I was GOING to play on Frostfell.
Really.
At the last minute, a sudden spasm overtook my finger, and I clicked “Darktide” instead.
I couldn’t help it. Honest. See, I really, really, REALLY love Darktide. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I like Frostfell; I like my allegiance there; I like doing quests.
But I love Darktide. I enjoy the hell out of playing there, I love fighting other players, I love a lot of the people there and I swear that this recent return has nothing to do with the incredibly cute young DT’er I met at the ACPL. Please put down the steak knife, Kwipette!
So I log in. I figure I’ll just wander around for a bit, see what shakes loose, get killed a couple of times, nothing too big. But I’m not on there for five minutes when I get a tell from Delinquent’, who was someone I’d regularly harass in his previous incarnation. Now he’s some big whopping level, and he offers to take me around and show me some sights!
Death says, “Like the Lifestones?”
You say, “Quiet, slut!”
So I’m all sorts of excited. This sounds like a fun time! First things first, of course. I had to run across the dires to find a portal spot. Hey, that’s a big-ass golem. When did they start showing up? Sheesh!
Death says, “Hi there!”
Sigh. Well, I can figure my way out from town. Sure enough, Delinquent’ says he can make his way out to Heartland in no time, so we agree to meet there. Five seconds later, he’s there, and we greet each other and spend some time making fun of each other’s armor:
That thing does look like a goose. He insists it’s a turkey, but I think it’s a goose.
Anyway, we stand around making fun of each other’s outfits for a minute in the true bitchy fashion, and then someone portals in. I tend not to pay much attention to these things, because either they attack me and I’m dead before I know it, or they say ‘hi’. Either way, it’s always something interesting. I take a gander, and see that our new arrival is Bow-Runner. But before this person has a chance to kill me (or say hi), Delinquent’ is over there, swinging away at them. Well, he knows best, I suppose. I watch as Bow-Runner portals on outta there, thinking nothing of it. A few moments later, as Del and I stand around waiting on Gendo (a vassal of Dels, joining up with us), I get this tell:
Me? KOS? Well, I mean, yeah, I usually am to everyone else, I don’t know why SH would discriminate against me. For that matter, I have no idea who or what SH is. But usually when people tell me this stuff, there’s some reason or another. What I couldn’t quite figure out was why he was telling me this, and not Del. I mean, after all, Del tried to kill him. I only stood idly by and tried to wish him happy thoughts.
*Gasp*! Del? A PK? But after questioning Del, it became obvious that Bow had it all wrong. Del wasn’t a PK! This was just one of those misunderstandings. Like that time I was bird-watching outside of Gillian’s house with my high-powered binoculars. Wearing a black suit.
I tried to explain the whole thing to Bow:
But he wouldn’t believe me! Can you believe that? Sheesh. Some people’s kids. Then he just refused to play anymore! Really.
So then we ran merrily along. Del had something to do that required him to be afk for like five minutes, so Gendo and I played tag and took turns jumping on Del’s head. Hey, we were REALLY bored. But as he was chasing me with War spells, I came across this fort out in the boonies. It used to be just a hunting grounds, but now it was part of some quest. I didn’t realize that at first, of course. No, first thing I though it was just someplace we could goof off in while we waited for Del to stop talking to the 1-900 number he was calling. So we decide to jump in; of course, it’s not as simple as it sounds. It takes all sorts of fancy-shmancy maneuvering, even with jump buffed. Which means that Gendo is the first in. Which also means he gets to be the first to find the Hollow Minions sitting in there.
Death says, “Gendo! Pal! Buddy! Any friend of Kwips…”
Well, Gendo cleared them out (FINALLY) and got me over the wall using a bush, some boxes, and a strategically placed ‘motivational fireball’. That place was crazy. There was all sorts of mischief to get into, which we promptly did. Then Del got off the pr0n line, and came to join us. While he worked on getting over the walls, I got out my bow and brought everything within radar over to say hi to him. Just for a little, ya know, MOTIVATION.
Unfortunately, being the uber mage he is, he survived all my little friends. Now we decided we wanted to see what was in the cabin. Gendo was quickly dispatched back to town to pick up some lockpicks.
Death says, “Here, lemme give you a ride”
Gendo says, “You bastards!”
But he’s a nimble little mynx, and before you could say, “Kwip’s got more vitae,” he was back with his load. However, we failed to take into account the fact that Del’s lockpick skill SUCKED. 300 my tush.
That and the fact the door was unpickable, of course.
Around this time, Gendo found something better to do.
Gendo says, “Uh, I gotta go wash my shield.”
Death says, “Wait, wait – lemme show you my rock collection!”
