One step forward, two steps back...

I had a rough time this week, but nowhere near as rough as I would have had I not acted like an idiot.

Bellig Tower

It started off well enough. My first job was Bellig Tower, a dungeon that held a Hammer of Lightning. Bellig Tower is interesting because it's actually inside a large mountain, and thus mostly vertical. As usual, this means creatures dropping down from upper levels to savage you. I was literally under attack from half a dozen Silt Lurkers before even fully materializing in the dungeon. That took a few Stamina potions, but fortunately I was able to handle it and get out before the spawn timer went off. The dungeon was mostly divided between Silt Lurkers and Copper/Granite Golems. The Copper Golems are good for me, since I've been collecting Mnemosynes and need the hearts. Unfortunately, my lockpicking is still fairly low,  so when I get to carving later I ruin nearly all of them.

As I climb higher, I encounter the occasional stronger lurker or undead. This culminates in a battle with a Revenant (actually a buffed zombie) and his pet Jungle Reaver in a library near the top. I thought this guy had the hammer, but I don't find it on his corpse, so I move on figuring that I have to be near the end. Well, yes and no. The dungeon itself ends, but the exit portal takes me out onto the mountaintops, which is cool as hell. I take a minute to indulge my passion for panoramic screenshots.

Note the tower below me on the right. Not sure what's up with that, but I have a feeling I'll be back here eventually. Anyway, a series of portals takes me from mountaintop to mountaintop across the range, ending finally in a gate into another dungeon, which takes me down through a bunch of Copper Golems. I'm running low on stamina potions and worry about having to turn back, but in the second most ridiculous Deus Ex Machina you'll be seeing in this post, I encounter a merchant who just happens to be selling potions.

So, I come out of the dungeon with a number of Copper Hearts and a Pyreal Mote, but surprisingly, no hammer. I check the wiki, and figure out that "Revenant" had it after all. I didn't notice because I was looking for a Blue Magical Glow rather than a Purple Electric Glow. Idiot Maneuver #2 there, #1 being not boosting my lockpicking before trying to carve the hearts.

However, I liked the Bellig Tower. It's a unique layout, two vertical dungeons connected by an aboveground path along the mountaintops, and the difficulty level is about right for a 40+ character. With the exception of having to dodge around some higher-level drops on the mountaintops.

Castle of Baron Nuvillus 

This is another one of those aboveground beat 'em up quests. Essentially, a castle full of skeletons and a boss skeleton wearing a crown that I need. At first, it goes swimmingly. I roam the perimeter a bit, testing my strength against the skeletons around the edges. Nothing too special: Mi Krau-Li's Jitte makes swift work of them. So I'm feeling pretty confident, but inside turns out to be a different story:

Yes, those are acid weapons, and they sting like hell. To make matters worse, the enemies also have life magic, and vuln me against acid. After dying to a hoard of Bone Lords, I decide on a different strategy: rush in, ignore the guards, head right for the boss and clobberize him. This gets me killed again, though on the bright side there's this awesome moment where I escape pursuit by jumping to the roof of a barracks house:

I wait there for aggro to drop, but it makes no difference. You can't really do an assassin-style takedown on this boss because he's in a small room with two guards bodyblocking the door, one of them a HARD Fleshless Warrior. I try anyway, and die again. This makes it obvious that the quest is out of my league at this point, so I decide to move on to the Dansha-Ki quest. Unfortunately, I'm immediately stymied in that quest by the need for a Golden Tumerok Insignia, which drops on certain high-level Tumeroks. I check the wiki, which recommends hunting Tumerok Taskmasters, but I have a better idea...

Tumerok Banners Quest

I had planned this to be the capstone of my Facility Hub career, but hey, I need experience and an Insignia, so why not? The quest is a grind-heavy one, so I'll spare you the details. Basically, you beat up Tumeroks in one of six Training Camp dungeons until you've collected the right combination of Banner, Haft, and Crest, put them all together, then trade it in to an NPC at Cragstone for experience and an Assault Weapon. Banners and Hafts are simple enough to find, but the Crests are dropped only by Tumerok Controllers, and the drop rate is sufficiently low that I wind up camping the spawns. This is the kind of old-school MMO design that reminds players why we switched schools, but at least the respawn timer is fast in AC. 

