Again, my huge advantage over Kasul is that I still am forced to work from home, but on the plus side, I get to get in the Aradune queue early and am usually able to play by the time I am done work and have supper cooking.
The question of what to do during the time when I’m playing alone, since I don’t want to outlevel Kasul, was easily answered with tradeskills. I can do all the tradeskilling I like.
More than that, I need to do tradeskills. In the world of classic EverQuest, int-based casters do not get all their spells from vendors. After a certain point, most of your best spells require spell research, and spell research is a tradeskill. Like most tradeskills, you can get to a certain level of skill just from vendor-sold items. This is fast, but can be pricey. Past that point, you’ll need to go out hunting.
Dunkela has gone as far as she can with the cheap, vendor-sold research options. Further progress requires a drop called “Raw Fine Hide”. These are dropped by a variety of level 20-ish mobs around the world, but the most consistent, for those who are already disliked by the denizens of Qeynos, is Squire Wimbley, a paladin who, along with his chosen mentor, Sir Morgan, is charged with protecting those who would travel the bandit-infested Plains of Eastern Karana.
Protecting them maybe also from predatory dark elves.
His Raw Fine Hide is a fairly uncommon drop, and in the few hours I’ve been camping him, I’ve only gotten twelve. I need at least twenty, and probably more. I can get to the mid-40s research skill level by turning the hides into good spell scroll material, but the trivial for the spell I am trying to make — the level 24 water pet — is 20 skill levels beyond that, so I expect to fail a lot. I might have to make lower level spells to build skill, but the whole thing is super expensive.
There’s always people on the magician channels advertising the spell scrolls. I don’t know how they get the raw materials. There must be an easier way. Maybe they get them through camping dungeon drops.
