Congratulations Belzur!

So, Friday turned into a rather interesting evening of play...

I admit, I was a little late getting into the game on Friday. I had a few things the wife wanted me to do before I could log in. Which meant I missed any opportunity to catch Stonehands (Bashal) or PuddinTan (Tanision) when they'd logged in earlier that evening. In fact, it was nearly 7:30pm local time, meaning that it was almost 9:30pm back where they live.

(It'd been a long work-week, I'm sure they were both pretty tired, too.)

But, when I'd finally logged in, I found Belzur out kicking rocks in the Gianthold, rummaging through his inventory and trying to sort things out. I guess he'd collected a lot of junk over the past few adventures that he needed to put away or sell...

At any rate, since he was already digging around in his pack, I asked him if he'd yet accumulated all of the relics required to open the Gianthold Tor.

Ya know, his pack is almost as big as he is. He basically fell in while trying to reach the bottom of the thing. For a while, all you could see were the soles of his boots while they wiggled just outside of the opening. And, he was in there for a while, too. (Makes me wonder what he's got in there.) But, he finally came up for air, with piles of relics in his arms. After he climbed out of his pack, he spread his relics abut on the ground, sorted them, stacked them, and counted them up.

Counting with him is an interesting exercise.

Self-admitedly, he's not the most intelligent Dwarf around...

But, he's a Fighter. Intelligence isn't exactly a prerequisite to swing a Dwarven Axe.

Did you know that Belzur has a sixth toe on his left foot?!?

I didn't. Not until he took his boots off to help him count his relics.

Oh, it's not what you'd call gross-looking, or anything. Not by Dwarven standards, anyway. It's just an extra toe. I guess that explains why his left boot is a little wider than his right boot. But, it took him four tries to get an accurate count. I guess the extra toe kept throwing him for a loop.

Eventually, though, he realized that he had thirty-four Dragon relics, eighteen Elven relics and seventeen Giant relics.

That's when he asked how many of each relic he actually needed.

"Twenty."

"Hmm..." he said, scratching his head. Clearly, he was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Fortunately, PEBKAC, a touch more intelligent than Belzur, had an idea.

"You know, you can take your excess relics over to the Quartermaster and exchange them three-for-one."

"Yeah, where is he?"

"Follow me!"

Wouldn't you know it, he came up just one, *ONE* Giant relic short of being able to open the Tor. Which is when I sent an inquiry to the allied guild chat asking if anyone had a single spare Giant relic. That's when one of our friends in the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers stepped up to offer assistance. Elainee (Kelvain), I believe it was, promptly mailed one relic right over, and Belzur finally had enough relics to open the Tor.

This was just about the time RadRader logged in. And, of course, when he heard about how Belzur had finally opened the Tor, he wanted to join in and get his character ready for the Stormreaver raid, too.

With three on board for a Gianthold Tor run, I posted an invitation to allied guild chat for other members who might be interested. Rambow (Sisren) was certainly interested. Both for XP for Rambow, but also for the chance to pluck a blue scale from the hide of the Blue Dragon that supposedly lurked within the Tor. The only problem was that he was already in a group running one of the new raids, and would be a bit before he could join us.

Since we weren't in a hurry, we told him to take his time while Belzur re-packed his backpack and finished off his maintenance. RadRader became a little impatient, though, and decided to see what kind of trouble he might get himself into.

Of course, ever watchful of everyone's healthbars, it wasn't long before PEBKAC noticed RadRader wasn't as healthy as he *had* been. Looking around the tavern, it was obvious he decided to "wait" for the rest of the group, by himself...

Knowing full well the answer that was to follow, PEBKAC asked, "Umm... Red? Where *are* you?!?"

"Oh, I just ran out into the Ruins real quick..."

"I see that. Hang on, I'll be right there."

It wasn't until shortly after PEBKAC had entered the Ruins, jumped off the bridge and started making his way toward the Arnum Supply Depot that he saw Red had become incapacitated.

"Put your boots back on, Belzur. Rad's in trouble. Again..."

"Hang on, I'll be there in a minute."

*DING!!!* "Your party member, RadRader, has died!"

"I guess there's no need to hurry now, is there?"

(laughing in the background) "Not really, no."

Still, it didn't take long for PEB and Belzur to make their way out to the Ruins and to retrieve Rad's stone, raise him, and earn a kills toward the Slayer experience objectives. When Rad finally died a second time, everyone conceded it was time to Recall back to the camp at Gianthold, anyway. Rambow had finally completed his previous raid run, and was ready to join the rest of the group.

That left two slots open in the adventure party, which were filled relatively quickly by a couple of PUG (Pick-Up Group) Sorcerers. As it turned out, some very good Sorcerers, at that.

But, it wasn't until we tried to enter the Tor that RadRader realized that he hadn't turned in all his relics and opened the quest. That sent Rad down the hill to the Auction House representative to buy himself, get this..., some Giant relics! Of course, he needed more than just the one that Belzur needed, so he went ahead and bought a stack of them from the auctioneer.

Once he'd advanced his quest, we all headed up the hill to enter the adventure, only to find that Belzur couldn't open the door. This despite the fact that he'd talked to Crag, turned in all of his relics and advanced the quest. It turned out that PEBKAC had forgotten to inform Belzur that he needed to talk to Cydonnie before he could enter the Tor.

So, Belzur ran back down the hill, chatted with Cydonnie, and then came back up to find the door was finally open to him.

