Icefire Jump and Tonk Woes

Ridge Dillo's

I happened across a change of pace. Ridge Dillo Hunting. Lizzy, a Tonk Healer, knew of a place where you could build tactician walls against a cliff and lure in dillo after dillo. I joined in her fellowship and had about four deaths, but all in all, it was some of the best xp hunting I have done in quite some time. I'm going to have to remember that spot and hopefully the same people. Some old AC1 friends joined the Guild my defender is in and are under my tree, of all places. My vassal found me a better BP and another guild member found me a very nice flail. I have found a couple of irritating aspects of the game, minor and liveable but irritating. Being a melee and fighting something like a ridge dillo, I can regularly get hit for 300+ damage. I can take about two shots, then the next hit I'm likely dead. If I can get off a healing spell in there I have enough room to escape, or do I? Last night, I would hit the backup key to move through the wall to relative safety so I could heal up. The irritating thing is my character will run back through the wall to attack again. It seems hitting the ~ (tilde) to stop the attack waits until the next swing occurs. After the deaths last night, I have to come up with a better method for break offs and commit it to synapses.

My vassal Tex, rather one of my vassals, has advanced from being a shreth slaughtering machine to a moarsman slayer. I keep finding items that I think he can use, only to find he has better stuff already. I found it impressive that at level 25 he can solo Putrid Moarsmen.

Tonking along

As with all things, the Ridge Dillo fellow had to go its separate ways. I had to go offline for a bit and when I got back I opted to run my Tonk, whom I logged out in the Isle of Tears dungeon. I ran across an archer and a melee, and we started working our way through the Drudges on the upper level, but had a devil of a time. We could take them one at a time, but the occasional two was too much for us. Finally some more adventurers showed up. Now we had three archers a melee and myself to work our way down. It took a little bit of time, but then we were working very well as a team. It's a hallmark of AC2 that fellowship synergy is so potent. We made it down to the Drudge camp at the bottom before we were overwhelmed. Disheartened, but still willing to do the run, the intrepid band was figuring out their options. I, myself, had a small matter of 5 hours till work. My Tonk healer was in a safe locale at the bottom, so I offered to log in my defender and get the rest of the group their prize. That way I haven't let the group down and I can get some badly needed sleep. They agreed and I trekked across two islands and swam to the Isle of Tears. A level 33 Defender doesn't have much trouble soloing this dungeon at all. My comrades jumped in and sped up the kills admirably. After the mystics were defeated, they all graciously offered thanks and LS recalled out. I was left with some pangs of guilt; did I steal the experience of overcoming the odds? Or did I keep them from being frustrated to the point of ending the relationship with the game? I hope the latter.

The next log-in I had my Defender and my Tonk healer in the same location. I logged in the defender and made short work of the mobs. Just as I started to switch characters, a mage ran up looking for the quest advancing critters. I explained the mystics would spawn soon and he prepared. I stuck around to offer healing. Some other Drudges re-spawned and together they fell quickly. I explained my plan and he offered to stick around to make sure things went okay. My Tonk was able to solo the mystic and advance the quest. A swim back to the Warder finished that and got a new quest to see the Warder Scout.

The Warder Scout lost his notes among some drudges and needed me to retrieve them. After saving his notes and his job, no doubt, he sent me off to the Warder Captain. This dungeon is in the Drudge Citadel area and fairly nasty to get to. Inside it gets worse. Lashers of various size and strength bar the way. With my less-than-powerful offensive magic, I was able to bring them down by getting them one on one. Two strangers who were passing through the dungeon aided me. I was able to follow in their wake and toss an occasional healing spell their way. Not that they needed it. I'm starting to get dis-enchanted with the healer template. Not having anyone to hunt with on a regular basis might have something to do with this. The Warder Captain, who is hiding out in a cave, sends me out on a mission to another drudge camp to take one of their potions. It's a simple matter to run there, however, I found my Tonk wasn't up to the battle with the Drudges guarding the keys for the chest. In order to continue this quest, I will either have to find an escort or stumble across a group. At level 17, my Defender would be able to solo this quest, as would an archer, berserker and a feral. As I logged out at my lifestone and 80% vitae penalty, I'm thinking of trying a different route.

