Page 89 of Looking for Group
“Okay”—Bjorn crackled over Mumble—“and first up is the Bewailing Breeches.”
[Raid][Heurodis]: [Bewailing Breeches]
Drew let the looting go on around him. He manoeuvred Ella to go stand next to Solace. Their shoulder pads clipped through each other, which was probably the closest you could get to holding hands in an MMO. Solace bounced up and down on the spot. That made Drew smile.
[Solace] whispers: Hey you
To [Solace]: hey you back
[Solace] whispers:♥
To [Solace]:??
Next up was Lady Bloodrose. She was a pretty familiar sightto Drew these days—one of Tempest’s many not-quite-naked-enough-to-get-the-game-an-R-rating women, wrapped in a few strategically placed climbing roses as she hovered over a dark pit in the middle of the final chamber.
High Theurgist Venric had somehow managed to get ahead of them and was standing there, waiting politely for the party to give him permission to have an angsty conversation with his ex-girlfriend. Heurodis sprinted over and got him started while the rest of the party renewed their buffs and sat down to eat their fish.
[Raid][Heurodis]: starting HTV off now because this speech is really fricking long
[Raid][Morag]: Do you want to do the tacs for this one, Bjorn?
[Raid][Heurodis]: a rare display of intelligence undoubtedly fleeting6
[Raid][Ialdir]: you know Dave wasn’t born when that game came out
[Raid][Jargogle]: Stop giving Bjorn responsibility. It goes to his head.
[High Theurgist Venric] says: Anthariel! It is not too late. I have forgiven you for your betrayal, as I have forgiven Raziel for his. Turn back to the Light, and you yet may be redeemed.
[Raid][Morag]: Oh man, High Theurgist Venric got friend-zoned.
[Lady Bloodrose] says: I have been lost in the dark so long. Come, my love, that I may look upon your face again.
[Raid][Mordant]: ITS A TRAP!!!
[Raid][Dave]: wait what game
“Anyway,” interrupted Bjorn, “while High Theurgist Venric, who presumably holds a position of authority in Whitepeak, walks slowly to his doom like a total noob-basket, we should run down the tacs for this fight.”
[High Theurgist Venric] says: Anthariel…
[Raid][Dave]: hey what game
“So like all good boss fights, Lady Bloodrose is in three phases. In the first phase, she will hover over the pit and send her briars to tear the raid to pieces. The briars come in four kinds, Thorned, Barbed, Entrancing, and Entangling. Thorned Briars are large and hit heavily in melee, so they need to be tanked or killed by ranged. Barbed are smaller and faster, but stack Heartsblood on you. Various things in this fight will hit you with Heartsblood, and if it reaches a hundred stacks, you become some kind of mindless zombie thing under the control of Lady Bloodrose. If you let this happen, you are a noob and a scrub, and you will need to feel very bad about yourself.”
Bjorn sounded like he was really enjoying himself. He reminded Drew a lot of Anni in some ways, but in other ways he really, really didn’t. It was like he used all the same words, but they didn’t mean the same things.
“The Barbed Briars should be prio-ed by ranged, always. Entrancing Briars will have little white flowers on them, and they will randomly mind control people. You will stay MCed until the briar is killed. Melee can attack Entrancing Briars safely. Please do so. Finally, Entangling Briars will wander around and grab people. When somebody gets grabbed, DPS them out of it. Also spawning in phase one are the Veiled Attendants. These are the spooky cultist people who come out of the doors in the northeast,northwest, southeast, and southwest of the chamber. They will make a beeline for the nearest pillar, where they will activate its special power.”
[Raid][Jargogle]: Tell us about the special powers, Uncle Bjorn
[Raid][Dave]: seriously what game came out before I was born
“Any game worth playing, David.” Bjorn took a deep breath. “So these powers—thank you, Magda—include massively increasing the spawn rate of briars, massively reducing the healing output of the party, massively increasingly the damage dealt by everything, and sticking Heartsblood on the whole raid every few seconds until we all die. If an attendant starts channelling, it must be interrupted and then the tanks should pick them up and pull them away from the pillars. During this phase, ranged DPS will be expected to switch between Lady Bloodrose, the briars, and whatever else needs killing. The phase will end when her health drops to seventy percent. There is a lot that can go wrong in this phase, but I get very depressed when we don’t make it out of it.”
[High Theurgist Venric] says: Aaaaagh!
[Lady Bloodrose] says: So trusting, Venric. A pity to come all this way and then to fall so easily.
