Hey, y’all. It’s been some time since I’ve done one of these. Let’s see if I’ve still got it.

They have continued, at long last, the Red Axe series. Previously, we thwarted the Red Axe’s attempts to get their director’s face on the newly built monarch statue, which we ourselves had destroyed by mistake (well, maybe YOU guys did …), and instead got somebody else’s lovely mug on the thing. As a result, the Red Axe disbanded, getting replaced by the Orange Flame, and through some investigation, you learn of what is happening behind the scenes of the Red Axe, only to have a memory spell cast on you and all knowledge of the ordeal wiped away. So then you get Veldaban’s help, whom with you, rediscovers the Red Axe’s scheme to create an army of chaos dwarves, but thanks to the final actions of Veldaban’s long lost partner, manage to escape with the knowledge this time.

The Red Axe’s army is building, and Keldagrim is on the verge of being overrun. What will happen next?

… well, let’s find out.

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QUEST GUIDE
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You start this quest- surprise, by talking to a lava-flow miner and ask for the tour of the lava mines. He’ll give you a nice history of the place, as well as answer all the questions you never had about how the dwarves “power” their … well, heat stuff. Sure, they use steam-powered everything, but the heat for the steam has got to come from somewhere, right?

Anyways, you’ll then notice a suspicious individual. He takes one look at you and … explodes.

Yeah. He explodes. Suicide bomber. Good clean fun, Jagex.

A huge landslide will collapse over the mine, trapping all the workers. Grab your pickaxe and start digging them all out by whacking at the brightly-colored rocks (only slightly, but still easily noticeable) while the tour guide runs for help. Upon getting to a dwarf, as pointed out by their bodies lying under some larger rocks, click it and pick up the dwarf. It will enter your backpack.

You can only carry one dwarf at a time, so bring it to the foreman standing at the entrance. Carry on through the conversation, and you’ll put the dwarf down. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

In the middle of this, a bunch of black guards will enter, but rather than help the miners, they’ll race for the machinery. Finish the job on your own. Despite contrary belief, time really is not a factor. You will lose some dwarves, but retrieve them regardless.

After the last dwarf is delivered, go outside, and you’ll meet this small crowd of protesters, along with Veldaban, civvies and all (hey, he gained some weight!). He’ll ask what’s going on, but before he can take any action against the consortium, he is arrested on the spot for suspicion of being the instigator of this act of terrorism.

Head up to the consortium meeting area. Enter the large centre building, head up both flights of stairs, and have a chat with each of the directors.

Though you can talk to each of them about the same topics, only one of each topic will be explored in detail. If you can pick the right thing to say after the three choices come up, they will agree to let Veldaban go. Do this with all four, then talk to the ref and chuckle diabolically as all the directors decide on Veldaban’s unanimous freedom.

Oh yes, and a messenger comes in and says that there’s an army of chaos dwarves. Curse the messenger …

With Veldaban now at your side, it’s time to investigate a forming crowd, lead by THIS MAN!

Hreidmar. Yeah. I can’t pronounce his name any more than you can sit on him.

Veldaban will ask you to find a(nother) lady friend of his named Meike that was supposed to be leading the crowd, but she’s nowhere in sight. A bystander will mention she’s at the pub. Head over to the Keldagrim West pub (you know, the “good” one), and chat with the dwarf sitting here.

He’ll tell you that she may have been arrested, and that her real location is at the Black Guard headquarters. Head over to Veldaban’s old job site and chat with … this guy.

After some persuasion, he’ll reveal her for-real real location: the top of the tower where you fought your first ever chaos dwarf cannoneer, just south of the consortium building. Head up there with due speed. You can get there be going behind the StoneMason’s house nearby the Keldagrim bank.

Chat with her, and the three of you will agree to meet at the library, which is nearby the bridge separating West and East. Obviously Hreidmar (“THIS MAN”) wants the consortium to resort to the import of a new king, and he seems to know exactly who the next king will be. It’s kind of obvious, but just to make sure, you’re going to break into the vault containing the records detailing this.

Grab 6 mithril bars and six soft clays and meet up with the dwarves at the library. Chat with the librarian to get the cabinet open. Hand the soft clay to Meike, and then chat with the librarian about the keys. Endure boredom long enough to get the moulded imprints, and then take them to any furnace to make the keys.

Return to Keldagrim and head west of the bank. Hug the western wall until you find this door, and enter to meet Meike and Veldaban, just hanging out inconspicuously.

Now you get to play “Key Mastermind”. Through trial and error, figure out the combination of keys by first getting both sets of 3 to the correct side, and then swapping them until they are all correct. Enter, and read the documents.

