Shoushi Explorer Society Quests

     After leaving the training academy, you may be looking to get up a few levels.  The Explorer Society Quests are a useful and easy avenue to level 8-10.  The Society agent in Shoushi, Qi-Tong Yi is located in a tavern directly east of the Shoushi lifestone. 

Help Lou Ka (Rec. level 4)

     The first part of the quest is not directly given by Qi-Tong Yi, but he will direct you to Lou Ka who needs some help.  After talking to Lou Ka, you will find that he has been mugged by mosswarts and they have taken his and his partner Bai Den’s possessions to the Braid Mansion Ruin.  Lou Ka will give you a list of 8 items he needs recovered from the ruin.

     The ruin is easy to find, just follow the west road out of Shoushi to 34.2S x 72.0W.  Mosswarts are vulnerable to fire, so you may want to keep an eye out for fire weapons as you go through the ruin.  The ruin is simplistic, comprised of three identical levels.  In the ruin you will find:

Red Phyntos Wasps (level 4)

Green Phyntos Wasps (level 5)

Young Mosswarts (level 4)

Mosswart Feeders (level 7)

Creeper Mosswarts (level 7)

Outcast Monouga (level 5)

Gnawer Shreth (level 4)

Carrion Shreth (level 7)

 There are a couple additional things to keep an eye out for in the Braid Mansion Ruin.  The phyntos wasps will occasionally drop wasp wings, which can be given to the collector in Shoushi for a small xp and pyreal reward.  Also, the shreth will occasionally drop little green seeds, which can be traded for armor/clothing dye plants in the Swamp Gardens.

      The ruin is easy to navigate and luckily there is a very simple way to find everything on the list.  Follow the wall to your left at the portal drop and run your hand along it as you proceed down the first hallway.  If you follow the left wall you will find all the items in short order.  Here you will encounter Red Phyntos Wasps, which will occasionally cast spells at you.  Be careful, they can easily kill you in one shot if your health is low.  The first room you will come to contains Bai Den’s Bracelet, guarded by three Outcast Monouga.  Following the left wall back down the corridor, you will come to a closed door.  Inside are three Gnawer Shreth guarding Lou Ka’s Shouken.  And once again following the left wall, you will find a ramp going down to the second level.

      The second level is laid out exactly like the first level.  Still following the left wall, immediately to the left of the ramp, you will come to the third room where you will find two mosswarts guarding Lou Ka’s Katar.  Following the left wall, you will come to another room where you will find Bai Den’s Necklace guarded by a Mosswart Feeder and three Young Mosswarts.  Once again following the left wall you will come to another door.  Inside are three mosswarts guarding a chest which contains Bai Den’s Gem.  Still following the left wall, you will find another ramp down to the third level. 

      Now, you guessed it, follow the left wall until you come to another room, this time with six mosswarts.  However you don’t have to fight them as they aren’t guarding anything of importance.  Bai Den’s Ring is in the northeast corner of this room.  Now, following the left wall out of the room, you will come to the last door.  Inside are two more Gnawer Shreth and one Carrion Shreth.  Inside is also a chest containing Lou Ka’s Yaoji.  This leaves one last item which, if you follow the left wall, is found in the last room, near the ramp.  Lou Ka’s Trident is guarded here by two Young Mosswarts.  Now you can return to Lou Ka for your rewards.  Either follow the left wall up the ramps to the exit portal on the first level, or lifestone recall to Shoushi.  Lou Ka will give you 3,000 XP for each of the items you found.  Once you have given him several of the items on the list, he will direct you to a friend of his, Nen Ai, who could also use some help.  Additionally, if you found any phyntos wasp wings in the dungeon, you can give them to the collector right outside the tavern.

Nen Ai and the Sickly Drudge. (Rec. level 6)

     After returning Lou Ka’s stolen items he will give you directions to Nen Ai’s house, which direct you down the road from Braid Mansion Ruin to 34.8S x 71.2E.  Nen Ai’s has a drudge friend she has been tending since he was a little drudgeling.  The drudge is a sickly little guy and she would like for him to grow up big and strong.  As everyone knows, Greenmire cheese gives drudges strong bones and Greenmire cider gives them the energy they need to cast those annoying lightning bolts they inevitably seem to learn.  This is what Nen Ai wants you to retrieve for her from the Stone Cathedral behind her house. 

     The Stone Cathedral is easier to navigate than the Braid Mansion Ruin.  However, you will run into a few more challenging creatures:

Drudge Prowlers (level 7)

Drudge Sneakers (level 5)

Carrion Shreth (level 7)

Blood Shreth (level 9)

Things to watch out for in the cathedral are drudge charms, which can be given to the Shoushi collector for a small reward, and little green seeds from the shreth.

     Once inside, locate the south corridor from the portal drop.  Follow the south corridor and soon you will see a ramp going up.  Make a mental note of that, but don’t use it just yet.  You will be fighting drudges along the way but they will be alone or in pairs and shouldn’t pose a problem for people lvl 5+ (if you have good melee defense).  Continue down the corridor taking the next left.  This will put you in the room with the Greenmire cheese. 

