Dog Days (Regent's Square)

Sierra again. Man, I need to take a shower, I've gotten fur in my clothes... uh, never mind that! Back to the story of me, the Tightwad Conjurer! Though I should include Grace, she's my 'sister in crime.'

We did have one unfinished business in Krokotopia - a Mander was begging us to rescue his friends in the Tomb of the Beguiler, but we had pressing business, though we promised to rescue them soon.

(Not doing the Tomb of the Beguiler - even with Team Up, I don't think we could handle it and we're going to get a new spell quest once we get to Mirkolm Keep, so I want to wait for that as Sierra's already at Level 33 and learned Minotaur. It's not mentioned here as Minotaur sucks compared to the awesomesauce of the Pigs.)

We found ourselves in a church - I was surprised they had those things in a world - and found Private Kinchley standing guard at the entrance. He gave us a magic potion, increasing our potion stock to a nice three bottles, and told us the directions to the Museum and Grace left, but I hung back for a bit.

"Uhm..." I said. "You wouldn't know of a Seraph coming through the Spiral Gate, would you?"

You see, a while back, I had a summons from my Professor and he told me that my next spell quest was to get a song from Oriel's twin sister, so I had to speak to Lady Oriel in her home. She told me that her sister was always trying to cheer up people, so I followed the trail to Dworgyn, then Mortis, who told me that the angel(whose name escapes me at the moment) had followed a wizard through the gate to Marleybone.

Kinchley HAD seen the seraph, she had switched targets to a cat thug who had headed to Chelsea Court, one of a ruthless gang of criminals called the Klaw Brothers. I had a feeling I would have to beat them up to rescue her, but I shrugged. Hopefully they would be too occupied as we really needed to hurry and rush to the museum to get to the Krokonomicon before Malistaire got to it.

I was swept away by the beauty of this twilight place with its antique feel.

"This is where Sherlock Bones, the great detective, lives!" gasped Grace. She got all gooey. "He was the one who inspired me to be a private detective, Mma!"

"We have gotten so far and done so much in our investigation," said Penny, puffing her chest up in pride. "I am pleased to have served you for so long as your secretary."

I rolled my eyes - that mermaid was a well trained pet to say such things! "We have to go to the library and..." But Grace ran off down a street to who knows where. I sighed and shook my head and followed the directions to the museum.

But when I told the curator I wanted to see the Krokotopian sarcophagus, he shot me down. "It is extremely fragile, having people like you rummage it might damage the value!" he said.

Then how did you transport it? I kept that thought to myself. "Can't I go and get the book inside? I'll promise to be VERY careful!"

Clancy shook his head. "I'm sorry, but only Mayor Pugsley can allow it. You'll find him hanging out in Digimoore Station."

I grumbled and stomped out of the museum, then donned my wings and flew to Digimoore...
 

But not before I met Zeke in the town square, who told me that he was looking for some poor stray cats who were lost and scared. I have a soft spot for kitties, so I agreed to looked around for them. Of course, when I found one near Scotland Yard, I was a bit taken aback by the Animal Crossing nature of these stray cats. (Wait, I think the Watcher made me say that as I don't know what Animal Crossing is!) I also met Felicia, the person who Wul'yahm directed me to learn from to increase my crafting skill. Sadly, she had no items for me to craft for my Watchtower Hall, but I planned to pick up a nice couple of recipes for mannequins that would allow me to display some of my old clothing! ^_^

(Next Zeke quest, woohoo! Also, we got the next crafting quest! I had Sierra pick up the female and male mannequin recipes because, like Animal Crossing, you need a mannequin to display your clothing - of course, you only get seven total mannequins of both genders, and the recipes are extremely difficult to gather ingredients for and require some rare items like fossils! It'll give me something to do while going through Marleybone as the next crafting item for the Hall is only available in Mooshu. Of course, we have to complete the crafting quest here to buy the recipes but it shouldn't be too hard - the only non-buyable item is the Scrap Iron and you can get it pretty quickly if you have some people in other areas or the bazaar.)

