by Alexis Hall
[Group][Solace]: Still no rockling
[Group][Solace]: *cries*
[Group][Orcarella]: ?
[Group][Ialdir]: Pyrite has a really low chance to drop a [Baby Pyrite Rockling] and Solace has wanted it forever
[Group][Solace]: It’s the same model as the [Diminutive Ruby Golem] which is sooooo cute
[Group][Solace]: But nobody makes them anymore because it’s so fiddly to unlock the recipe
[Group][Orcarella]: how come
[Group][Ialdir]: It drops from a hidden boss in Magmarion’s Caverns. You need to do the whole raid in a special order
[Group][Ialdir]: And then activate the [Bejewelled Music Box] you got from the attunement quest
[Group][Ialdir]: And you can’t get the box anymore, so you can’t summon the boss, so you can’t find the plans
[Group][Solace]: *cries*
[Group][Solace]: And I’m this close to getting the Heavy Petting achievement
[Group][Orcarella]: i’ve never really seen the point of the pet thing
[Group][Solace]: They’re cute. That’s kind of their whole deal.
Next thing Drew knew, Solace was standing next to a [Tiny Angry Shrubbery] and Ialdir had pulled out a [Miniature Giant Space Hamster]. Honestly, he still didn’t see the appeal.
[Group][Orcarella]: Right. Irontongue?
[Group][Solace]: Yay
Once Solace had finished hugging Orcarella, they backtracked through Pyrite’s cavern, up the spiralling corridor, across the top ring, and up the staircase that led to Irontongue’s aerie.
They stepped out onto a plateau at the top of a twisted iron spire. A great metal serpent, winged and clawed and studded with rusted rivets and slowly turning gears, lay coiled around a dull black pillar.
[Yell][IRONTONGUE]: WHO DARES DISTURB THE SLUMBER OF THE WORLD MACHINE?
[Group][Orcarella]: wow i haven’t done this guy in six months
[Group][Orcarella]: can’t remember the tacs
[Group][Ialdir]: fairly straight forward
[Group][Ialdir]: main things are impale and scalding rage
[Group][Ialdir]: impale is when he stabs someone on his tail and hovers in the air putting shit on the floor
[Group][Ialdir]: don’t stand in the shit
[Group][Ialdir]: scalding rage is whole area aoe
[Group][Ialdir]: he’ll fly up and cover the platform in grey stuff so we all need to get behind a pillar
[Group][Orcarella]: cool
[Group][Ialdir]: plus standard dragon stuff
[Group][Ialdir]: you can get tail-swiped off the platform so like don’t
[Group][Orcarella]: kk going in
Orcarella raised her maces, shouted a battle cry, and charged.
[Yell][IRONTONGUE]: PITIFUL CREATURES OF FLESH! YOU SHALL NOT DISTURB THE HOLY WORK!
Drew started his rotation, barely able to see what was happening with his screen full of dragon face. But he wasn’t dying and Irontongue’s health was dropping at a good rate so everything seemed to be going according to plan.
[Group][Ialdir]: shit
[Group][Orcarella]: ?
[Group][Ialdir]: Small Mangy Owl just got punted off the platform
[Group][Solace]: omg noob
[Group][Ialdir]: hes an owl
[Group][Ialdir]: shud be able to fly
Suddenly Irontongue reared back and thrust its pelvis vigorously in Orcarella’s direction. And the next thing Drew knew, he was hoist aloft on the creature’s tail.
[Yell][Irontongue]: IMPALED!!!
[Yell][Solace]: IMPALED!!!
[Yell][Ialdir]: IMPALED!!!
[Group][Ialdir]: ooh on a first date
[Group][Orcarella]: *sigh*
[Group][Orcarella]: do you two have that macroed
[Group][Solace]: :D
[Group][Ialdir]: :D
There was nothing Drew could do while he was up there except make his own macro and enjoy the view, and actually the view was pretty good. The aerie was a tangled mess of steel and ash, bits of broken stone and fallen pillars littering a battered iron floor. He could even see a little bit of the Great Fissure below, shattered islands and rivers of lava. It was almost enough to make him forget what a pain the zone had been to level in.
At last Irontongue flung Orcarella to the floor, and Drew threw off a taunt to reestablish threat. He’d just got back into his rotation when Irontongue swooped into the air again.
