Author's Note:
While writing any of the chapters for this fic, I'm going to be writing with the assumption that everyone has read the first 8 chapters of Time Capsule, so I'm not going to re-explain anything that I've explained in those Yggdrasil chapters before aside from appearances and light reminders of how things work in my fic because I ignored canon.
If you have not read them, this fic is essentially a lighter version of those chapters. You might want to go look at that after this.
If you have read them but didn't like it, I'm going to assume you won't like this either and advise you to back out.
If you have read them, didn't like that, but like this after reading it… I dunno, good for you I guess.
But I will give you the full list of my 41 Ainz Ooal Gown members here, because to be fair, that is a lot of people to remember, especially if you aren't writing this fic like I am.
(Note that this list does not indicate what order they joined in. Just who I remembered first while writing the list)
(Additionally note that Time Capsule is now old enough to be outdated in some of the player designs. I am ignoring them.)
Canon Members of Ainz Ooal Gown.
1 Momonga (skeleton) (dps necromancer)
2 Touch Me (Insect) (dps warrior)
3 Nishikienrai (half-golem?) (dps rogue)
4 Warrior Takemikazuchi (Nephilim) (dps warrior)
5 Ancient One (Dragon) (tank monk)
6 Flatfoot (Goblin) (dps rogue)
7 Amanomahitotsu (Humanoidish Crab) (tank/support warrior) (Blacksmith)
8 Peroroncino (birdman) (dps ranger)
9 Bukubukuchagama (Slime) (tank warrior)
10 Herohero (Slime) (dps rogue)
11 Blue Planet (Some nature creature idk, made of stones I guess) (dps druid)
12 Ulbert Alain Odle (Demon Bafolk) (dps mage)
13 Garnet (Automaton i guess) (dps ranger) (Gun gun)
14 Bellriver (blood thing (Gibbering Mouther?)) (tank warrior/mage)
15 Variable Talisman (insect, Centipisturm? My guy has an official image) (dps warrior)
16 Nearata (Ghazt from my singing monsters, which is like a jellyfish) (support mage)
17 Nubo (Tabula, but like in angel form.) (support mage that does divination healing)
18 Genjiro (Spider-guy) (dps rogue)
19 Yamaiko (Nephilim) (dps monk)
20 Whitebrim (Mammon from helluva boss (jester-demon. Greed.) (support mage specializing in control)
21 Punitto Moe (Death vine) (support/dps priest)
22 Tabula Smaragdina (Brain eater) (dps abyss mage)
23 Beast King Mekongawa (Big ass lion - like brutus from afk arena) (tank warrior/pet tamer)
24 Tigris Euphrates (demon of the stealth variety.) (dps rogue)
25 Temperance (Wind elemental) (dps mage specializing in wind magic.)
26 Suratan (Ghost) (support mage specializing in detecting invisible things carrying a lot of trap spells to set up for kills)
27 Ankoro Mocchi Mochi (big dog lady) (dps warrior)
28 Shizyuutensuzaku (Nue = some chinese human dragon thing.) (dps mage talisman user)
29 Luci Fer (Angel) (dps mage dual light/dark damage)
30 Wish III (Djinn genie looking mf.) (support mage that specializes in buffing)
31 Coup De Grâce (Undead Ogre) (tank warrior)
OC members of Ainz Ooal Gown.
32 Vagisilious (Fairy) (Support mage, talismans)
33 Orphea (dps mage) (HoTs) (abyssal fighter) (homunculus)
34 Yoipesuto (support mage doing Healing over Time) (Jellyfish) (Good Paste) (chef)
35 Denshosho (support mage) (Goblin) (Lore with an extra Sho.) (Crowd control like deckard cain) (potion master)
36 BigStall (tank) (Big Robot) (pure soaking)
37 Daijobubua (tank) (Magic resist Tank) (Undead Vampire)
38 Pannokishi (tank) (Living bread) (Counter attack tanking) (Knight)
39 Otanabetabeki (tank) (Crowd controller) (Big tanuki)
40 Wasewaru Kakyoku (Support) (Bard) (Siren guy)
41 Bakuita (DPS) (AoE Archer) (Chimera) (Wolf Elephant Chimpanzee Fox Gorilla Hybrid) (Body is a mix of all 5, head is wolf, arms are chimp and gorilla, legs are elephant and fox.)
Chapter Start
In this month's patch, the developers added class-specific quests that would allow the player to get some cosmetics for completing them. The catch was that all of those quests were extremely difficult and were only allowed to be done solo.
Not every job class had a quest. It was mostly just the advanced tier ones and some occasional intermediate job classes.
