With the alarms blaring it's time for you to help Elryn and the others finally break free from the third floor of the Runed Fortress! Will the thorns of the Espina Rosa give up her prey so easily though?

A note from Elryn:

Greetings everyone!

I would like to let you know that the end of Espina Rosa will not come this week and that instead it will be due for another week (not next week). I know we said in the last DNs we were going to do it this week however between Tomix not feeling too well and my mild burnout from my Terran analog’s new job, we decided best to postpone it to the next available date. There will be a light release this week instead (make sure to wish Tomix well!).

In the mean time, I will make sure to brush up on the script as much as possible. After all, you will not be able to leave Espina Rosa without facing the final boss of the Fortress. 

When that comes, I hope you are ready for a difficult battle, Hero.

San Robin has a short quest for us for Friday and the Espina Rosa finale will be coming in a couple weeks!

This week you finally break free of the shackles of the Espina Rosa! Will you be able to see all your friends to freedom? Or will the thorns of the Rose dig in and hold them prisoner?

We don't have art from the quest ready for you to preview just yet... but ryunn has made some amazing fan art about the Espina Rosa saga that we wanted to share!

SUCKERS by ryunn

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You've made it to the mysterious and confusing third floor of the Espina Rosa... but will you be able to make it out? Now that you've found Elryn in the labyrinthine layout you'll need to decide what your next move is!

Hey there! I've been getting questions about what I've been working on so I wanted to take a minute to run through a few of the things.

- Adjusting Dread Pirate to work with the new Pirate skills. (The new skill set and some items are live in Book 1 Osprey Cove for the base Pirate if you missed DA testing or are an NDA). I'm aiming to have this done for Friday, but as with everything there might be a delay till next week if I get overwhelmed with release stuff.

- Adding in the shops for the tooth fragment from Frostval last year. This should be this week as I'm almost done with the changes to the area where it's going in. There's going to be 2. One will be a house item shop for DA's that will allow them to replay the challenge mode fight minus the tooth drop. The OTHER, since people mentioned that maybe they didn't want a house item, will be a necklace shop for those that beat the fight but don't really want the house item. This will be for all players (NDA items) so if you held onto your tooth shard you'll be able to access those. To open the shop of your choice you will LOSE your tooth fragment so make SURE you choose which you want before you open it. If you missed getting a tooth fragment, or got rid of your tooth fragment, you'll be able to pick up one this Frostval when everything comes back for replays.

- Working on redoing MP Potion training. (This won't be this week but as soon as I can get it done) I know a bunch of you mentioned that there were issues with this so I'm trying to get through all the fixes and changes to it as soon as possible. It'll make the WIS changes from 14.0 a bit easier to deal with as well.

- Guardian class revamp (Not this week) Yes, I am working on this. There are some art issues that need to be sorted through though. I'm getting the skills finished up so that when the art stuff is fixed we can do combined DA and Guardian verified testing. There's no ETA on this I'm just letting you know.

- AoT is still being worked on. Tomix will get the art and animations done when he's able to and then I can code it. We don't know when it'll be finished because he has to stop working on it to work on the main release every week. It is coming though and he's trying his hardest, but you'll need to be patient a bit longer. (Because I know people are going to ask and wanted to nip this one before it happened)

There are a few other things I'm working on to get into the game. This includes updates to the Bank interface and some other stuff for 14.1 as well as some other side projects and updates for things like redoing Cysero's Superstore to make the shops and such easier to navigate and add new items like multiple levels of the plushie pets. I'm working on a lot and most of it is stuff that won't be in for a while but I figured since I am working on it you all should have some stuff to look forward to.

I also have a note from someone.

Greetings Heroes

For those who have been impatient to the resumption of the Espina Rosa chain I am happily able to announce that it is resuming this week!

Given that is the case, I would suggest to replay through the quests to refresh yourselves with the storyline in the meantime. To aid you in your endeavours and to make things a bit more interesting I would propose a little treasure hunt, or rather clue hunt, to bide time.

As some of you have well noticed, a certain miscellany of popular references or clues towards the deeper backstory of things dot the quests so far. Not a great few, but certainly a select few. At least one of you caught on, for example, to the clue that when Zadd mutters in InspecZion about ‘’this one’’ working and ‘’that one’’ not, he is referring to his mixed success in binding Elementals to his will. A number of you have also observed the irony produced by the Hero considering Sam’s grandma’s wizard a charlatan.
There are about four references or clues left unmentioned, all tied in some manners to some of the characters unique to Espina Rosa. Two of them are tied to Dumplings and are so entirely obscure I would never frankly expect you to find them. One is so innocuous that I could never expect you to divine part of his backstory from it and I could only expect a rabid Beano fan to even notice the second. If such a fan does notice it.... well... you have earned yourself a good scone.

However, you have a chance at the clues and references concerning Sofist and Gaston.  One is a clue concerning the character’s backstory, the other is a reference wordly and visibly tied to the character. If you are able to find both of these by Thursday then you will win your own clue to solving the puzzle in Friday’s quest.

That challenge aside, I would like to say it has been most pleasant reading all of your thoughts and theories concerning the story and ways forward. You have entertained some very interesting speculations. A few of you have even had thoroughly impressive thoughts and theories and I would single out Ithraen, Myra, Starflame and Edorath for the most interesting ones. I dare say some of you may have come quite close to the truth. Although you shall not know which, you certainly do deserve a reward.

A wooden tray, simple yet elegant, appears before you.

...Would you like a pastry?

Talk to Mritha in Sulen’eska to continue your adventure infiltrating the Runed Fortress! You’ve found the Third Level door, but not the way in. You’ll have to investigate the Cafeteria and see if you can find out anything from the other Rose Soldiers! Good luck!   

Edd Armor 
With this week’s quest, you are now able to choose between two different Edd Armor Classes. A new, stronger version is available, but you can still pick the older version for more challenging fights! The Runed Fortress quest has been updated and will equip players with the new version. 

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