10K PP Giveaway Contest #4 - Exploration and Journeys

[mreynert]

Back in the days when dark was dark and lanterns were a small island of security in the darkness that was Norrathian Night, I found myself staring out into the ever darkening gloom of the Greater Faydark as night began to set in. Being that I was only level two at this point and had been playing the game for just a day or two, the great unknown and expansive forest stretched out ahead of me like a dangerous beast. Apprehensive to what fate I may find out there, including death and loss of all I had worked so hard for (rusty bastard sword & cloth belt), I readied myself to step into the wilderness, trying to find decaying skeletons and other such monsters to slay and build enough wealth to afford more vital gear and the next level's song.

As I walked out, I found myself dancing with orc pawns, dodging the one centurion that seemed to be pathing nearby, and smashing many a wasp. After much tiring work, and many bruises, I stood victorious over one final orc pawn. "DING 3!" I shouted, and the very trees themselves seemed to congratulate me on reaching a new hurdle in life.

My announcement to the forest garnered another type of attention as well, now that I had proven my strength. A high elf paladin had been combating the creatures in my vicinity as well, and she as well, had just reached her 3rd level. I first noticed her approach by the small aura of light around her radiating from the small lantern she held in her hand. As it was now fully getting into night, the light stood out starkly from the contrasting shadow world around.

"Hey, you want to group up? I heard about a place up north of the city called orc hill where the rewards are much greater," she asked me. I was all too eager to join up and find this new place that neither of us had been to. We figured we could handle centurions now with our levels, and that the bounty we'd reap from it would be substantial. So off we embarked, heading back towards the PoD lift for a point of reference before heading to orc lift. From here however, our journey did not take us where we had intended.

Neither of us knowing a thing about sense heading or how to use loc, we embarked out in a path that we "thought" was north. We were horribly wrong. In my experience since I have now learned the direction that we headed was more north-west, off into the wilderness of the faydark, but still inhabited by centurions, oracles, and other nasty things.

We realized our mistake rather quickly and began frantically running around trying to find our way back, but we had gotten completely turned around. I found myself completely blind and hugging near her very closely, her lantern was our only lifeline. We found out centurions were nastier than we had hoped when we encountered them, every one a bloody red con. The orc oracle we found scared us even more.

After about 20 minutes of narrowly escaping death, cowering in the soft glow of the paladin's lantern. We stumbled upon another lost soul who had gotten completely turned around seeking the same location we had, he had seen the lantern and run towards it. He was a wood elf ranger, and we figured our odds of survival our here would go up if we brought him in, and he huddled in close to the light as well.

Minutes went on, and they turned into what felt like hours continuing to dodge death, when we came over a hill and there, staring directly at us, was an orc centurion. Blood red to all, and it too had noticed our lantern. It dove at the ranger with a bloodlust too terrible to fathom. Our confidence in our abilities now that we were lvl 3 evaporated instantly as it trucked the ranger for a quarter of his health and stunned him.

Panic set in and we all jumped on the centurion, trying to bring it down before it killed us all in the gloomy unknown. We had no idea where we had died, and had no idea if we'd ever find our bodies. The ranger was taking a beating, but thankfully he had managed to make some patchwork armor for himself before he had come up here, and it held off death longer than either the paladin or myself could, but it seemed not to be enough. His health dipped low, and he fell over, his health bar purple.

My heart sank, the orc was still around half health, and would surely destroy both of us shortly after. But it was at that moment hope was restored, because before my eyes I saw the ranger's form rise back up off the ground, bathed in a blue light, instantly restored to his full strength. After a short while longer, we managed to bring the beast down. We were bloodied, but we had survived and all was quiet once more.

After a short period of recovery, we decided that we ought to continue on, and we picked an arbitrary direction into the dark. The paladin leading the way, we followed in her wake, hoping that this direction would yield something we recognized. After a few minutes and many more dodged orcs, we at last found something promising. A path marked on the ground, worn through heavy footsteps. We figured this had to be a good sign and decided to follow it in a direction. As we crested the hill, we saw before us the soft glow of the lanterns of Kelethin, and Guard Orcflayer standing ready to welcome us back to the city.

After returning home, we all ended up going our separate ways, but not before we all agreed we'd wait at least another level before venturing out into the unknown looking for trouble again. The ranger rode up the lift into the great city, the paladin made her camp and retired from the world, and the soft light of dawn started breaking through the treetops to light my way back towards my old wasp friends. We had survived the darkest, longest night of our EQ lives...a paladin and her lantern lit the way.

(This is my oldest vivid, fond memory from EQ back in 1999 just after I started. I thought I'd share it here, as it seemed appropriate.)