by Alexis Hall
[Group][Orcarella]: its kinda weird nobody ever sees this anymore
[Group][Solace]: Yeah
[Group][Orcarella]: seems like a waste
[Group][Orcarella]: its good stuff
[Group][Orcarella]: looks good
[Group][Orcarella]: i like it
[Group][Solace]: There’s some nice quests here too. It’s all spooky lore type stories, and you help ghosts find peace and stuff
[Group][Solace]: It’s also where you first meet High Theurgist Venric
[Group][Orcarella]: oh i hate him
[Group][Solace]: He’s pretty cool when you first meet him. He’s all betrayed and lost his faith and things
[Group][Orcarella]: and now he won’t shut up
[Group][Orcarella]: it’s like you can’t walk into CoT without him whining about his ex-gf before you’re allowed to kill anything
[Group][Solace]: Ahaha
[Group][Solace]: He’s probably going to be really important in the next patch as well
[Group][Orcarella]: if he kill steals us on Raziel I’m going to be so pissed
[Group][Solace]: :D :D :D
[Group][Orcarella]: Shit its like 2 in the morning
[Group][Solace]: I had a nice time
[Group][Orcarella]: me too
[Group][Solace]: Night night
[Group][Orcarella]: Gn
[Group][Orcarella]: Aren’t you going to bed as well
[Group][Solace]: I’m going to fish for a bit longer and then head off
[Group][Orcarella]: kk
[Group][Orcarella]: sleep well
[Group][Solace]: you too
Drew gazed blearily at the screen. He really did have to go bed, and he’d just said goodnight about twelve times, but he felt oddly reluctant to log off, like if he did, he’d break something fragile.
After dithering for an embarrassingly long time, he typed /hug.
And was weirdly touched when Solace /hugged him back.
Then he shut down the game, followed by his computer, and went to bed, slightly confused.
A couple of nights later, Drew joined his first official raid as a member of
They ignored him.
Morag showed up next on a flying Halloween goat. She was a dwarven champion, with long red braids and the guild tabard discreetly covering her otherwise quite skimpy armour. She waved and invited him into a raid group.
Heurodis has joined the raid.
Ialdir has joined the raid.
Solace has joined the raid.
Jargogle has joined the raid.
Prospero has joined the raid.
Caius has joined the raid.
Ignatius has joined the raid.
Dave has joined the raid.
[Raid][Morag]: Come on guys, get your arses to Briarsdeep
[Raid][Morag]: -50DKP for anybody not here in the next 5mins
[Raid][Dave]: But we don’t use DKP
[Raid][Morag]: But when we start, you’ll be at -50
Drew’s ears filled up with chimes as people started logging into Mumble.
“Uh, hi,” he tried.
“Hi, Ella, Morag here.” She had a youngish-sounding voice, with a faint brummie accent.
“Yo.” Somehow, Bjorn/Heurodis sounded exactly the same on Mumble as he did in chat, laconically Scandinavian.
Drew spent the first few minutes just listening, trying to fit voices to names to character names. Ialdir/Jacob turned out to be a softly-spoken American expat, Jargogle/Magda a straight-talking German woman, Dave a Scouse teenager, and the rest sort of blurred into a background of in-jokes and disconnected chatter. He listened for Solace but couldn’t pick her out.
At last they were all assembled, on their various flying creatures, under the thorny archway that was the portal to the raid instance.
[Raid][Morag]: Anyone not on Mumble?
“Everybody in,” came Morag’s voice, and they all piled through the portal into the Crown of Thorns.
The loading screen was Lady Bloodrose herself, wearing, it seemed, basically nothing but flowers. And then Orcarella was standing at the entrance to a vast spiral maze of thorns and blood-red roses. For some reason, various handy shopkeepers and armour smiths had set up camp here. Drew wasn’t sure, but he thought it was meant to be some kind of forward base.
High Theurgist Venric was standing amongst them, emoting and making speeches.
[High Theurgist Venric] says: Brothers, I have anticipated this day with a heavy heart for ten long years, the day when finally the monster that is all that remains of my beloved Anthariel falls to righteous steel and holy fire.
“She dumped you, man,” groaned Bjorn. “Get over it.”
