Tired Of Fending Off The Forces Of Chaos

Oh, how I detest the Tomb of the Primeval Kings.

I'm not talking about the old Tomb where a bunch of elitist jerks hang out who can't swing an axe effectively unless their pet is dead and won't give you the time of day unless you can prove that you've spent countless days in the Rifts crying for vengeance. The Zaishen Order quickly figured out how useless those idiots would be against the Chaos hordes that overtook this portal and took them all off to Heroes Ascent.

No, I'm talking about the Tomb of today: corrupted, dank, dreary, overrun with morons. And there are monsters. As much as the morons bother me, they are much more tolerable than the one who proceeded them. What I detest is the time and energy involved in driving back the darkness, bringing order to the void, and purifying the Hall of Heroes for the gods. Especially when it turns out that the chaos forces are hoarding nothing more than a couple of raven staffs.

I'm not bitter, no.

The Most Beautiful Place in All Ascalon

That was a long day. I had barely been at the Academy an hour before Artemis asked for help with the river skale problem. The beasts had become more aggressive as their colony expanded and I had to put down their queen. I know it sounds easy, but killing so many skales took a lot out of me. (This was in the days before I could run the length of Tyria without stopping. And in bare feet!)

I found my way to the hillside overlooking Ashford Village, looking for a place to rest. A rabbit scurried away as I climbed. I reached the top and looked out on the pastoral valley below me. Then around the bend, I came upon the most magnificent waterfall I've seen. It is not the largest, by any means. But alone in that place, I felt like it was all mine.

A Defense of the -Way Nomenclature

This is going to drift dangerously close to esoterica. I will excuse you if you don't make it all the way through this entry.

Everywhere one looks, someone is proclaiming that they have developed the new IWAY. Then they muck it up by naming their build after the primary gimmick and adding a -way at the end. There have been builds like Flareway, Touchway, and the late, lamentable Henchway. This drives many people crazy. However, I feel this is useful for those heroes who stalk the Zaishan islands for a number of reason.

First, this naming convention gives respect to the original, anyone-can-do-it build. The creator acknowledges that the new build is just trying to duplicate the ease with which IWAY is played.

Second, new jargon in the competitive arenas indicates a growth of complexity. A more complex arena is a more interesting arena. And that means happier competitors.

Third, and best of all, when a new build comes along that is so good that it blows IWAY away, they won't name it after IWAY. That's how'll know the competitive revolution has arrived.

On Killing Charr

It was not long in my career as a ranger that I discovered a knack for slaying monsters. It is a dangerous world out there. You would not believe the beasts I seen, of the animal or human sort. But above all, I love killing Charr. Should you accuse me of taking the Searing personally, I would not argue with you. Charr are filthy, brutish, odious, odorous, maladjusted, misshapen mounds of fur and teeth. The only good Charr is a dead Charr. The only redeeming quality of a living Charr is the cute little carvings they make. They're nice to find on their newly deceased corpses.

When I first entered the Academy, Charr seemed pretty quite fearsome. Mostly that's because no matter how proficient I proved myself, the armorers of Ascalon were more interested in fashion than actual protection. It is hard to defend yourself when your armor won't even deflect small pebbles. I was reduced to trading trinkets with local crafters for armor that turned out to be a slightly more rigid version of my original leathers. And people wonder why we were outmatched.

Nowadays, facing the Charr is almost laughable. I can run through the Breach without fear that the beasts will even touch me. Even when I wearing that pervert Karl's druid armor. And it's almost laughable how fast the mindless hordes drop when you shoot them. Maybe even cruel. That's not going to stop me, though.

So if you have trouble finding me, chances are I'm running through the hills of old Ascalon, meting out a just punishment and collecting as many carvings as I can carry.

How Very Touching

I would be lying if I said I do not follow trends. I do it all the time, because that how you learn. When all the rangers were on a trap spreading frenzy, I learned to lay traps. When the power of interrupt attacks was discovered, I was there with my punishing, dual shot technique. And when barragers were so sought after following the fall of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, I started slinging arrows with the best of them.

It should be no surprise to you, then, that I have learned the secrets of vampirism from my necromancer friend, Fel Drake. It's not the blood sucking, neck biting thing you might imagine. The technique is simple: focus your energy, direct it at your target with a touch, and draw his life force into yourself. It turns out that my ranger training makes me particularly apt at the focusing of energy part. And though my knowledge of hemomancy will never match that of a true necromancer, but you might be surprised how effective I can be.

You may be thinking to yourself, "How can I ever face this master and expect to survive?" There is nothing for you to worry about. Time has proven that even with these new secrets, I am not invulnerable. Or as one opponent recently explained, "LoL @ touch". (It's like we're from different worlds sometimes.)

No, my dabbling in the vampiric arts will not shake the very foundations of the world. What it is is darn fun.

My First Day at the Academy

This was one of the happiest days of my life. Just a week prior, Father received a letter from his good friend, Armin Saberlin. The letter said that the Charr were on the hunt again. They had come as far as the Great Northern Wall and had skirmished with soldiers outside Ascalon City itself. Saberlin remembered me from the time I spent with his son, Dieter, and thought that I would be a good candidate for the Ascalon Academy.

I was hesitant at first. I knew that the Academy was the best place to grow as a ranger, but it also meant leaving my family behind and dedicating myself to the kingdom. I might have refused unless Father hadn't shown something to me.

My very first bow.

Not that I hadn't used a bow before. I was a pretty good shot, even in those days, but that was with someone else's bow. This one was different. Custom crafted for my own hand, it felt like a part of myself that I never knew was missing. Father handed me the bow. He told me how proud he was of me and I saw tears in his eyes. I'm not prone to crying, but I wept that day.

So there I am, standing before the gates of Ascalon Academy, my whole future ahead of me. Not that I would be admitted immediately. I still had to prove my abilities as a ranger and decide what secondary path I would learn. And I had no idea what would soon befall the kingdom.

It's strange to look at myself now, knowing what was to come. You can see that I'm a little awkward in my first leathers. My bow is discretely hidden away from the Ascalon guards. But if you look real close, you might see something else: I was on an adventure.

By Way Of Introduction

It feels sort of strange to be writing like this. But since things have become so hectic lately, my little sister suggested that I write about my adventures. She said it would help me keep perspective. I told her that if I needed perspective, I'd climb to the top of Icedome. But here I am anyway.

My name is Kira Lanfier of the Green Hills Lanfiers. It's a large family with branches in quite a number of places. Different continents, too, it turns out. Grandfather thought of himself as prolific.

I don't know how to describe myself. Some guy once said I look like Denise Richards. I'm not sure who that is. I do know a Dennis Rickardson. Last I saw of him, he was working as an obelisk mage out at Nolani Academy. He's very nice, but if that's who the guy meant, it isn't much of a compliment. To make up for my lack writing ability, I promise to place an illustration of myself in this magic diary as soon as someone shows me how.

I am a ranger by trade, and that is how I entered the Ascalon Academy. It seems like forever ago. I've dedicated myself to the perfection that is the bow. Flatbows, hornbows, recurve bows, longbows, shortbows. Every bow is perfect in its own way, and I love them all. Not that I haven't dabbled in other disciplines. At one time or other, I've taken up the path of the warrior, monk, elementalist, mesmer, necromancer, and ritualist. The only profession I've never explored is that of assassin. I've heard some interesting things about that, however, so it is only a matter of time.

I think that's enough for now. Maybe next time I'll talk about my early days in the Academy and my favorite ways to kill Charr.