LOTRO: Combe Quest Hub – Part 2
Continuing on with quests in the Combe area, I began with one named Old Bauman’s Farm. This took me back into the Chetwood to retrieve a chain that used to belong to his beloved dog. I found the Blackwold camp in question and the first Blackwold that I killed dropped the chain. No fuss, no muss. The quest reward was some food items.
The same Blackwold that dropped the chain also had a receipt on him that I returned to Constable Sageford. This receipt seemed to implicate a local towns-person with the Blackwolds.
To be certain, I was sent to obtain another strongbox from the Blackwold stronghold. Sure enough, the second strongbox showed that the local locksmith had created the box. I go talk to the locksmith and he tells me that he was forced against his will by a Blackwold named Applewood to make the boxes. The constable sent me to the northern area of the Chetwood to kill Applewood and retrieve the master key. After finding and killing Applewood in the Blackwold stronghold, I was rewarded with decent bracelet.
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The next quest string I embarked on was started with one named Cutleaf’s Good Intentions. I am to infiltrate the ranks of the Blackwolds by talking to Ellie Cutleaf, who seems to be a double agent. Before I could do that, however, she wanted me to go kill a den mother wolf before it can begin breeding more wolves for the Blackwolds. The den mother was located in a stall next to a house up on a hill in the northeast portion of the Chetwood. My reward for killing her was an axe, which finally gave me a second weapon to use with my dual wield skill. This greatly increased my melee damage.
Ellie then sends me to a man named Leecher Cartwell to get some poison to be used in finishing off the rest of the wolves. Leecher didn’t have any of the poison ready, so he sent me out in search of the necessary ingredients required to make it. All the ingredients were not far away. The berries were found in a valley filled with bears. The beehives were behind a house just south of Leecher’s house. The roots can be found near the wolf den located just inside the Chetwood. By the way, Leecher’s house can be a pain to find if you have never looked for it before. Here is a view from his porch. The big building on the right is the Combe and Wattle Inn.
Poison in hand, Ellie sends me to the Blackwold Headquarters to poison the meat that the wolves eat. I am also to kill the leader of this band of Blackwolds. His name is Jagger Jack. The headquarters, which I have visited several times before while on other quests, is located in northeast Chetwood. I entered the stronghold and worked my way deeper into it. I found the dead sheep that I was to poison while on the way to Jagger’s camp. With that done, I went in search of Jagger Jack.
Jagger is located just to the north of the dead sheep. He is guarded by several Blackwolds that have wolf pets at their command. I worked my way through those and found Jagger Jack in the middle of an evil looking camp in the valley below. He is well guarded but I did not have any trouble it taking him or his cronies down. I ran back to Ellie and completed the quest. This resulted in a huge upgrade to my boots. 30 more armor to be exact. Not a bad end to my evening.
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–Wolfen
Read MoreLOTRO: Combe Quest Hub
The one thing you can say about the town of Combe is that it gives you plenty of things to do. I picked up a good number of quests upon my arrival, so I checked my gear and headed out to claim my fame and fortune.
The first quest I embarked upon was called Message to Taylor Green. Taylor can be found in the lumberyard located to the east of Combe. Several more quests are available at the lumberyard and I grabbed them all.
Taylor gives me the Den of Wolves quests, which required me to go into the nearby forest and kill 8 wolves. The wolves were nearby and I quickly dispatched the required number of beasts. Also at the lumberyard is a guy named Posco Burro. He wanted me to go find his uncle who had gone to have a word or two with the evil Blackwolds located in the Chetwood forest. I found his uncle along a forest road and he then sent me on a quest to find his missing handkerchief. Other quests that sent me into the Chetwood were Morning the Dead, which had me looking for a stolen fishing pole, Reconnecting Ties to find a missing boy, Beneath the Hanging tree to find some buried treasure, and a few others to boot.
I completed these quests fairly quickly. I would imagine that was because I had done them before, even though it had been a long time since I had last played. Almost all of the quests required me to go into various Blackwood encampments throughout the forest, kill everyone I found, and loot the required item. The fishing pole was at one camp and the Blackwold lock-box (for the quest Unpaid Debts) at another.
The Beneath the Hanging Tree quest sent me over to the river to dig for treasure buried there. Turns out all the trees had been cut down and only the stumps remained, which made it impossible to know which tree the Hanging Tree was. So I was sent to someone who has a ledger that would lead me the exact spot, but the guy has lost it and I must retrieve it.
I found the ledger inside a Blackwold Lock-box that was located in a heavily guarded camp. The camp with the lock-box had about 5 Blackwolds in it and there was also a level 8 elite named Captain Dogwood. He roams around the general area and walks right through the camp every now and then. I suggest picking him off before you tackle the camp so that things go smoothly. He didn’t give me any trouble. The ledger gave me the location of the Hanging tree’s stump and I quickly dug up the treasure and returned it to its owner.
Reconnecting Ties had me looking for the missing boy named Covell Woodwright. It seems as though he ran off to join with the Blackwoods and has no intention of returning to his mother. He attacked me when I spoke to him and then ran off into the Blackwold camp before I could kill him (the quest is scripted that way). His mother didn’t like the news.
With the above quests and several more besides, I was able to get quite a bit accomplished and had some fun. Several of the quest rewards resulted in nice armor upgrades and I also reached level 12 by the time I stopped for the night. I was disappointed, once again, to find that all the battles posed no challenge. I never came close to dying. I hope the trend does not continue.
–Wolfen
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