Mr. Whiskers POV

I stood in a clearing just outside of a massively walled city, if what I could see between the open doors was to be believed. Behind me were some rocky cliffs and a quick drop to the raging ocean below, and in the distance I could see the giant golden dome that prevented almost all forms of travel through it. Good to know the scroll the devs promised would be delivered to raid members was working correctly. As I turned back to see the city, a lone draconian was walking towards me. He had a spear and grey leather armor.

“Greetings adventurer. I am guard captain Shrik. Are you here for the raid?”

“I am the raid leader, Mr. Whiskers. I know I am a few minutes early, but I felt the need to scout before the rest joined me. I hope that isn’t too inconvenient?”

“You won’t be let into the city until the rest of the raid arrives, after which I will lead you to the dungeon so that nobody gets, lost.” He answered, hesitating on the last word.

“Understandable.” I said, and waited for the rest of the raid. A little under five minutes later, and 29 golden pillars appeared and retracted to reveal the members of the raid.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to the raid!” I yelled out, getting everyone’s attention. “I’m Mr. Whiskers, raid leader. Before we start, I want to reiterate a few things. First, follow orders. You all have the progression for boss fights, and I expect it to be followed unless ordered otherwise. Second, stay together. The main opponent of this dungeon is known for his love of traps and hit and run tactics. Make sure you save all special abilities with multiple hour cooldowns for boss fights. And last, remember that I have no problem kicking someone. There are backups in each position for a reason. That said, this is guard captain Shrik, and he will be leading us to the dungeon.”

There was some grumbling, but that was fine. I would much rather be a hated tyrant leader who was obeyed than have the raid wipe over something stupid. We were a varied crew, but I really wanted to have a few more rogues in the mix. Unfortunately, Darkmoon and Raider Dave had overruled me, agreeing with King that the crazy high burst damage by Angus would be better taken on with berserkers instead of rogues. I guess they didn’t mind burning through resurrections as people fell to traps.

Once we went through the gates, the road widened and we got our first good view of the city. Several guards slipped in around us, but they seemed relaxed enough that I knew it wasn’t a threat. Stone buildings were prevalent, all of which looked sturdy enough to withstand an invading force. The analytical part of my mind noticed that the lower windows were few and far between, and far too small for a humanoid to enter. There were more upper windows, which would provide excellent cover for archers to harry the invaders. The streets were clean, and oddly empty.

“Did you clear the streets because we were coming?” I asked Shrik, secretly hoping the answer was yes.

“Yes. No need to tempt any adventurers who are lacking in willpower.” He answered. We soon approached a central plaza, with an oversized statue of a draconian pointing a spear at us. The artistry was phenomenal. Not only could you see rents in his armor, but it seemed like portions were bleeding. The look of defiance in his eyes was what really got me. As I paused for a second to admire it, I saw disaster waiting to happen.

From one of the cross streets, a small child with a stick came running up and pointed it at the raid group. “RAAAAA! I’m the Mighty Khaliss, you won’t get past me!” He cried out. It would have been adorable if that idiot paladin of Pelor didn’t step forward and draw his sword.

“Is that a challenge?” He mocked, pointing his blade at the now terrified child. Despite his fears, the child actually managed a halfway decent battle stance, feet spread and knees bent. The only thing that betrayed his fear was the way the tip of his spear was jumping around.

“Make a move, and you’ll be dead before you can even come close to hurting the child.” I hissed in Smiter’s ear, one dagger pricking beneath his chin while the other was working its way between the back plates in his armor, one thrust away from piercing a kidney. “I don’t give a shit what your god has ordered, I’m not about to sit back and watch as you saddle the entire raid with a taboo. So sheathe your weapon, and leave the kid alone.”

“You’re not worth it.” He muttered, sheathing his blade. The guard contingent that had been following us visibly relaxed, minor crisis averted. I had half a mind to kick him right then, but decided against it as we hadn’t even entered the dungeon yet. I could cut him a little slack.

“Who was Khaliss? I don’t think I’ve heard of him.” NotABandaid asked.

“The statue.” I explained. “Khaliss helped delay the adventurers after the raid on Pelor’s temple. If we had time, I would suggest watching the video on the forums about it. Seeing him use his teleporting to move between targets and sow chaos was quite impressive.” I stepped around Smiter as I talked, indicating that he should follow Shrik.

Behind the statue was an open area, most likely for some form of bazaar. Most of the buildings we passed lacked any sort of decoration, save a pictorial sign outside to give you an idea of what to find inside. The lone exception was some sort of inn, with a soldier getting a hug from his wife as he returned home. Ten minutes of walking later, and we came to a massive cliff with a staircase climbing it in a switchback pattern. It was easily seven stories tall, and had three tiers of siege weapons for defense.

“Wheeeew.” Someone behind me whistled. “Sure am glad we don’t have to fight our way in here. That cliff alone would be a nightmare to assault.” I chuckled, completely in agreement. Especially if they had advance warning and could evacuate to the top of the cliffs. If they all had limited teleporting, they could easily move from rooftop to rooftop in a harassing manner, then teleport to the cliffs and the safety of siege weapons.

After working through three gates, each just below the siege weapons, we finally came to the top of the plateau. It was completely flat, and in the middle was a massive ornate building. Grand columns with dragon motifs lined the road to the entrance, and two massive stone draconians stood guard at the doors, halberds crossed over the opening.

“Heh, that’s not intimidating or anything.” Someone muttered, getting a few chuckles.

“At least there are no defenses.”

