style="color: rgb(154, 185, 124);">Quest Guide: The Xorian Cipher
|
style="font-style: italic;">By
Khalas
Welcome to Xorian Cipher, a popular and challenging quest located in
House Jorasco. In this quest you're attempting to retrieve a
vital tome taken by invaders from the extra-dimensional plane of
madness known as Xoriat. Good comunication between party members
is absolutely vital as only by working as one fluid entity will you be
able to get through this quest. Though the monsters in this quest
can be nasty the biggest threat will come from roving purple balls that
will cast random magical effects on anyone they touch. These
effects are rarely helpful and more often than not kill a party member
instantly.
With that in mind the second thing you'll need is to do is get in the
habit of keeping your eyes peeled even in the thick of battle for the
orbs. If you see one get out of it's way at all costs and warn
your party members to do the same. Fortunately though the orbs
can be turned off by activating runes through out the quest. However
these runes are activated by either charisma, intelligence, or wisdom
thus making party build a very important part of this quest as finding
party members that can fill the required 22 score in those three can be
tricky. Ideally since casters are extremely useful in this quest
you can find a wizard, sorcerer, and cleric. Bards can replace
the sorcerer if need be, however the most common rune is intelligence
and really the only class that focuses on that is a wizard unless you
find an intelligence based rogue. Speaking of rogues, I recommend
bringing one as there are some extremely nasty traps in here.
Once you've got your party suitably built individual members should
prepare accordingly. Front line fighters will need bashing
weapons to take on the hordes of skeletons and bring some healing
potions as well to help out the primary healers here. Casters
should prepare
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=203">firewall,
web, haste, and good damage dealing spells for this quest. Crowd
control isn't as important in this quest as others as the enemies,
while deadly, have low hit points for this level and it's generally
easier to just hit them hard and fast. Though this is a level 8
quest it isn't the worse idea to bring a healer of a high enough level
to use raise dead or at the very least buy a few scrolls of it before
hand.
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Chulkash
Zone:
Boneshriker Harrier
Vault Guardian, Zealot of Madness, href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=36">Tharakk
Hound
Bosses
Objectives:
Brothers, De-activate 12 orbs
style="">
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album87/Xorian_Map_Complete.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 387px;" align="right">There
is a small quest you must take in order to get to the actual Xorian
Cipher quest after speaking with the gatekeeper. This isn't that
bad really as you can actually just hit everyone with a haste and run
up the path to the temple. Provided everyone stays together six
adventurers is more than enough to overcome the minimum resistance at
the temple itself. fire wall goes a long way here and really there's no
reason to conserve your strength as there is a shrine right here.
Stay on the path, stick together, fight as one, and you will succeed
here. After resting click on the alter to enter the actual quest.
Upon entering the quest itself you'll have a minute to prepare with
buffs. death ward, haste, protection from evil, bark skin, heroism, and
rage will go a long way in here. If you look at the map I've
provided you're starting at the very southern tip, move north and take
a left to find your first batch of enemies. A small xorian
fanatics and zealots of madness guard a portal to xorian which releases
an orb of death. Make a habit of turning these things off, not
because the optional exp is that great, but because it's a real pain to
have them sneak up on you later. Directly opposite of this room
in the hallway is a bone shrieker savant. These guys are really
the big bads for this quest as they cast massive damage spells
quickly. Fortunately they have glass jaws so hitting them with a
well placed href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=75">scorching
ray will almost kill them and make them easy pickings for your
melee types. Following the hallway and going in a
counter-clockwise course you'll encounter more of these guys guarding
two more runes, an intelligence and wisdom in that order. After
you've gotten the squared southern area clear you have time to prepare
for the large room to your north.
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album87&id=Named_Xorian_Scorrow&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php">
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album87/Named_Xorian_Scorrow.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 245px;" align="left">Note
there are two orbs floating around in this area. Gather together
and have the caster use haste. Immediately run to the left of the
room and up the stairs. Fight the boneshriekers on the way on the
landing then take on the rest at the top of the stairs. Now you
can probably see some bone shriekers harriers across the room on the
far ledge, this is the perfect time to use fire wall and take them out
at range. In fact you can fire wall them then move down the
stairway some out of their line of sight and kill them safely.
After they die everyone should rush across the invisible bridge to the
far ledge and kill the bone shriekers savant that's going to pop up
there. The charisma and intelligence runes over here will cut off
the orbs down below. Directly below this ledge is an alcove with
a hidden door
with yet another hidden door on the far wall. This is actually a
safe area once you kill the vault guardian with your ghost tocuh
weaponry. You'll find a chest in the center of the room which you
can open and three doors which you can't yet. Don't worry you'll
be opening two of them soon enough.
