Giant Cave Maggot(s) - Iten quest

One of the lower-level quests in Tulimshar is to kill 1 of 2 Giant Cave Maggots. Both maggots don't always spawn. I've been up and down looking when people spawned the giant maggots and often it's only one. If you've already done the quest you cannot respawn the giant cave maggots. I mentioned this quest before, but never got a good screenshot of the maggots, just the "iten" they drop.

The giant cave maggots look very similar to giant maggots with a slight colour difference. Don't let this fool you, they are stronger - though at my current level (62) not even close to a match. Rumour has it that the Halloween event has interrupted this quest and that the cave maggots currently are not dropping the iten. Not sure if this is true or not, but I've killed quite a few spawned by other players and seen nothing.

In other news, still trudging along towards 75 iron ore and 150+ coal for the warlord plate, but it's slow going. Gold seems to be accumulating a little easier, and in the brief time I spent in the northern Hurnscald mines I turned up another Ruby - nice.

I mentioned in a forum post that at my current level there's a lag in action. I'm still too weak to battle skeletons (even 1 on 1) but I've finished all the non-magic quests right up until the "Letter"/50 bones part of the quest. Taking the letter was easy, but bones are expensive and skeletons, even 1 on 1, seem to critical my butt. Naturally I've been upping my "Luck" stat lately hoping it might help not only with skeletons, but other monsters to come.

Gems in a row and other quests

Last night Tarq spent some time in the mines north of Hurnscald. Still a little too weak to take on Mogguns without aide, I figured it would be good to collect up on the Iron Ore for ingots. TMW has gotten a little loopy since I left and the demands for the Blacksmith quest are extremely high. Lets take the warlord helmet for example: it requires 9 iron ingots and 18 coal. Since each ingot consists of 10 coal, 5 iron ore, and 1,000gp the ingot cost alone is: 90 coal, 45 iron ore, and 9,000gp. Add the other 10 coal and 10,000 to make the helmet and the cost is: 100 coal, 45 iron ore, and 19,000 gp. For warlord plate you're looking at 15 ingots, 30 coal, and 100,000 gp or an ingot cost of 75 iron ore, 150 coal, 15,000gp for a final tally of: 180 coal, 75 iron ore, 115,000 gp. At level 51 I've managed to draw out enough mogguns to get 1 coal, but I took an awful beating.

The problem is that at level 51 I seem to be stalled. I've completed most of the lower level quests, except for the expensive and annoying noh mask quest (which involves going back and forth between Hunrscald and Tulimshar). I had decided to stick to the northern mines looking for iron ore. The problem was that it appears other people had the same idea and the mines were crowded with people looking for ore.

I remembered that iron ore is also dropped by the yellow slimes in the mines south of Tulimshar. So I ventured to Tulimshar and started mining for ore in those mines. There I found both Kinichi and Moody (at separate times) also doing the same. It occurred to me that at this point it's almost a better thing to do, here's why:

The monster points master Ishi is located in Tulimshar. Black Scorpions, Giant Maggots, and Snakes all give a fair amount of monster points. Some of those monster points can potentially translate into snake skins.  This means potentially not having to tackle mountain snakes later for the jean chaps quest. As a matter of fact I'm now 1 skin shy of that quest...

Tulmishar mines - giant maggot quest

I reported the other day that I decided to complete the Tulmishar mine quest. I completed the first half of the quest defeating enough Ancient Archants to get 3 keys and open the chest. The second half of the quest involved destroying one of two giant maggots and bringing what the maggot dropped back to Sema.

The giant maggot is mincemeat, but what is an iten?

Before embarking on the quest I decided to do a little research. I came across this thread on the Mana World forums which indicated that the giant maggots are extremely tough even at level 45. Well, I'm level 42 and defeated one without dying or needing to run too far away.

The key seems to be a combination of hit and back-up, and heal. Defeat any monsters around the giant maggot first, you don't need the extra work of trying to stay alive when they hit you. The giant maggot is strong and when he hits it hurts (34 average damage), but he can be defeated by hit and back up. I stood toe to toe with him a couple of times while my hits were high and other monsters around were eliminated, but he did manage to get me down pretty low (at which point I walked a little ways away and healed).

