Guild Wars 2

Yes, THAT’S the problem. It doesn’t need a buff OR a nerf. The problem is entirely a technical one, and there apparently isn’t an easy solution within the limitations of the engine or servers or whatever.

Condition damage, in and of itself, is NOT weak at all. As noted, in PvP scenarios, the ability to deal damage without having to sustain an attack can be devastating. Also, in small group PvE settings, having 1 condition damage build is not a problem at all, and can largely keep up damage wise.

Where condition damage falters is in PvE, large group, open world settings (which has become the bulk of the content). Enemy mobs hit the condition cap so quickly that a lot of condition damage winds up wasted.

I’ve played a couple games where developers were willing to discuss kitten near anything, but those were mostly “indie” or “small studio” games…

… and the end result of a lot of that discussion changed next to kitten all.

How about we NOT start guessing and speculating so that we aren’t disappointed and enraged when it inevitably does not meet the wild speculations we had prematurely formed?

I can’t say I like the “unlocking” mechanism at all.

I thought it was inane and stupid in GW1, and I don’t see how it’s going to be any better in GW2, especially if they start adding a bunch of traits. I hated having to hunt down a specific boss to find an elite I HAD to have if I was going to be accepted into GW1’s group play. I’m going to loathe it if it starts becoming prevalent in GW2 as well.

Drakent.9605:

Shockwave.1230:

There are some enemies that zerker make die so quick you don’t have to avoid damage, but many Elites, Champions, and Legendaries you still have to avoid damage from, which is more punishing on zerkers if you don’t.

I would argue that zerker doesn’t make bad players, it makes better farmers.

Zerker will always be the optimal set as long as active defense trumps sustained defense.

You can watch videos on youtube where ppl stand on top of the boss and there HP never drops down or there dodge bar never goes down either

Luping whos is suppose to be the 1 of the strongest dungeon boss was kill in 40 sec with out any of the member’s getting hit with out the need of using dodge

Lupicus, ironically enough, gets downed in 40 seconds usually because a mesmer properly times and uses Feedback, which is by design a DEFENSIVE skill.

Berzerker gear is not nearly the problem people want it to be.

If there is a bottleneck in the development process, I suspect it’s more terms of manpower and only so many hours in a day more than money at this point.

That’s kinda my thinking too, Clex… opening up new regions within a continent can be something that can (and I think will) be done with the Living Story model.

Entire continents (be they Cantha, Elona, or elsewhere)… that’d be a pretty large update, especially since everyone in the world doesn’t exactly have the most powerful Internet access. A traditional expansion model might be the best way to go about that.

The MMO market (and indeed all of entertainment) has ALWAYS been about making money, let’s not pretend there was this “pure” era that has somehow been lost over the years.

Slowpoke.2749:

Still no one is addressing the issues that were brought up. I do not care how much the OP spent, how much the commenters spent or how much their dogs spent. Look, I’m sure we could find people who have spent thousands on the game while being online for a couple of hours each week before quitting or going inactive so their investment would be closer to a couple of dollars per hour. It’s not the point.

- patches and their timeframe
- WvW season bringing no changes
- class (un)balance
- lack of permanent content
- GW1 might have been more engaging

I know I’m asking for a lot here but could someone give their opinion on these instead of calculating the amount the OP spent per the hour?

1) All I know about that is that the Living Story started out once a month or so, and the complain then was that it was too slow and everyone was getting bored. So they moved to twice a month and a different group of people complained it was too much too fast.

2) I’ll be honest, I don’t play much WvW, so I don’t have much of an opinion on it. If my tier is any indication (admittedly, my home is TC), it doesn’t seem to have THAT many issues if my queues when I do try are any indication.

3) I hear a lot about this, I haven’t seen too much of it, or feel it’s any more particularly out of whack than what is usual with any MMO. Balance isn’t simply as easy as tweaking numbers, and for all the talk about how overpowered warriors are, I remember not too long ago they were the red-headed stepchildren of the game.

4) Honestly doesn’t bother me. Even IF the Living Story stuff was permanent, I doubt people would play it much beyond those initial two weeks anyway. Players are more comforted by the thought that content exists rather than actually PLAYING said content.

5) Entirely subjective. I can say that I like GW2 quite a bit more than GW1… but hey, that’s just my opinion, man.

I’ve got no problem with him being bored or burned out or tired of the content or disappointed that it’s not what he wanted out of the game. That’s fine, man. But when you grumble about “only” 1500+ hours spent on a game… yeah… that’s kinda silly.

You killed a clever clone of Scarlet’s, while the real one escaped through that cave.

