Prologue
It was the start of something great. The start of the search for random players to join on an epic quest to slay Crota. My hope was high, but the future was a lie. It would take moons to discover this, moons so few of us have to discover such things. The team assembled and all was good. Peace, it would seem.
The Journey Begins...
The atmosphere of the chat was cool and calm as we assembled in orbit and my friend began asking our new fellowship if they had mics.
"I am here," one quickly called out. Others soon followed.
"HEY GUYS HEHEHEHEHEHEHE I LOVE THIS RAID I'VE ALREADY DONE IT LIKE TEN TIMES HEHEHEHE!"
I recognized this creature's laughter, as I had heard it many times as a child. I became frightened at this point, frightened that we had accidentally recruited a child. Children do not make good raid members.
"You've done it ten times? Isn't this only the second week of the raid?"
"OH YEAH! HEHEHEHEHE YOU'RE F@#$ING RIGHT MAN!"
A heavy silence followed after this, was it five to ten seconds? Perhaps it was more.
"Okay, let's just calm down and do this. So just to make sure one last time, does everybody know what their doing?"
"Yes," everyone responds in unison, including the child. Were it not for the miles between my friend and I, I would have looked over at him from my sofa and given the signal to kick the child, but I could not. It was too late. Events were now set in motion that could not be undone. I had neither the blunt cruelness to carry out the deed I wished done, nor the ability.
Run!
We began to run from the thralls, lighting lanterns as we went. The child died on the second hole, even after our group "leader" called out the hole.
"F%$K! WHERE THE F%$K DID THAT HOLE COME FROM!? THAT HOLE HAS NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE!?"
A tear falls from my left eye as the pain begins. It is a pain I have known my whole life. It is the pain of inevitable loss. The tear dry cold near my chin stubble as I say the words,
"It's alright, we're going to be just fine."
"WELL ALRIGHT GUYS JUST DON'T BE NOOBS AND DIE AND WE'LL BE OKAY."
This child does not deserve gear I think. He deserves to be kicked. I keep my thoughts silent. This is not Game of Thrones. I cannot push him out of a window. I cannot have my dragons set him aflame. I cannot remove his head.
"Hey ******69 can you turn your mic down?"
"YEAH MAN SURE."
Does not follow through. Gets raid gear at completion of first task. Shouts vulgarity to feel big and strong. Laughs at the party members that did not receive raid gear. Says that they are weak. Someone attempts to say something, but my friend is quick, he diverts the conversation to reminding our group about everything we need to do to beat the bridge. We are not the cheesing type.
A guardian is down.
The child has leaped from the starting point to show us how far he could make it while soaring through the air. We are not impressed. His death timer costs us thirty seconds. He dies once more while carrying the sword across the bridge by jumping off of the bridge halfway through. He is the second to the last person to cross it.
Believe it or not, we successfully make it through the hallway and into the chest room. Yay. Hope is returning. Patience soon follows. We kill the Deathsinger without losing anyone. A Godsend? Perhaps. There are no words for what follows.
Death
My friend and I explain everything that must be done in this section. We are confident that we can defeat Crota. Our team has just bent over Deathsinger and slayed her like the maniacal space witch that she is. We must now kill the beast. We finish our prep discussion and begin.
"OH SHIT GUYS I FORGOT!"
What has just happened? The child has tried to run and jump past all of the enemies that attack the center room. His death does not dissuade us until we realize that he has crossed the threshold that starts the timer on Crota. We are forced to wipe and start again. We slay the enemies and give Crota seven good swings. The beast is weaker now, but none on our team are graced with level thirty-two. Our work is harder because of this, but we strive for greatness. The child dies again, but so does another party member. We cannot scold the child.
At this point we have decided that the child either sucks at the game, or has not actually ever done the raid before. We assign him to killing thralls. He proceeds to rocket them. One of his rockets hits a wall in front of his face while we are all running into the center room to shield ourselves from the ogres. The Oversoul slays us.
"Don't worry guys. It's really not that hard, we've got this," I say. I am optimistic.
Thirteen wipes follow. They are not all ridiculous, but some are. Much of it is a blur, even for this experience for which I remember so well. Even now it is as if my brain wishes to punish me for remembering these events it has worked to hard to hide. Having had enough (as ten or more of these wipes were the result of a death by ******69), my friend tells him that if he dies again, we will kick him. I agree with him, and say that it is "really not hard, let's just focus".
We succeed in dropping Crota to very low health. The beast is not amused. He runs to us.
"RUN!" I shout with the others. We flee. The child dies, but we are so close. I can forgive his ignoring our calls. It will not matter when we claim the treasure Crota's death will bring us.
"F%$K YOU GUYS! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME HE WAS COMING!?" Everyone remains silent. The Oversoul tastes our blade. "F%$K! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE GOING TO F%$#ING FINISH WITHOUT ME." I can, I say to myself. Soon we will be rid of this vile creature! "NO DON'T DO IT! DON'T KILL HIM WITHOUT ME!"
"What did you say?" my friend says. His voice is very serious. It reminds me of the time he received a test back in college. The grade was not adequate. We are killing the Swordbearer now, his blade falling to the ground seconds later. "You little piece of s$#t," my friend finishes. ******69 disappears as we drop Crota's shields for the last time, our voices shouting "Go! Go! Go!" so loudly that feedback spits through the chat. Our own swordbearer cheers as his guardian shoves the sword so far up the beast's rectum that it almost makes up for the incessant, insolent, abhorrent child we have had to deal with for so long.
We see the items flash across the screen, but it does not seem like that much. Several of us receive great things, myself a piece of raid gear and light of the abyss, but something is missing. "What did you guys get?" someone asks. Everyone responds but the child.
"Where's ******69?" I ask.
"I f%$#ing kicked him. F%$k him. I hope he dies in pool of Crota's s$#t, in a tub made of Crota's frozen piss, surrounded by thralls that all have herpes and monster c%$ks and they just keep f%$#ing him to death and he's forced to respawn in that same giant pile of Crota's s$#t!"
"****," I start, "-are you f%$king okay man?"
"Yeah man, I just f%$king hate kids like that!"
"You know..." I start again. My friend is mad. I search for the words to say as I have done so many times before, but I cannot find any. The truth is, the kid really was a little poop. He really was. There is nothing good to be said about him. It would have been better to have kicked him at the start and found someone else on LFG. Then I say,
"We used to be that way too."