Last night, the city of Chicago issued 10 simultaneous tornado warnings as severe storms swept through the area. I know this because 1) I live in Chicago, and 2) I was fighting The Witness, final boss of Destiny 2’s latest raid at the time. Now you might think that, as a literally late-middle-aged man, as soon as I was informed about the tornado situation, I immediately downed my rocket-powered sidearm, wished my teammates well, and disconnected. After that my partner, our irascible puppy Jelly Bean, and I huddled in the bath to avoid falling masonry, or hunkered down in the bedroom cupboard, which I was later informed is even safer. Reader, let me tell you, that is not what I did.
I kept playing and honestly I didn’t even think that hard about it.
Regular readers of this site may recall that I am a hopeless degenerate when it comes to Destiny. I have been playing for the entirety of the series’ decade-long existence, racking up so many thousands of hours that I’m no longer comfortable admitting the exact number. Suffice to say that when we last ran a reader poll asking how much time people had logged in their most-played game, I had them all beaten except for a couple of Dota 2 and EVE sickos.
I wish I could even tell you that this was my first completion of the Salvation’s Edge raid, and therefore meant something special to my team. But no, according to Raid Report, it was my 11th clear and the third run of the week, hastily squeezed in before today’s weekly reset.
It’s raining, my neigbour is trying to tell me something. but I gesture sadly at my headphones, making the universal hand/phone gesture to explain I’m on a call, and go back to dunking shapes.
As you’ve probably also gathered, I’m an absolute goblin when it comes to raiding. It’s my favourite activity in Destiny and the main reason I keep playing. I’m also a fiend for exotic weapons, so the fact I haven’t got Euphony—the exotic from this raid—is an itch that must be scratched. It’s a linear fusion rifle that spawns ‘Threadlings’, which are little green critters that swarm nearby enemies—and it does good DPS. It is my white whale. I’ve even built a full loadout ready to slot the gun into when it finally drops.
(For context, I had to run the Vow of the Disciple raid a whopping 69* times before looting its exotic, eventually resorting to LFG because my teammates had long-since got everything and abandoned me. *Not nice.)
I say all that not by way of justification for my behaviour, but merely to give you some insight into how wrongly my brain works. Let me also sketch a timeline for you. During the penultimate encounter before The Witness, my neighbour knocks at the window. (We live in the basement half of a duplex.) It is raining and he’s trying to tell me something. I gesture sadly at my headphones, making the universal hand/phone gesture to explain I’m on a call, and go back to dunking shapes in the Verity encounter.
The Witness: “No.” (Image credit: Bungie)
About 15 minutes later, having noticed some commotion outside, my fiancée bursts into my office and flips over my phone, pointing at a screenshot she’s sent me of an emergency alert from the National Weather Service. It reads: “TORNADO WARNING in this area until 10.00 PM CDT. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building.” There’s some other stuff about mobile homes and flying debris, but you get the gist.
I forget exactly what she said next, I was shooting things at the time, but to paraphrase: “There are 10 tornadoes. At least one is near here. The neighbours are scared and probably going to come down to shelter.” I mutter “Okay” before gesturing to the screen and saying “I’m not stopping. Final boss.” She counters that the power is already out across a chunk of the city, to which I respond with a shit-eating grin: “It ain’t out here.”
I completely understand if you have now lost whatever scintilla of respect you might have had for me. But look, The Witness is not a hard encounter at this point, and we had been cooking all night. I’d be done in minutes.
One wipe later and the door opens again and Jelly Bean is thrust through. “Pokie is here,” says my better half. Pokie is the dog from upstairs who used to try to hump Jelly Bean but now doesn’t because she’s bigger than him and frankly loves to play rough. She’s ready to go at all times and is very much pleased to have visitors. She begins barking. It does not help my aim.
Jelly Bean, the French Bulldog
She is unbothered by tornadoes or raid bosses but does like to catch sparrows, and not the jet bike kind.
By now my teammates have overheard the situation and, as is the case for any well-drilled group of regular online gamers, are making bad taste jokes about the situation. Yes, some also express mild concern, but tellingly no one actually suggests I stop playing. Truthfully, I’m more nervous about the amount of trouble I may be in for not entertaining the neighbours and being such an obviously reckless clown, rather than feeling any sense of mortal danger. I mean how often does central Chicago get torn up by tornadoes anyway? I have literally no idea, and that ignorance was my armour in that moment.
Credit to the boys, on the second attempt The Witness gets dumpstered in two phases. Was my damage competitive? Absolutely not. Did I die a couple of times due to inattention? 100%. But neither of those things are unusual for me, even without the inclement weather (which still just looks like heavy rain to me). In the couple of seconds it takes for the loot to drop, I tell myself I’m definitely going to get Euphony because it’ll make for a cool story. It doesn’t drop. Instead I get a sniper rifle that I do not need. I say, “I’m out”, hoping it sounds cool, and everyone wishes me well as I hit Alt+F4.
I don’t register shock on their faces, and if there is disgust, they’re good enough to conceal it.
I stroll sheepishly into the lounge to find our neighbours, three kids, snacks, candles, both dogs and my wife-to-be. I say hi and try for a ‘hey, no big deal’ vibe as I make small talk. Everyone knows I play videogames too much so I don’t register much shock on their faces, and if there is disgust, they’re good enough to conceal it. I do actually feel bad when it becomes clear one of the youngsters is actually scared of the tornadoes, which isn’t helped by recounting my memories of The Great Storm of ’87. That draws an actual reprimand from my eternally patient other half. Meanwhile Pokie drops a deuce in the corridor.
Not much later the TV announces the storm has passed out onto the lake and the imminent danger is over. One of my teammates texts me “Stay safe m8” which is actually touching. Everyone goes their separate ways, and I’m left wondering what’s to be learned from the night. My sister, who also lives in Chicago, suggests that maybe we weren’t scared because tornadoes aren’t a thing in the UK (where we’re from) and therefore we have nothing to gauge them by. She may be right, but I have seen the movie Twister several times. Honestly, the real story is this: Bungie’s raid exotic drop rates still really need to be revised. It’s ludicrous that multiple of my teammates have had Euphony drop twice while I could be waiting for a potentially infinite amount of time.
That and, uh, family is what matters most etc.
