Hail friends,
I wake to find 2 very interesting messages:
::Private Barter Town Forum (Time Stamped @ 2:55pm)::
The Gooch: Inquisitor's Resolution up in Doom
The Gooch: Mage Gloves up in doom. Same room as the lamp room so we need 5 players in total to do some puzzle that ive never done before. If anyone wants to try for it i have two characters with stealth that can go down there
::Public Stratics Forum (Time Stamped @ 2:55pm)::
GarthGrey: Inquisitor's Resolution in Doom
GarthGrey: If anyone is so inclined...
There were 2 messages (1 public and 1 private) waiting for me about the appearce of the incredibly rare Inquisitor's Resolution gloves and these messages were posted at the exact same time. And who knows? Maybe The Gooch and GarthGrey stealthed passed each other, outside the treasure room at the same time and didn't even know it. Regardless, the secret was out and the whole shard knew about it. The Inquisitor's Resolution had just spawned and who knows how many people would be descending upon Dungeon Doom's Lever Puzzle?
The race was on.But before we continue our story, let's review the Lever Puzzle, courtesy of UO Guide:
The Doom lever puzzle is a puzzle located in the dungeon Doom that requires 5 people to complete. It allows access to a hidden room where the Lamp Post and The Inquisitor's Resolution artifacts spawn.To complete the puzzle, the player to be teleported to the secret room must have Grandmaster or higher Stealing and stands on the middle tile, while four other people stand on the tiles in a circle around the thief. The four people each pull their lever in succession and if the order is correct the thief is teleported to the hidden room. If not, then rocks fall on every player in the area. High physical resist armor is recommended.
To help solve this puzzle in the shortest time possible, here is a handy guide. The idea is that the four lever pullers are labelled N, S, E and W and the order they should pull the lever in is given as a four letter code, e.g. NEWS. Depending on how many levers are correct, follow the appropriate leg of the tree. Yellow boxes are combinations to try, the blue boxes list the combinations that could possible be correct at each step.
I head East out of Umbra, through the undead forest, to the entrance to Dungeon Doom.As far as I know, GarthGrey (a.k.a. Jaqen H'ghar a.k.a. Valar Morghulis) is not affilited with any guild which is probably the reason why he made his Inquisitor's Resolution sighting public. He had no chance to complete the puzzle himself.
The Gooch and Accident (and GarthGrey) were already at the puzzle and Henry Swift, Laggy McLaggerson, and myself were on the way.
(I track for anyone else before entering the dungeon.)
And we find ourselves at the Lever Puzzle at last.
In truth is that it took a while for us to get the word out and cobble together 5 people to work the puzzle. At least 20-30 minutes have already passed since the initial postings of both messages. If we wanted to win the day, we would have to do it now.
(And remember, this is Siege Perilous. There is no such thing as a "Trammel Ruleset." This means that you're freely attackable across all of Malas, including Dungeon Doom.)(I wasn't tracking him, but make no mistake, he was here.)
Laggy takes the North lever, Accident takes East, Henry goes South, I'm on West, and The Gooch is on the green tile ready to be teleported away.
Laggy flips the North lever, Henry flips the South lever, Accident flips the East lever, and I fl--
*tick*
Boulder traps fall on each of us and The Gooch eats dirt. Which each incorrect combination, we would be taking some damage, but I didn't even I even have a chance to flip mine. The Gooch and I both start tracking for our unwanted guest and it's now a pointless game of tug-of-war. We would constantly track and detect Jaqen H'ghar while he prevented us from completing the puzzle. All the while, more and more time is passing for word to spread, and chatter in General Chat™ is beginning to pick up.Jaqen H'ghar: i'm in dungeon doom watching a team of thieves try to complete the lever puzzle
This wasn't going to work with Laggy for reasons and now we needed another 5th.
(Very funny.)
Yes, it was funny, but the joke would be on us if we couldn't get this completed while Jaqen was doing everything he could to get more people in the dungeon.This was useless on both sides.
It was time for Plan b.
*cracks knuckles*I was betting on the fact that he had no specific grievence with us and that our current conflict was just a cast of the wrong place at the wrong time. We were jusy the ones to get to the puzzle first. I was also betting on the fact that he had no particular love for GIL, TnT/TNA, YARR, [A], i4Ni, TDO*, NBT, or anyone else.
(Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.)
Henry and Gooch make contact.
(I was right.)
At least 40 minutes have passed since the original posts were made.
It was only our luck that this was all happening at an odd hour of the day.
Wrong combination after wrong combination, we take a beating (and are completely helpless if someone else shows).
Something wasn't right.
(What can I say? Between the 5 of us, only Henry and Jaqen had ever done this before and they've only done it once. Picking up stealables from the ground on Trammel on other shards isn't exactly God's work. I do it occasionally on Siege Perilous, just as an excuse to travel the land and the *chance* of bumping someone else, but I'm not expert and neither is anyone else here. In a puzzle that should take no more than 6 attempts if you follow the guide, we were already on attempt number 8.)
We start again, from the beginning, and I call out the combinations:
And it was just a matter of time...
Gu'Jek: any thieves onIf Gu'Jek knew, then it wouldn't be long before all of TnT, TNA, YARR, and [A] were here.
And then, just as the General Chat™ chatter is about nothing but Dungeon Doom, wel flip the levers one more time and...
*poof*
The Gooch is gone.
Our dreams are made, Gu'Jek's heart is broken, and at the end of the day Jaqen wasn't such a bad guy. He was just misunderstood.
(Apparently, Gu'Jek was scoping out the treasure room from a hallway and was inside Dungeon Doom, as we speak.)
(I feel all tingly.)
After aquiring my new found powers, I swing by the treasure room in hopes of a Gu'Jek sighting...
But he's long gone.And in the end, The Gooch decides that now would be a good time to bank sit.
'Til next time!
-Chad Sexington