It’s true. The documents are proven and impossibly-falsifiedly true. The demonic dwarf Hreidmar is to be the next king, and this is what he was planning all this time. By causing all this uproar with the chaos dwarf threat and terrorist attacks, the dwarven populace is now rooting for a new king to handle things rather than the eternally-lagging consortium, who are incapable of organized trade (trade referee for the loss?), let alone dealing with the threat of invasion.

Of course we can’t let that happen, so we lock the good lady inside and take Veldaban over to deal with the chaos dwarf threat. That much we can do; if the threat is nullified, then they may not need a king. If you speak to Veldaban, he’ll quick-jump you over to the cave, which is in that outskirts area nearby the boats. Prepare yourself for a considerably easy, but nevertheless dangerous melee-only fight.

Inside, you’ll find Grenda and a small cohort, as well as …

MULTI-CANNON!

Forget the army, they’ve got a multi-cannon! That’ll take out the army no problem, except it won’t.

Head through the tunnel, ignoring the tunnel that Veldaban says leads to a Troll General so powerful that dwarves everywhere fear the mere mention of the name:

Pretty Flower!

… well, better than Mr. Tinkles, anyways.

Keep going, and you’ll encounter our own corrupted, brainwashed Colonel Grimsson and a bunch of … bystander chaos dwarves. With enough battle-honour to make me applaud him, rather than send his insta-killable lackeys to fight us, he immediately takes us on solo. With Veldaban taking the hits, rock his sorry world. I managed to do it while letting Veldaban take all the punishment – he never touched me.

Strike the killing blow, and … he runs away instead. Yeah. Forget progress, you probably have to fight him again in the future. Here’s hoping he mutates into a dwarf/ogre hybrid with incredibly unstable magical properties; that would be wicked. Check out the cave, and feast your eyes on an army that even a multicannon … *gulp*, can’t believe I’m saying this … that even a multicannon … won’t alone do against.

Why do I say this? Well, simply because:

They’ve got THREE! THREE MULTICANNONS! HOLY GEEZ! You’re gonna need a couple of Corporeal beasts against this one! Goodbye, Keldagrim!

… oh yeah, and they also have a couple dozen chaos dwarf cannoneers and dwogres. I guess they’re kind of a threat. Maybe.

Fortunately, they’re standing their ground, waiting for an order. From Hreidmar, no doubt. You’ve got to do something, but what? You need reinforcements, nay, an army! But how? And where? Should you call in your clan and proceed to rain epic destruction on their sorry hides with the promise of a dragon pickaxe afterwards? … nah, that would just be too mean. Man, how I long for a new co-op quest …

How about the trolls? Coincidence that there just so happens to be a troll cave there with a troll militia that dwarves fear sitting right there within shouting distance? I dunno, but hey, whatever it takes to get the job done. A pity, though. When trolls first appeared, they were these mindless brutes that you had to help the Burthrope Guard fend off to save a city. Now you know about their entire culture: that they are named regarding the first thing they try to eat, or what it sounds like (makes me wonder how Lalli nearby Rellekka slayer caves got his name). You’ve even quested with a few and helped them replenish their store of goutweed by creating a farming patch for them. I dunno. Actaully, now that I think about it, perhaps the “Troll Generals” they have in Trollheim are simply named that, due to the fact that as infants, they were subjected to actually try to eat a Troll General to get them that name. That’s what I would do in that situation. Either that or make my baby try to eat a-

I’m sorry, I’m getting off-track. Back to the quest. Let Veldaban return to check on Meike while you once again go questing with the trolls. Go in and have a chat with Pretty Flower. Despite you having prepared for a level 160 fight, he’ll decide not to attack you on the assumption that you are poisoned due to the fact you’re not a dwarf.

Oh, and My Arm is in there too. Sweet.

To gain Pretty Flower’s (*snicker*) respect, you must pick up Big Rock. So go do it.

… no no no, not that one. THIS one!

After showing what your skinny little arms can do, Pretty Flower will speak with you, but nothing you can say will persuade him to attack the Chaos Dwarf army.

So instead, talk to My Arm. Ask him for a pretty flower. … I mean like a rose or something, not the troll. Tell him you want it for soup. I dunno. He likes soup.

Hand the pretty flower to Pretty Flower (my head hurts …), and tell him it was a “gift” from Colonel Grimsson. He will rage.

Unimpressively, but he will rage. That’s done it. Leave the trolls to remove the chaos dwarf army’s souls.

