Tag: EQ2

(( Every weekend I like to post one of the books I have in my Norrathian Library on the Antonia Bayle server for others to read who may not be able to visit in person – you can donate to my library by sending a book to Ellithia, or if you’re from another server I will gladly donate a blank book to you so that you can send it back to me. The library itself is located in North Freeport at the mage tower (bottom floor) under the magical housing. Please feel free to stop by! ))

Darkness Comes – By Zanadi
book 1

The sunset was beautiful this night with the warm reds and oranges. The breeze blew just right stirring the warm air. On a hill sat a young looking woman in a faded blue cotton dress. Her dark brown hair pushed back behind Ayr’dal ears.She was picture perfect, smooth skin just tan enough to proudly show her ruddy red markings. She brushed her hand gently through the lush grass she was sitting in. A warm smile creased her face as a man quietly approached her from behind, settling himself beside her.

“Hello my love.” Her voice was a sweet as honey. She leaned over, resting her head upon him. He grinned back at her, encasing her tiny hand in his.

“What brings you out here dearest? You are a long ways from the wagons.”

“Oh aye but I wanted to see the sunset. Beautiful isn’t it?”

He looked right at her totally ignoring the hues that crested the land. “Yes, she is.”

She looked over at him and her smile grew. There was no place she’d rather be than content within his arms. She always had found it funny how opposite they were. She preferred the night while he preferred the day.

He hated to break the moment but something weighted heavy on his mind. “Maynace, someone came by the house looking for you today.” Gone was the light hearted feel to his words, replaced by something more serious.
“Hrm? I wasn’t expecting anyone. Who was it?”
“It was Tishnar. Nace, the old man isn’t going to give up.”

Her face fell and she sighed. “He means no harm Ryac.”
“That is what you say. You do not see his eyes. The old necromancer wants you for his own. I told him to leave.”
She sat up and turned to look at him. “You didn’t.”
“I did. I’ll not having him bothering you.”

They settled back down together their hands intertwined. It was the perfect moment as the last of the sunset faded. Darkness began to creep over the land. One may have thought it from the absence of the suns but as it creeped over the hill and along the land the cold came with it. As it touched each blade of grass, it wilted. Each flower succumb to the absence of light dropping it’s beautiful petals and dying. The darkness here had a purpose.
Maynace…

Slowly it killed everything in it’s path, creeping along the ground. Maynace and Ryac stood in disbelief as it called out to her.

Maynace…

“She’s not yours necro!” Ryac screamed out to the dark nothing as he grabbed her hand and then they were running. They ran and ran until their lungs burned and Maynace thought she’d collapse. Yet still the darkness followed behind them leaving a trail of death in it’s wake.

They ran for what seemed like hours but in truth was more of mere minutes as the darkness licked at their feet. A branch pulled up before them catching Ryac’s foot. He went down hard with a thump.

“Ryac!” She screamed and grabbed at him, pulling for all she was worth.
“Run Nace! Do not stop!”
“I won’t leave you!”
“GO!”

She looked back at the darkness. It would be on them in seconds. “Never forget I love you Maynace. Never. Live for me.”

She was still holding his hand as the dark nothing creeped up his legs and over his body. It tickled at her fingers as she screamed forcing her to release him. She watched horrified as his body decayed and died before her eyes. He was still calling her name as his jaw fell from his rotting corpse.

“Ryac!”  There was no time to stop to weep and once again she was running. The darkness called out to her again.

Maynace…

“You won’t have me! Never!” She screamed as she ran. A high pitch shrill filled the black of night. The nothing surged forward surrounding her tired worn feet.

“NEVER!”

But it held her fast in place, tripping her to the ground. She gasped as it first crept over her legs to her hips. Her dress rotted and fell apart. She clawed at the ground to pull herself away, kicking until her legs became dust. Panic screamed in her eyes. Slowly it made it’s way up her body until it consumed her. As it took in her innocence it stops. A saddness replaces the cold and in an instant the darkness is gone.

Pictured above is the stats for my Norrathian Museum – I couldn’t help but laugh yesterday as I looked at the placed items – only 428 items register as part of the house count but there are really 712 items in the house already. With a limit of 700 that count. Basically what this says is all of my books (thankfully) don’t count towards my house limit, and by the time all is said and done, I will have over 1,000 items in my 700 item home. I’m excited about this, I’ve never had so many items before.

It was important to me to finish off the Champion of Bayle quest (beginning in Qeynos Harbor in the Inn) and the Champion of Lucan D’Lere quest (beginning in West Freeport under the crushed citadel) so that I could not only gain the titles, but have two new house items (the Soulfire replica and Claymore replica) to add to the museum. I’ve also gotten the frozen sword that comes from the Heroic Frostfell instance, and added that.

I don’t want my museum to become TOO crowded. Despite the fact that there are over 700 items within the home, I think I’ve done a fairly good job at spacing them. Pretty soon it will be time for me to start working on another home for a different character, and leave the museum to random ‘updates’ like adding books to the library, or a painting here and there. There’s still some display cases that could use items down in the basement, but aside from that, it’s a pretty good representation of “norrath” – or so I feel.

