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Everyone knows that travel is easy for a druid. Teleport spells make it simple to pop from one far-distant
zone to another. But there are some places that just are never easy to reach, such as Lake
of Ill Omen. Having spent levels 24 and 25 in the Karanas, Trystahnn and I had some boat trips to make.
(Okay, he had two boat trips; I cheated and used my self-only teleport spell to avoid the boat ride from Freeport to Butcherblock.) The boat to
Firionia Vie is a beautiful ship, solidly built as a city with sails like fairy wings. It was a pleasure to rest and ride.
If only the wait and the zoning didn't take so long!
A quick trip past the dreaded drachnids had us safely in the the Lake of Ill Omen zone, a favourite hunting ground for adventurers in their teens and twenties. We'd leveled up from 19 to 24 here earlier, sometimes with the aid of our druid friend, Jadus and the gnome magician, Yalas (whose pets were always good tanks). With a few more levels under our belts we were able to camp the western plateau near the Frontier Mountain zone. Except for the goblin warlords and occasional charbone skeleton, most opponents were at or below our level. Some of our choicest prey were the sabertooth grimalkins that peacefully wander the zone. Some druids avoid killing the animals that peacefully wander Norrath: wolves and bears are generally amiable. Other druids take advantage of our powerful line of animal control spells to either make pets of these beasts or send them into a panicked retreat. I'm in that camp: I need their pelts for armour! So many a sabertooth died at our hands that my tailoring skill might improve. Trystahnn, being a paladin, prefers hunting undead. Some of his spells do amazing damage to these foul creatures and it's a pleasure to see them start to flee when he casts "Spook the Dead." Of course, in all these cases, my snare spell does a good job of slowing down their retreat, so the combat is even easier. Easy is a relative term, of course. Taken one or two at a time, these monsters keep us busy. But even the best adventurers get a little beaten, bruised and low on mana. At those times, Trystahnn and I retreated to the Frontier Mountain zone to heal and rest. Trystahnn was amused at our appearance: my use of the "Wolf Form" spell meant that we looked more like a boy and his faithful companion than a (virtual) man and woman. Within a few hours of fairly steady combat, battling goblins and Sarnaks, Trystahnn reached level 26. It took a while longer for me to reach the same level, but I also savoured the sweet feeling of achieving mastery (level 101) in one-handed slashing. We considered staying at it a while longer, but we were both laden down with loot and platinum. We made a run along the lakeshore to the Firionia Vie zone, where I buffed Trystahnn for his run past the drachnids. Back at the city, we banked then worked on our tradeskills (Trystahnn's fletching and my baking). |