23. Resonance of the Sea pt. 1
Mage
Checking in. How are things going?
Warrior
Full group for Runeheld. They know it’s going to be difficult. We’re halfway to the first boss.
Archer
Halfway through the first batch of quests. Going to turn them all in at once.
Acolyte
I don’t think we like healing. It’s easy, but it’s not as fun. Anyway, the party freaked out when the first rare spawn appeared, but we didn’t wipe. I skipped the 2 nd lair stone I found, but I’m going to make another Rare Spawn on the next one when I find it.
Lord
Paperwork. Endless Paperwork. Nothing that needs a vote yet. Mostly just the letters I talked about earlier
Mage
I’m LFM. Eliyenia gave us a questchain. I guess you’ll all know about it tonight or whatever, but the first step is destroying a Lair. She said I’ll need ten party members.
Acolyte
Lame. I should follow up on some of the leads from last night too.
Archer
Nobody’s stopping you.
Acolyte
That wasn’t what we planned though
Mage
So what? Do you think we’ll care tomorrow if one of us changes their plans for the day today? Except for [Lord], the rest of us are just leveling as fast as possible, right? Well, the leads might be the fastest way to do that.
Archer
I’m going to stick to Kordock for now, but yeah, Mage is right.
Lord
I’m more worried that all of this work is going to push me to 50 too early than finding something to do.
Warrior
Sorry, don’t have time to talk. Do what you want Acolyte. We’ll understand when we merge up again.
Mage
Hey, Lord? How is guildchat? Have you been paying attention?
Lord
Off and on. It’s the same as before. They keep arguing about what they’re going to have me do when I’ve leveled like I have no say in it. I haven’t even told them yet that I can barely fight as a Lord, and haven’t said a word about [Placeholder]. They’re discussing the rumors that I can be in two places at once now and trying to figure out what that means. For them.
Mage
Do you think they were ever really our friends?
Lord
I think we felt more strongly for them than they did for us. I think maybe that’s still true.
Mage
Some of them are good people.
Lord
I didn’t say they weren’t. Some of them will speak up for us now and then and remind everyone that we have a say in any plans or decisions. But they keep talking about spending my Dungeon Cores like they belong to them. That’s the part that pisses us off the most, isn’t it?
Archer
You know it is. Cores aren’t easy to get. Although that might change now that we’re ‘us’ instead of just ‘me.’
Acolyte
Do you think it will change us? Being split like this?
Mage
We’ll find out. There’s no turning back. I don’t want to go back to the way we were before, does anyone else?
Lord
No
Archer
No
Warrior
No
Acolyte
No. Being stuck taking care of business while we wanted to be out adventuring was the worst.
Lord
You said it, but I’m the one who’s doing that right now.
Archer
And we all pity you for it. But you know that we’ll share your misery tonight, so you have that to look forward to.
Lord
Yeah…tonight. Our dreams are probably going to be crazy again, aren’t they?
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Acolyte
I think that it’s the new normal for us. Might as well get used to it.
Warrior
Guys, I need you to stop talking so that your messages stop distracting me mid pull
Mage
Sorry Warrior. Shutting up now.
I kind of envied Warrior. There was something so satisfying about the back and forth violence that goes on as a tank. Because of how the Anger mechanics worked, it was sometimes better to stand still and soak damage than to try to avoid it. As long as you could survive it, at least, and had a healer following you around.
I liked magic, but I wasn’t certain I liked being a mage. I had initially planned on turning [Warrior] into a [Duelist] and the [Duelist] into a [Spellblade]. Now I was thinking I might wait on that decision, and turn [Mage] into [Spellblade] instead. I don’t think it mattered what route you took to reach your class, so I was starting to think I might keep one of my classes a tank.
I was sitting in the open aired cafe across from the Adventurer’s Guild and drinking a shaved ice with Thornberry, blackberry, and appleberry chunks mixed in. It was refreshing in the hot day as I waited for the group to fill up. I had already managed to pass off being group leader to a Soldier who was very excited to tag along for my Elite Quest. They, of course, didn’t have the required quest item, but the quest text insisted that completion would count for anyone in the party and not just the one who charged Eliyenia’s comb.
Someone suddenly joined the party, interrupting my reverie.
You are in the Looking for Group Queue
Name
Hagi
Guild
None
Class
Mage
Rank
Iron
Level
25
Goal
Elite Quest: Resonance of the Sea (10man)
Role
DPS/Support
Party Status
1 tank
5 dps/support
2healers
It was another DPS. I opened up Party Chat and said “I think we’re full on DPS now. We should get another tank and healer, or another two tanks. This quest is going to be challenging and I don’t think that--”
“Ignore this noob. Or kick him. Nobody does ten man challenges with three tanks, that’s stupid. We barely need one at level 25,” someone interrupted.
I was silent for a moment. Then I said “Okay, yeah, I’ll drop group.”
I did that, and I took another sip of my iced drink. Thirty seconds later I was re-invited, and we were down a DPS.
“I’m so sorry about that,” Nefeline, the [Soldier] I had passed party leadership onto, said. “Everyone, this is Hagi’s quest. He unlocked it. He’s the only one who has the quest item that we need to finish it. We need him more than he needs us, because he can always just log out and do this another day.”
“Or we can figure out how to unlock this super rare questline of his and get the quest for ourselves,” a voice said through the party chat.
“Good luck doing that,” I said.
“Want me to kick you too, Polix?” Nefeline asked.
“I’m just saying. Even if he did unlock a new elite quest for the first time, it doesn’t make whatever he found exclusive. I’m all for getting the first time completion bonus, but who even is this kid? He’s not in a guild but he’s Iron Ranked, shows up out of nowhere with an Elite quest nobody’s heard of, and apparently has you on a leash,” Polix challenged.
