Page 12 of Looking for Group

Once everyone had readychecked, Ella ran into the room, punched Vilicus in the knee, and then started moving him in a tight circle. As the Torturer took damage, his blood began pooling on the floor, and Drew edged him out to make room for the melee. Mumble was loud again, and slightly frantic.

“No, no, run away!”

“Not that way!”

“This way!”

“I said towards , dipshits!”

Drew’s health dipped alarmingly, so he threw up Unholy Resolve. Hopefully it’d be off cooldown again by the time the next phase started. He flicked a glance at the raid’s health bars. They weren’t looking good, most of them hovering at about the forty-percent mark.

Suddenly there was a massive, fleshy explosion, and Prospero and Heurodis both went grey.

[Yell][Vilicus]: DELICIOUS AGONY!

[Raid][Prospero]: ded

“Where the fuck were the melee?” roared Bjorn. “What the fuck? When someone gets Curse of Flesh, you stack on them, you don’t just stand there mashing your rotation like little noobs.”

Morag: “Keep it together, we’re not wiping this yet.”

[Raid][Heurodis]: you look at your boss mods you see who has the debuffs you go where you are meant to go its not difficult.

“You can rant after the fight, Bjorn.”

“I’m just going to sit here and weep.”

Things didn’t go too badly in the second phase. People stayed out of the blades and handled the curses more or less okay. There was still a lot of raid damage, and Caius went down just on the transition to phase three.

[Raid][Caius]: Bugger

[Raid][Heurodis]: weeping

Phase three was a DPS race. These indestructible ghosts kept spawning, and the trick was to kill the boss before there were too many to handle.

Glory Through Pain gave a really big damage buff but at the cost of a really nasty DoT, and with a healer and two DPS down, there was no way the balance was going to work.

“Okay,” said Morag. “Hail Mary strat. All DPS get Glory. We’ll see if we can keep you alive.”

They couldn’t keep them alive.

Ialdir—pet-based noob that he was—was first to go, followed by Ignatius, then Solace, then Jargogle. Which left Morag and Ella and Dave desperately flailing at Vilicus while a rising tide of anguished spectres came forth to devour them.

“Aaaand that’s a wipe,” said Morag as the spirits overwhelmed her.

Next thing Drew knew, Ella was a pile of crumpled limbs and armour of the floor.

He released and respawned outside the entrance to Crown of Thorns, next to Dave and Morag, whose ghosts were flying back to the instance.

He swooped after them and gave four hundred gold to the nice man with the anvil who was waiting just inside to beat his armour back into shape.

Then he hit num lock and steered Ella through the winding empty halls of CoT, past Kelebos’s gate and Thornheart’s grove, up Arachnia’s web and down Vilicus’s tower. The guild was eating fish outside the torture chamber.

Mumble was kind of quiet, and Drew wondered how this would go. Wiping was part of raiding, but people tended to take it badly, especially the first wipe of the night.

Morag: “Well, not the worst effort.”

A spluttering noise down Mumble.

“I know you’ve got stuff to say, Bjorn, and you can say it, as long as you use your inside voice.”

“Sorry, I’m just in an angry space because we should not be making these mistakes. I’m not blaming anybody, but people should not be dying from Flesh Curse. Especially not if they’re me. Prospero got cursed, only the ranged stacked.”

[Raid][Solace]: Sorry, I was slow. There was a lot of damage coming in so I couldn’t stop healing.

“If people were where they were meant to be, they wouldn’t need healing.”

[Raid][Jargogle]: Once again, Bjorn, this is harder when you are in melee. You have to run around the tainted blood. 9

[Raid][Jargogle]: And that means you get everywhere more slowly.

[Raid][Jargogle]: And before you say anything, my sprint was on cooldown.

“Okay.” Morag. “Let’s have the ranged in a bit closer to make it easier for melee to cover the distance.”

Drew wasn’t sure if he should say anything.

The part of him that had spent three years with Anni was frustrated, just out of habit really.

The deal had always been that when something like this happened, there was a rousing chorus of “we shouldn’t be wiping on this” before everybody’s performance got put under a microscope.

The system worked well enough to get server firsts, and while he was pretty sure it wasn’t right here, he wasn’t sure the softly-softly approach was going to work either.

The truth was, the melee should have been sharper and that was that.

But everyone was acting like it was the whole raid’s responsibility.

Then Drew heard himself say, “I’ll try to position him better as well. I’m a bit rusty.”

Where had that come from?

He braced himself to be called a noob or told to stop making excuses.

“Cool,” said Morag. “Right. We’re going again. Ranged stay closer, and everybody stay alert. We’re taking too much avoidable damage.”

The raid finished their fish and their buffing and got into position.

A readycheck popped up.

Drew was still a bit dazed, but he clicked Okay.

