Auberean Irregular (issue 11)
Elk sneered at the Burun and hefted his harpoon. The dirty creature had not yet spied the young tonk. It had been a good overland hunt for Elk, the Sclavi had been generous and soon he would be able to make more spears of a higher quality. His exploring spirit took him to the Deru tree and the land beyond. He had only seen one Burun before, the Slavetaker on Osteth, before that were the tales and rumors. The ancient Mosswarts, twisted by supernatural means into the devious filth that caused the land pain wherever they traveled. There was only one good Burun; one that was dead. It was good to feel the earth of Omishan underneath Elk's feet, the warmth and vibrant life of the land lent him strength. The earth beneath the Burun was screaming in polluted agony, it must be cleansed!
Cautiously, he moved obliquely to the north to approach both downwind and from behind. Although these repugnant green hopping deviants are loathed, they are still formidable. Reaching far back he let the harpoon fly and as it struck cried out, "For the Land and for the Tonk!" The sharp bone blade caressed the Burun, leaving a bloody furrow in its shoulder. Confused, the creature quickly jumped back and forth looking for its attacker. The second spear defined Elk's location by narrowly missing the gesticulating monster. The beady eyes glistened with hate as it spun in a hopping serpentine pattern nearer to Elk. The next spear went wide and a circle of energy burned into his chest. The hoom crafted armor provided good protection nonetheless. With a whisper of blessing for Corrine, the armorsmith, Elk changed his grip on the next throw and heaved with the Barbed attack. The spear sunk deep, eliciting a howl from the filthy beast. This in turn made its next attack easy to evade. Seeing a vulnerability, Elk slid his grip back a bit further and hurled a final harpoon. The whistling missile flew in a slight arc and the tip parted the Burun's belly. The weight of the shaft and the force it had been hurled with pushed it deep into the creature's innards and through its spine in an explosion of bone, blood and guts. The gored Burun stopped moving save for its disbelieving eyes looking upon the bloodied shaft protruding from itself. The Burun slumped in a macabre stance that seemed to defy gravity. As Elk approached he could see where the harpoon had stuck into the ground behind making the creature look more like a bizarre puppet.
As Elk yanked the harpoon free, he felt the ground warm about him in thanks. One less Burun is a good thing.
Kingdom versus Defender:
I logged in Grasp to find there was quite a PK battle going on. I have been curious about KvK and exactly what goes on in a fight. Why is it that so many people swear that it's the best part of the game there is? Well, my monarch is out there with a large group so I head off to meet him. As I step through the portal I get hit with multiple spells and killed before I can say 'hi.' It seems some of the Shadow folk who are currently allied with Dominion on Leafcull who were waiting around attacked me by 'accident.' I took another run back, this time I wasn't killed out of the portal. Then we proceeded to stand around looking at each other. All the while I'm being told what a great battle had just occurred. So about 40 minutes go by with zero action. I'm starting to think that anything would be better then this when an attack hits. I am killed almost instantly. Time for me to hang up any KvK thoughts and turn neutral, when it comes to PK, I'm pretty much a body bag.
Lumari vaulting Tonk:
Alculd* sent out a an allegiance-wide announcement for the Lumari vault. Elk, my Tumerok Uber Missile, matched the critera for going in, namely he was level 27. I arrived first using my precious Atur mount. I dismounted and it vanished back to the dimension that spawned it. The next step to gain entrance is to find the creatures that carry the magical glyph that is the key. In this case, it is Surrogate Spawns and Idol Spawns. These are floating eyes with appendages of questionable value. I have decided against going with the feral specialist tree in favor of using the Invoker tree. In looking at both trees, I found less wasted skills with the Invoker. I had enough skill points to train Ghost of the Past and Invoke the Grandmother. By dumping portal recall, I got Summon the Brat. I was able to find a Glyph fairly quickly, before Alculd* arrived. I was pleased with the Brat, it sure hits hard. It sure dies quickly as well. Outside the dungeon was a female archer. I decided to role-play a bit and invited her along despite her being a Hoom and not in our Xuta. I also made mention that her tailless body and bizarre legs gave me the creeps. I got a few laughs in the process but Alculd* kept asking me what I was saying and whom I was talking to and what a Hoom was. Finally I threw some Tumerok words and definitions into the allegiance chat so he wouldn't think I was totally insane.
