Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,alt.games.everquest (More info?)
Of all the Heritage quests in EQII, one of the most attractive and elusive
is "Saving Soles", the only Level 50 Heritage quest in the game. It requires
many complex steps to complete, including learning a language, access to
Lavastorm, killing a raid mob and finally one of the most grueling and
challenging access quests in the game, "Efreeti Bastion", which much be
completed deep in the heart of Solusek's Eye where the final efreeti boss
awaits. The prize: Golden Efreeti Boots, a sweet set of gear with a whopping
+20 per tick power regen. I want!
I had accomplished all of the preliminary steps for the quest and had led
several raids on the Magolemus raid mob who sits just outside the entrance
to Solusek Eye. Mago is a big giant who sits non KOS until someone
approaches him with this quest and triggers his aggro. The thing about Mago
is that he's stationed right in the heart of the lava fields where you have
to watch your step carefully because one foot in the lava and your toast.
Oh, and did I mention that Mago has hella knockback lol? The trick to this
encounter is to pull him all the way to the entrance to Solusek's Eye and
get the tank in the corner so that Mago can knock him back into the corner
over and over again. The rest is just an endurance contest (many Bothans
died getting us this information).
The final step in my quest was simply to kill the Efreeti Lord Djarn. No one
in the guild had completed the access quest to the Bastion of Flame,
however, so we set out to get it done. To even get the quest requires a trip
deep, deep into Solusek's Eye, a good two hour trek if you're not lucky
enough to have an Illusionist, Swashbuckler or Fury in the party for Group
invis. Fighting every mob on the way down is just a huge chore and timesink,
this place is HUGE. Long, labyrnthian lava tunnels, huge circular hallways
with roaming giants, and the most elaborate network of thin, glass walkways
that leave you inching your way carefully across chasms of molten lava,
knowing that a single misstep and you plummet to your death. The worst part
about dying here is that the zone-in is so far away, your night is
effectively over unless the entire party is willing to evac back AND you've
got a group inviser. Otherwise, game over.
Finally we got to the book, got the quest and set out to complete it. This
required finding 12 different species of fire giants within SE and getting
their shards (random updates). This alone takes many nights and all of us in
the guild started working this throughout the week to a point where one of
us could start the final phase of the quest, assembling the lava bottle at
the Forge of the Giants and killing The Castigator, a huge named Giant
guarding the entrance to the Bastion of Flames. Entrance to the Bastion
requires only member of the group to have acccess, so it didn't matter who
was there first, just that one of us got it, and throughout the week
everyone worked hard at both advancing the Saving Soles quest (so that
they'd be ready when someone got access) and hunting giants (so as to gain
the guild access). Finally, I hit all 12 shards and made my way to the Forge
of the Giants and made by lava bottle. Now to go camp The Castigator. This
is not a pretty camp, from what I'd heard and I prepared to start camping
this for days, if necessary. Fortunately, we had with us Elandil, an officer
and L48 Illusionist who was able to get the entire party down into position
within 10 minutes with his god-given group invisibility.
When we got to the Castigator room, however, we saw what we'd all feared: it
was already camped. The group camping, however, had only 5 members so we
inquired if they would accept one of the three people in our group who
needed this step. Some discussion was had and despite my expressed desire
not to leave my group, they insisted that I join the other group and try and
get the camp done. I obliged and after saying goodbyes, got into position
with the other group and began some lively discussions when, suddenly, POP.
Our named giant, The Castigator, spawned and woots and shouts poured forth.
My group stood, stunned, watching as the camping group took down the
Castigator and paved the way for my completion of the access quest and our
entry into the Bastion of Flames. I thanked the campers profusely and
re-joined my group. No one in their wildest dreams thought it possible that
on the night we set out to work the Bastion quest, we actually might enter
the Bastion that same evening to confront the Efreeti Lord, but there we
were. There was one small final step, to kill 20 efreetis soulslayers but
they were easily dispatched and within a few minutes we were ready to enter
the Bastion. Wow!
