Zebras - Crowns - Butterflies

Highlights this week include.....

• Zebras- Man - they are everywhere!
• Free Crowns! - How good are you at Trivia?
• New Mounts - Seen any butterflies flitting around the Spiral yet?!

The Summer and Winter Solstice has come and gone for another year. For us that means the days are getting longer, and that's great! With no big news in the Spiral, we are mainly questing and helping others over here at the Keep. I took time to marvel at the vast array of Zebras in Zafaria, while outside of the Spiral KI launched some new games - Trivia games.  Of course there are questions on Wizard101, but there are loads of other subjects too. The big news from this though, was the fact that they will pay in Crowns! Oh and there were new mounts in the Crown shop too! There are a multitude of other stories out there just waiting to be read, so click on the paper to find all the news and tips being shared by Wizards around the globe.

Find yourself a quiet spot and enjoy..... I might pop over and try my hand at some trivia! Look out for another round up next week!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

Procrastinate no More!

Hey everyone,

I have been procrastinating over my training points recently. I had trained up to Giant in the Astral cards, but always wanted to get to at least Gargantuan. 

I had the recipe for Monstrous and Gargantuan, and used to craft both regularly, but stopped. My reagents for those particular two ran low and I never quite got round to replenishing. 

Then I started buying them at the Bazaar. At times I would find myself with more than 50 Gargantuan in my deck. But they soon get used. 

They dominate my side deck like nothing else. Recently I have run dry, and the Bazaar has not been so forth coming. So I realise that it is time to make a choice. I mean I had no idea what else I would use my training points for, and those cards are so very helpful. In fact, I would go so far as to say they are a necessity!

 The last big fight I was in, I was in a seriously bad situation. I didn't realise it until after the battle was done, but could have kicked myself when I did. I bet it is something all wizards have done at some stage. So I went into the battle area to view what I was up against and then set my deck. When I entered the battle itself and found my deck was reluctant to give me what I needed. The healing powers of Patch and, more importantly, the random Vengeance casting also seemed to be missing. No fairy, no vengeance, and a bad deck. Well this was ordinary to say the least. So ordinary in fact, that I was defeated first try.

However, it wasn't until later when I decided to pop to the Bazaar to sell some stuff and just check out what was around. (Being the Bazaar lurker that I am, I am pretty sure that none of you are the least bit surprised!) So it was around this time that I realised my deck was my street fighting, 'tight' deck. I look further and find that Winston is at my feet, not Patch. Hmmmm. Two pets that look the same but one is infinitely more useful than other. I need to be careful with that! But the deck!! I couldn't help thinking that perhaps if I had the wrong deck equipped, but that it had Gargantuan instead of Giant, then things would have been that little bit easier. So this was it. 

The turning point - I had made my choice, and Celestia was my next stop. I had 10 training points burning a hole in my wizardly drapes :) Now I knew the Star School trainer was in the Floating Land, so I hot tailed over there to check it out. I really couldn't remember how many training points were needed to get what I wanted. The great news was that I only needed to use 2 Training Points. Pretty much best case scenario!! So now you can see my training points are down to 8!

I have also gone through every single deck and taken out Strong or Giant and replaced with the maximum number of Gargantuan cards. Vengeance is still making an appearance here and there, but the other astral cards are now pretty much retired. I can't help but think I should have done this so much earlier. I think my reluctance stemmed from using too many training points and finding something better that I can't have. But no more. 

And you know, I think it is time to review my pets too. Patch has a great triple heal, Vengeance and a Dragon Blade, but there is so much more that could be helpful. I guess I need to do a bit of research to figure this one out! I also have over 230 Mega Snacks at the moment, and do not use all my energy every day, so Pet Training will be a breeze. As always, will let you know!

Have fun, until next time,

Tabitha

Tomb of the Zebra Kings

Hey everyone,

My travel around Zafaria continues, as do my Zebra interactions! Who knew that there would be quite so many zebras?

First up are the royal family. The Queen and Princess are flamboyant and well dressed. They could actually be mistaken as twins, same stance, hold the weapons the same. Not so the King! He is totally possessed; take a look at those eyes!

