Question 1; Where are the missing shops? ( pet shop, paint shop, staff shop)
Question 2; How do you get the AI standing under a palm tree next to a pond to give you permission to go on to the boat, so you can go over to the spinx floating island to finish a school quest?
Question 3; Just how 'Random' and 'Fair' is the FIZZLING that takes place during a battle? Because I would have all my battles go without a single fizzle and then when those times you certainly DO NOT want to Fizzle ( usaualy during a boss battle ) you FIZZLE over 5 times in a row!!! or you convently(spelling) never get a heal card when you have 3 in your deck you are trying to use but to avail and then end up dieing! Happens almost every time for me and its getting me a bit steamed.
The Wand shop is actually right there with the regular shop. It's just mixed in with another shop (some article of clothing, robes, boots or hats, can't remember which). If I recall correctly it's the one closest to the pyramid (or furthest from Hetch if you will). There are two more hidden shops that each sell a single pet (a mini Krokotillian and a Heckhound) and sundries, but no paint shop that I've seen.
To get to the floating island with the Krokosphinx, you'll need to finish all quests in the pyramid first. After you do all the main quests from the Throne Room of Fire, you'll be sent to fight four Nirini Bosses. Once they are dealt with you get to go into the map room which is an instanced level and contains two more boss fights. Once those are over with, you get to go see the Krokosphinx.
Fizzle rate depends on your spell types. Fire and especially Storm have low accuracies, Life has the highest and Balance and Death are slightly above average. I've noticed a lot of Fizzle Streaks myself, but that only suggests that the random numbers generator doesn't employ a streakbreaker code. If you have trouble getting to your healing spells, downsize your deck, remove your Wand or buy some extra ones as Treasure Cards and put nothing but the healing spells in your Sideboard. Then you know you can always get them.
Without wanting to sound patronizing, constructing your deck so you actually get all the cards you need often enough or roughly when you need them (it's still random after all) is the main strategical element of the game. And the bigger your deck gets and the more spells you have available the harder it gets to balance this. But if you only have one type of spell in your Sideboard, it'll always be there when you Draw, no matter what else you get.
Question 1; Where are the missing shops? ( pet shop, paint shop, staff shop)
No paint/Dye shop in Krokotopia.
Many of the shops in Krok are dual-purpose; the Wand shop is one of them.
The Pet Shop is ... hidden. You need to use the teleporter between the two obelisks near the Well, at the right time, to get to it (there's a card trainer on the roof od the building you get to, also). It will be very visibly obvious when the Right Time is ... look at the obelisks, and you should get the idea. ^_^
Question 2; How do you get the AI standing under a palm tree next to a pond to give you permission to go on to the boat, so you can go over to the spinx floating island to finish a school quest? Finish ALL of the main storyline quests in the Pyramid (IOW, in all the areas accessible from the Altar of Kings).
Question 3; Just how 'Random' and 'Fair' is the FIZZLING that takes place during a battle? It can be very streak-y, yes. I suspect the server is using a less than ideal Random Number Generator algorythm.
