Chapter Text
“Donghyuck, check your threat levels. You’re making Yu’lon attack you,” Mark exclaims as the jade serpent dragon Yu’lon turns around away from Mark and attacks Donghyuck, the night elven rogue standing behind it. He stands his ground and starts slashing at the serpent-dragon with his poison-coated daggers. The stone floor gave Donghyuck enough leverage to plant his feet in place.
Having Yu’lon as the active boss in the Timeless Isle (an island off the coast of the country of Pandaria inhabited by multiple hostile beasts) was a sign that it would be a difficult fight, but Donghyuck anticipated the fight to last a bit quicker than their current progress.
A worgen warrior charges at Yu’lon with a loud burst of thunder, intercepting the attacks. The serpent-dragon attacks all of them by breathing out a cone of jade-colored fire. The worgen lets out a pained whine as fire heats up his plate armor while Donghyuck rolls out of the way. The heat from the jade-colored flame burns the air around them, worsened by the sea breeze hitting Donghyuck’s face. Behind him, a human warlock screams as he gets hit by the jade-colored fire as well.
“Jeno! Don’t stop in front of me!” Renjun screams, his health cleaving below 50% after that single attack. A healing spell was thrown at him, patching him right up immediately in a flash of light. Mark’s hand glows as he casts another healing spell towards Jeno, the worgen.
Nearby, Chenle heals himself with a quick burst of light as Yu’lon breathes fire in his direction, “Mark-hyung is slowly losing mana from healing us.”
“Manage your mana better, Markeu,” Donghyuck teases, ducking to avoid Yu’lon’s tail.
“I would if you all would stop standing in the green circles on the ground,” Mark hisses out, “I’m not even supposed to be focused on healing, I’m a tank. My main job is making sure I’m the one being attacked, not you guys.” Mark hypocritically throws a large healing spell at everyone before taunting Yu’lon off Jeno, whose health was slowly chipping off despite being healed up recently, “Don’t forget to refresh your DoTs”
“What’s a DoT?” Jisung asks, his cat form raking his claws at Yu’lon.
“It’s damage-over-time, Jisung. Yours is that Moonfire ability,” Mark says with the patience of a party leader who plays with newbies.
A small moon appears from above Yu’lon, shooting down a beam of lunar light at the serpent-dragon.
“That’s the one, Jisung,” Mark says
“Yeah, Jisung. More DoTs!” Donghyuck suddenly exclaims.
Chenle laughs as he catches the reference, his little gnome priest jumping away from large circular patches of jade-colored fire on the ground. He inflicts Yu’lon with his own DoT as he says, “Many whelps! Left side!”
“Handle it!”
“Lee, run to the center– NO, JENO-HYUNG, NOT YOU. It was part of the joke!”
“But you said ‘Lee’,” Jeno jumps away as the serpent-dragon spits out blobs of jadefire on the ground, leaving multiple circles of fire around the arena floor. One of the large circles of fire fall in the place where Jeno would have been standing. He drags Yu’lon with him to the center of the arena, “I’m a Lee.”
“Since when have I called you ‘Lee’? It doesn’t make sense!” Chenle runs away from the fire and goes closer to Renjun, who was standing further away from Yu’lon. Advantage of being a ranged class: you don’t need to be near the enemy.
“Aigoo, our Jeno listens to his younger brothers well,” Donghyuck says, “No wonder he picked the race that looks like a dog.”
“You—” Jeno stops attacking and lets Yu’lon’s programming shift its attention away from him and turns to attack Donghyuck.
Chenle continues, “There are 3 Lees in the group. It’s too confusing to call each other by the last name.”
“I thought you just wanted us to reposition to the center,” Jeno says as Donghyuck swears, one bite from Yu’lon taking out most of his health. Donghyuck cries out, “Someone taunt it off me!”
“You deserve it, you blueberry” Jeno resumes dealing damage to Yu’lon but not enough to grab its attention away from Donghyuck.
Rule: If a tank (read: Jeno) wants you (read: Donghyuck) to die, then you’ll die.
“What kind of insult was that!” Donghyuck leans back, avoiding a bite from Yu’lon, "I'm a violet-skinned elf, you furry."
Before Yu’lon’s next attack could strike Donghyuck, a shining shell made from light materializes around him. The shell shatters under Yu’lon’s attack but it saves Donghyuck from a fatal swipe, allowing him to take a stab at the serpent-dragon. Mark throws his mace at Yu’lon to grab its attention from Donghyuck.
