Moder-ing! What's your price per flight?

Sunday night was once again upon Team Spode. Calrain and Tipa had expended a ton of effort prepping for what was surely an anti-climatic fight for them, but epic for myself and Lars Spode.

Since there was no way I could have been any help to the team in close quarters, I spent more time crafting fire arrows than actually fighting Moder the dragon. 

Once we were in position, Tipa spawned the mighty dragon and we did glorious battle with the beast.

Just look at those beady, blue eyes!

It was long and uneventful aside from a random Stone Golem attack, but there was a lot of dodging and running back and forth as Moder's mighty breath weapon rained down upon us. We also discovered a delightful viking song, sung to the tune of Sister Christian by Night Ranger, that we could sing to while slaying the dragon: "Moder-ing, what's your price per flight. I've got him in my sights. And slaying through the night." 

What a beautiful gradient of blue and red coalescing in the horizon . . . oh yeah, and there's a dragon.

Eventually Moder had broken into tears and we had the head of the beast, which Tipa, Calrain, and Kasul had already ensured was on its sacrifice stone, but we paid a visit to it anyway.

Let no dragon stand between Team Spode and our conquests

And that was that . . . I spent the rest of the night crafting the mighty Iron Sledge and going on a walk about with Tipa and Calrain. We actually tip-toed into the deathly silent Mistlands to look around amongst all the cobwebs and creepiness. 

I'm gonna just go out on a limb and say there's probably spiders in there

Then I found an old tower and hammered it to death with the Iron Sledge just to say I did it.

That was super satisfying, not gonna lie.

Unfortunately Iron has been one of the harder resources to obtain, so I'll need to make a trip or two to an unexplored swamp biome to secure more. Once I have more Iron I can fully upgrade said Iron Sledge and really do some damage with it.

Since that time, I've also logged in and crafted (and fully upgraded) the Frostner epic weapon as well since Team Spode has infinitely more silver than iron. Wow! What a difference having this weapon makes. I'm finally able to stand toe to toe with Trolls and destroy them with a melee weapon -- obviously good gear and food help as well.

Taste the steel of my mighty weapon, troll!

I finally feel like I can just run around and explore this world instead of creeping around and fearing for my life at every turn.  It feels great!

Thanks to my buddies in Team Spode for making Sunday night a fun evening . . . all that's left is that final boss, Yagluth the giant skeleton. BRING IT!

Happy Dueling!

Of Swamp Crypts and Bonemass -- Spodeheim Adventures

Team Spode continues our delve into Valheim and has started a serious look at what lies beyond the Meadows and Dark Forest, and I gotta be honest . . . the real heavy lifting in the group has not been done by me. I've been busy trying to restructure my life after a bit of bad health news (I have diabetes now -- got the news a couple weeks ago), tending to our nana (who's visiting from Colorado), and playing a little Tomb of Annihilation (guilty as charged).

The real heavy lifting for Team Spode has been from Tipa, her boyfriend (Kasul), and Calrain.  These cats have set up a smelting and refining station and have it all down to a science. I started to fall behind once the Bronze Age hit, but the heavy lifters have brought us all solidly into the Iron Age.

Last night I got to reap the rewards of their heavy lifting with a pretty great adventure to down the mighty Bonemass, a blob of a boss where poison resist and frost arrows are a thing of beauty.

You like cereal, Bonemass? Have a taste of frosted arrow crunch!

This was their second dance at the Boss, but my first. (Edit: Apparently it was their third dance with Bonemass according to Tipa!)  It actually went very smoothly thanks to their practiced hands and generous gifts.  In fact, when I logged in, Calrain had put a chest of goodies right outside the door to my house.

Did I craft them myself? No. Do I care? No. Do I have cool friends? Yes!

After defeating the Bonemass, we collectively decided to head to a Swamp Crypt that Calrain and I had spotted earlier in the week and gather what goodies we could.

Team Spode outside the Swamp Crypt -- a successful haul of iron in hand

We cleared the place with ease . . . then we decided to go into the Plains biome. Whoo boy. There was a herd of Deathsquitos and Fulings that made quick work of me. Again, the heavy lifters took care of the problem, and I was once again strapping on my gifted armor. Let's go team!

Up next is a visit to the mountains.  Apparently that's gonna happen sometime this week, and we'll all soon be opening up "current endgame" gear with a dead Dragon in our rear view mirror. 

Apparently updates for the game are in the future! Viking Minecraft is a hit! Valheim goes on. :)

Happy Dueling!

Valheim = Spodeheim Fun!

Almost a week ago, Team Spode decided to make the jump into Valheim together. If you haven't heard, Valheim is all the buzz right now, and it's increasing traction in viral popularity.  We had to try it, and I have to say . . . I'm loving me some Viking Minecraft!

Sailing songs while heading to conquer unknown lands!

This game y'all -- this freaking Viking Minecraft game y'all -- it's super addicting and fun.  I can't tell you how satisfying it was to craft my own bow and arrows and sling an arrow to kill a deer.  It just feels so amazingly satisfying.

Oh I did!

In just a week's time, Team Spode is now in our "bronze" age and everyone is busy using their pickaxes on Tin and Copper all over the world of Spodeheim!

Lemme break down some of the major events so far:

1- Calrain was the first to stake out an area near some water and build a home.  

2- Tipa quickly followed Calrain and started building a home nearer to the Black Forest.  

3- I, as the infamous Stingite, then arrived on the scene and built my home (lovingly called "Junkertown") just next to Calrain's place.  

The Greydwarves would like to take a rip-tire to this place!

4- Tipa ups and tears down her house and builds a new one closer to us along with her boyfriend.  

5- We surrounded the whole living area with fencing and dubbed the town "Brendaheim" in honor of Tipa. 

6- Dreamy shows up and builds her house inside the now walled-safety of Brendaheim -- incidentally over a spot where I was keeping a pig farm (it didn't work out so well). 

7- Son of Spode and Lord Spode himself arrived to round out our little town, complete with a treehouse!

~~

I'm getting to the point where I can anticipate at least a couple of my enemies' movements. Like Greydwarves -- These dudes like to come in and swing -- if I back up just a touch so they miss, I can just zoom up and get in a couple swings and BAM dead.  Trolls! I kite those with a bow -- they give a very telling grunt when they're going to swing at you. It's the perfect queue for hitting the run button, swivvling around and plunking one with an arrow. It takes a bit, but that troll hide makes some really awesome leather. What I really need to figure out is how to melee one of these guys down.

All in all I've had some fine moments this past week, like this time when Tipa, Calrain, and myself went to down Eikthyr.

So much fun.

Next up is the second boss of the world. I'm sure we could take him down individually at this point, but what's the fun in that.

Happy Dueling!