[Rygar]

I say embrace the blind human! I miss how dark things were in original EQ. Just put a Greater Lightstone in inventory to help for now.

I don't know what is a cheap solution per se, but Crown of the Froglok kings appears to be a lightsource, think those are 2k or less these days and great AC for a monk.

If you have a high level main, you can farm Shellara Ebbhunter in Kedge for the Pearlescent Mask, believe it is a Monk only mask: 5ac, +5AGI, 0.1wt, +10 SV Magic and has Serpent Sight or Infravision (forgot which). Mask is no drop tho, and corpse will be 7mins, so pre park your monk there.

Mask is hella rare from what I can tell, I killed her maybe 8 times and mask only dropped once. She is also a rare spawn from the mermaids, if you have an enchanter can probably keep most of the mermaids down and get her to spawn semi regularly.