Himitsu's Adventures

Eyes of Puddleby's new home

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:33:52 GMT

I moved over most of the content from Eyes of Puddleby's old home and it can be found here.

There's a lot I have to do before I am ready to announce it to ThoomCare because most of the data is from 5 and 6 years ago. I have to figure out what kind of articles I want to write next.

I'm just glad this part of the job is completed and I can look to the future of what the site is going to contain instead of what it contained so many years ago.

Was it really so many years ago that I actually worked on it? I definitely can't let that happen again.

To the future!

Recent Adventures

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:18:07 GMT

I was able to train with the first book of advanced pathfinding thanks to Torin and his open hunts. I'm thinking of saving up my ranks so when I get to go back there again I'll be able to get both the second and third chapter in one trip. I'll have to depart to get home, but that's better than waiting for another trip.

I also found another book which only I could learn from. After some research I discovered that it allows you to scan from orbs further on in the caves which is completely pointless. Scanning is already looking like a colossal waste of ranks and scanning anywhere in the noid caves is even more so. Everywhere you look there are noids of various colors so a mystic scanning on one of those orbs will see noids of various colors. It's not telling you anything you don't already know so there's no point in learning this ability even if a mystic did plan on going deep in the noid caves regularly.

I occasionally look for Ma Tota when I'm out of the library, but I haven't gotten past her telling me to see her the next day. Maybe I am not seeing her the next day and maybe it's because I tend to fall a lot when I'm trying to find her.

Then there is the awful Acolyte quest to get the mind control wand which has nearly driven me up the wall in frustration. Several other mystics have gotten their wands and yet I am still running around looking for Acolytes. I've gotten help from Geotzou and we have traveled around Puddleby several times over and I've talked to the same Acolytes over and over again yet I'm still told I need to talk to Acolytes. I don't know what I need to do or where I should go and I think even asking a fellow mystic to exchange information will be looked on unfavorably so I'm at an impasse.

On a recent Winds of Dawn open hunts we went to the Rocky Cavern and found a rare Sun Wyrm. With only one fighter, one mystic, and two healers against the Sun Wyrm's natural troilus it took us several attempts to kill it and we were ready to give up several times. Yet with determination, a few boosts, and rodding we were able to defeat it.

A while back I got to go on a fun adventure to an amusement park on Tenebrion's Island with Stinkfist and Ptolemaios. I got to rid on the back of a Fire Drake. It was a lot of fun and a surprisingly smooth ride.

I got to see Super Chicken's statue which really should be closer to town.

Finally we took a boat ride passing through a whirlpool, among other sights, before heading back home.

Falling Down

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:39:20 GMT

I've been working on getting the new mystic ability to mind control beasts, but it's been hard because I have to go around and find acolytes. The acolytes are in dangerous places and since they move around I don't know where they are or even how many I have to talk to.

The latest chapter in this saga is when I got Geotzou to help me go to Snagglewood for an acolyte I was sure was there. After moving from dangerous snell to dangerous snell we finally found the acolyte who I was sure was the last one I had to find. Sadly it was not the case as he said the same thing from an acolyte I talked in the passes earlier in the week. I had hoped there was a second one in Snagglewood but wasn't able to get there before I fell and the healer (Caramel) couldn't raise me so Geotzou chained me out. I hope to go back there again but I don't know if there is a second acolyte there or where the one I need to find could possibly be.

Unlike fighters and healers who can discuss with each other about quests and trainers and abilities, mystics don't do that and sometimes there's an antagonistic feeling between mystics as they hoard information as dragons hoard gold. Therefore it's impossible for me to share the information I've collected with others to find out where I need to go.

I'm still working on uploading Eyes of Puddleby images to LiveJournal but have been running into difficulties. I believe I have a workaround so will be trying that and hope it'll work.

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:17:07 GMT

Puddleby Hollows is located in central Puddleby, to the south of the Healers Temple and to the west of the Clan House. These homes have a lovely wooden floor and a sturdy brick wall which are both warm and comforting. Once you enter Puddleby Hollows you are in the lobby where you can access your house and get new keys.

LOBBY LEFT

Kelli Stonecellar - Tells you to see the model homes by going in the entrances behind her.
Dalto Locksley - Changes the lock on your home so only the master key can allow entry.
Grinndo Locksley - Makes either a regular house key or a guest key from your master key. House keys allow the holders to add and change furniture while guest keys just allow access to the house.
Ringo Locksley - Sells keyrings for 25c which hold multiple keys.

LOBBY RIGHT

Tr'n Durman - Allows exiles with keys to enter homes.
Meyes Coincounter - Allows exiles to pay the seasonal fee for their homes.

To purchase a house, go into one of the three entrances that lead to a model home behind Kelli Stoneceller and talk to the employee. While the model houses have furniture they are there as an example only and your house will have no furniture.

SMALL HOUSE

This is the smallest house with an initial cost of 250 coins, plus a 25 coin seasonal fee.