Defender time and a crafting disaster

I feel I have put off leveling a bit too long. Some of my vassals are catching up and I feel this sense of being left behind. I find that on Linvak I still need a fellowship, while on Omnishan I can solo quite well. I have been hunting around the choker at the Slaughterfields. There are some Nefane, Boglurk Dillo's and Burun. I found the Boglurk's drop some fairly nice gear for a level 33. I found a very nice shield, only to discover my pack is full. I quickly transmuted a couple of lower value items and made room for it. One of my secondary goals is to get my trade skills up to snuff. I have a mind crystal with a value of 1 that is quite inexpensive to purify. When I'm waiting for a group or just tired of hack and slash, I'll purify it another 10 times. The gold cost is low and my skill advances. Thanks to my vassal Tex for this lemonade from a lemon mining operation. I go through my items and start getting my weapon and armor skills up some. I have some success and soon my pack is down to the gear I want to keep. I go to equip my nifty new shield and sword only to find out that I have used it on items! Gah!!! Here I am about to fight and I don't have squat to fight with! I'm about to make a very embarrassing @a to get a shield and weapon when I note my old axe is still tucked away behind the various tools I have crafted. Okay, at least that's something. I pull the axe and target a Boglurk. He hits me more then usual and drops nothing that I need. About the fourth critter I kill drops some items that allow me to craft a shield. Its about 20 AL points behind the nifty new shield I had transmuted, but it will suffice for the short term.

Icefire

My guild announced the forming of a group to do the Icefire quest. I hadn't heard of this quest and surely one of my guild mates would have a better shield than my crafted beauty. Sure enough, I get a decent wall shield that gets my armor back to 120. Next we take a few portal hops and run someplace in the icebound region of Linvak till we are next to a portal.

This is all a tad confusing to me. I'm not familiar with the quest and no one seems to be explaining what we need to do. As a rule, I don't read the quest spoilers unless I'm very stuck or just to the point where you go to initiate a quest. The current patch quest aside, there isn't much of a communication system in game to locate quest-starting points. I think this is an excellent niche for fan websites (like AC2HQ) to cover. Those of us from AC1 know quite well that Maggie the Jackcat's site is a must reading for someone planning on leading a quest.

Out of curiosity, I followed the quest leaders to a flat near a ridge where some higher level tacticians were arguing. One of the tact's were brought into our fellowship, then suddenly a Behemoth Gigurath appeared at the top of the hill. The turrets made short work of him and suddenly I got the quest advance disembodied voice. Next, one of our leaders left our fellow along with the tact and they fellowed and killed the next Gigurath. The group leader then came back into our fellowship and we ran back to the portal that we entered. I was beginning to buff up when I was told it's a safe dungeon, no creatures. Inside was a font that we stood around while our leader did something. Then poof! Quest complete. I saw the shimmer of leveling and figured I got a bit over the 300k left to level to 34. I was wrong... I was suddenly level 36 with 500k to go to 37. This couldn't be right. I checked again and checked my skill points and everything showed that I had indeed jumped two levels. This was just plain scary

I checked out the quest guide and found that this hands out 10 million xp for completing and only the group leader needs to be level 41+. I guess this is a loophole that needs to be closed. Back to the planning board

Suddenly my goals have to be reworked. One of the reasons I was hunting the choker was to find a Farali vault glyph dropped by the Browerk Burun. After assigning my xp, Paragon 14, Defender 35 and picking up a new skill, scourge and bash, I ran back to the slaughter fields to get my elusive glyph. Many Browerks fell that day. I was very pleased at how my increase in skill allowed me to stand and fight more burun's. At one point, I had a Browerk and two Broodu on me. The Defender skills let you tank very well. After 30 Browerks had passed away under my tender mercies, I was getting disheartened. When are these things going to drop a glyph? I inquired of my guild if Browerks indeed dropped glyphs, and I was told the Reeshan also dropped them. With my slaughter of Browerks there seemed to be a rise in the Reeshan population so this was good news. Three Reeshan, later I had a glyph and was running off to the vault.