A contrary to the previous rule is: If you do enough damage, a nice tank (read: Mark) might show you enough mercy to save you. His mana regenerated just in time for him to cast a shield to save Donghyuck.
For now.
If Donghyuck doesn’t grab Yu’lon’s attention again, Mark reasons out.
“Here’s the actual blueberry!” Donghyuck says as Mark takes his position besides Jeno, grabbing his thrown mace and smashing it against Yu’lon.
“Are you really going to say that after I saved your life?”
“I thought we were already past saying thanks.”
After a few strikes from Mark, Jaemin’s pet bear (named “Hyuckie'' to the annoyance of Donghyuck) growls at Yu’lon, making the serpent-dragon ignore Mark and turn around to attack the pet instead.
“Jaemin!” Mark calls out, “Stop making your pet growl at Yu’lon.”
“Ah, forgot to turn it off,” Jaemin replies casually from his place on top of a rock, overlooking the entire arena and far from the chaos as he shoots arrow after arrow at Yu’lon.
Jeno taunts Yu’lon to attack him as Jaemin’s bear gets pushed into a circle of fire.
“Why is Jaemin up there? Why can’t I stand still on a rock?” Renjun says, making it rain fire above Yu’lon. “I’m shit at knowing where I should and shouldn’t stand in fights,”
“Speaking of positioning: Chenle, you’re definitely standing where you’re not supposed to be. Move to the side!” Mark says, holy light surrounding his body with every attack he does, “Reposition quickly. The next attack would be–”
The temperature in the arena spikes up as a huge wall of green fire erupts from the back side of the arena. As it reaches its maximum height (which was very high), the fire proceeds to move to the front, which will inevitably hit them in its journey.
“Jisung, look for the gap!” Mark calls out. Jisung dashes across the arena in his cat form, eyes looking for any gaps in the wall of fire, “It’s not on this side, hyung”
While Jisung sprints from one side of the arena to the other, Jeno jumps back from one of the jadefire bolt Yu’lon spat out, creating yet another deadly circle of green fire in the ground from where he previously stood.
Chenle narrowly misses the bolt heading towards him but Renjun gets hit. His body crumbles down into the deadly burning swirl of fire on the ground.
“Found it! There is a gap in the wall of fire at the leftmost side,” Jisung calls out. Everyone ignores Yu’lon in favor of reaching the leftmost side of the arena quickly. Donghyuck manages to get to the gap in time while Jeno uses his sprint ability to his advantage. Chenle places an Angelic Feather in front of Mark, acting as a speed boost for Mark to reach the gap in time.
As an intellect-focused class, Chenle’s priest was disadvantaged when it comes to speed, even after he placed his own Angelic Feather in front of him for a speed boost. He gets caught in the wall of jade fire and falls to the ground.
“Jisuuuuung,” Chenle whines, “Rez me”
There was no response from the druid, who blasted Yu’lon with another Moonfire.
“Jisung!”
“What?” the agitated druid says, healing Donghyuck.
“Rez me!”
“Rez?”
“Rez-surrect.”
“Oh. Later.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN LATER?”
“Just release spirit, Chenle,” Renjun sighs. The fight continues on with Jeno and Mark alternating as tanks and Jisung popping in and out of cat form to heal Mark and Jeno.
While Jaemin continues attacking from a distance, Renjun (still in his spirit form) walks towards him. “Jaemin, you should go down there. Fight with us,” Renjun says, obviously irritated by his death. His spirit lingers beside Jaemin, waiting for the game to revive him, like a vengeful spirit. Chenle’s spirit appears a few seconds later, awaiting the countdown for his own revival.
“I’m fine with watching you guys from up here,” Jaemin releases an arrow tipped with poison at Yu’lon before releasing 6 more arrows in quick succession. Renjun and Chenle resurrect a few seconds later, immediately jumping into the fight after going all the way around the arena to get to the entrance.
Yu’lon spits out fire at Jeno, burning down a large portion of his health. A protective shield glows around him as Mark taunts Yu’lon away from Jeno. Yu’lon starts scratching at them with his claws, twirling around to blow fire at Donghyuck, who rolls out of the way. He parries the claws with his daggers as his body glows green from Jisung’s healing spell.
“Donghyuck,” Mark says, blasting bright light at Yu’lon and swinging his mace right after, “Do you know that thing that happens–”
“Yes, Mark-hyung?”
“—When you keep attacking the enemy.”
“What about it?”
“What generates every time you attack it?”
“Combo points?”
“No, no. Not on your end. From the enemy’s end.”
[Party] [Cheonlele]: wat is happnening
“Threat?”
