Quests Act I (Diablo II)
Contents
Act One: The Sightless Eye
The main quest in Act One is to find Andariel, in her throne room deep under the Rogues' Monastery, and defeat her and her army of minions. You must kill her to clear the pass and advance on to Act Two with Warriv's caravan.
Quest One: Den of Evil
- Triggered By: Starting the Act
- Given by: Akara the Healer
- Location: Blood Moor
- Reward: One skill point from Akara
- Quest Priority: Not a mandatory quest, but you'll always want to do it since it's got a great reward, and is very easy.
This is an easy quest, you need merely kill all the monsters in the den. There are usually around 50 of them, depending on the random spawn and size of the Den. When you get down to five left the Quest Button will pop up telling you that, and the display in the Quest Window will count down the remaining kills.
Tips: The only potentially tricky part is if you miss a monster, often a Fallen Warrior that will run when you kill something else and get lost in a corner. Clear the Den systematically; be sure you've gotten everything in one area before you move on, especially running Fallen, and you won't have to waste time hunting all over the place for that one last monster.
Quest Two: Sister's Burial Grounds
- Triggered By: Entering the Cold Plains
- Given by: Kashya the Rogue Leader
- Location: Cemetery off the Cold Plains
- Reward: One free Rogue mercenary from Kashya and option to hire more of them.
- Quest Priority: Not mandatory, and most characters skip it.
You must find the Cemetery and kill Blood Raven, an evil corrupted Rogue, to complete this quest. To reach the Cemetery you need only follow the dirt path through the Cold Plains. It will fork twice, one path leads to the Stony Field (where you need to go to advance through the act), another leads to a Cave dungeon level, and the other leads to the Cemetery. You have to just follow them and see where they go, and if you pick the wrong fork backtrack and follow the path onwards. It's not a very large area, so you can just run around the perimeter if you don't want to follow the paths; you'll get there eventually.
The Cemetery is full of skeletons and zombies, as you'd expect, and you can kill them for experience or just go right for Blood Raven. She is an archer, as befits a rogue, and very fleet of foot. She is fond of dashing around the cemetery and stopping to shoot arrows when her pursuers get hung up on the hordes of undead. Blood Raven can also raise more zombies while within the graveyard. When she dies there is a fantastic bit of eye candy, with streaks of lightning pouring out of her levitating body. These will kill off any Undead in the area.
Once you kill her when you next return to town Kashya will be eager to talk, and when you do she'll give a speech about the death of Blood Raven, and you get a free Rogue mercenary. You don't get to pick your own, you are assigned one randomly, but once you finish this quest you can hire more at any time. You don't have to do the quest to hire rogue mercs though, once you are past Clvl 8 you get that option anyway.
Tips: Blood Raven is pretty nasty, she does a lot more damage than anything you've faced in the game up to that point, or will face in the next few areas. Low hit point characters should be prepared to drink a lot of potions, and she's very fast, so expect to chase her around quite a bit as well. She continually raises zombies up from the cemetery earth, and these are normal monsters, you can kill them for full experience and item drops, and it's usually a good idea to kill a bunch of them before you go after Blood Raven, or you'll be running through crowds after her and taking cheap hits from them.
In the Cemetery there are two crypt entrances that each lead to a small dungeon with a golden chest, if you want to level up some more before you take on Blood Raven.
Quest Three: Rescue Cain
- Triggered By: Reaching the Dark Woods
- Given by: Akara
- Location: Tristram, reached via the Field of Stones
- Reward: Free item identification from Cain and a ring from Akara. Ring Ilvl: Normal 7 (magical ring), Nightmare 28 (Rare Ring), Hell 49 (Rare Ring). The ring's Ilvls are preset, it doesn't matter what your Clvl is when you do this quest or get the reward.
- Quest Priority: This is not a mandatory quest, but it's useful to get free ID's from Cain and the ring reward.
Finding and rescuing Cain is the most complicated quest in Act One. You must:
- Travel from the Field of Stones through the Underground Passageway to the Dark Woods.
- Find the Tree of Inifuss and click on it to get the Scroll of Inifuss.
- Take the Scroll of Inifuss to Akara where she will translate it.
- Take the translated Scroll to the Field of Stones and click on the five stones in the correct sequence. (Or just click on them all randomly as they light up one by one.)
- Go through the red portal that opens up in the middle of the stones to Tristram.
- Find Cain in his cage in Tristram and free him by clicking on it.
- Return to the Rogue Encampment for your reward(s).
Tip: Find the waypoint in the Dark Woods before you return to town with the Scroll of Inifuss. This will save you a long walk back from the Stony Field through the Underground Passageway to the Dark Woods after you rescue Cain.