[Yell][IRONTONGUE]: BOIL ALIVE!
Solace and Ialdir were already fleeing to the central pillar, and Drew pegged it after them, not wanting to be the noob who ate dragon breath.
[Group][Ialdir]: sw
Ella, Solace, and Ialdir grouped up neatly on the southwest corner of the pillar while clouds of scalding vapour billowed around them.
[Group][Solace]: group hug
When the steam cleared, Ella dived out from behind the pillar to meet the oncoming dragon, and Solace and Ialdir scattered to the opposite edge of the platform, clinging tight to Irontongue’s sides to avoid the tail-swipe. The boss was creeping towards fifty-percent health when it pulled back from Ella and soared into the air.
[YELL][IRONTONGUE]: BOIL ALIVE!
[Group][Ialdir]: n
They snuggled up on the north side of the pillar this time, and let Irontongue spew his scalding rage over the empty platform.
[Group][Solace]: no impale :( :( :(
[Group][Ialdir]: i’m sure you’ll get it soon
[Group][Orcarella]: lol
Then it was back to a screenful of dragon face, Orcarella pounding mercilessly against the dragon’s iron scales with her twin maces. Things settled into a rhythm. Ialdir got impaled, then Ella again. They hid from another couple of scalding rages, and Irontongue’s health ticked steadily down. They’d got it to about four percent when the dragon suddenly wheeled away from Ella and lashed its tail towards Solace.
[Yell][Irontongue]: IMPALED!!!
[Yell][Ialdir]: IMPALED!!!
[Yell][Orcarella]: IMPALED!!!
[Group][Solace]: yay
Drew strafed around the platform, dodging superheated oil, and lobbed his one ranged attack, a slightly feeble DoT called Traitor’s Curse, at the dragon.
[Group][Solace]: Look ma, no hands
On the other side of the platform, Ialdir sprayed volley after volley of glittering arrows into Irontongue’s underbelly.
[Group][Solace]: I can see my house from here
For want of anything better to do, Drew renewed Traitor’s Curse, and only then noticed that Ialdir had stopped firing.
[Group][Ialdir]: hold dps
Just then, Traitor’s Curse, which had been ticking away barely tickling the dragon, critically hit, shaving the last few points off Irontongue’s health. He dropped out of the sky like an enormous block of inert metal, whistling straight past the platform, taking Solace with him.
There was a brief silence and then Solace’s portrait greyed out.
Solace was killed by Solace: fall damage (0)
Solace has died.
[Group][Solace]: . . .
Before Drew could say anything a little gold box popped up in front of him.
Achievement unlocked: Rage Against the Machine
[Defeat Irontongue in Steamworks Furnace on Heroic Difficulty with no member of the group taking damage from Scalding Rage.]
[Guild][Ignatius]: grats
[Guild][Sindarella]: grats
[Guild][Dave]: gz
[Guild][Heurodis]: gratz
[Guild][Jargogle]: grats
[Guild][Solace]: He doesn’t deserve your grats
[Guild][Solace]: He just killed me
[Guild][Solace]: He shot Irontongue while I was impaled
[Yell][The Forge Master]: MORE STEEL, MORE FIRE, MORE SERVANTS FOR THE GREAT MACHINE!
[Guild][Ignatius]: lol
[Guild][Heurodis]: lol
Orcarella has now been demoted to Guild Peon
[Guild][Orcarella]: I’m really sorry
[Guild][Solace]: Hee hee
[Guild][Solace]: You so owe me now
[Guild][Solace]: I’m going to make you my pocket tank
[Guild][Solace]: And you have to do ALL the optional bosses
[Guild][Solace]: ALL the time
[Guild][Orcarella]: i’m okay with that
They ran back to the entrance to meet Solace, who seemed genuinely fine about what had happened. Drew drifted between confusion and relief—a mistake like that would not have been well-received in Annihilation. But, then, if he’d been running with Anni, they wouldn’t have been faffing about with optional bosses anyway.