MIDDLE HOUSE

This is the middle of the three houses with an initial cost of 850 coins, plus an 80 coin seasonal fee.

LARGE HOUSE 1

LARGE HOUSE 2

This is the largest of the three houses with two rooms and has an initial cost of 2,000 coins, plus a 200 coin seasonal fee.

A lonely clan

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:23:59 GMT

Winds of Dawn has been dormant for some time now. I rarely see anyone from the clan out of the library and usually only Therian and I (occasionally Delirium) are present for the weekly newbie open hunts. The few remaining active members are losing hope that there's any way to revive the clan outside of recruiting and there are few potential members at the time. Kiriel has no intention of leaving the library so we're without a leader as well.

Not that it really matters. The value of clans in Puddleby is surprisingly little and there's nothing important that you need to be in a clan to enjoy. There's the clan house but you can duplicate that with a house and just give everyone clan keys. I don't think you can modify the clan house or use it as a library so it's less useful than a house anyone can get. There is the Suncrystal which lets you talk to everyone in your clan at once which is great if there are people in your clan out of the library in the first place.

You might be wondering why I just don't take over the reins of leadership myself and help the Winds of Dawn emerge from its doldrums to become the clan it used to be. I don't think I could do it all alone and despite some other folks wanting the clan to continue I doubt any of them will really work on it. I know that sounds mean but I think it's the truth considering I was the one doing practically all of the Newbielympic contests (until this year) even though it's supposed to be a clan event. I could be wrong about this and part of me hopes that I am but from what I've seen so far, I don't think so.

On more positive news I'm still working on uploading the maps to LiveJournal and am still testing the community I made to see if it's better than the Google site. Hopefully I can unveil it relatively soon. I've already had one person express an interest in joining!

I've also changed my look. I was in the marsh a while back and bought the set of marsh yellow clothes. With my red hair and shoes I look like a tiny sun which suits me just fine.

Eyes of Puddleby update #1

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:59:43 GMT

I've been working at uploading the maps into Google's Picasa album, but have run into a problem. Some of the pictures I have are in the GIF format with an invisible color and Google makes that invisible color black which ruins the map. They also change the format from GIF to JPEG which makes the file size larger as well.

I could upload the pictures to LiveJournal and just use their albums on Google's site, but the integration would be awkward. Or I could edit the maps to remove the transparency and change the format of the pictures myself. I could also just use LiveJournal for the entire site, but I'd have to give up the other benefits of using Google that LiveJournal doesn't have, such as uploading files and integration with Google Calendar and Google Documents. Plus, Google doesn't have the ads that LiveJournal does.

Eyes of Puddleby is best known for being a map repository so if I don't get that right, I won't be able to get people to read my guides either.

On the plus side, I am almost finished with the Housing guide so once I figure out the map issue I'll be able to upload them.

Eyes of Puddleby #2

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:02:05 GMT

If I do make a monk organization, the first question is the name. Eyes of Puddleby Monastery doesn't sound very good yet I want something with the same general meaning. Changing the name is a big move but I think that Eyes of Puddleby (EoP) hasn't been active for so long most people won't even recognize it. If I want to fundamentally change EoP then changing the name is a good way of doing it.

Unfortunately, I am horrible at coming up with names so I'm looking through a thesarus to come up with good words. I'd like a word with a meaning of learning or teaching so it'd be NAME Monastery. I don't want to use words from some odd-sounding foreign language without a recognizeable meaning yet I want it to be creative and unique.

However, if I don't find a good name I'll stick with Eyes of Puddleby since it does have some name recognition still and I do like it.

Now the matter of uniforms. Cloaks are a common look for monks and I'm of a divided opinion on whether I should require them as well and whether there will be necessary colors for each rank.

On the one hand, I like the idea of there being a common look so we're recognizeable as monks (and particularly EoP monks) but on the other hand, I don't want to entirely remove the person's sense of style.

The Puddleby-Kiramu Monastery had many different ranks with a different color cloak and trim for each of them but I don't want to have so many ranks.

The only people who would know or care about which color cloak means which rank and what that ranks means are the monks and I want something so that anyone can take a look at us and say "He or She is an EoP monk."

I was thinking shoes, such as gold shoes. They aren't seen very often and gold goes with just about every color. Getting them could be a good quest for those without a lot of money and they'd set us apart from almost everyone else. They are expensive but not so expensive or time consuming as requiring a color that needs lots of berries and dyes/bleaches. I want us to be identifiable but I don't want to turn getting the clothes to be a burdensome task.

So the monk could wear the cloak and trim of their choosing with gold shoes.

Another question are the bracers and whether training with them is a requirement.

If you only needed 10 or 20 ranks to get the Metal Bracers than I wouldn't mind encouraging it but at 55 ranks that's entirely too much, especially if a person has a weapon they like a lot or have trained around their use of it.

