Ingress: The Magnus Builder’s Challenge – Complete!

Three days ago, I was 600 resonator deployments short of completing the second stage of the Magnus Builder's Challenge. Today, with the flu starting to make its presence known, I finished it with 5 days to spare. Pretty happy with that.

Progress Report - Day 9 to Completion

Day 9: Sunday: I didn't want to go out today, but I'd identified two blocks of portals where I might deploy another couple of hundred resonators. I was just trying to figure out when to go, when my husband suggested a family trip to look at Cooma, a small town about an hour's drive south. I took a quick look at the intel map, saw a bunch of grey portals and figured I could I could fit a small amount of deployment in, while we looked around - and it was worth it. We got to check out Cooma, which has a lot more portals, and a lot more history, than I thought, and we found a nice new area to visit. As we approached the town, there was a big weather front moving in, but we had almost an hour of sunshine, as we had lunch and then took a quick drive through town. With time a little tight due to commitments in Canberra, we left with the weather closing in behind us - and a list of things we wanted to go back and visit. I didn't do any planned deployments on the trip, just incidental ones on the trip down, through, and back - and I missed quite a few because I was too busy looking out the window. Day 9 Total: 2,709  (added 135)

Day 10: Monday: I woke up with a bit of a scratchy throat, and a morning class to get to after school drop-off. The throat got to razor-blade sore by the time I'd left, and I wondered how the day would go - and if I'd be able to manage the walk I'd planned to top out the medal. Picking up some soothers and tissues before class turned out to be a good idea, and I was checking out the scanner when I noticed a big blue area on campus that I hadn't visited yet. *That* looked interesting, so I figured I'd check it out if it was still blue when class was done. (ANU has a pretty strong Enlightened presence, so nothing was guaranteed.) I was lucky, or the cold weather was keeping the other team inside, because it was still very blue when I got out. By this time, I was starting to feel a little under the weather, and figured the flu was going to set in over the next couple of days. With an hour to kill before the next bus, I started on deploying resonators, and hacking in an attempt to have enough to deploy. By the end of two hours, the other side had come out to play, but I'd completed pretty much everything I could complete by the time it was to head for the bus stop. Two hours was the outer limit of the time I could allow for a walk, but the unexpected blue patch on campus had meant I'd saved about a half hour of travel. Even though it hurt to stop when I was so close to finishing, I really did have to get home and back to work. Day 10 Total: 3,096 - so close and yet so far, (added 387)

Day 11: Tuesday: Today, I felt okay when I woke up, but I knew my littlest was probably going to need to stay home, and I knew my oldest wanted to get away early, so I went for quick half-hour walk to a group of portals I'd identified the night before. Three full deploys and I'd be over the line with the final stage of the medal. I really wanted to deploy all the portals - I mean, who wouldn't? - but that okay feeling was fading by the time I hit the portal patch, so I wound it back to blasting and capturing two Enlightened-held portals, and filling out a third Resistance-held portal, before walking back home. And that was me done for the medal, and for the day. I definitely had the flu, and if I didn't pull back and hunker down for the day, it was going to get much worse. Still, challenge completed. Day 11 Total: 3,119 (added 23 to complete the challenge).