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EverQuest II Beta Journal Day 6, Morning Upon reporting back to Mizan I learned our plan had mixed results. We were very successful in disrupting their supply lines, but in doing so we have peaked their interest in the magical arts. Apparently they have developed some form of fire based spell they've been testing out on the guards at the barricades. Mizan's teacher Malvonicus believes he can create a ward which will make our defenders immune to their spells. But he needs some samples of their blood to do it. It seems the fighter types are making another assault on the main goblin encampment and it would be the perfect opportunity for a volunteer to sneak in and gather some samples from the corpses they leave behind. Seemed like a chance to possibly "acquire" some other items from the corpses along with the blood samples, so naturally I volunteered.Day 6, Afternoon I made my way back out to the main goblin encampment and scouted around looking for a good position to strike from. As the assault on the encampment began it didn't take me long to realize it wasn't going as planned. Obviously if I wanted to get my hands on those blood samples I'd have to do the dirty work myself. Working my way around the edges of the camp I singled out Goblin Brutes who were far enough away from the main group that I could take them out without attracting their comrades. Before long I had enough blood samples and decided to stop pressing my luck and get back to Mizan.Day 6, Evening Upon reaching the tower and talking to Mizan and Malvonicus I learned they had discovered who the identity and location of the leader of these goblins. Apparently an orc has found his way to the island somehow and has organized all of the resident goblins as some form of revenge against the Far Seas Trading Company. Regardless of when or why the orc came to the island, he needs to be taken out. Without his leadership and guidance, the goblin forces will crumble back into their previous unorganized harmless ways. The orc has barricaded himself inside a cave and it'll take a small strike force to get him out. I guess I'll have to go find some of my fellow refugees and form up a group to rid the island of this menace once and for all. This sounds like a plan for tomorrow though.Day 7, Morning While I was in town I decided to take the time to read those attack plans I had gotten off of the Supply Captain's corpse. It seemed like a very straight forward, if a bit hard to read, plan. Mostly just crude drawings and such, it basically laid out a plan for a group of goblin saboteurs to swim across the bay and strike the northern beach of the refugee encampment. This should be easy enough to thwart.Day 7, Afternoon After making my way over to the north beach I swam out and sure enough, found the group of goblins milling about waiting for nightfall to attack the camp. They were grouped too close together to allow me to pick them off one by one, and an attack on any one of them would surely bring the whole group down on me. My only option would be to try to use my new Arcane Binding spell to magically restrain one or two temporarily while I dealt with the rest. Maybe not the best plan in the world, but really the only option I had, unless I wanted to enlist the aid of others, but that would mean sharing the loot. Being the greedy bastard that I am, that just wouldn't cut it; at least not until after I had given it my best shot solo. My first binding spell stuck, and sure enough the rest of them charge my way. Sighting in on the closest one charging me I try to bind it as well, only to have the spell fizzle! So now instead of being surrounded by three of them, I had four to deal with. Dodging swinging swords and clubs I let lightening bolts fly as fast as possible. Luckily for me they weren't the most organized or skilled of fighters. I managed to get the first four dispatched just as the final one was breaking out of his magical bindings. After making short work of him I rifled through the corpse taking what meager possessions they owned then sat to catch my breathe for a while.Day 8, Evening When I got back to the north beach, I was approached by two individuals I had not noticed before. One was a curious little fellow named Ebik. Quite a talkative little fellow he was, going on and on about some ship that travels underwater that his family invented and some curse; but I couldn't really be bothered to care. Until he asked for help that was; anyone asking for help is generally likely to reward you for said help in the end. Not to mention if there is any truth to his story about the underwater ship maybe it can get me off this blasted island! And he's not asking for much, just for me to keep my eyes open for a couple parts he seems to have misplaced. The second individual was quite beneficial to me. A beautiful young lady named Rivicea Goldwind is apparently quite the collector. She seemed especially interested in my collection of shells from the beach. Always looking to make a profit I