Happy New Year!

Wishing you Health, Wealth, Happiness, Good Friends and Good Cheer in this coming year!

Love and Blessings,
Rowan

Night Hawk and Giraffe Hatch

I am still working on my project to hatch pets with spritely to give to my five "baby" toons.

Last night I had enough gold in my pocket to hatch, so I tried my epic Night Hawk Maya, with my adult Giraffe, Rudy. Maya the Night Hawk is from the Night Hawk card, and my Giraffe, Rudy, is from the Sun Palace epic bundle. Both of them got Spritely at teen. I was, of course, wishing that the new pet, Lady Mocha, would also get Spritely at teen, but she did not. Lady Mocha got Life Giver, +1% Life Damage at teen. I was also hoping that I would get a Night Hawk, and not a Giraffe. Yes, yes, Giraffes are very cute, but I wanted a sleek looking Night Hawk for Iridian, my Death wiz.

Perhaps, because my hatcher, Rowan, who is a Life wizard, influences which school I might hatch. Maya is Storm, Rudy is Life. I have only hatched several pets, but it seems that the tendancy when I hatch with others is that I get a pet that looks or acts more like the pet I have, not the other person's pet, or when I hatch with myself, I tend to get a Life pet, if I am hatching pets of two different schools and one pet is Life. I still have so much to learn.

What to Wear?

During this holiday time in the US, I've been spending a lot more time on the Real Life server.

As I have come in and out of the Spiral, especially to garden on most of my characters, I have done a little questing here and there on a few of them. I want to advance my Death wizard to at least level 25, so that I can pass her gear onto one of my lower level toons, so that I can slowly advance her up. It would be nice to eventually have a toon at each decan (10, 20, 30, etc), so I am not having to buy duplicates of the same crown gear. I also do not know enough about gear, so I might be passing up some very good gear that could be farmed from a boss, instead of having to use crowns to buy something suitable.

As I was looking through the gear on all my lower level toons, all five of them, I saw that I had a very nice level 25 hat for my storm wizard, Sestiva - Spike's Mechanical Visor - +64 Max Health, 3% Storm Accuracy, 6% Storm Damage, 8% Resist. The Accuracy and Damage are very nice for that level, I think. It is a hood, which I think is not the most flattering style, but the detailing on it is very pretty.

Ah, Spike the Crusher! He is the boss that shows up when you spill three milk bottles. You won't see him unless you do spill the milk ... three times, mind you. I went back to Big Ben with a friend so that he could get the alley cat there, and we fought Spike. So that is where that hat came from. Oh, gee. -smiles-

After reading the information from the link above on Wizard Central, I see that Spike drops many nice items. I was hoping he'd drop a pet, of course. He drops Myth Ghoul and White Rat Magician, but he didn't on that trip. I'll be going back there to try again.

There is no really great website that puts all the gear together, I don't think. The main Wizard forums have some information, as does the Wiki, but I have not found anything that has all the different gear compared all in one place. I'll keep looking online, but I don't think there is one. In a way, this makes it fun, to discover the best gear for a toon. On the other hand, searching around for gear for a toon can be exhausting. And then, when you are doing it for six of them - oh, my weary brain!

Still this is what I love about this game - there is always so much to learn and do, if one just looks around a bit.

Have a safe and happy New Year! See you around the Spiral!

Snowball Pet

It is a pet, sort of like a frozen pet rock, perhaps.

I think I want one. The googly eyes ... hmmm, not sure. Maybe I can see one before I commit. It must be an Ice pet ... might it have Spritely? Intarwebs, here I come.

Happy Holidays, All!

First Epic Sea Dragon

I'll have to check her talents when I am next ingame, but Miss Honey, my Sea Dragon from a card deck drop, did not get Spritely. I thought that all Sea Dragons got it, I see so many of them with it. Her talents are good, yes, but I was looking for Spritely. Either I will get one from a boss drop as I continue through Celestia, or I'll buy one. I like it more when a pet "comes to me", either via drop, school quest, or card deck rather than that I buy it. May be magical thinking, but it seems like if it comes to me, then it more likely will be a better pet choice.

