Burned Woods

Also known as the "SoW Story" - this was originally posted on the eqnecro.com message boards.

The SoW Story

So there I was.....minding my own business in The Overthere, when all of a sudden I see the message: "d00d sow plz".

Of course, my natural instinct was not to answer, since I thought the clueless newb (hereafter referred to politely as "the petitioner") must have been poorly informed at best.

Boy was I ever wrong.

I switch out of 1st person into an external camera, and what did my wandering eyes behold? Only myself and the petitioner.

So I says to myself...."Self? You need to edumacate this fella!"

(Keep in mind what the overall setting looked like: There I was, in skeleton form, carrying a scythe, FLOATING IN MIDAIR IN A MEDITATING POSITION, with a LARGE dark-brown skeleton named "Gibober" standing behind me. Ummm....No, skippy, I'm not a druid or a shaman.)

I say "Wish I could, bro, but I don't have SoW. I'm a Necromancer."

The Petitioner says, "$#*&@#$ dick, sow me already! it's for a cr"

Feeling as if my feathers had been ruffled a bit, I do a "/who all dumbass" (um..pardon..I meant "/who all petitioner")

This is where I discovered the "/who all" bug. Certainly it must have been a bug, right? There's NO WAY IN CREATION the dumbas...err...petitioner could have been a level 31 Dark Elf Wizard, right???? RIGHT????? /em begins to cry like a little girl.

Well, needless to say, I couldn't have been any more shocked than if my pet began dancing an Irish Jig. I quickly begin the arduous task of maintaining my composure, while deciding how best to deal with this tricky situation.

I say, "Necromancer's can't cast SoW".

Petitioner says, "Bull@#$%! you cast a spell while you were running and you sped up! i couldn't catch you until you sat down! if you're not going to sow me just say so you dont have to be a dick about it a$$hole"

Yes I know....he didn't use any punctuation in that last sentence.

I say, "I have JBoots."

He says, "what are they"

Before I have a chance to pick my chin up off the floor....

Petitioner asks, "can you buff my hps my hp sux"

I say, "I can't buff you, dude. I'm a necromancer. I only have one buff that you would probably want."

He says, "yeah the one you won't give me dick"

Ok. Time to have fun with the hopelessly clueless.

I say, "Why do you need a sow?"

He says, "i need to get to burned woods to hunt. sumbody said its perfect for my level"

Yep. That's what he said......"burned woods".

I say, "man are you ever in the wrong place."

He says, "?"

Apparently he found the "question mark" key conveniently located nearby other various and sundry communication facilitators.

I didn't answer him.

He repeats, "??"

Found it twice...good for him.

He repeats, "???"

Having an IQ greater than plantlife, I sensed a pattern forming.

I say, "You are NO WHERE near Burned Woods."

He says, "my friend told me it was in kunark"

I say, "Yeah, the operative word there is 'WAS'. There was a major patch a couple of months ago after a bunch of complaints were filed about 'static content'."

He says, "?"

I say, "!"

He says, "?"

I say, ","

He says, "wtf"

I say, "no, already have some."

He says, "????"

I don't respond.

He says, "so where the @#$% is burned woods"

He lost the question mark button again. Probably popped off when he was sniffing his feet.

I say, "Well, THIS week it's south of Freeport. It changes with every patch, since they began randomizing zone locations."

My guild is hysterical at this point. And I haven't even told them the ENTIRE story yet. Just snippets.

He says, "@#$% i just got off the boat"

I say, "You don't need the boat."

He says "why"

I say, "You're a wizard!"

He says, "how you know that"

I say, "I did a /wh...nevermind....the important thing is you have teleportation spells."

He says, "oh yeah the green ones"

I nod.

I say, "Yep. The 'green ones'. Pretty nice how you have them grouped by color."

He says, "thx"

I say, "How'd you think about doing it that way?"

He says, "they were all @#$%## up when i got this char"

I say, "Sit down and mem the spell 'Fay Gate'."

He says, "why"

Question mark key is on the ground in front of your chair, guy. Mixed in with your collection of boogers.

I say, "It's going to put you within spitting distance of Burned Woods."

He says, "how do you know"

I say, "All patch messages come with a zone connection map."

He says, "oh"

I say, "Ok. You have it memmed now?"

He had just stood up after what I assumed was meditating/looking at his spell book.

He says, "yeah"

I say, "Ok. Cast the spell and let me know when you get there."

