Rune Mysteries

Rune Mysteries is the first quest to start the signature hero Ariane. Along with this quest, Rune Memories and the graphical rework of the Wizards' Tower were released on the same day. It is the newest free-player quest available.

Entering the tower
Start the quest by talking to Ariane at the entrance to the Wizards' Tower. She appears to have a problem convincing Wizard Valina to allow her to access the tower and talk to the Archmage Sedridor.

A cutscene start showing a magic vortex attacking Wizard Borann, you and Ariane attempts to enter the tower but Ariane is warded off and fall to the ground. She tells you to lure the vortex to the center of the beam by casting Air Strike of it. You can pick up the tower mindspike (air) if you don't have air runes. Set Air Strike to auto-cast and attack the vortex to lure it to your place. Keep doing this until the vortex move to the center of the beam, then it will disappear.

Investigation
Talk to Ariane outside the tower by the bridge. She will tell the Archmage Sedridor thinks she is dangerous enough to have a ward spell against her. She will tell you that she knows that the tower is in danger, but she has no evidence. She have had provisions of the tower in flames because she is a seer. Because she tried to harness her gift to try and teach it to the other wizard, the wizards decided to discharge her from the tower. She will ask you to talk to Archmage Sedridor, Wizard Ellaron and other wizards in the tower to try and find out if anything unusual is happening lately.

Ask around the tower if anyone saw anything unusual. You will come to know that strange noise were heard from the library and Wizard Traiborn is seeing strange things.

Talk to Archmage Serridor about Ariane's warning. He will tell he is taking action to rid the power beam of whatever is causing the problem. He will tell you that Ariane was the tower's most promising apprenticee, but she used magic prohibited by the tower and that is why she was expelled.

Speak to Wizard Ellaron and tell him about Ariane's warning. He will tell you to that he takes Ariane's waring seriously and is trying to convince the Archmage to take action. If you ask him about Ariane's premonitions, he will tell that she tried to suppress them so that she don't stand out because of a natural gift. He helped her to harness her gift, knowing that this might enrage the other wizards. He will tell you that Sedridor expelled her for using every source of knowledge available to her.

Ask to Wizard Traiborn if he saw anything unusual, and he will tell you about the things he see sometimes in the power beam. He will tell you that the tower was build on ruins of an old tower, and that the strange things were coming form the library floor.

Return to Ariane and tell her about your findings. She will tell you more about the old tower and how it was destroyed. The new tower was built on the same underground levels of the old tower. The underground levels were sealed off by the first archmage of the new tower, Archmage Perien. Ariane will tell you of an old rumor that the door opens to the ruins is unlocked by cast Water Surge, but many wizards have tried that to no avail.

Find The Way In
Talk to Wizard Ellaron about accessing the ruins and he will say that not even senior wizards are allowed there, so he can't tell the secret to an outsider and an ex-wizard. Ask him if he knows how to enter the ruins and he will tell that only the archmage is allowed to know the secret. Talk to him about the Water Surge rumor, and he will hint that understanding the spell might be the key. Ask him about the ruins and he will tell you of how it was sealed by Archmage Perien, and his great understanding of Magic. He will tell you that he wrote a book on the relation between Magic and music. Ask if this is a hint and he will deny it, but will tell you that the book is available in the ground floor.

The books are found in the most eastern floating bookshelf. You will find The Harmony of the Runes and The Runes of Water Spells. Both books can right-clicked to view an attached diagram in both books. Go to the sourthen part of the ground floor of the tower and play the organ. You will see from the diagrams that you should play the following notes to get the key:

B B B B B B B B B B A# A# A# A# A# A# A# G# G

And then click the Wizards' tower basement key that will appear above the buttons to take it. Then go and talk to Ariane outside again.

The Ruins
Tell Ariane you have the key and she'll be inquisitive of the content of the old tower, wishing that she could find knowledge that might have been lost for hundreds of years. She will tell you that the entrance to the ruins to the east of the tower.

Go east and you will find Ariane near some ruins. Talk to her and she'll tell you to open the door. Use the Wizards' tower basement key on the door to open it.

A cutscene of you and Ariane entering the basement. She will tell you that this must be the Chamber of Shrines, which was used as a meeting room and the place where apprentices would pledge allegiance to one of the four orders. You can ask her for more information about orders which were crated to cater the different philosophies of Magic. You will need to go deeper in the ruins but there is a rune guardian blocking the road.

Testing The New Apprentice
Talk to the rune guardian and it will starting talking about some sort of a test. Ariane will explain that the guardian thinks you are new wizards joining the tower. This test you determine the title you get depending of which order you belong to. You can retake the test as many times as you would like to get the title you want. The test contains 5 questions.

The four titles are:
 * the Blue
 * the Green
 * the Grey
 * the Red

And the questions are:



After the guardian determines the order you belong to it will allow you to procede. Enter the door that was behind it.

Getting Around
Talk to Ariane in the new room. You will see a gap in the stairs and Ariane wants you to find a way to cross it. Climb behind the statue in the wall south of the gap and make a bridge by pushing the statue down. Cross the newly made bridge then climb down the staircase at the west of the room.

Talk to Ariane about the new room to find out more historical information about spells. She will tell you that the vortices you see are like the ones that attacked Wizard Borann so she wants to find out what they are.

You are going to need to lure one of the vortices (doesn't matter which one) to the circle Ariane creates and keep it in the circle until she has finished examining it (around one minute). You can lure a vertex towards you by casting a magic spell on it. The vortices will keep moving around, so it's expected that it will get out of the circle more than once. Apparently the timer doesn't reset when the vertex get out of the circle.

The vortices aren't ghost as Ariane first thought they might be. They are soul fragments. She will explain that the old wizards put part of their souls into the power beam to create a very powerful magical effect. However, this looks like it went wrong. Ariane think this might be what destroyed the first tower! She tells you that an enchantment might have sealing the vortices and someone removed it which allowed the vortices to go up the beam into the tower. Someone came to the ruins very recently and removed this enchantment! Ariane can replace the enchantment, but this will take some time. She will ask you to go to the new tower and delay Sedridor's plan.

Distraction
Retrace your way out of the ruins and enter the tower. You will see Sedridor and three wizards casting Icyenic Purge. Try talking to Sedridor and he will simply ignore you. Play the organ a four times to break the wizards concentration. You will annoy Sedridor and see a cutscene of Ariane preparing the enchantment and another of her casting the spell.

Rewards

 * 1 Quest points
 * 250 experience
 * 250 experience
 * Tower mindspike
 * First tower hat
 * Air talisman
 * 70 Mind runes
 * 4 new titles
 * 2 extra spins on the Squeal of Fortune

Trivia

 * The quest was an introduction to the Runecrafting skill before the overhaul on 28 November 2012.