High Adventure That's Beyond Compare

Lukenbach is tantalizingly close to Master Artisan Tailoring. Another day or two of grinding, and he should knock it out. Once he hits Master Artisan, he'll be able to deck himself out in a full set of light or medium armor, all purple.

The only problem is that Kammris is starting to balk at having to do all the grinding. He tried telling me the other day that he was actually twelve years old and that current child-labor laws prohibited me from working him as much as do. I quickly backhanded him and ordered him back to work, but I don't know how much longer I can keep him grinding for Lukenbach. I may have to resort to threatening Kammris, tell him I'll make him walk around Bree naked.

I finally made it off the island of Tortage in Age of Conan. That opened up the game quite a bit and I may just extend my subscription. My conqueror is a Cimmerian so when he sailed out of Tortage, I found myself in a Cimmeria mountain village. While all of Tortage's npcs were fully voice-overed, none are in the larger game. I'm not sure if that's because Funcom hasn't gotten to it yet or a deliberate design choice, but personally I've come to the realization that I'd rather read quest text than listen to it. I'm not knocking the voice acting in AoC. It's just I can read the text faster than they can say it and would prefer to keep things moving rather than sit and watch how the lips and movements just barely don't match what's being said.

After I knocked some quests out in Cimmeria, I took a wagon to Aquilonia. Where Cimmeria was rugged, mountainous, and barbaric, Aquilonia is urban, flat, and cultured. While hunting down a wayward horse for a harried stableman, I happened upon a man standing next to a tall white tower which glowed bright red at its top. I talked to the man and he told me he was planning out how to climb the tower so he could steal a gem it housed, most definitely the sources of the ruby shine. I convinced him to let me steal it and that we would split the profits. In broad daylight, I circled the tower. After some strategic jumping, carefully navigating the tower's ledge, and then grabbing hold of some vines, I finally made my way to the top. The guard dog was nothing more than a puppy that whined when he saw me. I filched the gem, made my way back down, and gave it to my partner.

It turns out the man wasn't stealing the gem for money, but to save his sister, who's soul was trapped inside it. Long story short, no reward.

But that's what I call high adventure.