Public Quest Ill Omen in Kylong Plains

A new Public Quest appeared with the Tuesday update, and my illusionist did it for the first time yesterday!

Quest giver for Ill Omen Public Quest

The quest is given by an iskar fisherman who appears on the the north shore of Kylong Plains.


Many adventures arrived to speak to him and receive the quest.


Although the water seems calm, he talked about some bubbling he saw in it, commenting that it was not a good sign.


We waited, not knowing what to expect.


And then... the water was calm no more!

Tentacles curled up from the surface. Yah'Lei hovered in the air, supported by what appeared to be energy fields.

Other Yah'Lei walked on the surface of the water, which was covered with white rings... of energy?

We found we could walk on the water, too -- except when black rings appeared. If we did not move out of them quickly, we went down into the water.











We spread out across the solid surface of the water, killing wandering mudfin mongrels.






When we had killed enough of them, the main mob appeared -- a hydra!

A really big hydra!

The strategy was for the tanks with aggro to take the hydra to a tentacle. The rest of us were killing mudfins to prevent them from healing the hydra, or blasting the hydra with our strongest spells.




Occasionally we were thrown up into the air en masse. 

Sometimes we came down on a platform of energy circles up above the mobs.

It was a long drop down from that. I died once jumping down.

But in the end we prevailed and killed the hydra.











I got an acheivement award for doing the quest for the first time.








I got the reward you get even if you don't get the quest from the public quest giver.



















And the reward from the quest from the fisherman.




















Examining the reward crate showed the possible item I could
get.













Most were the usual items from Public Quests, but there were two different items:

• Hydra-Scale Helm
• Greater Fragment of Planar Energy

The helm is nice! 20 Resolve, 284% Potency. A shame it is Relic, since you can only wear two Relic items simultaneously.

I'm not sure what you can craft with the Greater Fragment of Planar Energy, but I am sure I will find out soon.

I did not get either of those items, though. Just some mercenary gear.

But maybe next time...

Or the time after that...

Or the time after that...

I will get the Helmet!

Into the Woods -- Part 1 of my first foray into The Burned Woods

Yesterday my illusionist did the key quest Little Whiskersnapper. I took a break afterwards and left her standing near the burynai's den in Obulus Frontier. When I returned, I got a private message from another player, Fahker, congratulating me on the key.

The key? What key?

While I was AFK for sixteen minutes I received a burnt key. I had seen zone-wide messages when other players received them, but I knew nothing else about this mysterious item, so I happily accepted Fahker's generous offer to help me.

Fahker found the quest-giver Mujahid Muktaar near Bethezid's Watch using tracking.  So if you need to find Mujahid Muktaar and you do not have tracking, bring a friend who does.

Mujahid was not pleased to see me. "Please leave me be, I am meditating."
I had three responses to choose from:

• Hello, good sir! I am in need of run speed... Can you assist?
• d00d sow plz
• Obviously you are a necromancer and as such cannot cast Spirit of the Wolf on me. Good day, sir!

The last one obviously wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I tried the second one: "d00d sow plz"

He said "Do I look like a shaman or a druid to you?"
I wanted to be snarky and say "Yes, totally!" but my only option was to be humble and say "I was mistaken, sorry to bother you. Good day, sir!"

Mujahid replied "I wish I could, but I don't have SoW. I'm a necromancer."
Hmmm, I got two choices for responses:

• Pfft, sow me already, it's for a cr.
• Pfft, fine. Be that way!

Both sounded a bit snarky, but I really really wanted to find out what a burnt key can do for me, so I went with the first, slightly less snarky "Pfft, sow me already, it's for a cr."

"Necromancers can't cast SoW," he told me.
Okay, he probably thought I am an idiot for trying to get a necromancer to cast Spirit of the Wolf on me so I can run faster. But hey, it's not my fault I had such limited responses to choose from!

This time around I could pick between:

• Oh, sorry! G'luck!
• Bull! I saw you speed up earlier!

I didn't feel like telling him I was sorry for anything, so I went with the more confrontational "Bull! I saw you speed up earlier!" (I did? When? Nevermind, he's just an NPC. He won't know I never saw him before just now.)

"I have JBoots...." he replied. Damn, I could practically hear his disdain for me!
And did I get to choose an answer that would make me seem more intelligent? Well, no.

• Oh... hmm... kthxbye...
• What are THOSE?!
• I'm never going to get my corpse back....

Umm, wait, what?! Get my corpse back?! There haven't been corpse runs in this game since... well, before I started playing in 2008. Definitely not going with that answer.

I didn't think the first one would get me anywhere, so I answered "What are THOSE?!"

He didn't bother telling me what JBoots are, but it sounded like he was offering me... something. "I can't buff you, I'm a Necromancer. I only have one buff that you would probably want."

Should I say:

• Which one? Oh, nevermind
• Floaty buff? No thanks, jerk.
• Yeah, the one you won't give me

Calling him a jerk will probably not get me anything good, so the second option is definitely out. The first one sounds like it might end the conversation, so I said "Yeah, the one you won't give me."

It sounded like he was losing what little patience he had where I am concerned. "Is there something else you need? I am getting tired of this."

I could get to the real point of my visit, finally! "Pfft! Ugg, okay, fine. I found this burnt key... Can you tell me anything about it?"

Oh, hey, that got him to his feet! Maybe a burnt key is really important. "Uh, yeah, sure! Ummm... It's for the Burned Woods. Yeah, that's it...."

