The Grey Mourner (as you should know) is found in a back room of the Resting Grounds. Found by "desolate diving" through the top of a casket above ground and making your way to about halfway between that entrance and the place where you find the Soul Eater charm. (exhibit A.) The Grey Mourner is a former knight of Hollownest. Ze'mer, one of the Five Great Knights in fact.

Your mission, should you choose to except it, is to take a "special" flower from Ze'mer and take it across the kingdom to the grave of Ze'mer's dead mantis lover. (exhibit B.)



Now that seems easy enough right? Well... no. There is a reason that this quest is so notorious: you have to take this flower all that way - without it being destroyed. And the flower will be destroyed if you take ANY DAMAGE! (Additional: The flower will also be destroyed if you ride on a stagway, or take a dream gate. And no, you can't "cheese" this quest by sitting on the bench in Queen's Gardens, getting the flower, and then exiting-reentering the game. It will save you to the bench outside Zem'er's home)

Don't despair. There's hope yet.

Okay, we need to do this. (why? oh yeah, I forgot, you get a mask shard... fun, right?)

Now, since we're not all pros here, we need to use our brain.
Here's an outline of our best, and most direct, options.


(Edit: the arrows through the City of Tears/Forgotten Crossroads elevator into the Fungal Wastes are wrong, there is a perma-locked door that forces you do go down to the main bridge. That is, however, still a viable route.)

Alright, now, if you've spent any time actually playing this game, you should have a good idea of what is along these respective routes. So, from this you should be able to decide on a route that has bugs you like to fight and just choose that route, right?
Well, yes, but I can save you a step.
Question: what happens to the majority of bugs you kill? Answer: unless you sit on a bench, most of the bugs will not respawn.

This give us our first and second tactics: (1) kill bugs along our path BEFORE we attempt the quest and... (2) DON'T SIT on a BENCH.

Okay, one or two more things.

Thing one:
Do you have a dream gate?
If not, you should get it. It is given to you from the seer in Resting Grounds once you've collected a certain amount of essence (more than 1000)

The dream gate give us our third tactic: (3) put down a dream gate by the Ze'mer's house and if we take damage, we just teleport back.

Thing two:
I would suggest we do this in the late game when you have all available mobility-abilities.

Okay, cool. If you follow (1), (2), and (3). You should be fine.

Now, from last section, you should have all you need for doing the quest. But you're still here?
Ah, you must need my personal advice. Well, I'll oblige you.

This is my suggested route (as long as you're using the above 3 tactics)


I like this route for various reasons: it increases your ability to "speed" through this quest using Crystal Dash and minimizes the number of bugs, and especially non-bench-respawning-bugs, you have to face. And the one big thing about this route that I like is that it doesn't have you going through that Crossroads/Fog canyon hole. The reason I like that is that there is a lot of "random" stuff in there and it would take a single mis-imput to send you falling into a Uma or a cloud of Lumaflys. My route, if you take the time to clear it, gives you a far greater amount of control.

So, with this information, I think you have the best of the advice out there. Now does that mean you will get it on your first try? Probably not. I didn't.

But, don't give up and just remember the three tactics.

1) kill all the bugs along your decided route.
2) DON'T SIT on ANY BENCH!
3) If you have it, place a dream gate by Ze'mer so that you can immediately try again if you fail.


Thanks, and happy travels.