Flatlining Heartbeat: Wizardry Online

[My second Blaugust post!]

I didn't quite make it on at the appointed hour but I did manage to login early. There were no large "goodbye" parties (on the Bareaux Bareaux Server anyway) that I saw. No special events, no GM spawning stuff for one final hurrah. Just a rather quiet global chat where one or two people were giving their final goodbyes to their peers who I think, with lack of anything else to do, were still camping the Loitering Armor to up whatever final score or level they were keeping track of.

Myself, I decided to see how far I could run into the Azarm Trial grounds, a level 50 zone that people avoided for good reason. I do mean run in the literal sense too as everything there could one shot me, and dying meant evading the many reapers wandering the halls. Not that it really mattered though. After coming back from the shops I was greeted with this.

And that was the end of Wizardry Online.

Blaugust Bonus: Much like MMO developers keep an eye on player numbers, I've been keeping a rough count of how my blogroll on the right there is going. As I said near the beginning of the Newbie Bloggers Initiative, I would be constantly culling any blogs that failed to at least put up one post every four weeks. Now before I add the other Blaugust participants I don't yet have, I just wanted to ask if this is too aggressive? Why do I ask? During the NBI I had around 145 links over there as I added everyone and then some. I also had to shrink the list to only show the latest 25 (by default) since it was quite ludicrous to scroll down. As of this post only 77 remain. Is there a lot of silence out there or am I just not waiting long enough to listen?

Wizardry Online: Ghost Town

[Part of the journals from Wizardry Online!]

Apart from the Succubus, giant suits of loitering armor, oversized tarantulas, demon imps and ambient classical music in a minor scale it was a band of overly strong werewolves that ultimately prevented us from getting past the magical barriers within the House of Savage Lust. We did reach the library though, and from it we learned the location of some sort of experimental zone built by a mad dwarf named Azarm. Thanam decided to continue to try find a way past the magic barriers in the estate while I returned to Port Illfalo to resupply.

The town was even emptier than when we left it, with all the adventurers having evacuated due to the Armageddon threat. Even the Lost Souls board had a record of zero souls lost for the month, a number I had never seen before since our arrival. Being one of the few remaining people the arcane minister Zermu Terlu was quick to issue out a Dimento medal to assist with supplies in exchange for trying to stop the rumored "end". I also stopped by one of the still functioning guild agencies and found a note from Quark - that he and a handful of the remaining Porkul Pickers and their allies like Raven Daydream, Maco Meng, and Helga had packed up to try their luck on distant shores. They must have packed in a hurry since there was still equipment in the guild armory, some of which I decided to take for myself.

One of the priests at the local temple urged me to find his wand as he seemed to think it would help in our overall goal so I found myself heading back to the dreaded Temple of Oblivion and after poking around in places no sane man should I gained access to a secret lair inhabited by gargoyles! Fortunately I got the drop on them and managed to take them on one at a time, recovering with Dimento camps when needed. After the difficult combat I managed to retrieve and return the wand to the priest... alas all it seemed to do was cure his own speech impediment. Time is running out and I am unsure of what to do, but I know I cannot simply abandon these people to whatever horrible fate is about to pass.

I take heart knowing that if it is an end by gargoyles, I can take a few of them with me.

 

-Caanon