Arc 1, Chapter 1.1.12: Oh Fuckdrat
[x] (Character's Main Role) Tank - Stuff Hits You, You Don't Die
[x] (Character's Class) Paladin (tank, healer, buffer, shield in the offhand, radiant/fire/ice/lightning)
[X] (Paladin Style) Flammite AAAAAAGH - Special potions give you extreme self buffs while wearing no armor and wielding only boxing gloves or similar to punch your foes until, at least if they're undead, they catch on fire.
… You literally built a look for your Andrax - the setting's boring humanlike option - that looks very, very similar to how you look now.
Except that you play a Paladin. At least not an Auroran Paladin, the classic sword-board-and-holy-auras style that is, confessedly, one of the more popular Tank classes in the game.
But "Paladin" is still clearly visible in your character's stats-and-equipment menu. Helen is bound to notice eventually, and you can already feel the "How Cute…" reaction coming even if it might be weeks away and -
Your brain cuts to your internal council for a moment. It's a good metaphor that you haven't used much as late.
The projector reads: "What to do about the possibility of Helen Garland, Starship Captain and Paladin, discovering your main class in Another World Online, and her possible range of reactions to same."
It's a bit more parliamentarian than the last few times, and also the room isn't on fire like the last few times, so that's nice.
The first voice to speak is the one of your past life, hoodie and skirt and all. Wait, the skirt's new. "So, yeah. We've got like three reveals at once. Four, actually, but I'm gonna suggest we put the last aside, that being the fact that the gods listed in Another World Online appear to also be gods here on Aridia."
The combative one nods. "On the bright side, that increases the possibility that we can fight them and kick their ass!"
"We nearly lost people to one group of bandits, I think we kind of have a ways to go before fighting gods is in our range! But anyways, for now, I'm chalking this up to multiversal cosmic coincidence until proven otherwise."
The slutty one giggles. "I'm not going to pretend I noticed, but yeah, we can keep moving."
"Yes," the past-focused one responds. "So, the other facts are these. First, we main Paladin, albeit an unusual build thereof. Given that we're, you know, a succubus, there's some rather massive cosmic irony here, need I remind you all of the fact that we had to explicitly nix that as our adventuring class in the first vote."
The stylish one blinks. "Wait, are we allowed to acknowledge the fourth wall mail slot for votes that much?"
"The fourth wall is the work of powerful illusionists and is safe to disbelieve as suits our needs. Anyways! There's a bigger concern than the cosmic irony, and that's how our teammates would react to discovering this information."
The slutty one pauses. "Eira would be a bit side-eye, but should be easy enough to fast-talk with discussion of game mechanics and some brushing of her tail. She has priorities, and judging the moral complications of the girl who just ate her out isn't much of one, let's be honest."
The stylish one shudders. "Helen, on the other hand, would immediately recognize this as a sign of something and could use it as ethical or moral leverage. Or, worse, just to tease the shit out of us."
The past life nods. "Exactly. The question is, how do we handle this threat to our emotional stability?"
The violent one pauses. "Well, we could just say 'Fight Me Helen', she won't get the meme but-"
"She'd promptly remind us how that went for us last time, so no."
"Aw."
The stylish one nods. "It'd take some effort, but switching our main class to another tank class would still work. Regearing would be required, of course, but we could pull that in a few evenings' work."
The past life nods. "The best time to do so would be in between raids, as we'd need to rebuild our rotation memory. But it could work. There's one last reveal, though."
The slideshow advances to a photo of your in-game character, next to the photo of you from the other day. The in-game Reach99 has the same hair color, hair style, and a very similar frame and bustline, once you account for the difference between polygons and fantasy-anime art style. There's one very obvious difference beyond dress, though - very visible abs, given the strength-heavy build.
The slutty one nods. "Ooh, ooh, I've got this one! So, we built a design we liked. When we were spawned, aspects of our past life were still part of our formed subconscious, so we took a form we liked. We don't have photos or anything, but I'd bet we looked a bit more muscular until the Bard training."
The past life pauses. "That's… Actually an easy explanation. But it does open the question of 'what do we do, if anything, about this', because both Helen and Eira would have capital-c Comments upon spotting that."
"Eira'd probably just ask if 'your avatar looking like yourself' is normal, could pass it off that way."
"Not reliably if I'm using HarmonyChat," the past life observes.
The stylish one shrugs. "So, it's 'discovery of our class by Helen', 'discovery of our avatar's look by either', and 'cosmological implications questions of the gods'. You said four, though."
The past life pauses. "... Um, did I?"
"You did."
