I look at Rachel, the youngest sister of both Jaxon and Kira to my side. She is the next Guildmaster after me, at least unofficially. We usually don’t make a decision until around December, and then use the next semester as training for their eventual ascension to the “throne.” We recruit for freshman usually in June or July, when the campus has the incoming class move in and attend a long orientation. It is usually a month long, a lot of the orientation is really time for the various clubs and Greek Societies to recruit. We also use the time as well, but with Rachel she was like our little sister for a while. She is an 18 year old petite 5 foot 4 inch African American Female. She has long curly hair, a charming face with tidy glasses fitting her overall image as a cute, nerdy girl quite well. Her best quality is a warming voice that is prone to breaking out in little songs when she is bored. She was in the student council when she was in highschool, and she is a straight A student. She will probably be in the running for Valedictorian when she is done, which is a good reason to pick her as the next Guildmaster, but I decided it for a completely different reason.

She has a genuine and bright love of the game that reminds me of the times when you first fall in love with an MMO. It is the type of love that is not marred by the faults of the game. Most of the seniors and juniors can be a bit jaded in our play of the game, that we can often miss the important basics or not try to understand new mechanics the developers put in. Since the Developers of Endless Story Saga wants to revamp everything in the game in the next expansion, I thought a leader who has a simple love of the game would be the best choice.

The reason why I added her to this party was because I wanted her to experience this trial and understand it from the Guildmaster’s perspective. I see her avatar, a female cat-beastman [Pathfinder] holding her massive bow tensely almost like the avatar can sense her user’s nervousness.

“Hey Everybody! Hope the reunion with Alumnis didn’t bore you too much, because now we are going to begin a dungeon run!” I replied cheerily, tring to grab the 5 failing recruits attentions

“Hey Alex, feels good that we get to group up with you! Was nervous If we were really gonna finish this dungeon or not.” A male human warrior replied a bit relaxed, not understanding the purpose of this dungeon run yet. I looked at our party, [Summoner] - [Pathfinder] - [Warrior], [Barbarian] - [Cleric] - [Water Mage] - [Runelord], and wondered if it is possible to actually win even if we had practiced together before or not. My personal feeling would be no, but you never know what the individual's skill builds are like. Maybe if the Water mage decided to go a cleanse and heal build instead of the typical ice build or steam build. Basically, The Warrior doesn’t seem to understand how rough this dungeon is. Which isn’t really a bad thing, just will be interesting to see how he reacts to how horrible this dungeon is. My schadenfreude is building, I will try my best to suppress my evil giggles…

“I don’t know...this party doesn’t seem balanced enough to handle this dungeon...At least what I have heard of it..” The Male cleric quietly spoke, getting softer when people were looking directly at him.

“Guildmaster, I went for the [Amazon] build which makes me a bit low-leveled in my health stats and damage reductions skills. Do you think it is possible for me to tank properly?” Ask the female Barbarian, surprisingly asking the right questions as opposed to jumping into battle blindly. Maybe some of these 5 have hope…

“If you were going for the [Amazon] build, then probably not. But if the warrior and you rotate properly, and with good support we may actually have a shot!” Rachel proposed, still trying to find a way to win. Nice idea, but we still don’t know if we have adequate support to handle that.

“Rachel’s Idea seems good, we just need to know what the skill builds you guys were going for and build a strategy. Lets share our builds.” I counter-proposed, which prompted most of the members to begin speaking up.

“I am actually going for the [Exorcist] build, so my healing abilities are low. But I do have many abilities to purge poison and other bad statuses!” The male Cleric stated.

“My build is the heal and cleanse build actually, so I can fill in for the Cleric as well.” The Female Water mage added.

“I finished the buff and debuff build for [Runelord], so I can make the battles quicker for us” the male dwarf Runelord contributed. Hmm, these newbies had more to them than I anticipated, maybe there is hope for some of them after all.

“I don't want to share my build since I am going for a unique build. The build though is not great for tanking, so you will probably have to think of another plan.” The warrior finally added, ruining the small threads of plan that began to form.

