Sparkly Soldier

This is going to be as rambling a message as that was a rambling title (and it's a long, LONG message!), and it's mostly just talking about story stuff since one of my regrets is not teaming more when the game was going strong. I haven't posted all that often, though, so hopefully I've saved up some rambling credit. A lot of it's about the character Astorian Shade, but there's a more general point coming, promise.

One of the lore elements I'd always been curious about was Dark Astoria, and after reaching a survivable level with Yuki I got to explore it for a few weeks before the announcement came that everything was changing for Issue 22. All anyone knew at the time was that Mot wakes up, the fog's gone and the ghosts are no more... and worst of all for my lowbie, solo'ing self, it was an incarnate zone, which seemed as far out of reach as a moon base. So to commemorate the old foggy Astoria, I created the Necro/Dark MM character Astorian Shade, the vengeful spirit of a young girl who died in the warehouse massacre during the fall of Astoria. As her story grew in my imagination, an AE arc about both her redemption and the fall of Astoria itself was born, and a few stories charting her progress through the game emerged. The game did an amazing job of letting me bring her to life. She could appear as a hauntingly beautiful girl with dead leaves fluttering around her or as a tortured specter wreathed in fog (with a fiery, cackling costume change from her "human" form that worked perfectly). The power customization allowed such things as bleeding out of her wrists to call the undead out of crimson pools while gliding above the ground in a roiling white mist, and her weapon of choice was MAGI's ghost-slaying axe. For a game that's ostensibly about superheroes, she came to life as something entirely different, all because of CoH's immense customization options.

Throughout all of this, I read nothing about the new Dark Astoria and refused to be spoiled on anything. Until the announcement, my goal was to lead her through the story arcs all the way to level 50 for an eventual return to her hometown to fight Mot. After the announcement, I couldn't log into the game at all, and let several weeks go by without touching any of the characters. A few people, especially Golden Girl, had said there was still time get her to Dark Astoria as an incarnate, and I finally decided to try it, to forego the story arcs I'd hoped to run and instead grind her from 32 to 50 with just a few hours a day over a few weeks. With some help from the forums, she finally got to level 50, ran the Ramiel arc and then took the call from Captain Nolan to investigate an epidemic of murders and suicides in Peregrine Island.

Well, over this past weekend she defeated Mot. And never has a video game left me in tears before.

DARK ASTORIA SPOILERS!

For one thing, it's even more amazing a story than I'd allowed myself to hear people say (i.e. "the new Dark Astoria is amazing, especially..." "lalala can't hear you!"), and it's a more perfect an ending to the game as any game I've ever played. The message about hope overcoming despair has never been more relevant, and as someone who's struggled all my life with depression, the metaphor of Mot as depression, especially how it drains the joy out of your memories and leaves you feeling like your whole life has never been any different, rang painfully true. For a story about a cursed town and a Lovecraftean horror ushering in the apocalypse, it turned into one of the uplifting, triumphant stories I've ever played, ever seen, or even read. The scene with the huge army of practically every NPC in the game gathered to fight against the Pantheon left me frantically hitting the screenshot key and just elated at the sight of it all, every arc in the game coming together at the last to fight for hope. Jim and Fusionette, Shadowstar and Sunstorm, Keith Nance and Jenni Adair, even Katie Hannon (one of my other big alts is a Cabal sorceress gone MAGI heroine, so I practically cheered aloud to see the Cabal represented in the fight against Mot)... it's like everyone in the game came out for one last, epic sendoff. If anyone hasn't played the DA arcs yet and has a level 50 character, please do so. If CoH has to end, that image alone is as beautiful an ending as could be asked for.

But with Astorian Shade, the story took on a life and power I'd never expected. I had no idea what the new DA was going to involve, I just drew on the old badge lore for her story - and yet the two stories intertwined in ways that left me just gaping at the screen, trembling with the emotion she'd naturally feel before finally catching my breath and daring to hit the keys again.

