TQG 42. Wardrobe

The keep was filled with Living Statues dressed in livery and pomp.  Some of them resembled the courtiers and servants who had once walked these halls, while others had faces that were simply blank stone.  The raid sliced through them like they were made of cheese, quickly clearing the ground floor.  Within the throne room, we encountered a living statue dressed in my grandfather’s robes who hid behind a wall of force and summoned endless waves of adds.  There seemed to be no end to them until the thirteenth wave when the king golem abruptly clutched its chest and fell over.

For some reason, the king also dropped [Malkios’s Spare Cloak], as well as a scepter that was fiercely bid upon by the raid’s healers and an amulet that was likewise contested by the mages.  A pair of gloves went to a rogue, and a pair of boots to a tank.  The final item was a pair of [Purple Royal Undergarments] which got more laughs than bids until the raid saw that it was actually Bee Oh Ee.  At which point the raid laughed uproariously and Father determined that it would be sold at auction and that the proceeds would go to [The Endolphins] raid funds.

Remembering Malkios’s annoyance at having his cloak equipped by hundreds of players, I was concerned that Grandfather would be bothered by this development.  When I spoke with him, however, he appeared to be the picture of stoicism.  Only the white-knuckled grasp on his scepter betrayed that illusion.

We cleared the kitchens next, and encountered yet another monster type.  While the boss was another Living Statue golem dressed as our head chef, he summoned a giant undead, partially butchered boar to fight us.

The boar was dangerous as it charged through the raid, knocking back anyone who attempted to get control of it.  It was also difficult to damage, as melee was continually knocked back, and most of the ranged damage dealers were of the elements which undead naturally resisted.  Gradually, however, the raiders whittled the boar down to zero health.

Another blue cloak dropped and was bid upon.  It was a good thing that Father had demanded that Malkios sit the raid out after all because “I already have two En Pee Sees to babysit and I don’t need another.”  Malkios had argued fiercely, but ultimately he couldn’t stand toe-to-toe with the raiders, nor did he provide massive raid buffs as Grandfather did, nor was his presence necessary as mine was.

I would have happily switched places with Malkios if I could.  The only thing that kept me from running out of the castle screaming was the knowledge that this was ultimately all my fault, and the determination to make things right.  I remained very cognizant of the danger that I was in at all times, and often had to look away from the things that would mean my certain death were it not for Tarisha keeping me safe.

There was no boss of the library, but rather the entire room was a gauntlet, starting the moment we stepped inside.  We came across book golems, which inflicted a dangerous bleed status by shooting razor sharp papers at nearby targets.  Other books would flip open to a random page and summon a fantastical beast from within, everything from griphons to dragons to great heroes of yore.  These summoned monsters were not nearly so mighty as the real things would be, however, and were quickly dispatched by the experienced raiders.

Thirty minutes to clear the gauntlet, and finally the raiders were rewarded with a chest.  Aside from the blue cloak which seemed omnipresent in the raid, the most valuable item that dropped was a vanity pet that summoned a floating book with googly, according to its item description.  After much argument, this item was ultimately dedicated to the auction house as well.

We cleared the great hall which was filled with spider golems for some reason, and the ballroom which featured a shadow golem that fought like an Assassin, vanishing and reappearing inconveniently.  I came very close to dying when that boss appeared behind Tarisha and prepared to strike, but she sensed its movements somehow and [Wind Walked] just in time.

“This is actually going rather smoothly,” Father admitted shortly before we reached the residential quarters.  “I was expecting this to be difficult.”

The raid groaned for some reason.  And a moment later, [Hail’s Monstrous Wardrobe] burst through the wall.

“Ah, great, here we go!” Father shouted.

The walls of the castle were ripped apart, and the raid was swept up in waves of powerful magic which did no damage but threw us about.  I was separated from Tarisha and thrown back out into the courtyard, along with fifty other members of the raid.

That wouldn’t be so bad if the courtyard had remained cleared, but the flame elemental knight had respawned.

I immediately turned to run to safety, but before I could get very far I ran into an invisible wall of force.  The raiding party with me recovered and a tank picked up the knight, which appeared to have a reduced health pool but followed the same tactics as before.  Which meant that soon he would begin throwing his exploding spears, and I would likely get caught by them and die.

“Hey, kid, jump on my back,” a mage said, blinking up to me.  “The boss will be pissed if we let you die to this.  I’ll keep you alive like the hot chick was doing before.”

