Shadowgeist offered to help level up my paladin yesterday morning before the work day began, and who am I to say no to leveling! My paladin (Lithe, a Kerran) started off as level 29. I haven’t been very diligent with her gear, she’s sitting in a few pieces of steel and level 4 jewelery, but that’s alright, I don’t need gear until level 40-50 or so. Not for what I had in mind at least.
We headed off to Fallen Gate to start, it’s the older (broken) version of Neriak. There was no one in the zone (not odd for Najena, most people play end game and there’s not that many lower level characters these days) and we quickly took down all of the named in sight. We also headed into the smaller instance at the end of the zone, it’s a guaranteed fabled chest, and the item was a ring that was an upgrade to my (by now) 32 paladin. Not bad, gained quite a few levels. My vitality was running thin and I suggested we stop there (I just wanted to gain enough levels to be able to wear the new mastercrafted stuff) but Shadowgeist insisted we head to Ruins of Varsoon and take a peek around.
We traveled to Thundering Stepps and before long I found myself taking down skeletons and zombies as well as the golems of Varsoon. We headed to the instance within that zone as well, which is 2 guaranteed master chests. One from a magic user who likes to charm (meanie!) and the other from Varsoon himself.
By then I had leveled from 29-35, and that was enough for me. We called it a day and I gated home to clear out my bags, put items for sale and send off master spells to those who could use them.
Later on that evening Kasul, Eyenstein, Albrta, Shadowgeist, and I headed to Steamfont to do one of the crafting instances. Albrta and Eyenstein had never been there before, so I explained how it worked and how instead of making 3 of an item as the quest suggests, we make 12 instead, and turn them all in at once.
It went well, though the crafting was difficult for some when it was outside of their subclass. I brought along my 58 tailor, who managed to get 59 from the zone. Getting there slowly.
Of course when it came to the giant battle bot fight at the end, Shadowgeist couldn’t sit out. Well. Now we know why Tipa died that first time. If you help out in the fight at all, the robot fighting for your side turns on you and smacks you pretty badly afterwards. Guess he’s a solo’er. Eyenstein and Shadowgeist picked themselves up off the floor and we opened the chest –
Wow. Nice rewards tonight. We received a crafting book (went to Albrta), a sage ring (went to Eyenstein), and also a piece of Artisan gear which means any one of us could have used it. For once the dice were on my side, and I won it. Looking forward to being able to use that in the future!
When the chest goodies were finally dealt with, Shadowgeist decided ‘just for fun’ to see if we could take down one of the level 90 ^ clockwork bots that were still in the room. There are three types, and believe it or not, we managed to take them down AND they each reward you with aa. So there’s the potential to gain it from three different encounters. Not bad. I’m not sure if that’s intended or not, as they don’t really LOOK like named, but it was a nice reward none the less.
I was sad to see that the solo crafting mission only rewards 2,000 faction now especially because this quest can only be obtained once a week, and the daily ones rewards at least 1,500 faction. 5,000 would have been better then the current amount if they were looking to reduce it. My tailor (who is one of my lowest crafters) now has more Far Seas tokens then all of my other crafters, but she’s unable to purchase anything with her 6 tokens. Ah well, by the time she’s a high enough level crafter to make use of the gear and recipe books she has, she will have the faction (I hope). All in all, it was a fantastic night!
The latest edition of Beckett MOG (Massive Online Gamer) has come out in the states for those who have a subscription (it should be in stores shortly as well in the US and Canada), and with it two of my articles. One was a class guide on the templar and inquisitor, and the other a dungeon guide on Veksar. (Keep in mind both of these articles were written well before the expansion was released). I wanted to add the 
I didn’t do any of the crafting quests yesterday either, which means I may be slightly behind in those. Today I should be able to obtain the solo quest once more, and max out my faction (finally) on Silhouette, which means she’ll be able to buy some new recipe books. Today I’m going to head to the Moors and work on the quests within the zone so that I can purchase the faction books there as well. The appearance armor located in the Moors is also quite fantastic, I especially like the new lambent type armor. Truth be told, I’m quite happy that I’ve stayed out of TSO for the most part (aside from the crafting bits). It’s a little over a week into the expansion and I’m not bored. Of course this does mean that I don’t know all of the secrets to beating all of the encounters in the instances, and since most use puzzles this may be a hardship for any groups I join – but I’m a fast learner and I’ll pick them up as I go along. I keep meaning to get out there more and the craft tables keep drawing me back.
We go out, in Norrathian Night,
A Pixel Nomad 