/nods sagely.

I think what there needs to be is more emphasis on the aftermath of living story content. It’s not that the content needs to be permanent, but the impact of it needs to be. For much of the early “first season”, you’d have this week of content, and then it would end and everything would be back to normal like nothing ever happened.

That got a little better, at least superficially (the Queen’s Jubilee is still “there” but inaccessible, the ruins of the Tower of Nightmares still lingers… but it really didn’t change much of the events that happen there). The Marionette event already feels like it never happened, and the jury is still out on just how “sticky” the Battle for Lion’s Arch will wind up being.

That honestly is probably my biggest beef with the Living Story (outside of its subjective story writing quality). The events really don’t have any lasting impact. A lot of dynamic events continued on like nothing was going on (like with Tower of Nightmares, kitten if the centaurs didn’t seem the LEAST bit concerned that it literally popped up on top of them).

If you want your living story to change the world… it needs to actually… change the world, and by and large Season 1 didn’t do that. We’ll see if that improves come Season 2.

It at least looks like it will start to provide new zones and new areas, which is more like a traditional expansion, and I hope so for the game’s sake. I understand Arena.net’s desire to get players to fill their world… but that’s NEVER how MMO players have been, and they aren’t going to do it. They’re going to crowd whatever they consider “endgame” and always will… and no, they’ll never buy into the whole world being endgame.

Enjoying the ride? Meh. Hit and miss is the best I can sum it up.

The problem I have is that MMOs are REALLY weird in the level of expectations than pretty much ANYWHERE else. They are unique in just how much bang they expect for their buck. A level of expectation that I think is patently absurd.

The gem-store issue is a non-starter. So what if you DID put in say… $1000 in gem store sales? You’re still looking at roughly less than a dollar an hour investment, which is STILL well below average in return than kitten near anywhere else.

(And I think it’s safe to say that Mr. 1500-Hours-and-Already-Bored hasn’t put $1000 into this game.)

I get it just fine. The OP is burned out at this point. Okay. S/He’s disappointed with Living Story content. Okay. I’ve got no problem with any of that. But the idea that s/he hasn’t gotten his/her money’s worth at this point is ridiculous. I mean, it’s okay to be bored with it. Put it down. Walk away.

But anywhere else with any other medium of entertainment (or even any other genre in THIS medium) would consider 1500 hours money well spent. I find it VERY odd.

I dunno. If you were putting money into the gem shop… I would HOPE it was because you liked what you were buying. Why would you spend money on something you didn’t like or thought was boring?

Do you make a habit of throwing money at things you don’t approve of?

Jamais vu.5284:

Let me rephrase his point:
The hardcore PvE community interested in raids and other endgame content.
The sPvP community.
The hardcore WvW community.
Even the roleplayers.
They are all dying. People are leaving by the day without replacement. You’d easily see this if you talked to people that fit those needs. The only thing left by ANet’s own admission is the Living Story.

1) You’d have no way of demonstrating ANY of that bitter spiel, other than your own confirmation bias, which unfortunately for you doesn’t pass any objective test.

2) The few numbers that ARE provided (via revenues) suggest you could not be more wrong. The game is doing just fine, and in fact has exceeded Arena.net’s expectations.

The game’s NOT dying, no matter how much you wish it would. I guess you’re just gonna have to keep on being disappointed you didn’t get exactly what you wanted out of GW2 while it moves on without you.

Alright everyone… take a drink.

Ya know, it’d be easier to believe Chicken Little if he hadn’t been screaming that the sky has been falling for the last year and a half. No matter how many times you repeat it, it’s not going to make it any more true.

The game’s not dying, no matter how much you wish it would. Arena.net isn’t going to come crawling back to you with the GW1 with updated graphics you want, even if GW2 were to die. I’m sorry.

Because if they were made freely available to new character creation, you KNOW that the legions would swarm to these forums in a righteous fury screaming that it’s not fair that new players get things that old players would have to pay gems for.

Easier to make EVERYONE pay for it rather than SOME people… and make more money that way too.

The problem exists when the “Triple A High standards” that fans have set are beyond reasonable.

What other game/entertainment genre would 1500+ hours for $60 be claimed as a disappointment and NOT get you laughed right out of the room?

“Yeah, that book I bought, I read it 1000 times. Total waste of my money.”

“I only watched that film 1200 times. I should be able to get my money back.”

“I can’t believe I spent $60 on that DVD set. I only watched it 700 times!”

“Guys, don’t waste your money on The Last of Us. It’s only good for about 1500 hours then you’ll be bored with it. Wait until it’s in the bargain bin.”

