Scenario V Spoilers

Patch File Spoiler
(this link reveals the entire plot)

Week 4

The Witch Quest

In this quest, you visit an old witch whose apprentice has gone missing.  She lives in the ruins located South from the road between Skara Brae and Yew, near the Orc Fort, North of the bandit camp.  She requires you to find him and bring him back, with the only clues that he should be somewhere in or around the Yew Cemetary and that an evil imp named Zeefzorpul could have brought about his demise.  Surely enough, you will eventually find the charred remains of the apprentice on the road heading towards the cemetary. The corpse will spawn when you pass the area. You cannot use someone else's apprentice. You will have to run until one spawns for you.  Once you deliver the news to the witch, she will ask you to go back and discover Zeefzorpul's hideout and recover the list of ingredients she had given her apprentice.  To find out, you will need to slay a certain number of imps. The Hedgemaze in Skara is a good place to go.  One of them will eventually give you a map to his location and a magic flute to entice him out.  Once arrived at your destination, use the flute to call Zeef.  If you are at the right location, the flute will sparkle.  Otherwise, nothing will happen.  He will drop the parchment list at your feet and snatch the flute out of your hands (hehe, good way to force us to kill more imps to get another flute should we wish to entice Zeef again).

Go back to the Witch. Since she lost her apprentice, you will fill the job.  You now have to find all the items on her list. The list includes:  sheep liver, rabbit's foot, mongbat wing, chicken gizzard, rat tail, frog's leg, deer heart, lizard tongue, slime ooze, spirit essence, Swamp Water, Freshly Cut Red Mushrooms, Bones Buried In Hallowed Ground, Star Chart, and Captain Blackheart's Whiskey. All pets part will automatically be removed when you kill the approriate animal. For the others: use a container on a swamp; use a knife on a red mushroom; go to a cemetary and use a shovel on the graves to turn up bones matching the ones in the list; use a spyglass to make the star chart. On a side note, great harts and hinds both work for deers, ice cave and the swamps are ideal for slimes.

Captain Blackheart

He will refuse to give you some of his whiskey as long as you don't prove to him you are worthy of being a pirate: ie, that you look the part and can hold your liquor too.  So dress up as a pirate (wear a tricorne hat) and start drinking, then he'll hand you a jug of his own.

With all these, the witch will make her potion and give you your reward, including the Moonfire Brew. The reward for completing the quest is: a Cauldron, 2045 Gold, a Magic Wand, a Magic Dagger or Kryss, a Bottle of Magical Moonfire Brew, a random level Treasure Map, 30 of each regs, Grizelda's Hangover Remedy, as well as some Sacrifice points.

Rewards

Elwood's Quest

You will have to perform a quest for Elwood.  He can be found in Haven's tavern, by the docks.  After you speak to him, he will ask you to bring him some rainbow perls. Get a fishing pole and start fishing. You can do it straight in front of the tavern, on the docks. No fishing skills are required. You will get some shellfish in Lake Haven.  Inside the shellfish, you will find pearls.  Gather enough pearls and bring them to Elwood.  After delivering the pearls, you will have to go see Alberta the artist in Vesper, who will make a portrait of you. You will have to remain seated for about 30 seconds without moving or Alberta will have to start the portrait over.  Once completed, she will send you back to Elwood to tell him the portrait is done, but drying.

Next, you will have to find the minstrel Gabriel Piete at the Conservatory of Music in Britain and get his autograph for Elwood.  Gabriel will only sign sheet music of his own songs.  So visit one of the theatres of Britannia: in Nujelm, Britain or Jhelom.  Talk to the impressario and he will sell you some sheet music for 10 gp.  Return to Gabriel who will sign it then give the autographed sheet to Elwood.  Your last task will be to provide Elwood will 4 toys monster statues.

Now, go to Trinsic's tinker (behind the East Trinsic Bank) to find Tomas O'Neerlan, the toymaker.  He will give you enchanted paints to capture the image of the monsters you want him to sculpt for you. You will need to use the paints and target the monster among a series of potential creatures. Your best bet for most creatures will be Ilshenar. Look up monster locations on Stratics and use UOAM to locate the closest shrine.

