Buying Salvation -- The Coin Operated Faction Machine

Lashun Novashine is a paladin of the temple of Rodcet Nife in Qeynos.  To me, Rodcet Nife seems to be part Holy Right-Wing Bevolent God of Lawful Good and part Suicide Alien Space Ship Cult, becuse in their temple area is a tiny space ship thing that glows and makes sounds like a space ship.  I have no idea what it's really supposed to be, it's always been the spaceship of the spaceship cult to me.

Anyway Lashun wanders around North Qeynos yelling at people to be good and cease fighting, and to follow his god.  If you hail him, he will stop to talk, and you can hand him some bone chips, and he will bless you and cast cure disease on you.  And, oh yes -- your faction goes up with the priests and paladins, and Antonius Bayle (leader of the city), and Qeynos Guards.  And it goes down with the Bloodsabers, but they're clearly evil bad people that I don't want to be on good terms with anyway.  I think.

Lashun does the same thing if you give him two gold, which makes him a coin-operated faction machine.  With enough money, you can buy salvation.  I gave him 1,000 gold coins last night, along with 30 bone chips, which was enough to bring me from apprehensive to amiable.  That's only 100 plat, which I can make in 3 ice giant kills, which I can do in a matter of a few minutes in Everfrost.  Which I did, multiple times last night, while hunting mammoths for mammoth meat.

I want to go back and visit Lashun again with more gold coins.  Another 1-2 thousand should bring me to ally status.

Faction is one of those things that gives Everquest its incredible depth.  Few MMOs are as deep and complex as EQ, although Eve Online probably is in its own way.  Anyway, I've clearly fixed my faction with Antonius Bayle, and now I want to fix it with the Coalition of Tradesfolk in Freeport.  That's my next goal, along with more baking, working on alchemy, and paying another visit to my friend Lashun.

I also went on a buying spree in the bazaar last night.  I had over 20,000 plat and I decided to upgrade my equipment as much as I could, starting with buying a regular (non-legendary) Lodizal Shell Shield, which I can equip at any level and turns out to also provide Enduring Breath.  I'm undecided if I should now sell the Fishbone Earring -- I keep seeing the same two for sale in the market for 2,000 plat and 7,500 plat, they don't seem to actually be selling.  These days there are a lot of enduring breath items, and you can even use AA (Alternative Advancement) points to buy enduring breath if you want.

But I haz my Shell Shield, as well as the Legendary one in the bank for when I reach level 68.  The regular shield cost me 3,000 plat, 6 times the amount I paid for the legendary one.  Go figure.

I also bought a "Corpsegrinder", a massive 2 hand hammer with impressive stats and a cool name.  I upgraded my 1 hand blunt and bought a 1 hand spear to train on as well, but both of those weapons are unusable until I reach a higher level, so they're in the bank.  I upgraded a lot of my other equipment, replacing the newbie lamp in my range slot with an item that provided armor class and stat bonuses, and I bought a lot of enhancement items to slot into my equipment to improve them even more.  In particular I slotted a nifty item into my new helmet that grants me Ultravision (improved night vision), which is again something I have a spell for, but it's annoying to have to memorize and cast the spell every time it gets dark.  I think this makes for a pretty cool helmet.  ^_^

I spent about half of the money I had all told, so now I'm back in making money mode.