Total KoL For Total Noobs

The Total Guide to Totally Spoil any KoL Noob.

Level by level walkthroughs, tips and spoilers to ruin your KoL experience.

(What’re you doing? Figure it out yerself you sloth! That’s the point of the game!)

Foreword

Infinite thanks and appreciation go to Chrono Mage’s hard work in writing the original Level-by-level guide, which structure I kept and basically crammed the walkthroughs and spoilers where appropriate. I hope.

Thanks also to all the helpful clannies of SevenLances, whose infinite patience walking me through every obstacle will certainly get them a luxury suite at the Nirvana Inn. Plus, when this book tops the best-seller lists and I become rich and famous and stop talking to them all, they’ll at least have this paragraph. So there.

Noob to noob, a word of advice. Read the Kolwiki. Ok, those are three words, so sue me. But seriously, this is a highlights-only, standard-route to ascension, there are lots more to see and do in KoL. If you have the time (and why wouldn’t ya, it’s a game for Jick’s sake) go check in the KoLwiki any encounters that seem interesting, lookup any drops too to figure out what you can do with them. There are mini-quests, recipes, places, items and encounters that only the KoLwiki can attempt to keep up to speed with. There’s candy too. So there, I told ya: http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Main_Page

Minor Mistake aka Nuts N Bolts aka Popoids

Table of Contents

Level 1: Welcome back to the Kingdom of Loathing. Noob. 5

Level 2: Welcome to the forest. (5). 7

Beginning the guild (5, 12, 15, 20 for each test): 7

Wrapping up: 7

Level 3: Drunken rats, zmobies, epic weapons and cars of meat. 8

Rats, rats, more rats and booze (10). 8

Beating the Rat Baron (scales): 8

Makin’ a meatcar (10-15): 9

Diggin’ Graves: 9

Free Meats (and possibly epic weapons) (12): 9

Wrapping up level 3: 10

Level 4: Bat holes, billiards, pixels, towers and clowns. 10

Bat hole (Entryway: 10-15, Guano Junction: 15-20): 10

Boss bat lair (boss: ~35): 10

Pixel farming (20-25): 11

Haunted Billiard’s Room (20): 11

Fernswarthy’s Tower (15-25?). 11

Clowning around for your Legendary Epic Weapon (15-20). 11

The Third (15) and Fourth Guild Test (20+): 11

Wrapping up: 12

Level 5: The king is (soon to be) dead, a key quest, shoring, and other things. 12

Cobb’s Knob (Kitchens: 20-22, Harem: 25-30): 12

Killing the King (55): 12

Getting into the Lab: 13

The beach and the shore: 13

Wrapping up: 13

Level 6: Friars, Demons, Fast food and other assorted goodies. 13

Deep Fat Friars (40-50+): 14

Finding Azazel’s Stuff (40-50+). 14

The Road to White Citadel (opens at 34, 35-40): 14

Continuing the Manorisms (50-55+). 14

Finishing up level 6: 15

Leveling in hardcore: A rough outline of Level 6 onwards to level 11. 15

Frat/Hippy Camp (40): 15

Laboratory (40-45): 15

Cobb’s Knob Menagerie 1 (50-55), Menagerie 2 (60-65) and Menagerie 3 (70-75): 15

Haunted Ballroom (110), Gallery (105-115), and Bathroom (75-100): 15

Haunted Bedroom (150-175): 15

Level 7: Undead, Dagons, Giant Signs and Pirates. 16

Undefiling the Cyrpt (50-60, bosses at ~80): 16

Bonerdagon Battle (90): 16

The Enormous Greater-Than Sign (unlocks at 45). 17

Dungeons of Doom (35-45). 17

Pirating the Cove (60-70). 18

Wrapping up: 18

Level 8: It’s a trap(z0r)!. 18

Itznotyerzitz Mine (50-60): 19

Itznotyerzitz Mine (In disguise): 19

Farming the Goatlet (65-70): 20

Finding Cold Resistance: 20

The Search for Cold Resistance, Subsection 1: eXtreme Slope (70-75): 20

The Search for Cold Resistance, Subsection 2: Snowman Lair (70-90): 21

Wrapping up level 8: 21

Level 9: Pirates, Chasms, Pirates, Leaflets, and Pirates. 21

Adventures in the Strange Leaflet: 22

Getting Access to the Orc Chasm (60-70). 23

Scrolling through the Chasm (75-90): 23

Piratey Adventures, Part 1 (bar ~80 power, f’c’le ~100 ?): 23

Wrapping up level 9: 24

Level 10: Playing in the sky, the stars, and getting some sleep. 25

The Penultimate Fantasy Airship (90-120): 25

Castle in the sky (125-145): 25

Hole in the sky (150-170): 26

Haunted Bedroom (150-176). 26

Obtaining the Manor Skill: 27

Wrapping up, once more. 27

Level 11: A quest you have been preparing for….. 27

Quest For the Holy Macguffin: 28

The Black Forest and obtaining the journal (120-135): 28

Part 1: Spookyraven Manor (160-170): 28

Part 1 boss: Lord Spookyraven. 29

Part 2a: The Temple. 29

Part 2b: The Hidden City’s Ruins (140-160). 30

Part 2 boss: Protector Spectre. 30

Part 3: The Palindome (135-155). 30

Part 3 boss: Dr Awkward. 31

Part 4: Opening the Pyramid (135-145). 31

Final Area: Inside the Pyramid (160-175). 31

A long, long battle against Ed: 32

Wrapping up level 11 (wheeee): 32

Level 12: Everybody loves a good war. 32

Starting the war: 32

Fighting the war: Getting Started (165-175). 33

Fighting the war: Duck, Duck, Farmer?. 33

Fighting the war: Filthworms!. 34

Fighting the war: Gremlins and other junk. 34

Fighting the war: Bandits, and meat you’ll never get. 35

Fighting the war: The lighthouse near the beach. 35

Fighting the war: Flying around, and making music. 35

Fighting the war: Onto the battlefield. 36

Ending the war: Cleaning up before the boss. 36

Ending the war: Boss fight. 37

Working your way to level 13 (if need be): 37

Level 13: Gates, Mazes, Towers, and the final battles. 37

The Three Gates: 37

The Huge Mirror: 38

The Entrance Cavern: 38

The Hedge Maze: 38

The Tower: 39

The Chamber: 39

Naughty Sorceress Battle: 40

Level 1: Welcome back to the Kingdom of Loathing. Noob.

If you haven’t ascended yet, then skip this bit. Go on, scat, you n00b.

Right, the old is new again, so get back to the mountains and visit the Toot for your reward from last run. Open it up, and away we go!

First off, some initial notes for each zodiac zone:

Muscle:

Your monster level enhancer is the “detuned radio”. You can use this to get various things from various bosses (as with the other two monster level enhancers). Buy it when you have the chance, as you’ll likely at least want a couple of the special items dropped via it.
When you go for your epic weapon, amongst other things, you can smith them for free here.
You can get some easy equipment here via the general store (also some of the maid making stuff). Also all meat car parts (except the rims) are buyable.

Myst:

Your ML enhancer is the Mind Control Device.
You can make jewelry here… so consider getting some before selling off all your jewels. The items may be useful in earlier runs, but you will eventually forget about them.
You can get easy food from this area. If you ever get stuck without stuff to eat, look here. Occasionally you get nice things too.

Moxie:

Your ML enhancer is the Annoy-O-Tron 5000
You cant access your zone until you have the meat car.
You can get easy booze here, so don’t forget to check or use it as necessary.
There are a few skills buyable here.

The first 40 turns of a run are fairly important, as there is a lack in available foods and boozes at low level, and a lot of items you may wish to use need level 3 or 4 minimal to consume. Because of this, doing things like arena turns aren’t at all helpful (and, as the case with most familiars, the returns become minimal fairly early into your run).

For deciding on a familiar for your run, it’s a bit trickier. If in doubt, a stat or loot increasing familiar is key, but do note that, especially in the case of stat familiars, the returns are hard to calculate. If you’re new, go for a Blood-faced volleyball for stats until you start fighting level 85+ monsters, then go with the sombrero. Mr. Store familiars are still really the top few, especially ones that give loot, stat, or meat as an effect (sometimes or always). Possibly bringing in a MP familiar when you have more skills, or using combat familiars more often. Don’t be afraid to use multiple familiars to reach your goals, but try to only use one of each trait if you can.

There are also a lot of things to consider from right at the start, including:

Opening Spookyraven Manor via the haunted pantry. This also gets you tomatoes if you have the passtamastery skill.
Getting the Encryption Key for Cobb’s Knob
Getting stench resistance for the bat hole (bum cheek from the back alley – check the wiki and make an asshat if you can)
Opening the guild partially if you have the ability to do so, and work on the knoll/meatcar

After a number of runs, you’re bound to focus on the first two more, as stench can easily be obtained via a few skills, and the exotic parrot if you already have it (with a couple of fam buffs). The mainstat spleen items from the first guild reward are also handy for a boost towards level 2 (or 3, depending when you do it). Note that whilst you can do the first guild test with about 4 or 5 mainstat, it’s only really safe after 7… and the second test is safe around 13 mainstat.

Once you’ve picked an area to adventure in, keep at it until level 2. Combats here should be simple, as (unless you’ve set the monster level increasing things) you’ll be above the monsters you’re fighting. If you’re a myst class, and something is about to kill you, try using your initial spell to finish it off, as this will prevent fumble-death too.

If you do run low on HP, don’t forget that you can use Doc Galaktic’s items to heal. Keep to the first two restores, though, as after that you’re paying more meat for less effect. For MP, either use soda water, or Doc’s MP restore ability (the Doc comes up just better, but if RNG goes your way the water can beat it).

Chances are you won’t get the adventure you’re after before reaching level 2 (especially if you’re using a stat familiar and are in the area that gives the most adventures that relate to your mainstat). If you do get it before, move onto another one, else either move onto level 2 quests, or continue until your target is done.

My recommendation at this level is to go for these, while you work on the above:

- Seek the Doctor Hobo’s mini-quest in the Knob, it’ll give you a weapon you’ll probably use until you get your Epic Weapon. You will need a cool whip from the market for this one.

- Seek the Slug Lord’s mini-quest in the back alley, it’ll give you a decent pair of trousers so you don’t go running around like that. Shameful…

Level 2: Welcome to the forest. (5)

First off, visit the council for your first quest: Get a mosquito larva from the spooky forest! In doing this, you unlock the Distant Woods. It’s also a good time to grab the Continuum Transfunctioner from the Crackpot Mystic’s Shed, although it is unlikely that you can handle the 8-bit realm yet.

Moxie and muscle classes should be more than fine fighting in the forest, but myst classes may find it slightly more difficult. In their case, the initial spell (spaghetti spear or salsaball) should work fine.

If you are struggling a bit combat-wise, don’t forget Ben-gal balms and cans of hair-spray from the demon market. They give a +15% boost to musc and moxie (for 3 turns) respectively, and could be make or break now, or through much of your run.

There are a few things to note whilst getting the larva:

The “three-tined fork” adventure is your best shot at getting other class items. Especially those needed to cast the buffs of the various classes, if you have ascended already. On the first few runs, this adventure will be a nuisance, but once you have AT, TT or SA buffs, you’ll need to use this to ensure you get items (as the sewer is unreliable).
The monolith adventure is the first in a series of non-combats that opens the Spooky Temple, an area needed for the level 11 quest. If you get it, make sure to make the map!
If you acquire wooden stakes, spooky vampires (and vampire bats) will drop hearts when killed with the stakes equipped. This can be traded in, via another adventure in the forest, to acquire used blood, which is a reasonable stat-giving item. The blood is also used in a chef stave.
An adventure here gives 3 spooky mushrooms. When combined with a grue egg (which you get at level 9) you can make one of the best foods you will see in hardcore. Mushrooms can also be used in a couple of other dishes, but the egg one is the most notable, but only if you have ascended already; if not, then use it to get a grue familiar. Check the wiki.