I got to the station and found Grace talking to a dog-man who looked like a bloodhound wearing an interesting outfit. She raced up to me. "Mma, this is Rra Bones. He is the one who made me want to be a detective. He wants our help in an investigation! Us! Helping Rra Bones!!!"

"Yeah," I said. "I need to talk to the mayor, they won't let the Krokonomicon out of the museum."

We spoke to Mayor, but he was feeling ill. I knew we had to get him feeling better before he would talk to us, so I went to get the stuff for a tonic. It was boring and I won't bore you with the details.

Then I had to deliver some emergency rations to the soldiers in the Temple of Fire. I guess I should not have complained - they did help us fight back the Kroks in the Temple of Fire so we could kill Krokenhamen and find out where the Order of the Fang was.

(Apologies for the little pop-up in the corner, I didn't realize it was there when I pressed Ctrl-G to hide the HUD.)

 

Grace told me when I got back that she hadn't been idle either - she had helped the postal service get their letters delivered on time and had gotten a new spell from her mentor, Professor Baelstrom, a global bubble like my Time of Legend, only it affected storm spells. Professor Drake summoned me and gave me a spell that summoned a mighty minotaur, but it did a weak attack first and that would break shields, and it wasn't as great as my pigs. She had gotten the spell after a brief return to Wizard City to locate a beginning book on magic which one of the Royal Guard wanted to study. (Turns out butterfinger coward Regina Flametalon, who made us go up the stupid Golem Tower, lost it to a wimpy Fire Elf! Idiot!) I was pretty pleased to hear this - I remembered the Balance Professor in Ravenwood say that he came from Marleybone and they never studied magic, so it was nice that another Marleybonian wanted to try to become a wizard.

(As I said, Sierra got Minotaur [I had her run through Big Ben with Amy to try to get the Storm Rider hare from Meowiarty, which is why she got the Mastermind badge, but no dice, so she had a few more EXP than Grace] and a few side-quests gave Grace the EXP to hit Level 33 as well, getting the second-to-last spell from her teacher, the global spell Darkwind. I won't have both of these as they cancel each other out and Sirens doesn't need more attack power. ^_^)

Eventually, the mayor told us that the Krokonomicon should stay in the museum as the people of Ravenwood had put spells on the building to protect it from the strongest magical spells and nobody could teleport in or summon monsters while in its walls, so Malistaire couldn't do anything. He then told me that it wasn't safe for us to take it away as there were crooks eager to steal such a rare item.

"If you can help Sherlock Bones in his investigation of the local crime gangs," said the mayor. "We can discuss transporting the Krokonomicon to your Ravenwood."

I sighed. I guess this was the best I could hope for. But Grace was giddy. "Yes, Rra Pugsley! We'll aid Rra Bones in this investigation, right Grace?"

"Okay, I guess it's better than nothing," I said. "But there's something else..."

Penny remembered. "Oh yeah, Rra Ironclaws wanted us to speak to him."

"I apologize for being late, Mma," said Grace after I spent an hour in Northguard. "I had to help some of your friends get through the Pyramid and Krokosphinx."

"It's okay, those places were tough back then," I said with a smile.
 
(I had Grace help Chris Dragonwhisper through the Temple of Fire so he could get to the Krokosphinx and then she helped Sunmancer get through the Hall of Champions. Yeah, I finally got around to getting my most neglected wizards on my sub-account closer to getting out of Krokotopia. Part of me wants to delete these two Wizards as they are boring to play and, as I said, I've got other business - aka getting Sora through dang Proud Mode on Final Mix. He's just gotten out of that stupid giant whale. :()

So we returned to Northguard and Bjorn told us that Ander's Holt was having some issues. We entered the wild Vigrid Roughland and learned from the leader of the bears that Thane Anderson, their ruler, had turned heel and betrayed the people of Ander's holt to a vicious gang called the Red Claw. He asked us to get some supplies, so we gathered berries. (Again with the berries, I had to get some berries for that tonic for the mayor!) We also skinned some wildclaws for fur.