Thankfully, the rest of the run went off without a hitch. They battled their way through the trash and down into the depths of the furnace, taking a short detour into the temple complex to deal with Arch Priest Garaxis, a skinny human in an outrageous robe who worshipped the Hand of Zoth-Arun and was the final boss of the previous raid tier. People had been smashing the Hand to pieces for a good six months, but Drew guessed the Arch Priest hadn’t got that memo. They beat heavily on him with pointy objects, and he fell over, dropping his [Mantle of Hydraulic Communion].
[Group][Solace]: omg need
Drew did a quick inspect. Solace’s shoulders were way better, and the mantle was healer gear so it couldn’t have been for her offspec.
[Group][Orcarella]: ?
[Group][Solace]: Have you seen how awesome these look?
[Group][Solace]: I’m working on a steampunk set
She put them on. Her angel wings disappeared, replaced by a disproportionately huge pair of shoulder pads filled with a mesh of wires and rotating gears.
Then she bounced up and down while Ialdir applauded and Drew grinned at the monitor like an idiot.
[Group][Solace]: Hmm
[Group][Solace]: I’d better switch back
[Group][Solace]: Thinking I’m giving off a bit of a mixed message fashion-wise
They pressed on through the Furnace, knocked over the Smelter and the Smith without too much trouble, and finally came face-to-face with the Forge Master.
[Yell][The Forge Master]: INTRUDERS! AUTOMATA TO ME! DEFEND THE FORGE!
[Group][Ialdir]: I always kind of feel sorry for this guy
[Group][Ialdir]: he’s just trying to do his job and a bunch of complete jerks bust in and start brokking his shit up
[Group][Solace]: What’s this guy’s deal anyway?
[Group][Ialdir]: did you sleep through the last patch or something?
[Group][Solace]: I was distracted by all the shiny things
[Group][Solace]: plus I’m not a massive lore nerd
[Group][Ialdir]: :P
[Group][Orcarella]: lol
[Group][Ialdir]: so it turns out the whole world of Heroes of Legend is actually built on this giant ancient machine god thing
[Group][Ialdir]: and when Raziel returned from the Underworld he opened this fissure
[Group][Ialdir]: that unleashed a bunch of crap
[Group][Ialdir]: so all this stuff is like prototypes for the stuff in the world
[Group][Ialdir]: like Irontongue’s a prototype dragon and this dude’s a prototype giant
[Group][Solace]: oh right
[Group][Ialdir]: aren’t you glad you know a massive lore nerd now
[Group][Solace]: *hugs*
[Group][Orcarella]: whatever this guy is i’m killing him and taking his stuff
They killed that guy and took his stuff. Well, the stuff wasn’t very good, so they ripped it apart for the raw materials. Then Drew said a hasty good-bye to his new guild, logged off, and rushed out to meet his mates in the pub.
Drew’s mates were a bunch of fairly typical randoms who had come together and stuck together over the course of their first year. Sanee and Tinuviel were both on his course. He’d bonded with Sanee over Dark Souls, which Sanee thought represented the epitome of ludonarrative coherence and Drew quite enjoyed. Tinuviel was exactly like you’d expect someone to be if they’d grown up with the sorts of parents who named their kid Tinuviel.
Apparently her mother was a graphic artist and her dad was some kind of Oxford don, and she was here at De Montfort pursuing her bliss. Which was the sort of thing she actually said. That just left Andy, from Drew’s ultimate Frisbee team, and Stephanie, known as Steff (or Smidge if Sanee was talking to her) who was here on a nursing and midwifery course. She and Sanee had been inseparable since fresher’s week. They were very slightly unspeakable, and right now rubbing noses and sharing a basket of curly fries.
“Sorry I’m late, guys.” Drew grabbed a stool from a nearby table and squished in between Sanee and Tinuviel. “Instance overran.”
Sanee pulled away from Steff and made the loser sign.
“You know only losers do that, right?” asked Drew.
“A loser is well-placed to recognise loseriness in others. You need to play some proper games, man. Not ones where you kill the same stupid wizard every week for six months.”
Drew rolled his eyes. “It’s about mastering the fight. You don’t go up to Man United and say, ‘Why are you playing Liverpool again, you played them last season?’”
“Dude, it’s a game, not a spare. A game should be a self-contained experience that does what it needs to do without wasting your fucking time.”
“What, you mean like Dishonored?”
“Okay, what was wrong with Dishonored? And if you say it was too short, I’ll punch you.”