Ordinarily if you were a mercenary add-on to a party, you wouldn’t give out your build unless it is already public knowledge. That is just common sense, you wouldn’t want somebody stealing your build or your unique [Job] and selling it to a guild. If you want to join a guild though, then this can make this seemingly cut and dry scenario a bit more complicated. It can be seen as being difficult to work with, especially if the guildmaster is personally trying you out in a dungeon run. Even though he is on thin ice with his faux paux in the reunion, he still decided to stick to his guns and protect his own interests. The rest of the party realized they fucked up, and they showed their continued desire to be a part of the guild by being cooperative in a somewhat vague situation.

“Well, unfortunately this is the best option I can see for us since we don’t have a tank, we will make sure you have as many damage reduction buffs on you as possible. I will also summon a mud golem to act as a frontliner as well.” I quickly countered, trying to smooth an awkward silence that carried over our chat.

“I guess that is the best plan we can carry out if we want to win, unfortunately that mud golem is going to slow us down. At least that will give us plenty of time to get used to each other then.” Rachel added, understanding that this party is basically hopeless now. At least she understands the point of the exercise, glad to see my successor already being excellent.

“Alright Then! Let’s get going in! I have been waiting for an opportunity to play today!” I finished the discussion.

We began to head into the dungeon and start the ready check, all of us preparing in our own way as we begin to fill in our respective roles. Warrior and Barbarian are in the front with my freshly spawned Mud Golem, I am in the middle with Cleric and Runelord, while Water Mage and Rachel complete the rear. We almost look like a real party, as long as you ignore the fact that we are entering the most notorious party killing dungeon in the game. Most of the party is chatting happily, seemingly ready to show off their “skills”. I unleash a sadistic smile on my real face, with my avatar and the rest of the party unaware of it. Frustration is the best tool to see what people are really like on this inside.

I should explain what a [Summoner] is in Endless Story Saga, on the eve of the next big update that finally fixes this broken and unpopular class. It is a class that uses contracts to summon powerful minions or monsters to fight for you. The easiest way to get a new minion is to capture a monster in the wild to bind with a contract, or summon a demon using a ritual. You can use undead, but that treads more on the [Necromancer] job tree, and using beasts also trends more on the [Tamer] job tree. A true summoner uses golems or demon contracts using mana as a price to fight. The problem is that Golems are time consuming to spawn and maintain, as well as expensive to upgrade. The summoner class has no real attack spells, and the buffs and debuffs mostly only work on your minions. The way to use summoner minions is to use them like sacrificial pawns, but if they were a golem made of expensive material then you would be sacrificing a large amount of your money without gaining anything. Also Golem Summoning requires a long time to cooldown, so if you lose your pawn then you are defenseless.

This is the problem with the class, you aren’t strong so you summon something strong, the thing you summoned is too expensive and time consuming to make to be used as a sacrifice. But people will NOT appreciate you prioritizing the life of your pawn over theirs, meaning that the expectation is that they are sacrifices to be traded when things go wrong. The whole reason why I made a summoner character was so that I can have one ready when the update that reworks them launches. Also, l just love making “useless” classes viable. People who only follow Meta and trends will never understand the simple joy of making something useful out of trash.

Moving on from the explanation, we begin our exploration of the notorious party-killing dungeon. Slowly trudging ourway down a dungeon willed with oddly colored stones and gross looking fungi. The air is hazy with a sulphur like gas, and in the distance we can hear a spawning pool full of massive poisonous toads. We inch our way slowly through the small corridors of caves, careful to avoid stepping in the various puddles of acid that dot the hellish cavern floor. We come upon the first large opening, a massive cavern that is teeming with denizens of this poisoned filled hell. Hanging from the ceiling, we see a massive hive of large wasps seemingly ready to swarm at the slightest hint of aggro. Even though we have my massive mud golem lumbering around, in true game-like fashion, as long as you avoid the range of detection we can avoid the common pitfalls of the first chokehold.

