**Please note that this entry is my diary of my quest for the Ghoulbane**
**CONTAINS SPOILERS!**
**Current version: 2.0 – Added pictures of TOV**
My Quest for the Ghoulbane.
I had been adventuring in the Thundering Steppes for a while and slowly completing the Guardian Armour Quests when I heard of a quest for the mighty Ghoulbane sword. There follows my diary and guide to the quest and what I think of the reward.
This is one of the longest quests I have yet to come across in this game, not least of all because I had not trained myself in mining and this forms a very large part of the quest.
To start, one visits a newbie quest giver in Nettleville called Vida Sweeps. She needs a new broom and offers to reward you with a valuable stone. I had ignored this quest for ages due to the fact that I found it unlikely that the stone was actually valuable. How wrong I was! Many other questers, I’m sure, will have deleted the reward for this quest before continuing and must be kicking themselves now.
Vida sent me to find Tawli Whiskwind in Baubbleshire, collect her broom and bring it back to Vida. The reward is the Dusty Blue Stone. Upon examining the stone I was given the Dusty Blue Stone quest to try and find out what it actually is. I took the stone to a mining expect called Gruffin Goldtooth in Graystone, near the Oakmyst Forest entrance.
He said that he needed time to look into the stone and would I collect some things for him whilst he does so? Sure, I thought, why not? What do you need? He wanted me to go to the Thundering Steppes to collect 40 rock samples from Wind Swept Rocks. A quick shout around the guild found that I needed a 90 lvl skill in mining to collect the samples. Unfortunately my skill was 8. Thats right, 8. The one after 7 and before 9. 12 was right out.
This just made me even more determined. Firstly I upgraded all my bags to large and I cleared out anything I was carrying (spare swords etc). I then rolled up my sleeves (mentally as my armor doesn’t bend very much) and stomped off to Oakmist. For the next 40 minutes I mined, chopped, picked, trapped and fished anything that crossed my path. I wasn’t the only “non newbie” doing this either. It became a mad dash to get to any rocks before the others and I couldn’t help wondering what the newbs ™ were making of myself (resplendent with my AQ armor) hanging around their zones. Finally, I got to level 19. Level 19 is what is required to mine in Antonica. Axe in hand I headed out. Most of Antonica is grey to me. That is everything NOT hanging around rocks rocks are grey. Antonica is also very very big. The best places I found for mining were north of the roads from the Keep of the Needle to the Windstalker village.
This took sometime. Suffice to say it is a chore of epic proportions. I did however get one break. Upon the third hour I checked to see if I had filled my bags and found that I had mined some coral and a lapis lazuli. My finger hovered over the delete button, and I quickly asked their value from the guild. The coral was worth 8 – 12 gold and the Lapis was worth around 2 gold. Amazing. I had just spent one of the most taxing (although not too boring) nights of my life and made more money in that time than the whole last two weeks killing and leveling.
I quickly found that people are all to ready to cheat people in my position and my first attempts to sell the Coral were met with offers of 8 silver and 20 silver respectively (from jewelers too!) . Suffice to say I have a few more names in the old ignore list now than before. I eventually sold the coral to a nice bloke who wanted to make something for his wife. He paid me 7 gold and 60 odd silver. The Lapis went for 2 gold.
With such largess to my name the quest took a slight hiatus as I went power shopping. I bought my Guardian a set of Pristine Carbonite armor, a complete set of Pristine Agate jewelery and the wonderful mace “Starfall” which is from a rare quest in TS. Feeling better about the hours so far spent mining I set my pick about the rocks with renewed vigor in the hope of getting more riches. I couldn’t actually tell you what I mined to get the coral, but I didn’t get another.
After many hours, many many hours, I reached lvl 90 in mining. Off to The Thundering Steppes!
Mining in TS is not safe. If you are going to do this quest I suggest strongly that you attempt it before you start hunting Cenotaur’s. These horses live upon and around all the best sites for Wind Swept Stones that I could find. A night was spent getting the rocks, which are mostly on the left hand side of the map (for me). I noticed something else too. You don’t get credit from EVERY rock you mine. I found (or I may have been in a trance and imagining it) that you needed to mine slowly. As in you need to the let the messages go from your screen before you mine again. But this may just be the hours of hitting things getting to me.
