Learning the Ways of the Arcanist

cBykar, grandmaster mage and archer, fellt weird. Ever since he had returned to Britannia, he noticed that he wasn't very successful in combat situations. His Magery was not as powerful as he had remembered from the old days. His Archery wasn't very effective either. It was time to think about a change! It was clear that he would have to focus on one goal: Either becoming a pure mage, or a pure warrior. But which direction should he choose? It was difficult for him to decide about giving up one of his grandmaster skills.
Finally McBykar had an idea: He felt drawn more to the art of wizardry. He acquired a green soulstone and saved his archery skill on it, in case it was needed again one day. He trained his intelligence up to an IQ of 125 for the cost of becoming less dexterous. Strength was important, because it determined how much damage he would be able to survive.
He had heard about the Arcane knowledge, the art of Spellweaving. He was aware that not many people were skilled Arcanists today, but to McBykar it seemed to be the most adequat enhancement to Magery. He headed to Heartwood where the starting quest for Spellweaving was offered.

McBykar found Aeluva the Arcanist in the northeastern part of Heartwood. The elf offered an opportunity to learn the ways of the Arcanist. The first tasks were finished easily:
1. Obtaining 20 miniature mushrooms, which were growing all over the Heartwood tree.
2. Obtaining 10 bales of cotton, which could be bought at a tailor shop.
3. Obtaining 250 boards, which he acquired from a lumberjack.
4. Obtaining 1 sack of flour (from the baker), 10 jars of honey (from the Beekeeper's in Vesper) and 20 cooked fish steaks.
However, the final task proved to be a little more difficult...

McBykar was told to slay a couple of Exodus Overseers and Exodus Minions. He knew he would find those creatures only in the Exodus Dungeon in Ilshenar. So he traveled by moongate to the Shrine of Compassion and went south to take the Passage to the Central Area. After crossing the great grass plain in Central Ilshenar he finally arrived at the Exodus Dungeon entrance. That's where the problems started.
McBykar had to try to find the dungeon entrance while a number of Arcane Daemons and other creatures were behind him casting spell at him. He was glad to have the horse, otherwise he wouldn't even have come close to the entrance. He suspected the dungeon entrance to be in the center of the pyramid-like structure, and he luckily guessed right. A black hole lead down into the Exodus dungeon. Having no time to worry about what would await him down there, he descended quickly.

The difficult part of the quest was over now. All he had to do was keeping a safety distance to the mechanical Exodus creatures and casting Energy Vortices onto them. The Overseers and Minions were quickly slain. Again, McBykar's lower reagent cost suit came in handy, as he did not need reagents anymore for casting spells. McBykar returned to Heartwood and received a Spellweaving spellbook, an Arcane Circle scroll and a Gift of Renewal scroll as a reward. Plenty more scrolls to go!

Another scroll, the Summon Fey scroll, could be acquired from Synaeva, an elf in Heartwood. To get the scroll McBykar had to retrieve 1 jar of honey and 1 beads (from the jeweler). He was handed over a gift for the Pixie Arielle, which can be found close to a small pond in the Enchanted Forest in Ilshenar. If you travel there, make sure you do not have negative karma! Because the Pixies and Wisps living there in great numbers will attack people with negative karma on sight.
The next task was to slay 20 Reapers, which could be accomplished in Ilshenar as well. Many Reapers can be found in the valley by the Shrine of Justice.

As Spellweaving is not a very popular skill, it is difficult to find vendors selling the scrolls. However, they can be found as monster loot on certain creatures. Troglodytes were said to carry the Arcane scrolls sometimes, so McBykar headed to the Painted Caves. In this dungeon he killed many many Troglodytes, finding a scroll only in every 50th corpse.

01/2008

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