     Now turn around and head back to that ramp you just passed, but this time go up.  At the top of the ramp, head immediately left and you will end up at the cathedral room.  Take another left and head down the east corridor out of the room.  Take your next left and follow the ramp downstairs.  You will enter a small cavern where will start running into shreth.   Keep to the right and you will find another corridor leading down to a much larger cavern.  At the end of the larger cavern there is another corridor leading to a room with the Greenmire cider.  Now you can fight your way back out of the cathedral or, you can do the easy thing, lifestone recall back to Shoushi and run back to Nen Ai’s house.  She will give you 10,000 XP for each of the foodstuffs. 

     Nen Ai will then ask you to do something for Qi-Tong Yi, the society agent.  He is such a good society agent and deserves a token of everyone’s appreciation.  Qi-Tong is a follower of the Jojiist philosophies and Nen Ai thinks that the Four Stones of Jojii would make a great gift!

Four Stones of Jojii  (Rec. level 8)

     The Four Stones of Jojii are located in the Shreth Hive directly north of the Stone Cathedral at 32.4S x 71.0E.  Be careful approaching the portal if you are running from something, you will find yourself beset by drudges immediately inside the hive.  So if you need to buff or mentally prepare yourself, do it outside.  Inside the cave you will encounter:

Drudge Prowlers (level 7)

Carrion Shreth (level 7)

Blue Phyntos Wasps (level 9)

There are a couple things to keep an eye out for in the dungeon.  The Shoushi town stamp, which is right inside the portal drop, and can be used with the Explorer Society Red and Gold letters.  Again, you may also want to keep an eye out for little green seeds on the shreth, wings on the phyntos wasps and charms on the drudges.

     Once inside the hive, several Drudge Prowlers will run in from the corners of the room and drop from the ceiling.  If you run to the west wall immediately after coming out of the porta,l only a few of the drudges will follow you.  Be careful where you run after the portal drop.  There is a big pit in the middle of the entry chamber that you don’t want to jump into, well not yet.  If you do jump into the pit you will have to bypass the first stone and come back for it later, as there is no way out of the pit.

     The first stone is above the entry chamber.  Run across the entry chamber to the west wall (if you aren’t already there) and there will be a corridor leading up to the top of the entry chamber.  Follow the corridor, ignoring the side chambers on the way up.  You will likely be running into Drudge Prowlers along the way.  At the top of the chamber, there are a couple walkways across the room, leading to a final platform.  The Stone of Compassion is on the floor of the final platform. 

     The second stone is a little more difficult to get to.  Remember the pit you weren’t supposed to jump into?  Well, run back down to the pit and jump into it this time.  You will find what appears to be six corridors leading out of the pit.  The center corridor on the north side leads out of the pit while all the others are dead ends.  At the end of the corridor you will run into a series of small square rooms designed to disorient dungeoneers, which are filled with Carrion Shreth.  After exiting the corridor, head immediately west until you run into a wall.  Right below your feet you will find the Stone of Humility. 

     The next stone is quite a run through the rest of the dungeon.  Head directly east from the Stone of Humility.  Stop when there is one room in front of you, and head north.  You should come to a rather large room with 2 ramps.  Go up the ramps (either one) and head down the corridor in the south wall.  You will run into a few Blue Phyntos Wasps along the way.  Like the phyntos wasps in the Braid Mansion Ruin, the Blue Phyntos Wasps will cast spells at you if you given the chance.   Follow this corridor, which winds down and around the dungeon.  You will begin passing doorways that overlook the central chamber in the dungeon.  Turn inside the 3^rd doorway and walk out onto the platform, you will find the Stone of Discipline on the floor . 

Alternate Route:  There is a shortcut to get to the Stone of Humility, but it involves jumping.  From the Stone of Humility, head directly south.  Very quickly you will end up at a platform high above the central chamber.  If you look down, you will see the platform with the Stone of Discipline.  If you aren’t comfortable with jumping and/or don’t have a lot of health I wouldn’t recommend it (I took 16 damage from the drop, and there is a shreth near the stone that will attack you after the jump).  If you overshoot the jump you could end up on the business end of a pooper full of Carrion Shreth, if you survive the fall. 

     The route to the last stone is a bit more perilous than the last three.  Go back out into the corridor, and keep following it until you come to the last platform.  On the final platform there is a ramp leading to the floor of the central chamber.  In the center of the chamber there is a spire full of Carrion Shreth.  There are also several Carrion Shreth on the floor of the central chamber.  Proceed slowly into the central chamber, as some of the shreth will drop from the spire and the platforms above as the ones on the floor attack.  The exit out of the central chamber is in the base of the spire.  Follow the corridor down and you will come to a chamber with three chests.  The Stone of Detachment is inside the western chest.

     Proceed back to Shoushi. There is a surface portal in the final room, which you can use to run back to Shoushi.  Qi-Tong Yi will reward you with 6,2500 XP for each of the stones.  This is the end of the Shoushi Explorer Society quests.  If you want to remain in the Shoushi area, rumors about dungeons and quests in the area can be purchased from the bartender upstairs in the tavern.