Shades of Future

APQ Guide (created by Pinky)

Okay...so here's how to lead an apq...

Things You Should Know

The level requirement for this party quest is level 40, and they must be married. You don't have to be married to join a party, so make sure they're all married.
You must have at least one guy and one girl in the party.
It's preferred that you have a thief with haste in the party so the bonus is better.
You might want someone 100 or 120+ to kill Giest (apq boss) quickly, but if you don't that's okay. Killing Giest will just take a little bit longer.
You can only one once every six hours.
You need a full party of 6.
Once someone disconnects of leaves the party, apq fails and everyone is transported out.

To prepare

Collect ten lip lock keys ...or whatever from Purple Wood Forest 1 and 2. Turn them into Amos at his training ground to get your entrance ticket. *Note that you can get your ticket once every six hours, and once you get your ticket, the timer resets itself. So you can get your ticket and save it for when you want to go twice. **If you have more than one ticket in your inventory at the same time, the older one becomes null and void; so you have to use your saved ticket first, then get your second one.

To start

Once you have a party of 6, with at least one guy and one girl, talk to Amos the Strong in Amos' Hunting Ground to go into APQ. The leader enters last, in case one of the party members has to leave, or disconnects, the leader can go back to channel one to get another party member. When everyone is in, the leader enters and talks to Amos to start the party quest. You may have to cc a few times if there's someone already in there.

Stage 1

The leader talks to Amos twice to start the stage. Three portals will appear. Find the correct portal that transports you to the bottom. The leader talks to the Glimmerman. There will be three portals on the bottom. Girls go to the left one, boys go to the right one. Kill all the monsters. When all the monsters are killed, the leader will talk to Glimmerman again to spawn the fairy. The fairy spawns at the bottom right corner of the top right platform on the men's side everytime. Kill it before it flies around the map, then you'll have to chase it.

Once you have killed the fairy, collect the magic hammer. Give it to the leader. Use the middle portal at the bottom to be transported to the Magik Mirror. To get back up to Amos, simply jump on the mirror. The leader drops the magic hammer on the mirror to break the mirror. Collect the piece of magic mirror, and talk to the Glimmerman again. The stage then clears. To get everyone back up to the top, the leader can chose to talk to the Glimmerman again to teleport everyone back to Amos.

Everyone in the party talks to Amos to get to the next stage.

Stage 2

This stage is a codebreaker stage. There are three ropes at the top. A certain number of people is supposed to be on each one of the ropes.

To get on one of the ropes, go into one of the three portals. This will teleport you to a higher platform. Jump on that platform. This will teleport you to the top of a rope, where you will be falling, so make sure to hold onto up after you jump so you can catch the rope.

The leader will talk to Amos to start the stage.

All five of the members start on the first rope (the one on the left). This combination is recognized as 500. Each digit represents a different rope, and each value represents the number of people on that rope.

The leader will then talk to Amos again. The stage will either clear, or Amos will give an answer saying the combination is either the same, or different.

Same means that at least one of the ropes has the correct number of people. This implies that the other two ropes are wrong. There is no such thing as two of the ropes being correct because if two of them were correct, then the last would be correct as well, and the stage would have cleared.
Different means that all of them are incorrect, or none of the ropes are correct. There is no such thing as having only one rope incorrect for the reason explained above. It's not going to have two that are incorrect because that is the same thing as having one correct, which is Same.

If Amos says "same," then assume one of the numbers is correct while changing the other two.

If Amos says "different," change the number value on all three of the digits. Or, if you wish, you can say 050, to see if the first digit is a 0.

Depending on what Amos says, change the combination. The leaders will tell the party members to move by saying a three digit combination.

There is a chart, but I highly discourage you from using it. It is better that you learn it eventually. It's also a good work out for your brain after having played maplestory so much!

You get seven tries before monsters are summoned, and the counter and combination is reset.

Stage 3

This is another codebreaker stage. There are 9 platforms, four on the top and five on the bottom. The combination is an arrangement of people on different platforms. Only one person can be on one platform. There is no limit to the amount of tries you can use. The combination does not reset.

