Normally I’d have a log here of last week’s hilarious hijinks in EverQuest 2, but we didn’t play last week because our Necromancer was at about 50,000 feet during playtime.

The time off gave me an opportunity to reconnect with Nightfall, my current chosen path along Guild Wars’ magical trail. I’ve never run a character through it, so I’m at about level 12 – my last major landmark was beating the Jokanur Diggings mission on Master.

It involved me killing a bunch of zombies, and then taking on something that sort of looked like a form-shifting two-ton lawn ornament.

I actually botched the job the first two times through. You have to put this plaques on these stands, and (little did I know) the restless spirits steal the plaques off the stands if you’re not careful. So you have to go get one, drop it near the stands, get the other, and then put them in place quickly. I got so frustrated with their plaque stealing (it was late) that I quit in a huff. The second time I made it to the lawn ornament but died because I’d been screwing around a bunch on the way and *ahem* was at -60%. My heroes did a brave job of trying to complete the mission without me, but it was not to be.

I know, I know, amazing. Or not. Suffice it to say that I’m still very much in the ‘oh what does my hotbar do again’ phase? I’m playing it on my lonesome, hotfooting it across zones with Koss, Dunkoro, and Melonni, and dreaming of the day when I can use cool pets like Zhed Shadowhoof or … pretty much any of the GWEN pets. This character is also going to be my Eye of the North character, I’ve decided.

My bobbin of choice right now is a Dervish/Necro. Necro is probably my favorite subclass for all those lovely lifedraining and poison spells, but I’m enjoying the Dervish style of play so much I haven’t a single skill point invested into that aspect of the character. I’ll quote from my Guild Wars Jedi Master on the subject of Dervishi:

“Necromancers I understand, and can cope with, but the Dervish is an entirely new profession to me, and I’m still having trouble working out what it is they actually do, apart from spin very fast. A bit of post-rampage research shows that they’re some kind of scythe-based close-combat AoE Melee DPS Fighter, which was just as well, as our Dervish seems to be showing early symptoms of Red Mist, and seems to charge into the fray with great gusto.”

There’s a bit more to them than that, but that’s the gist. The other half of the Dervish equation (besides the red mist part) is their air of Mysticism. D’s slap down enchantments on themselves to do their AoE thing while they’re swinging that giant scythe around (completely awesome). The enchantments all have a ‘thing’ they do when they end (like setting enemies on fire), but an enchantment ending on a Dervish also restores a certain amount of health and mana … dictated by the Mysticism Attribute.

In practice this makes me one bad mother in combat, as my crazy whirling blade only pauses long enough to lay the AoE smackdown. I’m told they’re not that great in PvP, and I’d totally believe it, but it’s a ton of fun in the PvE game. At level 12 I’ve barely begun … haven’t even hit the level cap or gotten off newbie island, but Guild Wars leveling goes awfully quick and I expect to be at the top before long.

My goal is to play through the whole of Nightfall before I hit GWEN, and it’ll be interesting to see how much of the campaign I can solo. I don’t recall a lot about Hemlock’s discussion of the endgame, but I seem to recall several tough missions that required multiple tries. And that was with three players. Good thing my blade is sharp.