The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Marissa

Trying to split her attention roughly 80-20 between fights was rough, even in the fairly simple opening stages of the fight. [Garmiad] wasn't doing anything too complex, just flying around and throwing out blasts of lightning. Rather than the massive cylindrical blast that had opened the fight, it was choosing to use closer range cone-shaped blasts.

Marissa had to admit she wasn't used to seeing the 3d AoE markers and their appearance kept throwing her off. But on the plus side, the flight controls in the game were feeling more and more natural to her. And it even seemed like the rest of the party had acclimated quickly too, as they were more than capable of quickly strafing out of sudden AoEs without much waffling.

"Can we turn him away from the other fight?" Marissa asked, trying to edge around their battlefield to put [Garmiad] between her and the [Scathach] - [Firdraig] battle. If she could at least get both fights on her screen at the same time, she might be able to at least try to keep tabs on both.

"Oh. Yeah," Evan said, immediately moving to slip Fiona around the sides of the dragon. Caoimhe and Nyx tried to adjust their positioning at the same time, doing a weird dance as they shuffle stepped to try to stay perfectly positioned toward the rear of the boss. If they were directly behind, [Garmiad] would swipe its tail at them, but if they were positioned more to the flank they would lose out on a little bit of bonus damage for positioning well.

Considering they were supposedly still adjusting to the flight mechanics, Caoimhe and Nyx were moving really well.

The relatively quick turn around left Evie, Mellody, and Firo awkwardly trying to reposition with a much larger turn radius. They were at least able to move quickly enough to narrowly avoid a large blast of lightning that would have caught all of them if they hadn't moved quickly after the boss was spun around. Marissa got lucky that she had started repositioning before asking for the turn.

"Please spin the boss a little less quickly next time." Evie said, her voice overly saccharine.

"Yep, sorry." Evan said as Fiona deftly [Perfect Blocked] a claw swipe and countered.

As Marissa continued to have Hibiscus pepper the dragon with arrows, she did her best to keep an eye on the greater fight at large. [Uathach's] whole company was shredding through the smaller wyvern numbers quickly enough that the blockade they had formed was already basically dissolved. Marissa inwardly chuckled - can always trust NPCs to immediately grasp a new mechanic like flight without blinking.

[Scathach's] battle with [Firdraig] was far less easy to get a solid read on. Going by their respective HP bars, the fight seemed pretty even, but visually it looked like [Scathach] was entirely outclassed as [Firdraig] literally flew circles around her. Her blocks and counters to the flyby attacks seemed to be well aimed, however, and were carrying her through the fight.

"I think we've finally got some action here, boys n' girls." Evan called, as [Garmiad] seemed to finally be doing something more than just swiping at the tank or blasting lightning.

The electric dragon was starting to crackle with blue electricity running over its body. Its wings were still flapping and keeping it aloft, but the rest of its body was tensed as if preparing for a bigger attack.

"Careful," Ash said, as if anyone needed to hear the warning.

"That reads as a raid wide to me." Evie said.

"Same," Marissa agreed.

And before anyone else could add their thoughts, [Garmiad] spread its limbs and wings as if bursting out of a binding, sending a sphere of electricity expending in every direction.

The blast passed through everyone in the party for a solid chunk of damage, but it was otherwise a typical heavy raidwide. The damage was adjusted in such a way that it worked out to be roughly 90% of everyone's HP, leaving the whole group heavily injured, but not in danger of death if the healers were on top of everything. Which theirs were.

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There was also a brief [Stun] effect included in the attack, which left the party locked up for two solid seconds.

And then Marissa watched as the same attack passed through everything else in the aerial battle. [Uathach's] company seemed to weather the storm alright, as they had a fair number of healers among their number to keep everyone at least respectively healthy. Even the wyvern took damage, a host more of them falling from the sky, basically cooked.

The issue was the effect on [Scathach's] battle. The wave slammed into her back, and [Scathach] immediately froze up and took around 5% of her total HP in damage, which set her at a disadvantage against [Firdraig]. That would have been bad enough, but while [Scathach] was reeling from the blast, [Firdraig] raised his lance so the wide net of electricity would hit the tip first.

As the massive sphere of lightning expanded, rather than continue unimpeded, it warped instead, coating the lance in the blue crackling energy and leaving a small hole in the web for [Firdraig] to pass through.

"Well, shit." Nyx said. "That don't look good"

"You think?" Evie asked.

"To be fair, I don't know what we could have done to stop that," Kieran said.

Ash snorted, "Either we must have missed a cue somewhere, or this isn't as bad as it looks."

"I guess let's hope for the latter?" Jazz said as [Firdraig] swung his lance to the side and prepared to go on the offensive against [Scathach] again. The shadow woman had recovered from the electrical discharge attack and was once again wrapping her shadowy armor around herself, as it had faltered when she was [Stunned] by the electric attack.

The party, still locked in combat with their own threat, couldn't simply watch [Scathach's] battle though. [Garmiad] had taken a moment after launching the attack to shake itself out from what had probably been some kind of overcharging attack. Leftover electricity still crackled over the dragon's body as it slowly dissipated and the dragon entered the fight again.

Caoimhe and Nyx dove right back into the fray while Fiona was immediately buried under a flurry of claw attacks. She was blocking each with precision as the other danced around the boss. Aleister even seemed oddly incensed, clearly blasting the dragon with several of his bigger attacks. Marissa just assumed he was basically capped on MP and was trying to spend it or something.

A large explosion, courtesy of Firo, knocked Marissa out of her thoughts and prompted her to start her own attacks again. She inwardly smacked herself for spacing out mid-pull for no real reason as she lined up her next [Master's Shot].

She was almost immediately interrupted as Evie said, "Oh, we're in trouble."

