by Alexis Hall
“Sorry, you said ‘bastion.’”
“Oh right, I haven’t played it. I don’t do so much gaming outside of HoL.”
“It’s good. It’s basically just an action RPG, but it’s got this cool voice-over that kind of gives context to all the pointless shit you normally do in that sort of game, like smashing barrels with a hammer, and stuff.”
Kit smiled shyly at him. “I might take a look at it.”
“I’d wait for a Steam sale. It’s about a tenner most of the time. And the sequel’s pretty cool too. It has a killer soundtrack, although I think you’re supposed to be in love with your sword, which is a bit weird.” He stopped babbling. And then babbled in a different direction. “I mean, you could come round and try it on my desktop if you want. See if you like it.”
“I bet you say that to all the boys.”
Drew spluttered, and knew he was blushing, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. “I picked up AssCreed IV in the last sale as well. I thought it was worth it because you get to be a pirate.”
“I kind of lost track of the series. I think I got the first one for my thirteeth birthday.”
It was strange being able to watch Kit talk. He was sort of quiet and gentle and seemed to really think about things before he said them. Drew imagined he would be just the same typing.
“All I can remember,” Kit was saying, “is having to ride a horse really slowly around twelfth-century Jerusalem because if you dared to gallop everyone would immediately work out you were an assassin.”
“Yeah, they kind of got better, then they got worse, and now it’s good again. You get, like, a pirate ship and, well, a pirate ship. I mean, seriously, what more do you want.”
“Does it come with Johnny Depp?” Kit arched his eyebrows hopefully.
“No, it comes with really OP swivel guns.”
Kit laughed. “Well, I’m in, then.”
He had a nice laugh, with a slightly uncertain edge to it, which made Drew feel strangely protective. Then he realised he was staring and smiling and probably looking like an idiot. “Shit, sorry, you were talking about running, and I completely derailed you with that stupid Bastion reference.”
“Oh, I thought you were trying to invite me back to your room.”
They eyed each other nervously, trying to work out how far was too far. Drew thought, Screw it, and decided this wasn’t it. He was on a date. With a boy. And the boy was flirting with him, and that was okay. “Yeah, I only bring the pirates out on special occasions.”
Kit faffed with the wooden pokey thing they’d given him with his mocha. After a moment or two he looked up a bit sheepishly. “Sorry, that’s really nice, in a piratey kind of way, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t think I’m very good at this.”
“What, you mean . . .” Drew made a really unhelpful hand gesture.
“I don’t know how to say this without making myself sound completely pathetic and desperate, but I’ve never actually been on a date before. And I think I’m having a good time, but I’m still as nervous as hell.”
“If it helps, I’m definitely having a good time.”
Kit ran a hand through his hair, making it go all fluffy. “It’s easier behind a keyboard. You’ve got more thinking time so you can sound way cleverer than you are, and you can sort of take more chances.”
“Like how?”
“You’ve got this . . . wriggle room, I guess? I think because it’s hard to know exactly what someone means, if something goes wrong, you can pretend it didn’t. But now I feel l like I’m sitting here with this big flashing sign over my head saying ‘I really like you,’ so if I put my foot in it or I say something wrong, then I won’t be able to get out of it, and you’ll be right there, staring at me, and thinking, ‘Wow, this guy is a loser.’”
For a moment, Drew just gazed at him, a little bit stunned. Nobody had ever been quite that open with him before. It struck him as weirdly valiant, and made him feel kind of warm and smooshy and a little bit embarrassed. “Honestly, Kit. I’d never think you were a loser.”
The next thing he knew, he’d reached out, and there he was, holding another guy’s hand over the table. He looked down, and thought, Oh. Because it was fine.
Kit’s strong, elegant fingers tightened around his. “So, I’m doing it right, then?”
Drew smiled. “Yeah.”
They kept chatting for a while, still holding hands, until Drew got self-conscious and panicked that he’d come across way too intense.
“Um, is this okay? I mean, this is an okay thing to do? With like . . .” He tried to gesture, but since he was already holding Kit’s hand all he did was kind of jiggle it like a mouse.
