Team Spode Bewitches the Crucible

Sorry about that title, seriously, I couldn't help myself. (If you don't get the joke, here.) ;)

I generally don't get pissed off by dungeons, but by the end of The Crucible, I was totally Dan "Yell" Day-Lewis.



See, now don't you feel better about your horrible experience in The Crucible? Gleek does. After being impaled underwater, dying, and being resurrected outside the dungeon walls, I think Gleek has every right yelling and ranting and raving away.

Check these screenshots out . . .



That first one is the side view of the underwater impalers from outside the walls looking in.

The second is actually above the water, outside of the walls. Standing around out there, completely glitched out, was super frustrating. There was nothing I could do but release and run back in . . . and that was my second time releasing, mind you. The first time I had to release was when Spode, Ophiga, myself, and my NPC were trapped in the maze, separated from Ulan, who was dead, above the maze. I made the mistake of having the NPC pull a lever and then clicking the "come to me" button. GREAT. STUCK. There just appeared to be nothing I could do but release and come back in to free Spode and Ophiga.

I hate releasing in a dungeon. It feels like losing. Oh well.

*TAKES DEEP BREATHS*

I'm sure after a person runs that instance a couple of times, it's not nearly the nightmare that it was, but at least I was trapped in that nightmare with friends. LOL.

Ok, here's the story behind The Crucible . . . basically, you're interested in joining The Storm's Fist, so you've taken a quest to meet up with Jorgundal Ar'grund, Captain of the Storm's Fist, at The Trials of The Crucible. It's necessary for you to join the Storm's Fist because your real goal is to make it into all three giant brigades and eventually into Gianthold Tor proper. Team Spode already joined the Storm's Heart and the Storm's Eye . . . all that was left was to join Jorgundal's club here.


Yeah, Jorgundal pretty much laughed his butt off at me, a halfling, for wanting to join his brigade. Apparently humor was the key to his heart, and he allowed Team Spode a shot. All we had to do was duel his champions in a battle pit. We were ok with that, the only problem is that you have to get to the battle pit the long way around. The long way around involves completing four tests:

- The Test of Cunning (an evil maze with two-way doors controlled by three levers--featuring archers and casters hanging out on the top of the maze shooting down at you.)

- The Test of Agility (a timed run involving jumping through two rooms of traps.)

- The Test of Instinct (a wisdom check where you are presented six doors and a riddle, get the riddle wrong, get the wrong door and the accompanying burst of traps that goes with the door.)

- The Test of Endurance (a swim through rushing water being pulled by underwater propeller blades--the decor of the surrounding walls just happens to be impalers. Have fun with that.)

There are other tricks to this dungeon too, like a diplomacy check at the beginning that allows you to see where the cracks in the floor are. Yay successful diplomacy check for Team Spode!


And above the maze you're tested with the challenge of naming these symbols so that your friends at the dials can spin them into the right place. (I remember Lessah saying that there was a thread somewhere where the DDO community had come up with some standard names for these things? Anyone?)


Crazily enough, there are people who play DDO that have soloed this dungeon. This dude on YouTube makes Team Spode look like total chumps. I can only imagine how many times he's run through this dungeon to make it look this easy. He some how figured out you could completely skip the maze that we bumbled around in for a long time.

The full write up over on DDO Wiki is pretty good for helping you through this instance. Thanks so much to the pioneers of this instance who wrote all this information up. You people rock. Without that information, it would have probably been an additional 2.5 hours on top of the 2.5 hours it took us. Egads.

At least the good news is that the members of Team Spode are honorary members of The Storm's Fist! WOOT! (. . . despite our newbie-ness and glitch finding abilities.) Now all that's left is to collect the remaining relics, so we can check out that pre-raid quest. :)

See you all next week, and thanks for reading!

**Update** Looks like Ophiga has written up some words about last night from her PoV. Check it out!

Happy dueling!