Once you’ve got your larva, go get your 500 meat from the council, and work towards level 3. To be able to equip your familiars you will need to have a Terrarium (from the market) and then simply ‘Use’ the larva and the fertilized grue egg from your inventory.

Beginning the guild (5, 12, 15, 20 for each test):

The first guild test should be easy by now, if you haven’t done it already. The spleen items may boost you to level 3, and the zone unlocked (Barrel full of barrels) gives a number of booze items that could get you extra advs if you won’t make it to the end of the tavern.

The barrels are also a good resource for booze throughout a run, so if you ever are short consider getting stuff from there. The top two rows can contain up to 4 possibly-handy boozes (possibly meaning they will be without cocktailcrafting, but once you get it they mightn’t help all the time). There are 3 “sets” of items, in 2x2 blocks, so if you find one booze you should figure out where the others are pretty quick.

Wrapping up:

Once again, from here there are a few things to consider that open up now:

As mentioned above, you can now unlock the Spooky Temple in preparation for the level 11 quest. It may seem a long way off, but by then the forest will be very, very tedious due to the low gains in all areas.
Now that you have the continuum transfunctioner, the 8-bit realm should be on the “to-do” list. Doing it at level 4 or 5 is usually the best bet.

Of course, you have the stuff mentioned in the level 1 chunk to consider too.

Level 3: Drunken rats, zmobies, epic weapons and cars of meat.

If things are getting tight adventure-wise, be cautious what you do here. The quest gives 3 level-3 boozes if you complete it, but that could take anywhere between a couple to 25 turns. If you find the booze squares repeat there until you get only beer. Beer helps you nudge your drunkenness total to just under the limit before your nightcap. Mix beer with tomato if you have extra for a bit of stats while you’re at it.

If you don’t think you’ll make it, there are a few options for food/booze, but not many, at this stage:

Sleazy Back alley drops Mad Train Wine, and gives you a chance to go for that stench resist you may need later
Barrel full of barrels gives level 3 boozes (at the risk of getting mimics beating you up)
Gift shop has mugcakes for 20 meat, which are a good last-resort food.
Demon Market has fortune cookies for 40 meat. Eating these also gives the advantage of finding out when your semi-rare adventure will occur.
If you are a muscle sign or have not ascended yet, and picked up some spooky mushrooms in the forest, you can make kabobs with skewers.
Ascended Myst signs, of course, have the restaurant. Specials are generally fairly dull, but there are a few gems amongst all the junk.
If you have pastamastery, the Haunted Pantry has tomatoes, which can be made into boring spaghetti

Rats, rats, more rats and booze (10)

Rats are a tad harder than the level 2 monsters, as you start just under their power, possibly significantly under as a myst class. Once again, go with whatever you were doing before, but if you have under 10 mainstat (or 10 attacking stat), consider cleaning up other loose ends first. If things really get bad, cans of hair spray work as an okay combat item, but it will be rather costly to sustain.

Of course, your goal here is to turn off the faucet. When doing the rat quest, remember to keep track of which squares you’ve been to. A simple way to do this is cast 25 turns of a buff (typically your initial class skill) and use that as a guide, whilst you plink through the squares.

Once you get to the faucet, you can either finish up the quest by turning it off, or kill the baron. Unless you have a reasonable way to sure-hit the baron, I wouldn’t bother with him. See next section for beating him.

Beating the Rat Baron (scales):

The first (and an optional) boss you’ll probably encounter, this guy is also reasonably tough to beat. Unlike most monsters in the kingdom, he scales to however strong you are. And he is always stronger than you are, too.

The best strategies for him are ones that either include skills that have 100% hit-rates (shieldbutt, myst spells) with a high damage, high-damage combat items, or to knock him under your stats so he can’t hit (by using combat items or DB skills). Penguin Goodfella with contracts works well too, or similar things.

As with some other bosses, he has item rewards from the monster level enhancers given in each zodiac area. Set to 2, he gives a reasonable meat gain accessory. Set to 9 he gives a reasonable hat. Anything else (including 0) he drops a good item gain accessory.

Makin’ a meatcar (10-15):

Once the second guild test is complete (around 13 mainstat is best), you get access to the meat car quest. Talk to the top-middle character of your guild, and he’ll give you the map.

Of course, now is the time to visit the untinkerer. You’ll need the screwdriver eventually, and it costs less now than what it may cost to have to find it later.

Ascended muscle zodiacs have this quest easy: Just get sweet rims from the hermit, and buy yourself the other parts from the knoll general store. The screwdriver is found with Innabox.

Otherwise, you’re off to the knoll. This area is somewhere between 10 and 15 power, so going in between 15 and 20 is pretty safe. As is going in with your epic weapon (for non-myst classes, at least). Of extra note here you might want to get a frilly skirt, which is required for the Bar area of the pirate zones (as one of the three options for getting the dentures back). If you don’t get it, there are still 2 other possibilities, which are mentioned in their relevant sections.

Making the car is key to getting into the moxie zodiac area, so make this a priority if you plan to use anything there.

Also, this will unlock South of the Border. Although that might not seem important, the final quest will require an item from here (which will be for your second entrance gate). Which one you won’t know, but do note you’ll need at least one eventually. Ascended moxie zodiacs get around this requirement with Gno-Mart.

Diggin’ Graves:

At 11 mainstat, and by talking to the guild member of the class that you’re not, you unlock another new quest. Whilst most of this quest won’t be helpful to you at all, you still may wish to do it to unlock the temporal rift at level 4.

The bit you have here is easy: Adventure in the cemetary until you get a shovel, then adventure again until you get the key and letter. Take it back to your guild, and you’ll get 500 meat for your troubles.

The cemetary itself is not really exciting, but you can get smart skulls (for chefs, maids and bartenders), dead guy’s watches (for an extra adv per day!), and a few other not-as-handy items.

Free Meats (and possibly epic weapons) (12):

Note: Those wanting to do a bad moon ascension cannot do this quest, as it requires the use of a clover (unless you’re already in bad moon). You can still get the 1000 free meats, though.

At 12 mainstat, your guild will give you the Nemesis quest (the “Legendary Epic Weapon” part, to be exact). Talk to the guild member of the same class as you, and he’ll give you 1000 meat. Note that you need to talk to him/her twice if you haven’t talked to him/her already.

If you plan to make your epic weapon (which is worthwhile for most classes). I’ve stuck the next part of this quest, obtaining your legendary epic weapon, in the level 4 section.

Wrapping up level 3:

If for some reason you get all that done pretty quickly (muscle zodiacs may sometimes have this issue), or you decide to not do certain sidequests, you still need to get to level 4. This can easily be done by finishing up other important sidequests from level 1 and 2:

Get the encryption key from Cobb’s Knob outskirts (for level 5 quest)
Unlock spookyraven manor (via the pantry, for leveling and level 11 quest)
Unlock the spooky temple (get the map, sapling and fertilizer from spooky forest)
Make sure you’ve got stench resistance for level 4 (back alley)

If you’re really eager, and have over 25 muscle or moxie, you may wish to consider starting the pixel quest or opening the haunted library, but likely they’ll be left until later, as you’ll have a lot to do in the lower areas still.

Level 4: Bat holes, billiards, pixels, towers and clowns.

The primary quest at this level is the bat hole, although the strength of the boss bat himself may be out of reach for a while.

If you’re worried about stats being low during this quest, a really nice way to get some fast boosts is to use the battlefield (only available at levels 4-5, then it’s gone). As mentioned last level, it’s opened up by doing the first part of the Wizard of Ego quest.

Bat hole (Entryway: 10-15, Guano Junction: 15-20):

The first step here, if you haven’t gotten it already, is to find stench resistance. As mentioned a few times earlier, bum cheeks from the back alley are one alternative, but now you can get the pine-fresh air-freshener too.

The air-freshener is in the entryway, which is around the knoll’s strength, just slightly higher (so if you’ve done that, you’ll find this easy). The drop rate on it isn’t horrible, but don’t expect a fast drop either. Loot familiars might be useful here (or, of course, bum cheek is still an option).

Once you’ve got your resistance on, the junction is probably ready for plundering. The monsters here are just stronger than the higher-end knoll/entryway monsters, so if you have around 20 musc/moxie it should be easy (just watch the HP as a muscle class).

The drops in there aren’t that bad either. You’ll want a broken skull if you plan to avoid the hippy camp, and possibly a briefcase if you don’t have a frilly skirt (for the pirate areas later), but your main goal is 3 sonar-in-a-biscuits. Baseballs and loose teeth also drop here (the first being a possible tower monster item, the other being something you can get later on, but eventually need).

Once you’ve obtained and used the 3 sonars you will have the cave open, get yourself an enchanted bean from the beanbat chamber (in preparation for the level 10 quest), more if you want to use tex-mex food. The bats there are about 4 or 5 strength higher, so make sure you have gained a few points first if the other bats were causing some trouble.

Boss bat lair (boss: ~35):

First to note is that the bodyguard bats here drop a nice pile of meat, so using a meat familiar may be a worthy operation. They’re only a bit stronger than normal bats you’ve fought so far.

Second to note, the boss is a lot stronger than any monster you will have encountered in other areas. Having a moxie or muscle of at least 40 is advised, or being able to do 40 damage within a couple of hits.

This is also the first area where your monster level increasing zodiac item will make a difference. Having it at 4 when you kill the boss bat will nab you some nice pants, having it at 8 will nab you a less-nice accessory.

Don’t worry too much about it if you can’t handle it yet. It’s easier to leave it until late level 5.

Pixel farming (20-25):

Another major sidequest, but this one is in preparation for the final quest. The continuum transfunctioner means losing 2-handed weapons, though, so it may be tedious to do at this stage (although unlikely, if you found the beanbats easy). If you have over 25 muscle or moxie, or can do 15 unblockable damage, you should be fine.

Your aim, of course, is to get a digital key, and (likely) 4 red pixel potions. If you have funkslinging (or are a DB) you can skip the potions and use things from the level 12 quest (you can skip the potions without, but it’s a lot riskier, as the level 12 healers can easily do under the required, too).

Haunted Billiard’s Room (20):

Note: This part of the quest is only accessible if you’ve opened Spookyraven manor through adventuring in the haunted pantry

Another “must do at some point” sidequest is going here and opening the library. The monsters here are weaker than the pixel monsters above, but one is physically resistant (where you’ll either want elemental equipment/skills on, or you’ll be using 1-damage hits and combat items).

You need a pool cue (from a non-combat adventure) and a handful of hand chalk to continue. Equip the cue, use the chalk, and adventure until you get the choice adventure (where you’ll pick the second, first, then first choice). Be wary that the chalk only lasts 5 turns, so there is a chance you’ll need to use more.

The next part of this quest is listed in the level 6 part of the guide.

Fernswarthy’s Tower (15-25?)

Note: This part of the quest is only accessible if you’ve completed the part in the cemetary

This quest is way less helpful than the others, but it does give access to brains and fruits by opening it, which you may find helpful.

The monsters here are roughly 20-25 power, the same as the pixel ones.

Simply, adventure in the ruins of the tower until you get a dusty old book. Take it to your guild, and you’re done. Using the book will give you stats once a day (max 5 times).

Clowning around for your Legendary Epic Weapon (15-20)

This is another optional quest, which is a follow on from creating your epic weapon. Compared to your normal epic weapon, the legendary one is generally a lot better, so it’s probably well worth getting if you’re struggling a bit, or just want to make things easier.

For this quest, the aim is to get yourself looking like a clown. Not to the length of the outfit, but enough to trick the door. Each clown-dropped item (except the flower) gives a “clownosity” of 1 when equipped. Smithed items give a clownosity of 2. Note that each type of item only counts once, so multiple of an item doesn’t work.