So starts the next part of the story.
 Zebra print is everywhere. It is on the doors, it is on the posts. Zebras are everywhere. From the skeleton here, to the tomb itself, they are everywhere. These 5 zebra line either side of one of the caverns of the tomb. Pretty cool. They are much bigger than this image suggests, bigger than me anyway!
Then there are these two zebras!
Totally unlike any other they are proudly framing the doorway . They are spooky, they are mesmerising and they demand to be looked at.
They are see through, but it's not just that. The light is pulsing through them. It is quite mesmerising.

But it is time for some battles to be fought. These battles are not really any drama. A couple of death minions, a couple of ice minions, and then it is time to meet Zanga Zebu himself. As you can see, Zanga is an Ice boss with a little over 6,000 health. You may remember that I have not had much luck with Ice bosses, but my gear has changed considerably since then.

My deck is tight, and doesn't change much - even for these lower health bosses. I took out the Death Prisms, put in a couple of Poisons and I was ready to roll. One mistake is not including any Feints, as I was expecting around 2,000 health, but I still wasn't concerned. Oh there was another slight issue - I had 4 Scarecrows packed, 2 Wraiths and 2 Vampires.
You see there is usually more than one to defeat. Oh well - we'll just have to see how this pans out. So I settle into normal strategy, blade, vengeance, pimp up the card and hit. First up was a Wraith with one death blade, a Giant card (+125). As expected, the hit goes critical and hit number 1 is 2156.


Time to go again. I had one more Wraith. Same strategy again. This time a Balance Blade, a Curse, pimp up with Giant and then Vengeance. My preference is always to pimp up with Gargantuan, but I have almost run out of them. I have 10 training points, so I am considering training up so I don't have to buy or craft them. Time will tell!
Back to this battle, and as you can see the hit is slightly better, and with half both those hits coming back to recoup my health this is looking to be one easy battle. With no more Wraiths, next up was a Vampire. Another critical hit and Zanga was down to 153 health.
Vengeance is still running and my death wisp hits for 120, so I needed another critical hit for this battle to be over. My critical rating is just over 200 at the moment, so with Vengeance I pretty much go critical on every Death hit, not guaranteed, but more often than not.

This one didn't let me down, and the whole battle was over in 4 hits. Of course those Feints would have made all the difference, but a win is a win.
Back to the Queen to confirm my battle prowess and the Tomb of the Zebra Kings is done and dusted.

And I have to say that I am still really enjoying Zafaria. I love the tribal colours and patterns. I love the colouring that is used. It is more earthy, less 'Moo Shoo' in the main if that makes sense. The red, orange and yellow skies are pretty awesome too and a big change from all the other realms so far. I am encouraged to look up far more in this world - and you know what? I like that!

Have fun, until next time,
Tabitha

KI Trivia - Free CROWNS!

Hey Everyone,

Just wondered if you had been over to KI Free Games recently? Only there's a new game in town. And it's a game that will earn you CROWNS! A free to play game, that rewards you with crowns - can it get any better? You know what? .... I think the answer is yes. Introducing TRIVIA (just click here!).

You get to try your hand on a variety of topics - KI, Sports, Educational and Fun. Under KI you'll find lots of both Pirate and Wizard quizzes - each with a difficulty level.

The rules are really simple. You just need to pass by getting at least 75% of your answers correct. As you can see, below, you can earn 10 Crowns for each quiz, up to a maximum of 10 per day.

 The format of the quizzes is nice and simple, and means you can complete them very quickly.
It is a good way of testing your knowledge on both the KI games and other things outside of the Spiral.

And you know if you get the answer wrong, you can test yourself again the following day.... which gives you plenty of time to login to the game and find the answer.

Have you had a go yet? Do you play daily? Let us know!

Have fun, until next time,
Tabitha

Wizardly Etiquette

You know anyone that knows me in the real world, knows me to be a person who likes manners.

In the Spiral , a simple "Hi" or "How are you?" - take no time in your day. But just because they take no time in your day doesn't mean they don't matter or are not appreciated. One of my wizard friends is very much the same. Always there with a 'Hi', which always makes me smile. I wonder sometimes, if other wizards don't say Hi because they don't want a big chat, just want to get on with their questing.
And I can understand that to a certain degree, although I can't help but think that a simple Hi can and should be just that... and not an opening dialogue.
Then there is the etiquette behind porting over to someone. I must admit I do not tend to randomly port. If you are at the Bazaar then, well.... chances are I'll drop on you quite literally at some point! The reason I don't port randomly though, is the chance of dropping into a battle.