“It’s really okay.” Kit smiled at him. “If I’m being a bit odd it’s because I probably am a bit odd, but also because I’m still a bit scared you’ll decide this was a terrible mistake.”
“I’m honestly happy we did this, and I’d really like to—” Unfortunately, at that moment, Drew’s phone bleeped at him. He glanced at it in horror. “Shit. On the subject of terrible of mistakes, we’re both supposed to be raiding in about fifteen minutes.”
Kit’s eyes went very wide. Which, Drew couldn’t help noticing, made them very pretty, but this really wasn’t the time. “Oh my God, we suck.”
They both leaped into action, untangling their hands, sweeping up their various belongings, pulling on their coats. They gazed at each other in panic.
Drew flailed. “I want to stay and stuff and I’m pretty sure this isn’t how to end a date, but I don’t want to let the guild down.”
“No, it’s fine. See you in Crown of Thorns.”
“We’ll do this again, right?”
“Absolutely.”
They crashed into a hasty, awkward, clumsy approximation of a hug. One of Drew’s hands went into Kit’s armpit and Kit bashed his shoulder into Drew’s chin. But that was sort of where they were so they went with it, and Drew clutched and Kit squeezed—and he couldn’t quite tell in the panic, but he was pretty sure Kit’s lips brushed against his cheek.
Then they ran for it.
Back in his room, Drew tore off his dating T-shirt and flung on his raiding pyjamas, started boiling the kettle for a Cup-a-Soup and logged onto Ella.
Guild Message of the day: Still do not ask Tiff about her date.
[Guild][Solace]: Hi :) :)
[Guild][Heurodis]: Yo
[Guild][Ialdir]: Hey
[Guild][Orcarella]: Hi
Normally he made sure he was already in position outside the instance, but Ella was standing around in front of the AH in the City of Stars. Thankfully he was already well stocked with consumables, so he jumped on a randomly selected flying mount and made for CoT.
On the way, he stared at Solace’s “Hi” with its two accompanying smileys.
It felt weird and nice at the same time because they’d been on a date, and normally when you went on a date with someone you didn’t see them again immediately. He didn’t want to make a big thing about it, but he didn’t want to act like it hadn’t happened either.
To [Solace]: Fancy meeting you here
[Solace] whispers: of all the raid instances in all the MMOs in all the world, you walk into mine
To [Solace]: here’s looking at you kit
[Solace] whispers: !
[Solace] whispers: I can’t believe you went there
To [Solace]: I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t
[Guild][Heurodis]: okay peons start getting in mumble and getting to cot
[Solace] whispers: You’re getting on that skyship with Victor where you belong. You’re part of his guild, what keeps him going.
To [Solace]: god you’re such a nerd :D
[Solace] whispers: Hey, that’s classic cinema
[Solace] whispers: This is some high class banter you’re getting here.
Drew’s soup water had gone cold, or at least too cold to make soup with, because he’d been too busy flirting and grinning at the screen like an
idiot. He flicked the kettle on again and told himself to pay attention this time.
To [Solace]: we’ll always have Steamworks - Furnace (Heroic)
[Solace] whispers: Aww, that can be our dungeon.
To [Solace]: you’re making it really hard for me to hate it
[Solace] whispers: IMPALED!!!
[Guild][Heurodis]: okay we’re waiting on two noobs who aren’t in mumble
[Guild][Heurodis]: you know who you are
Heurodis has invited you to join a group: y/n
[Guild][Solace]: Sorry, I was distracted
[Guild][Orcarella]: Me too
[Guild][Ialdir]: Mmmmhmmmmmm
[Guild][Jargogle]: Mmmmhmmmmmm
[Guild][Heurodis]: less distraction more raiding
Drew pulled himself together, alt-tabbed and fired up Mumble, and his headphones crackled with Bjorn.
“—be tanking. Jargogle and Dave will be providing melee DPS. Ialdir and Mordant will be providing ranged DPS. And I will be providing imba DPS. Our healing team are Solace, Ignatius, and Prospero, assuming Solace is not so distracted that he lets everybody die.”
“Oh no, Bjorn, just you.”
