“Misty Haven will open soon. Is everyone online?”
The voice was deep and steady in the call. It was the sort of voice that felt like a warm authority in the soul. The sort of voice that was like a deep vibration of comfort in the soul.
There was a pause. A chair creaked. Someone swallowed liquid too close to the mic.
“It should be. I’m sure I put in seven people in the group chat. Let’s do a round of introductions.”
This one was a little higher, a little faster. Not stressed or excited, just not with the same slow and calm cadence. It was still reliable, and the articulation was very clear. Perhaps a bit sharp, but in a way of a command that was expected to be listened to. And order given with no option to retreat from.
“How about we say our name, species, class and level?” the second voice added as a suggestion. “The order is tank, close combat, ranged, and heal, with dungeon leader first.”
There was a general agreement. Someone quietly hummed, while the rest gave some form of a yes.
A second quiet swallow too close to the mic.
The second voice continued, “I’m Odyja Sorbanja, a Runeblood Lynx. I play Mage class and am level five eighty-three. I will lead this party tonight. Just as an FYI, I’m also the guild leader of the guild BRB 4 Raid. Main tank, over to you.”
“I’m Woohra Guorah. Bloodtooth Wolfkin. I play Fighter tank and and I’m level three seventy-five,” the first voice said. “Who’s my second?”
“I’m Sheussa Slyffs. Ashscale Wyrmkin. I’ll be tanking on a Brawler. My level is three fifty-nine.”
This voice was light. Airy even. It was a stark contrast to Woohra’s.
Having a brawler tank, however… He questioned it. But it was not his fight to take.
Literally.
His position wasn’t to primarily be a damage dealer.
The remaining four people from the other guild introduced themselves. There was little value in knowing who those were. It was enough to know the tanks and Leader. They were only three from their guild either way.
He was not here to make friends.
And then the main heal said, whose voice came with a drawl, “Finally, my second?”
Silence.
“No second heal? We’re missing someone?”
There was a moment of general confusion from the other guild’s members.
“Oh!” Odyja said after another bout of silence. “That’s my bad. I should have mentioned it before. That’s Guura Monggaar, Spiritwalker Bearfolk playing Cleric. Not sure about his level, but it’s good. He doesn’t talk in chat.”
“Why not?” one of the strangers asked. “Have him introduce himself.”
This voice was in the midrange. Annoying intonation. Not a voice that could be considered pleasant to the ears.
“Maybe he’s mute, I dunno,” Odyja said lightly. “He’s healing to support the main healer, anyway, so the reason doesn’t matter to me. He shouldn’t have shit to say either way.”
Guura had no plans on expressing any one or other opinion. As long as he wasn’t expected to speak, it was fine.
“We’re in an inclusive guild,” Woohra added without missing a beat. “Guura does support heal really well. He hears just fine, so he’ll listen to what’s said and do accordingly. He can communicate what he needs to said through text in a pinch.”
This was an opportunity for Odyja to set up the house rules, “We run our guild’s raids and dungeons with a Captain and Vice Captain for each larger run, with Main Tank being the person who can give order in a pinch. This is just a Normal run, so let’s just do me as a captain and Woohra can act as the deputy if need be. No one else can speak during the run.”
“What if we don’t know the mechanics?” the voice of the main heal said. It sounded frustrated.
“Literally none of us know the mechanics and can’t know any of them. That’s why we need to trust the leader of the party to make judgement calls. If we wipe, this run is done,” Woohra said calmly.
Guura tuned the remaining of the conversation out and watched the crowd that had appeared before the entrance to Misty Haven. He turned the camera to not see less of ridiculous amount of people.
Everyone had stripped down from their job-specific gear to wear their best gear that was the armour of their starter class.
Fighters wore medium and heavy armour that was rare to mythic. Most carried sword and shield, a few opted for polearms. A few Duelist mains held rapiers.
Brawlers wore light or medium armour with no weapon equipped.
Every Rogue looked different but all of them were in light armour. One could tell them apart based on what they most likely usually played, mainly from the firearms, bows, daggers and whips.
Summoners wore light armour as well. They could be told apart based on the summon they had already summoned. For this run they were unable to summon more than one of their basic summons and they had to choose which one on their first run and keep that up through the season, just like everyone else had to choose which job affected upgrades of their class skills.
Mages and Clerics were in cloth armour and most wore robes. While all in cloth armour who had books could be presumed to be mages, it was impossible to tell a cleric from a mage when both could wear staves.
