We Came, We Saw, We Conquered!
By: JaeOnasi
Our quest required men, women, charr, asurans, norns, and sylvari made of stern stuff. We were invading the wild borderlands in our hunt for vistas, waypoints, and points of interest in order to complete our map achievements.
Kilashandra led our merry band, which included the kilashandra_dj bard serenading us and/or growling, depending on which cool tune was playing at that moment. We even shepherded around little level 2 Duqk, who was able to use a whole 1 skill for about the first 20 minutes or so of the event. Duqk was not to be deterred by the limitations of his youth, however, and his knowledge of general battlefield tactics helped us to avoid some particularly dangerous areas, full of nasty creatures and large zergs.
We traveled far and wide, visiting islands full of hissing krait, supply areas, and even some abandoned keeps. We had a nice reward when we took down the Lord of that Manor and claimed the keep for Gaiscioch.
Since we started one hour prior to the turn of the new day (server-wise), we were all able to complete our daily achievement. This included, but was not limited to, harvesting, slaughtering numerous krait underwater, and random senseless killing of innocent little creatures, like cute little bunnies. I say the mosquitoes still deserve their deaths, however.
After server reset, we trekked through more of the borderlands, killing enemies and taking down champions and veterans, all in our quest to see all the sights of the land, including some very nice artwork. I, Salvia, discovered that I could jump a lot better lately (I think the new computer and better graphics card might have a lot to do with that), and as the only mesmer in the group, I happily served as portal-dropper. This worked well until the weekly WvW reset occurred. I jumped, fell off the platform, jumped, fell off the platform, and was generally resigned to not being able to get the vista before being kicked out of the Borderlands. Suddenly, I made the jump, climbed to the top of the house, clicked 'view', and the loading screen popped up a fraction of a second later. While I mastered the climb and achieved the vista, I was sad that I had not been able to drop the portal in time for Kilashandra, who ended up in the electron vortex that is known as 'eternal loading screen and massive queues' afterwards. However, I shall be happy to return to that spot any time to drop another portal!
The weekly reset posed additional challenges. Some of us were able to make it through the queue, while others in our merry band were not so blessed. While we waited for our companions to rejoin us, some of us ran around solo or with the zerg. I noticed that part of the daily was killing supply caravans. As I made my way to a vista, I happened upon a dolyak being escorted by 3 enemies. Their tactical positioning showed poor judgment--all three were in front of the creature, and they did not notice me behind them. Perhaps they were young and inexperienced at escorting technique. The dolyak was not at complete health. I decided that fresh dolyak steak might be in order. The fighters finally noticed something might possibly be wrong when they saw their dolyak at about 5% health. They turned around just in time to see a lone sylvari mesmer fire the killing shot. With no speed boosts, I was not quite able to outrun them like Brave Sir Robin, but I did keep all three very busy for the time it took them to finally pound me into sawdust. They may have gotten the finishing move on me, but I still took out their dolyak right under their backsides. It was worth the repair cost.
After several hours of battle and travel to achieve many of our quest objectives, we retired to the Tavern to enjoy beer and/or 151 rum and/or chocolate aplenty. Duqk had even made it to a very respectable level 8 with many more skills by the end. I look forward to adventuring once more!