The last stage of the quest was finally at hand. I stood at the bell in Feerrott and looked at the map. It was all blacked out.
Feerrott is one of those zones that always disorients me. The roads meander across the zone and unless I keep track of the compass and the map, I never quite know where I am. (Compare this to Zek, where I never look at the map and the compass because I seem to know my way around.)
So I decided to do a scout run to light up the map and spot some landmarks. The scout run went okay for a bit. I avoided dying for a while, though I came pretty close at a few points. The spiders in the zone have a nasty attack that stuns you for a few seconds, so if your major strategy is “run very fast,” things can suddenly get ugly if a big train of mobs catches up with you. This happened to me at the druid ring and the outpost and I barely got through.
The trouble on the scout mission came at the tower, where I decided to stealth and then ran right into a bouncer who saw invis. I was already down a bubble in hit points, so I did not last too long.
Dying by the tower of course put your revive spot outside the entrance to the Temple of Cathic Thule. That was a bit off my intended path. On the other hand, I was able to stealth my way out easily enough and the discovery experience wiped away my debt and boosted me closer to another AA point.
I managed to cover the rest of the route and get back to Chon Ar’edij safely. Or I thought I covered the route. When I looked at my map again I realized that I missed the Altar of the Four Cannons. Oops. Must not let that happen on the live run!
Still, I thought I had a good enough feel for my route to give the run a try.
I had one more item to improve my chances. I had Vikund, my woodworker, run me up a batch of Spirit of the Wolf totems. That gave me a speed increase of 24% rather than the 16% that my Pathfinding skill gives me.
So I activated the totem, spoke to Chon, and headed on my way.
The first location, the Temple of Alliz, is almost straight south from the starting point. I know from past experience you can cut a pretty direct path cross country to get there. However, running this alone, I decided to stick to the roads rather than risk getting disoriented. The road starts out heading east, but there is a turn off to the south that points you in the right direction.
I made it through the spiders just up the rise from the turn off, followed the road until it bent east through the gully that ends in the bridge which in turn crosses the river and leads to the temple.
Never take the bridge.
I followed the traditional path, which is to cut south at the bridge and cross the river a little further down stream. This allows you to miss the bulk of the mobs on the western side of the temple.
So I went to jump the river south of the bridge, using fae glide powers to take it in one jump, and right over the middle of the river a water skater jumped up and tagged me and I fell like a stone into the river. Not a huge deal. It was more like when one of our cats stumbles or falls off the bed, a short loss of dignity and then I carried on. (It is nice that Sony now makes water creatures stay in the water. No more getting chased across the Thundering Steppes by a flying octopus!)
Across the river, there are only a couple of lizard men south of the temple and they are easily avoided. I blazed through, got the update, and tore past all the mobs around the east bridge and headed towards the next stop.
Once aggro dropped from the bridge mobs, I proceeded in stealth mode. I nearly died during the scout run on my way to the next target, the Ruins of Thule. I got mobbed my spider friends and had some trouble getting away. So I played it safe this time and stayed in stealth all the way to the ruins. I got the update, then got clear before unstealthing to run some more.
And it was a good thing I was running too, as I ended up veering a little too far south after the ruins and ended up in a dead end valley. So I had to loop back and head a little bit north until I found my way through, hit the river, and followed it until I was south of the Alliz Tae Outpost.
I stealthed again, and walked through the outpost, getting the update, without any problems.
Once clear, I unstealthed and ran until I got within sight of the next location, the Ulguth Bridge. Since the bridge is guarded at both end and has plenty of aggro mobs beyond it, I had planned to take this stealthed, continue on to the tower update stealthed, and only come out of it when I was clear and running towards the altar.
However I picked up some aggro a little too close to the bridge for that plan. I was having that problem with mobs not drawing until I was right on top of them. I should probably should have gone to a lower video setting for this stage, as that seems to help with the problem. But I was in Very High Quality mode for the duration.
Stealth being no longer an option, I bore across the bridge, picking up a train. I immediately cut right after the bridge, jumped the river after the bend, and followed the bank until I lost all my followers. Then I stealthed and turned north.
That side trip ended up with me just south of the Tower of Vul, my next update point. I hopped the river, walked right up, got the update, turned around, crossed the river again, and went on my merry way. No bouncer was waiting to interrupt my travels this time.
I ran along the river, hugging the mountain, until I could see the Altar of the Four Cannons. I stealthed, got the update, then headed on.
I could not find a nice clear spot to unstealth, so I just walked along the river, turned north at the intersection, and walked up and got the update at Murdunk’s Fall. Time to evac!
As I loaded back in and started to run back to Chon, I looked at the quest helper. At this stage the quest tells you to “return to the docks” where you started. This is a bit confusing, as you do not start at the docks, you start a ways into Feerrott. And the reload point puts you just inland from the dock where you arrive, so I decided, just to be safe, to run up the dock to the bell, then turn around and run to Chon.
There is no update on the dock, but I had enough time left to indulge my paranoia. That is one nice thing about this run, you do get plenty of time. Even with time spent walking in stealth mode, retracing my steps from a wrong turn, and running up and down the dock, I still had over three minutes left when I got back to Chon.
And then I turned in the quest.
49,000 status points.
35% of a level, pushing me up to level 38.
And, of course, the grand prize, the Legendary Journeyman’s Boots.
Only four more levels until I can wear them!
And on top of all of that, I got about one and a half AA levels just from discovery experience and the quest turn-in.
Now I need to decide on which Hertiage Quest I should focus on next.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 