Knight Promotion and Tasks

Difficulty:  Depends on task
Level Restriction:  180+
Timer:  Advancement once per character, tasks 3 days
Can be Solo'd?  Yes
Rewards:  XP, Knight Treasure key, Knight standing in society, 10 Society coins

Now that you've suffered through the Adept tasks for a couple weeks, you're ready for promotion to Knight!  As always, your society needs you to do something dangerous in order to prove your mettle.  You get to run through a very nasty dungeon and find... an old book!

Step 1:  Preparation.  To be promoted, you will need to have turned in a total of 295 ribbons (which is a minimum of 2 weeks' worth of ribbons past your Adept advancement test).  The commendations officer will inform you of when you have reached that number and direct you to the Inspector of Knights in your stronghold.  Beyond that, you will need to get to Ithaenc Cathedral quickly, so either use Sanctuary Recall or buy a wedding invitation.  This quest is best done alone, but you certainly could find a couple friends and actually fight your way through the dungeon, if you prefer.

Step 2:  Ancient Journals.  Head to Sanctuary and buff up - frost weapons and fully bane/protect.  The dungeon is located pretty much due east of the Cathedral, at 82.5S 96.1E, inside a big stone head.  You will be fighting Infused Blood Golems (not too dangerous), Moarsmen (watch the criticals!), and Moars.  The Moars are what will kill you if anything does, because they have a typeless breath attack that will really hurt if you don't have a shield facing the attack.  My suggestion for this dungeon is that you just run through it.  The respawn rate is quite fast and although a mage/melee team can take down the critters very quickly, said mage could also die very quickly.  The dungeon is mazey (and no map exists yet.. sorry!), but your rule of thumb should be to always go up.  Inside the dungeon are numerous Falatacot Scrolls.  These are interesting pieces of lore, but are not necessary to complete the quest.  You are looking for a Leatherbound Journal, which spawns on the ground right next to the exit portal at the very top of the dungeon.  If you are using a plugin that picks up portals, you shouldn't have much trouble finding it.  If you are a purist, then use [ and ] as you run.  Once you grab the journal, either recall or just hit the surface portal.

Step 3:  Rewards.  Return the Journal to your Inspector of Knights and he will send you off to the Promotions Officer.  The Promotions Officer will reward you with your new rank, a Knight's Treasure Key with three uses, and 10 Society coins.  You will also receive a big chunk of % XP - up to 2/3 of a billion XP or so.  As an added reward, that journal that you found contains information about how to visit a recently discovered island near Ithaenc.  Bandits have moved in and named it Freebooter Isle, but its ancient name Degar'Alesh.  The Knight tasks you may now perform all take place there.

Knight Tasks

All five Knight tasks involve Freebooter Isle, so it would be useful to know how to get there!  From Ithaenc Cathedral, you will head due west out the island and look for a stone platform above the ground, near the tip of the island (82.6S 88.8E).  On the platform is a Statue of Transportation.  If you have completed the Knight Promotion task, then you will be able to use this statue.  You will appear on Freebooter Isle in the middle of a large temple complex, which is thankfully safe.  Freebooter Isle is home to large numbers of Falatacot minion species - Moars, Moarsmen, and Sclavi.  There are also Bandits, Tentacles and Niffises thrown in for good measure.

Quest 1 - Blessed Moarsmen.  This quest is pretty straightforward - find and kill 50 Blessed Moarsmen.  These guys spawn on the landscape as parts of both diverse groups of Moarsmen or as packs of only Blessed Moarsmen.  They also tend to spawn when you pick a Jungle Lily (see below).  Once you kill 50, return to the stronghold to complete your task.

Quest 2 - Blessed Moar Glands.  Your job is to collect a total of 30 Blessed Moar Glands, which are a fairly common drop on Blessed Moars.  The drop rate is somewhere around 1 in 3, so you will need to kill a good number of these guys to complete the quest.  Blessed Moars spawn in diverse groups of Moars or completely by themselves (no groups of Blessed Moars, unlike Blessed Moarsmen), as well as when you pick a Jungle Lily (see below).  Glands stack in groups of 15 and you can pick up more than 30.  When you have your 30, return to the stronghold and talk to the NPC to complete your task.  NOTE!  If you have more than 30, you will lose your extras, so there isn't much point in picking them up early.  You can pick up glands even if you are not currently on the quest though, so you can stock up early if you like.

Quest 3 - Mana-Infused Jungle Flowers.  This quest requires you to pick up a total of 20 Mana-Infused Jungle Flowers, which randomly spawn on the landscape, just like dye plants.  These stack in groups of 10 and like the Blessed Moar glands, you can pick up extras or pick them up while you are not on the quest.  Also like the Glands, the quest NPC will take any extras you might find, so don't bother picking up extras.  When you have 20, return to the stronghold and talk to the NPC to complete your quest.

Quest 4 - Glowing Jungle Lilies.  Remember the Snow Lilies in the Halaetans?  This is a similar style of quest.  Glowing Jungle Lilies spawn randomly all over Freebooter Isle.  When you use one, 5 creatures will spawn.  The spawn types include a mixture of Niffises, Moars, and Moarsmen.  Each creature from the spawn has a pretty good chance (1 in 3 or so) of dropping a Lily.  Watch out for the Niffises' debuffs!  Once you have 20 flowers (which stack in groups of 10), return to the stronghold for your reward.  Note that unlike the previous two quests, you cannot use the landscape lilies if you are not on the quest.  You can, however, pick up extras, but the NPC will collect your extras when you complete the quest.

Quest 5 - Bandits.  The last Knight-level quest is to defeat the leader of the Bandits on Freebooter Isle.  He lives in a landscape dungeon at the north end of the island.  Run the whole way north along the western shore and look for the region that looks like a lava flow.  You'll find an opening at 54.4S 97.2E.  Inside are Sclavi and Bandits.  The Sclavi are basically unkillable if you aren't a mage (lifebolts are OK, but what a pain!) and the Bandits carry hollow weapons, so be careful.  The dungeon is linear - look for the Bandit boss in a large room right before a lava pit.  Kill him and return to the stronghold for your reward.

Each Knight level task pays 20 ribbons and 4 society coins.

Promotion Suggestions

With the exception of the Bandit quest, all of the Knight tasks are rather time consuming, especially compared to the Adept level tasks.  My strategy is to continue doing the Adept and Initiate level tasks you were doing previously (netting you 100 ribbons a week) and then head to Freebooter Isle and work on the Knight tasks.  If you are a mage, go defeat the Bandit Boss first - that quest is pretty easy as a mage, but it can be annoyingly nasty for an archer or melee.  Your next plan should be to hit the landscape with the goal of finding Glowing Jungle Lilies.  Since these tend to spawn Blessed Moars and Moarsmen, you can work on those two tasks while you grab your flowers.  You can also be on the lookout for Mana-Infused Jungle Flowers while you run around too.  Once you have enough glands, flowers, kills or whatever, stop!  Keep the stack of whatever it is you didn't finish and save it for next week.  The Blessed Moar task seems to take the longest time, so don't expect to finish that one your first week out.  Remember - you only need to finish enough Knight tasks to net 50 ribbons, so you definitely don't have to do a lot of hunting on Freebooter.