Role Playing(14)
They entered the castle, killing some low-level vampires and thralls and whatnot. Basic stuff, things she could handle easily. She did have to be more careful since her character was lower level. She couldn’t just power through, counting on higher health and more experience points to carry her. Still, she’d logged countless hours on this thing, and she wasn’t just a button masher. She’d learned how to actually battle, using her skills to avoid the bigger enemies until she was in a position to get in power shots.
More importantly, she was watching how the rest of the team fought together. She noticed that DangerNoodle, BigDorkEnergy, and TheFerocity were more impulsive, diving in and hammering away. They were warriors; that was to be expected. The rogues—SneakyMeat, Mouse5150—hung back, either sneaking in and slashing or using ranged weapons like bows or wands, stuff that worked from a distance. And the mages—GandalfTheGay and Cyrlaros21—used spells to devastating effect.
Which brought up a point.
She was an anomaly in this world, to say the least. She was a rogue elf that was also a magic user. It wasn’t impossible, but it was frowned on. And right now, she’d allowed a thrall to sneak up on her, taking out half of her health and starting to go critical. She snapped a quick spell that fortunately took the thrall out, but the damage was already done, and unless she went into a corner and hid, she needed something to fix her, fast.
BOGWITCH: Heal please
She felt like an utter ass, but it needed to be done. She couldn’t heal herself—she hadn’t progressed that far in healing with this character. But it pointed out the “flaw” in her setup.
They jumped on it, even as Otter healed her quickly.
BigDorkEnergy: Lol UR bad
DangerNoodle: Trash build
GandalfTheGay: Interesting choices.
Even Mouse, who had been somewhat sympathetic, chimed in.
Mouse5150: Maybe magic-using Rogue elf wasn’t best idea?
Although she caught various levels of shit from the rest (except for Otter, who remained largely silent), she was at least gratified to see that they weren’t complete dicks about it. She’d seen total flame wars break out when irate gamers felt like their teammates were fucking up. As a woman, it seemed to be ten times worse—she’d never been called “cunt” so many times in a five-minute period as she had the last time she’d tried to join a guild—so this was at least a step up.
They made it past lower-level bosses, finally arriving at the final boss. Most of the shit-talking had died down, thankfully, and the chat box had basically narrowed down to calls for healing or shouts for help, spells, and so on. They took a quick break.
OtterLeader: All right, gear up. This guy is nasty. Fire magic, blood draw, blood poison, and if he hits you, good chance at death. I’ve got some re-gen, but Gandalf, want you to help.
GandalfTheGay: On it
OtterLeader: Cyr, need ranged ice attacks. Anybody got extra magic potions for him?
There was some quick trading and prep as people made sure their weapons and armor were charmed, that they were loaded up with whatever they needed. She switched from her now-battered armor to her fireproof Lev 100 armor that she’d gotten as a special drop from a limited-time mission a year ago. She also equipped her own ice attack, which was marginal—and then her close attack, a frozen blade of draining. It wasn’t ideal. Some would argue she ought to use a shield and sword, or just be a mage. At least she wasn’t still wearing heavy armor, like she used to. Kit had hounded her mercilessly until she’d accepted that elves needed to wear light armor, for a variety of reasons.
OtterLeader: All right. Ready?
DangerNoodle: Hell yah
TheFerocity: Let’s GOOOOOO
BigDorkEnergy: Born ready
Maggie didn’t bother to respond, just followed the others. Then she noticed a private note in the chat, from Otter.
OtterLeader: If you start getting swamped, get by me, I’ll keep you clear. Don’t worry.
She frowned, a little offended.
BOGWITCH: I’ll be fine.
OtterLeader: Just sayin
Her frown evolved into a scowl, and she quickly typed as the boss did his monologue of I will destroy your puny lives blah blah blah.
BOGWITCH: Because I’m a woman?
OtterLeader: Because you’re level 27 and everybody else here is 50 or higher. I’m a level 100 healer. And this is your first time.
OtterLeader: No offense.
After a moment’s irritation, she relented. If she were leading a group, she’d probably feel protective of the noobs too. Well, unless they were acting like dumbasses. She probably wouldn’t protect, say, BigDorkEnergy. She huffed out an irritated breath, then quickly typed: BOGWITCH: sorry
OtterLeader: No worries
He seemed nice, this Otter guy. Good leader, good healer. She would’ve liked more women—any other woman—in the guild, but considering they were local and she hadn’t met a lot of women who liked video games out here, maybe it was just specific to this crew. From what Deb had said, it sounded like they all knew each other. She was lucky they were open to taking her on, sight unseen. They seemed to have good stats, especially for a closed group.
Now the archduke had stopped blathering, and the real battle commenced. It was hard—maybe not Dark Souls hard, but pretty challenging. There were tons of “HEAL” calls going on in the chat, and “RE-GEN” came up a few times. She charged in, which made the chat explode.