Quest:Snark Hunt
From Cities
Prerequisite: Water Initiation
Reward: Keep the Snark in a Sack as an unbreakable weapon (base 5 damage, -30% to hit) or release it in exchange for improved vision. This allows you to see the 4 terrain squares in the corners, exactly as if you were wearing Field Glasses
Location: Temple of Water in Water City 94E 92N DSSGCM
AP Cost: 50AP, 10AP to release the Snark
When you sign up you're given innate ability to know in which direction the Snark is, and a bag to put the Snark in. Attack the Snark with the sack to capture it. Be warned though, the Snark does heavy damage (20 points -Orky) if you miss with the sack (and also has one chance to hit you after you've captured it), so make sure your health is high before you try!
Every time a Snark is caught, another one appears in a different place somewhere between the 4 cities. If the direction to the snark changes suddenly, this is probably what happened.
Note that there is no way to get the Snark back once you release him.
You release the snark... The snark mutters a spell and you feel a strange tingle in your optic nerve. The snark gives voice to a second spell. Your sack crumbles to dust. You lose a Snark in a Sack. Now using Fists.
Current Sighting
- 69E 58N. parking_god 17:33, 13 May 2008 (BST)
- 74E 47N. Fraggle 18:36, 7 April 2008 (BST)
- Err.... just saw another Snark at 75E 31N. Somebody playing games with a Wand of Illusion? Fraggle 18:40, 7 April 2008 (BST)
- 36E 27N Just to the west of Standing Stone XVII Anoki 22:48, 27 August 2008 (BST)
Suggestions
Having caught the Snark, I have some suggestions which might prove useful to other adventurers.
If you are going to hunt the Snark, I suggest getting there quickly (ie. within a day), as there's nothing more frustrating than spending several days tracking it, to find that someone else has caught it before you.
You can use a form of triangulation to help determine its position. Pick one of the roads; I used the Western road, for example. Walk along the road and note the location where the indicator changes from "The Snark is to the East North East" to "The Snark is to the East", and do the same for the transition from East to East South East. Average the latitudes of these two readings and you will get an approximate reading for the latitude of the Snark. For example, if ENE->E = 75, and E->ESE = 85, then the Snark is at approximately 80N.
You can also get an approximate reading for the longitude using the same technique. The closer together the two readings are, the closer the Snark is to the road. If L1 and L2 are your two latitude readings, X = 4 + |L2 - L1| * 2.4142. (I add 4 because the Western road is at 4E).
These only give you a very very rough approximation of the Snark's position, but it should get you close enough that you can use your innate Snark-sensing abilities to do the rest. You can tell when you are close to the Snark because your indicator will start changing frequently as you move from one square to the next.
Anyway, hopefully this is helpful, and maybe someone will draw up some diagrams as they will undoubtedly make this easier to understand! Fraggle 18:33, 30 September 2007 (BST)
- Actually, PotatoEngineer created the Tarot Tool to help with that. Thanks for explaining how it works though. Flt 18:46, 30 September 2007 (BST)
