Xenowars | Defense, Dungeon, And Dung
Old School RuneScape | One Small Favor
I think the whole point of this quest is to just make you hate it. That or it was trying to be funny and I only started to see that towards the end of this insanity. This was one of those quests where I considered giving up on it and coming back to it at a later point in time.
It all started with just one person asking for a small favor. However, you can’t do that small favor without some help. The person you need help from also wants a small favor in exchange for the help they are giving. It goes on and on and on like that for quite some time.
It all seemed rather easy. I was just asked to go get some red mahogany. It’s a shame I can’t just go buy some or collect my own. Instead, I needed to ask someone for it.
I was then asked to get an axe resharpened. At first, that seemed not a bad trade-off or what I wanted in return. It also did not look like I needed to travel that far out of my way to make this happen. So, I went for it.
That person however was like sure I would but. OMG. It seems quite a few people along the way are having some kind of mental breakdown preventing them from doing their job. Unless I and no one else in the realm went off and did something for them that would help get their mind back into the right state to do the very thing they should have been doing in the first place.
Before long I was a couple of people deep into this quest all wanting me to do a small favor in return for the small favor I needed. You would think a witch of all people would not need any help. Think again she needed me to go check in on someone.
Turns out that the person I was supposed to be checking into joined a cult. The cult did not want me to speak with that person to see if they were ok. Unless I went and did just one small favor for them. I assure you at this point there is no such thing as just one small favor.
The cult was willing to trade the person I needed to speak with for some chickens. I don’t know if they were looking to eat or use the chickens in some kind of cult-related activity. All I know is I no longer cared.
The chicken farmer would have loved to help save the guy from the cult. However, he was just a small farm and I guess he could not spare chickens. Even though he was supposed to be farming chickens. I only see sheep. He however knew another farmer that had chickens.
At least the second farmer was more than willing to give up some chickens. I thought that was going to be the end of this insane chain. Now I just had to run back and give everyone what they wanted. I was wrong. He had the chickens but no cages to transport them in. I would have been just fine putting ropes around the chickens and dragging them back to the cult. I guess that was not a solution. So off I went to find some cages.
The blacksmith would have been more than willing. Expect the person who sent me to owe him a debt. So I got the blacksmith some bars to repay the debt. That was just one of the small issues. The guy claimed he could not work because he was sick!
At this point, I'm a little more than livid. The thought of tossing the keyboard out the window came to mind. Here I gave the guy what he wanted but nope he still could not do his job. So, I needed to go out and get him some herbs from a local store.
At the very least quite a few of these NPCs were getting closer and closer to each other. I was hoping that was some kind of sign that thing was about to come to an end.
Next up I went to the apothecary. I needed to get two items from the apothecary. They were willing to give me one of them with no issue. The second item they could not give me without having a special kind of jar to hold it in. Once they had that jar, they could acquire some almost instantly. Why I could not just cut out this middle man of an apothecary and go get what I needed myself? The world will never know. Instead, I had to go and get a pot and lid.
It also appeared that the item could only be created by the world's best pottery creature in all of the realm. That person could make it. They however could not. You see they were in some kind of massive debt. Due to that debt, they were unwilling even if I had a bank full of gold to do it. They wanted me to go and deal with the debt for them. All just to make a jar!!!!!!
I was now starting to get quite far away from where I started this quest in the first place. I now found myself underground talking to come criminal who turns out wants to give up his life of crime. He is however too scared to do so. WHAT??? Yep, the dude wants to be a druid but he can’t just go ask them to join himself. I agree to see what I can do about the situation.
It turns out the druids are looking to take on new people. But first, you will be shocked by this. They just need one small favor. I just need to brew some tea and bring it to a gnome on top of a mountain. This is just getting silly at this point.
So, I brew the tea, climb the mountain, and get to the gnome. Who then sends me on a quest to go get some gear. That person is willing to help but only if I could get them a weather report.
At this point, I'm just willing to call it a day. I thought to myself I could go work on this quest some other time. I however could not just let this go. If all I needed was a weather report and that was it I'd be pissed at the time wasted having to run back out to where I was just to do it.
I was quite hoping at this point this would be the end of the line. Turns out nope. That person wanted what? Just one small favor. OMG. At this point, I did start to find some humor in it all.
This is also the point where my brain goes a bit foggy on everything that happened next. I just recall next and I'm sure I skipped over some people that there was a girl trapped in a cave who needed to be saved. She was stuck in stone. I found a wizard that could teach me the spell to free here.
Naturally, it would just be too easy for the wizard to go do the thing. He needed some supplies. I was told just to do one small favor and go get those supplies. Then the girl could be removed from being trapped in stone underground.
The next person needed just one small favor. Then the next and OMG the next person as well. Yet again the thought of just finishing this quest weeks later came to mind. I had other stuff I'd find more fun at this point than to keep going in the never-ending quest of just one small favor.
Thankfully I was getting close to the chain of things that needed to be done just to get what I needed in the first place. I just needed to fix the landing lights at some kind of runway in the middle of the woods.
Even better I could craft the lens needed myself out of gems I could buy off the Grand Exchange. I could taste the end being near. While I ended up failing on one of the gems and I had to run back to the Grand Exchange to buy another gem for another attempt. I ended up fixing all the lights in the end.
With the runway fixed, I got to an item needed to give to the next person who gave me an item needed for the next. After a couple of NPCs, I was able to attempt to free the girl trapped in a cave. First, however, I ended up summing up a level 60 rock creature that was easy to kill. At that point, I was looking for something to kill. So that was more than welcome at this point.
I know at some point I started to get rather confused about how the steps to get back to the start went. It was getting quite late at night. Some of them I'm sure are out of order.
After that, the guy who wanted to join the druids was able to. I then got the jar needed to get the second medication from the apothecary. You would think I'd be getting the weather report then since now that guy was feeling better. Nope, the weather vane was broken so I went and fixed that for him as well. Let’s just say he was starting to ask a lot for me needing so little in return.
I then was able to give the weather report to the person at the docks so he knew it was safe to send his ship out to sea. He was then willing to give the gnome on top of the mountain the gear he wanted. After a few more steps I was able to get some cages for the chickens to collect some chickens.
Those chickens then were used to free the guy being held by the cult. I was then able to get the ax sharpened. This then allowed me to get the red mahogany plank I was asked to get at the start of this insanity.
The person then told me it took me so long they could have just gone and gotten the piece of wood they needed themselves. At that point, I wanted to murder the NPC. Instead, I gave him a piece of my mind with part of the insanity I had to go through just to get the red mahogany plank.
Final Thoughts
In return, he gave me a metal ring. This metal ring happens to be a keychain where you can store some but not all of the keys you end up collecting in the game. All that just to save some.
I also got two lamps that rewarded 10k experience each. Now that was the kind of reward to make all of this nonsense worthwhile. I ended up putting into prayer as I was getting close to some critical prayer levels at the time.
Oddly enough after I was done with this quest. I noticed on some rare occasions I'd get another quest where someone would ask for one small favor and my character would get the option to make a snide remark after hearing that one before. It’s little things like that which make this game amazing. I have no idea if that is a special option I got for finishing this quest or if my character was always making side remarks like that before when asked to do a small favor and I never realized it had more meaning to it than it did till I worked on this quest.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape.