tactical formations in lieu of magic circles and the like to cast their spells. While they did have several arcane spells at their disposal, most of their abilities were party-focused buffs that could change based upon battlefield positioning.

It was a very strange Path that required a relatively high amount of team coordination, but the return was worth it. Its [Omen] counterpart [Seer] would perform better in most pick-up groups, but a good [Book] would outshine them in a coordinated party every time.

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Given that their little team often had to team up with randoms to fill out the large party size of eight members, Ash had fully geared [Seer] to be reliable in those situations. But now that they had a regular large party group that could all be in voice chat together, [Book] would be the better choice.

The weapon he was after now was called [The Maneuver Codex], and was supposedly a book carried by a great strategist that had formed a party to take down [Vaivru] and obviously failed. Their failure, of course, would be a gain for Ash and Mellody, as the weapon made [Stratagem] type skills 5% stronger.

[Stratagem] type skills, of course, were the ones that required specific team positioning to get the strongest buffs. But Ash had faith in their team to be able to perform up to par with it.

Not that he planned to play a ton of [Book], though. [Muse] was still his one true love, he thought, looking over Mellody's character sheet while they moved through the caverns.

Once the party had made it into the Caverns, things went pretty smoothly. While the route was as complicated and fiddly as ever, the party was in good spirits and made light of the cave-dive.

To be fair, Ash thought it was easy when the whole party out leveled most of the mobs in the area by more than ten levels. Most of the enemies didn't even bother them all as they trekked through the winding tunnels hopefully toward their destination. Occasionally there was an elite enemy that would still attack them, but each and every single mob that tried was stunlocked into oblivion.

In theory, they all knew where [Vaivru's] nest was on the map - it was a large, oval shaped room, after all - but getting there still required careful map work.

"Just to check," Ash said as he led the troupe through the caves, "No one wants to drop by any of the other bosses?"

A chorus of various 'No's followed.

"If we want to snag the Shadestinger on the way out, I wouldn't be opposed." Nyx said. "I have almost the entire set from that one, but I'm missing the boots. Evie got a kill without me and I just never bothered."

Ash chuckled; he could hear the side-eye included in that shot.

"Those are good boots, too." Kieran said. "Given your, uh, style choices Nyx, I'm surprised you never went to get them."

Nyx laughed. "I honestly forgot, and I've made do with the Darkscale boots in their place. They're similar enough." She paused before adding, "Also, you can say I dress emo, or goth, or whatever. I am aware, and I won't be offended."

Ash snickered. They'd been talking around Nyx's fashion choices for the month because they knew that some people were really touchy about how their style was referred to. Kieran especially, given how often he interacted with older teenagers and younger twenty-somethings.

"Ah, sorry." Kieran said. "I've been burned enough by talking about other people's fashion that I just avoid it until I'm told otherwise."

"I don't blame you." Nyx said. "But yeah, feel free. I'm not touchy about it, I just like the black gothic look."

"No judgement." Marissa said. "If anything, I'm inclined to agree."

"Same here." Kieran said. "It's a pretty sweet look."

"Jazz is also a fan. Or at least was." Ash said, shrugging.

"Hey!" Jazz said, then leaned over to swat at him from her computer. He chuckled and fought her off weakly while trying to keep the group on the right path.

"Aleister? I never would've guessed the one running around basically dressed as an aristocratic vampire would've liked goth fashion. Who knew?" Evie said, the sarcasm clear.

"Looked good on her, too. I've seen the pictures." Ash said, which earned him an actual smack.

"...There're pictures?" Marissa sounded shocked. "Aleister told me she didn't have any good pictures from high school because she didn't like having her picture taken."

"And that's the truth." Jazz said forcefully. Ash looked over at his wife, who was actively giving him a death stare. He weighed his options in his head for a moment, wondering how mad she would actually be if he continued down his path.

He decided, in this particular instance, the teasing was worth it.

"Oh, she's got pictures, alright." Ash said, watching Jazz's anger flare up again. But she had something like an evil smile on her face - he knew she'd get him back for this, but she wasn't actually all that angry. "Dark black hair with blue highlights, the clothing, the chains…the whole deal."

"Oh my god, I need to see this." Marissa said. "She was dressing pretty neutral in college, so I just assumed that was normal for her."

"Mello?" Kieran said, clearly trying to hold back laughter. "While I appreciate you telling us this, I'm vaguely fearful for your life, buddy."

"I'll be fine." Ash said, side-eyeing Jazz as she sat watching him with her eyes narrowed. She had fully spun her chair around to face him, leaving Aleister set to [Follow] on Mellody. "Probably."

"Good luck." Nyx said.

"My condolences." Firo said.

"Is Aleister small?" Evie asked, which Ash was sure made everyone do the mental equivalent of a double take. "She sounds like she'd be small. And Mello, you sound like you'd be big. I think you'll be fine."

There was a moment of silence before Marissa and Kieran exploded with laughter. Ash was doing his absolute best not to laugh. Or even react. Jazz was watching him like a hawk.

His lovely wife Jasmine could indeed be accurately described as a 'little spitfire'. He struggled valiantly to say nothing, but Marissa, who was not in the same room with Jazz, confirmed for her.

"Yes. Yes, she's short. Like 5'2", max." She said between heaving breaths. "And Mello is just about six foot."

"Uh…guys?"

Nyx snorted, no doubt in response to Marissa's wheezing. Kieran wasn't making any sounds, but Ash had strong suspicions that he had muted himself while laughing and was planning on remaining muted until mastering himself enough to speak clearly.

"Guys?" Firo said again, a bit more urgently.

"Firo?" Ash asked, getting his eyes back on the game screen rather than eyeing Jazz warily. He immediately noticed what was probably Firo's point of concern.

Ash had led the team a little off course during all of the chatter at some point. And there before the team was a massive scorpion, its body covered in chitin that was a dark navy that blended in pretty well with the dim caves.

"Oh. Now that's actually sorta convenient." Nyx said happily. The laughter slowly died down as everyone started to focus up again, now that there was a mildly significant enemy in front of them.

"Well, Mello, if you were gonna get us all lost, you at least brought us down the right wrong path." Jazz said snidely. "I'll get you back later. For now let's murder this thing."

The whole team slipped into a pretty standard formation with Aleister in the front, Caoimhe and Nyx behind him, then the rear guard in the back.

Realistically, [The Shadestinger] wouldn't be a challenge for them at all. It was a level 75 mob; even if it was considered a world boss, it was an on-level one for the area they were in.

"This poor thing doesn't know what's about to hit it." Ash said mildly.

Marissa bellowed an "Attack!" and the scorpion was, for all intents and purposes, riddled with holes.