If she could have it any other way, Calamity would like to be able to choose where she could respawn. Calamity had her fair share of problems with『Integral Survivors Online』, for instance, sometimes the game would lag at random interval and boot her out of ISO, there were a few times that she would notice NPCs just sorta stare at a wall before the system would terminate them and spawn a new NPC in the same place who acted as nothing happened, and of course the『Motion System』seemed very finicky to her.
It was these spiteful thoughts that soured her mind as she was brought back all the way to『Canvas Village』on『Base Zero』, Calamity couldn't help but trying to feel her back, attempting to not think how stupid she must have looked while fighting the marauders.
"Ugh!" A voice next to her let out a grunt of disappointment, and Calamity smiles a little bit as she sees Ava looking tense next to her.
"What happened?" Calamity questions, as she follows Ava, who is starting to storm out of towards the edge of the humble village and towards the『Warp Point』.
"I sucked," Ava replied with a sigh, "I don't know why I decided to turn on my chat again, just to see GGs and 'get clapped'." She frowns.
"Wait, shouldn't we hold off for Teal?" Calamity looks behind her at the small dug up site where the two of them had come from, looking for a young woman with short black hair and questionable attire.
Ava stopped and quickly said, "Um, probably not, she is good at these sorts of games, she probably just dipped once we got dusted." Ava wondered to herself if that excuse sounded reasonable, and the right to doubt herself as Calamity felt as if there was something more to it, but decided to ask later.
"That makes sense hopefully that's the case, it sucks to get dropped like that in combat," Clamaity crosses her arms, her voice light flecked with salt.
"Let's just get to Teal and hash a plan, this time we have a better idea of what we are doing."
The pair walk up to the『Warp Point』, this one was different from the one they had seen on the『Ashen Ring』 as five tiles are placed in front of them, with one in the center and four others placed at the points of the diamond, connected with thin white wires. All of them are pulsing a slight purple color and letting a gentle hum emanate from the ground.
Calamity looks at the formation as she steps on it, "Man, we don't even the『Warp Point』to be this big, our party is so small, shouldn't we think about asking more players to help?"
Ava is trying to fit herself evenly on one of the tiles, even though it is not necessary, "I like to play in small groups, this way I don't have a bunch of people constantly trying to mess me streaming. Besides, its a lot easier to coordinate meetings and time stuff with a smaller group, right?"
Calamity shrugs, as she steps within the『Warp Point』area, "I guess."
"Alright, ready?"
Calamity gives her thumbs up.
Ava inhales and shouts, "Warp『Charred Forest』!"
As the words leave Ava's lips, sparks of electricity dance around the white coils that interconnect the tiles, there is a loud CRACK and the two women find themselves engulfed in a beam of fizzling energy. Calamity braced herself, having used these points many times before, and thus the feeling of her gut dropping out of her stomach. Calamity looked over to see how Ava was handling it, a wave of fiery hair whipping in the whistling winds, see didn't seem too bothered by the sensation.
Floshoo! A blue beam of energy strikes the diamond-shaped tile in the graveyard of a once-popular park. Teal, who had been waiting patiently at the point, sitting on her feet, lost her balance by the sudden flash of energy, cursing as she fell backward.
Ava and Calamity's frames came into focus as the energy dissipates and reveals the players, who frowned as they saw Teal picking herself up.
"What happened to you?" Calamity asks, "Why are you on the floor?"
"Glad to see you too," Teal mutters, standing up now.
"We were gone for at least five minutes," Ava shrugs, "it wasn't that long."
"It felt that way," Teal sighs, "I didn't know teleporters freaking explode to warp players, its bit in your face."
"I still can't believe you have never noticed them, people use them pretty frequently."
Teal grumbles her next line, "Well, I haven't had the best relationship with teleportation in the last game I played, doubt I would use it, even if I noticed it."
"Well, we are here now." Calamity states matter of factly and goes to sit on a bench.
