The 12 Dark Secrets

The biggest early quest you will have to complete is the 12 dark secrets. This is my humble advice to help you through them.

First you are going to want to make some money, the docks is a great place to do this by doing both the 3 quests there, you will get 150 gold for the fish quest, and a water breathing ring for killing the kitty and turning in it's pelt. The water ring will allow you to go into the harbor to get Kalina's clothes from the chest and will get you 2k gold each time you do it. It does take a while for the clothes in the chest to respawn but you are going to need to do this at least twice Do this for exp and a few levels but mainly for the money, because outside the Temple in town is an NPC called Construction Foreman. Speak to him and give him 2000 gold, he will give you a receipt which you need to keep in your inventory so that you do not get charged 50 gold every time you use the portal in the  temple. While you are in town go to the Library and talk to the librarian that is wandering around and get her first quest, it's a letter to deliver to Owl. Now that you have some cash, and the Library quest take the south road all the way to Crossed Blades. You will see a pin on the north of the Crossed Blades map that says North to Great Owl's Woods. Go there and go north to his tower. Talk to the great owl, ask him about the 12 secrets and after a few prompts he will give you his feather. His feather is the 1st secret.

2nd Secret.

Well not really, but it's the one you will want to do next because haste makes the rest of them a lot faster. Take the money you earned at the docks and go to The Dragon's Lair in  Crossed Blades zone. Buy at least 5 invisibility potions and then exit and go to Valdemar's house in the  far southwest of the Crossed Blades zone. Enter the house and click on the glowing portal to the Portal zone. Once there you will see 6 portals. Take the portal named Room with 7 doors. Then take the north door on the right and head north to the glowing portal USE A POTION OF INVISIBILITY and THEN click through. You will work your way around until you reach a place with 4 "rooms" facing each other with points like a rifle scope on your map. start clicking though until you reach the south "room". There will be a dais with a chain hanging down from it. Pull the chain and it takes you to a pocket dimension where you will see Illusion of Ayre. talk to him and get Wind Walkers. These are great boots with some nice immunities on them, but most importantly they have haste which will speed things up for the rest of your quest. Click back out of there and work your way back to the entrance and leave. Return to the portal room and take the exit marked Crossed Blades. Head back to Great Owl and ask about the locations of the 12 secrets and he will send you to..

****Before you continue****

now that you have haste, there is another item you need to know about. The portal rune.  You will need an invisibility potion or two, (you should still have a few left) and some Bee Man's honey batch number 2, you will also need a point in search, a point in Pick locks, and some +10 thieves tools. The potions you can buy from a vendor (see below), the Bee man is located just north of Crossed Blades in the NW part of Forest road, go to him and buy the number 2 potions. Next you will head to South Road which is located in Crossed Blades and continue south past the white apes to Ganthol. In the SE corner of the zone there is a chest with some +10 thieves tools in it, grab them and also the Bag of Holding and then RUN because even invisible you will be attacked when you loot the chest. Drag them right to the guards in Crossed Blades. Once you are safe (or respawn if dead) you head back to Crossed Blades and head to south road again, use a potion of invisibility and go South again to Ganthol woods. At the Very tip top of the NW corner of the zone is an area with 3 large rocks, go to the very far right and turn on search. Once you find the hidden door enter it and DON'T MOVE. use the bee mans batch 2 potion to disable the trap and then use the lock picks to open the chest. Inside you will see a portal stone, this has 5 charges per rest and when used will port you immediately to the Portal room. This can save you some time.


3rd Secret

Head north until you get to the city with a name and then take the east exit to Eastlands. Talk to Prosperous Farmer and he will ask you to lower the goblin numbers. Follow the road and by a water tower you will see a goblin scout. kill him and loot a ring of lesser regeneration. In the north of the zone you will see an area with some goblins between two rocks. Search this area for the secret entrance between the two rocks. Enter the secret area and kill the goblins and their chief. Loot a +2 ring of protection a warhammer +1 and the chiefs head and then head back to the farmer. The farmer gives you a key which is secret number 3 and tells you about the lodestone mines. NOTE: if you kill the chief multiple times and save his head, when you talk to the farmer again he will give you 100 gold for each time additional time you killed him.

4th Secret

Head back to town and take exit to Southlands, go south until you reach Forest Road, Unpatrolled. In the western side of the zone is the lodestone mine. Kill the badgers outside and go in. Clear several levels of Gnolls and Bugbears while looting all of the raw lodestone in each level. On level 2 you will find a Captive Gnoll in a cell. You can talk to him and he gives you a book. Talk fast and leave or the door closes on you and you have to break it down to leave. It has some HPs so it might take a while. In the SE corner of the 3rd level you will find Big Dumb Lenny. Kill him and loot the lodestones, then use the machine to create a Perfect Lodestone.  27 raw lodestone ( use 3 at a time)= 9 Polished lodestone (use 3 at time)= 3 Magic lodestone = Perfect Lodestone. It has some nice abilities on it like castable true vision, see invisible, Ultravision and identify, all unlimited uses per day. Once you have that head to level 4. Clear the beetles and click on the shaft of light marked Watur Summons. Talk to him and get Ancient Talisman which is secret number 4.