Naturally, because she was the reincarnated one, Vagisilious had the option to go on a quest for both her two advanced classes. The Merciful Spiritual Sovereign class and the Overseer of Souls class.
The ghost, Suratan, heard her considering which quest she wanted to take a crack at first and whined to her, "Aw, c'mon, Vaggy! How come you get two new quests to go on while I get none? Even Momonga only got one class quest!"
The entire list of which classes had quests weren't published anywhere, but every class that did get one had a message sent in the mail saying that they had one and where to go for the quest.
Sending a smile emoji, she bragged to him, "Don't you already know? If you want to get something, you have to ask and bribe BigStall."
This wasn't something unexpected. BigStall told them about it a week before the news actually dropped on the Yggdrasil websites. Then, of course, she managed to get BigStall to check if her classes had quests and the answer was only one did.
Luckily, she has enough money in her bank account from being a high-up propagandist to personally pay BigStall to code in a quest for her, even though he didn't need the money and he wasn't even on the team that worked on those class-quests.
So, naturally, BigStall sighed, standing right behind her, slightly making her jump, "Don't actually bribe me, I'm pretty sure that goes against company policy."
She sent a question mark emoji, "Didn't you accept my money though?"
"That's because you sent it in a discreet and smart way, before I could tell you not to send it," He answered, sending a disappointed face emoji, "I already know Suratan doesn't have the capability to do that."
"Wha- Hey!" Suratan indignantly shouted despite knowing full well that it was the truth, "I could definitely do that!"
"Keep talking and it might come true one day," Vagisilious said before creating a gate, "Anyway, I'll see you guys later, alright?"
BigStall and Suratan waved her goodbye as she teleported to the neutral hub on Helheim to take a portal to Muspelheim, where her Merciful Spiritual Sovereign class quest was. Her Overseer of Souls quest was in Midgard, so she can do that after.
Since the Merciful Spiritual Sovereign was one of the strongest healing classes in the game, surely, she could clear it easily, right?
The first failure seemed like an innocent mistake.
Being a healer class, her entire class quest was based on if she could heal a bunch of NPCs through a dungeon.
The lore was something about these spirits wanting to be freed from their purgatory since the Supreme Sovereign of Spirits, the lore figure responsible for the entire class existing in the first place, trapped them there. Now she had to help them free themselves by clearing a dungeon with NPC allies.
There was also some deeper lore about who the Supreme Sovereign of Spirits was, but honestly, she was not a lore person. She took pictures for Denshosho and called it a day.
Now, the NPCs, while not ideal, still acted pretty logically. Dare she say it, maybe even more logically than some of her guild mates.
But the mechanics of the fights were, on her first attempt at least, confusing.
All of the NPCs had level 88 gear, the current up to date gear in the 6th expansion, Dreamer's Legacy. It was actually a level up from her level 87 gear.
The first boss, The Stone Jailor of All Sins, basically just a giant stone golem mage, had basically only one mechanic, adding DoTs to everyone.
The gimmick mechanic was that the higher the average gear level, the more the DoTs it applied would do damage. Then it would just apply DoTs the entire fight doing admittedly pretty weak melee damage in-between applying DoTs.
But then for some reason, the DoTs didn't start at maximum strength. It acted as though it started from gear level 0 all the way until their average gear level.
But then every time she went to cleanse the DoT, it would just reapply itself. Then the boss would get a 1% damage bonus to all its attacks.
She was stupid, however, and didn't check the boss's condition because she was mentally conditioned to think all she needed was her Merciful Spiritual Sovereigns class and didn't think to use her divination abilities to check if the boss did anything.
So, she wiped on the first boss.
Fortunately, the developers were unnaturally kind to the player base this time around, removing the -5 level penalty for dying during their class quests.
She would later learn that it was sorely needed.
The second time she wiped on the very same boss, it was because she fucked up on the timing of cleansing the DoTs, which she learned were very unforgiving. One of her teammates ended up dying early into the fight, one of the damage dealers, and the team couldn't kill the boss in time before the damage ramped up too much past her healing.
Basically, a skill issue.
On the third time she wiped to the same boss, she realized that the mechanics of the boss weren't tough or innovative. They were just standard Yggdrasil bullshit.
This was no test of skills or any clever way to utilize your knowledge of the game.
IT WAS A FUCKING GEAR CHECK.
Essentially, the damage ramp up of the DoTs was exponential. But it didn't actually do that much damage until it got to the level 70s of the DoT.
Because she herself was wearing level 87 gear, she was threatened by the DoT herself and had to use mana to cleanse herself. But then by the time the boss was nearing death, she would run out of mana and the boss would kill them all.