Well, for the most part.
Teenam and Feni were chasing each other in circle around the Vice Captain.
Feni was in the gear the moon fox would usually choose when levelling Warrior. It was medium armour and didn’t follow the white and silver aesthetics. Because her polearm proficiency was maxed out, she naturally was equipped with a rare, high-level lance. Her armour had been dyed to match the Vice Captain’s green and brown leather armour. It looked odd on the white fox.
She wore a circlet and accessories that wear not quite matching, and clearly chosen to optimise the build. The earrings were identical to the Vice Captain’s.
With Feni playing a moon vixen and the Vice Captain playing a male wood elf, most would likely assume the matching gear meant they were married.
Likely Feni just liked the thought of being instantly recognisable by the Vice Captain.
Teenam, however, still dressed as usual — in a cloak that fluttered around the moon fox who made a leap over the other one while they played. This specific Cleric had opted out of equipping something that gave a bonus and instead had a harp. Teenam’s avatar looked like no jewellery was worn, but the fox was the only on in the crowd that had a glitter effect.
Guura didn’t know how that was made. He did notice that it was more than usual. Perhaps it was a set of accessories? He would need to ask the fox at some point.
“Everyone ready?”
Guura was snapped back from his thoughts.
Someone’s keyboard was clattering. Someone swallowed too loudly again.
“Whoever is drinking, could you mute yourself? I don’t know what you’re doing to swallow your mic, but it’s annoying,” Odyja finally snapped at whoever was making that wet glugging noise that felt as disgusting as the word “moist”.
A countdown popped up on the screen as the dungeon was about to open. Guura wrote a simple “let’s go!” in world chat together with all the others queued up to join Misty Haven.
The game went to a loading screen ahead of the timer, but the clock kept ticking down.
Misty Haven is now open.
Good luck in the realm beyond reality that tests your strength.
The Guild chat has been disabled.
You are now in Misty Haven (Normal).
In this realm, you are stripped down to your truest self, bared to the fears and horrors of yourself and your kin.
Your name is Guura Monggaar.
You represent the Spiritwalkers — the bearfolk who revere their ancestors and watch forests grow.
You are a following the path of a Cleric. You claim you have the experience of level 418.
Your kin’s challenge is the physical world around you. Your kin’s greatest fear is your ancestors abandoning you.
Can you prove your knowledge aligns with what you ought to know? Or is your kin’s fear too great, your challenge too difficult, and your true skill lacking?
There was an unskippable but short sequence. Guura watched his Bearfolk Spiritwalker character reach the spiritual island of Misty Haven. Out of the mist a Bearfolk lumbered forth. Only it was not Guura, but an “ancestor”. The translucent ancestor evaporated and the camera panned up to show the whole island while text “Misty Haven” appeared on the screen. It panned back down to show eight characters at the entrance.
A wolfkin Fighter, a wyrmkin Brawler, a lynxkin and an otterfolk Rogue, an elf and a bearfolk Cleric, and a lynxkin and a voidkin Mage.
Both Clerics began casting immediately. The main heal cast Velkrinni’s Blessing and Velkrinni’s Embrace while Guura took a page out of Teenam’s book and cast Hymn. It resulted in the Bark buff of the Druid job, giving everyone in the party a free hit from enemies.
Indeed, Guura entered with the Druid rune equipped, so he had a couple of special upgrades of his class skills that were useful in this situation.
Woohra likely looked through the skill list and then… howled, which would be Rage, Taunt or Intimidate, but there were no enemies at the very entrance.
Guura blinked as the party got a morale buff.
That… was new…?
The other healer also seemed baffled. “Huh.”
“Let’s head inside,” Odyja said, and Woohra went ahead, going first to pull the first monster or two so they could get a feel for the difficulty and what mechanics to expect from these monsters.
“Can’t you pull more?”
The drawl of the healer disturbed Guura’s attention on the game.
“Quiet,” Leader said sharply. “Use the party chat to express any complaints.”
The healer scoffed but went quiet.
[Party] Fichiyan Xiyaar: tank, cant you pull more?
Guura rolled his eyes. They were in the middle of battle, and this healer asked for more enemies. Were they that bored?
Guura cast Heal on Woohra and the other tank before quickly typing.
[Party] Guura Monggaar: no
[Party] Guura Monggaar: the difficulty will increase steadily
[Party] Guura Monggaar: cast attack spells if youre bored
The voidkin mage cast a dark spell, but it barely made any damage. It would seem that the enemy has dark resistance.