of course sold them to her. Rivicea also expressed an interest in a collection of feathers from all the various birds which reside on the island. With a promise to keep my eye out of them I made my way back into the encampment to visit the Banker. I have to make sure my new found riches are securely deposited after all! After visiting the Banker I decided it was time to call it a night.Day 9, Afternoon I decided to spend this morning exploring some areas of the island I hadn't been yet. Along my travels I came upon a young Priestess Xaliea. She was quite the attractive young dark elf so I figured I'd go have a chat with her. Come to find out, as with everyone on this blasted island it seems, she needed help with something. Apparently there are some skeletons over near the graveyard that she'd like a couple bone chips from. She couldn't leave her post or else she'd have fetched them herself. The combination of her attractiveness and the offer of payment made me accept the task. So I made my way over towards the graveyard and started offing skeletons. It took me a while to collect the three bone chips; you'd be surprised how much damage lightening does to bone. More often than not though, there wasn't enough left of the remains to collect a big enough chip. During the process I noticed an unusual occurrence. One of the skeletons seemed a bit bigger and more powerful than the others. It looked kinda like the remains of the fabled pirate Greybeard. After killing him in a too close battle I searched through his remains and was proven correct by the Buckler I found. Being a Mage I had no use for it, but it definitely fit the description of the Buckler Greybeard was said to always carry with him. Gathering up all of my new loot and the three bone chips I made my way back to the Priestess. She showed her appreciation with coin and praise, which I have to say, may be my two very favorite things in the world.Day 9, Evening Also on Greybeard's remains I found a treasure map! This could provide quite the adventure, not to mention the fact that not many people take the time to bury useless stuff. And I do think I've proven several times now that my greed knows no boundaries. After a quick study of the map I orientated myself with several easily recognizable landmarks on the map and headed towards where the big X indicated the treasure should be. Arriving at the spot indicated by the map I found a gravestone. Well, it definitely looked like the right spot; only thing to do really was start digging. As soon as I broke the ground though the spirit of some huge troll named Captain Rockbelly appeared and, well, whooped my butt! I was definitely going to have to find some help before I go back and attempt that one again! After a brief search I found a couple able-bodied adventurers willing to help me out. One of them had a copy of the treasure map as well, so when we got back to the gravestone I summoned the spirit and we killed him fairly easily, there was one casualty, the Kerran, but after a trip to the Priestess he was good as new. When we were all rested up and ready to go he searched around in the grave and caused the spirit to appear again. The second time around we did much better, no casualties at all. Gathering up our new found loot we said our goodbyes and parted company. I came out of the ordeal with a nice amount of copper, a really nice looking axe and a salt encrusted cutlass. I'll have to find someone to clean the cutlass up for me before I fence it, else I won't get what it's truly worth. The axe though should fetch me a pretty penny as it is. Once I got back to camp I figured the best bet on cleaning up the cutlass would be the Mender. He's been quite handy thus far in keeping my own equipment top notch, seems logical that he could handle cleaning up the cutlass for me. Sure enough, he was able to clean it up for me, it cost me forty copper, but in the long run I think it'll be quite worth it. It ended up being a very nice looking cutlass after his work, it should fetch me FAR more than the forty copper I invested in cleaning it.Day 10, Morning I figured today would be a good day to go deal with that orc. I made my way over to his cave, collecting adventurers along the way who wanted to help with the task. By the time we reached the cave there were a full six of us, more than enough to make short work of the orc and all his bodyguards. Upon entering the cave we were almost floored immediately from the incredible stench of the place. How can any creature with a nose bring itself to live in such filth? Anyway, thanks to several well timed Arcane Binding spells from us Magi in the group and a whole lot of lightening bolts, we were able to dispatch the orc and all of his guards in short order. All told it was a rather disappointing battle with extremely disappointing loot. But then again, I'm almost always disappointed by any amount of loot I'm forced to share, particularly when forced to share it with five others. Mizan tho didn't let me down; he rewarded me nicely for my participation in