Quest for the Holy MacGuffin

New level 11 quest, just adding details for now.

From the Council

Ah, {name}, excellent timing. We've just received a message from the Distant Lands -- it seems that your father, the renowned archaeologist, has gone missing. Apparently, his life's work was to track down an ancient relic known only as the Holy MacGuffin. He left behind his diary, with instructions that it was to be delivered to you, but he didn't leave any funds to pay for shipping. So, you'll have to go pick it up yourself.

You can travel there from the Travel Agency at The Shore, but there's a slight hitch -- the area you're going to requires a passport for entry, and our passport offices are temporarily closed due to a tiny photograph shortage. You'll need to acquire some forged identification documents from the Black Market instead, but we're not entirely sure where the Black Market actually is. It's probably near the Black Forest, though, and we'll mark that on your map for you.

Once you've retrieved your father's diary, we request that you use his notes to track down the Holy MacGuffin for us, as an item of such power will obviously be of great help to us in our fight against the Naughty Sorceress and the other evils that plague our land. Good luck!

Quest log shows:

{name} and the Quest for the Holy MacGuffin The Council has instructed you to collect your father's archaeology notes from Distant Lands, and use them to hunt down the Holy MacGuffin. Your first step is to find the Black Market, to get some forged ID.

How to do it

• Adventure in the Black Forest until you find sunken eyes, broken wings, and the black market map.
• Combine the eyes and wings to make a reassambled blackbird (familiar). Use the blackbird and set it to your active familiar, then use the map. Note: the familiar is used up and cannot be gotten again in the current ascension.
• Buy the false identification papers at the Black Market.
• Vacation at the shore until you get your father's journal.
• Read your father's journal to add the four parts of the Holy MacGuffin quest to your quest log and to read background and hints.

Pyramid quest

• Adventure in the Arid, Extra Dry Desert until you get the trader gnome; haggle with him.
• Go to the oasis until you get ultrahydrated.
• Go back to the desert, talk to Gnasir the gnome, who now wants a drum machine or a stone rose.
• Adventure in the Oasis until the drum machine or the stone rose drops, head back to the gnome. Note: make sure you stay ultrahydrated while adventuring in the desert, or else you simply encounter negative effect adventures.
• Adventure in the desert until you speak with Gnasir again. He will ask you to paint his door black. Buy a can of black paint in the black market, then again adventure in the desert.
• Gnasir needs time to talk with the tribe. Adventure again in the desert until you find him again.
• He will now ask for a Drum machine. Adventure in the oasis until you find one. then again adventure in the desert until you find Gnasir. He will ask for 15 manual pages.
• Obtain the 15 missing manual pages - you'll need to encounter three separate noncombat adventure in the Oasis. Once you acquire them all return to the desert and hand the 15 pages back to the gnome, who gives you a pair of hooks.
• Use the drum machine with the hooks equipped.
• The Pyramid is now open.

Hidden Temple quest

• Open the path to The Hidden Temple. Buy some cheap restoratives from town; they will be needed to keep adventuring in here.
• Adventure in the Temple until you receive a choice adventure At Least It's Not Full Of Trash - pick the middle choice, hinted at in your father's journal.
• Adventure again in the Temple until you encounter a 9x7 spelling puzzle Dvorak's Revenge. The word to spell out is 'bananas'. The journal references the song "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani, which includes the lines "This <expletive> is bananas/B-A-N-A-N-A-S"
• Adventure a third time until you encounter No Visible Means of Support and pick the last choice.
• This opens up The Hidden City location in the Distant Woods.
• Explore each part of the Hidden City until you encounter:
  • 4 protective spirits (all physical immune); Each one will drop a sphere.
  • 4 altars, each one requiring a different sphere to be placed in it; each results in a triangular stone
  • Optionally, a dead archaeologist, whose notebook may help with sphere-placement. Without knowing which sphere to place in each altar, you will lose 3 adventures for every wrong try.
  • A smallish temple, requiring all four triangular stones to enter
• Once you acquire all four triangular stones, enter the temple. Fight the ghost of the mummy (physical immune again) and you'll obtain a spectre scepter and the ancient amulet.

Spooky Raven quest

• Open the ballroom as before
• Adventure there until you play the organ (We'll All Be Flat).
• Go to the first floor, then down to the cellar
• Wearing spookyraven's spectacles, you'll see a glyph on the wall
• Adventure until you have enough wine...
• Pour wine down the hole in the right order/combination.
  • Each wine corresponds to a glyph (see item descriptions).
  • Must activate top, left, then right glyphs in the correct, and consecutive, order. Order of wine is different for each player, and possibly (likely) different every ascension. Wines are Muscat, Port, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Merlot and Marsala, and not all wines are dropped in each of four different wine racks. When at the glyphs, be aware that you are pouring 3 wines in a row onto different spots, so keep track of what you tested where.
• Fight Lord Spookyraven in the summoning chamber (he will hit you hard at first - don't run away yet!)
• Get the Eye of Ed and Spookyraven's ear trumpet

The Palindome

• Open the path to the Palindone and equip a Talisman o'Nam.
• Adventure in the Palindome until you obtain 3 noncombat adventures "Rod Nevada, Vendor"(candy),"Do Geese See God?"(photograph), and "Last Egg Gets Al"(ostrich egg) to obtain a hard-boiled ostrich egg, photograph of god, and hard rock candy.
• Adventure until you get the noncombat adventure "Drawn Onward", where you put 4 items on a shelf:
• Placement is:
  • photograph of god
  • hard rock candy
  • ketchup hound
  • hard-boiled ostrich egg
• You get beaten up after placing the items on the shelf, and get left with a diary, "I Love Me, Vol. I"
• After reading the dropped diary, adventure in Cobb Knob's Laboratory until you meet Mr. Alarm. Adventure in Whitey's Grove until you get a bird rib (from a Whitesnake) and some lion oil (from a White Lion). Cook them together to get wet stew, and then cook that with stunt nuts (from the Palindome) to get wet stunt nut stew.'
• Equip the item Mr. Alarm gives you and go back to the Palindome to fight Dr. Awkward (pick the first choice from the options to fight him [necessary?]).

The Ancient Buried Pyramid

• Paste together the Staff of Ed (the amulet with the eye and then the headpiece with the staff)
• Click on the pyramid in the beach
• Adventure in the Upper Chamber until you find a wheel
• Adventure in the Middle Chamber until you are able to use the wheel and turn it
• As you turn the wheel, the Lower Chamber changes.
• Adventure in the Lower Chambers when the following rooms are visible:
  • Empty room and room with bucket (to get the token)
  • Pile of rocks and vending machine (to get the ancient bomb)
  • Empty room and pile of rocks (to open the final chamber)
• An epic final battle awaits you in the burial chamber
• Return to the council for your reward

Reference

• The Holy MacGuffin relates to Holy Grail. The name of this quest is a reference to the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (sometimes called Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail). The fact that your father is looking for it refers to the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
• A MacGuffin is a term for a plot device invented by Alfred Hitchhock, which is an object or device that motivates characters but is itself unimportant to the story.
• The gods of the Holy City are somewhat related to Pokemon, a famous game played worldwide.
• The model of the Seaside Town and the staff to find the location of the Holy MacGuffin is a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first Indiana Jones Movie.
• The process of luring a worm up, and then using hooks on it refers to the famous science fiction series Dune, and the traditions of the desert dwelling Fremen in particular.