Now this can be bad for me, or it can be bad for the person you are porting to. Last night I was ported to in an area that was rife with Death Lionesses. Just a street fight, but Death over 2,000 and it is a tricky street fight.
The real problem was that I didn't need them for my quest. So the port over brought in another Death Lioness. But my friend apologised and helped me get through the fight. So it was all good, and we had chance to catch up a little in the process.

But earlier I had been ported to in a boss fight. There was no Hi - the young wizard was straight into "I'll get the boss". Now the problem here was the boss was Fire.... and the minions were Death. Killing the boss while waiting for my prisms to appear was my strategy. This put a spanner in the works. I decided to be magnanimous and let him work on the boss.
This was not a good move. It was a terrible move in fact. I was very quickly defeated. Now normally a quick port out, use a mana bottle and port back in, and we're ready to go. But no. My young wizard friend said "Oh no" and fled. Seriously? I was a little disgruntled at this turn of events, and the fact I would have to start all over again.

I wonder about the way you handle these? Do you love to port and help out in random places (and do you stay even when the going gets tough?), or are you slightly more reluctant like me? Do you like to say Hi and get on with your day or remain silent? As always, would love to hear from you and about your experiences.

Have fun, until next time,
Tabitha

It's that time again.......

Highlights this week include.....

• Unintended Consequences - Morgrim helps out 
• Enchanted Armament Impact - Low level PvP affects
• Spiral Ball 2014 - The event of the year!

Another week has come and gone in the Spiral...... Morgrim found himself in Khrysalis for the first time this week, while I gave my initial views on Zafaria.  Elsewhere, Saturday was not only the Solstice, but also the Spiral Ball for 2014. Did you go? There are a multitude of other stories out there just waiting to be read, so click on the paper to find all the news and tips being shared by Wizards around the globe.

Find yourself a quiet spot and enjoy..... I'm back to Zafaria for a while! Look out for another round up next week!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

The Zebras of the Zamunda

Hey everyone,

You know there is one thing I have noticed in Zafaria, well Zamunda I guess. That is the prolific amount of Zebras. They are everywhere. Although I can't exactly call them a harem or a herd as they seem questionable by their distance from each other; rather they are dotted around randomly! By the way, it is not just the characters I am referring to...... take a look at this for an entrance!

The huge tribal gates are overseen by these two magnificent sparring partners, but take a look at the city beyond the gates.... Two wooden Zebra heads can clearly be seen!!!


I thought I'd take a few more shots of some of these Zebras, as they caught my eye so much while I was passing through. This guy here is the elder. Can barely stand and uses his walking stick to remain somewhat upright. We chat to him a few times, but I don't want to give too much of the story away.


As the story evolves your movements through Zamunda will see many interactions with these Zebras. They really do come in all shapes and sizes, well maybe not shapes - more like many colours. So far there have not been any 'afro circus' like Marty from Madagascar, but painted camouflage appears more than once. 

There are many of the Igoka Defenders splattered around. They are a bit fierce and have a definite sense of pride to them. Strangely enough they give off a fierce persona, but are amongst the only Zebras not have have some sort of weapon.

The soldiers, however, have both weapons and camouflage paint! As you can see there are a couple of types, one with green paint and one with red paint. If you look closely they have different 'uniforms' but they are very similar in stature. Both have the same very cool striped mane. 

Each of the these zebras have manes that are slightly different if you look close enough. Their weapons are different, and interestingly they are both slightly stooped, though only one is using a staff.  

Next up are the captains !

Now these have weapons and colour and both have shields. They are not stooped, they are upright, proud and ready. Interestingly I also noticed that they hold their shields and spears in identical hands. I guess there are no lefties here!


But this story isn't just about the combat Zebras. As with all good tales, there are the good ones, the bad ones, and the unlucky ones. The unlucky ones in Zamunda have been made prisoners. There are a few of them around.