Therefore, getting metal bracers is definitely going to be optional.

I also don't want there to be a lot of ranks. I was thinking just me as the Grand Master, a rank for someone who contributes a lot (Senior Monk), a rank for a regular member (Monk), and maybe a friend rank for those who give information or who help out but don't want to be a monk (Friend). All ranks are subject to change but I want something in order to refer to them in this post.

The tattoo would be different for every person and I would give the Senior Monk more rights at the scrolls since they'd be trusted. I could give them some jewelry or something else as a present for achieving the rank. It wouldn't as nifty as the Knight's Shield but hopefully it would be something appreciated.

The last question is where the scrolls should be located which would allow anyone interested to contribute as well as having an easily accessible place to place and look at images.

LiveJournal has communities which allow people to post if they have a free LiveJournal account. Even though LiveJournal isn't designed for using it as an encyclopedia, I like the tags system where you can categorize every entry with one or more tags. That way you can look at all of the tags and easily read everything written about that subject. If I write something new there's no need to organize the navigation but just make a new tag and it automatically appears with all of the other tags. It's also easy to add new posts and new tags. The downsides are that LiveJournal Communities don't have a scrapbook so I'd need another place to put them and you can't easily search through all of the entries.

Facebook has the image gallery and (I think) a search function but it's a message board and doesn't have what I want even though there are many exiles from Puddleby who are members.

Google's sites seems to have what I want and I can easily link to the other Google services such as their images, documents, and calendar. It also lets me invite people to come work on it if they have a Google account so I'll be working on that today.

If this interests you then send me an email and we can work together on getting ready for our grand opening.

Now I'm off to work!

Eyes of Puddleby #1

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 10:35:49 GMT

I was thinking about my direction and what I want to do with myself and my abilities.

I thought about all of the institutions that aren't being used anymore or not enough such as the monastery, the knighthood, the university, and my own Eyes of Puddleby (EoP).

At first, I wanted EoP to be a group with many members who would scour the land for new occurances after every Chaos Storm and then write them down to keep a record of everything that changed. Sometimes I got help but usually I did it on my own.

Then I started adding articles about aspects of Puddleby life such as maps, housing, alchemy, and clothing so it became like an encyclopedia. I don't know everything that happens, especially in areas I can't easily go myself, so I hoped that others would come forward and write some articles but no one did.

I think the problem I had was that the EoP was always disassociated from Puddleby and it did little to enliven the lives of exiles. After all, it may be interesting to curl up in a library reading about what's new but it's far better to go out and see it for yourself and talk to others about the changes. Having a permanent record of what goes on in Puddleby is useful too but I think that one should have a mixture of both.

So I was thinking about turning EoP into an order in the monastery where every member would have a specialty and would have to teach a class once a Puddleyear as well as submit information to be included on the EoP scrolls. Subjects such as Ash City, Kizmia's Island, fighter sub-classes, notable exiles, and more. If we don't know enough about something to write about it, we'd talk to the exiles who do, take all of the information, and make a comprehensive guide.

This isn't necessary because I could continue on as I did, writing articles and asking for help that never comes. Yet I thought tying the EoP into something in Puddleby instead of in the Puddleby library would change it from work to something fun. Something that other people might be interested in being a member.

I probably will be the only member for a long time regardless of what I do but there's always that one person who has the same drive and determination I do to keep records of what is happening or who wants to teach classes and who wants to be a monk that my organization will be there for them.

I need to go to bed but this is something to think about for the night.

Hello again

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:41:53 GMT

It's been a long time since I last wrote and I apologize for that.

What I have done is upload all of the pictures that the old journal had and then went through each of my entries to fix all of the broken links. If you want to see the pictures there's a link to the galleries on the right side of the page. Feel free to copy any picture that you like.

I learned that I was hungry while writing most of my journal.

I also fixed most of the spelling mistakes I had. Really quite embarrassing that I didn't correct them at the time.

I'm considering making a community at LiveJournal for Eyes of Puddleby since it has everything that Free Conversant has but is easier to update and it's simple to allow everyone who's interested to add information. Even though I'll do most of the work it's always nice to have options. However, I am looking at some other places that may be better suited to be a collaborative site as well as determining what I'm going to do in the future.

There's a lot I want to say and do but I have to go to sleep now so I'll finish this a bit later. I just wanted to write something to show that I'm still around.

Eyes of Puddleby

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:28:57 GMT

I'm leaving the library again, and am looking at Eyes of Puddleby and what I should do with it, if anything. During my time away Puddleopedia and CLUMP have taken over what I was trying to accomplish and since they actually have people contributing are much more successful than I was.

Encyclopedia: Puddleopedia
Manual: CLUMP
Forum: Sentinel
News: ThoomCare Media Network

I have little desire to repeat what someone else is doing and I can contribute to Puddleopedia and CLUMP so I can work with them to do what I wanted to do with Eyes of Puddleby.

