Raid Description (after title): Warminds were designed to annihilate threats. Some did their job better than others. I'll explain the lore behind this first. If you're not interested, scroll down until you see "raid mechanics". I find it plausible that the golden age didn't meet its end due to the darkness alone. It's possible that things could've gone wrong internally, that cyberwarfare or simple malfunctions could've interfered in earths resistance of the darkness. Do you ever find it strange that you hardly see other parts of the earth, or that the people under the travelers gaze hardly ever attempt to build new settlements? What if something were stopping them? My idea is this: there was a Warmind that malfunctioned during the defense of earth. Located near the Mediterranean, this Warmind—Achilles, it was called— inexplicably began destroying earth settlements. The other Warminds helped reduce the impact of its killing spree, but only Rasputin could handle the darkness and Achilles combined, thanks in part to the traveller. The rest of earth fell under the pressure as Achilles used earths weapons against it. For some unexplained reason, Achilles stopped its killing spree, and remained dormant for years. Fast forward to the present. Guardians catch word that the fallen are sending a large distress beacon from near the Mediterranean. Knowing this to be the location of one of the seraphim vaults (those are the complexes designed to house Warminds), your higher ups tell you to collect a team of guardians and eliminate the fallen before they try to tamper with that kind of technology. Almost done: During your foray into the vault (which I'll explain in a few moments), you learn that the fallen have actually been there since the end of the golden age, and have been using a god-like servitor to perform repairs on Achilles. This servitor was responsible for uploading a super-virus into Achilles in the first place, and that the final Warminds were able to do enough damage to incapacitate Achilles before it used the rest of its weapons on the traveller. Only now, it's waking up, and the distress beacon was sent to lure guardians into a very, very deadly trap... RAID MECHANICS: Entrance phase: The door to Achilles' vault is guarded by a fair amount of dregs and vandals, with the occasional captain. To open it, you need to hunt down and kill 3 fallen captains (The House of Torviks) and collect a small, pistol-like artifact called "the decipherer". Once held, it acts a bit like the VoG relic, or CE sword, only in first person. You can pick it up, drop it, whatever. When you pull the trigger, it shines a sustained laser beam that does no damage to enemies. If you've seen the entrance to rasputin's vault, you'll know it's in the shape of a square turned to its side. This is what Achilles' entrance looks like, only bigger, and with one addition: there are three target-like pads on each tip of the massive door, excluding the bottom. To open it and begin the actual raid, you must get three teammates to hold their lasers to each point on the door simultaneously and sustain it for one minute. The other three must guard them from the lower fallen. If those opening the door die, the timer resets. Once finished, the doors swing open, your team must move into the "lobby" area. Phase 1: (checkpoint) As your team moves in, the large vault door closes behind you, leaving your team in pitch black for a moment. The room you are in is structured like a massive hallway, with walkways very high up on either side of you. The lights turn on, revealing the high tech complex, and a large blast door blocking the path forward. It's here that you discover that you've walked into a trap: at the back of the room towards where you entered, an impassable wall of deadly lasers begins cutting into the ground, and advancing slowly towards you. The blast door opens, revealing that the long hallway in front of you is rigged with death lasers at odd angles (imagine one of those spy movies/heist movies where they have to get around trip lasers using acrobatics). The lasers kill you at the touch, and are somewhat difficult to maneuver around. Your team must navigate forward as the large laser wall approaches you. Your goal is to get to the end of the hallway. Going fast is dangerous, but going too slow is just as bad. Along the way, occasional sniper vandals will line the catwalks above you and try to kill you. You can try to reach the end before they kill you, or play it safe and take them out. It's all about managing your time. Once you reach the end of the hallway (and it's pretty long, btw), you enter another room as the door once again closes behind you. Phase 2: (checkpoint) After a small trip deeper into the Warmind, you enter a large, coliseum-like room (think shield brothers strike, only larger, with a little more cover, and human themed). In the center is a large cylindrical glass casing, with the God servitor Torviks inside. It's about the size of phogoth, twice as large as the Sepiks or Kaliks reborn. It is angled all the way upwards, firing a beams into something farther up the tube (he's repairing Achilles). The casing is impenetrable, and you must undergo a series of tasks to access Torviks. Task 1: The room is divided into 8, pizza slice style sections around Torviks' container. There are catwalks waaaay above you circling around the room, a little bit like earlier. This task starts easy. The ground of the section that is safe to enter will be marked green. The unsafe section is red. Once the ground is marked, you'll have 5-7 seconds to enter that section before you are trapped and incinerated by death Rays. The goal of this first part is merely to survive. The room is first divided in half (the sections are randomly chosen btw), leaving you with plenty of room to maneuver as fallen dregs, captains, vandals, servitors, and shanks enter the safe side and try to murder your face off. Once you kill them, the lasers clear, and a new section turns green. This one leaves a quarter of the room safe, giving you less room to maneuver. More enemies show up. Kill em dead. Lasers clear, and final round begins. One eighth of the floor turns green. This section is cramped, and teamwork is essential to surviving. In all these safe zones, you will have adequate cover, but you're still in danger. Once you kill them all, your next task begins. Task two: This one is similar to the first. Room is cut in half. Survive the fallen. This time there will be snipers on the high catwalks, and a new addition as well: A special servitor called an Ether Glutton will spawn with the riffraff, and until you kill it, adds will spawn indefinitely. Kill it fast, guardian. But wait, there's more! Between rounds, a power cell will spawn in the room (it'll rise out of the floor in one of the eight sections). You have about 12 seconds to pick it up and plug it into one of eight sockets on the outer wall of the arena. The appropriate socket will be chosen at random. The socket consumes the cell, and damages Torviks' housing. You then need to get to the next green zone (quarter of the room) before the wave starts. If you fail to insert the power cell, the green section disappears, and your fire team burns to death in lasers. Wipe. After the next wave, (which has an Ether Glutton as well), there will be three cells. Find them fast, and insert them into the correct slots. This damages the casing even more, and Torviks will finish his repairs on Achilles and start watching you. You'll hear a large groan to indicate that Achilles is booting up. Then enter the third safe zone, which is at 1/8 of the arena by now. Kill the enemies (Another glutton). At the end of that, there will be six power cells. Get them to their appropriate slots before you wipe. This will destroy the casing completely, exposing Torviks. Don't get your panties in a bunch though, you're not done yet. Part 2 Linked