Book of the day – Ode to the Badger: A Miner’s Tale

(( Every week or so I try to include a player-written book here on my web site, one that I’ve got gathered in my Norrathian museum. You can donate books to me on the Antonia Bayle server, and I’ll send you a blank book or cash in return for helping me out. If you’d like to visit the museum in person, head to the North Freeport Mage tower, bottom floor where the magical housing is, under the name of Ellithia. ))

Ode to the Badger: A Miner’s Tale – By Llamo

I grab my pick and head for the hills,
to gather metals to pay my bills.
Feet hitting the grass and the sun in my face,
I know that I’m in the right place.

I look out and about far and wide,
to spot those nodes where they may hide.
I see one, tiny little grey lump,
I run up and chip off a little bump.

Horray!  I found a bit of ore,
I must keep going to find some more.
One node, two nodes, three,
I am finding metal everywhere I can see.

Alas, the day grows long,
the amount I’ve gathered worthy of song.
My bag is heavy and my strength grows short,
I’m thinking it’s time for a port.

I begin to cast a spell to return home,
I then spot another node all alone.
I check my bag and yes, there’s room,
I charge off for riches are soon.

With revived vigor, I raise my pick,
downward I thrust and the pick does stick.
This was different, I did not hear the usual sound,
I look down and yes, the object was indeed round.

It was grey small and stayed in place,
this little node was not the usual case.
The node began to bleed,
my pants I almost peed.

The node had a head and looked up at me,
It let out a scream and tried to bite my knee.
I pulled up on my pick but it would not give,
blood was leaking like water through a sive.

I think my pick was lodged in it’s spine,
I paniced and said, “All is fine.”
It was enraged with the pick in his spine,
I held onto my pick for it was mine.

It lept forth and bit my ore filled sack,
I grabed it and pulled it back.
A hole tore open and my ore hit the floor,
wrath filled my soul and I let out a roar.

I made up my mind this would end now,
I needed the coin that ore would endow.
Reaching out I grabed my pick,
I laughed as a person whose mind was sick.

My foot was then pressed on the back of it’s neck,
freeing my pick I said, “What the heck.”
Gripping my pick tight, I gave it a thrust,
through the back and out the bust.

The scream was horrible, it was going to die,
with rage I yelled out, “Tonight, Badger Pie!”
Screaming mixed with snapping bones,
shortly quieting down to simple moans.

I gave it one last strike,
from my pick and the tip of the spike.
It was then dead and the struggle came to an end,
I felt calm for my ore I did defend.

I gathered up my ore from the ground,
thinking about the badger I did pound.
The ground was mushed into mud,
from all the thrashing and wet with blood.

I cleaned off my bits of ore,
vowing this would happen no more.
Oh what a stupid badger that was,
all squishy and covered in fuzz.

Why would nature play such an evil trick?
If this was meant to be, why is she all so sick?
I stay up at night wondering about these,
Nature is suppose to be sweet, about the birds and the bees.

What a twisted sick wench she has to be,
to play such a trick on me.
To make badgers look like an ore node
ones you see along the Antonican road.

No doubt this will happen a second time,
now I coat my pick with posionous slime.
Next time my pick hits something alive,
it won’t be like kicking over a bee hive.

O’ badger who’s life I did snuff into death,
you strugged with your very last breath.
I write this tale to honor your soul,
but you may have lived if you didn’t tear open that hole!

The Sundered Frontier

Yesterday I was lucky enough to find these images tucked away in my mail box – no doubt delivered by a mischievous dark elf, with wings. Ridding some grand steed. At least that’s what I imagined in my mind. In actuality I had to hurry up and close the door before even more snow piled into my house.

Rumor has it these are some pictures of the Sundered Frontier, and you’ll want to read more about it tomorrow on the EQ2players page, so bookmark it and keep checking back!

Be sure to click on the images to see the full view – they’re pretty spectacular!

Kurns Tower and Friends gaining Mythicals

Yesterday in a rare decision I put up my LFG tag (on both the illusionist and mystic) and got about 6 tells within a minute asking for – raids. Not groups. I barely have the patience for a PUG group, let alone a PUG raid, so I politely declined, and waited for a group who was looking for one or the other of my characters instead (and this is where the WoW LFD (looking for dungeon) tool would really come in handy for EQ2).

I still didn’t have too long of a wait, there was a Kurns Tower group heading off and they needed an enchanter, so I relogged to Stargrace and ported myself to the group (thank you 6 year veteran reward). The leader of the group asked me if I was new to the server as they hadn’t seen me around before. I told them I mostly kept to myself but no, I wasn’t new at all.

I play a LOT of support classes (I have 2 80 bards, 3 80 enchanters, and 3 80 healers just as an example) and one of the first things anyone ever asks me or tells me in a group is if I have such and such buff, and could I please put it on them. My group yesterday was not like this – and it was SO refreshing. For once they didn’t insinuate that I didn’t know how to play my class, or care if I had the TSO end line aa. My illusionist does happen to have those buffs and I am pretty good in deciding who should get what, so it was just nice to enter a group and complete a zone without any hassle.

It was a fast run and we managed to get the achievement for completing it in less then an hour which just added to the pleasantness. Nothing of note dropped which sucked (and we had a boxed bard that basically autofollowed and cast buffs and that was it) but it was still one of the best groups I’ve been on pug-wise.

In other fantastic news, Malfi is the proud owner of his mythical weapon as of last night! It is always so awesome to see friends names in the server wide message that goes off each time a mythical is obtained. Congratulations! I’m sure he’ll make great use of it.

