Story Missions

A daily quest sets a target and refreshes: spend this much energy, win this many fights. A mission is a step in a story that expects something specific of you, and it stays until you do it. There is no rerolling a mission and no deadline on one.

That makes missions the best structured introduction to systems you have not touched. A chain will walk you through crafting, or the jails, or the stronghold, in an order that makes sense, which is far more useful early than a randomly drawn daily.

• The Ashen Oath: 7 chapters. A storyline of the rebellion against the Iron Magister. Complete each chapter to unlock the next.
• The Widow's Crown: 7 chapters. The Magister is dead, and something worse has taken his crown. Complete each chapter to unlock the next.
• The Sunless Court: 7 chapters. The crown lies broken and the throne sits empty. Something older than either is waking beneath the Citadel. Complete each chapter to unlock the next.
• The Gilded Concord: 7 chapters. The court is yours, and so is every quarrel it left behind. Complete each chapter to unlock the next.

Chains unlock in sequence, and later steps assume you have the rank and the systems access the earlier ones taught you. There is no benefit to rushing: a step that asks you to deliver crafted goods is faster to complete once you actually have a working Forge routine than it is to brute-force early.

Mission rewards are fixed rather than rolled, so unlike a drop you always know exactly what a chapter pays before you commit to it. They mix gold, XP, and items, and a handful grant something no other source does.

The named story pieces are worth singling out, because they cannot be obtained any other way. They are deliberately excluded from every random loot table in the game, so a heist crew rolling for gear will never turn one up and no drop anywhere else substitutes for finishing the chain. Everything else a chain gives you can be earned faster elsewhere; those cannot be earned elsewhere at all.

The ones worth planning around are the chapters that grant access rather than currency: a mission that unlocks a city changes what the rest of the game looks like far more than its gold reward suggests. If a chain is gating a city you want, that chain is your priority regardless of what else is on offer.

Three chapters end in a boss: the Iron Magister, The Widow and The Crownless. Pressing Confront on the chapter opens a full-screen fight that you play out in real time, not a single click. Press Attack to swing; the boss strikes back on its own clock, once every 2.5 seconds, and the fight ends when one of you falls. The bosses keep their fixed Attack and Defense from the NPC Opponents page, and carry 3 times the health pool of a normal PvP opponent.

You also have three mana moves, priced as a share of your mana pool, with the same costs, cooldowns and per-fight limits as in a dungeon. Parry (10%) blocks the boss's next strike completely, up to 6 times a fight and once every 5 seconds. Charge (8%) is one swing for 2.5 times the damage, once a fight. Arcane Bolt (12%) is a swing that cannot be dodged and hits harder with more Magic Power, up to 5 times a fight and once every 4 seconds. A fair-geared player who uses them wins more often than one who only swings.

Win or be knocked out, the boss then goes on a 1 hour cooldown for you. A knockout never kills: it leaves you at 1 HP at the least. Walking away is free: a fight left untouched for 30 minutes is simply dropped, with no penalty and no cooldown, and the boss does not hit you while you are gone.

Several mission steps ask you to DELIVER items rather than simply perform an action: crafted gear, materials, a specific piece of equipment. Delivered items are consumed, so read the requirement before handing over something you were using.

One practical warning: gear that is listed on the marketplace or held in a trade is in escrow and cannot be delivered. If a mission refuses an item you are certain you own, check whether it is sitting on the market first.