Marissa sighed, staring at her computer as she clicked idly around the internet. Mostly scrolling nonsense on social media that she didn’t really care about. Her mind was elsewhere anyway.
Kieran had found a potential raid member already through simple luck of the draw. How he had managed to get lucky like that, Marissa would never understand. She had notoriously bad luck for this sort of thing. Doing her dailies through the [A-P System] was almost middling to negative. She could count the number of actually good experiences in there that she remembered on one hand. Probably.
She just knew that if she tried to go around recruiting the potentially last two people they needed through the actual game, she would be laughed off the stage, figuratively. Or more likely simply ignored. There were always people that spent hours in the main cities just shouting the same recruitment message for their Clan in any game. And she couldn’t imagine them ever getting as many bites on those ads as they’d want.
She took in a deep breath and let it out in a rush.
All of this led her to what she stared at now - the den of villainy that was the official forum.
It was exceedingly rare that any game’s official forums were friendly and well respected. They more often than not devolved into complaints, shitposts, and other nonsense that most players steered clear of.
Mag Mell’s forum was no different. But that didn’t change the fact that they did have a ‘Looking for Group’ section, as well as a ‘Clan Recruitment’ section. Marissa wasn’t sure what she hoped to gain from posting there, but she was going to give it a shot regardless.
She kept reminding herself that, in the end, if just one good person responded to her it would make it worth it. She was mostly just worried about getting responses from people that weren’t the right fit. But there was also not really any way around that.
After logging into her account on the website, she navigated to the recruitment forum and clicked to start a new thread.
[Looking for Members][Clan][Raids][US] Clan Nettle Tea is looking for members to fill out a party for the upcoming raid tier.
Hello fellow players!
A few friends and I are looking to put a team together to tackle the new raids when they are released in November.
As is, we need a healer and a DPS.
We’re not picky about Paths, but we currently have a Muse main on the team already, so preferably the healer will be something else.
Our DPS composition is currently looking like a Slayer, an Arrow, and potentially a Mage. To that end, we would probably prefer a melee focused player to join us, but we are flexible on that front.
As it stands, we are forming a Clan around the raid group. We would greatly prefer you only respond if you are Clanless or are willing to change to join us, just for convenience’s sake.
Also, our currently planned raid times will be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. EST.
Also also, please be 18+. Just in case.
Otherwise, we’re friendly and don’t bite!
Contact me in game; Hibiscus Jade.
Marissa couldn't help but cringe as she read her draft back to herself, but it was what it was. It was just a recruitment ad; if people judged her based on the awkward language in the post, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be their friend anyway.
She closed her eyes as she hit the button to post the ad, then copy and pasted it over to the ‘Looking for Group’ section as well. Maybe she would get some bites, maybe she wouldn’t. Only time would tell.
For now, she slid her cursor back over to her second screen to launch Mag Mell’s game launcher and respond to Kieran. Hopefully the potential new guy was fun.
Twenty minutes later, Marissa was logged in and sitting at a table with Kieran - Caoimhe - and Firo. They had parked at one of the cafes in Falias that served some basic buff foods just to relax while they talked in the voice chat.
“As promised,” Kieran said happily, “I’ve brought Firo in for an interview. Firo, this is Hibiscus Jade, our fearless leader.”
“Uh…hi.” Firo said awkwardly.
“Hi there.” Marissa said, trying to be as friendly as possible. “It’s nice to meet you! Do you want to go by Firo? Or something else?”
“Firo is fine. I’ve used it in enough games at this point that I respond to it pretty naturally.”
“Okay, Firo then. As I’m sure you’ll see if you stick around, you can call me whatever you like. Everyone has been calling me Bisky most recently, I think.” Marissa said, the last bit coming out a little snide.
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“Yup.” Kieran chuckled. “We keep messing with her name because nothing seems to stick. Bisky might have lasted the longest so far, actually.”
Marissa sighed. “Well, I’ve heard every conceivable nickname for Hibiscus at this point that I’m not sure you could come up with something original. But I’m game for whatever.”
“I’ll just stick with Hibiscus for now. Maybe Bisky.” Firo said. He sounded friendly enough, though maybe a little awkward. That was fair; meeting new people online was always a bit of a risk. Especially when voice chat was involved, things could get awkward really fast.
“Well, that’s fine.” Marissa said. “So, Kieran - uh, that is, Caoimhe - gave me the lowdown on what you guys did earlier. From his description, I don’t think I need to question your abilities or anything like that. Did he talk to you about availability and that sort of thing?”
“A bit.” Firo said. “He said Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, five to eight PST. That’s my time zone, by the way.”
“Yup, that’s accurate. And given that you’re still here, I assume that works for you?” Marissa asked.
“It does.” Fire said, then paused a moment before adding. “I’m a college student, so I’m free most hours that I’m not in class. Is that okay?”
“You over eighteen?” Marissa asked, just echoing her ad from earlier.
“Yeah, I’m twenty.” He said.