You might be thinking, oh poison and acid are not a big problem to deal with if you have enough resistances or health. And with a reliable support team, dungeons like these just need the basic amount of cooperation to pass through. The major issue with this dungeon is that every source of poison counts as an instance of the poison status. Meaning that if you stepped in a puddle of acid, stung by a wasp, and bitten by the toad, you would have 3 separate poisons ticking down your health. And the worst trait is that each type of poison stacks on itself, meaning that even receiving poison from the same source 3 times is just as deadly as receiving 3 different ones. This is a hellish dungeon, and the developers never made one like it again for a very good reason.

This is why the best strategy for the first few rooms is to sneak around the combat by avoiding the zones of aggro. One of the passive abilities of the [Pathfinder] job is to see the aggro zones projected by enemies, it even conveniently shows up in the minimap. And with the skill Pathway, the [Pathfinder] releases an orb of magic lights that leaves behind a trail to show the path to avoid aggro. Unfortunately, the slow mud golem has to walk along the path as well, and since it is a frontliner, we have to follow behind it making this journey take longer than it should. The longer something takes, the more likely problems can occur.

We were finally just about to clear the first cavern, when suddenly without warning a toad strayed farther away from its usual spot which caused the aggro zone to be in a different place than it should. Since toads tend to leap when they move, the zones, without any warning possible, changed radically from the indicated path that Rachel provides. The warrior, through no fault of his own, suddenly found himself in full aggro of the rogue toad. The toad let out a loud croak to indicate that aggro was initiated, and shot out his barbed venomous tongue to grab the unfortunate Warrior. With his surprised target caught, he then whipped his tongue back to his mouth to reposition the caught “fly” in this scenario.

The warrior was just innocently following the path set up by Rachel, and now was deep in the poisonous mire of the toad’s home. And since he is no longer on the path, he is now directly in the zones of several enemies. Enemies began to surround him, and now has 2 sources of poison ticking his health down already. This type of event can happen regularly, and in a veteran party of the dungeon the proper protocol was to leave the singled out person to die while the rest of the party waits up at the end of the cavern. The dead party member would respawn, and use a new path set up by some sort of scout to catch up with the group. Veterans would know that this strategy is not done out of coldness, but just the fact that saving a captured party member will wipe the whole team. But since we have a team of newbies and unfamiliar party members, they all begin to rush out to save him before Rachel and I can give out the proper orders.

6 toads begin to strike him with their barbed tongues, half of his health is already wiped by the 2 sources of poison and the rapidly rising stacks of toad poison taking its toll. He armor is hissing due to the acid of the puddles his was dragged through, and tremors in the cavern floor indicated that even more enemies were joining in this lynching. The barbarian rushed ahead, ignoring the damage from the poisonous bog and acid puddle she ran through to get to Warrior. Runelord and Water Mage were also trying to catch up while preparing spells to save their rapidly dying teammate. Cleric was trying to cast Purifying Cloak on himself, so that he can rush up to his teammates without worry of getting poisoned by the environment. Rachel stayed on the pathway, and was providing covering fire with her Stun Arrows. I sent out the mud golem, and had him lose some of his mass to make a temporary pathway for me to walk across toward the combat. I then summoned the White Crow, a 2-headed albino demon crow that heals with one head and purges status effects with the other. The White Crow immediately perched on my shoulder and began cawing with both heads facing Warrior. Warrior’s health had immediately boosted to 75% capacity, and the stacks of poisons were temporarily cleared. But this solution is temporary, as the growing tremors indicated that the horde of monsters was only growing.

