Logged on Saturday... didn't have a ton of people on, but it was thought we
should do Fennin Ro anyway. So I made my way over to Fire, and as the
afternoon wore on more and more people logged on. When we finally spawn FRo
we have about 70 people online, the best we've had since Thanksgiving.
Awesome.
Fennin goes down easily, drops an Ifir (neat dagger with a backstabbing mod)
and a leather tunic. The Ifir has dropped so often for us that just about
every rogue has one; one of our most recent additions manages to snag this
one. The tunic, on the other hand, is still highly sought-after and it
takes the officers a while to decide.
After all is awarded, we look around for a new target. The Japanese kills
blew the Coirnav spawn last night. One of the most recently-flagged
elemental guilds is trying Xegony (with only three clerics and three druids,
they're in for a rude awakening). RZtW isn't up, SolRo isn't up. Random
suggestion are thrown into the guild channel - "Vulak!" "Tormax!" - but in
the end we head to EarthB to kill the Warlord, who was spawned but not
killed.
We kill him quickly. By this time we've dropped down to 50, so not enough
for Rathe. Finally the officers call it a night - there's just nothing
worthwhile to raid.
I think about what to do - yes, I really need to work on my AA's, I just got
my first defensive AA and have a long way to go until Lightning Reflexes 5.
But my EQ existence has been restless lately and I wanna try something fun.
For the first year of his life, Monual ran around doing stupid quests just
for the fun of it. I'd like to try that again. Helping a guildie last week
get his Tenth Coldain Ring put the idea in my mind that I should get the
Eighth Ring for Marrtuk. I alt-tab and look up the quest on Allakhazam's.
My guildmates assure me that a 65 cleric and a 55 paladin should be able to
do the Eighth Ring no problem.
So, decided, I head to the bazaar to see if I can get the stuff needed for
the first ring. Two HQ cougarskins are easy, but there's only one HQ tundra
kodiak pelt for sale. I need to farm one more. As I head to the Great
Divide, one of my guildmates asks me if I have a tracker. No, I say, but
there's a whole cave of kodiaks in GD. Won't work, he says, gotta be tundra
kodiaks from the Eastern Wastes. Bleh.
So I zone over and begin running around. I'm intimately familiar with this
zone - I spent much of my 30's at the Ulthork Tree and the Ry'Gorr fort. I
cruise around looking for a tundra kodiak. I'm finding tons of cougars,
tons of giants, tons of orcs, tons of wolly mammoths, tons of rhinos... and
not one tundra kodiak in sight. /sigh.
In the meantime, people in the guild are unhappy that we're losing our
raiding momentum. Some of them are organizing an LDoN raid in Mistmoore.
Last time we tried this, we ran out of time and got kicked from the dungeon.
I didn't have fond memories and am reluctant to go again, but they mildly
spam raidchat asking for people to come. Finally I join the channel they've
formed for the LDoN raid. I tell them I'm hunting kodiaks and to let me
know when they're ready. A group is quickly going through an LDoN so that
they can have the required two successful adventures needed in order to
raid.
Finally I find a kodiak. I kill it - no HQ pelt. I find another - again,
no luck. I'm running at high speed through the zone, from Sleeper's Tomb to
the dragon bridge to the Ry'Gorr fort to the prison camp - nada. The LDoN
group finishes quickly and the call is made to get to Butcherblock. I say
"OMW" just as I spy another kodiak. So I head over and kill it - and it
drops a HQ pelt. Huzzah!
I won't go into *too* excruciating detail about the raid. Someone makes the
observation that it's a lot like Vex Thal - clearing away tons of
hard-hitting mobs. I made that same observation last time myself. Finally
we get the three nameds to spawn, and once again we just can't kill them all
at the same steady rate - once one of them gets outside of five percent of
the other nameds' health, all three will get completely healed. On our best
effort, we get all three to 50% when they CH. Again, we fail, run out of
time, and get kicked. A waste of four hours.
I head back to PoK and find a sewing kit. Way back when Monual was doing
the Coldain Shawl quest, I got my tailoring up to 51. I stopped there and
gave up on the Shawl because getting tailoring up was soooo annoying and
required soooo much farming. Still, Monual's 51 is better than Marrtuk's 0,
and the trivial on the blanket needed for the First Ring is 41. I find a
large sewing kit, put the skins and pelts inside, hit combine - and get my
blanket. I log on Marrtuk and together we head on over to GD, then EW. We
find the hut where the questgiver is and Monual turns in the blanket to get
the First Ring. I'm assured I can MQ the ring so that Marrtuk gets the
Second and all subsequest Rings.
The Second Ring involves follwing a dwarf all around the zone as he walks
from danger to danger. I merely have to keep him alive and then kill a
rabid kodiak at the end. I get the axe from the questgiver and head on over
to where the dwarf spawns. He's there. I give him the axe and off he goes.
