"I understand, Professor," I said. I knew he was going to help us in Dragonspyre but he said I was to learn a new spell today.
"Today's lesson is about Orthrus, a two-headed dog that is the brother of Cerberus, the..."
"I know about Cerberus," I said. "He is the three-headed dog in Tartarus who was tamed by Hades. I saw a banner about it in Mt. Olympus."
"Well, it seems you're paying attention," said Cyrus somberly. "Your next spell will allow you use that mighty beast in battle. But it will not be easy, you will have to do several labors like Hawkules before you can use that spell. Research is your ally. Go to the library and speak with Harold Argleston about a book on Orthrus, and then write a report in the classroom - I want to make sure you aren't slacking off like my other students."
The librarian was very helpful as always. The bad news was that the book was part of a program that rotated books and I had to visit Krokotopia and Marleybone. (Thanks to me and Grace helping the post office, the books got back to Wizard City quickly.) I doubted that Mooshu had a library, but I decided not to test my luck and got the book from Harold.
I went back to the classroom and started writing a report on parchment. It was tedious and trying but I wrote with a diligence that would make the Immortals proud of me. My mother had always tutored me in the importance of being succinct and writing things down when you need to remember them. I hoped my parents were hearing of my exploits. Soon I had it finished, long enough to impress Cy.
"Don't give me that," I grumbled. "I did make a few bloopers but I did my best."
"Fine," muttered Cyrus, putting the report on his desk. "Now that you have completed the report it is time for the real work to begin. You know doubt know what the next obstacle will be."
"I know," I said. "I need to get some collars for the creature. Ha, thought I was going to ditz out on you and not know, huh? I proof-read my report!"
"Then you must know where such collars of that size would be, right?" Cyrus sighed as I tried to say something but failed. "No? Figures. The last such collars were lost in Dragonspyre. You must venture into Dragonspyre and locate them."
"Fine, we were heading there anyways," I said. "I'll meet you there, Professor." I left the classroom.
Later...
"Welcome to Dragonspyre, ruined world," said Christina, bowing on her mine cart as me and Grace looked over the terrifyingly evil-looking world. The giant dragon on top scared me.
"That is the same power I felt from my new spell," Grace whispered. "That must be the dreaded Dragon Titan! Good thing it is asleep, no?"
I nodded slowly.
"I brought them, Cyrus," said Christina, winking as he rode into a portal nearby.
"Good," said my professor. "You two have arrived on time. We have a difficult task ahead of us. When you two opened the Spiral Door to Dragonspyre, I went ahead of you and took the opportunity to scry ahead. This is as close as I can come for the time being. Malistaire will most certainly sense my presence should I enter Dragonspyre, endangering all we hope to accomplish."
Grace leaned into me. "I feel Rra Drake is being serious this time. He dearly wants to stop his brother before his brother's plan succeeds."
I nodded but said nothing.
"This place is controlled by magical gates and portals," Cyrus continued. "Most of them are locked or otherwise impassible. However, I have managed to jury ring the portal to the Outer Ring. From there, you must find a way to open the gate to the next ring and so on until you reach the place my brother is doing his ritual."
We nodded. "We will work together to stop him. Count on us."
"A library is on the other side of this portal," said Cyrus, pointing to a portal showing a ruined street. "Go there and find out what answers you can. I am counting on you two and Christina to find Malistaire quickly." He glared at me. "And remember, Sierra, you have to find some..."
"Don't remind me, giant dog collars," I grumbled, flying off before he got antsy.
I took a wrong turn and found myself facing Prospector Zeke, who asked me to find some stone roses. Man, he never lets up! I had found one behind the spiral door but the others were tough. (You can find health wisps in this area. This is the best place to refill your health and mana. If you only have free to play, buy this area ASAP to save money on potions!)
We entered the portal and I felt myself choking and sweating - a river of magma was flowing under us! "Keep close," I said. "I don't want us to fry."
We ran into a ghost who I discovered was Balthazar Dragonthorn, the crafter who Toshio spoke of after giving me my adept crafting badge. He nodded when I mentioned Toshio. "I respect his skill, I will train you in my art," he said. "But I will need to see your work. Make for me two Rings of the Apotheosis, I will teach you the recipe."
