EQ2: Betraying Qeynos

Even the in-game items mock me! I could put this book in my home… if I had one… but let me backtrack to… two days ago.

Spending so much time in the Kingdom of Sky expansion grinding out the levels. Dina was 55 last weekend; 58 this one. But I hate the grind, and when the pickup raid channel came alive with news of raiding Cazic Thule to free the frogloks, I had to join. See, actually, they have been freed on my server, Befallen. I was hoping we could convince Venekor, the dragon who sometimes calls CT his lair, sweet lair, to take them back.

We fought bravely, but it took too much time for the impatient pickup raiders, and we ran out of people not long before we were to meet the dragon himself.
But the next day, the dragon did return to terrorize CT – not the “Save the Froggies” instance, but the real deal; and in the name of 40-ish xp groups everywhere, the pickup raiders of which I am a proud participant, sprang into action.

His amazingly potent poison AE did us in. It’s possible to stay out of range – this is a range fight if ever there was one, at least at the casual-raider state of resist gear – but the raid leader didn’t have a strong sense of the encounter. I dunno. Huge, dangerous AE + low resists = STAY OUT OF RANGE. But I’m only one haffer, and the people who signed up for the raid hoping for easy loots and no dying dropped out after the second wipe. We ended with fewer people than needed to even engage him.
A couple days of experience debt to sleep off convinced me to work on alts. I tried the new tradeskill system – love it. Got Dera from no skills to a level 20 armorer in two play sessions. I ran out of tin for the Tier 1 armor and weapons, and had to finish that Tier making hot coffee and jumjum pie. I needed that hot coffee to keep me awake. I had a bit of panic when Dera dinged 10 and got assigned the Scholar profession. Did I unwisely pick a profession at some point? A trip to the Coalition of Tradesfolk offices in West Freeport were all that was needed to get her back to the Outfitter track… sigh of relief… I do need a sage and a jeweler, but Dera was to be the armor crafter.
I’ve been asked several times in EQ1 why, if I love playing halflings so much, do I have a gnome mage? Well… if they allowed halfling mages in EQ1, I would have made one.
EQ2 does allow this, and her name is Dorah. I’m focused on leveling Dina and Dera at the moment, and just can’t spare the time to level any more alts. But… she’d make a great jeweler.
Only problem is, she is in Qeynos while the rest of the Tanglewood clan is in Freeport. Perfect time to check out the new betrayal quest that was introduced with Live Update 24.
The old quest was tedious, but simple. Talk to some people, attempt to kill Queen Antonica, get killed and (in the old days) leave your shard missing for three days while you tried to convince strangers in Freeport to help you kill the nameds and those 500 orcs required.
That’s the way Dera did it, and I met a lot of great people through that. When I did it with Dina, I was able to two-box and had Etha to make the process a lot easier.
The new betrayal quest requires no groups to take on nameds, and doesn’t limit your level. It consists entirely of level-scaled solo quests and faction farms.

Rumors (ie, the LU #24 update notes) led me to a disgruntled gnome beneath Qeynos Harbor. Gnomes are usually cranky on the best of days, but by his grumbles and mutters, I knew I’d found a kindred soul, fed up, as I was, with the incessant cheerfulness of the western human city.
He sent me to a Freeport spy in a nearby inn. That spy didn’t come right out and say he was from Freeport… but you could tell he wasn’t from around Qeynos. He claimed Halas as his home, and neither Freeport nor Qeynos would ever substitute for the lost barbarian city. I knew just what he meant; I feel the same about Rivervale, and curse the demons that drove us from our homes to the cities of the big folk.
Well, he was wanting information before he’d waste any time with me, and gave me some pointers on who might have information I could trade to him for a trip to Freeport.

Investigation turned up hints of something big and extremely secret going down. I found some loose lips, and some truth potion to loosen some others. Queen Antonica had caused the mages to build a device to keep Qeynos safe from enemy magical attack – a hostile act designed to protect itself from retaliation after they pre-emptively would attack Freeport.
Human games! This is why the rest of the races hate humanity. Always involving the world in their petty squabbles. Good riddance to them! Even as a Qeynos citizen, I could see how this magical shield would lead to war, and when the spy suggested I take direct action against the mages and their shield generator, I said… why would Queen Antonica entrust this task to unprotected, level 17 mages that I could easily kill myself, instead of those huge, brawny guards that could kill me in a blink?
The spy said the first thing I need to learn about Freeport is to keep my questions to myself and get on with it… So I did… I solved the little color puzzle to get the teleporters working, and I destroyed the shield generators (“Shield generators are down, Cap’n; I dunnae ken when they will be running again.” “Dammit, Scotty! We need… those… generators… working!” “I’ll do what I can, Cap’n, but I cannae work miracles…”)
And then the Qeynos guard comes running up. Oh yes, you looked at your shift schedule and someone asked someone else why all the lowbie mages had been left to guard Qeynos’ most precious secret. Jig was up, they conked me out and dragged my pie-stuffed body onto a cart and went outside to dump me to my death…

I woke up in Haven. A Haven patrol had ambushed the Qeynos guards, found me somewhat alive in the cart and brought me to their underground city. Whenever I see tunnels like these, I expect to see gnolls, but this wasn’t Splitpaw, though I later found out that place wasn’t far.
I was an exile, a haffer without a home. I wandered the place for awhile. I like snug, enclosed places; I guess that’s the gift Brell gives all his creations, and this felt far more homey than Baubbleshire. Empty.

I did find a fellow exile prowling about. He was still dazed; still in shock over what he had done. He’d hoped to carve out a better life in Freeport, but now that he had left Qeynos, he missed it more than ever and longed to go back. But eventually he comforted himself with the rumors of Tunare’s return, and hopes his elven homeland in Faydwer would soon be rediscovered so he, like so many other elves, could leave the human cities behind and return to the trees.
Remembering what we’d found when Rivervale was rediscovered, I couldn’t offer him much hope.
My path to Freeport led first, oddly, back to Qeynos. Destroying the mystical shield generatror wasn’t enough to prove my worth to Freeport. They demanded no less than the complete disintegration of authority in Qeynos. They assured me that the people and organizations I was to defeat would be no more than I could handle by myself. With the key bits of Qeynos so easily defeated, why do they need me?

I defeated some people who had gathered in a hidden location to have some bare knuckle brawling. They had all these complicated rules; I didn’t bother memorizing them. “Not killing your opponent” may have been one of them. A little hazy on them.
Killed some Tunarian world trees before the evil druids had a chance to plant them in Eldaar Grove. Stuff like that.
Still in the process of being a one-hobbit terror squad in Qeynos, but my Freeport contact says things are looking good. Perhaps later today, I will finally be able to catch a glimpse of my new home, and hug my mom Etha, and my sisters Dina and Dera, once more.

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