New books, big shopping bills and a familiar character expands her horizons
So Dad picked me up to go grocery shopping. Dad wanted to find some boots and do some shopping of his own, and I wanted to see what new books were available for D&D 4E at Barnes and Noble. Dad gave me a half-hour in the store, and I bought four new books: Psionic Power, which expands on the options available to Ardents, Battleminds, Monks and Psions; The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea, which is something of a supplement to the Manual of the Planes that covers the domains and environment of the Astral Sea, and the encounters that high-level parties might get into while traveling it; and The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos, which covers the so-far ill-defined area of the D&D cosmology where the demons of 4E live. Also gotten was the 4E adaptation of the infamous D&D module, Tomb of Horrors. I have yet to track down a copy of the original adventure by Gygax, which from what I have heard about it is quite the meat-grinder. Dad couldn't find any boots even though he went to Farm and Fleet (which he thought was plenty stupid), and ended up taking a while to get back to Barnes and Noble due to the traffic being backed up. Not fun at all.
We went to Woodman's as usual for our general grocery shopping. I bought a shitload of food, since I was out of almost everything, including hamburger. I made sure to grab four pounds of the stuff (which came in a different form than I'm usually used to buying hamburger in) in addition to the stuff that normally goes into my cart. Also bought were two scrubbing pads, four Magic Erasers and two pairs of rubber gloves because of the major cleaning work that Mom and I did at the apartment the week before. Dad also threw in a bottle of Clorox Clean-Up, which went into the bathroom when we got back. Both of us spent more money than we normally spend on shopping trips, and my shopping bill in particular was at least $75 over the 200 mark that I usually hit when I go shopping. I am hoping to hell I don't suffer an overdraft because of this.
After putting all my shit away (which took some doing because I bought a lot of frozen stuff this time around and my freezer is rather small) I took a break from Galtero and my growing cast of alts for DDO (and I've already come up with bios and storylines for at least half of them, which is the fault of my roleplaying and writing side, and I'm already thinking about fanfiction) and stepped back into the shoes of Etheara to tackle the latest update of the Sandsea storyline for Adventure Quest Worlds. Thus far, Etheara has joined Zhoom, AE's resident half-Sand Elven ranger and the last of his race (who Etheara has something of a crush on in the storyline I've come up with for her -- with as many female fans as Zhoom has in Dragonfable, my character is definitely not alone in feeling this way!) to investigate an unusual storm in the Sandsea that has uncovered a lost city in the sand, which turns out to have been caused by a chaorrupted Djinn called Tibicenas, who is being controlled by a seriously bad-news individual by the name of Zahart. Since a bastard like Zahart controlling a creature of such power is seriously bad news for Lore, Zhoom has decided to enlist Etheara in tracking down the former ruler of the Sandsea, who he himself helped overthrow, the immortal mummy god-king Sek Duat.
We ended up doing the usual mob-killing and quest-doing, the second to last of which involved getting the keys to Sek Duat's chamber. There were three mob types that spawned randomly, so many of us stayed in one area and killed the mobs as they spawned until all of the quests were done, then went off to confront Sek Duat himself. I was hoping that we would fight the guy as the boss of this particular release, but instead, we ended up trailing him on a magic carpet chase through his pyramid. The chase in question still had a few bugs, and the first few times I tried to do this, I ended up hitting the wrong button or going too far down and getting stuck in place, and I couldn't move and all I could do was wait for the damned timer (the amount of time left before Sek Duat escaped) to run all the way down, which was very annoying. At the end, we caught him, and then came the interrogation, where Zhoom mentions Sek Duat's crimes, including the hunting of Zhoom's people to extinctiion, but mentions that he's only letting him live (well, as much as a mummy really can "live") because he knows the Sandsea better than anyone and he might have a lead as to how to stop Zahart and Tibecenas. Etheara then brings us the funniest moment of the release by mentioning trading him to Zahart for something, which scares the unliving piss out of Sek Duat much to Zhoom's amusement. He tells us that the only way to fight a Djinn is with another Djinn, and that he knows where one can be found, which unfortunately will need to wait until the next big release which I think will occur next Friday.