the raid.Day 10, Afternoon There is very little left for me to do on this island, which is good, because I'm ready to get off of it. However, there are still a couple opportunities for profit that I can't leave unfinished. I still need to finish collecting the feathers for the lovely Rivicea Goldwind; and I still need to find Ebik's missing parts. After I finish those two tasks I'm blowing this hunk of rock and heading for Freeport where the opportunity to make a fortune must exist around every corner. Oh well, let me go find this stuff so I can get out of here.Day 10, Night With no real idea of where to start looking I just set out in a random direction to look around the island for the missing parts and feathers. After what seemed like an eternity of searching this blasted floating chunk of rock I finally found all of the parts and the feathers. Turning in the parts to Ebik earned me a rather nice bracer, well worth the effort in the long run. Rivicea gave me a necklace made of the feathers I collected for her. It's not really my style, but it's all about the profit involved. During the search for the feathers and parts I stumbled upon a couple other interesting things. At the bottom of the bay I came across an area which, while I was in it, I felt some strange compulsion to kill razorfin sharks. I can't explain it, it wasn't something I particularly wanted to do, but I just felt as if I needed to. Not like me to do something just for the good of it, usually has to be some form of profit available before it peaks my interest. This was something I just HAD to do though, I can't explain it, but after I had killed ten of them I discovered a Sash in one of my bags that I know wasn't there before... I can't explain it and I'm not questioning it. I've always lived by the philosophy of taking your profit and running when you can. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Also while swimming around in the bay looking for those parts for that silly gnome I came across what had to have been the biggest shark I have ever seen in my life! This thing was gigantic! It must have been the legendary Bladefin. It spotted me before I could get away, but after a very long and extremely close battle I proved the victor and survived. After resting a bit I proceeded to search the area he seemed to be guarding and lo and behold, just as I had suspected, a treasure chest packed full of goodies. It was mostly weapons and other such stuff which has no use to me other than items to be sold for coin. One item of note tho was a waterlogged journal describing some research Malvonicus wanted done. Apparently the apprentice he had originally tasked to do the research became Bladefin food LONG ago. Reading through the journal I noticed that most of the hard work had been completed, all that remained was to collect samples from a couple different aquatic critters in the bay. It was quite simple stuff, and definitely a chance to make some more coin here. Not to mention getting on Malvonicus' good side, which considering how powerful of a Mage he is it can't be ALL that bad of a thing for a young apprentice Mage like myself. So during my search of the bay for the missing Springer for Ebik I also managed to collect the aquatic critter samples for Malvonicus.Day 11, Morning After returning the journal and collected samples to Malvonicus I decided I had simply had enough of this island. Honestly there could be absolutely nothing else it could offer me. After asking around a bit I discovered in order to leave the island I needed to meet with Duke Ferrin and each of the Ambassadors. I didn't even bother speaking to the Qeynos Ambassador, as my mind is already made up to go to Freeport. Ambassador T'Kirr from Freeport was a right rude fellow, if everyone in Freeport is like him I think I'll fit in just fine. After arranging everything with the Ambassador I returned to Duke Ferrin and told him that everything was set up and I was ready to go. He then directed me to the eastern most dock to await the next ship bound for Freeport. After a short wait on the dock and a brief ship ride, thankfully no where near as long as my previous one, I arrived in the Beggar's Court of Freeport. I was greeted on the docks by Overseer Zerrin who gave me a brief rundown of how things worked in Freeport and then directed me to the Inn so I could be set up with refugee quarters and given a tour of the city. That however is a tale for another day.Closing: Thanks for taking the time to read my Beta Journal, I wish I could go farther with it, but at this point in time the NDA still restricts what we can and can't say. Soon I'll have the next part ready describing Astad's first experiences in Freeport. It'll probably be at least a week, so don't hold your breathe, hate to have people turning blue and dieing out there in anticipation. ;) So once again, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and hopefully you'll be looking forward to reading the next tale of Astad as much as I am to writing it. |
Beta Journal - The Tale of Astad
