A Sad, Scary, and Runny Day

Today was a sad one in LOTRO but a good one for running. I always enjoy purchasing new shoes, though finding ones that are not made in China are not the easiest to locate. Along with the ups and downs of running and LOTRO, I run headlong into some horror reading as I read about Shadar Logoth in The Eye of the World.

The Rundown

• Amdir must Die
• The Mist
• New Pair of Shoes

The Goods

Death of a Friend

Having attained level 15 yesterday Pangolyn was looking to see what kind of goodies she could now do, and we settled on adding a point to Encouraging Strike to make it tier 5 outta 5. This should help her heal better when playing in human form, which we have been integrating more in the past couple of game sessions. Actually, for a while, I would simply stay in bear form all game session and not bother to swap unless I had to interact with something. Now, I’ve found things more efficient to switch back and forth since I can use more abilities and heals.

Anyway, with the points allotted, it was time to talk with Strider and find out what the “Unravelling the Thread” quest was all about, and it turns out we had a sad duty to perform…we had to slay Amdir. He was too far gone that there was no coming back to the light.

After successfully completing that quest, we quickly marched through the next 2 main story quests and ended up the day reviewing the Dark Designs mission. These quests haven’t been hard since I was on level with them, and I’m glad to have taken the time to advance since I would not want to fail during one of these critical quests.

Pushing through the first 3 chapters was good, and Pangolyn is itching to do more, so I think we might try to push as far as we can with these main quests – at least until the target level is too high. In any case, I’ve got plans to start pushing to level more quickly so I can keep the story moving.

We’ll see how that goes.

A Horror Show

This is a chapter where things get really scary. I’ve read and watched plenty of stories where the protagonists fight orcs or trolls or trollocs…demons are a thing in plenty of tales, but this mist thing is something Steven King would come up with.

In chapter 20, we meet Mashadar, and I wish we hadn’t. I can’t imagine having to run away from a mist that if it touches you, you are dead.

Anyway, the fellowship starts heading out of the town when Mashadar starts flowing through the streets. This is good since it attacks the Trollocs and Fades but bad because it forced our group to separate, and we end up with 3 groups…Moiraine and Lan; Matt, Rand, and Thom; and Perrin, Egwene, and Bela. They’re all running in different directions and get completely separated.

Rand, Matt, and Thom end up on a ship sailing down the Arinelle…Perrin and Egwene try to find a place to hide for the night…and we can only assume Moiraine and Lan are fine and heading in the right direction.

It was an excellent but scary chapter, and now that we have three geographically disparate groups, I’m wondering how and if they will all get to Caemlyn.

New Pair of Shoes

Today I am taking a step back from my running adventures – no, I am still putting in my miles for the day, but I realized it was time to get some new shoes. Shoes aren’t an easy thing to purchase for running as there are a ton of options and brands. I’ve got my preferences, though, so I usually stick to those. Unfortunately, most options are not made in the USA as I’d prefer, but I still need shoes to run in, and at least I can avoid sending my money to China as much as possible.

So I purchased a pair of ASICS GT-2000 10, which are made in Vietnam.

These are the ‘next version’ of the pair that has been serving me well this past year, and since I read somewhere that you should get new running shoes after 400–500 miles, I think I qualify – running 3–5 miles a day easily adds up the mileage.

Anyway, I just ordered them and should be getting them in the mail in a few days.

It’s a Wrap

I can tell the beginning of the game is finally behind us since we had to slay Amdir. We’ve been following him around for 15 levels and from town to town, and finally, we reached a climax. It’s not the resolution I wanted, but at least we are moving forward. Perhaps we’ll be able to get some measure of revenge in the future.

As for running and reading, even though I felt the story took a turn towards horror, I was not phased too much, and buying some new running shoes certainly made up for the sadness of LOTRO and the scariness of The Eye of the World.

Overall, today was a good day, and I hope you all had an interesting and enjoyable day as well.

Ramble 73 Cheetah 9| A Sad, Scary, and Runny Day