... Don't mind me.

Jazzi heads to the west side of the Fort Teth Playground, and finds that, even though the Fort Teth Seige has been lifted, the Renegade Commanders are still in their tents.

The commanders are of interest because one of them drops a hefty (Dmg+175) crossbow. Gentleman, Crazy Marcus, Thunderbolt' and Rabid Owl decide to check the place out.

They find lots of fast-spawning high level Lugians and Tumeroks, but the Generals are very slow spawning (45-60 min), and they were following another group.

Student Quest revisited

In a lonely corner of the New Arwic wall, you can still find a "student" who will start you on the Student Quest. She gives you a gem, and tells you more are needed. Hue Jass (126), Crazy Marcus(94) and Doc Feelgood(95) decided to take her up.

Another highlight of this quest is fighting Mist and Vapor Golems in this whiteout. Here Doc and Hue killed dozens of monsters that they never saw.

However, they did see, and have to deal with, the Pyreal and Platinum golems that were also mixed in. (the Pt's and Pr's are in the 80+ version of this quest. The quest is level-striated.)

Yongsan gets her best shot

...picture, that is. Star Dust was finished being PKLite, and was pleading for death. But, it turned out, it took three monarchy members to put her down. Yongsan then stepped up to take this shot.

Odd Site in Tusker Temple

"Truly odd...." thinks Wu Doggie. "This is a UCM (Rose of Rage) in one of the more heavily traveled corridors in Dereth." This shot is at the front entrance to Tusker Temple +40.

Wu Doggie comes to this conclusion after watching the UCM for a couple minutes, and asking it if it wanted to fellow (it was 45th level, like Wu Doggie).

"OK... The owner clearly wants this reported. So, lets watch this reporting process first hand." and Wu Doggie hits the Abuse Button. A few seconds after Wu Doggie hits the Send button on the Abuse Report panel, the bot dies. Wu Doggie wasn't watching closely, but it appears it simply stopped fighting.

In retrospect, Wu Doggie thinks he was watching someone "shake out" a new anti-admin tactic: the bot watches for an abuse report, and dies of natural causes when it sees one issued. (If this is a new tactic, and you want to make a report without sending the bot into autodeath, my guess is you can make your report while you are out of Decal-range (in this case, from outside the dungeon), and the bot will be oblivious to it.)

Jazzi and Star dust visit Tumerok Fortress

"Lets go somewhere I haven't been for a while." said Star Dust(126).

She led Jazzi(82) to Tumerok Fortress, in the Dires north of Fort Teth. This is the home of the Tumerok Fortress dungeon and it's BDT, the Overlord Sword.

"There are clan memories of this place." Jazzi announced as they ran up the final hill and stood outside the extensive walls. "Those memories date back to 2000, when a 30th level was a high level, and this place was a tough nut to crack. In fact, though we tried for hours, the clan has never been inside this fort, or inside the dungeon."

"That was then, and this is now." said Jazzi, and she simply jumped over the wall to get in. Dealing with the monsters and the rest of the fort obstacles was of comparable difficutly for her.

Return to Portal Space

Ramoth Wyrmmother(67), Flenop(55), Kasandra(76) and Crazy Marcus(91) prep up for another try at the Portal Space dungeon. This is a hugely difficult dungeon for several reasons:

• There are four level-striated routes to the bottom, with interlocking levers to pull to get doors open. So... four people at four different levls have to decide they want to do this at the same time.
• The monster spawn is thick, and the monsters are de facto unbeatable. So, this is a run-and-dodge dungeon with few respite points. This makes it especially hard on newcomers, and since very few people want to try this dungeon in the first place, there are always newcomers in any party of four.
• The BDT (an enhanced Awakener) is useful only to mages.
• Because the monsters are never beaten, corpses are de facto unrecoverable.

The net result: a person has to be in a "special frame of mind" to attempt Portal Space, and part of that frame of mind is shedding anything you don't want to leave on a corpse. Common dress for Portal Space is GSx, or nothing at all, as modeled here by Crazy, Kasandra and Flenop.

