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A paladin's run of bad luck can't last forever. At least, that's what Trystahnn and I told ourselves as we zoned into the West Karanas.
Our previous attempts to start the Ghoulbane quest had been stymied by the non-appearance of Ryshon Hunsti, who gives
the start of the Ghoulbane quest. Checking track after zoning in, I happily announced that I had Ryshon on track. We raced to
meet the elusive human. While Trystahnn initiated the quest, I sat and memorized "Circle of Butcher" and teleported us to the dwarven homeland. There we
tracked the second quest-giver, Kanthuk Ogrebane, fishing outside the seaport walls. (Note to all ghoulbane questers: you have
to keep retargeting these NPCs during the quest dialogue. They despawn and respawn during the conversation and will only respond if you are targetting them
as you speak.)
While Trystahnn was targetting and retargetting Kanthuk during their dialogue, disaster struck. Accidentally, he hit his attack key. Kanthuk, of course, took offense. Fortunately, I had my Circle of the Commons spell memorized for our next teleport, so I cast it, then gated us back to Butcherblock's druid circle. The whole run back across the zone our hearts were pounding. Had we messed up the quest? Would we have to go back and seek Ryshon again? Fortunately, zoning had done the trick: Kanthuk was no longer angry with Trystahnn, who resumed his chat with the dwarf. Kanthuk sent us to meet Llara, who can be found in Dagnor's Cauldron, near the entrance to Unrest. After talking with her, we teleported to the Commons then made the run to Lavastorm, where the barbarian Ruathey completed the quest dialogue and gave Trystahnn the container for creating Ghoulbane from his questing components. Now that was done, Trystahnn was eager to complete his Ghoulbane quest. We already had the hilt from "A Skeleton" in Najena and a kindly gnome caster let Trystahnn loot another item from a crazed goblin he was camping in Butcherblock. That left two pieces to acquire: one from a crazed ghoul in Unrest, the other from a crazed goblin (or goblin thief) in HighKeep. We started with Unrest. Now, we had hunted in Unrest before (about ten levels back) and it hadn't been a great experience. I was a bit nervous since I also understood that the crazed ghoul no longer spawned outside in the yard, but either in the tower or the back room on the second floor. When the tower proved empty, I turned on tracking, which led us eventually to the back room: fully populated with undead in the upper 20s. Just then, Trystahnn's invisibility to undead faded. Faster than thought, the undead all piled into us and we soon saw the LOADING, PLEASE WAIT message. Back in Faydark, Trystahnn called to our friend Goamok for some assistance. I ran by the bank, restocked on batwings (for levitation across Dagnor's Cauldron's steep terrain) and some food, then teleported us to the Commons to fetch our friend then back to Butcherblock. Soon we were regrouped in Unrest (my wolf form making it easy to drag our corpses near enough to the zone for safe looting). With Goamok there, odds turned in our favour. We decided to camp the Tower room, killing only a few placeholders before the crazed ghoul appeared, died to our attacks and dropped the requisite heart. Only one item remained, Amstaf's note that dropped in HighKeep. Teleporting the group back to West Commons, we found it midnight there. Goamok wasn't going to sit there and do nothing for six hours of game time: he proposed we zone into Kithicor and see if there was anything we could kill while waiting to make the run. Mindful of earlier ventures into Kithicor at night (meeting up with the Zombie Commander, brrrr!), Trystahnn and I followed cautiously. Turning on tracking after we zoned, I saw a screenful of red, with occasional patches of yellow and white. Scary! But Gomaok searched the forest relentlessly, finding a dread wolf and a few other undead for us to kill. When morning arrived, we quickly made our way to HighKeep. Killing goblins yielded no note for us but Trystahnn shouting that he would pay to loot the item won him the final piece. He quickly combined the items and soon was wielding his Ghoulbane against the goblins. With Ghoulbane in hand, Trystahnn and I set back off to Kunark. Our plan was to fight in the Overthere until we'd reached well over level 31. For constant melee action at levels 30 to 40, The Overthere just can't be beat. Sure enough, we found some great groups and settled in for the fight. With a higher level dark elf warrior, Moonmyst pulling, we soon took down and killed cockatrices, sarnaks, sabertooths and succulents. Occasionally she'd pull a massive Kunark Rhino and there was the time we all had to zone to avoid a wandering Dragoon, but for the most part, we kept to business. Some of the scariest moments we had were fighting the Sarnak Knights. Trystahnn, Moonmyst and Jackall (an Iksar monk) waded into combat against these massive half-dragon creatures, eventually wearing them down. Except for an hour when we had a dwarven cleric in our party, I spent my time meditating and foraging. My damage shields and buffs were of some help, but most of the time I just healed. Best of all, we were both Level 30! |