Climax and Anticlimax

When we left off, I was just about ready to go back into Nuvillus' place and kick some ass, but there was one more quest I wanted to get done first, to give me an edge. Fortunately, it was right off the facility hub:

Olthoi Pincers Quest

This quest has eight parts, but they're all the same: Go to olthoi-filled dungeon on Marae Lassal, fight your way inside, beat olthoi in deepest corner to get Pincer trophy, turn in to NPC in Redspire for prize and next part of quest. The prizes are accessories with Piercing and Acid Protection buffs, which I need to deal with the acid weapons in Nuvillus' castle. I was hoping to get through part 5 of this quest, Which would get me a Necklace with both buffs. Unfortunately the Olthoi in that dungeon were too much for me. I retreat and make do with the Acid Protection Bracelet, hoping it plus some extra experience put into Melee Defense will be enough.

Castle of Baron Nuvillus (take 3)

Having learned from my previous attempts, I took it slow and steady here. I ran around to the back, dealing with some minor enemies along the way, took the gate, then moved on to the courtyard, stopping at each location to clear out mobs so that I didn't have them following me while I was dealing with bigger problems. When I got upstairs, I had the idea to jump to the barracks roof like before, hoping some of the Bone Lords in the big room would fall down to the courtyard and I wouldn't have to deal with them. It didn't work, but one of them made the jump, leading to the totally awesome rooftop duel pictured above. After this I made the leap back and dealt with the big room, taking out the remaining Bone Lords in a tense but winnable battle. Near the end of the fight, I got a surprise:

Nuvillus himself had apparently had enough of my shenanigans and came out of his throne room to face me in person. What's more, he had left his bodyguard the Fleshless Warrior behind. Unfortunately for him, as any AC player will tell you, dividing enemies is the way to beat them. Nuvillus goes down, and I grab the Bone Crown. Pushing my luck a bit, I then raid the Throne Room and kill the Fleshless Warrior who, demoralized from the death of his lord and an AI glitch, just stands there while I smash him into a pile of bones. Not only do I get loot from him and the chest in the room, but as it turns out my corpses have not yet decayed, so I get back nearly everything I lost from failing this dungeon before. This means I can now dual wield Assault Staffs. Tumeroks beware!

For all the trouble this quest gave me, the reward is totally worth it:

You ubers might be laughing, "Fives? Ha-ha, you newb!", but what I see is THREE protection spells on a single item. Using this, and shuffling around the rest of my gear a bit, I'm able to cover all protections on my suit at level 4 or 5. No more Lugian gems!

Blackmire Lore

Alas, after all that, the final facility hub quest is a letdown. Retrieve 6 texts from Burun mobs in the vicinity of the Blackmire Temple, then take them to a translator in Arwic for rewards. Okay, not too bad, I'm not averse to a little scavenger-hunt quest, the problem is that there's no indication where they might be, so I run around bashing random Buruns. I quickly figure out that there are four types of Burun on the prowl here. Scamps are easy, but Magic-using Adepts and Adherents require caution, and Ruffians take a long time and a lot of potions to wear down. I kill some, finding a few of the texts, but there's no rhyme or reason to it. Eventually, a visit to the wiki confirms what I suspect; they're all random drops. So I camp the scamps and grind and grind and grind until I have all six. It takes me until after 1 A.M. Who in their right mind wraps up a weeks-long questline of solid and sometimes amazing content with a quest that's pure grinding?

To top it all off, the rewards are crap. Only Elysa's Boon is useful, most of the rest are inferior to gear that I've already gotten on facility hub quests. You also get lore, but these, while well-written, are incomprehensible. The only things I'm able to glean from it is that the Sclavus are products of the Falatacot (an Empyrean precursor civilization) experimenting with... something, and that they may have opened the portal that brought the Burun here. Or something. It's confusing, okay?

With that done, I decide my next course of action is to check for level 50 contracts, but I'm not level 50 yet. So instead, I work on tying up some loose ends.

Krau-Li's Labyrinth

Krau-Li's Labyrinth immediately acquaints me with an aspect of questing in Dereth that the facility hub insulated me from: running through the wilderness to get to the dungeon. I drop in to Xarabyden and jog over to the coordinates listed on Mi Krau-Li's note. There are some reasonably difficult spawns along the way, fortunately with high Quickness I can outrun most of them. The Labyrinth itself is filled with Skeleton Lords, which were a bit of trouble in Krau-Li's first dungeon, and are totally outclassed by me at this point. The main challenge here is the floor plan, which is twisty and confusing. Fortunately, I soon catch on to the trick: mixed in among the lights are green stone torches. Follow the path marked by the green torches, and it takes you right where you need to be. There are five areas in the maze, and in each the goal is to find a lever that opens the door to the next, then get back to the hub area and through that door before it closes. (The first lever, above, is disguised as a torch.) Along the way you face Bone Knights in mass numbers. At the end of the last area is Mi Krau-Li. Turns out reports of his demise were not exaggerated after all:

Yes, he has somehow been turned into a Lich. But he retains his consciousness, and upgrades his jitte for me. He also gives me another quest to upgrade it further, but it requires bringing him some ingredients. The first is a Pyreal Bar, which I'm not even close to having, but I figure loose end #2 is a way to get it:

Halls of Metos

See, Pyreal Bars are made from putting together Pyreal Motes, which are dropped by golems. And the best place to find Golems is in the three Halls of Metos dungeons, former labs of a great Empyrean golem-maker. Back in the day, this was a primo grinding location, not just for experience and motes, but for the golem hearts used to craft Mnemosyne keys. At present, there's another quest taking place in these dungeons: you have to delve into two of them to pick up special motes at the bottom, then give them to a Golem at the bottom of the third.

So I run all three dungeons, and I have to say, Turbine seriously phoned it in here. All three dungeons have exactly the same layout. EXACTLY. Turbine just did a copy-paste job to turn one dungeon into three. If not  for the differences in the final rooms, I would have sworn I was running one dungeon three times. I don't manage to collect enough motes to make a Bar, but I do finish the quest, which earns me a note from Asheron:

This explains much. You remember the strange letters from Asheron at the end of the Folthid Cellar and Mountain Sewer Quests? This is the third part of the story. Apparently, Asheron opened an off-world portal in an attempt to reach Bur, homeworld of the Burun. The three notes give me the ability to follow him, should I wish. But we'll get to that someday. Right now, my primary mission has been accomplished:

Level 50 yay!

Incidentally, I apologize for my lack of good screenshots this time. From now on, I'm going to use the camera more effectively, because always snapping from the "behind the head" perspective makes for very poor action shots. But I'll have better ones next time.

'Til then, happy questing!