Fire and Spiders (Dragonspyre Academy & Crystal Grove)

(I haven't played Wizard101 today because I was trying to update all of these parts. I had them as drafts for so long that I needed to do this ASAP, so getting to the end will take longer than I want, especially since I have to go to a workshop class every morning for two weeks. *sigh* Oh well...)

What to do when stuck? Go to Cy.

"By now, you should realize what my brother's plan is," he said. He turned to me and stared at my face and I hung my head.

Christina had taken me aside just before we left the Labyrinth and told me what she had learned.

"He intends to awaken the Dragon Titan," I whispered.

Cyrus nodded. "Yes, Malistaire is going to use the Krokonomicon's power over Life to wake the Dragon Titan and its Death power to try to force it to serve him and revive his wife, Sylvia." He looked around. "From the looks of this place, it's obvious nobody can force a Titan to do anything."

Grace gasped. "No! That will destroy the Spiral!"

I nodded. I recalled one guy we helped in the Plaza of Conquests talking about it. He said that if the Titan were to awaken it would be the utter destruction of EVERYTHING, so he had hoped that General Greystone the Cyclops had been lying about the Dragon Titan reawakening to spur his troops into fighting harder for the Draconians. Now I knew it was no rumor. We had to stop him.

"First you must apply for a school of magic," said Cyrus. "While most of the Schools were destroyed by the Titan, the Fire school seems untouched - I guess the Dragon Titan was fond of his school."

I gaped. "Of course! The Dragon Titan was the forefather of Fire Magic, Pyromancy!"

"There is an old pyromancer's tomb in the Necropolis," said Cyrus. "Go down there and get his Amulet of Fire and the portal will open for you, as you'll be enrolling in the School of Fire."

 

 

The tomb was painful but we got through it and dealt with the whining wench who was at the bottom.

"Speak to the Fire Tree, Ashley," said Cyrus. "She can help you."

"Thanks," I said, but then he touched my shoulder.

"Before you go, let me ask you a favor," he whispered to me. "When you meet my brother, do not attack him until I have tried to speak with him."

"You're gonna reason with him, are you?" I said. "That's why you wanted Sylvia's spirit."

Cyrus smiled. "You're a clever girl." His frown returned. "I don't know how well this will work. If it succeeds, we may save the Spiral without a fight... but... if it fails..."

I nodded. "We'll try to find a way to get you to him, and we will stop him if you can't stop him. But right now, we have to find him." He got up and nodded and me and Grace headed into the portal.

"Are you okay?" I asked when we found the Fire Tree.

"I was told by Bernie that you are here to stop Malistaire," said Ashley. "We Fire Trees can communicate to each other no matter how far apart we are." She shook her leaves in terror. "You must hurry! Malistaire's locked himself in the Headmaster's Office in the Great Spyre on top of the volcano and is trying to awaken the Dragon Titan! If he's not stopped, the Spiral is doomed!"

"We have come to stop him," Grace said. "Lead the way."

"I'm afraid you can't get up there," muttered Ashley. "It's impossible... unless you can fly!"

"We have wings," I said, pointing to my wings.

"Can you fly over a river of lava for thirty minutes?" said the tree. I shook my head sadly. "Wait, I have an idea... if you can tame a battle drake, you could fly up there! But... battle drakes are so hard to find and hard to tame... unless you had a Dragon Rider's staff!"

"Where can we get one?" I asked eagerly.

"The last one I know of was shattered into nine pieces and each piece was sealed in an obsidian chest," said Ashley. "I can open the chests for you but I don't know where they are..."

"Could you describe them more in detail, Mma?" asked Grace.

"Well," said the tree. "They had evil skull locks with a gem in one eye..."

It then hit me. "Wait, we saw one of those in the Labyrinth, in the Dean's Office!" Then I began to remember seeing similar chests all through my travels...

(I distracted Lord Nightshade while Grace grabbed the staff.)

In Stormdrain Tower...

(You can't avoid fighting Prince Gobblestone again.)

In the Gobbler King's castle...

(You can avoid Biti by sticking to the walls)

In Biti Nirini's chamber in the Pyramid of Fire...

(You can avoid this too.)

In Khai Amahte's former chamber in the Grand Arena...

In Shakes O'Leary's warehouse in Chelsea Court...

In the clock tower in Newgate Prison where me and Christina had seen Malistaire summon an evil wraith to prevent us from stopping his break-out of Meowiarty...

In Koto's dojo in the Cave of Solitude...

(Grace had to distract the treant so I could get to the chest as you get pulled into battle if you move.)

And in the dojo where we were forced to fight Oakheart when he was crazy, back in the Ancient Burial Grounds! "Let's go, Grace," I said firmly. "We have chests to loot."

It took several hours but we worked together and lock-picked open the chests, gathering all nine pieces of the staff. It looked like a pile of sticks. Ashley smiled. "It surely was a lot of work, revisiting all of those worlds, but if you don't stop Malistaire, those worlds will all perish!"