It is also known that pet drops have better pedigrees than crowns pets, but I bought a Nightmare at Hallowe'en, and he has some lovely talents, and is the proud parent of my friend James' Nightmare hybrid (parents were my Nightmare Maximus and Jame's Inferno Beast). Jame's Nightmare Miss Jessie got Spritely by Adult, and also has the Meteor card that her Nightmare parent has. I got Oscar, an Inferno Beast, who also got Spritely, when he turned Ancient.

James' Inferno Beast Rascal is a hybrid. His parents are his Life wizard's Forest Lord and his Fire wizard's Phoenix. The Forest Lord has Spritely, I am assuming, but his Phoenix does not have Spritely. Still, little Rascal is a great pet, casting Spritely quite regularly, as well as some other useful Life talents.

Night Hawk and Phoenix

Hatching Night Hawk with Phoenix gave both James and me Night Hawks.

James Night Hawk has 1 Epic, 2 Uncommon and 7 Rare talent slots. Mine has 3 Uncommon and 7 rare. We both trained the pets up to Teen. His got a fire talent (his main school is Fire, and he owns the Phoenix (Fire) pet) and I got a storm talent (my main school is Life, and the Night Hawk parent I have is Storm). Maybe evident to others, but I'm new at hatching, so it is interesting to see that the owner of the Fire pet got a Fire spell on his new child, and the owner of the Myth pet got a Myth spell oh her new child.

We are both hoping to get Spritely from the newest baby Night Hawks. Gotta get to the Bazaar for some more Big Squash.

Jade Egg Hatched!

My Jade Egg, Lady Brady, is a Forest Lord, and has Enraged Forest Lord card. Her pedigree is 56, which is less than her parents - Forest Lord, Lord Chester, pedigree 59 and Nighthawk, Maya, pedigree 59. What I find odd is that last night Lady Brady egg had a pedigree of 57, but when she hatched today, her pedigree was 56. This is my second hatch, so maybe that sort of thing is common.

As I had said before, she has 3 Uncommon and 7 Rare talents.

I trained her tonight up to Adult, and at Adult she got Spritely! I was so excited about that, I have forgotten what her first talent was ... maybe Life Proof?

I do want to see if I can hatch another Night Hawk. I don't know if it is possible, but it seems to me that since Lady Brady is half Night Hawk, if I hatch her with Maya the Night Hawk, perhaps the egg will be a Night Hawk, as then half of one parent (Lady Brady/ Forest Lord) would be Night Hawk (the other being Forest Lord) and the other parent would be Maya, Night Hawk, which would make 3/4 of her parentage Night Hawk. Did I say that right?

I love that we have the ability to hatch pets with each other. It is just one of the many great features of this game!

My friend James wants to hatch his Phoenix Bentley with my Night Hawk Maya. We may be doing that tonight. Two flying pets, oooo! I have not looked up whether or not there is any information on this combination. I'll have to see.

Another Week ...

I cannot believe another whole week has gone by, and I have not posted. I swore I would, but then, I'll blame it on Mercury retrograde. Yes, that's it.

Yesterday I gathered up several of my pets that could get spritely who have not been trained fully (or at all even). I thought it would be nice to give my baby toons on this account a spritely pet for the holidays. Besides, someone jumped into a duel with one of my tiny toons in Firecat Alley yesterday, and I swear it was just to show off his uber gear and his spritely casting pet. He just stood there passing at every turn, I guess to keep it going long enough for his pet to cast spritely.

Well, it inspired me! -giggles- So, I spent my free day training up pets. I had some from crowns card deck drops - sea dragon, assailing dragon and vigilant dragon; I had bought a ghost dragon, and night hawk; from drops I have a jellyfish and sea turtle, and from my first hatch ever, I have an inferno beast (from my crowns nightmare and a friend's hybrid inferno beast, whose parents are forest lord and phoenix).

