Audrey 101

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   Hey all,
Here's a guide to the Heart of Corruption, also known as Audrey.
What is Audrey?
Audrey is a big tentacle monster in Kumala. Here it is: https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/World/Map/-994/-824
What does she do?
She chills there. When people send large amounts of troops to her, her tentacles expand and claim a few more squares. When there are enough tentacle corrupted squares, around 70, she starts beating.
Why is she important?
She is tied to a quest for unique crafted gear. This quest is currently unsolved, but we know the reward. It differs depending on race.
Dorfs get Dorf Champion Armour
Elves get the Elven Spirit Bow
Humans get Master Crafted Chainmail
Orcs get the Orc Marauders Sword
The Orc and Dwarf rewards aren't great. The Human one is decent. The Elf one though, is completely busted.
But how does this quest work?
Step 1: You need a city with full research. You can get this by capturing a city from an inactive old player. If you're lucky, their city will have all research done.
Step 2: Send an advanced spy to the fortune teller. You only need 1 spy. The fortune tellers locations change daily, so you'll need to be able to make the distance in 24 hours. You might have to wait a day or 2 until there's a fortune teller close enough. Here's a link to fortune teller locations: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NWun81o7dWAQCbpjT0Oo9TuDzrhFoKa8DCjt489XCm8/pubhtml
It's updated daily. You'll need to send the spy from your city with full research. This becomes the "Quest City".
Step 3: Get the right fortune. When your spy reaches the fortune teller, it will receive a fortune. The right one will go something along the lines of "So you seek to learn the mystery of the (insert quest reward here). I will be in touch". You might get the right fortune on your first visit to the fortune teller, it might take a few goes. I've started the quest twice. My first attempt I got it first try, my second attempt I got it on my second try.
Step 4: Wait 5 or so days. Simple enough really, after a few days someone called The Old Crone will pop by your city and give you a task. The task is to gather 5 "tentacles" of each race, then send a messenger to Duraz Karag (https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/World/Map/-203/-122)
Step 5: Gather the tentacles. This where things get a little expensive.
How does one get tentacles? 
Through trade, or sacrifice. Trade part is simple, buy them off another player. That is expensive. The sacrifice part is a little less easy, but it can be done by all players regardless of size. Here's how it happens:
Wait until Audrey starts beating. Again, when enough troops are sent to Audrey's heart, more squares around her are corrupted by tentacles. Once there are enough tentacles, she starts beating.
Send sacrifices to her temples while she's beating. This is one of the temples: https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/World/Map/-989/-817
Sacrifices can be armies, caravans, or diplomatic troops. Sending caravans is probably the most efficient way, but you can't sacrifice them on harvest orders. You need to send resources if you're using caravans.
You have a 5% chance of gaining a tentacle of your race per mission sent. Not per troop sent. 2 armies of 1 spearman has a higher chance of giving you a tentacle than 1 army of 10,000 spearmen. This is why sending caravans is probably the most efficient. You can send 70 trade missions of one caravan each, but you can only have a maximum of 5 armies or 20 diplomatic missions.
You need 5 of each race. You have a 5% chance per mission of gaining a tentacle of your race. This means you need an average of 100 missions to gain enough tentacles. You also need tentacles of other races, so you will need to trade for these ones.
Once your sacrifice reaches the temple, the unit(s) will die (including commanders, permanently!). After they die, an army corresponding to the size of your sacrifice will be sent to your city. If you sent 1 troop, you'll be attacked by 1 troop. 10,000? Attacked by 10,000. Again, regardless of amount of sacrifices, each mission has the same chance of yielding a tentacle: 5%.
That about covers tentacle gathering. Even if you aren't interested in the Audrey quest, it can be worth doing when Audreys awake. The cost is low, and you can sell each tentacle for millions of gold to people wanting to do the quest.
Step 6: Gather 5 tentacles of each race in your quest city, then send the messenger to Duraz Karag. Once the messenger arrives, you'll get a message telling you that your quest city will be in danger once Audrey wakes again. 
Step 7: Wait until Audrey wakes again. Self-explanatory. We usually co-ordinate dates where the community of Illyriad send troops en-masse to Audrey's heart to try and wake her up. Sometimes though, she wakes up unplanned. For example, if 1 rogue player sends a million or so troops lol.