I can't really think of what I could possibly do to contribute to Puddleby that isn't being done by someone else. It saddens me to shut it down but it would be better then wasting my time on doing something someone else is doing or something no one wants.

I could always work on having an active knight group although to do that I'd need to be promoted by an existing knight, or so I think. Are there any knights left?

Or maybe a monk group? The two that used to exist don't anymore because their two leaders don't play anymore. Oddly enough they were both led by Full Mystics so the Monastery is pretty empty at the moment. It is pretty there and I could have full control over it. Hmm, that does sound appealing.

I'm Alive!

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 01:51:37 GMT

As promised I changed the style of my journal. Sure it took a lot longer than the day or two I thought it would but I got distracted with studying this and that and so on and so forth.

The 4th annual Newbielympics has come and gone. As usual I did most of the events and most of the same people showed up to all of them which meant that a few folks got more money and items than I have managed to get in all of the years I've been playing. I wonder if they know how fortunate they are to be newbies when we decided to hold Newbielympics. I know quite a few other exiles who attended our events realize this and wanted to be newbies again themselves, if only for a week. :-) I kept some of the better events such as Indoor Pushball and the Footrace and the Clue Hunt the same but changed the Boat Race so that the newbies raced on the River Tunnel instead of the ocean. I also got to make the clues for this year's trivia contest since Bob the Archer is unavailable and that was a lot of fun too. All in all I am glad to be able to participate in the Newbielympics and challenge some of our newest Puddleby exiles.

There have been a lot of changes recently and I need to get serious about updating Eyes of Puddleby. Rockodile Armor was added recently although it uses iron and that's not so easy to get. I have wish it used copper since I have two copper ore and it would mean I would be able to wear armor. Getting iron won't be quite as easy. Besides I heard it matches the same color as underwear and I don't want to be walking around in my underwear even if I actually wasn't. Maybe in a future chaos storm it will change.

Lots of other changes too. Exiles can go to Peaceton, red healing potions for healers, a potion that lets you breathe underwater and which Mystics can actually make, new types of Zu, a coral necklace which does something (no idea what), advanced Sylphstone training, and a lot more. It's great that Puddleby is always changing and always evolving to new and better things. Although even now the ever present Sentinel reminds me that technically Puddleby is a prison and the Empire is a looming threat that shouldn't be forgotten. I wonder when it will show itself and how we will react.

It seems my desire to make a steady income through fishing and Kudzu growing are failures. Fishing poles cost 100c and it's a gamble as to whether I'll catch 100 fish before it breaks. Nothing else seems to be caught that can be sold for money so it seems to be purely for hungry folks who don't mind snacking on fish. Kudzu growing also seems to be at a dead end since I have a full bag I've been trying to sell and have gotten no offers. Maybe everyone is full of kudzu or they don't mind farming themselves? I'll try to get rid of the two bags I have just to have some space in my backpack and try to figure out other ways of earning money.

I have gotten a bit better at locating and that's always fun. Although I use it most often to locate Ma Tota. She still is too busy to see me but I have hope she will clear her calendar soon enough.

Mystics have also decided to help move the Cloud down to the Mirror so folks can get in and maybe move it to the parachute mountain as well. The details are on the Sentinel in the announcement thread so go there if you want to know when to leave the library. I always like seeing us Mystics come together to help out Puddleby.

That's all for now. Great to be back and amongst the people I have missed.

Squire no more

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:58:27 GMT

I'm going to update my journal's look and have a real update later today or tomorrow but until then I wanted to write something just to not have people think I've left Puddleby because I haven't.

I learned today that Altir, the Knight I was a Squire to, has left Puddleby without a word. I don't think I was a very good Squire anyway and I never had the time to revitalize Knighthood as I wanted to. I made plans to do so but without a Knight it was always harder for me and so after hearing Altir had left I resigned my Squireship and removed my tattoo.

You might be thinking that I should have enough initiative to do what I wanted to with the Knighthood without needing Altir around. That's true but without Altir around there would be no chance for me to be promoted to Knight and the only way to do that would be to find another Knight to be a Squire to and until I can do something to be a worthy Squire and Knight it just seems to me that I shouldn't try to be either.

Anyway, I have to go soon so I'll end this entry now.

Fishing and Locating and Teaching

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 05:55:43 GMT

Fishing has been updated again with new graphics and a fishing cooler which can hold up to 15 fishes. This has been a great boon to my backpack since I can fish for a longer time without having to return to town to sell the fish and I can keep fewer items in storage which saves me money in the long run. I'm very happy the gods made the fishing cooler and am very grateful.

I just wish I hadn't broken a fishing pole and nearly had two break today. I hope I don't end up by losing money by taking up fishing since I did so to have a source of income which doesn't rely on my weak fighting skills or solely on people needing kudzu.

