Sorry that the Furious Pacifist has been so quiet - she ended up with blood on her hands and so we had to have a virtual jumping off a cliff ceremony. Turns out you just can’t trust gnomes…

Paxmar wrote:

It was wonderful to arrive back in Baubbleshire after my time away. Neezer Grund greeted me before I’d properly made it off the boat and just about talked my ear off! I promised I’d come back to him and went straight over to the Deductive Directory to see if they had any work. There were plenty of jobs but nothing that I was qualified to do. I was beginning to despair again.

That’s when I made a wonderful new friend, Talwith Darkcloud was his name. He saw that I was at a loss and offered to help me out. I told him I wasn’t afraid of hard work but I didn’t know how to get started. He said they were in serious need of more skilled labor in Baubbleshire and that if I was willing to learn a trade, he’s happily teach me. He gave me some basic tools and a bag to put them in and immediately put me to work making simple things.

What a relief to be back in a sensible place rather than surrounded by talk of subterfuge and Freeport all the time!

Talwith is a great teacher and in no time at all I was getting my own wood and pelts from Forest Ruins and making myself backpacks and boxes so that I could store all the bits and pieces that real tradeskillers have to have on hand. Things were going so well, I thought I could do anything!

I then collected the scrap metal for Neezer Grund, taking care not to get grease on my new bags. He was very grateful and gave me an almost undamaged cog as a souvenir. Then he asked me if I could help collect some Nogginspark Reactors.

I hated going back to him empty-handed but I had to tell him that I just couldn’t do it. He made it sound so simple, just “knock those false-rats senseless and remove the reactors” … but then when I caught one of the rats, I remembered what my father said about clockworks being real. Taking out their batteries felt like I was ripping out their heart. He didn’t seem interested in hearing my explanations - it looks like I’ve lost a mentor. This isn’t going to be so easy after all.

I had heard there was a bit of a party happening near the North Qeynos gates but when I went over there all I found was litter and a hungover dwarf who said I was too late and everyone else had gone home. Some days, I wonder why I get out of bed.

I was pleased to have gained level five at the Isle of Refuge, which was more than I expected. I went to Baubbleshire and was doing various quests, including the Neezer Grund gnome mentor quest. Big mistake.

When he said to “knock those false-rats senseless and remove the reactors” I didn’t really think it through. They weren’t alive and I wasn’t killing them, I was just knocking them out. It wasn’t until I thwacked the second one that I realised I was being silly. I waited a week to check on eq2players but sure enough - two kills to my name. No way was I starting off with that trivial of a mistake. I restarted the character on the spot - she was only level 7.

The second time around went a lot faster. I didn’t waste time looking for quests on the Isle of Refuge and so it was pretty painless to get back to level five. It’s a bit annoying though as I lost the Errolisi day quests and missed the Brell’s day quests. On the other hand, there’s an argument that I should save those for a higher level anyway, as they level up with you.

This time, I’ve focused on getting tradeskills up to 9 and some basic equipment for myself. I am a bit stuck though. Clearly she should do a tradeskill, if only for the run speed from the epic! But I’m not sure which tradeskill to learn. I have three provisioners so she’s not doing that! I’d prefer to avoid tailor too as I have a t8 one already. I pondered the scholar classes but she can’t make spells used to do harm and she can’t make poisons, so that’s a bit rough. Weaponsmith is obviously a non-option. Carpentry seems a no-brainer but it’d be nice if she could make things that would help her along. I’ll have to decide soon as she’s capped.

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.