The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Marissa

Putting the thoughts of loot out of her mind for the moment, Marissa stepped up to [Scathach] and interacted with her to move the questline forward. She wasn't given an entire cutscene this time, but instead just simple - but still voiced - text boxes as [Scathach] talked.

"There's still a lot to do. Unfortunately, I think the city may be depending on your party to defend it from the incoming wyverns for the first wave. Hopefully, we'll be able to get some reinforcements flying and up to you quickly enough." [Scathach] said. Without the cutscene, Marissa clicked through the dialogue as soon as she read the text, rather than waiting for the voice line to finish.

"If all else fails, I may join you in the air if things get dicey." The woman said, then shrugged. "Hopefully it doesn't come to that. In the meantime, you should head to the main square of the city. If the wyverns begin to approach the walls, consider yourselves having orders to defend the city. Just be careful not to fly too far beyond the walls - enemy archers would have a field day with you."

Having said her lines, [Scathach] gave them a small salute before turning to leave. However, once she was out the door of the room they had used as a meeting space, Marissa still didn't have control over Hibiscus.

"Pst! Hey!" The text box that popped up and labelled as "Disembodied Voice" came with some voice acting, too. And it was a voice she recognized.

"Yes." Evan hissed, excitedly.

"You should come visit. I think we forgot to do something." [Áine] said, and then the scene ended, with everyone regaining control over their characters.

The previous quest was even completed at that point, with Marissa notably receiving no rewards. However, the new quest the replaced it kept her from getting angry at the lack of rewards.

[Permission to Fly]

[Scenario Cleared]

[Sub-scenario]

[The Fae Vault]

[Commence [Scenario]?]

[Begin] [Wait]

"Sub-scenario?" Firo asked, but his voice was completely drowned out by Jazz excitedly shouting about the title of the new quest.

"Vault? Is it gear time?" Jazz practically shrieked.

"Allie, please calm down?" Ash said, "We have neighbors, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, immediately moving from excited to petulant.

"It does seem that way, though." Evie said, as Marissa clicked on [Begin]. The quest progress was moved over to the side of her screen, and another voice line from [Áine] popped up.

"I'll see you soon!" She said, sounding like a child excited for a play date. "I'll wait by the garden where you should show up!"

Marissa shrugged and looked over at the quest tracker. It just said to travel to the [Other World] via a [Fae Circle].

"Who wants to do the honors?" Nyx asked.

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"I got it." Firo said, and he immediately began the cast for the [Fae Circle].

"Fast, damn." Evan said.

"I main magic Paths, so I usually have the Fae Circle stuff on my hotbar." Firo explained.

"Oh, true. That makes sense."

"And we're good to go." Firo said as the cast finished. The entire party all clicked on it pretty quickly, sending them all into the void of a loading screen while they were moved back to [Áine's] garden.

And, as promised, when they loaded in the [Queen of the Seelie Court] was there waiting for them, with the quest progression marker over her head. After making sure everyone was there, Marissa went ahead and interacted with [Áine].

"Welcome back!" she said, still without a cutscene. "Sorry for the mistake - I think I owe you a trip to a treasure haul, don't I?" She laughed.

"You sure do, you little -"

"Aleister!" Evan interrupted, "Speak nicely to our queen!"

Jazz responded with something like a growl, but said nothing.

"Besides, we're clearly about to get our rewards." Ash said, trying to keep peace while Marissa clicked through the dialogue.

"Normally, I would just gift you some trinkets or whatever, but after our exciting little scrap earlier - plus the fun we had before that in the garden - I think you deserve a little bit of special treatment."

Marissa was a little put off by the way the voice actress delivered the line, sounding a bit more predatory than she felt was necessary.

"Follow me," [Áine] said, "I'll take you to the palace vault, and you each can pick one thing from it to take with you."

"Holy shit." Firo said.

"Eight items?" Evie asked, shocked. "We're getting eight items?"

"How many things have we gotten from the raid so far, total?" Kieran asked, trying to recall.

"It might have just been eight, actually." Evan said.

"Uh, two from the fire rat, two from the city approach, two from hammer bear…?" Nyx counted off.

"And two for defending the wall. So yeah, eight." Ash said.

"We're straight up doubling the gear we've gotten." Kieran said, sounding half excited and half in disbelief.

"And we're getting to pick it ourselves?" Firo mused.

"See, that genuinely sounds too good to be true," Kieran said. "I'll believe that particular bit of information when I see it."

"Well, I can trigger Áine to start moving. Everyone ready to move?" Marissa asked.

"Yup."

"Let's hit it."

Marissa triggered the next step of the quest, and [Áine] set off down the path, leaving the party to follow. Thankfully, unlike the first time they were here, [Áine] moved at a solid speed that matched the party's. It was such a small thing, but it still made Marissa smile, that just their default running speed didn't send her hurtling well ahead of the NPC they were meant to follow.

[Áine] took them from the garden into the palace, and through a number of hallways. A lot of the walls looked pretty much the same, but the doors that they passed often had very different looks - presumably matching whatever was inside the room. But according to the minimap that Marissa could see as they walked, many of the rooms weren't accessible as far as the game was concerned.