**UPDATE** Another good location for Wind Swept Rocks is down by Tower 4 to Tower 5 and all the undead there
Finally the quest updated to 40 samples and I was on my way back to Greystone. Old man goldtooth explained that he had had no luck in working out what the stone was and suggested I try a mage.
Searching the MageTower in South Qeynos I found, upon entering the red teleporter, the mage Aristide Calais.
He too had a task for me (I must change this DHL hat for something new). Unbelievably he wanted me to go BACK to The Thundering Steppes and deliver some enchanted bars to Olden Highguard (found at the village at 612, -1, -60).
I quickly did this and gated back. Finding the mage for my reward he only said that the stone has no magic in it, it has a blessing. He sent me to a priest for more advice.
Said priest is called Toranim Skyblade and is located outside on the left at the Temple of Life in North Qeynos. He, of course had a task for me to do as well.
I needed to kill undead in the StormHold. I rushed there and slaughtered the yard trash skeletons (taking on 8 at once) and rushed back.
This is the point where the quest either ends (and you get a non sword reward) or continues and becomes the Heritage Quest for Ghoulbane.
The point is when he mentions Ghoulbane you can click “I dont use swords” and he gives you a choice of something else. I, of course, didn’t do this.
After you kill 25/30 skeletons for Toranim Skyblade, you come back and he tells you that it is none other than the stone that was the pommel of the Ghoulbane and gives you a long story about the lore of the Ghoulbane and its last owner who died and so on and the Paladins of the Temple of Light brought his body and the sword back down into the Crypt of the Stormlords. The Crypt of the Stormlords is actually in fact the Crypt of Valor and is past the Atrium close to the archer room.
Now the Crypt of Valor is a locked zone requiring a quest to open. The quest is called “A Key to the Past”. An interesting quest given from the Crushed Librarian in (of all places) the library. I was half way through this quest by the time I got the Ghoulbane quest and so I included here some quick notes from other sources up until the point I continued and some notes about the library.
The quest NPC for the key is the Crushed Librarian in the Library.
The Library is accessed from the room downstairs with the mists in it. In the floor there is a grate which connects you to the library. BE WARNED that the mobs in the library called Writs (flying books – very Harry Potter) are tough as old boots and will kill you if you are sub lvl 30. You can get in without agro, but be careful. On the far side of the wall there is an exit to antonica if you get in trouble.
Note 1 – The big red glowing claymore at the top of the stairs is not the Ghoulbane, its the Bone Bladed Claymore which is a lvl 40 click able quest.
Step 1: Talk to the “A Crushed Librarian” in the Library in Stormhold. The entrance to the Library is in the Feign Zombie room past the Atrium. There is a grate on the floor that you click to enter the Library.
Step 2: Kill Defiled Squires until update. Kill Defiled Knights until
update.
After these steps the Librarian wants you to kill some of the more rare upper level bosses in the zone.
Lord Androus spawns in the chessboard and requires a smallish group to kill. He is spawned along with two priests at one of the 3 locations around the board.
He is fairly infrequent and you need to kill his placeholders (knights and priests) to get him to spawn. He is also killed almost immediately and so I suggest (for you dual boxers) parking your mule in there and keep asking for a group to get him. For the people like me who only play one character you just have to be lucky. I spent the rest of the time killing greens in the hope of getting the Berik Sword of Thunder drop with no success.
Guard Captain Hess spawns in the barracks on the top level (2nd right from the main hall and in the doors to the left) and is even more rare than the Lord.
I strongly suggest getting in with a group camping him as it is unlikely that you will get him on your own. He comes with two friends and I was lucky enough to get him right after a server reset. I soloed him and his buddies at 24 but it was close. His placeholders are two Defiled Zombie Knights at the enclave.
The Zombie Handmaidens are downstairs then left in the Aritum and left again upthe stairs. They spawn fairly frequently, are very hard to solo at 24 and DONT ALLWAYS update your quest.
Finally, upon killing the maidens I returned to the Librarian and was sent to find the key.