“What happens when you raise your threat levels with an enemy?”
“You aggro them.”
[Party] [Jwinren]: ignore them and heal me
Mark throws down a hammer made from Holy Light on top of Yu’lon’s head, “What happens if you aggro the enemy?”
“You will be the main target of the enemy,” Donghyuck repeatedly slashes at Yu’lon’s cheek.
[Party] [Cheonlele]: suddnelny i cnt read
[Party] [Dyenoh]: cant type too
“And who should be the main target of the enemy?” Mark continues.
“The tanks,” Donghyuck says.
“Are you a tank?”
“No.”
“Then stop grabbing aggro!” Mark repeats for the umpteenth time, unleashing strike after strike at Yu’lon, making the serpent-dragon roar at him, “You’re making things a bit difficult for me to make sure you stay alive.”
“We want to kill it quick, right? I’m just doing my job,” In a perfect example of timing, Donghyuck dies immediately after when Yu’lon turns around and breathes out a cone of jadefire at him. The rogue cries out as it dies and Mark was quick to grab the serpent’s attention back to attack him.
Jisung shifts into his elven form and starts casting a resurrection spell on Donghyuck, but Yu’lon lets out a bunch of jade bolts and aims one straight for Jisung, who didn’t react in time.
Two dead night elves lie in a circle of jade-colored fire, their respective spirits waiting outside the arena.
“Hyung,” Jeno says, swinging his sword and raising his shield wildly against Yu’lon, “We can try again tomorrow.”
“But Yu’lon’s health is down to 40%. Let’s see this one through,” Mark says, “Renjun and Chenle, stay a bit further away from Jeno and me. Chenle, go into Shadowform. Your attacks hurt more. Donghyuck and Jisung, when you come back to life, stand behind Yu’lon. Please—”
“Watch the tail!” Chenle chirps up. Donghyuck snorts at the reference as Mark lets out a faint sigh.
“—mind your aggro.”
“Wait a minute, you’re a Shadow Priest?!” Renjun says in surprise but it got drowned out by the rest of the fight. Outside the arena, the Pandaren audience continues to cheer, though they are unsure if it’s for them or for their Celestial protector Yu’lon.
Yu’lon’s health slowly goes down with the attacks they are throwing but Yu’lon’s attacks are also getting more and more lethal. Jisung’s healing spells couldn’t catch up with the damage they were taking, Renjun used up all his health-replenishing items and abilities, and Chenle shows no plans of shifting out of his shadowform, rendering him unable to heal.
Meanwhile Mark—
The draenei paladin that is Mark staggers back as his health goes down by a significant chunk, “I’m oom! Jisung, heal us!”
“Oom?” Jisung casts Tranquility as their health rapidly goes down.
“It means he’s out of mana. Dammit, Milk, do better mana management!” Donghyuck says and soon they were met with the sight of Jeno and Mark dying, a swirling patch of fire right under their feet. Even a strong healing spell like Tranquillity couldn't save them from that damage.
“Fuck!” Donghyuck exclaims as Yu’lon focuses on him. The tanks were dead and he was next in line at Yu’lon’s threat table (aka kill list). One breath of fire kills Donghyuck and also hits Renjun behind him. Chenle manages to jump to the side and avoid the attack.
“Jaemin, your bear is dead. Revive it!” Renjun says, healing himself through a life-draining spell at Yu’lon.
Jaemin stings Yu’lon with a poison-coated arrow, “It’s still there though. It’s tanking.”
“That’s Jisung in his bear form!”
“Oh, he’s the same color as my bear. My bad,” Jaemin says as he starts reviving his pet, his hands glowing as he casts the ability. Hunters aren’t a spell-based class and their abilities rely on physical attacks, but this is one of the rare examples of spells they can cast. That unfortunately means that he’s not attacking, slowly putting the currently-attacking Renjun up Yu’lon’s kill list. Renjun lets a barrage of fire attacks hit Yu’lon but he could not hold up against a breath of fire targeted directly at him.
“Jisung, you see that little red icon in your action bar that looks like a set of sharp teeth?” Renjun starts, oddly calm.
“Um…yeah, I see it. Growl,” Jisung replies, still slashing at Yu’lon in his bear form.
“Well, you’re supposed to click that if you’re going to tank,” Renjun’s voice slowly gets louder, “Just because you’re in bear form doesn’t mean you have the highest threat. You still need to build it up, and the first step is to growl! Just because you’re the sturdiest person attacking Yu’lon doesn't mean you’re first in its kill list. You growl to put yourself up the kill list. Understand?”
