First, get the quest "Crawler Extermination" from Gomp Soilscratch, in NW
Splitpaw Den.  The zone-in is slightly farther to the northwest.



This is a heroic zone, meaning you will need a group to enjoy
success.  And one heck of a group, too, one that can deal with
multiple large groups of nasties.  Make no mistake, this is
probably the toughest of the entry-level Splitpaw Den quests.  I
don't recommend exp'ing in this zone- definitely do it to meet Splitpaw
trust requirements- but it's no exp'ers picnic.



Whatever your feelings are about mentored instancing (entering an
instanced zone mentored to someone at a lower level, so as to reduce
the group's average level and spawn easier mobs, then un-mentoring
inside), it's more or less a must unless you have a full, balanced
group of extremely skilled players, including a mez unit of some
sort.  I've heard arguments about mentored instancing ranging from
"it ruins the spirit of the mentoring system and game itself" to "it's
a legitimate ruse-de-guerre," anyway I'm not going to discuss whether
or not it's an exploit here.  All I'm saying is, if you try it
once and fail miserably, you might want to try bringing along someone
5-7 levels below you, mentoring them to zone in, then un-mentoring
inside.  Enough said. :)



Walkthrough:  Descend into
the cavern, dealing with every group
you come to singly.  Follow the left-hand wall if you want to go
straight to kill Queen Zkchriy and finish the quest, or explore a bit
and gain some experience, your choice.  An NPC crawler with show
up about halfway in and lead you the rest of the way to the queen, but
again, if you follow the left-hand wall from the zoneline you'll be
fine.  You'll soon come to a large room with lots of egg sacs on
the floor (note that you do not need to do anything whatsoever with the
egg sacs to complete the quest) and a pedestal in the middle.



Clear out all aggro in the room before touching the group on the
pedestal.  When you attack or aggro this group, a barrier is
placed in front of the exit and a ring event begins (i.e. a "ring
event" is a series of aggro encounters, a new encounter group spawning
every few moments whether or not you've killed the preceding group - it
can get hairy fast!).  If your mez has a group mez, now is when he
/ she will shine.  Keeping a majority of the mobs mezzed will
allow the healers to conserve power, which is especially important
since you'll be facing off with the queen about 5 sec. after you've
killed the last crawler mob.



Pay attention to what's spawning.  When you notice that you're
whittling down the number of mobs and no more are coming at you, slow
down and gain back some power!  The Queen doesn't spawn until the
rest of the nasties are dead.  It might be a good idea to pull the
rest of the mobs to a wall, with "soft" classes behind him, as
well.  During our battle, the Queen popped behind our necro off
the pedestal, then came up and killed the necro with a few swings, so
keeping the aggro named mob in front of you is never a bad idea.



If you've gotten this far, the Queen won't be too much trouble as long
as your tank gains the hate of the Queen before anyone dies.  Kill
her to complete the quest, collect some minor coin, and put yourself
one step closer to a Splitpaw Den teleportation shard!


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Jeff joined the Ten Ton Hammer team in 2004 covering EverQuest II, and he's had his hands on just about every PC online and multiplayer game he could since.

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