Before we move on, check the Maguuma region map to find the town of Maguuma Stade (just south of where we currently are, The Henge of Denravi). I won't give you more detailed directions cause there are no quests there, but the skill trainer there has some pretty good skills. Recommended skills to buy: Chain Lightning (air), Crystal Wave (earth), and Maelstrom (water), Power Drain (inspiration), Unholy Feast (blood), Deathly Chill (death), Scavenger Strike (beast mastery), Disciplined Stance (tactics). Master Scout Kiera may have an exclamation mark over her head, but all she really wants to do is scowl at you and tell you she's keeping her eye on you. She's also a skill trainer, albeit a snarky one. Shadow, though, is a lot nicer to you, and gives you your next primary. Denravi is usually pretty empty, so grab some henches and head outside. This primary is really really easy. Just follow either Carlotta (Shadow's spider. If you lose sight of her, she drops various Marking Webs along the path she takes, so never fear. Like Aidan's thingies in the caves on the way to Gates of Kryta earlier in the game, you don't need to pick these up) or your quest arrow to find Old Joness. Beware of multiple scarab and life pod spawns on the way (kill off the life pods first cause they heal themselves and any other enemies attacking you). When you get to Old Joness, make the following dialogue choices in order: 1) "I hear you had a son," 2) "I understand these bandits wear white," and 3) "Shadow did." After that, the next dialogue choice teleports you to the next mission outpost. Talk to Blade Warrior Derikk for your reward, then find a suitable party for the mission.

Mission map here. Alright, just a note before we get started: The "Mission path" on the map allows you to avoid about 90% of the White Mantle in this mission. The downside is that most of the enemies on this path are undead, so it really depends on which you prefer to fight. MM's for example would probably rather fight the White Mantle since they leave corpses. However, the main mission path on the map has a lot fewer enemies in the first place. You don't HAVE to do the bonus (i.e., killing the watchtower guards) even if you take the bonus path, so it's up to you.

Decide now if you guys are doing the bonus or not. If you aren't, just sneak around the White Mantle in this area by hugging the left wall and going through the path here. Skip to the next paragraph. If you are doing the bonus, go forwards and have someone pull the first group of White Mantle in front of you away from his buddies further back. After they're dead, head right up onto a small hill and try to pull another group of White Mantle towards you. Head back around so you can pull some of the Mantle from the left side. Once you've thinned the ranks around the tower, attack the remaining White Mantle around and at the top of the tower. Get used to this "enemies on top of a tower" thing, cause the bonus involves eliminating the White Mantle at nine of these towers. Sometimes you get lucky with some of the towers and you get line of sight to the enemies up top, and other times you can actually kill them with melee because of quirky game mechanics (i.e., stabbing the tower sometimes hurts the dudes up top for whatever reason. Happens with bridges a lot too). But usually the only way to kill the dudes in the tower is with non-line-of-sight spells like Deathly Swarm or Immolate. There are lots of other spells that will work, so I won't list them all here. Once you've left the tower devoid of White Mantle (the bonus may be to eliminate the Watchtower Guard, but really you only get credit if everything at the top of the towers is dead), head southwest a bit to find... Saidra? She's disguised herself for reasons she will only divulge to you if there are no enemies in her aggro bubble. So if the enemies on the other side of the gate from where you are get aggrod, use the same type of spells you used on the watchtower to kill them off so you can actually talk to her and start the bonus. She then opens the gate. Go in and kill off the tower dudes in here, then go back outside and head east into the next area.