In this attempt, the party never got beyond the second set of interlocked doors.

Monarchy members spot more Admin Action

Magedragon reports:

"I found a guy UCMing a favourite hunting spot of mine and a few people reported him.

"An admin showed up almost instantly and gave the guy the Unattended Test (do the atoyot symbol, run to me, type 9hg7ri, etc). The man in question came back just in time to pass and was therefore not banned. (Dang admin alarms >:))

"This particular admin is famous for being a hard ass but he seemed decent when I talked to him. One thing I noticed: In the mansion admin photo (below) the character is level 1 and Zuul, shown in mine, is 126. Odd."

Yeah, the stats on these people seem to be both arbitrary and extreme. My guess is the stats have no meaning.

--Doc

Monarchy gets a visit from +Turbine Dev Zycra

Je Gwe was having problems with his video card.

"My world is black." he said... not just to monarchy members, but Turbine Support as well.

In a move that astounded monarchy members, Turbine responded. First, there was an invisible voice that was talking to Je... and others around him... then finally, +Turbine Dev Zycra popped out and made an appearance. Those who were at the mansion lined up for a shot to commemorate this special occaision. (that's Je on the right, with his cane).

Thanks for the very personal support, Turbine!

Mansion Rent Writ Quest

Jazzi (82), Bob the Nailer (74), and Logan the Great (72) "pays their money" and heads into Knorr Complex to battle Diamond Golems.

"It's a bit pricey," says Jazzi [an M note each], "but it's the only place I know where you can find twenty plus Acidic- and Regular- Diamond Golems lined up and waiting to be inspected for Diamond Powder."

The spawn rate is moderate, so this crew made quick work of the place, and after a buff cycle came back with two packets of diamond powder, which turned into two of the ten writs needed for this month's mansion rent.

Easy there, Bob...

While waiting for another spawn, the party spent some time looking around the front part of the Complex. There's some nice eyecandy there, but this part seems to have over-entranced Bob the Nailer.

Focus Stone

The monarchy never outgrows it's need for Focus Stones. Here Wu Doggie (42), Ramonth Wyrmmother (66), Manual Labor (50), Archmage Ares (72), The Logan the Great (72), and Crazy Marcus (90) are making their run for it.

Doc and Matt become Enlightened

Doc Feelgood (95) and Matthias Bloodreap (56) set out to complete the Joujii Quest, so they can use the new fountain in front of the monarchy mansion.

The quest starts in the bar in Tou Tou where you talk to this man. From here you end up traveling to many of the Sho towns, and kneeling in front of a lot of small shrines in those towns.

In between, you fight your way through some dungeons populated with lightly-to-moderately ferocious monsters (the dungeons are level 35+, tieable and summonable). The quest involves a lot of running about, but is otherwise not taxing.

The Great Decal Drought (before)

Here is a scene witnessed by Zelta the last week of January. What is wrong with this picture?

There are a dozen Tusker Rampagers at the dropout to Tusker Holding! This never happens, because there is always someone killing the tuskers just down the hall. Zelta traversed the entire dungeon (not easily, I might add) and saw no one! Not only was this hard on Zelta's health because she was constantly being pressed by tusker fists, it was terrible for getting xp! The clan personally checked out Tusker Holding, Tusker Pits and Phantos Menace... all were abandoned.

This was bad news for the clan. With no fellowships going, no one in the clan could level "for diddly."

The Great Decal Drought (after)

Saturday night Decal started working, and within hours, Gentleman had penetrated to the center of Phantos Menace -- as part of an eight person fellowship. He is shown here manning his post and having a fine time collecting both XP and wasp loot.

The Feelgood Clan doesn't use Decal or Macros, but they all appreciate having them around, and this is something Turbine needs to be more sensitive to in the future. See January News and Pictures for a Doc Feelgood editorial on the subject.