Well, as usual on a Sunday, I’m starting writing a bit later than I usually do – still, better late than never! 😉 We’ve spent most of the day Rifting, and I’m pleased to be able to report only the one death – and for once it wasn’t me! 🙂 My poor pet died numerous times, of course, but I bandaged him up and resurrected him (or her – I have no idea which!) and off we went again, happily slaughtering critters, left, right, and centre. We took our two level 65’s into The Wilds, and it sure is confusing! Naturally, all the mobs are a lot harder than we’re used to, and there are lots of “Carnage” quests, which usually trigger when you’ve had to kill something in self defence! As soon as you’ve done so, there’s a sort of trumpet fanfare, and the words “Quest Accepted!”, written in large letters, flashes across your screen – so you have no choice but to go off and kill “X” numbers of the type of beast that you just killed in self defence. Well, actually you do get a choice – you can choose to ignore it completely until you leave the area, whereupon you can “Abandon” the quest. You can Abandon the quest while you’re in the area, but every time you happen to kill one of those particular creatures (and believe me, you will kill quite a number of them in self defence as you move around that location!) you’ll get that annoying fanfare and “Quest Accepted!”, written in large letters, flashing across your screen! It’s far easier to either ignore the quest while you’re in the area (though by the time you leave, you’ll probably have killed the requisite numbers, anyway!) or just complete the quest and get it over and done with. You do get such goodies as financial rewards, notoriety, reputation, but above all, you get experience! In fact completing Carnage quests yields nearly as much experience as that gained from completing normal “Pass me that book on the cabinet over there!” quests! Most players move around the countryside with an eagle eye out for artifacts, gathering items (ores, herbs, wood, and anything that will give you their skin, once it’s dead) and Carnage quests! So anyway, there we were, scooting around The Wilds (I can’t say “galloping around” The Wilds because we were riding on a very fast, very agile sort-of disk-shaped slab of lava, which doesn’t really make galloping noises!) scooting around The Wilds, trying to find our way to the King of that particular area. Of course we kept getting side-tracked by a lot of Carnage quests and as a consequence spent quite a bit of time back-tracking – and getting lost! Looking at the map, the way seemed quite straightforward, but the terrain was in fact on two different levels, and by the time we realised that we were on the lower level, but needed to be on the upper level, we’d already wasted a great deal of time looking for a way around (because “around” wasn’t possible from down there, we needed to go “up”, and that wasn’t possible from where we were, either!) In the end we had to travel right back to the beginning of the area and take a different route from there… Once on the right track, we came across another lot of Carnage quests – these creatures looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a baboon (they were in fact called “Babaroos”!) [aside: you should hear the thunder and rain pelting down outside! It’s looking really nasty, with almost simultaneous thunder and lightning! I hope the power doesn’t go out! 
] and it was one of those Babaroos that killed Julian! We’d already killed quite a lot of them (we had to kill twelve, from memory) without much trouble, but we’d each targeted different Babaroos, so neither of us could really go to the aid of the other. Well, I could hear Julian having difficulties with his Babaroo, but I was just a tad busy at the time, so I wasn’t immediately able to go and help him. By the time I was able to get to him, it was just in time to hear Mandreth give a horrible gurgle, and keel over dead! My pet and I took over the fight, but for some unknown reason, that Babaroo was really, really tough! He wasn’t an Elite or anything, he was just your average, run-of-the-mill, garden variety, Babaroo – but my pet and I were hardly making a dint in him! In the end, when Mandreth “got better” from being dead, I managed to hit this Babaroo with a double whammy dose of death damage at the same time that Mandreth was whacking him over the head with her staff, and we finally got him down… and I skinned him! That’ll teach him to go killing Mandreth! *scowl* We were a bit more wary of the Babaroos after that, but the rest of them behaved like normal, everyday Babaroos, and we completed the quest. We finally found this wretched King we were looking for, and that was about where we finished off and came back to town and dusted down for the day. The rain outside has stopped for the moment – and if you ever want to know what the weather is like here in beautiful downtown Vermont South, this is the permanent link to Julian’s new Weather Monitoring Station! 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. Could have been better – but then again, it could have been a lot worse! So I should be thankful for small mercies, shouldn’t I! 🙂 I only went down one point, from 72.2kg to 72.1kg – but I only stopped taking the fluid retaining pills yesterday, so I think it’ll take a few more days to get those horrible little sods completely out of my system. It’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow – I’ll probably go up, knowing my record!
We had a brief visit from my favourite eldest daughter and her equal but more technical half at lunch time – they were on their way up to Knox City and thought they’d drop in to say hello (and to have a cup of coffee! 😉 ) It’s now just after 6 o’clock, and almost time for me to go on my evening hill-climbing expedition – I doubt very much that I’ll get this finished before dinner, but I’ll give it my best shot… Tomorrow morning, early, Clarke will be coming over to pick up the debris that’s still here from when he installed the two doors in the en-suite and the Walk In Wardrobe, then we’ll gather all our papers and head off to one of the two closest Justice Centres for my name change business – then we’re off to Knox City ourselves – We ordered in one of the little slide out drawers that screw into cupboard shelves from Howard’s Storage World there, and they rang to tell us that it has come in, and we have to pick that up – plus, I need to get myself a nice Swatch Watch with a plastic buckle, to wear while my gold watch is being repaired (the hinge on the clasp broke! I think I said something about it last night…) Unfortunately, I have a severe allergy to nickle, so any jewelry – or watch – that I wear has to be either stainless steel, silver, or gold. Plated (stainless steel, silver or gold) won’t work – the nickle leeches out after a few months and I find myself coming up in what looks like a severe nettle rash. At the moment it’s really most annoying, glancing down at your wrist to see the time, expecting to see a watch there, and all you see is bare skin! Anyway, it’s “that” time again – I’ll have to finish this after dinner… Sorry!
+————————–+ * Dinner & Television Break * +————————–+
Here I am, back again – where was I? That’s right, tomorrow… first off, Clarke – and if he’s thinking of dropping the laminate sample off on Tuesday, we’ll have to let him know that we won’t be home in the morning, after that (and a cup of coffee) our first stop will be the Justice Centre, then we’re off to Knox City to pick up the drawer thingy for the cupboard shelf, and an “interim watch” for me – and who knows? If I’m really lucky, I might get to do “a bit of shopping” 😉 Oh, I was thinking tonight, that I might get Julian to turn the treadmill around… It’s set up so that when I’m trudging up the never-ending hill, I’m staring at a boring, blank wall – while behind me is a nice big window, where I could look out on a bare fence and trellis, half a tree, the sky, clouds, and the occasional bird. Much more interesting than a blank wall, where all I have to entertain me is counting off in one hundred lots to 800 (steps – I count my [*censored*] steps for entertainment – how thrilling is that, eh?! ) Actually, I don’t know why I didn’t think of getting the treadmill turned around sooner… I guess I must like counting to 800 or something. And that’s really about it from me for tonight – but do drop by again tomorrow night, and find out what my weight decided to do to me that morning, what transpired at the Justice Centre, if we picked up our sliding drawer thingy, and where we’re going to put it – we might not need it now though, unless Julian wants it for his bathroom, because my new bathroom won’t have cupboards per se, they’re all being turned into drawers! and whether I managed to get a nice plastic buckled Swatch Watch to wear until my gold one is repaired – plus other mundane but interesting things 🙂 However, until then, please do try to bee good, don’t forget that the worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt, and always remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm, and to drive carefully – but most of all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 