Does that sound stupid to you? It should.

Every so often, I am reminded about the absolutely absurd expectations (demands) some MMO players have for titles in the genre. I honestly think it is the ONLY genre of entertainment where 1500+ hours for $60 or so is considered by a good many to be a horrible disappointment.

The sheer amount of entitlement in this thread… holy hell. Bored after ONLY 1500 hours. You POOR THING!

And Malediktus, 1500 hours is a ton of time, MMO or not. I understand you’re disappointed you didn’t get your GW1 with graphical upgrades, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I can vouch for Kiel being present on the Breachmaker.

Her gaze as she revived me burned into my soul.

Umm… if you missed the REPEATED statements that those merchants would be gone on the 18th… I’m sorry, but that’s YOUR problem.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Carighan.6758:

To a degree, I think it cannot truly be fixed. It’s simply not possible to perfectly “protect” every achievement against players wanting to be kittens.

And that’s the bigger issue in the end, that you’ll always have players being idiots, and you rarely have a way to do something about it (you can’t kill their chars).

What I do think should be done however is that Leeching and AFKing should be reportable offences, and combat credit should be a decaying thing.

Yes it absolutely is. Don’t make achievements in which the optimal course is to not participate. Instead make achievements that involve getting hit by things. Instead of avoiding the megalaser attack, get hit by it and survive. That’s how you fix it.

Leeching and AFKing should not EVER be reportable. They should simply not be rewarded. You can’t and shouldn’t force people to participate, but you absolutely can make it so that a lack of participation leads to nothing.

Okay… so instead of people coming in for the last 10% of the fight, they get hit by something right away, then go into the corner and AFK. Now, you’ve simply shifted their “contribution” from the end of the fight to the start.

People who seek the path of least resistance aren’t going to change their stripes because you changed the rules. They’ll just game the system in a different way. You have fixed NOTHING with your proposed changes. Kittens will be kittens no matter what you do.

It’s one of the most overpowered downed skills to be sure, but if you honestly couldn’t finish off the Ranger in the 5 or so seconds before that skill is even AVAILABLE for them to use, you probably have other issues to deal with than the downed Ranger.

The Ranger’s #3 downed skill “Lick Wounds” revives the Ranger’s pet to full AND starts assisting the Ranger’s revival… if that is what you are referring to.

They made it pretty clear that high level Fractal players were not going to be compensated in any way, shape, or form, and that Arena.net was not going to be swayed on that score.

Anyone who hung around this long hoping for them to change their mind was fooling themselves. What really was left to be said other than, “Nope. Still haven’t changed our mind. Our answer is going to be the same no matter how many times you ask”?

Worried about what? So there are new MMOs in the pipeline. And…?

This may come as a surprise, but game developers really do NOT worry about what other developers are doing. They may look at what other developers do, and entertain how to incorporate the ideas of others into their own game, but as a general rule, next to no one development side thinks, “Oh God… [x] game is going to do [y] on the date [z]! We need something to counter it!”

That tends to be something publishers worry about, not so much developers.

There’s actually a conspiratorial tin-foil hat part of me that sometimes thinks a part of the reason Arena.net is trying to push this in-game “Living Story Expansion-like Content” idea rather than boxed expansions so that said content is released on THEIR schedule rather than NCSoft’s.

(Bear in mind, I know that’s not the real reason, but yeah, even I dabble with the tin foil on occasion.)

The way I see it… if they want to keep handing me stuff for free (and hope I support their efforts with cash shop purposes), I’m certainly not going to tell them, “Nah, bro. Charge me money for this kitten, man. I don’t want free stuff.” I’m not stupid.

They want to eventually produce a boxed expansion, I’d be fine with that too. I fully suspect they will at some point, simply because of the sheer amount of stagnant idiots who have decided that anything other than a traditional expansion is unacceptable.

Well, in this case, I could actually see Arena.net doing so.

Having “unlocked” skins available in a locker (which you’d then use trans stones on to change your look as desired) would probably net them more funds than the “one and done” method they currently have, where skins disappear once unwritten.

Give people the freedom to alter their look at whim… and watch trans stone sales skyrocket.

ThorZimeron.2169:

They also need to make it so you can change builds (skills/traits) on the fly, like GW1, instead of this ridiculous, WoW-inspired “Go back to laggy town to talk to trainer” crap. Would encourage people to change up their builds to fit situations, instead of trying to build for anything an failing at it.

Man, you and I clearly played different GW1’s.

Because the version I played made you “go back to laggy town” (or some other outpost) to change your skills and traits as well.

