Heroic Opportunity is more than just a game mechanic... it's also a real roleplaying aspect of EQ2. In the past 2 (ish) weeks since the game went live, I've already seen my fair share of true heroism. Here is the place to share your true tales of heroism. If you have witnessed, or partaken in an amazing display of heroics, please share your story in this thread. So far, the story below is my favorite. I must be honest, however... part of the thrill is the fact that the hero is me! My name is Faestre. I am a Kerran Scout... a Predator, to be more precise. And I am a hero. It was Sunday night, November 21st. It was around 10:30pm. My alarm setting, telling me it was time to quit and go to bed on a work night, had already come and gone twice. I had been out hunting with my friends, Chuledar and Sarizin, for the better part of the evening. We worked many long, hard hours to build up our experience debt to whole new levels of grandeur and atrocity. The problem was, we were trying to perfect our heroic opportunity rhythm against enemies much more powerful than we were. It was an experiment gone awry, to say the least. Even Captain Jeager was getting sick of seeing our faces. By about 9:30, Sarizin had had enough and bid us farewell. Truth be told, I think Sarizin's wife told him he had had enough... but we won't go there. Chuledar and I were left with a perfect opportunity to cut our losses, head back to Qeynos with our tails tucked between our legs, cash in our loot for coin, and call it a night. But no! Not us! We couldn't go to bed in so much debt. Come hell or high water, we were going to work it off NOW! Besides, Chuledar is a dwarf and he doesn't have a tail to tuck. Sarizin left us after a failed raid against the Hidden Vale. I guess I should back up a few paces and briefly regale you with that part of the story. There are bears in the Hidden Vale. Lots and lots of bears. I had stealthed myself into Sneak mode and crept up to the entrance of the vale where I spotted a group of what must have been at least 7-8 giant kodiak bears. They were rabid, grizzled, or some such thing. Whatever they were, they weren't happy, and they were ready to attack. When I realized that there were so many in one cluster, and so close to the entrance, I expressed my disdain by saying "Yikes!" to my hunting partners. Apparently, Chuledar interpreted my exclamation to mean "rush in swinging wildly"... for that is what he did. Sarizin and I didn't even wait to see what happened. We bravely ran away at the first sign of Chuledar's stup... uh... brazen courage and waited at the foot of the path. Moments later, Chuledar erupted from the chasm with a crazed pack of snarling bears close at his heels. It's amazing how fast those little dwarven legs had to pump to keep up that kind of running speed. The funny part was, even after the bears stopped at the foot of the hill, Chuledar kept on running. He really hates bears. Once he finally stopped, he affirmed my earlier appraisal by yelling "Yikes!" himself. After collecting our wits, and our dwarf, Sarizin said his farewells and Chuledar and I decided to keep on hunting. We left the foot of the path into the Hidden Vale and marched up into the hills overlooking the Gnollslayer Highlands. The place was crawling with wolves, so we decided to do some pack hunting. Chuledar would taunt in one wolf at a time, while I went into Sneak, then I'd come up behind it and light in with an ambush. We made short work of wolf after wolf. Even when we got too close to a red aggressor who decided to jump into a fray already in progress, we were able to handle it. After a night of disaster, our confidence was slowly starting to come back. We were both down below two red bars of debt when we got cocky, and decided to turn our attention towards the bears along the treeline. We should have known better. Chuledar hates bears. The first few went down without too much trouble, but then we tangled with a big, red, Giant Kodiak. It went bad, quickly. We made a valiant effort, but without Sarizin's healing, it was hopeless. By the time Chuledar fell, the bear was literally on his last leg, and I still had some kick left in me. I should have used my remaining power to sprint away, but pride... and stupidity... kept my feet glued to the green earth. I fought, and I died. Captain Jeager didn't even say hello this time. That was it... we were done. We decided to collect our spirit shards, and head into town for the evening. Please recall that I am a Predator. I'm stealthy. Smooth. Cautious. I knew that my spirit shard was surrounded by aggressive wild animals, and I was prepared to slowly and carefully pick my way through... fighting only if absolutely necessary. Not so, Chuledar. In a second stunning display of brazen courage, he charged right up that hill into the midst of the bears and wolves. He bearly (misspelling intended) slowed down to collect his shard, took several fierce blows in the process, and kept on going. West and north and north and west he ran. I used Sneak to retrieve my shard with a bit more finesse, and by the time Chuledar had left my line of site he had 3 bears and 2 wolves hot on his heals. Those little dwarf legs really can move! I was seriously ready to log off by this time, but I couldn't let the stup... brave little guy go down like that. I cast a quick Pathfinding to give us both speed, and I took off in pursuit. As a general rule, when losing a pursuer, you want to give them the most torturous path possible. Fences. Rocks. Hills. Trees. Anything you can put between you and them is a good thing. Chuledar doesn't follow this logic. Straight plains, baby. *sigh* Since I was rather adept at shaking pursuit, whenever Chuledar cut in front of me, I'd rush in and take a swing at one of the critters on his tail, trying to pull it away from him so he could get away... drained of power, and in his agonizingly straight line of flight. Using this method, I eventually was able to pull a bear and a wolf away from him. Using his method of running away, he managed to pick up 2 highwaymen and a new bear pursuer in the process. Through guilt by association, I guess, I managed to grab a few highwaymen myself and I had no choice but to break away and leave poor Chuledar to his own devices. By this time, the chase had been going on for quite some time. I had made it all the way to the Tower of Vhalen. From past experience, I knew this to be the perfect place to ditch someone. I used the steep slopes and rocky terrain to my advantage, and before I even made it back to the road, I was free and clear. I clicked on Chuledar's name to see if I could locate him. As I did, I noticed that his life bar was going slowly, but steadily down. His power bar was already bottomed out. I had no idea how far away he was, but I ran towards him, all the same. I went across the highway, through the woods, over the rocks, and got all the way back to the river before I spotted two figures lashing wildly at each other near the water's edge. Dwarf and bear, in a dance of death. Neither was willing to yield, both were ready to die. In a last ditch effort, I hit sprint and used up most of what remained of my precious power to build up speed and leap as far across the river as I could. I landed with a splash, but didn't go under and I was able to quickly scramble up onto the opposite bank. The bear... and Chuledar, for that matter.... never saw me coming. The beast reared up on its hind legs prepared to deal what would surely have been a death blow to my dwarven companion, when suddenly it twitched and fell dead. At the last possible moment, I arrived on the scene and buried my dagger in the thing's neck with a fatal sneak attack from behind. Chuledar slumped to the ground and gasped a sigh of relief. He looked at me and said the only thing he COULD say under the circumstances. "Yikes!" Loosely translated, that means "You're my hero, Faestre!"
Great story! Kinda reminds me, that dwarfs are a crucial addition to any respectable party. Not only for their fighting ability, but just as much for their enormous entertainment value. Dokefaes Ratonga Bard of Qeynos
