We walked on towards the marker in the distance. I got time to actually talk to ‘Seriously’ rather than just trying to squeeze a word in edge ways , he seemed like a good kid.Other than games we didn't have a massive amount in common, I didn't know much about Korean Canadians , bar having had Kimchee once . Also it turns out that he wasn't actually related to the actresses that played Hoshi in Enterprise or Boomer in Battlestar Galactica , and that Park is basically as common a name as say Smith or Murphy.Conversely he didn't know much about Ireland bar the usual (leprechauns , red hair ,Guinness). But games wise we were practically brothers , he was a big retro gaming fan , and had played through a lot of the 30s and 40s games I had , he’d even been on a private server running World of Warcraft (admittedly it was running the 20th expansion ‘The Forgotten Lands” , but still!),We were discussing the finer points of how Battlefield Call of Duty and Medal of Honor had merged into one franchise when we arrived at our destination.

“So now what?” he asked.

It was mid afternoon,ahead was a pillar with hand prints engraved around it, a little further away was a sort of cairn.

The marker hovered over pile of rocks with a small opening just big enough for someone to squeeze through , it didn't look hugely inviting , peering in, I could just make out something in the gloom .Suddenly a face popped up , causing me to jump half way out of my skin and squeal like a little girl.Seriously had gone into a battle stance as I scrambled to my feet and started shielding us.

“Woah Woah , hang on there , I’m no threat” , the figure said as he crawled out of the cairn .A small twitchy man with wiry red hair and a moustache that tufted out at crazy angles ,he wore a linen shirt and dirt covered trousers.He looked a little crazy but not dangerous.He dusted himself off and stuck out a hand.

“Willowby Holt , at your service “, he said shaking my hand with a firm grip. He turned to Seriously and also furiously shook his hand in greeting.

“Sorry about scaring you like that , I don't see too many people around here , and I’m told I can be a bit..overwhelming with strangers “ the strange little man said.

“Its ,er..no problem “I said , what were you doing down there?”

“Not much sadly , that thing”, he pointed at the rocks” leads into a cave system under my land , the creatures in it come up through tunnels and attack my livestock , those tunnels are too small for me , but I found this way in..except”.

“Except..” I said , already knowing where this was going .

“I’m no fighter , just a farmer , and while I can get to the hive , I’d have no chance against them”

I sighed ..a “kill X amount of creatures” quest, not really fun but solid experience.

“What if we were to help you?”I asked.

[Quest: Cave Clear out]

[accept y:n]

I hit Y , and seemingly Seriously did too.

He looked relieved , “that’d be so good..if it helps two other wanderers have agreed to help”

“Are they in there I said?”

Before I could answer Seriously had walked over to the pillar and put his hand on it .the pillar hand print underneath his hand glowed red

“Its a summoning column man , you put your hand on it and it’ll group us up with other people going into that dungeon..er..cave”

“You friend is right , you can call the other adventurers back here with that “

I put my hand on the pillar , in one of the hand prints , it glowed green .I heard a chime , a minute passed , I looked around waiting for something to happen.

Just as I was thinking of walking away , I heard a second chime.

[Summoning Party]

A moment later two people appeared at the other side of the pillar.

There was no Star Trek teleporter effect or fancy magic , just one second there was no one there , the next , there were two .

A giant figure in a dull grey plate armour ,face obscured by a massive helmet with a dangerous looking golden axe,the first newcomer was evidently an Orkasa , or ..well your common or garden ‘green skin, blood and honour : Ork.’ Just imagine if Tolkien had written Klingons and you get the idea.

The other was smaller, well by comparison everything was smaller, a blond man , wearing an ornate red robe,and with a small glowing sword sheathed at his hip.

They were evidently higher level than us , and a quick check confirmed it , the metal hulk was 11 , and the caster was level 7.

Our party had now grown

[Leander has joined your party]

[Destroyr has joined your party]

[Tedius ][Priest]{HP:450 MANA:840][L]

[Seriously ][Rogue ]{HP:480 FOCUS:450]

[Leander ][Knight ]{HP:1650 RAGE:0]

[Destroyr ][sage ]{hp:600 Mana:1020]

Seriously had already walked around the pillar to the newcomers “

“Hi guys “, “you’re doing the quest here too right?”

“Sup“ , said Destroyr , a man of few words.

“Hey there guys , nice to meet you , we were struggling a bit but now that”..

“Make me leader” said the Knight cutting me off.

Now , that should have been a warning , no hello , no chat , no explanation ..just make me leader .

In hindsight what I should have done here was make my excuses , pull myself and Seriously from the group and after the guys had gone , start a new quest party.

But I guess if I did that , maybe none of the stuff the guild did , or meeting Ursula , or Ludo or Shodan or the whole lockdown would have happened , but..I’m getting ahead of myself .

