~Prologue~
Marissa
Four hours later, Marissa was well and truly on her way through the beginning of the game. Or at least she certainly felt like she was making progress. She had hit level 5, and gained two new skills to add to her rotation. The first was [Rain of Arrows], an AoE attack with a [Might] of 150, that pelted enemies in a targeted area with a quick burst of damage with a fairly short cooldown.
Second was [Venom Fang], an attack that launched an arrow that was poison tipped, and dealt damage over time. Marissa was still trying to get a handle on how Mag Mell broke down their skill designs, and [Venom Fang] being listed with a [Might] of 600 and a [Duration] of 30 seconds, seemed to imply that the 600 [Might] was the total damage dealt over the 30 second [Duration].
Both skills fit nicely into her meager damage rotation for now, although they still didn’t confer anything too interesting. Open with a fully charged [Full Draw], apply [Venom Fang], then basic attacks until [Full Draw] was off cooldown again. [Rain of Arrows] wasn’t particularly useful damage wise unless she had at least two targets - and for the moment, she didn’t have the damage to manage pulling more than one mob at a time.
At least not without risking a death.
Marissa didn’t worry too much about it, though. Pulling multiple packs of mobs together was mostly just a time-saving strategy to deal with large numbers while using AoE skills capable of hitting multiple targets at once. And part of the deal was having enough AoE damage to wipe out the pack quickly enough before they collectively did enough damage to kill you instead.
Low levels basically never allowed that much AoE damage by design. So, for now, she was fine.
It also helped that the [Rest] skill had rather significant regen on it, so the downtime between pulling enemies was unusually short, all things considered. Marissa also felt like the way they had made even normal mobs a potential threat was a good design choice, though she wasn’t sure how she would feel about it by the end of the game.
Though she also fully recognized that she was maybe still too early to get a good read on it in full. She pulled up her character sheet again with [C] while she was auto-running toward the zone’s quest hub.
Hibiscus Jade
Level : 5
[Path] : [Arrow]
[Dedication] : [--]
HP
500/500
MP
500/500
[Strength]
15
[Intelligence]
8
[Accuracy]
7
[Speed]
5.5
[Defense]
9
[Resistance]
11
[Slash]
9
[Arcane]
11
[Pierce]
9
[Holy]
11
[Blunt]
10
[Nature]
11
[Parry]
0
[Dark]
13
In her short time leveling, she had realized exactly how stats worked in Mag Mell, and it was a little different from most games she had played. Rather than standard numbers, her stats were essentially percentage boosts applied to the related action or formula.
So, for example, her [Strength] was currently a 15% boost to physical damage. Her [Defense] was a 9% reduction on incoming damage, and so on. [Speed] appeared to affect both her cooldown timers as well as how quickly she moved through her basic attacks.
There also appeared to be some more hidden calculations that weren’t immediately obvious. Her [Level] appeared to matter, as she did more damage to things below her level and vice-versa. Her equipment pieces all had some kind of effect on her stats as well, as swapping to some of her gear had reduced her [Resistances] and boosted others.
As Marissa parked Hibiscus in the level 5 quest hub - which was a pretty standard military-like outpost - she leaned back and stretched. Deciding her back still felt tight, she decided to instead get up out of her desk chair and really stretch out. The stretch felt good after she’d been sitting there for so long at this point.
She glanced over at the chat program that she used with her friends to see how everyone was getting along. Kieran was online, and playing Mag Mell. He had been for a bit now, and she expected to see an in-game Friend Request from him any time now.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
A few other friends she knew were also already playing the game, though they hadn’t been as vocal about being excited for it as she and Kieran had been.
Jasmine, Marissa’s college roommate, was online and playing. Which meant she must have been keeping an eye on the game, since she must have taken off work for the day. She lived in New York City and worked as a Social Media Manager for a marketing company that worked with a huge list of clients. There was no way she wouldn’t be at work on a random November Friday, even if she was three hours ahead of Marissa.
Jasmine’s husband, Ashton, was also apparently playing. His online status was a bit more unreliable as he was a freelance writer, regularly contributing to news outlets, while mostly working from home.
She fully expected a message from Jasmine asking for a character name later, so they could add each other as Friends.
There were a few other people that Marissa knew that were playing, too, but no one that she expected to be hearing from today. Unfortunately, after moving from the East Coast to the West Coast, her social circles had suffered and never really recovered. Even though she had been in San Francisco for basically ten years at this point, she basically spent her time either at work or at home.
She was more than happy with her life, all things considered, but she had to admit to herself that she didn’t have many close friends.
As she finished stretching and sat back down, she told herself that it was fine. She only needed a few close friends anyway. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have friends that she could grab a drink with afterwork or anything. She just didn’t consider them ‘close’.
Marissa resituated herself and got comfy in her chair again before poking Hibiscus forward. When she reached for her mug to take a nice, calming gulp of tea she found her mug empty. She groaned, and thumped her forehead on her desk.
“Right. Empty.”
She muttered, and stood to go refill the delightful chamomile tea.
----------------------------------------
“So? How goes the leveling?” Kieran asked later that afternoon, over their voice chat.
“Good? I feel like I haven’t actually put a real dent in the game yet though.” Marissa said, while working her way through a small pack of mobs, one at a time. “I’m level 14 now, and I have a fair number of skills. It’s definitely enough to keep combat fun, at least.”
“Same here.” Kieran said. “The melee skills are satisfying, too. And looking at a little fae woman throwing around a sword as big as she is will never get old.”
“So you’re doing more than just swinging your basic attack around, then?”