"Well, I mean, I guess there's that mechanic…"
The stylish one sighs. "Okay, let's just focus on the two questions, then."
[ ] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Stick to Paladin, you know it and you do well at it; doing right by your online associates is more important than the risk of embarrassment.
[ ] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Switch to another Tank class to defend yourself from the risk of multiple kinds of embarrassment; you'll have more work to do to get re-geared and back in practice.
[ ] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Move off the Tank role entirely, Helen can smell 'same hat' you suspect.
[ ] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Screw it, you're still you, keep the avatar!
[ ] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Time for a full Avatar rework. Fashion is the true endgame, after all.
[ ] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Keep your general avatar look, but remix a few things.
---
While your inner voices take stock of that side of the situation, you can focus in on the more immediate task at hand. Helen probably cannot discover your in-game avatar's main class while she's sleeping, and you need to stick to it for tonight's round of raid. (Well, you could suddenly duck, but no, you won't.)
That leaves the beginning of play. Load avatar, check your keyboard placement, make sure you feel comfortable…
… You quickly slip out to grab some water, and decide to try something a bit clever - raising your wings a bit to soften your steps. It works… Well, reasonably well. You wouldn't want to test it in real stealth situations, but 'not bothering sleeping roommates', it seems ooooookay Eira's sleeping naked with the door open again.
… Water. You're not that kind of thirsty. Oh, hey, there's some spare energy drinks in the fridge, grab one of those. You're not certain it'll have any effect on you anymore, but it tastes like video gaming, so into the room and to the left of your keyboard, where the spill risk is low, it goes.
And then, a quick hop to the Guild Mansion to get into Raid Group 2, Tank Position.
Many games had their own takes on the core size of a raid group. Another World Online had different sizes by scenario, but started from a group of 6, which was only required to have one Tank and one Healer. For optimal play, each group should have at least one of each of Tank, Healer, DPS, Buffer, and Mezzer. Quite a few classes could fill two roles at once - the most common intersection being DPS, predictably - so there was a lot of potential party comps that would fill the 'optimal' to various degrees of efficacy.
Alternate raids could be based on two, three, four, or in one notorious case eight of these groups, each of which would handle a specific subset of the fight, while collectively juggling the main boss.
You, specifically, ran as a Flammite Maenad Paladin, a Tank/OffDPS spec with some… Variations from the standard Paladin. Yes, you still draw attention and tough out a lot of damage coming your way so that it doesn't come to anyone else… But you do it in Cloth armor and gloves as your weapon. Combine this with special skills based around Flammite potions (there's technically a chance they don't involve alcohol!) to grant powerful self-buffs as the core of your rotation, and you could keep going for a pretty impressive length of time unaided… And against undead, your Holy Strikes would have a large amount of additional fire damage.
Flammite Maenads are generally not considered the best for maintanking a front boss, and just okay against 'swarm' mechanics, but are solid for dealing with small groups of adds, and when only the main boss is off, they can put out perfectly respectable single-target DPS by switching to a different set of potion buffs. This makes your main spec valuable in three-group and larger raids. Thankfully, they haven't done a two-grouper in a while - you probably need to prep up an alternate class (one character can have up to eight 'builds', each of which can be the same or a different class) at some point, but that can wait until… Well, maybe you'll have the Chaos Mountain thing done and then you'll feel the breathing room to dive harder on that?
This, right now, is relatively low stakes. The CGs aren't top-200 competitors. If you get further up, or like start streaming and become super popular, then the stakes will rise. But for now, you're doing this casually.
Get your breath, get your focus, and you can do this. You finish loading into the Guild Mansion, and you're seated with your immediate team…
[ ] (Team Two) Oops, Almost All Write-Ins! So, here's a chance for people to go a bit nuts. The team needs five people besides Senaz - one healer, one DPS, one buffer, one mezzer, one wildcard. Names recommended, assume at least one person won't get the reference if you make one so explain it, cast names from the inspiration quests are off-limits. One sentence of personality recommended but optional. Plan votes open, describe synergies for me to roll with.
[ ] (Team Two) ToxinJam - Archer/DPS
[ ] (Team Two) NoiseShocker - Cleric/Healer
[ ] (Team Two)RhythTank - Paladin (Aurora spec), is another team's tank.
****
I wanted to keep going, but realizing I was at three votes and a chance to get some NPCs inflicted on me was plenty, especially after over a week.
Right now I intend to go for at least three posts purely on the raid side of the story, a few jokes aside.
... Okay Four Votes:
[ ] (Irrelevant Aside) Write-In Only: Gimme the brand of energy drink Senaz has been keeping. Parodies of real brands ideal.
