As the patch note of New World Online version 1.1 was released. Tasked by Yumi, Exorcist Fox Blade, a party comprised of Kaito, Maria, Tamamo, Durandal, and now Eleanor was now testing the unreleased final boss of the first major storyline: Verdir, The Captain of the Rhoctia. They were equipped with the best gear available at the estimate time of the boss release, with their respective advance main job and intermediate side job maxed out.
Verdir was a powerful undead being, a spectral terror draped in the tattered finery of a pirate captain, yet imbued with an eerie, celestial aura. His legend spoke of a cosmic marauder who had traversed the vast, uncharted reaches of the multidimensional void. His flagship, the dreaded Rhoctia, was capable of traveling from world to world, plundering entire civilizations and their inhabitants whole.
These stolen worlds were then trafficked to immensely powerful beings: Gods who sought to accumulate more followers and faith, or Demons who desired new playgrounds for their cruel amusements, or even fresh harvests of souls and suffering
Eventually, Verdir and his crew met their match. During an audacious invasion of Arcadia, they suffered a crushing defeat. In their desperate escape, the Rhoctia found itself cast adrift in the boundary of worlds. The crew was trapped in the infinite confine of the interdimensional rift.
Upon their lifespans nearing its end, the entirety of the Rhoctia's crew turned themselves into undead using a dark relic they had acquired in their travels. Most of the crew eventualy lost their minds during the agonizing process, driven mad by the endless, desolate drift through the cosmic boundary, forever unable to navigate out of it due to the theft of a crucial navigational device—a device stolen long ago by a cunning Trickster God.
The grand questline goes as follow. The various mage orders and warring factions across Arcadia, independently learn of the Rhoctia's existence and its precarious location. Driven by ambition and the allure of untold power, they each manage to open temporary rifts, peering into the swirling chaos of the boundary to confirm the ship's presence.
However, this act of reconnaissance, inadvertently alerts the stranded undead crew. Seizing this unexpected opportunity, Verdir's spectral pirates use the coordinates of these newly opened rifts to escape and launch an invasion, bringing their unholy visage back to the worlds they once fail to plunder.
Witnessing this sudden return, each faction on Arcadia immediately shifts its focus to conquering the ship for themselves. Players will then confront the undead crew, fighting through hordes of spectral pirates and mechanical constructs across the Rhoctia's decks.
The story culminates in a hard-fought victory against the spectral crew, but despite their triumph, no single faction is able to fully use or claim the ship. This is due to a profound lack of expertise in interdimensional navigation and, perhaps more significantly, the ever-present political conflicts and distrust that cripple any cooperative effort. Without the missing navigation device that was stolen by the Trickster God, the Rhoctia remains bound, unable to traverse to other dimensions without being lost.
At the end of this expansive storyline, depending on the cumulative players choices and faction support throughout the narrative, either the current royal family of Promere, the rebel leader or another faction entirely will obtain or regain the mandate of the First Light, solidifying their claim and becoming the undisputed ruler of Arcadia. With the immediate threat of Verdir neutralized and a new, if grudgingly accepted power structure established, everything will return to a state of relative normalcy, awaiting the next grand chapter in New World Online's evolving reality.
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"SOLAR FLARE SLASH!" Kaito roared, his voice echoing across the deck of the Rhoctia. He brought down his sword in an arc of flame. As a result of his advanced job of Sentinel, Kaito benefited from a unique passive derived from his Hero job line: actively calling out the name of his abilities made them deal increased damage and cost less mana.
The Captain of the Rhoctia, a hulking figure cloaked in tattered celestial rags, staggered from the blow. Before Kaito could follow up, however, Verdir seamlessly phased backward, dodging the subsequent attack with surprising agility for an undead.
