A Darkened Shard (Level 45)  

This quest is given automatically when you enter The Thundering Steppes if you have a darkened azure shard in your inventory. This item is obtained by using the /claim command after you purchase the Splitpaw Saga Adventure Pack.

Examining a darkened azure shard will give a vision of the bone structure that is the entrance to the instance, Sundered Splitpaw: Delving into the Darkness. You must head the Terraporters to update the quest. They are spread throughout The Thundering Steppes.

Terraporters can be found at:

• 537, -1, 508 Copy
• 1038, -1, -239 Copy
• 707, -1, -951 Copy

After getting the update you should enter the dungeon by clicking on the Terraporter. Once inside you must find what the cave has to do with the gem. To make a long story short you need to open up a chest located at the back of the dungeon. It's not that easy though, there are some twists.

First off the copper key that unlocks the chest is held by The Tesch Val Fanatic -125, -69, -92 Copy . He is the boss of the instance. Once you have obtained the key, though, you'll find that the chest is located on top of a pillar, far out of reach.

This is Sony's way of showing off some of the features of Everquest 2. What you need to do is to stack up the crates that are laying throughout the zone at the base of the pillar. Set two of them underneath it. One is near the Fanatic, the other is back a ways up the hallway. A third is already positioned where it should be at the base of the rock across from the chest.

Once they are lined up you can jump on top of the crate and then jump on top of the small rock across the way from the chest. You can then run and jump onto the two crates that are stacked at the pillar. Once you are on top you can carefully grab the crate from the smaller rock and then stack it on the top. With all three crates stacked on top of one another you can access the chest.

When you open the chest you will find another shard which fuses together with the original shard to create a slightly glowing shard. This will also update your quest journal. It now speaks about the new gnolls in The Thundering Steppes and the need to discover what is causing them to come to the surface.

You can now go to the Gnoll Cave in the Skindancer area of The Thundering Steppes, at 171, 4.8, 1052 Copy , and be allowed entrance into Sundered Splitpaw: Upper Tunnels.

From there you must work you way down to the Sundered Splitpaw: Splitpaw Den entrance (it is called Lower Tunnels when you examine the zone entrance). Once inside you can find many gnolls to do quests for. These will grant you a number of quests which you can complete. Gaining favor with the gnolls in some manner will advance the quest, and this happens after you complete three of the following five quests:

• Find your companions! (Group)
• Crawlers Extermination (Group)
• Flitch's Prank (Solo)
• Sundered Splitpaw: Gladiator's Triumph (Solo Arena)
• The Ark of Harclave (Solo)

When the quest advances a darkened azure shard becomes a glowing azure shard. This allows you to teleport to Sundered Splitpaw: Splitpaw Den from anyplace in the world. This also opens up access to the raid instance, Sundered Splitpaw: Anvilpaw's Grotto. The next step of the quest involves going into the Anvilpaw's Grotto instance and killing Anvilpaw.