“Hey.” That was Ialdir. “She dumped him for his best friend, then ran away with his best friend halfway across the world, where they turned evil, unleashed a magical curse that destroyed his homeland, and then he had to cast them both down into the underworld, where they remained in prison, going slowly mad, for the next five hundred years. You can see why he’s bummed.”
[Raid][Solace]: Awww, he just needs a hug.
Drew obligingly ran over to the high theurgist and hugged him.
[Solace] whispers: Hee
Solace ran over too, as did Prospero, Ialdir, and Ignatius.
[Raid][Ialdir]: Group hug!
[Raid][Heurodis]: he doesnt need a hug
[Raid][Heurodis]: he needs to shut up and let us raid
“Speaking of.” Morag. “Let’s get this show on the road. Buff up while I talk to HTV.”
[Raid][Solace]: fish on the floor
[Raid][Ignatius]: yay fish
[Raid][Dave]: nom nom
The whole raid sat unceremoniously on the floor stuffing their faces with mystically fortifying fish while Morag jogged up to the high theurgist and triggered the starting event.
High Theurgist Venric strode to the centre of the chamber and carried on declaiming, while the raid group carried on eating fish and ignoring him.
[High Theurgist Venric] says: Brothers, within this labyrinth lurk many vile and terrifying creatures. I and my men will remain here and guard the portal so that none may break free into the outside world.
“Oh, thanks for having our back, man.” Bjorn.
The high theurgist turned away from them and raised his arms, mystical light gathering between his hands. The curtain of thorns that obscured the way into the maze parted.
[Yell][High Theurgist Venric]: Anthariel, I do this for love of the woman you were!
[Yell][Lady Bloodrose]: Your compassion has always been your weakness. Face me, and die!
“See,” said Morag. “This is why I don’t do men. Well, that and not fancying them. So, anyway, welcome Drew aboard the good ship Same Crit Different Day. We won’t go for a full clear tonight. We’ll do up to Vilicus and then probably call it. I’ll be your raid leader this evening. In the event of an emergency, exits are here, here, and here. Bjorn is loot master because I can’t be arsed and he gets off on the power.”
A wild cackling laugh echoed over Mumble.
“Rules are pretty simple. Need if you need, mainspec or spec you’re running in before offspec, unless special circumstances apply, but in practice, that’s nobody tonight. Drew’s MT, I’ll be your OT, ranged deeps Ialdir, Heurodis, and Ignatius. Melee deeps Jargogle, Caius, and Dave. Our lovely healing team are Solace and Prospero.”
[Raid][Solace]: I’ll be on MT, OT, and raid in that prio.
[Raid][Prospero]: And my prio is raid, OT, and MT.
“Otherwise,” Morag continued, “let’s have fun, kill some things, and take their stuff.”
A ragged cheer went up from the fish-eaters, and they hustled through the recently opened barrier into the main dungeon.
The first boss was waiting for them on the other side. Kelebos: a
vast, three-headed hound, covered in shaggy black fur tipped with fire all the way to its lashing, serpentine tail.
Thankfully, it was a dog, so it didn’t have much to say to them.
“You know the drill. Spread out to avoid chaining damage from tail. Drew, we swap on ten stacks of Chew Toy. Everybody run out of Howl, and DPS the heads when someone gets grabbed. Are we good?”
A readycheck popped up on Drew’s screen. He was, indeed, ready.
“Take it away, Drew.”
Ella pulled out her maces and jogged the surprisingly large distance up to Kelebos’s central mouth.
[Yell][Lady Bloodrose]: Welcome to my bower, foolish heroes.
Drew dumped CoC under the dog and began building threat. This was a pretty straightforward fight for a tank. As long as he didn’t let the debuff stack too high or forget to run out of the Howl, there wasn’t much that could go wrong. His screen, as usual, was full of teeth and eyes and particle effects, but Kelebos’s health was going down and Ella wasn’t dead, so everything seemed to be fine.
Suddenly, the dog turned and bounded across the room, snatching up a couple of raid members before coming back to Ella.
“And I’m in the mouth.” Ialdir.
“Me too.” Drew didn’t recognise this voice. “Solace on heals. Everyone be extra specially careful not to do anything stupid.”
