Harvesting Heroism

Believe it or not, I finally got a chance to participate in a live event Friday night. I was minding my own business, harvesting in TS (yes, I know my harvesting skills are low). Then, I saw an interesting shout in my chat window.

Now, I usually don't pay any attention to the shout and OOC stuff. I mean, how many times can you read, "Wear iz Hwal Ruckstiff?" and "For sale - shattered gnome bone PST - Best Ofur!" But, when you're harvesting, everything suddenly becomes much more interesting. (I actually shouldn't complain - because of the new harvesting changes I was able to go from being stuck harvesting in Antonica to Lavastorm in one weekend.)

Anyway, the shout was from Traveler Xiabik (I know I am getting the name wrong). He said something like, "The Village of Thundermist needs help! A mob of plagued creatures are about to attack!" Now, normally the poor villagers of Thundermist would have been out of luck. But, when I'm looking to take a break from harvesting I get heroic impulses. I used a Totem of the Wolf and bounded off to help (no, I still can't afford a horse).

I mentioned it in guild chat and one of my guildmates, a gnome wizard, nobly answered my call to help the villagers. We arrived to find hundreds of plagued centaurs and wolves milling in the dry river bed outside of Thundermist Village. Surprisingly, no other players had answered the call. We located the Traveller who was wearing one of those hats that Raiden from Mortal Kombat wears. I'm sure they have a real name but that's how I always think of them. I kept wating for him to shout, "Fatality!"

We approached him and he gave us a quest. We apparently had to save the village from plagued creatures. Surprise.

Now, we are not usually role-players but we really started to ham it up.

"Fear not Traveler, we are here to protect this village!"

"Breathe easy, fair citizens, we heroes will save you!"

"Ha! We laugh in the face of danger! These plagued mongrels will fall before our potent magery!"

"For Queen Antonia Bayle! To arms!"

And so on. Of course, we might not have been quite so heroic if we weren't about twenty levels above the mobs we were fighting but, hey, that's life.

After dispatching a measly three centaurs the quest was over. But, the people still needed help, right? Besides, I was in no hurry to go back to harvesting.

We continued to slaughter the plagued creatures. My favorite part of the whole event came when my gnomish friend pulled about thirty centaurs. I couldn't even see him.

The Traveler, a GM or guide I assume, sent him a tell asking him "please don't overdo it." I liked that.

So, we called it an event and escaped back to the docks to check our mail, since we had unread mail since completing the quest. The letter contained a Tattered Journal which could be placed in our apartments. As a plus, it glows. A job well done! But then it was back to harvesting...

Since I've mentioned the Return to Nek Castle before, I thought I'd give you an update there. Some of the mobs are definitely quite a bit harder now, though some seem to be the same level of difficulty. Also, a named spider popped on us right at the entryway, so be careful.

The disapearing chests appear to be fixed and we did get more keys than usual. Of course those keys unlocked such wondrous treasures as Advanced Carpentry Volume 42, but hey, that's better than nothing. All in all a good weekend. Considering the harvesting...