When Heather Townshend's story ended with the revelation of her role at the warehouse, I just sat there for half an hour, reeling with what it'd mean to Shade, how such a conversation would go. The game leaves it ambiguous whether Heather actually tells your character anything, but it all flashed in my mind with hardly a conscious thought. Heather had found hope in Shade saving both Kadabra and Sigil, only to have it snatched away again when she admitted to the heroine why she'd come back to Astoria. Shade's look of shocked betrayal, shaking her head wildly when asked what's wrong, and Heather's guilt-stricken realization that all this time she's been working with the ghost of someone who died there, that the screams haunting her dreams were probably Shade's own screams, her stammering attempt to apologize only to be answered with Shade furiously shouting to leave her alone (not even really out of anger, but from being so vividly reminded of something she'd tried so hard to forget)... all of it came together to make Heather's almost suicidal trip through the warehouse in a vain search for redemption, and then finding it in Ajax's reassurance that her life has meaning, that Shade's going to need her help to defeat Mot, incredibly moving.

Of course, everyone who's played the DA story knows what's coming, and that Heather's just the tip of the iceberg. The big moment, and another one I had no idea was coming at all, was the revelation in Cimerora of how the seal ended up beneath Astoria. Her whole afterlife had been driven by vengeance against the Pantheon and Mot for what happened in Astoria, only to find that she was the reason for it all. Now, to give the future a fighting chance against Mot, she'd have to condemn her town, her family, everyone she knew, and her past self to die. Heather's guilt became nothing against the enormity of that decision: Heather never would have been in that situation at all had Shade herself not sealed Astoria's fate centuries before. The question finally arose of what's really driving her, because vengeance no longer even made sense. She couldn't destroy her own life to make Mot pay for destroying her life. The only reason to make such a choice was to give up revenge in favor of saving the world, and accepting Astoria's fall as the price.

I'd never, ever imagined that plot twist coming, and it changed my original character into something far more than I'd planned, into a tragic, messianic figure. She'd learned at the end of her AE arc that blind vengeance only serves Mot's purpose. She'd learned from Aaron Thiery that vengeance and justice are two different things. But only now had she really learned that a third possibility exists, understanding and forgiveness, and when Hua Tov later asked her whether she thought he could be forgiven, she honestly said yes and comforted him before he died. And within a few more missions, the game had sent her back to Heather, this time understanding the terrible choices people sometimes have to make and so more compassionate and willing to listen to her.

And then there's the finale. Learning about David Hazen's life and struggle against Mot (and I really admire the sheer bravery of the journal addressing the question of how God fits into a setting where ancient deities threaten the world and can be killed with magic swords, as David himself asks that very question), saving Detective Hopp and Bellerose (and kudos to Hopp's story for subtly bringing Roy Cooling's arc back and showing that things have started to change because of it), and eventually having the whole world placing its faith in her, cheering her on as all the world's heroes and many of its villains rally to fight together in a massive war against the Banished Pantheon... I knew she was always going to defeat Mot, and then ascend to the afterlife, but I never dreamed of such a sight as this...



And all I can say is thank you. Thank you to Doctor Aeon for writing a story that did so much more for my character than I had ever imagined for her, that gave her a shining moment unlike anything I'd dared to hope she might have. I have two other characters who also worked hard to reach their proper endings, Sparkly Soldier Yuki in the Moonfire TF to arrest Arakhn, and New World Daughter in the Katie Hannon TF to reconcile with the Cabal and defeat the Red Caps, but Shade's story is the one that's going to haunt and inspire me for the rest of my life. Thank you.

And thank you to a development staff that had a philosophy unique among MMO's, and unique among most video games at all. They created a world with dozens and dozens of narrative facets, and they didn't tell you how your character relates to that world at all. A writer's natural intuition is to write a story around a central character, and most games do just that. Even when the character can be customized, it's still the same character: Commander Shephard may be a grizzled old vet or a freckled young recruit, but no matter the look or choices, the basic character's the same. I love The Secret World, but your relationship with the supernatural world and those who fight it is shaped entirely by the faction you choose: you can make your character a hard-boiled detective or a brilliant scientist, but that background will be derailed by the opening cutscene in the same way as everyone else's life was, and it will lead to the same thing as everyone in your faction. If you want to RP, you have to be willing to work around the game's narrative.

But City of Heroes didn't do that. What it did was unique, and it didn't have some kind of advanced story tech that other games lack to make it possible - it used the same text boxes and missions as everyone else. But the miracle it worked was twofold. One, it has a setting where everything fits in. With the FBSA and its various departments representing all kinds of origin stories, mission stories that run all the way from military espionage to fairy tale magic and beyond, and interdimensional immigrants from Portal Corp to squeeze in any character concept that doesn't fit anywhere else, any character with any background can fit into Paragon City. A mad scientist can have coffee with an exiled angel while the newspaper boy shouts about the modern convenience of commuting through pan-dimensional portals, and nobody bats an eyes. It's a crazy, brilliant and insanely fun world, and there is nothing else in the MMO genre that matches all the story possibilities it offers, and how seamlessly the writing team managed to tie them all together into one cohesive setting.

