Book 4
Item Magic, At Last.
When last we left off, I was hunting in the woods north
of Bandit Castle. The main course consisted of Baby
Tuskers, Drudges, Golems, Banderlings etc. My standard
rule for levelling is quantity over quality. Yeah, I had
the power to kill level 50+ drudges, but why bother. I
could kill 5 tuskers in the time it took to kill 1
drudge, the xp works out, trust me.
While in the area I also ran into the Ursuin Hunter. This
NPC sells text for the mage armor quest. I like
collecting all of the lore for quests, regardless of
whether you actually need it or not in order to complete
the quest. (That’s the role-playing geek coming out
in me.)
I was only 20k away from 20th level when I ran out of
components for my war spells, so I headed back to Baishi
to restock, then bolted to the nearby Lugian Citadel to
get 20th level.
WOOT!! Item Magic!!. At this point I went back to my
mules in Baishi and pulled off another 200k in trade
notes. (It’s good to be rich, but my supply of notes
was quickly fading) I also pulled off my puzzle box (which
I had found in the desert back before TK existed) and
headed for Zakhail to translate my textbook on
Thaumaturgic Plate.
I had been saving xp since mid 18th level, and
immediately dumped it all into my Item magic skill,
bringing it into the 150ish range. The next 2 hours were
spent learning EVERY Item spell from level 1-4. It was
late, so I didn’t get to test my newfound skill, but
tomorrow would be a new day.
Before I go into my Dires adventure, I need to diverge
from the topic and tell you a bit about my friends.(As a
MMORPG This is at least in part a social exercise after
all, isn’t it?) I’ve gone through numerous re-rolls,
but no matter how many times I re-create myself, I always
wind up hanging out with the same guys. My first vassal
under my original gimp mage back on TD was an archer
named Deadedwest, who is now a 4 school mage on WE name
“The Lord”. You wanna talk about a cool MF’er?
He fits the bill, as do Rumors, Creeps, Jhoran, Kay’L,
Tao Zen, and my monarch, The Corinthian. (Of course,
there are others, too many to name, and I mean no dis-respect
to any that I haven’t mentioned. You’ll all pop
in here eventually, I’m sure.)
The Garden
Back when we all hit our mid-20’s on WE, Rumors and
The Lord made their way to a phenomenal hunting ground in
the Mid-Dires. We’ll refer to this place as The
Garden. If you’ve ever been there, then you know
exactly where I’m talking about. Well, the place was
a bit hard for my melee back then, but if I remembered
correctly, this would be the perfect place to level Trendkill, a burgeoning God. As soon as I saw The Lord
log on I messaged him and asked him if he could help me
get out there. He was happy to oblige, so I picked up
some sake and off we went to see the Drunken Madman. He
buffed my still sad Run skill and hit me with level 5 and
6 protections, then we jumped the wall at the accursed
halls.
I’m really glad I didn’t try that run without
his protections. The way North towards our destination
was littered with Virindi, Tuskers, and high level Banderlings. Finally the chase lightened as the Lifestone
came into sight. Only one Banderling Striker remained on
our tail as I reached the LS, but The Lord dispatched him
with ease. It had been a few months since I was out here,
so I got a guided tour from The Lord. The hunting wasn’t
bad, but the creatures I was seeking out were sparse. It
seems that some changes were made with the last patch.
Many of the Drudge spawns were replaced with nasty
animals like Tuskers, Virindi, and Bandies, not to
mention a good number of Obsidian Golems. I perfected my
Drudge killing technique on the few I found, learning how
to take them 3-4 at a time, whereas before I had to take
them one on one. I decided I needed a thicker spawn.
Everybody should have a 45th level Mule
I had Lotus Dragon go establish a Tie to the South Dires
Portal near Mayoi. Once I had The Tie, I recalled to The
Accursed Halls ( I hadn’t learned tie yet) and met
my melee at our HQ west of Baishi. After a full Buff, I
jumped into the south Dires only to be ransacked by a
group of 6 or 7 drudges. I wish I could tell you exactly
how many were there, but it’s kinda hard. They all
died really quick, faster than I can count.
I ran up a hill from the valley center and saw before me
2 Harrower grievers with 2 Virulents close behind. When I
see grievers, I see acid. It’s all I can think about.
The stupid mage armor quest has consumed me, so I found a
fairly safe area and alt-tabbed bringing up my Melee’s
account. Lotus Dragon portalled into the area and
destroyed all 4 grievers in a matter of minutes. I’d
never fought a Harrower before, I simply can’t
believe how fast they fell. Perhaps it’s the 306
melee def, maybe it’s the 325 UA skill, hell, maybe
it’s the fact that my lowest al I wear is AL 215 and
my whole suit has Acid Bane 5 and at least imp3 on it.
Unfortunately No acid dropped, but at this point I
decided that I would always keep LD in the general area
TK is hunting. Anytime TK spots a griever, LD comes out
to play. It’s truly the only use I have for my melee
character these days. If those things are so easy to
kill, I might as kill every last one that I see until I
get the Acid for my Mage Armor.
Lotus made 3 or 4 more appearances that day, all with
similar results, no Acid, but at this time I also
decided, since he was gonna be in the same general area
as Trendkill, he might as well become a walking component
bag as well. LD carries between 100-200 of every
component that Trendkill needs. I’m trying to level
as quickly as possible, and I’m doing it without
outside buffs. At the very least I don’t have to run
for components very often anymore. Lotus Dragon makes a
great delivery boy. He’s also a very mobile mule.