Once you have a rating of 4, you can face the boss. Click the “push the nose” option, and then open the door to face him. He seems to be similar to the boss bat in power, but with more HP.

Smith the item you get with your epic weapon, and you’re all done.

The Third (15) and Fourth Guild Test (20+):

Considering the third doesn’t give anything special, I’ve lumped these together. You need around 15 mainstat for the third, and 20 for the second, but 23 or so will make failure difficult. This’ll open up the guild store, which is handy (well, sometimes).

Wrapping up:

And that’s it for level 4. Remember there are still a lot of other things you can do. Check the level 3 wrap up for more info.

If you just want to level, you can either hit the battlefield, or continue adventuring in other high-stat zones.

Level 5: The king is (soon to be) dead, a key quest, shoring, and other things

Another big level, this is, but most of the big is finishing up things you haven’t managed to do yet.

First to note, now is a good time to consider looking into the daily dungeon. If you don’t have a few runs behind you (and a few stat buffing skills) it’s probably still out of reach, but now is probably the best time to mention it.

Also, another sidequest becomes available, but this one doesn’t require you going out of the way much. Doc Galaktik needs help (well, once you’ve opened cobb’s knob). The items he needs drop from monsters you’ll encounter throughout this, and the next two levels, so it’s worthwhile to start it, even if you don’t plan on going out of the way to get anything you miss.

Cobb’s Knob (Kitchens: 20-22, Harem: 25-30):

As mentioned earlier, you need an encryption key to open this place up. If you haven’t done so already, head off to the outskirts to get it.

After that, don’t forget to use the map to actually open it, and head on inside. There’re a couple things to note here, some not related to the quest directly, so here’s an outline:

Kitchens: Around the strength of the areas near the end of level 4, so should be simple. This is where you will be headed for food once you have both pastamastery and saucecrafting permanent.
Treasury: A really good source of meat at this level. You shouldn’t need it, but note that it’s there.

Your main goal is the harem, where you want a perfume, a harem veil, and harem pants. The girls have a power of ~25, the guards ~30, so going in a tad over 30 is advised. The choice adv is as follows:

Boozember Rain: Harem Veil
It’s completely ordinary: Harem pants
Here’s 25 meat: ~100 meat

Killing the King (55):

This boss is another monster that’s significantly stronger than what you’re fighting. So yet again, leave him be for a bit if you aren’t ready. He’s around 50 HP, 55 power, so going in around 60 is best.

Note that the harem gear that must be worn has a power of 10 (for 20 total), meaning you have next-to-no damage resistance, and he’ll hit you hard, so you’ll need to kill him in two, possibly one hit if you can’t dodge him.

His monster-level controller item drops are 3 (glass balls) and 7 (cape) or the crown (his non-special drop). The cape or crown are generally better, depending on whether you’re muscle or not, and what HC reward you have from your previous run (crown is less useful if you have the skullcap, for instance).

Getting into the Lab:

Also, while you’re here, you’ll need to get the lab key. The lab is needed for the level 11 quest. The key can be obtained randomly in any area inside the knob, but seems to drop easily in the kitchen.

If you plan to get your food from here, and don’t get the key whilst doing the harem quest (which does happen, but not often), you can leave the key and hope you get it during your food hunting on later days.

The beach and the shore:

Since you’ve likely already obtained your car by now, you can begin to consider opening the island, or, more importantly, doing the nasty shore trips.

Depending on how things happen, you may want to leave this until after the level 6 quest (so you can get the steel organ, if you plan to get it, on the day you are on, rather than missing out and losing a little few more adventures). Also consider dropping it back if you don’t have the meat for it.

Of course, all you need to do is 5 trips, and where you do them isn’t really important. Don’t forget to get a trinket for the planks, either.

Wrapping up:

This is most likely the first level that things could be done well before you’re level 6. If you haven’t done them yet, remember you still have pixels, manor opening, temple opening, and other similar things to consider.

If you just want to level, the battlefield is still good (and it’ll disappear once you level), or you could consider areas like the lab, menageries, or library, depending on your skills and stats.

Level 6: Friars, Demons, Fast food and other assorted goodies.

Another council quest, another guild quest, and another sidequest. All of which can take a while.

The sidequest here is rather important to everyone except those in oxy (in which case, you can skip it, unless you have pulverize, then the payoff is late, as the bulk of decent pulverize yields don’t occur for a few levels yet).

Deep Fat Friars (40-50+):

At the start of level 6 this is the only quest that you gain (unless you haven’t completed previous Distant Woods council quests, then you won’t get it). It’s also a significant jump harder than the previous one, with monsters jumping from 25-30 in power to 40-55. If you have already killed the goblin king, this should be easy.

In each zone, you need to get the relevant quest item (dodecagram in the neck, candles in the heart, and butterknife in the elbow). All of them are from non-combats, so if you can set yourself up for them.

Also, a number of handy items drop here. The main one would be the ruby w, but wussiness potion (which may be a NS lair requirement), hellion cubes (for pastamastery + saucecrafting people), imp ale, and various other things might help. If you don’t get the w during this bit of the quest, but plan to do the subquest after, then don’t worry too much about it. You’ll also need a few hot wings if you’re going for the frilly skirt version of the pirate barrr quest, but you should get them without trying.

Once you have all 3, head to the central area and cleanse the taint for your… oh wait, no reward…

Finding Azazel’s Stuff (40-50+)

Next up is the quest for your organ of steel, if you’re going to get it (which is likely). This is similar to the quest you just did, but it’s all about plinking through one area, instead of the 3 sub-areas.

If you’ve done the friars, which you will have if you’re reading this (and if you’re not, go back to where you’re meant to be!), this should be relatively easy. You’re after the unicorn, lollipop and tutu, and then the adventure with all the “follow the pencilnecked demon” choices (which, until now, you will hopefully have been dodging).

As mentioned earlier, you’ll need a ruby w at some point, so hopefully if you don’t have one you’ll get one during this quest.

A note with organ of steel items: If you don’t have 5 fullness left and are a teetotaler, you won’t be able to use the lasagna. Same with oxygenerians. Booze and no-pathers can use theirs as long as they aren’t falling down drunk.

The Road to White Citadel (opens at 34, 35-40):

Another guild quest. This one appears in the latter half of level 6, by talking to the same guy that made you make the meatcar (so, of course, that must be done first). It isn’t so helpful, except for the fact that it gives access to a zone you’ll need later (and by gain access, I mean you get the zone by starting the quest), and the Road area itself is a good place to find the hippy outfit (and most of the frat outfit) in preparation for level 11. The monsters here are pretty pathetic (way weaker than the friar quest demons), so make sure to up monster level if you can.

This is another “keep on clicking until you get done” quest. First, click around in the grove until you get the adventure that forces you back to the Distant Woods (ie, it has no “adventure again choice”). Then adventure on the road until you unlock White Citadel. Note that this quest is a mixture of non-combat-advs and combat-drops, so maximizing would need a lot of swapping between combat and non-combat enhancement.

Continuing the Manorisms (50-55+)

Also at this level, the Haunted Library becomes a good place to adventure, if you have opened it via the billiards room. The monsters are roughly the equivalent to the stronger demons you likely fought earlier, so it also shouldn’t be too hard.

Here the major thing to do is open the upper level of the manor. This is done by clicking the link hidden in the picture of the “Take a look, it’s in a book!” adventure (the book to click is the third from the left on the top row).

Also, you may wish to open the gallery, which requires you to get the “Take a look, it’s in a book!” adventure that has the “Fall of the house of Spookyraven” book, select that, and then select the “Steven and Elizabeth” chapter. Then adventure in the Haunted Conservatory (an area significantly weaker than the library) until you obtain the gallery key. This is recommended if you have enough skills to cope with the stronger gallery monsters, as the gallery is a reasonably good leveling area for the next few levels.

Now trust me here. As you adventure in the library, you will find Disintegrating Pens, Inkwells and Tattered scraps of paper. Use the Disintegrating pen from your inventory if you have at least one of each of the others for every pen. You will get a scroll of ancient forbidden unspeakable evil for each set. Keep at least 4 of those scrolls for later if you can.

One final thing to note in the library is the “Melvil Dewey Would be Ashamed” adventure. It is unlikely you’ll encounter it unless you’re a pastamancer, but if you do get it, it’s a good source of a spellbook (or meat, if you don’t use spells). When you choose a book, make sure to consider what you will need or get in the future. Something like the spooky spellbook (gray-bound volume) is less helpful due to the pastamancer’s “Fearful Fettucini” skill always casting spooky damage, for instance.

Finishing up level 6:

Unless you got horribly lucky with the friar’s and Azazel’s quest (or didn’t do the Azazel one), you’re likely to be close to level 7 already.

If you haven’t shored, now is a good time to do so, as you’ll probably want to obtain the pirate gear during or after the level 7 quest (although there’s nothing wrong with leaving it to level 8, either).

Also, double check that you’re all up to date on quests in the “I’ll need to do them eventually” category.

Finally, if you have no frilly skirt/hot wings or frat outfit, but you own a briefcase, you may wish to get a mullet wig in preparation for the pirate bar quest. They’re found in Whitey’s Grove, third choice of the “the only thing about him is the way he walks” adventure.

If you just want to level, choices are a bit more difficult now. If you have methods to kill the stronger monsters, go for the gallery or bathroom. If you’re a bit under, head to the later menageries or pirates. Here’s a quick rundown of the possible options, and the powers of the monsters in those areas:

Leveling in hardcore: A rough outline of Level 6 onwards to level 11.

These will go from easiest to hardest (power-wise). The easiest areas are around 40 power, the hardest over 150. Areas that you cant have access to yet (like icy peak) are mentioned at their levels.

Frat/Hippy Camp (40):
These may be worth considering if you don’t have the outfits yet, but need them earlier rather than later. There are a few reasonable drops at each camp, and access to the hippy store may be helpful to some people. Also to note, the frat outfit is one of the 3 possible ways to get through a quest in the pirate bar area, which you’ll need to do eventually.

Laboratory (40-45):
This area is fairly easy, but also gives you nice meat drops, and nice item drops (MP restores, and for those with saucecrafting, reagents). This should be the lowest area considered, seeing the weakest level 6 monsters were at this power.

Cobb’s Knob Menagerie 1 (50-55), Menagerie 2 (60-65) and Menagerie 3 (70-75):
These 3 areas are really boring, but really easy. The only notable things are the meat drops in all are fairly average, and level 3 drops booze. These are okay areas for people with no permanent skills.

Haunted Ballroom (110), Gallery (105-115), and Bathroom (75-100):
These are the three more stat-oriented areas. Gallery is generally the best, due to the “Louvre it or leave it” adventure, but the other two are nice also (Ballroom gives excellent moxie, for example). Bathroom also has the “guy made of bees”, who may be helpful in beating the arena subquest of the level 12 quest (see that quest if you want to know how). Note that you need to unlock each area seperately, and the ballroom needs venturing into the next area…

Haunted Bedroom (150-175):
Strong monsters, but high non-combat rates. The non-combats are all stat adventures (well, can be, except 1) too. The stat gains from the choice advs are probably a bit lacking right now, though, but consider this later on. This is mentioned again in the level 10 section.

You’ll probably slowly progress from earlier places until you get to the gallery, as the gallery is a really good source of any stat, meat, equipment, and nuggets if you have pulverize.

Level 7: Undead, Dagons, Giant Signs and Pirates.

From now until level 11, you’ll find that a lot more leveling is required after quests, as even with somewhat bad RNG you can easily finish these quests in time.

If you haven’t done so already, now will probably be the level you start the Daily Dungeon. Hopefully, none of the stat-specific rooms in there will give you any trouble now. But still be watchful of the elemental tests beating you up.

