9/28/2010 | Still a Wannabe

A while ago, my friend, Nathan, accused me of being a wannabe for posting my rankings when I was on the top 25 second and third classers lists. And he's right. I am a wannabe. When I started this game 9 or 10 years ago, I wanted to one day get to be a legend.

Its not exactly a lofty life goal, I know. Along the way, I've kept striving for that goal. I'm not the best or the most knowledgeable player, or the best at PK... but I am the 24th best half-elf in the game, according to the character rankings.

I have a screen shot here.

8/26/2010 | Vote for Lantis

I'm trying to mobilize a grassroots campaign to get elected for Mayor of Rune. Here are my campaign promises:

I promise to reopen access to the magic shop and the post office. I also plan to take away at least one of the PK rooms that's blocking the entrances to the castle. However, I would not get rid of PK completely. Hopefully, together, we can find optimum locations for PK that don't prevent novices from their enjoyment of the game.

So, I'd really like your vote on the week of September 9th, assuming I have the correct real time date for the next election.

10/21/2009 | Relic Contest Results

A few weeks ago, I participated in a contest on the Materia Magica message board from Duende in which players were solicited for entries of new relics to illustrate new game mechanics. Sadly, I failed on game mechanics, but I made up for that with creativity. Today in my mailbox I found that my submission had been created and sent to me as a reward.

You focus your powers of observation on the cap of the wand of Terra Ophellium:
Item 'the cap of the wand of Terra Ophellium' is type relic, alignment 0, made of none,
has keywords 'rusty star spitting bright blue sparks cap wand terra ophellium light spellpoints'.
This item weighs 0 stones and 15 pebbles, and is valued at 2,250 gp.
This level 75 item has the attributes: identified no-tweak
The cap of the wand of Terra Ophellium is in excellent condition.
This item has a default lifespan of 7 days and will expire on Wed Oct 28 17:39:30 2009.
This is a class 3 relic requiring 1 binding slot.
Affects spell-points by 15.
Alters knowledge of 'light' by 51%.
This rusty and tarnished star-shaped object is the cap end of the long metal wand of the elusive Terra Ophellium. Blue light sparks from the star intermittently, leaving a bluish glow in the air surrounding it. Terra Ophellium will most likely be wanting this piece back. Fortunately, such a
moral quandary will likely never be meaningful, given how rarely he shows his face.

I don't know if this means this relic will be in the game now as permanent fixture, or if this is the only copy that will ever exist. It's too bad it doesn't last longer. I got a dusty relic too as a real prize.

04/01/2009 | Lantis is April Fooled

I was idling in social when I experienced something supremely strange.

A rift appears in time and space, glowing brilliantly!
Sylvaer, the Archon Hunter Master steps through the rift, which closes quietly afterwards.
'You make too easy an opponent.' Sylvaer, the Archon Hunter Master says. 'Allow me to level the playing field.'
Sylvaer, the Archon Hunter Master smirks. Hmmm... don't you wonder what she is thinking?
Sylvaer, the Archon Hunter Master begins attacking you!
Sylvaer, the Archon Hunter Master is in perfect health.

(@#phoenix)

My first thought was "WTF?!" I am now thinking this was just a very humorous and harmless practical joke that I totally fell for. Right along the lines of the ubermuscles spell.

02/14/2009 | Lady Saresyn's Day Handfasting

After applying liberal duct tape and peer pressure, I was able to get Krypt handfasted on this Lady Saresyn's Day, better known as Valentine's Day. We did not win the free marriage they were giving away, which is unfortunate because he is poor and I am cheap.

Sueno shouts 'Let us all join in congratulating Krypt and Lantis who have shown their love today and taken the first step in a life long journey of holy matrimony by being handfasted this day.

Also, as a result of this handfasting, which was generously financed by Kaelin, I now have my first relationship in my score.

* You became the partner of Krypt on Sat Feb 14 17:14:26 2009.

09/25/2008 | Lantis Becomes a Guide

Yeah, I don't get it either, but your collective fates may or may not be in my hands now.

09/01/2008 | Lord Maldra hands Lantis Vandemaar's trunk, again.