The reason for that was because of a little mechanic on the AoE cleansing spell she had to use to dispel the DoT on her allies.
It would take a flat percentage of her mana, then depending on how many allies were cleansed, it would take an additive amount of mana depending on average gear level for each ally that was cleansed.
The reason for this was because debuffs and the like were found to be basically useless if the healers could cleanse it without worry, which was why it was balanced to be more mana intensive based on the allies healed.
The thing is, this boss seemed to be specifically tuned so that you could only cleanse the DoTs so many times before the damage ramped up too much to the point it killed you. There were 5 members she had to cleanse the DoT off of, including herself, and after doing that maybe 15 times, so a 95% damage buff, they died.
But like she said earlier, before level 70, the DoTs didn't do much damage. She only cleansed it at that point to conserve mana. But since she had to cleanse it on all 5 people every 7 seconds or so, it was still a lot of mana.
Which is when she realized she needed to find a way to not have to cleanse herself.
Which is when she realized that the requirement for beating this boss was to wear lower level gear. That was why The Stone Jailor of All Sins did shit melee damage, so she didn't have to heal and cleanse herself as much.
Now, a little fun fact. For the first four expansions, the difference between each gear level was a 5% increase in stats. So every expansion, a player's stats would get 25% better.
After level 80, because the corporate executives hate fun, it went from a 5% increase to a 1.5% increase. A player's stats would be 7.5% after each expansion.
Now that they were in the 6th expansion, most of the old gear was basically irrelevant. Anything below 80 should've really just been sold to an NPC for the gold.
So answer this, Yggdrasil Devs…
WHY THE HELL DOES THIS BOSS REQUIRE GEAR BELOW LEVEL 70?!
She returned to Nazarick, absolutely pissed after making that realization, checking the treasury to see if she had any gear below that level.
As it turns out, she did happen to have gear below level 70!
It was her very first finished set of gear from Vanilla Yggdrasil. It looked ugly in comparison to the newer sets, but it was her very first, so she kept it in the treasury for all this time.
It was level 60.
If she can't clear the boss without having to get the guild together to farm old level 69 raids for gear, she is going to kill somebody.
It took 3 more tries after switching into her old gear, but finally, she was able to kill the first boss.
…Out of 5.
If progress didn't save in-between exiting and reentering this dungeon, she is going to kill somebody.
It didn't save her progress.
She could not kill somebody because she was a support player.
Instead, she got Ulbert to drop a Grand Catastrophe on some low level players. Not as cathartic, but it would later lead to Grand Catastrophe being nerfed again, and hearing Ulbert's bitching and moaning about it was definitely cathartic.
It would take her 4 days to clear the quest anyway. Half of that time was just spent refarming the potions and other temporary buffs to help her actually challenge the later bosses instead of losing instantly.
As the Shadow of the Supreme Sovereign of Spirits faded away, and all of her NPC companions finally got to ascend to the after life, Vagisilious was at peace.
She finally beat the stupid quest. She already saw on the Yggdrasil forums that a lot of the other players were also struggling on their solo quests.
There were also some fucking assholes who bragged about beating it all on their first try, but this wasn't about them.
She had to pull out the weirdest and zaniest tactics out of her ass. She had to search high and low for very specific items to counter very specific problems that happened at very specific times during the boss fights.
She had to push mountains over rivers, and what was her reward? She almost didn't care, the sense of accomplishment was basically enough.
Well, it was enough until she saw what her cosmetic reward was.
It was a recolored replica of the Supreme Sovereign of Spirits' Mianguan.
You know, a cosmetic replica of the WORLD ITEM THAT SHE ALREADY OWNS.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS WAS ALL FOR NOTHING AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Vagisilious didn't even look at her Overseer of Souls class quest after that one. Nuh-uh, fuck that shit. She didn't want to touch any class-quests until she figured out from other people with the same class about what the rewards were.
Maybe if the gameplay was fun, she would have a go at it, but she was not having that experience happen to her twice.
Seriously, she was a reincarnated person! She's basically the main character, and she got screwed over like this!?
Well, to be fair, there were other Merciful Spiritual Sovereign players, and they all knew about her world item since Ainz Ooal Gown needed to use it pretty often. No wonder why they got a recolored replica at her expense.
Naturally, upon hearing of the news, basically the entire guild laughed at her.
"Pfft, sorry, Vaggy," BigStall half-heartedly apologized, too consumed with laughter to try and make it sincere, "Heheha- I probably should've checked what those rewards were- Hahaha!"
Ulbert was no better, "Hey, Vaggy, didn't you complain about how the Mianguan didn't mesh with your style most of the time? Well, now you can complain about it twice as hard! Hahahaha!"
