Near Catastrophe

For those of you who've been reading along with me lately, you'll know that I've been spending some time out in the Menechtarun Desert, trying to help friends in the allied guilds prepare their characters for the Demon Queen raid, but at the same time, also running the Explorer/Slayer/Rare Encounters out in the desert's wilderness area.

(Both Thundermouse and Stonehands have been chomping at the bit to pull themselves a Bloodstone, whatever that is...)

Well, as I posted previously, our Demon Queen raid that had previously been schedule for this past Friday had fallen through because of some technical difficulties. As a result, a group of us decided to work on some more of the E/S/RE objectives instead. Which, of course, gave both Thundermouse and Stonehands another chance to find themselves a Bloodstone.

Which, incidentally, one of the allied guildies in the group said that he'd pulled one a few weeks back, but couldn't use it, so he simply gave it to another guildie. Mind you, this was one of our friends in the Lifetakers and Heartbreakers who'd said this. Which was almost immediately followed by Stonehands comment that he'd change guilds for a Bloodstone.

He said this with me, the leader of the Face Stabbing Misfits, the guild of which he is a member, and what's worse, the guild of which he's an... *officer*, in the party!

*AND*, he said it with two other Face Stabbers in group as witnesses!

Uh-huh.

I see how it is...

Oh, I know he was just kidding around, but I *had* to act as if my pride were wounded, or it wouldn't've been as funny. But, I did take a moment to remind him that anything he says or does in a group that I'm a member of is bloggable...

Well, I just blogged about it, so it's now a fixture of the history books... err... blog.

Sorry, Stonehands, I just couldn't let that one go! ;-)

At any rate, there we were, running through the desert, looking for rare encounters, and since there were still some folks needing the prerequisite quests, running those as well. But, it was a rather long and tiring evening. Toward the end, when we were making one last run of the chests before turning in for the evening, my character, PEBKAC, died while trying to save some of our friends while they attempted to clear one of the shrines out in the adventure area.

Keep in mind that this was the only time that evening that PEBKAC, a Level 13 Cleric, had died.

The *only* time.

Well, after we'd finished our run, I headed back to the tavern in Zawabi's Refuge to repair my items before logging out.

So, after opening the window to the tavernkeep, I noticed that, as usual, everything seemed to have at least some damage on them, so I hit the Add All button and then hit the Repair button.

But, at the same time, something seemed a bit strange...

I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I decided that sleep was more important than playing gum-shoe, so I bid my farewells and logged out.

Now, although I'd signed in for a few moments early Saturday morning, and I even took a few minutes to blog about the previous evening, I'd completely let any worries go with the few hours of rest between logins.

I spent the rest of my Saturday with my wife; we'd gone shopping, and in the process, I bought her a new bicycle. She'd been wanting one for a long time, as she'd not ridden one since our honeymoon, ten years prior, and she hadn't had her own bicycle since she was a teenager. We, therefore, spent most of the rest of our day pulling my bike out of the garage and tuning it up, and then riding about the neighborhood together, while she tried to remember how to ride.

By the time we'd gotten back home, I was pretty tired, but something in the back of my mind was telling me I should log back into the game. Honestly, I really didn't feel much like playing, but I felt some compulsion to log in and see what was going on.

Nothing much, really, so I decided to log into each of my characters and do a little maintenance, and kinda hang out in case someone needed me for anything.

Which is when I logged into PEBKAC.

And found that his *entire* inventory was EMPTY!

What the...!!!

Empty!?!

What happened?!?

Oh...

Wait...

I remembered that my repair bill the previous evening seemed kinda high. I even made a comment about it into the group's voice chat channel. Something along the lines of 106 *thousand* gold.

Something's not right...

Back to the tavernkeep... "Hey, buddy, show me what you have." "Why, sure, please take a look around, and see what we have to offer..."

D'oh!

Right there, on the Buy-Back page...

PEBKAC's *entire* inventory.

I was so tired that evening, that I hadn't switched to the Repair tab at all. Instead, I had opened to the default Sell tab, and simply clicked the Add All button because it looked like the same Add All button I'm used to on the Repair tab. I was so tired that I didn't realize the confirmation button didn't say Repair, but that it said Sell, instead.

Ugh!!!

To add insult to injury, there were four pages of buy-back items, but you can't just click any sort of Add All button on the Repair tab.

No, instead, you have to select the items, one at a time, and buy them back individually. It was a tedious process, to be sure.

And, while I was individually buying back PEBKAC's items, I noticed the countdown timer in the listings... I had almost waited too long. There was *just* over two hours left before my sale of items to the tavernkeep would be final. Hmm... now to buy-back as quickly as I could.

What a pain.

Mind you, the ability to buy-back is new. It arrived with the installation of Module 7. Had I pulled this stunt before the module had been released, I'd've had a more serious problem...

Like replacing all those Heal and Raise Dead scrolls and Cure Serious wands that PEBKAC had procured for various adventures, along with all of the loot I'd planned for him to shuffle around amongst the assorted characters in my clan.

Had I waited much longer, it would've cost me a *lot* more to replace those items than it had to purchase them in the first place.

But, with a sigh of relief, I managed to get all the items back.

But, just so you all know, you have only twenty-four hours in which to buy items back. Had I waited until after eleven p.m. local time, which is when I executed my blunder the previous evening, I'd have had a catastrophe on my hands. Instead, I was lucky in that I'd listened to the little voice of instinct in the back of my head that was telling me something was wrong.

Listen to your instincts, folks. They're there to help keep you out of trouble.