[Twitch - Live Stream]

Swanning
Dawn of Warcraft

(The live streams opens to a wide-view shot of a significantly different environment than the one Swanning usually films in. Although only part of the location is visible, there are unique points that draw the eye, from fuchsia-blooming potted plants sitting on a nearby table to the richly-crafted pillows that look like they've been plucked straight out of East Asia. Over Swanning's shoulder is a large aquarium with a handful of gorgeous tropical fish.

Swanning herself sits in the center of the frame. Her hair is done up in two space buns and she wears a loose-collared tee with Ms. Pacman front and center. To eagle-eyed regular viewers, Swanning looks a little wan and tired, but overall happy with a glimmer of brightness in her olive eyes.

"Hey, guys! Swanning here with another live stream," she greets, waving awkwardly at the camera. She drops her hand and gestures to the place around her with a wry expression. "As you can see, I'm not at my usual space. These days I'm couch-surfing and babysitting fish. Look, guys! It's a guppy! Isn't it cute?"

/deardirt/ aren't guppies orange?

/deardirt/ why is this one rainbow?

/vern/ that's goldfish stupid

Swanning's eyes drop to the chat. She scans the dialogue then laughs a little. "Ahhh, yeah, deardirt isn't the only one who thought guppies were orange. I was also surprised," Swanning says with a self-deprecating smile. She twists around to look at the aquarium, then points at one of the larger fish. "See that one, with all the pretty colors? That's a, uh….hold on, I know it…Oh! Discus! That's a Discus. It has a sister somewhere…Anyway, that is one super fussy fish. Gives me all kinds of trouble."

/vern/ how much trouble could a fish give you

/pedro/ idk you seem to give her all sorts of trouble and you're just a troll

/deardirt/ boys, boys, save the posturing for later

/KLR/ men

/KLR/ they even get worked up about fish

"Play nice," Swanning warns, softening it with a smile. She sighs, straightens her back, and says, "Alright, enough about the fish. I'm sorry, but they've been, like, my whole world all day and since they're kind of the reason I have a place to sleep tonight…Ah. Anyway! I was scrolling through the replies to my last Twitter post and deardirt had a request for a Dread Cave tutorial. So, that's what we're doing today."

/KLR/ lucky!

/deardirt/ girls helping girls

/deardirt/ I stan a legend

/deardirt/ also THANK YOU

Swanning smiles, her lips turning up into a small grin that dimples her freckled cheeks. She switches the screen focus, placing herself in the top right corner and the desktop view of her Dawn of Warcraft account at the focal. Swanning shifts into the game play, wasting no time pulling up the map.

"Alright. So, how much do you guys know about the Dread Cave?"

/deardirt/ I know it's a pain in my ass

/q_ed/ same

/KLR/ ditto

/vern/ I know nothing about it makes sense

/vern/ the fuck is steampunk doing in DOW

Swanning snorts. "Now, come on, we can all admit that there's a lot of things that don't make sense in this game. Suspend your disbelief and consider that this patch was applied to explore the dawn of another type of warcraft. I'm pretty sure the Dread Cave is Volturi's exploration to water-based quests. There are rumors about expanding to air and sea gameplay. Have you guys heard about it?"

/ultrontron/ yeah and I can't wait to die another thousand ways

/q_ed/ they didn't make an official statement about it so idk

Swanning hums, double-clicks on the lower southwestern corner of the map where land brushes up into black nothingness, and replies. "The Dread Cave patch is a newer update, maybe a month or so old. But if we know anything about Volutri, it's that they don't add new patches without having a whole roll-out planned. Remember Frozen Acre? We all thought it was just a snow update, but then it led to the Heavenly Realm quests. So, I wouldn't doubt that this is just a phase one of some huge revelation….

"Anyway," Swanning continues as the screen materializes into a grey-tinged environment. There are rust stains under Swanning's boots as the ground shifts from dead, wilted grass to long swatches of metal bolted into the dirt. Swanning shifts the perspective around, giving viewers a clean shot of the cave ahead, which looks like metal that has unfurled from a massive explosion. There is still smoke billowing from the inside of the cave and the yellow-orange promise of a burning fire inside.

"So, this is the Dread Cave. Looks pretty ominous, right? The goal of this quest is to circle through the cave to rescue civilians - the catch is that the more civilians you rescue, the harder it is to keep them all alive," Swanning explains, looking directly at the camera. "For every civilian you save, you get to battle another steam-powered robot thing, which can be pretty annoying. Of course, the more civilians you save, the better you do on the quest."

/deardirt/ see that's my problem

/deardirt/ if I try to save too many, I get killed; if I only save one, I don't score high enough

/deardirt/ and then there's the boss!

Swanning nods sagely. "Yeah, the boss for the Dread Cave is something else. Turns out the boss is a Dread Doctor who is kind of Frankenstein-ing his way into mixing arcane spells with steam-powered technology, only he's experimented on himself. As a doctor, he has a nasty habit of healing himself as soon as you get a hit in, so you're dealing with a really quick HP regeneration on top of this annoying attack he'll throw out, which dazes you and knocks points off your cultivated accuracy."

/q_ed/ this quest is fucking evil

/pedro/ I mean no kidding wtf lol

/deardirt/ I've been trying to beat it for like 10 days and I just cant

/KLR/ hence your call for help

/deardirt/ obvs I'm calling in the big guns to get through this yeah lol

Swanning strides her avatar through the ripped-metal opening. "It's all about timing. It took me a few tries too, but I found the right combination that works for both the steampunk robots and the Dread Doctor. Now, let's see…" Swanning takes a medium pace through the first openings of the bolted-metal cave, her feet occasionally knocking pieces of charred metal around. "Ideally, you'd want to save all the civilians, right? But since you get matched one-for-one, you want to be sure that you're not taking on too many civilians. It really has to do with the abilities you have and what's in your inventory. If you have a long-range weapon, for example, you can stand to take on more civilians. But if you have close-range abilities or your skills take a long time to renew, then you'll want to be more conservative. My recommendation is four, out of a total nine civilians."