Dumba...errr....Petitioner begins to cast a spell.

A LONG time goes by.....ok, maybe 5 minutes I still haven't heard from him.

Getting curious:

I tell petitioner, "Are you there yet?"

No reply. No reply at all. [Yes, I'm a Genesis fan... ]

Obviously he's there, or my tell wouldn't have gone through.

I tell petitioner, "Hit the 'r' key to reply to me."

He replies, "i'm here now where do i go."

Right idea....wrong punctuation mark. Oh well. "C" for effort.

I tell petitioner, "Ok, do you see a hotkey on the screen that says 'Sense Heading'?"

He replies, "no"

I reply, "Hit the arrow buttons one by one until you see one."

It was a guess, but an educated one.

He replies, "found it"

I reply, "Click on it."

He replies, "north"

I reply, "Ok, you need to head east along the path. Keep going until the path turns north. When it forks to the right, take the right fork."

He replies, "ok"

Who knows, maybe the guy who sold his account on Ebay worked his Felwithe faction up.

He replies, "sumbody told me i shouldnt be here cause i'm a dark elf"

I reply, "They were roleplaying."

He replies, "oh hehe @#$%@#$ morons ;P"

Priceless. Utterly priceless, I tell you.

I reply, "Where are you?"

He replies, "i see something now. looks like a castle"

I reply, "Run into the castle as fast as you can. The guards might give you some trouble, just keep running."

Yeah...damned conscience started kicking in.

A fairly long period of time passes. Not sure how long, but longer than I was expecting.

I tell petitioner, "What happened?"

As if I didn't know....

He replies, "my spells are gone!"

I reply, "What happened?"

He replies, "i died why"

I reply, "Oh man! Did I tell you to run east or west?"

He replies, "east wtf???"

I reply, "Yikes. My bad. You should have run west."

He replies, "?"

I reply, "So where are you now?"

He replies, "how can i tell"

I reply, "Look right after you see 'Loading please wait'. It should tell you 'You have entered [zone]'."

He replies "it doesnt say [zone] there."

After smacking my head against my monitor....

I reply, "What does it say in place of [zone]?".

Get this....

He replies, "Burning Woods"

I nearly fell out of my chair! I couldn't have PLANNED it that way!

He replies, "is that the same as burned woods"

I reply, "No, but you're close. Start running south so you can get your corpse back."

He replies, "i have to get my corpse back?????"

/ignore petitioner

Moral of the story: EBay...Just Say No!

Out of sheer curiosity, I took him off ignore later to find out what happened.

I tell petitioner, "How's it going?"

He replies, "wtf? where you been"

I reply, "been afk, sorry."

He replies, "got my corpse back. some dude rezzed me."

My conscience somewhat eased...

I reply, "Really? Cool! Where are you now?"

He replies, "iceclad ocean"

I scratch my head a few times.

I reply, "Why Velious?"

He replies, "the guy that rezzed me told me burned woods was in western wastes this week"

I don't recall exactly how long it took me to stop laughing. I stopped breathing shortly before my dog dialed 911.

He replied, "@#$%&* wouldnt sow me either. what is that sh#$ gold?"

That's what finally killed me. I'm writing this from the afterlife.

---

Part 2

"This is the follow up story from the cleric who rezzed him near Felwithe. Friend of mine digged it up, probably on the same necro side. "

Here comes some idiot Dark Elf running past me, running straight down the road that is going to lead him to Felwithe. I scratch my head, and being the nosey sort of Dwarf that I am...I send him a tell.

I tell the DE, "Wait"

DE tells me, "?"

I sigh into my ale as I take another longt draught off of it before running up to him and saying, "Ye really don't wanna go messin around over there with them High Elves' They look like pansies, but they aint."

The DE stands there with a vacant look on his face for a few minutes before just running away. Do a /who on the DE and find out he's 31st level. Ok, so maybe he knows what he's doing. I've seen Ogres in North Freeport, after all. I go back to drinking my ale.

Out of curiosity, I send him another tell a few minutes later.

I tell the DE, "Not gettin' into any trouble over there are ye?"

DE tells me, "STFU !@#$% roleplayer"

I sigh into my ale again, finishing it off. Ah, tis the season of the twit. I stand up and head towards Felwithe to resupply my ale.

Just as I get to the gates of the ugliest city on Norrath, what do I find but a dead dark elf and a pair of guards snickering and cleaning their weapons. Now this is priceless.

