thing is i didn't figure out the guy was a jerk until after he had left..
so i was in toa as usual looking to kill some time for fun on my monk in uw. a ranger spams for a group, offering to pay 1k per person to help him cap the spider. sure, why not. i find it ridiculous that guilds attempt to charge 20-80k to help some player cap a spider in uw.
anyway, our first group, we have incompetent monks running heal party, with incompetent tanks running pure damage. after first two groups of bulls, predictable thing happens - idiot monk leaves, followed by wars leaving. well, i'm always glad when idiots leave the group because then you're only left with either the good players or players who are at least willing to listen and learn. fewer idiots to heal and prot means an easier task for me. so no problem, i'm a competent monk, i can keep what's left (ele, mes, ranger) alive, plus there's still a backup monk around running heal party =)
no wars, so i tell the ranger he's next in line to tank. never thought he'd have to work so hard for his spider did he.. hehe. he's a good sport, we tank our way to the reaper w/ no more than 1 death. then inexperienced ele takes unwanted guests. other monk drops immediately. wtf. well, it's down to 4, and we decide to press onward towards the spider. it's not easy i say, but these players are good, especially w/ the mes who had the foresight to bring rebirth. we pull the webs, then the bulls, then hatch a plan to skirt the vengefuls and take out the keeper. unfortunately we fail after a few valiant attempts and end up at toa.
try again? sure, the 4 of us are up for it. spam for more members and we pick up a monk who then tells us he can run solo tank for us. okay, sounds good, let me change in some skills such as vengence. the solo monk is eager to go and says to accept anyone. we get an r/me in our party as the eighth member. i also make it clear to the solo monk that we're getting the spider before we go smiting and it's reserved for the original ranger in our party.
so said ranger pays our way in. we slice our way thru the mobs like soft butter, although the solo monk continuously complains about the casters not using their aoe. um, that's what the monks are for, and that's why i carry prot spirit kid... well, turns out someone is breaking aggro on the aatxes w/ chaos storm - guess what, it's the r/me. solo monk keeps bitching, i tell him it'll be alright. then solo monk wants to go to smites, crying piteously "i can't kill them by myself!"
well, i remind him that i had said when he joined, spider first, smites after. well, solo monk pisses his pants at the prospect of the terrorwebs. he told me he had spellbreaker, and i said i brought vengence. what is he so afraid of, dying? well, solo monk immediately zones out, having to go clean his diapers. great. our only tank has left. our backup monk thinks to themself, "wtf? no tank! gah! i pissed my pants!", and leaves immediately after.
screw that, "spider-capping ranger, guess it's your turn to tank again =)" - he was skilled as a trap ranger, and being relatively inexperienced didn't carry troll ungent or any stances on him lol. but he sufficed well enough heh
so we fight our way to the reaper who offers the wrathful spirit quest for the spider. very busy as the only monk in a group of 6 but i manage to only die once - being entangled with 6 colds, 3 webs and untold graspers at the monument can be messy =)
we grab the quest and manage to easily finish off the tortured spirits. we all cheer at having gotten the spider and tell the ranger to hurry and cap it before anything else goes wrong. he had been sitting next to the reaper waiting to cap the spider, so he begins to charm it and it turns red on radar and starts attacking. well, we're all sitting there watching when suddenly there's a collective groan as we all collapse to the ground, all our health bars turning dark red.
"a reaper of the labyrinth has been killed..."
omfg. i couldn't believe it.
ranger "noooooooooooooooooooo.. i almost had it!" (it was almost funny)
there was no way. i've run uw so many times, i couldn't figure out how the reaper would have died, we killed every mob within a mile of that freaking thing. the mes said it was possible as it had happened to him once before.
we zone back to toa. other ranger immediately drops out.
well, by now, i'm sure everyone's already figured out who the jerk in this case was.
it wasn't until we were on our third spider capping attempt, that it hit me when i asked the mesmer (all 5 of us core players agreed to help out the spider capper again) if that other ranger was with us during the wrathful spirits quest. the mes didn't think he was. well, apparently that bastard ranger had gone back during the quest, probably taken unwanted guests, and waited until the last second to aggro the invunerable bulls on the reaper). apparently he wanted the spider as well, and if he couldn't have it, he wasn't about to let anyone have it. and when i think about it, it all makes sense as i didn't recall the ranger being present, also the perfect timing of the reaper's death, and it being completely impossible to tell if unwanted has been taken when you're in the wrathful spirits area.
in any case, we got a real good warrior our third run, picked up the spider real fast, then after the second monk dropped, went on to clear escort souls, unwanted guests and smites. the funny part was when we finally got the spider, the ranger says, "come and get your reward"
the new warrior goes, "there's a reward? lol"
the rest of us who have been thru this thing with him 3 times now are like, haha, it's okay, we don't need the gold.
so in the end, no one in the party was interested in any gold. we just all congratulated him on his spider.
in the world of jerks, there are jerks... and then there are real jerks