Voices of the Dead
| Voices of the Dead | |
|---|---|
| Dark Astoria | |
 | |
| Type | Tour Guide Tip |
| Place | Dark Astoria |
| Available to | Heroes, Vigilantes, and Rogues |
| Level range | 1–50 |
Overview
Voices of the Dead is a tip contact that offers Tour Guide Missions in Dark Astoria.
Introduction
Free Among the Dead
Exploration Mission
As you spend time within the dense fog, your very soul itself begins to feel the weight of the shadows. The tendrils of the dark god Mot extend to all corners of this doomed city.
Those whose regrets remain whisper in your ears, bidding you forward. You sense no malice within their cries, only unending anguish and a gripping despair that chills you to the bone. Theirs are the lamentations of the lost, perhaps you can find meaning in their pleas?
- Heed the callings of the grave.
- Pay the dead no ear.
Too Busy
With how busy you are with all these tasks, maybe now is not the best time to go sightseeing.
No More Missions
You have come to understand the nature of this profane place. Having followed the restless dead's guidance and explored the realm under the influence of Mot's shadow, the icy chill continues to grip you, but the dead have no more words.
Accolade
You've obtained this Accolade by earning every Exploration badge within Dark Astoria.
Missions
Folly's Victim
Briefing
The spectral presences in this hollow have seen the benefit of some most unexpected aid. The Circle of Thorns maintain a sizeable presence in Dark Astoria, and surprisingly, not to advantage of the dark power here.
Whispering phantoms make it known to you that the Circle's mages have sought to bind Mot here for far longer than you possibly could have known. If you are to grasp the entirety of the circumstances regarding what is happening in this place, you will need to familiarize yourself with its history.
- Know of Folly's Victim.
The Oranbegan mages played a crucial role in opposing Mot, making sacrifices that would give pause to even the most stalwart hero.
While this does not excuse the other evils they have wrought, the debt to those who answered the call and ensured the survival of your world cannot be forgotten.
Mission Objective
- Learn of the Circle of Thorns role
Ever watchful of the sleeping god Mot, the Circle of Thorns have stood vigil on these grounds since its imprisonment. Even as the last of Mot's bonds were shattered, the Circle sought to contain its terrible power. Fools or heroes, the Circle's casualties were tremendous as they defied the wrath of the resurgent deity. It is said that the Demon-Prince Stolas was the first to confront the manifestations of Mot. When the Demon-Prince was broken and devoured, the ranks of his minions broke and fled into the streets of Dark Astoria.
Palace of Stone Leaves
Briefing
Heeding the words of the fallen, you begin to gain an understanding of the workings of the souls within Dark Astoria. Even before Mot stirred, each death resulted in a spirit trapped within the city. These spirits were eventually rallied and centralized within a specific structure.
Their lifeless hands point you towards the place where this dead community has gathered.
- Visit the Palace of Stone Leaves
It seems the Tsoo had a helping hand in providing these ghosts refuge. Their respect for the departed and various spiritualist practices have proven a great boon in aiding the lost souls of Astoria in maintaining clarity.
Even with Mot's tendrils stretching forth like a festering cancer, the Tsoo have remained as spirit guardians, ever vigilant in their task.
Mission Objective
- Seek out the refuge of wandering souls
Even with every man, woman and child in Dark Astoria slaughtered, the city never ceased to be a thriving metropolis. The bonds that held Mot in its torpor also prevented the spirits of the slain from passing on. Forced to remain as ghosts among the empty remnants of their city, the citizens of Dark Astoria did their best to resume a semblance of normality. Founded by a powerful Tsoo ancestor spirit, the Palace of Stone Leaves was the nerve center of this ghostly community. Now a refuge protected vigorously by its living Tsoo guardians, it houses the few remaining spirits that were lucky enough to not be swept away and consumed when Mot first stirred from its slumber.
Auspice Avernus
Briefing
While traveling through the warped and distorted land, you are cautioned by a ghostly presence on your shoulders. Throughout Mot's vile domain, his peristaltic flesh has birthed foul pools, their composition undetermined.
This thick mucus-like fluid born of the dark god's wretched pustulating mass defies all logic. To accidentally find yourself exposed to such horrid ichor would surely be your undoing. It would be best to see one of these incomprehensible fonts for yourself.
- Heed caution of Auspice Avernus.
While the notion of these pools terrifies you, to Mot's adherents they are wellsprings of the divine brought forth by their god.
What effects this must have on the minds of the devote who offer themselves, you dare not to imagine.
Mission Objective
- Note the danger within the pools of Mot
As Mot rose again into the world of the living, the very earth was sundered in the passing. The offal of its millennial imprisonment rose with it, a mephitic concoction of the most vile nature. From weeping sores and gaping maws flows a fluid of reconstitution, flushing down its titanic mass and forming pools amongst the pockets of flesh and shattered earth. Here, Mot's followers flock, intoxicating themselves on the potent fumes and ecstatically receiving visions of Mot's glory.
Death's Head Supplicant
Briefing
The wandering dead warn you of the great maw of Mot. His tenebrous malice given physical form, its enormous shadow looms over the city and is visible from almost anywhere within this cursed place.
