You know you’re raiding the Gates of Discord when the zones you’re moving through sound like bodily functions or tribal sacrificial practices. We went to Inktu’ta, the Unmasked Chapel for the first time on Saturday 22nd September. Startup was a bit slow due to some real life stuff, but the fun thing about Inktu’ta is of course, the first mob you kill drops some Qvic armour. Nijacka the Scourge duly obliged and dropped a Qvic bracer. You can read up as much as you want about a zone, but you never know what you’re up against until you step foot in it and try the first mob. A lot of the commentary on the web about Inktu’ta is pretty old by EQ standards so we really weren’t sure how we’d stand up to the first pull.
Well we stood up easily. Nijacka may as well have been trash. And so started the trash ploughing, until we reached Kelektrix. It’s a fun little event, spawns some shadowstepping mobs with rather nasty AE’s which you need to kill before you can engage Kelektrix, and then when they respawn you have to kill them again. TNF did us proud, beating the event cleanly and quickly, despite the chaotic nature of it and having not seen it before. I have to admit at this point I was worried, Uqua had been seriously tough on our first attempt, and Inktu’ta was supposed to be a real challenge. Had we somehow gone to the wrong zone? Had we perhaps got the level 48 version with no loot by accident?
I think Kelekdrix may have dropped some loot, honestly I was too busy at this point to notice. I want to sneak in a thanks to the full raid leadership team at thsi point, a raid like Inktu’ta takes a lot of different co-ordination action behind the scenes and it’s fully a team effort. We dropped into the next section and started setting off traps (which root anyone in range), we stumbled through that, took out a couple of door guards like they were level 5 orc pawns and entered the Stonemite event.
I’ve read a lot of reports of Inktu’ta, I’ve read a lot of information about this event, I’ve read a lot of stuff on the Sony boards about it, so I was a bit apprehensive. TNF showed once again that we need not worry – we moved calmly to our positions despite the short notice of the required activity, we killed anything which annoyed us, and on cue we triggered the right phrase and unlocked the door. I was starting to wonder if I have already awakened from this nightmare and was in fact just dreaming.
The corridor of deadly golems was up next – a raid wiping event with golems which trigger in fours and AE rampage. We prepped, setup, warned the heal team, advised the tank team, and engaged … and didn’t really notice the first set. Or the second set, or the third set. The final set died with a bit of a whimper. Quality tanking, healing and solid DPS meant we basically dealt with the golems like we’ve been dealing with their kind since Ikkinz one. Trash to be tossed asside.
Ah but finally, the event anyone who’s read about Inktu’ta was waiting for – the Cursecaller event. Or as we prefer to call it, The Benny Hill Event. While killing a bunch of rooting mobs, you have to avoid fast spawning death-touch mobs which chase you until they catch you, getting quicker and quicker as they run. It’s chaos in a tin. Confusion in a bucket. Had we finally met our match in Inktu’ta, could we handle the chaos and rez quick enough to stay in the game? Of course we could, with aplomb. Lessi reports getting the emote almost instantly and completing 138 laps in record time before finally dying to her curse bearer. Others weren’t so lucky and died within seconds. But none-the-less, we killed the Cursecallers, rezzed the fallen, and tried to get the Benny Hill Theme Tune out of our heads.
And so the final event. The deadly and deceitful Noqufiel. Another chaotic encounter, in which you must constantly strive to engage the True Form of Noqufiel while ignoring his deadly Mirror Image. Of course, it would be too easy without the additional benefit of high-speed death touching ghosts, so some of those are thrown in as well. Finally a challenge for TNF. This event kept us on our toes, but due to sterling healing, tanking and solid teamwork from everyone, Noqufiel fell and TNF left victorious. Txevu and Tacvi await, a class above Inktu’ta no doubt about it, with complex events, nasty spells and just brutal damage output. We’ll be ready. We’ll soak up whatever they can give and give back double for no charge.
We are TNF, and we are not afraid.
It would have been rude not to play with him. None of us were sure how it would go, TNF has proven us wrong time after time, and we’d just nailed AMV like he was an Orc Pawn. But alas, we had too much to learn about the encounter, and at around 80% the Overlord had his way with our raid, and we died, laughing.