These little fellas are the Igoka Prisoners. You are tasked with setting them free. But before you rush up to them and just press 'X', take a moment to watch them. They are very sorrowful, literally shaking in fear. They turn to face you, to implore you to help them, then turn away again. They have no additional colouring and are bound by their front legs.
Don't take too long watching them though, these poor creatures deserve to be set free!

And that's my take on the Zebras of Zamunda. It is good to take time to marvel at the detail that the artists of KI take time to give us - don't you think?

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

The Exhilaration of Losing ?!?

Clemente Moraga.  Another fight I was warned about.  Both Alia and Blaze had said it was a tough fight, with Clemente and the Ortiz brothers taking them out first and sometimes second time around.

It was my turn and I soon discovered the problem.  Fire, all of them.  Hmm...this might be tricky.  Still, I had survived the Storm Caiman and I do enjoy a tough battle.  Time to get battle ready.

King Pepper is the main change.  He is a good Pet to help with damage, but no good in a dogfight (interestingly he is an Ianthine Hound lol).  In a hard slog my 'go to' Pet is Miss Callie.  She uses her triple heal well and often.

Hmm...3 fights later and I am reeling.  I haven't lost like this for... for a LONG time.  Time to rethink my strategy.  Checking out my deck, it is designed to deal a lot of damage quickly, but against a pretty resistant opponent, that potent edge is considerably dulled.

Time to prepare.  I wasn't going to lose again.  Let's see...Shields in main and side decks.  Smoke screen, steal charm and a cleanse charm wouldn't hurt.  More Prisms and less Dragons, only really need one - not that useful in this fight.  My deck size increased to give me the flexibility I knew I was going to need.

It's go time.  Come on you sneaky monkeys - let's try this one more time.

First down is Primo.  Actually, it was an accident. The Prism on him was meant for Clemente, but I won't complain.

Segundo was next in my sights after being softened up by the Dragon that took out Primo.

The boys were really working me over, and once again the green-eyed tree lady was on hand to help out. She used her life power (and my pips!) to the fullest and it gave me the strength I needed to continue.

A Rain of Fire was next to remove the final Ortiz brother, but Clemente was still holding strong.

8 power pips and another Dragon is coming my way, my Efreet just one round too late.

Power Pips have all but completely deserted me.  I have a raging hound ready to unleash and a hand full of noob pips.

Right - life minion to the rescue! She'll chew up a few pips and heal me as well :)

What?  She starts with an Imp, and followed it up with a Pass?!?  I think she may have forgotten her role in this battle!  Oh great - here comes the Dragon to take her out...<sigh> thanks for the Imp I suppose.

LOL - Hang one, this ain't over yet as Callie casts a timely Unicorn and my Life friend is back from the dead!

Thanks to the return of my assistant, I am now back to near full health.  Next round she is gone for good but has made a great contribution and I thank her for her help.

A Reshuffle and a few minor cards later to clear out the noob pips, and the heavy piercing dog is released to feast on my foe.

Feeling like I finally have the upper hand, sanctify the arena knowing the power of the Sanctuary might just be the final key to close out this fight.

A big Prismed Backdraft goes on now, with the knowledge this fight is mine.  Now it is just a waiting game.

There it is.  The final pip and my old mate, the supercharged Efreet is ready to pound.

Bang.  You is dead little monkey!!

Yes, losing can be exhilarating.  I have say, that was one of the most enjoyable fights I have had for a long time.  It forced me to think instead of bludgeon and reminded me of the versatility of my school.

Thanks again Wizard101 and Kings Isle.  What a great game :)

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Turning Back Time

Hey everyone,

Been doing a few street fights in Zafaria today. At the beginning of most of the world's there is a fair bit of street fighting to be done. So I thought I would tackle a few to get through to some of the dungeons and bigger fights to have a bit of a challenge.
Not that Zafaria itself is not a challenge. Street fights of 1,500 to 2,200 can be a bit of a challenge too. But having to consecutively defeat 17 of the same thing in 3 quests... doesn't quite tickle the challenge buds enough.

And then of course, I get my first Boss Fight of the region, and I fail. At first I fail due to lack of preparation. Then I fail due to a lower level porting wizard who really wanted the big kill, but then flees at the first sign of failure. A frustration that we all deal with. The nodding head down - the teleport back to the beginning of that land.

