In Search of Spring

Quick Check. Armour mended (X), coin from the bank (X), Wand of Forgiveness for hangovers (X), Cold resist gear on (X), Language primers (eek!). Ah well, we couldn’t be that prepared. The travellers arrived and found their luggage (no small feat, lots of patience dings).

It was off to make the first of the many Mally runs from Denmark to Sweden. After an urgent Private Message from Spring, the travellers had to pick up some provisions for the weekend, just the essentials. Ding! As with the Naggy runs in game, the first run is the most fraught: how much should we p(r)ay?

Where was the see invisibility mob called the ticket guy? And where was the journey end? And where was Bed when we needed him?

Once we found our group leader for the weekend, guildmate Spring and her squire Jen, we could move on to the next stage of the quest. Ding! (Some dings are easier than others!)

Off to the apartment (which was very swish!). Here the travellers rested and drank coffee to regen ready for the arena events later, which would include meeting up with others to form the raid group. Then it was off with the Cold resist gear, into the night. After all, most of the group were Barbarians (Jana & Madix)... With the aid of Halasian lager the group got ready to raid.

On to the Arena Event. This consisted of three trials.

Part 1: The Meal

After Spring, our valiant leader, made sure the rest of the group were on their way, we could begin to relax. Soon our group began to gain in numbers. We met up with Ainlor, Ithile and Tes. The event began…

The meal was fun and went well until one of the group was chosen to undergo the trial of Death by Humiliation. (Jana was chosen and the tune was Happy Birthday!) Apparently a sacrifice was needed to ding the quest. Here the UK lot taught the rest of the group the ancient skill of singing very loudly in a public place to cause discomfort or mortify a friend. Ding! The group managed this and were able to move on to the next arena event: bowling.

The feisty group spurred on by the bardless tunes in the tavern (we missed you, Lig) and had to make do with volume rather than quality. Off to the bowling alley.

Part 2: Bowling

Here the group met up with the last of our travellers, Yalom! Now our party was complete, apart from sleepy Nam b00b, who was… er sleeping. The group got down the business of building faction with eachother. This was spurred on by the alcohol dings.

After a while, and some pretty fancy bowling (the Barbarians ruled!), we were beaten by Vaglin (he must have a bit of barbarian in him after all) and his super score of the night .

The group began to get artistic in their styles. A little nuke b00b began to use his Ice Comet on the pins (over arm bowling!). Not to be outdone, Yalom began his own approach, which involved him dual wielding bowling balls and sending them both down the alley (there has been no living with him since the Desert of Flames update, he thinks he can tank mobs!). Finally we timed out of the bowling event, but it was a job well done.

Here the raiders had to get several updates.

The first was to up the alcohol resistance enough to wear the Fabled Beer Coat, which was thought to be a mythical item of the Greldar.

of course the faction dings were well underway now and the Danes, Swiss, English and Welsh were allies at this point … aided by the hug dings.

As the night wore on the dancing emote upgrade kicked in, much to the astonishment of the locals. Dark and Graal had to get a local taunt ding and so off they went with a handful of reluctant others to the centre of the arena to ding their Strut Their Stuff quest.

After a while the men-folk in the group began to suffer from lag! And so it was left to the girls to part on till the early hours. Little did we know that the event was only moving venue across to an instance zone in the apartment. And in true con tradition we went to bed around 5 am. Quest update Faction Gained…

Part 3: Let Sleeping Nams lie

This would prove to be a test of endurance and strength on many levels. With solo and group quests, timed runs and Thundering Steppes quests too.

So we travelled the Mally run. This time the journey was easy. It was almost like we had Bed with us…

In the distance you can see the Mally run (the bridge).

At the appropriate place, we jumped off the communal carpet (bus) and went to find our fallen friends. Little did we know that this would turn into a test of stamina, as the quest ding was on the 5th floor of the tower that had NO lift. Our now weary travellers needed to regen and so fell into the instance, where they found Yalom and his squire Ulrike who were already having provisioning dings. At last we found the Sleeping Nam (ding!) who strangely wasn’t sleeping but cooking brunch. This we thought, was to be served around 2 pm. Alas, maybe not.

Trade skill quest: Find the Eggs! After much investigation (he read the packet) Namian found he needed to up his provisioning skills, as he couldn’t generate a pristine pancake. After a small group event the mystical eggs were found along with the rare recipe book. Ding!

Others chose to equip Nutmeg Fizzlepop first, to start the day gently.

One of the group was chosen to undertake the Training is A Drain quest. This agile scout (Tes) had to venture to the bottom of the tower, pick up a delivery and return it to the kitchen instance while on a timer. Close to the end of the two-minute timer in flew Tes, exultant with the success of the quest and a crate in each hand. Quest ding,  group happy!

