Colors and Roles>Overview
Pink: Healer - Playing a Pink is an exercise in putting others before yourself. As a Pink, you’re responsible for keeping your teammates in one piece. Most of your spells will be geared toward healing damage or preventing your team from taking it in the first place. Pinks place caring, love, and comfort above everything else.
Red: - Ranged or Melee DPS - Reds are aggressive, competitive, and willing to confront problems head-on. It’s no surprise that in Star Princess, Reds are a DPS color. As a Red, you’ll be trying to race your enemies, killing them before they kill you.
Orange: Melee DPS or Tank - Oranges are natural leaders, helping their team by making decisions, bringing up others, and still being able to bring their own damage - or take it for their teams. They fit into the tank or melee DPS role, where they lead from the front.
Yellow: - Support - A good Yellow plays a lot like a Pink, but by bringing their team’s power up or their enemies’ power down, they prevent the team from taking damage in the first place. They’re the most likely to stop and help someone who needs it, and the most likely to sacrifice themselves for the team.
Green: - Tank - Nothing competes with a Green when it comes to keeping others safe. Protective of their friends, always ready to jump to someone’s defense, and the moms of any team, Greens naturally fit into tank roles - even when their kits approach tanking for the party in a non-traditional way.
Blue: - Ranged DPS - Emotionally fragile, shy, and adverse to verbal conflict, Blues nevertheless do high damage from afar. The ultimate glass cannons, their spellcrafting is second to none, though they rely on others to take care of direct confrontation for them.
Purple: - Ranged or Melee DPS - The introverted and prickly Purple is a rare sight in Star Princess, but a good Purple player has a huge advantage solo, or with a distraction in the form of a team willing to put up with them. Their stealth-oriented gameplay requires some skill to pull off, but its results are undeniable.
* Excerpt from official Wiki page for the Star Princess: Machines’ Rise MMORPG
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Chapter Ten
“Okay, the dance is about five seconds too long, and it’s a little stupid, but that outfit is great.” Overclock grinned weakly at me. It was obvious she was trying not to show it, but just as equally obvious she was upset that I had a mission when she was too hurt to help. “And you found your Color at, what? Level 2? You’ll be fine.”
“I can confirm that Level 2 is exceptional, although I was not expecting Red. Blue or Pink, certainly, but not Red” James typed as we hurried through the shelter’s narrow hallway to the airlock and the control room next to it. “I’ll need to run some simulations to see what tools and tactics you’ll need as a solo spell-based Red. Most Reds are pretty aggressive, but with your stats, you’ll probably want to be a touch more cautious.”
“Yeah…” I glanced at my leg. Hidden under my black tights, my scab itched. The wound had healed quickly overnight, and now I could hardly tell I’d been injured except for the need to scratch. “Do you really think there's still people in the building? Everyone who isn’t here must’ve gotten away.”
James cleared his throat. “This wasn’t an isolated Emergence, Luciole.” I knew he was using my Alias to help me fake it ‘till I made it, but it still felt strange. Like I was someone different. “The megacity suffered, at last count, one hundred thirteen different Emergences. The worst is in Victoria, but there are machines everywhere.”
“Oh,” I frowned. “So, help isn’t coming?”
“No, Luciole, help is coming.” James’s voice was insistent in my ear. “You’re the help.”
“And what’s happening in Duncan Towers?” My sister was there, a few floors above home.
“I’m not at liberty to give exact information, but Team Omega Lily is in the area. They reported a Class Four, typing is currently classified, but were able to kill it quickly. Very quickly. Their triple-Red/solo-Yellow composition would be ideal for an all-in Yellow like Overclock, incidentally.”
I gulped as we stepped into the control room. It was time for my game face.
Three last-decade model computers ran next to the wall, their cooling fans howling as two exhausted-looking security guards tried to monitor all three. Officer Chen stood in the corner nearest a hidden window that looked into the airlock, arms behind her back and facing a conference table covered in maps of the school, the neighborhood, and the city. And, sitting at the head of the table, was a balding man in a wrinkled set of Army fatigues.
As we stepped in, the man stood and saluted, and a second later, so did Officer Chen, though hers was sloppy, like someone who hadn’t practiced much. Overclock rolled her eyes just the tiniest bit and saluted back. “Let’s keep things informal here. Miss Luciole, this is Lieutenant Alan Sharp. Lieutenant, Miss Luciole. She’ll be performing today’s mission. If you could clear the room, we can get started.”
“Of course, Miss Overclock. Everyone, take 10. Get some coffee and a bite.” His deep staccato voice boomed out, and the two guards at the computers stood and walked toward the door. Officer Chen started to as well, but hesitated, glancing toward Overclock and then toward Sharp with a questioning look on her face.
“Officer Chen will attend the briefing as well. She has valuable intel for the mission.”
I sat in one of the rolling chairs at the table. “Did you find out anything about Sora Ito or Robert Pendleton?”
Overclock held up a hand and glared at me before turning to the two officers. “It should go without saying that Luciole’s identity is strictly confidential, and anything either of you do to publicly out her would be prosecutable under the Minor Magicals Protection Clause.” Sharp and Chen nodded slowly. “Okay, with that taken care of, let’s start with Luciole’s question. After that, we’ll move on to the mission.”
