9th Anniversary Fabled hunting

The 9th anniversary celebration has started. As part of the celebration, the gods and servants of the Planes of Power have been deemed Fabled and have had their power increased and treasures updated. In addition, all of the past Fabled are making return appearances for a month.

I just happened to be in North Ro stealing plat from the sand giants and remembered that The Fabled Rahotep should be nearby! I ran over and cleared the ruins of the various undead mobs and sure enough, he spawned right away. He's only a level 20 mob, so I made quick work of him, but he did drop both the Fabled and non-Fabled version of his club! I looted them both and will probably give them to an alt, since my Iksar Beserker's Club is actually a faster weapon. Nonetheless, my Fabled hunting has begun!

Dragon hunting

I got invited to group with a 45th Paladin. Being a 45th Cleric and not really knowing where to hunt, I immediately accepted and chatted a little:

I asked, 'Where to?'
'Skyshrine' he said.
I told him 'Never been there, good xp?'
'Hotzone and good loot too' he told me.

After collecting a 46 bard and a 45 shadow knight we were off! But what I, having never been there, failed to realize was that we'd be waiting for a port from a druid to get there. Now, I'm sure in the modern Norath we live in, that there's a way to get there that didn't involve porting, but since the pally was paying, I kept quiet. Besides, I was in no hurry. Within 15 minutes, we'd all been uber-buffed and were running through the Wakening Lands on our way to slay some dragons.

Now, I'd never fought a dragon before. In fact, the only time I'd actually seen one was a couple years ago doing a coast-to-coast run for the sheer nostalgic factor when I ran across a plains dragon in the Karanas:

So, I must say that the idea of fighting dragons appealed to me. Sure, baby dragons (I thought), but dragons nonetheless.

Zoned in to SkyShrine and what do I see? Golems! What? Where are the dragons. We start through the maze and are soon overwhelmed. (Seems our little pally friend was in a bit too much of a hurry to get to the dragons beyond)

It also seems that our shadow knight is a complete noob, having no idea how to assist, use more than one chat window, or protect the cleric. So, we died, he and I. Quick rez later and now I've lost my buffs. Ah well, didn't really need 'em. Do what I can for the sk and we invis and run through the maze.



What was that? I turned a corner and saw something that actually looked like a dragon! Sure, he's a little smallish but hey, I'm a dwarf. I'm smallish too! Wow! A dragon! In my surprise, I almost forgot to mem my heal spells. Oh well, luckily he's just a little guy and heals are over-rated. I joined the fray and we took him down with no problems. Up the hallway we went fighting on and on through many varieties of small dragons. I kept waiting for the payoff...

Soon it came. We found one waiting for us. We cleared the room of his guards and set to work on him. Had a little problem because no matter what, he was going to attack me, and we couldn't get any spells to really land on him. We finally got him down enough for him to run, but I was out of mana, the pally was out of mana, the shadow knight was dead, the pally had used his Lay Hands and the room was starting to respawn. Those of us that were left just decided that we were taking him down no matter what. The bard grabbed what agro he could and bolted for the exit. (Maybe not too bright, considering that he was down to about 10% health and was sure to bring a train back to us, but we figured that he could out-run most mobs and give us enough time to finish off the Count.




The pally and I took him out, just as the bard died. I'm not sure how far he made it, but I barely had time to meditate up enough mana for my gate.

The pally decided to commit suicide and rez later. He took off for the zone line too. A couple minutes later, he popped up, still alive in the Wakening Lands. Said he had brought a HUGE train with him, but at least he made it.

So my first dragon hunt was a success. I made level 46 while I was there and would have played longer, but it was getting late. The group decided to do an LDoN, which I would have LOVED to have done, but had to log. Hopefully I'll catch up with them later!

Groupies:
[45 Paladin] Trawick (Dwarf)
[46 Bard] Darknessdance (Human)
[45 Shadow Knight] Snowdogz (Drakkin)

These guys must play every day for HOURS!!!

