For The Love of Gaming

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley. What does that mean?” GamerGirl4EVER reads her scroll. “I wish these quest descriptions were a little more specific,” She keeps clicking on the quest menu, in a fruitless attempt to better understand the cryptic message.

“That makes no sense, you must have read it wrong.” NotFUNNYatALL says, annoyed. He looks around at an empty valley of tall dry grass as far as the eye can see. “Let me take a look at it” NotFUNNYatALL opens his quest menu.

GamerGirl4EVER snaps back, indignantly, “No I didn’t! Maybe we went through the wrong portal? We -”

NotFUNNYatALL interrupts her abruptly, whispering “Shhhh…. what’s that sound?” He closes his menu, and looks around. The sky briefly darkens, and he hears a loud roar. “OH CRAP! Dragons on your left! Coming in hot! Run!!

“To WHERE?!” GamerGirl4EVER says as they start running. “It’s an open valley, and there's no cover! And stop yelling.. I can hear you in my headset just fine! Use your indoor voice please!” GamerGirl4EVER replies.

“Right.. Sorry.. Make us invisible!” NotFUNNYatALL calms down once GamerGirl4EVER activates her invisibility ability. It puts up a shield guard that covers her and those around her, only the faintest shimmer of their outline remains.

“Where is everybody?” GamerGirl4EVER asks, looking around. “I thought there’d be more players here… too bad no one from our clan is on…”

“Huh… I guess that means we will be the only one to get the ‘Dragon-Slayer’ achievement!” NotFUNNYatALL says excitedly. “They’re missing out… Oh well, Sucks for them!”

“Yeah, well… we haven’t won anything yet… We still gotta survive this world event.” GamerGirl4EVER opens her inventory screen. “Dang I’m out of heavy ammo airdrop flares. I forgot to stock up after that last raid.”

“Great! And I only have 1 rocket left.” NotFUNNYatALL says checking the magazine tube of his legendary rocket launcher ‘Wolf Fang’, disappointedly.

“If you use that, it will drop me enough energy for my bubble shield.” GamerGirl4EVER says. “The dragons are getting closer… and there’s a LOT of them. An entire wave of them. Wait till they get closer, then fire. They’ll know where we are so put up your bubble shield as soon as the invis wears off.”

The two wait for the dragons to get closer, positioning themselves to have suitable cover. NotFUNNYatALL takes aim with his rocket launcher. “Ok I’m going to take my shot,” NotFUNNYatALL says; determined. “ You know where I come from, you're extinct.” NotFUNNYatALL says excitedly. A large missile hits the lead dragon, a huge explosion of ash and fire billows as smaller cluster bombs fall off from the main detonation. The sky darkens as a flurry of dragons fly overhead. The roar of dragons is almost deafening in their headsets.

GamerGirl4EVER rolls her eyes, “Ughh… that was bad.” she groans. “ Can I get some wine with all that cheese?”

“You just wish you were as funny as I am… That was gold, and you know it.” NotFUNNYatALL says, on the verge of cracking up. “Alright, focus up.. If we can clear out these lower level dragons, we can start looking for the big guy. I’ll take left you take right,” NotFUNNYatALL says as he mows down enemy after enemy.

“Invis is almost out… Down to primary amno, no more special, no more heavy… throw down your bubble shield!” GamerGirl4EVER barks, sounding more like a commander than a gamer girl.

“Out of heavy, throwing out a turret. Use all your grenades if you have to! We gotta wear these yellow bars down.” NotFUNNYatALL says activating one of his abilities.

“Uhhh…. I MADE A FRIEND! Bringing him to yooouuu….” GamerGirl4EVER says sprinting NotFUNNYatALL’s direction.

“What? I can’t hear you over all this gun fire…my turret is getting more kills than you are, I think we could win this thing” NotFUNNYatALL says, not realizing the gravity of the situation approaching him.

“I think I found the boss… we’re in trouble!” GamerGirl4EVER says, trying to dodge the constant barrage of fire attacks. Suddenly a loud dragon roar knocks them both down, breaking their shields.

“Well that’s not good! How are we going to beat that!? Nobody said there was going to be this many dragons here! Dropping my bubble shield!” - NotFUNNYatALL casts his bubble shield: A large, translucent dome appears, deflecting enemy attacks, and recharging their shields. He looks around, contemplating his options.

“FINALLY! Look! Other players are coming!” GamerGirl4EVER says excitedly.

“Of course…. Swooping in after we do the hard work… we took almost the entire hoard already.. NOW they come to help..." NotFUNNYatALL complains loudly.

“Who cares!? Now we can get some ammo!” GamerGirl4EVER says as she runs for the heavy ammo boxes dropped by the yellow bar enemies.

“Yeah, let’s let them go after the boss first. I gotta go grab that elemental ammo out there.“ NotFUNNYatALL agrees.

They run out, and gather ammo from the fallen corpses of their enemies. “Be sure to gather all the coins, too… we’ll have to buy ammo supply drop flares, and repair our gear later!” NotFUNNYatALL suggests. “Maaan… these lower level dragons didn’t drop any heavy ammo for me.. “ NotFUNNYatALL laments. “At least I’m full on elemental ammo again…”

“Sucks to suck, bro! I got some heavy from the elite I killed over here…” GamerGirl4EVER gloats. “Alright… Locked & loaded! Let’s go get some shots in on the boss before they finish him off.” They begin running across the field towards the fight,

“Man... this run is so long-and-forever taking! I need higher mobility gear, so I can run faster..” NotFUNNYatALL sighs.

