Illusen's Earthy Glade Guide

Have you ever wondered how people get that fancy little Illusen's Glade Quest trophy for their User Lookup, and manage to stay atop the high score board for a rather lengthy time?

Well, hopefully after reading this guide, you'll have all the know-how to please the rather demanding faerie (but not as demanding as the dark witch Jhudora; if I were you I'd stay as far away from her as possible!).

INFORMATION:

First off, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves with this - why not learn about Illusen before completing one of her quests... makes sense!

Illusen was one of two faeries who entered the world of Neopia January 22nd, 2002. As many know, she resides in the land of Meridell just at the bottom of the cheese roller hill (I bet she gets free cheese) and just above Meridell foods (what a clever little faerie, food all around!) From her obvious choice of colours from her hair to her clothing - you can tell she is a down to earth, peacefully kind faerie. Unlike the other faeries of Neopia (fire, light, air, etc) who prefer to make your pet grow in certain aspects (strength, defense, endurance etc), or even the Fountain Faerie will paint your pet almost any colour you could ever dream of, Illusen chooses to give you actual items for rewards upon completion of her quests! But we'll get into that in further detail in a few more lines.

Illusen (and her evil counterpart) are two very lucky faeries who both have their own days dedicated to them, Illusen's being March 17th (the Month of Running), where the site gets a rather Illusen inspired makeover (main page turns mostly green in colour). This is the day where it would be optimal to get your hands on Illusen graphics, items and anything else you could ever want for your neopets needs. Oh, and not to forget what most find the best part of the day - The "Illusen Doll' avatar! (Pfft, who collects avatars these days anyways?)

Illusen is no stranger to conflict; as many may know (or not know...), she and Jhudora of "Jhudora's Cloud" have been warring ever since their release. Although they are alike in questing, their personalities do not match, and they are often plotting each other's demise. On Jhudora's day, Illusen is nowhere to be spotted... or a fraud in her place... however, she always comes back, so do not worry!

THE QUESTS/TIPS:

Now that you know a little information behind the faerie, let's get onto the actual reason why you're reading this article!

As you've probably figured out by now in order to get onto the Illusen Glade's high score board, you need the greatest amount of points (...duh!). HOWEVER, many people believe that the higher the quest, the more points you get. That is 100% false; it is how QUICKLY you complete the quest that will achieve you a higher score.

As simple as that may sound, there are actually ways you can increase the speed of which you do quests that others may not think of off the top of their head.

The first way is to just speed up your computer in general. Sometimes, I personally find if I restart the computer before doing the quest, I go faster. Simply because your RAM gets cleared, this opens up more space. Anyways, close any unneeded programs, which should be everything except your virus scanner. That includes your little messaging programs as well! Those little devils can slow you down just as bad as anything else! You don't need to get nudged while in the middle of a quest.

Another way you may increase the speed of completion is opening two Neopets internet windows (one being on the shop wizard, and another on the Illusen’s Glade page). Then push the ‘restore’ option on the top of the window (between minimize and close) and place the windows beside each other, slightly overlapping, but making sure that when you wiz the item there is enough space so you don’t have to scroll over to go into the shop you want. Now, you should be able to see both windows on your screen.

After doing this, make sure you set the shop wizard onto “identical search” so that if the item she asks for has a similar name to another item, it doesn’t get them confused and end up searching the wrong one! Many know that you often have to refresh numerous times to find the “cheapest” of an item; however, with these quests, I’d advise against that. If you want to get and maintain a top score, you will need to be willing to spend the extra point and hope for a cheaply priced item on the first search. (Illusen doesn’t usually start asking for “unbuyables” before quest 34 anyways, and the items before those are usually around 20k, or much less, so you should have no problem!)

Another little hint to go along with the above is that after you have clicked over onto the shop wizard window, make sure you are still able to see the “accept” quest item; generally the “give Illusen the item” button is located around there, so it saves you time from having to click over and then clicking again... (One click is better than two!)

*Unbuyables are items that are not generally found on the shop wizard (above 99,999 NP in price) so you’ll have to look on the Trading Post.

Don’t be afraid to make boards if you feel you need help with a quest (many often make them on the Battledome Chat just because they seem to have the most collectors—GO BD CHAT!) Simply make a board with “Illusen Quest Help” in the topic, and usually more than a few will come and try to help you locate an item, or perhaps they may have it!

One last tip; Illusen’s quests can be done 12 hours apart, so make sure you remember the time you did the quest, so in 12 hours time you can do another! This will get you two done a day, which is what you’ll generally need to do to get the trophy. You can time these two times to your convenience. If you wake up at 8 AM and go to bed after 8 PM, those might be two convenient times for you.

Also, it is much easier to get the trophy on the first day or each month (score reset) the tables will have been cleared and scores reset to zero. If you really only want the trophy, try doing your first quest (for example, if you already failed one) at the beginning of the month. This way you have the entire month to continue doing quests as far as you can. Don’t stop trying (and don’t slow down!) just because you get a bronze trophy either! Keep going because maybe you’ll get lucky and get one quest farther than everyone else! Plus this way if she asks you for an item you can’t get before you get gold, you can restart and have the rest of the month to try again.

PRIZES:

For those who are curious, the prizes you receive from her quests are:

Level 1: Illusens Cream Cookie

Level 3: Illusens Potion

Level 5: Illusens Comb

Level 8: Cucumber Eye Cream

Level 11: Illusens Novel

Level 14: Mud Mixture

Level 17: Flower Cake

Level 20: Rain Water Shampoo

Level 23: Rose Shake

Level 26: Earth Spell Book

Level 29: Leaf Shield

Level 32: Illusens Earth Potion

Level 35: Honey Potion

Level 38: Illusens Scroll

Level 41: Illusens Blade

Level 44: Leaf Taco

Level 47: Illusens Orb Plant

Level 50: Illusens Staff

Good luck and I hope to see you on the high score boards sometime soon ^_^

(If you have any other questions, or need better clarification on anything you have read in this guide, please feel free to neomail me – assuming this gets into the Neopian Times!)