Overall, the quest is simple but boring. The only really interesting thing about the dungeons is that they wait about a minute after you portal in to start spawning. It has a neat effect: you drop in, find the place empty, set out into the depths, and just as you're thinking "Huh, this'll be easy," BAM! enemies all around.

Well, there is one other interesting thing about the Training Camp Dungeons. I go through two of them without finding any insignias at all, but then I hit the Mask Camp:

Shit be abnormal, dude. Someone should take a look at the loot tables there. Or not. I mean, I don't have a problem with an easy place to farm insignias.

In any event, with an Assault Weapon and the needed insignia, I hit the next quest:

Dansha Ki's Rescue (Aboveground Quest)

This quest is a little more complex than most. Long story short: Dansha Ki has been captured by the Tumeroks around Dryreach, and we have to jump through some hoops to rescue her. I tried this quest the last time I was in Dereth, and while I don't remember much about it, I do remember that it was buggy as hell, involving NPCs with randomized locations that often don't spawn. It's been cleaned up a lot since then, and everything is in a static location nowadays. First you need to give Dansha's sister Yu-Vou a Gold Tumerok Insignia to prove your mettle. This flags you to talk to Dansha Ki herself, who you find locked up in a house literally about 10 seconds away. This has the somewhat absurd result that it's quite possible to get the skinny from Yu-Vou, head out looking for an insignia, stumble across Dansha by accident, and then be annoyed when she won't help you help her until you've appeased her sister.

Anyway, when Dansha-Ki finally talks to me, I get told to haul it north and bring back her backpack, which contains spell components which she can use to teleport out. Immediately thereafter, a Tumerok Guard spawns and attacks me. The fight is short, thanks to my spiffy new Assault Staff, and conveniently he has a key on him.

The key opens the door of a tower to the north. Unsurprisingly, Tumeroks guard it, but they're not a big threat either. I would recognize if not for the fact that it was late and I was low on potions and impatient. Regular readers will recall that this usually means disaster. This time I get lucky, though. I run immediately to the tower door, ignoring the guards. I unlock the door and bolt up the stairs, past a Tumerok Priest midway up, to the top of the tower where I find Dansha Ki's pack. It works, unfortunately it goes down so fast I don't have time to grab a screen. I return the pack and Dansha Ki recalls out. Her ring is impressively good:

This is where I lose it all for being a moron: I log for the night and the next day, feeling confident, I head back to Nuvillus' castle... and prove to be overconfident. The first time through, I get up to the Baron, actually kill him, and then get killed myself due to lack of potions before I can loot the Bone Crown from his corpse. Angry and impatient, I head back again several times trying to rush past the guards and retrieve the crown or my corpse before decay gets it. All told, I die three times in the castle and, in a moment of extreme dramatic irony, drop the Assault Staff and Dansha Ki's Ring, thus negating an entire evening's worth of questing. I ragequit for my own good, calm down, and come back a few hours later, patiently going through the quests again to get my gear back.

The idiocy doesn't stop there, though: I gather a bunch of insignias in the Mask Camp again, then accidentally turn them all in to the collector and don't have one to run Dansha Ki again. So I head to the Serpent Camp, deciding I might as well get the other Finesse Assault Weapon, but I put the banner together wrong and get a useless-to-me Cestus. Adding to my ire, not a single Insignia dropped in the Serpent Camp.  Not one. Resigning myself to taking the longass haul to the Mask Clan again, I stop by Holtburg to grab a new set of Lugian Gems. As it turns out, I hit the other Deus Ex Machina I referred to above: I portal in to Holtburg just as someone is dropping useless-to-him Gold Tumerok Insignias by the lifestone. No kidding, look:

Uh, thanks, random GTI Fairy!

I sign off now having recovered everything I lost due to my dumbass maneuvers. I've come out of the ordeal with two valuable lessons:

1) Trying to do something you couldn't do with 0 vitae is just digging yourself deeper.
2) As Frodo Baggins once said, "Shortcuts make long delays."