Tonight, after three reboot/crashes I got my second trunk. I've been saving the quest points for a while and questing in the keep when I know that a trunk is due to pop. Many people in my clan also happened to need their first trunk at the same time, so it was fortuitous that we could help each other out getting it. Usually the place would have a pker or two to there to snare the place up, chase us around, and generally make it inconvenient to get a trunk.

Some days I went and left, too demoralized with camping a trunk and ready to say forget it. After months of attempts, I persevered. Even though I didn't think I was likely to get a trunk right after a reboot, I went anyway because you can't win if you don't play. I thought there would be a lot more pkers show up, but I guess it being the middle of the night was helpful. Mostly it was a lot of archons from my alliance who were pking and helping me get the trunk.

The first crash the trunk was in my grasp, but it slipped away when the game crashed and I lost the quest I was about to complete. Then someone else got the trunk and I thought that was that, but then the game crashed again and with help from my allies and clannies (especially Kurr and Olgga) in cpk and getting items, I completed and bought the trunk.

I was very happy. I was so happy I forgot to use the social I made for happy occasions that looks like the confetti poppers the immortals give out at in-game weddings.

Once again, thanks to everyone who played a role in helping me. Whether you were with me when I was failing and running into snares for me, or acting as bait and encouraging me to keep trying, or with me when I succeeded by running me through CPK for hard mobs, or mailing me an item I needed for the quest, or room shielding the place to block others from getting to the trunk first. I sincerely appreciate it.

02/26/2008 | Lantis Becomes a Hero

After spending the bulk of my time for a few days leveling in form in Templeton Catacombs and a little in the wilds near Decara, I finally succeeded in reaching the end of my pre-archon MM career. It was a very proud moment for me.

A sepulchral voice announces, 'All congratulate Lantis, who is now a Hero!'

It would have taken me scads longer if I hadn't had the help of some great clannies, Cuda, Xeon, Krypt, and Turbo, as well as the help of the various forms I joined, to a lesser extent.

Now that I am a hero I plan to round off my classes and finish up the few little things I've been meaning to practice, raise my hit points, spell points, and stamina, and complete 2,000 quests. Additionally I hope to get a few more marks and go on some new runs. I hope I will find being a hero very rewarding.

06/08/2007 | Lantis is now a Rogue

I finally took the plunge, and multiclassed for the last time as Lantis. I am now a somewhat weak Valkyrie, Druid, Monk, Rogue. I spent eight months as a third classer, and got a lot of marks in that time and reached slot #13 on the Top 25 Third Classers list on the Materia Magica website. It was time to move on though...

As always going from the height of your class path to having all of your proficiencies drop away when you choose a new class is difficult, so I hope I have the strength to take my time leveling up, even if it is debilitating being so weak.

Lady Undya raises her hands above her head and chants strange words.
You are surrounded by a glowing aura of silver light!
You gain 5 hit points, 5 spell points, 5 stamina, and 12 practices!
Due to your experiences, you have earned a 1 point increase in luck.
You have become more learned at 'hand to hand'.
Your agility maximum has been increased to 22!
'Lantis, you are now a Rogue!' Lady Undya exclaims.
Lady Undya exclaims, 'Good luck in your adventuring!'

Don't you think I'll make a good rogue?... Don't answer that.

03/27/2007 | Lantis Makes Clan Leader

For some reason, the leadership of clan Phoenix had me in mind as a clan leader... even though I have warned them that I'm going to stage a coup d'etat, and overthrow the clan. With the leadership position comes a promotion in rank to Wizard, plus other undisclosed perks... possibly even a goodie bag if Nessi is to be believed.

On the other hand, I'm supposed to have more responsibilities too... like trying to get some poor suckers to join Phoenix, which would be good for them, but is like getting kids to eat broccoli for some reason... and to deal with some mysterious clan problems that will be arising in the future. Well, I hope I'm up to the task.

