Drudge Fort

Difficulty:  70+ to survive
Level Restriction:  None (?), 80+ to use some rewards
Timer:  6 Days
Can be Solo'd?  Yes as an archer, No for everyone else
Rewards:  Two titles, up to 329M XP, Protective Drudge Charm necklace, plus one of three random rewards

The Drudges have been raiding Cragstone for several months now and show no sign of stopping any time soon.  But why are they doing it?  They are only stealing junk!  Their base of operations is just to the west of town, so maybe it's time to investigate!

Special thanks to Jarehan of LC for giving me permission to reproduce his map of Bonecrunch's lair here on the site!

Step 1:  Preparation.  Before you begin your adventure,  you will need to pay the Fazenda Horror a visit.  Grab Farmer Kao's Shovel from near the entrance.  You will also need a good amount of food, so visit the local pub and buy a stack of bread, apples, or whatever your favorite (ie, cheapest) food.  I am not 100% clear on the specifics, but bring enough food so you can repeatedly feed a Drudge later on.  Your final fellowship will require at least one archer too, so plan accordingly!

Step 1a:  Optional Questing.  Every few hours, the Drudges raid Cragstone.  If you happen to see a raid announcement over the global channels and have nothing better to do, go into town and kill the raiders!  They are all low-level Drudges, capping out with Drudge Stalkers.  Your goal here is to kill as many as possible and check their corpses for pieces of "The Plan".  There are a total of 18 and they stack, so it isn't too hard to see how many pieces you are missing.  Keep on killing until you have all 18 pieces, then find Jarvis Hammerstone, who is near the mage shop.  Offer him your pieces and you'll receive 7M total XP (probably scaled) and the title "Cragstone Militia".

Step 2:  Drudge Fort.  When you are ready to begin in earnest, gather a group (being sure to include at least one archer!) in Cragstone and then head west of town.  You will find the Drudge Fort located at roughly 26N 46E.  Buff outside.  You will want fire weapons for the Drudges, but mages will want to bring along a bludge wand (CS or CB if you have it), especially if you have Tusker Fists.  When you are ready, find one of the walls on the north face that you can target.  Your group will have to punch through four of these walls while fending off the Drudge guards.  Each subsequent ring is more dangerous and the wall is harder to take down.  Also beware of the Balloons.  Mages should blast these guys as soon as possible, as they can rain down destruction on you quite easily.  Once you breach the innermost ring, you will find a swarm of Drudge Biters, a locked cave, a barricaded house, and a Drudge guard NPC.  Drudge Biters are somewhat like Crystal Golems - terrible AL but great protects - which means they are going to be rough on mages but easy for melees.  Once the Biters are under control, go visit the NPC, Sergeant Shanks.  Feed him your food repeatedly.  I am not 100% sure, but I believe you want to feed him until he says:

Sergeant Shanks tells you, "Mmm! Slurp! Crunch! Munch! Those Biters think they special just because Klank give them blueprints to guard. Crunch! Munch! I could guard blueprints. No one gets nothing from me!"

That should flag you properly to continue your quest.  Also note that only you need to feed the Sgt.  Once you get that message, start looting the Biter corpses.  They randomly drop the above mentioned Blueprints, which you will only be able to pick up after you bribe Sgt. Shanks.  (If you are repeating the quest and have bribed Sgt. Shanks before, you will not need to do it again - you will be able to pick up the blueprints unimpeded.)  Pick up the Blueprints and then go to the far side of the house, where you will find Hoogan the Banderling NPC.  Talk to him and he will ask you for the Blueprints.  Hand them over and he will ask you for a shovel.  Good thing you have Farmer Kao's Shovel - hand it over.  Upon doing so, Hoogan will give you a new title (Hoogan's Hero), a small amount of XP, and most importantly, the key to the nearby cave.  Use the key on the locked door and herd your group into the portal in the cave.

Step 3:  Kernel Klank.  The next step in the quest is quite straightforward and not exactly challenging.  Rebuff if you need to (small groups might have spent a good time bashing the gates down, I suppose) and then follow the corridor into a large room.  In the middle is Kernel Klank, a Drudge boss.  You can talk to him if you like and he'll raise the alarm and call for the guards.  He has a good amount of health, but he isn't too dangerous.  The problem is that he alerts an endless horde of higher level Drudges (Mystics, Glooms, etc).  Even with a small group, you should be able to take care of the Kernel without much trouble.  Put a melee or two on the Kernel and have everyone else blast the Drudge guards.  Once Kernel Klank dies, the portal at the far end of the room will change colors and become useable.  It also becomes recallable (not summonable though), so if you have trouble in the next part, you'll be able to get back.

Step 4:  Bonecrunch.  The final section of the quest is very painful to navigate.  There are lots of monsters (Biters mostly) and even more dead ends.  You can get through by hugging the right wall, but it will take you quite some time.  Going down is good, as is encountering harder Drudges (like Peerless Drudges, for instance).  You are looking for a Balloon basket, which will appear above a deep hole.  When you finally find one, have everyone jump down.  This can be problematic, so have everyone jump backwards into the basket.  At the bottom is a group of Drudges protecting Captain Burnja.  Kill everything and then have everyone loot Captain Burnja.  He drops title tokens (Cragstone Firefighter) and one copy of his club.  The club is worth a small amount of XP but isn't worth camping Burnja to get.  Once Burnja is dead, stop everyone and tell them how the boss fight against Bonecrunch will work.  From now on, you must keep Captain Burnja alive or you will all die and you will all die quickly.  When Burnja is alive, a flame barrier will keep Bonecrunch from beating the tar out of you.  The other Drudges will respawn, so your melees and mages will be responsible for keeping them dead and off your archers.  Bonecrunch has obscene magic defense (so high that you will never land on him), so only physical damage will hurt him.  His melee attack is way too strong to send melees in, so this fight will be archer only.  When everyone understands the rules, head into the main room ahead and wait for Burnja and his Flame Barrier to respawn.  Once the barrier is up, cast on Bonecrunch to lure him toward the Flame Barrier so you can attack him.  Archers should blast away while everyone else keeps the spawn to a minimum.  Bonecrunch can summon friends to protect him, including annoying VoD Drudges like Drudge Seraph Mystics, so be alert.  After many shots, Bonecrunch will go down, have everyone loot a key from him after you dispatch Burnja and his barrier again.  Fortunately Bonecrunch's friends die when he dies too, so you won't need to mop up too many stragglers.  Take your key and go into Escape Portal Bonecrunch summons upon his death.

Step 5:  Rewards.  The Escape Portal leads to a small room with a surface portal and a chest.  Line up and have everyone use their keys to loot their rewards.  You always get a Protective Drudge Charm, but the other reward is random.  You will get Bonecrunch's Hammer, a Drudge Scrying Orb, or a Flame Chain spell scroll.  The rewards are tradable, so you can swap if your fellow does get different rewards.  When you have your rewards, go back to Cragstone and find Jarvis Hammerstone again.  Talk to him and you will receive up to 329M XP for your first trip (a % reward capping around 150 or so) and another title depending on how many times you've done the quest.  The XP reward drops off noticeably with subsequent trips.  If you don't want your other rewards, you may turn them in too for up to 66M XP each.  Jarvis gets the token from Burnja too (and his club if you picked it up).  Unfortunately, I don't have an image of the orb or spell yet (because he keeps giving me the hammer...), but all of the rewards are impressive.  I've hit the Arena Master for over 10,000 damage with the hammer and the orb has a 51% mana C bonus!  The Flame Chain spell is an effective opening shot on stationary targets, as it shoots out 5 shots in a row.