I put Monual on auto-follow of Marrtuk, and move Marrtuk around behind the
dwarf. The first place he heads to is the giant fort. He attacks the
entrance mobs and I quickly help kill them. His health drops to 50% during
the fight, though - I'm gonna have to do better than this. The dwarf heads
to some random place in the zone and then sits down.
Meanwhile, Monual has aggro from a snow dervish. I park Marrtuk at the
dwarf and use Monual to fight off the dervish and a cougar that adds. I
keep switching windows to make sure the dwarf isn't getting aggro from a
wandering mob. On Monual, I finish off the adds, then tab over to Marrtuk -
who's standing over the dead body of the dwarf. A quick glance at the
screen tells me everything - I accidentally hit auto-attack during my window
switching, and Marrtuk killed the dwarf. Gosh darnit.
The dwarf still has the trigger axe, so I loot it and head on over to where
he spawns. I'll just have to wait for the respawn.
I look up the rest of the quest just to see what more farming I'll have to
do. A few things immediately come to mind - rhino horn, walrus hide, and
some ground spawn near Kael are needed for third ring. I plant Marrtuk at
the dwarf's spawn point and start running around on Monual. I quickly find
a rhino and kill it, and it drops a horn - that was easy. Now for the
walrus. I distinctly remember there being a thousand of them last time. I
do a couple of complete circuits of the zone - no walrus to be found. In
the meantime, I keep having to fight off wandering mob aggro on Marrtuk.
Dang, this is annoying.
At exactly that same time, my old EQ friend Kayia logs on and says hi to me.
When she finds out I'm doing the ring quest, she immediately makes her way
to EW. She find Marrtuk staring blankly at a spot on the ground. She then
catches up to Monual. With a 65 ranger leading the way, walruses are easy
to find. The fifth one we kill has a walrus hide.
In the meantime, the dwarf has respawned, so Kayia leads us back to Marrtuk.
We give him his axe and he heads on his way. This time I send Kayia on
ahead to kill the door guards. The dwarf walks to where the guards used to
be and, seeing them not up, immediately wanders away. We repeat this
process for the prison camp and the Ry'Gorr fort. Finally the rabid tundra
kodiak spawns, and Marrtuk completes the Second Ring.
I ask Kayia is she can track ground spawns. She can't, so we all head on
over to the Kael ramp. I start looking around, and very quickly find one.
Marrtuk loots it and Monual swears profusely. The ground spawns are
no-drop, and Monual needs to loot it because he'll be doing the smithing
combine. Fortunately, Kayia immediately spots another ground spawn. Monual
grabs it.
Kayia leads Marrtuk back to the Coldain camp while Monual heads to Thurgadin
to do the smithing combine. It's done quickly and I meet up with Kayia.
The Third Ring is simply turning in the knife.
The Fourth Ring involves helping a dwarf named Tain fight off a bunch of
giants. We head on over. I trigger the fight, and there indeed are four
giants and a named. We kill them off, but we don't keep track of Tain. He
gets killed. Oh well, at least I got the drop from the named. The next
time I can trigger the giants, then give the drop to Tain and get my quest
piece before the giants even get there.
There are still some things we can do while we wait. I ask Kayia to check
for a Ry'Gorr Messenger. Nope. How about Warden Bruke? Nope. Grr. We
head on over to the prison camp. We clear the camp, then I look up online
to find out more about Warden Bruke. Ah, he has a placeholder, which we
conveniently just killed. I plant Marrtuk at the spawn point and head on
over to the Ry'Gorr fort, looking for the Messenger or Tain.
Several good things happen simultaneously. Kayia announces both Tain and
the Messenger are up. Warden Bruke spawns in front of Marrtuk. Monual,
over at the Ry'Gorr fort, sees that Rodrick has just spawned, someone I
hadn't even been looking for. Wow, talk about serendipity. Marrtuk kills
the Warden and gets his drop, then runs to the Ry'Gorr fort. Kayia snares
the Messenger and keeps it occupied. Monual and Marrtuk kill Rodrick and
loot his head and dagger. Marrtuk finds Tain, triggers him, does the
turn-in, the runs quickly from the giants. Monual and Marrtuk head on over
to where Kayia has the Messenger and we all kill it. Like, wow.
Feeling good, I complete the Fourth Ring. Then Kayia helps me with the
Fifth Ring, which involves fighting off a bunch of orcs at the Coldain camp.
The trick is not to let the dwarves kill the named orc. Kayia pulls it away
easily and we kill it.
Kayia then has to log. I thank her profusely - she made things a *lot*
easier.