The only pet that got spritely was Oscar, my inferno beast. He was already Adult, with Pips and Life Trap, and so Spritely was his Ancient talent. His inferno beast parent Rascal has spritely, but his other parent Maximus, the nightmare, did not. Oscar did get Enraged Forest Lord card, which was nice. I was worried that he might not get spritely, but now he has it. Huzzah!

(I always seem to get the pet level progression stages wrong ... but it seems to me that Ancient would be older than Epic, or other words should be used. Baby, Teen, Adult, Ancient, Epic ... that is how it goes, but I still often get confused, thinking that Ancient comes AFTER Epic. Oh, well.)

Almost all of the rest of the pets are trained to Adult. I still have hopes of getting a few more spritely out of the bunch.

Have a happy journey around the Spiral!

Jade Egg

What hatches from a Jade Egg!?

I web searched Jade Egg, but found little information ... so now it is a really big surprise. There are still about 10 hours to go until I find out. I'm trying to keep busy so that I don't keep obsessing about what is in that JADE EGG!

Rowan hatched her Forest Lord with her Night Hawk (from the gift card). Both of them have spritely. Forest Lord has a pedigree of 59, Night Hawk's is also 59, and Jade Egg is only 57, with no card, so I am assuming that it is not another Forest Lord.
Jade Egg was given the name of Lady Brady (oh, why did it have to rhyme?). She has 3 Uncommon and 7 Rare slots and no card.

Still waiting ... tick, tick, tick ...

Pet Surprise

Last night, while completing the Library Book quest with Iridian, after defeating Lord Nightshade in the cave, Iridian was surprised with a dark sprite pet! This is my first dark sprite. I've tried many times on Rowan, and never got one. It will be hatching this afternoon. What a perfect pet for a little Death wizard!

Moar Decorating!

I decorated one of my houses outdoors and also my dorm room for the Fall Fest aka Hallowe'en contests. This was my fist time decorating for a holiday in Wizard101. Gathering up all the items to decorate can be quite an event in itself. First, you have to know what to look for in items, then you have to have enough gold and/or crowns to get those items, and then you have to find them - many can be found at the Bazaar, but competition can be fierce for those unique and desirable items, not to mention that you must know the proper name for the item you wish to find.

I had played Wizard101 a few months after it went live, then went off to pursue other things, coming back to visit the Spiral every once in a while. I love this game, especially housing and pets. I level so that I can have the gold to get more housing items and have and train more pets! It is what I enjoy.

I came back to the Spiral just before the Hallowe'en festival activities to play with my house and pets, and ended up getting completely drawn into the game again. Much has happened since I first played Wizard101, a lot of it having to do with more worlds and most especially the pet enhancements and the housing enhancements. I love them all!

When I heard about the house decorating contests, I wanted to give them a try, as in the past I have not been much of a joiner ... more of a dreamer, just thinking of what might be possible. I did not have a mount yet, and was constantly porting to the friend I was questing with in Krok. He urged me to get a mount, and finally parsimonious little Rowan purchased a ram mount. After that, my friend and I got the Special Mount Bug, and when we could, we started buying Wyvern Packs from the crowns shop. I have explained before that this little "Bug" was the cause behind my tree explosion, and then that led to Nightmare Fever. Many many cauldrons, bones, skulls and various other Nightmare Pack items later, I did finally get my Nightmare mount. Oh, and did I mention, oh so many new pets (and several other mounts).

My point - one of the best ways to get started in house decoration is to buy card packs from the crowns shop. No, it is not free, but if one chooses gaming as a form of entertainment, the pleasure factor for purchased crown card packs give a lot of entainment value, well, at least in my opinion.

I received one each of three very rare mounts - Nightmare, Wyvern and Bone Dragon. I also got several permanent mounts, which I spread around my six characters. I got the standard and deluxe brooms, a few horses, dragon wings, butterfly wings and even some bat wings. I have way more pets than I can even list, more than enough to keep me busy traing and hatching. I got a few nice wands, several pieces of stat gear, not to mention enough housing items to decorate at least 4 homes, not to mention all the forests I now have to maintain. -smiles-

I am hoping that there will be a holiday themed pack like the Nightmare pack, in the crown shop, as it is always fun to decorate for a new holiday.