That must have been Prospero.
“Prio left head.” Morag. “Get the healer back in the game.”
Drew popped Unholy Resolve to boost his health while Solace was overextended.
[Raid][Ialdir]: Hey, I can do leatherworking in here
[Raid][Prospero]: Can you make me a [Gargantuan Corpse-Hide Satchel]?
[Raid][Ialdir]: Yeah sure
Out of the corner of his eye, Drew saw the left head suddenly engulfed in an insane swirl of golden fire and flickering shadow from the ranged DPS. A kobold streaked past him and started hammering daggers into its ear. Then the creature’s jaws dropped open and its head reeled back in pain.
“Healing Service now resumed.” Prospero.
“All on right.” Morag. “Ten seconds to Howl.”
“Eight stacks,” said Drew.
Ialdir was finally shaken loose of the right head, just as the beast rocked back on its haunches and let out a bone-chilling wail. The raid scattered.
Ialdir made a frustrated noise down Mumble. “Sorry, guys, didn’t have time.”
“You noob, Jacob.”
“This is why we don’t let Bjorn raid lead,” said Morag. “Keep Jacob’s health up if you can. Everybody in, I’m picking up. Faster on the DPS next time, please, I don’t want anyone else caught by the Howl.”
Drew hung back as Morag pounded past him, roaring dwarfy defiance. Kelebos swung slowly to start chewing on her, and Drew switched out of Aspect of Vengeance and into Aspect of Cruelty to lower his threat and boost his otherwise negligible DPS. Then he nipped round and started whacking away at the beast’s flanks. The guild seemed to know this fight pretty well, but he’d have been worried if they hadn’t, what with it being the first boss of the instance.
Everything went smoothly through the next couple of changes. The heads snatched people up and they were DPSed out, nobody else got hit by the Howl, and he and Morag switched seamlessly at eight or nine stacks of Chew Toy.
Performance-wise there wasn’t much difference between this lot and Annihilation. They weren’t quite as tooled up, so DPS was lower all round, except Bjorn, who was riding the top of the meters like a kobold on a motorcycle. Healing was pretty smooth, and it was always a good sign when a guild could two-heal. Mumble was a bit livelier, and people seemed to be genuinely comfortable with each other.
Suddenly, Bjorn made a faintly disturbing noise over Mumble, something partway between a purr and a roar.
“Bjorn,” asked Ialdir, “did you just come?”
“Unholy Glee with Necrosis and five stacks of Mortified Flesh. Twenty-eight K Darkfire crit and sixteen K Inflame Afflictions. Yeah, baby. Oh yeah.”
“Oh dear,” came Morag’s voice. “Bjorn’s crit his pants.”
Bjorn made the noise again. “All your DPS are belong to—” Kelebos leaped across the room and snatched Heurodis up in his jaws. “Ah, you shitting little . . . My DoTs. I had no fucking DoTs.”
Ialdir gave a whoop of laughter. “More DoTs! Throw more DoTs.”
“Get me down, get me down!”
A rather sullen voice said, “I’m in a mouth as well.”
Morag: “Prio Dave.”
“What the fuck, what the fuck, you crazy dwarf lady.”
“We’re at seven percent, we need burst.”
A second or two later, Dave was disgorged onto the floor and started tearing into Kelebos with an implausibly large double-headed axe.
“Me now,” howled Bjorn. “Me now!”
Ialdir whistled, the sound coming sharp and tinny in Drew’s earphones. “My, my, I seem to be top of the meters.”
“Nooooooooo!”
“Okay,” said Morag. “Three percent. Prio the body and bring it home. Full burn.”
“Nooooooooooooooo! You’re doing this on purpose. It’s conspiracy against the Great Nation of Bjorn.”
“The Great Nation of Bjorn should get a better ambassador.”
Drew was laughing as Kelebos whimpered and slumped over, finally spilling Heurodis out of its lolling mouth.
“Right, no loot, no loot for any of you.”
The raid broke into cheers and random dancing, and despite Bjorn’s protestations, there was in fact loot and it was in fact distributed. Solace broke free of the crowds and jumped into the corpse again. After a moment’s hesitation, Drew sent Ella over to join her. He zoomed right in so he could see Solace dancing and the inside of the wire frame.