Undefiling the Cyrpt (50-60, bosses at ~80):

This part of the quest is split into the four areas, each with doing the exact same thing (but with different monsters). You’re looking at normal monsters in the 50-60 power range here, so not much stronger than the friars. But, the boss monsters are significantly stronger, and it wouldn’t be uncommon for them to be a bit out of your normal combat methods right now.

In each area, you must plink through the weaker monsters until you find the boss monster (which occurs through a rather obvious 2-choice non-combat). But, on the way, you’re likely to see a 4-choice non-combat adventure a few times. This adventure will be the way to get a method to kill the bosses without actually being strong enough to kill them (a combat item that’ll take out around 60-70 HP to the boss, but much less to normal monsters).

The choices that give the item(s) are as follows:

Defiled Alcove: “Look in the wet one” (half-rotten brain)
Defiled Nook: “See what’s under the third one” (rusty bonesaw)
Defiled Cranny: “Dig through the rubble on the ground” (can of Ghuol-B-Gone™)
Defiled Niche: “Check out the second one” (plus-sized phylactery)

Note that the item will not kill the boss in 1-hit, but will do substantial damage. If you don’t even have a way to hit them, either get two of the needed combat item, or wait until later before fighting them (go do the pirates or something to level up a bit).

Once all four bosses go down, you can fight the dagon.

Bonerdagon Battle (90):

Just like the Boss Bat and Goblin King, this boss is significantly stronger than the monsters and the bosses you needed to kill to get to it.

Here are some basic class-based strategies to kill it:

Seal Clubber and Turtle Tamer: If you were hitting the sub-bosses fairly constantly, chuck on a wereseal and you should hit him easily. Don’t bother with skills, as you’re likely to come up short if he blocks them.

Pastamancer: If you got the stench book from the library, or have the hot book, just buff moxie as much as you can and hit him with your spells. Minor ray should kill him in 4 or so hits, eXtreme ray in less.

Sauceror: Either grab the hot book, and do something similar to pastamancer (don’t forget saucespheres if you have them), or use reagent potions. If you have elemental saucesphere, make sure to cast it. The sauceror legendary epic weapon works wonders here, too.

Disco Bandit and Accordion thief: Buff up moxie all the way! Don’t forget basic things like cans of hair-spray.

As with the other two bosses, he has 2 monster-level enhancer item bonuses. Set your item to 5 for the rib (an okay 2-handed staff), set it to 10 for the vertebrae (which can be made into a good necklace if you get your hands on a hemp string).

When you kill him, make sure to use the chest for a nice stat and meat boost. Also don’t forget to make the badass belt after getting your reward from the council, as it has a nice stat bonus.

The Enormous Greater-Than Sign (unlocks at 45)

Another zone that you’ll be required to adventure in, it appears a small bit into level 7. In this case, the main reason is for the third gate in the NS entryway (which requires one of the effects given by ! potions), but it’ll also give you access to the zapping wand.

Before you go here, it is advised you work off any buffs you have elsewhere, because of the whole “mostly non-combats” thing. Also make sure you have at least 1000 meat (preferably over, since one adventure takes 30). Also-also, you might want to hold this quest off for a day or two if you have such a drunkeness that more would make you falling down.

As you adventure in the >, nothing much will happen: Crappy stats, HP loss, meat loss, things to make you go “argh” until you get the plus sign. If you happen to get teleportitis before you get it, adventure somewhere like the Daily Dungeon or sewer to get rid of it (or shore, if you haven’t. If none of these things are options, also consider cooking, cocktailcrafting or smithing).

Once you’ve got the plus sign, continue on until you have teleportitis. Adventure with that until you find the oracle, spend 1000 meat, and then use the plus sign to open the Dungeons of Doom. Note that while you are teleporting around, you can end up teleporting to the tavern (hence the drunk warning).

Dungeons of Doom (35-45)

The second version of the above zone, where you’ll find the ! potions, which, as mentioned earlier, are required for the final quest.

If you plan to get the zapper, and currently don’t have the meat (min 5000, best to make sure you have some left over though), leave this until later. But, if you’ve got meat to spare, then definitely consider the zapper now. It’s a reasonable way to get some items, and it’ll also mean the DD will only need to be completed two or three times over any specific run.

The monsters you will encounter here are, much like the Whitey’s grove area, fairly weak compared to when you open the zone.

Pirating the Cove (60-70)

The other real “sidequest” of this level is the pirate cove. At level nine, you will require the pirate outfit to acquire the dictionary, and at level 11 you’ll need it to get the snakehead charrrms, but given the power of the area it fits perfectly in at this point (as the stronger monsters here have around 70 power, so, as usual, a little higher and you’ll be safe).

If you haven’t completed areas such as the shore (and your 5 trips) or obtained the dingy, that is required first. After that, head to the pirates and work towards the outfit.

The 3 items you need drop from various pirates (rather uncommonly), but also come from choice advs (as follows):

Amatearrr Night

What's orange and sounds like a parrot?: stuffed shoulder parrot, - 3 HP.
So a pirate walks into a bar: 100 Meat.
What's gold and sounds like a pirate?: eyepatch

The Arrrbitrator:

Vote for Jack Robinson: eyepatch
Vote for Sergeant Hook: swashbuckling pants
Vote for the dread Pirate Bob: 100 Meat.

Barrie Me at Sea:

Help Sammy Skillet: stuffed shoulder parrot, -5 Meat.
Help Captain Ladle: swashbuckling pants
Help the crocodile: 100 Meat.

Some of the other drops (crowbarr, leotarrrd, for instance) may be handy, too, in certain situations.

Of course, now that you have the outfit, the disguise areas have opened up. The Bar area has monsters with power closer to the late level 9 area, so check that section for more piratey action.

Wrapping up:

Even though I managed to write a fair amount for this level, you’re probably sitting around the late 40’s in mainstat wondering what to do next.

As mentioned on the list last level, there are plenty of things to do. If you’re certain that, by now, everything is all complete (which is likely), continue levelling in one of the previously mentioned areas.

Level 8: It’s a trap(z0r)!

If it hasn’t begun already, now is the time where leveling effectively will become a needed operation. If you haven’t managed to finish all those little side things by now you might want to kill RNG. Or, at least, get to it ASAP.

The quest here is much easier than the previous one, but is also a longer one. Using the ML-enhancing item for your zodiac will help ease the lesser gains.

One thing to note here is you’ll be expected to take some drunkeness in the next level, so if you’ll make that today (and haven’t drunk yet), keep your drunk low enough so you can take 2 more without falling down.

So, talk to the tr4pz0r, make note of what ore he wants, and head to the mine!

Itznotyerzitz Mine (50-60):

The first part of the level 12 quest, and also a fairly tedious one. Your first goal here is to get the mining gear, which is often easier said than done. The first thing to note is that the monsters are weak, and if you’ve done level 7, you’re safe.

The choice advs are once again going to be your best bet here, due to crappy drops, so here they are:

100% Legal:

Demand loot: miner's helmet
Ask for ore: miner's pants
Say you'll keep quiet for free: 100 Meat

A Flat Miner:

Loot the dwarf's belongings: miner's pants
Hijack the meat vein: 7-Foot Dwarven mattock
Help the dwarf: 100 Meat

See You Next Fall:

Give 'im the stick: miner's helmet
DOOOOON'T GIVE 'IM THE STICK!: 7-Foot Dwarven mattock
Negotiate for a reward: 100 Meat

Note that the helmet has a +5% item drop boost on it. Whilst it isn’t much, it is helpful to use if it won’t hurt you otherwise. Once you have the outfit, go ahead and equip it.

Itznotyerzitz Mine (In disguise):

Now, if you have forgotten, go check what ore you needed first.

This bit is fairly straight forward: Mine until you find what you’re looking for. There are a number of things that’ll help you speed it up:

Of course, only sparkling bits contain events. These can be ores, meat, cave-ins or stones of eXtreme power.
Ores, of any type, aren’t found in the bottom two rows (ie, the first two). All you’ll find here are cave-ins, stones of eXtreme power, and meat.
Ores always come in groups. If you find one of which you’re looking for, one (or more) of the squares next to it will contain another one. There are only 4 of each ore.

If you have superadvanced meatsmithing, and find a chrome ore (and chrome doesn’t happen to be the one you need), consider making a chrome weapon. It’ll give +3 advs if equipped at rollover, for a couple of advs worth of smithing (and a chunk of meat).

Once you have your 3, head back to the tr4pz0r. Keep the mining gear on, because you’ll need it in a second.

Farming the Goatlet (65-70):

Once again, this area should be easy. Goats are around the strength of pirates, so if you’ve done that you’ll be fine.

First off you’ll get a choice adventure that you can only pass with the mining gear on. Once that’s done, go back to whatever combat gear you’re wearing, and head back to kill some goats.

Here, you want drops (and only drops). Buff to boost them if possible. The cheese doesn’t have a horrid drop rate, but the more the better! Just keep on killing goats until you have 6, and if you have the ability to cook with reagents, hope that you get some milk too, for its adventure-gain-helping properties.

Once again, head to the tr4pz0r, and he’ll give you a reward and the next part of the quest

Finding Cold Resistance:

If you already had any when you talked to the tr4pz0r, you’re done, yay. Otherwise, you have a few options here.

Of course, the skills Astral Shell, Elemental Saucesphere and Scarysauce all give buffs that’ll allow you to pass, and those should be your primary way through it, if it’s available.

If you don’t have that, your next best bet is the Exotic Parrot. Even with one familiar buff (or a few pounds) this familiar gives cold resistance, and yet again you can easily pass this bit.

There are also a number of cold-resistance giving items in the game. Early on the only real options are the balaclava from Canadia (myst zodiac area), ring of cold resistance (an item that must be zapped for), furry green earmuffs (smithing item only obtainable as a muscle class, with armorcraftiness) or the dungeoneers dungarees (Limerick Dungeon reward)

Other than that, you have two options: Head for the slope, or head for the snowman lair. The latter is only viable if you have both the ninja hot pants and hot katana blade, or if you know you’re due to encounter a semi-rare adventure.

The Search for Cold Resistance, Subsection 1: eXtreme Slope (70-75):

First thing to note, if you have torso awaregness and get the shirt, you can just use that for your resistance. Otherwise, you need the outfit.

The monsters here have powers in the 70-75 range, so you’re finally seeing something stronger, but not by much. If you survived the pirates at level 7, by now you’ll have the power to beat these. Remember to turn your ML-enhancing items down if you have them on, and cant handle their power “bonus” effect.

As you’re probably used to, it’s likely you’ll not get the drops, so here are the choice advs:

Generic Teen Comedy Snowboarding Adventure

Give him a pep-talk: eXtreme mittens
Give him some boarding tips: snowboarder pants
Offer to help him cheat: 200 Meat

Saint Beernard:

Help the Heroic dog: snowboarder pants
Flee in terror: eXtreme scarf
Ask for some beer, first: 200 Meat

Yeti Nother Hippy:

Help the Hippy: eXtreme mittens
Let irony take its course: eXtreme scarf
Negotiate his release: 200 Meat

Once you have the whole outfit, equip it, visit the tr4pz0r, and you’ll complete the quest.

The Search for Cold Resistance, Subsection 2: Snowman Lair (70-90):

If you came here for the semi-rare, well, consider getting a different one. If you don’t want to, you’re here for the antifreeze then gone. Otherwise, you’re fighting (and the monsters are having powers of up to around 90).

Make sure you do have the katana blade and ninja pants first, just in case.

There are a few other nifty items that drop here, but what you want is a single ninja mask, and a single icy katana hilt. The drops aren’t great (but not so horrid you’ll never get them), so consider boosting your drops if you can.

Once you have them, smith the hilt and blade together, put the outfit on, and visit the Tr4pz0r to finish the quest.

