Fist de Yuma - October 29, 2002

A little much There is a spot where I leave the Slot and move up to the plains proper. This is a good spot with several large spawns. One is right where I emerge from the Slot. I saw on my screen that there was an Inquisitor there. I know from experience that it will have several Exec's with it and of course a normal big spawn of others. This means a long time clearing before I take on the IV if I did not drawing it. Fortunately they are not hard to draw. You just have to be ready as it will generally bring a few Execs with it. I hit it with yield followed by fire vuln. Blade might be better but I use Fire on Execs so it is better for me to stay with the same spell. When the second spell hit the entire blot of dots charged at me. I mean everything in the very large spawn charged. I was surrounded with Tumeroks, Tuskers, five or six Execs, the Inquisitor and to my surprise a Profatirx! Needless to say I was quickly down in health and doing the beat feet move. I was chased but most of the mob headed back to the spawn. It was touch and go with me healing more than attacking but I was finally able to drop the IV. Where it got nasty was when the IV and Profatrix both started hitting me with ring spells. I moved back to the spawn and started drawing and killing the Tumeroks and Tuskers. They were going to charge me when I attacked the Virindi so I figured to clear them first. That left the remainder of the IV spawn and the full spawn of Profatirix. Picking off the Execs might be good xp and loot but if your intent is to clear the spawn killing them is a waste of time. They will keep regenerating as long as the main Virindi is there. This meant I had to draw out the PV. I hit it with my normal drawing tools, Yield and Vuln. A few Execs charged that I had to dispatch. Finally the PV charges out with four Execs. Again it was a touch and go battle but one returning to the spawn saved my ass. With the PV out of the picture it was just a matter of clearing and going after the loot. I had about half of what I wanted collected when there was a spawn sound. Ouch, ouch, ouch, I was in the middle of a Diamond Lord spawn. Again taking to my heals I got out with a handful of hit points. One Diamond chased and I was able to take him out. After healing up and dispelling the de-buffs I charged back. I hit the Lord with Bludgeoning Vuln and of course it resisted. I dodged three shockwaves that headed my way. All three charged at me as I got the vuln on one of the Diamonds. I decided to take out the guards before working on the Lord. Of course all three started blasting me at point blank range. I'm standing there healing instead of attacking. Anything else would have me dead. I finally killed the two guards and was ready for the Lord. It came down to one of those him or me things. I had about 35 hit points and the Lord had a sliver of health. I got my shockwave off before he could blast me. After all that you would think I had one of the rewards. No mask off either of the two Virindi's and no shield off the Lord. O'well I did get three SIK's. Not again! It is around 6am PST. I felt that since it was so early I might have a chance of picking up a few Sing keys fighting Hollow Olthoi. I just traded for a War T and was broke for Sings. It will take forever to rebuild my stock. I buffed up my stats and weapon but felt I could run by the Drudges so and protects are not worth much against the Hollow Olthoi. I jumped down and started running to the bottom. If you have not been there the place is full of Drudges and Simulacrums. The idea is not to get trapped. I do this by never stopping, even if it means back tracking past a blocked hallway. After making the jump and running down to the last spot I started to lag really bad. This meant that people were there and the trash was lagging me. After running in place for a little bit I flashed to the end of the hall. I made the turn and started into the main room. I was running in place again for about 10 seconds until I flashed into the room. I was running against a wall with a few Olthoi beating in me. I moved to the end of the room and started to clear. I got a tell from someone that went like this. "What is your problem?" Having no idea who he was I sent a return of, "??". He came into the room and complained that I had griefed him. I had drawn a bunch of stuff down on him, waited next to him and then took off. I told him I had lagged out and there was nothing I could do about it. At this point he is attacking and killing everything I try to kill. I explained I am on a dial up system and a lot of loot on the ground will lag me out. His response, "You should not play then." After a while I got the idea that his attacking my target was deliberate. As there is no way a UA can beat him unless I got a first strike crit I logged off. I hoped to find a time he was not there. Of course it was an Archer. As a 104lv Monarch he thought he was God. Anyone who is near him will get grief until they leave I guess. After logging Mage I sent him a tell that I did not drag stuff on him. I guess he did not care as long as he had driven me out. He told me that he hunts there three hours a day. I guess I'll have to find out when he hunts and avoid that time. Of course people like that don't last. I have seen literally hundreds of griefers like him come and go. It is shameful that the long awaited improvement to Archers has brought people like him out of the woodwork. Bad Day I'm not perfect. We all have bad days but given my reputation my bad days stand out more than most. I as doing a trade for