With those pictures, Tomas will make the figurines.  Once you give them to Elwood, he will give you a small bag containing a piece of an obsidian statue. You will need to do this 10 times (ie gather 10 pieces of obsydian) to complete a statuette. Once you have all 10 pieces, double click one piece to get a target cursor, then target each of the other pieces until you get the completed statuette. It will basically look like a black bust. The name on the statuette will vary. Note that the pictures will remain in your backpack even after you have completed the quest. You cannot reuse the same pictures for another quest though. You can still see the pictures by double clicking those tiny books.

Back to the main scenario

Where now able to solve the Solen Matriarch's water issues. Back in the hive, there is a contraption that will require three key ingredients to be able to purify the water: a plague beast core (woot! PBL puzzles are back!!), some moonfire brew (from the witch), and a fragment of obsidian (from Elwood).

Plague Beast Lord Core

You can find plague beast lords (PBL) in swamp areas. You will be performing surgery on these guys.  As you all know, surgeons do not work alone *hint hint*.  For those of you who need things spelled out, you try to do this alone, you'll have a bunch of dead PBLs on your hands and nothing to show up for your efforts.  The operation demands quick reactions (namely to stop the hemorrhage).  So you cannot do both at the same time.  Note that NO healing NOR anatomy is required to effectively apply the bandages on the wounds. So whether you're a mage, tamer, mule, goat herder, you name it, you can do the job.

• To access the gump, you must NOT kill the Lord.  Paralize him and use a sharp blade (dagger, knife, sword, kryss...) to cut it open.  You will then see various organs.

• Use scisors on the ones that look like dark blue iron maidens. Some of them will have brains, others won't. The empty ones will bleed.

• If any bleeding occurs, immediately target the blood with bandages.  If you don't, the PBL will bleed to death in seconds.   You could access the rocky looking organs by cutting the veins connected to them, but if you cut the wrong one, you may cause the PBL to die.

• Once you've opened them all, move the brains to the dish of matching color in the middle of the gump. You will hear a faint sound when it fits. For every brain you remove, you need to use a bandaid to stop the bleeding.

• Once done with the iron maidens, move on to the rocky looking organs. They too could have brains. Follow the same procedure.
  
• Each PBL will have a varying number of "brains".  You need 4.  If you have 3 of them, remove the diseased glands and replace them with the healthy ones (you can get those off normal plague beasts).
  
• Once you got all 4 brains in place the middle section will open and the mutant core will appear - use scissors to cut it out.

Week 3

The Matriarch Quest

Four new holes are now available, but are located within the existing ones. In each of the four segments of the hives, there was a large piles of rocks. Each pile now has a hole in the middle giving you access to the center of the cave, where the solen matriarch resides. There are also two vats of water there that you will have to fill as part of your quest. The cool thing about the matriarch holes is the fact that they link all other holes together. So there will be a lot less running around involved.

Give a seed to the matriarch. The patchfile spoilers said you had to feed her the special rare seeds from the Naturalist's Quest (see below) but rumor has it you can feed her any plain old seed, even one just picked off a bogling. She will thank you for the delicious treat, and offer you a chance to join her colony. The quest is in two parts. If you accept, you will first have to hunt down and kill 7 infiltrator's.

These are new solen ants are called red/black solen infiltrator. They have quite a bit of HP and hit quite hard. But they can be provoked. These infiltrators now spawn on the right facet, ie, the same one as the Matriarch that gave you the quest. So if you accepted a Red Matriarch's Quest, you will find black infiltrators in Tram. Killing Red infiltrators will do nothing towards the completion of your quest. If you accepted the Quest in Felucca, you will kill infiltrators in Felucca. The solen infiltrators appeared in the Trinsic Swamps for Trammel. On Felucca, go North East of Vesper and in the Passages leading to Wind. If you choose Wind, I suggest you avoid going alone, unless you're good at PvP. Since it is next to Chaos Shrine, many reds live and/or hang around there. Again, the fact that you see a red doesn't mean you have to hunt them, they do live there. But be ready to defend yourself if attacked.

