The Crucible

Quest Giver: Jorgundal ar'Grund in Gianthold
Level: 14 Party
Patron: Agents of Argonnessen (8/16/24)
Length: very long (1.5hrs to 3hrs depending on if you know the puzzles well)
Entry Point: northern gianhold ruins
Prereqs: none
Recommended Party: Atleast 1 instant kill from a distance caster (PK, Finger, Destruction), Atleast 1 evasion type, Someone who can cast Freedom of Movement, Haste, Jump. Atleast 4 people in party to simplify doing the maze. Diplomacy, bluff and intimidate for optionals.
Base Experience: 14,452
Quest Info:
--Creatures: hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, mephits
--Traps: blades, spikes, falling floors, fire and ice

Walkthrough:



First off, there is a room at the beginning with the giant and the champions. There are optionals that you can perform by talking to the champions if you have a person with a high diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate. First, speak to Daggertooth using diplo(24+). He will give you a map. Next, talk to Vrall the Fearless, also diplo. You will convince him to kill off his partner, the healer Harza Ghost-Waker. This makes the last fight much easier. Now speak to Gorn Gut-Chewer with Intimidate (24+), delivering the map from Daggertooth does not require a skill check. It will make it so the floors in a hall ahead have already fallen out, it will also eliminate a few of the orcs from that fight.

The intimidate check will get him to give you a hint about a hidden treasure, and a good way to deal with the trap, just set your hated enemies into it before you. On that note, go back and chat with Daggertooth. Bluff him into searching out the treasure first, and you wont need to get poisoned to find the key.

Now that the optionals are taken care of, buff up and head in to the first challenge.

Navigating the Maze.



A note about the crests in the maze: the crests are always in the same three places, but which type of crest is there will change. The sockets always remain the same. The levers swing the doors all open that are marked with that rune near them on the floor. For example: the K switch moves three doors that have the K rune. The objective is to open and close the doors in such a sequence that you can obtain all the crests and put them into the sockets in the center so that you can obtain the horn.

In the middle of the maze is a horn. Picking up the horn will cause several traps to go off and the floor to fall out. A rogue can disarm the traps, but the floor will always fall out. Be careful of the spikes, they do a lot of damage.

Once you have the "maze" horn, exit the maze, place the horn in the dragon head in order to open the doors. There is a strong current you have to swim against to get up to the next hallway. If you send one person underwater down the current, there is an alcove to the right that contains a valve that will turn off the current.

Getting the next horn...


At the next hallway, work your way up to the shrine/trap room. Only the rogue should enter this room using the entrance that doesn't have the shrine. His objective is to make his way around that room, over the blade trap bridge and into a trap area before the door closes and then retrieve the horn. On elite, I hope you have good evasion...lol.

When the rogue is through the traps and has the horn, he can open the doors to the shrine for everyone. In the main hallway, there is a kobold at the of the end. Have your diplo person speak with the kobold to get him to steal Daggertooth's armor before the end fight.

Obtaining the horn from the trap of instincts.



Head further up to the test of instinct. Send only one person forward. If more people are near the book it seems to mess this up. Have your highest or lowest wisdom person walk up to the book and inspect it, taking time to notice the roman numerals on the floor at each door. The book will give you a hint. (See link for help) Very quickly have the evasion person move in and others move out. Open the door the hint implies. If you chose right, the horn will be inside. IF WRONG, there is a spring-load of damage that goes off. A common tactic here is to ignore the book, have your evasion person pick a door and open it repeatedly until the horn is inside. Just be sure to have everyone stand back, heals to the ready.

Next you will have to work your way across the top of the maze. This is where you will want jump, freedom of movement and featherfall. The gnolls cast sleetstorm. Also, resist acid, lightning and cold are good. If your casters have them, use instant kill spells on the gnolls. They have low fort saves and will heal themselves, makin it tough to kill them with damage. Work your way across the maze. Put a person in each corner at a puzzle wheel. When ready, pull the lever by the gate to get the puzzle code. From left to right are the puzzle symbols representing the amounts of turn a wheel will need, from 0-5. So when you pull the lever, if blue is in the 3rd position, red is in 5th and green 6th, you would have blue turn twice, red four times and green 5. Or just describe the symbols.

Now up to the super swim. This is the heavy current underwater river you swam in before, just further up stream. Send in your evasion people and wait. Or, send one person back to the first place you entered the river, remember the valve that controls the current? Have them man that valve and keep the current off, while everyone else navigates through the river avoiding the spikes. Through the current and spike filled river are two passages, one, the first, is opened by a valve. It is a wall that is behind a fan, which will drop when the nearby valve is turned. Inside is a locked chest that cannot be picked. You do not have the key for this yet, so pass it up.

The second is also through a fan, at the top of it is a group of 6-8 gnolls, the horn and a glittering pile of treasure. (if you spoke to daggertooth a second time, there will be one dead gnoll and a gold key on the ground.) Grab the horn and the key. If you don't have a key on the floor, you will have to search the trasure pile to get it. The treasure is coated in a cursed poison, much like a poison version of mummy rot. Now you can swim all the way around and go through for that first passage and the locked chest.

Back up over the maze and down to the river, this time into the side passage with the horn-locked door. Move through, fight your way down the hall and clear it. You must clear it to advance. Then shrine up and head into the last fight. If you still have Harza in there, surround him and take him out first, or he will heal the others. Defeat them and go announce your uberness to Jorgundal.

End Reward: standard loot choice

Incoming Guide Links FLAGGING REG QUESTS

Easy Link BBCode Link: [guide=crucible]The Crucible[/guide] URL: http://aga.dkpsystem.com/guide/crucible

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