My quest to solve the quest of Ma Tota has had its ups and downs. On the plus side I'm learning a lot about locating and how to use the clues of where a person has fallen and the habits of that person to figure out where they are most likely fallen. Then when I know that I can get closer to them so I can use my locating ability to find them exactly. I've also found some deficiencies in my training that I'm going to work to correct sooner rather than later. On the down side I have a tendency to fall just before I actually find, spend a lot of time resting to recover my energy, and have her disappear just as I manage to find her. This has happened many times to me and if I was paranoid I would think that Ma Tota does this just to annoy me. Thankfully I am not so I'm just going to chalk it up to extremely bad luck.

I'm not going to give up on completing the Ma Tota quest no matter how many times she forgets me and how many times I have to visit her and how many times I have to return spirit animals to her. I have heard that she may give out something in return for patience and diligence and I intend to find out what it is.

I've also become the Co-Director of the New Exile Program at the Puddleby University. While I haven't taught any classes yet or really done much of anything as of yet I look forward to developing an interesting class for new exiles to learn about and love Puddleby as much as I have.

Ethereal Trip thanks to Raldin

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 04:47:34 GMT

I exited the library hoping I'd find Ma Tota and to do some more fishing and Kudzu growing. I discovered recently that the Lilly Pond is a great place for both fishing and farming kudzu so I can do both at the same time. I've been keeping track of what I fish up and will be writing a fishing guide for the Eyes of Puddleby soon.

Well, Raldin asked me if I wanted to go to the Ethereal Plane. I agreed and got my ethereal items out of storage and Raldin used his EPS to get to the right plane once we all gathered.

It was an exciting trip and we weren't in danger at any time. It was a far cry from my last trip up there so I overreacted at times when it was completely not necessary. Like the time the five Astral Guardians came at once and I suggested to run a few of them so we wouldn't have to face all of them at once. Well, they barely hit the fighters and even I got a chance to tag one. Or the time I advised just ignoring the Ethereal Drake in the snell and going to the next one. That was killed in about 5 seconds which made me quite embarrassed at thinking it would give us trouble. I then decided to just be quiet about what was and wasn't too tough since I obviously had no idea. While I was embarrassed at my mistakes at the same time I was quite happy to see everyone act so calmly and cohesively as they slowly tackled each challenge as it presented itself. This is why we were able to make our way to the Forge.

Once there I made an Ethereal Portal Stone and some amulets for myself, an amulet for Omega, and sold one I made to Shakyamuni. I have one piece of metal left over but I'll need to get more materials if I ever want to make anything more. I'm very happy to have finally gotten to use the materials I have been keeping for months and months.

Now is when it got interesting.

Raldin opened another portal and we all exited. I didn't remember at the time that the portals don't lead to purgatory but to the portal island so I accidentally entered the portal and fell on the Ethereal Plane. Raldin's rescue attempt failed so I had to depart from there at his recommendation.

Once back in town I met Vagile for the first time in quite some time. She expressed disappointment in the failed rescue and wanted to do it the right way. I admit to being a little tired so I asked her if what she was wanting was me going to the Ethereal Plane and falling so she could rescue me. Vagile confirmed this was what she meant and I said that I couldn't tell if she was kidding or being serious. I learned that Vagile was always serious so I opened up a portal, jumped in, fell, and gave Vagile, Raldin, and Mujin-Kun among others the chance to rescue me. I had to go to bed and so I go missed the tail end of the rescue (I'm going to ask Raldin for his visionstone) but when I woke up I was in town. Unfortunately, I was nibbled on by ethereal slugs for so long that I had to depart because there wasn't enough Horus on at any one time to raise me. Maybe there would have been if I had waited a couple of days but I don't want to spend all that time fallen so I decided to depart instead.

Even though I departed, I still consider the rescue a resounding success and even more importantly the rescue team had a good time. If I had a chance to redo this decision I wouldn't at all.

I've also been working on the Ma Tota quest but so far all she has told me is to speak to her tomorrow. Once she tells me where my spirit animal is I'll get help to find it and hopefully will be able to return it to Ma Tota successfully.

Himitsu - WoD reporter

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 15:06:08 GMT

I decided to apply for the reporter position at Winds of Dawn with these two promises.

Write a synopsis of the clan meetings to the Winds of Dawn forum.
Send any interesting information to the Winds of Dawn forum and ThoomCare.

For quite some time this office has been vacant because everyone who filled it tried to put out a newsletter as the position description indicates. Winds of Dawn is not a huge clan with lots of active members so getting enough people to contribute is difficult at best. Plus, even if a person is willing there's the problem of trying to come up with something to write about. That's why I think the forums are so beneficial to encouraging conversations and sharing information. If I wanted to share what has happened with my fellow clan members I wouldn't wait for a newsletter but would post it in the forums and/or send it to Thoomcare.

Furthermore, I think any newsletter writing should be in the hands of the librarian who would document and maintain records of what has happened. In that case the newsletter would be a record of what happened instead of a record of what is happening currently. Unfortunately, that office is vacant as well as I haven't seen Althus in ages.

