The Trials and Tribulations of Afrit
stargrace 
Pictured above, the blood mage just after she hit level 47. Now, the old cap in Vanguard was level 50, and when I think about it that way I’m pretty close, which is great. However the new cap is now 55 in Vanguard and so by that number and the amount of experience it takes I’m quite far away. Not in a rush, but still far. In order to level through 46 I decided to do repeatable quests in Afrit. This is quite a popular area for a number of reasons. The main quests have you collecting these little gems in stacks of 50. Once you gather 50 you combine them into a bag. These bags of gems can be turned in to NPC in Afrit for any number of rewards ranging from gear to jewelery to food and drink. You can even purchase a merchant to summon who will repair your gear and act as a vendor when your bags are full and you don’t want to gate out of your quest area. All very handy items.
The quests are great because once you’ve completed one you’re automatically given the second one in the series, and the locations of each quest are quite close together. On the down side this means the areas are popular – and it’s common to see a level 55 sorcerer (or other aoe class) “helping” a friend by rounding up every single mob in the area and aoe’ing them down. Not a bad thing if they’re the only one at that particular quest area but when others are around it makes sharing quite frustrating (as I found out last night). One of the quest areas also has a great collection of stone mobs that you can quarry for granite and obsidian, something I can never have enough of.
Thanks to Greth (awesome newtfish) I am also now sporting my swamp armor robe. I haven’t managed to upgrade any of the pieces because they require an item called phytotoxinous which is 50g each on the broker and there’s no way I’m going to pay that much – but even the basics were a huge upgrade to me and eventually I will upgrade them fully.
I learned yesterday that there is a diplomacy saga line that I am just incredibly excited to start. I worked on the artisan’s saga some more (the crafter version) and completed two more quests, granting me a toolbelt upgrade and an awesome necklace that allows me to port to New Targonor. Love those clickies!
Now that my crafting level and adventuring level match up again, it’s time to work on more crafting. The cap for diplomacy is still 50, but crafting was also raised to 55 along with adventuring and I’ve a lot of levels to make up. Excited? Yes, I am. Just a little.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!