02/15/2007 | Lantis is Riding High

I've been hoping my name would appear on the top third classers list for a short while before I appeared at the bottom end of the list in slot #24. Since Caoswen got on the third classers list, I knew that I couldn't be that far behind. After all we were both also on the top second classers list. But it did come as a surprise to me that I was on it when I was. I've gradually raised my rank up to #14. I screen capped it so everyone can enjoy my awesomeness. Here.

Cuda: lantis is #24
Aneril: I know, nice.
Lantis: I am?
Lantis: sweet!
Fafner: yeah shes hot
Caoswen: go lantis

01/14/2007 | Lantis Gets Promoted, Again

Within the last few days, Vswae, one of the clan leaders informed me that he was going to be promoting a bunch of people soon and that due to my activeness, friendliness, helpfulness, and positive word of mouth that had reached his ears I was being rewarded with a promotion from Magus to Sorceress.

I don't have much to say about this, except that I'm glad my presence for seven months now in Phoenix is appreciated.

12/21/2006 | Lantis Gets a Trunk

Completing my first quest for Lord Maldra exactly a month ago was half the battle won. This morning I finished my mission to get at least one Vandemaar's trunk from Lord Maldra. I did two quests for Lord Maldra this morning, and except for a short period where I had to lay low in Sanctuary so I wouldn't be killed by either Kever or Nobadii, I was mostly left to myself in a totally abandoned Keep. I found both Nobadii and Kever to be both friendly and threatening at the same time. "We can't promise not to kill you, but tell us if anyone is bothering you and we'll come kill them too"? I understand I got lucky. Probably incredibly so.

Lord Maldra hands you Vandemaar's Trunk.

Now I just need to get a restring coin and think of something clever to rename it. I've got an idea.

12/18/2006 | Crossed Hellbent to Faerie Plane

This is not, I admit, extremely notable. I have come close before to crossing Hellbent into the underground, but did not succeed. This time I had a better map, and getting to the Faerie Plane is not as difficult as getting to the Underground if the key to the fiery FP door is just sitting there waiting to be used. So, I got lucky. Maybe next time I go through Hellbent, I'll try to get to the Underground again, or I'll look for the ethereal mobs with the love that could not be.

11/28/2006 | Lantis is Not Getting Married

Coincidentally, Kilowog and I both decided at about the same time that we no longer wanted to get married. The primary reason for this is because it has been troublesome getting our handfast reinstated since Kilowog decided to change his main character.

Initially we were handfasted, and then corresponded with game services to get our handfasting annulled. Then, we were attempting to get it restored onto a different character. For some reason, it took a substantial length of time for the immortals to respond on this matter, if they ever did, and we were naturally discouraged from that means of renewing out handfast.

Eventually we decided it might be better simply to get re-handfasted the normal way. It deteriorated from there and he decided he no longer had the funds for a marriage due to the high cost of equipment.

So, I am back on the market, and quite a catch if I do say so myself.

10/07/2006 | Lantis is now a Monk

After a long stretch of camping the end of second class so I could finish practicing the druid spells I wanted to practice, and after a brief period of indecision about what class to go next, I decided to class monk.

It is always a pain when you don't have your defenses and other proficiencies, but I think this is the right class for me, over all. I still intend to go rogue forth class too.

Lady Undya raises her hands above her head and chants strange words.
You are surrounded by a glowing aura of silver light!
You gain 5 hit points, 11 spell points, 5 stamina, and 11 practices!
Due to your experiences, you have earned a 1 point increase in courage.
You have become more learned at 'vacuum evocation'.
Your knowledge maximum has been increased to 23!
'Lantis, you are now a Monk!' Lady Undya exclaims.
Lady Undya exclaims, 'Good luck in your adventuring!'

09/24/2006 | Lantis Comes Out on Top

I was getting pretty tired this evening when I decided to check the PKZone clan history page to see if the recent addition or subtraction of any members of clan Phoenix had affected our position on the activity ranking.

Then, I decided to check our score on the official mm page clan rankings. Yesterday we were ranked at 17th most aggressive clan, which was weird to see. I wanted to find out if it was still like that, but sadly we had dropped off the aggressiveness ranking.

Finally I checked the top 25 second classers ranking. This is a scoring that has no meaningful interpretation, but it is something I aspired to, regardless.