When Trendkill gets burdened with loot, he hands it to
Lotus. With a 205 strength, he can hold a lot. (Yeah,
that’s right, when I make it Aerlinthe with
Trendkill, Lotus will be standing on the shore, accepting
loot deliveries whenever my mage gets burdened) I’ve
been burning through my savings like mad, this definitely
helps. If Lotus wasn’t there to collect my loot, I’d
actually have to hunt with him to supportmy Mages onyx
habit…I swear he must snort it when I’m afk, it
couldn’t possibly burn that fast. But I digress…
The South Dires…
I spent 4 hours hunting in the valley at the south Dires.
It was very lucrative, as I was the only one there. After
about the 4th hour another mage showed up…here’s
my bitch…If you’re in a place with 5-6
different drudge spawns, why would someone come to the
spawn I’m camping? Hey, I’m easy going, so I
bailed, and went to another one of the spawns… No
sooner do I have my spawn prepped to drag em 1 at a time,
when this ass just tags along. I said Hi, to start a
conversation, at least see what this guy wanted. But he
never replied.
I ran around to the other side of the spawn, and started
my attack. No sooner did I begin, than this schmuck comes
up and begins draining the drudge that I led off from the
pack. Fine, you want it? You can have it. I ran back, and
took a shot at the next prepped drudge. The dumbass then
comes running and starts draining this one, and he hasn’t
even finished off the first one he wanted to steal from
me. I give in and finish off both of them. I realize that
this is a multi-player game, and everyone has equal
rights to kill what they want, but can anyone show a
little respect? This is the guy giving mages a bad name
as far as I’m concerned.
Trying to be calm, I asked him if there’s a reason
why he only attacks the creatures that I’ve already
prepped.
Grief Player? You decide
You don’t even want to know his reply…but it
was something along the lines of…
“It takes too much mana to buff my robe and all of
my protects, so I only attack critters that others have
already attacked, so I don’t have to worry about
getting hit”….
Ok, it wasn’t those exact words, but that’s the
gist of it. I kindly told him that the rest of us have to
work at it, and it was pretty un-cool, that his primary
strategy was to benefit off of others hard work. (This
schmuck was 9 levels higher than me for Christ’s
sake. How long had he been doing this???)
Well, the reply I got from the butt-wipe was a bit off-color,
but essentially he told me that he was going to follow me
and take all of my kills just because, I was an asshole.
Of course he continued to follow me for about 5 minutes,
then he’d disappear, I’d vuln a few drudges,
then he’d show up as I started leading em off one by
one.
Ok, I’ve had it…my new friend disappeared
again, so I found another pack of drudges, but didn’t
do anything. I just looked around to see what else was in
the area. When the arse showed back up, I threw my war
bolt and a vuln, The drudges weren’t prepped, so the
whole pack came running. Then I threw a vuln towards an
umbris to the east and brought in his pack of friends.
Next up, I failed to cast on a banderling striker, but
here he came anyway. I don’t think my new buddy knew
what he was running into the middle of.
Yeah, I died. I died in an ugly mess of Umbris, ravs,
bandies and golems. While at the LS I logged Lotus in on
my other account and gave him loot rights to my corpse.
When I went back, I saw my friends corpse, it seems he
found a griever spawn while trying to escape my mess. His
body was tucked firmly between 2 Virulens and a scrawed.
My body was pretty much clear, just had to whack a
granite golem who got close, but no problemo.
Now this is entertainment!!
I watched his body for a minute, and saw him come running
up. ( I was now in my UA body, so he didn’t
recognize me.)
The following conversation ensued.
Ass: “Hey bro, can you take out those grievers?”
Me: “Yeah, I could, Grievers are easy.”
Ass: “Thx man. If any of them drop acid, let me know”
/e shrugs
Me: “Thx for what?”
Ass: “For killing those grievers. You said you’d
kill them so I could get my body”
* spit *
Me: “No, actually I didn’t. Just because I
could kill them doesn’t mean I’m going to.”
* tap foot *
Ass: “ That’s F**ked up. People are supposed to
help each other in online games”
Me: “ I agree completely”
Ass: “Cool, so you’ll kill them?”
Me: “Yeah, right”
Ass: “WTF?!?!! Why are you bein’ a ****?”
* point *
/e raises his middle finger.
Me: “Sit and Spin. When you reach the elbow you can
use your wand to pry yourself off.”
Ass: “I’m reporting you, B**ch!”
Me: “Lol, you’re the one using all the
profanity. Go ahead.”
Ass: “Dude, I’m begging you here.”
Me :”What’d you lose? Good stuff?”
Ass: “Yeah, I gotta recover”
Me: “Maybe I should wait for the corpse to
decompose, then kill the grievers when I get your stuff”
Ass: “Yeah, right. That’ll be hours from now”
/e has all the time in the world.
Ass: “F*** You.”
Me: “Thx, and to you as well. Please drive-thru.”
I seriously considered getting him killed again. Instead
I killed the grievers, clearing his body and alt-tabbed
to portal Trendkill back in. TK ran up, and looted some
components off the virulent and proclaimed “ACID!!
THX Lotus, You Rule!!!”…No there wasn’t
any acid, but it must have made this guys day, to think I
got some.”
Then I squelched his account.
(On the upside, I later met some really cool people out
there, but those stories are nowhere near as much fun to
tell.) Soon enuff, the entire area became camped, and I
decided to look for some greener pastures. I had however
jumped from 20th to 22nd level in the time I was there.
Next up: My own slice of heaven...
Original Post : The Trendkill Diaries- Book 4- My First Dires Trip