“Yeah. The skills I learned all flow pretty well into one another like a long combo. Basically I just open with one, cycle through until everything is on cooldown, basic attack a few times, then repeat. But one of my skills has a knockdown effect, and another has a stun, so I’ve been using those for their secondary effects against some of the more dangerous mobs.”
“Makes sense.” Marissa said, nodding to herself. She had also picked up a few more skills with varied uses. [Pin] had a root component with 50 [Might], and [Triple Nock] gave her a second AoE attack with 50 [Might], but no cooldown, so it was spammable. [Slithershot] had a leap backward built into it to create space, and [Heartstopper] did a chunk of bonus damage to enemies below 25% HP.
All in all, Hibiscus was beginning to get the tools to kite effectively and truly be a good ranged DPS. No flying with her wings yet, though.
“Do you think it’s worth it to team up for leveling?” Marissa asked. “Seen anything about experience sharing works?”
“I haven’t looked into it, no.” Kieran said. “We could try it, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. Knowing the two of us, I’m sure we’re both efficiently chugging through quests on our own. We might step on each other’s toes if we party up.”
Marissa snorted. She knew what he said sounded sarcastic, but he was being sincere - and he was right. They were both regular MMO players, and when you were questing in a game it was almost like entering a fugue state. You’d just mindlessly hit everything on the quest list - naturally in the most convenient order - and clean up your journal all at once.
Trying to coordinate while doing that often did go poorly, and sometimes even made the questing take longer. Even the party members shared credit for everything.
“Solo grind it is!” Marissa declared. “At least we get to chat now. I have to pay too much attention to just watch videos on my second screen while playing, so just rushing quests while skipping cutscenes was starting to get a little tedious.”
“Sorry?” Kieran laughed. “Nat went to work today, so I’ve got Aoife and Kaitlyn at home. I didn’t want to be too loud and wake them up early.”
“That’s fair.” Marissa said. “How are they doing?”
“Good.” Kieran said brightly. “I took a break before to make them lunch. Fi is watching TV about…8 feet behind me. Kat is in her playpen playing with some toys, but totally half asleep. Aren’t you?” He said, presumably turning to ask his daughter the question.
“You’re lucky that your study is big enough to basically be a second family room.” Marissa said, clearly jealous as she looked around the tiny second bedroom that functioned as her computer room.
“Yeah, we lucked out that the Minneapolis suburbs aren’t too expensive. And we knew that we wanted a big bonus room.” Kieran said. “Natalie has always liked to be in the same room with me when I’m gaming, even if she isn’t a big gamer herself. I appreciate it, too. Keeps us feeling close.”
“Couldn’t be me!” Marissa said jokingly with half a laugh. “My lovelife is a disaster. And my house is tiny.”
“You live in San Francisco.” Kieran said flatly. “Of course your house is tiny. And probably costs as much as mine does.”
“No shit.”
“As for your lovelife…Well, I’m sure that’ll come around in time.” Kieran said.
“Can only hope.”
“Maybe you’ll meet your match at your bakery. Someone will just come in randomly one day, your eyes will meet across the room, and you’ll just know-”
“Ding. Hit 15.” Marissa said, cutting him off. “Fucking finally.” She paused, remembering the kids nearby. “You’re on headphones, right?”
“Yup, you’re safe.”
“Oh, good. Just FYI, there’s a quest lull around 14 and I had to grind for 15. Seems like this is where the tutorial zone ends.”
“Lovely. I guess I’ll make sure to grab a few extra kills here and there to see if I can’t bridge the gap.”
“Good luck.” Marissa said, as she returned Hibiscus to the most recent quest hub, which was a more permanent military installation in the area. It had walls. And, as expected, the commander in the place had a new quest marker over their head.
“Sweet. There’s a quest at Forward Camp Boheh from Commander Frigg at level 15. Looks like it’s the way forward when you hit 15.” She quickly glanced over the quest’s text, looking for anything that stood out. Conveniently, the game highlighted important or key words, and [Falias] was practically glowing green.
“Looks like I’m headed to one of the capital cities. ‘Falias’.” Marissa said, as she followed her map toward the next quest destination.
“Neat. I wonder if you’ll get your Dedication and stuff there, too?”
“It feels likely? Getting to a major city in an MMO is usually where it opens up, right?” Marissa chuckled. “I still don’t know which way I’m gonna go.”
“For Arrows, it was Seeker and Keeper, right?”
“Mhm. One focuses on weapon mastery and the other on magic, apparently. Based on their descriptions. I’m curious what kind of magic we’re talking here, though.”
“Surely it’s nature-y.” Kieran said.
“Oh, I’m sure.” Marissa agreed. “But I meant more like…gameplay wise. Are we talking offensive spells? Magic instead of a bow? Or maybe it’s more like magical traps like traditional ‘Hunter’ types? There’s plenty of ways they could go.”
“Any tip offs in your current skills?”
“Not really?” Marissa said, considering. “I have a DoT that’s poison flavored. That’s about it.”
“Guess you’ll have to wait and see, then.”
“Yup.” Marissa agreed automatically as she was walking up to her transport to the city.
“Oh. Now that’s interesting.”
“What?” Kieran asked.
“The automatic travel thing? It looks like it’s a carriage pulled by two Dullahan. They look badass.” She said, looking over her hired wheels.
The carriage was uniquely designed, looking somewhat gothic to go along with the headless horsemen drawing it. They wore armor and carried a side sword, and looked pretty dangerous. Certainly more imposing than any of the Fomorians that she had been fighting up until now.
Marissa wasn’t sure what kind of significance Dullahan carried in Celtic myth, but for now she wasn’t really concerned with it.
“Falias here I come!”