a War T and took a buyout of 25 Sings. I grabbed my Sings off the mule and to my embarrassment I only had 23 Sings. The seller said he would trust me to get the other two to him. I buffed up Fist and headed to the Hollow Olthoi place. I got there and found one person already hunting. I stayed to one side and we worked it. Another person came and it was starting to get crowed. I was already in a bad mood because of a RL problems and a bit sore from some work I had done. I'll get to the why of that but I really have no excuse for my actions. I had got dragged across the room and missed a chance to loot an Olthoi I had killed. By the time I had broke free the body rotted and a Sing fell. I moved over to get it and another guy grabbed it. Being in a bad mood already that set me off. I called him a thief. Now it was on the floor and he had perfect right to it. I was way out of line. Sometime when you are angry being wrong does not matter much. My temper is hot and short so it did not take me long to cool off. The damage had been done. I had made an ass of myself and there was not much I could do to make up for it. To make matters worse one of the guys was a fan of the column and a vassal of the guy I had yelled at. The two guys then proceeded to give me 5 Sings. I'm not sure if they did it to "Kill with kindness" as I will do from time to time or to just get rid of me. I apologized and it was accepted but I still felt bad. RL Problems The reason I was in a foul mood is two fold. I'm getting cut on tomorrow and not really happy about it. It is something I have to do but not something I want to do, if you get my drift. They said I'll be laid up for a few days so this might be a short column. I'll see how bad it is tomorrow. I know I'll have some nice drugs anyway. The other reason is less of a problem but ticked me off a lot more. We had family over this weekend. One of the guys sat on the end of my waterbed rather than rolling off of it like we do. The frame sits on a sheet of wood and overhangs about a foot off a set of drawers. His considerable weight broke the wood. I was hoping we would prop it up a bit but the next day it broke completely and almost collapsed the entire thing. Rosa was sick that morning so I had use of the car for a few hours. I was able to get a hand pump that let me get the water draining. After a lot of work I got the mattress off and hauled the broken wood to the back yard. I walked to True Value to order new wood for the bed bottom. For some reason they would not take the order over the phone. It is only a mile to so but it was hot and I'm not use to walking. I got a very good piece of wood for the bottom, much better than what it replaced. Of course it cost me a lot more than I wanted to spend. The clerk was a surly jerk and that did not do much for my mood. They could not deliver the wood until the next day. That meant sleeping on the couch, which did not do my back any good. All the work on the bed had me sore and I had not slept well. That was when I was trying to get the Sings to finish off the trade. I was lucky to get my sisters boyfriend to help me on the last part. After seeing the work it took to put it together my wife was shocked I was able to get it apart alone. The bed frame weighs a lot and I had to lift it off the bed from a bad angle and stand it up. The mattress still had some water in it so it was heavy as hell. Of course they had cut the wood a touch wrong so it was a half-inch to long. My sister's boyfriend had a saw to cut it with. We got it all back together but it was a lot of work. At least I slept well. Surgery I was told it was simple. It would not take much time at all, half an hour at most. After over an hour they were not even halfway done. It hurt but I have played a sports games where I was hurt more. After two hours laying on the hard surface, flat on my back had me in more pain than the surgery. The small of my back was killing me. Finally they got the first half done. They said the second half would be easy compared to the first and they would be through shortly. Well they were wrong. The second part was even harder than the first. In fact it was so bad they could not do it. After another hour and a half on the table they gave up. So I have to do it all over again. The pills really put me out but they also made me feel sick. I slept most of this weekend. I tried to get off the pills Sunday night. To my surprise it was my back that was hurt. Where they cut me hurt but nothing I could not stand. My back hurt enough to put me back on the pills. So I got a little time to write this before the pills kick in. After that it will be back to bed and weird dreams. Much better I guess I'm a gluten for punishment as I decided to head back to hunt Hollow Olthoi. I have read about people who lambaste anyone who goes there. They are greedy and don't want anyone interfering with their loot. As I ran to the main room I was not lagging as much as before. I saw an archer there so I stopped an typed, "Heads up". I figured there might be a few things chasing me down. There was not much chasing for once and we divided the room up for a while. Another fighter showed up but we still did not have any conflict. After half and hour or so both left and I had it to myself. Most of what I got was steel and I never locked up. I almost always lock up there at least once. For once it was a pleasant experience. It is a great spot for high level players got get some Sings and material. I hope that people learn to share and not hunt it all day, every day. I go about once a week, as any more would be greedy.