"It's alright, Vaggy, maybe your Overseer class will have a better cosmetic reward," The saint, Peroroncino, sent her a heart emoji to try and help her feel better.
It didn't really help when his girlfriend was making fun of her, "Hahaha! Yeah, Vaggy. Maybe the Overseer of Souls cosmetic will make your eyes pitch black- You know, blacker than it already is!"
Her dark, empty eyes soullessly stared at the nearby wall as she bemoaned her luck, "This game fucking sucks. Why do I keep playing Yggdrasil? I should just quit…"
"You'll show up to the raid next week though, right?" Momonga asked.
She nodded, "Yeah, I'll be there."
Just like an abusive relationship, she kept coming back because she was fucking stupid.
They were all stupid for still coming back, actually.
As the guild moved on to better topics, Touch Me began to complain about his own experiences with his World Champion class-quest, "I actually met, who was it… Yeah, Elohs at the entrance to the dungeon I had to run through. We agreed to compare how our experiences went and holy fucking shit, it was awful. They had us fight through what was basically the equivalent of 10 players at the same time! How do they expect us to do that?! Do the devs even play their own game!?"
On cue, everyone looked to BigStall for the answer to that last question.
Now, of course, the Yggdrasil Developers played their own game. How else could they fine tune everything to be as painful for the player as possible? They usually just did it under different accounts and were mostly solo players, or made clans with the other Developers.
But that wasn't the funniest answer, and BigStall was a man of the people.
"Really? You still think we play our game?" He chuckled, making up a fact on the spot, "In fact, they don't play our game so much, I think one of our Devs is actually a paying, playing player of one of our rival DMMORPGs."
"I fucking knew it!" Bellriver shouted out as if he had called it himself, "Tell them to play their own goddamn game!"
Tabula grumbled, "Do they really expect every player to be able to bring their own buffs to their quest? It's insane…"
"I'd like them to try sniping something a whole kilometer away, that's for sure," Peroroncino complained, going on to explain what he went through unprompted to Garnet, who basically went through the same thing as him.
Meanwhile, BigStall internally laughed, because he got to create his own challenge and made it as easy as possible.
The Yggdrasil Forums
Topic: How are your class challenges going?
Posted on July 27th, 2133 by Nanaboshi.
Nanaboshi (Original Poster) (Guild: Days of the Week)
So I got my ass kicked during my class challenge. I'm a fucking rogue, I don't know how they want me to somehow tank a whole ass boss while only getting crits on it. But hey, I guess that's what they meant by these quests being only for the most skilled players in Yggdrasil.
So, how are you guys doing? Did you get easier quests or have you just given up on yours?
I'll probably keep trying at mine since I've now got personal beef with that 3rd boss. Fuckass undead ogre and its shitty ass splitting and revival mechanic.
Showing Page 1 of 42.
Sort by: Hot
OOOOOOSAKA (Clanless)
Mine was kinda easy since I play Shield of Hope and all I had to do was survive until my NPC teammates killed all of the enemies.
Well, the end boss took me like, 20 tries to do because I had to keep an eye on like, a million things to make sure my allies didn't get jumped on and die. But other than that, it was alright.
-Kaltata (Guild Leader: Please be Sunday)
Your thing was easy? Bitch you fucking told us it was a nightmare. Kicked.
-=OOOOOOSAKA (Clanless)
COME ON MAN I WAS TRYING TO FLEX
Aldar Majoras Temporas (Guild: Scholars of The Final Extinction)
Really hard. I'm a fucking dumbass and went in with roleplaying gear thinking it'd be easy LMAO.
I got to the 2nd to last boss but I have no idea how I'm meant to clear the adds while surviving the boss.
Playing as a Lord Over Power by the way. Plz help.
-Orphea Scarlet (Guild: Ainz Ooal Gown)
The boss has a slow turn speed so you can kite the adds around the boss. But then it also has a mechanic where it can just go full 180 on you so you have to make sure you don't stand directly behind it.
I was able to clear it with a full defensive physical gear set since it has magical resistance so half my build was basically neutered. If you play well enough, you should be good unless your build is wacky like mine.
-=Aldar Majoras Temporas (Guild: Scholars of The Final Extinction)
Thank you, you're a real one. How did you manage to do enough damage to the boss with your defensive gear before it killed you?
-=-Orphea Scarlet (Guild: Ainz Ooal Gown)
My build goes all in on attack so even though my gear was mostly for defense, I could still deal a decent amount of damage. I killed the boss on like 1% HP though.
