Listen my child and you shall
hear...of how “Mad” Matt made some IRK members lives a little
more interesting. We all have met those players, the ones who don't
seem to pay attention to the chat channels and rush into trouble
without preparing for it. Some of us have even done it ourselves,
before we knew better. I've been gaming online with Matt since early
2009. On Anarchy Online, we belong to The Independent Rubikans org,
now being run by our friend “Namiru”. Nam encourages us to help
out others in the game and strengthen overall relations with the rest
of the community.
This story came about as we were in
the middle of leveling our paid account characters in the Temple of
the Three Winds static dungeon. Nam was on his Temple services toon,
“Keepdafaith”, when a team of people from the Union org came to
us in need of help gaining the Stygian Desolator.
A marvelous, blade this thing is! It
is the size of most people's toons (about five or six feet in game
space), with a bright orange-red, curved blade. The description for
it reads thus:
“...the path back to Paradise is
lined with the bones of my enemies. Their screams soothe me during
the long nights, when I dream of what I have lost. I laugh when I
recall their writhing anguish, their groveling to please me, the hope
that their suffering will be put to an end. But I feed from their
anguish and the begging look in their eyes as they grovel at my feet,
hoping for a cessation...“
It is dropped by Aztur the Immortal
in a room deep within the Temple. However, first, we had to fight our
way through the bosses who spawn before Azi: Uklesh the Frozen and
Khalum. And before them, we had Gartua the Doorkeeper, the Guardian
of Tomorrow, and other enemies agging us. Which was everything. In
ToTW, even if it's grey and several levels below you, it will attack.
A lot of people don't even bother killing on the way out, but rather
train all the minor enemies (and some bosses) up to the exit.
Now this was the first time Matt and I
had ever heard of the Styg (as it is affectionately called). I
remember Nam telling us about it over the Skype call we were on. He
made mention that we were to let a specific person from the Union
loot Azi's corpse when we were done, but a certain person didn't seem
to be paying any attention. Matt was on his Martial Artist and was
busy killing his way through the corridors with the other team
members.
We broke into the room and killed
everything, then turned our attention to Uklesh. After the first two
bosses fell at the alter, we found ourselves face to face with the
big bad, himself. This was actually the first time Matt and I had
faced any of the final bosses for the Temple. Nam and the other IRK
members had warned us of trying to take them on. We managed to make
it through Azi, but it was a close call.
Then Matt rushed forward. Then Matt
opened the corpse. The Nam and I heard Matt say, “Ooooo! What's
this? Well no one's going to be using it, so I guess I'll take it!”
In the chat window, the team saw the phrase: “
looted Stygian Desolator.” The Styg is, of course, “No Drop”
and ”Unique”, meaning that once you pick it up, it's yours.
There's no trading it to other players and no selling it to a shop.
Our escort proceeded to flip out in
the chat, “A MA?! Are freaking kidding me?!” Matt and I were
promptly kicked from the team, and Matt's toon went on to commit
obligatory seppuku. It was one of those Oh-Shit-What-Have-We-Done
moments. We'd seen their members running around, so they were a
definitely an active org during a time when even the biggest orgs lay
barren, gathering dust. The last thing we wanted to do was make 'em
mad. Fortunately Nam was able to run the Union members through again,
after waiting for the lowbie escort to run back from the Shadowlands.
In fact, one of the guys apologized for the escort blowing his stack,
and said the guy was a bit of a n00b. Eventually Nam was able to kill
Azi again and the Styg was gotten by the appropriate player and all
ended happily ever after
Later we discussed the incident with
our friend Bob, another IRK member. “What?! Oh man, we shared a
chat bot with them!” he exclaimed in despair. However, IRK hasn't
suffered from any severe fallout from the event. We still see members
of the Union around along with quite a few orgs that are still
hanging in there. Perhaps if the graphics update goes through, we'll
see a resurgence, if brief, in the ones that have shut down in recent
years. Matt and I are now playing on our fr00b Enforcers, which have
far surpassed our paid mains in levels. Matt has also been doing a
review show on Mad Matt Reviews bliptv and Mad Matt Reviews Youtube. I'm sure he'd appreciate polite
constructive criticism. Don't forget to say hi to the IRK on Rubi-Ka!