I suggest stopping in this passage to regenerate (if you fought the White Mantle) cause a group of undead are coming your way. In this area, there's no avoiding the watchtower, so whether you're doing the bonus or not, you're gonna have to kill at least some of them. If you're not doing the bonus, you can just leave the dudes at the top of the tower where they are and keep going, as they're stuck up there. After that, continue east a bit, then turn left. Non-bonus people, take another left here and follow the red map dots to the northeast. When you reach a large open area, just hug the left wall and you should be able to avoid all of the White Mantle out here entirely. You'll eventually reach the entrance to a large fort-type place on your left. Skip to the next paragraph. Bonus people, there's a watchtower just to your right. Careful, as there's several mobs of them. I highly suggest pulling the closest White Mantle dude towards you and deal with his group first, then pull some other ground troops before aggroing the tower. Continue northwards, crossing a bridge (which will probably aggro a small group of Mantle on your left), then break off and go east and south for another watchtower. Go back to the bridge and go north a bit more for yet another tower (careful here, as this area has a TON of White Mantle milling about). Just a bit north of that is the entrance to this big fort-thing.

There's a medium-sized group of White Mantle (and a boss) on your left when you enter the fort, but you can avoid them pretty easily if you just go right instead. Just don't aggro them when you go up the steps in the back. Keep to the right and go down some steps to find... Dinas! Hiya! He gives you the scepter and tells you to take it and run before the Mantle come back. In fact, the Mantle notice you taking the scepter as the cinematic ends. However, they seem to be thwarted by stairs or something, cause you can just stand here for like an hour and they never catch you. ^O__o^ But who wants to stand about for an hour doing nothing? So hit the lever near Dinas and get out of this fort-thing already. From here, just follow the red mission path. Hug the left wall until it turns, then hug the right wall after the path turns the corner. If you stop right before the turn, you'll probably see the dialogue bubble pictured on the right. Yeah. The White Mantle are talking about some giant bone dragon they saw. In the swamps. If you want to see this swamp or that bone dragon, you should just head east instead of north after you turn this corner. If you really really don't wanna see either of them (and why you'd want to, I don't know, as you'll get enough of them in the next mission), DON'T GO EAST. ^>__o^;; Anyway, continue north. Bonus people, another watchtower will be on your right as you head north. Non-bonus people should be able to avoid it if they just hug the left wall. Continue north and you'll soon see a large open area. Stop here for a bit. Non-bonus people, wait until the White Mantle run back to their respective towers (there's one on each side of this area), at which point make a mad dash for the other side of this area to the bridge there and you should reach it without aggroing any of the tower Mantle mobs. Bonus people, hug the right wall and pull some of the right tower's Mantle towards you, a few at a time, decimate that tower, then repeat with the left tower. Now head for the aforementioned bridge on the other side of the area. Now, bonus and non-bonus people! Here is your last obstacle to completing this mission! Kill the bridge boss! Or... you can sometimes just run past him across the bridge. Either way, when you reach a certain part of the bridge, you trigger the ending cinematic. Evennia congratulates you on getting the scepter, and tells you she's made a treaty with some advisor guy. You kinda go O__o?? and she explains that he's very powerful. She leaves you to your skepticism, and Saidra asks you about Markis. Nope, haven't seen him. Maybe he got eaten by the bone dragon. >:D

Recommended level: 18
My current level: me: 17, Tahlkora (hero): 17, Acolyte Sousuke (hero): 17, Olias (hero): 18, Orion: 15, Claude: 15

Mission map here. One warning before you start: You CANNOT do the mission and the bonus in one go. If you want to do both, you're gonna have to do one now and then come back later and do the other one. I have a theory on how to do both at the same time but I'll only put it here if I ever manage to prove it.