Lantis: and what's worse is that I'm not even on the top 25 second classers'
Lantis: obviously an oversight'
Cuda:  rofl
Lantis: what the? *actually looks at the list to confirm her assumptions*
Lantis: i am on it
Lantis: this is cool
Cuda:rofl
Cuda: #24
Lantis: hey!
Lantis: at least I'm there

And I was. If you don't believe me, just look here.

09/10/2006 | Lantis Gets a House

After months of slaving away at killing mobs in Vospire, and occasionally being lucky enough to find a manual that I could sell, I finally made enough money in gold to pay for my mid-sized house in Rune.

Since Rune houses can only be bought by reward units, I had to find enough people who were willing to trade gold for RU so I could buy the vouchers I needed. Then I had to wait until reboot for the house to load with me as the owner. But it was all worth it. Because now I have a house in Rune.

And it has a living room, an office, a garden... and I sprung for the extended keywords.

08/18/2006 | Lantis Gets Promoted

While I was updating my site, I decided to log online to find out if any of my clannies, particularly Xirote, minded if I posted the solution to the Mark of Philanthropy on my site now since Knights of Chaos has already let the cat out of the bag.

I logged on and no one was there... but I was pleasantly surprised when I checked the clan log to see that I had been promoted from Enchantress to Magus. I'm not sure how they work out that I should be in the same category as Althor and Cuda, who in my opinion are better than me... but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak. It must be all the time I spend in game, bettering my character, and paying my roots every month. The term "every month" is being used loosely here.

07/15/2006 | Agreed to be Handfasted

Don't ask me how I let myself get talked into getting handfasted, but I did. So, on July 15th at 3ish, I handfasted myself to Kilowog.

I expect it to be like being handfasted to your friend. We get along, so maybe it will work out. There's always the solution of absolving the handfast without getting married if it doesn't work out though. If that happens, I plan to reimburse Kilowog for the handfast voucher for at least my share of 250k.

All I really want is to handfast into money and power... Is that so much to ask?

07/06/2006 | First Trip Into the Proving Grounds

This evening at just about nine, I was helping Kilowog and Pso kill Jambalaya Jake in Rune. Once I was reincarnated, I looted Jake's corpse for all the voodoo dolls he had. I really just wanted mine, but I was in a hurry so I grabbed all of them. As it turns out, they were cursed with no-drop, so I had to get a bunch of remove curses from the cleric in Rune recall.

It was around that time that I realized I was going to be late for the PG diamond run that Quintessa was leading. Thankfully the group hadn't left yet, and incidentally, Kilowog and Cuda were going too.

Once we stepped through the portal, I formed with Kilowog and we went around the upper levels of the proving grounds getting tourms and roots from the mobs. It wasn't really what I was expecting. I was imagining some sort of chaotic place with random player killing areas, and people trying to kill each other en masse. I ran out of strength to carry anything else because like a fool I left all my good equipment in my locker. So it was just as well that shortly after I hit my weight limit I also hit two traps close enough together to kill me.

After that I left instead of trying to cross the moat and deposited the tourms I got. I also bought 25 roots from Kilowog so I could pay my share of clan fees for this month.

06/30/2006 | A Pile of Reward Units for Lantis

Today I bought 60 additional reward units for Lantis at the price of 7 million gold (approx. 117k per unit.) Initially I was planning to combine the new 60 reward units with 25 that I already had for selling my red shard during the St. Patrick's Day Global earlier this year, and I was going to use the resulting 85 reward units to buy a one room home voucher so I could get a house in Rune.

Even though a home would be convenient, I'm not really ready to buy one yet. For starters, even if I did want to convert most of my personal wealth into a home (which I was planning on doing at some point in the future) I wanted a 4 room, mid-sized home in Xaventry or New Rigel. However, I know that the selling point for a home is the recall point in a convenient city like Rune. So, I may simply continue to save until I get enough money together to have 84 plus 75 RU (plus 6 for a comfortable couch) so I can get my four room house in Rune. Some people might think it's a waste of money, but it's what I want now anyway...

