10K PP Giveaway Contest #4 - Exploration and Journeys

[Kuron]

There I was on P99 at 7am, against all better judgment I had to just go back to sleep! I had the urge to play and get an early start, but it wasn't until I had fully logged in and entered the world that I realized I had absolutely no goal in being on so early.

I was in the Qeynos area, and so I figured “why the hell not” and headed over to Hadden. If nothing else I'd figure out something to do while I waited. I took a peek over the final hill and noticed someone sitting at the camp already. “Oh well.” I said. But now what was I going to do? I stood there for a minute and considered my options. Somehow I decided that I should at least get a timer on Hadden before I leave or log off. I sent the wizard camping him a tell.

“Been at it long?” I asked, and got no reply. Obviously AFK, and with such a long spawn time who on this or any other planet can blame him?! I started to leave, but that’s when I saw it. No, not Hadden - A rowboat! My sleep-deprived brain saw this simple, nostalgic object as a beacon of everything I should be doing at this early hour. I jumped in, took the helm, and began tooling around the river in front of Axe-man’s hut. I figured “Surely my antics will cause the Wizard to come back and have a good chuckle!” (please remember I was still not even half awake).

Unfortunately, my Tony Hawk’s Pro Boater display was not enough to bring the man at his keyboard back from the dead. I gave up and decided to put a few items in the bank while I waited. Just before I abandoned my boat I had another “fun” idea. Mr. Wizard was sitting very close to the water’s edge, and so of course it only made perfect comedic sense to me that I should park the boat directly on top of him. A vicious giggle and a quick screenshot later I was heading for Qeynos bank, hoping to get an amused tell from him en route.

Nothing. No tells. This guy was hardcore asleep, or so I thought. I returned from the bank wanting to see my mischief one last time before I logged out only to discover that something was different at the scene of the crime. The man had come back from being AFK at least once, and was now sitting IN the boat I had parked on top of him. I sent him another tell, but got no reply. Tired and bored, I supposed this would be the end of my antics for the day and proceeded to log out. But then at 5 seconds left my brain gurgled forth a heinously good prank.

I canceled the camp-out and engaged hide/sneak. At this point, I was acting purely on divine pranker’s instinct. I walked my invisible self quietly over to the boat with the unsuspecting Wizard sitting inside and took the helm. Oh wouldn’t this be a riot!? The wizard would come back to his keyboard only to see he was now many miles upriver! He would return to find me sitting at his camp at which point I would “pretend” to be stealing it from him, but would in actuality reveal the genius of my scheme, return it to him promptly and together we’d have a great laugh! Oh if I’d only known what was about to truly happen.

The unlikely boat with my unknowing passenger skimmed swiftly along the water’s surface. My god this plan was brilliant! I could barely contain my wild chortles. I hit F9 a few times and zoomed out to get a really good screenshot. A prank this good NEEDED to be documented. Unfortunately, to get the right angle for a shot I needed to neglect my steady control of the proud vessel. As my camera shutters clicked and the snickering got louder.... the boat undesirably swerved and touched the shore on the opposite side. This was when the laughing stopped.

See, there’s this caster that stands over there next to a fire. I didn’t know this ahead of time, but this caster really really hates my unwitting Wizard passenger. Maybe he lost a lot of money to him in poker, maybe he slept with his wife. I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist. All I know is he can nuke any wizard he hates REALLY hard. The laughing was long gone by now. I watched helplessly as the Wizard’s health dropped well below 35%. I mashed buttons wildly, as if in desperation that I’d come across some magical “stop the horror” key combination by chance. No such chance. The last thing I saw was the wizard hit around 12% and then go linkdead.

My mind sank in dread. I had just practically murdered someone AND stolen their camp without even a fraction of intent to do either! I assumed he had LD’d out to avoid being killed, but I had no idea exactly how that worked or if he had succeeded. I couldn’t figure out what to do at all. Do I leave? Do I pretend it hadn’t happened? I was still invis, had he seen what occurred? My panic was akin to that of a heaving pervert watching Chris Hansen slowly emerge from behind a curtain. Helpless, hopeless and inescapably caught in a horrible crime!

I decided to do the right thing, of course. I immediately began contacting every Cleric and Druid I could find offering high prices to get him a port back and a 90% rez. I also ran over and sat down at his camp to keep others from stealing it. I had to make things up to this guy somehow because I felt horrible. He was gone a while, almost ten minutes, though it seemed an eternity to me at the time. Eventually, the wizard came walking over the hill towards me, still around 12%. He approached and said “That was neat.”

Oh shit. This was the end. He knew! Now he’s going to chew me out, report me, blacklist me to everyone he knows! In desperate hope, I explained my whole case to him. I apologized and told him I was only holding his camp, that I had rezzers on the way just in case but was so happy that he hadn’t died. He listened, and didn’t say much of anything. One word answers. “Okay.” and “Yea.” and so on. Judging by the way he was typing, I guessed this guy was PISSED. He didn't need a rez or a port, so I just walked off and returned his camp.

