[Adelie]

For someone who described his MMORPG character archetype as a shrine maiden, he certainly didn't show much interest in this shrine.

Perhaps it was the aesthetic - but he loved this kind of excessive complex leafing and etching, the elaborate and almost rococo detailing on the facade, the stark contrast of black stone on white marble. Perhaps it was the atmosphere - but the shrine's musical theme, with its haunting strings and windchime lietmotif, was easily one of his favorites in the entire game. Perhaps it was simply that he had run this godforsaken dungeon for upwards of twenty hours in the past three days, and the item he wanted had yet to drop.

[Adelie]

You see, this had all started when the game he played had announced a double drop event as a part of their new player welcome week; twice the loot for every boss kill.

But considering that he played Elysium with all the enthusiasm of a second job - it was really his primary occupation at this point - he didn't quite need to farm boss materials to upgrade his equipment or level up his skills. Instead, he'd been enticed by a rare but incredibly lucrative prospect - if he lucked into a rare drop, he'd get two rare items instead of one. With how long and frustrating those grinds could get, and how much they were worth on the current market, this seemed a great opportunity to put in some hardcore gaming hours.

Unfortunately, that required him to get lucky in the first place, and he was having none of that.

[Adelie]

Well, it wasn't as though he were alone in his fruitless pursuit of rare drops - he'd run into more than a few with the exact same aim as him while running this exact same dungeon for the past three days. Some would stay in the party for a few hours before taking a break; he'd meet them the next day and they'd exchange the traditional greetings of any luck yet? and no, u? before starting again.

Other times, he'd conscript a few of his fellow guild members to help him out. Only briefly, usually - he could always count on Ven, his fellow collector of rare cosmetics, to stick around for a while since she was missing the same items he was, but most of the others were taking advantage of the event to hunt other rare drops instead or run raids that were otherwise not worth the effort.

Sometimes he'd end up conscripted instead of the other way around.

[Adelie]

Luckily for him, today was not one of those days.

His guildmates had tried, certainly, but there weren't enough of them online to fill out a full party and they'd ended up picking up a random whose skillset overlapped enough with his character's that he felt comfortable excusing himself. Never mind that it forced Blaze to play an off-role and Aster to get on his long-neglected alternate account - farming for cute hair accessories were far, far more important.

With a sigh, he directed his character to shuffle delicately into the center of the shrine - clipping through a few other player characters in the process - to make herself more visible, hoping one of the other regulars here would be recruiting and throw a party invitation his way once they spotted her. Failing that, he could always brave the chat.

[Adelie]

[AREA] Versailles: 9k witch lfg quick run pls
[AREA] Mango Sago: 4/5 lf healer
Tragicomedy has invited you to join their party. Accept? (Y/n)

It didn't look like there were any familiar faces today - he'd spotted the distinctive blue-and-gold armor of a tank he'd run with before, but the moment their avatar popped back into existence, they once again vanished into the dungeon. Evidently, they already had a party, and a very efficient one at that.

Mere seconds after typing lfg into his chat box, a party invitation appeared on his screen with a ping. Not surprising - few played witch-build characters, citing their relative uselessness in solo play, but they were always welcome in parties. A well-built witch's array of debuffs served as an effective power multiplier for the other players in the group.

[Adelie]

That, however, required his teammates to be good. As he'd learned from his quest for rare drops - twice of nothing was still nothing.

He'd asked for a quick run pls, but a cursory glance at his new party members suggested this would be anything but quick - the party leader, who looked to be a swordsman, was reasonably geared, but two of the other party members weren't even max level and the last had some terrible skill path he couldn't even identify as a proper build.

Perhaps he should just abandon the party. There'd be no hard feelings - weaker parties often faced a revolving door of players as they tried to fill their last spots in a party, and no one'd blame him if he balked at the prospect of running with a few newbies. But it was getting a little boring doing the exact same thing over and over again, and it wasn't like he couldn't beat it with them.

[Adelie]

[PARTY] Versailles: do you know mechs?
[PARTY] Tragicomedy: yea
[PARTY] Tragicomedy: can u bait
[PARTY] Versailles: sure
[PARTY] Versailles: i don't have a lot of range though
[PARTY] Versailles: so peach and cube need to make sure they don't steal bait from me
[PARTY] Omega Cube: got it boss

At least these people knew how to do the dungeon - or at least, claimed to. If he also had to play teacher - well, he'd just direct them to one of Chi's inanely comprehensive run guides and find another party, then.

One of the quirks of the boss they were going to fight was that it only targeted the player furthest away from it with spells. Those spells, though, were pretty much laser death beams, so that player had the dutiful responsibility of baiting them away from the rest of the party.

[Adelie]

Usually, the cleric served as bait - the traditional healer build had one of the longest effective ranges in the game, and they didn't have to worry about damage uptime while positioning themselves. Of course, any ranged character could do the same job, but someone with a lower range, like his own character, could have the bait stolen by another party member running too far. Since the group leader had specifically asked if he could bait for them instead, it was likely the cleric was inexperienced.

Made sense. The cleric was the lowest level in the party, and even though she sported a few relatively expensive cosmetic items - he'd call her avatar a little garish, but it was at least fashionable - some of her gear was still the default set they gave you for story completion.

[Adelie]

If he liked to speculate - and he certainly didn't; he'd never speculated in his life - it was quite easy to guess what was going on.

The party leader was experienced; his gear far exceeded the requirements for this dungeon and he didn't look like he needed to run it. The cleric, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. It was very easy to imagine this was a typical case of a veteran player letting a new player friend tag along and get carried - and if he were right, it was probably a boyfriend trying to get their girlfriend into the game.

And oh, he was usually right about these things. He liked to call it his straightdar.

[Adelie]

Either way, it was just a little bit of guesswork; a little something for him to amuse himself with while he ran this dungeon for the million-and-oneth time. The first few rounds of the shrine were simply defeating a few waves of annoying ghosts, and he had plenty of time to devote to speculating about his teammates.

His excuse, of course, was that it gave him knowledge on how his teammates played. The party's final member, for example, had assigned his skill points into what seemed a fairly atypical build - he hadn't recognized it as any of the archetypes players usually used to describe their characters at first, but seeing it in action he realized it was simply an archer's build, designed in a way that abused the accuracy bonus skills from other weapon types.

Huh. He knew someone else who'd done that, a while back.

[Wild Pet Found]