Thops's Barrier

Type

Sorcery

FP cost

7

Memory slots

1

Stamina cost

10

Hold action

Continuous

Requires

18Int

Spell school

Glintstone sorceries

The lifelong pursuit of Thops the Bluntstone.

Creates a magic forcefield that deflects sorceries and incantations.

Hold to continuously create barriers.

Future generations will learn. They will know the foolishness of the sneering sorcerers who ridiculed this theory, little realizing that it was in fact a discovery worthy of a new conspectus of the academy.

Raya Lucaria Academy

Liurnia of the Lakes

Starting Site of Grace: Schoolhouse Classroom

Before you go

• Keep Thops alive and give him the spare Academy Glintstone Key found inside Raya Lucaria Academy.

1. Speak to Thops at the Church of Irith, just southwest of the Lake-Facing Cliffs Site of Grace. He wants to return to the academy, but he will not take the first key you need to enter it yourself.
2. Get your own Academy Glintstone Key from behind Glintstone Dragon Smarag, on the small island west of the academy. You can pick it up without killing the dragon. Use the key at the academy's sealed entrance and progress to the Red Wolf of Radagon. Defeat it to unlock the Debate Parlor Site of Grace.
3. For your first visit, start at Debate Parlor and enter the courtyard. Go left up the broken stone slope and the stairs past the sorcerers. Jump over the left railing, climb the lower stairway, then jump the next left railing onto the roofs.
4. Follow the roofs south past two marionettes and climb the ladder. Cross the high walkway past the flying marionettes and sorcerer, then follow the ledge around the right side of the tower and drop onto the next roof.
5. Keep descending the roofs toward the marionette archers. Use the lower ledge beside their tower, then follow it around to the ladder facing the large Church of the Cuckoo roof. Jump across to that roof instead of climbing the ladder.
6. Enter an open church window onto the rafters. Drop onto the lower beam and the chandelier carrying the spare Academy Glintstone Key, then onto the upper walkway. Do not drop all the way to the floor.
7. Return to Thops at Church of Irith and give him the spare Academy Glintstone Key. Finish his dialogue to receive Erudition, then reload. Travel to Schoolhouse Classroom, leave through the western archway toward the waterwheel and turn right outside. Loot Thops's body at the desk for Thops's Barrier, his staff and bell bearing.

Notes

• Requires 18 Intelligence, a glintstone staff and one memory slot. A cast costs seven FP; holding the input repeats the barrier rather than charging a stronger attack.
• Deflects eligible incoming spell projectiles to the side. It does not absorb the spell into FP or turn it into the three glintblades created by Carian Retaliation.
• The repeated cast uses FP while it is available, but the held sequence can continue even after FP runs out. That does not make the initial cast or every paid repetition free.
• Physical arrows, melee swings and many ground or mist effects still reach you. A spell being magical does not mean every part of it is a projectile the barrier can redirect.
• A deflected explosive spell can still burst close enough to hit you. Leave space and do not assume a successful deflection also removes the explosion.
• The opening animation needs time. Start before a predictable volley rather than expecting it to interrupt a hit already reaching your character.
• The sorcery comes from Thops's body outside Schoolhouse Classroom after giving him the spare key. The shield Ash of War with the same name comes from a different pickup back at Church of Irith.