The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Marissa

"Scatter!"

The entire party was already spreading out before Ash had given the call. They hadn't planned their positions specifically for this fight, but they had been playing together for long enough to have something akin to built-in spots in their formation.

Unless a fight required something specific - which some did - Fiona, Caoimhe, Firo and Evie typically favored the right side of the boss, while Aleister, Nyx, Hibiscus, and Mellody favored the left. The right and left sides in this case being relative to looking at the boss's back, which most of the party did.

They scattered roughly into their spots simply by instinct, which was good. They kept moving toward the center of the town square, hoping to pull the boss out into the middle so they wouldn't need to fight so close to the burning buildings. While the fire damage wasn't too high, it could easily make a difference in a tough fight.

"What's the plan?" Nyx asked, as everyone prepared to fight.

The hyena, having landed squarely where the party had been standing, stood up straighter and turned to face the group. Now that it wasn't partially obscured by the burning building, Marissa could clearly see that it held a staff or torch of some kind that looked like a combination of both. It was gnarled wood, with various tribal-looking decorations and talismans hanging from it toward the top.

The top of the staff was shaped to look like a brazier, and there was a strong fire burning away within it. It even swayed, sputtered, and flickered when the creature waved it about, which Marissa thought was some very nice tech.

"Who knows? We need to learn mechanics on the fly." Evie said.

"Expect magic damage." Ash said. "Beyond that…yeah, we're in the dark here."

"Good thing the bastard is bringing a torch so we can see then." Jazz quipped, and the resulting dead air was deafening.

"Yeah…" Firo said weakly, as the nameplate [Rruk the Fire Starter] appeared above the charred hyena.

"Whatever. Get 'em!" Jazz shouted, clearly upset that the poor joke didn't land. But Marissa put that to the back of her mind as their opener phase began.

Putting aside her need to aim, which was fairly difficult with a live enemy moving about, her [Seeker] opener was so ingrained into her fingers that performing it was second nature.

Marissa hit [Snipe] and [Critical Eye], then immediately began charging and aiming her [Master's Shot]. Then to fill out her [Critical Eye] window was [Silver Arrow] and [Perfect Shot], her two other strongest single target attacks, and [Fae's Bane] and [Venom Fang], two of her DoTs.

Then she hit [Quick Barrage] and [Heartstopper] to get their cooldowns rolling, and finally [Rapid Fire], a buff that significantly upgraded her basic attack speed as long as she was still in the [Snipe] stance. Then she had planned to simply mash her basic attack until she was forced to move.

Thankfully, like most bosses, [Rruk] led off with a raidwide attack that hit everyone. While it was something that Mellody and Evie needed to react to, it allowed the DPS to all get through their entire opener without too much interruption.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

After that was when things routinely went wrong.

[Rruk] bashed into Fiona several times with his staff, and Evan was doing a magnificent job on defense, occasionally sneaking in a counter. This early in the fight, playing too risky wasn't a good idea, and he knew it. The boss's attacks didn't seem to be doing all that much damage on their own, but they were applying a status effect to Fiona with each hit, not that Marissa had time to mouseover it to see what it was.

Thankfully, they had Evie for that. [Muse] was too APM heavy for Ash to easily check on debuffs, despite being the team's designated shotcaller. His fingers were simply too busy for it.

[Soul] however, was far less intensive, including Evie's chosen [Dedication], [Radiance], which was the [Holy] type [Soul]. This put her in the perfect position to check on debuffs and status effects, or just generally gather intel when necessary.

"Burning." Evie read aloud as she checked the effect, "You are on fire, taking damage over time. Okay, that's not too bad on its own. We just have to watch how many stacks you get, Fiona."

"'Kay." Evan said, clearly concentrating on his defensive dance.

"It looks like the timer resets every time you take fire damage." Evie added. "That's gotta be the tank swap mechanic."

"Ok. Let me know when the healing gets dangerous and I'll step in." Jazz said.

"We're good for now." Ash said.