I'll take another crack at Baron Nuvillus next time, but not before doing something else first; something that'll hopefully improve my chances at least a little more.

My current stats:

Yes, the girl likes big sticks. Preferably one in each hand. ~_^

Incidentally, in all that running around I've found a Covenant Breastplate. I'm not using it just yet, since I don't have a girth to go with it, but it gives me an idea. I haven't been using any magic to this point, and I wonder if I can make it to high levels without it. If so, I can untrain Life (I'll keep Item, if only for the portal spells), and put those points into Cooking/Alchemy or specializing my Defense skills. Thoughts, commentators?

Not so badass anymore...

Before we start today, I just want to ask about one thing. What the hell is up with that torch?

It's sitting there every damn time I walk into the Facility hub. It has no reason at all to be there. At first I thought it was just some newb being a litterbug, but it's there every damn time I come through, which means it must be either static or spawning there. WHY? I mean, this is not a dungeon where it makes sense to have trash spawned all over the place. And even a newb can see clearly that a torch is f'in useless for anything. It's not good for anything, and it's not adding anything to the look or lore of the dungeon either. It's just a tiny piece of junk sitting on the floor, looking like junk. It serves absolutely no purpose except to annoy me. WHY THE HELL IS IT THERE?!?!

...

Anyway:

Mite Maze

I remember exactly two things about mites from my previous visits to Dereth: they make this annoying-as-hell noise, and I can't figure out if they're supposed to be wolfmen or bipedal rats. The irritation factor suggests the latter. I don't remember them being terribly difficult, so I walk into the dungeon expecting a fairly simple hack n'slash affair.

I die in the first room.

It wasn't the mites, though. It was the Gold Pynthos Wasps, who not only have some brutal War Magic, but spam said War Magic. After blinking at my screen in disbelief, I head right back in, this time buffed with Lugian gems. It's a rough fight in the first room, but I kill the Wasps and a few Mites who join the fun, loot all corpses including my own, and head on in having learned not to take this dungeon for granted.

That turns out to be a very valuable lesson. Mites hit harder and faster in melee than any enemies I've met so far. They also seem to be very hard to hit. I stay alive, but this is not the only problem. The dungeon is supremely confusing. I stick to the right-hand wall, but still wind up turned around and lost. Eventually, I run out of potions and have to /lifestone. Annoyed, I get a map at the wiki and marvel at the lengths Turbine went to to make this dungeon a pain in the ass. I figure out a simple route that will get me to the treasures I need. (Two of them, in different rooms.) I then re-supply, go back, and promptly get killed by the wasps in the first room. Again.

Eff this.

The Mountain Sewer

The Warden warns me of Zefirs, and advises that skillful use of the walls will help minimize the damage. I knew this already, but it at least helps me prepare. The Zefirs come in two varieties, green and red, and the warden overrates them. Green is barely worth mentioning. Red keeps me on my toes a bit with War Magic, but is still easily beatable. Neither is the real threat. Delving deeper, I find rats in large groups, which are a toll on my stamina and wear me down with their numbers. But these are merely softening me up for the true masters of the dungeon: The Risen.

The Risen are basically zombies, but instead of War Magic, they have melee brawn. I have the upper hand in a one-on-one fight, but of course that's not what I get. They come at me in large groups, and while I win the battles with little trouble, they're taking a toll on my potion stash. The fights are also time-consuming, which means that I can't loot everything or else the spawn timer will catch me.

Right at the point where the Risen start showing up, the dungeon splits into three branches. Down one, I find a large room filled with Risen and Liches. Down another is something unusual: a human encampment.

A bunch of NPC shopkeepers have a nice little village going here; protected behind a steel gate, they have separate rooms with amenities, and even a lifestone. Bit of a rat problem, but nothing I can't handle. I have to wonder why they're here; did Turbine have some kind of idea for this place and it just didn't pan out? AC was originally built partially on the idea that players would keep secrets from one another and that trust would be an issue. That's why in the early days you had weird features like the spell economy and the lack of secure trade. Maybe they intended this place to be found by some inquisitive PvPer and then used as a secret base of operations for his allegiance? It's a pretty cool idea, when you think of it. A pity it didn't turn out quite like the devs expected.

