Fog of War
Today's Highlights: Fanrel gets stuck in the Forochel fog, Fanrel finishes the dreaded second-half of the epic, and a safari-load of pictures.
September 25 (Locations of pictures are listed below each group; right click and open image in new tab for a closer look)
Intro: When I showed off my little deluxe hobbit
home to Elaelin she said something specific about one of my
decorations, "Why are you hanging that up? Even after all that running
around she made you do?" The item in question was Portrait of Narmeleth,
a reward for the Volume 1 epilogue. I didn't quite have an answer for
her at the time so I wanted to go through the quests a second time to
try and figure it out. Though there are 15 books in Volume 1 The Shadows
of Angmar, they are divided up into two sections. The first eight books
A Light From Shadow are easier to complete because they follow along with your level (kind of like in Bingo's questline). Books 9-15 Bearer of Hope tend to make you go all over the place. In fact, I made sure to bring my camera:
Look, I get it. Most of these places probably have better pictures on the wiki. But these are my pictures. Look at all the places you might have missed out on: Barad Gúlaran; Ost Crithlanc, North Downs Gateway to Angmar; Harloeg, The Lone-lands; Rantost, Evendim ; Evendim (In the middle of nowhere); Weathertop, The Lone-lands; The Last Bridge, The Lone-lands; Echad Candelleth, The Trollshaws; Delossad, The Trollshaws; Hylje-leiri, Forochel (East of Kuru-leiri in that far northwest corner of the map); East Porch, The Last Homely House in Rivendell; (2) Gwingris, Eregion; Celondim, Ered Luin. Did you know that "Delossad" means "Place of Abhorrence" in Sindarin and its original name was "Sithad"? But doing all that can get tiring. Saija was tired. I was tired. The Champion of Angmar was tired. When Laerdan left the guest room in Rivendell, all I wanted to do was take a nap. Maybe I was going into one of those food comas with all the food Bizinga and the quest-chain gave me.
So maybe running around to all those places wasn't in itself satisfying. Maybe I liked it because of the story, finding out who Sara Oakheart is and how Sauron operates. If you make it to Book 14, you get to play a lot of fun instances. Going through Tham Mírdain was really awesome. I think it was the first time they played around the idea of panning the camera around.
I think the main reason why I liked all of it was because of the overall experience. Being able to port around with the hunter's wayfaring abilities made the repeated adventure much more tolerable. The joy of facing the unknown the first time around made me forget all the required running around. There is the added bonus of the wall decoration, Cloak of Mordirith's Bane, Grey Steed, and Champion of Eriador title final rewards too.
Forochel: Running the epic wasn't the only thing I was doing. I just had to peak peek into Forochel. I wanted to feel the way I did when first obtaining the zone by going through the beginning quests and venturing through the Ja-Kuru caves. Who disturbs my slumber? It certainly was a diamond in the rough. Entering the cave created this unusual fog that dampened my range of sight. It was so bad cool unusual watching this fog follow me all the way to the next site. Then I had an idea. Check it out:
If you weren't able to identify the locations, they were: Ja-Kuru, Forochel; The Bridge of Rivendell; The Last Homely House, Rivendell; Esteldin, North Downs; (2) Kinhouse at the Cape of Belfalas; Sandson's Farm, Shire. Of course when I returned to Forochel, I had to keep an eye out for the elusive monster that almost killed Resolina. Gronkerna, the Juggernaut Slave, is a roving threat in Forochel. I freaked out the first time I stumbled upon this giant mammoth. From that moment on, my heart skipped a beat whenever I encountered a mammoth. I did, in fact, find two more in the wild. One was a terrible Winter-tusk (must have been since I managed to kill him) and the other was a rare spawn named Torahammas. Never did encounter Gronkerna a second time. He's just standing there... menacingly!
Treasure Hunt: This week's festival was the beloved Treasure Hunt. I listed what mounts I obtained from the event in my previous post but the pets were completely new to me. I just had to get 500 Buried Treasure Tokens for each of my three active characters. However, my first run made me speechless. I received a cooldown of approximately 12 hours. Same thing happened the following day. I asked around. I reported it. I fled to the forums. I simply got one response: Check PC Clock. I have no idea why but checking the sync button on my computer's clock fixed the problem. I accomplished my goal but didn't get any new mounts. Hatric did manage to get one Rich! emote though.
Ventrilo: I'm getting used to associating people's voices with their names and even their characters. There was one person who came in with some kind of boosted ambience. It sounded as if he was talking on a CB radio. It would have been hilarious if he said something like: Uh, breaker, breaker, 1-9. This is Cheeky Monkey. Anybody got their flappers on out there? We're running a double nickel on a dime. - Phineas and Ferb "Road Trip"
Other: Bizinga and I grouped up for a lot of things here and there. We ran Goblin-town together (though I never did save that elf in Slave-Pens) and the introduction to Moria. I did quests in Forochel, Angmar, and Eregion. The featured instance was Barad Guldur (not to be confused with Barad Gúlaran). Since it was a 12-man, I only managed to run it once with the kin. I did manage to obtain a tome box, though I can't remember what it was at this time (probably XIV). I threw it on the Auction House for 400g. It sold in a couple of hours. UTUC (yes, that's his name) gave me a whopping 230 Fire Oils for free. I split them up between Bizinga, the kinhouse, and myself. I got a chill down my spine when doing The Fall of Moria instance. Sure it was cool but I think it was from the dread when Durin VI says, "Just this morning, I received word of more mithril deposits, below our deepest delvings." The curse continues.
2017-10-05