I do a /who on the poor soul and see he is in Burning Woods. Being the sucker that I am, I feel compelled to rez the twit...after all, I am a !@#$% roleplayer and I roleplay a !@#$% cleric...albeit a !@#$% grumpy one.

I sit down to mem Reviviscene and while I am waiting for it to refresh I send the DE a tell.

I tell the DE, "Would ye like a rez?"

DE tells me, "no i want a !@#$% sow dumbas i have to run south to get my corpse back so dont be a dick and just sow me plz"

I look around for an ale but unfortunatly Brell hates me at this moment in time, so I simply reply. "If I rez ya, ye wont need to run south to yer body. You will appear at yer body. I am not standing near you, I am standing near yer corpse."

DE tells me, "d00d rez plz"

As I sigh I look at my Holy Symbol of Brell and sigh "I'm gonna get a stout named after me right?" and I tell the DE "Consent me so I can rez ya" but I get no reply. No reply at all. So I say it again "Consent me so I can rez ya"

DE tells me, "ok you can rez me"

I sit down again at this point. I have no ale and this is gonna take awhile. I tell the DE, "Type /consent and my name" Being a smart dwarf I tell the DE, "/consent Cleric_01" and say again "Just like that" before he can make my head hurt more.

Sure enough, I recieve consent to drag his corpse. So I stand up and get ready to drag the corpse when suddenly I am denied permission to drag his corpse. I begin to think like him and I think "WTF?" So I tell the DE, "No...just type it once. One more time. That's it. Dont type it again" thinking that as soon as I get this over with, I can go buy more ale and my head will stop hurting.

I recieve consent and I quickly drag it towards the zone since this is the direction the guy was going anyway. I get the body by the zone and cast Rez on it, comforted by the fact that I am one heal away from being done with this guy.

The naked DE appears in front of me and I stand up to cast my final spell of this exchange when he says to me "your that !@#%% roleplayer" and then a moment later, almost as an afterthought "thx"

Compelled at this point, I ask "Why were you running into Felwithe when you are KoS?"

DE says, "I was going to burned woods"

I say, "Burning Woods?"

DE says, "no dumbass i go there when i die i want to hunt burned woods"

I say, "Who told you to go hunting in Burned Woods, inside Felwithe?"

DE says, "some dick who wouldnt sow me" and then "will you sow me plz, its for a CR"

I stand there drooling on myself for a moment, trying to catch up. I havent had an ale in a good 20 minutes at this point, so I am starting to see spots.

DE says, "dont be a dick just sow me before they move the zone again"

I stare at the lad and ask "Move Burned Woods? Again?"

DE says, "yea"

I finally snap and say, "They aren't going to move it again. Once they moved it to Western Wastes, with all the snow, it stopped burning."

DE says, "i saw a burning tree"

I say, "Exactly my point. Now if they would only move Burning Woods there it would stop too and people wouldn't go there when they die."

DE says, "can you sow me, its for CR"

I say, "sow doesnt work in IC until you get past EW and then it will work for CR's only until you get to WW, then ask the first person you see for sow there." I add as an afterthought "Sometimes they look like flying blue things but they can sow"

DE says, "wtf???"

I say, "Allow me to use smaller words. You do not need a sow yet. Do what I say and you'll get there right away." and then "Sit down and mem the spell Bind Affinity"

DE is silent for a bit and finally says "its red" as he is standing up

I say, "I am glad they covered Colors this week. Now target yourself and cast this spell. " He just stands there for a minute, so I add "it will r0ck" and he begins to cast the spell, binding himself behind the guards at Felwithe. I feel somewhat better already, maybe I dont need ale.

DE says, "it said bound" and begins to giggle

I say, "Now sit down and mem the spell Iceclad Gate. This will r0ck even more."

DE says, "this one is green"

I say, "You're damn good at those colors man"

DE says, "thx"

When the DE stands up I say "This is going to take you to Iceclad Ocean. It's an ocean so that's why they moved Burned Woods there....to put it out."

DE says, "what about sow"

I say, "Remember that sow wont work until you are on a CR in WW. In fact you actually run faster in snow if you set the RUN button to WALK. Do that now."

DE says, "ok"

I say, "Now cast Iceclad Gate....the Green one. Remember to run straight out of where you appear and dont stop swimming until you hit Burned Woods."

DE begins to cast a spell and I zone in to get my ale....remembering that the Ignore list cures most headaches that ale cant and feeling somewhat better about going back to Sebilis.

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