I’ve had a lovely, peaceful day playing Rift! We were going to go out looking at and hopefully getting, the sleepers for our soon-to-be veggie garden this afternoon – after lunch I went on my usual midday mole-hill climb, then Julian called me to the front door, took me outside, and said “I think it might be a bit hot for you out in the sun – what do you think?” (I don’t cope terribly well with anything much over 25C, you see) Stepping out onto the front porch, I started to say “Wel-l-l… it’s not too… ” and was going to continue with “bad out here”, but instead I yelped “yeow!!” rather loudly, as I burnt my bare feet on the wooden decking, and scuttled back inside as quickly as I could. I guess that answered his question though, as we’re now going to go sleeper shopping on Saturday morning – weather permitting, that is! I’m also allergic to standing around unprotected in the pouring rain – my glasses fog up so I can’t see where I’m going, or what I’m looking at, and I feel wet and uncomfortable. So I ended up Rifting for the rest of the afternoon, instead! 🙂 I’d started yet-another-new-character on Greybriar this morning – I was short a Guardian there, so I decided to cure that with another Primalist. I already have a Guardian Primalist, Winterwight, but she’s the one I play with Julian on a Sunday, and if I play her on my own during the week I’ll get too far ahead of him, so… “Brightleaf” was born! 🙂 So once again I set out to level up a Guardian over on Defiant territory, and I did really well, especially in the Skills area. The three basic Skills as you already know are Foraging, Mining, and Butchering. Mining is the hardest to level up because there are far more pretty plants to pick and nice animals to skin, once you’ve killed them – but there aren’t quite so many lumps of ore sticking up out of the rocks by the side of the road! It’s most annoying because usually by the time you’re ready to move on to the next area, you’re all skilled up in everything… except for mining! It used to be that if your mining wasn’t up to scratch, you wouldn’t be able to mine in the new area – the game would have you believe that you weren’t “skilled” enough to be able to mine the new ore… but Trion have finally fixed that little problem because you can now pick, skin, or mine anything, anywhere, regardless of its level – the only thing you can’t do is process the higher level plants, cure the higher level hides, smelt the higher level ores, or generally use any of these higher level materials for anything until you’ve skilled up to the right level – which I think is fair enough! So I went all around Freemarch, picking up all the Carnage quests, leveling up my Skills, hunting Artifacts – I had a ball! 🙂 Having got myself to level 11 (almost level 12) I’d almost finished up over in Freemarch (the Defiant home turf) and was getting ready to return to Silverwood and the baby quests over there that I hadn’t done yet – but I had one more place to search for Artifacts before I went. It’s right up against the walls of Meridian, the Defiant Capital, and if you get too close, you get automatically flagged as being “PVP” (Player versus Player) and you stay that way until you’ve moved out of the area and been “peaceful” for six minutes… Well, I knew this, but I was prepared to accept the consequences – there usually aren’t all that many people running around in that area, anyway… I was lucky! I found three Artifacts there, so I thought it well worth the (minimal!) risk! But, I snuck down to see if the infamous “Reed Bellows” was around – he’s the one you have to kill to get the coveted “Merchant of Death” title – and sure enough, he was! There was also someone else there, obviously waiting for Reed Bellows, and I wasn’t, and couldn’t, be grouped with him because he was Defiant and I was Guardian. Well, I was damned if I was going to let him grab Reed Bellows on his own – all I could do was try to get the first shot in! Well, I think I’ve told you how ruddy powerful Primalists are – but Reed Bellows is a very tough level 15, to my level 11, and I wasn’t overly optimistic about being able to take him down! However, I did get my shot in first, and it must have been a really good Critical Hit because I almost one-shotted him! I think the other guy got a shot off too, but I was the one who got the “sparkly loot” and the title! 😀 Then I turned around, jumped up on the nearby pile of rocks where occasionally you’ll find an Artifact, and sure enough, there it was. I’d just picked it up and jumped down again when – BAM! – I was lying dead in the middle of the road, with this rather annoyed looking individual standing over me! Well, what could I expect! I was a lower level than he was, flagged “PVP”, or “please come and shoot me”, I’d more-or-less just nicked his Title, picked up his Artifact (I presume he would have looked for one there) and there he is standing over me, waiting for me to resurrect so that he could kill me again! (that’s called “corpse camping”, by the way!) I had to smile though – to resurrect I had to go to my “nearest Graveyard”, and because I was a Guardian, my “nearest Graveyard” was over in Silverwood! So there I was over in Freemarch being dead, and all of a sudden there I am at a Graveyard in Silverwood! What’s more, I got enough experience points for “learning how to use the Healer”, because it was the first time I’d died, to take me up to level 12! 🙂 So yeah, it was a pretty good session today… I rather think I like Brightleaf! 😉
The Tee-shirt I ordered the other day arrived this afternoon – it’s a size 14, and you know, I think it’s a bit big! It has long sleeves, which are very “roomy”, shall we say – well, it might shrink a bit in the wash, but I seriously doubt it – however I shall order another one in a different colour (this one is black) in a size (*gasp*! *shock*! *horror*!) twelve! I’m pretty sure that I haven’t worn a size 12 since I was in Junior School! I’ve been thinking and wondering what to take to hospital with me as a nightgown or pyjamas, when I eventually go in for my pending surgery – well, I have a very nice pair of comfortable black slacks that are a titch too big for me now, and now I have this very nice, quite loose, black long-sleeved tee-shirt! Behold my brand new, “home-made” pyjamas! 🙂 …Now all I have to do is work out a way to make myself a pair of slippers… 
Weigh-in this morning. Was frustrating, to say the least! I went down… one point! I went from 69.2kg to 69.1kg – could s-l-o-w weight loss be any more painful?! “Slow”… If my weight was going down any slower, it’d be going backwards! As it is, I’ll either be back at 69.2kg (or higher!) tomorrow, or I’ll stay the same for a couple of days! It is soooooo frustrating!
Tomorrow morning we have to be up early, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, because the Cable man cometh! I don’t think he’ll interrupt my computerly activities too much, because he’s only putting the cables inside walls and so forth – then the electrician has to come and connect them all up to whatever they’re supposed to be connected up to – I think! We still haven’t heard a peep out of Clarke – I sure hope he is going to be able to start my bathroom next week! I shall be most put out if he’s not! (*grrr!*) Then the Podiatrist is coming over around 3 o’clock, so once again it looks like I have another full and busy day ahead of me! Anyway, that’s about all I have for you this evening, but do drop by again tomorrow night – find out if my weight did go back up again, or stayed the same (I’m pretty sure it won’t be going down!) whether the Cable man disrupted my Rifting, and what my feet look like after the Podiatrist’s visit! I’m sure there’ll be lots more – I’ve signed on for the closed Beta of “Devilian“, another Trion game, and I received the invitation to download it this afternoon – as far as I can see, it’s very Rift-like, but possibly more PVP orientated – which I won’t like – but I want to at least have a look at it. I’ll let you all know how it goes… However, until tomorrow night, please try to continue to bee good, don’t forget – no one is remembered for being “normal”, and remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm – or cool, depending on the weather, and to drive carefully – but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 