[Rruk] smashed his staff on the ground at Fiona's feet and flames spread out from the spot, covering a large circular area of the arena. Marissa figured it was probably a sixth of the total size or so.

Fiona immediately began running out of the area, as did all of the melee. But not before they all got stacks of the [Burning] effect.

"That's not great." Kieran muttered. "The timer by default is only 30 seconds. Hopefully -"

Kieran was cut off by [Rruk] immediately spinning his staff and casting a massive fireball, once again hitting the entire raid. And refreshing the [Burning] effect.

"Hopefully we have at least 30 seconds before the next raidwide." Kieran finished with a sigh.

"You just had to say something, didn't'cha?" Marissa said, rolling her eyes.

"Ok, the fire puddle isn't going away, so keep an eye out for that. Tank him close to the edge, so if he drops another, we keep as much space as possible." Ash said.

"Chances that this is a DPS race?" Firo asked. "We have to kill him before he covers the whole field?"

Marissa considered that, looking at [Rruk]'s HP total. "Possible. He's at 91%, which could track with the timing on the AoE."

"Push the DPS then. Don't screw up your burst windows, and call them when you start so I can help." Ash said to a response chorus of "Yes, sir."

And then [Rruk] smashed his staff down on Fiona, stunning her, and then leapt back toward the center of the town square, landing beside a stone fountain. His creepy laugh resounded again, then he snorted and shouted, "Burn, burn, burn it down!" as he slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.

The cobblestone cracked beneath it, letting the sharpened end of the wood stick into the ground and remain upright. [Rruk] left it there as he began to dance around it while chanting, "Burn, burn!"

One of Hibiscus's smaller burst windows came up right then, and not really knowing what to expect, she hit [Slithershot] to make some more space before committing. She triggered [Critical Eye] and [Snipe], then moved into [Master's Shot].

As she was charging, she watched as the fire on top of [Rruk's] staff quickly grew out of control, and split off into a huge mass of fireballs, floating around the center of the arena.

"That's not good." Nyx said.

"Gotta be AoEs in our future." Firo said.

And then, as [Rruk] continued to dance about, red AoE circles appeared all over the square. For just a moment. And then a second set appeared and vanished. And then a third. And then a fourth.

Marissa landed her [Master's Shot], then reapplied [Venom Fang] and [Fae's Bane] as refreshing them under the [Critical Eye] buff was worth it even if their timer's weren't quite running out yet.

But she completely fumbled the last few seconds of the [Critical Eye] window as she tried to make note of the safe spots among the fireballs.

"I'm getting hit." She said, knowing she had a poor grasp on the pattern.

"Same."

"You guys…" Ash sighed.

"Sorry, it was a burst phase!" Marissa shouted as she narrowly avoided the first volley.

"I have no excuse." Nyx said with a wry laugh as she and Marissa each took a hit for around 4,000 damage.

"Oh, that's not too -" Marissa stopped when she saw the standard symbol for [Fire Resistance Down]. " - bad." She sighed as she got hit by the third AoE, this time for 12,000 damage, completely wiping her out.

When the fourth went off and Nyx was left standing, she cheered. "Haha! I just didn't move!" She laughed.

"Pay attention!" Ash called, as [Rruk] hadn't stopped his dancing despite the AoEs going out. And there were still plenty of fireballs floating in the sky. Nyx, to her credit, did seem to immediately focus as her laughter stopped.

Marissa was trying to keep her camera moving as much as possible to see what was going on for the few seconds she was down.

"I've got you." Evie said as the [Resurrection] prompt popped up on Marissa's screen.

At the same time, another round of AoEs started. This time, rather than circular ones, it was a pattern of lines scorching the ground.

"Bisky -"

"I know. I'm staying down until it's over." Marissa said. If she rezzed now, there would be a moment of her screen turning black, and she would reappear in front of whoever rezzed her. If she came up too soon, she'd end up turned around and have no idea where the safe spots for the mechanic were.