In any event, third time's the charm and after a few more Risen I find the treasure room. On the floor is an Arbalast (Crossbow) that the Warden wants, but more interesting is a pile of mysterious gems over in the corner:

Now, who do we know that understands Empyrean writing? That's right, our old friend Brentself, who has quite a lot to say about my little find.

Essentially, these gems belong to Asheron himself, and are the result of failed experiments. The gems are dangerous, but apparently Asheron can't destroy them or keep them nearby, so instead he dumps them in the sewer like toxic waste. Between this and the weird plate in the Folthid Celler, it seems like Asheron is planning something big. What, I wonder? Well, no, I don't wonder, since I've read the writeup on the wiki, but I won't ruin the surprise.

All in all, this is a good dungeon. It's tough, but fair. I had to recall and resupply a few times, but careful play ensured that I never died. Unlike the Mite Maze, which struck me as being in the wrong room of the facility.

Speaking of which...

Mite Maze, take 2

Having obtained a good chunk of experience at the Mountain Sewer, I amp up my magic defense by 40 points before returning to the Mite Maze. This is enough that I'm able to resist 95% of the Wasps lightning spam. The Mites, however, are still a problem, and I'm chugging potions all the way to the final room. Above, you see the boss: the Mite Warrior Queen. To make a very long story short, I eventually get out with both the treasures I was sent for, but not before dying twice more. There was also a somewhat comical scene involving me being chased all over the maze like a Benny Hill sketch because I ran out of potions. By the time I'm done, I am frustrated, annoyed, and satisfied that I have absolutely no reason to return here, like, ever.

Adding insult to injury, Turbine has rather arbitrarily decided that I'm the asshole in this situation.

Screw you too, lore-writer.

Although, on the subject, I find a somewhat interesting piece of Lore in the Queen's chamber. It's a letter from Queen Elysa to Altar Locke. It doesn't say anything of use, but it's an interesting window into the personality our Queen. (While I'm too lazy to look it up, it's possible that this is also the first in-game mention of Borelean Strathelar.)

But yeah, Mite Maze is total B.S., and I'm glad to be out of there.

Mnemosyne Collection Site

I list this "dungeon" mainly for completeness' sake, as it's really more of an obnoxiously off-the-beaten-path home for three collectors. Over the course of a few undead dungeons, I've wound up with a number of Mnemosynes, and I took a quick break to redeem them. This involves first grinding Wood Golems around the Folthid Cellar for awhile, then using my mad lockpick skills to fashion the Wood Hearts into key, which unlock the Mnemosynes. Then I take them here, where the collector gives me decent amounts of experience. Fun.

Quarterstaff of Fire, Skeleton Fort, Suntik (Aboveground quests)

I put these three together because they're all pretty much the same thing: there's a bunch of mobs on some spot in the overworld, holding a weapon of import. Portal in, kill ppl, portal out. Pretty basic. I try Suntik first, but after holding my own against both Wasps and Monougas, I get clobbered by an Unruly who hits HARD. As in, like, double digits. I die, say "Eff that", and move on to the Quarterstaff of Fire, held by a group of Banderlings at a random spot out in the wilderness.The staff is literally on the first enemy I strike down, and it's crappy. At least the experience is good.

The Skeleton Fort is the most substantial of them. The portal drops me off at an arena-like fort which is overrun with Skeleton Lords. The boss is pictured above. Note the axe in his head. Some adventurer out of Arwic was trying to take this fort, and did a pretty good job until his axe got stuck in the Skeleton's head. My job is to get it back. The Skeleton Lords are pretty simple, but near the far end of the fort I encounter more challenging Wraiths. I get a little clever and take cover behind the stairs leading up to the ramparts, which blocks their War Magic. Then I get a little more clever and take cover in one of the towers, which does the same thing but makes their inevitable charge easier to handle.

Returning the axe to Jacob in Arwic gets me a special helm that is actually quite nice. It has two useful enchantments and a 295 AL. However, since I've already got those enchantments at higher levels on my existing gear, I stick with the Superior Helm. Besides, this one looks dumb as hell:

Even with helms set to invisible, I wouldn't get caught with that on.

