Uukrul: Wrong Turn

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The Krefator!

In their haste to save Anyolina, the team took a wrong turn and suddenly found themselves facing a large acid reptile called Krefator. The beast melted Toothless down into a more consumable puddle as Balthazarr dragged Anyolina out of there and down the correct road. He needn't have bothered for she succumbed to the poison along the way.

Distraught at the loss of his team, Balthazarr gave heavy thought to abandoning to the quest until a vision of Mara encouraged him to carry on and find an old hermit on the lower levels. Something in her words gave him the strength to make it back to the adventurer's guild hall and recruit a new team composed of battle sisters Ila the paladin, Sapphire the mage, and the loner priest Yen Sid.

This squad performs much better (since I looked up the manual and can use spells now), surviving a poison pit thanks to Yen Sid's Sirdhe prayer, defeating Sharruk the giant worm in a literal shit tunnel, and finally catching up to the evil rogue where Balthazarr exacted vengance for the fallen.

Uukrul: Knife Party

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Apart from numerous, almost indecipherable signs on the wall, the only thing living in this area were stray dogs and giant rats. Angoff and Anyolina quickly learned that their magic and prayers would not work as intended down here (mainly because you need to put in a hard input of what magic phrase to say), so it was back to bashing things physically.

Does that look like it's saying "woof woof" to you?

Behind a closed door they found another person, an evil rogue charging tax for all who wanted to pass by. It was a difficult combat which ended with the man fleeing down a hall. The team pursued him right into... a market place? Finally they had reached the city hub itself, but had no time to take in the sights as they pursued this evil doer right into a trap!

The mob of knife wielding peasants was effective in their task of stabbing Angoff to death, before retreating into the various nearby alleyways. In a stoke of terrible luck, Anyolina was poisoned by a scorpion in the scuffle and with her old gods deaf to her pleas, had to endure the burning poison as Balthazarr and Toothless carried her and rushed back to the town proper.

Uukrul: Welcome to Eriosthe

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Despite his role in thwarting Molag Bal's schemes, Angoff still found himself shunned by almost everyone at Coldharbour due to his previous crimes as an ex-terrorist leader. Hoping to redeem himself, he asked Meridia for guidance. "To erase your sins, you must destroy someone far more terrible than you," said the daedric prince.

"Deep in the underground city of Eriosthe is a foe who poses so great a threat to the world that Mara, the divine, and her allies failed to subdue. He is known as Uukrul. Defeat him any you will find absolution."

Angoff thanked her and immediately set off on his journey. While Meridia did advise that he not try accomplish this task alone, no one was actually willing to accompany him. Only when he crossed the final desert to the great mountain that held Eriosthe did he find a group who were still very young in their careers as adventurers, and had no knowledge of his past.

Or his strange illness. Yep this is part of creating a character.

For the promise of gold and glory, they joined him in his quest: the not so timid priestess Anyolina, the aged paladin Toothless, and the too-smart to be a fighter Balthazarr. A long passage into the mountain led to a dead end to the untrained eye, but Angoff tapped his staff against the rock wall - causing the magical door to open. The four stepped through and now found themselves in the large, dust covered welcome hall of fabled city.

Sunset Six: Sticks and Stones

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Continuing with our prep session, wood can be used as fuel by itself too to fire kilns for making pottery items or bricks.

Burn baby, burn.

However, wooden boards can also be treated in a chemical tank to gain different properties such as "white, pliable" which are needed by some structures later on. Balthazarr gave me a quick lesson on how to achieve this properly using 10 second bursts of various ingredients. Pin the other windows to mark the attributes you are interested in then see which ingredient will give the result closest to what you want.

The trick is finding the "result" bar closest to where the "current" bar is. The smaller the difference between the two, the faster the bar will move. This means it's sometimes OK to use an item that has an unfavorable property if the bar difference for that between what it is and what it will be are far apart as it won't move that much.

Mark the "current" bars with corners of the other windows.

Balthazarr also teaches me the "spiral rock method" of turning stones into gravel. Using a sledgehammer you can play cat and mouse with the stones that continue to roll away from you as you smash them which eats up time. The Spiral Rock method is more effective: by dropping each stone individually at your feet and smashing only what stays beside you, it goes quite fast and is actually one activity I really enjoy.

There's a reason it's called the spiral rock method.

Why all the gravel? I need to mix it in with cement to make concrete! Now since cement is a pain to come across I was fortunate enough to have it provided to me by Gander, Anyolina and Markanthony. If you want to know more about just how to get it, I suggest you read Jeromai's old post which should give you an idea of how tough the early days of a tale are.

Clearly not invented yet. ;p

Sunset Six: Acrobatic Mechanics

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

The school of Body has perhaps the easiest initiation task of simply running around and finding 35 different plant species in 20 minutes, but that is followed by one of the most time consuming tests around: the Test of the Acrobat. Basically you are given seven facets of one move and are then sent out into the world to learn and teach from others to master -every move available-. You can only teach moves you have seven facets in, and can only learn one facet of each move from everyone you meet.

That list scrolls a LOT.

It's actually worse than that though, because of a random hidden attribute that each character has - you simply cannot learn from some people and vice versa. Sometimes even those who are master level teachers to you still are unable to teach anything because the particular facet they teach (only 1 of the 7 per move) might be one you already have. The solution?

Acro with everyone!

Similar to that is how the mechanics skill works in game. All the automated machinery can be tuned up to level 7 (making them run faster or produce things more efficiently), but the luck factor of the hidden attribute per person, per machine exists again meaning some things you -can- tune up and others you cannot. The 20 minute cool down after any tune-up attempt also helps prevent "tune spamming".

Whee, the only thing I've been able to tune so far.

A long time player named Lazybum actually told me that for his machines he gets a bunch of eight or so people around to try tune things for two hours. Any machines that don't make it to level 5 he tears down and rebuilds. Contrary to his name, I get the feeling he actually is very productive and has a ton of resources at his disposal.

Sunset Six: Pyramids of Heaven

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Traversing the huge map is pretty slow going in this game, albeit slightly better when running along roads where I seem to get a speed bonus. It's not long before I am advised by a player named Balthazarr on region chat of two more efficient speed boosts in the River Plains area where I started: The fast travel chariot and the Jawa Tavern which offers free, temporary speed food. It is only much later that I learn from a deep desert huntress named Nabirye that this food can be packed into jugs with stoppers for later consumption.

Sounds delicious... (blerrrgh!)

Balthazarr also speaks of magical Pyramids of Heaven deep in the desert that grant up to seven levels to anyone who simply gazes at them - cue me going on a pilgrimage! It is an incredibly long and uneventful run but totally worth it to unlock more tests faster. Like most constructs in this game these were all player built at some point as they and the other pyramid types grant global boons to everyone in game. I don't really want to think what the building requirements for -these- were.

I'm the little dot in the sand.

With that out of the way it's time to get cracking on the other initiation tasks, and fortunately both Leadership and Harmony have a similar requirement of meeting people and getting them to sign or introduce themselves formally to you (via click menu). Chariot stops are a good place rack up a lot of these as eventually everyone uses them and it's almost second nature to everyone to just do it without prompting too, which is great!

People sure are helpful!