Page 5 of Looking for Group

[Group][Ialdir]: GJ team

Solace ran past him, jumped into the giant’s body, and vanished.

[Group][Solace]: Weeeee

[Group][Ialdir]: That looks so wrong

[Group][Solace]: You don’t know what I’m doing in here

[Group][Ialdir]: Please exit the boss corpse in a calm and orderly fashion

[Group][Orcarella]: Does she always do that

[Group][Ialdir]: Not always

Pyrite’s remains vanished to reveal Solace doing her slinky dance. At his keyboard, Drew sighed and shook his head, but he was smiling.

[Yell][The Forge Master]: MORE STEEL, MORE FIRE, MORE SERVANTS FOR THE GREAT MACHINE!

[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 [Bejeweled 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] 21 . 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]:

[Group][Ialdir]:

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 his 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]:

[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 22

[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 goodbye to his new guild, logged off, and rushed out to meet his mates in the pub.