Happy decorating, and may you have much fun as you travel around the Spiral!

Its Beginning to Look ...

... a lot like Winter Solstice around the Spiral!

I just found a great tutorial on how to create your very own "Christmas", Winter Solstice, Winter Holiday Tree. Thank you, Kevin BattleBlood at The Chillanthropologist for this excellent tutorial.

Chillanthropologist's Tree Decorating Tutorial

I am hoping to try this, if time permits.

What's In a Name?

As a Life wizard, I am often accompanied by a forest lord, aka wookie. My wookie friend was named Samson. He has spritely, but he doesn't use it very often. Well, he does it for show ... he mostly heals when I am grouped with others, but even then, he is no healing champ.

I thought that by calling him Samson, I'd bring out his fierce protective nature, thus I'd receive regular heals from him. Not so, well, at least not so far. He is almost epic ... three more runs through the maze and he will be epic. I mostly feed him food that he at least likes, but lately I have been feeding him foods that he loves - Small, Medium and Large Fish. Still no regular heals.

So, this morning I took him to the dye shop and changed his name to something a bit more ... forest lord like ... Lord Chester! We'll see if he likes it.

Pixie Love

Who ever heard of a pest being lovely? Have you discovered pixies yet in your garden?

Where else but in the Spiral would a pest be lovely? (Actually some of the things that we consider pests on the real life server can be quite helpful. Many of the plants that people call weeds are actually very helpful - like the lowly dandelion. Its fresh leaves can be cooked or eaten raw, and its roots can be made into a tea or tincture as a very potent healing tonic.)

I dug up my old garden layout last night, inspired by the idea that I could harvest MOAR mega pets snacks! There are still a few plants left from the old layout. I've left them where they are until they reach elder. What is so very nice about these plants is that some of them have pixies, and those pixies are affecting about one half of the new mega pet snack garden layout.

I don't know if I will keep on growing laugh o dils. Their "razzberry" noise gets to me after a little while of weeding in the garden. Still, look at those pixies! Not just one, but three pixies here.

They must really love their fountain, and especially their water mole statue. It took about three weeks to find it on the bazaar, and then when I did, I actually found two of them within an hour, just after I had become Legendary. Thank you, Wizard, for the graduation present.

Final picture is this sweet picture of the love of a venus fly trap for its pixie friend. Aww, have you ever seen such a look of adoration?

How does your garden grow? Prickly Bears

Iridian's Prickly Bear patch, about 12 hours after planting. It is coming along so nicely that I just had to show it off.

Gardening for Pets

This is my new layout for pet snack production, mostly hoping for a high yield of mega pet snacks. Rowan is here with Samson, doesn't he look quite proud and serious? I had to face Rowan and Samson looking down so that I could show as much of the layount as possible.

In the front in the small pots are pink dandelions. Just behind them are 4 snapdragons, flanked on the left by the chameleon statue. The rest of the plants are pretty much in a circle; I have not tried this type of layout before, but I kept missing a few of my plants on the edges with my old layout, so I decided to more clearly define the edges of the garden, and make certain that I can no longer miss plants with the pest killer. That can be costly.

On the right side of the garden, in medium pots and going counter clockwise are an evil snow pea, a venus fly trap, and a honeysickle. From the top of the circle, still going counter clockwise toward the pool, are my six deadly helephant ears. The top helephant ear is just out of the area of the pool, so when I replant, I will plant it in the empty pot on the lower left side of the circle. It is late, so I am not going to go into great detail about all the liked items, but they are all positioned behind and to the sides of the garden.

What you cannot see is that I have tucked four magma peas, one boomshroom and a ninja fig just behind this garden, because one of those (which I cannot now remember) also likes the weapon rack that is liked by one of the plants in the large garden circle.