My locating training is going well, although slow. Exiles are beginning to tell me that they can sense when I am locating them so it's a visible sign that my skills are improving. I'm about 25% to my first goal and before I change trainers so I just have to be patient and eventually I'll be a good and useful locator.

I've taken up fishing, hoping that the 100c investment will enable me to earn a steady income in addition to my beginning kudzu growing business. Even though I have 50 Skea and 100 Bodrus, going out hunting by myself isn't possible simply because I am too weak and have no Troilus to reduce waiting between kills. However, all of the fish I have managed to snag have gotten away so hope to find a better spot than the dock.

Lesser Sand Wurm debacle!

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 03:40:45 GMT

I found the pictures from the Winds of Dawn clan's trip to Gungla's Island and our meeting of a Lesser Sand Wurm.

We were a few snells north of what is known as the Colmert passing when Kiriel left to get Steady Foot and we ran into a Lesser Sand Wurm.

Here we see most of our fighters already fallen and only Connie with enough Atkus to reliably hit. However, we are trapping it nicely so it won't get to our healers and they can safely heal from a distance.

You can see that we weren't able to kill it and all fell until Kiriel returned with back-up and prepared to kill it herself.

You can see that something bad happened when that second Lesser Sand Wurm appeared and bit Kiriel in the ankle which caused her to fall and led the healers to running south to heal up for a chain run.

Taryn got all of us on a chain when she got trapped and fell.

Bob the Archer was north of Dani so beyond my vision but here's a good shot of the chaos that happened.

At least we were philosophical about what happened.

Both Kiriel and Taryn chained us all south and we all eventually got raised. Unfortunately Kiriel broke two chains and Taryn broke one chain but fortunately, they got all of the metal back so they'll be able to replace them if they have enough money.

After we were all healed, we managed to kill both of the Lesser Sand Wurms and had a very successful hunt even though we didn't manage to find any Sturdy Limbs.

I will end this journal entry with a Thoom line!

My First Locate!

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 04:27:54 GMT

I was farming Kudzu recently when someone (name witheld to protect embarrasment) toggled me needing help due to falling. I found him under the well through toggling in the eastern farms and called for help.

Soulhunter came quickly and we went underground to find the fallen. Before the last chaos storm this area was rather small so it was no problem to find a fallen. Now it's a large area so we could have spent several minutes searching for him. I pulled out my new and improved locating device and found that the fallen was to the northwest and I called out the direction. To my surprise the fallen was indeed to the northwest and Soulhunter quickly dragged him out on a chain and later dragged me out to when a snake caught up to me and bit me in the behind.

Despite me falling I am very proud to have used my locating device to help a fallen and I look forward to more locating adventures in the future.

Himitsu a locator?

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Sat, 21 Aug 2004 04:41:07 GMT

After finishing my training with my boost distance I decided to learn how to locate others. I know that I decided not to study this skill but recent observations have led to me changing my mind.

Firstly, there are many times when I have been clanning recently and I am the only mystic clanning and then there are the times when I am the only Journeyman Mystic clanning and when people fall I'm unable to help them. Sure, there's always toggling which can work but which takes a while and isn't as accurate as locating. There's using OOC methods but I wonder if the acceptance of that is because there aren't enough locating mystics around to reliably count on them to be there when you need them.

Not that a lack of mystics is always the case. I'm out of the library right now and there is one Apprentice Mystic, three Journeymen Mystics, and two Full Mystics currently clanning.

Secondly, I think that locating and scanning are two sides of the same coin of being aware of one's surroundings. Scanning is casting one's mind in an area and scooping all of the information about people or beasts and showing it while locating is casting one's mind out to find one particular exile's location and condition. I think knowing one will enable me to better understand the other.

Thirdly, I think being able to locate will give me another reason to come out of the library. To be perfectly honest, scanning isn't a skill that is in demand and is not essential or even important in a party. The main problems the skill has are that it is hard to tell how many of a given beast there are in the snell and when there are beasts that look alike but are different there's no way to tell which one you're sensing. I still want to get better at scanning (at least a little bit) but I think focusing in it right now is not the best use of my time.

The only negative is that it'll take me at least 22 ooc weeks of being in the 35c library without a break to get to 150 lessons which is my goal before I change trainers. Of course I will leave the library during that time so it'll take me even longer to get to my goal. Now I know why newly promoted mystics spend a lot of time in the library when they get promoted. They want to get to a worthwhile minimum in locating before they clan regularly. Fortunately I have a clan that makes it worthwhile to leave the library at least twice a week for clan meetings.

Speaking of the Winds of Dawn, we went to Gungla Island to get Bob the Archer a bow by getting a Sturdy Limb from a Sturdy Oak Giant. We managed to face three of them but not one of them had the limb we sought. I also bought a Tinder Box and have two logs of wood just in case I go to the inner section of GI in the future. I wanted to go in the castle but we had a mission to perform so we skipped it.

While we were fighting the Sturdy Oak Giants, I got many compliments for my boosts. They do last a long while now and the range means that I don't miss as many people as I used to. Kiriel said that a boost enabled her to hit the Sturdy Oak Giants where before she wasn't able to hit them reliably. I was and am very proud that my training was sufficient to help my fellow clanmates and while I have a long way to go to be a good booster, I am happy that I have achieved some measure of competency in that skill.

I'll put some pictures up later. The debacle of all of us falling to a Lesser Sand Wurm while Kiriel went to fetch Steady Foot has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

I also finally have the Housing guide finished in Eyes of Puddleby. I enjoyed writing it and taking the sketches for it. I hope it'll be useful and informative.

I also welcomed Jeanne as the first contributor! She's going to be helping me update the Bestiary since she can go to most of the beasts in person to get updated screenshots and data something I can't do easily myself.

Little Update

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 04:22:11 GMT

I've been really busy with the Newbielympics. Even though each event takes an hour to an hour and a half, I'm usually tired afterward so I go back to the Winds of Dawn clan house and quickly fall asleep.

I've been thinking about how to revitalize the knighthood and how to improve the Eyes of Puddleby. Right now I'm at Free Conversant but I'm seriously thinking of moving to a domain name and giving space for those who are currently helping me with information. That place could be used for my idea of knighthood, Eyes of Puddleby, and journals for my assistants if they want to move over. Right now it's just Jeanne who's been helping me but that will hopefully change in the future. :-)

I've been increasing my distance of my boosts. I'm close to keeping the trainer on her toes and I am absolutely loving it. Before I had to make sure everyone was close to me so I'd be sure to boost them but now they can be as far away as two exile lengths and I can still boost them. What's even better is that this distance seems to increase with more shares so I won't have to worry about whether a person gets my boost or not. Since I can now control my distance I can decrease this distance if need be, especially with Atkus.

Uhm, that's all for now. Bye!

Newbielympics!

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Tue, 11 May 2004 18:59:07 GMT

I realize that I'm talking a lot about boosting for one who's spent so much time in the library and who hasn't actually boosted in the field for months and months. Still, I'm training in boosting to hopefully reverse both of these trends and I am proud to say that my boosts now last 67 seconds each and I haven't even completed my training yet!

Yeah, it's just 7 seconds but it's 7 seconds for just 25 ranks of training so I'm happy at the return on investment. I was thinking it would just go up a second and the result was much better than I expected.

In other news, the Winds of Dawn is preparing this year's Newbielympics. I'm thinking we should get a statue in the Museum for all of our hard work. After all, the Dwarven Volympics got a statue (created by Sor) and that was only held for one year and there are no signs of them trying to revive that "ancient tradition." So if you want to donate to a worthy cause, please contact any Winds of Dawn member.

Kiriel passed the 6th circle fighter's test but didn't take a visionstone. :-( Congratulate her when you see her next. What a strong fighter!

I'm also planning on many more updates for the Eyes of Puddleby but it sure is hard work doing everything by myself. I'd love additional help but I see now that it's not going to happen. I think the next guide I'll write is how to make your own Clan Lord journal. Maybe if more folks had one there would be less talk of Clan Lord dying out. Too many people want to rely on others for their amusement and won't do anything themselves.

Bestiary finished!

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 03:28:08 GMT

I finally finished the Bestiary at Eyes of Puddleby. Yay! Yippee! Yahoo!

Of course, that's just the first step since there are new creatures and updated graphics and changed stats so each category needs to be revised but still, putting all the entries up was a big job. The biggest part of the job was making the categories since Sala Dragon had somewhat unusual ideas of organizing. For example he had Abyss creatures with Rats and Vermine as well as everything from the Lily Pond and the Tree Giant Breeding Ground together. Hopefully my own categories will make future additions a breeze to add since there shouldn't be any confusion as to which category the creatures go into. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Boosting

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 13:58:13 GMT

I updated my boosting makro a while ago and forgot to make any mention of it here. I also added it to clmacros.com even though there are two versions of my makro up there since it's impossible to edit old entries. :-/ Here's the what's new for the 3.0 version of the makro.

Version 3.0 changes

Added radius controls for both boosting wands.
Added saying how many boosts you're going to use (grammatically correct).
Added more error catching.

This update was actually more complicated than it sounds since I had to check to see whether the person was boosting with Atkus or Balthus so I'd use the correct radius for each boost. This way you can have a Balthus boost with a big radius since everyone seems to like those and a small radius for the Atkus boost since you want to just boost a small number of the fighters. I also had to check to see how many times the person was boosting because if they are just boosting one Atkus you say "Boosting Atkus (1 boost)" but if they are boosting two Atkus you say "Boosting Atkus (2 boosts)". Sure I could have fudged a little and just said "Boosting Atkus [1 boost(s)]" but that looks so amateurish.

