I have faced the purest of evil and its name is … Blarp?

Blarp is an ancient Asuran word meaning “he who performs intimate acts on other male Asurans.” Or at least I’d like to think it is. Now, you might get the distinct impression I am not fond of the little fellow. Your impression is entirely correct. I spent 1 hour and 45 minutes battling him today and I do not like him. I do not like him at all.

My real problem is I completely hate Polymock, the Asuran minigame. It’s been repeatedly described as “Pokemon on steroids” but this didn’t help me grasp the concept any better since I’ve never played Pokemon and have never taken steroids. I think “Pain In the Ass” is a better description because that’s what it feels like.

What happens is you choose three creatures and pit them against three of your opponent’s creatures in one on one battles. The owner of the last creature standing wins the match. The interesting thing about this is that you control each creature in battle. This is probably another attempt by ArenaNet to nudge PvE-exclusive players towards PvP.

I would simply forgo Polymock but I’m keen on getting the Asuran skill Pain Inverter and the only way to get that skill is to get a quest from a guy in Tarnished Haven. I don’t have that outpost on my map right now — none of the primary quests go through it — and none of the quests in my log go there.

I could simply look up the map location and run myself there but I’d rather play GW:EN the straightforward way by jumping through the designers’ hoops. From what I can tell, the only way to get to Tarnished Haven through a quest is to battle Polymock masters, one of whom is stationed there.

I completed the Vloxen Excavations dungeon in Guild Wars: Eye of the North earlier. This was deeper and more challenging than the previous GW:EN dungeons I tried. Mob patrols were better balanced and were sometimes in close proximity to each other resulting in situations where you might face two mobs with a pair of tag-teaming healers.

I had to abandon my first attempt on Tuesday after my healers had accumulated too high a death penalty to take on the dungeon boss. My main mistake was being a little too whimsical when composing my henchmen/Hero party.

Yesterday’s attempt proved more successful. The final boss gave me some trouble as he had some tricks up his sleeves which I had not known about but despite several party wipes, I managed to beat him by grinding him down.

The most notable thing about the dungeon was the hidden treasures. These are concealed items that are only revealed when you use the Dwarven spell, Light of Deldrimor.

There’s a slight problem with the hidden treasure.

My idea of “Hidden Treasure”: bounty beyond the wildest imagination, golden-hued runes scarcely seen by mortal eyes or a mighty weapon that could slay the mightiest of foes with one effortless blow.

ArenaNet’s idea of “Hidden Treasure”: 127 gold.

That’s only slightly more than the merchant value of six Stone Summit Emblems. That’s treasure? If that’s treasure, an ogre-slaying knife is a priceless heirloom worthy of being an endgame green.