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Thought and recollections of Sat 2/12
by Farik Il'Kadar (2/15/00)
Farik here - -  
Having read Rojon's note about Saturday, I will add my thoughts. I was thinking of writing up the day anyway, so here goes. Saturday was the one day in Dereth that made me think this game is too much like real life. (This was a long day, so this will be a long account).  
We met in Yanshi at noon est (11am my time). Cy, Hiya, Doria and I were waiting for Rojon when we were accosted by Blue drgon, a typing-challenged airhead who had lost at least two corpses in the desert and the Arena. "Please plese hlp me get my copses bac." "Where is the dungon." "Will you please help me?"  
Being the Source, of course we helped. I've been in the Arena 'dungon' before, an experience which had left me scared poopless. Of course, I was only lvl 9 that other time, I can handle those critters now. It would have been a lot easier if Blue dragn weren't hitting *all* the switches, then running in circles around the room while the monsters chased him. It was one of those moments that tests your Good-ness. It was one of those moments that reinforced my belief in natural selection.  
Somewhere along the way, Hiya got killed right next to the Arena platform. I can't remember if this was before or after we helped Blue drgn get his corpses. After we got out of the Arena, Cy took off with the now-Green Dragon (don't ask) to get his *other* corpse, somewhere out west in the desert. So Doria and I are standing on the platform, waiting around, when we see this message, "Your fellow Cyblade has died!"  
Huh?  
I can't remember what killed Cy, but I remember thinking this excursion was off to a great start. Doria and I decide to venture out that way, to see if we can find Cy's body. We stop to fight a couple lesser dillos, and right in the middle of the fight my screen freezes. This was unlike any other time I've been disconnected. My whole machine locked up. I had to reboot twice before I could get back in.  
Unsurprisingly, I come to next to the Yanshi west lifestone. Hello little red star. Haven't seen you for a while. Will you be my friend today?  
Eventually everybody gets to their corpses, we gather back at the arena, and pop through some portal that goes to the East coast of the inner sea, a decent run from Zaikhal. Oh yeah, Zaikhal, our reason for getting together today. Rojon is waiting for us on that beach. Finally all five of us are together.  
We run and run and run until we're within shouting distance of Z-town. It's just on the other side of that crevice. Lets jump!  
*sigh* back to the freaking lifestone. I was really worried b/c I've read about this thing where if you die on a slope like that you can't recover your corpse. And mine has my gmc on it. But then Cy tells us our bodies all slid through and are in a pile at the other side of the crevice. Ok, I can get my stuff back. Whew.  
We run up to Zaikhal. Find our bodies. Make our way over to the Monouga Village. It's a charming, rustic little place up on a mountain. Unfriendly neighbors but what do you want from monougas. This place would have been more fun if there weren't already a half-dozen campers there, sniping the monougas from the rooftops. We managed a few kills but it didn't take long to get boring. Rojon and Hiya tried to liven things up a bit with their cliff-diving exhibitions. Hey guys there aren't any bungee cords in this game. We hunted around the base of the mountain to burn off a little more vitae before heading for the Ashen Tears dungeon.  
This is where things got *really* ugly for me. Sure, I've died twice already today but I can handle that. I'm with my friends, we're burning vitae, we're having a pretty good time in spite of all the omens.  
We fight our way in, mostly its Bandy, a tusker, a Lich we didn't really have to fight but Hiya was able to shoot it without any of us being in big danger.  
Then we made our way to the multi-lich room. We didn't have too many problems. We cleared the liches from the upper spans, leaving one lich, a couple bandy, and a couple tuskers on the bottom level. Hiya and Rojon are able to pick off the lich w/o too much trouble. The bandy too. But those tuskers just won't stand still. They're bouncing around like Super Balls down there.  
Well I've burned off most of my vitae, I've healed up from the huge war spells I ate from the liches, and I've been playing for a long time so my thinking is a little fuzzy. I decide to jump down and play tank. Maybe if the tuskers will come over to attack me, they'll stand still long enough so Hiya can hit them. What the hell, give it a shot.  