The gray woodlands around them still mourn with a quiet eeriness. The large contorted root-like trees bend over the party as if trying to clutch them in a withering grasp. Teal walks over to Calamity and props herself against one of the trees, not being put off by the location. Ava mutes herself for a moment, as she starts to read off people's names who have donated to her. Watching that, Koharu feels the haunting knot twist and she immediately looks over to Calamity.
"I am assuming that you guys want to start talking about what we can do better?" Teal guesses quickly, trying to get away from the feeling as fast as possible.
"Yeah, but-"
"Well," Teal cuts her off, "I think we know where we can start."
For a moment, Calamity feels slightly uncomfortable as she guesses what Teal is about to say. Teal reads this and soften her gaze and makes sure to make her words are affectionate.
"Look, I think you are good at using the『Slingshot』, it's not a popular weapon, especially someone's main weapon, but nothing like that is what is hurting you. You can't seem to make your calls, you rely a lot on Ava and me to tell you what to do."
"I can operate on my own just fine." Calamity snaps, her eyebrows furrow, and twisted look appear on her face.
Teal throws her hands up in surrender, "I know you have the potential to, but I am not trying to make fun of you, it's just I have had issues with my confidence before."
Teal tries to keep her voice calm, she hoped that maybe even in real life she was blessed with high enough charisma to help get her tone across.
Calamity's grimace eases against her will, "I am not like you though."
"Hey, what's going on?" Ava's voice cuts in.
The two look up at Ava, her brown eyes still carried the same distinct emotions that Teal knows Mai to have. She seemed inquisitive but careful as if she knew that she stumbling on a discussion that was losing its breath.
"We are just talking about how we can function better next time." Calamity spews out, turning her head away from Teal and lowering it away from Ava's gaze.
"Just take a moment to relax, Calamity," Ava soothes and parks herself on the next to Calamity, "What were you saying, Teal?"
"Just told her to try to make decisions on her own, without consulting us," Teal admits, making sure to not let a hint of what could even be seen as negative intent plague her words.
"Hey, Calamity-" Ava begins.
"Stop," Calamity's voice shoots through Ava's sentence, "I know." Calamity bites her lip, both Ava and Teal felt the silence weigh on them for a little bit, just before it could crush them, Calamity relieves them with a sigh.
"Alright, I know what I have to do," Calamity says, she seemed to shake slightly, but Teal couldn't be sure if that wasn't just the server being laggy.
"But, we didn't discuss anything," Ava points out gently.
"We don't need to," Calamity's cheeks flush, mostly against her will, as in real life it would take more than this to make the player reveal how they feel, "I have had this problem in real life. It's fine. I'll do my best, but don't blame me or anything when things go wrong."
Ava cocks an eyebrow towards Teal who shrugs and says, "Of course not dude, it's just a game, don't stress about it."
"Alright, yeah," Calamity awkwardly stands, "are we good?"
"Hold on," Ava smirks, "we didn't even finish discussing what is wrong."
"We didn't start." Teal corrects and stands to make sure Calamity didn't feel awkward.
"Right, my bad," Calamity seemed keen on leaving this discussion behind, her bare arms were crossed, and her foot was tapping slightly, "What did you say before we went in, Teal? The things that we are doing wrong."
Teal looks up slightly and holds out her hand to count, "Let's see, we yell at each other, we don't coordinate as well as we should, and I think that was all I noticed before I went in."
"Yeah, I think shouting what we are going to say is probably not the slickest move we do," Ava noted, "Whenever I yelled at Calamity, the marauders instantly knew what was up."
"It's kind of something I would expect more from players than NPCs," Calamity admits, "the smarter I realize they are, the more I slightly dislike them."
Teal exhales with a smile, "I understand that but at the same time, I don't want to do some commando gestures, it just drains the fun."
Snap! Ava strikes her fingers, "You know what, let's pick on some enemies on『Base Zero』, I don't know about you, but I don't learn shit from talking."