I think what you’d discover is that the bulk of the player base would rather just dump $10 on gems to buy something they want rather than grind through content either to A) Eventually get it in game or B) rely on RNG that it drops for them.

There’s a couple of factors, I suspect.

1) Simple familiarity. MMOs by and large are the only major genre of games that still cling to the expansion model. Most others have moved on to the DLC model that Arena.net is trying to modify for their use. Gamers don’t like it, because they don’t like change, and never really have. I’m sure there are a good many who reject the LS/DLC model for this reason (though they’ll never admit it).

2) For those that ARE willing to give this a legitimate shot… the problem is that while there’s no real reason the Living Story CAN’T provide expansion like content, the truth is that so far it HASN’T. Gamers are not only stagnant by nature, they are also IMPATIENT. They want more of the same, and they want it now NOW NOW!

They’re like the bratty 5-year old in the toy aisle in the supermarket, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I WANT THIS! I WANT THAT! I’M GONNA HOLD MY BREATH!!!” Temper tantrums are their go to response whenever they don’t get everything they want. Arena.net should ignore them and let them play something else, but they can’t afford to.

We’ll see an expansion. Question is will it be soon enough.

If you didn’t progress too far, it might be more worth your coin to just delete your characters and pick again from scratch.

Developers tend not to worry about what other developers do and when. I really don’t think Wildstar or Elder Scrolls release date is much of a consideration to what Arena.net is doing, if any at all.

PUBLISHERS are the ones that tend to do the worrying about timing and windows for release. A publisher would sit on a completed title for MONTHS if they feel the money would be worth it in the end.

So, if it seems from Arena.net comments that they don’t seem the least bit bothered about other MMO releases… it’s probably because they aren’t.

Here’s Devata’s complaint in a nutshell.

1) Devata collects minis.

2) Devata doesn’t want to pay for minis.

3) Devata thinks an expansion model would mean free minis.

4) Therefore, only an expansion model is acceptable, and has fashioned his/her wordy, convoluted arguments completely around that predetermined conclusion.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

The problem with studies, is that with enough of the ‘right’ candidates, they can be swayed to show pretty much anything. I do admit (see my other post to Mirta) that they should all be taken with a grain of salt. From my personal experience, I am apt to learn towards the average iq dropping. Or perhaps, people just prefer to act like idiots. I honestly don’t know.

I dunno if it’s an example of more people are acting like idiots or that people as a whole are less intelligent as much as it is our society has advanced to the point that a much larger sample size of humanity have the opportunity to express their ignorance more often.

For example, during the Victorian Era, when you were assessing the intelligence of people, chances are you weren’t grabbing the illiterate janitor across town, or the maize farmer 50 miles away from Cambridge. You were assessing your contemporaries, students, people who had reason to learn and expand their knowledge. What remains of that era tend to be the most learned, the most accomplished, the most recognized (ie the creme de le creme). I’m betting if you were to give a Facebook like means of letting EVERYONE of that era have a voice you’d find that it’d be no better as a whole than now, if not far far worse.

Every MMO has that “bubble.” Every MMO has their glut of players that don’t know how to play beyond the rudimentary basics and really don’t care or want to learn. Everquest had them, WoW has them, SWToR has them, hell even GW1 had those players.

I also suspect said bubble represents the bulk of MMO players; they want mindless “fun.” Anything that requires learning or practice is “work”, and if they wanted “work” they’d be pulling extra time at their job… not in a video game that’s supposed to be “fun.”

Where GW2 differs is that there has been increasingly more open-world and living story content that asks (and requires) those players to rise to the challenge… and they, as a rule, have objectively REFUSED.

You see it in feedback from frustrated players. Players who refuse to release from a waypoint after being entirely defeated. Zerging into this massive ball and having no impact on the Dynamic Knights. Failing all that, they’ll do the bare minimum, hide in a corner, then go AFK.

“I’ll play how I want! kitten off!” Is their battle cry, and they tend to be the first in line to whine incessantly when something is “too hard” and “not fun.” And they will continue to groan and bellyache until the content they want to do is nerfed to the ground rather than take the time to be a better player.

How do you make them better? You don’t. They are completely immobile on this score. You have one of two options; dumb down everything so they can participate happily, or gate difficult content into its own instance where they won’t be offended by its presence.

Taurok.6708:

I suddenly want my money back. Guess that’s my problem, too.

Yes it is, because at this point, you have no grounds to demand it. You bought a product, you got a product. That you don’t like the company’s “transparency” is YOUR problem. Deal with it.

