Final treasure, Flames in the Sand quest

[[OO] coldsteel]

I need to get into the Forsaken Fortress to get the last treasure but can't figure out how to open the gate. I thought maybe I had to shoot all the lights but, though they all light up when shot, the gates don't open. I don't see a switch anywhere, either.

Does anyone know the solution to get into the fortress?

[[OO] coldsteel]

Has no one completed this quest?

[Hemiptera]

Sorry, it's been awhile since I did that quest. Could you post a screenshot of the area in question, or at least describe what the area looks like?

There's two spots I remember from the desert area (I don't remember which quests they're for) where the lights were extra tricky- the one has a combination of lights and braziers, and the other, I think, was mainly a ton of lights in a long curved tunnel.

For the first, you hit some lights and a gate opens so you can access and activate a brazier. You need to do this with two separate braziers, so even though there's a ton of lights to hit, you only need to hit: one, to open a gate to the next light, the second light that was behind a gate, and then activate a brazier that was behind a second gate that opens when you hit the second light. You need to do this twice in the area to open the main door, so even though there's lots of lights to hit, it's more helpful to think of it like multiple interconnected puzzles than one big one.
You MAY be able to cheat a bit by using an area-of-effect explosion-type attack/spell that MIGHT go through a closed gate and activate the light behind it to skip a step.

For the second area you just have to be REALLY fast, because otherwise the lightsat the beginning of the tunnel will go out by the time you've circles back around to the main room with the door you want to open. Having a mount small enough to fit might help you move faster here, or using ranged attacks as you run.

Hope this helps!

[[OO] coldsteel]

Neither of those fit. There is a fortress with two portcullis gates there with a guard tower on each side. Both the outer and inner gates are closed (you can see through the bars). I can use my flying carpet mount to get over the outer gate and into the inner courtyard where there are trees and some blue crystal lights on pedestals. There are also two crystal lights outside the main gate on either side. Shooting them turns them on (with a greenish light color) but doesn't open the gates.

The doors to both guard towers attached to the fortress are locked/barred from inside. The tower on the right can be entered from above because the roof is broken and the door on the ground floor can be unbarred. When you go down two flights of stairs you are underground in a room with a single door that's barred from the other side and no levers, buttons or anything else there. The room is completely bare.

The guard tower on the left also has a barred outer door but the roof is intact and so there's no way in.

I've searched all over the area for a switch or anything at all to interact with and the only thing I've found are the 6 lights (two next the the outer gate and two inside the courtyard where the inner gate is).

[Hemiptera]

Okay, I found where you are now- it's that fort-like structure in the Flowing Sands area, right?

There IS a way inside, though you may need a lockpick to get through some of the doors (found as loot in boxes/crates, very common in the desert region. I think there's a big gate in the Oasis area, that structure is full of them).

I can't remember for sure how to get in, but once you do you will eventually encounter the first of the two areas I mentioned earlier.

I'm trying to access the spot from an old save, but it may take awhile before I can get back and re-figure out how to solve everything. Let me know if you figure it out in the meantime though. Good luck!

[Hemiptera]

[Okay, so this may be tedious to read, I wrote it as I went through the area. I'll leave it all here in case it's useful to someone else, but long story short you'll need lockpicks to continue. I have instructions on how to use lockpicks below.]

Sorry if some of this is stuff you already knew, I'm just going blow-by-blow as I do it.

Okay, so the two crystals outside front gate of the complex, when hit, open the front gate.

Next, the four crystals in the courtyard open the inner gate.

As you walk inside, the door to your left will open, but there's nothing interesting int hat room except another door which is currently jammed. The door on the right as you walk in the entryway is also jammed.

Going up the stairs to the left leads to a door that is locked and can be picked. Going up the right-hand stairs leads to a room with two doors- one is barricaded from the player-side and the other can be lock-picked.

(to pick locks, you need a lockpick. Interact with a locked door a second time to activate the lockpicking mini-game. You will see a white needle on a circle with a lock in the center. "A" and "D" keys will cause the needle to rotate. Rotate an 8th to a quarter the way around and click with the mouse- the lock will either blink red, yellow, green, or will just jiggle. Green means you're close, jiggle-only means you're at the right spot and can press and hold the mouse button until you unlock it. You know it's working because you won't lose lockpick durability when the needle's in the right spot. If you're losing durability but the lock isn't blinking colors, it's still the wrong spot.)

