Thursday, May 17, 2012

Hardly a fair fight; There's only fifty of them.

We're into the 25's now, about halfway through the Facility Hub, and this seems to be the point at which Turbine really starts pulling out the stops. The enemies do not get appreciably stronger, but the dungeon design is a lot less forgiving. Combined with some RL business, I had kind of a rough week, but also very rewarding. Parts, anyways. Here's how it broke down:

A Ruin (Tibri's Cave)


This generically-named dungeon is the home of Tibri the Cavedweller, a mildly important NPC. The quest we're on is actually a bit of a blind. While the reward is fairly valuable, it seems to exist mainly to obscure Tibri's real purpose, of which we will speak further someday.

The dungeon is your basic network of tunnels containing enemies.  Said enemies are moderately weak Banderlings, but the layout is a problem. Whether by accident or design, the twisting tunnels have a knack for sending enemies right toward you. As a result, I'm mobbed by half the damn dungeon as soon as I portal in, and it doesn't let up for a second. The dungeon isn't especially large or complicated, it's just an endurance challenge. It takes me two trips because I get overburdened with loot and low on potions halfway through.

If you can get past the enemies, the quest itself is a simple lock-and-key puzzle. Tibri is at one point in the maze, the spear is at another. You find the spear, bring it to Tibri, and get a chunk of experience. Later, you get a bonus from the Warden. You get to keep the spear too, but it's a Heavy Weapon, so I pawn it.

Incidentally, I noticed misty areas around the dungeon that seemed to repel the banderlings. That might help explain how Tibri is able to stay here despite their presence. Hell, her room is pretty cozy, for a cave:


Catacombs of the Forgotten


The treasure of this dungeon is a Jitte that belonged to a Sho martial artist named Mi Krau-Li. The facility portal drops me off near the top of a large hill which, BTW, offers a fantastic view:


The dungeon portal is nearby. Level design philosophy here is more or less the same as the previous dungeon: simple layout, but it throws enemies at you in mass numbers. The stakes have been upped, however. Instead of weak Banderlings, we get Skeletons, which are not to be trifled with. At first it's just weak Skeleton Warriors, but then we move up to tougher Captains, then Lords with War Magic, and finally powerful Skeleton Wraiths. Worse, there are no doors, meaning I can't control their numbers terribly well. Fortunately, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I swap out my Green Mire Yari for the Explorer Staff to exploit their vulnerability to bludgeoning, use my Lugian gems to blunt the War Magic, and rely on Bleeding Assault to give me an edge. (Which doesn't make sense, since Skeletons don't bleed, but I'm not going to argue about it any more than I argue about being able to stab enemies through doors.)

Still, it's a tough crawl. About halfway through I find Mi Krau-Li's sarcophagus, where I expect to find the jitte. What I find instead is a note indicating that rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated:


There are a few other random things around here, too. Near the sarcophagus room is an Enchanted Mnemosyne, like the one back in Trothyr's rest. And near the start of the dungeon is an epitaph for a fallen fighter. I check the wiki and find out that it's not connected to any quest or other lore, and seems to be a joke. I hold on to it, anyway. It's a light object, and who knows, it might be useful for something someday. As for the jitte, I find it just past the sarcophagus room:


Now that's a nice weapon. I try it out on the next quest, and it impresses me enough that I make it my main off-hand weapon, retaining the Green Mire Yari for enemies that require stabbing instead of smashing.

All in all, I liked this dungeon. It's a slugfest, true, but the difficulty level is just right and the reward is worth it.

Needless to say, we will be going after Mi Krau-Li later.

Ruschk Fledgemaster (Aboveground quest)


After two enemy-filled dungeons, this quest serves as a breather. You portal to a particular spot near Sanamar, beat up a single enemy, and take the trophy to an NPC in the city. That's it. I think there are supposed to be some other enemies around, but someone else seems to have run the quest recently and pwned them. Even so, the boss goes down in less than a minute, so I can't imagine his flunkies would be much of a challenge. It's almost embarrassing, actually. It's like that boss rush mode in Kirby Super Star that'll randomly drop you into a room with a Waddle Dee that goes down in one hit. The reward is not only inferior to explorer gear, but ugly as hell. NEXT!

Banderling Conquest


To make up for the lameness of that last quest, this one is a twofer. Part one is Banderling Conquest, which is a pretty typical Banderling dungeon. Less enemies than Tibri's place, but some tough ones including Ravers and a Chief or two. The map is fairly long, but linear and easily navigated. In addition to the Ceremonial Mace shaft, I find a journal which formerly belonged to Candeth Martine. It describes how he was taken captive by a some Mosswarts and locked up here, before a group of Banderlings attacked and presumably stole him away. If memory serves, this is the backstory to how Martine became... whatever he is now. He was taken to the Virindi and altered.