The platforms are in this order:

(A) (2) (B) (3)

Everyone stands on the top platform except for the leader and one other party member. The remaining party member will be on C.

The leader then talks to Amos, and the stage will either clear, or monsters will be summoned. **Note: The number of slimes that spawn is the number of platform that correctly has someone standing on it. Therefore, the maximum number of slimes that can be summoned after one try is four. Since there are only nine platforms and five people, the minimum number of slimes that can be summoned after one try is one.

The party member on the bottom row will move once space over to the right after each try, and the slimes are counted. After all five platforms, C, 6, D, 9, and 5 are tried, you should end up with a five-number combination made up of the 5 different amounts of slimes that spawned. Ex. 22333

Members then move to the platforms on the bottom with the higher number. Following the example above, members stand on D, 9, and 5. The remaining members stay on A, and 2, the first two platforms of the top row.

The leader talks to Amos again. The stage will either clear, or more monsters will be summoned. It is unnecessary to count slimes at this point. The two people on the top row will then try different combinations in the top row. Ex. A2, A3, AB, 23, 2B, 3B

One of these will clear.

There is a chart, but if you need this chart too much, you probably shouldn't lead APQ because people in APQ are usually impatient and mean if you're too slow.

Once the stage is cleared, move on to the next stage from the portal to the right.

Stage 4

Kill monsters to get 50 cupid's code pieces. Give them to the leader. The leader talks to Amos to clear the stage, and everyone to automatically transported to the next stage. **Note: Usually, each of the five members of the party collect 10 each, while the leader waits by Amos.

Stage 5

You run to the right. Break the gates and run to the right some more. Go up the incline at the end and stop next to Amos. Wait for everyone in the party to get to the end. **Note: If you stop to chat or afk for too long, the rombots at the end will kill you. Unless you have like super awesome lag, you will die from them. Also this stage causes a lot of people to lag, so beware.

When everyone is there, the leader talks to Amos to clear the stage. Once the stage is cleared, each party member will then have to talk to Amos to enter the next stage.

Stage 6

The leader clicks on Amos to enter the next stage. If the party members are jumping, Amos will not recognize that they are there, so make sure no one is jumping, or you can't move on.

After the leader talks to Amos, everyone is transported to the boss stage. There are three bosses, one after another, not simultaneously. First come Jr. Balrog, then Crimson Balrog, then Giest, which is an ugly purple version of Crimson Balrog. Defeat these monsters. **Note: If someone dies, and there is an uneven number of boys vs girls (meaning not 3 to 3), then bonus can still be reached for the remaining party members as long as the dead ones are still on the map. So if someone dies, tell them not to press okay. After they die, you have 10 minutes before they are transported back to town to kill giest, and go to bonus.

Collect the giest fang after giest dies and give it to the leader of the party.

Get back to the top to talk to Amos.

To get back up to the top, go to the platform on the left of the elevated portion on the ground.
Press up on that left platform.
Press up again once you teleport to another spot on the map.
Jump down to the platform under, and slightyly to the left of, the one you have just been teleported to.
Press up when you have been teleported to a new spot on the map.
Press up one last time to be able to reach Amos.

The leader will then talk to Amos and the stage is cleared. **Note: Do not end chat or press Esc. If you do so, the stage will clear, but you will not be allowed to go to bonus. Also everyone will be upset with you.

Talk to Amos again to move on to the bonus stage. **Note: If there is an even number of guys and girls, each person will have to talk to Amos to be transported to the next map. You will be transported to the couples stage. In this case, just talk to Amos again, and tell him you want to move to the bonus stage.

Couples' Bonus: If there are three couples (husband & wife), there is an extra bonus before the actual bonus stage. Here, you and your spouse will compete with the other two couples to try to break open all the boxes and collect its items. You will then turn those into Amos, and he will give you a reward. Only the first couple to finish gets a reward.

Bonus

Break boxes and collect your reward. Your top priority drops are probably Glove ATT 60%, onyx apples, and the Amorian Relaxer. If they are not your top priority...there's something wrong with you. Like most bonuses, you will get one minute to break as many boxes as you can. Spread out.