“Three, two, one, pull.”

And Ella once again hefted her maces and threw herself into battle against the vile torturer Vilicus.

[Yell][Vilicus]: Immortality is found through pain. Come, friends, and I will make you immortal.

Things seemed to go more smoothly this time. People’s health bars were a lot, well, healthier, and everybody made it to phase three alive.

“To the rack!” cried Bjorn gleefully as Heurodis broke free of the raid to go and interact with a random piece of dungeon furniture. “Now, I will show you the meaning of imba!”

Jargogle sprinted back from the other side of the room, little daggers whirring through the air like one of those kitchen appliances you get advertised on late-night TV.

“Less boast, more DPS.”

Drew kept an anxious eye on Vilicus’s hit points, which seemed to be going more slowly than they had last time.

Ghosts gathered at the edges of the room and started drifting inexorably inwards.

“Uhh,” he said awkwardly. “I think we’re going to need to push a bit harder.”

Vilicus’s health crept down but still too slowly, and gradually people started getting chewed on by ghosts.

[Raid][Solace]: Too much raid damage

With Vilicus on a comfortable ten percent, the whole thing turned into a gigantic clusterfuck. Ghosts were everywhere, people were exploding, and Vilicus was still oozing toxic blood all over the place.

Morag made a noise of frustration. “Aaand that’s a wipe again.”

Five minutes and another hefty repair bill later, the guild were sat back on the floor outside the torture chamber, eating fish and contemplating their failure.

Morag was the first to speak. “Okay, better in some ways, worse in others. Really good job on the first two phases, but we just didn’t have enough DPS on three.”

“Uhh, can I say something?” asked Drew. Raid leaders could be touchy about too many people weighing in on strats. But he did actually have more experience than these guys.

“Go for it.”

He took a deep breath, hoping this wouldn’t come out sounding too dickish.

“So, I think the trick is to be really, like, super careful in the first two phases so everyone goes into three with full health and mana. There’s no point taking chances cos there’s no timer.

But in three, it’s like a race against the ghosts, so you’ve kind of got to be a bit more… y’know.”

There was silence on Mumble.

It occurred to Drew that y’know wasn’t very specific.

“Like not reckless, but people are going to take damage and some people are gonna die, but if you’re doing it right it doesn’t matter.”

“So.” Bjorn. “You’re saying we need to kill ourselves more.”

“Well…yeah… I mean…no. But you’ve gotta be more willing to, like, take damage to do damage.”

“We have done this boss before.”

“Put your dick away, Bjorn.” Morag. “Drew’s part of the guild, he can suggest tacs just like anyone else. And I think that’s a pretty good idea actually. So, Caius and Ignatius, you get Glory too.”

“Just stay away from my rack.”

[Raid][Ialdir]: Trust me. Nobody’s interested in your rack.

[Raid][Caius]: I’ll take the spiky thing at the back

[Raid][Ignatius]: And I’ll take the bench thing with the blade above it

“Ready to go again?” asked Morag.

They were ready.

And in went Ella, charging valiantly forward as if doing this exact same thing hadn’t just got her killed. Twice.

[Yell][Vilicus]: Immortality is found through pain. Come, friends, and I will make you immortal.

The first two phases went slowly but near perfectly. Raid damage was as low as you could expect with curses firing all over the place, and nobody stood in blood or on knives.

“Steady.”

“Good job.”

“Phase three coming up.”

As phase three hit, Jargogle, Heurodis, Ignatius, and Caius ran to their assigned torture devices and buffed up.

There was a lot more damage coming in now, and Drew paced out his cooldowns to take as much pressure off Morag as he could.

But, on the plus side, Vilicus was also taking a lot more damage.

“You still need to stack, guys.”

“More heals on Bjorn.”

“Got him.”

“Jargogle’s boned.”

“Could you possibly rephrase that?”

“Out.”

“Losing Helen.”

[Yell][Vilicus]: DELICIOUS AGONY!

“Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“Focus on Bjorn.”

“Dave, get Glory.”

“Booyah!”

“Keep it up.”

[Yell][Vilicus]: DELICIOUS AGONY!

“Dave’s down.”

“Maaaan, I just got the buff.”

“Flesh, flesh!”

“Full burn.”

[Yell][Vilicus]: DELICIOUS AGONY!

[Raid][Ialdir]: I’m out

[Yell][Vilicus]: DELICIOUS AGONY!

[Raid][Solace]: Me too

[Raid][Solace]: 3%. You can do it guys

Between dodging ghosts, managing his cooldowns, and trying to output as much DPS as humanly possible, Drew was barely remembering to breathe.

He’d forgotten how completely mad this fight could be.

It was awesome.

Vilicus’s health was a tiny red sliver in the bottom of the bar.

And so was Ella’s.