Wrapping up level 8:

By now, you can hopefully more than handle most of the areas mentioned at level 6. If you’re finding the gallery easy, stick to that.

You also have the icy peak as an option now, which has a power of ~105 (similar to the gallery). This area does require constant cold resistance, and contains a physically resistant monster, though, so the gallery is better.

If you’re still not powerful enough for the gallery, the bathroom should be fairly accessible by now. The power in here ranges a bit, but it’s around 100 power on the top-end, so going in around there is fine (just watch the hair clogs if you go under 100).

If you haven’t done so already, and you’re fairly strong, now would also be a reasonable time to think about the bedroom (which is mentioned in the level 10 stuff).

Otherwise, just head towards level 9, and if you’re moderately drunk, remember to keep it low enough so you can take that extra 2 at the start of next level.

Level 9: Pirates, Chasms, Pirates, Leaflets, and Pirates

This level is fairly empty, if you’re not prepared. But if you are, and have the ability to kill some stronger monsters, you should have a bit more to do.

Adventures in the Strange Leaflet:

Before you begin doing anything, consider what you want to do with the stat bonus you are bound to get soon. If you’re near the end of your day, and tomorrow is a statday, you may wish to leave it and get the 50 extra stats the next day. If today is a statday, or you aren’t near one, just go ahead and do it!

Commands, from the start to the cave:
Open Door
East
Take sword
Examine tinder
Examine Mantel (make sure to note what’s on it!)
West
North
Cut Hedge
Take Stick
West
Light Stick
East
North
Kill Serpent
Open Chest
Look Behind Chest
Look in Hole.

Commands for the rest of it (starting from plundered cave):
South
South
East
Light Fire
Take Boots
Equip Boots
West
South
South
South
(5 or so times in whatever available directions)
Up
Take Egg
Throw Egg Bird
Down
Move Leaves
Up
Throw Ruby Bowl
Gnusto Cleesh
Up
Cleesh Giant
Take Ring

Also, of course, you have the secret word that’ll give you stats. Remember what was on the mantel? Good. Now plover for the bird, plugh for the brick wellhouse, yoho for the ship or xyzzy for the white house .

Getting Access to the Orc Chasm (60-70)

This isn’t too hard. All you need is the pirate outfit, and to buy the abridged dictionary from the bookstore.

Of course, if you don’t have the pirate gear, you’ll need to go get that first.

Once you’ve gotten it, go visit the untinkerer, untinker the abridged dictionary (if he asks for the screwdriver, go grab that from the knoll. If you’re a musc sign, Innabox has it, as mentioned ages ago), and prepare for the chasm (don’t forget to change your outfit back!).

Or, if you feel like it, and think you can handle it, you could also start unlocking the pirate areas instead. You can only get to the Poop Deck at this level, but opening it will be a great help for when you finally make it to level 11.

Scrolling through the Chasm (75-90):

Unlike level 8, the monsters here are actually harder than the ones you just fought (yay). They have around 75-90 power (okay, so it’s not that much stronger), and HP around 90. All monsters here (except the adding machine and semi-rare encounter) are weak vs the dictionary you now have, which is a reusable combat item that does 30-60 damage (so, if you don’t have a strategy, there you go, just use the dictionary)!

This is another zone you’ll probably want drops (unless you’re near the semi-rare encounter mark), as there are a lot of items you need now, and a couple for later. You need to collect 2x 334 scrolls, 1x 30669 scroll, 1x 33398 scroll, and 1x lowercase n (which is for later).

As you’re collecting the scrolls, you’ll encounter adding machines. If you use 2 scrolls on these enemies, they’ll add them into another (if possible). Use a 334, followed by another, to get the 668 scroll, and use a 30669 followed by a 33398 to get a 64067 scroll. Use those two resultant scrolls on it, to get the quest scroll (the 64735 scroll). Only use the scrolls if you can do both sides of a pair, as adding a 334, killing it, and coming back and adding another 334 to another won’t get you a 668. Last, but not least, watch your HP when adding scrolls, as you don’t want to be beaten up before you finish!

Optionally, you can collect a second n, a meat vortex, 2 more 334 scrolls, 1 more 30669, although it isn’t highly recommended (unless you have nowhere better to go after). Adding a 668 to a 30669 results in a 31337 scroll, which gives you some stats and backdoor access to the hermit.

Once the 64735 scroll is made, use it, and you’ll get your reward, which can be kept, or sold for 21337 meat (which will be really helpful >.>)

Piratey Adventures, Part 1 (bar ~80 power, f’c’le ~100 ?):

Now that you’ve probably got every other quest thus far out of the way (and if you haven’t, making sure you’re up to date is a good thing to start with, seeing this area is higher than nearly all the quests mentioned thus far), you can continue by working on the pirates. This is, and the next bit, are needed for the level 11 quest, although you can handle them soon, if not now. If you are having trouble killing pirates, feel free to leave this until level 10.

To start off with, you need to unlock the F’c’le, which is done by completing the Bar. Be warned that you can get drunkeness in the bar, if you don’t watch what you are doing.

Before you do anything, go buy a book of pirate insults, and use it when fighting pirates in the bar. You’ll need the insults to finish this part of the quest.

First, adventure in the barrr until you receive the map. Use this, and you’ll encounter a booty crab (105ish power, so be prepared if you’re a little on the low side). Then adventure back in the barrr until you receive the orcish frat house blueprints.

There are 3 ways to pass this next small bit, which have been mentioned in passing earlier. Either equip the frilly skirt (and have hot wings in your inventory), mullet wig (and have a briefcase in inventory), or the frat outfit, and use the map. First choice for outfit, second for wig, third for skirt. That’s it for that bit.

Finally, adventure in the barrr again until you meet the captain, then again until you get the insult beer pong adv. Make sure you’ve been picking up those insults, because now you need them. Here is a list of what you need to say for each insult.

After this, the ship is finally unlocked, and thankfully it’s a lot less running around. Watch for the strength boost compared to the barrr, and just adventure here until you’ve obtained and used the three quest items, then until you’ve gotten the fledges adventure. And that’s that, for now.

A couple of notes on the area: Using a cocktail napkin on the clingy pirate will end the combat as if the monster left, and the “distract with something shiny” choice of the chatty pirate choice adv can be done successfully with a valuable trinket. Both these end the adventure without adventure loss, and cause the monster to never appear for a short while.

Wrapping up level 9:

As usual, you have all those things previously mentioned (go see the leveling section back in level 6 for more info).

In addition to these lose ends, you could adventure in the chasm. But, because the area isn’t anything special, it’ll take a while to do so.

If you haven’t obtained one, make sure you have an enchanted bean for level 10. These are found in the beanbat chamber of the bat hole, if you have forgotten.

Level 10: Playing in the sky, the stars, and getting some sleep.

This is another level where the main quest is small, but there are other things you need to do before and after you get there.

Monster level also varies a bit here, so be warned. To start off with, you’ll be facing between 90-120 power monsters, then you’ll jump to 125-145, then 150-170. Considering you’ll, hopefully, have either decent buffs or sure-hit skills by now, it shouldn’t be as bad as it sounds.

Before you start anything, you should begin by visiting the council and then using that enchanted bean you probably picked up ages ago.

The Penultimate Fantasy Airship (90-120):

The airship itself is the easiest of the areas for level 10, with the only monster likely to bug you being the mechamech. Your goal here is simple: Get the 4 immateria non-combats, and then the S.O.C.K. one.

As with all non-combats, any use of non-combat increasers is recommended, but do be wary of one thing here: You also need to get a metallic A from one of those nasty mechs (another item in prep for the final quest), and it doesn’t always drop easily. Getting a torpedo from them can also (possibly) help out later.

Also watch out for temporary amnesia here. It’s a negative effect that temporarily makes skills unusable. If you do get it, it can be removed by the soft green echo eyedrop antidotes dropped by various things in the airship.

Once you have all the immateria, you’re set to head to the newly opened next zone

Castle in the sky (125-145):

The main quest from the council takes place here, and is very simple to complete, but as you probably know is a small stepping stone of a much larger goal.

The monsters here jump a bit, as mentioned before, with the weakest being ~125 power, and the highest being ~145. The weakest one, though, is one you have to watch out for, due to another nasty status effect: Cunctatitis. This one minimizes your initiative and gives a good chance of not doing anything on a given turn. Because of this, you’ll want to either use soft green echo eyedrop antidotes whenever you get the effect, or not fight the procrastination giants. However, ranged weapons and spells won’t trigger this effect, and if your other skills kill the giants in a couple of hits you should be fairly safe with the negative effect bugging you.

Anyway, onto what needs to be done!

Your goal in the castle is a mixture of item drops and non-combats. The items you need to obtain are the furry fur, a giant needle, an awful poetry journal and, last but not least, a heavy D for your wand. Of course, there are other notable items here (like the chaos butterfly, original G and Mick’s rub) that may also be needed for the level 13 quest.

On the non-combat side, you need to turn the wheel twice in either direction, then use your castle map when you have the first 3 of the items listed above. Turning the wheel counterclockwise triggers the moxie adventure before reaching the door, whilst turning it clockwise triggers the mysticality one.

Once you get your quantum egg (which is received when the map is used correctly), combine it with the S.O.C.K. you got earlier to unlock the Hole in the Sky, the next major “sidequest” you must do!

Hole in the sky (150-170):

This part of level 10 is solely for stuff needed in the level 13 quest, so if you really want to you can easily leave it until the end of other levels. But, as most people would be used to doing it now, I’ve added it in here.

This area, and the bedroom, are also slightly stronger than some level 11 zones, so take that into consideration too, if you wish. They both sit in the 150-170 range, and the early level 11 zones are around the castle in strength.

The goal here is simple: Collect enough items to make a star key, a star hat, and a star two-handed weapon.

Here’s a quick list of what’s needed for each. Of course, each item requires 1 chart to make:
Must-haves:

Richard’s Star Key: 8 stars, 7 lines
Star hat: 5 stars, 3 lines
Oh, and if you don't have the star familiar yet, then you'll need another star chart for it too at this point. Use 6 stars and 4 lines to get it, then use it to have it in your terrarium.

Weapons (one required):

Star sword: 7 stars, 4 lines
Star staff: 6 stars, 5 lines
Star crossbow: 5 stars, 6 lines

Stars and lines both have reasonable drop rates, but loot familiars still make a huge difference. Star Charts drop from Astronomers, at a 100% rate.

Once you’ve made all that stuff, you’re all done in the sky for now. Time to head back to the ground.

Haunted Bedroom (150-176)

The final thing you need to do in prep for level 11 is unlock the ballroom and get yourself Lord Spookyraven’s spectacles.

Whilst this area is much like the hole in strength, it’s significantly easier due to the fact that it’s mostly non-combat oriented (and as such, you can skip about 75% of battles without non-combat increasing buffs). All of the things you need come from said non-combats, too, so you really don’t have to fight any combats, if running is easier.

You’re looking for the wooden nightstand, and the ornate one (and, possibly, the mahogany one after the ornate one). Here are the choice adv options to make life simple:

One Nightstand: Mahogany

Check the top drawer: old coin purse
Check the bottom drawer: combat (nightstand, mahogany)
Look under the nightstand: Spookyraven skill item (once only, if you have the spectacles equipped)

One Nightstand: Ornate

Open the top drawer: 400-600 Meat
Open the bottom drawer: Myst substats (around 1x mainstat, max 200)
Look behind the nightstand: Lord Spookyraven's spectacles (once only)

One Nightstand: White

Look in the top drawer: old leather wallet
Look in the bottom drawer: Musc substats (around 1x mainstat, max 200)
Kick it and see what happens: combat (nightstand, white)

Once Nightstand: Wooden

Check the top drawer: Mox substats (around 1x mainstat, max 200)
Check the bottom drawer: Spookyraven ballroom key (only if top drawer has been checked previously)
Investigate the jewelry: combat (jilted mistress - drops antique hand mirror, useful for later)

Once you’ve gotten the key and the spectacles, feel free to move on, or, go and get the your class’s spooky skill!

Obtaining the Manor Skill:

As mentioned above, looking under the mahogany nightstand with the spectacles equipped will give you an item for getting your manor skill. The 3 stat-types each get a different item, which in each case is used in a different area.

As you’ve been fighting most these monsters before (except the ballroom, but that’s only ~110 power, nothing to worry about), I’ll just list what to do by each class:
Seal clubbers need to take their nightstand item to the first knight in the “Out in the garden” adventure in the gallery.
Turtle tamers need to take their nightstand item to the second knight in the “Out in the garden” adventure in the gallery.
Pastamancers and Saucerors need to take their item to the haunted library, get the “Take a look, it’s in a book” adventure that has the "Ancient Forbidden Unspeakable Evil, a Love Story" choice, and select that then the “Chapter 3” option
Accordion Thieves and Disco Bandits need to head to the ballroom, and “Investigate the organ” in the “curtains” adventure.

Wrapping up, once more.

You may still be a chunk away from level 11, but once again you still have all those things mentioned at level 6. Of course, you also have the castle now, but the gallery is better (and you should definitely be there, as you should be able to handle it now). Moxie classes may wish to consider the ballroom, too, as it’s got a reasonably high moxie-statgain rate.

Level 11: A quest you have been preparing for…

Ah, yes, time for a lot of stuff to do. Also known as the level 11 quest.

If you haven’t kept track of all the little things that were listed to be done earlier, here they are again:

Shore Trips need to be done, and island access obtained
The Hidden Temple must be opened
Spookyraven Manor must be fully open, except for the gallery, and have obtained the spectacles
The Lab in Cobb’s Knob must be accessible
You must have started the White Citadel quest (thus having opened Whitey’s Grove, but not having needed any of the quest done)

All done with that? Now onto the questing!

Quest For the Holy Macguffin:

Each section of this quest is split into it’s parts: Black Forest, Hidden Temple, Hidden City… and so on. Other than the start and finish bits, it’s not really in any specific order, so on the bits labeled parts 1-4, do them in any order you please.

The Black Forest and obtaining the journal (120-135):

Being the beginning of the quest, this part is rather easy. Make sure to grab a few anti-anti-antidotes before heading in here, as it isn’t uncommon to get poisoned (here, or later on in this large quest).

Your goal in here is to get 3 items: sunken eyes (black adder drop), broken wings (black panther drop), and the black market map (Man in black non-combat adventure). Once you have all 3, combine the eyes and wings to obtain the blackbird, use that and then equip it, then use the map (remembering to put your old familiar back on after). This will unlock the black market.

The black market should now be your source of MP if you don’t have access to magical mystery juice, but primarily you are here for the forged documents. If you can’t afford them, adventure somewhere like the castle, treasury or black forest until you have the meat. Also pick up a can of black paint from here, you’ll need it later.

With the documents in hand, head to the shore, adventure once in the Distant Lands Dude Ranch, and then use the item you get (your father’s Macguffin diary). Make sure you read all the diary, the simplest way to do so is reading the text version (as it counts as all of it). All the new subquests are now in your quest log for quick reference, too, after reading it.

Part 1: Spookyraven Manor (160-170):

If you’ve completed all the stuff mentioned at the start of this level, this should be easy.

Adventure in the ballroom until you receive the “We’ll all be flat” adventure, then equip the spectacles and head downstairs and into the wine cellar.

The first thing you should do here is look at the glyph on the wall (if you can’t see it, put the spectacles on and try again!). Take a note of the three symbols, then head to the wine racks (any of the four will do).

Each wine rack sub-area contains 3 of 6 different dusty bottles of booze, and 3 of the 6 dusty bottles will have the same symbol as you need on them (viewed by looking at their description pages with the spectacles on). Likely you’ll need to travel into 2 or 3 of the 4 subareas to find the three matching ones.

Once you have all 3 of your required ones, head back to the glyph, and use them in the order of top symbol, left symbol, right symbol. That’ll give access to the summoning chamber, where your next major foe lies.

Part 1 boss: Lord Spookyraven

This boss is fairly easy, as long as you remember to buff up accordingly. His first attack is a full-force elemental hit, so you need to make sure you have some elemental resistance so you survive (the more the better). He also steals MP, which is returned to him as HP.

Some items/buffs you may like to equip/use that have multiple resistances:

Astral Shell (all elements)
Elemental Saucesphere (all elements)
Dungeoneers Dungarees (all elements)
Titanium assault umbrella (all elements)
Palm-frond cloak (all elements)
Gnauga hide vest (all elements)
Ninja outfit (hot and cold)
Scary Sauce (cold and sleaze)

Black face paint (black market)

Oil of Parrlay (The F’c’le)

Dungeoner’s Dungarees (Limerick Dungeon)

Of course, there are many single element things, too. You’re bound to have picked some up along the way, so check your inventory!

Once he’s gone down, you’ll receive his ear trumpet and the eye of Ed. From here, continue onto the next part! About the trumpet, it’s important to go check the KoLwiki and lookup the Summoning Chamber. You can get additional goodies if you use the trumpet in the right places.

Part 2a: The Temple

The first bit of this is a waltz through a non-combat only zone, so if you have buffs consider starting other parts first. Otherwise, in you go!

Since there’s not much to do here but click, here’s what you’re clicking for:
Keep plinking through until you hit the “At least it’s not full of trash” choice adventure. On this one, choose to “Raise your hands up to the heavens”.
Keep plinking through again until you hit “Dvorak’s Revenge”. Spell out the word “bananas” using the letters.
Finally, keep plinking until you hit “No Visible Means of Support”, in which you choose to “do nothing”.

From here, head to the hidden city!

Part 2b: The Hidden City’s Ruins (140-160)

Expect monsters in the 145-160 range of power here, and, much to everyone’s delight, physically immune monsters. This area is much like the tavern, in that it is split into a 5x5 grid. Unlike the tavern, though, the bits are marked as “ruins” (or other things) as you go through them.

Your goal here is to go through each unexplored section until you find the four altars, the small temple, and 4 or 5 ancient protector spirits (the physically immune monsters). The spirits drop either one of the four spheres, or a weapon that may help you kill them. Use elemental attacks to kill them, or scrolls of unspeakable evil.

Once you have the four spheres, you must figure out which is which (or, if you prefer, you can do this as you find them). Using them in combat will give an effect, and this effect will relate to what altar you need to put it on. The effects are randomized every ascension, but here is how they fit to the altars (which represent pokemon x_X):

Healing effect: Squirtle Altar (the design looks like a fountain, or monster head spitting water)
Fire effect: Charmander Altar (looks like a snake-ish thing)
Physical damage: Pikachu (lightning-tailed thing)
Entangling effect: Bulbasaur (flower-carrying beast)

Not the best explanations, but you’ll figure it out soon. A quest item drops in one of the ruins that may help, if you’re still suck.

Once all four altars have been done, you’ll find you have 4 triangular stones. Throw them in the small temple, and fight the boss.

Part 2 boss: Protector Spectre

A physical resistance boss is fun for everyone! Well, fun if you have the skills for it. If you beat the underlings okay, you should be fine.

As he has no elemental alignment, the easiest way to beat him would be using spookyraven skills, or myst class spells. If you didn’t get them, you’re next best bet would be whatever elemental damage equipment you could find (like that obsidian dagger you likely found on one of his underlings).

If it comes to it, you could also try eating an insanely spicy enchanted bean burrito (if possible) and using Chronic indigestion. You may want to boost moxie a bit with this tactic, though, as it doesn’t do much damage.

Once he’s dead, you’ll obtain the ancient amulet, and a sceptre that does what all the spheres did. Yay!

Now, do you really want me to spoil it for you? Remember the Scrolls of Ancient Unspeakable Evil I told you to keep from the library? Well, did you? Because, a single one of those will defeat a spectre, y’know. Use one in combat and you’re done, no more fun and excitement for ya here. Bummer, huh.

Part 3: The Palindome (135-155)

First off, you need to open this area. If you’ve opened the Poop deck, you’re nearly there, otherwise go check the pirate stuff in the level 9 section to catch up. Adventure there until you unlock belowdecks. These areas are weaker/equivalent to the palindome, so you should be fairly safe. In belowdecks you’re looking for the 2 snakehead charrrms, which you use to make the talisman o’ nam, and then head to the palindome.

As usual, these monsters are only a tad stronger than the giants. Expect 140-155 or so power from them.

For the first part of this part of the quest, you need to acquire a photograph of god, hard boiled ostrich egg, hard rock candy and a ketchup hound. You also need stunt nuts for the next one. The first 3 items are all given by non-combats, 2 of which are just “do you want to buy this?” types adventures, and the last two are both combat drops.

While adventuring here, you’ll also encounter a choice adventure “No sir, away! A papaya war is on!”, which can give 3 papayas, stats and –3 papayas, or stats. Stick to the last choice, it’s simpler.

Once you have the first four of the five items listed above, you will encounter an adventure (quite quickly) that asks you to put four items onto shelves. Put the photograph on top, then the hard rock candy, then the dog, and finally the egg on the bottom, and you’ll get beaten up by Dr. Awkward as a result (yay! >.<). Use the item he gave you, then head to the laboratory (inside Cobb’s Knob).

Eventually, you’ll meat Dr. Alarm. He’ll send you on another quest (sigh) to find him some stew! Luckily, all you need to do is head to another weak area (Whitey’s Grove), kill a snake (which’ll drop a bird rib), then a lion (for lion oil), cook them together, then cook the stunt nuts mentioned earlier with them. Take that back to Dr. Alarm, and he’ll give you the Mega Gem (which, of course, you equip immediately).

Part 3 boss: Dr Awkward

With the gem equipped, head to the palindome, and you’ll quickly encounter the Dr again. Say anything you wish, and the combat will start.

His special ability is making you fumble more, and healing himself, but other than that he should fall over pretty easily. He probably doesn’t even need his own boss section like this, really.

When you beat him, you get his sword and the staff of Fats. Continue on to the next part!

Part 4: Opening the Pyramid (135-145)

For the first part of this quest, you need over 5k meat, although it won’t be used. Also, if you don’t have one already, go buy a can of black paint.

Head off to the Arid, Extra-Dry Desert, and be ready for pain. You need to adventure there until you obtain the choice adventure, and when you get it, choose “haggle for a better price”, but until then it’s bad effect adventures.

Once you’ve haggled, head to The Oasis. This zone gives you the “ultrahydrated” effect, which is the key to adventuring around here. From now, any mention of adventuring in the Arid-Dry Desert is referring to adventuring with that effect active. If you run out, adventure in The Oasis again and you’ll get it immediately.

So, head to the dry desert, and yay, combats! The monsters here are around the 140-150 mark, too (common theme with this level, eh?). Here, once again, you’ll want non-combats, so buff appropriately if you can.

Sooner or later, you’ll run into a gnome who wants you to get a stone rose for him. So head back to The Oasis and fight there until you get it (it’s a non-combat, though). The monsters here have around the same power as the desert.

In addition to the rose, you also need to get a drum machine here. Blurs drop them semi-frequently. Now is the best time to get it, really. Of course, once you get the rose, head back to the desert and keep at it until you encounter the gnome again. If you have the paint, you’ll be asked to “wait 20 minutes”, otherwise you need to get the paint and come back. Of course, “wait 20 minutes” means “adventure until you encounter me again”, so do that!

If you don’t have a drum machine, he’ll ask you to find one when you encounter him again (so go do that), otherwise he’ll ask you to go find the missing pages of his manual. Of course, that means back to The Oasis again. Adventure there until you have the 15 pages, then talk to him again, and you’re DONE. FINALLY.