Well, let me put it this way:

I had to rework a couple parts of the original manuscript in order to avoid the dreaded word filter…

… except the one place where it was entirely intended.

Tru Reptile.6058:

I’ve never understood the need or desire to have levels, but apparently I’m one of the few that doesn’t get a chubby seeing the number next to my character’s name go up by one.

Levels are great for restricting players and make having alts a chore.

Shouldn’t player progression (experience gained from playing) be more important?

It’s just kitten near two decades of conditioning. It’s how MMOs have done it for so kitten long that anything that DOESN’T do it isn’t REALLY an MMO. It’s the same reason why to this day we have random chests strewn about in most RPGs (even when it would make absolutely no earthly sense).

It’s become what the market is familiar and comfortable with… and any attempt to break that conditioning is hit with the dreaded “not fun” label, and is rejected by the market.

I’m going to be declared a heretic for this… but I do remember quite vividly more than a handful of people wondering if [x] update for GW1 would allow characters to level past 20, and a bevy of fake pings and images of characters like, “I am Level 21 and 32,001 EXP away from next level!”

Even in the “anti-grind utopia”, there was a pretty strong desire for that sort of vertical progression.

Draknar.5748:

People want a carrot. Simple as that. Take away the carrot in GW2, and they move on to a game that provides a carrot.

Pretty much this.

MMO players WANT vertical progression. They WANT to feel like they are steadily getting stronger. An MMO without “levels” would be largely rejected by the MMO market. GW2 would be scoffed at outside of the GW1 veterans who would not be enough to carry the game on their own.

In order words, GW2 would have failed miserably.

Just completed it with no problem in an Overflow.

Sounds like we’ve got a lot of PEBKAC errors here.

“Break up the zerg! It’s ruining the game!!!”

“Gah! Let us zerg! What happened to ‘play how we want???’”

I don’t understand why Arena.net “doesn’t listen to their fans.” It’s not like the player base wants different things or anything.

(Part Four)

I laughed, part bitterly and part in genuine mirth. “I was lucky. It turned out to be Captain Logan Thackeray. He knew me, at least in passing, through my older sister. Anyone else in Divinity Reach probably would have killed me at that moment. He claims to this day that it was by pure chance… but I think either my sister or E tipped him off.”

Kasmeer gasped. “What happened?”

“I was more drunk than a rat in a Canthan Quarter wine cellar after the great collapse.” I said. “What do you think happened? Logan beat me senseless, drug me home, then stayed the night while I sobered up. As he left, he told me that he’d stop in every night, and if he learned I had been drinking that he’d drag me off to the stockade until I learned my lesson.”

I snorted once. “He meant it to. Checked in every night for thirty nights… I never had to test his threat, because I haven’t touched a drink since.”

Kasmeer blinked in disbelief. No doubt she was thinking of several cases where that didn’t seem true. “But at The Dead End…”

I smile. “The ‘Delaqua Special’ that only I am allowed to order? Seltzer water with a hint of lemon. I kept going there because the barkeep was a gentle sort and let me run my business there without asking for anything. It was a good place to find people who needed help and could give me cases to work on. Never drank a spirit or liquor or beer in that place in the last one hundred and sixty seven days.”

“Well, what about whenever Braham would share some of the stuff that he would get from his fellow norn?”

A mirthless chuckle escapes my lips. “Some sleight of hand if it was in a flask or skin, and some careful disposal when no one was looking if it was in a glass. Fortunately, I could usually pass it off after one ‘sip’ as something terrible.”

Kasmeer coughed, “Don’t worry. It usually was.” She then looked at me with such tenderness that I swore I felt my heart lurch. “Why didn’t you ever tell me… I mean, all of us this, Jory?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t want to ruin all of your fun by not joining in. But now you know, Kaz. I didn’t stand tall when the darkness hit me. I fell apart, piece by piece, until I had next to nothing left. You came to me, and I saw myself, on the verge of falling apart, and I’ve… used you, trying to make myself feel better by giving you what I never had.”

This time when she hugged me, I didn’t fight back. I could feel her tears on my cheek, and it triggered my own. “Oh, Jory… you don’t have to hide anything from us; not from me, or Braham, or Rox or…” She stopped abruptly, her eyes crossed in confusion, “Or… Tammy? Taffy?”

I quickly gathered who she was talking about; the child asura. “Taimi.”

“Yes! That’s right! Taimi.”

I gave Kaz a suspicious eye and asked, “When exactly was she invited into our group again?”

