Party List

Nyx Alaion (Zoe Fox)

[Shroud] : [Knife]

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Aleister Demian (Jasmine Burch)

[War] : [Ebon]

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Fiona Woods (Evan Woods)

[Plate] : [Aegis]

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Evie Lucian (Cassandra Bailey)

[Soul] : [Radiance]

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Mellody Softsong (Ashton Burch)

[Muse] : [Revel]

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Caoimhe Phadraig (Kieran Moor)

[Slayer] : [Tyrant]

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Firo Strix (Blake Walker)

[Mage] : [Invoker]

11,000 / 11,000

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Hibiscus Jade (Marissa Harper)

[Arrow] : [Seeker]

11,000 / 11,000

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Zoe

Zoe did all she could to lock in. No one had said anything, but she knew her team. They had time for one more attempt after this, and the chances that they had two great pulls in a row like this were slim. They had to clear now, or come back tomorrow and try to push through in the hour they had said they could meet for.

Zoe figured winning now was the better option.

"Don't rush, we've got this." She repeated again, trying to keep her own nerves settled and calm. As the melee DPS, she and Caoimhe were more or less the party's lifeline if things went astray. Firo and Bisky could reach a target from just about anywhere if they could see it, but the melee [Paths] typically did more raw damage.

If a small group of adds escaped from Aleister's control, she or Caoimhe should be the ones to break off to take care of them. Especially when Firo had the best AoE damage of the party - he needed to stay focused on the massive pack following Aleister.

"I've got Uris." Fiona said.

"And I'm working on the adds. We're good for the moment." Aleister responded.

And they were right. For the moment, things were under control. But that was while there was no mechanic happening.

"Keep your eyes open." Mellody said, likely thinking the same thing. Thankfully, it seemed everyone had decided this was the pull, because the comms were clear of the usual chatter, everyone focused on doing their job.

"Uris broke his pattern." Fiona said, breaking the silence. "No ult."

Zoe snorted at the term. It wasn't exactly what she would have called the final attacks the boss was doing with each weapon, but it still got the point across.

"He's just basic attacking. Oh, hang on. He's getting a stacking buff."

Zoe fought the urge to target the boss to read the buff for herself, and took a deep breath to focus. There were plenty of enemies in front of her, and she kept up her pattern of a stutter step forward, AoE combo attack, then another step forward, then another combo attack, then repeat. [Twirling Cutter], [Twirling Edge], [Twirling Dance], [Twirling Dervish], [Twirling Death], and repeat.

"Fuck. It doesn't tell me anything." Fiona said a few seconds later, then read the tooltip out loud to the party, "'Uris is gaining momentum. Find a way to slow him down.' Dude's getting a stacking attack speed and damage amp."

"Well. 'Find a way to slow him down' is amazingly unhelpful." Mellody said. "Anyone got -"

"One step ahead of you." Bisky said, already turning to launch attacks at the boss. Zoe couldn't make out exactly what was happening, but she assumed Bisky tried a number of different speed hampering skills she had, both for attack speed and movement alike. But a few moments later Bisky just said, "I'm getting 'immune' messages for everything."

"Great." Fiona said. "And the plan?"

"Hold the line as long as you can?" Cass offered.

"I'll try a buff remover, but otherwise, yeah." Mellody said, the followed up a second later with, "Yup, remover did nothing."

"Good luck, Fiona!" Cass basically sang. "We got your back."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"And now we have elites." Bisky said, and Zoe watched as a noticeably colorful attack was launched over the enemy group. Her eyes followed it to where two new enemies had shown up with more adds, but they were just melee types.

"I'm on it." Zoe said. "Caoimhe, you stay. Your AoE is better than mine."

"Copy."

"I'll give you support since I'm also single target." Bisky said.

"Thanks." Zoe set Nyx off running toward the new targets, while Bisky spent a few of her bigger single target cooldowns on them. She had nearly killed one by the time Zoe [Shadow Slipped] Nyx behind the still healthy one and dumped a bunch of her single target-only damage into it. They were mostly one-off skills, since she didn't have the time to get deep into her combo rotation, and her combo-skip skills were better saved for AoE damage at the moment. But it was still enough to remove the threats pretty quickly. Well before Aleister needed to worry about picking them up, in any case.

"Heals?" Fiona shouted suddenly.

"We've got you covered, relax." Mellody said.

"Bro, I saw double digits. That's not covered." Fiona shot back.

"Sorry, my bad." Cass interjected. "I sent an extra heal to Aleister instead of you, Fiona. Sorry."

Fiona grumbled a bit but that seemed to calm things down. The chat went quiet for another ten seconds or so as everyone moved back into their own roles, until Fiona squeaked again.

"Guys, we can't keep up with this buff. His attacks are doing more than half my HP each hit."

"Shit. Can you get closer? Some of my spells are shorter range and can't reach you." Mellody said.

"Same." Cass added.

"Is that safe?"

"I don't know, man, just do it." Mellody said quickly.

Fiona moved closer to the center of the tower's platform while still trying to stay outside of the circuit that Aleister was using to pick up the mass of adds. The balance of everything going on was tenuous and balanced just perfectly, which felt like it must have been the intention of this phase. A single mistake would have cascaded into a complete wipe.

Unfortunately, Zoe wasn't sure what their goal was. [Áine] was supposed to finish her casting, but there was no visible indication of how close she was, and [Uris'] HP wasn't anywhere near zero. Something had to give, and Zoe was worried that it would be Fiona's HP that gave way before they had any indication of what they were supposed to do.

The shouting in chat that followed was a mess to Zoe's ears of healing cooldowns, perfectly timed heals, and an awkward rationing of resources, as Cass and Mellody were suddenly deep in shop talk as they tried everything they had to keep the group alive through the heavy damage.