But now when that happens you have dungeon recall.

Depending of where you are, you get up to 30 minutes to sort out your deck, your health, your mana and your team and then straight back in. So the question is what do you do with that time? I figure there are a few things;

1. Find enough red and blue wisps to refill your Health and Mana and get straight back into it
2. Use your extra bottles to re-fill your Health and Mana
3. Transport to the commons and re-fill at the games area
4. Transport to the Bazaar to buy better Treasure Cards?
5. Craft extra Treasure Cards at your card crafting table
6. Just have some fun 

This is not an exhaustive list as there are plenty of other things like gardening and helping other wizards. Of course there is a world of difference between 5 minutes and 30 minutes, but the countdown of time meant I could judge what could be accomplished. 

In this instance I had 5 minutes to sort out what I needed and get back. Mana bottles were an issue.....
Luckily Blaze was at the Bazaar so I was able to port to him quickly and look for TCs that I needed. Next stop was the Commons to get to the Fairgrounds to re-fill Mana and Health. Then back to the fight. And sometimes I push it to the very limit... my  port had 2 seconds to spare!! 

But having that five minutes to sort out what I needed allowed me to complete the battle successfully :)

What about you guys? Do you use Dungeon Recall, and if you do what do you do to fill the time?

Have fun, until next time,

Tabitha

Unintended Consequences of Helping!

As those of you who follow our blog would know, I enjoy helping other Wizards.  In fact, Alia and I have been helping people since we were less than level 10.

Sometimes though, there can be some unintended consequences of helping!

The other day, I was at the Bazaar and I got a call for help from a friend in Khrysalis.  Only being level 88, I hadn't been there yet, but I figured, why not?  So, I tried to port and (of course) the dreaded "that area is not ready yet" message popped up.  It loaded as quickly as it could, but that still took time and I feared for Anna's safety!

Finally - I could get there.

I ported in and was a little surprised.  The bad guys looked a lot like Storm Elementals.  In fact, they only had a little over 3,000 health?  It was kind of disappointing.

So, a pumped up Meteor from me and a Dragon from Anna and we were done.

She had a few more to get, so off we went again.  I had just fired up a big Dragon and then - power failure irl!  Bugger - I was gone from the fight.  I never found out if that Dragon got away or not, but it was some time before I could get back on.

So, getting back onto Wizard, I was completely unprepared for the fact that I was dropped, on half health, solo, into a Storm street fight in Khrysalis!  It isn't the first time I have dropped straight into a fight - it really is one of the unintended consequence of helping!

Fortunately, I drew a Colossal, Dragon, Fireblade and Furnace straight into my hand :)  Two rounds later a critical, pumped up Dragon smashed into my opponents and took them both out.

I liked that.

Seeing as I hadn't been here before, I thought I would take a bit of a look around.  It is (currently) the newest area of Wizard101 and I was keen to see whether they had kept up their amazing art and music.  It has always been a standout for me, and you have seen Tabitha's post on her impressions of Zafaria.

Well, it didn't take long before it was clear that they hadn't let us down.  It was simply spectacular.

This is an old world. A world that, if I can believe what I felt in the music, might have a bit of a sad story.  Something terrible seems to have happened here and I am looking forward to finding out just what that is.

Anyway, before leaving, I took a few pics to share, because, as usual, the team at KI have turned on a real show for us!

If you have completed Khrysalis, let me know if the music was telling the truth?  Is it sad?  Surely it cannot be as sad as Dragonspyre?

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Fallen Caiman - Farming - The Future

Highlights this week include.....

• Morgrim v Caiman - Back to Questing!! 
• Doing it Wrong? - Duelist give us the heads up
• Abracadoodle - Have you checked it out yet?

This week was fairly quiet - no big show stoppers or news to rock the Spiral. With everything returning to normal, Morgrim felt the itch to get back into some heavy questing whilst Duelist spread the word on farming in Wizard101 - and they are not talking about gardening!

The crown sale is back on too...... Click on the paper to find all the news and tips being shared by Wizards around the globe.

Find yourself a quiet spot and enjoy..... I'm back off to Zafaria for a while..... Look out for another round up next week!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha