The Challenge Dungeon Run

Published November 29, 2014 | By PeteWi the Disoriented

I’ve been through the sewers of Kingsport. I’ve been through the sewers of Owl’s Head. I’ve been to the top of the Tower of the Shuttered Eye. And I’ve stood my ground in the Vertas Pass. Each of those has been a pretty outrageous adventures fraught with danger and reward. But the Challenge Dungeon I think tops them all.

As I mentioned and as listed in the community events, there was a Challenge Dungeon run last night and I showed up early to get a good seat. Good thing to, as parties right now are limited to 8 people. I actually thought they could be a fair bit larger, but I guess that will come later or maybe 8 is the magic number. Either way, I got a ticket to ride and down I went with some stalwart player.

Again, I’m not usually involved in these sorts of raids. They take more planning than I have a head for and certainly more strategy. You really do have to be in the right frame of mind to take on the job of Tank to bear the brunt of the blow or to the role of healer where the players lives are in your hands.

My job? Hit things and try not to get killed. That’s about all I can manage.

We hit a couple of snags – read glitches – and it took a couple of resets to get things going. But, in the end we manage to traverse all the levels and face all the monsters, which is just about everything the game has to offer in one location. Once you get past the warmup rounnds of wolves, bears and a few skeletons, the pressure is on with hordes of Satyr, armies of Kobold, rooms littered with Chest and Barrel Mimics and groups of Ice Elements which I haven’t seen in the game before.

And then there’s the big finale, a room with a dozen or more Lich floating around all looking to send you into the Ether. No, I’m not counting wrong, there were over a dozen.

The final prize was a chest of loot with property deeds worth a fortune on the black market. These were for City lots which are clearly gone at this point, so it’s time to turn them in for cash. Will the uptick in coins was nice, it was the experience of seeing this gauntlet of pain and suffering that made it exciting. The Ice Elementals are completely new to me and I’ve never seen that many Lich in one place. It was also pretty cool to see what it really takes to pull of a hard fought adventure like this. Watching you’re health go down, but to moments later see the healing beam from a member in your party is pretty damn fun I admit. It’s not hard to see why people like this sort of thing. It’s nerve wracking to say the least, but an impressive feeling of accomplishment.

But there was more to this night than just running the gauntlet, much to my surprise there was a visit by Lord British himself. He had a guest coming in from MMORPG.com to have a look at the world and how things were shaping up. I’ve missed his visits in the past so it was a treat so see him wandering around in Kingsport. Starr Long was also on hand to take his guest out for a little dust up with some creatures.

Not a bad night at all, a fun little 2 for 1 special if you will.