Well, knock me down with falling masonry and call me Lara Croft! After an undeniably enjoyable, but somewhat slower pace than the Tuesday N00b Club are used to, averaging at one mission a week in Guild Wars: Factions so far, last night saw three in a row! It's not like we're working to any kind of schedule or anything, and the pace is usually dictated by a kind of easy-going and relaxed attitude to the whole thing. It's nice to have at least one mission to ramble about here each week, but in general, we'll get there when we do, and it'll take as long as it takes.
Some combination of factors saw us make a lot more progress last night though. Firstly, my relenting on the use of Heroes, not originally a part of Factions and only introduced and available for Nightfall (and probably GW:EN) players. I guess its not really cheating, and the average Hero, set up with some decent runes, weapons and skills tends to perform much better than the more regular Henchmen standing about in each outpost. Then there was a much more streamlined Main Quest line, which mostly saw us going back to places we'd already found nearby outposts for. This allows more Map Travel and Missions, and less of the wandering, exploring and having to fight your way through to each place. On top of all that, I can't tell if the missions themselves were easier, or if we're just getting much better at them!
Anyway, in order to have a crack at the Evil Undead Spirit Assassin Envoy chap, Shiro, we'd been told that we would need some serious hardware, and to get it, it was off to visit the two factions of Cantha, the Kurziks and the Luxons. Luckily, our two native guides, Brother Mhenlo and Master Togo know everybody, and with our band of ragtag reprobates in tow, managed to sort out the diplomatic stuff needed to get hold of The Urn of Saint Viktor.
One one small snag though; the Urn is in the Cathedral zu Heltzer, a holy place in Arborstone, the grim, dark and twisted forest of the Kurziks. We were welcome to go get it, if we could just, you know, clear out the rampaging insane and out of control Cathedral Guardians a bit on our way in.
Typical really, but not unexpected, so in we went, to #6 - Arborstone. The opening part of the mission went swimmingly, and involved escorting Danika zu Heltzer to the cathedral through a forest of very angry plant creatures. Then once she'd opened the door for us, a fairly standard house-clearance, allowing us to pick up the Urn itself.
And that's where the fun began.
With a crushing sort of inevitability, picking up the thing set off all manner of fun and games; stone pillars coming to life, statues getting all possessive and such like. The worst bit, for me anyway, was the constant earthquakes that pilfering the urn also set off. From that point on, throughout our escape from the tumbling wreckage, large blocks of crumbling stonework would regularly fall on our heads! The stuff didn't do too much damage, but plays hell with long-casting spell work, as being dinged around the head by a big block of granite tends to interrupt one's concentration quite nicely, as you'd expect, and a number of times during the rampage to get out, I'd fail to get one or the other of my artillery spirits raised, making life awkward for all of us.
As the Ritualist, I was on 'Lug the carryable object about' duty, which I don't mind. Many of my abilities and spells positively encourage it, and the other two need their hands free for meleework. Lugging the Urn about while the place fell apart around (and on) us, I quickly noticed that it was actually a pretty powerful tool in it's own right. As you carry it, and take damage, it charges up in 'level' from one to five. Then, when dropped, out comes Saint Viktor, who then projects a large blue dome around the area, applying a partywide damage absorption shield for a varying amount of HP, based on the item's current level. Once I'd realised what was going on - not easy in the constant pandemonium of falling rubble, I ended up charging about to where the melee was going on, and dumping the urn, picking it up, dumping it again, applying an 80hp absorb over and over. I like to think it helped!
The mission wasn't particularly technical or difficult, but the constant screen shaking and falling rubble hits do mess with the concentration a bit, which I'm sure is the point. We did well though, and managed to escape fast enough to get a Masters out of it all.
Surprised but pleased, we headed on to pick up the other of our necessary tools, The Spear of Archemorus, currently held by the other lot, the Luxons. We arrived in their village on the shores of an ocean on frozen jade, just in time to get drafted into their annual Clan Smackdown and Kraken Hunt event. And guess what the first place prize is? That's the trouble with being a Pawn of Destiny, I find; you get to go to all the best parties, but also have to be resigned to having Fate play silly buggers with you at every turn.
The ensuing mission, #7 - Boreas Seabed, had two distinct parts. First we had to win the spear in an arena based team PvE style, with each of the other clans also contending, taking it in turns to rush us as we stood on the sands in the middle. The spirit fort helped a lot here, as it usually does when we find ourselves in defensive situations. The first two clans weren't too bad, one based mostly on pets and Rangers, the other heavy on spirits of their own. Both went down without two much fuss, but we had some troubles with the third team, who seemed mostly elementalists, the bane of my GW life. A great deal of burnination ensued, which saw yours truly out cold quite early in their rush, but our Assassin and Ranger were on the case and the cutscene immediately after raised me from the dead, which is always nice!