"Sure, that works." Calamity pounces on the opportunity to leave their place of a discussion with such force, for a moment she was worried that she might have overdone it. However, her worries are in vain, as the conversation flows.
Teal nods, "I am not one for standing around and talking, as bad as it may be, I only learn from messing up."
"Great let's go then, I know this place near here that has enemies that players new to the『Ashen Ring』fight to level up." Ava almost skips to the『Warp Point』, Calamity following her with a relieved face, Teal, however hesitantly walks forward.
"Do we have to use the teleporter?" Teal questions, her green eyes darting from side to side looking for another way to get to their destination.
"Come on," Ava says with exasperation, as jogs back some and snatches at Teal's hand and yanks her onto the diamond. With a jolt, Teal finds herself standing in between Calamity and Ava. Ava goes to let go of her friend's hand, but Teal's hand clenches onto Ava's.
"Teal-" she starts and then notices the poker face expression that masks Teal's face, which Mai knew to be very unlike her roommate, who tended to only use a blank expression when in deep thought are trying to not trouble others with vibrant emotions.
"Where are we going?" Teal asks, ignoring the display of friendship they were showing off.
"Right," Ava clears her throat, "Warp,『Heatus Wastes』!"
White electricity danced at their feet as the tile bloomed into a violet color and with a- CRACK- Teal almost jumped out of the way of the teleportation beam that struck the trio and lifted them, the feeling of her stomach falling behind lurched a memory of a bloody cloaked god mounting above her into her vision.
Calamity sensed Teal's movement to try to leave and grabbed the free hand of the Survivor, who in shock, stopped moving. In just three milliseconds later, a ray of energy landed the party to their destination in safety. Fluoshoo!
Teal instantly let go of her party members' hands, she clears her throat and smiles, "Thanks ladies, from now on, I'll try to not let such lewd behavior get the better of me."
"I'll never understand you, Teal," Calamity remarks as Teal starts to distance herself as much as she could between herself and the warp area. She turns upon hearing Calamity's remark.
"We can change that with a few drinks and a room alone, no?" She winks and in an instant, Calamity decided that she had never met someone as confusing, yet interesting as Teal. Calamity catches Ava noticing her look of confusion and slight embarrassment.
"This isn't intended to be harsh, but how do you live with this person?" Calamity waits for an answer as Ava takes a moment to figure out how to respond to such a reasonable question.
"Well, she isn't as energetic in real life as she is in-game, though there are moments where she pushes herself to be." Ava shrugs, "I don't know, I mean I don't expect people to act the same way in-game as they do when they are talking to people they know in real life."
"Right, I guess so."
"Hey!" Teal shouts and shoots the two of a look of betrayal, "You aren't gossiping things about me on stream, are you?"
Ava shakes her head, "Nothing like that, what do you think of this area by the way?"
Teal looks out and frowns, "Black."
Teal describes the obsidian dark rock that they walk across and spans out for a few miles, building on top of each other in the distance and forms a shield-shaped volcano. Now and then, there is a stray patch of elevated land that escaped the cooling lava that turned into the new earth. There were also small cracks in weaker areas of the ground that gave way to magma running under the black crust.
"Yeah, that's one way to describe it," Calamity says squinting around, "but I would rather say barren, as in, no monsters."
"Not quite," Ava remarks and points of to the distance, "Take a look."
At first, the two girls couldn't see what Ava was referring to until a shift in what looked like a small rockslide caught their eyes. Then the rockslide started to move in strange patterns and with clear direction, then the black turned and in the reflection from the sun, it was clear that the creature they were looking at was completely made from stone.
"A golem," Calamity breathes.
"A lower level one," Ava agrees with pride puffing her chest up, "I am confident we can defeat this thing ease."
"You might be overestimating us," Teal cautions, "are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Alright, what's the plan then?" Calamity underhand tosses her question into the air, which Ava catches.
