The decision to head back to the floor five base camp was an easy one to make. Each of the fights we had had on this floor had been incredibly tough, and with nearly half our numbers depleted, we didn’t want to risk things. The journey back was quiet.

  The teleporter room on Five was still dead when we arrived. We found some seats and waited for the rest of the party to come back from their deaths. Kelsey said she respawned on the teleporter’s platform, so we stayed in sight of it, and sure enough, a few minutes later, the rest of the party started appearing.

  “So we have an hour to wait on G…” Jacobs said.

  “Based on how the fights went… I think we either need better gear or another party before we head into six again.” Voice said

  “Another healer might be enough,” Peachy said, “We were holding our own until Daisy ran out of mana, another healer would take the pressure off her and Jacobs, giving them time to better mana manage in those situations…”

  “Better gear would also reduce how much damage you two take,” Jacobs said, “There are supposed to be crafting terminals on this floor, and we did find a shield crystal in the loot, and an upgrade to Voice’s survivability would reduce Daisy’s mana usage…”

  “We’re rapidly moving into post-combat reflection, which we should do once G is with us, so we are not rehashing the same arguments,” interrupted Darksider before the discussion got out of hand. “Our choices are to leave the delve, which I think none of us wants to do at this point, go back down to six and see if the path to the right has anything, or spend some time here on five until G is back. I’m thinking the latter, I’d like to reflect a bit on the fight before we discuss it.”

  “It’s getting a little late to head back down into Six, I agree with clearing out some of the side passages here on five while we wait,” I said. Then I tilted my head and thought about it for a moment. “I need an Arctic AOE I can spam… I should work on that…”

  “That’s one of the things I was going to bring up when we do the retro…” Darksider said. “Your Hailstorm is probably the only reason any of us survived that swarm. From what I saw before I went down, Sam’s mix of magic, range and melee was almost as effective. Even Kelsey’s Magic Archery… Our progress in all aspects has sped up with our use of magic…we all need more…”

  “I’ve done a lot of runs with different groups,” George said, “I think you are definitely right. Aenara’s OP spells aside, the mix of magic the rest of you use puts you above them all… I know I only survived because I luckily chose to fight alongside Peachy.”

  “We’re rapidly falling into reflection territory again,” Voice interrupted. “Can we start a voice chat with G in-game?”

  “We’d have to log out to the lobby. You could have a one-on-one conversation with him, but you wouldn’t be able to hear anyone else…” Darksider said. “It’s apparently a technical limitation…”

  “Or a balancing one,” I said.

  “Probably more that. Social chats being limited by active towers and all…” Peachy said.

  “Ok, let's log out and pull G into a group chat,” Jacobs said.

  “One sec, let me see if he is available before we do that,” Darksider said.

  “I have an idea!” Kelsey announced.

  “You know you could have just done this in-game without me and sent me the recordings,” G’s disembodied voice said. Kelsey’s idea was to use our group chat’s browser interface instead of the client we all usually used. The game was treating it exactly like we were making a phone call, so the only thing I could hear was our voices from the browser.

  “We were going to log out, let me… ahh yep here we go…” Jacobs said, and then a link to a video of the fight from his perspective appeared. “So anyone who missed the end can see.”

  “It’s weird hearing your in-game voices while we get G’s real one…” I reflected.

  “So how does this work?” George asked. “Don’t think I have ever done a post-incident reflection for a game before…”

  “Pretty much the same as any other, we think about what went well, what we could have done better and what we should do next,” Voice said. “No blame, just self-reflection.”

  “Sounds like work…”

  “Yeah, we do them there as well. It works.”

  “I think our plan was solid,” Peachy said. “The real fight was in the adds, but we couldn’t have known that.”

  “I agree,” Voice said. “The call to pull back was a good one. Even if we had a third group to tank the mobs coming from the other tunnel, using the one we travelled down as a choke was the smart play.”

  “I thought about it on the walk back. Choking where we did was also probably the best spot…” said Peachy.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Aenara’s timing of her Hail Storm spell was perfect. Just as they were about to hit our line… I don’t think we would have survived the full swarm…” George said.

  “They were much weaker to Arctic spells than the other two schools,” Sam said. “I realised after seeing how quickly they froze. Makes sense in hindsight, scarabs are typically from hot countries, and those tunnels are pretty warm.”

  “I should have stopped it before I went unconscious, though…” I said, as I got to the part of the fight where I went down.

  “Maybe,” Jacobs said. “But it’s possible more of them would have survived if you had, and honestly, I was barely keeping Peachy alive at the end, one more mob might have tipped those scales, and we would have had a full wipe.”