The group were now faced with the task set before them: Drinking is a Bind. Ithile (one of the hosts for the evening) decided that we must have been having too much of a good time and introduced what can only be called the Old Danish tradition of giving guests the worst drink you can find, accompanied by a Gummi Bear theme tune in many languages. The group did the quest with differing stages of trepidation. Some drank with foolishness and abandon, and others were more restrained. (Say no to peer pressure!)

We were also able to meet up with other players, which was nice. So the evening raid wasn’t a guild only thing. During this time in the raid one of the players found it difficult to suffer the mental Damage Over Times from other players,and so she was able to use the Illusion of Happiness and protect herself from mental damage. This Happy Place became a much sought after location as others saw the tranquil peace she found there in the storm of chaos. However, the mobs were determined to interrupt and corrupt the buff. So though Jana could be heard using the macro “I am in my happy place!”, it soon became a grey spell. Unfortunately its usage was limited, and as there was no chance of a master drop, it was soon obsolete (and crowded).

So the quest moved out of the instance zone (down the five, yes five flights of stairs) and into the open areas. Here the group could pick up the collection quest. You know those weird and wonderful things you find in each zone? Well, Denmark has a catalogue quest of its own: bikes.

I want to ride mine
So as the group travelled to the NPC area (restaurant), they had to collect/inspect different items, like the bell of a white bicycle, the basket of a blue bicycle and a bicycle with a beer bottle in the basket. The group even were able to get a couple of rare drops, such as a lesser-spotted person with a silly hat on a bicycle and the abandoned double bicycles on the kerb side.

The group began to examine their quest updates, and there then happened a series of unfortunate events: the group were party to a debate on the local bard who was supposed to be performing Irish songs, and who also knew Simon & Garfunkel were Irish! After lots of Auto Equipping of beer and lots of picture-taking, the group ended the evening not before the now customary Viking bear hugs.

We left to undertake the Mally run. After sleep our rowdy group were ready to begin their last full day as a raid group.

The day began with the group meeting with Spring, who was going to get the group exploration dings, as well as the rare culture dings. As part of the tour of the beautiful instance of Malmo, Spring took us to the unique areas to show us the diverse areas of interest. Here we met up with Yalom and Ulrike for some Maj’Dul coffee. Here we also found out the extent of the Freeport spy’s influence.

Whilst talking innocently to Yalom, Dark happened to mention a number (the number I will not repeat here). Something happened to our normally mild mannered healer, and he became enraged. Had he become a pre-programmed assassin? Or had Dark said something he shouldn’t in front of squire Ulrike? After we had deprogrammed Yalom and stopped laughing, we explored the surrounding areas.            

All too soon we had to say goodbye to Yalom and Ulrike, and the high elves returned to Castle View. We began to think of guild members who were missing. The weekend had been such good fun, yet there was something missing... To get guild status points for this as well as DKP, would we have to make sure we had a guild officer with us? What could we do? Quest update. Ding!

New raid instance: Find Mira… Friend or Foe?

We found a hastily scrawled note on the mirror in Spring’s bathroom: HUGS SPRING.

What did it mean? We examined it and put away the note. Follow-on quest: To Be Arranged.

The group sent out Jen the squire to scout out the target with invisibility on. She soon was able to report back to the group that the lesser-spotted Mira was in fact near.

The group buffed up and used Totems of the Chameleon to walk to the pop area (let’s face it, he had no idea we were on our way...) With a battle cry of  “LEEERROOYY!” our raid force rushed the officer.

One of the raid objectives was to observe the officer under pressure, to see if Katsani would appear to refute the raid mobs. Mira, although stunned by the initial meetings, assured the group Katsani was not a doppelganger and in fact Mira himself.

After some hugging and handshaking the group left the officer, once he had assured us we would get DKP and SP for the weekend’s events (or maybe he just wanted us to go as his food was getting cold!).

We said a sad farewell to Namian and Tes  (bruised ribs later) and after many promises of other visits by both factions, two of the group left the raid party.

We retreated to a local tavern and practised our ranged abilities with darts (well, they were more like spears for Havak and Ithile).

Here the group relaxed and used the hospitality of the tavern and its strange games to test reflexes. Some of the group were shocked often. Spring practised her agility buffs and wasn’t shocked as many times as others.

As the raid drew to a close, the group became complacent and went on Auto Follow on the scout to exit the instance. Bah, raid wipe! Hands up, who has Safe Fall?

World event completed, all returned home.

Once again our FM b00bs had been victorious.

Bring on the dragon!