Return to Keldagrim and search for Veldaban. He’s chilling in this interestingly large crowd of dwarves.

Have one final chat with him, and watch the fireworks.

… yes, I’m a God.

QUEST COMPLETE!

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ALEX’S ANALYSIS
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At the time the quest came out, I had to work, and my brother did it. Upon beginning, he told me is was short and disappointing. I told him that it’s the continuation of the Red Axe series, and if anything, it’s progress. How could it be disappointing?

… dang it, he was right.

First off, the trolls. Good idea, but it kind of came entirely out of nowhere. Nobody had decided to or thought of mentioning there was an army of trolls hanging out in the nearby caves, one of which you’ve befriended for life. Making the area publicly multi-combat and fightable would’ve been a more legitimate (and fun) solution.

Secondly, lack of awesome. When I see an army, I want to see a battle. Jagex had been experimenting with NPC VS NPC combat for a while, and even made it an everyday thing, with gnomes fighting Khazard troops, Lumbridge Guards warring the goblin race (and they eat, too!). Goblins in Goblin Village whacking themselves off due to armor color. There was hardly anything in the way of awesome cutscene at all. Heck, I would’ve been satisfied if I had got to see how Grimsson got away from Pretty Flower even after the battle was over and dead bodies littered the room, especially after he had just taken a beating from me.

Thirdly, I wanted more of that lava mine. There is a big flourish in the intro where it shows the entirety of the lava mine, as well as a big discussion about it and extra NPCs called “lava flow workers” dotting the city all around. But then it’s blown up immediately, and after rescuing a few miners, you never see it again. You don’t just introduce something in that kind of manner and then remove it immediately, possibly never to be seen/used again throughout the entire questline. I would’ve liked to jump some gravel rocks, avoiding lava rivers and streams just to retrieve some identifiable chaos dwarf bits to prove Veldaban’s innocence.

But this biggest thing that really annoys me is that Jagex has a strange habit of making a quest series start off on an incredibly high note, making you wait in anticipation and hope for something spectacular to happen, and then you’re thrust with perhaps their attempt to just get the series done and out as quickly as possible just to say it’s all over. No awesome, epic climatical finish, just a “that’s it, story’s done”. I daydream after the part is complete, conjuring up many different possible situations that may occur. Me mining through a tunnel to take the army from surprise. Sneaking through their base and sabotaging their chaos dwarf creator. Calling forth Guthix’s fury in a deus-ex-machina. Getting to finally use my multicannon in a quest-related manner as we war against the chaos dwarves like we did the dagannoth (which was pretty epic, thank you Jagex, but next time, please end the quest on the same note).

It’s like having Little Red Riding Hood say “What big teeth you have, Grandma!”, and then the wolf goes, “Oh shoot, you found me out. That’s right, I’m the wolf. You got me. Bye.” and runs away. The end. Lots of build up, but the ending was unjust.

For example, Hreidmar creates a vast chaos dwarf army, which is implied in the last two quests. You expect to see this epic battle where two sides clash and all heck breaks loose. Instead, a messenger comes and says that the trolls win. That’s it.

This is not the only quest that ends this way *SPOILER ALERT*. The Fremennik Series ends off with you losing your loved one due to your being dead for a bit. The Plague City series is … actually, have we really resolved this one? I don’t know. I don’t think we did.

There were only two quest series that ended off, in my opinion, “nicely”. One was The Cave Goblin series. *SPOILER ALERT* One final showdown that the quest had been building up to, the threat of the species extinction, and our main ally almost dying in front of us. No messengers or anything like that. You came, you saw, you conquered, you even probably cried at one point.

The other was the Void Knight series, though I do think there should’ve been a little more interaction with Korasi and Jessika during the final quest. Revealing of the mysterious bad guy, an epic battle, and a final showdown with an entire 3-faction army (the temple knights really don’t do anything)! It was the kind of ending that would make you go “YEAH!” afterwards.

By the sounds of things, though, the Mahjarrat quest series has a lot of time being put into it. I am expecting an epic battle, seeing as there (sort of) was one during While Guthix Sleeps.

Plus, I doubt Hreidmar’s going to let things end here. All we’ve done was buy time. He’s still generating chaos dwarves, Grimsson’s probably still out there, and it’s only a matter of time before Veldaban is exposed (doubt he’ll last as king as long as the next part of the quest). The series is definitely far from over.

Overall, a 3.5 out of 5 for this quest. I very much would’ve liked a much better boss fight, and to see the trolls dominate all those chaos dwarves and dwogres.

Cheers, cannoneers!