Swanning demonstrates this by cherry-picking civilians to be freed from hanging metal cages. She explains that the civilians are basically useless, not programmed to do anything besides get in the way, so it's best if you bypass the brawny ones that look like they could fight back and opt for the scrawnier civilians.

"The scrawnier the better, actually," Swanning adds. "They're easier to maneuver around and easier to overlook. Basically, save the kids."

/deardirt/ welp, I see you found my first mistake

/pedro/ you are not alone, I would have gone for the bigger guys too

/KLR/ you heard it here first!

/KLR/ swanning says save the kids, pedro says he likes meaty men

/pedro/ I like big cocks and I cannot lie, so what?

/vern/ JFC

/ultrontron/ don't be a homophobe vern

/KLR/ yeah vern!

/vern/ I'm not! Can we just focus on the dungeon? Fuuuck

Swanning, meanwhile, has moved to the stage of the quest where the steampunk robots come to the fore. She does a quick demo on how to handle one with only close-range brawling, which is standard for every character class. And then she takes out the other three, either with a close-range skill, a long-range weapon, or a combination of both.

"Now here comes the hard part," Swanning says, leading the rescued civilians around a broad corner. The main part of the cave is obviously a laboratory of some kind, or it was before an expansive fire broke out; now the cave walls are burned, a fire is banked on a pile of blackened metal, and the Dread Doctor, is raging at the rest of his blown out inventions. Swanning's avatar scoots around the opposite edge of the cave. "Do you see that narrow stretch between those two fires? That's where the civilians need to go. Your job is to distract the Dread Doctor to allow the civilians time to escape, and then you can defeat the boss."

/deardirt/ see the few times I got here, I ended up dying

Swanning hums. "Well, in this case, this is very much a trial and error quest. However, it helps to be prepared, so make sure you're coming into this quest with some kind of healing potion in your inventory. Literally take it right before you attack, so you can reap the benefits and buy yourself some time - like this -"

Swanning does exactly as she says, downing the healing potion and slinging a long-range attack at the Dread Doctor immediately after. The Dread Doctor shifts his rage onto Swanning, which allows time for the scrawny civilians to crawl through the narrow passage to escape. By that time, Swanning is already head-to-head with the Dread Doctor who is, as promised, using dazing spell that throws off Swanning's accuracy.

"Annoying," Swanning says. "But here's how you get around it."

Swanning shifts from targeted attacks to blasts that cover a large general area. It has the disadvantage of being less effective at snatching HP points and Swanning also suffers her own blood point loss - but that the same time, these non-targeted attacks more easily chip away at the Dread Doctor's offense. Once she has eaten away a quarter of the boss' health, she switches to an alternating tactic that has her dodging in and out of striking range as she delivers targeted and non-targeted blows. She runs around the Dread Doctor in circles, keeping him constantly moving.

"You can't stand still for a second, because then he can lock on to you," she explains, the sound of her fingers rapidly tapping at the keyboard filtering through the background music.

/deardirt/ I'm so not prepared for this

/vern/ damn dude

/pedro/ this looks exhausting is anyone else tired just watching this

/KLR/ big mood

Swanning, despite her health points being so depleted by this tactic, eventually gets the final jump on the Dread Doctor, who goes down with a shuddering bang and a spark of renewed fire that crawls up to the ceiling of the cave. Swanning wastes no time in collecting the reward and then squeezing through the narrow passage as the cave rumbles and shakes.

"This one is really hard," Swanning says as she sends her avatar through the motions of ending the quest. "There's no way you can get through this one without losing a significant amount of health points. But if you play it smart and pick the right amount of civilians, you can save yourself from losing heath points prematurely. And I'm not kidding about having a health potion ready, because you're going to need it."

/ultrontron/ what a phenom

/deardirt/ well I've been schooled and I am forever grateful

/pedro/ now let's see you do the same

/deardirt/ LOL yeah right, I mean I'll make my attempt but it wont' be pretty like this

/KLR/ true true Swanning's flair is her own

/q_ed/ I stand by what I said, this quest is fucking evil

Swanning gives the chat a cursory look, then smiles brightly at the camera. "It might take some time, but I believe you can do it, deardirt! It's just a matter of timing-"

In the background, there is a chime of a phone. Curiously, Swanning's cheeks turn pink as she scrambles for her phone; the blush continues to grow when she reads the message. She bites her lip, then looks up at the camera. "Ah, speaking of timing…" Swanning shrugs her shoulders. "I'll have to cut this a little short. My boyfriend found this ridiculous restaurant that uses waffles for everything and I'm dying to try it -"

/KLR/ wait did she just

/deardirt/ boyfriend! Boyfriend I saw it too!

/ultrontron/ aw damn

/pedro/ waffles sound good

/ratherbealone/ maestro will be thrilled

"- so until next time, this is Swanning signing off!"

Swanning waves at the camera with clear excitement with both hands and then quickly closes down the live stream.)


A/N: This is just 1 of 5 updates, so from now until Monday there will be an update every day. Most are short, but they're all related to the building plot and character development.

If anyone got the Dread Doctor reference I will love you forever.

As always, be brutally honest. I can take it. Stay safe, stay inside, and stay smart. And maybe remind each other that reforming broken systems is beneficial to all people in the long run and that just treating each other as human and with kindness is one of the easiest things you can ever do.

~Rae