When we got back… Remember I told you that himself and I got chucked out of Rift yesterday afternoon, and we couldn’t get back in because all the shards were down? Well, we got back in last night, after I finished last night’s blog. We were a bit worried that we’d wake up in a paddock somewhere in Stonefield, dead, or worse still, in the middle of either the same, or another Rift. We knew we’d no longer be a group (groups get disbanded if all parties leave the game, for whatever reason, and as we’d been dumped out, technically, we’d “left the game”) Well, we both got online, counted to three, and clicked on “Play” together. Whoa! I had no idea where he was, I didn’t have my pet to protect me – I was alive, but that was the best thing that could be said of my situation! And yes, you guessed it! We arrived bang smack in the middle of a different kind of Fire Rift! My first reaction was to go “AAArrgggghhh!” very loudly, and to run away, very fast – but I had no idea where I was, so I didn’t know which way to run! Himself sent me a group invite, which I grabbed, and finally I could see where he was. Over on the other side of the paddock to where I was, with a great big Rift Rumble going on between us. These Fire Riftians weren’t the nasty looking four legged spiders with all the teeth and fangs, no! These Fire Riftians (“Riftians” – I just invented that term, and I think it’s very apt, so I shall continue to use it!) These Fire Riftians were giant Cyclopes (i.e. more than one Cyclops) who used giant insects that looked like a cross between a flea and a louse, to nibble your toenails… and your arms, and your legs, but mainly your head. And so what did we do? We summoned up our pets and weighed into the fray, like good little Mages, that’s what we did! We cleaned up a couple of Rifts last night, but still managed to get through most of our quests – I don’t know about himself, but I put it down to “Divine Intervention”… I don’t know if you remember or not, but some time in the past I might have mentioned the fact that I hate playing and/or fighting underwater… well, I do… but did I also mention the fact that I hate fighting and/or playing at night, almost as much as I hate its underwater equivalent? No? Well, I hate it. I have poor night vision at the best of times, and when there’s “things” trying to kill you, lots of black all around you, and a great many fancy, and very clever special effects going off every which-where, I can’t see a cotton pickin’ thing! (not even if you used white cotton thread!) I’m just very good at guessing where I am, and what I’m supposed to be doing 🙂 As it ended up, there was only one particular quest that we weren’t able to complete (it was getting too late anyway) and only one – optional – side quest that we weren’t able to pick up. It was an “escort” quest, where you have to lead, guide, and otherwise protect, a particularly stupid and gormless creature to safety. A creature who seems to go out of his or her way to meander in front of hostile mobs, or who spot an enemy five miles away and run off to fight it (so you have to run off with them and kill said enemy for them, because they’re pretty useless in a fight) There are even those who stop for a rest in the middle of a battle you’re trying to get them past without being noticed, because they’re tired. Anyway, during an escort quest, anyone else wanting to do the same quest just has to be patient – the “escort-ee” won’t become available again until the other player doing the escorting succeeds and finishes the quest, or the quest fails, and the creature re-appears for the next idiots players to try their luck. I don’t think I’ve ever met a single, solitary gamer who says that they like escort quests. We all hate them, but we all do them – because it’s experience, after all! 🙂 So we were all set to do this escort quest last night, but some other player grabbed it first. As it’s a longish sort of escort quest, we decided not to wait – we’ll do it next time we’re on. And that was about where we decided to call it a night, head for home, dust down, and log off for the night. So we did 🙂 And a good time was had by all! 😉

This morning I took Jadenfyre out again – I think I’m hurrying things too much though – I’ve already leveled him up in Butchering, Mining, and Foraging, and got him to level 18 – I have the “breadcrumb” quest to Stonefield… Breadcrumb quest? It serves as a “hook”, or mechanism to get the character from one quest hub to a new quest hub in another area. Example: [Quest Giver in Freemarch] “What? You found this down by the lake? How terrible! You must take it to “xxyz” in Stonefield immediately!” Something like that, anyway… Yes, so I have the breadcrumb quest to Stonefield, and I haven’t even finished three quarters of Freemarch yet! I should slow down, but I know the quests and which way to do them with the least amount of time and effort, and it’s hard to do them any other way. And I’ve been caught before, going into a new area and not being able to pick the flowers, mine the ore, or skin the animals there, because I hadn’t leveled those skills up enough before I went there – so now I make sure I do it early, and of course I get experience doing that, and I end up too “old” for the area I’m in, before I’ve come close to completing it! Ya’can’t win! 😉

Weigh-in this morning. Down to 104.7kg, and I didn’t stand “just so” on the scales. It’ll go up again tomorrow, probably, so I’m not too excited. I went for my morning Stair Walk this morning and realised why my right hand has a hole in it near the base of my thumb. Coming up the stairs, I trail my right hand along the wall, because I’m right handed, and I don’t trust my left hand and arm holding onto the stair rail. The wall is heavily rendered with a rough “textured” surface, and I thought “Ow!! That hurts!”, and realised that I was not-so-happily skinning my hand when I trailed it along the wall. Ha! So I wore a glove on that hand this afternoon! I felt like Michael Jackson, with his one gloved hand! Tomorrow, I might even put a band-aid on the hole in my hand before I put on the glove – it still hurt a bit. I don’t know why they bothered rendering the wall like that – it’s only a fire escape! It’s probably to hide “mistakes” the builders made when they were building the apartment block…

Anyway, call in again tomorrow night – I’ve been busy trying to unzip and extract the millions of Brusheezy Photoshop brushes that I downloaded yesterday, and making a right mess of it – I keep forgetting where I got up to, and the “Extract all” command hides all the files it extracts… somewhere I can’t find. I’ll have to get himself to sort it all out (I’m not terribly technical – I’m an Artiste!) so I’ll fill you all in on what happens with all of those new brushes – I’ve also got gradients all zipped up, too, but there’s not as many of them, so I’ll probably be able to manage… And I’ll let you know whether I decided to let Jadenfyre forego the rest of Freemarch for Stonefield or not… And if it’s good news, I’ll let you know how my weight goes, too… (only joking – I’ll tell you, and grizzle about it, even if it is bad!) So until tomorrow night, bee good, and stay safe! (especially in all this wild and dramatic weather we’re having at the moment!) ciao, all! 🙂