Dante

This is brilliant. Well done, good find!

Totally.

I always build to concept and if that means skipping certain 'must have' powers, I will. The most recent example that springs to mind is that my Dark/Dark Dominator will not be taking the pet because it doesn't fit his theme even though it will lower his DPS.

I also dislike using Incarnate powers on non-Incarnate content and wish it had never been allowed. I like the challenge of some old level 50 content.

On the other hand, when concept and build strength come together, it's joyous. My Plant/Storm/Stone Controller is built purely for concept but he capped S/L mostly by accident.

I read these tales a while ago and really enjoyed the authors' take on Well lore. Today, having a few minutes to spare and feeling pretty despondent about the endgame story, I too decided to play around with an IC perspective of the Well 'reveal' scene using my namesake, Dante. I found the result to be somewhat more irreverent than I intended but hey, I had fun writing it.

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The smoke cleared and through it, the lanky figure of Dante Carver stood, eldritch energies receding into the background at his command. Hurrying behind him, eager to see what lay ahead of them past the guardian came Mender Ramiel.

“You know, I met Minos once,” stated Dante as he watched the spectral minotaur vanish back into the ether. “Funny guy, had a thing for bourbon biscuits. Shall we get this over with?” He turned to face the golden doors beyond which lay the mythical Well of the Furies. If you believed in that sort of thing, which the archmage didn’t.

“You do not seem eager to meet your destiny,” stated Ramiel, observing his companion’s relaxed demeanour.

Dante shrugged. “I’ve met more destinies than you’ve had hot dinners,” he stated, “they get a bit boring after a while. It’s right up there with when the villain declares ‘prepare to meet thy doom’ or when they turn into a snake, which never helps by the way.” He laid a hand on the door and pushed. “Besides, I don’t believe in destiny anyway.” And with that he swung the doors wide and stepped through, the Mender in tow.

As light seeped into the ancient cave, Ramiel let out a gasp at the sight but his awe was shattered by the laughter of the ancient sorcerer as he strode into the room, utterly unsurprised. “So, here we have an ideal fixer upper opportunity,” he declared to the empty room. “One ex-Well room, one careful owner, plenty of space for conversion or for Menders seeking to raise up the next generation of Menderettes. Comes complete with a nice golden glow even if it does remind me of that bit where Aeris copped it. Did you ever see that? Very sad.”

“But… but the Well!” gasped Ramiel, “It’s gone!”

Dante just smiled, pushing his wireframe glasses back up his nose. “Oh yes, the previous owners weren’t joking about taking all of the furniture with them. Oh well, never mind.” His grin in the dim light of the cave seemed almost insane as if missing out on humanity’s greatest hope was somehow a big joke.

“But without the Well… we’re powerless!” lamented Ramiel. “How will we stand against the Praetorians, against Emperor Cole, against the B…” He stopped suddenly, as if remembering himself. Dante helped him complete his sentence.

“The Battalion?” he asked. He saw Ramiel’s confused look and continued. “Your lovely Tesseract, called me a cave dweller so I asked her out to dinner. Did you know she talks in her sleep? Anyway, try not to worry, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” He patted the Mender’s shoulder and turned to leave.

“But don’t you care?” snapped Ramiel. “We need the Well! We need to embrace its power, to convince it to anoint us its champions! Don’t you seek its power? Don’t you wish to ascend to greatness?”

Dante looked confused. “But I’m already great,” he stated. “As is anyone who uses their potential for humanity. Why on earth would we need to have someone slap us on the back and say ‘there’s a good boy, have a cookie’? We’ve done pretty well without the Well interfering in our lives up until now, why would we want it involved now?”

Ramiel had not seen this before. Of all the times he had witnessed these events in his addled mind, he couldn’t remember someone so flippant about missing the Well. “So you would be willing to miss out on more power? On the adventure of ascending? Of becoming god-like?”

“Tip to the wise,” replied Dante, “never absorb an energy source bigger than your own head, it never ends well. Besides, who’d want to be a god anyway? I’ve met a number of them, bunch of tossers. The more you stick your nose into the affairs of gods, the more you run into bossy types who argue over who’s watching over humanity this decade. You’ve got one stuck in your Citadel these days and I’ve got to say, no-one that tall should wear a toga that short. It’s very disturbing.” He looked as if he could go on but he relented. Instead, he approached Ramiel and smiled. “Ramen, my old noodle, how old are you?”

The Mender paused, not sure how to answer the question. Time travel mucked everything up so much. “Um, something like… I dunno, about 1,722? At a guess?”

“One thousand, seven hundred and twenty two,” repeated Dante, “and you’re still chasing the magic ring that will slay the evil dragon. I’m 2,023 years old and I’ve been using magic for over two thirds of that time. And all the sand, the magic circles, the funny words and bat guano… they’re all just a focus, a place to put our will or intentions. A locus to bend your willpower around. The Well is the same, it’s a crutch, an invisible god to put your faith in. That’s why I knew it wouldn’t be here at the end of a puzzle a hippie and his Great Dane could find. It’s like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and in the end, it’s a red herring.” He playfully punched the Mender on the shoulder. “Been a fun adventure though, let me know when the next one is.”