With all members finally in the quest, the two Sorcerers set to work on the wave of Giants storming forth through a series of dimensional portals.

Ya know... it's funny how quickly a Giant is rendered impotent by a simple cast of the Flesh to Stone spell. It made things very simple for Belzur, Rambow and RadRader. For PEBKAC, the most difficult thing was to stay out of everyone's way.

That, and once the Giant invasion had been halted, trying to keep up with everyone as they tore off down the winding corridors of the Tor.

In fact, there were a couple of close calls, but everyone managed to keep themselves alive as they made their way through the quest, completing it in relatively short order. That's when things became interesting. Because, it was at that point that the group had to face each of the three Dragons and their respective escort/trainers. Apparently, these were juvenile Dragons, one each White, Blue and Black.

As the group soon learned, the White Dragon was the greatest challenge. Particularly since it didn't take long for the White Dragon's keeper to lock in on PEBKAC with a Cometfall. Once knocked to the ground, it didn't take long for the Dragon's keeper to lock in a second time and finish PEBKAC off. After that, the rest of the group quickly fell to either the Dragon or it's keeper, and we were left with a party-wipe.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the party to re-group, and the second time around, PEBKAC managed to stay out of the keeper's way, and kept everyone else alive long enough to vanquish the White Dragon and it's keeper.

You should've seen the look on Belzur's face at that point, though!

Like a kid in a candy store.

You could see the mixed look of disbelief, excitement and awe when he saw the piles of treasure the Dragon had accumulated. And then he dove in! The sight of a Dwarf, *swimming* in piles of treasure is something that simply cannot be described. You can only see it to believe it.

Yet, somehow, Belzur managed to fill his pack and still found a way to carry it off. He may lack in brains, but not in brawn.

And, he even managed to pluck a scale from the White Dragon's hide!

Then they moved on to the Blue Dragon...

It was a close contest, but the Blue Dragon and it's keeper were no match for the party. Alas, Rambow wasn't lucky enough to pull one of the blue scales he'd been searching for; PEBKAC had pulled one instead. But PEBKAC decided that it was better to give the blue scale to someone who could make better use of it...

While everyone else was swimming through the piles of the Blue Dragon's treasure...

"Hey, Rambow... c'mere."

In an instant, the look of disappointment vanished from Rambow's face.

After another few armfulls of treasure were scooped into PEBKAC's pack and a quick shrine, the group was off to face the final Dragon.

Honestly, I think the Black Dragon is by far the easiest of the three to defeat. The problem is that, in the attempt to do so, *everyone* is standing pretty much in the same place, and everyone is taking damage *very* quickly. PEBKAC spammed heals as quickly as he could, but there were still a couple of moments where he wasn't able to keep everyone alive.

With some quick work, though, PEB managed to raise RadRader and get him back into the fight just in time to finish off the Dragon while everyone else worked on the keeper.

I have to be honest with you...

With all the piles of treasure to be had in that quest, two completely empty inventory slots aren't enough to carry everything saleable back out of the Tor.

Granted, not everything an adventurer finds in the Tor is worth hauling back out, *BUT* everything can be sold. I guess next time, I'll have to clear three inventory slots before I take PEBKAC into the Tor.

;-)

Actually, I think it took longer to defeat the three Dragons than it did to clear out the Tor. But, by the time we'd finished, all of us needed to sell all the junk we'd picked up over the course of the run. Which also gave us each plenty of time to step away from the keyboard for a few minutes, to refresh ourselves, as well as our characters.

When we came back, the decision had been made to launch right into a Stormreaver raid, now that everyone had completed all of the prerequisites. But, they had a little surprise in store for Belzur when he finally returned...

He was named Main Tank for the raid.

Of course, I made sure RadRader explained to Belzur everything he needed to know before we kicked things off. I mean, you don't want anyone finding their way into a really bad situation on their first Stormreaver raid.

Once everyone had their assignments, we got things started. And, for the most part, things started out really well. But, at one point, Belzur lost the giant's agro, and he started wandering around making mince-meat out of many members of the party. Including PEBKAC, who took a shot from the giant's blade just as he was trying to heal himself.

Belzur was still alive and swingin', though.

But, not for long. The Giant eventually turned on him, and the other Cleric in the raid party simply couldn't keep himself and Belzur alive at the same time.

It's okay, though, Belzur, few characters live all the way through their first attempt at the Stormreaver. And, after all, we were running the raid on Elite. (I don't think I've ever run it on anything less...) Any raid on Elite has to present *some* sort of challenge.

But, I had to type quickly to ensure Belzur didn't recall out of the raid. Only if he stayed put, so he could be resurrected when the group finally completed the puzzle.

It was a close call, though. Only six of the raid party were left standing by the time the puzzle was finished. But there was *lots* of XP for the completion, and the Favor earned for the raid also earned Belzur his first rank of Favor with the Agents of Argonnessen. (He chose the Collapsed Portable Hole.)

Although neither Belzur nor PEBKAC pulled any raid loot from the end chest, someone in the group managed to pull the Stormreaver's Napkin, a great little item for any caster. And, I think I heard someone say that the boots had dropped, too.

As it turned out, it was a long evening, but it was a *lot* of fun! I think Belzur enjoyed it, too. I know his pack was overflowing by the time we were through.

But, I can't stop thinking about that extra toe...

;-)

Keep it fun!!!

Oh, and, congratulations, Belzur!!!