Kasmeer sighed, “Braham reached the conclusion that she’d invite herself in if we didn’t. Rox and I figured that at least with us we could keep an eye on her where clearly no one else would.” She gave a surprisingly light hearted laugh, and said, “What a group we make huh? Between you and I… the gladium Rox… Braham and his wartorn home… Taimi’s legs… we’re just all a bunch of horribly broken people fighting whatever bad guy or girl or plant comes in our way.”

Then her face lit up like one of the street lights. “That’s it!”

Now I’m worried. “What’s it?”

She turned to me with that broad, genuine smile that lit my whole world. “Our guild! We can call ourselves… Breaking Baddies!”

My jaw drops instinctively before I can pull it back up with a stern and simple, “No.”

“Awwww….”

My left eyebrow lifts, and I ask suspiciously, “And what is wrong with Delaqua Investigations now, anyway?”

Kasmeer shrugs, and she says sheepishly, “Braham thought it sounded stupid and Rox didn’t think it was intimidating enough.”

“I’ll show that kitten intimidating.” I growl. “But alright. The complaints are noted. We’ll talk about a new name… as a team.”

That earned me another one of Kaz’s smiles. “So… are we done thinking for tonight?”

I nod, “I think we are, love. Let’s get back to bed.”

I stand, then help her up, and as we retire to the bedroom once more, Kasmeer has one final question.

“So, with all this new sharing, have you warmed up a little bit more to the idea of pink curtains?”

I grin. Not a chance in the Underworld, girlie.

END

Author’s Note: This is a little something that I’ve actually been putting together slowly bit by bit as the Living World progressed and Marjory was introduced, evolving as the story evolved, and at this point, I think it’s finally ready. I hope you liked it.

(Part Three)

She then looks directly at me, and I can see the pain, the guilt… and it hurts me even more. “How is that fair to you? When things got darkest, you stood tall and persevered through it. I fell apart and used you shamelessly for support. How terrible am I that even now…”

I throw my arms around her, comforting and shushing her. The poor, silly girl. How could she feel that way? “Don’t talk like that, Kaz.” I say soothingly. “You’re no burden that I wouldn’t want. Don’t ever cry about that. I’ll be your lamp post for however long you…”

I come to a jarring stop as I realize I’m doing it again. I’m letting her express all her fears, all her emotions, and I’m eating it up. This has to stop, and it has to stop now.

I release her, then curl back up into my ball. I don’t want to do this… but it’s time. I have to. “Kaz, honey, if anyone is taking advantage of anyone… it’s me taking advantage of you.”

Kasmeer reacts to this concept with all the disbelief that I had when she expressed a similar thought. “How… how do you figure?”

And so I tell her. About Mendel. I had told her about the boy, of course, and the weapons his ghost trusted to me; but this time I tell her the whole story. How I watch the boy die, and how I watched his spirit get cast to the Mists by a hired necromancer. How it spurred me to resign from the Ministry Guard and start my detective agency.

Then I go further. “I know it seems like I got my life on track after that. I was free to do what I felt was right, even if I never entirely trust this ‘E’ fellow’s motivations. But that… wasn’t true. It wasn’t true at all. I failed Mendel, twice, and that memory has haunted me ever since.”

“For the next year and a half, I would wake up in the middle of the night, much like this, curl up in this corner, much like this, and cry. Cry and cry and cry. But there was one difference between then and now.”

Kasmeer had an awestruck look on her face, clearly stunned by this burst of transparency from me. “What’s that?” She asked with a whisper.

I point to the bottom shelf of the kitchen island. “Before I came here, I’d take a bottle from there, and take a good hard shot. It started simply enough, just one glass to take the edge off so that I could at least not completely collapse into a blubbering wreck.”

“But it didn’t stay at one. One became two. Two became three. Three became five… six… seven. Eight became however many I felt like taking.”

The tears began to form again. “I’m told my father was much the same way. I really don’t like talking about him because while I’ve been told any number of awful, terrible things he had done, there’s few of them I can prove; except that he beat me and my sisters, and that he drank. Heavily.”

I choke back a sob, and shrug off Kasmeer’s attempt to put her arm around my shoulders. “Do you want to know why I really don’t talk with my family much anymore?”

“Yes, Jory. Of course I do.” She replied earnestly. “Please… tell me.”

“My mother was disappointed when I left the Ministry Guard. She objected to me dropping out of such a dignified position to live in the slums. She had worked so hard to get out of my father’s control, and had worked so hard to give me the opportunity to make a better life for myself… and I threw it all away.”

“Jory…” Kasmeer protested, but I silenced her with a raised finger.