Quest Four: The Forgotten Tower
- Triggered By: Reading the Moldy Tome, found in the Field of Stones
- Location: Find the Forgotten Tower ruins in the Black Marsh
- Reward: Killing the Countess on the fifth level of the tower releases dozens of stacks of gold and numerous items from the magical chest.
- Quest Priority: This is not a mandatory quest, and most characters skip it. It became more popular with v1.08, as the Countess began to drop a Rune nearly every time.
The trigger, reading the Tower Tome, is not required for this quest. You can just find the ruins of the tower in the Black Marsh, and descend into it. It's a very nasty area, one of the hardest in Act One, with small rooms and numerous boss and champion monster packs. The levels are very small though, and on the fifth and lowest level there are two rooms with dozens of stacks of gold in each, and several chests. The end of the fifth level has a room with a glowing golden chest guarded by the Countess, a melee-fighting Corrupted Rogue.
You must kill her to finish the quest. When she dies she expires in a cloud of smoke, and then the golden chest opens and erupts showers of gold, potions, and items, literally dozens of them spouting out one at a time. It's fun to try and pick up the goodies as quickly as they fall. There are seldom any valuable items, just magical stuff and a Rune of varying value, but it's nice gold for a new character.
Tips: Beware the tower, the tiny rooms and small levels leave you no room to retreat, other than up the stairs, and there are tons of boss packs, mostly of Goatmen and Specters. Often when you come down to the next level you'll find monsters very near the stairs, so be ready.
Prior to v1.08, the Countess would stay in the last room until you entered it, but her minions would wander around and come outside the room, and you could pick them off one by one. She no longer stays inside, but rushes out as soon as you are in the area, making this quest harder.
There were plans for her to drop a Rune every time in v1.09, which would make this quest a lot more desirable, with quality Runes always hard to come by but this did not happen, although they are very common here as quest rewards.
Quest Five: Tools of the Trade
- Triggered By: Reaching the Monastery
- Given by: Charsi the Blacksmith
- Location: The Smith's room in the Barracks
- Reward: Charsi will imbue an item for you. This means take any normal item and make it into a Rare with random stats, based on your Clvl.
- Quest Priority: Not a mandatory quest, but the reward is valuable.
When you get near the Barracks, Charsi will be activated to ask you to retrieve a smithing hammer she had to leave in the Monastery when they fled the sudden invasion of demons lead by Andariel. You need to find the inner room (in a random location each game) of the Barracks level (first level inside the Monastery) with the forge and the hammer on a stand. It is guarded by the Smith, a large boss monster reminiscent of the Butcher from Diablo. He will pursue you at a high rate of speed and is a pretty nasty fight. He hits very hard and has a lot of hit points. You however do not need to kill him, you can just dodge around him and grab it from the stand. Once you return to town and click on Charsi she'll claim the hammer, even if you have it in your stash.
Tip: The Smith can't open doors, so if you are a ranged attacker and can't take him toe to toe (which is pretty likely unless you have extremely good equipment for your level) you can lead him through the Barracks to one of the barred walls or corners, such as the one around the steps leading down, and close the door. He'll pace on the other side of it, but won't open the door, giving you free shots.
Reward: The Imbue Quest is a very valued one, more so in D2 than D2X, where Rare items aren't as big a deal. This one should be executed at specific levels, depending on which type of item you are going to Imbue, and what you want on it. Read our Imbue Guide for full details.
Quest Six: Sisters to the Slaughter
- Triggered By: Finishing the Malus Quest, or by reaching Catacombs level three
- Given by: Cain the Elder
- Location: Andariel's Throne Room, Catacombs level four
- 'Reward: You may travel with Warriv's caravan to Lut Gholein and Act Two.
- Quest Priority: Mandatory, you must kill Andariel to advance to Act Two.
Andariel is the Quest boss of Act One, and the hardest monster to defeat in the Act. She is in a large inner room at the bottom of the Catacombs, on level four. You enter in a long room that usually has a few zombies in it, then enter a larger room with a blood lake and tons of Dark Ones, the black type of Fallen. Once you clear that room you face a large set of double doors, and within Andariel awaits.
Prior to v1.08 she would usually rush right out once you opened the doors, but now she is found well back in the room, which gives you a chance to clear out the monsters near the door before you encounter her. Andariel's main attack is her poisonous sting and the poisonous cloud she spews out in a half circle. This poison will drain your hit points at a terrible rate if you don't have poison resistance and/or lowers poison resistance equipment. Stocking up on some antidote potions before this battle is never a bad idea.
Tips: Use the blood lake in the second room to run in circles around if you can't go toe to toe with Andariel, a common problem for ranged attacking characters early on. Poison antidote potions are very useful, as are items that cut poison duration. You should find some in Act One, save them to wear for Andariel.
