It had been dark and overcast pretty much all day when I finally left work
and began the drive home.  My commute time has gone up quite a bit over the
past few weeks.  It's a common joke here that Minnesota has only two
seasons: Winter and Road Construction.  It's definitely Road Construction
season; the freeway has been reduced to one lane, causing backups for miles.
Even after the one-lane restriction is lifted, you're still in two very very
narrow lanes, with concrete barriers two feet to your left and another car
two feet to your right.  I've had to use both hands on the wheel and fully
concentrate on driving during these bits; I've felt like Red Two should be
telling me, "Stay on target!"  Today for added spice, the skies open up and
a downpour ensues.  I mean it is raining *hard*, so hard that puddles are
forming on the freeway.  And I've got a semi on my right just to make things
really interesting.

I finally get past the construction and make it home.  I log on to see the
cleric channel filled with Complete Heal chain spam and reports to "burn it
down".  I quickly unmem Virtue and memorize Gate and gate over to the
Tactics stone.  I find myself surrounded by increasing numbers of my naked
guildmates.  We're evidently doing Rallos Zek the Warlord, and once again
we've gotten him down to below 10% before a new wave of adds has wiped us.
I hear reports that he's down to 2% and I zone in, thinking to nab a raid
invite and nuke him for all it's worth.  Alas, by the time I get to the pit
he's at 80% and climbing fast.  Oh well; I wouldn't have lasted long solo
against RZtW anyway.

We're in CR mode at the moment, which means waiting for the corpses to
appear in the graveyard.  Since I have some free time, I head back to the
bazaar to complete a smithing order I was given a couple of days ago.  That
gives me 55K to play with, and I use 14K of it to buy two Metallic Liquids.
I then send a tell to one of the guild potters, asking if she could make me
a Ceramic Shield of Valor.  I've been longing for this item since I got
Spell Casting Reinforcement Mastery; with SCRM and this shield, my buffs
would last 70% longer.  The potter - an female iksar Shadowknight being
played by a real-life woman - is amenable.  She tells me I also need a Large
Shard of Stone from the Plane of Valor.  There's none for sale in the
bazaar, but she tells me that I should be able to find them on vendors, as
they often get sold by PC's who XP in PoV.  In fact, the first vendor she
checks has such a shard; I gate to the Plane of Tranquility and buy it for
85pp.  I give it all to the SK, who is logging on her boyfriend's chanter to
do an imbue.

Meantime, corpses have started appearing.  I gate back to the Tactics stone
and zone in.  As I'm rezzing, the SK sends me a tell linking the Ceramic
Shield of Valor.  Since I was fully expecting and prepared for a failure -
the trivials on these are well above 250 - I am pleasantly surprised.  The
SK then links the shield to guildchat before zoning in and presenting it to
me.  We've had a minor rebellion recently; when we first got
Elemental-flagged, guild policy was that all elemental tradeskill drops were
to go to the guild coffers.  One of the officers is a Grandmaster of every
tradeskill, so he's been collecting the drops and making bows and totems and
silk items and what-not.  And it's just not raiding drops that are to go to
him; if we group together in the Elemental planes, we were expected to turn
over everything we collected during that group to the guild.  The rationale
was that we wouldn't be Elemental-flagged without the guild, and it wasn't
exactly fair that some people would be using drops to twink out their alts
while there were still mains in the guild who could benefit from Elemental
tradeskill items.  We did that for a couple of months before the
tradeskillers finally complained vocally that all the time they had spent
getting to 250 was useless, and why shouldn't they be able to get a group
together and farm specific tradeskill drops so they can attempt a few items
for themselves?  After a sometimes-heated exchange on the guild message
boards, the officers relented and said that only tradeskill items that
dropped during a raid would go the guild coffers; everyone could keep
whatever they farmed during a group to themselves.  They did issue a stern
warning: don't make tradeskill items and then sell them outside the guild;
use what you collect to benefit the guild as much as possible.  That seems
only fair to me.  I didn't participate much in the debate - I've been
relying on Heraldic sales for my income, and it's been steady.  Still, now
with the restriction lifted, I may try to make some plate items.  I still
have a Skyshrine breastplate; I'd sure like to replace it with something
better.

