Notes on the Ethereum Prison

Here’s what I’ve found out so far:

Short Version: Get a million keys, summon 5 man outdoor bosses for drop, use drop to summon new Mana-Tombs boss

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Long Version:

Requires Honored (or Revered?)

1. Ethereal guy sends you off to find a prison key. The key is a fairly rare drop from any ethereal near Manaforge Ultris. This item can be looted by everyone in the party
2. Ethereal guy sends you off to get another key and open a prison. Opening the prison will spawn a 70 non-elite that drops a green and an ID card. The ID card is required to complete the quest, but only drops for 1 person (so you have to do this 5 times).
2.5. You can continue turning in ID cards for more rep, but this requires more keys.
3. Ethereal guy sends you off to get 5 keys. It took at least an 1.5 hours of actual played time (not counting the frequent server crashes) just to get 5 for myself. To key an entire group would take substantially longer (there aren’t enough mobs in the area to support 5 people anyway). These keys also drop from the Bash’ir Ethereals in Blade’s Edge, where there are far more mobs to kill, but the drop rate is still pretty bad.
4. The keys combine to form another key that opens a prison in the upper portions of Blade’s Edge Mountains. Opening this prison unleashes a Gronn lord. The quest recommends 5 people, but this guy can be snared, feared, everything, and you can easily 2-man kite him. He occasionally uses a ranged daze and “knock-up”, so you probably can’t solo him unless you’re a warlock chain fearing.
5. Turning in the quest item that drops off the gronn lord unlocks the ability to get an additional 5 keys to summon more “bosses.” It also unlocks a quest to obtain a Mark of the Nexus-King, which is supposedly a non-guaranteed drop off of any of the “bosses.”
6. Quest text says the mark will allow you to open a statis cell in Mana-Tombs, probably resulting in a new boss in Heroic mode and new loot, haven’t gotten this far due to the sheer number of keys this would require.

The Gronn lord “boss” did not drop any loot other than his quest item, but it’s possible further summoned “bosses” will drop guaranteed greens/blues.

In addition, there is an altar in the Bash’ir landing area where you can trade Apexis Shards for flasks. The Apexis Shards are a fairly common drop off any of the Ethereals in the area.

Apparently there are more flask types for different “of the…” item types.

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