February 6, 2011

The Perils of Casting Double XP
by Ludi

Part I: Casting the Spell

As any player who has been attempting to XP knows, a kind shipper has been casting double XP recently. Of course, to cast double XP, all that needs to be done is to grapple a Khrait Sitharon, steal their secret ship spell, collect several mob faction corpses, utter a few secret words, and there you have it - BAM - XPXP for a day. The benevolent shipper who has undertaken this task recently was Bassna, on his ship Frozen Starshine.

I joined him on the Frozen Starshine during his quest to encounter and defeat the mob factions so that he could gather the necessary corpses for the XPXP spell. By the time I had arrived on his boat, he had already been working for several days attempting to collect the corpses. Despite his many hours of work, he still needed several elusive Night Siren corpses. Unfortunately, we only had several hours until the dawn fog, when our chance to pop Sirens would be lost until the coming night. In desperation, we used "vas smurt" to summon several different MFs, but we only got useless Aquoderms and Krakens, as the Sirens eluded us. Fog finally came, and disheartened, but not discouraged, I left the ship. By this time, the deckhands were already owed over 50 million gold and there was no plan for us to dock any time soon.

When I returned to Frozen Starshine later the next day, I found that Bassna had finally obtained the Night Siren corpses required, but to our dismay, he realized that he also needed a Firemoth corpse as well. We sailed on, letting the MF timer run and severely damaging the ship with "vas smurt" in our effort to collect the final required corpse for the spell. Unfortunately, by this time the ship was so full of corpses, we were running out of places to stow them. Gnoden was aboard to help and he used his spatial orientation skills (no doubt honed by many hours playing Tetris) to drag the corpses around the ship in such a way that would allow us to cast the spell once the Firemoths were obtained.

Finally, at long last, we had the required corpses, and even enough excess ones to allow Bassna to cast XPXP several times. All this accomplished with nothing more than the dedicated work of a skilled shipper, some luck, and a great measure of patience –and also 62 million gold for the deckhands.

Part II: Saving the Ship

I returned to the Frozen Starshine the next day to find the ship in extreme peril. All parts of the ship had sustained severe damage, we were surrounded by at least 5 Khrait Sitharons, and most of the deckhands were cowering in fear of the Ruby Kah that had boarded the ship. I recalled to mind a mathematical equation: Khrait + Severely Damaged Boat + Ruby Kah = Sunk Ship. My initial assessment was that the ship would likely not last more than 5 minutes, as the Khrait were blasting away at us and Frozen Starshine had few functioning guns and fewer deckhands available to man them.

However, through the skill and persistence of the many players who came to the aid of the ailing ship, we somehow averted disaster. Myself, Lithador, Templin, Shaere, and of course Bassna himself were all working diligently to at least keep the hull at critical damage to keep afloat. Just as the hull would be repaired to a minimum degree, another salvo from the Khrait would tear through the ship, ripping apart all of our hastily done work. We somehow managed to repair the ship enough to prepare to fire off the Ruby Kah. At the same time, we alerted the Heroes of the realm via Immortal channel that we were in need of help to fight off the Khrait. Luckily, Rukee was not far off and was able to quickly sea-dragon his ship, Atta Buoy, to help fight the attacking Sitharons.

Finally, we fired off the Kah, but now had to deal with a severely damaged ship, as well as the attacking Khrait and several small aggressive serpents that were intent on ramming us. As one of them charged from the larboard side, where almost every gun was destroyed, I saw that it was inevitable for us to be rammed. I thought to myself that all our work keeping the Frozen Starshine afloat was in vain. However, the serpent ramming us turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Rukee arrived to our aid just before we were rammed, and while he engaged the Khrait, we were able to escape from much of the fighting by bouncing and riding on the serpent that had rammed us. When we were a safe distance from the Khrait, we finished off the serpent that had rammed us and carried us away simultaneously. Now, all that was left was to deal with the Khrait – and eventually pay the deckhands, who were now owed over 70 million gold.

Part III: Khrait

With the Kah gone, and all the nearby serpents killed, the sense of immediate danger on the ship had passed. We quickly worked to repair the ship as much as possible and return to Rukee’s ship to help him finish off the Khrait. Frozen Starshine was starting to shape up, as we got most of the guns online and the hull fully repaired. We made way for the Khrait and eventually engaged one of the Sitharon Scout Ships that was some distance away from Rukee and the majority of the fighting.

Frozen Starshine peppered the Khrait with several broadsides until it was fairly heavily damaged and we sailed next to the ship. At my urging, we decided to grapple and board the Sitharon in an attempt to check the chest for ship spells and possibly pirate the boat. I was able to successfully grapple the ship on the first attempt and Bassna and I quickly boarded the boat. Rukee found out about our activity and admonished us to stop wasting time with the Khrait and to get back to him to finish off the Khrait that had originally come for us.

As we made way to re-board Frozen Starshine, we encountered a problem. The Sitharon and the Frozen Starshine had turned in such a way that we could no longer re-board our boat. For the time, it seemed, we were stranded on the Sitharon. To make matters worse, Shaere, who was back on Frozen Starshine, had taken the helm and was firing on the Khrait ship, with us still aboard! We kindly asked him to stop shooting at us long enough form him to reposition the ship so that we could re-board. After several frustrating minutes we made our way back onto the Frozen Starshine and easily dispatched the Khrait Sitharon to Davey Jones Locker.

Part IV: Epilogue

Having cleared all the immediate danger near by, we finished our repairs, paying particular attention to the sails. This allowed us to quickly make our way back towards Rukee and what remained of the attacking Khrait force. From the Crow’s Nest, I spied Rukee fighting the two remaining Sitharons, and we sped toward them, as our adventure drew to a close. We neared the action and once again and resumed fighting the Khrait alongside Atta Buoy. After inflicting heavy damage to one Sitharon, we pulled alongside it with the intent to grapple, board, and possibly pirate the ship.

As we had done before, I grappled the ship and several of our party, including myself, Lithador, Templin, and Bassna all boarded the Sitharon. We found this ship to be heavily damaged, with over 115 tons of water below decks. Lithador and I valiantly attempted to pump water from the hull. However, as before, Rukee would not support our foolish attempts to save and take the Sitharon and he continued to unleash his guns on the Sitharon, despite the fact that we were aboard. We shouted for him to stop but he would hear none of it and continued to fire away. Suddenly, all four of us aboard the Sitharon found ourselves in Davey Jones Locker, along with the last of the Khrait Scoutships. Rukee had successfully managed to defeat the mob faction and PK 4 players with his boat simultaneously. Very impressive.

After we resurrected on the beach, we all said our farewells, as Lithador and my own part in the adventure had come to an end. The last I know of Frozen Starshine, she was well repaired and making full speed for the docks, with deckhands owed over 85 million in gold. My only request of you, the reader, would be this: if you or your bloodline benefited from the Double XP cast by Bassna, please show some generosity and donate to his deckhand reimbursement fund.

Your Humble Correspondent,

Ludi