The policy change allowed me to have this shield made for me, and I'm happy
to equip it.  I wish there was a way to hotkey equipment changes; it would
sure be nice to quickly swap out my Ssra shield for this, then switch back
after I cast a buff.  Oh well, I'll just have to do it manually.  I get a
tell from a mage asking why I bothered; no one was going to live long enough
to enjoy a four-and-a-half hour Virtue.  I point out that Blessing of
Reverence will now last almost an hour, to which he replies, "Oh yeah!  Hook
me up with that, please."

The CR is done and we move in.  We clear down to RZ and prepare for Tallon
Zek.  The Complete Heal chain will remain the same; my duty is to provide
fast heals to fill in the gaps.  No problem.  As we are taking down the
triggers for Tallon Zek, I get a request for Virtue.  Most people go for
Symbol/Blessing of the Nine instead of Virtue, the exception being Paladins.
So the request is not uncommon.  I happily oblige; I do a /ttarget and cast
Virtue.

And end up in the Plane of Tranquility.

Dangit, I completely forgot that I'd swapped Virtue for Gate.  I hadn't made
this mistake in quite a while.  I sigh and zone back in just as the TZ fight
begins.  I invis myself at the zone-in, preparing for the run back, when
suddenly people are screaming "ADDS".  This is soon followed by "TL if you
can!"  I watch as, one by one, my groupmates die.  Eventually a wiz gets an
AE TL off, and a few people do make it out.  I watch the post-mortem; the
whole reason we are killing RZtW is to get our new recruits flagged.  One of
those recruits made the mistake of moving onto the steps leading up to RZ's
chamber during the TZ fight.  As we had discovered while learning how to run
this encounter, anyone on the steps will aggro the mobs in RZ's chamber.
This led to the wipe.  The officers make several stern comments about
listening to orders and staying off the steps.  I run back to help with the
CR - and run smack-dab into the RZ chamber mobs, who are chasing someone to
the zone line.  Fortunately none of them aggro on me, and I quickly gate
out.  There is more screaming about "Who trained zone-in!" as my naked
guildmates once again surround me in Tranquility.

Eventually we zone in and begin the second CR.  When I zone in, I notice a
wizard - Kwinic - is lurking at the zone-in, invisible and anonymous.  He
used to be one of our recruits, but he was rejected for being too obnoxious
and immature.  Here's a tip if you're trying to get into a guild: don't get
into fights with members in guildchat and then send them angry tells
afterwards.  I wonder what he's up to; it crosses my mind that perhaps he
deliberately sabotaged our TZ fight but I have no proof, and he probably
would have been noticed by someone; many of my guildmates have see-invis
items, like my Eye of Darkness.  I dismiss the notion of sabotage as
extremely unlikely.

We move in yet again.  A few people have logged, so I get added to the
Complete Heal chain.  As we're clearing, I suddenly hear a loud piercing
wail from outside.  I comment, "Hmm, tornado siren going off" into guildchat
and then step to the porch and look outside; it's dark by now, but I don't
see or hear anything like a tornado.  I go back to the computer and comment
that I don't appear to be in immediate danger.  I turn on the television and
find out that a tornado did, indeed, touch down about 20 miles away from me.
There's a huge series of thunderstorms heading directly for me; I comment to
this fact as well into guildchat.  In the past we've had people log because
the weather outside looks back, which has always seemed to me to be a cheesy
excuse to get out of raiding.  So I decide to reassure everyone that when
rescue workers find my corpse in the tornado wreckage, they'll have to pry
the keyboard from my dead hands.  A few minutes later the tornado siren dies
down, and I comment to that effect in guildchat and tell them that I'm now
evidently out of danger.  "Or it means that the pole the siren is attached
to is now floating away into the sky," a guildmate comments.  I laugh at
that, but truly I feel pretty safe.