Spear in hand, we now had to go off and deal with this quasi-mystical Kraken beast, Zhu Hanuku, some distance away from the festivities. Apparently, he comes back every year, so perhaps the Spear of Archemorus isn't quite the right tool for the job, as the Luxons continue to think. Don't ask me though, I'm just a tourist, and the Spear is pretty neat regardless. Working a lot like the Urn, it too has levels and an effect when dropped. This one charges up when monster dies near it, and unleashes a pretty devastating attack when dropped. Muggins here got to lug it about again, and again, in addition to the spirit work, I was trying to hover near the melee fighting, to get the spear charged up.
Out on the frozen green waves, we found the big squid, after decimating enough of his young to make him rather cross, and charged in as usual. Dropping the fully charged spear right next to him helped, stripping almost half it's HP in one go, and quickly picking up and dropping it again helped the others deal with the other half. One squid down, in a fast enough time to bag a Masters, and we were victorious, and got to keep the spear. I guess it'd be a year until the Luxxons need it again, afterall.
Rural sidetrips out of the way, it was back to the city and after some minor street skirmishes, a push on the tunnels where Shiro was holed up, in the midst of some complicated ritual involving big glowing bubbles and streamers of blue light. Clearly Evil Machinations In Progress, and it was up to us to stop it, whatever the hell it was. Bit of an unexpected turn here - I suspect the two Masters in a row and general success of the evening so far, had taken the edge of my usual suspicion of Strangers, and we ended up agreeing to one of the usual forlornly optimistic random stranger join requests that are a fact of life in every mission lobby. The new person was a Ranger/Ritualist, who seemed mostly to be specialised around the bow attacks, and joined us as we descended to smite evil once more. We already have a Ranger, but ours persists in thinking they're a Warrior of some sort, so it was nice to see a bow in use for a change!
The mission, #8 - Sunjiang District, saw us start with both the Urn and the Spear, with the same powers as before. I grabbed the urn and our new Ranger friend took the spear. The task basically involves popping each of Shiro's four side bubbles, allowing us to finally have a crack at him ourselves. Not that easy though, as the place is crawling with the Afflicted mutant things, all of which have a nasty habit of exploding when killed, and causing all sort of unpleasant diseases, in addition to their class-specific party tricks. As well as that, the place is full of booby traps, unhealthy water, and generally awkward to get about in.
The teamwork came together though, with both myself and the new Ranger using the Urn and Spear to good effect throughout, and our Assassin and Axe Ranger doing sterling stuff up front. By pure luck, I managed to pick the right route through the place to get the job done with the minimum of fuss, and before long, all the side bubbles were gone, and Shiro deigned to confront us himself.
Well, sort of. What he actually did was make up four suits of animated armour and possess them, to rush us. It didn't help though, and a bit of rough and tumble later, we'd won, again, quick enough for a Masters. Celebrations would be somewhat premature however, as the other Envoy-things showed up and omniously informed us that Shiro wasn't dead, just...er...gone for a bit, and now we have to somehow unite the Kurziks and Luxons, and convince them to both come and help for when Shiro returns...again...
(We also managed to get the Urn and Spear destroyed, which is going to make next year's Luxon Kraken Hunt interesting...Oops!)
No real Skill of the Night this time. I was trying out a lot of different Channeling and Communing Ritualist skills, and while many were quite situationally useful, nothing really leapt out at me as a 'Keeper'. I need more Elites, I think.
And so we come to a Choice. Brother Mhenlo is off to see to the Kurziks, and Master Togo is heading up the Luxon diplomatic effort, and we have to choose which to go with. Time to come off the fence!
We consulted and debated a bit, including our new Ranger friend, (who was, contrary to my expectations, polite and competent throughout) and a great many weighty matters came into the deliberation; who has the coolest looking armour sets? I abstained from that one - I've spent a fortune on materials for the set I'm already in, and will be damned if I'm not now going to wear it right to the end! Who has the coolest looking areas? The Kurziks came out badly on that one. They live in a very gloomy foresty type of place, all black briars and shadows, and have a very gothey emo thing going on with the clothes and lifestyle. The Luxons seem more based on Native American style, all bright body paint and tattoos, and are more nomadic types, living in houses on the backs of giant turtles and hermit crabs, which was neat. I think it was the Jade Sea that swung it for me though. Much of Luxon-land is in, on and around a literally fantastic landscape of frozen jade swells and wavecrests, something I'd not quite seen in any game or film before. Treehouse-towns, gloomy or otherwise, are ten-a-penny, but the Jade Sea is something else again.
That pretty much carried it for all of us really, and now we're off to be Luxons. Further progress in the plot now requires us to prove ourselves to our new patrons, and this means a 'rep grind' of 10,000 Luxon points. Fortunately, this looks like its merely a matter of ticking off a smallish list of sidequests, so shouldn't slow us down too much.
More next week!