Before the End

It was a mid-level dungeon, below Gwen's notices normally, however with the coming update the drop tables might change. This means some really good glamour items might become usability and could end up being worth gold. Or at the very least the materials from breaking them down might be in demand.

, Either way, the undead monsters that made up the armoury of the dead. Gwen is currently tanking one of the last bosses.

"ANCHOR HOWL!"

Gwen glows green and draws the boss' attention the hulking giant skeleton warrior howls and strikes at Gwen.

"UTHER! MORGANA SHIR! NOW!"

But that just meant grinding some extra cash so they can be sure to be well stocked up for tackling the new content coming it. The company has been hush hush about what said content was going to be, but the mystery over details had Shiruba all the more eager to dig into it. Never hurts to recheck a few corners.

"You just keep its attention like a good tank." The wolf Cait Sith nocked back an arrow in her bow, reciting a quick incantation to activate the runes scribed on it, and fired. It 'exploded' upon impact with the monster, sending a wash of Ice Element over the creature. Being just bone and little flesh skeleton monsters usually had high resistance to slicing and bludgeoning attacks.

He frigid strike would take care of that, dropping it's defense rating a few notchs as if making the bones more brittle. "Hit it with all you got!"

The stockily built gnome that is Uther, will follow up Shiruba's own attacks as the ice rains he moves in shouting

"BEAT CRACK!"

He hacks away at the creature rapidly as Morgana a very curvey Spriggan, chants and cast holy hitting the undead monster with a bust of holy magic. It screams and reels as it's HP drops down, given everyone in the party is over-levelled for this dungeon. It's still not dead yet and Gwen has something in mind she starts chanting her self as she locks blades with the undead horror.

"They who dwell aloft have spoken. Let their words echo in your empty soul. Ruination is come! HOLY EXPLOSION!"

There's a massive burst of holy magic catching the boss in the middle of it and it screams HP burning away it shouldn't be long now before it finished off.

It's still standing, if barely. Huh. It's HP pool must be a bit higher than Shiruba calculated. Granted, it was from memory.

Oh well, minor adjustment to the plan.

Shiruba nocks another arrow, and the eerie whistle of wind can be heard as the elemental force swirls around it. The archer takes aim for what would be the center of mass of the monster, if it had much, dead center on it's ribs and torso.

"SONIC BLOW" The whistle turns into a howling wail as the arrow screams through the air with the force of a minature storm to slam through the center of the giant bonehead.

The group seemed to be tearing through tbe boss pretty effectively. Attacks coming in from multiple directions, magic and arrows raining down upon it from players that are honestly higher level than should be tackling this dungeon anyway.

From out of the melee comes the heavy armored gnoll were fang, two handed sword dragging on the ground and making sparks as he charges. He moves fast, faster than he should have any right to move in that armor, and leaps through the air.

He twists in midair to bring the sword downwards into the monster's skull head with the full force of his strength and gravity.

"IRON WAVE!"

A sonic blow ravages the creature sending the hulking undead giant reeling it's not quite down but it's just about there from the damage that Shiruba has dished out to it. It's apparently using some sort of last-ditch attack when the Iron wave catches it, not only interrupting it's cast timer but also finishing the things off as he takes the thing's head clean off and it rolls across the ground before it and it's body explodes in a shower of light and loot.
     Gwen pauses for a moment to look the were fang over.

She'll pause to scoop up one of her own drops, some sort of coin on a pendant.

"huh neat. This sure beats being around a bunch of drunken Jar Heads on New Years. Did that last year no intention to this year. The expansion's going to be great did see the raid previews? There's going to be so many new things to craft, we'll make so much gold on the glamour market."

She's juist about got little sparkles about her right now...

Shiruba raises a brow a bit. "Just how long have you been standing over there waiting for the chance to make a dramatic move like that?", she asks Kaydon, grinning just enough for the small fang-like teeth to show at the corners of her mouth.

Then picks up one of the loot drops. "Check this out." Rests the upper portion of a cranium on her head. "It's a skull cap!"

"I'll have you know I was fighting adds." Kaydon replies, twirling his sword around and locking it into the scabbard on his back.