The Farali vault

Outside the vault, two warriors stood in rapt conversation. I offered to join them and found that they had just exited. A call to my guild yielded no response. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to try to solo it. Inside I found Reeshan, no problem. It took me a bit of time to find my way around. I gave an @tell to one of the warriors who just exited, asking if I needed a key. He pasted back a long description of what needed to be done. I found a hole in the floor and got the key. Portaled back to the top and started working my way back down. I finally made it to the vestibule portal and was figuring out which potions to down and buffs to use to survive. Over the allegiance channel, I see a couple of my guildmates are coming into the vault. A short conversation later and I'm waiting for them at the bottom. Between the three of us we kill the boss, but Pengu falls. He mentions that he can just run past the boss now that he has been flagged with the kill. I hope that's true.

Drudge Citadel

Lop and Maleficent are two of my vassals. They're a real life couple that are great fun to adventure with. As they had reached level 21, it was time for them to hit the Drudge Citadel. I had explored the place and know that you can skirt the outsides of the final castle and avoid a good 30 drudges inside. It's hard to explain how this works but easy enough to show. We met up and joined another who was reroute. (note to self; start writing down names). We ran most of the way till the bridge before the final stronghold. I buffed and cautioned everyone about the mobs up here. We did fairly well, but Mal's computer was giving her massive lag and when she died, she declined to come back. It seems some days her system works much better than other days. I showed the back route to Lop and the archer who was still with us. Once inside, Lop opted to wait for Mal before finishing the vault, gentleman that he is. Later they completed the quest together.

Veseyan Vault

I have had this glyph burning a hole in my pack for a while now. I took the portals and ran to the vault only to find a group had just exited. I learn that the boss at the end is one tough mo' fo'. I decide to wait a bit for others to gather; while I'm waiting I purify my crystal 20 times. Suddenly my vassal xp comes through and boosts me to level 37! Woot! I take interpose. I'm starting to think that maybe I'll have to try to solo this one when my guild comes through again! We gather one more person and the three of us plunge inside. Serene Moarsmen, no problem; I have been soloing them since I was level 29. We find the key, find the gate, then jump down and enter the vestibule.

I am curious on how we are going to attack it. We have a Sage, a Feral and myself. The suggestion is someone who can tank like hell should go in first. That would be me. I run forward and it starts smacking me hard. I heal in return and keep ahead of it. Meantime, the Lugian and Tumerok are pounding on it as well. At about half health, it turned on the Feral and I was free to attack. I used every special attack I could, and in short order we were entering the star gate to get the movie.

I guess when you finish one island's vaults, it plays all the films for you. Not having broadband or enough RAM, I find that every other film is missing the voiceover. Seeing as how you can look at the movies whenever you want, it seems a real waste of time to re-show them all to you like this. When I left the vault I was a bit confused about which one was the last film. No problem. I opened the right section of my quest screen and pressed the button "The Great Ones awake" It showed Asheron, A Virindi and BZ all powering up. No voiceover. Okay, I guess the next sections on Linvak tell more about what's going on.

Vault impressions

So far we have learned that the Drudges rose up and conqured humans, the Burun despoiled the Tumerok lands, and the Gurog got some power and took down the Lugians. Geraine is an ancient undead who rose up an army ages ago and was smacked down by the Yalani; he is still lurking around with Rythearn and Arafelle. There is an introduction to the kingdoms and brief glimpses at the leaders of the factions. So what point in time is the Veseyan vault? I figure it's the battle that tears Dereth apart and causes such tumult that it's now three islands.

I do have a lot more questions than answers; where are the mosswarts, gromnies, tuskers, Olthoi and mites. Where did the crones, reapers, eli, burun and gurogs come from? Not to mention the tyrants. How does the undead fit into this? What happened to Asheron?