[Solace] whispers: So what’s a nice orc like you doing in a corpse like this?
Drew tried to think of something witty and flirty to say, but failed dismally.
To [Solace]: i just wanted to see what it looked like
[Solace] whispers: As you can see, it’s a spacious, well-appointed cadaver, with excellent views of not very much really
Shit shit shit. Solace was cute. But Solace was also an imaginary elf on the internet, and it was probably creepy to like her this much.
“Does anybody mind if I skin the boss?” asked Ialdir.
Nobody objected, so Ialdir whipped out a skinning knife and reduced the great hound Kelebos to three scraps of [Uncured Corpse Hide] and a [Patch of Mouldering Leather].
“Well done, guys,” said Morag. “That was pretty clean. I know we’ve done this a lot and we overgear it, but a bit more focus next time early on. If we DPS the heads right, there’s no way anyone should get hit by the Howl.”
“Yeah, good job, guys,” added Bjorn. “Jacob, your DPS was nearly as good as mine. I’d feel threatened if I wasn’t so awesome. Really nice work on the transitions there, tanks. And quality work from the healing team, as ever.”
Drew shifted a bit in his chair. He knew he was a good tank, and he’d done a good job, but in Anni he’d only ever been told when he screwed up, and he wasn’t sure how to handle having someone say he’d done well. Especially if it was Bjorn.
They pressed on through the maze and a few packs of trash mobs to Thornheart. He was kind of an evil, corrupted Ent rip-off and basically just a gear check. There was lots of nasty spike damage on the tank and a hard enrage timer, but nothing a halfway decent guild couldn’t handle this late in the expansion. It was Drew’s least favourite fight because he had literally nothing to do except stand in one place and mash his rotation.
Also, back when he ran with Anni, there’d been an enormous amount of pressure to get your gearscore up to spec and everyone yelling at everyone else for letting the guild down. The healers always thought the tanks were too squishy, the tanks always thought the healers weren’t gemmed right, and every DPSer thought none of the others were pulling their weight. And then, after that phase, cam
e months of people doing stupid crap like trying to swap in alts to gear up or do it with only one healer and blaming Drew when he couldn’t stay alive through the Arboreal Frenzy.
There was none of that this time, so it was just a straight tank and spank. And Dave sounded almost happy when the [Bracers of Blackened Oak] dropped.
“Hey guys, can I stone back to Ash to get these gemmed?”
There was a pause. Then Morag said no in a slightly incredulous voice.
“But I’ll do better DPS.”
“I’m not going to keep nine people standing around with their thumbs up their arses while you go shopping for bling.”
“Um,” offered Drew, “I think I’ve got some rubies in my backpack.”
[Raid][Ignatius]: And I guess I can chant them for you.
[Raid][Dave]: woot
“All right,” said Morag. “Take five. But only five. Rebuff, eat fish, but nobody go make coffee, and if you need the loo, you hold it until Arachnia.”
Drew flicked open his professions menu, carved a [Puissant Cataclysmic Ruby] for Dave and handed it over.
[Raid][Dave]: thx
Something had been bugging Drew for a while. “I know I’m new, and this might not be the best time to ask, but why are you called Dave?”
[Raid][Dave]: lol
[Raid][Ialdir]: lol
[Raid][Prospero]: lol
“When I rolled my DK, all the names I could think of were taken, so I typed it in for a joke, and then it went through and the cutscene was really long, so I thought I’d just go with it.”
Bjorn: “If you want, I can report you so you can get a forced name change.”
“But then I’d have to think of a new one and I’d be right back where I started.”
“You make me a sad Viking, David.”
Morag called the raid to order, and Drew was slightly surprised that they had genuinely only taken five minutes. Everything they’d said about casual guilds back in Anni had made him think that a five-minute raid break would turn into a ten-minute toilet break which would turn into half an hour of amateurish faffing.
The maze darkened around them as they pushed through thorns and cobwebs into the realm of Arachnia the Spider Queen. They passed under an archway onto a wide circle of webbing, and Drew dashed into the centre to pick up the vast tide of enemies that he knew were about to drop onto them.