We approached it and zoned in. What we found inside was a small, circular
room, pulsating with the orange glow of lava surrounding a round center
stage of stone, set up above a lava lake. On the walls of this room were
four genie lamps positioned equidistantly from each other surrounding the
center stage. All we knew about this encounter was that we had to rub a lamp
and fight a boss. We had heard that it was necessary to be still during the
battle, but that's it. Nothing on the spoiler sites, nothing more to go on.
So we positioned ourselves where we *thought* we *might* be fighting and got
ready for the first rub. Elandil did the honors:
"Initiating"
After rubbing the lamp, a genie appeared from out of a shimmering glow and
transformed into a L52 named Efreeti who immediately aggro'd us on the
center stage. Our tank, a 50 Guardian, Held the Line, and I cast Mourning
Soul, a L49 spell that does a 35% attack rate slow and roots me in place,
thank you very much. We started to fight and noticed something very
disturbing and left us all with a horrible, sinking feeling. As we fought,
the room began to fill with lava and surrounded our very skin. The powerful
majicks of this room somehow prevented us from taking any damage from
contact with the lava and it was then that we realized why we could not
move: so long as we remained immobile we would take no damage from the lava.
But ONE STEP = Instant death, as one of us found out the hard way. We wiped.
I wouldn't have gone all the way back down and tried again if Elandil were
not with us to group invis us back, but he was and we did and we got into
place again for another go at the efreetis. This time, as the lava started
to rise, we realized that we needed to kill the Efreeti *before* the lava
went over our heads and made it impossible for any of us to see what we were
doing. As a dwarf, and the smallest player there, this did not make me feel
very comfortable, but fortunately we kicked major efreeti butt and we had no
trouble taking down each of the four successive genies in a bottle, well
before the lava covered even my short frame (although one time it did come
up to my neck). After killing one efreeti, the room would empty of lava and
you had all the time you needed before starting the next bottle, so we were
able to get the job done pretty easily once that was figured out.
Finally, all four were done and a larger, single lamp floated down from the
ceiling and landed lightly in the center of the round stage and we knew this
was our objective. Once rubbed, we'd be fighting the Efreeti Lord himself,
Djarn. We got into position, re-buffed, crossed ourselves and waited for
Elandil to do his countdown:
"Initiating in 30"
"20"
"10"
"Initiating"
The Efreeti Lord Djarn is a L52 ++ Heroic, nothing very scary about those
stats and yet ... he hit HARD. Harder than I expected and as well as I'd
been able to keep up as single healer for this group throught every
encounter we'd ever faced in Sol's Eye, this one appeared to be beyond my
capacity and after using up manastones, healing scepters, emergency wards,
Savior, and every trick at my disposal, eventually the Efreeti Lord was just
too much for us and after our MT went down, our backup tank engaged while I
combat rezzed the MT (mistake, I should have let him lie and stay focused on
keeping the backup standing), and we wiped. With the Efreeti Lord Djarn at
15%. Ugh.
Genie 2, Veritas 0.
No one had the heart (or the energy) to return for another try that night
and we vowed we would return, probably tonight. We learned a lot about the
nature of Djarn's AE from parses of the logs and I'm pretty certain we've
got his number for the next try. So, even though we didn't make it to the
boots, we got far, far further than we'd expected when we started out that
night so long ago up top, and we were happy with our results. As the only
member of the guild to have completed this access quest, and many of our
folks working toward the boots now, I know that Djarn and I are going to
have more than a few more meetings in the upcoming days ...
