ToME WikiThe quest entrance to Eol's cave lies in the far south-east corner of Gondolin, past the Earth-Dome, nestled in the mountains which ring the city.
The quest level itself is a small but randomly shaped room. It is completely open aside from whatever nooks there might occur in the outline of the room; there are no trees or doors. But as the quest itself states, there are LOTS of traps.
Eol, the Dark Elf is waiting for you within. Eol is fast. He can summon monsters, blink-self and heal-self, and can also hit to reasonably good effect. He is vulnerable to confusion. He resists fire, cold, poison and electricity -- but not acid. (He is also not evil.) He has a fairly high chance of dropping the long sword Anguirel.
To beat the quest, you must kill Eol. He may well summon on you, but any summoned monsters do not count towards winning the quest.
Once you've killed Eol, the mayor of Gondolin will give you a Dwarven Lantern of the Magi with a random power level (usually around 2 or 3).
Chatter
RedNaga: the quest text seem to suggest a possible peaceful solution of some type (i.e. finishing the quest without killing Eol). Is this possible or the text is just ambiguous?
MayLith: You must kill Eol to complete the quest.
ZasVid: Does he really drop Anguirel? I've found this artifact from other sources too. I think he drops it if it wasn't dropped before, or has just a big chance to drop it.
MayLith: Uhmmmmm... I'm not sure. I wrote this page after polishing off Eol, and he dropped it. Can anyone confirm?
RedNaga: well, by perusing the "r_info" file we can see that Eol has the 'DROP_CHOSEN' flag, which indicate it has some specific object he always drop. However, whatever this object is (you're probably right about Anguirel, though), most artifact tied to monsters via the 'DROP_CHOSEN' flag are sometimes generated randomly (i'm pretty sure about Marda and Saruman, both of which has specific artifacts that i found from other sources). Whether this is a bug or was intended to be so, i don't know (note however that i never found 'out of place' one of the granted artifacts owned by dungeon guardians).
ZasVid: Artifacts with SPECIAL_GENE flag can't be generated randomly, but seemingly some chosen drops, like Anguirel, don't have this flag, so they can appear somewhere else. This is also true for Calris and Durin's Bane.
MayLith: Weird. So it is NOT a fixed drop, then... am I getting that right? (How can it not be random but still be... random? My brain hurts...)
RedNaga: is there any Mind Flayer near :P ? Seriously, though, it can be explained that way: the artifact can be generated anywhere, but if it hasn't still been generated when you kill the unique "tied" to it, it will be in his/her/its drop.
MayLith: Well, I'm interested in what the fact is. The explanation for the fact can come later.
NeilStevens: DROP_CHOSEN sends the code into a list of ifs at monster death, where there is a guaranteed OR random chance (set differently for each monster) of creating that monster's artifact. The artifacts that are only randomly generated do not have the SPECIAL_GENE that prevents random generation elsewhere.
MayLith: Got it. Thank you.
As for the peaceful solution, too bad. It would have been a nice addition being able to end it by beguiling or talking it out. It could even have been an use for a *very high* CHA (hint).
MayLith: Don't just "hint" it here; post your thought in the IdeaArchive. Otherwise it'll get lost...
FingO: HELP! I've killed good ol' Eol and his summoned minions, wanted to get my reward, and the Stairs are away! How can I get outta the quest???
EhUd42: I can second that help because I created a void jump gate on the up stairs. I don't think I can get out (and yes I forgot recall scrolls). Does anyone else have any ideas.
NeilStevens: What version are you all playing?
guest: No artifact drop for me. Eol dropped only "good" equipment. Char level: 34.
NeilStevens: Eol isn't guaranteed to drop Anguriel. He just has a good chance of doing so.
blahpers: It appears he isn't guaranteed to drop any artifact at all, so I removed the phrase.
spamtrap: It was easy for my favorite Ent Assassin character. Read scrolls of Trap detection, Grove Trees for cover, and kill the bad dude. Also There were a trap that gave sets of very good daggers. I stepped into it several times, and sold for cca 5k Gold each.