In the far north of the canyon lands of Vabbi, the great river leaves the mountains and springs of remote and unknown uplands and pours down various cataracts, continuing, as it ever has, to carve it's relentless way through the ravines of Vabbi, before widening and slowing, and delivering it's stolen fertility to the lowlands and flood plains of distant Kourna to the south, and the seas around the isles of Istan.
But here, at the Holdings of Chokhin, the river is mighty, powerful, driven by rains, made vigorous by the tight and steep channels it has carved for itself over thousands of years. The engineers of Vabbi have often tamed this beast, diverted it and harnessed it's power, for industry and for pleasure, and here stands one such example of the river being used for architectural splendor in this wealthiest of Elonian nations, the Halls of Chokhin.
The Halls of Chokhin are Vabbi's premier center of learning, knowledge and research, and it's fabulous collections of manuscripts, scrolls, tomes and the magical scrolling tapestries attract scholars from far and wide, all keen to consult the great works on this matter or that. In these times of Nightfall, where the ground spouts tendrils of darkness, and fallen angels walk the earth clothed in rage and secrets, it also attracts visitors of a different sort...
Yes, Nightfall might be 'finished', but we're still playing, and still interested in Guild Wars in general, and the whole Tuesday thing is a bit of a habit now. Last night saw us mostly meandering about the place, filling in gaps, poking about in corners and picking through the Quest Journal. There aren't really a vast number of side-quests in Prophecies, (as opposed to the Missions, which make up the main story in each), but Nightfall is stuffed full of them, so we've still a lot to keep us amused there, and the most hectic and memorable of the night turned out to be a trip to the Library.
Protect the Learned is one of these side-quests, and a 'Master' quest as well, indicating increased difficulty, and they weren't wrong! This mini, and entirely optional episode turned out to be one of our more hectic and involved experiences in Guild Wars to date, Missions included.
We'd been through the library a fair bit before, during the actual storyline, and I'd always been a little confused about it's layout. Its a huge area, occupying about a quarter of it's 'zone'. Its an Explorable Area, rather than a town, although is bigger than most outposts, and is entirely occupied by friendly NPCs - green triangles on the mini-map. Curious. I mostly just passed it off as a bit of an awkward run, to reach the occasional plot-point NPC, although it is pretty to look at, and includes those excellent 'magic carpet' bridges!
The place always struck me as suspiciously 'fortress-like' for a library, and now we found out why. All is peaceful until you get to the far back of the place, and talk to the head librarian chap. It then turns out that an army of Margonites is shortly expected to attack the place, but lucky, we're card-carrying Heroes, and just happen to be on hand.
Its a very elaborate quest as they go, and very easy to get disastrously wrong. First, you need to round up eight scholars, all dotted around the library and take them back to the first librarian. When the last reaches the designated fire assembly point, all hell breaks loose, and as many as 48 Margonites, of the Level 24 variety, spill out of a big swirley portal thing out by the entrance to the Halls, and pile on in a most Starship Troopers like manner.
I think we may have even killed one or two before we all got trampled into the exquisitely mosaiced floor of the library. It seemed a little harsh, and perhaps even technically impossible to beat - that much hurt in one go is always a recipe for wipeout in Guild Wars, and even in Lowbie Country - Istan, Ascalon, etc, aggroing too many groups of mobs at once is very difficult to survive, let alone beat, and is where most of our wipes end up happening - a wandering clump we didn't spot, or a badly steered path drifts a little too close to monsters we're not ready for, and we generally die far more often to just a little bit more attention than we were expecting by 'normal' monsters than in any of the more challenging Boss Fights.
But 48 x L24s? At once? Clearly, we were doing something badly wrong here, and once we resigned back to Mihanu Towship, the nearest jumping off point, we had a big long technical discussion, aided, I'm ashamed to say, by the tips and notes on the wiki. It is cheating of a sort, but the occasional spoiler now and then can make a world of difference between a night of fun and a night of teeth-gnashing frustration. And anyway, in Guild Wars, merely knowing how to do something is still a long way from being able to put that into practice.
