Ysandria explores the Forest Ruins

Since I closed one of my accounts, it means I’m without my monk, who was my quest character. Also means I’m short an armorer, and I wanted to have one kicking around mostly for adornments, they get to make some pretty nice ones. So with my final character slot on the one open account, I made a high elf monk named Ysandria. She’s also a roleplay character, though I haven’t decided on any sort of background or story line to her yet. I’m sure it’ll come to me in time. I spent most of yesterday questing around Gorowyn, and it didn’t take long to get to level 18 with 14aa that way. The new zones SoE’s added over time have been wonderful for new players, providing far better gear and rewards then the old shattered lands starter zones. I actually think both of the islands could use a revamp, as none of the gear is on par with the starter zones of Darklight Woods, Kelethin, nor Gorowyn. Though it is nice to start there for quest credit, then move on to greener pastures.

So once I’d finished off all of the Gorowyn chains, which ended with me lighting some machine up and exploding aviak out of the air (best quest ever lately) I headed to the shattered lands zones. I enjoy doing the smaller chains there as they reward you with faction for your respected city. So I hung out in The Caves, The Forest Ruins, Oakmyst Forest (how many times I died to that named bear back in the day I couldn’t even start to tell you, he was a bane of my lowbies existence) and did the small quests around those areas. Some have been revamped, over time npc’s have moved, though there are still a few oldies. Npc’s in Baubleshire still ask you to hunt forgotten guardians for a few goodies, and ask you to explore the mage tower. At level 19 these zones were mostly gray to me, but I still had fun and got about 1% exp for turn in. The quests didn’t warrent any aa at my level either, but I’m not too concerned.

It’s nice to be taking a break from the T8 grind, and exploring the smaller zones that I fell in love with when I first started playing this game. I miss the T5 raids, and how difficult I thought they were at the time. When frogloks were introduced the raid zone gave you a title as well as a house item and I fell in love with it immediately. I still remember doing my prismatic 1.0 and how proud I was to have been going with my templar at level 45 (which was the min. to get into the zone to begin with). I remember that I went with Allure, an Australian guild on Najena. Ah good times.

I gathered up a small handful of house items while I did these lowbie quests, four books for my house (which was nice, none of them are L&L’s) a small lab flask, a small cage that hangs from the ceiling, and a bench. I’ve outfitted Ysandria’s small inn room with these, and promptly put her meager gatherings for sale – which all sold, go figure. I priced level 1-19 stuff for 1g and made 31g just from that. Thank you transmuters.

No idea how long I’ll keep playing the character, but in time I hope to make her into a crafter, and continue on questing. Ah yes, the break from T8 is nice.