The Cursed: Lonely Banished Wood

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Opting to deal with the barbarians first, the squad heads to Lonelywood where the girls explore the town, help out who they can and go shopping at the Temple of Waukeen while the guys hit the tavern and end up bedding the local whore.

The next day they make the trek to the massive barbarian camp whose normally warring tribes were now under the leadership of their great king Wyldfene - risen from the dead to reclaim their rightful lands. Wyldfene agrees to an audience with them, but they are unable to come to any sort of truce despite Wyldfene's shaman siding with the adventurers.

Ahh, the traditional form of barbarian negotiation...

Ultimately, the risen King banishes the lot of them via gate to Burial isle to "wait for death". While the shaman is happy to do this (for honor and all), the team is less so and use hastened invisibility to quickly scout the island. It is crawling with wights and spirits who are moaning that their great king is just being worn by something else like a meat sack.

When proof of this is brought back to the shaman, he is willing to break their exile (since he can cast gate too) but insists the team find the Gloomfrost seer to help in unmasking Wyldfene.

Insight: There is some really nice (and expensive) gear in Lonelywood. Be sure to browse all the shops properly for things you can use.

The Maddening Grinds

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

Apparently opening sealed, magical coffin-like boxes wrapped in heavy chains that radiate evil is a bad idea. This particular one contained the vengeful son of the Mad King, and if there's anything I know about spirits it's that they can hold a grudge! Fortunately his only weakness is plentiful this time of the year, and we easily pushed him back into his prison because we're such nice guys.

Oh, how I missed thee clock tower!

 

The Mad King himself is about too, and with him returned his clock tower - still one of my favourite jumping challenges around. I did prefer racing against charrs and norns instead of wisps though but that's ok. It's all muscle memory now. The Labyrinth also has more bosses too, which alas, do not scale down and do not cater for the solo roamer. Even some areas the "regular" mobs there who can do a combination of push, pull and paralyze (in addition to just killing you) are pretty dangerous meaning it's not very productive to be there alone.

This meant that after I did what I needed to I headed back over to Neverwinter to grind up some Coins of Waukeen (a special event this week). Boring? Slightly. Just a little worse than the current living story achievement grind in GW2. Difficult? Nope, and very appealing since you can participate solo instead of relying on a zerg. Rewarding? Still very luck based, but in my case it paid off to the tune of five hundred twelve thousand astral diamonds (and a bunch of other gear)! That's worth quite a bit more than a silly pail or useless minature offered in Tyria, and for a much heavier grind I might add.