"I see you have a new pogo stick," said Grace. I nodded. The old one vanished and I had to make a new one but this us much more fun of a mount than my wings, even if it takes a lot of arm muscles to avoid falling over. (Finally crafted the Ravenwood Pogo Mount - those last springs were a pain! I may throw away the Swiftshadow Wings even though they were worth a lot of crowns. Right now they are fluttering freely in the Red Barn Farm.)
When I left you, we had just run into Christina acting weird after we were told Sir Brennan had the Sword of Kings. We had to defeat some Red Thorn Knights, badger-men who were rogue knights. (These guys have 3200 HP and are Life, so you will need a lot of work to defeat them.) They told us that Sir Terrance Thornwhip had Sir Brennan.
"Well, he's not going to win against a wizard or two," I said snidely.
"If you wish to challenge him, ring the bell in front of his tower, the Red Thorn Tower," said Sir Perry. "Then be ready to duel!"
(There are two bosses here: Sir Terrance is Balance and has 13200 HP, and he's got a Red Thorn Badger as his companion.)
We rang the bell and entered the tower, confronting the false knight. He was pretty tough...
But my Mythical Beasts took him down and Grace finished off the Red Thorn Badger with a Triton.
"We'd better go then," I said. I made sure Sir Terrance was properly trussed and disarmed.
"I don't think Rra Thornwhip left the dungeon unguarded," said Grace.
"Nonsense, he couldn't..." I began to say, walking down the stairs.
An ogre. I recalled my first encounter with one - it was long ago when I was rescuing that good-for-nothing Headmistress of Pigswick. But this one looked simple enough.
Grace took care of him - I realized that there would be a lot of mythical enemies here so my Frog and other spells won't do much damage. I was glad Grace was my friend. (Yep, Ponnich is Myth. He has about 10000 HP, though, so a good strong non-Myth attack should take him out.)
"So will I," said the fox-knight with him. "I am Guy Gascione, I owe you my debt!" The two left.
Grace entered the cell. "Mma, look at this."
I was amazed. It was a tapestry depicting our headmaster (who looked no younger than today) crowning a lion-man. I recognized the lion-man from my vision in the Chancel. "This must be King Artorius," I whispered. "Pike Del Lago told of a tapestry that detailed the history of Avalon. This must a piece of it." I carefully removed it and stored it away. "Let's keep an eye out for the others."
(After talking to Pike, you talk to a friar in Abbey Road who tells you about the tapestry pieces. This is the one in High Road. Most places have a tapestry and a Black Crow, which is the item you need for Zeke's hunt here.)
We blushed. "Why thank ye, fair knight."
"Sir Brennan is one of the Order of the Silver Rose," said Sir Perry. "Long ago, when you were but wee babes, the wizard Merle Ambrose dreamt up the Order and created the Stone Table which the Knights convened at. King Artorius was the leader of the Order. Return to him in his tent and he will tell ye more. Fare thee well, ladies."
We curtsied and made our way back to Caliburn.
It seems that we weren't the only ones looking for the Sword - many strong students of Ravenwood were fighting the goblins on the High Road. At least the place will be safer now.
"Thank you, Rra Onehand," said Grace. "We seek the Sword of Kings and Sir Perry gave it to you."
"Aye," said Sir Brennan. "Sir Perry did indeed lend the blade to me in order to protect it, but I was smart enough not to take that blade with me into that foolish duel with Sir Terrance. I gave it to my fellow knight Dursten Siverharp, who took the blade away from here, to the Weirwood. I have a map of the place, but it is in my estate back there."
"Uh," I said, face-palming. "I saw this knight barring the way."
"That be the Harlequin Knight," sighed Sir Brennan. "He refuses passage to all who do not challenge him in a duel. Unfortunately he will not duel thee unless you are at least a squire in the Order of the Silver Rose."
"You mean, we have to join your order?" I asked. "Is that possible? We... er..."
"What she means is that we are ladies," said Grace.
"Ah, don't fret, dear ladies," laughed Sir Brennan. "The Order is open to the fairer gender. In fact, Queen Gwendolyn, the beautiful queen of the late King, was trained well in swordsmanship from her youth. We have a few female knights."
I sighed in relief. "So what do we do?"
"Speak to Friar Nolan near Abbey Road, the monks are the ones who grant squireship," said Sir Brennan. "When I see thee again, I hope it will be as squires."
We found the Friar as expected. "Thanks," I said, bowing on my pogo stick. "We are here to join the Order of the Silver Rose as squires."
"Ah, it is an honor for an outsider, especially ones from Ravenwood and tutored under our former court wizard Merle Ambrose, to seek the ways of the Order," said Friar Nolan, bowing. "Whenever a young lad or lass in Avalon seeks to become a Knight, he or she must first pray to the Shrine of Courage in the Face of Sword, Axe and Poisoned Arrow."
I cringed. "Uf, that's a mouthful!"
The friar chuckled. "I admit, it is, but I was not the one who gave the names to the Shrines of Avalon. Anyways, I have heard disturbing news that the Formori Giants have stolen the Sword and Shield from the Shrine. If you would defeat them and recover the items and then restore them to the Shrine's statue, I will grant both of thee the title of Squire."