“Just because he’s not in a local guild or we’ve never heard of him doesn’t mean much at this level,” Nefeline pointed out. “I mean, it’s only by chance that I saw his request when I was leveling my alt.”
“Hey, kid, why do you think we need extra tanks or heals?” Polix asked.
“Because I’m expecting the quest to get harder the further along we go,” I explained. “I’m really not sure what to expect, but I don’t think it will be easy, and from what I’ve read, it’s pretty standard to bring an off-tank or extra healer in a ten-man challenge.”
“Yeah, it is,” Polix said. “At level one-sixty. When the off-tank or healer can actually do some side DPS when they’re not busy.”
“If I’m wrong and we take an extra tank or healer, then the challenge takes slightly longer because we’re low on damage but high on not dying,” I argued. “If you’re wrong and we go with six DPS, then people are going to get a death penalty and possibly miss out on a unique experience. But whatever. I’m just doing this to get to level thirty. It’s pretty easy for me to find unique experiences like this, so I don’t really care that much about this one. I’m done arguing about it.”
I put them all on mute and went back to my shaved ice, waiting quietly until the party filled. We had three tanks, just as I’d suggested.
We gathered just outside of Eldertide to ride out together. I chatted amicably with the others, getting to know them on the way. Polix was less confrontational face to face than he’d been in party chat, although I think that was largely thanks to Nefeline chewing him out while I hadn’t been listening.
The others were all interested in where I’d discovered the quest chain to unlock the Elite Quest I was sharing with them while I played innocent. The rewards didn’t list my personal reputation, just normal system rewards, so I don’t think they had any clue that House Jeoran was involved at all. Shadow drew some attention, but black horses weren’t so uncommon that he was enough to unmask me.
In the party, there was Nefeline, the soldier who was leading this Lair Busting mission, even if she didn’t realize that’s what we were doing. The other tanks were Stolit, a standard warrior tank, and Deeprum, a Dwarven Legionnaire. Deeprum wasn’t the only nonhuman in the group, as we also had an Elvish Feybinder and Ranger, as well as a Goblin Marauder. Marauder was a curious class, as it allowed the Traveler to bind up to four goblin Natives to assist them in combat. This Marauder, named SprockleFritz – although we just called him Fritz for short – had three goblin ambushers and a goblin mage with him. I was looking forward to seeing how this would affect the party dynamic.
Aside from the Feybinder, the second healer was an Acolyte. Our final member was a drow rogue. Technically his class was an [Elf Stalker], but it was effectively the rogue class with a few movement techniques and a tracking feature that they shared with Rangers.
It was overall a well balanced party, and I was looking forward to completing this challenge with them. It took us a while to reach the Lair; the eastern side was slightly closer to Eldertide than the Shallow Pools had been, so it wasn’t quite a ten mile ride. None of us had been here before, so we all attuned to the Nexus Point on the border which would allow us to return whenever we wanted.
Nexus Points vary in size and intensity, but until they’re attuned they look like swirling black tornadoes of energy. They attune just by getting in range of them, and their actual size can be extremely large, as the one in the eastern side of the lair was. The nexus points in towns and cities are usually much smaller and require directions to find, rather than being visible from a mile away or more.
The lair was a saltwater estuary filled with two types of enemies. The first type was Nagas, with long snake-like bodies topped by a human torso, and the second type a snail-like enemy that shot elemental blasts at us. The Nagas were smaller and weaker than Shleshenal of the Depths, the elite rare Naga I had fought what felt like ages ago, but that battle was actually not too far in the past. These nagas were a completely different shade of blue, and their heads were more humanoid than the snakelike Shleshenal had been.
The Naga’s attacked in packs, while the snails usually ambushed us by disguising themselves as boulders until we’d half passed them. Fortunately the snails were easily dealt with; hitting them with an opposing element would crack open their shell and leave them vulnerable. With both Polix and I to exploit their weaknesses, we made short work of them.
The Naga Packs were more tricky, but this was supposed to be a five man lair so we rolled right through them at first. It was too easy, and the experience was less than a quarter what we would have gotten in two five-man teams, but at my insistence we stuck together until I found the first Lair Stone.
It was a large white crystal, the size of a melon, in the middle of an enemy’s camp. The others didn’t seem to recognize it as anything important at all, but I knew what it was the instant I saw it. I called for the others that I’d found one of the locations to charge the comb. I didn’t even bother waiting for them to finish clearing the camp before I set the comb on the ground next to the Lair Stone and picked it up.
You have found a Lair Stone (Aqueous)
Level 25-30
Options
Evolve Lair
Increase level
Decrease level
Add monster type
Remove monster type (Naga)
Remove monster type (Elemental slug)
Rare Spawn
Destroy Lair Stone
0/45 Lair stones destroyed
25 Lair Stones must be destroyed to destroy Lair.
Destroying Lair Stones will spawn Elites
“Huh,” I muttered. This was the first time I hadn’t needed to find all of the lair stones to destroy the lair. I only needed a little more than half of them.
“I think some Elites are about to spawn,” I warned everyone, and I selected the option to destroy the Lair Stone. It crumbled to dust, and for a moment nothing happened. I picked up the comb, casting [Spark] on it to make it glow.
“Look, the comb is resonating,” I said, and I’m certain it was the worst act in history as I attempted to draw attention away from what I’d done with the stone. “Be ready for anything.”
“What was that?” Polix demanded. “Did you just crush that rock?”
“No, the comb sucked its energy,” I protested. “Oh look, Elite spawns.”
I wasn’t lying, as charging at us from the distance was a group of fifteen elite level 29 Naga. They were coming in fast, and my party members didn’t have time to question me further as we prepared to receive them.