Equip the worm riding hooks, use the drum machine, and the pyramid is yours!

Final Area: Inside the Pyramid (160-175)

If you haven’t already, combine the parts from the first 3 part-labeled parts into the Staff of Ed, then take that to the small pyramid, use it, and go inside.

The monsters are finally a bit stronger: 160-180 power. Once again, watch out for poisonous snakes!

The first part of this quest takes place in the upper chamber. You need to get the only non-combat here, which gives you a wheel. The snake is the only real thing to worry about, as it gives a very, very painful poison effect (which will likely see you lose the combat if you get it).

After that, head to the middle chamber. Eventually, you’ll get a wheel-turning choice adventure. Turn it, and note you’ve made a whole of 1 turn! This’ll move the lower chamber around, but don’t bother going down there yet.

Now, you have a choice. Not much of one, but still. You can either continue to turn the wheel, or kill rats in the upper chamber and hope for ratchets (which, when used, turn the wheel once). The middle chamber is probably easier, especially if you have non-combat manipulation skills.

When you’ve turned the wheel 3 times, the lower chamber should contain an empty room, and something hanging from the ceiling on the other. Adventure there to get an ancient bronze token, then head back to the middle chamber. Turn the wheel 4 more times to get a rocks and vending machine combination, then adventure in the lower chambers to get an ancient bomb. Finally, turn the wheel 3 more times to get it to an empty room, and a rock-filled room, and adventure in the lower chambers to open Ed’s chamber.

A long, long battle against Ed:

This boss fight takes 7 battles, starting off hard and progressively getting easier.

Whatever you do, don’t have once-per-battle skills set to auto attack, because it’ll mean you lose getting the jump.

The methods to beat him vary a little between classes, but one thing that’ll help for all of them is maxing your initiative out. Whilst Ed gets progressively easier, the only reason for it is his max HP lowering, all his other stats remain the same (so if he hits you for 30 a battle, and always gets the jump, you’ll have to suffer 210 damage by the end, for instance).

Muscle classes should use a wereseal blood, ticking clock, bengal balm, heal up, and equip melee weapons. First couple of forms may hit you a few times, but after that you should be fairly safe.

Pastamancers and Saucerors should use their spells, of course. Saucerors will probably want the HP saucesphere running, to help with the HP (and possibly saucy salve), whilst pastamancers will want to use entangling noodles on the first form, and then use the best spells they have for the rest of it.

Moxie classes, of course, will boost moxie. DBs using their skills should get him to not hitting you soon enough, too.

Wrapping up level 11 (wheeee):

Likely, you’ll be reasonably close to level 12 already, no matter what familiar you used, so this shouldn’t take long.

Gallery is still good if you have non-combat enhancing skills, otherwise sticking in one of the newly opened areas works well too (especially the palindome, as it has good stat adventures, good monsters, and reasonable drops).

If you havent done the hole yet, now is also a good time to do that. If you havent done enough Daily Dungeon runs yet, you may wish to work on them too, before it’s too late.

Level 12: Everybody loves a good war

Another large level, this will probably take you well into level 13, unless you’ve got a few skills under your belt.

If you haven’t opened the palindome, this quest won’t start, as the pirates disappear. Also, if there are things you want to do in the pre-war island areas, do that before visiting the council.

Starting the war:

First off, if you don’t have one already, you’ll need either a frat or hippy outfit. If you have one, skip this bit!

Pick what side you want the outfit for, and get adventuring in their zone. As you’ll soon notice, both camps are completely different places to adventure in now. Non-combats everywhere, but some nice statgains from them. If you keep at it, you’ll eventually be given the outfit parts.

Once you’ve gotten the basic outfit, equip it, and adventure at either camp. If you adventure in the same camp as your outfit, you’ll get more non-combats, some that give war outfit parts, and uncommon battles against a spy from the other side. If you adventure in the other, you’ll get into combats, and get war outfit parts that way (this’ll get you the opposite side’s war outfit). Any combats arent anything worse that what you fought in the pyramid.

Once you have a full war outfit, equip that, and adventure in the other side’s area. Fight your way through the hippies/frat boys, until you get the choice adventure that has the following choice:

Hippy Camp (in war frat outfit): In “Blockin’ out the scenery” choose “The Lookout Tower”
Frat Camp (in war hippy outfit): In “Fratacombs”, choose “Screw this, head to the roof”

This’ll open up the island more, and begin the war!

Fighting the war: Getting Started (165-175)

The war is split into the two sides, each starting with half the island in their “control” (well, kinda). Each side has 1000 troops, and you take away 2^x troops per soldier killed on each side (x being the number of sidequests done).

Of course, you want the “x” value above to be reasonable. So we’ll start with a few sidequests. The sidequests open in a certain order for each side:
Hippy:

Start with the farm, the orchard and the nunnery available
After 7 troops are gone from the picture (the left image is image 7) the lighthouse is available
After 14 troops are gone, the junkyard is available
After 21 troops are gone, the arena is available.

Frat:

Start with arena, junkyard and lighthouse
After 7 troops, the orchard is available
After 14 troops, the nunnery is available
After 21 troops, the farm is available.

Fighting the war: Duck, Duck, Farmer?

Another fairly straight-forward sidequest. But harder to explain. If you don’t want the long version, just kill all them ducks deaded! If you want the slightly longer version: If you have an extra chaos butterfly, use it at some stage. It will cause a tornado to kill a bunch of ducks for you, saving a bunch of turns!

Head to the barn, and start fighting dooks! As you kill them off, you’ll get 3 choice advs (in the following order) that make the dooks scatter elsewhere (note the comment at the end specifies what the ducks are good for):

Cornered:

Grab the pitchfork and wave it around: Unlocks Granary (meaty ducks)
Bang on the cowbell: The Bog (stench ducks)
Make a fence out of the barbed wire: The Pond (cold ducks)

Cornered again:

Knock over the lantern: Back 40 (fire ducks)
Try to catch them in the beartrap: The Family Plot (spooky ducks)

How many corners does this stupid barn have?:

Grab the shotgun and start firing: The Shady Thicket (drunk ducks)
Dump out the drum: The Other Back 40 (sleazy ducks)

Then head off to the opened areas and kill the ducks off there.

Once you’re done, talk to the farmer (twice) to get your reward, and until the quest is complete you can talk to him again once a day to get more!

Fighting the war: Filthworms!

One of the easier quests, this consists of 3 combat areas and a boss fight. None of which are really anything you haven’t handled before.

Buff up for item drops, then head into the orchard area, and into the hatchling chamber. Fight the hatchling filthworms until one drops a stench gland, and use that.

With your newly-found stinkyness, head to the feeding chamber, and fight until you get another type of stench gland there. Then do the same in the guard chamber.

Once you’ve got the royal stench gland, use it, and fight the queen. You may wish to swap to a meat drop familiar here, as the meat drop is good.

Take the heart to the orchard guy, and he’ll reward you with access to the store (and a few extra things). Also, if you talk to him again, he’ll give you ~5k meat. Yay!

After this, you can talk to him once a day to get the meat again, so don’t forget about it.

Fighting the war: Gremlins and other junk

Another short, but not quite as easy, sidequest. For this one, you’re required to let the monsters hit you, so make sure you either buff up your absorption and reduction stats, or take a few potions with you (or skills, if you’re a myst class). Remember that gremlins never miss!

First, talk to the NPC, and he’ll give you the magnet. Talk to him again, and he’ll hint at where the first tool is. Each tool is “dropped” by a specific gremlin type, so here’s a list:

Hammer: Batwinged gremlin
Wrench: Erudite gremlin
Pliers: Spider gremlin
Screwdriver: Vegetable gremlin

So those are the ones you need to look out for.

To get the items, you have to let the gremlins hit you, but only bother doing this on the gremlins that actually have the item you’re looking for (and only in the area you were told to look in). Just kill the other gremlins as you would with any other monster.

As you get hit, you’ll get various combat messages, and one will contain the mention of using the item you’re looking for. Use the magnet (it’s a combat item) and you’ll recover the item (and win the fight). Take it back to get your next tool location, and continue doing this until all four tools are recovered.

As a reward, you’ll get a nifty non-tradeable equipment item.

Fighting the war: Bandits, and meat you’ll never get

For this quest, you’ll want to buff up your meat drops. A lot if possible, as the goal is to recover 100k meat for the Sisters.

You’ll only fight the one type of monster, and they’re not exceptionally hard to kill, so just keep at it. The Sister’s give you a hint to how far you are along after every combat.

Once you’re done, the sisters will give you free healing 3x a day (HP, or HP & MP, depending on who helped them).

Fighting the war: The lighthouse near the beach

For this quest, you want your combat-rate enhanced as much as possible.

Talk to the guy at the lighthouse, then head to the beach. There is only one combat here, the one you need to get five times (gunpowder is a 100% drop)… but there are a lot of non-combats, a lot of which are completely unhelpful to you.

Yet again, the monsters aren’t too hard, but on the non-combat side watch out for HP loss, as one of the adventures is very, very painful.

Once you’ve gotten the five gunpowder barrels, talk to the lighthouse guy twice, and he’ll reward you with some bombs.

Fighting the war: Flying around, and making music

Of all the sidequests, this one is probably the most tedious, as its speed is increased by monster level.

When you activate it, you’re given some flyers to put on monsters. Lots of monsters. 10000 power worth of monsters, to be exact, and you can’t use them on the battlefield.

If you’re doing this on the frat side, you can get a chunk done whilst doing the lighthouse and junkyard quests. Otherwise, just head to the hardest area you can handle (possibly with monster level enhancers) and keep track of how far you’ve gotten. Once you hit 10k, the arena becomes a once-a-day buff area.

One sneakier tactic for this quest is to use the special monster in the bathroom (the Guy Made of Bees). He has a power way over 10000, so a single flyer on him will satisfy the quest’s condition. Note, though, to get this guy you need to say his name into the mirror five times, so it can take a while if you haven’t prepared earlier (as mentioned whenever I mentioned the bathroom up there).
The only way to kill the GMoB is to use the Antique hand mirror on him (from the bedroom's jilted mistress). But what you want is to slap the GMoB with the flyers from the arena to complete that quest, kill him, AND survive the whole thing, too.
Two ways to do this:
- As a DB, use double-handed funkslinging with the flyers at the top and the Antique hand mirror below it.
- Otherwise, use a brick as your first attack. This will stun the GMoB for 2 turns, enough to use the flyers first and then the mirror.
Head back to the Arena to finish the quest, you'll now have access to a daily buff in there.

Fighting the war: Onto the battlefield

After doing 3 (or less) of the above quests, you’ll be stuck with heading here. It’s all combats, except for the first adventure on each side.

The frat boys are weak against cold and spooky, the hippies against sleaze and cold.

If you’re a myst class, these battles should be fairly easy. Just grab a cold book, and hit them with all you’ve got! (noodles, then eXtreme ray or cone of whatever as a PM, Wave of Sauce with saucespheres as a Sauceror).

Other classes can easily use their old tactics, but note that adding cold damage, or sleaze (vs hippy) or spooky (vs frat) will increase damage per round a nice amount.

Once you’ve killed enough troops to hit image #7, the fourth sidequest opens up. Do it if you wish, or not. There’s a sweet spot around the 3 or 4 quest done area where you’ll finish right on level 13 if you have done that many (If you do four, you’ll likely be just short. If you do three, you’ll be a bit over).

Just keep on going through the battlefield until they’re all dead, stopping for sidequests when the need arises. If you run low on HP or MP, consider using the communications item for your team (windchimes and PADL phone) to get a nice chunk back. Just be warned that using it again within a few battles will have it taken from you, with no effect.