This time TZ goes off without a hitch, as does VZ.  During the TZ fight I
use Divine Arbitration to heal a rogue in our group while I keeping the Main
Tank targeted.  A ranger recruit in our group mildly freaks out; "WTH?  I
sacrificed my vitality?!"  I explained that it wasn't TZ, it was me using a
AA ability to balance the party's hitpoints.  The other cleric in my group,
another recruit, laments that it will be quite a while before she can get
that; she's still a yellow away from 65.  In fact, I use DivArb a couple
more times, once to heal the cleric while she's got Divine Aura up and is at
7% health.  The ability to heal DA'd folks is one of the most useful points
to DivArb.

Fake RZ is taken care of, and we gate out.  We reform at the zone-in.  After
the first wipe, our guild officers ordered all shamans, druids, and chanters
to join a new Crowd Control channel.  A couple of newcomers are asked to
join that channel as well; the officers are going all-out to make sure CC is
taken care of this time.  We move down to the pit and get ready for RZtW.
We pull him, and as usual we have no initial problems beating him down.  As
we get close to 10% percent I switch to third-person view so I can see if
adds are about to swarm us.  I don't see any nearby, and as RZtW falls to
7%, then 5%, a guild ranger comments, "We got this."  We evidently do; RZtW
falls and I never see an add.

There is much cheering.  The recruits frantically run and hail the PP.
Loots are announced; a Grimfaced Visor and a Black Collar of Boundless
Might.  I switch back to first-person view and turn around to see a lot of
wraiths running around killing people.  The officers tell everyone who
doesn't need a flag to gate out, so I do.  I zone right back in and sit at
the zone line.

There's loot to be awarded.  A guild officer asks if anyone can relink the
loot on RZtW.  I scroll up and relink the drops.  Then the officers ask for
who's in on the loot.  I put my name in on the Black Collar; while it's not
much of an improvement over my Dark Claw Amulet, it has a better focus
effect: 15% mana preservation on all buffs and heals.  I've lacked mana
preservations on my heals ever since I got my PoP healing spells and my
Obulus Death Shroud became obsolete.  Still, besides the focus effect
there's not much difference between the Collar and my Amulet, so I'm not
hopeful.

Suddenly guildchat is filled with, "Who let Kwinic into the raid!"  Kwinic
is booted from the raid a few seconds later, but not before he hails the
Planar Projection and gets a flag.  People are livid, and I admit to being a
bit angry myself.  The culprit is quickly narrowed down to a recruit who was
a group leader and didn't know that Kwinic had been booted from the guild.
She innocently invited him so he could get flagged.  She's extremely
apologetic and I find that I can't really blame her; it should not have been
her responsibility to get people invited for flags.  Still, there's a lot of
anger floating around guildchat that this guy ninja'd a flag from us.

Loot is announced, and very much to my surprise I'm awarded the collar - I'm
guessing no non-recruit went in on it besides me.  Being awarded the drop
and looting it are two different matters, of course.  I invis myself, then
run to the edge of the pit.  I position myself over RZtW's corpse, then cast
DA and plummet downwards.  I quickly run and loot the collar.  I then look
around and see that I needn't have worried; there's no mobs close by.  I
then run to the zone-out, seeing a bunch of mobs clustered around there.  I
cast DB and zone out with fifteen mobs beating on me.  Only afterwards do I
wonder why I didn't just simply gate away.

Meanwhile, the anger in guildchat is being replaced by a new emotion: joy.
Our recruits are now elemental-flagged and are happily zoning into various
elemental zones.  I remember my own excitement when I first zoned into an
elemental plane, so I smile as I watch the various exclamations of delight
in guildchat.  Two people - a wizard and a druid - zone into the Plane of
Air.  Alas, they chose exactly the wrong time to do that; the wizard takes
five hits from a wandering mob and zones out with seven percent health.  The
druid was not so lucky and asks for a rez.  I zone-in and rez her.  Even
this little mishap is not enough to dampen her spirits though; she moves on
to the Plane of Earth to check it out, too.

Now that I have some private time, I experiment with my new focus items.  I
cast a heal and watch as the collar flickers - mana preservation, yeah.  I
cast a Supernal Elixir on myself and time it; seven ticks, for 500 each.
Awesome.  I'm going to enjoy my new equipment.