Two, and this is perhaps even more important, the writing aimed to never make assumptions about your character. In Paragon City, the only thing that's true of every character is that, on some level, you're here to help (I never really played a villain, but I presume the equal and opposite is true of CoV - you can be anyone, but you're here to hurt). The FBSA branches and the public's acceptance of superheoes gives the setting the ability to let any character, whether he's a multi-billionaire with powered armor or a mutant schoolgirl who can talk to animals, walk up to a contact and be welcomed equally, with the dialogue taking nothing for granted except that you'd like to help. That's a hard ideal to live up to, since it defies all of a writer's normal instincts. In a way, they were tasked with writing half a story, and letting the player's imagination write the other half. Sometimes it didn't quite work: First Ward and the Twinshot arcs both got complaints that sometimes the dialogue seemed to assume a little too much about the character. That such complaints could be made at all, though, shows the unique freedom CoH worked to give its players, and even little things like Lady Gray in SSA1 saying "this spell will let you survive in space, if you can't already" did so much to help include any concept a player wants to bring to the game (I ran that story with Shade too, and her comment drew a "you know, that's actually a good question!" thought).

No other MMO does that. As far as I know, no other MMO tries to do that. It doesn't work for everyone: a few friends I introduced CoH to found the lack of any prewritten background and motive for their characters frustrating. But the writers wrote for fellow writers, for people who love creating characters, trusting them to bring their own perspective to the story, to fill in the game's half of the story with their own half as the character. With so many different arcs to choose from, even cherry-picking them to fit into a character's background left plenty of options, and some of the best character moments for me emerged from the seeming incongruities between the character concept and mission (how does a Cabal sorceress look wearing a modern tank top and jeans as she lightning-flings her way through a laser-lit Freakshow rave? Really, really awesome, that's how!).

And the writers worked to include so many little nods to the character choices you make. When Yuki, whose title is "Legendary Radiant" and whose extended battle cry includes shouting "legendary radiant Sparkly Soldier Yuki," ran the Path into Darkness arc, Colleen concluded her congratulations with "Sparkly Soldier Yuki, you are truly Radiant." I assume from the way it was capitalized that the game read her title and filled it in accordingly. But it doesn't matter: it was still a heartwarming moment, and a perfect way to conclude Yuki's solo adventures.

Those little touches add so much to making the game feel like it's that character's story come to life, like you're more than just another soldier in a war. I ran Dark Astoria with Shade, but a criminal looking for redemption, an optimistic hero trying to bring peace to the world, or even a comedic sociopath like DC's Lobo could all run it and, with the right dialogue choices, it would make sense as a chapter in each and every one of those characters' lives. And when the pieces fit together perfectly like a puzzle, shaping your character in ways that you never imagined but make perfect sense once it's happened, the results are unlike anything I've experienced in a video game.

I hope some last-minute miracle will let that magic continue with another publisher, or even another game that keeps the lore and total creative freedom of this one. If not, though, then thank you to the people who joined Yuki, Ginny and Shade on their last TF's and made it possible to bring their stories to a triumphant close. Thank you to Golden Girl for encouraging me to race Shade to level 50 anyway, that Dark Astoria was worth playing before the game ended, and to everyone who offered advice on how to get her there. And thank you to everyone at Paragon Studios, from Jack on up, who had a part in shaping the world of CoH, where we can be any character we've dreamed of and the writers still did their very best to make the game our story.

And also, thanks for reading this all the way to the end.

I'll be there: Sparkly Soldier Yuki in CoH and Yukiko "Yuki-yo" Yoshida on TSW.

It's done, and we had a great energy-heavy team to face off against Arakhn and the Nictus! And with Regal Kat and Pale Fallen Angel representing the Peacebringers (and special thanks to Red Scoria for tanking and keeping us squishy rangers alive), the team really brought the Kheldian War to a fitting conclusion. Thanks Pale Fallen Angel, Regal Kat, GlitterPink Diamond, Red Scoria, Zourg and Miggy Man for a great run!





