Furglebin's Journal 4: EQ2

So here I am talking to gnomes. Only the first thing I notice is they do not sound like gnomes. They look like gnomes. They are shorter than mes. They are both wearing eyeglasses like gnomes always wears but when they speak there is no mentioning cognoggins or foozlewickets like you usually get with a gnome. Generally you get more of that sort of thing than you know what to do with with a gnome but not from these ones. No, they sound like Erudites or maybe even Dark Elfs with a lot of spouting on about battle and victory and suchlike.

Gnome?

Or No Gnome?

Well, I have my suspicions because I have seen a lot in this city by now and I know that everyone is not always what they wants you to think they are but all the same my whiskers are twitching and that means adventures. So I do what the "gnomes" tell me and go through their magic gateway. Which is another thing that is not right if you thinks about it because if they were really gnomes it would be some clockwork contraption with a lot of whirring and clicking and bits falling off and some other gnome would be cursing and hitting it with a spanner. It would not be a glowy magic thing what looks like a sea-shell that works perfectly every time.

Everyone mill about so it looks like there's more of us

Champions Respite is the place I end up. It is sort of a shopping mall and waiting room for people that want to murder each other. All sorts of people come in, Iksars and Trolls and Dwarves and just about anyone really. There is a Priest of Discord what sorts us all out into teams and asks us where we want to go. He gives four choices, called Smuggler's Den, Frozen Tundra, Battlefield of Ganak and Gears of Klak'Anon. I do not know anything about any of them but when I see that the teams for different places are different sizes I think I better go in the biggest team. Then I can just get into the middle of a crowd and figure it out as I go along.

Are you sure you're a priest?

Smugglers Den is the one where it is two dozen on each side and it is an amazing place, all towers and islands up in the air. I do not have a clue what I am doing so I just chase around with everyone else. Some Barbarian shouts out orders and mostly we do what he tells us. Tiger is being an armadillo, which is great for the killing other people part but does not work so well for keeping me alive so I die quite a lot. 'Course no-one stays dead. I pop back up in a few seconds every time but it is hard to get back to where everyone is so I try not to die if I cans help it.

Just when I am beginning to wonder how long all this is going to go on for it stops. Back in Champions Respite we all get our marks on how well we did and we won and I did alright I think, specially for a first time. I even get some Tokens to spend in the shops on stuff to help with fighting other adventurers 'cos it is different to fighting monsters, or so they say. Seems pretty much the same to me except adventurers don't keep still for you to kill them like an orc does and they swear more.

You take it! I took it last time.

Anyway I get the taste for it so I try again, only with Tiger being a bear which means at least I get healed a bit when the stupid healers on my team keep healing the fat tanks and not important DPS rats like mes. Funny how that keeps happening. The Priest of Discord likes to shuffle all the teams up so now and agains I end up killing someone what I was saving from being killed the time before. Makes it hard to remember who is on what side sometimes but I think it is a good plan cos it keeps things fairer so the same team does not win every match.

I hear there's a cafe at the top

Cutting a long tale short, over the next few weeks I try all the Battlegrounds and they are all good except Frozen Tundra which is rotten. In that one it is all fighting monsters and I can do that anywhere. Gears of Klak'Anon is just this tiny room where everyone piles into the middle and someone grabs a little stone and tries to hang on to it while everyone else fights over who gets to hold it next. Battlefield of Ganak is a lot of running up and down a field grabbing the other team's flag and bringing it back and of course you got to stop them grabbing yours at the same time.

It is all good fun and very exciting but the thing is that everyone in the Battlegrounds is either exactly as far along in learning as I am or they have learned pretty much all there is to learn. It is one thing or the other and nothings inbetween. Which means that if I want to go fightings other adventurers for tokens I cannot learn anything new and that is not right. And that is why in the end I decide I have had enough running around grabbing flags and stones and towers and playing tag with adventurers.

It is about time I got on with learning how to be a Beastlord so that is what I am doing. When I have learned all there is to learn about that, then I will come back and try again.