He glances at the loot that Gwen picked up, and then listens to her talk, "Hey there's nothing wrong with drunken jarheads on New Years. And this comes straight from the mouth of one." He replies, before scooping up soomething of his own. Of course he gets interrupted by Shiruba's terrible pun, "I think that hurt me more than the boss did."

Gwen looks at Shir for a moment she stares for a moment. "I should Grand Cross you for that joke." She then looks over to Kaydon. "Oh really maybe, but last year was pretty intense. I'm just someone who keeps them in kit." She gets a goofy grin. "Look it wasn't chair force, right? You did good Kaydon, we have one more boss we should be able to down before, the patch hits." Gwen dropped ha hint she's some sort of support staff it sounds like though form the tone on Jar Heads there was no malice to it.

"Tell me about it she's the Punnisher..."

Shiruba drops the 'skullcap' back in her inventory. Potential glamour to sell later, just what they were here for. Sure, any one of them probably could of soloed this place at their levels, but what's the fun in that. It's more interesting with friends.

"Oh, that's the one with the skull on his chest, right? Multi layered pun now!" They've been over that one in one of their many comics vs manga discussions. Her tail flicks as if wagging a bit. Amazing the system is strong enough she can actually feel something that's technically not there on a human body.

Not like her parents were going to be doing anything interesting. And the older brother that sometimes plays with her is too busy with end-of-the-year business stuff to be here for the big update. "Well, let's keep moving then."

"Nah instead we'll just get drunk in game and celebrate clearing our quest logs before the new content drops." He replies to Gwen, with a bit of a smirk. He swipes open his menu for a moment, hmming a little bit, "Next boss should be a couple of rooms in, we'll have to fight through some trash to get to it, but that should be no issue. Lead the way, tanks."

Gwen smirks a bit for a moment and then Morgana grins. "The Rattling Corset? Been trying to get that one for a while." Uther makes a face. "Ah going for a Litch Queen look?" "Yes, and you know you like it." Uther looks a bit shifty at this while Gwen just tries to ignore them. "Right we have one more boss to handle and we should be able to get back to the town of Beginnings for the New Years party there."

The formation falls in and there not much issue with the trash, there's a whole bunch of undead skeletons zombies and the like but nothing the over levelled party can't just storm through.

Hack slash the trash is pretty much that at this point as Gwen pushes on.

"So been thinking about getting an actual storefront rather than using the Market...Why let the Landers take a cut of everything I sell right? CC just trying to bleed the gold out of us."

She notes as they reach the final chamber and she pauses opening the bone inlaid doors and waiting for them is a horrible stitched up abomination of flesh and bone.

Rattle Gore bellows and charges the moment Gwen enters the room and she intercepts with her shield.

"Come on bring it we're here for your drops you know how this ends!"

The trash mobs are no problem. But they enter the room and immeadiately the boss is on the move. "They must of updated his aggro range at some point."

Shiruba takes a couple of steps to the side to not be in the path of the rest of the group entering. The draws an arrow, this one crackling with little arcs of electricity along the edges of the arrowhead as she incants. Draws back, aims for the boss, and fires. It sticks in the monster's shoulder, followed moments later by several thunderbolts spawning overhead and crashing down on it.

As Shiruba moves out of the way, Kaydon rushes into the room. With Gwen taking over tanking duties, he's able to focus on damage, using his two handed blade.

He lands several slashes, before sliding out of the way as the thunderbolts rain down onto the lightning rod arrow.

"I'm going in!" He calls out to the other team members, before he lunges upwards, aiming his weapon for a gap in the armor, trying to plunge the blade as deep as he can manage.

Gwen is already keeping the boss on her as she uses Anchor Howl once more to keep it focused n her, Morgana keeps shealing her while Uther is moving in from the flanks as Kaydon has given him a very good distraction. Kaydon's blade catches in the horror and he does som serious damage Shiruba makes good on what Uther has done and the boss reels back. Shir riddles it with arrows and that's when Gwen is going to leap on the boss and drive her sword in.

"GRAANNNNNNNNNND CROOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSS"

She generates a template that looks like a cross and holy energy starts burning through /her/ and the boss itself. She's got it's full attention now. It would be a good time to go all out.

Shiruba's ears tilt forward in much the same way any real canine's would when paying considerable focus. That's how good the VR system is, mimicing emotional signals even for the extra non-human traits.