Kit’s voice made Drew tingle a bit. He’d spent a good part of the afternoon listening to it, so it was sort of familiar, but he still wasn’t used to hearing him on Mumble. And, for the first time, Drew realised he had a sense of Kit at least as strong as his sense of Solace.
A softly-spoken, softly laughing boy, with wary eyes and warm hands.
And shit, everyone was running into the instance.
Since they hadn’t downed Vilicus on Monday, they waded through his tormented trash and assembled in the torture chamber. It took them a couple of tries to get into the rhythm of it, but they squeaked through on the third attempt. Drew wasn’t sure if he was distracted or focused, but he was very aware of Solace standing at the back with his shiny wings. They’d raided and played together enough now that he was starting to get that syncronicity thing where you kind of knew when the other person was fine, and when they were struggling, and when they needed you to blow all your cooldowns right the hell now. He’d had a fairly good relationship with Hachiman back in Anni, but it hadn’t felt like this.
Also, he’d never wanted to date the guy.
When they’d finished celebrating the demise of this week’s incarnation of Lady Bloodrose’s favourite torturer, it was time to divide the loot.
“Time to see what Uncle Bjorn has in his magic bag.”
[Raid][Jargogle]: I am not certain I want to think about Uncle Bjorn’s magic bag.
“You love my bag, Magda. And we haaaave . . .” Bjorn paused dramatically “. . . the Inexorable Axe. Again.”
[Raid][Heurodis]: [The Inexorable Axe]
[Raid][Dave]: lol
Drew sighed. “Honestly, you wait months for a tanking axe, and then three come along at once.”
“Can you dual wield it?” asked Ialdir.
“No, it’s a unique.”
Bjorn: “Can anybody use this thing?”
[Raid][Morag]: Champions can’t use axes
[Raid][Ignatius]: Shame Caius isn’t here. He could take it for his samnite spec.
[Raid][Dave]: do you want me to start a tanking spec
“Just take the fucking axe, David,” Bjorn snapped.
[Raid][Dave]: naw just shard it
[Raid][Dave]: dps 4 life 4 eva
[Raid][Orcarella]: i cant believe you’re sharding the axe i quit my guild over
[Raid][Solace]: *hugs*
[Raid][Solace]: It’s not just enchanting mats, it’s a valuable lesson about life
[Raid][Orcarella]: dude what lesson?
[Raid][Morag]: life’s a bitch and then you die
[Raid][Ialdir]: an axe in the hand is worth two in the loot table
[Raid][Solace]: Axe not what your guild can do for you, but what you can do for your guild
[Raid][Ialdir]: *hi five*
[Raid][Solace]: I’m here all raid, try the veal.
“You know what’s weird?” Dave’s voice came quite slowly over Mumble. “It’s like that was really important to you a couple of weeks ago and now it, like, isn’t important at all. So I think the moral is, like, sometimes things are important but, like, later they aren’t.”
There was a long silence.
“The moral of the story is not to interrupt Bjorn when he is trying to divide up the loot. Next we have a nice little healer off-hand: the Tome of Bloody Confessions.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Kit theatrically, “those bloody confessions.”
[Raid][Heurodis]: [Tome of Bloody Confessions]
[Raid][Ignatius]: Upgrade for me
[Raid][Ignatius]: Too much wisdom, not good for an ele
[Raid][Solace]: It’s sort of an upgrade for me but I’m using [The Staff of Worlds’ End] from Mech and I don’t have a main hand.
[Raid][Ignatius]: You should roll if it’s an upgrade
[Raid][Solace]: Can you give me two minutes? I need to crunch the numbers
“Okay,” said Bjorn. “The healers are taking a math break. Everyone take five.”
Drew went to wash out his soup cup and grab himself a Dr Pepper from his fridge. When he pulled his headphones back on, Solace was mid-theorycraft.
“—think it’s going to work out. The best main hand I’ve got is the Hoary Mace from Wall of Ice.”
[Raid][Dave]: lol
[Raid][Dave]: horey mace!
[Raid][Jargogle]: Didn’t you get that out of your system two patches ago?
