Oh man. I had the BEST TIME on Friday night.
I know that a lot more people are playing on the weekends than on weekdays, and I was certain that I needed help on some of these Redrock quests, so as soon as I logged on, I started looking for help.

Level 19.

The first person I found was a female wizard named Vex, fighting some little dragons south of the bridge. We had a little mix-up as she jumped on a Griffon just as I invited her to team up with me. She joined anyway, on her flight to Goldshire!

That was a little strange, but she flew right back, and we joined forces in earnest, killing a few more vultures and boars together. We were doing pretty well, and within 10 minutes, we found ourselves fighting Gnolls alongside a priest. He was at the same level as us, so I invited him to the group too, and he joined right up! Now we were three, and we were really mowing through the enemies.

Because I had sent the first invitation (to Vex), I was the party leader, and no one seemed to object to my group management skills. A big group has to share treasures and gold, but most of the time being part of a good team FAR outweighs the costs.

Within 10 minutes, I had invited another fighter (WarriorAce?) and a paladin to join us. These two joined without hesitation and now we were a party of five!

Everyone was level 18 or 19, and we all had similar quests. I had never been so prepared to completely destroy anything in the way of success.

We all ran north into the hills behind Lakeshire and started slaughtering Gnolls. We were nearly invincible, which invited recklessness. Everyone waded in swinging and flashing attack spells. At some times, it looked like a fireworks competition. It was awesome!

I'll try to describe what made it so awesome:
It was awesome to fight next to teammates, and to watch really powerful enemies get whittled down in no time.
It was awesome to rush in and come to a teammate's aid.
It was awesome to be fighting one-on-one with some monster, and to suddenly have balls of lightning curl in over my shoulders and crash into my foe, teammates to the rescue!

It was awesome to run, in a line, or abreast with teammates, in a charging attack, or to split and hit someone from both flanks.

It was so, so fun.

As I glanced around, bodies littered the field. I scarcely had time to pick up treasure.

The steamroller-like potential of this crew had an early problem. Someone ran ahead on the very dangerous (ambush) trail north and got us tangled up with six foes simultaneously. That ended badly. Luckily, the graveyard was right across the water, so recovery was easy. A quick team meeting got everyone focused on our potential power and re-enforced the difficulty of these opponents.

We headed Northeast, to Stormwatch Keep, to see just what this team was capable of.

Did I mention how fun this was? We were a gang. A powerful gang of heroes, walking in the middle of the street like Wyatt Earp and company. We were moving to quickly, and killing too much for me to keep track of were we were. We killed a couple groups of Blackrock Ogres and continued up to an abandoned sawmill. We quickly dispatched the spiders there and continued to an ogre campground up the trail.

Whoever was closest would stop short of the camp and wait, giving everyone a chance to prepare with protective spells and scrolls. Then, someone would start blasting, and it would be on.

These were tough battles, and our members were beginning to play more conservatively, limiting the scope of our conflict. We were facing enemies which would just at the edge of our abilities one-on-one. Working in concert allowed us to have a slightly better chance than that.

Past the camp, one of our members disconnected. Coincidentally, we found ourselves fighting next to a 24th level Rogue. I asked him to join, and he declined. It seemed that he just wanted to fight along with us.

We continued North and East, to the foot of a Tower, where we were left to consider three Blackrock Sentries. I think they were each 22nd level, and at least one was an elite. It was going to be our toughest challenge yet. We got ready, with all protections and enhancements, and tried to coax one to his death. We got all three.

They beat us once, but we went back to try it again. I should mention that in this party I had my first taste of resurrection, and our healer had his first chance to cast it!

On our second attempt, we won! It was close, but we won, with no one dead. We were improving our techniques!

After this, the tower loomed above us. This was obviously next, but it was 3 in the morning. Ha ha ha! Oh man. I got sucked in! I wanted to stay, but this was ridiculous! I thanked everyone, bowed out and logged off.

That was so fun. Four times more fun that anything else I've been a part of, except for perhaps the Christmas walk. Lying in bed, I was smiling, almost laughing to myself I was so gleeful. That was a terrific evening.

Please Continue Reading Day 57 - Melee loves Company
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