--
Redbeard, the Relic Keeper
<Veritas>
Dwarven Mystic of 50 Winters & Alchemist
Loyal Citizen of the Antonia Bayle
Current resident of Qeynos Harbor
http://veritasab.invsionzone.com/forums
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/pplayer.vm?characterId=105183104
Descendant of the Elder Winterfury Thunderwolf
<Resolution, Retired>
Barbarian Prophet of The Tribunal
Retired Citizen of Firiona Vie
Of all the Heritage quests in EQII, one of the most attractive and elusive
is "Saving Soles", the only Level 50 Heritage quest in the game. It requires
many complex steps to complete, including learning a language, access to
Lavastorm, killing a raid mob and finally one of the most grueling and
challenging access quests in the game, "Efreeti Bastion", which much be
completed deep in the heart of Solusek's Eye where the final efreeti boss
awaits. The prize: Golden Efreeti Boots, a sweet set of gear with a whopping
+20 per tick power regen. I want!
I had accomplished all of the preliminary steps for the quest and had led
several raids on the Magolemus raid mob who sits just outside the entrance
to Solusek Eye. Mago is a big giant who sits non KOS until someone
approaches him with this quest and triggers his aggro. The thing about Mago
is that he's stationed right in the heart of the lava fields where you have
to watch your step carefully because one foot in the lava and your toast.
Oh, and did I mention that Mago has hella knockback lol? The trick to this
encounter is to pull him all the way to the entrance to Solusek's Eye and
get the tank in the corner so that Mago can knock him back into the corner
over and over again. The rest is just an endurance contest (many Bothans
died getting us this information).
The final step in my quest was simply to kill the Efreeti Lord Djarn. No one
in the guild had completed the access quest to the Bastion of Flame,
however, so we set out to get it done. To even get the quest requires a trip
deep, deep into Solusek's Eye, a good two hour trek if you're not lucky
enough to have an Illusionist, Swashbuckler or Fury in the party for Group
invis. Fighting every mob on the way down is just a huge chore and timesink,
this place is HUGE. Long, labyrnthian lava tunnels, huge circular hallways
with roaming giants, and the most elaborate network of thin, glass walkways
that leave you inching your way carefully across chasms of molten lava,
knowing that a single misstep and you plummet to your death. The worst part
about dying here is that the zone-in is so far away, your night is
effectively over unless the entire party is willing to evac back AND you've
got a group inviser. Otherwise, game over.
Finally we got to the book, got the quest and set out to complete it. This
required finding 12 different species of fire giants within SE and getting
their shards (random updates). This alone takes many nights and all of us in
the guild started working this throughout the week to a point where one of
us could start the final phase of the quest, assembling the lava bottle at
the Forge of the Giants and killing The Castigator, a huge named Giant
guarding the entrance to the Bastion of Flames. Entrance to the Bastion
requires only member of the group to have acccess, so it didn't matter who
was there first, just that one of us got it, and throughout the week
everyone worked hard at both advancing the Saving Soles quest (so that
they'd be ready when someone got access) and hunting giants (so as to gain
the guild access). Finally, I hit all 12 shards and made my way to the Forge
of the Giants and made by lava bottle. Now to go camp The Castigator. This
is not a pretty camp, from what I'd heard and I prepared to start camping
this for days, if necessary. Fortunately, we had with us Elandil, an officer
and L48 Illusionist who was able to get the entire party down into position
within 10 minutes with his god-given group invisibility.
When we got to the Castigator room, however, we saw what we'd all feared: it
was already camped. The group camping, however, had only 5 members so we
inquired if they would accept one of the three people in our group who
needed this step. Some discussion was had and despite my expressed desire
not to leave my group, they insisted that I join the other group and try and
get the camp done. I obliged and after saying goodbyes, got into position
with the other group and began some lively discussions when, suddenly, POP.
Our named giant, The Castigator, spawned and woots and shouts poured forth.
My group stood, stunned, watching as the camping group took down the
Castigator and paved the way for my completion of the access quest and our
entry into the Bastion of Flames. I thanked the campers profusely and
re-joined my group. No one in their wildest dreams thought it possible that
on the night we set out to work the Bastion quest, we actually might enter
the Bastion that same evening to confront the Efreeti Lord, but there we
were. There was one small final step, to kill 20 efreetis soulslayers but
they were easily dispatched and within a few minutes we were ready to enter
the Bastion. Wow!
