Mr Raki Builds His Dream House : Vanguard

Some time ago, when Telon suffered the seismic shift of the latest round of server merges, my house fell down. I'd already rebuilt it once when our original server, Hilsbury, was merged and it was a big job, what with one thing and another. Yet another server merge was on the cards, with the last remaining European server rumored to be joining us any time, so I decided to wait and see how that wind was blowing before I got the hammer and nails out again.

In the event that merge never happened but I still never got round to putting my house back up. For a long time I kept my plot reserved but eventually I began to worry that, since I wasn't playing often enough to keep my coffers topped up, the slow drip-drain of 25 silver a week in upkeep would erode my limited savings to nothing, so I let the plot go too.

Now, with a definite end date in sight, that's no longer an issue, so a couple of days ago I rifted over to the Oasis settlement around Tar Janishar, climbed onto my virulent turquoise store-bought Griffon and flew down to my old neighborhood, Abella Cove to see if I could get the old place back.

Given this is an MMO that no-one plays, the shoreline looked remarkably built-up. I flew down and landed as near as I could remember to my old plot. There it was, still available! I snagged it fast and went to see if any new amenities had been added while I'd been gone. No such luck.

Abella has a fine crafting area in a large tent at the back of the dunes complete with vendors and taskmasters but it has never enjoyed the services of an escrow merchant. The nearest I know is some way south, past the ruined city of Venik Ragnew, near a dock that always seems to have a large sailing ship tied up at the quay.

By the time I'd flown all the way down there, negotiated the return of my building materials, along with some furnishings, from the Escrow merchant (the list of the things he was holding for me ran to twenty-nine pages) night had fallen and the moon was up.

After a number of false starts, as I tried and failed to remember just exactly what kind of house I used to have, finally I managed to get all my bricks in a line. A few blows of the mallet and down went the foundations, up went the frame. I'd taken so long working out what went where that by the time I'd finished the sun had risen across the bay.

I worked on, wanting to get the house finished before the burning Qalian sun rose directly overhead. The work went fast. It seemed like no time at all before my beautiful house was back to its former glory, just as though it had never been gone.

After rebuilding an entire two-story house complete with cupola in just a few hours I felt I deserved something to eat and maybe a lie down. If only I had a table. Or a bed. No rest for this fox. After the building comes the decorating.

It didn't take too long. I'd only brought the essentials: my rugs and pillows, my flower baskets and flowers, my tables and chairs, my books and my bed. And my bread and cheese, of course. Soon had everything back where it came from. Approximately.

I'd brought my chests, all six of them, but I left the contents, mostly hundreds of powders and dusts and skins and ores back with the Escrow merchant. I'll move them another day. For now I felt I'd done enough. I deserved a good, long rest on my comfortable bed, surrounded my books.

So there I am, back home in Abella Cove. The rent's paid til the end of the world. I'm not going anywhere. Ever again.