Desperate to stay alive, I obeyed, climbing onto the man’s back and clinging to him for dear life.  He continued to cast his ice magic at the elemental boss, but when the spears began to fly he proved himself more than adequate in avoiding them.  His skilled use of [Blink] left me somewhat disoriented at times, but I watched as the raiders in our subgroup quickly burned through the boss’s health and pushed it into the next phase, where it began leaping about with its warhammer.

The enemy’s strategy was less effective than it had been with the crowded raid, as we were able to spread out more, and the mage I was riding was always able to avoid the shockwave-generating crash.  However, instead of the dual-wielding scimitar phase that had happened before, this time when the boss reached twenty five percent, it whistled.  From the stables came a shadow-golem mare.

The knight launched itself onto the mare’s back and charged about, its shape-shifting flame weapon changing into a lance.  Three of the raid members could not avoid the oncoming charges and were reduced to motes of green light, but eventually the mages and lone archer managed to finish off the knight, leaving only the mare to deal with.

Fortunately, the mare also had a reduced health pool compared to the stallion we had fought earlier, and likewise being trampled by it was no longer a certain death sentence.  At least, it wasn’t for the travelers; I’m not certain I would have survived being snorted on by the golem.

However, the horse monster had only one phase, and was easily defeated by simply not getting trampled.  When the horse burst into black mist, the raid let out a cheer.  However, it was too early to celebrate.

We rushed back towards the castle, which was continually being torn apart by strange forces.  Stepping over the rubble and climbing through the debris, the raiders joined up with the others who had been flung to the kitchens, and the library, and the throne room.  Upon the ruined rooms of the residential wing, we found a team of ten battling [Hail’s Monstrous Wardrobe].

My father was tanking it, equipped with a sword and shield, and he was battered and weary.  Despite battling the wardrobe for as long as it had taken the others to clear the respawned bosses, Father’s team had barely clung to life, inflicting less than two percent damage on the true final boss of the instance.

“I shall take Lord Hail from here,” Tarisha told the mage I was riding, [Wind Walking] over to just beside us from I saw not where.

“Sure, he’s all yours,” the nameless mage said.  I let go of him and climbed up Tarisha’s back instead.

“When this is over, I will see you rewarded!” I told the mage.  “Come find me.  I don’t know how, but I’ll ensure--”

“Yeah, quest accepted kiddo, but I don’t have the time to read the flavor text right now.  We’ve got a boss to kill,” the mage said, then blinked away.

The wardrobe was not the simple piece of furniture it had once been.  It had personified, with cedar legs and glaring eyes, but most dangerous of all was the magic it wielded.  Arcane waves of force lifted rubble and ripped the remaining walls apart as we approached.  As the raid came back together, Father was hit by a tide of magic and thrown aside.  I feared that he would vanish into motes of green light, but instead he was lit up by healing magic and survived.

“Good to have the gang back together.  I hope you had fun while I was solo-tanking the end boss,” Father said through raidchat.  “Alright ladies and gents, I think this is really it.  The final showdown between opportunistic history makers and that which must be destroyed to make history.  Yeah, I know, it sounded better in my head.  Look, I can’t be funny all of the time so shut up.  I am fairly certain that this monster is not part of the script, ladies and gents.  It was never spotted during the castle’s days as a dungeon, and everything else about it just screams special event.  And quite frankly, I have no idea what this thing will throw at us, so proceed with caution.”

As though it had been waiting for him to finish speaking, the wardrobe abruptly threw open its doors, and a legion of skeletons – which could in no way have fit within it normally – came marching out.

“Tanks, pick up the adds and move them away from the boss,” Father called, and the defensive warriors of the raid quickly rushed in to obey.  Two of them stayed to face the wardrobe directly, but they were again flung back.

“It appears to be an add phase, people, the boss won’t let anybody close.  Ranged, deeps on the boss if you can, melee, crush those bones!”

With the roles assigned, the raiders got to work.  The skeletons were not very tough, but every two minutes the doors of the wardrobe would open and more would file out.  The wardrobe was slowly taking damage, but it was not making things easy on the mages and archers of the raid.  Every thirty seconds it summoned an arcane shield which absorbed damage.  The raiders would burn through it in twenty seconds, leaving them only ten seconds to damage the boss before the next shield flickered into place.

The adds, meanwhile, continued to build up.  While they were individually weak, the melee couldn’t kill all of them between spawns, and occasionally the ranged damage dealers had to switch over to help, slowing dee pee ess on the boss even further.

However, the raiders gradually managed to bring the boss to eighty percent, where the shield abruptly exploded and knocked everyone within thirty yards away.  Fortunately, I was safe on Tarisha’s back, far away from the explosion.

“Phase transition!” Father called out.  “Finish those adds asap!  Full switch until they’re down.  Bosses get ready to pick up the boss in case there’s an aggro table in this phase!”

Killing the skeletons proved to be unnecessary, however, as they abruptly began exploding.  The tanks all survived the sudden damage, but six of the mixed melee dee pee essers puffed into green motes.  Father cursed loudly.

“Well, that could have been worse.  We didn’t lose any healers at least.  Alright folks, let’s see what the boss has in store for us,” he called.

The debris around the wardrobe began to swirl into arcane whirlwinds and were launched at the raid.  Although the whirlwinds were not very fast, they were numerous and large, and they quickly began taking up space, forcing those close to the battle to avoid them.  The boss itself began firing beams of arcane energy at random players, killing a healer and two mages before a tank got into melee range, when it abruptly switched tactics.  It leapt into the air, then slammed back down to the earth, targeting a random Traveler.  If there was nobody in melee range when it picked itself up, it resumed its strategy of firing arcane lasers at players until they burst.

“Tanks, spread out!  All melee are tanks for this fight!  Keep it from firing those damn lasers!” Father shouted.

This proved to be a mistake, however, as on the fifth jump the wardrobe let out a roar and exploded with arcane energy, blasting away the two rogues in range and damaging everything for ten yards.  It promptly leapt again.

“Shit, that was jump five, right?  Everyone keep an eye out for leap ten,” Father called.  “Hopefully it’s actually every five and not random that it does that nonsense.”

Despite the arcane storms and the rampaging wardrobe boss, the mages and other ranged damage dealers proceeded to whittle its health down.  At sixty percent health, the fight abruptly changed again.  The doors opened, but instead of skeletons, all of my clothes came rushing out.  Some force was animating them as though they were being worn by invisible children.  Some of these clothes-golems began casting magic, while others wielded spears or bows or axes or blades of various design.  The animated outfits began spreading out through the raid, causing havoc.

“Another add phase!  Tanks, try to pick up all you can!” Father called.  “All Dee Pee Ess on the adds, burn them down!  We do notwant them exploding at the phase transition again!”

The damage dealers abruptly switched target, but it seemed to have no effect on the clothes-golems.

“Scratch that, the adds are invulnerable.  Focus on the boss, avoid the adds as best you can!” Father called.

The outfits did not do lethal damage on their own; their attacks were numerous but individually survivable, and they ran about the raid without any coordination or cohesion.  Although many of their attacks were avoidable, only players who were focusing strictly upon their own survival could do so.  Tarisha was forced to shield me numerous times with her own body from the spells that the clothes-golems were flinging about haphazardly.  Through it all we also had to avoid the arcane storms.

The forty percent phase transition came, and the wardrobe once again began leaping into the air and firing its arcane beam at random players.  Tarisha was hit, and I feared the worst, but a healer’s timely intervention kept my protector alive.

Others were not so fortunate.  Slowly the raid was losing members to the mechanics, and each death made the fight harder.  Every healer lost increased the burden on those who remained.  Every damage dealer who died meant that the boss would live longer.  After the deaths to the other bosses, we had started the fight with one hundred-sixty raiders.  During this phase, we fell to ninety.

Still we persevered, and the twenty percent phase transition came.  The wardrobe stopped leaping about and opened itself again, releasing the skeleton adds once more.  There was no shield to burn through this time.  However, the other mechanics – the whirlwinds and the clothes-golems – remained in place.

“Tanks, pick up the adds and move them away!  All dee pee ess on the boss!  Pop See Dees if you’ve got them, we’re going full burn!” Father called out.

Chaos reigned.  The skeletons accumulated, and I fearedwhat would happen when they exploded.  The clothes-golems wreakedhavoc, and the arcane storms swept by.  During this phase, when the storms collided, they merged, becoming larger, faster, and stronger.

Despite the danger, the rogues and warriors and spearmen encircled the wardrobe and usedtheir abilities, combined with class specific cooldowns to increase their damage temporarily, with wild abandon.  The mages and rangers likewise exploitedevery trick at their disposal to increase their damage on the boss.

With an abrupt “Crack,” [Hail’s Monstrous Wardrobe] hit zero health.  The clothes-golems and the skeletons both collapsed like puppets with cut strings.  The skeletons turned to dust, the clothes were simply blown away.  The arcane storms quieted, and the wardrobe simply fell apart.

The death scenewas somewhat anticlimactic.

“Boy do I hope that’s it,” Father said, and I echoed his sentiment.  A moment later his hope was confirmed by the appearance of a loot box.  “Suweeat!  Let’s see what Are En Gee will give us for that!  That’s the first and only time this boss will be killed, so hopefully we’re in for a treat.”