Page 26 of Looking for Group
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
[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 synchronicity 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, the main healer, 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]: 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.” 1
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,” Kit went on, “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 2 , 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 evil feminine wiles 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”—Morag sighed heavily—“Hysteria. 3 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