“Sorry,” Jisung says sheepishly, growling at Yu’lon as per Renjun’s pleasant recommendation.
“Good boy,” Renjun says, calming down, “You get a free pass today because you don’t tank often.”
“Should I try tanking then if it means Renjun would start complimenting me,” Donghyuck says, resurrecting a few seconds after Mark and Jeno.
“The moment a rogue decides to tank is if we planned to fail, and I don’t plan on failing,” Renjun deadpans
“Don’t die! Wait for Jeno to attack Yu’lon so it won’t reset!” Mark says, falling behind as Jeno sprints ahead to the arena entrance, “Donghyuck, why are you standing there?”
“I vote for a wipe,” Donghyuck says, plucking a fruit off a nearby tree, “It’s a hopeless case, hyung”. Mark ignores Donghyuck and runs as fast as his hooved feet could carry him.
Unfortunately, the huge wall of fire made a reappearance. Chenle, who was standing near where the wall of fire spawned, didn’t react in time and died immediately. Jisung and Jaemin’s newly-revived pet bear dies to the wall of fire just as Jeno jumps into the arena. Before the wall of jade fire could reach Jeno, Yu’lon and the rest of the jade fire attacks fades away.
Jeno makes a sound of disbelief while Mark groans. Yu’lon reappears in the middle of the arena with full health. The circles on the ground were gone as well. The only sign of their previous fight are the various skeletons scattered across the floor of the arena. A variety of reactions passed through the Pandaren watchers. Some cheered on for the good fight (and perhaps at the supposed victory for Yu’lon) while others booed at the ending. Others immediately left to interact with the stall vendors near the edges of Celestial Court. The fight ended, now they’re going to have to wait for the next group of challengers willing to fight a Celestial.
“Damn it,” Renjun says, newly resurrected.
“Considering it’s our first time, that was a good fight, guys,” Mark starts, doing the after-battle congratulations and review. They can already imagine that he’s opening their post-battle charts and checking who did the most damage and healing. “We’re going to start practicing proper raid positioning next time. Jaemin managed to top the DPS chart, followed by Donghyuck and Renjun. You dealt 65% of our overall damage, Jaemin. Good job going back and forth between healing and dealing damage, Jisung-ah. You’re getting used to using your druid–”
“He still won’t save me!” Chenle calls out when Jisung resurrects in the same place Renjun did, “Yah! You had a resurrection spell!”
“I wasn’t focusing on you, I was focusing on Mark-hyung and Jeno-hyung,” Jisung defends himself, “They were constantly taking damage. I didn’t think using a combat resurrection on you was worth it.”
“Oh my god.”
Cheonlele slaps Pwark across the face. Ouch!
Pwark punches Cheonlele on the shoulder .
Mark clears his throat, “Guys—”
“What about me?” Donghyuck says, sauntering over to where most of them were gathered— in the northern section outside the arena where the dead players would be resurrected, “I was taking and giving out damage. Why couldn’t you save me ?”
“I tried to! The casting time took so long!”
“That’s why I tell you to reach the haste cap, so that you can cast things faster!”
“What in the world is a haste cap?!”
Mark ignores a Troll hunter who pointed at him. He wasn’t interested in engaging in PvP right now. “Don’t blame the healer for your death. You were taking too much damage for him to heal anyway.”
“Then grab the aggro from me,” Donghyuck says.
“Don't you think I tried? I had to heal you up as well but you keep raising your threat back up! I only have so much mana to heal myself and you guys too.”
“Then let Jeno be the main tank. He doesn't lose mana in the worst possible time. He only has to focus on tanking and dealing enough damage.”
“Don't blame me for your lack of aggro-management,” Jeno inserts, “I’m not even a proper tank right now, my current build is for damage-dealing. You were angering Yu’lon too much.”
“So you were tanking on the basis that you’re wearing plate armor?” Renjun asks
“Yes, I am. I think that’s something to flex about,” They didn’t need Jeno’s camera to be open to know that he’s doing his (.◜◡◝) smile.
Renjun’s exhale is caught by his mic, “No wonder it was easy for Donghyuck to grab aggro.”
“Don’t you have aggro-dumping abilities,” Mark asks Donghyuck, “like Feign Death. Those would help us tremendously in catching up to your threat level.”
“First of all: Feign Death is a Hunter ability, not a Rogue ability. Second: Hyung, you and Jeno are the tanks. You’re supposed to make sure the enemy is attacking you and not us. We,” Donghyuck motions to everyone else, “are the DPS. We focus on dealing damage to kill the enemy as fast as possible. Threat management isn’t high up in our priority list. If we’re generating more threat than you could let out then I think you need to learn how to tank better.”
