The Ancient Gaming Noob

Who Sells My Spells by the Seashore? March 4, 2011

Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest.
Tags: Allakhazam, East Karana, Fippy Darkpaw, Highpass Hold, North Karana, Nostalgia, Progression Server, West Karana, What would we do without Allakhazam
10 comments

Nobody does.

At least not the spells I needed, which is why I had to run to Highpass Hold, which is up in the mountains, far from Qeynos and the seashore.

It is like the vacation quandary, mountains or seashore.

Up to this point, all of the spells for Thrall, my enchanter, have been available from one of the guild vendors in South Qeynos.  But my level 7 pet upgrade was nowhere to be seen.  I had to go check Allakhazam.

The spell system is one of those things in EverQuest that I am sure we would never put up with in a more current game.

Unlike the original game, 12 years back, where you got some spells every five levels if you were a caster, they are now more spread out and you get something every level.  In some ways this is better.  They’ve added spells to the game and they would come in huge lumps if you have to wait every five levels.  On the other hand, it does mean a lot of gating back to the guild and trying to find your spells.

To get your new spells you have to run back to your guild, buy the spell, and copy it into your spell book.

This isn’t so hard if your class only has a few spells, but for the true robe and pointy hat brigade, which has many spells, just finding the spell can be an issue.  The spells are sold by vendors in your guild, but each vendor can only sell so many spells.  So for an enchanter, there are a number of vendors in and around the guild.

In that picture are three of the vendors an enchanter might need to visit in Qeynos.  There are three more in the building next door and a couple more that I can only describe as “hidden,” since they are standing in little niches around the side and back of the building, as well.  And these are mixed in with vendors for magicians and wizards.  This adds up to quite a few vendors.

The spells do tend to be grouped by level, so one vendor sells a certain level range of spells, but nothing about a given vendor tells you which levels.  But at least once you figure out which one is about the right level, you have a starting place.  And the spells themselves are list alphabetically in the vendor’s inventory, so you actually have to right click and hold on each spell to bring up the information about the spell, which includes the level at which a given class can use it.

Then certain special spells are only sold by a limited number of vendors, so the spell you need might not be anywhere close to the guild in your starting town.

And, naturally, there is nothing in the game that tells you what spells you get at a given level, no nice little pop up at ding or empty but labeled slot in your spell book.

It is no wonder that Allakhazam’s became so popular.  I have no idea how mere mortals were supposed to figure all of this out on their own.

I certainly became, and remain, a fan of that site when it comes to EverQuest information.

And because of the site I knew that at level 7 Thrall was due to get a new pet spell.  There is a whole series of these spells, each of which summons a pet of a certain level and only that level.  None of this Wow-esque summoning of magical pets that are always the same level as you.

According to Allakhazam, my level 7 pet spell was up in the High Keep in Highpass Hold.

I’ve been there before, but it has been a while.  Way, way back in the day, I decided I wanted to make armor, but starting on the Qeynos side of the world meant you had to get your initial ingredients from Highpass Hold, which is… a few zones over.  The mountains, remember?  Now I would be making that trip again.

I had a bit of time yesterday morning, so I decided to give it a shot.  The first zone on the list was West Karana.

I’ve spoken about West Karana being dangerous, but I am used to it and know the safe, quick way to pass through it; follow the river.  It was daylight in the zone and I got to pass one of the zone landmarks, the combine ruins.

I ran along the river until I hit the invisible zone line and zoned into North Karana, where it was night time.

One of the odd things about EverQuest is that the zones don’t all seem to be in sync when it comes to the day/night cycle.  There I was running across a well lit landscape and then I zoned into the adjoining landscape to find it dark.

For North Karana I seemed to recall that following the river around to the bridge to East Karana was a bad idea.  The road through the zone that runs from the South Karana to East Karana bridge was the safest route, so I followed that.

I also noted that the mobs in the zone were my level or just a bit higher, except for the griffons which were red, and made a note to suggest that Potshot and I move our next hunting expedition to NK.

I made it safely across North Karana and zoned into East Karana, where I was greeted pretty much with what I remember about the zone.  Corpses.

In my first run to Highpass Hold, I got to East Karana and turned around.  The zone at the time was covered in a layer of fog and dangerous creatures would loom out of it.  The first time I did make it past, I had spirit of the wolf on me and ended up leading several creatures all the way to Highpass.

Now, however, the fog is gone and there seemed to be a dearth of dangerous, or at least aggro, creatures.

I just headed out across the zone and made it to the long, long run up the canyon path.

Here I felt I was home free.  The run is long, but as long as you don’t fall off the edge, things are usually okay.

I did have one heart stopping moment when I rounded a corner and was face to face with a Dark Stalker, which is basically a big black wolf.  He con’d red and aggro, but didn’t seem to think I was worth the effort, so on I ran.

Eventually I hit the top of the pass and zoned into Highpass Hold.

Just beyond the gate/tunnel pictured above there are some gnolls.

I remembered the gnolls, but I could not recall if there was anything special I had to do to get past them.  In my memory, I could only recall just running past them.  But then, they used to be camped all the time too.  What to do?

I decided to just try and run past and head for the keep.  If I could remember where the keep was.

The gnolls had different ideas.  They were red to me and stunned me with every other hit.  I knew I was done for.

And being dead meant going back to my bind point which was all the way back where I started, back in North Qeynos.  Well, the spell for my level 7 pet would have to wait until I had the time for another attempt.  At least the experience loss is small and all my equipment wasn’t still sitting on my corpse.  Getting that back would have been a challenge.

Then I got a tell from somebody asking me if the gnolls had seen through my invisibility.

Invisibility? Crap, I had that spell!  Why didn’t I think to use it?  And now here is somebody come to mock my stupidity.

But no, it turned out that this was a fellow enchanter, also level 7, who had been up there for the same spell I had been.  His name was Obmoz and he offered to pick up the spell for me.  He actually grabbed that and my next two pet spells, which ran about four and a half platinum.

When he gated back to Qeynos, I basically gave him all of my money, which was about 9 platinum.  One can always grind for a bit more coin, but I wasn’t sure when I was going to find the time to make that run again, so I was grateful.

So now Thrall has his new pet, which actually cons yellow to him, so it is a level or two ahead, and the spells for his next two pets as well.

Plus I think I know where we are going to go hunting next.