DJ Kitty Mitty (Clan: Neko Neko Guild)
It was actually really fun. It really fed into the class fantasy where I was this speedy supporter, dashing across the battlefield to make sure my allies could all fight at their maximum potential against the invading army.
-Hopeful Liaison (Guild Leader: Army of Salvation)
Which class is that? That sounds sick.
-=DJ Kitty Mitty (Clan: Neko Neko Guild)
Savior of The Battlefield! It's a buffer class with some minor healing.
-=-Hopeful Liaison (Guild Leader: Army of Salvation)
Thank you!
EmpireOfWar (Muspelheim World Champion) (Guild: Triumvirate)
My time would've been better spent researching good ways to kill myself. The World Champion challenge fucking SUCKED. I have no idea how Principality managed to clear it on his first go.
-Amir (Clanless)
That's because Principality's just built different. Literally hasn't lost his world champion title since the very first tournament. Dude is unironically the GOAT.
-=Vladdimirr (Guild: Foreigner United Front)
God, I genuinely hate that guy. Fighting against him is so unfun. MF just has like a million and one items in his inventory that specifically counters your entire build. The Devs NEED to nerf items in combat.
-=-Kikotenshin Nekonyan (Clan: Slane)
The guy is the only one using it semi-frequently lmao. I tried, but trying to farm the items for that playstyle sucks ass. Not to mention Principality's build is specifically made so that he isn't opening himself to attacks while he uses those items.
When I try to play like Principality, my enemies just shut me down like I'm a level 60 noob.
When Principality plays like himself, his enemies just fucking die.
Dude is the undisputed GOAT for a reason.
Ulbert Alain Odle (Guild: Ainz Ooal Gown)
These challenge quests are fucking shit. It's like the Devs don't even play their own goddamn game with how overtuned these bosses are.
Seriously, how the fuck am I living against a boss that takes like 10% of my health on every basic attack?
They have to balance this shit and maybe play their own game for starters.
-Makel (Guild: Seraphim)
"It's like the Devs don't even play their own goddamn game"
Fucking dumbass YOU HAVE A DEVELOPER IN YOUR GUILD. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.
-=Unionite (Guild Leader: Foreigner United Front)
I do agree that some of the bosses are kind of overtuned but I do agree with Makel you should NOT be the one saying that LMAO.
-=-Seraphos Tintas (Guild: Hand of Heaven)
Skill issue
-=-=TitsOut (Guild: YggPosting Central)
It's crazy how every time I see you post a completely reasonable take I agree with, I feel the urge to hate it. Stop making history, Ulbert!
-=-=-Shin'nyū-sha (Guild: Love Highway)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"Play their own games" BROTHER LOOK AT YOUR OWN GUILD.
YOU LITERALLY WOULDN'T HAVE A GUILD BASE IF THE DEVS DIDN'T SAVE YOUR ASS BY INCREASING THE GROUP SIZE BY 100 AND NOT TESTING IT.
THEY LITERALLY MADE YOU GUYS THE FINAL RAID BOSSES OF AN EXPANSION. THE FAVORITISM CANNOT BE MADE MORE CLEAR.
STOP FUCKING WHINING BITCH I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT.
-=-=-=Vagisilious (Guild: Ainz Ooal Gown)
Lmao Ulbert you're getting cooked in the replies.
-=-=-=-Ulbert Alain Odle (Guild: Ainz Ooal Gown)
Shut the fuck up.
AN:
Chapter 32 of Time Capsule, or a few Yggdrasil omakes in its own story?
That was the question I posed to my discord server, all 40-some people who were on it, plus everyone on Ashurbanipal who might've come across my channel.
Only 0bama answered the poll, and he wanted the short stories.
So, here we are. Thanks, 0bama.
Anyway, I'll just upload these as I finish them. Mind that these are side stories, if there's information that contradicts Time Capsule, I'll probably just go with whatever sounds good at the moment.
If it contradicts canon, well, it's a fanfic and I don't care much about canon.
Man, this chapter flew by so fast, though. I wrote it in like 2 hours. It reminds me how I wrote like 130k words for the first 8 chapters of Time Capsule solely by writing Yggdrasil.
Anyway, if you want to suggest anything for the side stories, I've already got a bunch of ideas written down on a google doc. But if you want to try your luck anyway, it's fine to throw an idea into a comment or join the discord to pitch it to me.
Here's the invite link to Fair and Balanced Incorporated, my Discord server.
Invite code is ZPrVHumQJv
If you want to see some other Overlord fics and their writers, here's a link to the Grand Library of Ashurbanipal, the Overlord fanfic server.
Invite code is zu5a8gB7Ze
Anyhow, have a good day, whenever you are reading this.