Love Doesn’t Exist

I’m married. Happily. To eni. We have no marriage problems. But do we really have a marriage?

All others: cra, sadida, panda, sram, xelor, and even old lady are married, too. To each other. The only “traditional” marriage in our company is cra and panda: female and male. Other six girls are married to each other… There is no love in our relationships, at least no romantic love as described in books and legends. Our unions are created strictly for convenience and business. Perhaps, that is the reason for them to be so strong and long-lasting.

I was married once, but I ended up with eni. He was a nice guy and I liked him a lot. From time to time we were visiting dungeons together or helping each other to acquire materials for professions and equipment. It was good time. And then one day I got divorce notice. There was no warning, no signs of our relationship’s ending. When I met my former husband he told me he got a new friend and married him to move faster around the world. It was just a matter of convenience as he explained.

Next time I got married I did it for convenience and since that time I have no desire to divorce, except rare moments when I feel longing for some romance. But then I realise that romantic love doesn’t exist in real world, it is just a fairy tale for youngsters.

One Shouldn’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth?

We unpacked the presents obtained from the Kwismas Island monsters. We had about 500 presents in total…

The only one thing that had at least some value was one great wisdom scroll. All other presents contained stuff usually regarded as rubbish: kaniger hairs and nails for example.

Now I’m thinking that there is nothing to do on Kwismas Island after obtaining the gift giving skill. I heard there is a chance to get some equipment or even dofus inside one of the Kwismas presents, but the odds are so low, that it may be faster to get the same things via regular means.

Well, dungeons and monsters are pretty fun, but they are not good enough to keep me entertained for a month. As soon as the strategies to defeat them are invented they are no longer a challenge, and presents one gets from them aren’t worth all the time and effort.

Good Ol’ Days

Some places in the World of Twelve bring memories of good old days. Field dungeon is one of this places.

It seems it’s been just a few days ago: cra and I are running through the field dungeon again and again because she is too lazy to go to the Bonta fields to reap rye (I think it was rye…). Field dungeon was the only place where the rye could be found near Astrub and, more important, near the farmers workshop.

The other day we were there again. We were six, panda and xelor refused to participate. They are new to our company, so they don’t share these memories of past. Petrovna was so agitated she kept forgetting about her chest, at least she managed to get the Famished Sunflower souls.

Another place full of good memories is Moo dungeon. And I think we are going to be frequent guests there: Ki and panda want Moo sets.

Some Stray Thoughts about Chameleons

I thought I would never say it. But it looks like we got too many chameleons: they don’t help with breeding and use too much shed space… Perhaps sadi should start to seriously consider selling all chameleons with bad trees.

The Price of Pandkeen Seeds

While we were looking for the last two pandoras (yes, we finally collected all the regular monsters needed for 10 people) cra decided to collect some pandkin seeds. These seeds aren’t particularly in high demand. In fact, they are needed almost only for the memory potions which in turn are required to produce signature runes.

Normally she would wait till Terrdala village was conquered by bontarians. But since we had only 100 signature runes left and the conquest of the territories was unpopular entertainment for a very long time she decided to do it herself, even she was risking becoming a target for headhunters. Everything started just fine: she attacked the gate guards and was done with them in about 2 minutes. To her surprise she was already awaited by a headhunter. It appeared to be a sacrier, and a rude one: he attacked in full silence her the moment she finished the fight with the guards. Well, maybe he hasn’t been all that rude, if what I heard about the modern duel etiquette is true.

Anyway, cra dealt with him no different from all other duellists: she just surrendered and teleported to Brakmarian jail. She decided that his fun was nothing compared to her excitement about gathering one-two thousands of pandkeen seeds. Well, at least he got his strokens fast and painlessly.

After paying an insignificant fee cra was on her way back to Terrdala and her precious seeds. Eni seeing her first unsuccessful attempt to practice alchemist profession decided to help and arrived to the village as soon as she could. She checked the whole village but found no more headhunters. Things were back to normal.

In due time the heart of the Earth Pandala opened and cra destroyed it without any interference. No one was there to oppose her (as expected).

The final price of 1’200 pandkeen seeds was 1’000 kamas, five minutes of time wasted by headhunter, and 10 minutes of waiting for the heart to open. Not that much to pay for a rarely needed resource. But it could be so much better if all Pandala resources (rice, pandkeen seeds, bamboo, and dark bamboo) were freely available to everyone.

P.S. It appears it is possible to exchange items if the persons are separated by the village wall. Really useful discovering considering that sadi and eni, who can carry the heaviest weight, are neutral.

More Reasons to Keep a Zoo

Cra likes pets. In fact she likes them so much she always carry with her a small zoo. Well, small is very relative… normally she has about 100 – 150 pets. And unlike many people I know (including myself to a certain extent) she really cares about animals: she regularly feeds them, heals them if needed, and takes them for a walk. She even took all our non-souleaters, because we were keeping forgetting to feed them, and they gradually became skinny and unhealthy. Nowadays all the pets are in the best possible condition.

This zoo of hers has been a target for jokes. However we may be forced to reconsider. Pets nowadays are able to help more if they are in the areas they like. Enthusiasm of some pets is so amazing, their effectiveness increases by 300%!