“My younger sister simply fell in line with my mother’s wishes. She was probably scared to see me doing what our father did. My older sister, the one in the Seraph, tried to help me. She really did, but she didn’t know how. The Seraph were used to death and not being able to find the answers to every problem. She couldn’t understand why Mendel’s death ate at me. But she tried. But everyone has their limits.”

My head drops at the memory… when I hit the bottom one hundred and sixty seven days ago. “She finally gave up, and I can’t blame her. I had just completed a trifling case, and with that money, I just about bought out the first cursed bar I saw. My sister pulled me out and said, ‘How can I help you if you don’t even want to help yourself?’ Then she took me home and told me to find her when I was ready to start trying to be a real person and not some worthless drunk.”

Kasmeer again tried to interject, and again I hushed her. “That night, I went through my nightly routine, only this time I had four empty bottles at my feet. I was all alone. My entire family had rejected me. All I had was nightmares, bitter memories, and alcohol. I decided then and there that I was going to go out and get my revenge on Henrick Baker. In reality, I stumbled out into the streets in a drunken stupor and attacked the first official-looking person I saw.”

(Part Two)

The very next thing that I somewhat remember was Rox tending to my face… her devourer doing something to the wounds on my arm that I suspect I’m glad I don’t know the details about. Then another haze… and finally… Kaz. She was looking down on me, a look that I knew intimately.

The face of a person who was seeing the last bit of hope die. A girl hitting the bottom. I know that feeling. I’ve been there.

She was so happy when I finally started talking. Gods, I was happy when I finally started talking. But those eyes… how the light slowly bleeds out of them… no doubt they were what triggered Mendel’s return to my nightmares.

When Kasmeer stumbled into my life, I instantly could feel the connection… but now I’m doubting just what connection I felt. I began questioning why I stayed with her, the more she told me of her story, how she got to where she was… then that chilling moment… when I saw myself in her eyes, in her face…

… And that scared me.

Was that the real reason I hired her? Was that why I’m with her? Because I saw myself in her? A cold, lost, crying woman looking for anyone who could help her… and here I am… selfishly taking all that in, latching on desperately for a perverse reason… taking advantage of her state to try and make me feel better about myself.

Is that really what I am? Some emotional leech… taking in her adoration not because she’s a genuine, caring, smiling person underneath all the pain… but because it makes me feel like I’m doing a good deed? Would I even have given Kaz a second glance if she hadn’t looked all desperate and on the verge of breaking?

I tuck my head onto knees, rocking gently while the tears fall. Am I that sick? Am I that terrible of a person?

A voice timidly calls out to me. “Jory? What are you doing down there?”

It takes me a few seconds to process that its not my mind playing tricks on me. Kaz is standing over me again, clutching her robe tight to her body. Poor girl must be freezing. She really doesn’t have the frame for wandering about during a Colossus season’s night.

I smile in vain, knowing that it would do little to dispel any worry, considering my eyes were no doubt visibly red even in the low light. “I’m just… thinking, Kaz.” I say with a complete lack of conviction. Not even Braham would have bought that line, and he was a guy who bought a vial of krait oil.

She drops down next to me, taking a similar posture. With a thin smile that tells me that she completely sees through me, she points to the northwest and says, “Funny, I do the same thing, but it’s usually in that corner. Not when you’re around, of course… I never wanted you to know how guilty I’ve felt.”

I blink the water out of my eyes. “Guilty?” I ask. “About what?”

She laughs once, an empty, bitter one, and says softly, “How terrible I am to take advantage of you like I have been.”

Now I’m blinking simply because I can’t mesh what she just said with any facts. “You taking advantage of me?” I repeat. How does she figure…

Then she tells me. “Remember about two months ago? When we went out to the gardens in the Upper City? Spent most of the day there?”

I nod, encouraging her to continue.

“Then when we were going back home, and it was getting late, and we nearly got bowled over by some random drunk? Remember when he nearly ran headlong into a lamp post, then clung to it while he tried to regain his balance?”

I nod again. We had a bit of a laugh about that scene… though now that I look back on it, Kaz did seem a little put off by it. I had chalked it up to disgust about nearly getting run over by that oaf… but could there had been something else to it?

“That’s been me. From the moment I stumbled into your ‘office’ in the Dead End, I’ve been using you as a support. I burdened you with my weight… when I really didn’t have to. I mean, even with the guard ransacking my home, I wasn’t without options. It’s not like I didn’t have resources.”

“Gods, I was able to run off on a vacation to Southsun Cove right afterward. Granted, the tickets were cheap… and I found out why…” I smile with a hint of humor at the grumble her voice takes at that memory, but the fun vanishes quickly as she continued. “I wasn’t nearly in as dire of straits as I painted it out to be. I only thought I was. And instead of taking hold of my life, I… clung to the first lamp post I could find, and I’m still clinging to it.”

