The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Marissa

"Someone get that!"

"On it." Nyx called as she quickly triggered [Kidney Skewer].

Their third pull was going pretty well. They had decided a rotation for stuns, with Caoimhe going first, then Nyx, then Aleister, then Fiona before repeating.

They also felt pretty comfortable with the opening moves of the fight that lead up to unseating [Firdraig]. They still hadn't exactly narrowed down which effect or effects were doing the unseating by continuing to pile on several debilitations, but as long as it worked, no one seemed to care.

Fiona had gotten down most of [Garmiad's] attack patterns that it had shown in the opening moments of their now separated fight as well, even only having seen them twice before. The dragon's basic attacks were quite straightforward, making the timing on them easy to read.

The party had also settled into their positioning. While the actual directions weren't set in stone yet, they had positioned roughly so that if [Scathach] was fighting to their west, [Garmiad] was faced north with the party arrayed in the south-east quadrant. It would keep beams angled away from the other half of the fight while still keeping the party behind the boss for the extra [Back Attack] damage bonus that DPS were given.

So far, the strategy had worked out for them. Or, at least, they had easily returned to the point they had reached previously with [Garmiad's] second big discharge attack which Nyx had successfully [Interrupted].

"Nice. Keep it up." Ash said.

"Evie, how does [Scathach] look?" Nyx asked while really racking up her combo attacks into [Garmiad's] back.

"She's managing. It looks like their fight is pretty evenly matched as long as we don't let the dragon interfere."

"Good, good."

After four swipes with its claws at Fiona - three of which were [Blocked] and [Countered] - the dragon's mouth began to glow again.

"Another breath attack?"

"Nope, too delayed. It's like the power-up-grab combo," Firo said.

And he was right. Whenever [Garmiad] performed the cone or beam attack, the gathering glow in its mouth led pretty quickly into the danger zone marker. That marker didn't show up when he had breathed out the lightning on his claws during the grab maneuver.

This time, however, [Garmiad] twisted to his right side forming a crescent shape to let the breath go aimed at his tail.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the lack of an AoE marker didn't actually mean everyone was safe from the blast. The breath attack flowed over the dragon's tail and continued a bit further behind him in a smaller cone, but still managed to catch both Nyx and Caoimhe in it.

The damage had taken out Nyx entirely from full HP, and left Caoimhe with just a few hundred.

"Holy shit!"

"That damage was spicy."

"Don't worry, I gotcha, Nyx." Evie said quickly, immediately casting [Resurrection] on the [Shroud].

Mellody took care of healing Caoimhe back up with a couple of her bigger heals, just in case the tail-based follow-up was dangerous. Marissa was pretty sure the difference between 500-ish HP and 11,000 HP wouldn't matter if the tail attack landed, though. It was probably a one-shot either way, if the grab was anything to go by.

[Garmiad], with its tail sheathed in lightning, turned back to Fiona to make another basic attack, though.

"Uh…"

"What's the deal?" Firo asked.

"Not sure. The grab was an immediate follow-up last time." Marissa said quickly. "And it was functionally point-blank AoE, right?"

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"But potentially single-target?" Kieran added. "Unless it can grab more than one person."

Fiona [Perfect Guarded] the first claw attack, striking back with her basic [Counter]. [Garmiad] seemed content to just move into a second basic attack.

"There's gotta be something here." Nyx said as she rushed from Evie's side where she [Ressed] back into the fight.

"My assumption would be a rear cone for a tail attack," Ash said, trying to position Mellody in such a way that even a large extended cone from the dragon would miss.

Marissa followed suit, flying upward and to the 'east', trying to keep some distance from the others. "I doubt there's just a big cone in our future."

"Same." Firo agreed, but still flew downward, trying to also avoid the attack they had all pictured.

And then [Garmiad] did an aerial somersault, dipping its head downward and whipping its tail in an overhead slam into Fiona.

Evan had clearly not expected the attack, and had barely managed to get a [Block] up in time to reduce the damage a little, but hadn't managed an actual damage mitigation skill.