I already have Rodrick's head for the Sixth Ring, but I still need a note
from a named giant. I head on over to an undead dwarf over by Sleeper's
Tomb. He calls forth his faithful dog Icefang, buffs him up, then sends him
off to kill a giant, proof that dwarves were Beastlords long before it was
trendy. We follow Icefang and eventually he leads us to a Ry'Gorr camp
where a bunch of orcs spawn. And I do mean a bunch - there's gotta be eight
or nine of 'em all beating on us. Marrtuk finds the named and chain-stuns
him to build aggro. Monual gets aggro on the rest simply by healing Marrtuk
and himself. Marrtuk then beats down on the named and it takes a long time
because Monual's too busy healing to add any DPS. Monual gets perilously
close to dying a few times, but he can't simply kite all the mobs off
because he needs to be close enough to heal Marrtuk. Marrtuk actually burns
his Lay on Hands healing Monual at one point.
The named dies and I'm happy. Marrtuk loots the note, then tries to help
Monual with the rest. This proves to be a bad idea, and Marrtuk dies.
Monual high-tails it for the dragon bridge - thank goodness for my trusty
drogmor. He makes it with 20% health to spare. I head back, rez and
re-buff Marrtuk, and we finish the Sixth Ring. Woot.
For the Seventh Ring I head on back to the prison camp. I kill the giants
and orcs around the dwarf there, then hand him the key I got from the Warden
and the Sixth Ring. He heads on back to the Coldain camp. On the way he
gets attacked from all four compass directions by a bunch of giants.
Marrtuk makes a beeline for the named giant and quickly gets aggro. Monual
manages to get aggro without really trying - maybe because of his maximum
negative faction with them. It's all good - the dwarf prisoner is providing
decent DPS, and Marrtuk is having an easier time killing the giants than he
did with the orcs. After the near-disaster at the orc camp, it's a relief
to see this fight go so easily. We head on back to the camp, and Marrtuk
now has his Seventh Ring.
In case you're wondering, the Seventh Ring is still a pretty lousy ring. AC
+7, STR +7. It's the Eighth through Tenth Rings that are worth getting.
Starting with the Eighth Ring, they gain a right-click effect. The Eighth
Ring's effect is simply a 8-point Damage Shield, but it's still useful,
especially considering how much soloing Marrtuk does. And with just a
little more help I can get the Ninth Ring, which adds 50 HP. I'll probably
never get the Tenth Ring, which requires an entire raiding force to help the
dwarves defend Thurgadim from a full-scale attack by the giants.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Eighth Ring also entails a battle,
although a relatively small-scale battle. The dwarves attack the Ry'Gorr
fort, which is defended by orcs and giants. However, I need not concern
myself too much with the battle - all I need to do is kill the Ry'Gorr
Chief. Marrtuk spawns the battle, Monual uses his Cloudy Steel Mask to
invis them both, then they both head over to the fort. We sneak inside the
hut with the huge fire, which is empty. The Chief is outside, surrounded by
a bunch of mobs including some Oracles. Monual moves up and pacifies all
the mobs, then nukes the Chief. He comes, single, and Marrtuk engages.
Monual sits back and heals.
Several bad things happen simultaneously. The Chief drops below 20% and
runs like a bat of out hell. He must have been SoW'd by the Oracles. All
the mobs outside the hut run inside and turn Marrtuk into fishbait. Monual
runs outside, desperately hoping to use the dwarves outside to peal off the
train; then Monual can finish off the chief and hopefully rez Marrtuk in
time to loot. Alas, the Chief also gets dwarf aggro, and despite my best
efforts to nuke him, the Chief gets killed by the dwarves and his corpse
poofs.
Argh.
The dwarves kill the rest of the orcs and giants. I sit back, dejected.
While you can screw up any of the other Ring quests and not lose the Ring
itself, if you screw up the Eighth Ring you have to start all over. As in,
the past five hours have been another waste of my time.
Again, argh.
I drag Marrtuk and rez him, then camp him at the spot. Monual gates back to
Tranquility and logs there.
So... will I do it again? Start all over from the beginning? Well, after
all that, I know what to expect and should have an easier time of it. I'll
know, for example, to try and use my Anklesmasher to snare the Chief, or use
root if I can't get a proc. And I can make sure the Ry'gorr camp is clear
before Icefang gets there so I can fight five mobs instead of ten.
But all that aside, I probably will do it again just because I had fun. =)
Did I call those five hours a waste? Well, they produced no loot for
Marrtuk, but they produced quite a bit of enjoyment for Richard. Those five
hours reminded me strongly of the original joy I got out of Everquest -
running around a huge world, interacting with the environment, getting
involved in silly little stories, spending hours killing mobs for no XP just
so I could further a quest that produced nothing I could use. That was my
idea of fun way back in 2001, and still kinda is in 2004. ^_^
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Silent Tempest
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This page is Copyright by Skaarak; Everquest (TM) is property of Sony Online Entertainment
All stories and art work are Copyright@ by the origial owner/writer.
Most, if not all stories, were taken from newsgroup alt.games.everquest (AGE), I recommend that anyone who gets a chance to read it should!