Jeno and Jisung lets out a soft “Oooooh ” at Donghyuck's words.
Party members fighting about the other members’ inability to do their respective role is common and often leads to the group disbanding. Thankfully, they have been playing together for a while now so they know some of these words are just jests to rile the other person up into doing better.
Still, they can’t wait for the moment Mark snaps and punches Donghyuck through the computer screen.
They would even settle for an in-game brawl. Mark’s lilac-colored, spacegoat-looking draenei with its towering stature, muscular hooves, and biceps as big as a head fighting against Donghyuck's night elf, whose violet-hued body is more lithe and agile, built for agility rather than raw strength. Huge mace versus a pair of daggers.
A sight to behold, indeed.
“Everyone is responsible for their own threat management, Hyuck,” Mark starts, his voice betraying the tiny bit of irritation he’s feeling, “And everyone is responsible for their own health management. If I say move, you move. You don’t stand in the line of fire and not expect to get hurt. Stop giving healers more work than necessary.”
“Then you should stop focusing on healing others when you’ve acknowledged that we actually do have healers in the party.”
“Who aren’t really doing their job,” Jaemin adds, settling down on the rock he was previously perched on. On his and Jeno’s hands were glasses of milktea. Nearby, Jisung orders his own glass from a Pandaren beverage vendor settled near the arena.
“Yeah, Chenle isn’t even high up in the healing charts,” Jeno says through a mouthful of what everyone presumes is boba, “Step up the healing game, Chenle-yah.”
“But I’m not the healer, I’m a Shadow Priest” Chenle says.
“Bullshit.” Ohnana bonks Cheonlele on the noggin. Doh!
“I’m not!”
“You didn’t go all shadowy at all,” Jaemin argues. Chenle shifts into his priest’s shadowform to prove it. His gnome turns black and violet as his entire body shifts into a shadow-like state. Jaemin lets out a “huh, guess I was wrong”.
“Why weren’t you in that form during the duration of the fight?” Renjun exclaims, “you do more damage in that form!”
Chenle promptly ignores Renjun to say, “Jisung is the healer. He’s the one throwing out healing spells every 10 seconds.”
“But I’m a cat druid,” Jisung says, taking a seat nearby Jaemin.
Ohnana pats Pwark on the shoulder, “that’s called Feral Druid, Sungie.”
“Yeah, a Feral Druid. The damage-dealing one. I’m not a healer.”
Everyone, Mark and Jeno especially, gawks at Jisung, “What.”
“Didn’t I tell you to be a healer?” Mark says with hesitation.
Pwark nods at Markeuli . “You did, and I did heal.”
“But, you’re not a Restoration Druid right now?”
“No, I’m a Feral Druid”
Dyenoh cries at Pwark’s shoulder. “I’ve been relying my entire survival on a catboy,” Jeno says, to the indignation of Jisung, who was sputtering out a “I’m not a furry!”
“None of you wondered why the healing spells he's throwing out were the common ones all druid specs have,” Renjun deadpans, “and that he’s almost always in cat form.”
“Wait, he was healing you guys?” Jaemin asks.
The party chat dings. Rather than talk over and insert a topic while others are talking, some of them would rather type it out in the message logs to not interrupt any on-going discussion. In this case,
[Party] [Markeuli]: the ironfur bull respawned. gonna go kill it
[Party] [Ohnana]: i’ll go with u
“You were out of his range.” Jeno verbally replies as Jaemin leaves his place on the rock and runs off to the woods east of the courtyard with Hyuck the bear following him.
Donghyuck snorts, watching them start attacking a large bull from a distance, “You didn’t need healing”
Jaemin gets thrown back as the bull charges at him. He falls into the bounds of the Court, the stone tiles cold against his back, “I might have been at a distance but I still get hit by those circles of fires– wait, why are the guards hostile towards me?”
The nearby Pandaren guards turn to look at Jaemin, the grip on their spears tightening. The Pandaren audience nearby give wary looks at each other, at the guards, and then at Jaemin, but go back to whatever they were doing beforehand.
Mark smashed the side of the bull with his mace, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah– ow, what,” Jaemin staggers as he gets up, “I’m dazed? What? Is this the bull’s doing?”
The rest of the party watches as various armed Pandaren guards stationed around the Court run towards an unprepared Jaemin. His bear runs towards Jaemin to protect him but it dies after one stab from a guard’s spear, which was the same fate Jaemin found himself in. After Jaemin’s dead body falls to the ground, the guards turn towards Mark, who had finished off the bull while Jaemin was being attacked. Mark casts a defensive spell over himself and starts to run.
