Shy, a hireling cleric, and I watch the pretty burning ship while Spode flees the scene
The topic came up last week about maybe picking one of our myriad guilds as the one guild we all would join. Despite all the good times I had at GAMERZ, the nights we just spent describing our adventures over guild chat, banding together to defend Stormreach from its deadliest foes and… ah, forget it. I was a ninja invite, just a warm body to them. The only thing they ever wanted from me, as far as I know, was free guild renown at no cost to them. I left GAMERZ with nary a backward glance, and nobody noticed.
I DID leave on “good terms”, though. Leaving on “good terms” means I left most of the renown I’d earned with them.
We’d decided to all converge on Spode’s guild, “Order of Cannith” (inevitably changed to “Order of Cannabis” in Team Spode). Spode found to his shock and amazement that he was an officer, and so last week he invited Gleek into the guild. While looking around the guild airship, he spied the guild bank, full of low level stuff, from which he selected a wand. Spode also found a bit of armor. The next morning, the guild leader, inspiringly named Colossus, sent a blistering message to the membership about someone cleaning out the guild bank. PROBABLY just a coincidence.
Spode invited me and new Team Spode member Shy(sp?) into the guild Saturday night. I checked out the guild bank — it was filled to the brim with stuff. I felt I had to complain that I would need more clear inventory spaces to grab everything in one trip.
I didn’t say that in guild chat 馃檪 “Order of Cannith” has no idea who we are, and it’s probably best they don’t. I hope they enjoy all the guild renown we’ll be earning them, though.
With Ulan traveling this last weekend, and Gleek with company over on Sunday, we decided not to move ahead in Delera’s Tomb this week. Spode mentioned he’d be online for some catch-up leveling Saturday. Gleek and I joined him. Since Shy(sp?) was also online, we decided to breeze through some lower level missions on elite to help her level.
We did Archer’s Point — not my favorite, I dislike timed missions. You have to run around looking for packs of hobgoblins and clear them out before reinforcements arrive and invade the camp you are trying to protect. It’s that sense of false urgency that I don’t appreciate.
We had Irestone Inlet opened up on hard — we did that last April in v1.0 of our group. The goal here is to slaughter the hobgoblin crew of a pirate ship, then blow up said ship before the captain catches you. Then, you murder the captain. I need to emphasize that the crew was just minding their own business when we swooped down on them with death in our hands. Does it excuse our actions if the business we interrupted was them holding innocent captives for ransom?
Kill first, ask questions later, that’s the Team Spode way.
Sunday, Gleek indicated he might not show up. Shy(sp?) wasn’t online, and Ulan was still traveling, so it ended up just being Spode and I.
Mirra’s Sleepless Nights had filled me with rogue humiliation last time we’d done it. There’s this trapped room that blasts you with freezing blasts from all four corners unless you disarm the traps by evading the blasts and climbing a ladder to a platform where you can either disable them, or flip a lever that blankets the platform in more freezing blasts. Which is exactly what I did the first time through. I died, instantly. Since I was dead, I couldn’t unlock the way to the only shrine in the instance, so I had to hover around insubstantially while everyone else had fun. NOT good.
We had to do it twice; both Spode and I died trying to figure out just what needed to be done in that room — we’d completed the dungeon, so we got the xp, but I could not leave that room alone. Spode was willing to indulge me as we went back AGAIN, and this time I figured it out. There’s THREE traps up on that platform! All of which needed disarming.
Intelligence, you see, was my “dump” stat.
In real life.
Next we headed to the graveyard for Dead Girl’s Notebook. This timed mission is full of traps and mazes and water tunnels… and undead.
Everyone in Team Spode likes a good pun, but Spode and I REALLY like them. When I was married, sometimes we’d head up to visit a mutual friend in Sunnyvale and after a day of shopping and movies (in those HUGE Winchester Cinema domes!), we’d sit around in his hot tub and just pun each other to death.
So with just us two in a labyrinth of wights and ghasts… well, if puns worked as well on the undead as they did against each other, we’d have been finished before we got the hireling cleric summoned.
Spode had been ON FIRE Saturday, so I had some catching up to do. We don’t kill wraiths. We e-wraith them!
Voice chat is, I think, essential for groups these days. I am very glad it’s included in DDO’s client.
Anyway, because we really had no idea what was happening in the dungeon, our time ran out by the time we opened the way to the penultimate room, where we had to battle waves of skeletons. Plus there were those creepy paladin-ensnaring water tunnels with which to contend.
We went back for a second try, and this time made it to the final battle. Well, Spode did — since we were VERY short on time, I was sent off to flip the levers in the wing rooms while Spode would, in theory, grab the book we were after so the timer would stop. Naturally, it wasn’t that simple. The floor of the second room dropped away into deep water while a half dozen skeletons spawned to keep me busy. I just barely made it into the water and up the ladder on the other side with my life.
Spode was by now battling the boss, who apparently was holding the book. I got to him with our cleric before he died, and joined in the fight but — out of time. Mission ended. With one more person, we’d have had time. With the full group, it would be no trouble. I’m hoping we can go back for this one before continuing on with Delera’s Tomb next week.
Spode was only about 70 xp from his next rank. We thought about just trying Dead Girl’s Notebook again for the xp, but that place really has no xp if you don’t finish it. My cleric’s contract had run out and all I had was a fighter.
Spode found a quick mission in some tavern which was basically just going to one room and fighting waves of undead. That was easy enough. Spode dinged rank 30 and we were done for the night.
Got an e-mail today from Turbine — Delera’s Tomb and Sentinels of Stormreach will be 50% on certain days this week. I’ve already bought Delera’s, but it was Sentinels that we needed to do the dungeon in Searing Heights. Might be worth picking it up.
