By the end of this, you'll all be glad I didn't have a mic.

In the past two days, I've gone from level 27 to level 30, with just a TON of grinding through bounties and hope-- not to mention getting a brand new Exotic Bounty (Bad Juju; oof, wish me luck, folks)-- and I decided that today I wanted to set aside some time to do something special.

Today, I would finally do the Vault of Glass.

Thankfully, Kermit was doing a Vault run today! So I had RSVP'd, and the time came, and... I still didn't have a mic. Every single other person on the team did, and I could barely even hear them (gotta love chat issues), but that quickly resolved itself. As luck would have it, one very unfortunate individual would be my unwitting mouthpiece by way of the PS4's rather shoddy message system: Lichtonatus! The first one to join me in the tower, he sadly had to talk to himself and wonder if I was even a functioning human being until I worked out a system of... just dancing to say "I understand", basically.

But it worked out that everyone else showed up very shortly thereafter, and they were all talking, and becoming quickly acquainted with the fact that I couldn't talk back. Off we went!

• Forming the Spire and opening the door? No problem. This would be the first time I would die during the mission, and to be honest I didn't die for a long time after! I was pretty proud of that.
  
• We all found that most of us had solo'd the first chest, myself included, so we skipped right along to the Templar encounter. This is where I finally found out why the hell I was dying ALL the damn time trying to solo it. Also, I found it it would be ridiculously difficult to solo even if I had known what I was doing. I think I only killed like five Oracles, if that? But I felt like I was taking direction pretty well at this point, since everyone was on board with me not knowing anything and unable to say what I did or didn't know.
  
• Suffice to say, I got told a lot of things I didn't know... and some that I did! The Gorgon's Maze I actually knew all about, because I thought that it looked crazy awesome (I love stealth, hence why I crouched and went invisible like... twenty times throughout the raid. For no reason. At all.), but what I had no idea about was... how DIFFICULT it is to kill a Gorgon! I've seen videos of it being done, but man, they are nigh impossible without Gjallarhorns all around. But CaneCutter led us all to victory... by which I mean a chest on a really well lit platform and then safely out of the maze. After four wipes. It's everyone else's fault though. Not Cane's.
  
• I should mention first, however... getting down to the maze was REALLY HARD. Taking the little back path from the Templar's room to get the extra chest winds through the longest, darkest, most confusing vertical cavern I've seen since, hell. Minecraft! It was very disorienting to look down and see all my teammates names beneath me. Faaaaar beneath me.
  
• But at the very end of the Maze, I opened a chest to find... HAWKMOON. MY FIRST EXOTIC WEAPON SINCE LAUNCH, YESSSSSS. I forget who it was that was talking about having gotten five Dragon's Breaths since the DLC came out (Lich maybe?) but man, I was ecstatic. Without a mic, this amounted to a lot of shooting, dancing, and spinning around in circles in a nauseating fashion.
  
• Special shout out to Lich again-- once we got to the jumping puzzle, I got pushed off by somebody following close behind me, and thought I'd try using Arc Blade to cross, which much to my dismay, failed MISERABLY. Everyone else got across just fine of course, but they all assumed that I had made it first and went super far ahead (I specifically remember someone saying "Orange's doing his own thing" and "man, where did he even GO"). The result was that I was cracking up so badly I kept plummeting to the depths! Lich came back to see where I was, just in time for me to make it onto the other side... and for him to fall off. Poor guy was saddled with a lot today. Especially for someone who it was nearly 1 in the morning for when this all began!
  
• Finally. ATHEON.
  
• You know, I saw more Precursor Vex in the Undying Mind strike than I did here? Just saying.
  
• There was a lot of really confusing talk about the Relic, although I was eager to try it out-- but without a mic, the crucial aspect of communication was too important to lose, so I deferred to anyone else. This would come back to bite me in the arse at the very end.
  
• I think I bit off about 1/15th of Atheon's health. I can't even tell you guys how many times I ran out of PRIMARY weapon ammo. Primary. Weapon. Ammo. It was embarrassing. Blessedly, everyone else was much much more prepared. I found out all about the way the plates work in Atheon's room, and the importance of killing the Oracles, and not being on the ground when the Supplicants come around. But what I didn't learn was what it looks like, from my own character's perspective, was what it looks like when Atheon diiiiiies.
  
• The very last timestream warp of the run threw me and two others far away, and the two others made it through perfectly fine... but I was entirely blinded and stuck on another planet. I waited for the wipe to come, as it had several times throughout the fight. But the wipe didn't come, and neither did any lingering enemy attempt to kill me-- there weren't any! I was stranded. I heard my teammates talking through instructions with expert precision to make a strong push against Atheon. Then, my HUD erupted to life around the still black image of my vision, letting me know that the Vex tyrant had been eradicated. I received Prime Zealot armor! And a Vision of Confluence! And, at last, Chatterwhite! But I had no idea what was happening thereafter.
  
• At least I actually died by misadventure at this point, thus allowing me to see all my teammates dancing in victory. And really, no complaints at all! It was the most fun I've had in a team since I put the disc in my PS4, or even when I played the Alpha! Plus, I was the only one to get an Exotic out of the run.

(ALSO, thanks to Bones and PrinceChadius! You guys were super great and understanding as well.)

So what's next? Crota's End! I can't wait to try that as SOON as humanly possible. Tomorrow, in fact, if anyone's up for it! And I promise, I've purchased a mic, and it is in transit to me as we speak, honest. In the future, I will be a vocal part of the team!

If that's a good thing. Jeez, would you look at all this? Thanks, guardians. You made my day.