I don't have any picks right now, so I'm interacting with the barricade on the door to remove it and going through. This leads to a staircase that goes up to the roof, but partway up is another door with the barricade on the player-side, so I'll open this first; It leads to what I'll call the "upper courtyard", basically a plateau above the fort. It's accessible without un-barring the door, but having the door open provides easier access.

So based on what you said earlier, it looks like this is as far as you got, and it's as far as I can get without lockpicks. Hunt around the points of interest in the desert region of the map (they seem most common there, though I've gotten them as loot elsewhere too) until you've got a good handful and then go back and you'll be able to progress.

Hope this helps!

[Hemiptera]

Aaaand I didn't pause the game while I was writing, so I died. :(

If you need more help, let me know. Otherwise I'll be going back to my main save. :)

[[OO] coldsteel]

Thanks so much for your help with this. You went above and beyond.

The first part with hitting the crystals to get the gates to open is where I'm stuck. I hit the crystals and the gate does not open. They light up, but nothing else happens. If you got it open that way then the only thing I can think of is that you need to hit them with a specific weapon for them to open. I will experiment and see if I can figure it out. It sounds like it may be partially bugged.

Thanks for the note on lock picking. I had done it before in another area so feel I have it down now. I have a couple of lockpicks left so I should be good there. Thanks again.

[Hemiptera]

You're welcome! But it doesn't quite feel complete if you still can't get in, so here's a few more things to try:

I typically use the poison shot skill (don't remember exactly what's it's called, but it's something like that. It's one you can find in the world. There's a guide in the Steam guide's section that has a list of a bunch of hidden skills and weapons and where to find them, I'm pretty sure it's on that list). This skill has five charges before it hits cooldown, so it's really nice for rapidly shooting.
And speed is the key here: Are you getting them to all be lit up simultaneously? If you aren't fast enough, the lights will start going out and if you don't get them all lit at once, the gate won't open.
If you can't find or acquire a skill to rapid-fire shots, a staff that shoots fireballs as the main attack is probably your best bet here (the easiest one to get right now is the staff that looks like a sunflower sold by the creepy vendor in Woodhurst as of the time of this writing for a halloween event- it's labeled as a "halberd" but it's a magic staff. See the latest update notes for more details).

If you have succeeded in getting all four lights lit at once and it's still not working, maybe you you need to open the outer gate first?
I didn't try opening just the inner gate, so maybe you need to open the outer gate first? (I mention this because you said you flew in, so I'm assuming you hadn't opened the outer gate?- man, I love that magic carpet though. Best mount in the game!)

If worst comes to worst and nothing works, there's two other things you can try:

1. If you're impatient, just ram yourself into the upper corner of the gate, or a corner in the tower room you can access, and see if you can "glitch" yourself through the walls. The magic carpet is great for this since you ragdoll when hitting things at full speed, and strange stuff (like glitching through walls) can happen when you ragdoll.

2. If you have a bit more time to do it methodically (and more scientifically), go to the city of Velosia and fly up to the big tower- you'll know it when you see it- and there at the top you will find the "teleportation arrow" spell/skill. You don't need to be using a bow to use it. The skill itself tends to be a little buggy, sometimes you fire it off and you don't teleport.
But I've noticed that you can usually shoot it through the bars of a gate to get to the other side.
Now here's where it gets a bit technical. Sometimes I've noticed when firing the arrow through a gate that the arrow just disappears into the floor (like I said, it can be a bit glitchy), but if you're in an area that allows summoning mounts (some places don't), you can stand right up next to the gate and, while facing the bars, summon your magic carpet. It seems to USUALLY spawn on the OTHER side of the gate. Then you just need to stand where you can aim your Teleportation Arrow so it will land on the carpet, and it will teleport you to the carpet even if it fell through the floor or other scenery previously.

There has so far been one gate this didn't work on at all for me (the dungeon/cave where the petrified dragon is) and one gate that only worked one-way (I could get in, but not out easily- if this happens to you, don't worry! just use TAB to get back into the overworld).

Hopefully this trick will work on the gate in question if you can't get them to open normally.

Let me know if it works!

Good luck!

[[OO] coldsteel]

I was finally able to get in and get the treasure. The problem was that I wasn't shooting the lights fast enough. Thanks again for the help.

[Hemiptera]

Sure thing! I'm glad you finally made it. :)