Shar Vahl - Progressive Smithing Quests
Purchase a carapace shield frame from Master Barkhem in Shar Vahl. Fill it with 8 small bloodling carapaces and combine. Hand the result to Master Barkhem and he gives you a bloodling carapace plate. Repeat the quest a second time. Then combine two bloodling carapace plates with nepeta oil extract (merchant sold) and a (medium) sectional mail mold in the forge. Trivial <=56. Hand the completed Bloodling Plate Mail tunic to Master Barkhem. He will return the tunic and give you a Vah Shir apprentice mallet (no drop, lore). (Bloodling Plate Mail: AC 13, sv disease 1, wt 7.5; WAR CLR PAL RNG SHD BRD ROG SHM; HUM BAR ERU ELF HIE DEF HEF IKS VAH) Should you ever lose your apprentice mallet, you may hand in the tunic again to receive another one.
Then ask Master Barkhem "what repair order?" He will give you a (lore) work order to repair the shields of the 4 bridge guards (the two guards on the far end of the North and South Bridges). Hand the note to one of the proper guards. (Make absolutely sure before you hand in the note to the guard, that the guard's shield is visible. If you cannot see their shield, then someone else is running the quest with that guard, and handing in the note to that guard will cause him/her to despawn.) The guard will give you a dented shield, which starts the timed portion of this quest. Combine the dented shield and the Vah Shir apprentice mallet in the forge. (If you fail the combine, you must let the timer run out before you try to repair another shield for him, as he'll think you already have his shield, and will depop on you if you try to hand him another note.) A successful combine will return an Immaculate Shield, and lists the guard's name in the description, so that you remember your delivery target. Return the shield to the guard to receive a completed repair order. If the guard already has a shield on him, you either took too long, or something caused the guard to respawn. You will need to have someone else hand in a work order to that guard so that you may then give the guard the Immaculate Shield. (Note: while the despawning problem has been reported as "fixed", there are apparently still issues with guards despawning, respawning.) Trivials are as follows: Bohk's Immaculate Shield -- triv 31; Koby's Immaculate Shield -- triv 31; Jasir's Immaculate Shield -- triv 31; Aihjin's Immaculate Shield -- triv 34
Repeat the above paragraph four times, one for each of the four guards, until you have completed work orders for all four guards. Then give the 4 completed work orders back to the Master Barkhem and he will give you a spirit anchor anvil, called a Vah Shir Anvil (no drop, lore).
After a bit more conversation with Master Barkhem, you can learn about making shadow disks. He will give you an 8-slot "Barkhem's Box" in which to combine 8 shadow disks. The disks are made by combining the following in a forge: swirling shadows (drop off shades in Shadeweaver's Thicket; greater/lesser shadows in Twilight Sea and Xi Xau in Maiden's Eye and Akheva), metal bits, your Vah Shir Anvil and your Vah Shir Apprentice Mallet. (You receive the anvil and hammer back during the forging.) Trivial for this combine is 108.
Return the filled and combined box back to Master Barkhem along with your Apprentice Mallet and receive a luclinite hammer (no drop, just like pretty much every other quest tool for these quests). Then make 3 humming orbs using the following recipe: wailing substance (from grimy owlbears in Paludal Caverns), shrieking substance (from sonic wolves), metal rings, Vah Shir Anvil, Luclinite Mallet. (Again, you receive the anvil and mallet back during the forging.)
Return 3 humming orbs and your luclinite hammer to Master Barkhem for a humming luclinite mallet (no drop), with which you can make shadowscream steel armor.
If you are a glutton for punishment and are willing to loop this ad nauseum, ask Master Barkhem "what boots" and he will task you with delivering a pair of boots to Rakutah (leader of the rogue guild in Shar Vahl). Giving the boots to Ratukah will cause him to give you a 6-slot quest container and the boots. He asks you to fill the box with 6 pairs of shadowscream steel boots. Boots are made with the following recipe (in a forge): 2 swirling shadows, humming luclinite hammer, vah shir anvil, humming orb, (medium) banded boot mold, water flask (Trivial >239). Completion of this quest gives you postive faction with the Guardians of Shar Vahl, as well as Ratukah's Seal (lore, no drop).
Return the seal to Master Barkhem and he gives you a pair of Barkhem's Fancy Pantaloons (lore, no orop) STR 4, STA 2, WIS 2, SvMagic 10, Wt 4.0 WAR ROG SHM BST; VAH, BAR, TRL, OGR, IKS (note there is no AC to them). While Barkhem seems to indicate that there may be other things he may teach you in the future, there did not appear to be a continuation to this quest at this time.