Thankfully, the line AoEs were much easier to read as a pattern, and everyone was able to slip in and out of the safe zones easily enough.

"Nice, the burning status fell off." Kieran said, as Marissa hit the button to resurrect.

"I'm still burning." Nyx said. "Getting hit by the AoE reset the timer."

"Copy." Ash said. "We'll keep an eye on you."

"Yup, yup." Evie added. "Just don't get hit again."

"Healers adjust." Nyx snickered.

The snicker quickly turned into a squawk as Evie hit her with [Safety Shift]. It was one of [Soul's] best skills, but unfortunately, could also be used entirely to troll other party members.

[Safety Shift] phased the target into a spiritual realm, rendering them completely invulnerable to most damage for six seconds.

It also made them unable to take any actions themselves for that period of time.

"Evie!" Nyx shouted indignantly. "How could you?"

"Never say those accursed words again." Evie growled.

"Or you will regret it. Nyx." Ash finished for his co-healer.

"Uh. Guys? Focus?" Evan said, trying to get everyone back on track. [Rruk] had pulled his staff from the ground and returned to trying to pummel Fiona, who was defending herself admirably.

Once Hibiscus was back and fully under Marissa's control, she resumed her attacks against [Rruk].

"Right, right." Evie said. "We're focusing."

Nyx was released from her [Safety Shift] prison, and resumed the fight as well. Just in time, too, as [Rruk] reared back for a full baseball bat swing with his staff - a fairly clear signal of a tank buster, if they had ever seen one. Nyx laid her [Debilitating Pierce] on it as Fiona popped [Rebuff], one of her mitigation skills, and blocked.

When the attack landed, it actually didn't do all that much damage. Fiona dropped to around 7,000 HP from the hit and her HP was bounced back up to 10,000 in no time at all.

And then it dropped to 3,000.

"Oh, shit." Evan said. "My burning stacks are at 36."

"We've got you." Ash said, as he and Evie threw out a large burst of healing at Fiona, getting her back up to 9,000 HP.

"Pulling off you." Jazz called, and used [Dark Lash] - her provoke type skill.

Before [Rruk's] target swapped over to Aleister, he got one last strike in at Fiona, which she blocked successfully. It was still just over 2,000 damage. And then the 7,000 tick of [Burning] killed her.

"I'm down." Evan said. "That burn was insane! 7k damage? And applying twenty stacks at once is just cruel!" He whined, referring to the twenty stacks that were applied by the tank buster.

"I'll get you up." Ash said, and began the cast for [Refrain], [Muse's] version of [Resurrection].

"New mechanic incoming." Jazz said hurriedly.

Everyone focused on whatever was about to happen. [Rruk] had taken on a different stance to what he had done before, raising his staff overhead and waving it in a circle.

"We all burn!" He yelled, his voice distorted somehow, and then he laughed that same twisted hyena laugh from earlier.

A storm of fire gathered and twisted in the sky above the town square, covering the entire area.

Caoimhe quickly hit [Knockdown] and [Ring the Bell], a [Knockdown] and [Stun] effect respectively, but neither did anything.

"Can't stun him out of it." Kieran said.

Mellody and Evie both began casting all kinds of protective skills. Mellody even had to drop the [Refrain] cast, leaving Fiona on the ground for now. "Gather up!" Ash called, as everyone ran to the center of the arena. They layered on several HP shields, and probably a combined 60% mitigation on the party, expecting the attack to be a big raidwide.

And it was that. But the damage, with all of the mitigation on the party, was incredibly pitiful. It barely scratched them.

"That's it?" Firo asked, confused.

"Uh. Burning." Nyx said.

And sure enough, the entire party had been given ten stacks each of [Burning]. And one stack of [Kindling].

[Kindling] had a three second timer on it. Which was longer than their mitigation lasted.

Evie had apparently moved to check what the debuff did, because she said "Oh."

Right as everyone in the party, currently still stacked together, literally exploded.