There are a few limited items that I wish I had not of lost over the years, so that I could add them. One would have to be the miniature griffin statue that we received for helping build the griffin towers a few years ago. I had one and lost it in one of my server transfers, at the time I thought nothing of it. Now that a few years have gone by I really wish I had it. There are a few other items like that, not that I can remember them currently.

I enjoy being able to look through a home that I’ve created and decorated and see my play history. I like that a piece of me in game tells a story, and that I can look through it and see five years of game play put into various corners. It’s a little creative outlet for me, and I’m very thankful that EQ2 has this feature. I wish more games had their players involved to such a degree. I don’t know what I’ll do when Sentinel’s Fate comes out, and with it a whole collection of new house items. I’ll just have to start over in a new house I suppose! Too bad we can’t own ‘country homes’ or something, so we can own more then one house per character – that would be a neat idea. Who wouldn’t want to escape to Maj’Dul to get away from the hustle and bustle of Freeport or Qeynos!

Thursday! Almost Friday, and almost the weekend. Have a great day no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath.

The little troubador managed to get some more T4 gear last night, even though I wasn’t raiding with her (the benefit of being Friends and Family in a raid guild), her hat which as you can see on the right is a fairly nice piece. While gear WILL be getting replaced in February, it’s still important to me to be able to have gear to make it through that content, or at least that’s how I feel.

Yesterday was a quiet day on the gaming front. I spent some time on Antonia Bayle picking up new player written books that I hadn’t already purchased, and adding them to my library. I’m very happy that I’ve broken the 200 book mark, and now I’m sitting on 214 player written books, written by more then 80 different authors. I’m not sure if I’ve got the biggest collection of player written books out there, but I think I’m fairly close. I need to start working on the other half of the library, which is to gather all of the in game books that are out there. That project will probably take forever, but I’m looking forward to it.

Aside from that, things are slow, which is not a bad thing. I’m still just preparing for Sentinel’s Fate in February, and I’m excited about it. In the mean time I’ll continue to work on alts, and play other games here and there.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

Well, the inquisitor reached level 70 yesterday, and it took about 10-11 hours (her time is posted on the left) an hour or two (maybe even more, but I’m just guessing roughly here) was spent in transit between my leveling areas, and putting things on the broker, and goofing off talking to friends. The rest was spent leveling. Yesterday I took Lithe (as my inquisitor is called on the Oasis server) through Vaults (Barren Sky), and to each of the islands in Kingdom of Sky (for the discoveries) and then finished up in Palace of the Awakened (which has a LOT of named and discovery in each room, especially on a server that barely has anyone playing the hours that I do). Sadly, it will probably take me at least another 12 hours if not more to make the 71-80 grind, as I have yet to find a way to do it ‘quickly’. One method that I’ll probably try (more for gaining shards in preparation of 80 and aa then experience) is to run through the TSO instances – at 75 she can start getting the shard quests, and at 79 she can get the daily double quest. Since almost every instance (minus the Guks and Fens) mentors to some degree it works out nicely.

Again, I wouldn’t suggest this method of leveling normally. It’s not ‘fun’ unless you’ve already done the content numerous times before and are just interested in preparing for the next expansion. It leaves your character without a lot of achievements, but as I’ve stated, that’s really not a concern of mine. I’m looking forward to having a level 80 healer (in specific) on Oasis again, since I have moved mine off (not that I regret moving them off, I just enjoy playing a healer). I should be able to gain enough shards to get a set of gear made by the time I reach 80, and then it will be time to work on my epic (which I don’t think I should have too many issues with) in time for Sentinel’s Fate.

I can still squeeze out a few levels before I have to do any quests, if I can help it, I want to avoid RoK quest grinding all together. I’ve got a few more KoS instances that I can do (Halls of Fate, and the other Bonemire instances) that should help a little. I’ve been out of vitality since day 1, so that makes things slower then I’d like, but they still move at a steady pace.

I suppose one of the ‘best’ things I like about leveling up in this manor is that I don’t have to dedicate a whole lot of time towards getting where I want to be. I see a lot of people upset that games don’t ‘start’ until you’re end game – and I want to state here and make sure people know that this is NOT the case for EQ2. There is constantly things to do at all levels and the only reason I am eager to reach the ‘end’ in leveling is because I’ve already done this 13 other times, and I want to prepare (yet another) character for Sentinel’s Fate in February. I think it’s important that people know there’s constant game play in EQ2, and it’s not all about the level 80 stuff that I tend to talk about on this web site. As a veteran player my views (and I have no shame in this) are biased.

I also managed to get a little World of Warcraft time in, as well as some LotRO which was quite fun. My hunter inched towards level 41 (and snagged it, after a friend ran me through Uldaman) and my minstrel is almost 27. Those seem to be my three ‘main’ games at the beginning of 2010, and it’s been going pretty well.

Today I plan on picking up  my ipod touch (32g) from the post office, and then hopefully I’ll be pestering friends for app suggestions (grins) and playing with that most of the day, maybe I’ll manage to squeeze some work in too I suppose. I hope everyone has a fantastic day no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath!