One of these days I’ll get back into playing one of the existing characters from before my 7-or-8-year break.

Today is not that day, however.

Itzal Darque is the “family game night” character I rolled up when we decided to try GW2 out, and other than a brief recent diversion to name-camp a new character that I’ll probably mess around with later this year, he’s who I’ve stuck with. A Sylvari (sentient ambulatory human-shaped salad) Mesmer (illusion-focused magic) fighter, he’s been fast-tracked to max level and recently got to the Chronomancer “elite specialization,” though Virtuoso is probably his real goal. (The Chrono path really wants to be a top-tier support rig, and… I’m not good at that.)

I also unlocked (with money, but at least everything was on sale at the time) nearly all of the expansion packs I’d missed over the years. Thus, among other things, I gained access to… the Homestead. Basically this is an improved take on the “home instance” setup, the place you go to harvest your own resource nodes, but instead of the original home instances you can actually craft decorations for this. And tonight I unlocked the 2nd mastery rank tier, which means getting access to slightly nicer crafting options. (If I get to the 4th tier I’ll be able to use auto-harvesting devices available on the Homestead map.)

There is one weird thing about the way they built the place, though:

Yes, that’s a lumbermill, and the less said about how much it reminds me of the lumbrermill you see in the early part of Skyrim, the better. That’s not the weird part, though. No, what’s weird is that you can walk inside the building where the spinning saw blade is mounted. And get damaged by it.

Why? What possible purpose could this serve? I’m baffled.

Anyway: I’m just checking in to say that yes, indeed, I think I’m back in another MMO… and it’s the one I departed “for good” most of a decade ago. Go figure, eh?