Warrior, now that he is in better shape, has begun to counter attack with his 2-handed sword. He started his combo with a Power Slash, followed by an X-Slash. He then carried it to a Whirlwind Slash, injuring all the toads around him to draw their aggro towards himself. Runelord got his Stone Hammer out, that was covered with dwarven runes all over it, to cast the Stone Skin rune. The runes to cast it lit up on the hammer, and the light flew out towards Warrior to imprint themselves on his chest before disappearing. He followed up with the runes to cast Dwarven Blood (a poison resistance spell) on Warrior, before finally lighting up the runes of Strength, Power, and Speed on his hammer. He then jumped into the fray of battle, having unleashed his full arsenal of runes. Barbarian is going all out on her slashes, swinging the massive axe of her in massive circles all around her. Her continuous chain of vicious axe skills is drawing some of the aggro away from Warrior, the one buffed to tank hits. This causes Water Mage to stop casting Drizzle, a spell to temporarily remove terrain effects, and change into the healing spell Life Water. With the exception of Rachel and I, most of the party has at least 1 tick of poison from the bog and acid from the sulphuric puddles.

Suddenly one of the nearby Stalagmites exploded, releasing stone shrapnel along with a thick and viscous toxic gas. Cleric was right next to the stalagmite, blasting him away from his somewhat safe position. The stone fragments, blasted ragged holes straight through his armor and out the other side. This leaves him in a Mutilated status effect, a serious injury that neither White Crow or Water Mage can heal effectively. He was hit by the gas released from the explosion, and landed right into an acid puddle. He was in critical condition, just underneath 10% of his total health. But no one can save him, because he got blasted right underneath the massive hornet hive…

We hear a massive drone of angry hornets swarming the stranded Cleric. We hear the sounds of him getting repeated gored by the massive stingers, and his avatar howling in pain before finally succumbing to death. The party could have possibly made a comeback against the toads, we might have struggled our way through the poisonous bog just by the sheer amount of cleanse on our party. We could have survived the Hornets, just by using damage reduction buffs and proper aggro management. But we would NEVER be able to handle both of them at the same time, no exceptions. Now that the minor distraction of killing our Cleric is over, the swarm quickly moved its way over to the rest of us. Rachel and I knew that this was over, we surrendered our bodies to the horde and watched disappointedly as our avatars were ripped apart by the oversized insects.

Warrior and Barbarian continued to struggle vainly against the toads, while Runelord and Water Mage tried to run toward the exit we were once so preciously close to. The Dwarven man and the Elven mage ran together in a rare sight of racial unity between the notoriously feuding people. But their effort mattered little, as half of the swarm caught up to them. Both struggled uselessly for a bit, before finally being ripped to shreds. Barbarian and Warrior both tried their best, but this little effort was already doomed. What got them in the end was not the assault of the monster's attacks, but the endless stacking of poison that was no longer being cleansed. I had expected a result like this, but that doesn’t really take away the sting from a loss. We experienced the full party wipe…

While I waited at the entrance for the rest of the party to respawn, I quickly went to grab a drink from the fridge. The dreaded 4 Loko that I had tried to brush off, now was looking more and more tasty as the hope of a successful run was drawing farther away. I tell Rachel to help newbies regroup. This is one of the roughest jobs for a Party Leader, to refocus the group after a tough loss. Sorry Rachel, but I am gonna throw you into the fire for this one.

[Rachel POV]

Alex goes afk to get himself a drink after that nightmare of a dungeon run. I CAN’T believe we lost before even managing to get out the first cavern. We died before even reaching the first boss, ugh, why did he leave this to me. He is so nice in person, but he has this cruel side in the game that he justifies as the careful actions of a guildmaster. He likes to think he is the first normal Guildmaster of Chronicle, but he is just as eccentric as the other two. At least he manages his sadism through careful testing of newbies, but man is it mean. He basically sets them up to fail, and wants to gauge their reactions to it. Such a sweet little guy in person, but brutal in game. And now I have to calm down people who were probably just as frustrated as he predicted to see if their “true” characters begin to show. What a demon…

Looking to the left, I see that Cleric has already respawned and was sitting down waiting for the rest of the group. He quickly gave a little “Hey,” to acknowledge me and then continue brooding in silence to wait for the rest to respawn. Runelord and Water Mage respawned, both also choosing to silently wait for the rest of the group to be here. After a few moments, Barbarian and Warrior respawned as well. Whole group was sitting around silently, waiting for the first words to be spoken after that abysmal performance. Ahh! Alex! Why did you have to make me do this! I haven’t even started Freshman year yet!