Once you have killed all 7, return to the matriarch and she will thank you for your excellent work, and offer you the second half of the quest. The solen's water supplies are running thin, and they need some help with water. She wants you to bring 8 gallons (pitchers) of water, and pour them into the vats. To spare yourself the extra travelling, as soon as you have killed the 7 infiltrators, stop by a tavern or inn and buy 8 pitchers of water before you return to the Matriarch. This way, you can immediately complete the second part of the Quest without having to recall out and walk your way back in the Matriarch's lair.

Once that 2nd quest completed, she will reward you with some gold (about 2k) and make you a friend of her colony: ie. her warriors/workers/and queens will no longer attack you. She will also offer to transform 200 Zoogi Fungus into 100 Translocation Powder. You don't have to transform 200 zoogi at once. She will transform up to 200 for you without you having to do the quest again. But if you give her less than 200 zoogi (say 50) tough luck on the 150 others she could have done for you. You only get 1 chance at this.

Week 2

The Naturalist's Quest

For those of you who read the major spoiler I posted 3 weeks ago, you remember that there was a reference to the Naturalist's Quest. Well, he sneaked his way in the game without most people even noticing it. Currently, 2 of them have been spotted: one at the small library near the docks, East from West Britain Bank; the second one was seen walking around outside Jhelom Pit.

Just like for the Ambitious Queen Quest, just walk up to him, and talk to him using the context menu. He will ask you to go study 4 Solen Nests. That means, you will have to head to Ant Hive and examine 4 nests (each of them for 30 seconds). You can only return to him once you have done that. You can study them while being hidden. That is highly recommended as if you get attacked while studying them, your concentration will be disturbed and you will have to start all over again (for that nest). When you return to him, he should give you a rare seed

The fire seed: To get a fire seed, study the first 4 nests, then head to the compassion desert... plant a green thorn there and a new hole opens to the 5th nest. Study it and then visit the naturalist, he'll give a fire seed everytime you study 5 nests.

The Ant Hive

Like was hinted in the story, the entrances are actually holes in the ground. There is no static entrance. They move around so once you find an entrance, mark a rune. You cannot mark inside the dungeon. However, be aware that this rune will be useless in a few hours as the opening will be closed at some point. You should find holes in the same areas where you were previously hunting the workers and warriors during the first week. : The holes are generally located Southeast of the Daemon Temple on Fire Island; East of Cove and South of the Cove Graveyard; Southeast of Yew; and West of the Trinsic Gate in the woods.

Once inside the cave, to go from 1 level to the other, you will have to double-click the inside a black hole surrounded by rocks. It can get a little tricky. You will get countless "you cannot reach this" messages. Just keep at it, eventually, it will work. Note that some of those holes are actually the exit. If you use the exit holes, they will teleport you miles from your entry point. You can recall out of the ant cave, but you cannot gate in/out nor recall in.

You cannot explore the entire dungeon from a single entry point. Each entrances will give you access to only certain areas of the dungeon.

Hive Map

The Beetles

The blue giant beetle is the new mount introduced in this scenario. The requirements to tame it is only 65. Taming them is tricky though. First off, you will need to "subdue" the creature before you can even begin to tame it. That means, fight it to considerably lower it's HP. Second, and maybe I should have mentioned this first, you cannot tame the beetles inside the hive. They have to be outside, on the overland. Whenever you find a new hole leading to an ant hive, there should be 2-3 beetles coming out of it when first clicked. Many ownerless tamed beetles have been found wandering around the holes. If you're not keeping them nor transferring them to friends, please be courteous and release them so others may have a chance at them.

On top of awesome combat skills (10-25 HP per hit), the beetle has a backpack so it can carry stuff for you. I can think of a few champ hunters that are going to love this, not to mention tamers. You can only access the backpack with the drop down menu. So click once on your beetle and you will see the option to OPEN BACKPACK. Double clicking on beetle will just make you mount as usual. Because of this feature, the beetles uses 3 control slots since is avoid you having to drag a packhorse along. It is also a way to prevent extensive gold farming by tamers (even though a tamer riding a beetle and followed by a mare will still be making quite a bit of dough).