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“I checked the shelter’s records, and neither the automated census nor a manual roll call shows Mr. Pendleton or Miss Ito in the shelter.” My shoulders slumped for a second as Officer Chen softly spoke, before I set my jaw. If Dad or Sora were out there, I would find them. I had to. There wasn’t anyone else. “There were two groups of survivors in the building, though. Lieutenant Sharp knows more about the first than I do.”
“Thank you, Officer,” Sharp sat back down and pointed to a blueprint of the school. “The custodial room is next door to us, so after the civilians were secured, I sent a couple guards over to look for radios, walkie talkies, or anything else we could use to talk to others in the school. With what they brought back, we made contact with a group of survivors near the gym. They’d barricaded the boys’ locker room. We couldn’t reach them, and ordering civilians to cross an Emergence zone is a court-martialable offense, so we’d been keeping in contact over the radio. Their radio ran out of battery overnight, though, and the power is out.”
He rubbed his eyes. “The mission plan is simple. You need to reach the survivors by taking the stairs up, following the main hall until it reaches the art wing, and cutting through that hall. Once you’ve done that, the gym is on your -”
“My right. Do you think Sora’s with that group?”
“We’re not sure who’s there. No one was in charge and our attempts to get a roll call there failed.” Sharp pointed back to the map. “We know there’ll be Type Ones, and Overclock reported a Type Four during your escape here yesterday-” I paled a touch at that “-but beyond that, we have little idea what the enemy is doing, except that the Type Twenty-One is digging a big hole in the soccer field.”
I reached for the map and Lieutenant Sharp slid it toward me. The route was penciled in on top of the blue ink lines representing walls, windows, and doors. A star on the map covered the locker room in question, but a second star all the way on the second floor caught my attention. “Is that a second group of survivors?”
“Yes, Miss Luciole,” Officer Chen spoke up. Her eyes drooped and she held back a yawn. “I was on the radio through the night with them. They’re just a few teachers and a handful of students. Most have some sort of injury, and they’re in the language arts rooms on floor two. They reported that the main stairway was damaged and is probably impassable with their injured, which leaves the fire escape, but it faces the soccer field where that Type Twenty-One is dug in.”
“In short, they’re stuck and we can’t get them out, so we need to help those we can.” The lieutenant stood. “Miss Luciole, I know your friends and family are out there. I can’t give you orders, but please, follow the plan. Help the gym survivors, then see if there’s a way to get to the ones upstairs.” Everyone saluted back and forth, including me, even though I felt like a fake as I did it. Then, Overclock and I left.
A minute later, the inside airlock door banged shut behind us. “I thought you weren’t coming with me,” I said.
Overclock shrugged, eyes seeming to pierce the outer door. “I’m not, but it’s no big deal to send you off in person. Just do your best, kid.”
“Hey, you mentioned going to school before. How old are you anyways, Overclock?” I asked as the outside airlock opened and I stepped out into the dark school.
“I’m 16, and so is James!”
The door slammed shut, and I glared at it. Kid! I was older than her! I spun away from the door, started walking toward the stairs, and stopped. I was forgetting something.
“Missions please.”
Mission Menu
Mission
Difficulty
Status
Rewards
Priority: Alias Creation
1 (Easy-Cheese)
Complete?
N/A
Secure the Gym
Challenging
Accept?
3 Exp., 1 point in Vitality
Type Twenty-One
Overwhelming
Accept?
[Locked]
Rescue 12 Civilians
Challenging
Accept?
1 Sigil
“Why are the rewards locked for 'Type Twenty-One'?”
James paused. I heard him sigh. “A locked reward means that the mission is extremely difficult. There’s a high likelihood of death, so the reward is hidden to stop Magical Girls from throwing their lives away. Everyone’s life is precious, but losing a Magical Girl for a handful of civilians also trades all the lives she could have saved in the future.”
“Okay. Complete, Accept, Skip, Accept. I never decline a quest in video games, and I’m not going to start now, but I don’t have to accept, right?’
“No. I think you’ve made a good choice.”
I stomped up the stairs, hearing the familiar skittering of a Type One above me. “Think this is the right time to test out my Mana Surge?” I subvocalized.
“I believe so. However, you will need line of sight to the machine in order to be effective.”
“And how do I activate it?”
“I can’t answer that question, Luciole. There will be something that feels right, and something to say that sounds right. Do that and say that, and your Mana Surge will work.”
“Oookay. That’s ridiculous.” I crept up the stairs.
“It is not ridiculous! No two girls have the same Mana Surge. There’s no way for an Operator to look up how a brand new one works!”
I got to the top of the stairs and peeked around the corner. There, moving down the hall toward me, was the Type One.
I took a deep breath. Then, I stepped out from behind the corner and cupped my hands in front of my chest like they were filled with water. As the Type One’s eye flickered to red, I tossed the imaginary water toward it, spread my hands apart, and shouted, “Feu-Follet!”
The air between my hands erupted in light.