Good Friends, Good Fun
stargrace 
Last night was another one of those “hmm I want to play, but what do I actually want to DO tonight” sort of nights. They happen and there’s nothing wrong with that. I started out in EQ2, where out of the blue Mayadhros logged in! I thought he was lost, gobbled up by some sand creature, or perhaps wandering the void for all eternity. After hugs and “wow you’re BACK?!” congratulations were passed around I took him on a tour of the guildhall, making sure that he picked up the ‘recall to guild hall’ for easier access next time. There’s a definite sense of accomplishment when I get to show someone the work we all put into it, and knowing how much it cost us in both status and coin. I think Mayadhros needed a moment to pop his eyes back into his skull when I told him how much it had cost us, what our weekly rent was, and how much people had generously donated to our escrow.
Aside from wandering around and chattering, and a few random decorating bits I didn’t actually get too much done in EQ2. That’s alright though, some times it’s nice to just take a night off and enjoy socializing. I did spend the afternoon doing all of the Halloween goodies – as a side note, there are treasure chests apparently in the haunted houses where you can select masks. I did not know that! I’ve been trying for a bandit mask forever now, with no luck. My gaming motto tends to always be if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all.
After running around EQ2 for a fair amount I decided I would log into EQ1 with Kanad for a bit and try to level Qutey up some. That’s my little halfling druid who had been level 59 for some time now. I rented a Dark Elf tank and we headed to Plane of Storms, camping in a little area of the desert. There was a 64 druid camping in around the same area and it seemed like every time we moved the druid was sure to follow. PoS is a hot zone and the experience was amazing. In the hour and a half we stayed there I managed to ding Qutey to level 60, as well as 80% into her level. Now I did use my veteran reward that doubles my exp gain and that helped a whole lot, but still. GREAT experience.
The only downside to PoS is that the loot is not so great. We did end up looting two pieces of defiant armor (not into the elaborate tier yet) and we gathered about 7 pieces of trash loot. The great thing is that the 7 pieces of trash loot were enough to pay off the cost of renting out the tank for the evening. It wasn’t enough to cover the initial purchase of the mercenary, but it was enough to cover the 14p every 15 minute upkeep. Since I leveled, the merc is now dark blue to me – but since I plan on hanging around PoS for a while yet, and it was tanking just fine, I don’t think I need to upgrade it for a few more levels. This tank for some reason only had 6k hp or so (granted they didn’t have cleric buffs and were two levels lower then Ellithia’s Vah Shir tank pictured above) but they did seem to do more dps then the Vah Shir tank. I’m not sure if I accidentally chose a different setting (I don’t believe I did) or if maybe the different races have different attributes (which would be cool and also confusing when it came to picking one). The Vah Shir had about 12k or so hp as a level 61 tank, kills were a little slow though. The Dark Elf tank only had 6k or so hp total, but the dps seemed increased. Could have just been my imagination I suppose.
All in all it was a great night and I’m looking forward to Nostalgia meeting up tomorrow. I’m installing EQ1 on the laptop right now so I can set up a trader to sell while I’m not using the account. Some how I need to make money for spells as well as money for mercs and my enchanter (who happens to be my master jeweler as well as my spell maker) is on the closed account. Woopsie.