Inside the Vault we were able to head straight to the vestibule portal, as the Archer had acquired a key from what I guess was a previous attempt. With my brat running in to distract the Nasty big floating eyeball, I was able to pepper it with harpoons while our Archer companion did the same with arrows. It was dead in a matter of seconds. My brat died too.
An old friend:
In AC1 there is a guild called the Guardians of Fire. The bulk of its membership used to belong to The Silver Citadel. In fact, a lot of people were members of both allegiances, myself included. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my old GoF guildmates send me a message one night. The member, Sy Black, was quite an accomplished melee in AC1. He was now in his high teens and had been enjoying AC2 a bit more as it grew on him. After a brief catch up, I found he was about to do the prosper mount quest. I know that this can be quite a challenge for level 19 melees, so I mounted up and rode to meet him. By the time I got there, he already had quite a few kills under his belt. With a few heals from me he was soon seated on his own mount. We rode a bit to get away from the spawns and I attempted to answer any game questions he had. He said he felt naked without a monarchy and swore under me. One of the main things that was bothering him was an uncompleted quest, 'Find the Warder Captain' from the January event. I have taken quite a few characters through this epic quest and I have more knowledge than I should about it. So I offered to show him the way. Let me just say that its very different running this with a level 42 Defender. I started to just slaughter everything, but then decided that someone like Sy would prefer to do some work along the way. After getting to the Captain, Sy was shocked to see the quest continues. We spent the rest of the night going to the conclusion of the quest, which is after the Heretic quest. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good guide, Sy never got the quest from the Drudges but did continue on to kill the Burun and loot its head. This, of course, meant he did the quest but didn't get the credit for it.
Omi quests:
Those of you who have read my column might have noticed that there has only recently been mention of the new Omishan quests. The reason for this is simple. I didn't take the time to do them with Grasp, and Elk was too low a level to run them. Now that Elk is an UMI (Uber Missile Invoker) I decided to start running them. The first on my list is the Sanguine Fang. This is a Sclavi killing spree that is set-up by a potion found on a Mimbu. I have since learned that Sclavi and Mimbu are related, two sides of the same coin, if you will. This quest has been around since beta and its design is very similar to the incursion quests. So I headed to a sclavi dungeon. On the way I saw a sclavi boss creature quest starter. Knowing I was going to be killing Scalavi and mistaking it for an incursion quest, I took the quest. It turns out I have to find and slay some Sclavi high mystical priest in the depths of the dungeon. I went inside, quaffed the potion and began the slaughter. I found that I could handle most of the snakes in there, two on one. However there are certain caverns that hold a whole bunch of Sclavi and these did me in quickly. About the third death in the same room, I figured I needed some help. I put out a call to Quake, an elementalist who had aided me on the Lumari Mount quest. Quake and her sandy pets graciously responded and soon we were ready to hunt snakes. The chamber I thought we needed to clear turned out to be incorrect. After laying waste to the Sclavi inside we didn't find the ones mentioned in the quest. I was a bit embarrassed at this point, here I was working a group quest with someone who didn't have that quest, and I didn't even know where I was going. With no other choice I opted for 'right hand rule dungeoning.' This means you follow the right hand wall and take every inlet you can. The idea being that eventually you will cover every square inch of dungeon real estate. Using this spelunking tactic, we came across a snake pit after clearing a particular hollow. Down below us lie a goodly number of snakes and the bosses my quest required. At this point I can see that having Quake along is the only way I could have hoped to survive. I was coming up with a plan when Quake took matters into her own hands and jumped into the room. Not being one to shy away, I followed suit. Quake died first and I died a close second. Quake's reason was not letting the pets do the job as intended. Mine was attracting three thousand snakes to snack on my bottom.
Back the precipice I jumped first and hit a bridge-like arch in the room. This got the snakes all excited and they didn't notice an elemental and her two sandy wards; big tactical error for the Sclavi AI. If you are one of the few individuals that haven't witnessed what an elementalist can do, find one and stand around impressed. They have little Picasso-looking pets called Sand Slaves, Sand Minions and Sand Fiends. These guys scurry around a target and proceed to carve them up into steaks. While the creature in question is trying to get away from these little butchers, the Elementalist calls forth thunderstorms, Volcanic rifts, Hurricanes and exploding clouds. Elk could barely keep his feet as the earth shifted under the might of Quake.