Now, he doesn’t tell you where to actually find the key and it is in the last place you would think of looking. Basically, its a the feet of a statue next to Sir Valinayle, who is all the way back to the entrance. I grabbed the key and had the access.
It should have been plain sailing from here…. It wasn’t. Listen ladies and gentlemen to my tale of woe told in bullet points.
1.You need 3 people with the key to get into the zone. (crap!)
2.You need the Scion of Darkness, that can kill you before you can blink, to not be up and kill your team members over and over. It blocks the Atrium and is a real bastard. (smeg!!)
3.You need to all be next to the zone in to click it. (Bollocks!!!)
**YOU NEED TO NOT CLICK ON ANYTHING WHEN YOU ZONE IN UNTIL YOU GET THE SWORD**
Yes, in my excitement I forgot to tell this to my group. Before I could find the sword someone clicked on a grave inside the Tomb and a HOARDE of yellow^ zombies spawned and spanked me back to the dark ages. Not so bad? Well, TOV is on a timer… an 8 hour timer…. Basically I had to wait for the next day before I could attempt the mind taxingly difficult task of clicking on a sword again.
I was a we’ bit frustrated at this point in the proceedings.
The next night also had problems. Upon logging back in, I found a duo of fantastic guild members willing to come to TOV with me. I was going to loot the sword but we were going to also finish the quest for that zone. It quickly became apparent that we would need more members if we were to be successful, not least of all a healer. Or two.
In SH there is always (at least on our server) one or two people looking to get into TOV. We quickly picked up a fourth team member who said he wanted to do TOV in full, when suddenly one of my guildies went LD. Waiting for him to come back and for a healer. Or two. Our new found friend became impatient.
“Logging in to get my Ghoulbane…”, he said.
“What the hell? wait!”, I replied. Too late. In this guys urgency to get the Ghoulbane he zoned in. It was clear that he had no intention of staying for the whole of TOV and it was even clearer that he wasn’t going to roll on looting the Ghoulbane.
**REMEMBER only one person can loot the sword PER INSTANCE**
**Once one member double clicks the zone – YOU ALL ZONE IN**
I was slightly pissed off. Luckily, the week before I had doubled my RAM in my system. This means I now zone FAST. More than this I know exactly where the Ghoulbane is in the zone.
Location: It is on the left hand wall about half way down under a torch.
I zoned in and ran for the sword, with him right behind me. Clicking as fast as I could, I pulled the sword from the wall. Success!
The gentlemen was none too happy and I got one or two tells of rage. The poor member of my guild that had been dragged in with us and the other member stuck outside were also none to happy with him. Since we were now unable to continue (the TOV mobs are all very hard) we decided in Groupsay to Call of Qeynos the hell out of there. As I casted, the asswipe opened a grave and started the mob spawns. Then to my shock, the guild friend remembered that they had used CoQ recently and couldnt cast again for half an hour. As I ported out I felt awful. I had dragged a friend down there and they had been screwed by this guy. Twice. Then I had got away and they hadn’t and had be given only debt.
The two morals here are this:
1.Be careful who you group with in such circumstances.
2.When you need to beat a wanker to a reward, run and don’t stop to take screenshots.
Hense, I have no screenshots of the inside of TOV. Just remember that if you don’t tough anything but the sword you are totally safe from the ghosts. When I go back here tonight I will post some.
**Update** Here are the missing screen shots. My guild attacked this zone last night. Its tough but worth it.
The Ghoulbane itself! Right click and pick it up.
This is the zone from the entrance:
This is the mobs:
Afterward either gate out or leave via the grate in the wall.
Anyway, I came back to North Qeynos and Toranim Skyblade…
…and he combined the stone and the sword to give me Ghoulbane. Or at least
WEAKENED GHOULBANE!
Not that I can use it yet mind. Sigh.
Was this quest worth it. Hell yes! The sword has very nice stats indeed and a low speed. I earned a ton of cash and got to kill some nice mobs. I also learned by way around SH and TS completely.
My path is now set. I need to finish the Armor Quests (I’m on 6), get to skill level 160 and then go for the next parts of the quest: The charging of Ghoulbane!
Watch this space.
Yours always,
Yagyu the Guardian.
/basho
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