Adventures in MMOing [Cecil]

Peering around her doorframe and looking both ways before smiling, Calanthe ran back into her room and hopped onto her bed, turning her computer to face her. She had been waiting until her parents were asleep, so she could play one of her comfort games; titled
Armageddon Online, the game had Job advancements and a pretty good storyline, according to some of the reviews she had read up on.

So, of course, Calanthe had gotten the game some time ago and had started playing.

Having had to stop last night due to a pop quiz via her mom, Calanthe booted up the installer and logged in.

Username: Petals_In_Soprano
Password: *****************

LOGIN SUCCESSFUL!

Spawning in the town of Amia, home to the Mage and Wizard guilds, she moved her Level 25 Sage character towards one of the many levelling dungeons. 'Time for some grinding!' She thought to herself as she began to slowly creep up on a (hopefully) unsuspecting Orc Warrior.

Apparently, someone cared rather less about taking a stealthy approach to things. A sudden bow shot struck the Orc Warrior, calling its attention. Steady shots would call the orc in closer...right into the selection of traps the Hunter in question had put in place. The arrows just kept coming from there, drilling into the mob has they kept their space.
Cecil smiled a little to himself. It had been a while since he'd played.
Sitting comfortably at Level 23, and probably needing some new equipment at this point, Sealed_Stars continued harassing the poor orc.

Meanwhile, Calanthe is a mix of confused...and a bit annoyed. That orc was going to be hers!...though that hunter was kinda smart. Letting out a sigh, she set her target on another orc, attacking it with a wind attack to take a small chunk of HP before quickly backing up as the orc set its sights on the Sage. Backing up at least (to her eyes) 5 tiles away, Calanthe made her character try to cast one of her favourite moves; Stalagmite, an earth elemental move that did a moderate amount of damage to a foe.

As the animation played, she watched...and waited.

The arrows kept coming at a steady pace as the Hunter kept moving. At this point, he just needed it to come closer...just a little closer...
Right into the Land Mine he'd set up. With the damage and the stun in effect, it was all he needed to finish off the orc.
From there, he scanned the area. No more orcs nearby, apart from the one that Sage was handling. Though...hmm. Guess it couldn't hurt.
Approaching the Sage's fight, he set a snare between the Sage and the orc, before backing away to watch events unfold.

At first, she looks kinda confused at the Hunter coming in-between her and the orc, prompting her to mumble something along the lines of "Get away!" However, with this, she does end up noticing the username of the bow-user resulting in Cala freezing for a moment.

'Sealed_Stars...? The same Sealed from the music forums? No, no...alot of people have the same username...'

She thought before turning her attention to the battle. The snare had stopped the orc in its tracks, as the Sage hurled a fireball. Coupled with the damage from Stalagmite, the orc's health dwindled down to red. Another fireball after waiting the recharge time (40 seconds) and the Orc warrior was down.

"Yes!" She smiled to herself as she collected the EXP from the fight and started to scan for more enemies.

Nice. Seems that helped out.
He starts to set off in search of more easy targets, but...hmm.
Honestly, between his level (and more importantly, his need for new gear), a lot of the things around here just took too long to deal with, and he still wasn't able to upgrade yet.
Maybe...he looks over to the nearby Sage.
Worth a try.

"Thank god I don't have to do this in person...so do I just...? Nah. Message first."

Calanthe would soon find herself with a PM.
Sealed_Stars: Feel like partying up? Probably make life easier.

AHWHATTHEHEC--Oh right...PM notification. Looking over and reading the PM, she smiled. Sealed wants to party with her? Well, of course, she'll accept their request...it'd be the nice thing to do!

A reply comes in a few minutes later.


Petals_In_Soprano: Sure, that'd be good! Besides, you can set up traps better than I can...and by that I mean I can't do that.

Sealed_Stars: And you can cast spells better than I can!...because I can't do that either.
Sealed_Stars: Probably got more consistent damage than I do right now, though.

Alright, got to set up a party. What to call it?
...what to call it?
...WHY IS THIS SO HARD.

After a minute or so (and a decision just to go with the first thing he can think of), and invite comes in to join...'The Hastily Named Party'.
...that was not a name it should take so long to come up with.

Calanthe chuckles at the first message before quickly scanning the third. 'Well, it would make sense.' She thinks as the invite pops up. ' The Hastily Named Party. Huh, I guess I'll hastily click Accept then!"

Petals_In_Soprano has joined the Party!

Sweet!
Sealed_Stars: There we go.
Cecil pauses to think a moment...there was something he could do now.
Sealed_Stars: There's a cluster of mobs I didn't fancy dealing with myself, if you're interested.
Sealed_Stars: Took too long to bait them off and kill them.
Sealed_Stars: Here, let me show you.

After a moment's thought, he goes off to where he remembered them being. They're each fairly strong, and a few levels up from what he should be handling himself with his current loadout.
Sealed_Stars: These are ones.
Sealed_Stars: We can probably handle it with we don't pull all of them at once.
Sealed_Stars: You up to it?

She grins at the message of confirmation and her eyes light up.

'Some mobs? Huh, let's see--oh, where they going?'

When Sealed_Stars goes off to where the troublesome enemies were, Cala's character follows behind out of curiosity before looking at the mobs themselves. Pretty strong level wise and seems like a challenge.

Challenge Accepted.

Petals_In_Soprano: I'm up!

Sealed_Stars: Then let's do this.
Sealed_Stars: One at a time. I'll get them snared, and then we start pouring on the firepower.

Cecil sets a snare, and lurks toward the mobs. He waits a moment, fires off a shot...
Crap, two of them!
Sealed_Stars: Extra, heads up!

Backing off, he sets up a Blast Mine, and makes a point of leading the incoming mobs through it and his snare.

Sealed_Stars: Just focus fire!

Petals_In_Soprano: All right!

Cala's character gets into position about 4 tiles behind before seeing Sealed lead the mobs (prompting her to mumble "There's more? Huh, didn't see that coming. Still, more is always better for EXP.") through the snare. 'All right, let's get rolling!' She thinks as she begins to cast Fireballs at the enemy that is snared at the moment.

I should have set up a Claymore...
You ought be working.
Ankou, leave me be!

He was hardly hurting this thing when he wasn't using skills. He needed a new bow badly.
At least Petals seemed to be doing better...just gotten free, but she was still tearing through it.

Sealed_Stars: Hope you're doing better than me!

And that she was. Tearing through one of the enemies until it's health was around yellow, she prepared to cast Stalagmite -- only to get hit by one of the enemies attacks. 'Crap! Ok, ok...!' She fidgeted with the tip of her braid out of habit as her character was shaking the attack off. As Calanthe checked the cast time for her earth skill with one of her other hands, she thought in a mixture of fear and annoyance 'Ugh...2 minutes?! Why didn't I check that sooner?! '

Petals_In_Soprano: I'm doing fine so far! I just need to be the dancing queen and use more fireballs! Gonna try and conserve as much SP and win this fight in style!

Petals_In_Soprano: Or at least try to.