5th Secret

Head back to Owl and ask about the location of the next secret. He tells you that a hermit in Crossed blades has the secret. The hermit is located on a hill behind the Dragons Lair.  Talk to him for the secret and return to Owl.

6th Secret

Head to South Path zone off of Crossed Blades and in the East of the zone you will see 9 pillars and some golems. The trick to destroying the pillars is shown if you read the statue, you need 1 each of the golem hearts per pillar BUT there is a trick to it, when you destroy the pillar the golems stop spawning from it so you need to collect 9 of each type before you destroy the pillars. When you have 9 of each type open a pillar and put 1 of each inside and it destroys it, repeat for all 9 pillars, loot the heart stones that drop for vendoring and loot the chest for a random "stone" weapon. +2 slow dc14 5 rounds and 1x heal per day. Head back to Owl.

7th Secret

On Forest Road in the SE corner is a bandit chief, there is a large rock near him and beside that rock is a very small entrance to Forest Road: Ancient Caverns. This place is great for 2 reasons, first because the secret you need is in the second level of the zone, and second because the creatures here are wonderful experience all the way until level 20. There are also some various caster items that drop here. The Crystal Rings (bard) are used in another high level quest. Save them, you can sell them to players doing the quest (210 are needed). Work your way to the entrance to level 2, and then look for the room with a chessboard in it, it as a golem that drops a key. Use the key to get past the locked door and fight the dragon, kill it for secret 7. Go back to Owl. Note: you must make the killing blow not your summons or your friend to get credit for the secret.

8th Secret

Go back to the Eastlands and zone North to Ruined City and open the door to the tower on the right of the entrance, zone down and move to the center of the map where there is an L shaped dead end. Put on search and hang out until you find the secret door. Murder Hobo everything in sight and loot the well keeper, he drops a cloak, save it, you will need it for another quest later. open the well and recieve secret and a random bracer. Back to owl. Note: the helm that drops may help in your search.

9th Secret

The Gathol Palace. Take south road and go south through gathol woods to Gathol and enter the palace at the south end of the zone search the zone for Tardos Moors and kill him, loot his key and open the chest in the room where you killed him and loot the dust. talk to the summoned creature and then back to owl.

10th Secret

Gathol B is the scene of our next adventure and what could be more delightful than an entire zone filled with angry drow? To get there go back to Valdemars house in Crossed Blades, enter the portal room and take the Gathol B portal. Now use invis potions and head to the NW corner and look for the Ancient Altar of Flame. click on it and you get the option to look at a couple different sets of belts, look through both sets and find the belt that matches your class and build, select it for secret completion.  Head back to Owl.

11th Secret

Owl sends you to Lord Rockmore in Temple City. Talk to him and pay him 1000 gold to open the door, then use an invis potion and enter the gate. While invisible head to the SE corner. In the SE corner is a coffin with two books, take them, you will need them for the library quest later and click on the summon stone. Talk the the summoned elemental for 11th Secret and and he will tell you to go to the room of seven doors which is in the portal room.

12th Secret

In the Room of Seven Doors take the right north door like you did for the boots but instead of taking a portal make and immediate right and turn on search, there is a hidden door in the corner, go through it and follow the tunnel ALL the way to the end of the passage. Go through the door and kill the vampires and then Mar-Vell. Loot the key from his corpse (page 2) and head through the doors at the south of the crypt. use the door (you lose key) and zone into Gateway. BE CAREFUL Gorg Milo may be here and will own you. There are 4 statues, talk to them. then go through the gate. Talk to the final statue and then back to owl. Owl says you have learned all 12 secrets and sends you to talk to the dragon in the Inn in Crossed Blades.


CONGRATULATIONS YOU'RE DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great book for new players getting started.
I'd like to see in the Eastland part, that you can turn in xtra goblin chief heads for gold to the Prosperous farmer, also if your going to see the owl you would want to pick up the 1st library quest . one more thing you might want to mention getting the 2000 reciept from the construction foreman to make using the temple portal to the portal plane cheaper.

If you would fix those couple things I will grant you a publishing contract.
~DM~Lord Throak

Thank you for editing and also the addition of the portal rune. you will receive a publishing contract when I see you in game

Atticus Thornburg has received his publishing contract