Fiona's HP dropped down into the triple digits immediately, and Evan called out "Tankbuster" before he had processed the rest of the attack's effect. Evie had quickly dropped one of her bigger healing cooldowns on Fiona, getting her back to full HP in an instant, but it didn't seem to matter.

"I'm stunned. Can't do anything." Evan said, as Fiona seemed to float in the air completely locked up. [Garmiad] moved fluidly into its next attack - jabbing forward with both front claws into Fiona before violently ripping her apart. Without any way to defend, Fiona dropped.

Fiona's body hovered in midair for a moment. So far, they had only really seen Nyx get killed by attacks, and Evie had been fast on her trigger finger with the [Resurrections], both of which had been cast before Nyx's body had done anything.

Mellody, however, was not as fast on her [Refrain]. Fiona's body had plummeted out of the sky before the spell went off. They weren't too high up in the grand scheme of things, but they were more than high enough for Fiona's body to fall out of range of the spell - which cancelled on Mellody mid-cast.

"Fuck." Ash muttered, as Mellody shot downward to try to get back in range. Aleister quickly shifted into the main tank role, getting [Garmiad's] focus and keeping the facing 'north'.

"Ow." Evan said. "They didn't need to add that sound when you hit the ground, dead."

"I've got you, bud. Sorry." Ash said, finally getting within range.

"Guess we should position the healers lower than everyone else, just in case?" Evie mused.

"Maybe."

As Fiona reappeared next to Mellody, once again ready to fight, the boss decided to gather electricity for another AoE. This time, the beam's area was clearly marked, and targeting Mellody. The downward angle wasn't a big danger for most of the party, but Fiona was in the blast radius after being [Ressed], too.

They quickly scattered, avoiding the beam.

The first one, anyway.

[Garmiad] wasn't done, targeting Mellody with a second blast. And then a third. Mellody and Fiona had split off in different directions by instinct from the first attack, sending Mellody west while Fiona broke east. And without thinking, Mellody continued to retreat in the same direction as a fourth and fifth beam followed.

"Stunning didn't do anything." Jazz said, having tried to stun the dragon to stop the continuous beams.

By the time the dragon was about to launch a sixth beam at Mellody, a few of the party noticed the danger they were in.

"Not that way!"

"Mello, go up or down or something!"

"What?" Ash said, avoiding beam six narrowly while continuing to Mellody's left.

As [Garmiad] leveled a seventh blast at Mellody, there was a collective sigh of defeat from the party as the blast was aimed pretty close to [Scathach].

Just before the blast was launched, [Firdraig] rushed [Scathach], using their clash to push her into the beam.

While Mellody dodged just fine, [Scathach's] HP dropped by a significant chunk. And then [Garmiad] launched an eighth beam at Mellody.

The dragon's maw dimmed considerably after that, so Marissa made a mental note that there were eight blasts. It probably also meant that there would be a later variation that targeted everyone in the party one time.

Thankfully, after being blasted by the dragon once, [Scathach] seemed to be wary of the following one and narrowly avoided it while fighting off [Firdraig's] assault.

"Hey!" She shouted at the party, "Watch where you point that thing!"

Marissa snorted at the line, focusing back on her own fight. Fiona was letting Aleister handle tanking for the moment while recovering from [Resurrection Sickness], which reduced a character's stats for a short period of time after being revived in battle.

"Hey, we can heal [Scathach]." Evie said, sounding absolutely delighted.

"Oh, that changes things." Ash said. "Now we just need to worry about -"

"Help!" Evie screamed, pulling everyone's attention away from the boss again.

Evidently, [Firdraig] didn't appreciate Evie helping [Scathach] out with a heal. The other boss was charging straight at her, with his lance's tip featuring the vortex effect.

"Aleister, handle the dragon." Evan said and immediately had Fiona darting off toward Evie to intercept the other boss.

"Say what?"

Marissa immediately lined up [Pin], hoping the [Root] effect would be enough to stop the enemy's charge.

