Page 28 of Looking for Group
“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.