I checked it and sighed. I could get the Ghost Fire and had all of the Black Lotuses I need, but I had only a few diamonds. I did find some ore which could extract diamonds but Grace was impatient and I knew we had more important things to worry about right now. (Yep, time to make Sierra a Master Crafter! She needs to be one to craft the Watchtower Hall and Celestial Observatory to come. She has almost all of the ingredients for the Hall - Amber needs five more mounds and Sierra will craft the fountains. These quests are brutal - the first requires 30 diamonds, which you will probably transmute from 450 ore. OUCH! Thank goodness transmutes don't have a cool-down time!)
We eventually found the library and a ghostly figure who introduced himself as Milos Bookworm. I inquired about two-headed dog collars.
"You won't find anything like those in the Atheneum," said Milos. "But you are lucky, or somewhat close to lucky. Ranulf Moonclaw used to house a collection of rare and exotic beasts. It is said he met his end in his tower, which is in the Labyrinth."
"The Labyrinth?" I asked. "Where is that?"
"In the Necropolis, but you can't get there now," said Milos. "The way to that place is locked."
"Great," I muttered.
"Don't worry, Wizard," said Milos. "I can help you find a way into there. In Dragonspyre, we have a saying - Look to the Knowledge Crystal. There is a crystal there. Go check it out."
Grace touched the floating crystal and a voice spoke from it.
"The Portal Gates of Dragonspyre. Aurek Blazeburner created the Portal Gates to defend Dragonspyre from outside enemies. Only a Portal Stone can open a gate. Only students and faculty of Dragonspyre Academy can own a Portal Stone, which is issued by the Stone Keeper."
"So, it seems that Dragonspyre had a magical academy like ours," said Grace, rubbing her chin.
"Then we should, like, look for the stones!" said my pet, brandishing her blades. "Maybe one can get you into, you know, the Necropolis."
My pet had a point. I turned to Milos. "Do you know where the Stone Keeper is?"
"I am not sure, I will look for you," said Milos. "But you might want to check the Tower Archives out the east door. My old friend Holger had stored lots of Portal Stones in his tower."
I was about to leave when Chloe shouted something. "Look there!"
There I saw her. She was a glowing woman with strange half-machine body parts including a laser eye. I shuddered as she turned to us. "I am the Loremaster," she said, smirking. "I have learned exotic spells from all over the Spiral. Wizard, I sense you can cast one of these, Ninja Pigs."
I gasped, then I explained how I got it. She nodded.
"I might be able to teach you more lore spells. You seem to be a wizard of Myth, I have another Myth Lore spell, Keeper of the Flames. Battle me and I can show you the range of Lore Spells. If you are lucky, you might learn Keeper of the Flame." She smirked.
"Don't do it, Mma," said Penny, shaking her head violently. "We have little time for games!"
But curiousity got the better of me. "Okay, you're on."
A group of wizards offered to join me in battle but Grace shook her head and waited outside of her chamber as we entered.
Needless to say, it was a difficult fight. Only she attacked by summoning many spells I had never seen before, but her little glowing orbs allied with her used spells to weaken us, strengthen her, and heal her wounds. We eventually won.
"Well done, wizard," said the Loremaster, bowing. "Come by any time to fight me and I can show my spells again." I shrugged and left after getting a Rebirth treasure card and a hat. I had no time for this.
(Yep, meet the infamous Loremaster, who was added to Dragonspyre long ago by KI to give wizards a better chance at getting rare spells like Deer Knight. There is a 0.01% chance you may learn one of the many Lore Spells - Ninja Pigs is one - that she casts on you. Also, there is a 0.0001% chance you'll get HER as a Lore spell, which is a Balance attack that does 450 damage and hits the enemies with Weakness and Black Mantle. OUCH! It's a broken spell that's abused in PvP. You might get her as a Treasure Card, and you need her Treasure Card in masse to craft the new Shadow-Forged Weapons which Sierra will never see until Khyrsalis. Be warned - the fight is tough - the Font of Weakness will debuff you, the Font of Strength will proc the Loremaster placing a 50% Balanceblade on her, and the Font of Life will keep using healing spells and Spirit Armor to make your life suck. Luckily only the Loremaster attacks and she only uses Lore spells.)
(I will NOT be farming her as you might get useless spells - my other Myth Wizard got elemental spells she can't use - Winter Moon and Brimstone Revenant, and Sierra already has her best Myht lore spell; she can craft Keeper later once she starts working on her third craftable house.)
