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Sandcastles in the Desert - Mission Progression:
Quest:
Sands of Souls
Travel: Destiny's Gorge and Thirsty River
Wyrm - 25 Jun
2007
The warm, dry heat of the desert was a nice change of pace for the
team and they took a moment to enjoy the wide open locale. Then, they stepped
off the boat.
"OOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"
said everyone in unison. Unfortunately, one of the downsides to not wearing armor
is not having shoes on. This wasn't too big of a deal in most situations because
they were agile enough to avoid protruding rocks and sticks, and in the cold of
the Shiverpeaks they had things like fire magic and pets with thick fur to help
them out. Here in the desert it was a completely different story; there was no
getting around the fact that the sand was really, really hot. If they wanted to
get around the desert and preserve their feet, they would have to figure something
out. Eventually,
after exhaustive research done while standing in a pool of water, they came up
with a solution: they wouldn't stand still on the sand for too long and would
try and stay in the pools or vegetative areas as much as possible, using shade
when they could. It was the best plan they could come up with in a short amount
of time that didn't involve wearing footwear since that would go against their
lack of armor ideals. At
this point it should also be worth mentioning how they've been able to stay alive
up to this point. Their basic plan thus far has been to have one person run out
front and to be the pin cushion for the monsters, being kept alive with a massive
amount of enchantments. Without the enchantments, the person up front would usually
go splat rather quickly. It is important to remember this as it is about to become
very important. Once
they had the sand situation under control, they looked around for what they were
supposed to do next, as the vizier had vanished. They talked to anyone that looked
important but the only people that were around were the merchants. It was clear
that the living would be no help, so they turned to the dead guy standing around
and asked him what he thought they should do. Unlike the last dead guy they talked
to, this one wound up being helpful and gave them instructions as to where they
had to go to become ascended. Now
that they knew where to go next, they left the oasis and began heading in that
direction. They set up for battle as they normally do and proceeded onward to
their first group of enemies, a couple little scarabs. Shortly after the attack
began they were in full retreat, running back to the oasis. The little snotty
scarabs were ripping all their enchants off. They now had to come up with a plan
to get past them, so back into the pool they went. They eventually decided that
Angela would stick herself out front and use the mesmer stances she had to resist
the damage without having to worry about getting enchants ripped off in a painful
sort of way. Vex also had the idea to poison the little buggers in hopes that
they would spend all of their time trying to pass it off on Angela instead of
fighting. And
so, out they went, back into the wilderness. The new plan seemed to be working.
The only problem with it they encountered was when one of the little buggers decided
to stop attacking Angela and go after someone else, but fortunately that didn't
happen all too often and when it did it was usually only one enemy at a time,
which was easy enough for the rest of the team to take care of while Angela kept
the rest up front. The new plan wound up working out quite well for the time being
and they made their way to Augury Rock with little trouble. At Augury Rock, they
found a lot of dead people, and strangely enough, these dead people also turned
out to be somewhat useful. One of them even told them about the arrival of four
travelers from Ascalon and the team knew it couldn't be anyone else but Devona,
Aidan, Cynn and Mhenlo. Once
they had spoken with the dead priest guy that the dead guy from the oasis told
them about and had learned about the rituals they would have to go through, they
left the rock, heading to the north where the Ascalonians were. As it turned out,
the Ascalonians had arrived just ahead of them and, making their way to Augury,
had decided to wait for the team so they could check out the ascension trial chamber
place together. It was a really big rock. They
parted ways once again and decided to head northeast to one of the locations described
to them by the dead priest guy called Destiny's Gorge, which lead to their first
ascension trial, the Thirsty River. Much to their enjoyment, the enchantment stripping
scarabs were nowhere to be seen anymore so they gladly let Arty get back out front
with the massive amount of enchants to keep him safe. This proved to be an effective
way to deal with the Meteor dropping Hydras. It still required some tricky maneuvering
but they were getting used to that at this point and it didn't really bother them
anymore. As they grew closer to their destination, they found a riverbed that
still had some moisture in it which allowed for vegetation and, more importantly,
grass to grow. Their feet were very grateful. Soon after, they arrived at Destiny's
Gorge. More
dead people. A few queries around town let them know that the dangers on the way
to Thirsty River would be two-fold, in that there were some pretty heavy damage
dealers but also quite a few of those annoying little enchantment killer scarabs.
After a brief discussion, they decided that both Arty and Angela would do crowd
control; Angela would step up front first while the little scarabs made enchantments
an issue and then once they were done Arty would move in and take care of the
rest, which would be in the form of immobile behemoths similar to the ones from
Maguuma. With these ideas in mind, they set off for Thirsty River. They
were back on the hot sand. It was somewhat unfortunate, but, like many other obstacles,
was something they learned to get past. The first challenge of the trip came when
they ran into a group of hydras that they decided to just move past and hope for
the best. This strategy almost worked as they were past the regular hydras but
got caught off guard when a boss showed up. Several minutes of running around
ensued, but eventually they figured out the patrol pattern and were able to sneak
through, feeling very lucky that hydras apparently had very short attention spans. With
the hydras behind them, it was now time to implement their new strategy for dealing
with bad guys. Aside from a few hiccups where Arty would move up front before
the field was ready, meaning before the enchant killers were dealt with, that
would cause a few moments of pain for everyone, the new plan worked well and they
were able to move along at a very leisurely pace. It wasn't long before they arrived
at Thirsty River and their first ascension trial. | 