"What?"

"Why?"

"Scathach is gonna lose. Badly." Evie said, which prompted Marissa to turn her camera to check on [Scathach's] fight, which had moved off to the side. Unfortunately, that also meant that she was no longer attacking the boss.

She didn't think it mattered much anymore when she saw what Evie had meant. [Firdraig] flew by [Scathach], striking the woman with his lance on the way like a jouster. Despite [Scathach's] well-timed parry, the electricity that had coated [Firdraig's] lance arced off the weapon and struck [Scathach]. Marissa couldn't tell if it did damage, or how much it may have done.

What was obvious, however, was that it [Stunned] the woman long enough for [Firdraig] to land a solid hit, which shaved off a noticeable amount of HP before he flew out of her reach. When the exact same interaction played out a second time, Marissa sighed.

"I assume you've tried a cleanse of some kind?" She asked.

"Of course," Ash responded. "We can heal her, and even buff her, but the only thing that would be helpful here is a dispel against enemy buffs - which we don't have in this game - and the spells that protect against the next ailment applied."

"I have one with a minute long cooldown," Evie said, "and Mello's is a forty second cooldown. No way for us to prevent the stuns enough times."

"Well, shit."

"What's going on?" Kieran asked, still locked in combat with the dragon. Marissa supposed it was probably good that not everyone in the group was as scatterbrained and easily distracted as it seemed she was today.

"It seems like we're fighting a losing battle at this point." Ash said.

Thankfully, it seemed like the game wasn't going to force the party to fight a prolonged fight that was doomed to fail.

"Weak!" [Firdraig] called, as he once again made a pass at [Scathach]. When she once again tried to parry the attack ending up with the [Stun], [Firdraig] didn't strike and continue past as he had done up to then. Instead, he spun into a brutal strike with his lance, running [Scathach] through.

The Fae angled his lance downward to let [Scathach's] body limply slide off it and toward the ground. [Uathach] must have either been watching the fight or noticed what had happened because she screamed. And that screaming voiceline calling for her mother was the last thing they heard before the screen went black in the same way it would when the party wiped.

"Yo, Uathach's VA destroyed that scream." Nyx muttered as the party was brought back to the start of the encounter. They reappeared in a familiar blue circle, staring down [Firdraig] once again riding on [Garmiad's] back.

"She really did. That was…haunting. Her voice even cracked." Firo said.

"I bet they used the first take, and she went to scream the line and it just didn't come out right." Evan said. "The way her voice broke and squeaked was definitely not intentional."

"You really think so?" Marissa asked.

"Well, either that or she's crazy talented and being wasted on a smaller role." Evan responded, the shrug clear in his voice.

"S'pose that's fair." Marissa allowed.

"Is everyone good to just pull or did we need a minute?" Evan asked, maneuvering Fiona to the front of the group, but remaining within the blue circle. Fiona was clearly turned to look at [Scathach], who hovered majestically in the air beside them all.

Marissa snorted and shifted in her chair. To really get comfortable again, she tried to stand in order to unbunch her pajama bottoms and reposition more entirely. It turned out to be something of a mistake, as after being off her aching feet for long enough, they were simultaneously asleep and in immense pain.

She yelped as she plopped uselessly back into her chair, the pins and needles shooting up her leg part way into her thighs, while the ache settled back in the soles of her feet after the beating they had taken over the weekend.

"Bisky? You alright?" Kieran asked first, then the rest of the questions came in.

"I'm gonna need a minute, sorry." She whined, trying to rub her legs to get the blood flow back while keeping her feet off the floor for the moment.

"Are you sure you're alright? We can end early if you need to go." Jazz sounded concerned.

"I tried to stand and my legs were both asleep," Marissa's voice came out in a squeak. "Then I fell back into my chair. And I've been on my feet all weekend non-stop so they hurt. A lot. But otherwise, I'm good."

Evie chuckled. "That sounds rough. You sure you're good?"

"Mhm."

"You use some nice insoles at work, right?" Evan asked.

"Yeah, I do. Both my other workers were out sick all weekend, so I've just covered 5 days on my own, that's all."

"That's all?" Jazz sounded offended, "Girl, you should be resting those little legs of yours."

"I am. I took a nice bath earlier, and I've been sitting basically since my shift ended." Marissa said defensively.

"You should try some epsom salt in the bath. I feel like I heard they're good for muscle aches?" Nyx offered, but didn't sound all that sure.

"Get some potassium in your system, too. Should help you avoid any cramps getting worse." Kieran said.

"I know it's not the same, but when I overwork a muscle I really like using those heating/cooling pads." Firo said. "I don't know if they make anything like that for aching feet, but if you've been standing a lot, I bet they'd feel great on your calves or the backs of your legs."

"I will keep those in mind. I've definitely got some bananas around in the house. And if not, there's for sure going to be some in the bakery." Marissa took a deep breath and settled into her chair again, more relaxed. The pins and needles faded, and her feet only hurt if she rested her soles flat on the ground with some pressure. She angled them to rest on the sides of her feet which hurt less, and tried to avoid any pressure on her legs.

"Alright, I'm good." She said.

"Aight, I'm pulling." Evan said.

"Wait!" Nyx called suddenly, "I need to pee."

Marissa rolled her eyes. "If anyone else needs to go, go with her now. We're not taking turns again."

"I don't think she'd much appreciate me going into the bathroom with her, but I do need to pee, too." Kieran said.

"I don't know if we should boo you or not," Evan said, sounding thoughtful. "On one hand, terrible dad joke. On the other, you are a dad."

"I know. I love my free pass." Kieran sounded like he was already getting up to go. "Don't forget, you're a dad too now, Fiona."

"Oh, yeah. I need to practice my dad jokes."

"You really don't."