I didn't see Grace for a long time so I decided to work on my first house. When I was ready, Grace returned. "I am sorry for being late, Mma, but Rra Balestrom summoned me again." (Yep, Grace hit Level 48 after I had her do her mandatory Loremaster battle, so she got her final first arc spell quest... yeah, they are clearly getting closer in level together.)
"What did he have you chase after THIS time?" I giggled.
"First I had to get some gears from Gearheads in Chelsea Court," said Grace. "He said that was the EASY part. Luckily, there were nice people who aided me since they resisted my attacks."(Thanks to Amber Rainbow, my Death Wizard, for helping out, though you can Tempest these guys easily now that you have the power to since you are now 20 levels higher. ^_^)
"Oh my, what was the HARD part?" I gasped, not wanting to know.
"Finding a former worker in Wizard City called Pitter Daybreeze to locate a Pattern to assemble the components," said Penny, answering my question for Grace. "But he spent some time in Krokotopia and then came here to Dragonspyre."
"Say," I said to Milos. "You know this guy?"
"Pitter Daybreeze..." said Milos. "That is a name I have not heard in a long time. He came here a long time ago and asked where he could set up a workshop. I directed him to the Labyrinth..."
I looked at my friend. "Looks like we both need to get to the Necropolis," I said. "Let's go." (Yep, the Myth and Storm Level 48 spells require you to do the Labyrinth - not like it wasn't mandatory anyways. I could have spam-ported it, but I decided not to; they need lots of experience before they dare face the challenges ahead. I know because my other Myth Wizard nearly died when she tried to go through the challenge in the Labyrinth for the dog collars at Level 48. With some Grandmaster Gear and Sun enchants, these challenges won't be too difficult, especially for Grace who needs all the help she can get!)
The Tower Archives were a dreary place filled with golems and undead. We met a scary creature called Zarathrax, who tried to say he was helping us, but I knew better. He knew how to open the tower where Holger was living - we had to unlock four towers with keys and activate the crystals at the top of them. The first was held by ghouls that were skulking about. We worked together to kill the undead until we found the key. I went up and activated the first crystal after dodging the patrols.
The next key was held by a ghost called Lidia Brightmoon who asked us to defeat several ghostly soldiers of the Dragon Titan's army - even in death these spirits fought for the glory of that evil dragon looming above us. She then confessed to lying about where the key was. Again I dodged guards and activated the second crystal.
(Along the way we helped rescue the Knowledge Keeper, who was being held hostage by a magma colossus called Blackblade. We vaporized him and his cronies.)
The third key was held by one of the Dragon Titan's minions, a vicious guy called Petrov Gloomstrider. He was brutal and tough to beat but we did it. (Despite needing more healing than I did, Grace's Triton was much stronger than my pigs. But I didn't mind. ^_^) Again I did the honors of activating the crystal on the third tower.
Finally, the fourth key was easily found in the skeletal claw of a dead dragon buried in the street. I had seen it before and had marked it just in case, I was lucky I had! We warped there, grabbed the key and I snuck up to the final crystal, opening the main tower.
We entered the main tower... and found Zarathax sitting there, smug. I laughed.
"You're delusional." Chloe said as she paralyzed the two goons and we finished him off with the pigs and sirens. Soon he was just a dead corpse.
A ghost appeared who introduced himself as Aurek, the creator of the gates. "Can you supply us a portal stone to the Necropolis?" I asked.
"I'm sorry, you will have to ask someone else, maybe the Stone Keeper," said Aurek. "I do not know where you can find a portal stone."
I sighed and turned in my two Rings to Balthazar, who scrutinized them. I owed Amber and Chris so much to give up their ore to make diamonds for me - those gems were hard to find! He nodded. "I can't judge on one sample," he said. "Make me two Bright Surcoats of the Paragon. You can find the recipe with Shan Yao, who plies his wares in the Village of Sorrow."
I remembered the ninja pig who was selling recipes for myth armor. I bought two recipes(he tricked me into buying the list for the Bright Footgear of the Paragon, sneaky!)(I accidentally clicked the first item and didn't check to see what it was, oops, so now I have two recipes for Myth Gear which is obsolete) and checked the recipe for the Surcoat...
OH MY. :(
[To be continued...]
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