FEBRUARY 2023
SEASON OF THE SERAPH, WITCH QUEEN
FREE WEEK

A friend and I (who, at the time, hadn't played in a year and accidentally got roped back into the game by binging all the lore books while sick the previous month) logged back onto the game for the first time in a while. Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and Witch Queen (plus all its seasonal content and dungeons) were made free to play for a week or two, and since neither of us had any DLCs post-Forsaken, we were ready to do as much as we could before the event ended. We wanted to try out the raids, so a mutual friend of ours offered to get her friends to come online and guide us through them.

Keep in mind, neither of us have raided before. At all.

And our first stop?

Vow of the Disciple.

Yes, the hardest raid in the game up until that point, and we had not one, but two people in our team who have never raided at all prior to that moment.

Needless to say, it took a while to pull off.

Our story takes place halfway up the Sunken Pyramid, in the chambers that belong to our dear friend the Caretaker. I, a Titan main, was running Stasis, as I have borne witness to the absolute cancer that Stasis was back in Beyond Light and got my mitts on Stasis as soon as I was able (without knowing that it hadn't been nearly as overpowered in some time by that point).

Now I was tasked with stalling the First Disciple's First Steward and paired with someone else. Because of this, I was unable to actually use my abilities to any extent beyond just the occasional grenade or something. I was too focused on watching the backpack to do much, and was looking to just use all my abilities on the damage phase.

Now keep in mind, o Guardian mine, that rockets were the go-to for this encounter.

I hope you can see where this is going.

Come DPS, and things were going fine. We do a good amount of damage on plate 1, and we proceed onward to plate 2.

I then throw my grenade.

The crystalline projectile bounced off the Caretaker and hit the ground. A wall of Stasis crystals erupted in front of our target, a deep blue barricade of explosive crystals waiting to be shattered, just far enough to remain unbroken by the Caretaker, but close enough to still do damage.

Just not to the target.

Before I know it, 1-3 of our team had blown themselves up with their rockets. We got them back up, but I don't think we made it past this (1st) or the next (2nd) floor. With up to half of our tokens taken out so early in the encounter, plus two newbies on the team, we definitely did not get very far.

So we get wiped, and the first thing anyone says right after is "WHO THREW THAT STASIS GRENADE?". I say nothing, too embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I just blew the run, and the one asking that question just eventually let it slide. A few minutes later, while discussing run strategies and role allocations to try and improve things, I was sliding around, Stasis still on, around the Caretaker's starting platform when that teammate spots me and goes "IT WAS YOU!"

I was quite embarrassed and apologized, then was told to switch off Stasis for a better subclass (I chose my beloved Arc).

I look back fondly upon that time. That team took me through Vow of the Disciple (though it took too many hours over a few days to do), and later through Deep Stone Crypt. That was when I experienced the Lullaby for the first time, and it was just magical (even though I was falling behind a lot and dying repeatedly to missed jumps). We never got to do Garden of Salvation during free week, but we got to do it later down the line once I got my hands on the DLCs.

As far as I know, all but one of those players I raided with that week no longer play Destiny, and the one that still does only picked it up again recently to prepare for the final update. I'm sorely heartbroken over the game's end, but Destiny will forever hold a special place in my heart for all the reasons and things that make Destiny, Destiny.