Step 8: Trigger the Old Crone to visit a second time. It's not enough to just wake up Audrey, we also need to satisfy a hidden requirement that gets us a message from the Old Crone. This message hasn't been received since the first attempt at this quest, 10 years ago in 2014. 
What we do have though, is a good idea of what we need to do.
The line of thinking for the last 10 years has been: Send enough troops to wake Audrey, but no more. Then sacrifice at the temples and wait for something to happen. In the 2014 attempt though, people didn't do this. There was a massive amount of support behind the quest, more than recent attempts, and so more units were sent at the Heart of Corruption than any other quest attempt. They knew the least about the quest being the first to do it, and yet they were the only quest attempt which received a 2nd Old Crone visit.
For this reason, and a few others which I'll catalogue below, the new line of thought is that the second condition which must be fulfilled to receive the 2nd Old Crone visit and advance in the quest, is to feed her more troops after she's woken up.
Some other reasons are:
The message in the 2nd Old Crone visit (which we have a record of in the forums from the 2014 attempt) states that "The Horror has stirred, and the fools continue to feed it". The attempt in 2014 had enough fools that continued to feed it, whereas recent attempts didn't. Recent attempts instead stopped sending at the Heart the moment Audrey began beating. They also had less players contributing, which meant less units sent. If the message says "the fools continue to feed it", then why on earth would we ever get that message if we didn't continue to feed it?
A hint from a GM a few years back. I forget the exact quote, but it went something along the lines of "The more they feed it..."
All players attempting the quest in 2014 received the Old Crone's second visit, and at the same time. This implies that the trigger is something done on a server level, and not a specific action done by a single player.
All this leads to the conclusion that the trigger to receive the 2nd Old Crone visit, and advance with the quest, is to send troops at Audrey while she is still beating, and to do so on a massive scale at least equivalent to the amount needed to wake her, if not more. 
Long story short, everyone, quest attempting or not, must send troops on a massive scale to progress with the quest.
Step 9: Receive the 2nd Old Crone visit. This is a message that we'll likely receive after having sent enough troops at Audrey. It will say something along the lines of our city being in danger, and you must be prepared. What this message means, is that you will be attacked by Audrey when the next new moon after she falls asleep (stops beating) comes.
Step 10: The prelude to the attack. Thanks to the efforts of 2014, we actually have some great information on this! Some time will elapse in which there is no activity on the Audrey front. As the first New Moon begins to draw closer, you will receive disturbing reports that the tentacles have escaped, and the lands surrounding your town are being terrorized. What's more, quest towns will be shrouded in a strange fog.
Step 11: The horror shows itself. Tentacles will begin corrupting the 8 tiles adjacent to your city. Placing armies around them seems to limit their spread. In 2014, players prepared their quest cities for the attack by reinforcing their city centres with hundreds of thousands of troops. They neglected to reinforce the tiles adjacent, however, and so the tentacles escaped and failed. This is the last part of the quest we have information on.
Step 12: The final task. The Old Crone states that you have 3 tasks to complete. The first was tentacle gathering, the second was Audrey's attack. We have no information on the final task.
What to do differently to prepare for Audrey's attack?
Have allies reinforce not only your city centre, but also the squares adjacent your quest city.
Reinforce not only with military defence, but also some thieves in case the attack is considered a diplomatic one. 
Reinforce with allies of all races. This is more speculation considering there are tentacles of 4 races within your quest city.
Some players have suggested building a vault. Seems unlikely to be the key, but I see no downside. 
The main thing seems to be ensuring that tentacles do not rise up in the tiles surrounding your city, but I could well be wrong with that.

This year's attempt!
This year, we are going to be waking Audrey up in December. If you'd like to help with this years attempt, the basics are:
Don't feed Audrey yet, we don't want to wake her pre-emptively while we're still unprepared.
Feed Audrey in December, and keep feeding her until we receive the 2nd Old Crone visit.
Defend your quest city/help defend your ally's quest city. 
Hopefully that about covers it with Audrey. Best of luck to all attempting the quest!