The lore is really the only interesting thing here. Amusing to me is how Turbine dodges around the issue of Lifestone Recall via suicide: Martine's bound to a lifestone, but has never actually died before and doesn't want to take the chance that it won't work.

Mosswart Maze


This dungeon is aptly named. Take a look at the map! The combat is light, just small groups of Mosswarts, but the dungeon makes up the difference in disorientation. Plus, the Whirling Blade traps up the center path are a pain. I resist most of them, but it still makes me keep a sharp eye on my life bar. Following the left-hand rule gets me to the end after hitting most of the chests, unfortunately I miss Martine's second journal, so I never learn how the story ends. Whatever. Checking the wiki I find it's a cliffhanger anyway, and besides everyone knows what happened to Martine in the end. I have to say, though, that if his writing was any indication the guy was a bit of a ponce in life.

The Banderling Mace Head is at the end, guarded by two Goldenback Tuskers. Uniting shaft and head, then turning it in to an NPC in Eastham, gets me the mace of the explorer. Like Tibri's spear, it's a good weapon, but Heavy, and thus nothing to me.

Haunted Mansion


And now for something completely different: a horror story. The facility portal drops me off at the foot of a hill, next to a shivering guy standing by some crates. The man is Frest Greelving, who owns the haunted mansion at the top of the hill. In lieu of an explanation, he gives me a journal recording his story, and a task: retrieve three items of sentimental value from the house itself. Sounds newbie, but hey, points is points.


Someone put a lot of work into the mansion. Each room is a scene out of a haunted house, and there are sound effects too. Unfortunately, when you're level 30ish and the liches are intangible, un-hostile apparitions, it's hard to be scared, but I was impressed by the creativity on display. Most of the enemies are weak skeletons and undeads, but in the watchtower I find a level 50 zombie. Yikes! Fortunately, he forgets about his War Magic. I find a document written in an unknown language on the corpse, and Freest's items in chests around the house. Freest gladly rewards me with weapons for the items, unfortunately none of them are Finesse.

This is technically mission complete, but you don't really think I can leave this mystery unsolved, do you? I take the document to my old buddy, Bretself the Translator. At this point the quest goes from haunted-house shenanigans to full-on H.P. Lovecraft. The document is the journal of an ancient Empyrean archaeologist, and chronicles his slow decent into madness after he uncovers a black sarcophagus in some mysterious caverns. I share the news with Frest, who puts two and two together and figures that whatever presence was down there infiltrated his house through the basement storage area. He gives me the key and encourages me to check it out.


The basement is reasonably impressive, but in the tunnels beyond the aesthetics take a nose-dive and the dungeon becomes another sequence of enemy-laden corridors. The enemies are Liches and the occassional mid-level skeleton. I have to watch out for the War Magic, but it's nothing I can't handle. The layout is mediocre, too: it's a very long dungeon, and extremely linear. I think it takes me a half-hour to get through all the liches to the boss: another level 50 zombie, camped out under a cloud of dark energy.


Not terribly hard, I think. Wrong. This one remembers his War Magic, and by now it's 1 A.M. and I'm getting tired. I get caught flat-footed by his bolts and before I can heal, I'm kissing the lifestone.

Dying never feels good, but dying at the tail end of a half-hour dungeon crawl that hadn't been particularly challenging or interesting up to that point is a special brand of ARRRRRGH. I rage quit, and it's two days before I have the time and motivation to get back in there. When I do, It takes me another half-hour to work my way back to the boss and clobber him. I'm a little encouraged by the fact that my corpse hasn't decayed, so I get my drop items back. Only a little encouraged, though.

Anyway, since I read the archaeologist's journal, I know that this isn't the end. I have to take the weak-ass staff from the zombie's body and use it to destroy the sarcophagus. This isn't as hard as it sounds; the main problem is eliminating the Liches and Skeleton Wraiths in the sarcophagus room. The Sarcophagus itself takes no damage from any weapon but the staff, and only one damage per swing from that, but it has a max health of 25 and can't fight back. I hack away for less than a minute before it goes up in about 50 cents worth of fireworks:


My reward for neutralizing the sarcophagus? Frest Greeling's couch. Umm... thanks, dude! I guess.

So, yeah, I didn't like this quest, and not just because I died on it. While I appreciate the work put into the mansion and the lore, it feels like wasted effort since this quest has no relation to any of the existing game lore. It's more like a Halloween episode, scary but ultimately irrelevant. And when it finally comes down to dungeon action, it's more of a trudge than anything else. Also, the rewards are pretty useless.

In all, though, it was a reasonably good week. My current stats:


After getting a lot of trouble from the missile-using skeletons in the basement, I invested some skill credits in Missile D. I haven't decided yet where my experience is going. I'm currently working on boosting my Arcane Lore, but I think it might be worth a break from that to get Finesse Weapons up to 250 and pump my Missile D. I also plan to  put some exp into Item and Life Magic eventually, but right now I seem to be doing just fine with the enchants on my gear. We'll see what happens.

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