Make your way off the boat and take the scepter from Evennia. She says something's not right here. Maybe she's seasick from the trip over? Head left onto the beach, and beware of the Inferno Imps' powerful fire magic. Once you reach the beach, either head right if you're doing the bonus and talk to the ghost hiding behind the large rock at the end of the beach, or head north (you have to head north after you grab the ghost anyway). Stay in the water and kill off undead as you go. When you see a bridge up above further on, take a left and go up the hill to head off some undead coming down towards you. Another group will probably come down from the right as well, unless they were already down there when you got here, in which case you've killed them now. :op Continue up the left hill (sometimes there's a popup spawn up the right hill) and continue north. Once you reach the wooded area, there's also a popup group here and a boss. Continue onwards, and now you'll find... some White Mantle? We're on an island! Why are they here? Maybe Evennia wasn't seasick... Well, again, target any Savants you see from here on out. Head east, then take the first right. Stop before aggroing anything in this swamp, cause there's a group of about six hellhounds coming towards you from the east (unless you encountered them already and killed them. They run back and forth around here). Once the hellhounds are gone, pull anything at the front edge of the swamp towards you. After that, keep left and get up onto the stretch of land on that side. Regen your HP/energy, then attack the bone dragon here. Be careful, as these guys have a skill called Choking Gas which tends to interrupt most everything you try to do. After that, continue forwards and pull the other bone dragon on the left side towards you so you can stay on dry land (see? I told you you'd get enough bone dragons in this mission. Oh, we're not done yet though...). There's probably another bone dragon off to your right but you can ignore him. Your goal is the back of the swamp, where there are a bunch of undead and a big bad boss bone dragon (that was a lot of B's). KEEL DEM AAAAAAAAAAALL!! No, really, you need to get past these guys. Once they're dead, pull the lever here to open the gate. Beware of the hill giants here, as they like to KD (knock down) you, which is pretty damn annoying. There are also more inferno imps around here. Hang a right and go up the hill to make the Vizier appear. Talk to him to give him the Scepter of Orr.

The Vizier is happy to get the scepter (back?), and tells you that you've been sold out by Markis. Hmph! Wasn't he the one who was worried about us doing something questionable during the Wilds end cinematic? Hypocrite. ^-__-^;; Apparently, we've gotta get out of here to avoid being captured like Evennia. The Vizier summons up some undead to help get us to the beach, and the cinematic ends. If you're doing the bonus, walk as far east as you can go so that the ghost notices the Vizier's existance (the first bonus objective was to bring him to the Vizier). Once he stops following you, talk to him again and he says that you must take him to the cemetary so he can rest. The cemetary is about two paces east of where you currently are. The only catch is that there's a cliff in your way and you can't jump down in this game. Anyway. On with the mission (or bonus! We're both going the same way!). Head north and take a right to help your new undead pals destroy this large mob of White Mantle people (there are at least two Savants in this group, so don't rush things). Follow the path east, north, east again (die, Mantle, die), then south. Bonus people! Skip the next paragraph!

For those not doing the bonus, head out onto the beach and east to a dock which is about five paces away from the start of the beachy area. The Vizier appears and says that he can provide you with a means of escape as long as you don't let him get killed. Make a stand right between the two sandy hills in front of this dock and kill off any White Mantle that come your way. Stay in this area so that the Vizier stays out of harm's way, as Savants do show up in these attacking waves. You don't need to kill them all, you just need to hold them off until you get a "Get on the boat!" message on your screen. When that happens, break off attacking and run onto the boat. As long as one party member crosses the threshold, the ending cinematic will trigger. You all sail off, and the Vizier dashes your angst with news that you are all, in fact, Chosen. The White Mantle have been hunting the Chosen for years to prevent something called The Flameseeker Prophecies from coming about, but with all their years of Chosen-hunting they apparently never noticed you and your merry band of fellow players/henchmen/heroes are Chosen. Good for us, bad for them! But apparently before we can fulfill this prophecy thing, we have to ascend, and in order to ascend, we have to wander about the desert for awhile. Well OK then...

I hate writing these things out of order, but this mission requires it, apparently. Anyway. Bonus people! Here's what you do. We're still not on the beach I mentioned at the beginning of the previous paragraph. Start hugging the right wall and stick to it LIKE GLUUUUUUEEEEEEE as you make your way south and then west. Keep hugging the right wall and you'll eventually enter the very very small cemetary the ghost needs to get to. Walk to the very very back of the cemetary (all of you) so that the ghost triggers the end of the bonus. The End! No, seriously, even if your entire party has speed-boosting skills, the Vizier will die before you get to the dock, since at least one group of White Mantle made their way to the dock while you were hauling Mr. Ghost-Boy around.