Janey isn't much fun to play any more. I think I'm pretty well 'done' with her. There isn't that much else for her to do. She is basically a combat character, and she's not even very good at it. All she has is Archery, and even at 98 skill, she misses. A lot. She has a bit of magery, but she doesn't have enough mana to cast more than two fourth level spells before she has to wait.
Talyn and I went to Destard on Saturday. I know; I don't like dungeons. But I am bored of the new lands, and even Titans won't make my archery move. We killed a Drake right near the entrance, and then went looking for another one. We found ten, instead. There were four of them after me, while I was running around trying to find a safe place to take off my bow and recall home. I kept moving my paper doll around, instead. Talyn died. I finally got home. We decided that Davian should come with me instead of Talyn. He can provoke the drakes onto other drakes, and snakes, and ... *gulp* ... dragons.
We needed other people. People who had been there before and knew what they were doing. I went to the bank. I hoped I would find who I was looking for. I did. I said, "Dundee and Shade, what are you two doing? I mean, besides talking at the bank?" I explained to them about how we had gone there and Talyn died... but Davian wanted to come. They said they would gate us in and show us how they do it. And so they did. :)
Dundee tamed a drake and named it 'lag.' He said "lag come" a lot. The drake roared at Dundee. It spat fire at Dundee. It flapped its wings and stretched its neck at Dundee. Then, finally, after a loooong time, lag did what it was told.
Someone would run up and bring a drake down to The Pit, where it was trapped, and then Dundee would tell lag to attack it. We did that a few times, and then somebody who wasn't in our party brought down a dragon. We killed it, too. Ravage, who was at the bank with Dundee and Shade is a really good healer. I know, because he used his skills on me. A lot.
Shade said there was a shrine in the dungeon, in case we needed it. I said I was going to go find it, and I ran off. I found Davian on the way there. We killed a water elemental. I got fame from it. That hasn't happened in a while. I guess I've been dying too much lately.
Then we went back to The Pit, but Dundee, Shade, and Ravage the Healer were gone. Davian and I ran around looking for something to kill. He took off running and I lost him. So I ran too - right into a drake. I ran faster - to get away from the drake, who was now following me - and I ran smack into a dragon. Ughghgh! You are dead.
I ICQed Davian to tell him that I had died 'somewhere in the middle' and to be careful when looting my body because there was a dragon near. I ran to the shrine to resurrect. Good thing I had looked for it before. I lost a lot of fame, then I couldn't see. So I ran, in the dark, back down to where Davian was, so I could grab my reagents and cast In Lor. I ran right smack into the dragon/drake duo. Really. I think I kissed the dragon's belly. Ughghgh! You are dead.
I walked to the shrine and asked Davian if he would meet me there, because I couldn't see after I resurrected. I lost a lot of fame, then I hid and waited for Davian. When Davian got there, he gave me my stuff back. The dragon didn't loot me; I was surprised. I guess my stuff wasn't Kewl enough for it to even bother with. We walked around again looking for things to kill.
Davian is even more frustrated than me, and rightfully so. He's having a terrible time raising healing so he can cure himself, and *everything* poisons now. The fun things to kill rip him apart in two seconds. Me too, but at least I can do damage from far away.
We walked downstairs. There was a drake, but nothing to trap it on, and it was too small of a place to kill it. So we went down again. There was a place with lava in it where we killed some Fire Elementals. Fire Elementals are good. They die fairly quickly, we're in danger but not running for our lives every three seconds, give me 'some fame' even though I am Famed, and have a good loot-to-energy-spent ratio. I wish they spawned outside of the dungeons.
We walked south a bit, and all of a sudden I was at 22 health. I ran and ran and ran, and cast GH and drank a potion and then healed again. Then I walked up a bit, to find Davian, and the thing breathed fire and cast a lightning bolt at me at the same time. I was down to 14 health. We both ran and ran and ran.
"What the hell was that?!" I said to Davian. "That was an Ancient Wyrm," he said. I didn't even see it damage me the first time. It happened THAT FAST. "Okay," I said, "Here's the plan. We get to full health, then RUN past it, and hope for the best." Davian says: "I want to kill it." I said, "I'll die. You'll die. We'll all die. I don't want to die any more." He says: "That's what I love about you - your optimism." I told him it was realism.
He went north to find the thing. From far away, I heard an "Ughghgh!" I ran up next to the wall and hid. I saw The Thing in the corner of my screen. I didn't even want to come out of hiding to Recall while I could see it. Finally, it was far enough away that I decided to chance Recall. I made it home.
Some guy named Draco (naked, meditating, saying 'hehe') resurrected Davian, saved his stuff from the Ancient Wyrm, and gated him out of the dungeon. That was nice. But he gated Davian to Occlo, and Davian isn't a mage, so I had to go rescue him. ;)
I made a bit of money. I don't really care about money, since there's nothing to buy. I also got a treasure map. That makes three now... none of which I can do anything with, because you have to have a mule to do it, and nobody in our group is willing to do all the work to make a Treasure Hunting Mule just for the few times that we need one.
And the Treasure Hunting Mule really has the most boring part of the whole deal, and then he can't take part in any of the fun, because he's already spent a bazillion points on Treasure Hunting Skills. It would be nice if someone would start a Treasure Hunting Company. One that you could hire to decode your map and dig up the treasure and either give them a percentage of the loot or a fee up front or maybe both.
But of course then there's the Money problem again. Why would someone start a Company like that when there's nothing to buy with the profits? The only things I ever spend chunks of money on any more are magic bows, and arrows. Hearding found me a bow of power. It is coo-ool. I want some more of those. But they are rare. And expensive. So I collect Bows of Might, instead.
Which is really kind of funny, because . . . She's not very fun to play any more. I suppose I have a goal for Janey. I want her to be a Grandmaster Archer. But archery won't move. It went up .3 this weekend, but that was only after two weeks of not using that skill. At this rate, it will take me 14 weeks to make Grandmaster, and that's if I kill drakes, and skill gain doesn't (God forbid) slow down any.
I died twice there, killing drakes, which screws up my other goal, which is to be Glorious, so that everyone will *know* that I am a Grandmaster Archer. But I kind of don't like that goal. The archery one, I mean. I don't think 2 points of Archery will make that much difference, really. There is nothing at 100 archery that I cannot do at 98 archery. So, in essence, I am watching numbers. And that isn't any fun. In fact, it is highly frustrating.
So I've started spending more time with Mairi. It is fun just to hunt animals and make gorgets and then gloves. And look in player-vendors to see if anybody has anything neat. And actually see things *happen.* It's nice to be able to say, "Soon I will be able to make studded sleeves!" and work, however leisurely, at that goal. And explore. On a boat. And find out where the Serpent Pillars are, and then use them to sail to the Ice Place in the new lands. And kill a sea monster. And take pictures of dolphins doing flips.
But then that feeling creeps in again... that Achiever feeling. I make 140 pairs of studded gloves, making sure I have less than 14 hides in my pack every single time, and only get .1 skill gain and get irritated. It makes me not want to play. I'm watching numbers again.
So I am doing something new, now. I am playing on a whole new shard, with a whole new character. *She doesn't even have any tailoring, and I'm gonna keep it that way!* I have less than 100 stones in my bank box. There aren't a lot of people there, and there aren't a lot of houses.
It is nice. I like it. A lot. :)