Ending the war: Cleaning up before the boss

When you hit the end, you’ll get a nice “the way to the <other area base> is clear” message, and know you’re nearly done. But first, you should make sure you’ve gotten the most out of yours (and possibly the enemies) war store.

Here’s a list of what’s worth it:

Gauze garter/filthy poultice: Best healing item you’ll see, and it helps a lot with the NS fight, and if you have funkslinging, the shadow
Monster energy drink/Carbonated soy milk: Good MP restorer. Really good.
Kick ass kicks/gaia beads: smashity for elemental wads
Massive Sitar: For getting past the guitar-needing bit of the NS lair
Frat Army FGF/Hippy Army MPE: Good source of food, and to a lesser extent, booze.

The combat items are also nice for things like the NS, so if you’re lost just stock up on them. Or you could buy the 1000-autosell item, and use the meat instead.

The 50-power weapons are also nice for a musc/mox class (melee/ranged respectively), but probably not worth getting (except the sitar mentioned above).

Ending the war: Boss fight

The special trait of both bosses is really their huge amount of HP, which is roughly around 2000. They also have an extended round count (50, rather than 30).

Make sure that you can do that much damage in 50 turns, give or take a number for healing, filling MP, or whatever.

If you can get your moxie over 250, that should make this battle fairly easy. Myst classes should stick to high-end spells (with the same elements mentioned earlier), which’ll allow you to kill the boss in 7 or 8 hits.

Also make use of any combat items that block the enemy for a number of turns, or block and delevel. Gas balloons and chloroform rags are good examples of the first type.

If it comes to it, you’re probably sitting on a lot of buffing items right now (or reagents, if you can cast them), so using them should make the battle easy.

Working your way to level 13 (if need be):

The same areas as always apply, but you also have a nice new shiny one (if you can handle it). The post-war bombed areas have high stat gain and drop decent items, so if you’re sick of all those other areas there’s an option for you.

You could (and probably should) also consider killing your daily allotment of ducks. They drop good combat items, and of course duct tape.

Also make one final check you’ve gotten everything done. Remember you’ll need at least one type of ! potion and one type of south of the border item during the next quest, too!

Level 13: Gates, Mazes, Towers, and the final battles

The Three Gates:

These follow a nice little pattern: Item from zones you have been to, items from south of the border, and items from the dungeons of doom! Here’s a list of the possible gates, the effects needed, and where to get them (in the case of the first gate, in all cases anyways, read the wiki).

Gate one:

Gate of Hilarity: Comic Violence (Gremlin Juice, Gremlins, Junkyard)
Gate of Humility: Wussiness (Wussiness Potion, W Imps, Friars gate)
Gate of Morose Morbidity and Moping: Rainy Soul Miasma (thin black candle, goth giants, Castle in the sky)
Gate of Slack: Extreme Muscle Relaxation (Mick’s Icyvapohotness rub, raver giants, Castle in the sky)
Gate of Spirit: Woad Warrior (pygmy pigment, pygmys, hidden city ruins)
Gate of the Porcupine: Spiky Hair (spiky hair gel, Protagonist, Airship)
Gate of the Suc Rose: sugar rush (various candy)
Gate of the Viper: deadly flashing blade (adder bladder, black adder, black forest)
Locked Gate: Locks like a Raven (Black No.2, black panther, black forest).

Gate 2: (south of the border items)

Gate of Flame: Spicy Mouth (jabañero-flavored chewing gum)
Gate of Intrigue: Mysteriously Handsome (handsomeness potion)
Gate of Machismo: Engorged Weapon (Meleegra pills)
Gate of Mystery: Mystic Pickleness (pickle-flavored chewing gum)
Gate of the Dead: Hombre Muerto Caminando (marzipan skull)
Gate of Torment: Tamarind Torment (tamarind-flavored chewing gum)
Gate of Zest: Spicy Limeness (lime-and-chile-flavored chewing gum)

Gate 3: (Dungeons of Doom Potions)

Gate of Light: Izchak's Blessing
Gate Of That Which is Hidden: Object Detection
Gate of the Mind: Strange Mental Acuity
Gate of the Ogre: Strength of Ten Ettins
Gate that is Not a Gate: Teleportitis
Note as the potion effects randomize each run, yo

You’ll need to experiment with potions (in combat, or by using them) to get the effects.

The Huge Mirror:

All you need to do for this is get completely nekkid (unequip all) and your familiar needs to drop its gear, too. You’ll receive the huge mirror shard as a reward.

The Entrance Cavern:

If you have two of the legends keys here, feel free to zap one after using it to get your third.

First off, the door. Here you need to enter the following keys, with the following conditions to pass them:

Boris’s key: Enter “fish” into the textbox
Jarlsberg’s key: Enter “phish” into the textbox
Sneaky Pete’s Key: Enter “fsh” into the textbox
Richard’s Star Key: Use it with a star hat, star weapon, and star starfish equipped
Skeleton key (skeleton bone + loose teeth): Use it until you roll an 11, or have a ten-leaf clover in your inventory to win straight up. In BM, you'll use the Loaded Dice you get from the Hidden Temple. For no-clover runs, you'll just have to roll and roll until you get the 11
Digital key: The sequence should read: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A.

There is also a reward for using a balloon monkey here.

Next, combine the three fishy things you received together to obtain SCUBA gear, equip that, and head off to the Perplexing Odor to activate the Stone Mariachis.

At the Stone Mariachis, you need the 3 tablets (from the door) and instruments of 3 different types:

Guitars: Any Banjo (big rock + banjo strings) or Guitarrr weapon, or a massive sitar
Accordions: Any accordion-based weapon
Percussion: Either the bone rattle (broken skull + skeleton bone), or a tambourine (tambourine bells + Gnollish pie tin).

This will open the way into the maze:

The Hedge Maze:

Hopefully the enemies here won’t give you any trouble, as they’re much weaker than the boss you recently killed. You need to get them to drop their puzzles, so buff up item drops!

Once you get a puzzle, you need to begin moving it into the formation that will get you the key. The puzzle changes every ascension, too, so don’t fall into the trap of clicking the same areas by habit. No doubt, golems will steal it as you go, in which case you go get more a few times.

Once the map is leading to the key, adventure again to get it, then work on changing the map to the door, getting more puzzles as you need them.

Easy, eh?

The Tower:

Each monster requires a specific item to beat, so here’s a list of who, what, and where:
Beer Batter: baseball (guano junction)
Best-Selling Novelist: plot hole (Castle in the sky)
Big Meat Golem: meat vortex (Orc Chasm)
Bowling Cricket: sonar-in-a-biscuit (guano junction)
Bronze Chef: leftovers of indeterminate origin (Haunted Kitchens)
concert pianist: Knob Goblin firecracker (outskirts of Cobb's Knob)
The Darkness: inkwell (Haunted Library)
El Diablo: mariachi G-string (South of the Border)
Electron Submarine: photoprotoneutron torpedo (Airship)
endangered inflatable white tiger: pygmy blowgun (Hidden City Ruins)
Fancy Bath Slug: fancy bath salts (Haunted bathroom)
Fickle Finger of F8: razor-sharp can lid (Haunted Pantry)
Flaming Samurai: frigid ninja stars (Ninja Snowman Lair)
giant fried egg: black pepper (in black picnic baskets, which drop in the black forest)
Giant Desktop Globe: NG
Ice Cube: can of hair spray (Demon Market)
malevolent crop circle: bronzed locust (Arid, Extra-dry desert (dont forget ultrahydrated))
Possessed Pipe-Organ: powdered organs (found in canopic jars, which drop in the pyramid)
Pretty Fly: spider web (sleazy back alley)
Tyrannosaurus Tex: chaos butterfly (castle in the sky)
Vicious Easel: disease (Fun house or harem)

Floor six monsters:

Collapsed mineshaft golem: stick of dynamite (top shore trip)
Enraged Cow: barbed-wire fence (bottom shore trip)
giant bee: tropical orchid (middle shore trip)

The Chamber:

First bit is the door code, a fairly simple logic puzzle. The hint is given by the lower option, and you enter the code with the other one. For those lazy among us, here’s a website to do it for you!

http://jick-nerfed.us/cgi-bin/door.cgi

After this, equip the huge mirror shard you got earlier, and this’ll get you past the next bit.

Then you’ve got the shadow. You’ll either need 4 red pixel potions, or if you have funkslinging 5 or 6 gauze garters/filthy poultices. Go in with full HP, and use them, and you’ll beat him fairly easily. You can beat him with garters/poultices without funkslinging, but chances are low.

The penultimate challenges are against two giant familiars. For these, you need an opposing familiar at 20 lbs to pass it. Here’s a list of what beats what, and some items that may help you with the weight problem.

Giant Mosquito: Beaten by lime
Giant Lime: Beaten by levitating potato
Giant Potato: Beaten by barrrnacle
Giant Barrrnacle: Beaten by angry goat
Giant Angry Goat: Beaten by mosquito.

And the familiars weight items/buffs:

Amphibian Sympathy: +5, TT passive
Empathy of the newt: +5, TT buff
Leash of Linguini: +5, PM self-buff
Green (or black) Snowcone: +5, Summonable Snowcone (Mr. Store skill)
Green Candy Heart: +3, Summonable candy heart (Mr. Store skill)
Knob goblin pet-buffing spray: +5, from the knob lab store (need elite guard disguise)
Disintergrating Spiky Collar: +5, wormwood area drop (Mr. Store familiar area)
Plexiglass Pith Helmet: +5, Oxygenerian TT reward
Lead Necklace: +3, arena prize
Irradiated Pet Snacks: +10, Menagerie 2 semi-rare

And, of course, the familiar specific equipment is also +5

Once you’re past both, you’re at the final battle.

Naughty Sorceress Battle:

First off, you must combine all those letters you found earlier into WAND to get the “wand of nagamar”, which is needed in your inventory to kill the final form of Her Naughtiness.

The battle here is tough, so I’ll have to write a full tactics thingy here. Later =P

A few pointers, though: She will remove all yours buffs before fighting so don't bother buffing yourself up. She has three stages. The first two stages are normal combat except for the fact that she can block your actions some of the time. How often she blocks you actions depends on how many times you have fought her. The more you fight her, the less she blocks actions and the easier she is. Her final stage requires that a Wand of Nagamar be equipped. To create a Wand of Nagamar, combine WA (Ruby W and Metallic A) and ND (Lowercase N and Heavy D) together. Her damage to you in battle is determined by your moxie. Low moxie weakens her attack, while a moxie above roughly 220 will block her altogether. The seal clubber skills Thrust-Smack and Double-Fisted Skull Smashing are both very useful against the NS.

Good items to use in the battle are Furry Suit (reduce her strength in combat) or the Star Garb (make yourself as powerful as possible). Any damage dealing accessories help greatly here. Flaming talons, a kickback cookbook, enchanted toothpicks, enchanted brass knuckles are all good picks. Damage absorbing items do not work against her. Some good combat items to use in battle are cola grenades, throwing stars, photoprotoneutron torpedos, macrame nets, and plot holes. The Disco Bandit skill Ambidextrous Funkslinging is very useful when using combat items.

A Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot is one of the most effective familiars to use, as it can heal you, and damage and delay the NS. A Ghost Pickle on a Stick is effective in combat. It will both damage and slow the Sorceress. Dodecapedes are also excellent damage dealers.

After she’s dead,

- Go to town and check for trophies, some you need to get before freeing the king. Check the wiki too, there may be some stuff you may want to do at this point that you won’t be able to do afterwards

- Free the king – just click on the crystal

- You’re done, now you’re in Aftercore and can adventure around at leisure, all HC and pathed restrictions dropped EXCEPT BM requirements. If you want to run a BM next you still cannot use clovers, sorry

- After you’re done in aftercore, just come back to the tower and click in the rift to ascend