"Now's the time." Shiruba draws three arrows this time, holding them fanned out so she can nock them at once. "Fury of the stormy peaks, roaring from the skies above." As such she aims upward, sending the trio of arrows arcing into the air. "LORD OF VERMILLION!"

One arrow hits the ground behind the boss, while the other pair strike on either side. Magical lightning hits each arrow, then leaps off of it crackling loudly through the air to blast the horrid creature in a pyramid of thunderous wrath.

The group is throwing their biggest attacks in, and Kaydon isn't going to let that happen without doing the same. He drops back a few steps as the group unleashes on the boss. He plants his back foot, shifts his stance so the blade is pointed forward, resting on his left arm, and then he drives in.

He shoots past the lightning strikes from Shiruba and slams his blade into the monster's torso, driving it all the way through to the hilt, before turning and hauling back with the blade, ripping it in an upward motion to pull the sword out lengthwise, tearing everything up inside of there as he extracts the blade in one swift, powerful motion.

Gwen is clearly taking damage from her own move thankfully Morgana is healing her but is looking very unhappy. Shiruba's attack strikes home burning off more of it's hit point they as burning away Kaydon also scores some nasty hit as she gets a scored hit on the torso causing a full-on visible wireframe damage effect, as her tears past. Gwen finally lets off on her attack and slams he shield into the things face taking it down and it too explodes into a pile of loot.

"Remember when this guy was hard? Well, he is at level."

Then Gwen as she's making a victory pose gets bonked over her head by Morgana with her staff.

"What did I tell you about doing that when you don't need to!"

Shiruba almost joins in the posing.... but then Gwen gets smacked and she decides against it. Instead just trying to not snicker too loudly at it.

"He'd still be tough for a bunch of new players." The wolfgirl strolls over to collect her portion of the loot. "I've escorted a few groups down here to kill him before. It's good experience." Pause. "Both in playing and in the leveling kind."

Locking his blade back into place, Kaydon turns around in time to see Gwen get bonked, "She's never gonna learn, Morgana. Should know that by now." The were fan snickers a bit, which is more of a hyena laugh than anything else, but he straightens himself up, "Hopefully they won't screw with this dungeon too much in the new patch. Though if they bump it up to max level and offer new rewards, that might not be too bad." He muses, before going to pick through the loot, "Oh hell yes." He pulls out a longsword from the loot, "I can't believe he actually dropped this."

Gwen says "I still say you should hook up with Crescent Moon it's one of the better newbie helper guilds." She meanwhile shoots a look at Morgana for a moment. "Seriously cut it out I know where you sleep." "I have your baby pictures..." Gwen just seems to give up there and make s face. "Come on let's loot the area there's a harvest node or two we might as well get before we head back to town."

She pauses for a moment looking at Kaydon. "Ah, that drop I swear the drop rate is cursed."

Uther goes to mine the node while Morgana opens a window and checks. "We won't have time for another run it looks like."

"Now that is blackmail hard to beat." She shrugs a shoulder. "Fine with me. Don't want to miss the start of the night, and rerunning this any more is just going to be boring, glamour or not."

She remains alert with her bow, just in case anything else wanders in while the others are clearing the resource nodes. Not that there should be anything left in the dungeon to do so. "But I don't spend all my time with newbies. We just happen to be going to the same places at times." Or they paid her to be a guide.

"Look you don't just find the Fenrir Longsword hanging out anywhere. I don't think I'm gonna sell this one, I think I'll keep it for glamour purposes." He slides it away into his inventory, and then while he's in the menu checks the time, "Shit. We're getting close to midnight already. Party's probably in full swing already."

Gwen says "Sound like an idea. Also why we ducked out on the real one? We can stuff our faces and not have to worry about gaining a single Kilo!" Gwen giggles and even Morgana looks pretty pleased with this idea. Uther's finished up gathering the nods and falls in with the rest. Gwen pauses for a moment "Hey Kaydonb you did good tonight and seem to work well with us let me throw you a friend invite." She'll boot up a menu and do so. "You should hit all of us though."

"Or have food to stuff your face with in the first place," Shiruba mutters under her breath. If it wasn't her father trying to restrict what she did, it was her mother trying to restrict what she ate. She was a bit on the old-fashioned side and pulled out 'Don't eat so much or you'll get fat and never find a decent man' a lot. Ugh.

