Greetings, Wizards of the Spiral. As we prepare for the Summer here at Ravenwood Academy, we’d like to highlight some of our favorite changes from the Spring 2021 Test Realm. Without further delay, let’s begin!
New Skeleton Key Bosses
Two new Skeleton key bosses have arrived in Grizzleheim and Karamelle. The first boss, King Borr, resides in Savarstaad Pass. Meanwhile, the Stay-Puffed Marshfellow dwells in the Nibbleheim Mines.
The Stay-Puffed Marshfellow requires a Gold Skeleton key. At the same time, King Borr has variants for all three keys. The Nibbleheim Key Boss drops new unique Marshmallow Wands. Meanwhile, King Borr drops Spellements for the Grizzleheim Lore Spells. Life Wizards rejoice as there’s now another method to get Ratatoskr’s Spin!
New Social Feature
Recently added in the Spring Update was the new Social feature. Clicking the icon beneath your Friend’s List will bring up a list of all nearby Wizards. This list will show you all the Wizards currently in your same zone and their current quest.
Friendly Wizards are okay with other people joining them in combat. You can also chat and teleport to any nearby Wizard who has marked themselves as Friendly.
Finding a questing buddy is now easier than ever! Even better, we no longer must sacrifice those on our Friends List to make room. Finally, we can see if a player is fine with another person joining their PVE duel. No more awkward conversations when you enter a fight that was almost over.
Team up VolUnteering
The Join a Team Kiosk has received an update in the form of Volunteering! Volunteering allows you to help other players without having to stay put. You can select the world and types of instances you want to volunteer for at the Kiosk outside the Bazaar. Here you can choose from any world you’ve unlocked to volunteer. From there, you can choose to volunteer to assist with farming or longer dungeons.
The teams who’ve been waiting the longest time for help will receive volunteers first. After you’ve helped your team complete the instance, your Health and Mana are replenished. From there, you’ll return to your previous location. This system allows players to help other players without selecting a new team to help each time. Excellent for any Wizard seeking to get the illustrious Team Champion Badge.
New Spell Animations
Many AOE animations were updated to hit all enemies, making them faster. Below is the list of AOE’s whose animations were updated. You can also check out the video below to see the changes made to them.
Fire: Meteor Strike, Fire Dragon, Rain of Fire
Ice: Blizzard, Frost Giant
Storm: Tempest, Storm Lord, Sirens
Myth: Humungofrog, Orthrus, Mystic Colossus
Life: Forest Lord, Rebirth
Death: Deer Knight, Scarecrow
Balance: Sandstorm, Ra
New Spells
It’s time to visit your professors because sixteen new spells have arrived in the game! There are two new spells for every school. But Life and Death received an extra, each in the form of damage boosting Globals. All these spells are available from the respective trainers in Ravenwood. You must be level forty-two to learn these spells. You’ll also need the prerequisites in your Spellbook.
Many of these spells were once popular treasure cards used in PVP. Their popularity has brought them to be permanent additions to our Professors’ curriculum. Don’t worry non PVP players; the Developers kept PVE in mind too for these spells. You might find them helpful outside the arena.
New Quest
“Old is New Again” is a new quest available in the Arcanum for Wizards who have completed “Everything and Nothing.” For those who don’t want any spoilers look away now. For those who don’t mind spoilers, the video below covers the entire quest.
Spoilers Ahead!
To summarize the quest. We receive a message from the Old One, who is seeking to recover a memory of a world called Lemuria. Scholar Zander helps us discover Lemuria is little more than a fairytale.
The Old One insists the world exists, and so we venture to Mirage to find proof. After some snakey-shenanigans, we realize we are the only ones who can see the Old One. From there, we recover a piece of a mosaic depicting the Lemurians kneeling beneath him.
The Old One reveals himself as an aspect of the Nothing. Exhausted, the he tells us we must find Lemuria before vanishing. Finally, we return to Bartleby for more information. The Grandfather Tree gazes back through history only to inform us that Lemuria disappeared centuries ago.
We’re too late.
Food for Thought
The quest takes us to Mirage, which houses the Sands of Time. According to Librarian Fitzhume on the Message Boards, we know time within the Spiral is governed by the flow of magic. Meaning time within the Spiral is flexible and subject to manipulation. We’ve seen it in Dragonspyre, the Five BOXES event, and Mirage. Does our return to Mirage hint at us going back in time to stop Lemuria’s disappearance?
We also know worlds can become disconnected from the Spiral and reconnected to it. We’re told about this in the level twenty quest “Grizzleheim.” Merle Ambrose tells us, “The Grizzleheim world-tree was once linked to the rest of the Spiral, but the contact was lost…. we thought it was destroyed. Bartelby now informs me that the portal to Grizzlehiem is now active, and travel there is possible.” This begs the question of how does a world lose its connection to the Spiral? How does it regain contact? Going a step further, how many worlds are floating undiscovered within the Void?
Regarding the Void
Which brings us to another question what exactly is the Void? In the Storytime posts from 2013 and 2014, King Artorius spoke about the “Outer Void.” The most we can glean from his responses is that the Outer Void fills the space between the Spiral’s worlds. It’s a dangerous, inhospitable place, and little is known about it. In Pirate101, when we sail from one world to another, one could claim we are traversing the Void, albeit not as empty as the name implies. Artorius does use the words “Outer Void” when he mentions it; this means, to me at least, that the Void has depth.
Could it be what we see in Pirate101 and the Arcanum is partly a product of being so close to the Spiral? Are other fragments of the First World being pulled closer to the Spiral by the same magic used to create it? Who is to say the Void doesn’t grow darker and quieter the farther out you go? But to our knowledge, no one has ever traveled so far and returned to talk about it.
Again, according to Librarian Fitzhume in the 2016 Storytime on the Wizard101 Message Boards, it doesn’t appear that the Void is the end. According to Fitzhume’s responses, there is still something beyond the Spiral. Whatever it might be is beyond our understanding. It is worth noting there is no mention of the Outer Void here.
Meaning the theoretical ‘something’ excludes the Void. Based upon this information, I’d like to think of the Void as a kind of padding. It surrounds and guards the Spiral, somehow part of the Spiral, and apart from it, like armor or a shell. It is keeping things that don’t belong in it out while also containing everything within. A fascinating subject, to be sure. I am interested in seeing how it develops going forward.
Thanks for Reading!
With that, I will draw this to a close. Thank you all so much for reading this article; I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to browse the other guides and pieces here. Leave a comment below on what you think will happen as the Fourth Arc continues.
If you want to stay up to date on our most recent releases, you can follow us on social media. Ravenwood Academy has started creating YouTube videos for the Community. Check it out!
Until we meet again, I hope to see you in the Spiral!
-Morgan Shade