Afterward we went to Talos Island and Astorian Shade summoned Adamastor for a beatdown. We wound up having to race against a Rikti invasion that was on its way (and alas, fighting a Giant Monster up close doesn't make for very good screenshots), but I've gotta say that the air raid sirens sounding and the sky turning green as Adamastor appears is all kinds of atmospheric.

Thank you to Pale Fallen Angel, Regal Kat, GlitterPink Diamond, Red Scoria, Zourg and Pheonix Blaze!

Okay, maybe Astorian Shade really is just the Grave Knight's sidekick...



(I didn't do anything to make it turn out like that, honest! )

It's a winning combination!

Sparkly Soldier Yuki's a young anime-loving heroine who's destined to lead a future war against the Nictus (if you're curious about her look, background and more details about her premise, here you go), and a perfect ending for her story would be to thwart Arakhn's schemes in the present and send her nemesis to prison. So this Sunday, 8 PM, it's the Moonfire Task Force!

Sunday, November 25th @8:00pm Eastern Time

1. Sparkly Soldier Yuki - Energy/Energy Blaster
2. Angel of Retribution - Sword/Regen Scrapper
3. Pheonix Blaze - Fire/Fire Blaster
4. Miggy Man - Electric/Energy Blaster
5.
6.

Miggy Man was a little late for Katie Hannon last weekend and Phoenix Blaze couldn't join because of her level, but hopefully they'll both be able to make it for this one. It awards 22 Merit Rewards, an "Honorary Peacebringer" badge (which has gotta be weird for straight-out Peacebringer characters) and it's a chance to make those alien Nictus pay for shooting up our rides.

Like Katie Hannon, this isn't a TF I've run before (though also like Katie, I'm studying up on Paragonwiki ahead of time), but there's no Master badge to worry about and it'll hopefully be a fun, Council-smashing trip through Striga Isle.

And what better way to celebrate victory over the Council than to unleash a giant rampaging Banished Pantheon monster upon Talos Island? Astorian Shade, a level 50 mastermind, will be using the Ritual of Summoning after the Moonfire TF to lead a fight against Adamastor, which awards 10 Reward Merits, 5 incarnate threads if applicable and the "Keeper of Secrets" badge.

A little bit. I've set up Shade the mastermind's pets with pet-themed IO's like Blood Mandate and Sovereign Bloodright, and replaced all her 50 SO's w/ level 50 IO's to make sure she's ready for Mot. With New World Daughter, I placed some level 35 IO ranged damage sets on her three main attacks, to make her a little more little useful in her TF. If the game were going on, I'd gradually move each alt into IO's once they hit 50.

Teaming. I'm extremely, painfully shy, and I'm a concept character builder whose approach to numbers is to shout "never tell me the odds" like Han Solo, and I just figured with a combination like that, people who are really driven to max out their builds and master the game mechanics would never have any patience with me. Plus, I'd played a little bit of WoW and XBox Live, and the online culture in those kinds of games just wasn't for me at all, so I focused on CoH the way I'd focus on a single-player RPG, except one with a huge variety of story themes and playing styles to choose from.

But I have never, ever had a bad teaming experience. Yuki ran the first Terra Volta trial, fought several Giant Monsters and helped a few people with missions, Shade ran the Numina and Ms. Liberty TF's and helped a team take down Eochai during the Halloween event, and tonight I led my first TF as New World Daughter and the Katie Hannon TF (which succeeded due to the awesome team who responded, not any uber leadership on my part ).

And they all went wonderfully. No arguing, no name-calling, none of the "what are you doing without IO sets, gtfo" responses I'd braced for: everyone was friendly, knowledgeable and patient with me if I faceplanted or just plain got lost on the map. I've never had a bad teaming experience at all in this game, and the credit goes entirely toward a very friendly and helpful player base that's just looking to have fun. I shouldn't have been so afraid to reach out to people, and I hate that it took the game shutting down, and maybe losing a culture that's unique among MMO's, to realize that.

The TF went great - thank you to everyone who joined and made it possible! We had an awesome team, there's no way we would've gotten through those ten Mary fights without some really great players helping out.

Katie Hannon's missions don't lend themselves very well to group screenshots, but here's one that at least has everyone in it...



Thank you to Power Staff, Man in Gray, Rylee, Angel of Retribution, Hope Burns and Ornament for a great run!

Afterward we went on a GM hunt for Eochai, Sally and Jack, and I think the results speak for themselves...



