Right. So that happened. Finally. My very first Dungeon run. Frankly, it was rather… overwhelming. And confusing. And fast.
Did I say confusing? Because it was. And frantic.
I’ve been trying to complete The Crown of Twyl quest for a while now because I think it has to be successfully finished before Caedryn can advance in the story. The quest itself sounds pretty simple, and was given to me in Sanctum by Shyla Starhearth.
“I believe my Prince kneels to the faerie lord only as a means of seizing the Crown of Seasons and the power it gives. If we destroy this artifact we can deal a blow to Greenscale’s minions and prevent Hylas from further succumbing to the sinful pull of the green beast. There is an old ritual, of life and death and mirrored thrones. We may save Silverwood, Telara and the fae realms. Won’t you enter Twyl’s domain?”
Well, sure, I think. Sounds easy enough. I can take care of this. So I headed on over to the north side of Silverwood where I found a glowing hole in the ground. I hop on in and a second later I'm in the Realm of the Fae.
Where I die. Very quickly.
This was a while back, and I quickly realized I needed to meet up with a group of players to get through the dungeon. I thought my loyal readers might be willing to help out. Hah! I say. Hah, indeed! I suppose you all have better things to do on a Saturday morning? For shame, readers. For shame.
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Hello? Anybody here? Hell-o-o?
Poor Caedryn had to sign up for a “looking for group” service, where he was put in a queue and told to wait. Don’t contact us. We’ll contact you, kind of thing. Oh, the shame! So off Caedryn went, wandering around Silverwood while we waited for our summons.
When it came, everything kicked off. I mean, straight away. I was hoping for a meet and greet. Perhaps a group photo that I could use for the article. A happy, innocent screenshot before half of us got murdered by the fae. But as soon as Caedryn was transported into the dungeon, the battle was already happening. I barely had time to grab my axe before being attacked by a satyr.
A quick note: there is another quest associated with this dungeon. It’s an automatic quest you are given upon entering. It seems that the Lords of the Realm of the Fae keep this stolen pocket of land locked in their seasonal grip, preventing Telara from achieving the harmony it once had. This quest requires you to destroy the lords of spring, summer, autumn and winter so that Telara can be made whole again. You pretty much have no choice but to take this quest, because you need to kill these Lords to get to the other side of the dungeon to confront Twyl.
Back to the fight – oh, it’s over already. See, this is where I think Caedryn may have had this a bit easy. He’s in there battling his level 19 heart out, but the leader of this group seems to be a level 50 mage, and she’s just blasting creatures left, right and center. If the rest of us want a piece of the action we have to move fast.
The first area is Spring, and the boss is a creature called Trickster Maelow. He has two guardians, Lifewards Brae and Celoah, that have to die before you focus on the main guy. I head for Celoah with a couple of others and we take him right down. Down to Chinatown.
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Leave some for us!
We turn to take on Trickster, but our level 50 mage has already weakened him so much that one swipe fells him.
Oh. That was… easy.
This is going to be a recurring theme of this dungeon raid, I’m afraid. Next up is Summer, and the Lugodham. This time we all get stuck straight into the oversized slug, hacking away at its leathery hide. Then level 50 joins in and he’s dead.
Oh.
Next up, Autumn.
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Wait for me!
Now, I didn’t mind having a level 50 here, because it looks really hard. Satyrs are everywhere. You can’t turn a corner without stumbling into a camp full of them. And some of them are spellcasters who like nothing more than standing far away and hurling fireballs at you. Cowards. But level 50 just waded through them until we came up against the boss, Battlemaster Atrophinius.
I’m not sure who actually killed this one, because we all just piled right into him. Even so, it was a long fight, and this dude likes to barge into you and send you flying through the air. Not cool, man. Not cool at all.
Once he was down, it was time to climb the mountains up into Winter.
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Global warning, man. Bummer.
Swirling vortexes and treants attacked us from out of the snow. But we finally made it to a narrow bridge where we had to face the Avatars of Autumn, Summer, and finally Spring. After that it was Lord Twyl himself. He wasn’t too hard, actually, but again, I think this was thanks to our level 50 mage.
But once he was killed, Caedryn picked up the crown and burned it on the altar, as per Shyla's instructions—
Only to be confronted by Prince Hylas himself. The sneaky monkey had this in mind all along, so we've basically done exactly what he wanted. Oh dear, Shyla’s not going to be happy when Caedryn tells her. Maybe I can get one of the others to tell her. That level 50 mage seemed quite capable.
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"Haha! Tricked you! You fell for my cunning plan. It was so cunning you could have put a wig on it and called it Mr Cunning!"
Prince Hylas lets me live (Nice of him.) and disappears. It’s getting a bit chilly here, so I step back through the portal, thinking my gang will be waiting on the other side.
But they’re not. Everyone’s gone. No chance to ask level 50 mage to carry the bad news. No chance for a victory screenshot either. I was going to get us all to line up, then I was going to Photoshop an explosion in the background. Because everyone knows heroes walking away from explosions are cool.
All in all, I'm glad my first dungeon is over, but I feel slightly cheated. It was too easy. Level 50 mage did all the hard work and we all just tagged along behind. Maybe next one will be more fulfilling.