But considering it looked like around half of them could be entered, she was actually more surprised at how many of the rooms probably did actually exist for players to check out. Some of the doors looked absolutely ridiculous too, leaving her wondering what could be behind them. Some were clearly nature-y themed, while others matched the other types of magic in the game, too.

While the group was making jokes about what might be behind the doors, [Áine] finally came to a stop by a relatively nondescript door that, according to Marissa's map, had nothing behind it.

"The vault." [Áine] said. "You typically need to be with a high-ranking Fae to get in there, but that's why I'm here!" She grinned and spun back to face the door. She muttered a short incantation that was voiced, and raised a hand toward the door.

Beautiful golden filigree began to blossom over the entire length of the door, running in intricate patterns that eventually depicted a lovely scene of vines and flowers when it was completed. When the scene finished, there was an audible click, and the doors opened to an almost comical sight.

Marissa snorted as she took in literal piles of golden coins and treasure. The piles were stacked up high against the walls, and the room itself was very large. She could see splashes of color among all the gold that she assumed were gemstones and the like, which was fairly normal for this sort of scene. One of the nearby piles even had the cliche sword sticking out from the top with a golden crown hung on the hilt.

"And here we go." [Áine] said. "Feel free to walk around and take a look at what's here. As I said, you're each welcome to take one thing. I suppose, if you'd just prefer gold, we can consider that too." She shrugged. "But I know that there are some really interesting items and trinkets hidden among the piles."

As [Áine] floated into the vault, the party quickly followed behind her. She moved around a few piles of the treasure and eventually settled a little to the left side of the room from the entrance, where there was what looked like a reception desk. It was, however, also completely buried in landslides of gold and other gems.

"Let me know when you find something you like. I'll need to at least note it down."

And then, with one final nod from [Áine], the group was sent out to freely peruse the massive treasure trove. Everyone split up immediately, scattering to the winds as they all tried to see what was available.

Marissa started walking around the room and was able to pretty quickly put together at least how everything was set up. While the room was indeed large and looked random and disorganized, she noted that the piles of stuff seemed to be at least vaguely organized - and every individual pile was interactable.

She passed piles that had various types of weapons hidden among the gold, but each pile only featured one class of weapon. She passed one with big two-handed warhammers, their large heads poking out between the gold pieces. Another had handles of knives sticking out in every direction.

"Yo, this is insane. Caoimhe, you were actually so wrong." Nyx said. "I just clicked on one of the piles to check what it had. I guess I found the longsword section, because there are six of them in the loot window for it, all with completely different Invested Effects, and all with endgame stats."

"Holy shit." Firo laughed.

"I think the piles are split up by item type," Marissa said. If you look at each one, they all seem to feature primarily one thing among all the gold and crap."

"Yup." Nyx confirmed. "The greatswords are over by me."

"Where are the shields? I need them." Evan said.

"If someone finds the arcane staves, let me know?" Firo said.

"Over here, Firo." Evie responded quickly. "Oh, and there are instruments over here, too, Mellody."

"On my way."

"Oh, armor is in the northern area." Kieran said, then started mumbling about whether he wanted to pick up some armor or a new weapon.

"Oh man, I wonder if there are any good glamour options among the armor…" Evie said idly.

Kieran and Ash both groaned at that. "Why would you say that? I hadn't even considered it, and now I have to." Ash whined.

"Same…" Kieran said sadly. "If there's a really good dress or something in here that's a unique design, I'm doomed."

"I know, right? So much for picking based on Invested Effect." Ash sighed.

Marissa wandered until she found the bows and looked through them. She knew that she vastly preferred the look and feel of the [Longbow] class of weapon, but started by looking through the [Shortbows] and then the massive [Warbows]. There were some very interesting effects included among them, but nothing that truly struck her as an instant lock option.

Even looking through the [Longbows], nothing caught her eye immediately. And that wasn't to say that the effects or weapons were weak - because they weren't. She did consider picking up a [Longbow] called [Down Range] that had an extended range, but with fully end-game stats, unlike the weapon she kept in reserve. But it still wasn't truly awe-inspiring.

Other bows carried plenty of neat effects like extending her DoT timers, or boosting damage on certain skills. Another that caught her eye was designed for [Keeper], which added a damage nerf effect similar to [Shroud's] [Debilitating Pierce] to her [Keeper's] [Bramble Arrow].

But as she kept looking around, there were plenty of other items on offer. Like Nyx had said, basically every pile of items contained several of each type of gear piece, and as Marissa continued to look around the room she realized just how spoiled for choice she was.

Similarly to the weapon piles, the gear was also split by subtypes, and not just all lumped together. Plate, leather, and cloth pieces were all separated by gear slot as well, which left the entire party wandering around the vault trying to pick something that enticed them most.

It took a while, but Marissa did eventually find something that immediately eclipsed every other piece of gear that she had seen while wandering around.

[Flightstone]

[Accessory - Necklace]

[Accuracy : 4]

[Speed : 3]

[Resistance : 2]

[Invested Effect : Increases duration of [Flight] related skills.]

She didn't even think twice. She selected the [Flightstone] and immediately started walking back toward [Áine] to make her choice official, all while trying to decide which of her current [Invested Effects] was about to get the boot.