And still I don’t think that pets will be able to compete with dragoturkeys seriously. Pets worth buying and keeping are either too expensive in the first place (like piwins) or very hard to raise (like koalaks requiring pretty rare drops for food, or squirrels that gain experience very slow). Dragoturkeys, even last generations, are cheap, easy and fast to train, almost do not need feeding. Some birds may also increase range or mobility, and pets have nothing to oppose these bonuses.

Below is the full list of known pets, their bonuses (not counting the effects of enhancement potions), favourite areas, and area bonus. Each entry is accompanied by a picture for easier identification of an animal.

Prodigal Husband

Gear is back.

Surprise? Definitely!

For how long is he going to stay this time? He claims that he will be with us at least till end of winter. Can he be trusted? Hard to say. It’s not the first coming back and, I suppose, not the last…

Nonetheless I’m glad to see him again. He used to be in the list of iops who didn’t make me die of boredom or annoy me with their stupidity. Well, it can be that I haven’t had enough experience since Gear was hard to find the last 6 months he was in Amakna.

Hmm… I don’t sound optimistic… Perhaps it’s because I’ve found out that the other day he asked cra whether they would marry again. I don’t know what she will answer if he propose, but I know for sure that old lady will be very unhappy. Cra paid divorce fee the last time and enu could’t forget it. But who pays attention to old grumblers when wedding bells and fireworks are involved?

One thing that hasn’t changed is Gear’s inability to look after the pets. And here he managed to beat even Kanni (who now gives us all his non soul eater pets): Gear gave me cats to feed the dragoones and … a couple of these cats haven’t been fed for 1’100+ days. Yes, over one thousand hundred days! Poor kittens, they are skinny and very unhappy…

New Warrior Types?

There is a rumour that two new types of warriors are going to appear soon.

The first of two is a thief or rogue kind relying on various bombs and “pistols” (I have no idea what pistols are…). The effects of bombs and pistols can increase each other and sometimes it’ll be possible to start a chain reaction. The oracles claim that this new type of fighters rely heavily on strategy and are masters of predicting the opponents moves. But somehow this new fighting style reminds me srams. I wonder if it’s really that needed…

When I heard about the second fighting style I remembered pandas with their two main states — sober and drunk. Masqueraiders, as these warriors are called, can switch between at least three states: coward (good ranged attacks, inability to fight in close combat), psychotic (berserk state resulting in high damage in close combat and inability to distinguish between friends and foes), and “normal” (there is no way someone so unstable can be called normal!), each of them is associated with a certain mask. Depending on the mask in use the fighter may use only certain battle techniques. Masks also give some bonuses and penalties to the wearer.

Quite interesting that unlike all other fighting styles the new ones don’t have patronising gods. And it makes me wonder who has invented them? It was said that their power came from bombs and masks. However it wasn’t explained how mere humans managed to create such powerful objects. It just doesn’t sounds right.

Another concern is the balance between the fighters of different styles. At the moment the correlation of them is far from ideal, and people do not stop complaining. Two new powerful styles may cause a riot or at least a new wave of complaints and insults towards Gods. But let’s hope for the best.

Taciturn Cras Are Back

They are back. Finally!

For quite some time I haven’t seen these groups of technicolor cras. The day the world changed they disappeared. Moreover we were promised they would never come back. But here they are: fighting monsters restlessly, running incredibly fast, never talking to anyone… While before I saw them primarily in the surroundings of Astrub and The Jelly Peninsula, today I found them near the Milicluster, on Ingalsses’ Fields.

The choice of hunting grounds is obvious. Fields are inhabited by tofus, various flowers, mushrooms, and moskitos. Resources collected from dead tofus don’t sell really good, but for some reason one can find quite a few coins in tofus’ feathers. All other field dwellers possess materials exchangeable for scrolls, therefore these resources are in high and constant demand.

Why am I so happy with the reappearance of the cras? Because it means that cheap resources are going to return to the markets: cheap food for pets, cheap scrolling materials, hence no tofu and flowers hunts in the future.

The impact on economy these silent workers have always has been underestimated. The majority of people were unhappy with the cras and sadidas running around, but when they disappeared prices went up. Moskito wings, for example, cost four times more than they used to (400 kamas each instead of 100).  I believe many people will be happy to see prices drop.

Nonetheless, there are negative consequences. These cras never soul archmonsters, they just kill them. On top of that they normally fight weak monsters, and archmonsters of this type are harder to find. So, we can expect some raise in prices on tofu and flowers archmonsters souls, if the cras keep doing their work. Another concern is related to the ways cra teams use to gain access to the territories outside Astrub. I wonder if they use Ogrines (which are special currency allowing to buy access to more developed areas, to change the name, race, personal colours, and even gender [I have no idea how they do it, but they really do it!]).

Did I Miss Something?

The other day that guy asked me if I would go hunt archmonsters with him…

I didn’t recognise his name, and he appeared to be a novice incapable of hunting archmonsters all by himself (his own words, but I believe he was strong enough to hunt piwis, boars, gobbals, and such). I asked him if he was suggesting that I will kill and soul archmonsters for him. And he said it was exactly his thought.

I have no idea what makes people think that I am a charity or have nothing to do and will be happy to do their work for them… Did I miss something?