It wasn't. Or, more specifically, the vortex effect that was faced toward the party was enough to knock the attack away entirely, rendering the whole thing moot. Either they would need to strike from [Firdraig's] side and hope an effect would work, or figure out something else entirely.

Marissa could also see [Scathach] charging after the boss, but she wasn't nearly fast enough to catch him moving at full tilt.

"Y'all, just leave me. I don't think we can anything about this one." Evie laughed. "But uh…yeah, don't heal Scathach. It's bad news, bro."

Evan snickered, but said "I don't think I can get there in time."

And sure enough, [Firdraig's] lance ran through Evie before anyone was able to position themselves to stop it.

"Refrain is still on cooldown…" Ash muttered. "I think this one is a wipe."

"Well, at least we learned something?" Evie laughed, as her body slipped off [Firdraig's] lance and tumbled from the sky.

"Guys? I need a stun." Jazz said, redirecting everyone's attention back to their own fight with [Garmiad] - who was clearly curled up in preparation for another big discharge attack.

Caoimhe and Nyx had been trying to close the distance toward Evie to maybe [Stun] [Firdraig], and were no longer within range to [Stun] the dragon.

"Wipe it up." Kieran sighed as they watched the dragon discharge the big blast of electricity.

"Alright, keep it up, we got this." Ash said as [Garmiad] prepared the tank buster tail attack again.

The fourth pull had been going well. None of the individual mechanics in the fight were all that challenging so far, and the party had worked out how to handle everything so far pretty well.

After [Garmiad] had charged its tail, Aleister stepped in to tank for a bit. He [Blocked] the two claw attacks, and was ready when the third hit - the tail smash - came crashing down. Between [Ebony Guard] and another two mitigation skills, he weathered the tank buster just fine.

The long-lasting [Stun] effect that was built in was perfectly fine, too, because as soon as the tail attack smashed into Aleister, Fiona stepped in. The follow-up attack that had eviscerated her last time smashed into Fiona's shield this time, and the damage had ended up being more or less insignificant when blocked with more mit on top of that.

The party whooped at the clear success of fending off the tank buster before [Garmiad] moved into the next mechanic - the multi-hit breath attack. The dragon targeted Evie this time, who had been safely away from everyone, below most of the party to east. When the danger marker was shown, she danced out of the red light easily.

"Think it always targets a healer?" Firo asked.

"I wouldn't bet on that yet." Marissa said.

"It's still easy to dodge either way," Evie said, easily flying around in a vertical circle to keep the beams pointed safely away toward nothing important.

"Just don't aim it toward Scathach, yeah." Ash said.

"You would know!" Evie's saccharine voice was so perfectly taunting that Marissa had to laugh.

[Garmiad] flowed into a four hit claw attack combo against Fiona, who had fully stepped back in as main tank, and then blasted the party with exactly what Marissa had suspected would happen.

Eight beams of AoE danger lit up, each one aimed at a different party member. Thankfully, everyone was neatly spread out enough to not ruin anyone else's chance to dodge. And more than that, even with them spread out only on [Garmiad's] right flank, the introduction of the z-axis really gave them tons of empty space to work with.

The dragon quickly blasted beams in succession at each party member, with only a moment's gap between them. It was still more than enough time to get out of the way safely.

"Nice."

"Easy game for babies." Evan laughed.

"Oh? Want to get little baby Eli in here? Maybe he'd be better than you." Kieran laughed, before getting cut off by a voice line from [Firdraig].

"[Garmiad]. Enough of this farce, come."

The dragon immediately spun around and slapped all of the nearby party members with a solid tail whip. Fiona, Aleister, Caoimhe, and Nyx were all left momentarily [Stunned] despite not taking much damage, leaving the dragon plenty of time to dart off toward his rider.

[Garmiad] was only around 70% HP, but it seemed that [Scathach] had worn [Firdraig] down to around 50%.

"Must be phase two." Nyx shrugged.

"...should we gather near Scathach?" Firo asked, as the party hesitantly gathered around where the melee players had been.

"Fuck if I know." Marissa muttered, wondering what was next.