In the meantime, I spent 50 RU on an amulet of wealth. This way I can hopefully regain my fortune more quickly. After all, I'll need a pile of millions in RU to buy my house later.

06/29/2006 | Purchased My First Relic

I was up way too late one day and I wasn't really doing anything besides chatting with my clannies, Xirote and Aneril, about quests. Where are the best quests, what kinds of quests do we like the best, and how many rewards do they have to have for one of us to accept them... that kind of thing.

Items were going pretty cheaply on auction, which was probably because it was a time of the day when fewer people are active. I ended up buying a drop of Riga's blood for 50k. It didn't seem like that much, and I think I got a good deal... It will be good for 1 knowledge once I attach it to something.

If I wanted to, I could get a few drops of Riga's blood and bond them into a vial of Riga's blood, I think... but it seems pointless to do that since a vial of Riga's blood isn't worth any more in knowledge than a drop is. The only difference is that the drop is a class 1 relic and the vial is a class 2 relic, a distinction which means next to nothing to me presently.

Now I just need to research what to do to attach it to my bleached bone ring, because I did buy it to use. My only reservation is whether the relic will damage more easily than the ring. It's not as though the ring is insulated or anything, but it hasn't sparked or fragged yet, so hopefully the relic will be okay. We'll see.

Binding a relic to an item is looking like a more complicated process than I thought. I think that not many people know how to bind and combine relics because the people who have this information are guarding it like it's some kind of state secret. Additionally, the information is not relevant to most people since many can not afford to buy relics or have not found any, and thus have no need to find out what is entailed in binding a relic.

I found out from MMInfo, Tamlin's website, that you must travel to a special worldgate in an isolated part of Alyria, bury a black moonstone warpstone there and travel through the portal that opens to a special area. Then of course you must know what you are doing ahead of time since there is a time limit on how long you have to tinker with the machine that combines and binds relics. And when you're done, I believe there's a hidden door off the the side near the entrance to the area that has a way for you to get back to dry land.

I didn't get my relic bound yet because I couldn't get the machine to work. I put my ring in the sarcophagus, which has 1 empty binding slot, and tried putting the drop of Riga's blood in every statue and turning the machine on. I tried putting both objects in the sarcophagus, but the sarcophagus would only fit one object, and the statues would only fit relics... so I ran out of ideas. It's just as well. I heard there was a trick to use keyrelics, or not use them, to somehow get extra bonuses from your bindings. The keyrelics that I know of currently are the blank spell book and the promising seed.

06/21/2006 | Found My First Manual

This is a red-letter day for me, in a way. I was back in Eanoss Azlemar trying to do the mini there, and sick of spending money of jasper gemstones to get me there. On a whim, I started on the first part of the mini again, even though common sense should have told me that nothing would come of it.

That's when I spotted a manual of courage in the corpse of a fey commander. How nice for me, especially since I've never actually found a manual before. I don't put too much emphasis on courage, for now, so I put the manual on auction. I thought it would get 1 million gold, so that's what I asked for it. Then it started to go up. The auction finally closed out, and I was nearly 1.55 million gold richer.

05/29/2006 | Joined Clan Phoenix

I got recruited into this new clan by Heavenslight who must have been watching the in-game announcements when I left Euphoria. They wanted me, and I wanted to be wanted, so I joined. Hopefully there will be people there who can help me, and who I can give advice to as well. I've already made one mutually beneficial exchange of information.

05/28/2006 | Left Clan Euphoria

After sticking it out for what feels like weeks in Euphoria (that's a long time in MM terms,) I ended my three and a half months clan membership. It was the perfect clan for me when I was recruited. The people were funny, and they liked me, were able to help me... but then there was a rift behind the scenes that I never really understood what was going on. People started leaving until it was just Jaryd/Shortbeard, sometimes Tomten, an unresponsive Plutt and I. It was very lonely, and I wanted more clannies.

I wouldn't call this an accomplishment really, except that it did take some amount of courage to leave and take a chance that some other clan would want me.

Interestingly, hours after I left the clan owners must have come to some sort of conclusion/solution because about 10 people got removed in the space of a few hours. I wonder what made them take action.