You raise a level! Welcome to level 50!
Heh, last night at 11.37 pm, in the dark regions of Feerott, a blue con spectre died. Yes, it may have been the last of an endangered species as I have been seeing far fewer blues specs these days. After only 134 days, 7 hours and 37 *short* minutes of playing EQ, I dinged the big ding! Woo hoo! I feel really good!! I want to thank all of my friends who have helped moe for *all* of this time. I may have dinged solo'ing spectres but as you can see from the screen shot, I friend came by and helped. The buff is an enchanter speed buff from another friend who was hunting in the area. And I have been real lucky to have so many good friends to help me reach this level!
The ding came after a rather long level 48 and fairly quick level 49. This was the plan:
wed. (3/29) - first bub
thurs. (3/30) - second bub
fri. (3/31) - third bub and maybe some of four
sat. (4/1) - fourth bub and some of five
sun. (4/2) - fifth and final bub
Here's what really happened:
wed. (3/29) - half a bub
thurs. (3/30) - second half first bub and some of two
fri. (3/31) - the rest of two and a bit more than half of three (excellent group in the solb bat room!)
sat. (4/1) - final half of three and a bit more than half of four (some lower guk and some solb again)
sun. (4/2) - the rest of four and all of five. (see below)
Sunday started out looking like a rather dismal day. More than full bub to go - ugh. I got on about 8 am and went looking for stuff to solo. Feerott spectres were camped hard, same with Ogg outside bouncers (would need a group there). So after I did some Rathe Mts HG's and visited the gypsy bankers (buy a combine dagger, sell a combine dagger and change all that gold and silver to plat for a mere 10% surcharge), I went up to Oasis.
Deep Water Goblins - ugh. One of my least favorite mobs but a fairly available source of blue (yes one is still blue) and most greens were giving exp as well. Since lev 48 (which is the first time I tried), I have been able to pull singles easily. They hit hard, nuke hard and heal themselves if you let them. But I would pull them deep into the desert, wait for them to come out and make a stand. Then I would rush them with attack on and screetch playing. Fear, chain, & melee weaving a DoT as well. An enchantress was selling clarity and I was buying Augmentation <g>. Cant remember where I heard the great tip, but if possible get a level 16 Enchanter to buff you <g> (sorry John(tm) just kidding!) one less button to mash really helps shorten your fights. I was finding some blue spectres on the island as well. BTW, in past 2 days there, I have seen 6 or 7 Opoline helms. Couple of them rotted, the rest went to folks - some bards too who happened to be in the zone.
Eventually, the dw gobs got really old and I headed on up to Sol-B and went lookng for a dreaded pick-up group (most of the guild's prinmaries were parked in PoH - I even skipped a Hate trip to work on xp.) I found a group: 49 Clr, 49 Sha, 46 SK, 44 SK, 50 SK. But Sol-B was a total circus. Some guild was trying to do Fire Giants and for one reason or another having a rough time. Well, that translated to alot of them streaking in and out through the bat room we were trying to camp and training us with copious amounts of insect. I even died and was not even sure what level the cleric was but lucky me - he was 49 and ressed me back - no problems. People came and went from the group and the trains got worse and worse. Finally, I got a call from a guildie who needed some help with a CR in Befallen so we disbanded.
It was mid-to-late afternoon and I was still looking at 3 quarters of a bub to go. Ugh. Well, back to Oasis. More DW Gobs, more blue specs, an odd sand giant or two (btw, saw "a Sandgiant Husam" on tracking in S Ro and following SOP killed it first and asked questions later and am holding some plans for a Kiliji sword ;p). By early evening, the groups had moved in and specs were scarce and another group was even pulling dw gobs - talk about a desparately over crowded server! So, I packed up and headed for Feerott thinking might cajole my way into a Cyndrella camp. I solo'd a petless Cynd on Sat afternoon and could have healed back in time for her next spawn but she pathed fairly deep into the spec caves which lucky for me were picked clean by campers. Had I not fear chained her, she would have nuked me too hard and fast. So, she's not too bad but I would do her with a partner unless I *know* the caves are very clean.
Once again, I got lucky and ran into a streak of blue specs. There was a party of 2 camping the tree and I would pull my greens to them. That turned out to be a good thing because when I managed to get an over-pull they were very willing to come help with a timely heal or nab an extra one off me. Friends were coming and going from the PoF cave. I was getting a good buff here and occasional heals there and just kept slugging away. My necro friend, Daethe, was heading home from a loooong day in PoF and asked me how close I was:
http://www.sba.uwm.edu/jgs/sylly/ding50.jpg
Heh, looks like he nuked it and got the killing blow. What a thrill! Level 50 after all. Thanks again to all my friends out there - its been a great time!
Sylly Songsynger
<The Pantheon>
Bardette of 50 songs
... somewhere on Innoruuk
http://www.sba.uwm.edu/jgs/sylly
p.s. I ran up to NK and got a teleport to Gfay. Was going to Kelethin to buy my last song. Heh, I thought about pre-buying it but did not want to risk 'jinx'ing' my chances ;p. Anyhow, DOH! Freeport or Qeynos - not Kelethin! So, I took a teleport back to NK, crossed WK (Hail! a Hill Giant! - green though so never mind), thru the Qeynos Hills and past the cottage where I first saw a bard - first time to see a wood elf too! And finally passing thru the gates of Qeynos, "I will return the crate" not tonight - too tired! And let's see now who has Verses of Victory... ahh there it is. Might as well scribe it and play it too! And then sleep. Camped out in the bard's guild - home at last!
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