Towards the rest of the party.
Cheonlele yells for everyone to flee.
“No! Stay back! Don’t go near us!” Chenle screeches at Mark, casting a levitation spell on himself and running towards the center of the pond nearby. The guards stop at the edge, unable to swim due to their heavy armor. Donghyuck vanishes from sight and Jisung dashes away in his cat form.
“Yah, yah, yah. What happened? I didn’t attack anybody. I didn’t attack a Horde player so why are they angry at me,” Jaemin says, disappointment obvious in his voice, “I’m not releasing my spirit until all of us are dead. I don’t want to pay an expensive repair bill for my armor just because Pandaren guards decided that we were bad guys.”
Renjun quickly mounts up and runs but Jeno was too slow to react, busy organizing his bags. He dies immediately to the guards that were stationed close to him.
“What the–,” Jeno says in pure confusion, “Who did it? Who attacked a Horde player?”
“I didn’t attack anything!” Jisung says immediately, shifting into his deer form for added speed.
“Maybe you or Mark-hyung hit a Horde player while killing mobs,” Renjun suggests, running towards the beach, watching as the Court guards ignored him as he left their range.
“A player attacked us,” Mark says, “or me, rather. A Troll hunter was loitering around the arena for a while now, kept pointing at me.”
“Where is he now?” Donghyuck asks.
“Probably nearby, I got hit by a Serpent Sting– ah shit.”
It was hard to miss the sight of a huge draenei falling to its death, 3 Pandaren guards making quick work of hitting Mark through his thick armor.
In quiet contemplation, Cheonlele mourns the death of Markeuli.
“Ah, I see him,” Donghyuck says, still invisible. A Troll hunter was positioned behind a tree, corpses of cranes by his feet and his tiger pet waiting beside him. The Troll hunter shoots an arrow at Chenle, who ducks away from it.
Donghyuck reappears by a large tree, incapacitating his tiger and stabbing the Troll hunter behind their back. Donghyuck’s presence caused the nearby animals to attack him, killing Donghyuck before he could run away.
Mark sighs, resurrecting in a glow of bright light, “Everyone, resurrect and run. Let’s teleport out of here.”
***
“Hyung, I want to run Icecrown Citadel raid,” Jisung says days later, sitting his druid down on a bench near the training dummies. Both of them are loitering in the Shrine, specifically outside in the terrace. Various NPCs walk around their programmed routes alongside other players who are minding their own businesses. In front of Jisung, Jeno was slashing at three training dummies at the same time.
Jeno doesn’t stop attacking the training dummies as he replies with, “We’ll need at least 10 players to run a raid. There’s… 6 people online in the guild, including the two of us. Think you can wait for the others to come online?”
“Can’t we do it as a duo?”
“I don’t know the mechanics, Jisung”
“Somebody online in the guild is bound to know it, right?”
Their guild “En City” has more than 50 members, but most of them were just alts. In reality, there are 23 people in the guild with various schedules due to college or work. The 7 of them (nicknamed by guild master Taeyong as “Dreamies” because of their old playing schedule, which was everyone’s sleeping schedule) end up playing together because of similar schedule and age. “En City” used to be a small raiding guild named “Netflix and 12chill”, but slowly expanded (into a “guild filled with sweaty Discord gamers”, as Ten had placed in the guild description). Taeyong limited the guild invites to people they knew personally for everyone’s peace of mind. Donghyuck had invited Renjun, who invited Jeno, who invited Jaemin, who invited Jisung, who eventually invited Chenle. They run dungeons and raids sometimes, if their contrasting schedules would allow it. Most of them were in college and some were taking part-time jobs so it’s getting harder for the older members to play together. Other guild members, like Kun and Shotaro, have time zones affecting their schedule.
Jeno hums in thought, “Or we can wait until someone who knows the mechanics comes online.”
[Haechan-] has come online.
“Speak of the devil,” Jisung hears the ding of Donghyuck joining the call. His night elf rogue Haechan materializes in front of them.
“Hyuck,” Jeno says, jumping around with his weapons unsheathed. An occupational hazard, “Jisung wants to raid.”
“Which one do you have in mind?” the sound of a bottle opening gets picked up by Donghyuck’s mic.