“Better start grinding out the legendary dungeons… They pay better and drop WAY better gear…” GamerGirl4EVER suggests. “Dang... They are really struggling with this one. Look at its health bar, it's still in the white! It’s not even halfway through the first segment, and they’ve been dumping rockets into it like nobody’s business!” she says awestruck.

“That’s because they haven’t gotten its shield down. They’re using the wrong element. The white shield means they should be using ice weapons… bunch of newbies.. They’re wasting their heavy..” NotFUNNYatALL grumbles; annoyed. Both of them join game chat, and begin typing.

GamerGirl4EVER: “Has anyone figured out its weak points yet?”

NotFUNNYatALL: “Everyone use ice elemental weapons. If you don’t have those, use your heavy weapons, if you're not already. If anyone can figure out the weak spots and we can do more damage once its shield is down.”

B4DB0Y: “It says online: Its only weak spot is its belly. It’s only exposed when it stands up to roar.”

B4DG1RL: “Easier said than done. We've got to stop it from flying around, first!”

TheBow: “We can only damage it when it lands.“

TheArrow: “Yeah, but if you get too close the boss will stomp you, and insta-kill you..”

Gamaerboy: “Earlier, on the weaker dragons, we had to break the shields to stun them and get them to fall, the boss probably works the same way.. Everyone shoot it with ice weapons."

All players open their inventory screens and switch over to ice weapons. Several of them complain that they now have no ammo for their elemental weapons, since they had to switch, and there are no more red bar enemies to kill to get more ammo.

“Hey look who just joined in!” GamerGirl4EVER exclaims. “It’s Heartthrob and Heartbreaker! Wow we’re going to be on their live-stream! Watching them is amazing, they are so fast and switch out perfectly!” GamerGirl4EVER goes full-on fangirl. “I’m such a huge fan of watching their live-streams when they play video games.” She watches in awe as the two legendary gamers fly up to attack the boss. “Are they seriously going to fly in and attack that thing?” she asks befuddled.

“Man! I can’t wait to get armor like that!” NotFUNNYatALL exclaims.

“Oh no! They activated their bubble shields in the air! That’s going to drag them straight down to the ground.” GamerGirl4EVER says, with concern. At this point, she’s completely stopped playing just to watch them. “I figured they were going to attack it. Why would they do that?”

“Well that was anticlimactic… definitely not a smart move.” NotFUNNYatALL says as he watches them fall directly under the dragon.

Heartthrob and Heartbreaker enter game chat:

Heartthrob: “Get ready for boss damage, everyone!”

Heartbreaker: “Everyone get in front of the boss!”

Arrow: “But that’s where the roar hits, we’ll be killed as soon as he roars.”

Heartbreaker: “You got a better idea? Just run when you see him start to roar.”

Heartbreaker and Heartthrob's bubble shields slam down on the ground in unison. They ready their ice rocket launchers, and fire up at the dragon, breaking its shield, and causing it to fall from the sky; stunned. The dragon boss lands right on top of them. The two are underneath the dragon taking tons of shots at the dragon's weak point. NotFUNNYatALL couldn’t even hear the game music over all the gun fire, and explosions the two of them were putting out. All the other players join in, and start putting shots into the boss, doing tons of damage.

The dragon rears up, preparing to roar, players take a few more shots. Most of the players scatter, knowing the roar will kill them if it hits them. Heartbreaker and Heartthrob ready their heavy weapons, and blast the dragon, stunning it again. All players run back and use all their heavy elemental ammo.

“I can’t believe they still have heavy ammo after all that damage!” GamerGirl4EVER says in disbelief. “They must have legendary ammo reserves on their armor!”

Heartthrob texts: We’re on the last health segment everyone use everything you got!

Heartbreaker texts: I’m getting in position.

Heartbreaker runs out of her shield, away from the dragon by a significant distance. NotFUNNYatALL watches her running, and thinks out loud, “What is she getting in position for? Where is she going?”

GamerGirl4EVER responds overcome with awe, “She is going for the final shot, to get the ‘Death-Shot’ achievement! Maaan, they are so cool!”

“This sucks… We were here first, and we did most of the work getting to the boss!” NotFUNNYatALL gripes. “Forget that, I’m going in for the kill.”

GamerGirl4EVER laughs, and says, “You have no heavy ammo left, and there’s no way you’ll close that distance in time.”

NotFUNNYatALL quips, “Not with that attitude… Only one way to find out.”

“With this many players, the Boss’s health bar dropped quickly from green to yellow and now it’s in the red. It’s almost dead… You better be fast if you’re gonna get it.” GamerGirl4EVER says, razzing NotFUNNYatALL.

GamerGirl4EVER notices Heartbreaker changes her ‘Knight’ armor out for ‘Dragon-scale’ armor, and equip a legendary sniper rifle called ‘Dragon Breaker.’ She sights in perfectly on the dragon’s head, takes a deep breath, and squeezes the trigger. The dragon’s body disappears into ash, and loot boxes start appearing.

“Congratulations! You’ve completed the Dragon Swarm World Event.” flashes across all the player’s screens along with all the loot drops:

‘Dragon-Slayer’ achievement award collected.

Dragon-scale armor upgrades available.

Dragon Swarm World Event Death-Shot Achievement Goes To: NotFUNNYatALL CONGRATULATIONS!

GamerGirl4EVER is aghast. “Oh my gosh what did you do!? Everyone is going to hate you now! You just stole the kill-shot from everyone’s favorite player on a live-streaming event! Do even you know how many followers they have!?”

“I actually did it. No way!” NotFUNNYatALL says, still in disbelief.

The console notification system pops up with an alert: “New message from Heartbreaker click to read this message.”