DREDGE Best Before Guide: Rotting Conger Eel for Ingfell
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Accept the strange order at Ingfell
Talk to the Ingfell Resident at M4 to begin Best Before. She wants one rotting Conger Eel, not a fresh one. This is a small $150 side pursuit, but it is a useful lesson in treating fish condition as a requirement rather than always racing to sell a catch.
The Conger Eel lives in the central Gale Cliffs tunnel. That tunnel is blocked until the Gale Cliffs main pursuit has given you access to Packed Explosives. Complete the Whaler’s Heritage route first, buy explosives from the Retired Whaler, and clear the debris on the passage from N4 to O4. The job cannot be finished just by finding the Ingfell Resident early.
Catch it, then let it age once
Catch a Conger Eel in the opened tunnel at night with a Shallow-capable rod, then keep it in ordinary cargo. It cannot be trawled. Fish condition drops as time passes: fresh becomes stale, then rotting, then worthless Rot. The Resident specifically wants the rotting stage, so do not put the eel in a trawl net or sell it after the catch. Watch the item label in the hold and return to Ingfell once it reads Rotting.
Do not wait until it becomes Rot. Rot is a different item and does not meet the request. The safe approach is to catch one eel with a mostly empty hold, make one short delay through normal travel or fishing, check its condition, then dock at Ingfell as soon as it is Rotting. If it ages too far, catch another rather than trying to revive it.
Keep the unlock separate from the reward
The cash reward is modest. The real route value is that explosives also open useful blocked paths and later regional shortcuts. Use Explosives and Blocked Routes for those decisions, and use Gale Cliffs Fish Reference when you want the fishing loop rather than the pursuit.
Best Before has no alternate reward for delivering a fresh eel. If you are making the trip, wait for the correct condition and finish it cleanly.