"We'll stop Malistaire," I said firmly. "But how can we fix this thing?"

"You need to get a flawless raw crystal from the Crystal Grove," said the tree. "That crystal will bind together all of the pieces and make it strong. The spiders there spin threads that form.."

"Wait... don't tell me you said spiders," I said, my lip quivering in fear.

She did.

I hate spiders. ;_;

"Come on, Mma," said Grace. "We must be brave. If we do not get the crystal, the Spiral is doomed."

"I know, I know, just... agh," I said, letting out a scream as one spider crawled too close for comfort. "Spiders! Why does it have to be spiders!?!?" I was in tears.

"Let's go see if we can find someone who can locate a flawless raw crystal," said Grace. She spotted someone in a camp nearby. "There, let's ask him."

"That's not funny," I said.

"Sorry," said the ghostly miner. "It's been such a long time since I spoke to a living being, I forgot me manners. Name's Zarek Pickmaster, been cutting these here crystals for years."

"We need a flawless raw crystal, Rra Pickmaster," said Grace.

"Get in line!" he said. "Them crystal's are rarer than diamonds an' I ain't got none to spare. If you wanna get some bonafide flawless raw crystals, ye're gonna work for it. Go collect crystal samples along the grove and let me look at them."

Needless to say, it took a long time getting all of the crystal samples and he rejected the first batch. But then again, I know nothing about crystallography.

We did help Zarek out again but...

MOMMY! MAKE THE BAD SPIDERS GO AWAY! WAAAAAAAH!!!!

I sort of blanked it out of my mind. *groan* SPIDERS. @_@

We also helped another guy kill spiders as they were getting out of control...

 

 

Turns out this ***** was responsible. We killed her good and Christina and Grace finally saw me unleash the Dog of War. ^_^ (Yeva Spiderkeeper, the final boss of this sidequest, is a very interesting character - she drops Level 50 gear for your wizard which gives a lot of school resist and school damage as well as power pip chance. It's called Grandmaster Gear and was the ultimate equipment before Celestia came out and the level cap was raised to 60. Malistaire himself drops the Grandmaster robes which meant LOTS of Great Spyre runs. Her drops include the Death and Myth hats[the former gotten by Grace and the latter by Christina, which I discarded - I am not playing a Myth Wizard on her account] as well as the Fire and Ice boots.)

(Apologies for this screenshot, I didn't think to shoot the right one.)

"Well lookee here," said Zarek, holding up a nice blue crystal. "You found yerself a flawless raw crystal. You could make a livin' at this if you want to quit wizardin'."

I was sorely tempted but realized that I would have to live here. NO WAY!

"We are grateful, Rra Pickmaster," said Grace. "Now we can..."

"No need to say it," said Zarek. "By the looks of ya, I'd guess you lookin' to use this crystal to make a Dragon Rider staff so ya can ride a Drake, am I right?"

We nodded.

"I've helped more'n my share of Dragon Riders make their Staffs," he said. "So ya came to the right guy. Now that ya got that crystal, yer gonna need to cut it into a headpiece. Trouble is, that I can't help you with. Ye're gonna need some expert guidance to cut that crystal and for that, you need to talk to the crystal cutter in the tower down the way."

We found the cutter trapped in crystal and freed her and she told us to kill spiders...

Kill.

KILL!

KILL KILL KILL!!!

KILL!!! (Okay, Cronius the Dracowarlock wasn't a spider but he still needed to die because he had stolen Mikwala's gem-cutting table and we needed it to get the crystal headpiece. We also collected her tools from the crates around the grove.) (By this time Sierra and Grace are at Level 52 and have been transferred to Celestia briefly to get Giant so now they're doing more damage with enchants. Okay, you want the quests? Go talk to Milkawa, defeat six spiders, go talk to her again, go find her in the grove tower and talk to her, defeat spiders until you get three spinnerets[30% drop so expect to fight hundreds of spiders], talk to Milkawa, defeat Cronius, talk to her once more and bam, you're done.)

The cutter managed to craft a perfect crystal and set it into the dragon headpiece. We hurried back to Ashley. "You'll need to go to the forge in the School of Fire and put the staff pieces and head in, and the forge will craft your staff."

Grace turned to me and smiled. "You do it. The staff is by rights yours."

"Me?" I asked. "But..."

Grace shook her head. "We can find a way to ride with you on the Drake, Mma. For now, we must make sure the staff is forged."

I went to the forge and fused the items together. Indeed, magic made it possible...

The Staff was forged and I held it tightly. "It looks great on you, Mma," said Grace, smiling. "How does it feel to be a Dragon Rider?"

"Well, you don't have a Drake yet," said Ashley. "Go speak with Castamir in the Hatchery, he'll know where you can find one."

 Back to the Hatchery. Nerves got me - we were almost done here, and we were almost ready to reach Malistaire... I hoped Cyrus's plan worked, but I felt a bad feeling...

[To be continued...]