I was eager to get a good head start before my guild mates got set up , so I gave him group control.

He made a few changes to our HUD , he now had a small image of a skull over his head , the sage a diamond , Seriously an X , I had a look at the party list , and beside my name was a gold circle , which the others could probably see over mine.

The knight had moved towards the cave opening , ignoring the NPC who was still talking about his sheep .

“Priest , you stay on me and heal , others just dps , if you get hurt , drink a potion, OK , lets go”

Seriously said “ hey give me a second to get my gear sorted” , but the Knight , Leander was already gone.

The three of us squeezed through the opening , how the bulky knight had made it through I don't know , well game logic I guess, moving as quickly as we could we caught up.

“Hey wait a.. “

“Go GO “

Ahead we could see him swinging his axe , the passage widened out as we went in further,we had to sprint to catch up.

There was a group of ant like creatures defending themselves against his attacks . I’m not being too descriptive here as underground it was pretty dim , and no one had been given a chance to get out a torch or cast a light spell.I’m guessing Orks have night vision but we didn't . From what I could tell the mobs were pretty generic ‘giant ants’ the kind that were created by nuclear explosions (well according to 1950’s movies anyway). I cast shield over myself , and Leander , and started preparing a heal. Seriously was stabbing furiously , and the mage , having stayed a little back was casting fireballs at the creatures. As the first creature was in its death throes , Leander had already rushed over to the next two

10 XP received]

[Karsk drone: ]

[Karsk tunneller: ]

[12 XP Received]

[10 XP Received]

Evidently a Karsk was a kind of big ant.

Based on the area they were fairly high level but we were getting barely any experience for them, which was odd?

“Hey man, do you have level balance on?” asked Seriously , evidently spotting what I had.

Assuming it was the same as the old game [Level Balance] in a group would temporarily bring us up to roughly the groups average , we’d do more damage and heals , and would be seen as contributing more by the game system , and get a bigger share of the experience.The downside is that the higher level group members would get less, and in our case would probably temporarily be weaker to compensate .It was pretty much designed for mixed level groups like this.

“Yeah , if you want to switch it on I’m cool with it “ said the taciturn Destroyr (where had that last ‘e’ gone from his name ??)

Leander replied with a curt “No”

After a pause ,he said “Suck it up , I’m carrying you guys here, you’ll still get experience from the quest.”

He’d already killed the next two creatures and was sprinting to the next naturally occurring cave room

“Heal me!”.

His health had dropped to about 900 or so , I ran behind casting Healing Hands and trying to stay within line of sight.

Thankfully the sage had cast some sort of light spell , as a glowing ball [manalight] floated through the air behind us ,so I could actually see the cave system properly.

Because he wouldn't slow down , I didn't have enough time to cast my burst heal.

Which meant I was relying on a constant stream of healing to keep him alive.

Which meant I didn't have time to drink a mana potion to top up my mana pool.

Which meant things were getting hairy.

“Go Go Go”

“Hey! We have to stop and regen , I’m nearly out of mana, plus we need to loot those guys to see if we could get any items or potions that might help" .Yes unlike normal creatures , any monster type would somehow have actual lootable gear that we could take, I’m not sure where they where hiding them though..again game logic.

“OK , one minute , and you priest” he said pointing stiffly at me”..do you even know how to heal me?? Don't cast that stupid shield spell on me again , it effects my rage generation yeah?”

Rage.Well that explained some things.

Seriously whispered me , whats his deal ?”

I whispered back “ I have mana, you have focus , and knights and warriors have rage.Basically the more he gets hit , and the more he hits back , the more rage he generates , and rage lets him do his ability moves , like the spinning whirlwind move he’s been using , or the ability to sprint and attack a creature super quickly. Thing is , he has to build up rage in fights , and its constantly draining , which I reckon is why he’s running like Ursain Bolt from one creature to the next , to keep his rage up . There’s a few abilities you’re supposed to put points into to let you hold rage for longer ,but I’m guessing he hasn't bothered with them”

“Who’s Insane Bolt?”

“Never mind, before your time”

“Anyway I know what rage is man, I mean ,why is this guy being a dick?”

Its true , five minutes in he was ticking all the “I’m an asshole” boxes.Being rude, just referring to us by class not name, demanding that he get the lions share of experience , and worst of all , ending a sentence with ‘yeah?’. The only bigger “mark of the douche” was wearing a polo neck t shirt with ‘popped collars’. A friend of mine had taught me to watch out for theose marks , although being a sweary Australian she called it “the mark of the cunt” .This guy fit that description.

With my old guild I’d been used to being grouped with very sensible balanced Tanks ,like my old mate Mike .

A good tank is constantly watching for out for his party.This guy though was basically trying to solo his way through the dungeon with me as a walking healing potion .