We approached it and zoned in. What we found inside was a small, circular
room, pulsating with the orange glow of lava surrounding a round center
stage of stone, set up above a lava lake. On the walls of this room were
four genie lamps positioned equidistantly from each other surrounding the
center stage. All we knew about this encounter was that we had to rub a lamp
and fight a boss. We had heard that it was necessary to be still during the
battle, but that's it. Nothing on the spoiler sites, nothing more to go on.
So we positioned ourselves where we *thought* we *might* be fighting and got
ready for the first rub. Elandil did the honors:
"Initiating"
After rubbing the lamp, a genie appeared from out of a shimmering glow and
transformed into a L52 named Efreeti who immediately aggro'd us on the
center stage. Our tank, a 50 Guardian, Held the Line, and I cast Mourning
Soul, a L49 spell that does a 35% attack rate slow and roots me in place,
thank you very much. We started to fight and noticed something very
disturbing and left us all with a horrible, sinking feeling. As we fought,
the room began to fill with lava and surrounded our very skin. The powerful
majicks of this room somehow prevented us from taking any damage from
contact with the lava and it was then that we realized why we could not
move: so long as we remained immobile we would take no damage from the lava.
But ONE STEP = Instant death, as one of us found out the hard way. We wiped.
I wouldn't have gone all the way back down and tried again if Elandil were
not with us to group invis us back, but he was and we did and we got into
place again for another go at the efreetis. This time, as the lava started
to rise, we realized that we needed to kill the Efreeti *before* the lava
went over our heads and made it impossible for any of us to see what we were
doing. As a dwarf, and the smallest player there, this did not make me feel
very comfortable, but fortunately we kicked major efreeti butt and we had no
trouble taking down each of the four successive genies in a bottle, well
before the lava covered even my short frame (although one time it did come
up to my neck). After killing one efreeti, the room would empty of lava and
you had all the time you needed before starting the next bottle, so we were
able to get the job done pretty easily once that was figured out.
Finally, all four were done and a larger, single lamp floated down from the
ceiling and landed lightly in the center of the round stage and we knew this
was our objective. Once rubbed, we'd be fighting the Efreeti Lord himself,
Djarn. We got into position, re-buffed, crossed ourselves and waited for
Elandil to do his countdown:
"Initiating in 30"
"20"
"10"
"Initiating"
The Efreeti Lord Djarn is a L52 ++ Heroic, nothing very scary about those
stats and yet ... he hit HARD. Harder than I expected and as well as I'd
been able to keep up as single healer for this group throught every
encounter we'd ever faced in Sol's Eye, this one appeared to be beyond my
capacity and after using up manastones, healing scepters, emergency wards,
Savior, and every trick at my disposal, eventually the Efreeti Lord was just
too much for us and after our MT went down, our backup tank engaged while I
combat rezzed the MT (mistake, I should have let him lie and stay focused on
keeping the backup standing), and we wiped. With the Efreeti Lord Djarn at
15%. Ugh.
Genie 2, Veritas 0.
No one had the heart (or the energy) to return for another try that night
and we vowed we would return, probably tonight. We learned a lot about the
nature of Djarn's AE from parses of the logs and I'm pretty certain we've
got his number for the next try. So, even though we didn't make it to the
boots, we got far, far further than we'd expected when we started out that
night so long ago up top, and we were happy with our results. As the only
member of the guild to have completed this access quest, and many of our
folks working toward the boots now, I know that Djarn and I are going to
have more than a few more meetings in the upcoming days ...
--
Redbeard, the Relic Keeper
<Veritas>
Dwarven Mystic of 50 Winters & Alchemist
Loyal Citizen of the Antonia Bayle
Current resident of Qeynos Harbor
http://veritasab.invsionzone.com/forums
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/pplayer.vm?characterId=105183104
Descendant of the Elder Winterfury Thunderwolf
<Resolution, Retired>
Barbarian Prophet of The Tribunal
Retired Citizen of Firiona Vie
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