Dungeons & Dragons Online And The Dead Shall Rise Quest Guide

Name	And The Dead Shall Rise Quest Guide
Category	Quest

Delera's Graveyard is very well-known place because of the Delera quest series. The said series gives out a pretty huge experience point (XP) that gets lowbies quickly leveling in just under two hours. Another popular quest that can be found in the graveyard is "From Beyond The Grave", a quest that was once farmed by many players to get tomes and nice weapons. You might have also heard of the timed quest Dead Girl's Spellbook (or Valak's Mausoleum), also in the Graveyard. However, there is one quest in the Graveyard that not many players know about. Some may have done it once or twice but the quest never enjoyed the same popularity of the other quests housed in the Graveyard. Perhaps it's because the loot in the 2 chests aren't as nice as you get from other quests. Add to that the fact that the quest involves a bit of hard work. But before we go into details, you need to get the level 11 quest from Siendra D'Jorasco over at House Jorasco. The entrance to the quest is located in Delera's Graveyard just to the left of the "From Beyond the Grave" quest. It's called the Spire of Validus.


BACKGROUND

Validus (complete name Calliphor Validus) is an evil wizard that is believed to have risen from the dead and found his way back to Delera's Graveyard and thus made the Spire his home. The tower is an extension of his will, and like Calliphor, it has been growing in power all these years. To get rid of this evil wizard, Siendra seeks your help and asks you to go inside the spire, find Validus, and silence him permanently. This will involve fighting several undead of different shapes and sizes before getting to Validus.

PREPARATION

Just like the other quests inside the Graveyard, the tower houses a bunch of undead which include Dire Zombie, Dire Mummy, Dire Wraith, Dire Spectre, Dire Arcane, Dire Hunter, and Brimstone Skeleton. With that in mind, you have to protect yourselves with Death Ward, Resist Fire, Cold, and Electricity, and Disease Immunity item. You will also constantly be cursed, so make sure you have Remove Curse pots. You will most likely get negative levels as well as stat damage. You have to stock up on Lesser Restore pots (for the stat damage). It's important that the Cleric use his or her spell points on healing, so other members of the group can carry their Remove Disease, Remove Curse and Lesser Restore pots. Some undead casters will also cast slow spells on you. Just make sure that you get hasted when this happens.

As for party make-up, it will be very nice to have a caster to cast Firewall and Fireball. There are some traps, locked chests and hidden doors in the quest, so having a Rogue will be very helpful. Of course, damage-dealing tanks with appropriate weapons (e.g. Ghost Touch, Disruption, Undead Bane) are good to have.

Calliphor Validus is a lich. He has immunity to cold, fire, and electricity spells. What's even more annoying is that he is immune to Firewall. And to show how powerful he is, he has immunity to level 4 or lower spells. So that leaves you no choice but to use Heal and Disintegrate spells and rely on the tanks to finish the job. The type of spells Calliphor will cast on you are the very same ones he is immune to. So make you sure have all resists on when you face him.

GUIDE

Upon entering the spire, you will immediately sense that there will be some creatures ready to jump at you. If you have a keen sense of hearing (high Listen skill), you will hear the sound of Wraiths and Spectres coming from the altar in the middle of the hall. There is a staircase on to the right side that will lead you up to 8 levels until you reach the final chamber. Anyway, if you walk a little bit forward after entering the spire, Dire Wraiths, Spectres, and mummies will attack simultaneously. No one should rush ahead until all buffs (Deathward is a must) are handed out. Lay down a couple of maximized Firewalls to make things a little less chaotic.

Climbing up the spire is one of the main objectives of the game. Keep in mind that it's quite a long climb. The path spirals upward and you have to deal with a bunch of undead at every level. There will be doors that rise from switches and some doors that open when you smash them. A Strength of 20 or more will be sufficient. Each level has the same landscape. All you need to do is climb up, smash doors, and kill the undead. Rinse and repeat. There will be several traps along the way, including acid and blade traps. Allow the Rogue to disarm the traps before proceeding because they hit pretty hard, especially on elite. With the swirling blade traps comes an air trap that can blow you off and you will find yourself back at the lower level. This means you have to climb up again. Make sure you time your movement to avoid getting blown off.

At each level, you have to fight your way against Skeletal Archers, Wraiths, Spectres, Zombies, and Mummies. Firewall will definitely help in taking them down faster. The Wraiths and Spectres are more annoying than deadly. If you don't have Deathward, your Constitution levels will quickly drop. What you need to focus on are the Dire Zombies that change into Dire Skeletons and Arcane Archers, who are tougher to defeat because of the spells they cast.

If you keep going, you will soon reach the upper chamber leading to a room. This room will have three tables. Clicking on the table will teleport you to Calliphor's chamber. Each table will teleport you to a different area of the chamber and this will entail a different combat approach as Calliphor will summon monsters depending on which table you click on. Make sure that all party members click on the same table. When Calliphor summons the undead, he will also attack, which in turn causes the floor to collapse. Only his throne and three alcoves will be unaffected. So make sure you have feather fall on at all times so as not to die upon hitting the ground.

At this point Calliphor and his skeleton bodyguards will cast disintegrate on you, as well as acid and lightning spells. The best way to handle this is to protect your casters by shield blocking while they cast their own Disintegrate spells on Calliphor. The Cleric can cast Heal spell on Calliphor, but the cleric needs to monitor the health of the other party members as well. When Calliphor is defeated, feather fall down to the bottom of the spire. There is a ramp that will lead you to a chest containing Calliphor's phylactery. This is just an optional objective. There is an acid trap around the phylactery chest. If you want, you can also loot the additional chest. Finish out and get your end reward from Siendra D'Jorasco.