Thank you to Forest Lion for taking the level 50 lead on the hunt and scouting them out so quickly, and to Rylee, Angel of Retribution, Hope Burns, Ornament, Beautifull Darkness and Via con Dios for a flawless battle against the GM's (and we ended up getting four Giant Monsters for the price of two - Jack and Eochai were wandering separately down south and fighting each other up north at the same time).

NWD's background is deeply tied to the Croatoa plot and running this TF with her lets her story come to a happy ending, with Virginia reconciling with the Cabal and triumphing over the Red Caps. Thanks again to everyone who made that possible, and I'm glad to have been able to help a few people get closer to earning the Geas accolade (and congrats to Ornament, I think, who got it during the run).

At least two pieces of music have always struck me as the perfect zone themes...

Ouroboros - Memory Gospel, Moby
Echo Dark Astoria - Boo, Pinback

Memory Gospel just fits the tranquil otherworldly atmosphere of Ouroboros so well, and as for Boo and foggy Dark Astoria, that song's given me goosebumps with its understated eeriness while roaming the ruined streets.

Speaking of which...

Dark Astoria - Suffocation, White Ring

Nothing understated here, but it fits perfectly for "new" Astoria, especially the distorted vocals and the way the beat slowly builds from industrial ambiance into almost a military march.

I have some character themes (well, more like some character playlists) as well, but I'll end with an accidental discovery made last night while finishing the last mission of Croatoa. This song worked as a surprisingly perfect soundtrack for defending the henge against the Red Caps and saving Salamanca, complete with fading out right as the last Red Cap dropped and the mission ended...

Saving Salamanca - The Pining Pt 2, Clark

A pixie after my own heart! ^_^

So this is sort of a silly post in light of everything else going on, but there's nobody else I know that'd appreciate the humor. I finished the first SSA just recently after getting a character to 50 who could run it from start to finish, and ran into one of those $target dialogue quirks that sometimes strike masterminds and their pets. I'd never actually seen one before, but this was just perfectly delivered...



What does Darrin Wade know about the Grave Knight that we don't?

Now I'm picturing the Grave Knight getting inspired by Tyrka's praise and setting off on his own spinoff adventure, like the Prinnies in "Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero..."

The end's unfortunately drawing near, and for New World Daughter, Virginia Dare as a rogue Cabal sorceress (if you're curious to learn more about her origin story and costume, here you go), closure means making peace with the wayward Cabal and bashing in Red Cap skulls one last time in the Katie Hannon Task Force.

Sunday, November 18th @8:00pm Eastern Time

1. New World Daughter - Electric/Storm Corrupter
2. Angel of Retribution - Sword/Regen Scrapper
3. Pheonix Blaze - Fire/Fire Blaster
4. Miggy Man - Electric/Energy Blaster
5.
6.

It's a relatively quick TF, a chance for lots of XP via the inexhaustable archvillain Mary MacComber, to earn the Cabalist badge and to complete the toughest requirement for the Geas of the Kind Ones accolade. Plus it's all about beating down the Red Caps, which is always a plus.

Right now NWD's almost at level 31 and I'm hoping she'll be at 35 by this weekend to lead the group; if not, the level 35+ AoR will be leading it instead to make sure the team can keep up with Mary's horde o' Cabal. I've never led a TF before or ran this particular one, and it definitely wouldn't be a quick expert run, just a fun romp in Croatoa to wrap up this character's arc.

Tanks and healers would probably come in handy against Mary MacComber (the team so far is nothing if not squishy), but anyone who wants to join is welcome!

Edit: Depending on time and popular demand, a Jack in Irons/Eochai GM hunt may follow.

Thanks! In a perfect world (i.e. the world before August 31st >_>), I would have ran all the incarnate trials, filled each slot and returned to Dark Astoria with the Alpha, Lore and Judgement abilities all at her command for the ultimate Banished Pantheon beatdown. In the real world, I'll just settle for running Ramiel's arc and then rushing off to Captain Nolan, trusting to low difficulty settings and her IO's to see her through the battle.

And yep, this game really does indeed keep us chasing after the shinies.

(Edit: Case in point! I just did the incarnate thread math and it won't actually be that hard to run an Ephram mission a night to get her all incarnated up...)

Thanks! I wish I'd had the presence of mind to copy/paste the screenshot like you did into Paint and capture all the windows and messages, and my leveling spot isn't nearly as epic as the battle you were fighting in the Shard with Rularuu's servants, but here it is, Astorian Shade hitting 50 right in the midst of saving some scientists in front of Portal Corp from the pesky Circle of Thorns...



