Prismatic Oil

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From the A Change in Tactics event.

These quest notes are provided as a courtesy until I can do a complete write-up.

Thanks to Dar the Huntress of FF, Blunt ibn mein of FF, Cheese slayer of FF, hart Thorin of FF, Kalazar, Padre Adamo of VT, Vierna Millithor of LC, Ninavie of HG, Aralcarin of HG, Little Thor of HG, Zegeger of HG, Chatlin of HG, Jarlaxal of HG, Vanykrye of HG and Duro Sai of HG, Gyes of SC!

Text: Instructions for Essence Recovery

Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "The four Essences have returned to world. They have been seen near the broken menhir rings that once focused and held them. From what I've been able to surmise from our Arcanum Agents, the Essences are much more aggressive than they once were. Perhaps Gaerlan's tinkering with the elemental forces has changed them."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "Yes, you look skilled enough."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist gives you Instructions for Essence Recovery.
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "All of the Arcanum's attempts at collecting samples from the four Essences have failed. Fifteen of our best agents were defeated in a recent attempt on the Essence of Verdancy. Find yourself a group of adventurers at least as powerful as you before you go anywhere near these new Essences."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "First, you need to retrieve four Enchanted Decanters from the Arcanum Research Facility outside of Al-Jalima. You will use these decanters to collect each Essence's essence. The details are in these instructions."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "Good luck and don't underestimate the power of the Essences. They are raw magic after all."

You give Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist Decanter of Essence of Enchantment.
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "Ah, Essence of Enchantment! You didn't get any on you I hope. I theorize that this essence could have dangerous effects if it comes in contact with a creature. I'll have to be very careful while I'm testing this."
You give Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist Decanter of Essence of Artifice.
You give Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist Decanter of Essence of Strife.
You give Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist Decanter of Essence of Verdancy.
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "Ah, Essence of Verdancy! It's a good thing this decanter is enchanted or the essence would have eaten right through it and through the floor stones and through the ground beneath. In fact I don't think it would stop until it reached it's source."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "Let's see, where did I put those enchanted gloves."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "I've been studying some of the essences people have brought me. These new Essences seem to be extremely powerful and extremely unstable and I think I may know why."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "I think the Cistern's have filled with elemental essence again, but without the Menhir Rings focusing and stabilizing these energies they have... overflowed, more like a discharge really, resulting in these new Essences. With the Cistern's spilling elemental energy the Essences will keep returning and gathering energy. Fascinating, but not good."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "I have to compare the new samples against some of the samples from the old Essences. You've brought me more than enough of each Essence for my purposes. Give me a second and I'll give you your reward."
Ciandra combines a small amount of each essence into a small vial of viscous red oil. She holds the bottle up to the light and watches as the oil clears. Prismatic colors can be seen spinning in vial.
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "Here you go. This oil works on the same principle of elemental energies that the Prismatic Plume uses. Apply this oil to a piece of Greater Amuli Shadow Armor and you should be able to instill it with an impressive amount of elemental protection. If you would prefer a different reward then give me back the Prismatic Oil and I'll see what I can do."
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist gives you Prismatic Oil.

Nemis The Dark Mage of FF reports on the alternate reward:
You give Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist Prismatic Oil.
Ciandra, Arcanum Alchemist tells you, "No problem, lets see, I think you've earned this."
You've earned 6,500,000 experience.

Sanndh of WE reports:

Heyas Maggie,

Ok, so I logged in, talked to a town crier who mentioned Ciandra had new stuff to deal with, and the essences being back. Adding this to the exclusive teaser pics, I was hoping to get upgraded stuff for the atlans, but turns out it is for GSA.

Anywayz, here's what happened.

I went to see Ciandra, and she gave me a note that said to visit the essences, and be prepared to die since 15 of her kind died at the verdancy essence (screenies 9&10). So, teaming up, we first had to pick up some empty decanters.

That done, we went to the first essence, the former creature essence, as named in the note. Turns out the returned essence wasnt at the original location, but around 52.3N 62.1E. The Essence was back for sure, but not nicely staying in place and passive as it used to be, but quite aggressive.... Debuffed and dispelled critter spells btw. One-shot me with something I don't remember.
Also accompanied by about 4 glacial knights. We used fire weapons at first, but later on we found out bludgeon worked better on the knights. The knights tended to do gossamer flesh, cold vuln you, and blast away.  Damage done by melees on knights seemed to vary immensely, sometimes my UA only did 8 damage, or up to 50 unimped. I suspect they somehow counterbuff sometimes, but not always, since attacking them from back or front didn't make a difference (and they werent using shields). Lotsa rings and walls, and also arcs from the essence.

After dieing miserably a few times with 3 people, we got enforcements in, and managed to kill the essence. All essences seem to spawn "Hand of [type]" when they are at half health.

Learning quickly, we found out that dragging first the knights out (preferably one by one) and then the essence hoping the Hands would stay put worked best. Knights are pretty persistent and follow you a long way... On death, the essence dropped Crystallized Essence of [type].

On to the next essence, the former Item one near Landbrigde Villas. The pattern follows the old elemental path btw, like Gaerlan's quest and for the rainbow helmet, so frost by the former critter one, lightning by the former item one, acid by life, and fire by war. Of course use the opposite attack at each, except bludge for the knights.

The Item one was a bit downhill from the old item essence, on the prop side, about 86.5S 11.1E. Galvanic Knights and the essence itself. Here we all got our weapons debuffed and dispelled. Learning quickly, and no deaths ;). Again, the Hands spawned at the essence being half health. On death, the essence dropped again the crystallized essence. Btw, the hands give no xps at all, which doesn't help vitae ;).

Thinking we had our tactics covered, we went for Life. Right... No wonder Ciandra warned us specifically about this one.
Again Knights, Caustic ones this time and the Essence of Verdancy which dropped a crystallized essence around 31S, 73.5W. The Knights went down quick enough... but... not just your life gets debuffed and dispelled (I at least saw Canker Flesh, only Kings casted that one as far as I knew). But for all, I got my stam completely sucked out and died because all of my health was drained at once. Here we found out the essence luckily regens very very slowly, since we had to run back a long way when we died.

After losing vitae, we went for the essence of strife (71.4N 2.5W). After the life essence, we were a bit wary about what would be tossed our way, but compared to the Essence of Verdancy, it was relatively easy ;). Magic Def got debuffed, and the wars were very varied, but the lure out tactic worked out well. Again Knights (Incendiary), the Essence of Strife, which dropped a crystallized essence, and some Hands that spawned at half health.

Result was 4 crystallized essences. Using the decanters on them gave 4 different Decanter of Essence. Handing this in to Ciandra made her give you prismatic Oil. ID-ing it said to use it on Greater Shadow Amuli, so I browsed mules. Found out it doesn't work on sharded GSA. Got myself a new coat, and the result was a prismatic coat. Upped AL, upped elemental prots (unparallelled) and 2 wards: Storm and Frost. Guess the legs will give the other 2 wards, but the oil is one time use only. Don't know if it would work on Celdon or Kijouja, but description only said Amuli.

All in all a very fun quest, resulting in (for me) a nice looking piece of armor looking good on a mule I'm afraid.

O yah, the original team was Flenop, Elrihm and me, luckily quickly joined by Cyns, Bone King's Sword, and Obyron.

Sanddh of WE