Captain Hiran Group #1: Stop the Contamination  

It isn't all that tough to do if you don't have a tracker, if you understand a few things about this task. First off, think of it and the mission after it as a tower defense game rather than your typical Everquest task. Secondly, the theme of this mission is stealth.

By which I mean the mobs spawn invised and try to sneak into the village. They and the villagers/guards are not KOS to each other either for a reason I'll explain in a bit. The mobs spawn with Vampyre Invisibility on them so if you don't have a way to see invisible NPCs you will have a much harder time intercepting them. They linger at their spawn point for a little bit before beginning to move to their destination. On their route any time they encounter a village NPC they fire off Terror of the Unknown which breaks their invisibility and causes all villagers hit with it to go running. In addition to the villagers fleeing, which you can see, they emote that they are in terror. The mob then casts Vampyre Invisibility again and continues its mission. Because of the fear effect if you're getting the "supplies are being poisoned" message and you enter a building to find there are friendly NPCs you know you're in the wrong place and can move on.

This is why the villagers are not KOS to Cronkle's forces in this mission. They can run out to where the priest and his posse are parked so they aren't hostile to each other so you don't get a big headache trying to manage a brawl you don't want or need.

Some of the mobs are undead and thus can be easily detected via Sense the Dead (bet you forgot that spell even existed, didn't you?) with the caveat that the normal mobs for the Oceangreen Village zone are up, save the rares. Thus you need to be aware that skeletons and cadavers are false positives. Invading mobs do not start spawning until you hail Billik so you can clear the area immediately north of the village if you need to. Unfortunately it is random whether you get live or undead spawns in each wave so stay on your toes.

If you have a pet move them towards the shoreline off to one side of the village and put them on GUARD. Pets on Guard automatically face the closest hostile NPC. Thus your pet can be an invaluable set of eyes alerting you to a spawn or an invisible enemy moving through the village.

Hailing -
Bayle's Irregulars +27
Residents of the Glade +2
Oceangreen Residents +2

Reward Completion -
Citran, Bayle's Herald +38

I had finished the Familiarity quest with my 78 ROG. Then I got this one. I shared the task with my 85 WAR and 85 Shammy. We all went in to speak with Billik and he went through his dialog. Then... nothing. Quest notes still say i need to speak with Billik. What gives?

- Lowered the required number of players to 1.
- All guards and villagers are now player-friendly. They can be healed but not injured by players.
- A new wave of enemies will spawn shortly after the current wave has been defeated, or after some time has passed.
- A warning is now displayed when supplies are being poisoned.

Just tried to get this task with 75/73/73/72 (and 75 merc) in group, said average level too low. I see people saying they got it at level 70, 71 etc. but Sony must have changed it if that's the case.

Did this with an Enchanter with run4 solo. Just ran around the outside of the village and down the beach over and over again (stay on the outside of the town to be safe as they all run at different speeds and path oddly). The train that will follow you will aggro in the adds so I didn't need a tracker. I was just messing around on this alt and died the first time as I didn't realize that many of the mobs are invisible so be sure to bring the appropriate spell or item.

You actually do not have to kill any of the mobs. I started out killing them but became overwhelmed and all died but my monk, so i just ran the rest of the mobs around the town picking up all the new spawns and once the arch magus or whoever he was spawned and said his little message to the zone i got the update. I then FD'd and all of the mobs despawned, so i went to talk to billik he sent me back and i completed the quest with the captain!

I know you can at least let two of the villagers die. I pulled a couple by mistake and we killed them. All of the rest of the mission proceeded as normal.

Did this in first attempt, with a group of characters ranging from level 70 to 82.

Set up camp in the northwest end of the village, and sent out tracker to find the mobs and pull them to the group. If the tracker cant see invisible, it will be hard to find them, so ensure that he can.

The script doesn't really happen in waves, as much as it just plays out over time, with mobs spawning at regular intervals. Track them, pull them, and kill them - don't worry about pulling them through village, the villagers won't get them off you, so you are just fine.

Double check your targetting when fighting, and don't use AoEs - you will easily hit a villager.

You don't actually have to kill the two nameds in the end (who are mezzable by the way) - just have to keep them from killing the villagers while the final script part plays out.

Most of the waves seemed to come from the west (beach), with some from the north, and a few from the south. With the group setup in NW part of village it was easy to get them all to me (if they didnt come by themselves).

When the script finished and I was ready to leave the instance I actually still had the two nameds and 1 of the caster mobs alive - thats why I know you dont have to actually kill the last mobs. Just kite them around if you want.

Oh, and the mobs run rather fast, so don't expect to kite them without some form of speed improvement (used bard speed myself, had no trouble).

Three boxed this with Cleric, Ranger and Enchanter using Journeyman tier 1 mercs - two melee one healer. If you are three boxing this it has to go very smoothly and you must maximize your DPS. I suspect it would be difficult to get enough DPS to do this event without 6 characters.

I did this at least a dozen times before beating it, due to learning its idiosyncracies, so I am pretty sure about what I have to say about it.


The event starts once you hail Billik inside the instance. You will face approx 6-8 waves of mobs. Either one or two mobs spawn. A tracker is more than desirable as they will sometimes spawn inside houses. There are three types of mobs in the waves.

i) a servant of Bertoxxulous
ii) Bertoxxulian plaguelord
iii) Bertoxxulian Scablord


a servant of Bertoxxulous are the easiest to kill and generally spawn for the first 2-3 waves.

Bertoxxulian plaguelords are casters. They will try to gate from about 15% HP. If one manages to gate you can struggle to finish the event. If you don't have good DPS prepare to stun them. Like the mobs in earlier missions I've personally noticed they tend to gate more if you snare them.

Bertoxxulian Scablords are melee mobs with higher AC and HP.

If a mob is not killed soon enough it will despawn and an untargetable skull spawns called 'Failure', which show up on track. If you get four failures you fail the event and usually get ported out.

The key to finishing the event is to kill both named at the end, without getting four failures. a bentwing plaguefly can spawn in place of the two named. If you kill that it also wins the event.

Edited, Feb 9th 2009 9:01am by Mitsubashibashi

(I three boxed this with a 70 Warrior, 70 Rogue, and 70 Enchanter. Let the villagers help you out.

Also I requested the quest at level 70.)

Was just wondering how this was managed? Did you use Mercs also? I'm a 78 Necro with 17k hp 15k mana and my wife is a 74 shaman around 12+k hp/mana. We use a warrior merc and a cleric merc and can't seem to down the mobs fast enough to complete this. Usualy ends up us porting out cause we have like 6 mobs in the town on us at once.

Any tips?

FYI for anyone curious, you are able to request this mission with a group of lvl 71's. So lvl 80 is not the required average level.