Now it was just Del and I left to figure out how the heck that chair was floating outside the house. We tried jumping up and down on it, but it just wouldn’t budge. That meant the only thing left to do was to get up on the towers and start hurling insults at the local wildlife. Fortunately, Koff showed up and spared us that embarresment by killing me.
Not right away, mind you. First he had to get over the walls – which he did in like two leaps. Hrmph. Then he and Del ran around the courtyard playing tag. I tried to get in the game, but Koff gave me a Greater Frost Arrow to take back to the lifestone, which I did.
Death says, “Nice arrow.”
You say, “Quiet, slut!”
So I hustle on back, only to receive a message from Del that he “Got ’em”. Foolish me, I thought this meant that Del killed Koff. But actually, I came to learn, this merely meant that Del got Koff to run off where he could circle around and try and kill us again.
I learned my lesson, this time, though. I just followed those two around and picked up the fallen arrows – with my HANDS, thank you very much – and tried to stay out of the way. It was a pretty interesting fight to watch. They were both very good, but Del finally slipped up and tried to close and melee Koff. Then he got stuck against a bush, and Koff played the old “Hey, look into this wand and I’ll show you a surprise” trick. Del fell for it, alright, and I took that as my cue to make like a tree and get the flock outta there.
Death says, “It’s ‘leave’, moron – make like a tree and leave!”
You say, “SHUT UP!”
I made it out of there without much trouble – Koff was busy looting Del, after all, and I didn’t have much to offer. But Del was all sorts of certain he could take Koff in a ‘fair one,’ so they arranged to meet back at Heartland and have a little tet-a-tet.
They did. Del lost.
It wasn’t a bad fight – Del is good. But Koff was better, and as these things go, skill won out this time. The highlight for me was that a Blood, Quadra Slice, showed up right before it started. He ran off, but he sent me a tell and it turned out to be an old friend (whose previous incarnation shall remain nameless, ’cause I don’t wanna get him in trouble!). While I watched the fight, I chatted with Slice and caught up on old times.
So now Del’s coming back. For another duel. Ya gotta admire that sort of tenacity. Personally, I run screaming after a fight.
Death says, “You mean, BEFORE and DURING a fight. After the fight, you sit at the Lifestone.”
You say, “YOU SHUT YER STINKING TRAP, YOU!”
But they were up for another duel, and it was neat to watch such a thing, so who am I to turn down free entertainment?
So they’re back and set up again. They chat and decide to let me help:
Yeah. I kinda screwed up that whole ‘go’ thingie. Whoops. Well, a little confusion here, a little chaos there, my work is done. I’m watching another very good fight, and then Slice comes wandering back. Koff and Del immediately stop fighting and go after him, and he responds quite gleefully. I tell them to stop, he just wants to watch, and they relent.
And then Slice attacks them. Sigh.
But finally we get everyone calmed down. They’re ready to go again.
Well, they tricked us, those clever goombahs. As soon as they said go, they started after Slice. I was worried…but then he kept stopping his running and dancing at them. Not just any dancing, either. CRAZY dancing. Like, when we get older, we’re going to tell our kids how we settled our differences with the DANCE sort of crazy dancing! Unfortunately, neither Koff nor Del were swayed enough by his passion to stop attacking him.
How did the mighty conflict end? Well, they kinda got tired of chasing him. So Del and Slice agreed to duel. Which of course put me on the spot, because I didn’t know who to root for. I said that the winner would be my new bestest friend, but that only made both of them try to suicide.
So Koff and I stood on the sidelines and chatted. He knows some of the old, old, OLD heads that were around back in the day, so we talked about those guys for a bit. Then he had to go, so he promised to PK me some other time and portaled on outta there.
Del and Slice continued playing slap happy for a very long time. But then – and I’m kinda embarrassed to mention this – Del ran outta mana. And he yelled, “Wait! Stop! No mana!”
*blush* Yeah, he really said that.
So Slice stabbed him in the face.
I mean, I’m no man’s warrior, but if I pick a fight, I don’t really expect any quarter. I watched enough Conan movies, I know how it works out. Del’s a good guy, but that was pretty funny. Sorry Del! Please to be not punching me in da troat!
But Slice was a good sport. He gave me the lewt from Del before running off to cause more mischief. And Del was too embarrassed to come back, so I got to keep the lewt! =P Well, ok, Del gave it to me because I’m poor and he felt sorry for me, but close enough.
So now do you see why I have a hard time leaving DT? Can you imagine this sort of fun on another server? Of course not! Other server fun consists merely of quests, running around, talking, being nice to each other and having to depend on monsters to kill me. MONSTERS!
Honestly. A boy’s got to have his standards!
I will say this, tho: hanging out at that fort piqued my interest in that quest. The write-up on it piqued it even more. But I’ll scamper back to FF for that. =P