  “I could have helped with the fighting…” I said.

  “Me running out of mana was a bigger problem…” said Daisy, “If I had just had better mana awareness, Voice wouldn’t have gone down.”

  “No, that’s on me,” Voice corrected. “I should have done a better job avoiding the damage.”

  “This might be a gear issue or level issue,” I said, “Did you get an Aether point from it?”

  Daisy nodded.

  “Good, next time we will both have bigger pools and last that bit longer,” I told her. “And next time, Voice will have a better shield and better armour, so he will take less damage for you to heal. Watching the fight from Jacob’s perspective, you did a great job keeping him up as long as you did. It also looks like you were dropping HOTs on Peachy as well.”

  “Shouldn’t I? She was taking damage…” Daisy said.

  “Oh, no, that was spot on the right thing, I was refreshing mine on Voice as well. Our HOTs are hands down our most mana-efficient heals. As El said, you did nothing wrong in the Healing department. How much Aether did you have?” Jacobs asked.

  “Four, now five,” she replied.

  “Then that is why you went out of mana before me, I was on five,” Jacobs reassured her.

  “We did a reasonable job taking out the first few that made it through, but… honestly, Sam’s mix of magic and melee blew my use of it out of the water,” George said.

  “I honestly think that is the biggest takeaway I think we should get from this,” Darksider said, “Magic is incredibly strong.”

  “We should all pivot to being finger wigglers?” G said with a bit of disgust.

  “God no!” Peachy countered. “We should look to increase our magic usage in enhancing the way we like to fight, leave all that hard thinking to those who like to do it.”

  “Said the woman with a PhD and eidetic memory…” I muttered.

  “Thus making my words learned and not merely laziness,” she countered, “and I won’t forget you said that. Voice, why did you use Ice on your shield?”

  “It was something I wanted to try after I realised the weapon enhancements were cast and forget. I’m still testing it, but my hypothesis is that it slows them down when they strike,” replied the other tank.

  “I wonder if Storm will stun them…” Peachy mused.

  “Back to magic, I think we should all get the basic spells in all three schools,” Darksider said, “and then look for more spells which synergise with our fighting styles. Like I want that Lightning Step of yours, El. Being able to rapidly reposition will be a huge advantage to my rapid fighting style…”

  “Same for me. Rank 3, right?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, it’s not cheap, increases on range and direction changes.”

  “Think you can teach us?” asked Darksider.

  “I can try…” I thought, thinking of the best way to do just that.

  There were a couple more asides about specific moves, but the general takeaway is that we needed to lean into our magic and specialise in the different ways to apply it. By the time we were done, G still had 40 minutes on his respawn timer, so we bid him see-ya-later and closed out of the browser to discuss our next steps in-game.

  “Trade you Spark for Firebolt,” Daisy said to Jacobs.

  “Sure,” he said.

  I watched Peachy and Voice start discussing trading Shock Weapon and Ice Weapon.

  I found myself looking at a hopeful George, Darksider, Kelsey and Sam.

  “So. Lightning Step…”

  “Jacobs!” I called out.

  “What?” he called back from the other side of the room.

  “I might need a heal.”

  “What? Why?” Then his eyes went wide. “What crazy stunt are you about to pull?!”

  I’d got the four of them started on Lightning Step, and then once they had grasped it and switched to practising, I started looking into making an AOE Arctic spell. Between Ball Lightning and Fireball, I figured the larger zone of Fireball, with its bigger alpha strike, made more synergistic sense than the smaller zone of Ball Lightning, but with its sustained periodic damage. Jacobs was on his way over to me with the look on his face confirming he intended to stop me from doing something foolish when I raised my hand at a spot nowhere near anyone.

  I felt the wetness on my cheeks. Nope, that wasn’t right, either. More like…yeah, that was it. The white orb shot out from my hand. It crossed the room, leaving a light blue, practically white slash in the air. Then… whoomph.

  The crack filled the air, and a cold chill spread throughout the room. A zone about 50 per cent bigger than my fireball erupted in sharp icicles that then seemed to melt away, and within heartbeats were gone like they had never existed…

  “Damn…” a voice said.

  I then felt a sharp pain from my ear. I turned to see Jacobs going for another flick.

  “Idiot,” he said. I then felt the cooling relief I was coming to associate with healing spells.

  “I warned you,” I said in my defence. “There is sometimes backlash if I get the spell wrong…”

  “Idiot,” he repeated.

  “So you don’t want me to give you a warning when I try out something new?”

  ‘New spell discovered - Cold Snap’