“You see.” Steff grinned at them. “Video games do make you violent.”
“Too short, too easy, Blink, Dark Vision, Shadow Kill: game over.” Drew stole one of their fries. “Also, it’s from like 2012.”
Sanee had that outraged look, meaning a serious lecture was on the way. “Dude, so not the point. Dishonoured is totally a designer’s game. What it does is create a space and give the player total freedom to interact with that space. If the player decides to take the easy option, then the player doesn’t get to whinge about the game being too easy. And it’s still relevant today because nothing has done that since.”
“So what you’re saying,” said Drew, “is that the designers didn’t bother to balance their gameplay properly and that’s somehow my problem. The game has to provide the challenge, not the player. Don’t give me an ‘I win’ button and then have a go at me for pressing it.”
Tinuviel waved her burger in the air, scattering iceberg lettuce and bits of tomato over the table. “What I thought was really interesting about Dishonored was its embrace of found narrative. Mission objectives are delivered through dialogue, but story is inherent in the world and emerges with the player’s visual engagement with the environment. So where I look and what I see creates the story for me. But where you look and what you see creates the story for you.”
Drew suspected Andy had a bit of a thing for Tinuviel because he’d been listening with a kind of rapt look. “Oh wow,” he breathed, “that’s really fascinating.”
“Yeah, I know. Isn’t it?” She smiled. “It’s similar to what I find so compelling about Twine, the way story is constructed not just through words but through text.”
Drew and Sanee sighed in stereo. But where Drew would have let it go, Sanee, well, didn’t. He took a deep breath. “In the twenty-first century, making a text-only game is like shooting a film in black and white. The only reason to do it is to make things look artsier.”
“Oh my God.” Drew pulled back as much as he could, given the space. “They’re having the Interactive Fiction discussion. Everyone take cover.”
Steff clung to Sanee. “Don’t kill my Squidge.”
“I love you, Smidge.” Sanee snuggled into her.
And Andy made gag face. “No, please, kill him. Put us out of our misery.”
“I’m going to take the paragon option,” said Tinuviel serenely.
Drew couldn’t resist. “Renegade interrupt.” He threw a chip at her.
She ate the chip. “The most important thing to remember about Twine is that
it makes game design accessible to anyone, no matter who they are or where they come from.”
“If,” interrupted Sanee, “they’ve got a computer, an internet connection, and free time to spend faffing around with indie games.”
“That’s still the lowest barrier to entry out there. It’s free, it takes seconds to download, it’s visual and very straightforward, and you can start using it immediately.”
This was an old argument and never went anywhere or ended well, so Drew sort of tuned out. He wasn’t a big fan of IF—he’d once told Tinuviel he thought it was basically reading, and that hadn’t ended well either.
With no burger in sight, his mind drifted back to his new guild. Anni had been a big part of his life for three years, and it was amazing how quickly it had gone away. Except maybe it wasn’t really because the whole thing was built on pixels. After he’d gquit, he’d thought some of his ex-guildies might have whispered him or messaged him or something, but nobody had. And it was stupid to be so upset, because it was just a video game. It wasn’t like it was real life or they were real friends.
His real friends were squabbling about minority voices in interactive media. At least, two of them were. Andy was watching awkwardly, and Steff was stuffing chips in Sanee’s mouth in an effort to keep him quiet.
“So,” said Drew, as a harassed-looking waiter plonked his food down in front of him, “how did you guys find Dragon Age: Inquisition?”
Sanee rolled his eyes. “I skipped it because the only press release I could remember was about how the sex would be mature and tasteful. Which I thought was a pile of Molyneux.”
“Actually—” Tinuviel leaned across the table “—I was pleasantly surprised by that. It seems like BioWare finally realised that the best way to represent sex in a video game is not to have stiffly animated underwear sequences. But I agree it sounded like Molyneux at the time.”
Steff made a confused noise. “Sorry, what’s a Molyneux?”
“Molyneux,” explained Sanee, “noun, a promise made for an upcoming video game which you can’t keep and which no one would be able to recognise even if you did.”
Drew spoke round a mouthful of burger. “Like trees that grow in real time in Fable 1. Or the game teaching you the meaning of love in Fable 2.”