With the AE arc "Astoria in D Minor," though, it all worked perfectly for her character: having that as her last story mission before hitting level 50 made it feel like... hm, "Astoria in D Minor" spoilers!

SPOILERS!

.
.
.

Like Mot was making one last attempt to break her will and reclaim her, and she fought it off and went back to fighting against evil, with her rescuing the scientists being the last symbolic act that breaks Mot's influence completely.

Plus the satisfaction of hearing the trainers say "there's nothing more I can teach you" isn't bad either.

...hey, ghosts look young for their age.

While most of my characters either don't have a single conflict that needs to be resolved by November 30th or their driving conflict happens to be in the middle of the game, Astorian Shade's story has always been about her going back to Dark Astoria and defeating Mot. I gave up on that possibility when the news broke about the game closing, and then a few weeks I decided to hell with giving up and instead began to level her like crazy with countless hours of street sweeping, task forces, the few AE farms that work for a mastermind, and taking advantage of any and every zone invasion to keep grinding as much as possible. At the beginning of the month she was level 33, and tonight she just hit 50.

Thank you to everyone who helped with the player question thread on how to level up more efficiently, everyone who's cheered her on via tells, and to the teams she joined for the recent Numina Task Force and Ms. Liberty Task Force runs - they were both great teams and really fun to play. Anyway, since this is my first level 50 character, and undoubtedly the last, I just wanted to post it here and thank everyone who helped out with it.

Now, onto Dark Astoria! After that much grinding, how hard can killing one measly death god be?

Done! Shade's now level 50, and her trip back to Dark Astoria awaits! I ended up using Magic Burrito a bit until around the mid-40s its rewards began to taper off, then took advantage of the Halloween weekend to let her henchmen fight the zombies and Terror banner enemies while I ran around doing other stuff, and then went back to street sweeping the Rikti and using Experienced powers for the last five levels, with a Ms. Liberty Task Force pushing her almost to the edge of 49. Then a few more runs through the Rikti farm I made for her, then a run through the arc "Astoria in D Minor" (which really is as good as everyone says), and then one last bit of sweeping in front of Portal Corp and she's set!

Thank you to everyone for your help!

George Lucas... sold... LucasFilm?

I honestly never, ever imagined that being possible! And with that frightened look in his eyes in the promo photo of the contract being signed, I'm wondering if he woke up one morning to find a tauntaun head on his pillow...

@Sparkly Soldier

I'll take a LotG too, since all my reward merits combined might be able to scrounge up three recipes. Thanks!

That ended up being much better than I expected! It's a long shot, but here's hoping the ratings convince NBC to give the series a try after all.

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of that video. ^_^

Hmm, I think the tape recording in the original trilogy's a better way of getting the incantation read than having a character read the book. What makes the tape clever is that you don't hear what happened or why the recording's dangerous until after it's played the recitation, by which point it's already too late, and it dodges the contrived circumstance of having the characters feel the need (and having the ability) to read the words out loud themselves.

That said, it looks good, well-shot, faithful to the original camera work, and I kinda like the J-horror reimagining of the deadites. I get the feeling it's going to wind up like the Nightmare on Elm Street remake: good enough and respectful enough to the original movie that you don't really hate it, but watching it just kinda makes you wish you were watching the original.

Okay, after the Double XP weekend, Shade's Patrol XP and the vet reward XP Boosters ran out, even the Rikti just became too slow and cumbersome to deal with, so I gave Magic Burrito a try on the custom level 1 build you suggested (with Tar Patch swapped out for Boxing) - and it works great! Got about a bar and a half of XP in 10 minutes, so it looks like it'll add up to a level an hour like you said (and with a goal of a level of a night, currently 43, and extra time this weekend, she'll be at 50 within a few days), and Boxing, Dark Blast and Gloom form a perfect attack sequence even apart from Hasten's effects. And as for the farm's story... I gotta admit, it's creative.

I'm hoping to have time to revisit some of the arcs via Flashback, but for now my focus is just on racing her to 50 so the return to Dark Astoria can begin. Between Shade's battle against Mot, New World Daughter finishing Croatoa and leading a Katie Hannon TF, and Yuki running the Path Into Darkness arc and then hopefully joining a Moonfire TF, these characters are going to be scrambling between now and November 30th...