Then Grace got teleported away and returned telling us that she had seen Thane Anderson in a fort and helped some wizards defeat him but she couldn't remember the details. I told her she had been dreaming or something. But I was intrigued. Time to round out some bandits.

(This is actually a shot of Grace helping some wizards through Frostholm - one of her friends begged her to port to him and guess what? He was being kicked around by the first boss of Frostholm, and by honor's law, Grace HAD to help the idiot get through Frostholm. Not like I am complaining, but that means Grace has another unholy boost of EXP from that stupid dungeon like she did when she had to help some friends get through Krokopatra long before she was ready. I know Storm wizards are hired constantly because they can one-shot bosses with their spells, but SERIOUSLY GEEZ, stop that! KingsIsle needs to implement a system that disables ports for wizards who haven't unlocked the dungeon yet. I know it's mean, but the dungeons break canon.)

(Next update is due eventually, once I get my butt handed to me by the next Kingdom Hearts boss. Parasite Cage Part 2 was EVIL and was my second Proud Mode boss defeat. [Embarassingly enough, GUARD ARMOR was my first due to his rapid attacks. Ouch, I just lost ten points off of my masculinity because of that.)

Farewell to Krokotopia

Happy Earth Day, everyone! I hope you are protecting your worlds! I am sorry I haven't written my recent entry, but things have been crazy lately! We finally defeated the Tuts! But I'm getting ahead of myself! Me and Grace were entering the Karanahan Palace to recover the four pieces of the key to the Temple of Storms, where the leader of the Tuts, Krokopatra, was hiding...

The four princes were not going to make it easy for us. We avoided the patrols but the princes were very powerful. Luckily, my pigs and Grace's Sirens were enough to take them out.

We told the specter of Krokotep of our success and he congratulated us and begged us to "do what he could not." We were ready to go but a Krok laughed from the Temple. "You cannot beat the Son of Storms, you foolish girls! Go back to your bathing ponds!"

"Well, that was a sexist comment if I ever heard one," I said in a huff.

"What a fool, ha!" said Penny, Grace's mermaid pet. "We will have to turn him into a pair of shoes. Then he won't talk so much."

(Just a little reference to my favorite book series - Grace Makutsi always looks at her shoes and she pretend they are talking to her. ^_^)

 

But first we found the remaining scarabs in the Tomb of Storms and reported our findings to Zeke, who gave us a book to read which increasing our training power. We visited Moolinda Wu and learned the Sprite spell. At least I could be a bit helpful to my allies with healing, even if it wasn't that great of a healing spell.

(Finally got the last of the beetles - Grace and Sierra used their two training points to get Legend Shield and Sprite. I plan on having them learn Life spells up to Satyr, which will take a while, then start working on something else.)

Into the temple we went! Some guy was there but he didn't enter with us.

We dodged patrols and reached an aged ghost who stated we had to pass two sets of tests to be allowed access to the inner sanctum.

The first was a test of battle, and we found the mocking Krok and beat him senseless with our power but not before taking out a ghost and a mummy.

Then we had to solve puzzles - Grace did the heavy work here as she was very smart and observant.

The gatekeeper opened the teleporter to the inner sanctum. This was it. Inside was Krokopatra. We dodged more patrols and opened the doors to the innermost chamber...

"Yes, we are new members of the Order," I said proudly and defiantly.

"Give us the Krokonomicon, Mma," stated Grace coldly. "We will show no mercy to you, but your death will be quick and painless if you hand over the book. We know that Rra Malistaire awoke you."

She laughed a hoarse rasping laugh. "Fools! You will never get the Krokonomicon!"

"Then you just dug your own grave!" I said.

And we buried her in it with our ninja pigs and sirens. Despite not being very effective, Penny's song called the Sirens and they still did enough to fatally wound Krokopatra. She was done and dusted.