Marissa took a second to herself, feeling a bit old.
Kieran, instead, decided to be vocal about it.
“Oof. Right in the ol’ ticker.” He said, sounding pained. “I thought you might have sounded a little younger than us, but I wasn’t sure. It doesn’t matter though, unless you think it’ll be awkward gaming with a bunch of thirty-year-olds.”
Thankfully, Firo laughed. “No, I think that’s fine. Personalities matter way more than age for this sort of thing.”
“Right you are, sunny.” Kieran said, adopting an old time-y voice.
“Oh lord, please, Caoimhe. Stop. You’re going to embarrass all of us.”
“Oh, Bisky, how are you? I didn’t see you there…my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
Marissa sighed, resting her forehead in her hand. “I’m sorry, Firo. But I suppose it’s better that you see this now before deciding to join us. We’re a bunch of weirdos so you should know what you’re signing up for.”
“Honestly? I’m down. A bit of weird never hurt anyone, and there’s a chance I fit right in, anyway. We’ll have to see.”
Marissa shrugged, not that anyone could see it. “Well, that’s fine then. I’ll give you the same spiel our group went over when we decided to do this.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“The group of us that started this know where we stand. We’re not going to be cutting edge raiders, racing for world firsts or anything like that. I don’t think we’re even really planning to go at this all super hard. The goal is to work on the raid, and have fun doing it. We may even just do other stuff some nights. Maybe.”
She laughed. “I think a fair bit of the plan is up in the air.”
“I see.” Firo said. He sounded thoughtful, but not dismissive. “I don’t think I’m necessarily against this idea, at least.”
“Okay, cool.” Marissa said. “Then the other part of it was setting expectations. While we’re not trying to be cutting edge or anything, we expect the team to show up regularly, on time. If you’re going to be late or absent, that’s fine. Life happens. Just make sure to communicate that to us with as much warning as possible.”
“The other half of it is that while we’re not going to be pushing super hard, we do want everyone to have the mindset of wanting to improve and work on the game. We don’t want anyone who isn’t willing to put in the effort to learn and get better as we go. But I honestly think that that particular desire is basically ingrained in most want-to-be-raiders.”
“No issues here.” Firo said. “I have every intention of improving at the game as I play, and I’m happy to put in extra work if I’m not pulling my weight.”
“That more or less covers all of the concerns I have, I think.” Marissa said. “Or at least all of the concerns we’ve covered as a group so far. Caoimhe? Anything?” She asked, careful to use Kieran’s in-game name again, just in case.
“I got nothin’.” He said. “I think you’ve covered all of the important stuff we hammered out last time. Given that we’re all pretty laid back, I honestly think we’ll be pretty accepting of most things, so long as you show up, communicate, and put in effort. Ultimately, we want to have fun while clearing content together.”
“You literally just said what I said.” Marissa chuckled.
“Sure did. But I figured the main points were worth repeating.” Kieran said.
“I think I’m on board. We’ve still got a while until the raids actually drop; when did you want to have your team locked in by?” Firo asked.
“Well,” Marissa said, trying to decide, “I guess no later than November 1st? We don’t know the exact launch date for the raids yet, but I want to have some team building days available before the raids to make sure we all vibe with one another. So I’m hoping no one drops out that close to the launch, I guess?”
“I understand.” Firo said. “In that case, given that it’s July now, I think I’d like to play with you guys for a while and make my decision in…let’s say a month? I want to make sure we all get along before I commit.”
“That seems reasonable to me.” Marissa said.
“Me too.” Kieran agreed. “We’ll have to get you introduced to Aleister and Mello. They’re a married couple, and a tank-healer pair. The other tank we have is Fiona, but he’s busy with a newborn baby and not around much these days. But he’s slowly working on showing up more often.”
“Admittedly, you may not meet him in your first month, but we’ll see. I can promise, at least, if you get along with the rest of us, you’ll get along with Fiona too.” Marissa said.
Firo chuckled. “Yeah, no worries. I assume you all have adult jobs? We’ll have to see when our schedules line up to play together.”
“We do.” Marissa said, trying not to wince at the words ‘adult job’. “I’m also West Coast like you, but I’m usually off work by four or so. Everyone else is Central or East Coast, so we usually show up around the same time on weeknights.”
“Hibiscus and I are around more often than not. Aleister and Mello are closer to 50/50 most nights. But you’ll definitely have a chance, unless you have a bunch of night classes.”
“Thankfully, no.” Firo laughed. “I have a horrendous sleep schedule right now, so I actively made sure all of my classes for this coming semester were in the morning to force me into a normal sleeping pattern. I’ll be done most days by three. Mondays go until five, but that’s the only late one.”
“Damn, I miss college schedules.” Marissa muttered under her breath. She heard Kieran’s chuckle in response.
“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll try to be here Monday night and we can get in some game time as a group.” Firo said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Right back at ya, kid.” Kieran said.
Marissa rubbed her forehead again. “Please don’t do that…”