It has been very confusingt to me as to how to make a layount which includes plants that like plants AND include all the other housing items plant likes. I made simple diagrams, and if I am ambitious and organized enough, I'll scan them and put them up here ... I said IF, and that is a big if. They are really easy to read and contain all the information, and I'd like to share them ... but these days, the best laid plans ... do gang aft aglay.

Here is Iridian's new prickly bear garden. I thought it was a rather nice and tidy layout, with the Pile of Sand and Krok Insect Tablet just behind, and the Tropical Garden Gnome tucked neatly in, just behind the Tablet. It is a quiet spot, with the sound of the waterfall in the background. I have not grown prickly bears yet, so I am interested to see what the pet snack yield will be for them. I don't think that they drop mega snacks, but I do know that I have regularly gathered mega snacks from Deadly Helephant Ears and Snap Dragons. I also have not grown Magma Peas, so I am looking forward to see what they will yield in the way of tasty uber pet snacks.

I have leveled Rowan's Life pets recently - satyr and forest lord, aka wookie, as well as the death pony that was available from the crown shop during the hallowe'en period. That takes a lot of food, and when I get to that last stretch of 1,000 points to Epic, I just want to run away. Mega snacks help me to go on!

Time Keeps on Slipping, Slipping, Slipping ...

... into the future!

So much happens ingame, and then nothing, and then the real life server acts up, and before I know it ... could have had twenty-something blog posts, and I end up with none.

The past few weeks I have mostly been on Rowan (Life wizard), headed toward Legendary. My Fire wizard friend James and I have been doing all our old quest lines, waiting for time on the weekend to do the two hour dungeon that finishes the main quest line in Wintertusk.

I had a quest that sent me to Colossus Boulevard ... Briskbreeze Tower? Ugh ... don't  ever go there, unless you really like being mean to yourself ... and I mean REALLY. Several levels of cheating baddies, and just when we were about to defeat the final boss, James' Life wizard Gabriel (he had stepped in to help with the dungeon, as for some reason James could not enter) died, I rezzed him, then he died again, and I was quite near death. I held off for two rounds, but was down to 130 life, and that last little death sprite, with plus damage, took me down. Gabriel did not get back in time, but he could run back up to the top, avoiding the mobs on the way. As I went back to join him, I got caught. I lagged out of a doorway and before I could turn around, I lagged into the group of mobs on that  floor.

I was able to flee and get back to Gabriel. We did finally get the boss down, but the time spent, the lack of xp and the lack of rewards made the whole experience seem quite demeaning and just downright cruel.

Wizard, WHAT were you thinking?

Lucky 13 and Krokotopia

Due to my avid pursuit of mounts that are only available through purchase of various card packs, I have ended up with a lot, and I mean A LOT of extra housing items. I now have more trees that I could ever have imagined.

Rowan, my lvl 55 Life wizard, had the standard three houses allowed by the game, but soon she ran out of room to plant all the trees. Too bad for her, she was forced (ahem) to drink a terrible tasting potion, after which she felt a great expansiveness in her mind, and was then able to buy the new Sun Palace. Poor little wizard. Now, even with an epic house, she has run out of room for trees! Whatever shall she do?

She called upon the aid of her cousin, Tavia WindBlade. Luckily, Tavia herself was having a bit of difficulty finding space in her dorm room to put all the things she was acquiring on her way through the Spiral. It seems that she too had caught Card Fever, but Rowan was too polite to say anthing about it. Rowan also did not want her habit to be called to anyone's attention. Wizards can sometimes be very kind to each other.

Tavia told Rowan that of course she'd take that 10 acre plot of trees off her hands, as she hoped to soon be in a position to buy her first real home.

Tavia was lvl 13, and needed to be 15 before she could buy a house. She ran about Wizard City, tying up loose ends, completing her quest lines. She still had to go back into Colossus Boulevard, and she was not looking forward to it - especially all those rude mannered gobblers. Then, she got send on an errand into the Haunted Cave, to investigate the Stormdrain Tower. She prefered anything to those dirty gobblers, even the very evil and powerful Lord Nightshade.