“Mana’s not an issue for me, so what really matters is wisdom and conviction. My staff’s got 112 wis, 408 power. The book’s 73 wis, 281 power, the mace is only 44 wis and 130 power, so I’d gain, um, a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of power, and swap some crit for some haste, but not enough to be worth it, when it’s a flat upgrade for you, Helen.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Besides, I’ve never thought of Solace as a big reader.”
A Bjorn-ish sigh buzzed over Mumble. “You know, in some guilds, dividing the loot takes less time than killing the bosses.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.” Somehow Drew could hear the smile in Kit’s voice.
“But you guys don’t even have proper loot drama,” growled Bjorn. “You have loot romantic comedy.”
To [Solace]: you’re hot when you’re theorycrafting
[Solace] whispers: *blush*
[Solace] whispers: You like big brains and you cannot lie?
To [Solace]: lol
To [Solace]: brainzzzzzz
To [Solace]: hehe
They trooped back out of Vilicus’s tower and into the heart of the maze. They took down several packs of mourning ghosts and finally assembled in the Chamber of Tears. It was a sort of clearing, with walls of stone and thorns, and three overgrown statues forming a triangle around the centre of the room. Drew knew from experience they were a bugger for line of sight.
“Okay,” said Morag. She still sounded a bit subdued. Whatever had gone on with the poet had clearly taken its toll. “Welcome to the most sexist fight in the game. The Council of Tears are three evil women who used their vaginas to betray the men who cared about them, and now they’re minions of the naked sex elf we’ve come here to kill.”
“Hey.” That was Ialdir. “Lauriel wasn’t evil. She tried to stop Maladreth destroying elvish society.”
“Fine. Two evil women and one victim. That’s so much better. Anyway, the central mechanic of the fight is called—” she sighed heavily “—Hysteria. At certain points, one of the three women will get a buff called Hysteria, which will increase her damage output by about four hundred percent and last until she takes a certain amount of damage. Which means, when she gets Hysterical, you have to smack her until she calms down. Once one of them is dead, the other two become Hysterical permanently, so we need to get them all down as close together as possible. That means, when I tell you to stop DPSing, you stop
DPSing. You seriously stop DPSing.”
“That means you, Dave,” added Bjorn.
[Raid][Dave]: hey!
“Each of the three Hysterical women have their own Hysterical woman powers. Hecuba the medusa will turn you to stone permanently if she catches you, so she has to be kited by a ranged DPS. Jacob, she’s all yours.”
[Raid][Ialdir]: kk
“Rest of the ranged, unless I tell you otherwise, prio her because her snakes will spit venom in melee range. She’s also got Beauty’s Curse, which will make a random raid member who doesn’t have high threat walk towards her. If they reach her, they’ll be turned to stone, so they need to be dispelled ASAP.”
[Raid][Solace]: We’ve got a rota sorted
“Lauriel, the elf who’s worth it, will stand around crying. She and Cressida will both put stacking debuffs on the tank, so the tanks have to swap before they hit ten stacks. Lauriel’s debuff is called Burden of Tears, which increases the damage you take. If it gets too high, she’ll do Shattered Heart, which will almost certainly one-shot you, unless you’re the best-geared tank on the server. She’s also got Lamentation, which means she’ll stop and cry really loudly for a bit, which will send waves of emo through the room, and you have to line of sight them behind the statues. That just leaves Cressida, who’s a dirty, dirty ho. Her debuff is—” she sighed again “—Faithless Touch. This will reduce your threat generation by up to fifty percent and when it reaches maximum, she casts Seduction, which mind controls you for the rest of the fight. She also does Harlot’s Strike, which is a high physical damage cleave so DPS stay away from her tits and close to her arse.”
A readycheck popped up on Drew’s screen.
“Oh wait. Let’s not forget, if they get too close together, they get a buff called Sisterhood, which heals them. And if all three of them get within ten feet of each other, they cast Betrayer’s Cry, which does massive raid-wide damage, so don’t let that happen. Drew, do you want the crying elf or the slutty human?”
Drew was silent a moment. He had no idea how to answer that without it sounding really, really bad. “I’ll go with Lauriel.”
The readycheck came back and Drew confirmed he was, yet again, ready. He, Morag, and Ialdir jogged between the statues into the centre of the room, which triggered the arrival of the Council of Tears.