Every spare healing spell was used, going to Fiona. Aleister and the DPS were living on AoE heal over time spells and a prayer, with Aleister in particular fighting to avoid death with tank cooldowns.

Meanwhile, the timing of spells became the only topic in chat for the following thirty seconds. With [Uris] gaining more attack speed and damage every other attack, Fiona's HP was bouncing around like a yo-yo faster than Zoe had ever seen before.

"Flow of Life has ten seconds on it. Healing Light has fifteen."

"Got it, Vitality Etude is going out. Healing Ballad is up in five."

"Hit that as soon as it comes up, I've got Sunlight Burst for the attack after it."

"Got it. Sturdy Refrain is going out, too."

Zoe had to tune it out to focus. The only way she could help mitigate damage was by mitigating the enemy numbers. And [Dark Dance] had just come up. "Aleister, can you hold the enemy in one spot for, like, ten or fifteen seconds?"

"I can try."

"Just say when." Zoe said, speaking through the healers' communication.

There was a few seconds of nothing from the other tank, then Zoe saw Aleister's location suddenly erupt with dark purple particle effects.

"Now."

Zoe didn't respond out loud, instead slamming her keys to trigger [Dark Dance], then just set about looping her combo enders as long as she could. [Twirling Death] was her main AoE finisher, but she did have two other cooldown AoE finishers that she hit first. [Petal Dance] was the first, and dealt heavy damage to all targets around her and also gave her a damage buff for a short period of time, followed by [Shadow Blossom], which was just big AoE damage.

She got two more [Twirling Deaths] off before the purple effect Aleister had created faded, and the group had to move again, which cancelled her [Dark Dance].

As the add group transitioned back into their circular trip around the tower, Zoe tuned back into the healers and Fiona, just in time to hear Fiona say, "That's it, Final Vigil is up," which wasn't a great sign. That meant they were nearing the end of their rope in this fight.

"Ok, I should have Healing Light back up then." Cass said.

"And Healing Rondo is up in seven." Mellody said.

"Then I die in ten." Fiona said, sounding resigned.

"I'll get you right back up, but yeah. We're in trouble." Cass said.

"Everyone get ready. When Fiona goes down, we're going to have to really improvise." Mellody said.

"Right…"

Zoe kept an eye on things the best she could. She knew she could take a single hit from [Uris] without taking damage thanks to [Perfect Veil], but given his current attack speed, she'd die in probably the next hit.

"Here we go…" Fiona said, seconds before taking a fatal blow. As Fiona's HP zeroed out, several things happened in quick succession.

As promised, Cass used [Resurrection] immediately, allowing Fiona to pop back up with minimal down time. Zoe clicked [Shadow Slip] to appear behind [Uris] - who she had positioned just within her skill's range - and hit two skills in quick succession.

The first skill was [Beguiling Blade], which was one of [Shroud's] more strange skills. It was essentially a taunt that placed the [Shroud] at the top of the target's [Threat] list. However, it had an additional effect of transferring all of the threat gained to a party member, if there was one standing directly between the [Shroud] and the targeted enemy. In this case, there was none, which meant Nyx now had the boss' full attention.

The second skill was her [Perfect Veil], which allowed her to automatically dodge the next attack that would hit her.

She would take a single basic attack from [Uris], but the second would kill her if Fiona didn't [Provoke] immediately. But her intention of keeping the party alive for just an extra few seconds would be taken care of.

Similarly, Aleister began turning the large group of adds toward [Uris], prepared to take over tanking if necessary.

However, Fiona's death had apparently also triggered something else.

"Having trouble? I've got your back!" [Áine] said, and there was a collective sigh of relief from the party at the sound. Zoe thought it might be a bit premature, given they were hardly out of danger. But it did give her some hope.

"I only need another minute to finish the spell! I'll do my best to help you, but I'll need to drop my own protection for it. " Zoe heard [Áine's] voice actress take and let out a deep breath. "I'm in your hands."

In the same instant that [Uris] struck Nyx, removing her [Perfect Veil] buff, the entire space they were fighting in lit up brighter. The silvery glow that had been running through the tower like a circuit of energy got stronger, to the point that the light bled from the grooves in the ground and took over the entire space.

"And that will be enough from you, thank you." [Áine] continued, facing [Uris]. As Fiona used a gap closer to get close enough to cover Nyx from the boss' next attack, a shining lance of silver struck [Uris] in the back, interrupting him. He staggered forward from the blow, and his HP dropped from 44% to 40%.

[Áine] continued to slow, surrounded by casting effects, but she was the least concerning thing on the field at this point. Most of the normal adds that Aleister had had under control were suddenly turning away to target [Áine] instead. [Uris], too, turned to growl at the Fae queen, slamming his longsword against the ground in frustration.

Despite it all, Zoe found herself thinking about how awful that was for a bladed weapon, muttering, "And this guy calls himself the walking armory."

That got a chuckle from a couple people in the chat, which was reassuring. Morale was still high.

"Everyone, gather up around Áine. I suspect this last phase is just a defend the NPC thing." Mellody called.

Movement skills were used to cross the distance to gather in the center of the tower's roof. Mellody and Evie both used the [Benefactor] skill [Liberate] to drag Bisky and Nyx to the group as they didn't have any movement skills available at the moment.

And suddenly the party was arrayed around [Áine], staring down a sizable group of enemies, but not an unbeatable one. Zoe even noticed that there were no more Fae flying around the tower, so the group currently facing off with them was probably the entire remaining enemy force.

"I think this is it, guys." Zoe said.

As [Uris] and the adds all surged forward, Fiona shouted "For the Queen!", and rushed to meet them. The entire rest of the party, caught up in the moment, echoed the battle cry and prepared to meet the enemy.

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