Talk:Sticks and Stones

Anyone else having trouble with the quest not counting when you kill a monolith? Or am I not killing the right ones?
 * You have to collect 10 inscribed shards (which are dropped by monoliths), not kill 10 monoliths! --Parabellum 16:03, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * I'm having trouble with this quest too... I've killed at least 30 of them so far (while questing, didn't actually hunt for them) and didn't get a single shard drop.Artemis Faul 17:40, 2 December 2006 (CST)
 * I think the drop-rate will get fixed soon, since almost every other quest that involves killing creatures and looting some material/collectibles for a quest (i.e. She Hungers) has a set drop rate of 1 per monster of that type killed (i.e. Hekets dropping Heket Legs) instead of a certain chance of it dropping as if it were for a [Collector]. In short, yeah I'm finding it quite rare for them to drop. Gabe 05:43, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * Yes, it is kinda hard to get together 10 shards... I've been farming them with 2 heroes for days now and so far I only have 9! I wonder if accepting the reward will also destroy the shards or not. Anyone knows? -Adul 05:46, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, the NPC takes the shards. You can solo farm in The Alkali Pan. Use a 4-pip energy regen character, start from Ruins of Morah. Watch the patrols, activate the rez shrine blessing, and get in a wurm. Kill the Margonite group and then the monoliths. From there, go out into the sulfur and head roughly south. You'll come across an area with djinn on a bridge and monoliths on ground level. Kill those monoliths (it may take 1-2 tries, Blinding Breath makes quick work of them, but DP doesn't count in a wurm). Then, head to the res shrine outside the Bone Palace, activate the djinn blessing and kill the pair of djinn for easy XP. Kill the mandragor one by one (use Junundu Tunnel to escape) until you get Blinding Breath or if you don't care about DP, just charge in and kill the monoliths. It took 2 runs for me to get nine shards on a r4 Lightbringer Dervish. ~Seef II 00:16, 11 January 2007 (CST)

It's a shame that the NPC takes the shards. I'd rather have a couple of weapons (15^50) from the collector than the quest reward's XP. Krissy 10:23, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks for the tips. I found that with a shadow stepping skill like Death's Retreat, you can shadow step to the Ghostly Priest, get his blessing and then run to the wurm hole solo the monoliths. It's a bit unfortunate also that Awata takes the shards. If you were to trade them to a collector you could get an item worth 300g for 5. Therefore, the shards are really worth 600g. The quest reward is only 2,500xp, 200g and an Ancient Artifact.Crimson Butcher 08:18, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Added a note indicating you lose the shards as it was not clear from the article. Sorry I turned the quest in.

This quest seems rather useless for the following reasons: 1) Only 2500XP. At this point, you've either already died at least once so XP doesn't matter or you're going for survivor in which case there are easier and faster ways to get 2500 XP 2) No Sunspear or Lightbringer points 3) Each shard is worth 30g. So the pile is worth 300g. The quest reward is only 200g. Bottom-line: It's not worth doing.
 * Not quite; the quest reward is actually 400g: 200g plus the artifact (1/5 of Superior Salvage Kit). Also, there are four locations that have the Monolith Hunt, so you can get Lightbringer points. It's still not a great quest, but if you're already killing monoliths in that area, it's worth saving the shards if you have inventory space. Krenn 10:02, 17 June 2007 (CDT)