In the Great Library of Myrist

Having hit level cap in the Plane of Magic, with a good two weeks or so before the launch of the next expansion, I was wondering how best to use my time.

First I geared up.  I went to the panda merchant from the Days of Summer event and got all of the upgrades I possibly could.  That included a token that upgraded my ascension level to 15, which gave me some more skills and necessitated a re-work of my hot bars.  I am resistant to just adding more of them.  As with EVE Online, I like to be able to look out the window and see the game rather than having it overrun with UI elements.

I was also able to use some of the drops from the anniversary dragon event to upgrade the equipment on my mercenary and mount.  All together this boosted my stats quite a bit.  It didn’t make me invincible.  I ran out to the dragon event at an off hour when only a few people were doing it and was in mortal peril a few times.  But any non-epic mob that even looked at me sideways was in for a beating.  My potency, what I am told is a prime stat, sits at 45K.  I am no epic raider, but I fear no solo content.

The dragon thing was wearing a bit thin though.

Getting thrown into the air in Nek Forest again…

The drop rate is pretty random and I was getting a lot of duplicates, plus you can spend a long time just waiting for the next dragon to spawn.

I looked into a couple of alts, bringing them out into the Plane of Magic, but the xp boost wasn’t what it was when I went out there with Sigwerd, my main.  I hit that at the right moment for the server boost, so he sailed through levels.  I don’t mind a bit of work, and persisted for a bit, but I felt like I ought to concentrate on my main if I was going to hop into Blood of Luclin with him when it launched.

I had something in my mail box.

A summons

This appeared to be the opener for the Chaos Descending expansion, the current content in the game.  I am sure my hitting level 110 triggered its arrival.  It came with an item that would bring me to the opening scenes.

The Tribunal was looking to pin a murder rap on me.  I am going to guess that I did not get far enough along in the Planes of Prophecy expansion content to get to the murder of the Goddess Lanys T’Vyl, but that appeared to be what I was up for.  However, Druzzil Ro, whom I did meet in the last expansion in the Coliseum of Valor, stepped up for me.

The tribunal speaks

They sentenced her for the murder and I was sent on my way.

Thus into the Chaos Descending expansion, I figured I ought to poke around a bit.  The hub for the expansion, as I recalled, was the Great Library of Myrist, which was also a travel spot on my map.  I figured I might find something interesting there.

Welcome to the library… shhhh!

The first NPC I ran into there was a linguist vendor.

Selling stuff, in the library?

She sold books that would teach you a wide variety of languages.  I bought every language I did not yet have, something that won’t surprise you after the last post I am sure.  My list is much longer now.

My current language list

While still well shy of the whole list, many of which require quests, at least I won’t be caught up on something easy.  And yes, I am pretty sure I’ve seen a similar vendor somewhere in Qeynos in the past, but given recent history and having stumbled upon her just now, I thought it was wise to just fill up when the opportunity arose.

I also picked up the first quest in the signature quest line for the expansion, which mostly involved me running around the library in search of this or that.  Completing it however, boosted my Alternate Advancement levels up several notches, to the 350 cap.

Double cap

Being at the level cap is a rare thing for me in EQII.  Being at both the level and AA cap… well, I am not sure where my experience will go now.

And I am not sure where best to use my time between now and Blood of Luclin.  There will be a large gear reset with is launch.  A lot of the other levels, like updating skills, can only be accomplished with time or money, not activity.  I might look into getting my trade skills up to the cap as well.  But for the first time in a long, long time I think I can go straight into a new EQII expansion.