Arcane Adventures with Dorfben Fizzlebeard: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Subverting Expectations

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.

Time for me to write again and it has nothing to do with the fact that other stuff I usually write on a different site is going to be overshadowed by news of an expansion or anything.  No, not at all.

I decided to stick to what I know this time around and that would be box breaking.  I returned to that quest that wanted me to break some pirate booty because it was people blood or something.  The guy guarding the entrance said he could only distract the guards for ten minutes.  Ten minutes to break a bunch of crates?  Please, this isn’t amateur hour.  I’ll break all the boxes and have time to make a sammich in his pirate kitchen.

Demonstrating Crate Fu.

Before I went in, I remembered the daily dice roll and got a medium jewel of fortune.   I’d have preferred a medium fortune of jewels, but we take what we can get.  Apparently, I get better loot from chests with its buff active, so I used it.  Who doesn’t want better loot?

When I got inside, the quest said to make fifty crates go “SMASH” and I assumed that, given my last quest experience, there would be exactly fifty crates.  This was mistakenly reinforced when I found many crates hidden on top of stacks of unbreakable crates or behind other objects.  If they’re bothering to hide crates, there must be exactly the amount I need, right?  Nope.  Before I got too far in, I had smashed the required fifty and had a couple large sections of the map to explore still.  Sammich time!  While looking for the kitchen, I found a dozen or two more boxes to smash and a super secret wall.

In an attempt to further mess with my mind, there was no chest behind this secret wall.  There was however a switch to open the secret wall on the other side of the room.  This seems an unnecessarily complicated way to hide treasure.  Just hire a guard dog and hope I don’t stop by unannounced to wreck all your boxes and steal your stuff and I see a flaw with this plan already.  Anyway, I encountered a trap by the treasure chest that was so devious that I almost didn’t see right through it.  In the end, I couldn’t find the kitchen, so no sammiches this time.  I was sure my ten minutes almost up by now anyway so I returned outside to talk to Cartamon and claim my reward.

Oh my, how will I ever figure out where not to stand?

But nooooo, he has more problems.  He’s whining about how the pirate stole from him.  What else do you expect pirates to do?  Turns out the kobold traps weren’t good enough and they eventually stole that big box I safeguarded last time.  I’m tasked with going back into the place I just vandalized to get his stuff back before coin lords stuff his back full of sharp, pointy things.  Like it or not, I’ve backed this guy’s metaphorical horse, so I headed back inside.

First thing I noticed is that this pirate really skimps on the free refills.  There are barely any crates to smash this time.  One star.  Not coming back.  I make it five steps farther in and then the game decides to be a jerk.  In big letters on my screen I get the message, “Stealth might be an asset here.”

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You know what, game?  The only “asset” around here is you right now.  I want you to think about what you’ve just said and whether it was the most socially acceptable thing to say.  Was it?  If you continue acting like this, you will only keep pushing people away.  You will have no friends.  You will be unloved.  Your parents will disown you.  The only person who will listen to you at all will be the poor nurse who is paid to give you sponge baths when you’re old, feeble, and wrinkly.  And guess what?  Because you keep acting like this, he or she has switched to Brillo pads.  Is that what you want out of life?  I didn’t think so.  Glad we had this talk.

Hypocrisy, that’s not how we climb ladders…

Ok, sorry you all had to see that.  Hypocrisy and I, surprisingly, decided to not go the stealth route and instead competed to see who could kill the most pirate lackeys.  I won, but to be fair, I have range that he doesn’t.  I don’t know what was in that crate, but apparently it was equally divisible between a handful of super lackeys.  Once I collected all of it, I went back to the secret rooms and looted the chest again.  I think some poor fighter somewhere is getting a bunch of robes and staves while I get the maces, swords, and plate armor.

In any case, I moseyed on back out to Cartamon and claimed my reward for saving his life.  He didn’t have any more work for me and the DM was in a time out for that last comment, so I took a stroll.  I went back to the airship shop so I could find out what exactly was going on there.  That’s this game’s version of guild halls?  Interesting, I suppose, but the game’s not getting off the naughty chair yet.  I see exits into other areas, but I feel compelled to complete the quests around here first still.  It’s a personality flaw I fully acknowledge.  The last spot I found on my walking tour was the Leaky Dinghy.  Hehehehehe….

That does it for this chapter.  As always, feel free to leave comments, questions, compliments, and socially acceptable remarks below.