Big part of the reason she hung out with Gwen, who had parents that actually understood her pasttimes.

"Never hurts to have a merc or two on hand, does it?" she agrees.

"Yeah, good idea." Kaydon replies, as he opens up his menu, and accepts Gwen's invite, then tosses invites to the others in the group as well. Making sure he's got all of them on his friend's list, "I usually accept payment in the form of loot drops, but gold works too." He replies, giving Shiruba a wink since she's the one who called him a merc.

Which, he'd be the first one to admit he is, of course.

Gwen says "Given the cost of somethings? Tell me about it I lost about ten pounds since Elder Tale launched." She grins a this as she tromps out of the dungeon with her party. "Fair enough might you be willing at some point to model some of my creations? It helps when customer can see some o the goods on someone rather than on a stand." she looks to Shir for a moment "You could help with that too you know." Morgana and Urther also accept the invites as well as they follow along they seem to be talking about something which make the Spriggan giggle...and Gwen get a look of dread on her face.

Shiruba flicks her own menu open to hit accept and closes it again. She was happy to fill another slot in her friends list, even for someone that already had a guild connection.

She then makes a bit of a face as Gwen brings up modeling. "You know I don't like to show myself off like that." A pause as she scratchs behind one ear. "But if you ever get an actual store and not just parading around a central hub area to get attention for the market... Maybe then."

There's no way that could come back to bite her in the tail later, right? Right??

Kaydon laughs again, "Alright it's a deal." He replies, "As long as I can get some of the gear you're selling once in a while. If I find something that makes me feel particularly cool." He hmms faintly as he pulls up his menu, "You guys read up on the changes they're making to Aincrad?" He asks, as he tabs through a few things on his inventory, re-arranging stuff as they walk, "Wonder what kind of loot is going to be on the top floors. It's gonna take hardcore raiding to get to that stuff, though."

Gwen grins at Shir for a moment and then says "Oh that sounds like a plan to me. Same to you Kaydon. We can work something out I'm a pretty well-versed Maid, you could get it Maid to order." Gwen doesn't say much more "I hear they are going to fix the tenth-floor boss finally. Why did it take them how many months to admit to that issue? That glitch broke the Tea Party. Given some of them go all the way back to Fragment that's saying something right? The BBS has been on fire about it for a while, God damn I miss the like of Blizzard and Sony running a game. They wouldn't let something like that hang."

Shiruba's ears splay back as she rolls her eyes and groans. "And you were complaining about my puns?"

She shakes her head a little after. "Well, it's a big game Gwen. There may of been things more important in the background to fix than one broken raid. I'm still amazed they've managed to so much of the update hush hush. Usually there's leaks all over the boards by now."

"I can't believe it took them that long to fix it." Kaydon says, as he shakes his head a bit, "You've been at this for a long time, right Gwen? Remember when folks got together and determined that raid boss in Warcraft was mathematically impossible?" He was playing at the time and remembers the massive debates about it. It was the same debates they had about the boss on the 10th floor of Aincrad.

Gwen says "Look its a major raid and content boss, somethings get missed? This? This hurt the community." She makes a face though her accent in Japanese is getting a bit thicker right now as she gets worked up. "About a year, played offline for years honestly. Yes, Uther was one of those people. Oh... yeah. fine you win."

Uther is just looking smug as all get out and mutters "Have you seen my body....o/~" Morgana just looks. "You are one to talk on that Mr. I got shanked by a healer."

"I got to wonder what sort of NDA they hit their staff with...and honestly? I sometimes wonder what would it be like to liver in a world like this?"

"I'm just glad I don't have to work in the morning, so I can actually stay here and party with you guys." Shiruba chuckles a little. "It helps that one of the main managers is also a big gamer, so they realized opening an -internet cafe- the morning after a big release drop wasn't going to get much business."

"Yeah I'm off tomorrow too. Glad that they still let us get New Years Day off. The place would be a mess with everybody hung over and sleep deprived." Kaydon shifts back to his human form as they walk, since they're going into town and he doesn't want to scare the locals too bad. After all, Landers have different dialog if you're transformed or not as a were fang. Part of the reason he picked that race.

The group would miss the start of the party as the lock is ticking down to 11:59:59...