Down went Lord Nightshade and his evil companion, and to her surprise, when Tavia reported back to Headmaster Ambrose, she was given a spiral key! Her first! With a few more preparations, she was allowed to use the key to move through the Spiral to Krokotopia!

Oh, dear, she thought, it will take a long, long time to get through the last part of level 13 and on through to 15 and her new home. She settled in for the long haul, and began meeting all the new folks around Krokotopia and helping them out as she could. She ran here and there, in and out of dusty and dangerous crypts and archeological digs, but she did not complain. She was treated very well by all those she met, and before she knew it, Simeon Firemane had sent her a message to see him near the dorms back in Ravenwood. Simeon, didn't he have something to do with housing? She hurried back, and Simeon told her to visit Buxley Turtleton at the Furniture store in Wizard City shopping district! Well, the news was great, and soon Tavia had a lovely Myth house of her very own.

Tavia was so grateful to all those lovely Manders and the excavation site crew of archaeologists, who made her journey from 13 to 15 so fast and so pleasant.

Next came the truckloads of trees ...

Tomfoolery, aka House Hacking

I love player housing. I have found, though, that there are often times that I just cannot put something where I want to, or I start thinking about ... hmm, what if I could put that over there. This has ended up with me playing around and pushing the limits of the housing scheme, and finally to tomfoolery! In other words, making housing features and items do things that they otherwise would not do. A little persuasion.

After accidentally moving a rug, I found that rugs could be used to move things to places that they otherwise could not be. After a little research, a whole new world opened up to me - the world of Floating! With a few rugs, some crates and other various items, I really started to move outside the box. I also saw others' houses, and things that they had done. Most like to keep their tomfoolery to themselves, I have found. There are a few generous souls who have posted in their blogs about how they have achieved the seeming undoable, and I am very grateful for that. Without posts on the Wizard forums, house videos and fansite blogs, I would not have gone far.

Above is my first attempt at adding platforms to my rug runways. I was just goofing off, this is more of a sketch that what I shall actually create. Right now I am working on applying floating techniques and glitches to my little Myth wizard's house. I'll post the results when I am finished.

Happy floating, Friends!

Diversity

What shall I do now? What shall I not do now?

It amazes me when someone in Wizard101 says "I'm bored". It seems that I can never find enough time to do all that I want in the game. Of course, I am just coming back after not really playing for a year. When I started, it was a few months after the launch of the game, and the cap was level 30. Now it is level 60, soon to be 70!

My main character, Rowan WindFlower, is a Life wizard. Her secondary school is Balance.

Besides working on getting to level  60, I also love to decorate my homes, care for and train my pets and develop my crafting skills. Over this last weekend, leveling became the most important activity. When one finds a friend who is on the same course, then advancing one's game progress becomes more important than improving pets, or deciding which sofa goes with which rug.

This week, however, I hope to catch up more on getting my houses more in order. Besides the additions of housing drops, I have taken advantage of the Nightmare card packs, as well as my usual purchases of the other card decks. I want that wyvern mount! I don't know if it will ever be mine, though I have purchased way too many packs of those cards to even want to remember. -sigh-

Due to my card purchases, though, I have ended up with a great deal of housing items, many of them being trees. I love trees! I have put the trees to good use in my homes, turning my Krokotopia palace into an oasis in the desert. It is my favourite house. Although there is not a lot of land, there is a great diversity in the areas, and it feels much larger to me than it actually is. The taller trees grow through more than one level of the land, creating a very lush area, which is quite fun to travel through from top to bottom.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Krokotopia palace, it is a four level desert setting. One comes in from the portal to "steps" of sand clumps that go down. You land at the main level, where the house is. From there, you can proceed down to an area with a small lake, fed by a waterfall which is two levels up from it. Traveling back up to the main level and on to level three, you climb a mountain path to enter a hidden cave, which has an underground pool. This is where the waterfall starts that falls down to level one. You pass by the underground pool, only to find yourself in the remains of an ancient crypt! (Mine is filled with ancient treasures of the past, along with a friendly family of bats.) Passing through the crypt, there is a stairway upward, which leads to level four. This is the top of the palace, where an enormous sphinx holds command, beside a towering cliff above it. This little palace may not be to everyone's taste, but I love its diversity. Take a tour, if you get the chance, when you get a little free time in game ... perhaps if your thoughts start tending toward boredom? -grins-

Progress, Not Perfection ...