“Shrik, thank you for guiding us.” I said, with a small bow to the guard captain. He simply grunted before turning and walking away. Wasting no more time, I went ahead and officially formed the raid, and we headed in to the dungeon.

The first room was a massive hallway, with several pillars again displaying the dragon motif. It was well lit, and the floors seemed to be entirely marble. We were standing on the silver seal of safety that all dungeons had, and probably a hundred yards away was the doorway to the next room. Standing in our way was a statue of a normal sized draconian midway between two oversized ballistae, each one of the massive bolts trailed something from just behind the head of the bolt.

“Alright, everyone take a minute to set up all your buffs. I suggest holding off on potions, but that’s up to you.” I called out, and everyone started muttering spells and buffs. I was happy to note that the guardians for each healer went and used their bodyguard skills. That would hopefully intercept any chance of sneak attacks instantly killing our healing. “Rogues, head forward and trap detect.”

“GREETINGS!” a loud voice thundered forward as soon as the first member crossed into the dungeon proper. “AND WELCOME TO THE DUNGEON OF THE PROGENITOR TYRANT! I DO HOPE YOU WILL MANAGE TO ENTERTAIN ME.”

“I’ll be entertained when I have your head on the end of my spear!” LadyFisticuffs shouted, shaking said spear in his direction. The raid chuckled, and started forward. I was shaking my head, already getting frustrated. The rogues hadn’t gotten all the way across, and the raid was already complacent. Once King reached three quarters of the way across, my eyes widened in fear as everything slowed down.

“EVERYONE DOWN!” I screamed, seeing the statue reach forward and pull the lever that was right in front of him. It wasn’t a statue; it was the damned boss! This was where the lack of familiarity with the raid members became glaringly apparent. King and Sentinel, the two members from my guild, immediately dropped. Ten others did as well, and I noted both guild leaders among them. Several other members froze, while the majority of the rest just started looking around wondering what the issue was. Except for GoldGuard. That idiot dwarf stepped forward and raised his shield as the ballistae fired. What I thought was a cord tethering the bolts like a harpoon was instead a barbed chain connecting the two, and from the angles it looked like it was ready to decapitate the entire raid.

“[Roots of the Mountain][Divine Aegis]!” The idiot cried out, activating not only a racial 24 hour ability, but a max level daily paladin skill that negated all incoming damage that wasn’t divine in nature for 30 seconds. The chain caught on his shield, and instead of throwing the dwarf backward his skills caused the bolts to start swinging around him. While we would have lost probably 12 to 15 members of the raid before, the devastation was remarkable. Off center, there were two arcs of destruction where the bolts tore up the ground. Bodies were obliterated, as those who had dropped were now dragged behind the chains and bisected when they met. One bolt crashed to a halt at the base of a pillar, while the other made almost a complete circuit and ended up directly in front of GoldGuard.

GoldGuard has been kicked from the raid.

“What the?” The idiot dwarf yelled, freezing when he found out he couldn’t move because of the chains around him.

“You utterly incompetent idiot!” I screamed, marching up and getting in his face. “I gave an order, a simple order. Get. Down. And what did you do? Popped two of your daily skills, in the first goddamn room of the goddamn dungeon! I explicitly said to save those for the boss fights! That’s dungeon raiding 101! And because you didn’t listen, we now have nineteen people dead from a trap that should have only killed ten!”

“What’s this bullshit about kicking me from the rai-?” His question cut off as I slit his throat. I didn’t really have time for that, as I walked back and called over my shoulder to the three rogues.

“Everyone pick a healer, looks like we need to use some rez scrolls early. We’ll wait for the five minute cooldown for the rest of the raid. I take it the boss ran away after triggering that trap?”

“Are you sure we should be kicking our secondary tank?” King asked as he walked up to me.

“Damnit. Go ahead and rez him, I’ll add him back in after he uses all his rez scrolls to bring back the people who died thanks to his idiotic stunt. And he just lost 20% of his raid share.” I grumped. “Nineteen people with one damn trap. Did you guys even get a warning about it?”

“No.” ShockerSnipe shook his head at me. “It wasn’t a trap, more a weapons system manually triggered. Having his voice come out from magical speakers while he was actually standing there threw all of us off our game.”

“Don’t worry Shocker, I’m not holding it against you. We’re going to see a lot of new problems with this dungeon, and it’s going to be a rough ride. Maybe this will be the wake-up call the rest of the raid needs.”

I used one of my own rez scrolls to bring back GoldGuard, and we went through and started reviving the raid. Once that was done, I used a raid leader ability to get everyone’s attention.

“LISTEN UP! This should be a wake-up call for most of you. This isn’t a traditional dungeon, it’s a massive PvP run. There are going to be strange traps, and a lot of death. GoldGuard here gets the one and only pass. He didn’t follow my orders, causing seven extra members of the raid to die. Had the boss decided to press the issue, we wouldn’t have made it past the first room. A pathetic showing for the top players of the top guilds, no? So here’s the deal. Protect your healers. GoldGuard is penalized 20% of his rewards for the raid, to be divided evenly between everyone else. The next people blatantly breaking my orders are gone. No more second chances. Gold, since you idiotically blew two major skills and don’t have them available for our dungeon run anymore, you are no longer second tank. OhMightySmiter, you just got bumped up to secondary tank. Gold, you are still rearguard but will be in charge of add ons against bosses. Questions? No? Good. Now, let’s go ahead and move out into the rest of the dungeon, and see if we can’t come out on top.”