Or maybe he didn't actually know anything about it. He sure didn't sound very definite. I really wanted to know more, but my only choices were:

• I hate the heat... Pass!
• ?

I wasn't not backing out now, so I answered "?"

He sat back down. I suspected I was not going to get much more out of him. "It's not near here anymore... It moves."

It did not look promising. I got two choices:

• ??
• Jerk, I'll figure it out myself

As tempting as it was to call Mujahid a jerk, I refrained from doing so. All I said wass "??"

"No, really, the entrance changes location every so often," he told me.

I could quit now, or keep questioning him:

• ???
• Whatever... I'll be going now

I wasn't leaving until I had wrung every drop of information I could from this necromancer, so I really only had one option, "???"  was my reply.

"I can't tell you where it is right now, but I know it's out there somewhere. Good luck!" was his very unhelpful answer.

I only had one option for an answer: "No, really, where is it?" (And he'd better tell me, dammit!)

Or not. "Last I heard, it was in South Freeport, but it's moved since then!"

This guy obviously didn't know squat. I was starting to grit my teeth when I answered. "thx?"

OMG, finally! A quest window popped up! I hurried to accept it so I could leave.

He was not done being condescending, however. "Wrong punctuation mark, but 'C' for effort! Anyway, you should go west... No, east!"

"Uh okay..." Yeah, I am so out of here.
Now to start searching for the entrance to the Burned Woods...

Continued in Part 2, click HERE

Into the Woods -- Part 2 of my first foray into the Burned Woods

Now that I had a burnt key and had endured the convoluted conversation of Mujahid Mukhtaar to obtain the quest, I needed to find a portal to the Burned Woods.

The portals are temporary, spawning and de-spawning. They appear randomly in various zones, including Jarsath Wastes and Fens of Nasthar. Luckily for me, Fahker found one on a small island west of the Lake of Ill Omen.

Portal to the Burned Woods with Fahker of Skyfire

Fahker had been great help, but from here I had to go alone. The Burned Woods is a solo instance. Totally solo -- not even a mercenary could go with me.

I clicked on the portal and entered a desolate, smoldering landscape.

The Burned Woods near zone-in

burned wood mob

On zone-in my quest updated:

I needed to "slay anything of consequence":

• Taodaly Blayzed
• Enfuego
• Matchstick Men
• Burnt Reynolds

I began exploring the area. Flaming treants wandered around, waving their burning branches in the smoky air.


















Not far down the path I encountered a wandering group of nameds.


Three of them:

• Hot Head
• Lucky the Striker
• Roy Waller

The Matchstick Men!

They were on my list of "anything of consequence" to slay, so I attacked them.

I managed to kill them without dying myself, and received:

• Fricasseed Cloth Helm

As I continued exploring, I encountered a smoldering toad. I guess he didn't like tourists taking his picture. While I was getting a screenshot of him, he attacked me.

He dropped a small chest. Many players don't even open small chests. They just leave them and continue killing mobs. But I clicked on it. And then I saw this in my chat window:

Ummm... 11686 platinum plus 1752 platinum for being an All-Access member is... 13, 438 platinum.
From one small chest?! From a regular mob?!
Needless to say, I began clearing the zone, killing EVERYTHING. When I left the zone I had approximately 875,000 more platinum pieces than I had when I entered.

The small chests from the regular mobs averaged at least 10,000 platinum each. UPDATE: I have since done this on my berserker, and they chests only had 9 platinum in them for her! I don't know if it is a randomly generated amount that changes, or if my getting 10,000 plat per chest was a "bug" that got fixed.

 Occasionally they dropped exquisite chests too, but those contained only one of two items:

• Fried Bathrobe
• Fried T-Shirt

Near the smoldering toads I found another named: Toadaly Blayzed.

Killing him got me:

• Fricasseed Cloth Boots

My adventure continues in Part 3. Click HERE to continue!

Into the Woods -- Part 3 of my first foray into the Burned Woods

                                       Start with Part 1     Go Back to Part 2

As I continued exploring, more vistas of desolation opened up before me.

I encountered groups of five Kindlings. The group only dropped one small chest, not five.






The only other regular mob I encountered was a toasty bark mob. The instance only has four different regular mobs.

• burned wood
• smoldering toad
• kindling
• toasty bark

I encountered another named on my list: Burnt Reynolds.

I hadn't realized it before, but these named mobs were Epics x 4!

Burnt Reynolds had a special attack.





Defeating him got me:

• Fricasseed Cloth Shoulders

There was only one named left on my kill list: Enfuego.

I had cleared the entire zone, except for a tower.

I flew over the tower, and saw a group of kindling.

I landed on the tower to engage the kindling, and was immediately attacked by Enfuego!

I don't know where he came from, perhaps from inside the tower? He was big, and right in my face. I couldn't get a screenshot in the limited space on top of the tower, so I jumped down to the ground. 

Killing him got me: 

• Fricasseed Cloth Gauntlets

Enfuego was the last one on my list, but there was one more confrontation. The final boss appeared near the zone-in portal.

Ixiblat Fer!

No, I am not swearing at you in Aztec, that is his name.

I died fighting him.

I revived in the forlorn little cemetery next to the zone-in portal. While I was licking my wounds I geared up in the four new pieces of armor from this zone.

Then I went in for round two -- and won!

For my final reward I received:

• Bracers of Fiery Impact

With an orange adorn:

• Rune of Embers

Overall, a very fun and exciting excursion, not to mention beneficial!

I don't know if I will ever get another burnt key so I can do it again on another character, but I will keep hoping that I do!