With this attack we were able to defeat the hoards and slay the boss allowing me to finish the quest. Quake then recalled to bigger and better things.
Changes coming:
There was a bombshell released from the creative forces behind Turbine. A major tweaking of skills was coming with a one-time offer to re-make your character from scratch. The major hit is to the Feral class. These characters have been cresting the wave of uberness for quite some time. It was to the point that everyone you saw who was a tonk above level 40 is a Feral. There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the various forums. There have also been some good logical arguments and numbers to back up the adjustment. As far as I go, I have nothing invested in the Feral class to date so it's a non-issue. The changes don't seem that bad. I'm hoping that more people will opt for the lesser-seen classes, Alchemist and Bounty Hunter. Aside from a few xp point disbursement issues on Grasp, I don't really think I'll be using the redo character command.
Hero Boots:
After the waves and waves of no new quests on Linvak, lo and behold a Quest does arrive. The Ondekodo Elder Scholar that starts you off. Seems he found a letter written around the time of the Final battle. The lugian author was fleeing at the time as well. So we are off to find the ghost of Kartok. This silent city dungeon is a fight fest. Fast spawning creatures and a major gauntlet to run through it. Our party was more than up to the task and we found the portal to Kartok. He spoke to us about his imprisonment and spirit, then he sent us off to see his dead captain and handed us his sandals. Now I don't know if you have ever taken the time to look at the elephant pods that pass for lugian feet, or considered the fact that Linvak is a major dustbowl. You can imagine what these things must smell like after all this time in a dank dungeon. A ghost can't smell, obviously.
Next we have to take the stinky sandals to the Yokketh Bell Tower to his dead lugian ghost captain. This is one of the more impressive structures on Linvak. It's got an elegance and grace about it that makes it worth the trek just to see it. The mounts are a godsend for this quest. It's a hard fought battle in here with the final baddy, the keeper of souls, having one hundred thousand health. Talk about tough critters! The Lost Spirit of Degoda is happy to see the sandals (more proof of no sense of smell) and gives you a vial of his blood. Maybe it's the Isparian in me, but Lugians have no clue what gifts appeal to humans. Next we head to the Elder Scholar and get a recipe to make the Boots of the Lost Heroes. These boots are by far the best in the game, and quite stylish.
Come-on Thirty:
With my handmade armor and harpoon in hand, Eeriest Elk has been laying waste to a goodly number of enemies. The path to 30 is a long one at this point. The incursion quests help a lot, but most of the good xp ones require a group to complete. As a few timers were up, I went through the broken totem dungeon and did the Tree quest (thank you Turbine for mounts!) I then cleansed the burial ground. Oh, on a side note; The river that runs along the tainted burial ground is a dead end. You CANNOT swim to Ikeras via that route. I guess there must be some underground source for it or something. Two things about the burial ground quest; One, the burial ground is pretty snotty, even though you are running all over Omishan tying to help it out, you get no respect. Two, you will quickly learn the difference between a Niffis and a Nefane. The second part can make you think that the quest is broken.
Next up I decided to try the Mucor Mushroom quest. It's another find the NPC, then find the dungeon, run back and forth quest. This turned into a bit of a disappointment for me. I cannot take on four Mucor's at once. One is easy, two are manageable, three and I'm dead. So I had to let this one fail over. On the bright side, I can slay moarsmen pretty well. I left off at level 29, so close and yet so far.
Defending the Mushroom:
I logged in Grasp, my Lady Defender, and headed to the Mucor Mushroom quest. After my defeat with Elk I decided it was time for a little pay back. I kicked some Mucor tail and got a pack full of the dainty Mushrooms, anticipating the potions they will make. Imagine my surprise when an acid of 70 is needed to make one of these things! I tend to gold more than I loot. The few things I checked for acid were all at 67 or less. Well, if you were in Linvak over the weekend and found an impressive pile of mushrooms - that was me!
Avatar thoughts:
With the upcoming revamping of skills there is a lot of chatter about changing what to what. I carefully looked over options and found I was very comfortable with my choice of Defender and going with righteous fury and emblem route. With my sorcerer I'm still debating what to do. My missile Invoker uber Tonk seems to be having a fairly good time of it. If I can just find someone who can craft tier 8 gear...