After that it's back to Suntik to try for the Acid Axe again. After getting clobbered last time, I decide on a new strategy: Avoid the Unruly Monouga, use the environment to separate the others. I should probably mention that Suntik is an abandoned mountaintop town:

This is good for me, since it means lots of doors and walls to use against the Monougas. I beat down the guards hanging around outside, pull a few groups away from the center of town, then, feeling that's as good as it's gonna get, I dash for one of the houses. I make it inside ahead of the Unruly, who bangs his head against the wall for a while until he gives up. Meanwhile inside, I deal with his underlings with little trouble. I scan for the Acid Axe and find it in a weapon shop literally right across the street from where I've hunkered down.  I dash across the street, shut the door, deal with the Monouga inside, and viola, the Axe is mine!

And that was the week. While I had fun, multiple deaths at both Suntik and the Mite Maze are a signal that the game won't be easy anymore. I'll have to give serious thought to where I put my experience from here on out.

Also, while the new format is working, the new schedule isn't. By the time the week's over, I've forgotten about what I did at the beginning. So now I'm thinking two posts a week, maybe.

My current stats:

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.

Settling down

Okay, it's time to try something new here. The play-by-play style I've been using for posts thus far is not working: It's boring to write and, in most cases, boring to read. So instead I'm going to cut out the filler and do a condensed version of my recent adventures, stopping along the way to elaborate if necessary. I'm also going to post less often because, honestly, time spent on this blog is time not spent in AC. So, I'll be posting less often from here on out -- say, once a week or so -- but hopefully the posts will make better reading.

(I'm also going to put more effort into responding to comments than I have. Apologies, friends, but I have been reading and taking in your advice. I'll do better from here on out.)

So, here's what I did this week:

Green Mire Grave

I've gone through this dungeon on each of my previous stints in AC, and remember it being one of my favorites. After having gone through it this time, however, I'm not so enamored. The dungeon is overcomplicated: four paths branch off in cardinal directions from the starting room, each leaving to a different "wing" of the dungeon. Two of these paths are short and lead to keys that unlock doors later on. The other two are longer and lead the the main treasures, the Green Mire Yari (Spear) and Green Mire Yoroi (Curiass). There are also keys along each of these paths that you have to fetch, sometimes in chests or behind doors that also require keys. In all, there are five keys you need to open various doors or chests, plus a sixth red herring key that only opens a loot chest. The optimal route takes you into each wing only once, but if you don't know that route it can boil down to a lot of backtracking. (Alternatively, you can just say "screw that" and pick the locks like I did.) Rather frustrating design.

As far as the enemies go: lots of Mosswarts and the occasional Drudge group. The Yari and Yoroi rooms (Yes, they're kept in two separate rooms, which makes little sense to me except to pad out the dungeon) also have Wisps standing guard. My new flaming club does yeoman work, but the challenge level is pretty low. Turbine tries to juice the dungeon up with some cryptic notes scattered around, but none of them say anything interesting. The quest is worth it anyway, though, because both the Yari and Yoroi prove to be exceptionally good gear for this level. 

Hollow Lair

A few posts back, I related my failed attempts to get a housing writ by gathering Minor Atlan Stones. A commentator suggested that this quest would be an easy way to get one. He didn't actually use the word "easy", mind you, which is good for him because if he had I would be calling him out for being full of it. The dungeon is full of monsters way more powerful than anything I've encountered to this point. The Tuskers (one pictured above) are not too much of a problem, since they don't have any magic. The Drudge Lurkers do, however, and I get beaten back twice. The first time I die. The second time I almost die, but am saved at the last minute when I level up and get my Health and Stamina restored, allowing me to run away. Total Deus Ex Machina there.

