Anyone who has been playing Horizons for a while knows that there has been a game wide effort to call out the Dryads.

This weekend, after efforts by all players on all servers, the ritual was completed successfully. The result is now people can make Dryad characters (pixies, fairies, whatever).

This was fun for me because not only did I get to bring my friends across the West Deadlands (we were the lowest levels there, it pays to know an explorer type) but I got to participate a few weeks ago in finding some of the clues to doing the ritual.

I look forward to the next big event.

One downside is all the new pixies have caught the Zymosis Morbidae and started another epedemic. Horizon's isn't without its problems. As a dragon I am supposed to be able to cure it while people quest for the immunity potion. However, at some point the spell was broken and now can't be cast by anyone. Still, I helped collect the items needed for the immunity potions for several people.

Hmm the cure quest is now working on Shadow. What server are you playing on?

Immunity quest worked. I have items for two more and did it four times the night we found the dragon cure spell no longer worked.

Its the cure spell that doesn't work anymore, or it didn't on Saturday. I didn't check after the patch Monday. I was finishing off the remainder of my 20 level ability quests then took me (25 now 26), my wife (25) and two friends (18 and 18) after some bone golems way out in the high deserts near tazoon. All of them now immune.

I'm on Twilight.

Hah! That actually sounds fun. :)

Don't play it, don't fall for it. Oh wait, you don't have to be on Horizons 24/7 to enjoy it or its events. Sorry, lapsed into EQ mania.

The most fun we've had lately was exploring a mountain pass then being socked in by a blizzard. We stumbled into a half giant fort ruin. Then we found these wolves coming out of the blizzard and had to run away when "Stripe the Alpha" passed by with his gang of roadies. The monsters in Horizons form groups, you see and Stripe is quite influential.

That gave us a taste for trying monsters that were twice the level of our lowest member. Dragons (I am one) have ability quests their trainers make them do every 10 levels. What we do is swap off quest requirements among our friends. IE We do the drain strike ability quest (kill 20 something or others), then something for our mage, then something for my wife, then something for the warrior with us, etc. etc.

In the meantime, we find time to work on crafting or explore some previously unseen to us part of the world. Sometimes a quest's neccessity is pushed upon us, such as the need to cure the Zymosis Morbidae. We were going to see the old gnome city (now taken over by the Withered Aegis) when a pixie passed by my two friends and they caught the disease. Some people are just drowning themselves whenever they get the disease. That adds death points, you can still catch it again and each death point brings with it longer periods of death penalties. It was better (role playing and practically) to just do the quest.

So I detoured our party south to the newly freed elven city of Feledan where the Scholar of Contagion is at and has the information they need to make an immunity potion. We (the party) collected several parts from various creatures and they ran around to the appropriate alchemists to have their potion made. It was fun (well the maggot mandibles were tedious).

We spent Saturday evening running through the West Deadlands, around Ebon Guard patrols to the tower of nature, crossed the rainbow bridge and watched as the Ceremony was performed and the Dryads were called forth. It was a bunch of us sitting around a really big tree and there was some electrical sounds, thunder and a light show that blanked out the screen at the end in a white explosion. Then about 75% of the people logged off to go make Drayads, who subsequently began to spread the Zymosis Morbidae as they weren't immune. Thus prompting me to complete the cure spell quest as a stop-gap until we did the immunity quest for all our friends.

No camping rare spawns, no buying extremely rare parts for exorbitant prices, no being blocked out.

There, as yet, has been no new event this week. Presumably the Aegis is still stealing bones from the Dragon Graveyard near Dralk. Who knows what kind of nasty monstrosity might arise from that.

Now I've expounded too much. I keep commenting on things.

Yah i should have said the immunity is working on Shadow. Dragon cure still busted (but with immunity, heh, I don't need it atm ; ).

What exactly does the disease do to you, if you catch it?

Dragons don't catch the disease but from what I can tell is:

You take 18 points damage from time to time.

Your slower.

You probably lose other stats as well. The mage with us was level 14 and nearly beat down by a maggot level 6 when she had the disease.

You also, of course, spread it to other bipeds in the vicinity.

Out of combat regeneration seems to keep your health up if nothing else, but in combat you not doing so well.

You catch it by contact with other players or NPC's that have it. The disease ticks every oh hmm 30 seconds or so? 1 min? not sure. If you are near someone when the disease ticks for them, you catch it.

I had heard of cases where monsters caught the disease and then passed it to adventurers fighting them. I never saw that happen myself, but it could be true.

The stat hit is really horendous. Before I did the immunity quest I fought a level 35 monster (I am effectively about level 45), and it is normally something I would make short work of.

HOWEVER...since I had the disease...I was doing about 30% less damage with my spells (big hit in your power stat from the disease). I seemed to take a lot more damage from the monster, presumably due to the hit in dexterity (and so lower avoidance). It was really rough.

While I survived the fight, it was a close thing, and I was killed a moment later when another monster agroed on me. Normally I could have shrugged off both fights with no problem. With the disease, it was pretty scary.