"No plan, not for now, but we know what we need to work on, correct?"
Calamity nods and doesn't make eye contact, Teal raises her hand and asks, "This includes the talking thing right?"
"Might as well, even though it can't understand us, we need to practice."
"Sounds good, alright, so, who's ready to be dusted?" Teal jokes and gestures for Ava to follow here, "Come on, we're DPS and Tank, we should lead. Calamity," she looks as Calamity pulls out her slingshot, Teal retrieves『Sublime Sirien』and blows a kiss at Calamity, "you got this!" She smiles and turns to starts to make her way towards the enemy.
Instead of feeling off-put, Calamity felt herself feeling slightly motivated, she had to admit to herself, she was getting used to Teal's attitude the more she behaved like herself. The group drew closer to the『Cinder Golem』the creature was entirely made from the black rock that the earth was molded from, if they looked closely, the could see pulsing hot veins of magma flowing like blood. The party stopped as the came close to the unsuspecting construct.
"Start us off," Teal remarks to Ava, keeping her sentence as short as she could.
Ava didn't respond, but nodded and drew her,『Grasscutter Blade』. In one swift motion, she launched herself towards the golem, her set of『Driod Armor』clanked slightly as she rushed forward, causing the stony monster to notice her. It was as tall as lampost, towering over Ava in tons of midnight rock seemingly built of smaller rocks making the limbs surrounding one huge boulder that made the center mass. By the time the 『Cinder Golem』noticed her it was already too late as pale green light coats the long single-edged blade, flashing and reflecting across the glass-like black rock of both the earth and the monstrosity.
Crack! Crack! She strikes twice with『Swivel』and just as she finishes her horizontal attacks and enters her『Post-Motion』with her positioning right under the monster's large rocky arm, she calls out, "Teal!"
Strong legs beat their way towards the stone giant her body low to the ground as her, moving as if dancing her way towards a partner, rather than an enemy who she was going to slash at with glowing red dagger. Shlack! Her blade made a nasty grinding sound against the beast's body. It was then that she noticed, somewhat expectedly that both her own and Ava's blades had done nothing to seriously harm this creature.
The dancer takes her last moment of movement to distance herself as much as could before she could feel the tingle of『Post-Motion』lock her limbs in place.
Calamity watched in the distance, her sling pulled and aimed at the creature, but at no particular area. She noticed that the slashing of her friends got them nowhere and observed as the『Cinder Golem』swiped at Teal, who had not yet recovered from the use of her『Skill』and was knocked back some. Ava hollers as she tries to pierce the rock monster with no other real options and finds these attacks ineffective.
Calamity's mind darted around the rock surface of their large oppenent until she noticed that rocks glimmered at the joint areas of the stone arms and legs. Calamity's mouth opened to question her peers, but nothing came out. Her arms suddenly began to shake some as she shut her mouth. She tried hard not to think about being scolded at, "They said it would be okay."
She thinks to herself as she attempts to aim at the joints. She snaps her fingers as she releases a yellow orb of energy at the monster, but at the last moment, her anxiety betrays her and tilts her arm a hair above where she was going for. KRA-KA-KOOM! A thunderous noise chases the crackling yellow bolt of energy as it pops against the surface of the mob. It stumbles back some but seems otherwise unaffected, Calamity curses as she waits for a few seconds to take another shot.
Ava, on the other hand, did not have the luxury of a moment to think. She was trying to scramble out of the way of the wide blows from the creature, sometimes she would be hit, but it didn't send her flying like it did Teal, which she assumed was because of her『Tenacity』. Ava's eyes frantically tried to scan for any weakness of the creature, but she couldn't find anything from her low angle.
Suddenly she yanked by the arm as an explosion of rock and lava burst in front of her! The『Cinder Golem』had launched it's arm at Ava while she was thinking and the only reason why she wasn't on the floor was that Teal had pulled her out of the way.