(Part One)

I can still see his eyes.

Mendel’s.

When I sleep, just as I’m waking up. I see them. Those pitiful, dying eyes, begging for someone, anyone, to help him. And every time that nightmare plays, I can’t. I watch him die, both in body and in spirit, every time, almost every night.

I’ve saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives since then. But no matter how many breathless “thank you’s” I get, the one time I failed still haunts me.

My eyes open. It’s the dead of night. That’s fairly common. I’ve learned since the first few times not to thrash about when the nightmares rouse me, which is a good thing since my bed partner needs her beauty sleep.

Lady Kasmeer Meade; for what meaning her title holds anymore. The poor thing has been thrown to the wolves of Divinity’s Reach, metaphorically, through no fault of her own. I know that I’m here because of my own failure. Kaz didn’t do a single thing wrong, and yet she’s the one suffering for the failings of her brother. She’s the one whose world had been falling apart piece by piece, like one of the condemned buildings that spot this street.

She’s the one that had managed to quell my demons, keep the nightmares at bay.

Until tonight.

I slowly slide out of bed, careful not to stir my golden-haired goddess. My feet fall silently onto the wood floor, and I gently lift my weight from the mattress. I freeze momentarily as I hear Kasmeer snort, but settle back into a restful breathing pattern.

My eyes catch sight of a raggedy, well loved stuffed brown bear at the top of our headboard. Kaz’s most valuable possession. It really said a lot about how pure of a soul she had been, and still is. That with anything she could have chosen as the guard picked her family clean, she chose the one thing that didn’t have the most gold attached to it… but the most heart.

I gently pat the bear on its matted head. It reflected Kasmeer in so many ways, most notably that despite all the dirt its picked up, no matter how much it gets beaten down, it still has that same goofy smile that won’t ever go away.

“Watch her for me, will ya?” I whisper as if it can hear me. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

My… our… home isn’t large. I wasn’t exactly rolling in coin to begin with, and Kasmeer’s presence hasn’t made the bills easier. To spotlight the absurdity of the distribution of wealth in Tyria, I’ve made more money in the last handful of months picking through the pockets of Scarlet’s fallen armies than I had made in the first two years of my detective agency.

Where did Scarlet get all her money and resources anyway? That might be one mystery I never solve.

As a result of my meager dwelling, it’s about four steps from the bedroom door to the dining room. To the west side of the room, there’s a small island of perfectly plain and lightly polished pine that serves as a dinner table, preparation space, and border between the dining room and the kitchen.

The bottom cupboard on that island was where my alcohol reserves were kept, along with a couple bottles of wine that Kasmeer would occasionally splurge on. I kneel down and open that shelf, gazing emptily into the faces of old, forgotten friends.

I hadn’t had a drink from any of those bottles in one hundred and sixty seven days. It’s one of those details that sticks with you. For a long moment, I can almost hear those old friends calling my name, telling me that they can help me forget about Mendel’s eyes, just like they used to.

I’m so tempted… so very tempted… to forget all of it. Mendel… E… Rox… Braham… Kaz…

Then I shut the door, just like I have every time I’ve had that temptation these last one hundred and sixty seven days. Maybe failure hurts. But it’s my failure, and I won’t let myself forget it. Not even temporarily. Not anymore.

I stand up, forcing my legs to straighten even as my knees feel like they’re locking in resistance. Gods, you’d think it’d get easier to resist that call the longer I go without it… but it doesn’t. If anything, that call gets louder. I close my eyes, take two deep breaths, and shuffle to what I call my “crying corner.”

It’s the northeast corner of the dining room. From that location, I can’t see any of the windows of the house, and no one outside could see me. I’m all alone there, and it’s where I would finally let my face fall. I curl up into a ball in that corner, making myself as small as I can, hoping that I can vanish.

Truth is, the reason I could deny my “old friends” tonight was because I knew that Mendel really wasn’t what was tormenting my mind. And what is gnawing at me is something that couldn’t even be banished by an alcohol fermented straight from Lyssa’s tears.

I could remember moving forward, Mendel’s weapons in hand, my investigator’s curiosity completely overridden by the desire to prune that malignant weed, Scarlet Briar…

… then black.

Whelp… wild guess… if it has been brought up multiple times, and each time it isn’t even deemed worthy of a response by the powers that be… what do you think that should tell you?

Oh… that tells you to bring it up AGAIN? Oh. Okay then. Makes sense…