You can get the boost makro here and it's available for anyone to look at because I think there are a lot of good makro learning examples for people to use on their own makros. Lots of loops too!

While I'm on the subject of boosting, I've recently returned to learning how to enhance others to a greater degree after reaching the "It is hard to find more to teach you." stage in my scanning ability. It's rather funny that I'm doing this because I had thought I would not return to boosting after becoming Journeyman Mystic yet it seems boosting really is needed and it's fun as well. I had thought boosting wasn't going to be needed because of the Champion sub-class but the influx of Champions didn't occur as I thought it would. Either because not a lot of people have the required skills to become a Champion, it takes longer to become a Champion than people originally thought, or people are waiting to see all three fighter sub-classes before coming to a decision. Plus, if I am able to return to the Ethereal Plane I think boosting will be a good skill to have.

Overview

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 23:58:45 GMT

Let's see what I've been doing recently since I've been so lax in updating this journal.

On March 3rd I worked with Sutai, Slyph, Adelaide, and Charlos to help Sutai complete the Giant Crawler challenge. Unfortunately he failed when time ran out and he only needed one more to be successful. The worst part of it was that both Charlos and Adelaide accidentally killed about three Giant Crawlers and if they hadn't Sutai would have been successful. I hope Sutai was able to complete this challenge later and if not, I would love to help with this again.

I managed to make to the Forge but instead of making Ethereal Portal Stones as I wanted to, I accidentally made a middle piece of a Kuyem instead because I stayed too long at the forge. Doh! I was incredibly upset at myself because it means I need to go back and collect more ore, ingots, metal, and ethercles to make the Ethereal Portal Stones. Maybe one day I'll make a Kuyem but for now it's just taking up a space in my backpack. Fortunately, I was able to make two Ethereal Amulets so the trip wasn't a total loss.

On March 17th, there was an invasion of Spriggins, Green Beer, Vixens, and Foxweirs in town. The beer was good but the Spriggins were incredibly annoying and difficult to kill. Later that day I sensed a danger from the air and soon there was a Fire Drake in town. I'm still quite not used to being able to sense threats and fortunately it died rather quickly. I tried to tag it and thought I did but turns out it was someone else.

That wasn't the last time I'd see Fire Drakes since a few days later on March 20th during a Winds of Dawn clan meeting we got invaded by Fire Drakes, Forest Drakes, and Death Vermine. I got to boost Atkus and even take a few swings at the Fire Drake which I vanquished. Kiriel complemented me on my boost length (a minute) however I'll be training in boosting soon so I hope to increase my boosting length as well. After that little excitement, we went to the Orga Camp to check out some Orga activity and boy were there a lot of Orga including Orga Dredlocks, Orgas, and Orga Shamen. After that I returned to the library and had a long nap after the excitement.

I've also been working on Eyes of Puddleby and adding to the Bestiary. I believe it will be completed very soon which I am looking forward to so I can focus on other aspects.

Rincewind & Drablak

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 04:29:21 GMT

I saw Rincewind in town yesterday and got my updated new Mystic Insurance card. I'm happy to be covered again so I can fall with an ease of mind!

I hear that Drablak got promoted to Full Mystic. I'm so very happy for him in his success and wish him the best of happiness in his new role.

Sad News

ericamarceau@gmail.com — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 19:39:06 GMT

I've been working on the Bestiary at the Eyes of Puddleby and will be working on it more today.

Wheatstone made full bard and showed off his new outfit at the most recent Winds of Dawn meeting. The purple and light blue and yellow really go well together in a strange sort of way, don't you think?

Now for the sad news. At the last Winds of Dawn meeting Farhope told us of the rumor that the clicker for K'Pyn had suddenly passed away. It was a sad rumor and now on The Clan Lord Sentinel, Slyph has given more supporting evidence to show that this rumor might actually be true.

What had at first seemed as a rumor making its way through the playerbase the past few days is unfortunately true: the person that played K'pyn, a character in the Lands longer than most of us, died in the night between January 31st and February 1st. The player's ex-wife contacted a Clan Lord player by email, and another player left a message at K'pyn's home, only to receive a confirmation from a relative later.

For the moment we've only heard that his death was sudden, startling. If anyone hears some details, perhaps they could be posted here, as Randall had many friends in the game that would appreciate some news.

I was never a friend or close acquaintance of K'Pyn yet we crossed paths often and he always struck me as a kind and generous Thoom who was also quite strong as a fighter. I asked him about how to make fire for the Alchemy Field Kit quest and we shared information as we ran around trying to find it.

I know that death comes for us all eventually yet I hope this is a rumor that is wrong and that K'Pyn will return to us. If not, I hope we will be hold a wake or a funeral to give K'Pyn the farewell he deserves.

Such a sad thought, K'Pyn being dead. :-(