So.... I dusted off a bard I rolled a few years ago when I was taking a break from EQ2 but still gaming.
I created the bard to be part of the backstory to my original (main?) EQ2 character, Rijacki. many years before the little gnomess was born, one of her older brother's had his life saved by a bard named Rijac. When the baby girl gnome was born (she has only brothers all older), the family decided to honour the bardess and name the baby for her.
Through normal game play, I got Rijac to mid-40s and then other things in life interfered and I stopped playing her. (I don't recall the why, it was a few years ago.) When I started playing EQ again, I considered starting up with her again, but since my sweetie was playing, too, we rolled new characters together to join the group that was newly forming. I poked at the bardess from time to time but couldn't make a connection no matter how much there was a part of me wanting to bard.
So... a month or so ago the high level group I play with on Sundays went to playing with lower level characters to help bring back a player who had been away and decided to create a new character. When we started that grouping dynamic, she was already too high for the bardess so I joined in with a different lower level character I have and then switched to one a bit higher (yes, I am an alt-a-holic). The one a bit higher is my Friday group character and I didn't want to get her out of range of that group, so.... a couple weeks ago, I decided to brush off Rijac, give her the 85-voucher I had sitting in my virtual pocket.
Because of Scout interference on the day I 85ed her, I was barely able to get her functioning (new songs, new AAs, etc) before the Sunday group, but after the grouping, I did a bit of... sprucing. I got her new armor (thanks to Chattazures's XP farming in Fear Itself), weapons, and a drum that were far more appropriate to the harder hitting group we have on Sundays. I also got armour dye and a weapon ornament (changes the appearance) for her off-hand.
I was quite pleased with how she was shaping up and gave her macros /em sing "[80s dance tune lyrics]" for flavour. I'm doing the singing in emotes rather than group or say to keep them a little low-key 'cause they do get repeated a bunch. But, for Boastful Bellow, what's more perfect than /em "Another one bites the dust. Hey! Hey! Hey!" even if it's not the killing shot. She's an 80s club girl and I love her. (And am starting to get far too attached to her, too. Sorry, Chatta, I might not switch back when the group gets 105+)
So, the returning player, Keyarie is her current character, has a real big thing for the epics and is almost always offering to help anyone get the epic for any character. While I like the purple axe I found (it stuns and is level appropriate, so bought not just for looks, but...), a singing sword would be better.
I looked up the bard epic 1.0 and set off... After the first round of running around, Keyarie helped with Phiny and the drop in Karnors, both in places that are incredible mazes so I was very glad for the help. Plus Phiny is in an underwater palace and the swim mechanics in EQ drive me bonkers. What works at one moment might not in the next.
My first attempt to get the tendon from Fear (the original Fear) was unsuccessful. I cleared out all the Knights and Warriors with nary a tendon amoung them. I had to wait a few hours to try again.
On the second try, while running around looking for the Knights and Warriors (my 86 bard is way above the 55ish level denizens, plus I have much better gear than was available when that content was current) I ran into the Shade of Cazic Thule (his feet are to the left in the picture above) and he was green!. The shade kept kicking Rijac and then summoning her back to his feet. Fear has a notorious reputation for insane agro radiuses, as in things will agro from half a zone away. Each time Rijac was kicked and summoned, more things rushed in from other parts of the zone.
More and more they piled on. It was, though, going okay and I was taking them out, but I wasn't buffed for an epic fight. Thankfully I did have my Othmir healer by my side, but because I wasn't keeping the attention of everything, the Othmir's healing started drawing the agro of the swarm. My poor Othmir died the death of a thousand cuts and I followed. But we had taken out quite a lot of them.
Back in Knowledge, I was emptying my nearly full bags, contemplating a return fight, when.. whoa! a tendon!!! Somewhere in that mess one of the knights or warriors had dropped one. Yay! I didn't go back. *laugh*
The other fights were more or less uneventful. Finding the dragons was the tricky part. For the very last one, Trakanon, neither he not the Undead Bard was there when I arrived so I camped in his lair. I checked back later in the day and... oh! the Bard! I forgot to summon my Othmir healer before I handed the Bard the lute part. I killed him easy and then... Trakanon appeared. Yes! I fought a bit and then blind! I knew that could happen so I continued trying to flail about and sing damage 'cause I couldn't see him. Then... loading please wait. He banished me to another part of Sebilis with a sliver of health! Right in the middle of very angry mushrooms. I took them down no problem and was able to summon my Othmir. I trudged back to the dragon hoping to take him down before he would banish again (I don't know his recast on it). I started fighting, working his health down, and... Blind! Argh. I was thinking I would need to get a group or at least one other person to take him after all even though I was soloing him fine damage wise. Then my vision cleared and I could see him trying to walk out of the fight. I ran to him and kicked him as the final death blow!
Woot!
Just some running around and it was all mine!
See the little blue notes around the sword? so cool.
I did the quest to get an ornament for any other sword. The bard event as part of that quest (which is A LOT of running around to various places in Norrath) is so incredibly cool. I want to do it again and make a video.
So... Rijac the Courier. She was left as a baby in a basket at the Qeynos bard guild house. No note, no nothing. The guildmaster decided she was the child of all bards everywhere. One of the tasks taken on by bards is the delivery of mail, though they do let others help with that as well. As a toddler, Rijac started her courier career by being carried to the various bardic guild houses and other locations in a mail sack. She would stay in each of the guild houses or locations for a span of time, learning their ways and assisting as she grew older. She began her own mail runs when she was in her teens, traversing Norrath to deliver packages and letters. As part of her courier oath, she is impartial on who she delivers for, but when she's off-duty, her opinions are her own though she is careful not to use her courier duties to reconnoiter those she thinks should be eliminated. She helps the helpless, saving lives and freeing the enslaved. Her family is the whole bardic community and they were mighty proud to see her with the Singing Sword on the stage in Qeynos.