Your fellow Farik il'Kadar is an IDIOT.  
Running back from the lifestone, I get a message FARIK HELP. God I wish I could help Rojon but I'm running around in my shirt and pants, dodging skels and shreth on the way back to the dungeon entrance. Next thing I know, Rojon is with me and we're retracing our route through the dungon back to where Hiya has managed to stay alive all this time. There's my corpse, on the floor, Super Balls bouncing around it.  
Okay up until now things haven't gone well. At this point, I'm thinking we could sure use some help getting this room cleared so I can get my gmc off that corpse. And I know the Source will come through if we call for help. I don't like to call for help, I like to get myself out of bad situations. But those mean tuskers are guarding my body like it's Fort Knox. And they squashed me pretty easily when I still had my armor on. So I'm having a bad day, but I've had worse.  
Before I can do more than suggest that we get help, I see the Green Words of Damnation: Attention this server will shut down in 2 minutes please log out.  
OH NO.  
I really like my gmc. I mean, I lose it every time I die but I think it's worth the trouble. I'm freaking out. You have 1 minute 37 seconds until you're screwed. I know that corpse won't be around after they reboot the server. I've gotta get down there. In desperation, I jump. I managed to open up the corpse-looting panel right before I got booted.  
. . . ahhhhh bloody go hell . . .  
Well during the break I did a couple things. I download the RW software, scrape around my computer until I find a mike, and test it out. (I went through the registration process but they still haven't emailed my registration code. Maybe today.)  
The other thing I did was fret about the possible results of the reboot. I've lost my gmc, no doubt, but the next worst thing is if I get dumped right back in with the tuskers. Which is what happens a couple hours later.  
So I die again. And again, a little later, running around the tunnels looking for the lich room. Man this blows. Happily, Miko and Simone are on the job. They come through, clear out the room, everyone gets their corpses, and we boogie for the exit. Thank you Simone. Thank you Miko K-sun.  
Now Beryl is @telling me. You ready to go to Crystal Caverns? I would be except for this 11% vitae. And Hiya can't go, he's still 16th lvl. After the day we've had, no one really wants to go. I tell Beryl, postpone for another day? (We still need to reschedule that trip btw.)  
Well why don't we go somewhere we can make our vitae go down instead of up? Cragstone and the Tibri cave are only a portal away from Zaikhal. We romp around the cave long enough for me to burn 10% off my vitae. We even manage to grab a couple spears.  
God I love killing Bandy. They're tanks just like me. Even their spell casters are pretty bad at magic, just like me. Here's a message you'll never see: Bandy Raver jolts you for 42 points with Lightning Bolt III. Ha hah!  
So I was feeling pretty good when we got an offer from Rhodry to meet in Mayoi for a Dires Express portal.  
My first Dires trip came at the end of a roller-coaster day. And I have to say the trip was somewhat lackluster. I had sugar-plum visions of finding all kinds of "kewl lewt" in the armory there, but I've seen better stuff in Yanshi. And then Rhodry got lagged and had to reconnect. And then the 13 hour session caught up to me and I had to leave before falling asleep at my keyboard. So I said my goodbyes and headed through the "Hilltop" portal.  
And so did the day end.  
Sunday, I was still feeling the melancholy of losing my kaleidoscopic green armor. So I was kind of listless when I logged on. Sac was on, and I've been planning to take him to get an Acid Axe for a couple days, so we did that. Not a big adventure but it was fun. I like to kill mossies too.  
I log for a few hours. I watch the X Files. I log back in. Beryl @tells me again, you wanna go to the Shadow Dungeon? Well, I wanna go to the gmg, but that'll take a whole night. I don't have anything else planned, so I'm like, yeah ok. And I'm glad I went. Beryl has written in a separate account what happened after that, and I don't have much to add here. I liked the Shadow Dungeon, I might go back there sometime. Running up to Neydissa was a new experience for me. I enjoyed the matty cave. I am looking forward to participating in the Source Camp-out there this weekend.  
That's my long account of a long weekend.  

See you in there!
Farik

 

 

this page last updated 7/22/00

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