Well, I'm back in NEaB, having safely arrived home from the Bastion of California.  For those of you that weren't around on the docks when I came back, I brought back a large box full of cherries and strawberries, lovingly packaged for the citizens of NEaB to enjoy!  Alas, only a few people managed to eat them before they all started to ferment simultaneously (the climate here is very different from that in the Bastion).  Nasrudin and I therefore had to finish all the leftover fruits.  We are still suffering from bad gas in our digestive tracts, but hopefully will have recovered fully in a few days.

 Anyhow, when I came back from my vacation, I realized that there were a lot of responsibilities for me to shoulder up - not only did I have my job as a staff writer and Island Manager, but many other real-life projects to work on as well.  I have therefore sadly concluded that for now, my blog writing will have to go onto a temporary hiatus. There are simply too many other pressing matters that I must attend to.  

I will still be using this blog for photos, and for updating the general public on developments in Jhal-Abur, but most of my writings will be published in the gazette instead, as I feel that it would better reach NEaBians there.  I also plan to start a new column, 'Culinary Journeys with TaliaSolo', in which I go out to eat every Saturday and review two restaurants in NEaB.  If you have a restaurant you'd like me to review, let me know.

Whatever remaining time I have will be spent continuing to develop Jhal-Abur.  I've made a laundry list of some things I did recently; hopefully more progress will come soon.

-Worked on my Island Agency
-Created a Deluxe Ferry to Kariq (starts from Ahmad Docks)
-created 2D locations for some of Ahmad's shops
-added strawberry patch to the Botanical Gardens

Dear Everybody Who Reads My Blog:

 This may be shocking to some (and to others not so much) but I will be taking a two-month vacation quite soon, starting from May 3rd and going on until...several days into July.  Where am I going?  Well, I shall be spending my two months in the remote Bastion of California, which is currently off the map.  Naturally, it has not been charted yet; however, I've spent quite a few summers there, enjoying time off from the stresses of a Dame and remembering the idylic days of my childhood, when all I ever had to do was help my father on his boat and tend to the garden.

I shall not be in contact during these two months.  The Bastion of California can only be reached by trawling through uncharted waters, or from obtaining charts from certain knowledgeable seamen.  Therefore, if you seek help, I suggest that you contact our friendly Player Helpers while I am gone, as they have recieved wings for this very purpose.  If your message is very, very urgent (such as an alert that Brucey has taken over Jhal-Abur or that Garg has gone mad), you can ask my husband Nasrudin to send it to me, as he is in possesion of a special talking Nasrudin doll which he has agreed to loan to me for the summer.  I shall be using it to keep in touch with him; however, there is only one doll of its kind and I cannot extend this service to anyone else.  Unless, of course, you have a special doll of yourself which you would like to loan to me.  

There is no post-by-email feature for my blog, unfortunately, so I will not be able to update it no matter how hard I try.  However, rest assured that my absence will not be in vain.  In my spare time, I have plans to continue working on dialogs and stories for Jhal-Abur, in addition to a small recollection of my travel memories to share with you.

This post, therefore, shall be my last for quite a while.  I wish all of my fellow NEaBians good luck.  Perhaps some of you could also consider going somewhere for a vacation (I know that many of you have worked hard during the year) and if you do, I would love to hear about your travels once you get back (and once I re-enter civilization, of course).  

Kind regards,

Dame TaliaSolo

Tomorrow is the Day of Burden, as noted on the official NEaB calendar.  A few days ago, I was reading the holiday's description and thinking hard about how lucky I was to have everything that I do.  When I was a young NEaBian, weight definitely was an issue.  I remember having to sort through my inventory constantly in order to make room in my backpack for excess items, such as armor or raw materials.  Thankfully, as I gained levels and subsequently gained strength, I was at last able to start hauling my possesions around properly.

 Later on I acquired a dungeon and a store in the Marketplace, which also served as excellent places to sell extra possesions or keep things in.  As I gained more levels and started earning more quest rewards, I began to obtain more and more possesions.  Many quests required ingots and raw materials, so I started keeping several hundred or so of these with me, so that it wouldn't be too bothersome to run back and get some during a particularly exciting moment.

 Later on, a generous woman residing in the Iron Isles, offered to give me cooking lessons.  As I advanced towards my degree and began to learn more and more recipes, I realized that one of the best ways to learn was to keep as many ingredients as I could within my inventory and experiment from there.  I also noticed that previously overlooked spots on certain islands could reveal great surprises if I happened to keep certain supplies with me - a reserve torch, for example, could light up a dark passage containing exciting secrets.  

 Until then, I had mostly overlooked the various shopping districts on other islands.  I soon found out, however, that the shopkeepers were all so kind, displaying various goods to me and helping me to check if I needed anything.  By this time it was not uncommon for me to walk around with several hundred thousand gold in my pocket, so I relented to the urge to buy and indulged in whatever I could purchase.  I figured that if I had every single type of item available, I would no longer be lacking anything, whether it be recipe-making, questing, or simply indulging in needs.

Thus, I arrived at the present, armed with loads of foodstuffs, plenty of armor (even the low-leveled ones) and a dubious amount of self-worth.  Did I really need all these items?  Even if, for example, a future quest required a diamond ring, was it really necessary to cart 100 of them around all the time?  As I looked in dismay at my scattered possesions, I realized that, contrary to what I had formerly believed, wealth was not the true way to happiness.

That was how I began my Spring Cleaning.  I think I'll be doing it more often in the future, too - for the most part I'll just cart around whatever I think I need, and not have too many excesses of it.  In case you're wondering, I didn't put any of it into my shop - to prevent other NEaBians from suffering the same fate as me I cast them into the void.

Or at least, I think I cast them into the void.  What happens when you click 'drop' on your inventory?