Mender Ramiel stood speechless for a second or two while the lanky man in the embroidered, scruffy brown overcoat turned away from him. He eventually found some words. “But what about you? What will you do now?”

Dante turned back to face him and shrugged. “Me? Keep being awesome I guess. Keep fighting the good fight, never give up, never surrender, I aim to misbehave and all that lot.”

“And Praetoria?”

His question caused another shrug. “Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure? No idea, I think that world will balance itself out soon. You ever seen what happens when evil prevails over a world? Take a look at your symbol Mender, it might give you a clue. I prefer to focus on this world these days anyway.”

“You care so little,” came Ramiel’s lament. If he had offered a direct insult, he couldn’t have cut deeper. The archmage closed in on him and his expression darkened, offering a glimpse of the hurt and pain and sacrifice that had come from over a thousand years of using the dark arts in the defence of humanity. But his voice was calm, yet cold, without malice, but firm.

“It is said that all higher civilisations kill their gods,” he stated. “It’s not such a bad idea. In the end, we turn away from them when we realise that our power is our own, it belongs to no-one else. That all the gods are there for is for us to pour our devotion into in the hope of gaining a modicum of power. But we don’t need them. We don’t want them. We will face whatever threat comes to our world on our terms, our rules. If you ever do find the Well Ramiel, you can tell it that it’s either with us or against us. But most of all, you can tell it that its days are numbered. Once humanity works out that we’ve evolved past it, it will wither and die like all the other countless gods and pantheons that have passed before.”

He straightened his jacket and his expression softened, replaced by his customary charm. “Speaking of which, I should split. Something bad’s about to happen in Astoria and I need to be there.”

“To stop it?” questioned Ramiel.

“To stand in its way,” replied Dante. “That is what heroes do after all. Be excellent to each other Ramiel.” And with that, he was gone, the shadows forming around him as he disappeared into the ether.

All that was left was the disappointed Mender in the ruins of a dying religion.

Even as a lore junky, I gave up on reading anything Papa Smurf says ages ago. To do so just makes me despair over the state of the endgame storyline. Despite the general improvement in writing in tip missions and new arcs, every time Prommy opens his mouth to utter another retcon I just think, "After five years of build up and backstory, this is the best they could come up with?"

I expect soon enough we'll find out that the Midnighters didn't really create the Shadow Shard, they had to get some Ascended guy to do it for them, probably DJ Zero back when he was the Dream Doctor's sidekick and before he decided to give it all up in favour of floating in his nightclub listening to the same track over and over. Seriously, I wouldn't put it past them by this point.

*Sigh*

Yeah, I think Umbra Beast is bugged. I summoned forth my hideous creature from the Netherworld and all I got was a noisy dog with a cloud of fleas.

Welcome back Bill.

I can't tell you how happy this thread makes me. I thought I was the only one who hated the stupid dog.

Of all the things this could have been, taking the dog and sticking an aura on it was probably the most lazy, most ill-fitting option they could have done. The tier 9 was apparently so 'awesome' it needed a separate release when the set was revealed. Instead, it almost killed the set for me. I'm still levelling my Dark/Dark Dom but I have no intention of using GothLassie except as a set mule.

What I would have given for a reskinned Spectral or even a Giant Ghostly Spider... Maybe if pet customisation even becomes a reality, I can replace it with something appropriate to the set.

In related news, it appears that the film is going to be released in the UK as "Avengers Assemble" because apparently we Brits are unable to tell the difference between an epic superhero movie and a 1960s TV series about spies.

Honestly Hollywood... we do have brains over here you know. *facepalm*

Reminds me of the Stack 'o' Hats we did at the EU Player Meet last year.

I can see a challenge coming on...

The Hollows for me was always a great baptism of fire for learning things such as aggro ranges and just how many flaming rocks can be hurled at a Blaster before they fall over.

Although the Hollows is more accessible now thanks to the reorganisation, I miss the huge mobs, the long journeys and what's more, the fear. It really felt like a dangerous zone and either the cries of 'Ooog' filling the side of your screen or the sound of a Gardvord powering up his Temp Invulnerability was enough to make you panic and desperately try to run faster.

Old Hollows actually felt like the definition of Hazard Zone. Alas neither it nor any of the others in game do these days.

Personally, I still don't trust Promentheus as far as I can throw him and his natty toga. There's something about the way he's written that makes me take everything he says with a large dose of salt. I guess I've never really liked know-it-all characters who spout explanations to us, I've always far preferred to read the clues in missions and learn that way. I guess we'll see.

I'm currently playing with a new Warshade and as he's level locked at 22 due to being part of an RP levelling team, I've been spending time running everything around and below that level. There's some fun arcs back there which are all too often ignored these days. After the Hollows (including the Trial which is still fun, even now) next best was the Vahzilok Wasting Disease. That final encounter with Dr Vahzilok is still awesome.

Something I have noticed though, is that the Contact Finder we now have only seems to point you to Wincott, Faultline or Montague Castenella under level 20 which maybe why some of these arcs get ignored. It seems odd, but it's almost as if the designers of the tool were trying to steer people away from older arcs (Hollows excepted) and towards newer content. Is that just me being all cynical and grumpy though?