After making it to Lion’s Arch last time around, we did wander around a bit, picked up a bunch of quests, and set out to follow the one that brought us to the next mission starting point.

Outside of Lion’s Arch we ran into a big, round mech named M.O.X.  He had a manual for us, but we were on our way somewhere, so didn’t pay him much mind.

Our destination was the D’Alessio Seaboard, where we arrived and saw that the next mission could be launched from there.

This was at the end of our time, so we went back to Lion’s Arch where we discovered that M.O.X. was a hero, something beyond a henchman, who could be added to the party.

So M.O.X., a level 20 dervish, was on our list of things to figure out when we next met up, which was this past weekend.

Arriving in game together, we found that we could each have a M.O.X. in the party.

Even being at level 20, we felt that maybe we should hedge our bets and maybe sub in a monk to heal, just in case.   We were, as yet, unfamiliar with the abilities of our dervish construct.

We also didn’t have a bunch of time.  Missions can vary a bit in duration and, like dungeons, tend to have a lot of trash to work through to get you to the end of each.  So we opted to just do one of the quests we picked up around town to see how that went.

I started reading down the list of my quest log until I hit something we all had, which turned out to be Mhenlo’s Request.  We all made that our quest focus and it pointed us down to the docks where we met up with Jiaju Tai who was on about her homeland.

She was keen to book us passage to Cantha and, with no other plans, off we went.

The trip dropped us off at Bejunkan Pier, which was an overland area rather than a city.

There we found ourselves part of a much larger party.

Both of the M.O.X. bots came with us, but our healer didn’t make the cut.  I am not sure we noticed in that moment, given the crowd.  Also, sometimes M.O.X. shows up by that name, sometimes as a mere “Dervish Construct.”

Devona and Aidan were also names that I seemed to recall from pre-searing Ascalon, though that was two years ago.

Also notable was that everybody on the roster save us and our pets was level 20.  This would come to be an important point in a bit.  But first we had to go through some dialog as everybody made introductions and we found Brother Mhenlo stuck in the middle between Jamei and Cynn, the long time female pal from youth and the girlfriend I gather, who were both being catty.  That left Aiden to comment on the situation.

Once all the dialog was over… and every line had to pop up in its own window to be savored then dismissed… we were moved along with the group, ending up in Kaineng Center, a town.  There, we ended up on the quest line Welcome to Cantha, which sent us out to find somebody in the next open world part of town, the Bukdek Byway, wherein we discovered that not only all of our allies level 20, but so were all of the foes.

Facing groups of mobs that were level 20, I foolishly ran ahead to do the warrior tank thing, only to get my ass kicked and die… like a lot.

We did find out that M.O.X. is fast with the revive… and that reviving was one of his skills.  But he was also a bit too fast at times.  I get it, you want to keep the actual player engaged and not just laying on the pavement.  But M.O.X, would revive me, then some mob would splatter me all over the scenery again, leaving me dead at an ever accelerating rate.

I was soon at -60% debuff from dying, which seemed to be as high as you could go.

Eventually I took the hint and stood back with Holden and Zbignew with my bow to just get in a few hits at range.

Not that anybody needed our help.  The constructs and NPCs seemed to be handling everything on their own just fine.  My inserting myself into the battle was probably slowing things down because somebody had to stop and revive me rather than just killing whatever mobs were in the way.

None of which was exactly fun or engaging.  The game would have taken care of itself had we had the decency to stay out of the way.  We were, at a minimum, in over our heads.

We ended up in Vizunah Square, which looked to be the first mission starting point for the campaign we had stumbled into.

There we explored the merchant, who had some new and expensive stuff, then admired the henchmen available, which were more diverse in style that we had been used to.  We had clearly wandered out of the Prophecies campaign.

The problem was how to get back to Lion’s Arch.  It was not on our map so there would be no instant travel.

And then I spotted that old rogue, the Zaishen Scout, whose ubiquitous quest marker had suckered me more than once, dropping me on Embark Beach.

But I knew how to get back to Ascalon City and points beyond in the other campaign from there.

So next time around we will head back and get on the Prophecies campaign trail again, where we are a bit over level rather than being completely under level.

We’ll also have to discuss what to do with M.O.X.

While his utility is undeniable, having a level 20 Dervish Construct that will likely eat mobs at our level like they were candy feels like a fast path to perfunctory engagement with the story and the game.