I felt so bad as I trekked over the Karanas back to the Druid Ring. About 15 minutes goes by as I stood in silence waiting for a druid to show up at the ring. Suddenly I receive a tell from the wizard. Was it my comeuppance? Was he beginning his hate rant of ultimate revenge? No. It was a question from the Wizard: “I'm confused. What exactly did you do to me anyway?”. I sighed and typed out the whole story (pretty much what I’ve told you here) making sure to explain the harmless nature of my attempted prank and to remind him that I'd had rezzers and porters lined up if needed. A long pause came after that. I braced for impact, but his response was unexpected.

“Woah. You can control the boats? That’s totally cool!”

-_-

He'd had no idea I was even there! He hadn't seen me and assumed the boat had just “drifted” on it's own. When he proclaimed “That was neat.” there was no sarcasm, he had been referring to the boat “drifting”. His relative silence was borne of confusion for the situation as he had no idea I was even involved!

I expressed again how happy I was that he had forcibly LD’d in time and hadn’t died and he told me something surprising - he hadn’t LD’d at all. The angry caster across the river was an Enchanter and had charmed him right before death. My panicked button mashing had apparently moved the boat JUST far away enough that when charm broke he somehow did not re-aggro. We talked and laughed a little more about it, and eventually I logged off and went back to bed.

I clearly needed more sleep.

[Varrin]

It was a cool, brisk evening and my fellow adventurers and I had just finished exploring and killing within the Estate of Unrest. As we made our way out into Dagnor's Cauldron, I posed a question to my friends about the best way to earn some cash near the area, to which they replied there was a camp of sisters eager to give up their goods to anyone who could over power them in the Lesser Faydark area. I thanked them for the information and began to make my way to the area.

After a short run through several areas I arrived at the Lesser Faydark zone, staring out into the great unknown as I was advised to be careful of the denizens of Lesser Fay. I felt safe running at speeds faster than any normal creature, and followed along the wall, dodging camps of orcs, dark elves, and men that were made of swirling shadows just drifting through the air. After some careful maneuvering, I managed to find the area my friends spoke of, and found myself staring down four women, all grasping weapons of bronze shimmer, looking at me as I approached.

Using skills of my profession, I managed to lull them with songs of better times past, before luring each of them one by one to their doom. This went on for hours until my body ached for rest, and another fellow traveler wished to have a go. I wished them well and asked for direction to a friendly vendor who would exchange my treasures for coin.
"The Wood Elves back along the wall a bit will buy them." he replied, and I set off to cash in on my hard work.

Once my negotiations were over, I set out to Kelethin to bank this cash and rest my eyes. I found a path and wandered down it, thinking it was going to lead me to Greater Fay, but sensed something was amiss when I heard voices in the trees. I marched on until I stepped over a hill and was met by the angriest looking creature I had ever seen. He was small and brown, his teeth snarling at me as he began to make his way towards me. I quickly turned around and grabbed by drums, playing them with all of my might, running even faster than before. After a few moments I looked over my shoulder to see it gaining on me, getting closer and closer, this was a being of supernatural speed, and eventually it caught me and left me lying on the ground dead.

Luckily for me, I was bound close by and used a song to locate my corpse, watching every movement around me as I crept up on my corpse and gathered my belongings. I made haste out of the Lesser Faydark, learning a lesson on the dangers of the area, and making a vow to avenge myself against that creature.

I will meet him again.

Thanks for reading!

[Hagglebaron]

Nice stories guys [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[nichomachean]

I will throw in my two cents and tell the story of my adventure as a level 6 barbarian rogue attempting to get a Mask of Deception.

My very first character in December 2000 was a barbarian rogue by the name of Kreshaer. I had settled on this character after a number of real-life friends of mine playing on the server (The Seventh Hammer) convinced me of the barbarian rogues virtues, namely his awesome strength (neglecting some other key areas, such as night-vision). Having spent my first six levels stumbling around Everfrost and dying endlessly to orc troopers and marauding vengeful lyricists, my friend Khorinn, who at the time was level 40, and a dwarf paladin, convinced me I needed a Mask of Deception to help with my constant night-blindness issue.

He arranged a druid port for me to Western Commonlands, and met me at the Halas tunnel entrance with said druid to go. Being a total Everquest noob at the time, he implored I wait at the rings when we landed, and so I did. Eventually, after a number of perilous encounters with rampaging sand giants and orcs crossing the Deserts of Ro and the Oasis, we landed in Innothule and followed the wall south to Guk. I managed to get lost no less than 10 times in the labyrinth of Upper Guk (Khorinn wasn't satisfied waiting on me) and I'd estimate the total journey from EF to the Lguk zoneline was near 2 hours. Anyway, here we were in Lguk.

