The Nettle Tea Chronicles

Zoe

Zoe didn't have a lot of extra time once she was home to get herself situated. She unceremoniously threw her jacket over one of the bar chairs at her little breakfast nook that passed as her table as she passed and mostly made a beeline to her PC. Once it was booting up, she felt a little better, but it was still only around 15 minutes to raid time.

She kinda wanted a shower after spending so much time on the crowded subway, but kept balking at the amount of time she had. If nothing else, she would definitely be getting back with wet hair, and she didn't want to get her headset all wet.

She spent the few seconds it took to sign in to her computer, get the game's launcher pulled up and hit the [Launch] button, and then jumped out of her seat.

A quick shower then; she'd put her hair up, keep it dry, and at least give her body a quick scrub to get rid of the sweat and stuffy feeling. Probably give her face a good scrub, too.

Zoe acted as if she was acting against the clock - which she was - and got the water heating up in the shower and stripped in record time. She was bare before the water even heated up, so she quickly danced out of the bathroom to retrieve some fresh clothing for after; underwear, PJ bottoms, and a crappy old t-shirt from her high school years that was far too big to be worn for anything other than bed.

With the clean set of clothes set nearby on top of the toilet lid - cushioned by a clean paper towel underneath, she wasn't a monster - she stepped into the hot water.

It didn't take her long to run a bar of soap over most of herself and rinse off. She scrubbed her face with a daily cleansing face wash and rinsed that away too, taking care to get as little water in her hair as she could, with only a hair clip and a headband to keep it up.

As she stepped out feeling more refreshed than she expected, she was satisfied with both her time and the state of her hair - mostly dry.

After a quick toweling off and a few quick seconds of air drying, she slipped into her PJs and slid over to her PC again.

"7:56. Perfect." She muttered to herself, and settled in. Headphones in place, she rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms before clicking on Nyx Alaion to log in. As she waited for the loading screen, she clicked over to the voice chat program and joined the party.

"See? There she is." Cass said. "Told you she'd make it."

"Sorry, I needed a quick shower after spending so long on the subway."

"No worries, you're still early. Fiona, though…" Caoimhe said, and Zoe did glance over to see the full group except for Fiona in the chat.

"Eeeh, he's still got four minutes."

"Three." Caoimhe laughed. "But I'm sure he'll be here. Short of an emergency, I don't think he'd ever just no-call-no-show."

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Zoe snickered as the conversation continued without her. She took a minute to check on Nyx's status and gear, making sure everything was in place. Fiona would take care of repairing everything when they went through their buffing cycle before they tried [Firdraig] again, so the durability of things wasn't a big deal.

Once again, though, her eyes caught on the off-hand [Knife] she had chosen from [Áine's] vault.

[The Deep Cut]

[Knife]

[Strength : 28]

[Accuracy : 24]

[Speed : 16]

[Invested Effect : Add a 50 [Might] [Damage Over Time] effect to [Debilitating Pierce].]

She had to acknowledge that it was not a fancy effect by any means. That didn't really matter, though - [Debilitating Pierce] was by far her most used skill, and one of her favorites. And now it felt even better to hit, with the additional effect. The [Invested Effect] even added a cool red particle effect to the skill's animation that Zoe really liked the look of.

By the time she finished looking things over and making sure she was good to go, Fiona had arrived and was busy getting a good natured ribbing from Caoimhe.

"You have a new kid and you show up late, and you don't even have the decency to blame the kid?" Caoimhe laughed.

"Look, man, I said I'm sorry! I was caught up in a particularly long run of -"

"I swear to god, if you tell me you were playing that damn poker rogue-like right before raid time again…" Caoimhe trailed off, leaving silence in the chat, Fiona clearly not wanting to respond.

"Look, I had twenty minutes, and I didn't expect -"

"Dammit, Fiona, you know you're too lucky on that game and your runs always go longer than you expect." Caoimhe let out a long suffering sigh. This wasn't the first time Fiona had done that, and while Caoimhe continued berating his friend, the rest of the party laughed about it.

By 8:10, the whole group was logged in, fully buffed up, and ready to try their hands at the flying circus again. Zoe took a deep breath and stretched her arms out before wiggling into her old, beat-up office chair. It squeaked in response, the same way it had done for the last ten years. The sound was somehow reassuring, despite regularly getting on her nerves.

Maybe one day she would replace the ratty old chair, but not today.

As the party gathered in the air around the little blue interaction point to trigger the fight, Zoe grinned. Her screen went black to load up the instance for the fight, and then she was standing in the familiar blue sphere with everyone else. [Scathach] was a little off to their side, staring down [Firdraig] and [Garmiad], everything frozen in time until their signal.

"Everyone remembers the strats?"

"Ash, we were literally doing this yesterday. Ask that again next Tuesday." Bisky chuckled.

"Now, hang on a sec," Firo said, "we should redo spots for some of the mechanics, just for clarity."

"Just say you forgot your position, dude." Fiona laughed, but the party did rearrange themselves in the little sphere to claim their spread spots and heights for other mechanics.

Once everyone seemed settled on that, things began.

The party was very familiar with the first part of the fight at this point - and it was an easy phase on top of that. The party moved through the motions until the dragon and its rider joined up again and [Scathach] hovered alongside them.

This was what Zoe considered the actual start of the fight, with phase 1 acting more akin to a trash pull before the boss.

Still, the previous nights' worth of practice had helped the party immensely. Zoe danced through her parts gracefully, already having a pretty solid grasp on most of the mechanics. And to the party's credit, everyone else did too.

While the fight against [Firdraig] wasn't quite what Zoe would consider a dance fight, like the ones that looked like a well choreographed dance with everyone moving in nice patterns together to pass mechanics, it did have a similar vibe. [Firdraig's] mechanics were a little more complex than most dance fights, especially with the way things were basically random instead of pre-determined, but the movements and coordination required to get through was still just as mesmerizing.

Zoe had a good feel for which mechanics let her sneak in longer combos on a given target by now, which let her occasionally just watch the party move. Not only did the fight require a good sense of distance to bait out certain attacks from [Garmiad] that targeted the players furthest away, but also altitude as well.

While the DPS mostly tried to stay somewhat level in the middle plane, watching the tanks and the healers move up and down in sync like two ends of a pulley system was immensely satisfying.

[Firdraig] wasn't exactly forgiving, though. While the party had a pretty good idea of how to handle each of the mechanics they had seen so far, execution was still difficult if only because the positioning was very precise and the mechanics came quickly. That problem was then exacerbated by [Garmiad], who liked to throw in extra curveballs on top.

While it took some time, the party did finally work out some better strategies to help reduce some of the mental complexities, though, and as they continued to throw themselves at the fight over the first two hours of the Wednesday raid night, they developed their strategies further.

[Garmiad's] part in the fight was easy enough to break down when they stopped to work it out. While the dragon was responsible for many of the tells needed to read [Firdraig's] following attacks, the actual attacks that the dragon produced were simple to deal with on their own.

There were multiple melee range strikes that the tanks and melee DPS had to watch for. Claw attacks, tail attacks, wing attacks, and a few close range AoEs. It also could use the grab it had from phase 1, but it only used that when [Firdraig] was not riding it.

The ranged attacks it used were the ones with built in mechanics involving positioning among the party. Calling lightning down on the two highest players was one example, but also the lightning beams that targeted either everyone or the furthest two players away. And then, of course, the raid-wide attacks.

There were also a few more traditional AoEs, both a point-blank and a donut, requiring being out and in respectively, as well as a large disc shape one that required the party to be either up or down in relation to the dragon.

Any and all of [Garmiad's] attacks could be used in tandem with or while ignoring [Firdraig's] mechanics. Which meant the party had to keep an eye on what positioning was required of them while dealing with [Firdraig's] more complicated mechanics.

As they continued to do their best to break down the Fae's half of the fight, Mellody had put forth the idea that they should consider [Scathach] and [Firdraig] as a single entity for the purpose of the fight, and Zoe could see the wisdom in that.

While it was absolutely [Firdraig] that was dictating the fight with his attacks and skills, [Scathach] seemed to be responding in kind depending on how the Fae acted, rather than acting independently. For some of [Firdraig's] attacks, Mellody had noted that while the Fae didn't seem to have an obvious tell to indicate a safe spot, [Scathach] usually moved to one.

That general change in approach started altering how the party performed. Once the all got it through their heads that [Scathach] wasn't an NPC they needed to defend or assist, but rather another piece of the fight to work with, things started improving.

They were able to deal with [Garmiad's] lightning attacks easily enough, and by the time they were half way through the Wednesday raid night, the dragon's attacks were basically solved, with someone only very occasionally getting clipped by one by accident.

[Firdraig's] attacks consisted mostly of follow-ups using either basic skills, or the same skills empowered by the dragon. The basic ones were fairly easy to deal with. Fly-by attacks with the lance, wide sweeping strikes, and different flying maneuvers that ended with an attack were the most common.

The enhanced ones were a bit more difficult to deal with. The charged attack that [Stunned] was easy enough to deal with, just by having the tanks ready to intercept the hit. He also could launch ranged attacks when he was empowered, with seemingly random patterns, including several variations of a spread of beams, a cone, or a targeted beam at one person.

It was the random assortment of AoEs from that attack that they need to use [Scathach's] positioning to solve. When it was a random pattern, she would fly to a safe spot to wait out the attack. The party simply needed to follow her and wait - so long as they were patient and made sure it wasn't a targeted attack first.

They learned that one the hard way, when Firo had accidentally baited a beam on the entire party already gathered by [Scathach]. Apparently, any of [Firdraig's] attacks were a one-shot to any non-tank, and even the tank's survival wasn't guaranteed.

He had several variations for awkward movement followed by attacks that made it difficult for the tanks to block and position correctly, but that was something that simply took some time to learn. Then it was mostly a matter of dealing with his attacks simultaneously with [Garmiad's] mechanics.

At least until they were regularly reaching the latter portions of the fight, where [Firdraig] began to utilize his Fae magic.