Nice spider cave

Lately it seems like a lot of the usual haunts are crowded with more and more people on the main server. I've come to realize that Tarq's a bit of a tank. There are a lot of faster players doing more damage, but they're like chickens who hit and run, a few chops of a truly powerful monster and they're squawking home to Hades. That said, even at a higher level its easy to miss drops when you're not stated to do heavy damage.

I still don't understand how archers do a lot more damage than a warrior swinging a heavy sword, but it's how the game is currently set up so no point whining about it. Because more and more areas are getting crowded I've been looking for spots that are a little more quiet. The spot pictured above does from time to time have players in it, but it's nowhere near as popular as the spider corridor in the cave north of Hurnscald. And this spot is only a cave away - just bypass all the spiders and scorpions and take the north cave. This cave is strictly scorpions, no spiders, it's a nice spot to collect black scorpion tails if you don't mind waiting a bit.

Dramatic improvement - steel shield and protection spell

I'm not sure what the protection spell does other than raise evade by a couple of points, but I had it cast on me and I seemed to be almost impervious to snake attacks (not mountain snakes, but regular snakes). I was taking on 3 or 4 at a time with barely a scratch. The steel shield has made it possible for me to reasonably attack regular snakes and suffer in the range of 5-10 hits. So hit and run is much easier. This plus a protection spell left me fighting snakes alone and doing well. I picked up about 8 snake eggs and 1 tongue completing the amount of tongues I need from regular snakes in the Auldsbel quest. I still need 2 mountain snake tongues and I'm not yet powerful enough to do snakes plus mountain snakes on my own without the protection spell. Funny enough the protection spell only seemed to raise my evade from 96 to 98... there must be something else at work. Does this mean if I put more in agility or luck that I'm going to dramatically improve my odds? I can't imagine so.

I still need about 11 ore for the best helmet I can get... the only thing left then would be the Setzer (in terms of things to acquire for power). Then it's all fun, buying dyes and changing clothes, completing other quests, and eventually going after the skulls again. I also noticed that the steel shield is good against black scorpions, they seem easier to battle even 2 at a time.

Redux - bone knife

My quest for the bone knife continued this morning before work. As it turns out hunting black scorpions is A LOT easier with 2 people especially when closely matched. Not sure the exact spelling, but I think it was Kamasami, and I did 3 tours around the caves killing everything in sight, including black scorpions, red slimes, yellow slimes, spiders, and snakes. The end result was 3 more black scorpion stingers. Only six more stingers for the bone knife. I'm not all sure that it's what it's cracked up to be, but like I said yesterday, any advantage is a big boost at this level. That said I think I'm also closer to gaining another level (around 89%). This will likely be it until Saturday or Sunday sometime. I need to pay attention to other things.

Bone Knife Quest

So I decided to take on the bone knife quest before the Setzer Quest. The Bone Knife is slightly better than the short sword I have already and ANY advantage at this level helps. I'm part way through the quest having killed enough Evil Mushrooms to secure 10 small mushrooms, enough evil mushrooms being A LOT, I almost leveled and I'm level 53! (about 73%) Now I have to kill enough black scorpions to secure 9 more black scorpion tails (I already have one). Unless I get some help from other high level characters it's hours of work and lots of healing potions. I used 35 tiny healing potions about 10 small healing potions just in the mushroom killing frenzy. Besides the fact that all the evil mushrooms come at you at once I had to deal with the frustration of other parties swooping in on the mushrooms I was trying to kill (having hit them a few times), and Mouboo's getting in the way. Mouboos are a real annoyance when you're trying to kill Evil Mushrooms. The goal is the bone knife... I'm guessing sometime this weekend... work has been crazy and I need to spend time away from the computer...