Another day of running quests. I thought I would go for an area unlock and then see what else there was to do in the area. I’m still lacking quite a few skills to start knocking out some other activities I want in the game. Since I want to get as many possible quests as possible out of the way I felt it was best to keep going.
This quest gives me access to Varlamore and unlocks several other quests. That was not the reason for wanting to run it, however. It’s in a category of quests that are considered novice due to their low-level requirements and challenges to finish them.
I've been attempting to work out exactly what quests I should even be focusing on at first. It seems there is already a difficulty consideration considered for all quests in the game.
It also helped somewhat that the in-game quest adverse system recommends this one as the next one I try out. This early into things I felt was a good enough reason to get it started.
The quest itself ended up being quite short. There was a plot against a leader, and I just had to follow around a guard and not be spotted. I then had to make the guard and his friends.
I gained a quick quest point, and I ended up being quite close to the exchange house to pick up some supplies. That ended up being almost too perfect. I would have been passing by this area anyway on my way to the exchange. Now I have access to another place. One that I might not be using for a while.
This one is quite a strange one. I was tasked with speaking with a few merchants while writing things down with an enchanted quill. Like many quests, this one was more legwork than anything else.
It seems the person pulling the strings for this quest was after information regarding the pecking order of the land. I started to get a bit of an evil chili feeling as the quest went along. Even though I might have been some kind of reporter of sorts I decided it was best not to correct them.
In the end, I had to go deliver an orb to a dark altar. The orb then broke, and I had to return to my contact. He was starting to act more like he was possessed than how he had beforehand.
That was the quest. Lots of walking around. One of the rewards I was rather happy to see was being given some lamps that you can exchange for experience toward any skill.
I would later have some regard for not picking skills I lacked any experience in whatsoever. Even more so not just dumping the 500 or so experience into construction. Instead, I ended up picking rune crafting.
At the very least this single quest is required for quite a few others. Many of these quests are either quite long or extremely hard. For now, I don’t have any use to run any of them. At some point, I'll be returning to do them.
Like a few quests, this one ended up just being something in the area. I did not care at the time for the ability to fire a dwarf cannon which you end up unlocking after running this quest. I was kind of hoping for construction experience since I was helping fix a cannon, but I just got crafting experience instead as a reward which is an understandable reward for the activities done.
What I was not expecting to take so long was repairing the defenses around the dwarf cannon itself. There were a few damaged railings. While attempting to repair one of the six alone I failed over a dozen times. Taking a little damage each time, I failed, and my character hit his hand with a hammer by mistake.
I then had to go to a cave and rescue one of their own from the goblins. It was quite tempting to want to take a break and kill some goblins. They were, however, not that high of a level and lacked any loot worth attempting to grind for. So instead, they got to live another day. It’s at least good to know where another cave is just in case, I feel like exploring another day.
Finally, I got around to what I was expecting to be doing much sooner. I got to inspect the cannon itself. The firing part had broken, and I had to use a set of tools to reset a cog, spring, and hammer so it would work again.
This was an interesting little mini game. I’m starting to realize this game has quite a puzzle if they could even be called that. They are usually not that hard to solve. It’s just more about understanding how everything moves and what you can and cannot do during the mini game.
Once I had repaired it they still could not fire the thing. Turns out they were out of cannonballs. I was sent on a bit of a trek to go fetch the mold and bring it back. Which was the final part of finishing off this quest for yet another quest point.
Sometimes it’s just nice when a quest is so short you feel like you hardly did anything at all. Even more so when it gives out so much experience.
I was more like a dog playing fetch for this one. I first had to go get a blanket in a cave. Next, I had to get wine from a drunk monk who I swore drunk all the wine already. He needed me to fetch him water. Then I needed to fetch a log. It should have been a stick then I could have felt like a dog.
This was perhaps one of the most infuriating quests I've done in a game in some time. Sometimes when a game mechanic is not exactly as one should expect it. It would be best to not have it in the game at all. At the very least they should have given the player a little more leeway.
This quest requires a few things. Including getting a cattle prod you are to use to move the sheep. Along with some protective gear such as the sheep you are about to deal with have some kind of illness they need to test for.
At first, I was hopeful I just needed to hit each of the sheep with the cattle prod. It, however, seemed like nothing was happening at all. It took me a bit longer than it should have to realize I already had a sheep pinned to a wall and therefore it could not move in the direction I was pointing when I hit it with the cattle prod.
You then had to get four different colors of sheep to move from where they were grazing into the spot in front of the gate. That is when you start to learn these sheep can easily get stuck on a wall, trees, or any object that is in their way. After that happens you more or less just got to give up and let the sheep walk back.
I found the best solution to dealing with the sheep running back if you don’t hit them quick enough with the cattle prod was to save my running energy, till, I absolutely needed it.
One such situation that resulted in the sheep running back from where I had acquired it was this. I managed to get it up to the east side of the gate. I, however, now needed to cattle prod the sheep to move south. The short amount of time it took me to readjust so I'd be pointing the sheep south was just long enough for it to reset and run back home again.
I think it’s easy enough for me to say. Anything dealing with sheep in this game is not for me. At least at the very end of the quest you got to poison and then toss the bones of the sheep into a furnace. Which was far more rewarding after how frustrating this quest ended up being than it should have been.
A few more quests now on the books. Along with a couple more levels gained in quite a different array of skills from thieving to crafting.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape
