Chapter 5: The Final Frontier
Intro: I don’t know much about DDO, but have general D&D knowledge. Despite that, I have never played a caster before. Join me as I explore both DDO and the arcane while telling bad jokes.
Apparently I took a row boat from Korthos to here. No wonder the person operating it was tiny. They needed all the room they can get for cargo. If I were them though, I’d invest in a bigger boat. You can’t possibly haul enough cargo in that to make a profit. I wandered from the little island into the water next to the island. Yes, I fell in. After pulling myself from the waters, I talked to a guard named Crichton, but he wanted me to do some sort of extreme challenge. I bid farewell to him and Winona and instead spoke to a crazed woman nearby named Pearl. She was yelling for help and everyone else was ignoring her. That’s rude. One should at least ascertain whether she’s crazy before treating her like she is. She asked me to find some orcs and beat them…back. Whew, almost had a repeat. I told her I would save whoever it was who was captured, but I didn’t say when I would. I’m sneaky like that.
Oh, what will I pick? Decisions, decisions…
Then I spotted one Baudry Cartamon who told me to talk to his boss about fighting some kobolds in a warehouse. I already got a collectables bag for free from this guy, so I figured the real work can wait. I’d tell you why I’m not a procrastinator in the next chapter. Up some shaky ramps, I ran into a tax collector. I know you expect me to make some joke about how he wasn’t looking for me so I should be relieved, but I will have you know that Dorfben always pays his taxes. He is a responsible, civic-minded citizen. Anyway, this guy was a Coin Lord or representative thereof and I offered to help purely out of the goodness of my wallet. Time Lords have time machines, so Coin Lords should have coin…machines? That almost worked. My mission was to collect back taxes from a miller. How hard could that be?
Looking good, if I do say so myself.
I don’t know who this miller guy was, but he was into some really weird stuff. First of all, his basement had nothing to smash, so he was obviously a villain. Then I found a door that only opened from one side, which was odd since the miller ended up being on the side without a handle. I searched some rubble and found notes about a “Dragon Below.” Le sigh, another dragon. You’d think it was in the game’s name or something. When I tracked down the miller, he offered no resistance and told me everything was in the back room. I may not be a rogue, but my trap senses were tingling. As soon as the door opened, a metal dog thing rushed at me, but the miller obviously doesn’t realize that fire is super effective against steel. He wasn’t lying though, as the taxes owed were in the back room. I got some new duds from the tax collector, so he can’t be all that bad of a guy.
I picked up a few more quests, but the one I decided to do next was for Picket the Fence. No, I didn’t make that up. Ok, yes I did. He was cutting me in on a business deal where we sell fake gems to unsuspecting buyers. The catch, and there’s always a catch, was that the “gems” were in a kobold-infested warehouse and I’d have to fight them. I told him I’d do it, but if any of them start calling me “Boss” and singing funny songs about doom, I’m adopting him. The kobold, not the fence, although a shrewd businessman in the family wouldn’t be a bad thing. To sweeten the deal, he gave me a small gem bag. Bribery works, no matter what anyone says.
I was expecting this…
The first kobold I found ran away and starting ringing a bell. I thought they were greeting me as a friend, but they tried to kill me instead. Unreasonable little buggers they were. When a dwarf with a skeleton warrior comes to see you, making him angry is probably not the wisest move. Speaking of Hypocrisy, I found that setting him to the aggressive setting works wonders. Not only was he finally attacking enemies pre-emptively, but he was killing them in one hit each. The ones that stood on boxes really confused him, but those were almost the only kobolds I could kill before he did. Fiery fingers wasn’t working as well as it used to, relatively speaking, but cold hands was still pretty devastating.
The best part of this quest was that I had to smash everything in order to find these “gems” I had to collect. I made my way into the basement and found some giant spiders. They too didn’t last long before the might of Hypocrisy. As I turned one corner however, an optional objective appeared: slay the…RANCOR? Cue internal monologue: There’s a RANCOR down here? Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. Ok, I can do this. How do I kill a rancor? I can trick it into eating a grenade! I don’t have grenades! I could drop a gate on it– oh, Hyprocrisy already killed it.
…but got this.
Turns out the “rancor” was a dog-sized scorpion that took a whole two hits from Hypocrisy. That was underwhelming. I found a secret passage that had a few more “rancors” in it and followed a side path to a shrine of some sort. Great. I found another group of cultists, albeit kobolds this time. Cultists, check. Dragons, check. Every place better not be like this. I had the ten gems Picket wanted — sorry, that “Fitzpat” wanted — and returned to him to get another set of robes that were better than the one I just got ten minutes prior. I should set up a used gear shop. I could make a fortune.
Join me next time as I do more quests around the harbor and test my kobold tolerance. Feel free to leave comments, questions, compliments, and bribes below.
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