After finishing the release, I ended up going back into the pyramid to kill more mobs, since there were several choice items that dropped from the mobs of the release, including the Carpet Racer armor (which on male characters looks like something from Aladdin, and on female characters like Etheara is very...pink) and I needed to do some XP grinding for Level 34. Since the Carpet Racer armor has the lowest droprate out of all the items of the release, it took me close to an hour to finally get my hands on it. I also got several nonmember weapon drops, one of which I enhanced for Healer along with the badass-looking Defender of Light sword which I recently snagged from the Suggestion Shop and enhanced for Warrior as an alternative to Etheara's main weapon. I also picked up the recently-released Golden Dragonblade, which I enhanced for Thief. And that's when I decided to take the next big step with Etheara.
She already has three of the main four classes (warrior, healer and rogue) at Rank 10, so I figured I would round out the, well, quadfecta by making her a mage as well, making her something similar to the Avatar (of Avatar The Last Airbender fame, not the James Cameron movie), who had to master all four disciplines of "bending." I've already named Arcangrove (the last major saga she went through) as the point where she starts learning magic in her major storyline, so she won't be pulling all these mystical powers out of her ass. Since I already had practice at being a mage from playing Ariacus, getting the major pattern down (ice first, then fire for major damage) was easy, though Etheara being Level 33, I couldn't exactly go to the Dwarfhold area like I did with Ariacus because the mobs there are too low level, so I ground on Level 30 Bupers Camels and Cactus Creepers. I was pleasantly surprised at how much damage I did when I hit the combo right (1215 on crit, higher than some of my finishing blows with Stiletto during boss solos), which combined with my staff hits and my ice damage often halved the health of mobs I fought. The main downside to Etheara's mage mode is that as a mage, she's even squishier than her rogue mode, with only Arcane Shield to protect her from damage unlike the Rogue's Footwork, the Warrior's On Guard and the Healer's Energy Flow (the latter two of which primarily act to lessen damage, something also shared by the Mage's ice attack), so I ended up dying a bit as I did my rank grinding (Rank 6 is her current rank as a Mage -- I hope to get her to Rank 10 in the next few days). Etheara the Mage does her best work when she's got a party to protect her, and primarily acts by pulling mobs to her with Explosion, blasting them with Frostbite or Fireball, and using Arcane Shield to protect herself from those few hits that get past her friends. I'm still planning on using Rogue for soloing and DPS, Warrior for tanking and Healer for, well, healing, but with the powers of a Mage now at her disposal, Etheara now has a new weapon to throw into her arsenal.
We went to Woodman's as usual for our general grocery shopping. I bought a shitload of food, since I was out of almost everything, including hamburger. I made sure to grab four pounds of the stuff (which came in a different form than I'm usually used to buying hamburger in) in addition to the stuff that normally goes into my cart. Also bought were two scrubbing pads, four Magic Erasers and two pairs of rubber gloves because of the major cleaning work that Mom and I did at the apartment the week before. Dad also threw in a bottle of Clorox Clean-Up, which went into the bathroom when we got back. Both of us spent more money than we normally spend on shopping trips, and my shopping bill in particular was at least $75 over the 200 mark that I usually hit when I go shopping. I am hoping to hell I don't suffer an overdraft because of this.
After putting all my shit away (which took some doing because I bought a lot of frozen stuff this time around and my freezer is rather small) I took a break from Galtero and my growing cast of alts for DDO (and I've already come up with bios and storylines for at least half of them, which is the fault of my roleplaying and writing side, and I'm already thinking about fanfiction) and stepped back into the shoes of Etheara to tackle the latest update of the Sandsea storyline for Adventure Quest Worlds. Thus far, Etheara has joined Zhoom, AE's resident half-Sand Elven ranger and the last of his race (who Etheara has something of a crush on in the storyline I've come up with for her -- with as many female fans as Zhoom has in Dragonfable, my character is definitely not alone in feeling this way!) to investigate an unusual storm in the Sandsea that has uncovered a lost city in the sand, which turns out to have been caused by a chaorrupted Djinn called Tibicenas, who is being controlled by a seriously bad-news individual by the name of Zahart. Since a bastard like Zahart controlling a creature of such power is seriously bad news for Lore, Zhoom has decided to enlist Etheara in tracking down the former ruler of the Sandsea, who he himself helped overthrow, the immortal mummy god-king Sek Duat.
