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: Not all the Colors

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Another Architecture test is the Test of the Funerary Temple in which you must construct a temple and glorify it with raeli tiles of many various colors. Many tiles of the same colors will not give you as many points you see. So how does one get these tiles? By chucking charcoal into raeli ovens and cooking them - the longer they bake, the darker they get with black being around one hour of burning. Ovens in different regions make different colors too, and not all are available for public use.

An oven cooking and a sample color map.

Fortunately I joined the Zemples guild who specifically exist to help people pass this test for a small fee of burning some colors for them and transporting it back to their base. They have a host of their own ovens available for use too and documented color times which is handy. In exchange, I get to use their warehouses to take 49 tiles for each of their 141 stored colors.

Adding tiles makes the temple grow!

Speaking of colors, there is are also paints you can (and in some cases must) make for things and it is tough, not only because you need the listed ingredients but because making a non standard color (like Yellow) requires experimentation. Also, much like the test of the acrobat hidden variable thing - one persons formula to make yellow is not guaranteed to work for another player.

Making yellow is bloody difficult.