Loops in the Wood
Posted by Mike Blitz on November 17th, 2008
After three sessions of grinding for gear around in the outskirts of Moore, I had had enough. “Whatever,” I said, “I don’t need that wizard’s robe or another sword. I can do without!” And with that, we headed inside the huge forest that lies to the east of the Moore.
I thought perhaps we would plow through this place, but the enemies we ran into we rather annoying. First of all, there are lots of them. I could barely take ten steps without getting jumped by some sort of evil freak of nature. Usually, groups of three evil trees and a couple of small, mana-sucking spell casters would attack us at once. The damn spell casters were a pain, as they generally would use an Aspire spell to drain off our casters’ mana. Our party now consists of a Time Mage, a Black Mage, a Blue Mage, and a Samurai, so this quickly turned into a bit of a problem: our casters were losing mana at a ferocious rate. Brilliantly (sarcasm on) I decided to conserve the casters’ mana by not having them cast spells.
Complicating things was the fact that it’s kind of hard to tell where you’re going in Moore Forest. There are trees covering your path, and some sort of mist in the air as well. There is one medium-sized area as you enter the forest, and I spent twenty minutes following the outer edge in an attempt to find a path out. After two trips around the outside and countless random fights, our party was down to hardly any mana, and had no idea how to get out of the place.
Then I saw it! Something sparkling and pretty, sitting in a hole in a large tree trunk. I walked over, and sure enough, a secret tunnel opened up, allowing us to move forward. The frustrating thing: this tree is probably only three or four random battles from the entrance of the area. I’d been wandering in loops for no reason. Sigh.
With almost all of our mana gone, we decide to double back to Moore yet again to rest at an inn. We’ll press deeper into the woods tomorrow.
Status: Hoping for Progress
