Sionachie's Pendant of the Scribe  

 

I was just about to camp out in South Karana yesterday when a zone-wide message appeared announcing the arrival of a blue robed mystic at the quadralith. While I initially thought that this was a triggered epic spawn or something similar, a player shouted that Al'Kabor had arrived. Having never seen the greatest mystic on Norrath, I decided I'd run down and see what was going on. Based on previous GM events, I expected to find 80 or 90 people hanging aroumd making trouble; instead, no one was there but myself and Al'Kabor. I hailed him, and he complained about being interrupted in his research, then went back to chipping bits off of the quadralith.

I offered to help him in any way possible. He considered this, then decided he needed no help of mine. I apologized for the interruption, backed off and waited for further developments. A couple of other people tried to interact with him, unsuccessfully, and left. Eventually, a 19th level ranger, a wood elf named Jackamoose, arrived and told Al'Kabor of a message from the Scholars of Qeynos. While Al'Kabor wasn't especially interested in the offerings of aid from Qeynos, he grudgingly admitted that the ranger could help by talking to a gypsy for him. After the ranger accepted this task, Al'Kabor teleported away, promising to return at a later time.

I immediately offered my services as bodyguard and guide to the gypsies to Jackamoose, who gratefully accepted. I led him to North Karana, where a new gypsy, Tarevla Nimellin, had appeared at the gypsy camp. We listened to her tale (she claimed to be a descendant of the Combine empire, and to have documents to prove that claim). She offered to give us the documents (for later transport to Al'Kabor) if we would first kill an Evil Eye in East Karana, one Lorrk the Insane. Lorrk was apparently preventing the gypsies from setting up a camp in East Karana; if we would return with his eyeball as proof of his removal, the documents would be ours.

We accepted this new quest, and headed over to East Karana. The ranger quickly located Lorrk on track, and we found him near the entrance to Xorbb's gorge. The ranger investigated the eye, and found it to be, unsurprisingly, of a much higher level than his own. To my distress, it was red to me as well (meaning an enchanter of at least level 38, plus a pet). Having had quite a bit of trouble out of a level 29 Eye in the past, I was quite worried about this encounter with just the two of us - most likely outcome would be a charmed paladin pounding a lower level ranger into dust before being killed by the evil eye.

While we were moving around looking for a good attack angle, the eye disappeared - we were concerned that it had despawned and we had missed our chance while dithering about what to do - we were alone in the zone, except for a lone level 52 druid, who we were pretty sure was busy doing something else.

While we were debating what to do next, the eye reappeared (still red), but at least lacking a pet. I told the ranger we should attack while the threat was minimized, and we joined battle.

The evil eye jabbered in nonsense, and complained about being attacked, but failed to do much to actually defend itself. When the eye was nearly dead, I stopped the combat to see if possibly we were meant to talk to the eye rather than kill it outright, whereupon the eye finally fought back - a substantial, but not deadly hit - so, we went ahead and killed it. The ranger looted the eyeball and and a large amount of platinum coin (which he generously split with me) and we went back to North and the gypsies.

Tarevla Nimellin was pleased by our success, and handed over the documents; she declared the intentions of the gypsies to move to East Karana as soon as possible (checking back a week later revealed that the gypsies have not yet left North Karana).

We returned to the quadralith in South Karana, where we found that Al'Kabor had returned. He was pleased by the documents, which he thought would allow him to decipher more of the Combine language. He admitted that we had been helpful (for elves), and gave us each a "Coin of Gallantry" to take to a Hero in any city.

We obtained a port to Butcherblock, and turned in our coins to Barrith the Brave, the dwarf hero hanging out near the warrior guild in Kaladim. The ranger was rewarded with a +5AC, +5STR, +35HP earring and I received a +5AC, +3DEX, +4WIS, +4INT necklace; we were both proclaimed "Heroes of Norrath", and received a substantial amount of experience which helped me toward level 36.

I've been keeping an eye on the Journals of Al'Kabor; so far, no news of major breakthroughs in the history and language of the Combine empire, but I suspect that more information will follow eventually.

All in all, a very nice event, although I suspect that the "evil eye" battle would have been much more of a challenge if more players had gotten involved in the quest - apparently, when this event was run on Druzzil Ro (http://www.everlore.com/Archives.asp?arch=month&tp=9/1/2001&page=4#6) the Evil Eye was much more combative.

Caedain Fayslayer
Paladin of 36 seasons in service to Tunare
Cult of Forgotten Shadows
The Rathe