Thursday, March 29, 2018

What You Missed - The Imperium Strikes Back Section 1: Anthur's Lab


by Cory "Asharn" Roy

I joined my fellow Rhiassans and a bunch of Chimeronians and Avendar at the Imperium March for a fun day of questing and what we got did not disappoint. We found ourselves trying to get through what seemed to be a lab full of different plants and insects. We had to find our way in disabling some alarms and fighting some three-headed plant dragon. After fighting our way through and solving some alarm codes we eventually got open the locks on the door.

Through the door we found a tunnel leading to an area with a lot of rushing water which made it hard for us to get across. We quickly found out that killing the elementals caused platforms to form where they died allowing us to make our way over the rushing water. We used these platforms to get these pillars to their designated areas; luckily, Avendar was able to lift them by himself when normally it would have taken a few people to carry. Once the pillars where in place it opened up the way to what I can only describe as a butterfly sanctuary.

Photo by Steve Yazinka

Entering this area, we see colorful butterflies with a lot of dots on the wings. We found javelins lying around along with some puzzle pieces. Once we put the pieces together it was apparent that we had to get the wings off the butterflies to make flowers so we could get farther into our quest. We used the javelins to attack the butterflies and their wings seemed to fall off when hit. Once we had all the wings it took some time for us to figure out how we had to arrange them to make the flowers but once we figured it out it wasn't long before we made our way to the next area.

Photo by Steve Yazinka

After leaving the butterflies we found a lot of statues in a bunch of different poses. Not far in we found a pedestal with a key on it and of course I suggested we just pick it up knowing very well that all these statues would start moving. So after a small discussion, that's what I did and a lot of us blew up from that but after a moment of healing we were all better and ready to fight these statues. We were gathering some sparkly clay from them so we could replace the key we took and a barrier would no longer be blocking the way out. We ended up figuring out that they where enchanted so we started rounding them up before they could regenerate and loading them into a circle of protection which was a great plan until a larger one came in and broke it open releasing a horde of enemies right on top of us. But after some more fighting and gathering enough clay to match the weight of the key we eventually got to the final part of our quest.

Reaching the final area we where confronted with a bunch of strong plant-like creatures and a very large and impressive living and moving tree. We had to work together to kill the smaller plants and use their guts to make a rune on the ground and to cause the large tree to walk over it. It was a hard fight but a fun one and eventually we made the rune and led the tree over it and once it stepped on it there was an explosion. The tree was dead and we finished our quest. It was a fun time, Ashenmark is great at throwing events that are a good balance of fun and challenging and this one was no different. If you didn't make this one I strongly suggest going to events they throw in the future.

-Asharn


Photo by Steve Yazinka

Photo by Steve Yazinka

Photo by Steve Yazinka

Photo by Steve Yazinka