Some of the same people that I was playing with the past few days were on again tonight. I grouped up with them again in The Deep. I logged in level 41, but they were between 44 and 51! I played more this weekend than I could imagine EVER playing. Heck I was on vacation from work, that's the only reason I played so much... What do they do, sit around and play EQ all weekend? Hmm... sounds kind of nice, actually... :-)

In any case, Buthar is up to level 44 now. Still haven't done any spell shopping and am a good 5 levels behind on spells now. Better get that done soon...

I'm now a Temperence wielding healer!

WOOT! I got it. Wasn't NEARLY as hard as the online guides made it out to be, either. First mob we killed dropped the emblem, and the ghost was up when we zoned in, so it took next to no work and about 10 minutes of running around. I finally got it though! Thanks to those that helped. I'd like to say that they made it easy, but I think it would have been easy none-the-less. So, thanks to those that made it fun!

Had an eventful day on top of that. Played Buthar all day long. Had an in-guild fishing tourney at Abysmal Sea, which I somehow managed to win, despite falling in the ocean while I was drunk and ducking, which resulted in a nearly 15 minute swim back to the dock I fell off of. Racked up on the Tuna and Crab meat though. Anyone want any? I'll let Lullaan have them. He's the cook in the family.

Did a little XPing today too. Was headed to Dawnshroud Peaks when I found out the group was moving to "Velks". Well, I'd never been there before, so after I asked for directions, I met up with the group in PoK and followed someone the rest of the way. I did find out later that I was in Velious and it marked my first ever trip to the continent. You know, I really should stop being surprised everytime I have a first. It offends me a little to think that I've been playing the game for almost 4 years now and haven't done so many things, but then again, I've never had a character over level 33 until this week... Anyway, it turns out we were in a zone that was made for slightly higher level adventurers than ourselves. Luckily our camp was near the zone line so we could run quickly if needed. Made level 41 before quitting for dinner. Then when I came back I went for Temp.

Wow. Guids are great. And hot zones aren't too bad either...

Logged Buthar in for a while today. Started at level 31, wound up at level 39. Moved over to Dawnshroud Peaks with a couple of the people that I grouped with yesterday. It was the first time I'd been to the zone, but it played well. Even with the hot zone status, I never more than 10 people there, but at least we could keep a full group the entire time. I had a couple of different people in the guild ask me when I was going to do my Temp quest. They're very eager to help me with it. (I hope it's not as hard as they're making it sound... I went and bought the spells that I could find up to level 40, but I need to find the missing few. I started to look up the Temp quest,but Allakhazam was down today, so I'll have to save that for another day. I'm not sure how much play time I'll get in tomorrow, but I'm still hoping to break the 40 mark by week's end.

Let's see what this guild does for me...

So as previously stated, I joined a guild. I logged in today to see what I could do with them. Honestly, I was a little surprised to see that there were 24 members logged in at 1:00 in the afternoon. Buthar hung out in the guild hall for a while working on skilling up his casting abilities before I finally decided to go XP. I noticed that a couple of guildies were in Castle Mistmoore, a current hot zone. I logged in Zunban and joined them there and made 2 or 3 levels in an hour or so. I think we did get wiped once, but only because Dummerboy wanted to take a look in the crypt... Of course he fell in and brought the whole zone training out on us. We never made it inside the castle itself, as the group kind of broke up after only a short time. I logged out for the day and decided to try the next day for leveling up Buthar. I've wanted to get him to 40 for a while now so that I can get Temp. He's currently level 31, and if I can stick to the hot zones, I should be there by the weekend.

I finally joined a guild

So I broke down and decided that if I was going to make any real progress at all, I was going to have to join a guild. I did. After an hour or so of going through forum posts and checking the in-game Guild Lobby, I narrowed it down to two choices. I spoke with members from each guild and decided on Haven of Spirits. They seemed to match my playstyle while offering a lot of room for doing pretty much anything in game and still being able to find a group to join. There were about 15 characters in the guild logged in at the time, and they were spread over ALL level ranges. I went ahead and put all 8 of my characters in the guild and can't wait to get started grinding out the XP.