Crystalspyre Mountains

Crystalspyre Mountains.. always to be found in the frozen tundra.  This is a very short "zone," and I would not even really call it a zone.  It is more like a quick test of direction-following, ended with two rooms of mobs that are pretty challenging.

Zikata's room is located just north of a room of 4 backstabbing guards.  This guard room, and a few before it in the same hallway, are !magic.  These mobs are all medium in size, so sending in a huge or tiny sized pet or meatshield would cause the mobs to just engage [without backstabbing] and promptly flee.  Separating them this way should be easy enough, but there are only four of them and it is an easy room to charge with some nice hitters.

Zikata's room is castable, which works a lot more towards Zikata's advantage.  Besides being guarded by 2 of the same backstabbing guards, Zikata is also protected by Yin and Yang.  Two demon mages - a necromancer and a sorcerer respectively.  Zikata is a shaman, and a tracker.

One other thing that makes this zone a little tricky is the very quick repop time - which is every 10-20 minutes.  Sometimes killing the minions, waiting for them to repop, and killing them again quickly is the way to go.

The reward for this zone is the crown of opposition - +30 hps -3 save_spell, perm soulshield, !Mage.  An item whose stats have withstood the test of time, and a very solid item.

Definitely a unique zone in that it is not your typical slaughter-through-guards fest, but more of a puzzle followed by a tricky couple of rooms, for one a single item rather than many.

Download Crystalspyre Mountains Files