I am pretty sure I am doing this wrong. All of it. But even my disregard for video guides about how to play EverQuest Legends hasn’t stopped my progress. I have somehow managed to level up.
EverQuest Legends
My pace has been lackadaisical and my dedication to the effort has been pretty limited, but when I find the time and inclination, I have been logging on and fighting stuff.
Starting off in Qeynos meant that at least I knew where to go for mobs of the correct level… with “correct level” being defined as mobs who were a level or three above my own level, which would get me 2-5% of a level per kill.
Basically, I was rolling yellow con mobs fairly well, so made them my goal. However, I quickly ran out of those out in front of Qeynos and headed down into the aqueduct, where I was able to find some appropriate mobs.
Nothing like an old school gelatinous cube
That had its limits. I was mostly fighting blue con mobs.
From there it was to Qeynos Hills, where I still had some willowwisps to hunt.
Outside of Surefall Glade
As evening fell into night I went over to the ruins to see what I could stir up with the skeletons, but managed to pull more than I could handle and ended up running away.
Dread corpses on my tail
Flustered by that I ran the wrong way. I should have just run to the guards at the entrance to Surefall Glade, where Bixby and his buddy would have saved me without much drama. Instead I ran to Blackburrow… not that far off, but still further than the guards who could freaking see me from where I started… and probably got a couple of players slain training this group to the zone line.
Or maybe not. Most people seem to be better at this than me. I chose my stance at random and, aside from my staff, was pretty much running around with the limited gear I got from Doug.
But Blackburrow seemed like a plan, a place of old where we used to hunt. However it seemed to be pretty crowded and I had yet to figure out how to spawn my own instance. I kept seeing references to a RED button I was supposed to press, which I could not find. Maybe I should have watched the video.
Later, when I read a more detailed description and found it, my first thought was, “That isn’t red.” The literalist mind will be what it is.
Button
Seriously though, that arrow is red while the button is mahogany or maybe a dark rust. And yes, I will die on that hill. But we’ll get to that button later. Probably not even in this post. I have a lot more meandering to do.
I ducked out of Blackburrow, where I found my dread corpse buddies still hanging out… just getting back to how things behave in EQ requires some adjustment… so I zipped on past and headed out to West Karana in search of more yellow con mobs.
Out to the wide open spaces
West Karana… well, I have written about it before and its wide open spaces and the almost comically varied level range of mobs out there.
West Karana all on One Map
But I am an old hand in that zone and almost never get lost or surprised by a cyclops or wandering hill giant. And there were mobs to be found.
Giant spider time
I got a couple of levels out there, though not without mishap. Bandit spawns were always a common place to camp for xp. Going in solo though I managed to get in a bit over my head because they come in groups and you have to be careful approaching from the wrong angle as there might be additional bandits behind the one you’ve decided to pull. More running ensued.
Bandits giving chase… the ladies won’t leave me alone
That did not end well, though death in EQL has a light touch. No corpse runs, no missing gear, do xp loss, you just have to rest a bit to recover health and mana, apply any buff, and off you go again.
I made a couple levels in West Karana, then yellow con mobs not in groups started to be thin on the ground and I wasn’t quite up for scarecrows yet, so I moved on to North Karana.
This is basically me speed running what feels like my first few months in EverQuest, but which was probably the first couple of weeks in reality. My brain distorts the passage of time and I am reminded of Rumpole reminiscing with his son about how they used to play at Sherlock Holmes and Watson in the park and his son responds that they did that once and it wasn’t even that big of a deal.
Anyway, North Karana was almost a fun bit of risk. Much smaller than West Karana, it was the nexus point of the Plains of Karana, linking East, West, and South together while also being home to both a druid ring and wizard teleportation tower. I wrote all about that back in 2024.
Northern Plains of Karana
The zone doesn’t have the wildly broad range of mobs that West Karana does, and at my level I was hunting at the bottom of the food chain with beetles and lions as my targets.
A pincer beetle in North Karana, with point 7 on the map visible behind
I spent an evening there and it was happy hunting. There were plenty of mobs in the right range, a bit of danger as one needs to keep an eye out for aggro mobs… or other beetles… beetles assist other beetles in combat, and it won’t do to have a high level boarer beetle show up and ruin the party. So levels came… not quickly, but neither did they take too long. New skills would unlock and the first couple of fights thereafter would see a mess of skill ups.
Suddenly all the skills
I managed to get myself up into the range of the baby griffons, the griffawns.
The griffawn is fleeing from me!
And then I hit level 10 and got a notification.
Level 10 announcement
I was now going to have to commit, though honestly I hadn’t really given much thought to any of that. I was mostly being a tourist up until then. I was still walking around with mostly the same gear as I had at level 4. I picked up an earring somewhere along the way. I hadn’t even turned in my voucher for a tunic at the druid’s guild in Surefall Glade.
Part of that was I remember druids being something of a hobo existence when it came to gear. Even when you found some, you still look so poor and under equipped that people would feel pity and give you handouts. But, also, I was still killing things. So I just kept rolling.
Now, however, I would need to get my act together and make decisions before level 10, and maybe even figure out stances.
Fortunately, since my last post, I did learn that there is an official EQL wiki for those of us who won’t sit still long enough to watch a video about playing a game. I am not sure why they didn’t mention that up front, but there it is.
The wiki was also where I learned why I was was all alone out there in the wild. I swear I rarely saw another soul save for some high level on a mount passing through now and again. As it turns out there is a guide to zones and where to level up, and the Plains of Karana are not on the recommended list. Oh well, I enjoyed the stillness of it all the same.