No sooner had Verdir repositioned than a barrage of spirit orbs slammed into him. Each orb burst upon impact, inflicting a stackable stat-lowering debuff. These debuffs had no cap, their limit only bound by their duration, promising to eventually cripple the ancient pirate. This relentless assault was the work of Tamamo, whose advanced main job, Taoist, combined with her Monk subclass, granted her immense mana regeneration. As long as she maintained her Monk passive of meditative breathing and stood within the zone of her Taoist Geomancy skill, her mana was virtually limitless.
In the back, Durandal stood firm, her main job, Symbol, radiating an aura outward as she waved a large flag. With each sweep, buffs washed over everyone, increasingly strengthening their every action.
Maria and Eleanor, the group's primary damage dealers, worked in tandem. Maria unleashed torrents of psychic power, crushing the boss with telekinetic force and steadily lowering all of its debuff resistances. Beside her, Eleanor wove intricate patterns of ice magic, inflicting defense-shattering debuffs and slowing Verdir's movements to a glacial crawl.
The party's strategy was simple. Buff themselves while debuffing the boss into an oblivion. Their combined skills aimed to slowly chip away at his vast health pool. This particular boss was tuned for a full hundred-player raid, but with their optimized endgame gear, the task, while lengthy, was entirely achievable with their small team.
As Verdir's health dwindled, the first major phase shift occurred. The Captain of the Rhoctia let out an unintelligible curse, unleashing a terrifying black hole-like spell from his chest. The void expanded rapidly, sucking everything on the deck inward. One would instinctively think the correct choice was to run away from the spell or desperately cling to something to avoid being consumed. Yet, regardless of the decision, touching the event horizon meant instant death, and the spell would inevitably explode, instantly killing anyone caught in its blast radius anyway.
The true solution was counterintuitive: throw every available ranged attack at the black hole itself to overload it. Kaito, Maria, Eleanor, and Tamamo unleashed a volley of concentrated firepower onto the swirling void. With a deafening pop, the black hole destabilized, imploding onto itself and briefly stunning Verdir in the process.
Verdir then entered its last phast, as his form underwent a horrific transformation. The tattered undead pirate cracked, his body burst into a being whose very essence comprised galaxy patterns, with a swirling, miniature black hole for a head. The ship's deck became a perilous dance floor. Random spots on the ground and in the air would suddenly spawn mini black hole spells, winking into and out of existence, dealing massive damage to anyone who even brushed against them.
The only option was to perfectly and continuously dodged it while fighting. At random intervals, Verdir would fixate on a single player, and a cluster of these dangerous black holes would begin to track their location. Adding to the chaos, the entire ship would periodically shake violently, carrying a high chance of stunning and knocking players around if they didn't possess specific stun immunity or force-movement prevention abilities. This was the true test of skill.
"CRESCENT MOON SLICE!"
"ECLIPSE EDGE!"
"QUASAR SWORD!"
Kaito roared, a torrent of powerful sword skills unleashed with each shouted name. He was immensely glad this was New World Online and not real life, for his throat would surely be bleeding raw from such continuous yelling. The cosmic figure of Verdir, battered by the relentless assault, finally staggered to his knee. With a last death cry, the boss fell, making the end of their testing.
"That took only thirty minutes. Not remotely as difficult as some of those hidden bosses, but it should be enough for a first major storyline boss." Kaito said.
"The AI could be tweaked a little. It didn't seem aggressive enough, and its adaptation to our tactics felt too slow." Eleanor added.
"We can chalk it up for its lore, perhaps? Being an undead whose sanity has diminished might explain its less sophisticated combat patterns." Maria offered.
"The first phase was rather boring, honestly. It should summon its lackeys to disrupt us or have those ranged weapons on the ship shoot at us." Tamamo stretched languidly.
"I don't think it does enough damage, and too many of its attacks can be easily dodged. The challenge feels artificial at times." Durandal chimed in.
"Well, let's take all these suggestions to Yumi. I'm sure she can implement some changes that the players will have a lot of fun with." Kaito smiled.