Khorinn waited until I managed to pull off a successful hide/sneak combo then proceeded to massacre everything on the way to the assassin camp, which was mercifully open (I would not have known otherwise). Again I managed to get lost close to a dozen times.. Anywho, we manage to get to the ghoul assassin camp, who of course isn't up, and Khorinn slaughters the area. After camping for about 3 hours, the assassin had still not popped, and Khorinn went linkdead. I patiently waited, hoping he would return, knowing I would barbarian paste if he didn't, when I received a phone call saying his internet was out. Oh shit.

I'll speed up the story from here. Essentially, not 3 seconds after I hung up the phone, the ghoul assassin spawned and turned me into aforementioned barbarian paste. I respawned in West Freeport, logged for the night (knowing I'd never make it back there alone). And here is where the nightmare got fun.

Neither Khorinn or I knew about /consent at this point, and so he and I spent the next 8-10 hours of game time performing an infinite corpse run. He ran me back from WFP the first time, and hide/sneak having failed, I promptly died again. Which of course meant he had to run back and fetch me. No fewer than 10 times did this occur, before we successfully retrieved all my corpses (thank God he knew about the /corpse command and I could drag them to zone line). All in all, about 30 hours of game time wasted, and no mask to be found.

I still to this day do not let him live down our "adventure" together. And my rogue got his mask more appropriately around level 32, when I had learned much more about the game and had brought backup.

C'est la vie!

[Neach]

Nice another give away, however why does it have to be another story time. . .why not a contest? Like a hide and seek with riddles or a level 1 run across antonica or a level 1 best of the best! SOMETHING other then fabricated stories or half truths.

Whatever though, its your time and plat.

[Hagglebaron]

I do trivia and scavenger hunts now and then in EC Tunnel

I've considered level 1 races and such, but figured cheating would be rampant. With stories, at least everyone has a fair shot. Plus the community gets to read about people's experiences, even if some of them are fabricated.

[Blackmartin]

The Dwarf and the Hare

It was a long and fateful night in rathe mountains, a land plagued by giants, skeletons, and creatures alike, where I first stumbled upon Hasten Bootstrutter. He moved with such swiftness that I had to converse with him. "Good sir, how is it you strutt with such haste?" I asked. Hasten replied "Give me your cash, weapon, and a nice ring and I'll give you my secrets." This began what would be the longest journey of my life as a paladin.

As bards have always ran circles around me, laughing and pointing at how slow my stubby dwarf legs move, I began my journey for a chance at hasten's secret. Having recalled an old tale of a one eyed monster who carried a rare ring, I thought this might impress Hasten. I ran for what seemed like days, out of the mountains and through the swamps. With mud still on my boots I set foot into the desert, almost losing my life to a gang of rabid crocodiles. When I finally set foot in Freeport I was greeted with hostility (I had just killed thei captain a week before you see). I drank a special potion to cloud me from sight and it held just long enough for my feet to meet the hard wood of the docks. It was a forte night before the boats finally picked me up. Thank brell for giving me enough iron rations to last me through the night. As I set foot upon that vessel I knew the dangers that awaited.

The salty air felt good on my nostrils. It had been years since my last voyage and i was not accustomed to the oceans sway. I poked my head over the side of the ship, held my beard back, and retasted some of the Dwarven ale I had consumed on the docks. By the time we arrived on sister island my nerves were shaken. The sickly sound of specters wailing carrying on the cool ocean breeze, the dark figures in the water, and the goblins all ran through my mind.

The water was cold. It soaked every crack of my armor by the time I reached the next island. Jumping out of the water, exhausted, I proceeded to fight every pirate and cyclops that I met without recourse. The warm blood splashing in my face drew me into a fervor. Excited from the ensuing battles, I had but one foe left to conquer. At last! An ancient cyclops! It was a monster of legend, one I had only heard about in stories passed on by generations of dwarfs. After a long skirmish I took the ring from his lifeless hands and made my journey back to rathe mountains.

When I finally arrived Hasten greeted me with a hearty hello. It was then I handed him the ring, my prized rapier, and a mountain of cash. To this day my footprints can still be seen all across faydar. All you need do is look for the blur with a beard and you shall see me, Blackmartin... Proud to be the fastest dwarf in my home town.

[azeth]

A Late Night Snack

There I was, asleep next to a blonde. Suddenly, the bat phone rings "BAT BAT BAT." I flip it open and see "WAKE TEH FKCU UP WAKE THE FCUK UP INNY INNY INNY NOW NOW NOW."

Then I showed up and watched Transcendence scoop my loot.

The end.

[Slave]

Dead to me, Haggle!

[Hagglebaron]

Forgive me sir!