Getting the message, I go back to town and stock up big time: 30 tinctures each health and stamina, plus  Lugian gems. I also look up the map on the wiki, and realize that the dungeon is actually very short. I've just been taking every path except the right one. On the third try, I'm able to reach the final room. After a tense battle with the boss's guards, I face the boss himself:

Hollow Minions are tricky foes, because their attacks are hollow. That means that they ignore any protective magics in place on you or your armor. I'm not sure if they also ignore magics on your weapons, but it sure felt like it with this guy. He dodged me constantly. Fortunately, he's not immune to damage over time from Bleeding Assault (midsection Dirty Fighting effect). With a stockpile of potions on my side, I'm able to wear him down until he keels over dead. I grab a Barely Legible Note from the ground, evidence of my victory, and then head back to the dungeon start, where the questgiver is hanging out. The note is babbling to some "master" about breaking the humans, etc.. Typical madman ramblings. He mentions that they have destroyed "six of the nine", presumably meaning the old starter town outposts, so I guess he was working for Martine. 

But blah, blah, blah, all of this is old lore anyway. I exchange the note for Nuhmudira's Token, exchange the token for a Writ of Refuge, and use that plus an MMD to buy myself a nice little cottage. An additional MMD plus a visit to a carpenter in Cragstone gets me some furnishings:

Nice, yes?

Hunter's Leap

The facility warden tells me to talk with a retired adventurer named Eldrista before running the dungeon. Eldrista is a bit talkative: the quest has been changed several times over the years, and she's apparently felt every upheaval. Meanwhile, Mara al-Luq is still receiving congrats for something that happened way back before release.

Anyway, Hunter's Leap is an annoying Super Mario dungeon where you have to use AC's incredibly imprecise jump controls to navigate a series of causeways. Miss a jump, and you get to curse at your monitor before taking a ground route back to an earlier point. Attempts at the dungeon on previous ventures have involved a lot of this, but today I'm lucky and only miss once. 

Hunter's Leap is also one of the few places on mainland Dereth where you fight human enemies, and the encounter reminds me why we're number one -- the bandits and cutthroats here hit pretty hard in melee, plus they seem to have their choice of elements. This is the point in the game where I learn how to really exploit Dirty Fighting, using the debuffs and damage over time to my advantage. Our target is a bow crafted by the legendary hunter Lilitha, whose tragic fate we may get to someday. Once found by me and repaired by Eldrista, it's a very good bow, pity that missile weapons are no use to me. I show it to the Warden, then sell it. Overall, this dungeon is an interesting change of pace, but could be very irritating depending on how good you are at jumping.

A Ruin

Trothyr's Rest is next up, but along the way I stumble across this unnamed dungeon and decide to check it out. It's a small one, populated by weak enemies. Probably intended as a grinding location for lowbies back in the early days, or maybe some level designer's first effort. Enemies and loot are both laughably pathetic by today's standards, and no interesting lore or quest items are to be found, either. The dungeon does still serve a minor purpose, though. The Facility Hub portal for Trothyr's Rest drops you off on a road roughly northwest of the dungeon. The entrance to this ruin is visible from the road, and Trothyr's Rest lies almost directly south, so it's a good landmark. Why such a long walk, you ask? Well...

Trothyr's Rest

You need a key (or Lockpicking) to access all of this dungeon. The portal conveniently drops you off by an NPC who will sell it to you, along with some lore indicating who exactly Trothyr is. The dungeon itself has interesting architecture -- it's essentially a series of underground towers -- but seems at first to be a breather level, with only pitifully weak Azure Gromnies around. That changes when you get down to the lower levels and the Liches come out. This guy is apparently the boss:

He's not overly hard if you can separate him from the other Liches and fight him alone. However, it was late and I was inattentive, so I die and rage quit. I have better luck the next day, and somewhat surprisingly my corpse is still there, though all it has on it is a nearly-worthless drop item. This isn't the end of the dungeon, though. I go further in, fighting more Liches, and eventually find the shield and hammer in a room that requires more jumping around. Neither item is really worth mentioning. Their base stats are good, but with no enchants they would have been worthless even in the old days. The real treasure here is the Altar of Asheron, which... is also fairly useless these days:

In an attempt to keep the dungeon relevant, the devs have put something else down here: an Enchanted Mnemosyne which is part of a high-level quest. Useless to me, though I make note of it for future reference.

And that's what I did this week. Finally, at a commentator's request: here's what my character sheet looks like right now: