And then there were 89

I thought February had already been a pretty good month for cosmetic pets. First the fiendling companions – standard, magma, and shadow – and they JUGGLE! Then the invisible mini-stalker; I’d like to take credit for that, since back in early April 2013, I wrote a blog post that included the line, “It’s probably a bit late for the April Fools’ Day post I had planned, complete with screenshots of my new Invisible Stalker pet.” But I think it’s just coincidence that there is now indeed an Invisible Stalker pet. (If they ever release a dretch pet, that is TOTALLY on me – but that’s a topic for a whole ‘nuther post.)

The three fiendlings and Claude, the Invisible Stalker, put me at 88 pets. I had just four left to go: the wraith, rust monster, and hellhound from the Monster Manual, all within reach if I want to do some serious grinding, and… the violet gelatinous cube-let, which drops only in the raids Fall of Truth and Caught in the Web.

And from all accounts, the violet cube is a very, VERY rare drop. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anyone with one. Wiki says that it drops on all difficulties, so I’d taken to farming EN Fall of Truth (because I think that even if Even could survive EH solo, it’d be too grindy to bear, and I get too lost in CitW). Then a friend told me that it only drops on elite. I despaired. I almost never see FoT LFMs, and I knew damn well that Even was not ready to try to solo that on EE.

So I gave myself a break from FoT and started working on getting some more solo raids and EEs done. Managed to add Belly of the Beast, Chamber of Raiyum (aka Wiz King), Desecrated Temple of Vol, Master Artificer, and Lord of Blades to Even’s list.

The pillars in LoB glitched – everything was dead except Ol’ Shiny himself, but the pillars wouldn’t go “live” so I could kill them. And as long as I couldn’t kill them, I couldn’t kill the LoB. Took him down four or five times, but he’d bring himself right back at full health. So I finally sent in a ticket and got a great GM who got that solved for me.

Was fighting the flu and feeling pretty poorly, so I was thinking of going to bed after I got done selling and repairing from LoB. And then Slvr said something like, “Hey, wanna do an FoT while my bard hides in a corner?”

Oh, what the heck, I thought; I can’t sleep anyway, my head’s too stuffed up. So off to Chez Stormreaver we went.

Maybe it was the flu, maybe I was rolling badly, but it was the most freaking worst time I’ve ever had in there “solo” (since Slvr was, as promised, hiding in a corner). The Stormreaver killed the Silence dragon while I was still working on the Confusion pair. I was getting lambasted by one “boom” after another. And there were about 10 times more air eles than I EVER remember seeing in there on ANY difficulty. I had to redo Confusion because once the giant was down, the eles blew me across the room just before I could give the dragon his final cleave.

Same thing happened when I thought I was about to finish – had the Stormreaver and Truthful One both at such mere slivers, you couldn’t see any red in their bars. Killed the Stormreaver and went to hit Light the Dark, which would most likely have done in TO, and the stupid air eles tossed me to the other side of the room.

By the time I finally managed to get them both down within a few seconds of each other, Slvr had gone from a bard hiding in a corner to a soulstone hiding in a corner, and I had gone from, “Sure, I could go for a FoT” to “DEATH TO ALL AIR ELES! NEVER AGAIN!”

We opened the first three chests. Nothing of note save one lonely heroic comm for Even.

I opened the last chest. Nada.

Slvr opened the last chest. And linked…

A VIOLET GELATINOUS CUBE-LET PET.

I squeed. A lot. Loudly. And named her after Slvr’s bard, who loves purple.

Five new pets in about a week – yeah, that’s a damn good week, LOL. That brings the total number of pets in Even’s Home for Wayward Creature Companions to 89.They can often be seen on the fourth lower deck of our ship, where they like to head over to Otto’s Irresistible Dance Hall and boogie with the various creatures who wander in from the Wild Grove across the way. And even though 89 is a LOT, they all get a shot at having fun. Some of my toons have “preferred” pets – Even tends to run with the black panther cub a lot, as it looks like (and is named for) my real-life kitty. Vic the mechanic loves having her bronze golem to tinker on; Ivy the BF pally likes the steel golem because it’s nearly as shiny as she is. Dissy has a special bond with the pink fire ele, which looks marvelous paired with her lavender hair. Reera the swashbuckler, like any good pirate, has a parrot – a scarlet macaw to match HER hair.

Incidentally, Claude, as shown in the inset, is not invisible to everyone. Sadie got this snap and sent it to me via Facebook. Slvr said he can see Claude’s outline as well. But all I can see are his pirate hat and floaty text. I’m OK with that – after all, he’s an Invisible Mini-stalker, not a Nearly Invisible Mini-stalker.

Not that they don’t switch things up now and then; Vic and assassin Sere appreciate Claude the Invisible Mini-stalker’s transparency when they’re trying to sneak past enemies. Reera really likes Claude too – he looks great in his pirate hat (sorta like when you kill pirates in 3BC and their hats float in midair for a while afterwards). The violet cube goes with Dissy’s hair at least as well as the pink fire ele.

Eighty-nine down, three to go – anyone want to do some Monster Manual farming with me on Thelanis? 😀