I decide to log off Monual and log on Marrtuk.  He's 62% away from 45, which
will be a big milestone for him.  I've got him in the Gulf of Gunthak, and I
move on to the undead mobs there.  It's slow but steady XP, with a bit of
downtime every four or five mobs to recover mana.  During one of my
downtimes, two people move into my area and begin pulling the mobs I've been
camping.  I grimace but decide not to make an issue of it; there are plenty
of mobs here.  I simply move further on down the wall.

Marrtuk is not in Silent Tempest and, although it's been on the tip of my
tongue to ask to have him tagged - alts of mains are allowed to be tagged -
I've refrained, mostly so that Marrtuk can be seen as a soloer who isn't
associated with anyone or anything.  While it's clear he's a twink, no one's
asked who my main is and I haven't volunteered it.  I'm not trying to hide
it - I'd tell anyone who'd ask - but I do like the idea of Marrtuk just
hanging loose on the sidelines, doing his own thing.  The upshot of all that
is that while I'm logged on as Marrtuk I miss out on guildchat.  But I'm
still subscribed to the cleric channel, and one of the clerics comments,
"Well, there's not much we can do about it, so we may as well get over it."
"Get over what?" I ask.

The answer astounds and angers me no end.  One of our recruits - a ranger
named Luciya - got flagged for the elemental planes, then deguilded and
joined our server's uber-guild.  Not an hour after our RZtW kill, she was in
the Plane of Fire raiding with the uber-guild.  It was clearly her intention
from the moment she joined to use us to get flagged, then ditch us for the
uber-guild.  Even today that makes me extremely upset - that someone would
so nakedly and unashamedly use us, then dump us.  She was even awarded a bow
in one of our raids that none of our mains could use.  Even God was angry at
this development; an incredibly loud crash of thunder exploded outside my
window.

After some venting in the cleric channel, I went back to leveling up.  I
cleared one camp of mobs and was just looting a corpse when everything went
pitch black.  The power was out.  I sat at my computer waiting for my eyes
to adjust, and found that they didn't much need to; the lightning outside
was almost continuous.  Carefully I made my way over to the porch and watch
the display.  The lightning was high up, in the clouds, and was at times
almost painfully bright.  My cats came and watched with me, but they didn't
like the thunder and soon went and hid back inside.

Having no electricity can be incredibly boring.  No EQ, no TV, I couldn't
even read a book.  So I just sat on my couch thinking random thoughts for an
hour until the power camp back on.  I logged on Monual and took him to the
Gulf of Gunthak and had him clear out the respawned camp so that Marrtuk
could survive.  Then I logged on Marrtuk and continued my leveling - I was
getting very close to 45.

During my fights, I got a tell from a cleric asking me to let him know if an
erudite spirit spawned.  I told him I would, and not an hour later the
spirit did, in fact, spawn right in front of me.  I sent him a tell but got
no reply.  I shrugged, left the spirit up, and continued clearing.  A few
minutes later I sent him another tell, and this time he replied and said
he'd completed the quest, and thanks.  He found me, healed me, and then cast
his newly-acquired Temperance buff on me.  Nice; Monual never did that
quest, of course, because Virtue is much better, but it would have been nice
while he was leveling up.

It was getting very late but I continued on, just wanting to ding 45.  I
stayed up much later than I probably should have, but in the end I did ding
45.  Wearily I made my way to a safe spot on the beach.  I right-clicked my
Deepwater Helm and was deeply satisfied to see it go off.  The Daring buff
didn't stick because I still had Temperance, but still it was an indication
that life was going to get a bit easier for me: I now have an unlimited
supply of mana-free 100-hitpoint heals.  Coupled with the fact that KEI will
now once again be available for me, I should be able to kill mobs with much
less downtime.

So overall an interesting day.  Two people used us to get flags, which was
bad and still makes me burn - we've started a flame of Luciya on the
www.drinaleq.com flame boards which I couldn't help contributing to.  No
response yet from the uberguild people who will undoubtedly take the
opportunity to counter-flame us.  But yesterday had a lot of good things
happen: Monual got two nice pieces of equipment, Marrtuk hit 45, and our
recruits got flagged for the Elemental planes.

Gotta wonder what today will bring.  It's still cloudy outside.

-Richard

Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Silent Tempest

Marrtuk
Paladin of Mithaniel Marr

Drinal server