User:MrSmiles/Quests/The Totem Device

This is a quest chain.

Slaughter in the Desert
Requirement: Completed Eye of the North, completed Ascension in the Crystal Desert.

Lexx send the hero and his assistant, Sprung, to find an ancient Chronomancer artifact. This turns out to be the Slow Totem, used by the hero during the Dunes of Despair mission. Upon retrieving it, the hero is besieged by Losaru, who regard the Totem as a holy artifact. The first time the Totem is dropped by the player, however, there is a sudden rainfall and a Leviathan-like creature appears out of the desert sands. It wipes out the Losaru, then attacks the player with equal ferocity. The hero must defeat it because it's sitting on the very totem he's been sent to retrieve. It turns out that the Totem somehow yanked a bubble of ancient time into the present, bringing the sea creature and a shower of Crystal Seawater with it.

Complete quest details

What could possibly go wrong?
Requirement: Completed Eye of the North.

Lexx has, with the help of Sprung, partially disassembled the Slow Totem. By feeding power from the geomystic generators of Rata Sum into various components of the Totem, they've had some success in distorting the flow of time in specific areas. Unfortunately, Mamp is going to take their funding away unless they can demonstrate something practical, so they'd like the hero to be a guinea pig in an experiment. Unfortunately, the device malfunctions at first, causing the geomystic generator to temporarily shut down. It seems the generator is also responsible for the field that keeps (or rather, kept) monsters out of the city. While Lexx and Sprung work feverishly to reactivate the generator, the hero must fight off hordes of Simians, Krait and Raptors that come pouring in through the city gates. This task is further complicated by a sudden burst of power from the Totem, resulting in time slowing down for the Hero. In this state (decreased health regen, energy regen, movement, attack speed, casting speed and recharge time), the party must fight off additional groups of monsters and protect Lexx and Sprung from harm. At the last moment, the two Asura manage to reactivate the Geomystic generators, stopping the flow of monsters but leaving plenty still wandering the city. Moments later, Sprung "reverses the flow polarity" and the Heroes suddenly find time sped up (increased health regen, energy regen, movement, attack speed, casting speed, and recharge time). With this massive buff, the heroes take great pleasure in wiping the floor with the remaining monster groups. Sprung is overjoyed by his "successful test". The reward for this quest might be a new PvE skill, which has a 50/50 chance of debuffing you with slow time, or buffing you with fast time.

Meddling with Causality
Requirement: Completed What could possibly go wrong? Solo quest.

Sprung believes he now understands how the totem works, as well as how to use it to open portals to specific times and places. He believes it may be possible to go back in time and alter history. Mamp, however, has forbidden him to do this for fear of creating a paradox and destroying the universe. Going back and observing history, however, is something else entirely. Lexx would like to go through the portal and observe the founding of Rata Sum in order to solve a minor mystery of the place's history. However, the jungle is a dangerous place. He'd like the Hero to accompany him for protection. It is VITALLY important that the hero not be seen! Because of this, it's best if the Hero goes alone. Upon acceptance, the Hero and Lexx are teleported to a dense jungle region crawling with Asura Lookouts. Being spotted by one of these means history has been altered and the Hero's future has ceased to exist. In other words, instant death. After a harrowing time dodging lookouts, a huge mob of panicking Asura come charging into the area from the north, pursued by several Destroyers. It turns out this is the "mystery" Lexx came to observe. No one ever knew why the Destroyers suddenly broke off pursuit. As the group approaches the camp, it becomes apparent that nothing is stopping the Destroyers, and Lexx panics, believing that history has been altered and the Asura are doomed. He leaps out and screams at the Destroyers, drawing them back to the Hero and away from the Asura encampment. As the hero and the Destroyers reach the open portal, however, Sprung sees their predicament and uses the Totem to cast a Fast Time buff on the Hero. The Hero must now single-handedly dispatch the group. Afterward, Lexx is severely shaken by what happened and agrees with Mamp that using the Totem for time travel is far too dangerous. Additionally, Lexx hates the idea that all the Asura owe their lives to a Bookah.

Unforeseen Consequences
Requirement: Completed Eye of the North and all preceding quests involving the Totem.

Sprung is confident enough in the operation of the Totem that he wants to attempt observing the future. It will be, he says, a simple matter of realigning the crystalline emitters to reverse the polarity of the Totem's time-emission encabulators. After making the necessary adjustments, he very, very briefly observes his older self, recounting to a crowd of younger Asura the most foolish thing he ever did: trying to see the future with the Totem. Moments later, the Totem explodes violently, and random "bubbles" of time begin appearing everywhere, teleporting in monsters of every shape, size, level and continent. In addition, random time fluctuations cause the Heroes AND the enemies to be affected by rapidly speeding and slowing time. The task? Clean up the mess. After taking care of the monsters in Rata Sum, a crest-fallen and humbled Sprung points out that the effects were probably not limited to the city itself, and that Magus Stones and Riven Earth should be checked out, as well.

Clean-up: Magus Stones
Requirement: Completed Unforeseen Consequences

Clean-up: Riven Earth
Requirement: Completed Unforeseen Consequences