“I want to do a raid from previous expansions,” Jisung says, “like–”
“Old raids, huh. Do you want a particular loot? Is it a mount?” Donghyuck interrupts, “There’s a white chicken mount that drops after killing the boss Kael’thas—”
“No!” Jaemin’s voice screaming in their ears startles Jisung and Donghyuck, “Killing Kael’thas for a white chicken mount? Jisung deserves better than that. Let’s kill Kael’thas for a pretty phoenix chicken mount! Jisung, have you tried the Tempest Keep raid? Do you want to try Tempest Keep?”
“Where did he come from?” Donghyuck hisses as Jaemin speaks.
“He was there the entire time, muted and deafened,” Jeno says, unfazed by Jaemin’s sudden outburst, “Surprised you didn’t see his name in the call.”
“Let’s do Tempest Keep!” Jaemin repeats, his hunter exiting the building nearby.
In a game where one has the freedom to customize their character in any way they like, Jaemin is one of the people who takes advantage of this with his female human character, with long blonde hair, bright eyes, and slender physique decked in gold and blue armor. The contrast between their character models becomes more evident when Jaemin stops in front of Jisung’s sitting character. “Let’s go, Jisung!” Jaemin says out loud, Hyuck the bear roaring beside him.
“Jaemin,” Jeno says, “We ran Obsidian Sanctum a while ago, followed up with Naxxramas, and Heroic Deadmines. You just finished Serpentshrine Caverns alone.”
“So?”
Jisung is sure half of those words were names but he can’t be sure. Jaemin explores the game during his free time and finds a lot of things that Jisung won’t believe exists. He thought the rabid rabbit that appears once a month was a joke from Jaemin until he got killed by one in one of the caves. If Jaemin says a raid named “Naxxramas” exists and a sanctum made from obsidian is a raid location, then he trusts him.
“But Tempest Keep? Again?” Donghyuck groans, “Jaemin, we ran that with your monk character yesterday.”
“So we’re running it with my hunter today,” Jaemin says
“It’s not worth the bore!”
There is a gasp from Jaemin’s end. The guild chat dings.
[Guild] [Ohnana]: is [Ashes of Al’ar] worth running Tempest Keep again and again? y/y
[Guild] [Valentino]: y
[Guild] [Haechan]: n
[Guild] [Haechan]: stop enabling him jaehyun hyung
[Guild] [Valentino]: I respect the grind
[Guild] [Hendrrrrary]: isnt that the pretty phoenix bird mount
[Guild] [Hendrrrrary]: Hard yes for that. Its pretty af
[Guild] [Ohnana]: youre now my favorite 99-liner
“We’re still not doing that raid, Jaem,” Donghyuck starts slashing at the training dummies that Jeno left untouched.
“But—”
“I want to do Icecrown Citadel,” Jisung says before Jaemin could answer back. He just wants to try the raid Sungchan told him about. If he wanted to hear his hyungs bicker on hours end, he’ll leave them alone in a room with Uno cards and some food and water.
Donghyuck stops attacking the training dummies and turns his character to face Jisung, “Do you know the mechanics?”
“Um,” Jisung falters, “no.”
“Then call Mark-hyung. He’ll lead the raid. I’m fine with running the raid but I don’t want to lead it.”
[Jwinren-] has come online
There was a ding in the voice chat as Renjun enters the call, “Heard you guys were planning to raid. Which one are we running?”
“The cold one,” Jeno replies.
“The… cold raid?” Renjun says, “Is it Ulduar?”
“The other cold raid.”
“The Nexus?”
“No. It’s Icecrown Citadel. Because it’s located in Icecrown. Ice crown. That’s a barren wasteland of ice.”
“...”
“Also it’s called ICC. Icy -C. Get it?” After a few beats of silence, Jeno sighs, “Bad joke, sorry.”
“Jeno-yah,” Ohnana gently pats Dyenoh, “You did so much damage, you killed the mood.”
***
After calling Mark and pestering him to lead the raid (“ Donghyuck, I have exams next week .” “Great, that means you have time to run the raid tomorrow. We’ll be in and out of the raid in less than an hour. See ya, hyung”), the seven of them found themselves gathered on top of the ice-covered stairs that lead up to the main entrance of Icecrown Citadel.
They were not dressed for the cold– Renjun and Chenle are only in cloth outfits appropriate for their spell-casting classes, Jaemin, Jeno and Mark are in hulking pieces of metal, and Donghyuck and Jisung are in leather pieces that allowed cold to creep through their outfit. The fact that they were only in a game is the only reason they (or their characters, to be specific) aren’t shivering to death. The frozen wastelands of Icecrown are hostile to anyone unprepared for its climate and the undead that populate it adds another level of danger. Below them, corpses of fallen heroes litter the snowy ground, with some of these bodies having been reanimated and left to wander around in mindless undeath. The ground beneath them is decorated with bones, fresh and old.
