I want Spirit Wracked Cords. It's a very long story, but I've been stuck on the last step of the quest for a year now. I need an urn from Drusella Sathir in Howling Stones. Here's how I did it.
First I learned to get into Howling Stones safely. I have good faction in Overthere so can cast ITU before zoning in, that usually works. My Overthere faction is part of the problem actually, I don't want to kill in Howling Stones any more than I have to.
Then I MQ'd a key for my ranger so he could track to see when Drusella was up. The key is a whole quest in itself. After considerable exploring in the tunnels near zonein I found only one safe spot: the north edge of the zonein room. I used my enchanter to pacify everything near zonein than ran the ranger to the safe spot. It turns out Drusella is highly contested and almost never up, and after a week I'd gotten nowhere. I couldn't leave the ranger there for months so I got a key for my level 24 druid, on the chance that he'd suffice. Eventually I found Drusella up for a few minutes right after a patch and found the druid could track her just fine from the safe spot, with 125 tracking.
Then Gravity Flux was nerfed. I had to find a new way to get to the east wing. With the help of a group from HOC after the server crash on Saturday I found it. It turns out that Spirit of Eagle is fast enough to float over to the east side stairs, if you start on one of the firepots on the south stairs. Even then it's tricky -- I had to minimize clipping plane, camp out on the firepot and log in again, look to the ceiling, try again and again... but basically Spirit of Eagle is fast enough under the right conditions, and it's safe with invisibility. Share Wolf Form from a level 59+ druid is also fast enough (I can be a wolf indoors), and Flight of Eagles is even better.
Once there I needed to get through the first room with the fake wall. There's not enough space to cast safely so I had to mez the ones atop the stairs, quickly pacify everything in the room, remez, then run through the room to an almost-safe spot and camp to clear aggro. Believe me, I tried other methods, but just ended up with an unrezzed death and begging for another Spirit of Eagle for CR.
From the (relatively) safe spot I need to go down a hallway with a hidden pit, then through a big scary room. It took a lot of scouting to even get a peek at this room (a previous expedition discovered that there was no safe spot near the room, too many wanderers, and lots of chain aggro -- that was the day I needed my corpse summoned before a Fear raid). Finally discovered that almost everything in the area is undead, there was only one live creature. I found a way to pacify him, then ITU and ran straight through no problem. (He's out of range from the safe spot so I used pacify in the hallway to get closer. Without the new 'previous target' button I couldn't have done that, I wouldn't have been able to target him after pacifying the hallway.)
Ok, so now I was outside Drusella's room. It's a rather long hallway with only two wanderers, perfect for pulling to. I camped out before the Tuesday morning patch and set my alarm for the middle of the night. Well it turns out the patch took less than one hour. Who ever heard of such a fast patch? By the time I woke up and logged in another group was almost there. They arrived before I had even cleared the two wanderers, so might have been able to pull her before me. There was a monk who'd recenly been training groups to get to Drusella first after each patch, so I was worried, but they were nice enough. Pulling Drusella involved Cast Sight and pacifying the other five things in her room, then nuking her pet and running around a corner so she'd follow. I pulled with half mana and spells unmemmed because they were impatient; fortunately she isn't too tough. Because I can single-pull her the actual fight is much easier than getting there. Just one caution: she runs at low health, and the wanderers do too.
Well, none of that mattered because she didn't have the urn. I've heard it's an uncommon drop. So I camped right there. She's supposed to be a three day spawn exactly, I could wait it out. Three days later I had my plans made, alarm set, but in the end couldn't sleep. What the heck, I logged in the druid to check around midnight, just to clear my mind... and Drusella was up! She was at least four hours early, maybe more. This time I pulled and killed her at my leisure... and she had the urn! Cha-ching!
I've been stuck on this item for so long, it feels good to have it. But now illusions have been nerfed (sigh, enchanters get nerfed so often), which means I'm no longer ally in Chardok. So it's back to the mines of Droga... but at least now I'm close to the finish line. All I need is an undead dragon sinew from either Trakanon or a juggernaut and I'm done.
Update:
I got the Undead Dragon Sinew I needed on our Trakanon raid on Friday. I died to Trakanon rather quickly, but the raid succeeded.
On Saturday I went to Dalnir to MQ the Mirror of Self-loathing (another drop from Drusella) so Emirikel could get a new weapon. I managed to die doing it.
There were no raids in Chardok this weekend so I couldn't follow one in to the queen. But Banadin was good enough to come and open the door for me, and I finished my quest! I learned to target creatures behind a locked door, and how to attack them even when they're out of line of sight, and even discovered a new illusion bug, but just couldn't get past the door on my own. Despite being ally to everything in the zone and taking every precaution I managed to go LD and die (again).
Now that I have a shiny new bracer, I intend to survive for at least one day.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