“Come on” said our ‘fearless leader’ , “lets go”

I quickly looted the group of dead ant creatures . Not much, a [Broken Mandible], and some copper coins.

I looked up as Leander was already zeroing in on a group of ant creatures , bigger ones this time, probably soldiers.

[You have been added to chat group one]

[Tedius,Serious,Destroyr]

“Hey , you doing OK man?’ whispered Serious”

“Yeah , this guy is trying to do this all way too fast though ”

I’d already ran to the next area and was frantically trying to keep Leander in sight to heal him , while he darted in and out of the mob of [Karsk Warriors], his axe a blur.

“HEAL ME , COME ON MAN , KEEP ME ALIVE” he bellowed

At this point I was just behind him , desperately avoiding the ants, while casting healing hands.

“I am!, you need to stay still for a minute so I can burst heal . And any chance you could equip a shield and maybe a one handed weapon, more armour ,if your health wasn't going down so quick I could..”

He turned and shouted in my face.

“I don't have a damn shield because I don't need one , and you other two assholes, pull your weight , if you put out more damage these mobs would go down quicker and this nub wouldn't be whining about keeping up healing.”

“If you’d turned on level balancing before we could do that” said Serious, who looked as pissed off as I felt

This guy was the complete package alright, total douche.

He vaulted over the last remaining ant , slicing his axe down and cutting it in two as he rushed out of the room.

We grabbed what we could from the corpses and followed.

“Should we just bail on this?” whispered Seriously in the chat.

“I don't mind ,I only met up with this guy a half hour ago, and he’s already told me five different ways I’m playing wrong, he’s a dick” added the Destroyr

“Look.. lets hold on for now , its messy but we’re getting through this quickly ,soon as we get out this guys gone OK?.”

Seriously and Destroyr had evidently been holding back on their damage a bit as, Seriously was flinging blades with wild abandon, and Destroyr was casting fireballs frantically .

While Leander spun around like a dervish , slicing into four more soldier ants , the sage launched a massive fireball at the mobs , it hit the dirt between them , and further flames burst from the ground. One of the ants died instantly , but three of them were still standing , one continued to bite at Leander's armour , but the other two charged Destroyr, their huge mandibles trying to find purchase on his robe.

Destroyr’s health plummeted , he knocked back a health potion and kept shooting fireballs from his hands

“THIS is why we were holding back our damage Leander! “ said Seriously as he furiously started stabbing the casters attackers, “if we hit too hard we generate threat! , if you’re not constantly keeping the mobs focused on you by taunting them or spells or whatever , they attack whoever is doing the most damage , Jesus!”

I stopped healing Leander , and used my dwindling mana pool to cast shield on the sage. With that and his healing potion he was just about holding up against the creatures . Leander was ignoring him and was still locked in battle with the third soldier ant.

“HEAL ME PRIEST”

“With what , this fucking broken mandible??, I’m out of mana!!”

Destroyr was baking strange gestures with his hands and based on the glow around him had started casting some sort of localised spell . In a second a whirling wall of flames erupted , bathing the ants in fire . The creatures screamed , and eventually fell to the ground , bodies still burning. Whatever spell it was must have been a high cost one , as his mana bar dropped to almost zero.

Leander had finished his mob off and was running into the next room.

“Jesus , slow fucking down!” I shouted , while trying to loot a dead creature and run at the same time

“Don't tell me how to tank” he called back , Christ!! was he sulking?.

“Well if you can tell me how to heal you ..WITH NO FUCKING MANA..please do , I’m all ears..otherwise wait!.”

The new room was much bigger than the others ,with a high ceiling , and a floor strewn with dirt and empty egg sacs. Sitting in the back of the room was a massively big ant surrounded by eggs , a thin stream of some sort of green liquid threaded through the dirt floor .

“Queen I whispered?”

[Karsk :Nursery Guard *]

Aha. "Guard"

“Oh , still a boss though ", said Serious," silver coloured name and that star beside it, a lot tougher than those others , think we can do it?”

“I just want to get this over with and done “ I said.

Thankfully Leander had stopped to look at this boss , so we actually had a chance to get our mana and focus back for once.

“Hey found this potion, you probably need it more than I do, right now ” said Destroyr

[Light Mana Potion]

“Thanks,really appreciate that ” I said .

“No problem , and thanks for ignoring that asshole and shielding me back there”.

Leander was announcing his battle plans.

“OK , I’m going in first , then DPS..”he said ,pointing at Seriously and Destroyr ”.. you start hitting him , if he runs at you , you better stop and get out of his way ,I need the priest healing me at all times”

I was about to add something like , ‘let me shield the guys first’, or maybe ‘just fuck you I have a name and its not ‘the priest’, you mouth breather’ ..but the knight had already charged at the boss.

“Let the shit show begin” I whispered.