Today on the Dereth Chronicle we are going to visit the town of Eastham located on the island of Dereth, in the world of Auberean. Once on the island of Dereth, by way of portal, there are many ways to venture to the quaint town of Eastham. The first time anyone travels to Eastham, they do so by running from a nearby town. See, back when Dereth was new, Eastham didn’t have a direct portal to it. The only portals to Eastham were “exit” portals in nearby dungeons, and being low level content, no one really tied to those ever.
Because of this, a curious person had to make a concerted effort to get to Eastham, normally by way of the “Subway” —on other servers it was called or Sub or Hub and was relatively easy to find— then to the bottom followed by into a deep hole, which would kill you if you didn’t have armor/bludgeon protection life spells on…Happened more often than people would like to admit. If you made the jump successfully, you’d have to scan around till you found the “Rithwic Portal” , and then hop in. Once in Rithwic, things got a little easier, but there was still a 7 kilometer run ahead, which was quite dangerous to low level characters.
Travel north east from the drop, across the bridge and follow the path NE. If you were able to stay on the path and avoid any random baddies, or temptations, you’d eventually arrive in Eastham…But I tell you what, taking a more direct route would often end in death and dismemberment for players who were “burdened” with too much weight, forgot to put on their life protection spells, or just too young and weak … Hunting around Eastham might seem trivial to more mature characters, but for newbies, it was very hazardous!
Eastham soon became a popular destination for a select few brave souls seeking adventures and rewards. You see, a few hundred meters East from town there was a magnificent beach where a person could find a bevy of Azure Gromnies, Red and Blue wasps, and the occasional Shallows Shark … watch out for the Shallows Sharks. The thing is, you either had to be very cunning in your attack fleeing before you were counter attacked, or you had to be dangomb tough, because the monsters on the beach were very tough and could quickly kill several low to medium level characters with ease in the right situation.
That being said, the rewards to be found on Eastham’s Beach were tremendous. Not only could you make decent XP (experience points) from killing the Azure Gromnie and Blue Wasps, but if you hunted long enough, you could quickly find enough loot to turn a decent profit at the nearby stores of Eastham, where you could also restock any supplies you were missing or maybe low on. Furthermore, the population was low in Eastham, so people tended to work together and not fight for resources like in other towns.
If you were particularly brave, or had a good sized group –fellowship– you could work your way further North or South along the beach, sometimes finding a rare creature such as a Crystal Fragment…This creature was highly sought after for its rare drop loot the “small shard”, which came in different sizes depending on the level, or difficulty, of that creature. Easy as they were to defeat when small during their “Fragment” size, the further from town you ventured, the larger the Fragment creatures would become and eventually an adventurer would stumble across a “Crystal fragment” … which was more than capable of defending itself from the attack of an unprepared or unskilled adventurer.
Their allure was their rarity, and the greater rarity of the armor you could make, only if you found enough of their loot. These creatures would glimmer in the distance, occasionally casting a debuff spell if you ran too close, but almost as if to taunt you with the lottery of finding a “tiny shard”, four of which made a “small shard”, four of which made a “scintillating shard.” No matter what a person was doing, or where they were, the desire to stop and kill a ‘fragment’ or ‘crystal fragment’ was so great that even if it almost certainly meant death, and adventurer would their hardest to kill and loot the creature. These things were rare! And their shards, even more rare! These ‘shards’ where so sought after that everything was traded in shards, hell it was the currency! To complicate matters even more, the shards, as rare as they were, were only half of the battle. An Adventurer would also have to fight random groups of creatures called “Shadows”, which dropped the other half of the equation, the “dark shard.” More on them later, but the short version is they were also quite tough, and having multiple creatures per spawn meant a more calculated approach. Lest an adventurer becoming too cocky, or a certain death ye will see.
Which brings me to my next topic; what happens when you are killed in Asheron’s Call? You are thrown into “portal space” as you teleported back to your life stone. I didn’t mention the Liftstone or the swirling portal space before? Think Stargate. When Kurt Russel and James Spader traveled to the remote planet. A similar thing happens when your character is killed: you are transported back to lifestone where your spirit was last attuned through “portal space”. As you travel across Dereth, you will encounter Lifestones, and Portals, in seemingly odd places, however, they are usually placed in strategic locations…sometimes near towns, and sometimes near important landmarks.
With that small detour about Portals out of the way, lets jump back to the top five reasons that make Eastham great. A benefit of calling Eastham your home was when you died on the Eastham beach, you were steps away from the action again, meaning no long runs back across Dereth, or by way of many portals, back to your corpse, and more importantly, the hunting grounds. Quick note on game mechanics: Once a player has earned the Skill Credits necessary, by increasing experience and “leveling” the characters up, the player is able to collect skill credits, and train a magic called “Item Magic” – and then once that user has to have devoted enough “eXperience” to that magic skill, he/she/they may cast these portal spells, and even travel across the world simply by uttering the phrase “Shurov Thipag” or “Shurov Thiguz”…amongst others.
This brings me to my next point about what made Eastham beaches great.. When the hunting grounds are prime for the picking, a player is very low level and unable to cast such “recall” spells, thus, making Eastham Beach a prime location to hunt from as all three necessities to a successful Asheron’s Call career were available there: 1) Good hunting for XP and Loot. 2) A place to sell said loot and restock any necessary components for archery or for casting magic spells. 3) And multiple lifestones near by to make returning very easy.
There are many great hunting grounds we will cover in the future, but Eastham Beach, and more broadly, the Town of Eastham serve as my “home” in this world we call Dereth…I still own a cottage a short run from Eastham. Care to see it?
Celestro is recalling home.
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