Necro Books: Soul Meld and Rest of the Dead II

After reading the Necro must have Guide I was sort of confused about how to get these delectable books. Here's what I learned:

Soul Meld (Necromancer Resurrection)
This book is found in in the Vault of Hidden in Jathred's Twist; not in any of the other Vault of the Hidden locations around Telon. It can drop off any of the Sentry Golems (4 dots that are level 42 or 43) in that dungeon.

Being named "Vault of the Hidden" you'd think the place would be hard to find. Perhaps it was, but now there are runway landing markers... Grab a flying mount and rift to Ahgram. Fly pretty much due east over the river and over the mountains and look for a set of parallel pillars (the landing markers) aligned roughly north/south. Don't land there, but off to the side where there are no nasties.

This is a big place, fortunately I only died once scouting it out with a bard friend. If you have a bard friend the place is really cool to see. Do a double invisibility (e.g., they use the bard invis and you do undead invis) - that will cover you for the most part. The one time I died it was because I touched a curtain of fire and got flung back into a construct where the damage shield from Bone Mail hit him, undid the invis, and I got pulped. (Which is how you learn the hard way that bonemail has a stupid 5pt dmg shield).

To find the Sentry golems is fairly straight forward. Just go through the entrance and keep turning left. Eventually it will open into a huge underground area and you'll see one of the Sentry Golems in front of you (big suits of armor filled with fire). If you're to be summoned, there's a safe spot behind a wall (it's actually a ledge so don't move after being summoned or you could fall off) that's off to your left and a little ways forward (patrols wander on the other side of the wall, but they didn't detect us). I had a guild-buddy that did a great job holding the Sentries while I burned them down. I got my book on the 2nd one, your mileage may vary.

The skill does resurrect as promised, but they come up with no health of energy, so be sure its safe when you do this.


Rest of the Dead II (Necromancer Fast Feign Death)
I read all kinds of things about this. Supposedly it will drop off Chancellors and Knights - but i didn't find it that way and I killed a fair number. I ended up killing High Guardian Auroc'Yor (43.5) and got it on the first one. It supposedly also drops of the summoned mobs, but it takes 50 of those insignias to get a summoning writ. The High Guardian Auroc'Yor doesn't need to be summoned (it supposedly also drops off High Commander Raku'Yor , but I didn't see him).

Once again this is a vast dungeon and I lost count of the number of times I died. Lots of stuff see through invis here (both types) and there's a little ball that floats around whose sole purpose is to make you visible. So, be prepared for a big fight.

So, get a mount, cast undead invis, and fly to the front door of the tallest tower. You can click to open the door while flying and fly right in. Once inside you're safe for a bit, so feel free to check out the cool summoning circle on the floor.

Make sure everyone has undead invis and head down the stairs. It'll open up into a room and two quest givers are there. One of these will exchange tokens for a writ to do the summoning. You don't need them for the book.

Through the doorway across from you there are some hounds and hound masters. Just ignore them. You want to go right and down the stairs. Take a good look at these stairs. The graphics are reused for the stairs you want later.

When you get to the bottom of the stairs there are two sentries. You can walk by these with undead invisibility. If you're soloing these for ep, mez one and have the pet tank the other. Don't forget to FD to drop the aggro on the mezzed one at some point or you'll end up with a real fight on your ends.

To the north of the two guards just discussed is a chamber. Inside is another quest giver, but he's not needed for the book. No one in this chamber sees through undead invisibility, but in the west passage out of this chamber they do - so be careful. To bee-line to the high guardian Auroc'Yor or the high commander Rakh'Yor you want the north passage out of this room.

The sentries guarding the north passage don't see through undead invisibility, but in the chamber beyond there are two wanders that do. I suggest killing the two sentries and waiting in that passage for the wanders to get close enough to pull and kill.

From the chamber just discussed you want to take the North East passage out. That leads to another chamber. You want the north exit (in the middle of the room) - do whatever it takes to get there. From there follow the passage to the stairs and head down. The stairs are a safe spot.

At the bottom of the stairs are more sentries and a quest giver. Wait for the wander in the chamber to the north to get out of the way, then kill the two sentries at the doorway. When the wander comes by again, grab him and kill him.

Now, a quick word about the Knights and Chancellors. All Chancellors see through undead invis and anyone with low a hp pool (e.g. necros) should stay out of there AOE. You might also want to use your curse buster. The knights have an odd behavior. Unless they have a patrol to walk, they won't budge from there spot until thier health get's relatively low. This makes them easy targets.

Okay - once you've dealt with the Knights at the chamber entrance and the wanderer stick close to the right side of the chamber and you can get to the north end of the chamber without having to kill anything else. This is your new favorite spot. You'll be pulling the next 5 or so things here to kill.

First, there's a knight and chancellor guarding the north passage out of the chamber. Take down the chancellor (the knight won't budge) and then deal with the knight. In the passage are a couple of chancellors and wanders. When the time is right, mez one and run for your favorite spot, the other will follow and you can burn it down. Repeat until you have the north passage clear.

At this point, you can relocate to the north passage. In the chamber beyond you want the east passage. There are a lot of chancellors here so take it slow and easy. They don't respawn very quickly, kill everything and take over the east passage.

In the chamber beyond you want the north passage. Once through there I took the south branch and there was Auroc'Yor waiting for me with my book!

Here's a nice map, you want to head towards the "9" at the top.

Did I mention it's a good spot to solo for ep? At level 46 my necro was getting ~65k ep kill.

A word about "Soul Fragments" - you get these using your necromancy "harvesting" skill, but they're a fairly rare drop. They are the spell component for Soul Meld, so use your resurrections carefully as you'll have a limited supply!