Mark shifts his attention momentarily to shoot down a flying gargoyle with a blast of holy light, making Chenle jump at the sight of stone and meat falling from the sky. Mark clears his throat, his draenei paladin shaking his shoulders, “Who’s running in blind today?”
“Me,” Jisung says.
“Me.” Chenle.
“Me too,” Renjun says.
“Me, kinda,” Jeno says, readjusting the shield on his arm, “I need a refresher.”
Ohnana raises his hand, “Me.”
“Jaemin? Running in ICC blind?” Donghyuck says in disbelief
“I never did learn the mechanics nor am I in the mood to make executive decisions. I’ll listen well today. No thinking, just follow.”
Mark looks over at Chenle, “Can you change spec into Holy or Discipline?”
“I don’t know how to play the healing specs,” Chenle says, “I’ve only tried Shadow.”
“An unfortunate circumstance when you level-boost a class to level 90 is that you don’t learn anything about the class and it’s other specializations,” Jeno says.
“Hey, hey, heyyyy. I wanted to be a spellcaster, okay?” Chenle defends himself despite being used to Jeno poking fun at him for using his money to boost his priest character to 90. He was too lazy to level it, he would admit. “You guys were already at level 87 and higher when I joined and I didn’t want to wait while you guys were out doing raids and dungeons.”
“To be fair, we really weren’t doing raids and dungeons. We don’t have enough people,” Jisung says.
“Jisung,” Mark turns to the druid, “Are you in Restoration specialization?”
“Yes,” Jisung replies, applying Wild Growth— a Restoration-only healing ability— on everyone to prove it. “But hyung, this is my first time using it. I haven’t practiced a lot”
“It’s okay. Just listen to me and remember the things we ran through earlier and you’ll do good.”
Renjun summons a table filled with a banquet and sits on the floor, grabbing spring rolls from a plate, “Are we starting?”
Mark’s voice shifts into raid leader mode, “Okay, we’re running 25-man Icecrown Citadel. Each boss has their own mechanic and you might be overwhelmed if I told you guys everything in one go, so I’ll explain the mechanics of a specific boss before we enter the fight or as we go. Uh, you guys can eat to get the Well-Fed bonus buff as I explain.”
Like good children, they gathered around the table and sat on the floor. When Mark hears the sound of food being chewed, he starts.
“Jeno and I are going to tank, which means we make sure the enemy is attacking us and not you guys. If your threat percentage with an enemy exceeds our own threat percentage, the enemy will stop attacking us and will attack you, and we don’t want that. So if the enemy attacks you, you need to get your threat level down by stop generating aggro so that our threat level exceeds yours. Aggro is generated by attacking or healing. If the enemy starts attacking you, you tell us and stop attacking or healing . Got that?”
“Yes”es are said
“Donghyuck.”
“Yes sir,” Donghyuck sing-songs. Mark’s issue of Donghyuck not controlling his threat percentage has been a long-standing argument that has made Mark leave their dungeon party multiple times before and almost made Mark leave the guild during a particularly bad day. Donghyuck is just pushing his buttons at this point. They both know Donghyuck knows how to play the game and is an experienced player just like him, but he thrives in the chaos he creates.
Mark won’t be surprised if Donghyuck has a warlock character specialized in Destruction.
“Jisung and Chenle, I need you guys to heal whenever possible, especially you Jisung,” Mark continues. “Prioritize healing Jeno and I but don’t forget to heal others and yourself. Everyone else, focus on dealing damage. Lastly, you have to listen. To. Me. I will explain the mechanics before and during the fight. If I say move out of the way, move out of the way. If I tell Jaemin to stop attacking and stick close to Donghyuck, Jaemin should stop attacking and run to Donghyuck, even if that means getting close to the enemy. If I say use your defensive spells, use your defensive spells. You don’t stand still where the damage is being dealt and then whine that you’re dead. That’s your fault. But let’s avoid those situations, okay?”
“Okay!” 6 other voices returned in various levels of enthusiasm
“Yo, Dream!” Mark chants
“Let’s go, fighting!”
The boom of trumpets blaring onto their ears signals a ready check.
[Markeuli initiated a Ready Check]
Markeuli - ready
Dyenoh - ready
Jwinren- ready
Haechan - ready
Ohnana - ready
Cheonlele - ready
Pwark - ready
“Our names are so stupid,” Jisung mutters as they all ran the damned chambers of Icecrown Citadel.