"We'll do it," I said, grinning.
We did help out a few people, including a lowly page who had lost his jaw harp to Night Goblins, and Friar Nolan himself, who had lost a box of spell cards to a vile knight hidden in the Lonely Tower. Medusa had a few words to say to him. ;) (Once you hit Level 75, you will get a quest from Friar Nolan to recover his cards from Sir Agravaine, who is Storm and has 11500 HP and is with a Red Thorn Badger. The bad news? YOU MUST DO THIS SOLO, NO OTHER WIZARDS! I tried this with Christina and she got her $@$ kicked. She still needs better resists. *sigh* I had to buy Jabari for Sierra to stand a chance.)
(Myth gets the Shift spell, which transfers a Damage over Time counter to your enemy. It's a great way to deal with certain bosses who love using Damage over Time spells. *coughGhostDogcough*)
(Once you complete that side-quest, you'll get a call from Fianna Yellowknife to do something similar - solo boss fight - but that boss is in the Wild which we can't get to yet, not until we chase down the Sword of Kings in Caer Lyon, which is LONG.)
We smashed the hairy giants with Grace's spells - mine were useless, but we couldn't find the items. (Yep, the Formoris are Myth. Also, Grace got both items in one battle, but Sierra had to get them in the next. The drop rate is 50%.)
"Wait, look at this," said Grace. We found the Shrine of Courage in the--- nevermind, it's a mouthful. And it was restored! "Someone was here before us."
"Who?" I whispered, but I had an idea, sensing the lingering Balance magic in the air. Christina...
"We cannot do much else," sighed Grace. "Let us pray to the Shrine.
We both knelt before the Shrine of Courage and prayed silently for a moment before we left.
"But the shrine was already restored," I said.
"That is fine," said the Friar, smiling. "The knights who patrol the road saw you battling those fierce Formori and they saw you pray to the shrine. That is enough. Come to think of it, just after you left, a woman in pink armor riding a metal steed told me she had restored the Shrine of Courage in the..."
"No, that's enough," I said. "I know what it is."
"Face of Sword, Axe and Poisoned Arrow," continued the friar. "I made her a squire and she headed off to duel the Harlequin Knight. She must already be in Caer Lyon by now."
Christina...
"I hereby dub thee Squires of the Silver Rose," said Friar Nolan. "Kneel." We knelt as he put his hands over our heads. "Continue to exercise your valor in the protection of the Order and the people of Avalon."
He then gave us a beautiful bronze badge with a sword and shield emblem and we placed it over our hearts and bowed. "Let's tell Sir Brennan of our accomplishments," said Grace.
We bowed deeply. "Hello to you, Sir Brennan."
"Now the Harlequin Knight should accept your challenge," said the knight. "When you defeat him and get access to the city, speak to my steward Kay and he should give you a map to the city. Continue to uphold the way of the Order and surely the Sword of Kings will be thine."
"We shall," said Grace.
I nearly got run over by a guy on a horse. I was thinking about a horse mount but decided against it - it would be high-maintenance and I prefer my pogo stick.
"Bringeth it on," I laughed.
"Very well, I will meet thee at the nearby tower," said the Knight.
Needless to say, he did put up a fight...
But I bladed up and sent out Medusa to give the rogue my own drubbing and Grace sent her scaly sea beast to take out the Red Thorn Badger with him. (If you can't tell, the Harlequin Knight is Ice. Luckily he wasted all his pips and never used Tower Shield once.)
We entered and found trouble. "Goblins," I muttered. "This must be where those goblins that harassed Wysteria came from.Where did they come from?"
"We'd better find Sir Kay," said Grace. "And Christina as well... we may not be able to convince her to join us, but we can help her out."
I nodded sadly. This quest was taking a new turn.
[To be continued...]
For the record, here is the spell the other schools get, which I didn't mention for Grace or Christina:
ReplyDeleteChristina got Mana Burn, a utility attack that you get hit with in the Ultra Dungeons if you enter late - it destroys all of your opponent's pips and inflicts 80 damage per pip destroyed. Power Pips count as 2 pips for this spell.
Death Wiz gets Mass Infection. Yeah, an AoE version of the Infection spell they get from Mortis AFTER FOULGAZE. Seriously?
Fire Wizs get Detonate. All it does is let you blow up your DoTs and do all of the damage at once, but you'll waste one DoT tick unless you have two Pyros teaming up. Not great as you want the ticks to destroy shields.
On the opposite end of the DoT spectrum, Life Wizs gets Mass Triage, an AoE version of the spell that negates all ticks on a DoT. This is great if you are in a team and all of you get hit with the Knights or Snow Angel as you can remove all of the ticks and save a lot of damage to your team. It does cost 3 pips though, so be warned.
Ice Wizs get Snow Drift, which steals an enemy HoT(Heal over Time) ticker. A good way to deal with enemies spamming Regenerate but high-level Life enemies usually use Rebirth.
Finally, Grace gets Enfeeble. Disarm(which I didn't cover) shatters an enemy blade. Enfeeble shatters ALL blades. You can expect Aztecan Storm mobs to spam this constantly, making blades worthless. :(