Jalia's AO Journal
Jalia in Anarchy Online! 7-27-01
Around level 19 I tried to do thee missions that started in Camelot (outside of Avalon) and took me into Athen Shire Expanse. Well, I managed to complete 2 of them, but I died on the way back from those two and lost a great deal of experience. As for the third one... I died three times trying to get to it. Athen Shire Exp is chock full of high-aggro mobs that can kill me quick (and did). So I got frustrated and gave up, vowing never to take a solo mission in Athen Shire Expanse again.
After this I moved back to Tir. I'd vowed to never come back to Tir, but it turns out that Tir County (outside of the city) is a great place to get missions that don't lead you through nasty hostile territory. In fact, many of them are right there in the same zone, often just a short 2-minute run from the mission booth.
This is a shot of me in my Omnipol Forest Armor. I manage to get a full set of forest/desert omnipol armor, which I think is very cool looking. I even stopped wearing my trenchcoat after getting a set of this stuff. ^_^ In this picture I don't have my boots or glovesyet, still wearing metaplast gloves and the sid's boots that Sobur gave me, but by the time I arrived in Tir County around 7-25-01 I was in full omnipol forest/desert armor.
By Thursday 7-26-01 I caved in to peer pressure and started collecting Bau armor, which is an upgrade on the cyber armor (same looks but much better colors). I liked my omnipol armor a lot, but the stats on the Bau armor are just too good to ignore at my level. Everyone wears this stuff. ^_^ I ran a mission for a Bau female chest piece, and I looted some Bau legs halfway through. So that's what you see me wearing in the picture above.
Friday night, I told myself I was going to do easy missions that were close by and could be finished fast. But I saw a mission for Bau gloves ql 15 and a clan token. I had to take it!
The mission lead to Varmint Woods. I'd read an adventurer story about doing a mission in Varmint Woods so I knew it was due West of Tir. I also knew there were some nasty aggro mobs there, but I was hoping I could get to my mission easily.
I ran a good long while and found the zone to Varmint Woods. Almost immediately, I was attacked by some kind of OT Assassin who was blood red, and I had to zone back. But I was in zone long enough to realize that my mission was on the far side of the zone -- 1734 something, where I was at 4600 or something like that.
I could see that getting to my mission dungeon would be next to impossible. Right there I would have deleted the mission if I had that option, but I decided what the heck, the worst that can happen is I die and don't bother coming back to try again. So I zoned in and started running across the zone.
I saw quite a few blood red high-aggro mobs, including various human enemies, nightcrawlers, scorpios, evil plants, and some things that I wasn't sure were aggro or not. I managed to dodge them all! After skirting the shores of a large lake, I wound up in a sort of newbie zone where everything was grey (no in-between either, I went from red mobs to grey mobs just like that).
Got to my mission dungeon, completed it, proceeded to clean out the dungeon, but was still 4,000 exp shy of level (about 12,000 out of 16,000). What to do? No way I could make the run back, and I didn't have my mission arrow to guide me anyway. I'd get killed and lose all that experience.
I figured I was in a newbie area so I must be close to a city. Checking the zone connection map at DrTwister, I could see that Newland City was somewhere North of me, so I headed North.
Soon I zoned into Newland, in the desert area. No idea where the city was from where I was. There were a lot of mobs about, including many who were blood red and some who were aggro, but I decided that the best strategy was to find things that I could kill, stay near the zone line, and after leveling I could /terminate my way back home.
And that's what I did. ^_^ There's something to be said for running through a dangerous zone and completing a mission, although when I've tried and failed before it's very frustrating. But this time I got what I wanted! ^_^
Did four simple missions that were a stroll from the mission booth in Tir County (and which netted me cash and an item that I didn't really need), and then took a harder one that took me across Tir County to the place I got my Bau female chest piece. This time I got the same thing, only ql 16 instead of 15 (figured I might as well go do it ^_^ ) Servers were coming down in 10 minutes after I got there, but it turned out to be one of those missions with 2 mobs total so I finished and ran back before they brought the zone down.
One of my other missions was 1 whole guy (who I was sent to observe) and nothing else but chests. Kinda odd, some of these missions are easy, some are very hard. The one in Varmint Woods had me attacking Buzzsaw Technoscavengers, which are nasty customers, about 12 or 15 feet high and with buzzing saws for arms. Freaked me out the first time I saw one. ^_^
This is a buzzsaw technoscavenger. I met several on my mission into Varmint Woods to get some Bau gloves. They're very big and nasty-looking, but no match for a 21st level enforcer with Challenger to Cyclops uploaded. ^_^
Another shot of the mean buzzsaw. Looks are a little decieving here... Jalia is an extra-tall solitus and I also have Challenger to Cyclops up, which increases my size visibly, so the creap I'm pounding on is much bigger than he might look when compared to me in this shot.
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