A Matter of Pride

I went to Boyahda Tree to work on my polearm skill. I wasn't in the mood for any huge life-and-death struggles, so I just fought Robber Crabs on the lower levels. As I danced and pranced my way to staying alive, I saw a Beastmaster run by with a Korrigan pet and Aquarius hot on their heels. He must've killed it, because it never came back while I was there. My hideous gimpy skill -- I started out at 218, which is well below the 251 cap for my level -- went up a few notches before Neyla logged on and joined me.

We

Skilling up on Robber Crabs isn't so bad.

attempted the Dragoon AF fight in the Temple of Uggalepih for Neyla, and it was a wonderful failure. We went in and cleared the room to keep Neyla free from aggro, but he didn't cast Sneak before popping the two shadows. The poor guy was dead before they appeared on my screen. Dalamar started tanking the WAR while I focused on the other. Dalamar very quickly took a ton of damage. I was having a rough time, but I held on and had almost killed mine when the WAR finished off Dalamar. Naturally, it turned and attacked me next. We had to homepoint.

I wanted to go back and try again -- with a Sneak pull, we could've killed the easy one and allowed the WAR to despawn -- but Neyla was in a pissy mood and nixed the idea, declaring he'd get Shmedly and Wulfgar to do the fight for him. Being treated like a slack-jawed incompetent made me pissy in turn, so the escort through the Necropolis was a bit tense.

The post-escort avatar fights were a little more interesting because we were helping two of Dalamar's friends. The first was a Dark Knight who needed Shiva. My irritation with Neyla pretty much evaporated during that fight, because I was too amused that I was tanking Shiva and the Dark Knight wasn't. I realize this means he just has better hate control than I do, but it still made me giddy.

The other two fights were for a Summoner. We killed Titan and Ramuh, and even did the AF fight with the two weapon mobs while we were at it.

I'll be on a semi-vacation from the game next week for more Fallout 3 involvement, the holidays, and a general recovery from XP burnout. Then I can jump back into the game tanned, refreshed and ready.