"Holy shit, thanks," Ava sputtered as she rapidly propelled herself away from the explosion.
"Let me see if I can't find I weakness or anything, there has to be something for a player who doesn't have a sort of bludgeoning weapon," she moves a strand of dark onyx hair out her vision as picks up where Ava left off on her mission, though this time she rushes the golem while attempting to do so. She jumps over the single-arm giant's attempt to swat her aside and with a sudden thought, lashes her arms tightly on to the arm as it swings.
A thrilling sensation fills her as she feels the vibration of the giant's movement. Teal starts to climb her way up the arm, resisting being shaken off as she skillfully pulls herself on top of the creature. She shimmies around not letting the sudden jerking of the『Cinder Golem』catch her off guard. She then spots Calamity in the distance, and waves at her frantically.
Calamity does not miss this very obvious act and takes a long inhale. Words of encouragement force their way into her mind as she stretches her slingshot back and takes aim. Electricity coils around the marble shaped ball, latent energy waiting to be released which becomes colored yellow as once again the ranger activates『Zoom』with a snap of her fingers.
This time her aim is true, and a streak of lightning cracks into the joint area of the golem's leg causing a crucial stone to break and the golem to topple over. CRASH! The fall of the creature rocks the earth and shards of rock fly into the air. For a moment, joy floods every cell or code or whatever of Calamity's body. Until she remembered where Teal was just a few moments ago and she is pulled into the arms of despair.
Ava rushed to the site where the『Cinde Golem』fell, just a few feet in front of her, "Teal!"
For a moment the black rubble moves and Teal's head pops out, "Ow." She gasps.
"Why the hell would you climb the giant rock monster?" Ava scolds, not wasting any time. She scans her chat and quickly starts to search the pile of rubble.
"What are you doing?" Teal asks and looks around herself, instinctively.
"It's not over until we destroy the stones filled with gems, the chat is screaming at me to destroy them."
Both girls frantically search the pile, as they do, Calamity starts to rush over but slows the closer she gets as different unsavory scenarios play out in her head of how her friends will react.
After just a moment, Teal notices her and with a grin waves her over, "Nice job! I think we got pretty lucky that it had already launched one of its arms at us, but it's a good thing you had our backs."
Calamity blinks and lowers her face, in an attempt to hide flushed cheeks, "Yeah, well, it was easy to see it's weak spots."
"Not from where we were," Ava explains and the whoops slightly as she finds a gleaming rock that shines with small jewels, "was this what you saw?"
Calamity nods.
"We couldn't see it, I guess cause we were so low to the ground compared to it," Teal holds her hand out for a fist bump which Calamity accepts and feels warmth creep into her chest.
Crack! Ava shatters the rock with a clean blow to the blade. They scour the rubble again to find the last gem-filled stone and destroyed that one as well. Wanting to take a break from the excitement of combat the girls decide to return to『Green Rim』and relax at a table in a small tavern.
"So, thoughts on what happened?" Ava asks her table as she sips from a mug of water.
"It could have gone better," Teal admitted, stirring a cup of tea, "but, I think I have learned a few things. Ava."
"That's me."
"I think we need to stick together in combat, don't split up and do our own thing," Teal explains slowly, "I don't know why I was even doing it like that beforehand, that just isn't how I roll, normally." Teal did know why she was keeping to herself in combat, in reality, sure, she was a lot more used to playing with at least one other person, but after what happened to her in the past, she felt like she was one her own, and she had a suspicious sensation that her habit for that wouldn't go away easily.
"That find with me." Ava smiles.
"I think," Calamity cuts in, which silence the other two women, "I think, I am ready to do what I think is best, for now."
Teal and Ava smile at her. Teal, who was sitting next to her, lightly punches her on the shoulder, "I don't think we would have had it any other way."
"So, what do you guys say?" Ava looks at them, "Just one more try before we log off?"
All three of them agree and head off again to the『Charred Forest』envigorated and slightly nervous about their rematch.