(Not too tough of a battle with some awesome spells.)

"Okay," I said. "I know we're in an Egyptian world, but there is no Denial here."

"We'll tear up the tomb to get that book!" shouted Penny.

"You foolish girls," choked the evil queen. "Even with my death, you will never get the book. I will be honest as lies means nothing to me now - when I entered the Great Sleep, I sealed the tome in a sacred sarcophagus. But when I was awakened, the casket was gone! Malistaire was dismayed when I told him this, the same look of dismay I see on your faces! Ha ha ha!"

 There was a long pause.

"Well," said Penny. "This is not good."

"There is nothing more here in this dead place," sighed Grace. "Let us go."

I was all for that. We reported to Krokotep's shade and he granted us new spells - for me, I could remove any negative ward like a trap on me or my allies and for Grace, she could destroy an enemy's blade, taking away their advantage. (Sierra got Cleanse Ward and Grace got Cleanse Charm.)

"And I mean both of you," he added. "I am pleased to see strong women like yourself."

"Thank you," I said, blushing. "We'll let you rest in peace. So long."

As we left the tomb, I spoke up. "I wonder who took the sarcophagus? Shalek?"

"No, it seems unlikely," said Grace. "They probably couldn't penetrate the tomb... but..." She turned to me. "I have a hunch. We know there are archeologists here..."

"You don't mean... !" I gasped. "Let's find Major Talbot!"

It was as we had feared - the Marleybonian expedition had somehow excavated the tomb and found the sarcophagus and it was halfway to Marleybone by now. "Well, that's that," I said. "We'll never get to it by now."

"Hold on," said Talbot. "You two girls have dealt a blow against the Tuts, and Zan'ne told us about how you rescued the Manders! I normally wouldn't give this to anyone, but you are an exception."

Woof!

He handed the two of us Spiral Keys to Marleybone!

"Go speak to Private Kinchley when you get there," said Talbot. "I'll send him word you are coming."

"We should go immediately!" I said. "Perhaps we can intercept the casket and claim the book before Malistaire..."

"He will be one step ahead of us, Mma," said Grace somberly. "He probably already knows where it is by now."

"Still, it wouldn't hurt," I begged. Grace shrugged and nodded and agreed that we should go there.

As we entered Marleybone, Grace looked at me. "Mma, where is your broom?"

"Tossed it," I said with a smile. "Amber gave me these black wings... they're not fairy wings but they'll do until I save enough crowns to buy some. She said she didn't need them anymore... Guess she found a cooler mount, but what is cooler than black feathered wings... ?"

"WOOOO HOO! HERE COMES PETER COTTONTAIL, HOPPING DOWN THE BUNNY TRAIL! HIPPITY HOPPITY, EASTER'S COME AND GONE, OH YEAAAAAH!!!"

(Yep, I rushed to get the Crowns for a Prismatic Hare mount - I tried to get the Storm Rider Hare but the drops were not kind to me and I wasn't able to get it before Eggbert left the Spiral and reclaimed the bunny mounts. *cries* But I had to get Amber this rainbow bunny as her last name IS Rainbow. She handed-me-down her permanent Swiftshadow Wings to Sierra - I want Sierra to have her final mount be some fairy wings as her last name is Fairyfriend.)

[To be continued...]

The Tomb of Storms

(Author here: Grace hit Level 31 after cleaning up the sidequests in Wysteria, including the leaves sidequest[yuck, I hate that one] so she's a bit ahead of Sierra, but I decided not to fret over it - being Storm she needs all the help she can get. I found that Storm Wizards aren't too painful to play as long as you pick your fights carefully. I'll be eating my hair when we get to Celestia and Grace keeps DYING all the time because of all the powerful attacks. Anyways, I was debating on what to do - Vigrid Roughland or Tomb of Storms, and decided to clear Krokotopia. The sooner I get these two to Marleybone and the difficulty spike, the better. I wanted to see if I could get a rare bunny mount drop but sadly Sierra can't get it from Krokopatra so I have to push her through Marleybone. That and I DID promise I would try to get Sierra and Grace to the last fight of Dragonspyre sometime before June. Enjoy!)

(PS: I strongly suggest you check on past blog entries to see who Sierra is and what her goal is.)

Sierra here! Wow, this last couple of days was intense! Let's just say that we finished up everything in Krokotopia. While Grizzleheim was important, and we cleaned up any side errands in Wysteria - I do love Pigswick but not enough to transfer there, unless they fired Belladona Crisp and assigned a Ravenwood staff to the position to fix all the corruption - we both agreed that we had to recover the Krokonomicon. Our time away did, as Grace's pet, I mean 'secretary' prophesized, cause trouble - Krokotep had stolen the Krokonomicon from the Order and handed it to Krokopatra, the leader of the evil Kroks. She was in the Tomb of Storms. I wonder what type of enemies we're going to face there!

Better to finish this 'investigation' and recover the evil book of magic before Malistaire, that jerkwad who made my life a living heck in Wizard City, got his wicked hands on it. Hetch said we needed three golden scarabs, and I revealed that Grace had collected one from the dying corpse of Krokotep and Alhazred gave me one, so Hetch handed over his.

The trick was to touch each one to the columns to make them light up. This caused a magic stone head to rise up from the cyclone of sand and open a portal to the Tomb, which was on the only island we had yet to visit. In we went!

Inside, we saw a familiar face. I was freaking out as ghosts of the guy we killed tend to be bad news, but Grace spoke to him and turned to me. "He is our ally, Mma," she announced.

So I went and approached him. He was repentant of fighting us, saying that Krokopatra had been responsible. I remembered that Shalek said that Krokotep had betrayed the Order so I'm willing to give the benefit on the doubt. He told us we need to find the two parts of the code, and each half was held by the leader of the two feuding tribes whose bones rested in this tomb - the Ahnics and the Djeserits.

"I think we should split up," said Grace. "I will defeat the Ahnic ruler, you should handle the Djeserit ruler. It will go faster if we do this seperately."

I nodded. Now I didn't really agree with her, but somehow I felt a bit stronger thanks to having recently defeated several Immortals.

We went and located the leaders and kicked their tails in, then got the codes (they were runes inscribed on their crowns) before meeting back in the Well of Spirits. (We had located two more scarabs for Zeke - one was behind the other teleporter that we came out of and the second was behind the Temple of Storms in the Well area.

 

 

 

As we explored the tombs, we helped out some restless spirits of both tribes and found why they were fighting - Krokopatra had laid the bones of the Djeserit queen, Irisi, in the Ahnic tomb, which got the Djeserits all hot and bothered due to taboos and whatnot, so they declared war on the Djeserits who retaliated. I was very ticked off at this evil woman. I try not to hate anyone, but Krokopatra got on my hit list for what she did. I know it was probably years before my time, but such criminals must pay!

(While I love the music of this place, I HATE the large amount of sidequests you have before you - you have to kill ten rats over and over again and there are a few optional bosses. Ugh!)

Krokotep told us that the codes would be needed to unlock the door to the Karanahn Palace, where the four nobles of the Karanahn clan held the pieces of the key that was needed to enter the Temple of Storms. But I told Grace about something when I was locating a scroll in the Karanahn Barracks for this Krok warrior called Kaji'rae, who was studying the tribes of the Tomb.

"Ugh, more enslaved Manders!" shouted Penny. "I guess we will have to save THEM too!"

"It is for a good cause, Mma," said Grace, smiling broadly. "Let's go help these poor souls."

And so we defeated a bunch of Kroks(and a treacherous Mander who was feeding them), then poisoned the food with some sleeping venom that we got from the lab of the alchemist Kepi, which left the Quartermaster all by his lonesome. He was outmatched. ^_^

We took a deep breath and entered the Karanahn Palace...

[To be continued...]