The Quester's Guide to Illusen's Glade by roboticc
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Meridell is mostly an idyllic land, full of green forest and soft grass. While King Skarl is not exactly a benevolent ruler, he is more than adequate, and Meridell thrives under his grumpy rule. When visiting this peaceful land, there are many things you can do – I, personally, suggest completing a quest for the kindly Earth Faerie, Illusen. The first question you probably want to ask is “Why should I complete a quest for Illusen?” Well, there are several answers to this question – she is a gentle and friendly Faerie, and her Quests are fun, exciting even. More importantly, the rewards can be quite amazing. So, how exactly do her Quests work? Here are the basics:
There are fifty possible Quests, marked as levels one through fifty. As the levels increase, so do the rewards, and so does the difficulty.
You will have 16 minutes and 40 seconds to bring Illusen the item she requests, and you can do a Quest every twelve hours. If you fail to bring her the item within the time, you will be reset all the way back to level one – some may consider this harsh, but there are a lot of Neopets willing to help her, after all.
And on another note, if you complete a Quest for Jhudora, you’ll have to wait another twelve hours until you can complete one for Illusen. Yes, there are some rivalries that just can’t be overlooked. Next up, the rarities:
As you may or may not know, every item on Neopets is assigned a rarity. As logic would suggest, the higher the rarity, the more expensive that item will be for purchase. Thus, at higher levels, Illusen will ask for higher rarities. At level one, the item she will ask you to buy will have a rarity between 10 and 15. This means that for the most part, you can easily buy this item for fewer than 2,000 Neopoints. At level two, it is thought she will ask for items with a rarity up to 18. Again, this item will generally cost no more than a few thousand. The rarities keep increasing as you make your way up the levels. At around Quest 20, it is possible for her to ask for items with rarities in the high 80s. These items aren’t generally too expensive, but they could cost in the ten thousands. Now, these quests grow difficult around Quest 32. Now Illusen could ask you for an item with rarity 96. While these could still be buyable (meaning that they cost under 99,999 Neopoints and are available for purchase in user shops) it is highly likely they will be very expensive. By Quest 35, she will ask only for items rarity 98 or higher – which means they will most certainly be unbuyable and likely in the hundred thousands, possibly even the millions. It is unlikely for one of these items to be buyable. So, why spend a few hundred thousand on a Quest? Well, that would be the rewards:
When you bring Illusen the item she wants, she will give you a reward – she is, after all, a generous Faerie! Just as the items that she asks for grow more expensive, so do her rewards. Illusen gives you a reward on levels 1, 3, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 35, 38, 41, 44, 47, and, finally, level 50. Up to Quest 29, her prizes are mostly worthless. In fact, the reward for Quest 20, Rain Water Shampoo, can be bought in user shops for only 1 Neopoint! Finally, at Quest 29, her prize is worth something. The Leaf Shield sells for around 10,000 Neopoints. It may not seem like much, but the items she asks for aren’t very expensive at this level either. Unfortunately, at Quest 32, her prize is worthless once again – Illusens Earth Potion only sells for around 1,000 Neopoints. Now, I told you before that at Quest 35, her items can frequently be unbuyable. However, the reward for Quest 35 is considered a turning point. If you bring Illusen her item within the 15 minutes, she will reward you with a Honey Potion – which is a sought-after Battledome item that can be easily sold on the Trading Post for above 600,000 Neopoints! From here, her prizes only get better. At Quest 38, she will give you an Illusens Scroll; at Quest 41, you get an Illusens Blade; at Quest 44, you get a Leaf Taco; at Quest 47, you get Illusens Orb Plant; and, last but not least, for completing Quest 50, Illusen will reward you with an Illusens Staff. The Blade is sold for around 2 million Neopoints, and the Illusens Staff is so rare it has been sold for an astounding 170 million Neopoints! Is it worth it to complete her quests? That depends entirely on the item she asks for. Rarity 99 items are often in the millions, and so it’s up to you to decide whether or not you’re willing to keep spending.
There is no guarantee you will reach Quest 50 anyways; because these items are sold on the Trading Post, they cannot be bought immediately. The seller has to be online, and the chances of them coming online within the allotted 15 minutes aren’t that great. Of course, there is one more reason to do Illusen’s Quests – the trophy. I said before that you have 16 minutes and 40 seconds to complete a quest. This translates into exactly 1000 seconds. Each half-second is worth 1 point; so you can get a total of 2000 points per Quest. Every half-second it takes you to return with her item, you lose one point from that grand total.
Of course, that means it’s not realistic to aim for 2000 points per Quest. But these points accumulate, so if you get 1500 points for level one and 1600 points for level two, you now have 3100 points in total. You get a trophy if you have a high amount of points in comparison to other Questers. The top three Questers receive a gold trophy; the next five receive silver; and the following nine receive bronze. Currently, you need around 43,700 points to achieve a bronze trophy and around 49,100 points to achieve gold. Of course, this keeps changing as new Questers earn more points; check the high score table for Illusens Glade to be aware of the high scores at the moment. Oh, and I almost forgot! Yes, there is another incentive to complete the Quests – a shiny avatar. When you complete Quest 20, you get an avatar. Up until level 20, the items generally aren’t that expensive; it’s not a difficult avatar to earn, and it’s a fun one too. Plus, lots of people just Quest for the fun of it.
I hope my guide was of some help to you. Illusen's Quests really aren’t all that complicated, now are they? Are you going to head out and help Illusen today? I suppose that is your decision to make in the end, but hopefully you’ll give it a try. You never know, you just might have some fun! Good luck! Thanks to anyone who helped me confirm information! And thank you for reading! :) - Pari
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