The Ant Lions

These guys are relatively strong. They give low fame/karma and can be provoked, just like the beetles. The loot consists of 10 ore, about 100 gp, various gems and bones. They have a special attack where they burry themselves underground and attack you by surprise, doing significant damage.

Some of them will have special loot. It is a bone container with a special name: among those found where the "bones of a rogue", "bones of tamer" and "bones of a bard". Those bone containers will contain additional loot. The rogue's remains had a level 3 t-map, a magic leather tunic, normal leather gloves, normal leather sleeves, 2 lockpicks, a shovel, a torch and a dagger. The Bard remains had a double, a kilt, a jester's hat, a bottle of ale and a drum.

The Queens

These ladies are very strong, comparable to Ophidian Avengers. They give high fame and karma and can be provoked. They do not dispell so you can easily blade them. Their loot consists of about 500 gp, 5-25 zoogi, random gems. They have a 2 special attacks. The first one is similar to the warriors, ie throwing acid at you. The second one is more lethal. She will lay eggs that will hatch into workers and warriors. You better kill the eggs before they hatch (simply use a bladed instrument on them) or you will be surrounded in no time. In Fel, you will barely have time to say ouch before you're boxed in.

As a special loot, you will find some crystal of summoning. When linked to a pet, it allows you to summon it. It does not work in restricted areas (Fel Dungeons & LLs) nor in Ilshenar. They are fairly rare, about as common as glacial staff. Killing the queens before you have spoken to the Ambitious Queen will not count towards you achieving the quest. The counter will be turned on only once you have spoken to her and accepted her quest.

The Ambitious Queen

Once you find her, all you have to do is click on her and use the talk option in the context menu. She will then give you a quest. Just be careful not to get whacked while talking to her.

Once you have killed the required number of ennemies, you will receive, 2 rewards. The powder of translaction will allow you to charge your bracelets of binding. The bag of sending will allow you to send 1 item per charge directly into your bankbox. This works even in Ilshenar. You can ask for another quest as soon as you have completed the first one.

Week 1

First off, where can we find them?

They are scattered throughout the land, so just scout around. They have been seen near Yew forest with hanging with the liches. Some have been spotted on the road from Skara to Britain, near the mountain starts. In the Vesper, close to the Buc's teleporter and near Cove. The Hedgemaze also counts a number of them. None have been found thus far in T2A.

Red ants can only be found in Trammel, while black ants can only be found in Felucca.

The Creatures:

Black/Red Solen Workers

Those guys do not hit hard and are fairly easy to defeat, just like fighting orcs. For Mages an Explosion/E-Bolt combo will do it. For warriors, you can melee them np. Tamers, do not fear for your pets, they will chew up the ants with their eyes closed. Bards also will have a blast.

The loot mainly consists of 100 gold, 1-6 Zoogi - Mushrooms/Fungi and random gems. The fungus will be required to complete the Solen Queen and Matriarch's quests.

Black/Red Solen Warriors

These guys are much tougher and could be compared to high level elementals or daemons. They have one nasty special attack. They throw a ball of acid at you, and if you stay in the area, you will sustain heavy, increasing damage. So keep your distance, and don't stand still too long. Melee can be fatal since, upon death, they will occasionaly explode in a pool of acid. Wait for the acid to recede before approaching, or the acid could finish you off. Bards will have np provoking them.

The loot mainly consists of 100-300 gp, 3-13 zoogi, random gems and some of them will occasionally carry a picnic basket and/or a bracelet of binding!!

Picnic Basket

The inscription option of the bracelet is in fact to allow you to name it, the same way you name a rune. This way, you can know who this bracelet will bind you to, if you have more than one.

The hives have not been found yet. I'm not sure the new dungeons or caves will open up this week. We will see what happens in the upcoming days. For now, I suggest you stock up on zoogi and mushrooms so you may complete the quests once you meet the Queens.