Project 1999 - The troll who feeds upon the pixels of others...

A few friends and I were killing in the genoid tunnels, near the Phenocryst. As an enchanter it brings me great joy to provide a pet with toys. I’ve never had any issues with losing items. I watch the ticks to prevent trading during a possible break. I try to be pretty careful. We’ve spent about three hours laughing and taunting one another in voice chat as we’ve known each other for about 20 years. We’re here to have fun and get some experience. We live near and far and this is somewhere we can get together and enjoy some nostalgic game play. We’re not after mystic loot from a faraway cold place where dragons' dwell.

We’re chugging along pretty nicely and having a great time. For some reason my router decides to restart. It is set to auto-update at 4am...It is not 4am...sometimes Belkin, I hate you! Not surprisingly the decked-out axe wielding, below average height (boon side effect), maniacal rock with gems jutting out all over the place goes on a murderous rampage. First, he kills me, cutting right through these useless magical runes. Then he kills the cleric who tried desperately to save me. He then turns to the druid frantically trying to manage to call the very earth up to hold back the rocky horror (no picture show).

A comedy of errors later, I’ve reconnected. We run back over and loot our corpses. There has been a guy who has been pulling rocks over where we’ve been fighting back to the first rock in the geonid tunnels. Thus far we’ve had no trouble, but he is trying to be very competitive for the mobs directly in front of us. You know the type. As such, we’re all a little nervous about getting recovered and ending the evening laughing at ourselves. We had planned to call it a night in five minutes anyways. We regroup and the Druid now loses his connection. What is this with routers and midnight?

I see him coming around the corner and run over to mez the mob before he can pull it. He eyes it, strafes a little side to side then runs by into Pheno’s lair. He pulled a geonid that he plans to reduce to rubble and runs over the genoid who is staring off into space thinking about how tasty a chunk of ore would be. Well Chaos Theory happens. I’ve loaded my bar and the mez breaks based on the timer/tick. Bracing, my face scrunched and wincing, I prepare to stun him! But he wants nothing to do with me. Maybe he saw some ore in his peer that ran around the corner?

Hungrily he begins the chase. Keep in mind I was the only one who cast on the mob. I run around the corner and mez the rock again. I survey the landscape looking for a victim to feed him. Maybe even slay him if he is slowed. The cleric loses his connection. His screen just won’t respond to anything, stupid 1990s graphics! At this point I share a few expletives in Discord. A newborn geonid appears before my eyes. I tell him a funny story and he decides to fight on my behalf for an undetermined amount of time based on how pretty I look and other complicated maths.

Apparently, he only finds me appealing until that really geared peer of his whacks him once or twice. I attempt to stun them with color...that...slants... They will have none of it and murders me quite quickly. I crash to desktop, because...Chaos Theory, remember? The druid is trying to log in this whole time. I share a few more expletives and concern that the mob will now seek the vile necromancer that lured his friend away. Or maybe his friend was carrying some ore and he really wanted to eat it! Suffice it to say the cleric returns first and is watching the fray. The necromancer is indeed battling it and appears as though he will prevail! Huzzah!

Slay it he does. I sit quietly and patiently near the corpse. My bag looks so empty without all of the fun little toys filling it. I brace for an awkward laugh and prepare to offer an apology that I died (I did not exactly cause the aggro to tangle, now did I). I’m ready to explain our sob story and eagerly waiting to replace the pet things that clearly don’t belong to the deceased rock back into those empty bag slots.

Ah but alas, this necromancer was Andel of Vanquish. He runs up to the corpse. He loots the items and slinks off without a word. I inquire about his intentions, and it is clearly GGs. Well, thanks for being you! A fun evening with friends turns a little bit sour. After some brief banter it is clear he has no intentions of doing what I think most people would consider the “right thing”.

So, if every you inquire who else resides in your neighborhood and you see his name appear, know this. Your “camp” and your “toys” are not safe. This is the Andel that resides in tales meant to scare young children. Andel, the troll who feeds upon the pixels of others.