Vanguard: Lotus Hold
I decided to head over to Lotus Hold, which is southeast of Nakai Dojo. Nao Tak said I should go there and find a man named Bautali. It seems they need some help over there. On the way over, I found a Pegasus Trainer just west of Lotus Hold who will rent you a flying pegasus at the rate of 25 copper for five minutes. I also found a Riftway right next to Lotus Hold.
I found Bautali inside the Hold and he had a bunch of quests to give. Standing next to him is Hai Tang who also has many quests to hand out. I picked a few from Bautali and got started on them. I had to go kill a bunch of tigers, ostra’s, varana’s, and others. The varana and ostra were easy to find, but just like back in the starting areas, the tigers were extremely rare. I got so tired of running around looking for the tigers that I put that one on hold and worked on some other quests.
Located on the beach which is down the hill from Lotus Hold is a bunch of burned out houses that the orcs have taken over. The quest Orc Assault: Martok Deadbringer wanted me to go kill a few of the Deadbringers, so down to the beach I went. The beach is crawling with orcs, so it was easy to quickly find what I needed. The quest netted me 1 silver, 40 copper, and 3220 experience points.
Back at Lotus Hold, I discovered that the stress and fear of constant orc attacks have caused some of the villagers to go crazy. Some guy named Mung decided to take a group of them away from Lotus Hold to find some other place to live. It seems that the crazed villagers took Tao’s Idol of Focus with them when they left and they didn’t ask permission to do so. I was tasked with getting the idol back.
The crazed villagers are found up on a high hill that is a ways south of the Nakai Dojo. They stand close to each other, so I had to use Nature’s Calm in order to pull a single. The very first one I pulled had the idol. Nice luck. Returning the idol to Tao resulted in me receiving 1 silver, 40 copper, and 3220 experience points.
I then started a quest that tasked me with retrieving some treasure boxes that the orcs had stolen from Lotus Hold. These boxes are located around the burned out houses down on the beach. I had to clear the way of orcs in order to get to some of them, but I also found that I could sneak in behind the houses and get to some of the treasure boxes with minimal combat. There is a wooden wall behind the houses that has gaps in it and I found a couple gaps that I could squeeze through.
I ran back to Lotus Hold and turned in the treasure box quest and the kill animals quests. They all gave about a silver each and 3220 experience points each. I dinged level 16 while doing these quests and here is a list of spells that my Druid received:
- Barbwood Talisman III: AC 60, HP 120, 17 damage shield
- Wild Growth I: 935 to 986 damage over 24 seconds
- Solar Flare II: 297 to 319 fire damage & 107 to 118 over 4 seconds
- Restore II: 503 point heal
- Summon Earth Elemental II: Summons a pet for 3 minutes
- Quelling Wind I: Lowers hate by 3%
Vanguard: Gremlins And Orcs
After completing The Menace Grows, Ju Ming gives me one last task to perform. This one is called The Head of the Beast. I am to go find gremlin Augurs and wrest something called a Pulsating Portal Shard from their grubby little claws. I must obtain enough shards to combine them into an Orb of Calling. This Orb will summon the Kojuko General who, not surprisingly, needs killed.
As I mentioned in my last post, if you keep going along the coast, you’ll find more and tougher types of gremlins. So, I ran past the first two camps that I attacked earlier and found the third camp. This one had the Augurs. I dispatched some Augurs and found some portal shards, but I didn’t combine them. This quest is a group quest, so I’ll need to wait until I can find some help before finishing this one.
Speaking of finding a group, in all my time spent in this gremlin area, I only saw one other player the entire time. Even after SOE merged some servers, the player population is very low. It may be better at the higher levels, but as a low level player, it is rather disheartening.
Just a few steps away from Ju Ming, there is a fellow named Nao Tak. He also gives out some quests. One of them is called Otherwordly Artifacts. He wants me to kill gremlins and recover 5 inert portal shards and 5 fiendish portal shards. Gremlin killing seems to be common pasttime around these parts.
I ran around and killed random gremlins until I had enough of the shards. I returned them to Nao Tak and I received 2431 experience and a measly 60 copper. Are Ju Ming and Nao Tak related or something? Nao gives one last quest called To Lotus Hold. I sat that one aside and worked on a few other quests first.
Back at the Nakai Dojo, Lieutenant Oda has some tasks for me. I get from him the Pride of the Army quest. I am to patrol the road leading out of the Dojo and look for invading Martok orcs. I have to visit 4 patrol points and clean out any orcs I find.
The way it worked out is that you simply run down the road and wait for an invisible Martok Ambusher to jump you. Kill the orc, run down the road some more, and wait to be jumped again. You do this until you have reached all four patrol points.
I returned to Oda after completing my patrol and I discovered that he didn’t seem to have much confidence in my abilities.
Prick.
–Wolfen