Reading back on my last post, I can see that someone might be puzzled about why, at level 55, I was NOT in Celestia. I had just turned 55 - just - when I had gotten all my golden pearls. From about 45, I was on a whirlwind tour of the Spiral, going around Mooshu and then into Dragonspyre, and ocassionally hopping up to Celestia to help my friend, as he was already there, to help him on his way to Legendary. He did reach it last week, and I was there! Congratulations, Chase DeathBlood!

I had dropped my more intensive pursuit of crafting, once I reached Master, to get through Mooshu and Dragonspyre. I figured that would be the best course, since I could not advance my crafting any further, as there was no more advancement until I reached a much higher level.

I just got Celestia access the night before last, -cheers!- with my friend James SunFlame. I met him when I was starting Ravenscar. We were both on the same quests, so we began to join forces. He was good enough to go back into Dragonspyre with me to complete those missions that I could not do on my own, as well as help with some of those more challenging quests. I did have to do a lot of grinding through later Dragonspyre on my own, as it is meant to be. It was a lot of killing, but finally Saturday James and I were ready to defeat Malistaire in his lair.

Fortunate for him, but unfortunate for James and me, Chase had just left the Spiral for a two week vacation. He and I had quested together since Krokotopia, and I had been with him to defeat Malistaire. None of James' or my regular questing buddies were on at the same time we were either Saturday or Sunday. Also, James ran into some technical difficulties over the weekend.

None the less, on Sunday night, a little after midnight Eastern time, Malistaire went down!

Teleporter News!

I have just made my first teleporter! Yellow. It would not be my first choice in colour, but the treasure cards to make it were the most accessible for me at the time.

The hardest regeants to obtain for the teleporter were, of course, the golden pearls. Not only are they needed for making any of the teleporters, golden pearls are needed to make the crafted quest item for the Grandmaster Crafter.

I am at level 55 right now, and wondered how I might ever get to this point of making a teleporter before I actually was "legally" able to get into Celestia. As a Life wizard, even at lower levels, I was asked to help friends who were in much higher zones. It is a very exciting life, as a Life wizard, yes indeed! I get to travel far and see the world before I ever would have in the normal progress of my little  wizardly life, due to the fact that I can heal!

So, how did I get four golden pearls before entering Celestia and NOT from ever buying one on the Bazaar? After doing some reading, researching and investigating around the Spiral, I found out a few things. Number one, I was doing some sorting out of my bags, and I discovered that I already had some pearls in my backpack. How could this be? Later that day, when gathering a harvest of maelstrom snap dragons, I saw a pearl drop into my backpack! A little more poking about and I found that deadly helephant ears would yield pearls! Also, to my surprise and great delight, on my final harvest of a maelstrom snap dragon I got a golden pearl!

I started in right away to shift my garden over to supporting deadly helephant ears and maelstrom snap dragons, so that they'd grow happily in my garden, and thus give me more pearls. More about that later. Since this was going to take a while, I looked for other options for getting pearls. I found that I could transmute golden pearls from pearls, and that I could transmute pearls from black lotus. Black lotus can also be transmuted, from ore and cattail. Since I was able to gather up to Mooshu and Dragonspyre, I spent time gathering not only black lotus, but cattails and ore, and transmuting black lotus when the supply was scarce for harvesting. Along with the pearls and golden pearls from my plant harvests, the gathering of black lotus, cattails and ore for transmuting all the way up to golden pearl, it took me about two weeks to get all four golden pearls. I got the earthquake treasure cards from either the Bazaar or plant harvests.

Now, where shall I put my new teleporter!

onomatopoeia

one of my favourite words ... I thought I'd start out with that.