The next half hour or so was a painstakingly tactical exercise, with me gingerly pushing forward steps at a time, as described in the wiki notes, trying to trigger only small groups of the onrushing army at a time, while the rest of the party and Heroes waited at strategically chosen pinchpoints. The 48 Margonites are divided into 12 groups of four each, as listed in the quest stages in the journal, and the optimum plan, is to only trigger one group at a time. With our long experience, and variety of specialised Lightbringer perks, 4x L24 Margonites are easily manageable. The difficulty came in finding the hidden trigger points throughout the Halls, which sets each group off. The Halls are a sort of symmetrical design too, which caused lots of anxiety. We'd push gently along one of the two approaches, constantly worrying if Margonites were even now charging up the other undefended approach, out of mini-map range. Half the Margonites are directed along each path, so a great deal of back and forth was involved too.
My own efforts in the invisible minefield met with varying success, and I'd either trigger one group, or three at a time. The threes proved quite a challenge, and the first time I did that, we ended up wiping out; 12 of the buggers, including the particularly nasty 'Reaper' Dervish variants, which can really chew up a party if not stopped quickly, and the 'Sorcerer' Elementalist ones. Elementalist mobs are always a JOY to fight, regardless of species...all that AoE hilarity...
Luckily for us, its a quest, not a mission, so wiping out just takes you all to the nearest Resurrection Shrine to bounce up, with a -15% hit on all the stats, for another go...and another, rather than missions proper, which tend to end with the first wipe. Keep this sort of failure up for too many revisits though, and you'll eventually cap out at -60% DP, which effectively brings your HP total down to 'one-hit' proportions and makes continuing almost impossible, or at least an exercise in extreme patience and determination. At that point, returning to the nearest outpost, resetting the zone and starting again from scratch is often easier. But we raced back to the scene of our deaths, intercepted the remainder of the triple group and were back on track.
The quest journal was keeping track of our progress, and eventually we'd broken the back of it, and with only three groups left, we took the offensive, pushing the last groups out of the place, with not a scratch on any of the eight Scholars hiding at the back. Victory, but at some cost, and I was running with -30% Death Penalty at the end of it. Still, that's the last time those Margonites will talk loudly and eat sweets in the reference section!
Skill of the night for me, was 'Cry of Pain', the Mesmer Sunspear Title Skill. We'd complete missed out on these during our campaign, not realising that we were owed them from fairly early on in the story. A shame, because there's one for each profession (primary and secondary, meaning two can be taken - more if you switch secondaries a lot), and they're all pretty powerful - so powerful in fact that Heroes aren't allowed to use them, and they get locked out while on the PvP Islands. Mine is both an interrupt (always handy), and also a very powerful AoE blast too, if you do it right.
Notably, these skills do not use the normal Attributes (Domination, Illusion, etc), but power up from your Sunspear Rank, which for us, is a constant 8 now (Castellan), regardless of how we've currently got our actual attribute points spent. Means they can work effectively in any build, and my Cry of Pain was hitting harder, and wider, than my usual Elite choice, Energy Surge, for the same energy cost: doing 88pts per blast, vs ES's 80pts, and over a noticeably wider area. Combined with three ranks of Lightbringer (+15% damage and -3 damage reduction, vs Margonites and assorted other demonkind), it made a huge difference, particularly vs the triple-groups I accidentally set off!
If you're attempting Nightfall any time soon, do read up on these, as they're a massive boost in potency, for almost no extra effort, but are not that clearly signposted, and easily missed out on altogether. See the nearest Sunspear [Hero Skills] Trainer for more details.
We were rewarded generously, including a much sought after 'Trade Contract'. These can be swapped for rare gemstones, in the Kodash Bazaar, and the gems can either be used as parts for the fabulously expensive Vabbian Elite prestige armour, or just sold on at the Rare Materials Trader. I had enough contracts for a Ruby, and since I'm determinedly saving toward the Primeval, 'I completed it!' Armour instead, sold the thing for 5,000 gold. I need 75,000 in total for my full set, and it is statistically identical to the stuff I bought for 5,000 waaaaay back at the Consulate Docks in Istan. Purely for showing off really, but its the principle of the thing for me now. I won, damnit! I'm NOT missing out on my 'I won!' Armour!
With that in mind, and to celebrate our success, we casually offed Abaddon again, and went and bought a few of the pieces at the Throne of Secrets. Its shocking how complacent one gets about killing gods really. Only 2/5 pieces bought for now, but the rest is just a matter of grinding some cash, and finally, and perhaps for the first time in any MMO ever, I'm the one wearing the fancy endgame armour!
(Please don't start on me in the comments about WoW Raiding and your Tier 15 Purple Set Items...I know this isn't the same, but just let me have my moment here!)