From the High Seas to Auroria – and back

Many months have passed without a decent bard song, so let me tell you of some days of high adventure!

The guild village above Birchkeep

The collection of cottages and thatched farm houses, maintained piece by 8×8 piece between members, is past. Several larger houses and some gazebo farms dominate the hill now.

In a collective effort many stones and a lot of lumber were assembled in preparation. As a commemorative guild event we all then put some more labor in and erected our guild chalet from scratch one evening.

It now oversees the land below, offering crafting stations for our members and a romantic overlook from the sunny bench on the balcony.

The Lux Arcana guild village, with the guild house at the center

See it for yourself – and you might hear some tunes from our resident piano player, Daegolax, with the distant waterfall in the background.

Adventures grand and small

Recollections? These are just some distant blinks of light in endless space…

We helped Mystical Lights to obtain one of the four castle spots when Auroria opened. The first sieges turned out to be badly balanced in favor of defenders, but guilds didn’t give up and invested huge amounts of gold to win the right to attack. We had no part in the castle defense, but were still surprised seeing the server announcement one Sunday that Prophecy took their castle. Although the attackers were massively buffed by APEX alliance helpers, that alone shouldn’t have led to the loss.

Two more regions were opened in Auroria, and some new group content came with it. The 10-man dungeon of Serpentis posed a challenge over many months up to very recently when it was nerfed heavily, by now being a farm event with some randomness.

These here are the Keepers, dragonkin that still haven’t learned how to work together when hit by a single stray arrow from the side…

Nevertheless, we had our fun watching our healers / our tank / everybody else die (choose one). Those who laughed last had to die then, too, to reset the room encounter…

Ironically Serpentis has all the Naga snakes outside and cubes inside (without snakes at all). Once adjusted to the strange lighting inside, we continued through the rooms, again meeting the friendly guy from outside… but that time he turns out to be an evil summoner not liking us at all… Twisted dimension!

Our brave adventurers have gotten to Siroth, at the core of it all, and eventually wrested the inscribed ring from his finger. And, you know what, when I touched it, a voice inside it gently began to whisper to me! I didn’t understand a word, but with some help from friends and lots of stuff I have reforged this ring to help me in my adventures. Which takes us to the present, aiming to get everybody such a whispering ring…

Siroth, the fire demon at the end of Serpentis

…always a “rich” experience is the trade with the southern regions when they turn into peace eventually. Whether you’re an admirer of the sailing skills of your average farmers, or a trade baron maximizing pack disposition possibilities, it is a sight to see:

Looks relaxed compared to the horror of the Hellswamp workbench, doesn’t it?

Ayanad Library (Patch 1.7 and after)

With this big content patch the Ayanad library in Diamond Shores opened up, getting us to level 55 with new skills and additional skill points for new class builds. It contains another long quest chain for an earring, and loooooooots of farming – be it for costume scraps, crafting materials, a picture or just improved coinpurses.

Patron status was improved, too, most notably with the same offline labor regeneration as online – no more time needed to spend in court, listening in to boring defendant stories.

Husky taking me for a round around and around…

A much sought-after pegasus entered the world soon after, allowing excited races in the library rooms or over the dragonling on Mirage Island. Here I’m getting my first ride!

Farming activities may now include “growing XP”. Nili’s demonstration farm in the guild village showed us a nice comparison of how glorious bonsai potted pines may look around our houses. (That was before the achievement system came in. Sorry, Nili, no prize for you.)

…which brings me back to why you would think about growing pines: You need them for ships!

The most intense activity we had since the start of the game, and on a big game scale, is the daily sea battle, containing everything this game has to offer: West vs. East, Guilds pk’ing other guilds in rage (and cold blood), cannon shoot-outs, bouncing warships, underwater assaults, APEX pegasus attack squads and even dolphin armies. We enjoy it!

Brace yourselves! And keep those cannonballs flying

The valuable crystal pack as an incentive is another part of it, paying for all the failed cannon and figurehead regrades, repairs, and of course a good crew!

Rushing in to the repaired Ezi’s light

These pictures can only give a limited insight into this event, sometimes going on for 3 hours, sometimes finished in one.

The guild has invested into a plate tanking set that is available for events. Some of us have privately invested into other types of metal gear: Cars and mortars. Keep those engines cool, guys!

2 tanks will not hold them off…

Yours, Kaitiaki

Lux Arcana trivia quiz

Can’t have too many details in a long story, yarr, but we like the flavour!

Whose farm hauler was called “Stuck”?

How many times did Husky fail to regrade his Obsidian Katana above Unique in a row?

The famous Lux Arcana Donkey Run had a less known mad brother – do you know it?

Sadly this this article was first written our ArcheAge division has now closed. Thank you to Kaitiaki for writing it – great job! and also thank you to everyone else in Lux over the last year that played in our ArcheAge division. Hopefully see you in new adventures in the future!