Going back into the main hall you'll see it splits into a left and
right hand side. Go down the right hand side and kill the
fanatics and zealots in the hallway. You'll find a door which you
should put web and fire wall around. On the other side of the
door are more drow elves along with a named scorrow called
Mastark. The fights pretty simple if you stay in the hallway and
let the enemies come to you. You'll find an intelligence rune and
a locked chest inside the room they occupied. If you can pick the
lock on the chest you'll get the gold key which opens one of the doors
back in the chest room. Proceed to the main hall and go down the
left hand side no where you'll face the exact same combination of
enemies along with some possible tharaak hounds and a named scorrow
called Urytan this time in the room. Inside the room is another
intelligence rune and another locked chest with the iron key in it this
time. Once you get both keys you can go back to the treasure room
and unlock the center and right hand rooms. Be careful as both
rooms are heavily trapped and opening the chests without taking out the
boxes is going to just kill a party member....probably why there's a
resurrection shrine in this room as well.
Now that you're slightly richer it's time for the hard part of this
quest. You'll need to break into two teams with a primary and
secondary fighter type going right and everyone else going left.
Make sure whoever has your 22 intelligence is going left along with
whoever is responsible for keeping people alive. At the end of
each hallway you'll find two platforms. Have party
members stand on them and the forcefields will drop. Quickly
everyone enter their respective rooms. The team on the left will
go up some stairs and fight a few drow and boneshriekers. Once
you get to a door have the team on the right flip the switch on the
column to their left. As soon as they do orbs will appear and skeletons
will spawn. Right side team just do your best not to die in this
rather tough fight while the left side team works the puzzle in the
room you just opened up. Team on the right note the skeletons in
the room and kill the bone shriekers savant first. The rune on
the left wall will cut off the two orbs in the puzzle room and responds
to intelligence. The puzzle is fairly simple and once it's done
the gate to the area below where the other team is will open up.
Drop down there and help them with their fight. You'll meet three
wraiths named the Urik Brothers down here. There's a hallway
leading away from the battle, on the right hand side of the wall of
this hallway is a wisdom rune that will turn off the orbs in the
room. This fight can be rough so it's imperative that the left
hand team makes good time on that puzzle and backs the right team up
quickly. At the end of the hallway there will be a shrine area.
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album87&id=Balls_o_Doom&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php">
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album87/Balls_o_Doom.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 215px;" align="right">After
you shrine up you'll note the death of the Urik brothers opened up the
hallway on the east wall of the room you jsut fought in, go down there
very slowly. At the base of each set of steps there are traps and
harriers. Have a caster fire wall the archers then stand behind a
tank with his shield up. When the rogue finds the trap boxes have
another tank shield him while he works on it. Each box is before
the trap and on the right hand side. Repeat this process three
times and you're clear of the traps. On your left is a door
you can break down, do so and enter very slowly. Stay to the far left
and hug the wall as the floor collapses and there's a chest on
the far wall. If you fall then you're just not going to get that
chest but on the plus side you do get to party with the named
giant scorpion Deathfang! Get the chest, kill the bug, and move
through the door below. You'll enter a small room with another
chest, this one has the green key in it which opens the final door in
the treasure room you found earlier. You can run back there now
and open that door. The room is of course trapped but the
chest has a few named items which ca drop that'll easily make you
rich in the auction house if you decide to sell them. Both the
Planar Grid and the Chaosguard are insanely useful and one of the main
reasons this quest is popular.
The good news is the quest is almost over. The bad news is you
need to go back down the hallway with the traps and archers so that you
can make your way towards the final boss area. On the way you'll
come across orbs in tight hallways which make dodging them very
hard. Make sure you do a full search of this are even after you
come to the wooden door that leads to the final battle and cut off all
the orbs. In order that you'll come across them you'll need
wisdom, intelligence, then charisma. You should clear
the halls of all enemies and prepare to fight your last battle at
this door. Web and fire wall help but you may also want to put
web directly behind you as well because as soon as you engage the
enemies in the room you'll be ambushed from behind by bone shriekers
legionaires. Inside the room you have a scorrow, tharaak hound, and of
course more drow. Once you kill the tharaak hound his named big
brother The hound of madness will spawn and attack. This guy hits
like a sledgehammer in the morning so watch your health. Again
stay in tight formation and fight as a group so that you'll
prevail. Once the hound dies you're done and swimming in exp. T
he two chests are yours, I'd advise only one person actually pick up
the Xorian Cipher as once they do it appears in the entire parties
inventory. Once you get the book recall out and get your reward!
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