The Key to my HeART

14 Games

M A X

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson watched a movie in the living room. Josh, surprisingly not grounded after our strawberry prank, had gone to a friend's house for the night. Harper was probably playing Fortress Siege in the basement. After helping to clean the dinner dishes I had, I very politely asked to be excused to my room for the night. Mrs. Wilson looked concerned but didn't object.

I got onto Fortress Siege immediately. An hour later Harper joined. When I saw the name "Keilne" pop up on my screen it hit me. I asked Harper out on a date. A real date.

It had just happened. She was there. I was there. And I asked. I didn't give it much thought until now. Now all I could think about was not acting like a fool tomorrow.

Thankfully I had our raid to focus on now. I could stress about my date with Harper after we beat the Dread King.

"Who's ready?" A dwarf thief in our alliance, Kreuner, nearly shouted into his mic.

"Don't shout!" Three of us said in unison.

"Come on, y'all need to get excited," Kreuner spoke with a soft twang and on my screen, his dwarf did a little jig.

"We're plenty excited," Harper said. "We just don't need to blow out anyone's eardrums to prove it. Now, come on, I'm ready to slay the Dread King's horde."

"Alright, alright," Kreuner huffed. "Everyone here?"

There were six of us, Hailif, Keilne, Kreuner, and I were joined by a gnome paladin named Wilbur and an orc druid named Gemma. We sorted out our roles. As our tanks, Keilne and Wilbur would charge in first to take the brunt of the assaults. Gemma and Hailif would heal the party. Kreuner and I would do damage per second, or DPS, to wear down monsters with poisons or spells. It was a small party, but we were all a high enough level it shouldn't be a problem.

Shouldn't be ended up being an optimistic take on the situation. At first, everything looked to be going ok. Keilne and Wilbur were a good tanking team. Keilne provided brute force as a warrior and Wilbur provided good buffs and offense spells as a paladin. We plowed through the first floors of the Dread King's keep with few problems. It was when we reached the throne room things fell apart. The Dread King incapacitated Keilne with a spell, knocking out our punching bag. Hailif, being the world's worst healer, died before he could resurrect her. Gemma was able to bring Hailif back with one of her spells, but it drained her mana so completely she was rendered useless. Hailif died again while trying to bring Keilne back. Kreuner and I tried to poison or light as many foes on fire as possible hoping they'd drop dead on their own from sustained injuries.

Eventually, I took a blast from the Dread King and Kreuner was mobbed by eight skeleton warriors at once. Gemma and Wilbur decided since there was nothing left to lose, they would charge the Dread King directly. They died horrifically. We all respawned at the gates of the Dread King's keep, the game asking if we wanted to try again.

"I think we can all agree that was terrible," Gemma said in her melodious voice. "Hailif, what the hell?"

"I'm sorry! My game froze!"

"That is your excuse every time!" Harper shouted. "Every time! Just admit you are terrible as a healer. Go back to being a rogue, save us all the misery of hoping we'll be healed by you."

"You guys suck!" Hailif whined.

I rubbed my temple. "Does anyone want to do another go?"

"No!" All five of my alliance members shouted at once.

"We need more people," Gemma said.

"We should be able to do this with six," Harper said, sounding annoyed.