The drop is a boring cube-like item called iten. Not quite sure who came up with this name, but it feels like an unfinished part of the game, iten is not a good name. Still, I got the desert shirt reward, which wasn't much of a reward since I already bought one. As I mentioned in the previous post this series of mine quests feel more difficult than the log quests in Hurnscald and the overall reward is much less, especially since the desert shirt can be bought.

I missed the fact that Nathan will give you miners gloves before Sema's quests, but since I already completed half the Agostine quest I already have better furry gloves. I'd love to complete the second half of this quest, but I only have 10 furs left and after spending 47 to get the gloves I doubt Agostine will grant the boots in less than another 30. Back to Hurnscald for awhile I guess...

Stones on the head

The other day I was going through an old Linux Journal magazine and I came across an Iliad spoof of Samuel L. Jackson's wacky flick Snakes on a Plane. In the spoof it's all the installations of Linux on the back of seats on a Singapore flight that a Microsoft exec is taking and complaining about "Motherf^#&%g penguins on a plane." I couldn't help but be reminded of this while playing TMW last night and this morning.

Tulimshar Desert Mine, 2nd Level

I spent a lot of time in Hurnscald collecting furs knowing full well that it might take a full compliment of 60 furs to satisfy Agostine's requirements for boots and gloves. While I didn't have the monetary requirements for both, I could do the gloves. I'd previously handed over 14 furs the last time I tried, hoping luck would be on my side, which it wasn't. Well damn if it didn't take another 33 furs (47 total!) to get the gloves. Agostine is suppose to be a 1 in 30 chance, looks like the game has either changed or my luck this time around is pretty bad.

I decided that while I was in Tulimshar I should finish the mine quest. Little did I know that the mines had changed. No more red slimes and spiders, now there are ice goblins and angry scorpions along with three buttons which need a key. So everyone knows, the key is not dropped (before you needed keys to open a chest on the second level - which is still true). The key for the first level is obtained by talking to the miners and moving some ore. This was a simple task, but getting the key combination wasn't so easy. Not only do you have to turn the key to the correct side, but you have to do it in a certain order. Clicking followed by a thud is good, clicking alone is not.

The second level sports Archant (Arachnid Ants) which do drop keys on very rare occasions. Also present are Yellow Slimes, which is great because they drop Ore. This means no heading back to Hurnscald for Ore. You need to collect 3 keys to open the chest. I was really looking forward to the Short Sword until I discovered it was a dumpy short bow... doh! Archers will love the quest, but I already had obtained my forest bow in Hurnscald, a much better bow that was obtained easier and was much more rewarding both in terms of experience and financial reward. The Forest Bow quest in Hurnscald is more rewarding for a few reasons:

• The Forest Bow is better (+70 damage vs +50 of the short bow)
• You get more experience for killing log heads (something like 190xp/each)
• Log heads also drop roots which fetch 200gp each in the market - a much better way to make money than bat wings and teeth.

The only thing that really makes this mine quest worth doing is the fact that you can collect ore killing Yellow Slimes while you're trying to collect 3 keys. In fact I collected about 15 ore while trying to get the 3 keys necessary to open the chest.

... Then I died...

No, it was not from the monster that was suppose to be lurking in the mine. I went from full health to dead in one shot... what from...

Falling stone on the head! Seriously. So killing all those monsters wasn't enough... I had to die from a stone falling on my head.

All I can say is that I hope this area gets reshaped a bit. Hurnscald should be a more difficult area and I remember the mines there are, but the quest for the bow in this mine shouldn't be more difficult or less rewarding than the forest bow quest in Hurnscald. And the shirt that comes next isn't much of a reward since it too can be bought (and I already have it).

I did level twice during this quest, but it felt really slow. Archants are only about 88 experience compared to the average log head of 190 experience. Log heads don't tend to hit for high damage as much either, though they do take longer to kill. In the long run you level faster, get greater rewards, and have equal quest opportunities (2 quests) pummeling the log heads for logs and roots (wooden bow and shield). If you're over level 20 you should probably head to Hurnscald before doing the mines. Finish the pinky quest first and then chop some wood in the log head quests.