| Name | Depths Series Quest Guide |
| Category | Quest |
When trying to level your lowbies (low-level characters), you tend to do quest series to get the most XP possible. Some of the more popular ones are Waterworks, Shan-To-Kor, Tangleroot, and Delera's. There's another quest series over at House Deneith known as the "Depths Quest". The series consists of four related but independent quests. This means that you can choose to do them all in one go, or do one and come back for the other quests on the next day. In fact, you can start at any point without having to worry about not being able to advance to the next. You can get the quests inside the Hammersmith's Inn.
PREPARATION
The usual start off point is "Depths of Despair". The quest entrance is just next to the Hammersmith's Inn. The quest is bestowed by Neville Stormhammer. He's at the back of the inn having drinks with a human (Keane d'Deneith), a halfling (Scholes of Vedykar), and an Elf (Giggs Elorreathi). They are the quest givers for all 4 Depths quests. Might as well talk to everyone if you intend to do all the quests. All of the depths quests will require you clean up the tunnels of creatures that lurk inside. For Depths of Despair, you specifically need to kill the Troglodyte Chieftain Sslysk.
The tunnel is heavily infested by various creatures so you might have to switch weapons at every encounter. You will encounter the following:
Large Violet Slime
Grey Ooze
Black Widow
Glass Spider Queen
Glass Pider Hatchling
Ghoul
Zombie
Wight
Skeleton Warrior
Rust Monster
Hell Hound
Minotaur Warrior
Medium Earth Elemental
Troglodyte
Troglodyte Shaman
Wih that cast of characters, you will need to bring in cold and piercing weapons for the spiders; muckbanes for the oozes; blunt or pure good weapons for the undead; reptillian banes for the Trogs; Axiomatic for hellhounds; and decent slashing weapons for the Minotaurs. If you have casters in the group, spells such as Magic Missile and Scorching Ray will be very useful. At this level (level 4 on normal), the most useful crowd control to use is Web, Glitterdust and Hypnotism (or Hypnotic Pattern. Glitterdust works perfectly against the Trogs who stay invisible until ready to attack. As for resists, acid and fire will come in handy. The Shaman can cast a mean Melf Acid Arrow.
WALKTHROUGH
Upon entering, buff up with the necessary resists. You will be given two options. One is to head west or head straight south. If you decide to go south, prepare for a couple of unfriendly Medium Earth Elementals. Pray that you save on that Earthgrab. After the encounter, you can continue to head west but be careful of the Spike trap. It can be disabled by the Rogue in the party. You can easily jump over it or time your movement, in case there's no one to disable the trap. There is a shrine further south. If you wish to go this path, you will encounter the Rust Monster and the Glass Spider Queen. The queen lays poisoned eggs that go off when you hit them and they hit you back with poison. She's not too difficult to defeat but the poison can really slow you down. Enroute to the shrine, you will find a named Elemental Granite. He's quite tough, but can go down easily with a combination of melee and offensive spells. From the shrine, taking the western route will lead you to another Elemental and a slime. Head south and you will reach Sslysk's room. Aside from Sslysk, there will be some Troglodytes (one Shaman) inside that serve as bodyguards and they will attempt to slow you down. This is just the right time to cast Glitterdust and Web, just so you can slow them down first. Once they are all defeated, you can loot the chest in the room. Go back to shrine if you need to before advancing to the Depths of Darkness entrance just to further south of Sslysk's room.
Now that's the easy route. The tougher one is to take the west route upon entering the tunnel. If you are after Conquest and optionals, or you just really want to meet all the creatures inside the tunnel, then this route is for you. Early on, you will encouter spiders and slimes. Moving further west will lead you to Hell Hounds. Before the path bends to the left, you will encounter skeletons. As you head south, you will find a locked gate with a Minotaur inside. the gate can be locked and once you defeat the Minotaur, you can loot the chest. As you go further, you will encounter the named Boss The Eater and there will be a Troglodyte Shaman and a couple of Hell Hounds on one side and a Medium Earth Elemental on the other side. If you really wish to explore the area, turn right from direction of The Eater to encounter more Oozes and undead consisting of Zombies, Wights and Ghouls. Continue to move to areas that are not yet marked in the map before you proceed down south to where Sslysk is.
The good thing about this quest is that there's more than one way to get to the final destination. It's just up to other party members if they want to do the adventure the fast and easy way or explore the tunnels and get the most XP while they are at it. At this level, every optional XP counts, so might as well take advantage of them.
You can get to the next quest, Depths of Darkness, while inside the Depths of Despair quest, but remember that you can also recall out, have your weapons repaired or get your mana back, and just meet everyone else in the street entance of the Depths of Darkness (just across the Hammersmith's Inn). You can also hold off on getting the reward as you can get all 4 after you've completed the quests.
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