Sunset Six: Monumental Victory

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

At the end of a tale the final tests in each discipline become available: the building of monuments for each of the seven schools. Not only do these constructs need an obscene amount of resources, but they also require their character slots to be filled, specific to their rank in the discipline. A monument needs exactly 1 Oracle, 2 Sages, 4 Masters, 8 Scribes, 16 Journeymen, 32 Prentices and 64 Students. All up that's 127 people!

It doesn't look like much when it starts.

The monuments also hold a second purpose: they contain a player made suggestion for a future test in the next telling! Obviously there are many ideas that get put forward and after the "oracle" type players have a chat with Pharaoh Pluribus they get an idea of which ones are actually feasible to implement and from there can only pick one to go forward.

Imagine my surprise when two of my ideas made it through then: The Test of the Sculptors (Art and Music) and the Hand of Ra (Architecture)! Gotta admit, I am overjoyed that my input will potentially shape the future of the game. Those are the best types of events a player can have in an MMO right?

The Monument of Art and Music!

As my self imposed "final" quest for the telling I decided to try visit all the sites, failing only to reach the Monument of Thought in time which was the hardest to build due to lack of students in that discipline. I suppose like me, everyone was content solving puzzles instead of building them!

From top left to bottom right: Leadership, Architecture, Worship, Harmony, Thought, Body

Did I mention there are strange gods? Well there are. Just uber rare to run into them.

And so, the sun finally sets and Tale 6 comes to a close - it's time to say goodbye to my Level 54 Scribe of Two. While this is the end of my story, it is just the beginning of another chapter for Egypt and who knows, maybe next time it's you who will have A Tale in the Desert.

Thanks for reading! =)

Sunset Six: Exotic Variants

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

The final two tests for the Art and Music category are again, a little bit out of my league resources wise. The Test of the Formal Garden for example requires you to have already caught three ibis to turn their feathers into quills (on top of everything else). That's just for the Gazebo too - the actual garden is made of different plants and based on your knowledge of genetics, horticulture (for lilies) and xenobotany (for roses) to crossbreed them into more exotic variants.

So many plants!

The Test of the Windsong is the only actual "music" test and construct that I've seen in the game. Simply put, you need to make a chime tower and have it play a pleasant tune by creating correctly tuned and arranged chimes, and have seven people rate it as "good". The hardest parts for assembly here are the "cut gems" which I simply don't have practice in cutting. Also doesn't help that I don't have any. :P

Chimes with some Raeli art in the background.

Sunset Six: Up into SPACE!

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Continuing with the discipline of Art and Music, that gearbox lesson from last time was required to build the thing I am most proud of currently: my fountain for Test of Dancing Waters. Also found it cool that ants make glue! Most people have a number of basins that shoot water from one into the other but for me, I just put one basin, two el cheapo nozzles and made it shoot in one direction: up.

Up into SPACE!

Pleased with my showery design, Lazybum was kind enough to donate an explosives package ("with enough gunpowder to level River Plains") to assist me with the Test of Fireworks. In it you must design and display a fireworks show and basically be among the best to pass. It's an expensive hobby, requiring a bunch of materials to make each type of effect but thanks to the package I've got mine ready to go. Just need to be online the next time an official fireworks test is on.

Very cool to play with.

Keeping with the aerial theme, the Test of Flight has you construct a raeli glider port and build gliders from treated boards to put on pretty displays for everyone. No, you can't ride them but there are functional hot air balloon ships you can use in game. The only problem with them is that running is supposedly way faster. :P

My glider port was boring - this is a much better example.

Sunset Six: Pop Quiz

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Pop Quiz: You are playing an MMO and encounter a horrific, giant beetle. What do you do?

Yuck!

The correct answer in this game is: You pick it up. They are needed for the school of Art and Music's Test of Khefre's Children. You actually need more than one as you must breed them (males pass down color and females pass down pattern) then make statues of them and worship them as gods. Ok not that last part, but if you want to pass this test you must have the most votes from the public to win three rounds of competition.

Preparing to windmill in case they come to life and rush me.

Getting public votes of "good" or better is a theme in this discipline, and it is the same for the next test of the Raeli Mosaic, which requires you to construct an artwork from raeli tiles (not all the colors link). This is a lot harder than I thought since it's almost like playing evil tetris as the shapes given to you are pretty hard to put together into a logical picture.

Everything has to fit perfectly. >.<

Sunset Six: Initiate +3

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

The initiation task for Art and Music is an interesting one in which you construct your own sculpture in which you can use pretty much anything in game as part of the design.

You can make odd things like I did or more commonly...

... they are used for signs. :)

Similarly, the discipline of Thought requires you construct an empty hand puzzle and let a number of other players solve and rate it, requiring a "good" or better to pass. This is tricky as making it too simple or too frustrating can lead people to giving you a low score.

I made mine pretty simple.

Lastly, the initiation of Worship is one I didn't think I'd ever pass as not only do you need a sacrifice a number of ritual components under a time limit but you also require a partner who has not yet passed that initiation. I was in luck that another new player named Sarina was keen on getting it done and with Balthazarr's help with providing supplies along with prompts for recited incantations that require perfect typing, we both passed with a double zap.

It involves jugs.