Vote for three days - due to travel, I may need a bit for the next one, but hopefully less than this one.
[x] (Character's Class) Paladin (tank, healer, buffer, shield in the offhand, radiant/fire/ice/lightning)
[X] (Paladin Style) Flammite AAAAAAGH - Special potions give you extreme self buffs while wearing no armor and wielding only boxing gloves or similar to punch your foes until, at least if they're undead, they catch on fire.
… You literally built a look for your Andrax - the setting's boring humanlike option - that looks very, very similar to how you look now.
Except that you play a Paladin. At least not an Auroran Paladin, the classic sword-board-and-holy-auras style that is, confessedly, one of the more popular Tank classes in the game.
But "Paladin" is still clearly visible in your character's stats-and-equipment menu. Helen is bound to notice eventually, and you can already feel the "How Cute…" reaction coming even if it might be weeks away and -
Your brain cuts to your internal council for a moment. It's a good metaphor that you haven't used much as late.
The projector reads: "What to do about the possibility of Helen Garland, Starship Captain and Paladin, discovering your main class in Another World Online, and her possible range of reactions to same."
It's a bit more parliamentarian than the last few times, and also the room isn't on fire like the last few times, so that's nice.
The first voice to speak is the one of your past life, hoodie and skirt and all. Wait, the skirt's new. "So, yeah. We've got like three reveals at once. Four, actually, but I'm gonna suggest we put the last aside, that being the fact that the gods listed in Another World Online appear to also be gods here on Aridia."
The combative one nods. "On the bright side, that increases the possibility that we can fight them and kick their ass!"
"We nearly lost people to one group of bandits, I think we kind of have a ways to go before fighting gods is in our range! But anyways, for now, I'm chalking this up to multiversal cosmic coincidence until proven otherwise."
The slutty one giggles. "I'm not going to pretend I noticed, but yeah, we can keep moving."
"Yes," the past-focused one responds. "So, the other facts are these. First, we main Paladin, albeit an unusual build thereof. Given that we're, you know, a succubus, there's some rather massive cosmic irony here, need I remind you all of the fact that we had to explicitly nix that as our adventuring class in the first vote."
The stylish one blinks. "Wait, are we allowed to acknowledge the fourth wall mail slot for votes that much?"
"The fourth wall is the work of powerful illusionists and is safe to disbelieve as suits our needs. Anyways! There's a bigger concern than the cosmic irony, and that's how our teammates would react to discovering this information."
The slutty one pauses. "Eira would be a bit side-eye, but should be easy enough to fast-talk with discussion of game mechanics and some brushing of her tail. She has priorities, and judging the moral complications of the girl who just ate her out isn't much of one, let's be honest."
The stylish one shudders. "Helen, on the other hand, would immediately recognize this as a sign of something and could use it as ethical or moral leverage. Or, worse, just to tease the shit out of us."
The past life nods. "Exactly. The question is, how do we handle this threat to our emotional stability?"
The violent one pauses. "Well, we could just say 'Fight Me Helen', she won't get the meme but-"
"She'd promptly remind us how that went for us last time, so no."
"Aw."
The stylish one nods. "It'd take some effort, but switching our main class to another tank class would still work. Regearing would be required, of course, but we could pull that in a few evenings' work."
The past life nods. "The best time to do so would be in between raids, as we'd need to rebuild our rotation memory. But it could work. There's one last reveal, though."
The slideshow advances to a photo of your in-game character, next to the photo of you from the other day. The in-game Reach99 has the same hair color, hair style, and a very similar frame and bustline, once you account for the difference between polygons and fantasy-anime art style. There's one very obvious difference beyond dress, though - very visible abs, given the strength-heavy build.
The slutty one nods. "Ooh, ooh, I've got this one! So, we built a design we liked. When we were spawned, aspects of our past life were still part of our formed subconscious, so we took a form we liked. We don't have photos or anything, but I'd bet we looked a bit more muscular until the Bard training."
The past life pauses. "That's… Actually an easy explanation. But it does open the question of 'what do we do, if anything, about this', because both Helen and Eira would have capital-c Comments upon spotting that."
"Eira'd probably just ask if 'your avatar looking like yourself' is normal, could pass it off that way."
"Not reliably if I'm using HarmonyChat," the past life observes.
The stylish one shrugs. "So, it's 'discovery of our class by Helen', 'discovery of our avatar's look by either', and 'cosmological implications questions of the gods'. You said four, though."
The past life pauses. "... Um, did I?"
"You did."
"Well, I mean, I guess there's that mechanic…"
The stylish one sighs. "Okay, let's just focus on the two questions, then."
[ ] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Stick to Paladin, you know it and you do well at it; doing right by your online associates is more important than the risk of embarrassment.
[ ] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Switch to another Tank class to defend yourself from the risk of multiple kinds of embarrassment; you'll have more work to do to get re-geared and back in practice.
[ ] (Paladin Discovery Risk) Move off the Tank role entirely, Helen can smell 'same hat' you suspect.
[ ] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Screw it, you're still you, keep the avatar!
[ ] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Time for a full Avatar rework. Fashion is the true endgame, after all.
[ ] (Avatar Discovery Risk) Keep your general avatar look, but remix a few things.
---
While your inner voices take stock of that side of the situation, you can focus in on the more immediate task at hand. Helen probably cannot discover your in-game avatar's main class while she's sleeping, and you need to stick to it for tonight's round of raid. (Well, you could suddenly duck, but no, you won't.)
That leaves the beginning of play. Load avatar, check your keyboard placement, make sure you feel comfortable…
… You quickly slip out to grab some water, and decide to try something a bit clever - raising your wings a bit to soften your steps. It works… Well, reasonably well. You wouldn't want to test it in real stealth situations, but 'not bothering sleeping roommates', it seems ooooookay Eira's sleeping naked with the door open again.
… Water. You're not that kind of thirsty. Oh, hey, there's some spare energy drinks in the fridge, grab one of those. You're not certain it'll have any effect on you anymore, but it tastes like video gaming, so into the room and to the left of your keyboard, where the spill risk is low, it goes.
And then, a quick hop to the Guild Mansion to get into Raid Group 2, Tank Position.
Many games had their own takes on the core size of a raid group. Another World Online had different sizes by scenario, but started from a group of 6, which was only required to have one Tank and one Healer. For optimal play, each group should have at least one of each of Tank, Healer, DPS, Buffer, and Mezzer. Quite a few classes could fill two roles at once - the most common intersection being DPS, predictably - so there was a lot of potential party comps that would fill the 'optimal' to various degrees of efficacy.
Alternate raids could be based on two, three, four, or in one notorious case eight of these groups, each of which would handle a specific subset of the fight, while collectively juggling the main boss.
You, specifically, ran as a Flammite Maenad Paladin, a Tank/OffDPS spec with some… Variations from the standard Paladin. Yes, you still draw attention and tough out a lot of damage coming your way so that it doesn't come to anyone else… But you do it in Cloth armor and gloves as your weapon. Combine this with special skills based around Flammite potions (there's technically a chance they don't involve alcohol!) to grant powerful self-buffs as the core of your rotation, and you could keep going for a pretty impressive length of time unaided… And against undead, your Holy Strikes would have a large amount of additional fire damage.
Flammite Maenads are generally not considered the best for maintanking a front boss, and just okay against 'swarm' mechanics, but are solid for dealing with small groups of adds, and when only the main boss is off, they can put out perfectly respectable single-target DPS by switching to a different set of potion buffs. This makes your main spec valuable in three-group and larger raids. Thankfully, they haven't done a two-grouper in a while - you probably need to prep up an alternate class (one character can have up to eight 'builds', each of which can be the same or a different class) at some point, but that can wait until… Well, maybe you'll have the Chaos Mountain thing done and then you'll feel the breathing room to dive harder on that?
This, right now, is relatively low stakes. The CGs aren't top-200 competitors. If you get further up, or like start streaming and become super popular, then the stakes will rise. But for now, you're doing this casually.
Get your breath, get your focus, and you can do this. You finish loading into the Guild Mansion, and you're seated with your immediate team…
[ ] (Team Two) Oops, Almost All Write-Ins! So, here's a chance for people to go a bit nuts. The team needs five people besides Senaz - one healer, one DPS, one buffer, one mezzer, one wildcard. Names recommended, assume at least one person won't get the reference if you make one so explain it, cast names from the inspiration quests are off-limits. One sentence of personality recommended but optional. Plan votes open, describe synergies for me to roll with.
[ ] (Team Two) ToxinJam - Archer/DPS
[ ] (Team Two) NoiseShocker - Cleric/Healer
[ ] (Team Two)
****
I wanted to keep going, but realizing I was at three votes and a chance to get some NPCs inflicted on me was plenty, especially after over a week.
Right now I intend to go for at least three posts purely on the raid side of the story, a few jokes aside.
... Okay Four Votes:
[ ] (Irrelevant Aside) Write-In Only: Gimme the brand of energy drink Senaz has been keeping. Parodies of real brands ideal.
Vote for three days - due to travel, I may need a bit for the next one, but hopefully less than this one.
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