Christmas is creeping up VERY soon! I’ll be headed to my parents place for a few days, but I’ll be dragging along the laptop (which has a few of my favorite games on it) so I’ll still be around to bug everyone. Have a fantastic holiday and stay safe!

See you in Norrath!

Down go Leviathan and Druushk!

Most of yesterday was spent traveling to my parents place, and then traveling home afterward, a good time was had by all. I came back with a loaf of amazing banana bread that I doubt will make it through the rest of today. I spent the remainder of the day doing pretty much nothing, just exploring around EQ2 and then out of luck I remembered I had taken on a project to decorate a friends house (Pennie, from Paradise Lost on Oasis) and me being, well, me. Completely forgot to actually go off and decorate the home!

So I grabbed my little carpenter and set out to do just that. Pennie is a gnome, templar living in Qeynos and so I tried to make his home represent him. Once I get permission I’ll be posting videos of the house (I need to finish two more rooms as well). I’m excited about it. So far it’s turned out pretty well.

Later on in the evening, it was time to buckle down and FINALLY get my troubador her epic weapon. Goudia has always been a fun character of mine to play but since TSO (The Shadow Odyssey) I’ve barely played her. In RoK (Ruins of Kunark) she was my raid main, but I stopped raiding not far after I started. Needless to say, each time someone asks me if I have UT (upbeat tempo, it’s a troubador thing) I cringe a little on the inside. She’s resting at 152aa, not nearly enough to have this skill. Some day though.

Paradise Lost was hosting a Leviathan raid – as well as VP (Veeshan’s Peek) following. These raids are typically run once a month (because the guild no longer has a need to run them) and consists of 1 and a half groups of guild mates, and the rest are pick ups. It can be VERY messy, but it’s also a lot of fun. PL gets a chance to scope out some talent, and people get their updates. The way PL runs it is that they do NOT charge for updates – but when it comes to loot drops, all PL tagged characters get +250 to their roll. What this means is that loot drops, you roll /random 1000 and anyone wearing the PL tag gets +250 added onto that roll. Seems fair, since they’re hosting (and main tanking / healing) the raids.

It still gives a chance for lots of things to go wrong. We ALMOST managed a flawless victory on Leviathan but there was a wizard who had a suicide wish and kept nuking so that of course kept reflecting and they died a few times. Even though we specifically told people to just stand there and look pretty for most of the fight, letting PL take care of everything else.

There were a LOT of people around who wanted to make their way through VP, so I decided to sit out for the run, and just come during my specific fight, which was Druushk. The fight is really nothing special. There’s two rooms, one has four statues, and one has Druushk. Every so often you’ll hear a script emote about the flapping of wings, one of those four statues becomes active and whoever is stationed there must click their statue – a mob will spawn, they have to survive that, then a 2nd tank will pull those mobs over to the raid and the raid will kill them, as you’re also working down Druushk in between pulls. It works out well. We did have a few wipes at the start because some people didn’t know where their statues were, but before too long it was over, and I was sporting my new axe, having visited Barren Sky first of course.

The weapon itself is a huge upgrade over the fabled version, and it grants some very nice stats for players. This makes the third mythical that I’ve completed, I also have the mystic mythical and the illusionists completed. I’m hoping that they’re still used some how in Sentinel’s Fate, because you can’t really get BETTER then a mythical weapon, and I’d hate to see all of the work I did for this go to waste.

For those out there who think you have to join a raid guild in order to get anything done in game – don’t buy into that. It’s simply not true. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, or dedicated 12 hours a night to raiding, or anything like that. On every single server out there there is an alternative method for you to get your mythical completed, I guarantee. Some times it takes a little work, and some patience, and yes, some time, but there’s still a way.

Today is the 20th, which means Moonlight enchantments are in game – complete with a few new house item rewards. If you’ve never taken part of them before I highly suggest you take a peek, the achievements for completing them are worth it alone. Speaking of which, I think I’ll grind out some aa in the new Frostfell instances and get some questing done.

See you in Norrath!

Frostfell and Decorating, Oh What Fun

With Frostfell here I spent most of yesterday doing one of two things. Running the heroic instance with Wpus and Ultann, and then decorating. So much decorating. After a year, I finally finished off my Norrathian Museum. Of course a house like that is never really “finished” so what I mean is that now there’s no structural things that I need to do, I just need to take my relics and place them. Which reminds me, I need to run the Will of a Tyrant quests on Ellithia. I have been neglecting the quests since I no longer receive aa from them.

For those who may be new to Frostfell – you get different aa for doing the easy / hard versions of the zone, even though they’ve got the same mobs. It was my first time experiencing the ‘heroic’ version of the zone which was really fast and a lot of fun. Not to mention it rewarded an incredible frozen sword house item.

I’ve been trying to set up in game ‘goals’ for myself, to achieve before Sentinel’s Fate comes out in February. So far I haven’t come up with too many, but I’d like to get at least one or two other characters to 200aa and I’d love to get all of my characters to at least level 80 crafter on my main account. Since I’m spread across three servers (Oasis, Antonia Bayle, Lucan D’Lere) this can be a little frustrating, I have crafters all over the place, but I’m determined. I love crafting.

I should be doing shard runs, so that I can finally empty my bags of the WoE gear I’ve had saved up forever, but I’ve done so many shard runs over the months that I’m a little bit tired of it. That’s to be expected though, you do any one thing for any length of time and eventually you’re going to get tired.

What is everyone else up to in game? Frostfell? Raids? Instances? Crafting? Excited about the expansion? All of the above? Let me know!

In the mean time, I’ll see you in Norrath.