“W-well...that didn’t go so well. I know you guys each have something to say, lets have this discussion over with before Alex comes back.” I stammered, trying to clear the air.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect to suddenly be grabbed like that by the Toad. I knew this dungeon was brutal, but that is just insane…” confessed the Warrior, surprisingly apologetic after the wipe.

“Yeah, that was insane” “You got that right, what a shitty dungeon” “Now I see why everyone complains about this one, fuck that was rough” “I didn’t even get a chance to fight”, Each of the other newbies voiced bitterly. Though they primarily voiced their major complaint to the dungeon, they suspiciously ignored the apology from the warrior. Guess they don’t want to touch that subject.

“Hey no sweat! Alex and I pretty much expected this, It is a common thing that happens so no need to feel frustrated! He personally thinks that wiping at least once is a good way to show the difficulty of the dungeon.” I said cheerily, trying to bring their sour moods back up.

“Oh ok, glad that wiping like this is normal for first timers. I was worried since you guys surrendered at the end. I thought that we failed so bad you didn’t want to try with us anymore” said Cleric, with relief showing through every word he said.

“Nah It's not like that lol, we just knew that when the Hornets showed up it was over. So relax guys, him and I will develop a new strategy that properly uses your strengths. He just railroaded the last one in because he figured it would make it easier to understand how awful this place is.” I revealed, seeing the mood of the group regaining with each word I said.

“Oh, and you don’t need to worry. The toads are notorious for suddenly changing their patrols, getting one person killed on the first cavern is actually pretty normal.” I said to Warrior, who was still brooding a little bit over getting the party wiped. After I said that the rest of the party released the rest of their tension, like they forgave him for that “mistake.”

“Hey guys, what’s up! Looks like I joined back at a good time!” Beamed Alex, finally showing after taking impossibly long to only be getting a drink. Curse you and your stupid tests Alex!

“Glad you guys bounced back so quick, I know wiping isn’t fun but it is really important to understand how this dungeon works. Now that I have a proper understanding of your abilities, I think I can come up with a strategy that will take us to the second boss at least” Alex commanded, taking control so fluidly.

“Yeah, I think we can teach you guys enough to take you there at least. And who knows? Maybe we can carry it all the way to the final boss.” I added, creating a bit more optimism for them to hold on to.

Each of them spoke words of encouragement, excited to try again. I mean, who doesn’t want to try for the surprisingly good loot here?

“Ok, first we are going to need Drizzle active use as we walk the paths designated by Rachel. Second, we need to change the formation a bit, 2 pseudo-frontliners is not going to replace 1 tank. You guys actually drew aggro away from each other causing a situation where we had to heal 2 people at once. Third, put the runes on my Mud Golem. The Mud Golem’s role is the tank, but he is going to have trouble keeping aggro. Do not go crazy with aoe combos until he has generated a large amount of Hate. Fourth, if one of us gets caught like before, let them die. I know it seems harsh, but there is no realistic way to save them. We just will draw a new path for them and let them catch up after respawning.” Alex commanded, each of them hanging listening deeply to his words, ready for a chance to prove themselves again.

We all walked out in a new formation now with Barbarian and the Mud Golem in the front. Cleric, Warrior, and Alex are in the middle, while Water Mage, Runelord and I are in the rear. Warrior seemed a little upset he lost his frontline position, but he is doing a good job hiding it well. I will commend him at least for leaving his personal beef with himself. Alex likes people who can swallow their pride for the rest of the group, and I am of the same opinion.

[Alex POV]

After Rachel’s successful pep talk and the change of strategy, the party seems to be in good spirits again. I hope Rachel is too mad at me for making her do that, but it is an important step to be able to lead in a rough situation. Anyone can captain a ship in smooth waters, but a real leader can lead his sailors through a storm. I hope that analogy works on her, Rachel in a bad mood can be just as scary as Kira. And when those 2 sisters work together, you know you are in for a world of hurt. Last time they both called Marise on me, probably the least forgiving woman I know. I still have trauma, just thinking about it makes me shiver. Let's focus on the party to keep my mind off it. I am certainly not taking a suspiciously long slurp of my adult beverage, most definitely not…

We got through the First Cavern with no issues this time, now that everyone saw how quick things go to shit. We continued on, past through the second set of corridors and tunnels. These tunnels have unavoidable battle with a Bile Worm, a massive worm that spits massive amounts of poison over its enemies. Luckily our new strategy is having Water Mage create a massive bubble of water over our heads, and when we get poisoned by the worm Cleric purifies the water to turn it into holy water. It then splashes all over us removing the poison status and washing away the poison that is left on the floor. With the enhanced mud golem holding the worm down, we can regroup and finish it off easily. We continued this strategy with each successive battle with the worms until we reached the second cavern. T

his massive cavern is so large, that our footsteps echoed as we walked along. This cavern is covered in a massive fungi jungle that radiates poisonous death just by looking at the strange colors of the plants. It is a maze, though it is a maze full of poisonous traps. There were no enemies in this cavern other than the boss, I guess the developers were feeling bad about the first cavern and took it easy on this one. But make no mistake, the poison procs in this jungle stack quickly and last twice as long. There is also no rest between the boss and the maze meaning the health you ended up with at the end of the maze is the health you have to fight the boss with. This is still the dungeon from hell, there is no such thing as an easy section.

Rachel uses the [Pathfinder] skill Guidepost, and safely navigates us through the maze. This skill lets you see everything from a top down view, she then uses Pathway to create a guiding light we can follow along until the Boss Fight. The [Pathfinder] is a derivative job from the ranger tree that trades offensive power for supportive scouting skills. It is one of the best jobs for exploring new areas of the game, and new dungeons. Almost all high level guilds have a [Pathfinder] in them, and we are no exception. With Rachel’s Support, we manage to get through the maze in record time. Almost all of us are in full health, which bodes well for this Boss fight. This boss is known as Corpsebreath, its visage is a mass of vegetation that culminates in a massive Venus Fly Trap mouth. Vines stretch across its massive body and twitches with a disgusting pulse. It has no eyes, or really any notable feature except its massive maw. It is notorious for a single attack, innocently named “Bad Breath.” It is an attack that solely delivers status effects, but don’t let that fool you. This is the most overpowered attack in the game.

Bad Breath is a cone aoe attack that poisons you, slows your movement and attack speed by 20%, causes periods of sporadic blindness, causes periods of sporadic paralysis, interrupts and silences spell casting, reduces the damage you deal by 10%, and reduces your max HP by 15%, this all lasts for 20 seconds too. If you think this is bad, let me remind you that this colossally unfair attack can stack including the duration. Even if it has a long build up time, it has a vast aoe which can be difficult for heavy tanks to move out of the way. And once you are hit once, you will probably be too slow to dodge the next one, and the one after that. Once you are that weakened, you will be simply whipped to death by its other massive aoe attack. Oh, you also have to start back at the beginning of the dungeon again if you wipe.

This boss is usually the party killer, the combination of the maze and boss will kill most PUG lineups. [Spell Taker] job holders consider this boss to be the most important boss in the game. Because the skill Spell Steal has a small chance of imprinting Bad Breath into a grimoire. Meaning that players can also use the incredibly overpowered skill (though the player version doesn’t stack, damn devs and their sensible nerfs). It is easily the most expensive grimoire in the game, because the drop rate is so low and the demand is high. This spell is considered one of the best loot to find here, and our guild has a good market cornered in their sales. We use a Scroll with the skill Spell Steal each time we try this dungeon, since we didn't have a [Spell Taker] in our guild. It is an expensive scroll to use on an extremely small chance of success, but the payoff when it does is completely worth it.

We get into formation to properly fight Corpsebreath, each of us eager to have a chance at its glorious loot. We glared greedily, each of us holding out the smallest fragment of hope that we could get the spell. There is nothing like the promises of riches to motivate humans is there?