Leader clearly noticed the resistance: “Try light and fire skills or weaponry.”
But he came to a different conclusion than Guura: “It seems that the area diminishes dark magic attacks. I think it might be the fog. Main tank, try to pull the enemies toward the east.”
“Main heal, cast Prayer on the party. Sub heal, once we got them to a better spot, cast Bind.”
This was why Leader was the Leader of the main party during raids. Not everyone would think about the area being the issue.
As soon as Guura noticed the dark spells from the voidkin mage were higher, he cast Bind on the enemies, keeping them from moving anywhere for ten seconds.
He moved away while the wyrmkin brawler did a combo of skills to take one of the enemies down. Woohra took down the next one. Combined with one of the rogues the third one was felled by the leader’s spell.
They continued forward, along the unfamiliar dungeon and came across more enemies. Woohra taunted them with a howl. It was still rather easy, and Guura spent most of his mana casting Bind, Leaf Blade and Root Whip.
[Party] Fichiyan Xiyaar: sheussa, pull more
[Party] Fichiyan Xiyaar: we can do more
[Party] Guura Monggaar: you’re not the raid leader
[Party] Fichiyan Xiyaar: we are a 350-475 party
[Party] Fichiyan Xiyaar: lvl 300 is nothing
Guura snorted. He could do nothing as he saw the wyrm brawler run off to pull more. He cast another set of Bind as a preventative measure of making it harder than it needed to be.
The wyrm came sprinting back. Before they noticed, they heard in voice, “I did an oopsie.”
The ground shook as the giant arrived.
“The hell are you calling an ‘oopsie’,” Odyja cursed out. “That’s like calling an earthquake an oopsie.”
Guura cast Hymn. The main healer renewed Velkrinni’s Blessing.
[Party] Guura Monggaar: dont have soul’s return
[Party] Guura Monggar: dont wipe leader
Odyja grunted. “Brawler, otterfolk, you take the on the small ones. I will assist as needed. Woohra, take the giant; voidkin and lynxkin rogue, you’re on the giant. Guura, focus on buffs only. Main heal, you heal. Take turns to cast Bind.”
Guura watched as Woohra was already howling at the giant before casting Shield, and the lynxkin switched from one enemy to the next. The voidkin moved forward to cast a dark spell on the giant. Guura cast Bind to slow the giant down a little bit.
Guura remembered the Frost Giants from the 6.0 end game and felt more than a little uncomfortable. Those were hard when one knew the mechanics. Now they were experiencing the different yet still same boss, and they had no clue about anything that this giant may do.
What a shitty situation the main heal put them in.
“AoE!” a voice exclaimed, and everyone immediately spread out to avoid taking the brunt of the hit. But it meant the giant could step forward.
Rocks rained down on them. Guura moved as swiftly as a big bear can move, and cast buffs on the party members. He could see the main healer was alive and well, but there was no Bind being cast. Guura had no time to wait, and ran close to cast the debuff on the giant. They need to keep the giant away from the small mobs.
The Bloodtooth wolf ran past the Spiritwalker, howls resounding through the Misty Haven as the canine fighter taunted and tries intimidating the giant. Guura had to evade falling rocks, but eventually go enough time to cast the spell. Immediately after he cast Hymn to give Woohra more buffer.
He heard Odyja say something in the background, but he tuned it out for now. It wasn’t about him or what he needed to do.
What an annoying dungeon.
What a frustrating main healer.
At least Teenam didn’t leave things like this up to Guura without some sort of plan in place even when Teenam was the cause for it..
However, Guura wasn’t Teenam.
He’d truly have to manage this on his own if the main healer was so useless.
“Wife, heal, please.”
Woohra’s calm and steady voice broke through the noise, and Guura didn’t even question it — he simply cast a heal.
Only after the heal did he register…
[Party] Guura Monggaar: i logged in first today
[Party] Guura Monggaar: demandinf divorce after this dungeon
[Party] Guura Monggaar: idiot
But the tension in his shoulder he hadn’t realise was there already was released by that idiot’s antics.
This was fine.
This wasn’t a live or die situation. Just a “kinda annoying cooldown” situation.
He’d be back later whether he wiped or not now.
[Party] Guura Monggaar: wife
[Party] Guura Monggaar: howl
[Party] Guura Monggaar: cheer me on
[Party] Woohra Guorah: ok
The wolf howled and the morale buff appeared. Guura would ask about what Woohra upgraded to get that.
Later, at some point.