The void within consumes all things the living hold dear: warmth, emotion, even the very wills that encompass our being. Mot will stop at nothing until everything beneath his darkness is one, united within his writhing, fetid existence. You must stand between him and his warped ambitions.
- Approach the Head of Death.
To stand before the vile manifestation of Mot will take great courage. The gnawing insanity of his power takes its toll on all of those who remain under its influence.
It begets a pallor in those under its yoke, siphoning the very will to live into its hungering maw.
Mission Objective
- Behold the visage of Mot
Behold! Before you lies the glory of Mot. In this place its true body lies exposed; a vast expanse of reconstituting flesh and yawning maws, feasting on life so it can be resuscitated as it perpetually dies and rots anew. Mot's capacity for consumption does not yet equal its appetites, for much of the body is desiccated by centuries of imprisonment or is still bound in ways both arcane and metaphysical. The many mouths that scar its horrid form are, as of yet, still stifled and immature compared to their glory in antiquity. Only one has fully extended to its full voraciousness, but that one is enough to drag all of Dark Astoria into crushing oblivion.
Walker on the Profane Ascent
Briefing
The spirits cast a dark foreboding over you. They lament the loss of the memories of those whose deaths will never be accounted for, never remembered... lost forever.
With the emergence of Mot, what constituted Moth Cemetery was almost entirely annihilated; not much remains that was not destroyed outright or pulled below the loamy, tainted soil. There will be no further flowers placed upon the graves beneath Mot's writhing hellscape. It would be best to survey the enemy's realm as you plan your next move.
- Be a Walker on the Profane Ascent.
This wretched realm gnaws at your sanity. The blood-red sky, the horrifying landscapes, the legions of profane acolytes. This truly is a nightmare made manifest.
Keep your wits about you, there can be no underestimating this place, lest you forfeit your soul to Mot's endless hunger.
Mission Objective
- Explore what remains of Moth Cemetery
This was once Moth Cemetery, the hallowed ground within which Mot was sealed. As Mot's titanic will battered against the bonds that have held it for centuries, the very soil of the cemetery has roiled in revolt at the emerging presence of this vile behemoth. The seismic devastation of its passing causes the terrain to bloat, crack and surge skyward as it struggles to stand from below the ensnaring earthen edifice. As appropriate offerings to the all-consuming manifestation of Death, the vainglorious memorials have been churned down into the earth, pulverized against its corrupting flesh, as it twists and writhes to free himself; Mot abides no vanity but its own.
Witness of Oaths
Briefing
The vengeance of this place is palpable in the air. With every breath you can feel the weight of broken promises and empty words, like shackles closing in around your chest. There are many who do not easily forgive those who have broken an oath.
You are bidden to seek the monument representing these false heroes and reflect upon their folly.
- Inspect the flag atop City Hall.
The hero world is rife with fame-seekers, con-artists, and fakes. Corruption runs deep within the system, and the justification employed by those who do good but for only their own ends is all too common.
Beneath the shadow of Dark Astoria, such callous acts bring cold retribution.
Mission Objective
- Crown the oath-breaker's monument
Many false heroes over the years have claimed vindication over the events that transpired in Dark Astoria, unaware that their hollow words would one day be called to account. Screaming and pleading, many have been dragged into the ruined city by the Talons of Vengeance to pay the ultimate price for oath breaking.
Life out of Death
Briefing
The whispering departed make their lingering wills known; within the writhing darkness, there yet remains the faint warmth that emanates from those surviving beacons of salvation. These places must be protected at all costs if the forces of the living are to oppose the threat of Mot's all-consuming maw.
Guidance from beyond points you towards a sanctuary where life yet blooms amongst the cold death surrounding this profane city.
- Find Life out of Death.
Even within this distorted darkness, the hands of those bent on saving lives yet work tirelessly, busy aiding the wounded and mending the broken.
You come to comprehend what the spirit's guidance meant and will ensure the protection and survival of the places where these life-givers toil.
Mission Objective
- Seek where life blooms amongst death
Mot's hunger is insatiable and its power to feast upon life is prodigious. For sustenance, many innocent people have been spirited away into the haunted streets of Dark Astoria. Not all who have been abducted have met their end, surviving against all odds.
Of Things Unclean
Briefing
As you move through the streets of this foul and unnatural landscape, the sentiments of the dead reach your ears. Nothing in this city should be trusted. Nothing.
The dirt, the stones, the very air itself cannot be relied upon, as they have all been stained by Mot's foul malevolence. This stagnant violation runs thoroughly through every facet of this corrupt realm. Is there nowhere that remains untainted?
- Be wary Of Things Unclean.
You proceed, now keenly aware of the fetid influence that has seeped into every aspect that constitutes Dark Astoria. Even should Mot somehow be banished, how could this place possibly be redeemed?
Is there any such power that could truly cleanse this degree of malevolent corruption? You honestly cannot say.
Mission Objective
- Find anywhere untainted by Mot
The dead have always cavorted through the streets of Dark Astoria, praying and making sacrifice to their mute master, and for good reason. Even after its fall, Mot's shadow has terrorized the dreams of mankind through all of history, for it is the embodiment of all that is unnatural and vile; death most unclean.