We ended up doing the usual mob-killing and quest-doing, the second to last of which involved getting the keys to Sek Duat's chamber. There were three mob types that spawned randomly, so many of us stayed in one area and killed the mobs as they spawned until all of the quests were done, then went off to confront Sek Duat himself. I was hoping that we would fight the guy as the boss of this particular release, but instead, we ended up trailing him on a magic carpet chase through his pyramid. The chase in question still had a few bugs, and the first few times I tried to do this, I ended up hitting the wrong button or going too far down and getting stuck in place, and I couldn't move and all I could do was wait for the damned timer (the amount of time left before Sek Duat escaped) to run all the way down, which was very annoying. At the end, we caught him, and then came the interrogation, where Zhoom mentions Sek Duat's crimes, including the hunting of Zhoom's people to extinctiion, but mentions that he's only letting him live (well, as much as a mummy really can "live") because he knows the Sandsea better than anyone and he might have a lead as to how to stop Zahart and Tibecenas. Etheara then brings us the funniest moment of the release by mentioning trading him to Zahart for something, which scares the unliving piss out of Sek Duat much to Zhoom's amusement. He tells us that the only way to fight a Djinn is with another Djinn, and that he knows where one can be found, which unfortunately will need to wait until the next big release which I think will occur next Friday.
After finishing the release, I ended up going back into the pyramid to kill more mobs, since there were several choice items that dropped from the mobs of the release, including the Carpet Racer armor (which on male characters looks like something from Aladdin, and on female characters like Etheara is very...pink) and I needed to do some XP grinding for Level 34. Since the Carpet Racer armor has the lowest droprate out of all the items of the release, it took me close to an hour to finally get my hands on it. I also got several nonmember weapon drops, one of which I enhanced for Healer along with the badass-looking Defender of Light sword which I recently snagged from the Suggestion Shop and enhanced for Warrior as an alternative to Etheara's main weapon. I also picked up the recently-released Golden Dragonblade, which I enhanced for Thief. And that's when I decided to take the next big step with Etheara.
She already has three of the main four classes (warrior, healer and rogue) at Rank 10, so I figured I would round out the, well, quadfecta by making her a mage as well, making her something similar to the Avatar (of Avatar The Last Airbender fame, not the James Cameron movie), who had to master all four disciplines of "bending." I've already named Arcangrove (the last major saga she went through) as the point where she starts learning magic in her major storyline, so she won't be pulling all these mystical powers out of her ass. Since I already had practice at being a mage from playing Ariacus, getting the major pattern down (ice first, then fire for major damage) was easy, though Etheara being Level 33, I couldn't exactly go to the Dwarfhold area like I did with Ariacus because the mobs there are too low level, so I ground on Level 30 Bupers Camels and Cactus Creepers. I was pleasantly surprised at how much damage I did when I hit the combo right (1215 on crit, higher than some of my finishing blows with Stiletto during boss solos), which combined with my staff hits and my ice damage often halved the health of mobs I fought. The main downside to Etheara's mage mode is that as a mage, she's even squishier than her rogue mode, with only Arcane Shield to protect her from damage unlike the Rogue's Footwork, the Warrior's On Guard and the Healer's Energy Flow (the latter two of which primarily act to lessen damage, something also shared by the Mage's ice attack), so I ended up dying a bit as I did my rank grinding (Rank 6 is her current rank as a Mage -- I hope to get her to Rank 10 in the next few days). Etheara the Mage does her best work when she's got a party to protect her, and primarily acts by pulling mobs to her with Explosion, blasting them with Frostbite or Fireball, and using Arcane Shield to protect herself from those few hits that get past her friends. I'm still planning on using Rogue for soloing and DPS, Warrior for tanking and Healer for, well, healing, but with the powers of a Mage now at her disposal, Etheara now has a new weapon to throw into her arsenal.