The Tale of the Muspah

Walkthrough

 * A modified house tab can bring you to Pollnivneach

Start

 * To start the quest you must first talk to Erjolf, who can be found on the mountain to the north-east of Rellekka. Fairy ring code D-K-S can be used for quicker access. He is excited about finding a new cave.
 * Follow him as he leads you into the cave.
 * Click on the flat rock in the water near Erjolf to cross the river.
 * Talk to him again and he'll tell you that he thinks he might have spotted some armour frozen in ice which he thinks will help him to complete The Fremennik Trials.
 * Ask him about his progress with the trials and he'll ask for your help to get the armour from the ice. Offer to help him, and he'll tell you that you need to build a Fire raft by using a knife with the driftwood.

A knife, tinderbox and spade may be obtained from Erjolf by telling him that you need some tools to melt the ice.

Melting the ice

 * Create a fire raft by picking up the driftwood and using your knife on it. You get one fire raft for each piece you pick up.
 * You can walk around each quarter of the cave by jumping on the flat rocks. Use the spade on a mound of snow by each cave water exit to block the east, west, and south streams. Use the spade again to unblock the streams. Set rafts alight to melt the small icicles on all sides around the small island.

It does not matter what order you do these. When you are finished, Erjolf will have you come speak with him.

The research

 * Once you have melted all the icicles Erjolf will ask you to come talk to him. You will then see a frozen monster inside the ice. After some talk he will then say you have to find an outlander in the Trollweiss hunting area.


 * This outlander is a natural historian. He is up on the platform above the normal birds area (in the northeast corner). The steps leading to the platform may be found north of the Sabre-toothed kyatts.


 * From there, go east all the way, then north, to find the historian. He will, after some conversation, ask you to describe the creature. The information needed is:


 * It's yellow.
 * It has four arms.
 * It has no legs, like a snail.
 * It has spikes, which run down its spine.
 * It has a spiky tail, with vicious spines.
 * It has pincers, like a crab.




 * Once you have described it for him, he will give you a Lumbridge teleport tab and will tell you that you must find a statue in the Kharidian Desert east of the Desert Mining Camp, and north of Pollnivneach.


 * The statue is far east of the mining camp along the large eastward bend in the river, a bit south of the bridge. It will appear as a sand pile, and you must dig it using the spade you were given earlier.


 * Ali the Wise will appear and talk to you. When he is done talk to him again and ask him about the Muspah. He will tell you that you need 4 cut sapphires, 4 water runes, 4 cosmic runes and a knife. If you ask him if he could take you back to the cave, he will give you a Camelot teleport tab.


 * Head back to the Muspah cave and mine 4-8 sapphires, then cut with a chisel. The eight sapphire rocks in the cave may only be mined once.


 * Cross the wooden raft bridge, bore the sapphires into the ice block (use the option "Bore-sapphires"), and enchant them. (Use the option "Enchant-sapphires" when it becomes available.) The ice will melt, revealing the Muspah inside. The same sapphires may be used for freezing and unfreezing later in the quest, so it is possible to keep 4 sapphires at the end of the quest.


 * Erjolf will run away as the Muspah starts to move. Talk to the Muspah to find that he is actually Jhallan, one of the shape-shifting Mahjarrat that accidentally transformed to the Muspah while he dreamed of it in his nightmare, and it consumed much of his energy. He explains that he was hibernating in ice for the Ritual of Rejuvenation.


 * Jhallan will ask you to reverse the process, so he may return to his hibernation, only this time he wants to choose a safer place.

The hibernation
Items needed: Knife, hatchet, 4 sapphires, 4 water & 4 cosmic runes.


 * Go and find Erjolf, who is just outside the ice chamber. Ask him and he will tell you that the only way to get to the other side of the cave is by canoeing. He will tell you to meet him at the west coast of the Trollweiss hunting area, before the snow. Remember to bring a hatchet.


 * Meet him at the north-western side of the hunting area (next to the travel symbol on the map). He will point you to the great log that you can carve a canoe from. Press the log and your player will do a bit of "crazy-slashing" on the log, creating a crude canoe.


 * Use the canoe to travel. It will take you to the Mahjarrat Ritual Site Cavern. The cave entrance is to the south-east.


 * Go to the centre area (just to the south) to find Jhallan. Already weakening, he will ask you to find him a cave that is dark, with no water flow, not too warm, and not in the middle of a tunnel.


 * The only spot suitable is the southern end of the furthest-west cave. To get there go to the south-east just behind him and follow that to the end. Turn to the west when you get to the 3-way. Now at the T-junction at the end, go south.




 * Speak with Jhallan and bore the sapphires around him, then enchant the sapphires. (Use the options "Bore-sapphires" and "Enchant-sapphires" for Jhallan.) Before you enchant the sapphire, you will automatically annoy Jhallan into eventually giving you a fake Muspah tail. Jhallan will then be entombed in the ice.


 * Take the canoe back to Erjolf. Talk to him, and you will give him the tail.

Congratulations! Quest complete!

Note: You can go back to the natural historian and tell him where the statue is to be additionally rewarded with an antique lamp of 200 experience points.

Rewards



 * 1 Quest Point
 * 1,000 Magic Experience
 * 800 Mining Experience
 * 800 Woodcutting Experience
 * 500 Firemaking Experience
 * 200 Experience lamp from the Natural Historian, can be used on any skill at or over level 10.
 * 4 Sapphires
 * New slayer cave full of Jellies
 * Access to the Muspah's cave and ice strykewyrms
 * Ability to speak to Ali the Wise about the Mahjarrat

Music unlocked

 * The Muspah's Tomb - After entering the tomb
 * Rest for the Weary - After sailing the canoe

Required for Completing
]]
 * [[The Curse of Arrav|The Curse of Arrav

Trivia

 * On the day of release, if a player was about to unlock the spoilers, they would get a message saying: The rewards have been frozen in an ancient block of ice, which can only be melted tomorrow.
 * The quest was mentioned by the Chaos Elemental in Postbag from the Hedge 39 which was released 2 April 2009. One letter from the Chaos Elemental talked about Muspah being frozen, as well as the Mahjarrat ritual.
 * Mining the sapphire rocks gives no mining experience. There are 8 mining spots in the south end of the cave. Any cut sapphires will work for the quest.
 * Although unnamed at the first part of the quest, the race Ali the Wise speaks of is the Mahjarrat.
 * Near the release date, if you used Quick Chat, and said "I am doing quest.." You could say "I am doing quest Mysteries of the Mahjarrat", this was probably the quest's working title, since The Tale of the Muspah was not on the list at the time. This has been fixed.
 * If you have completed The Fremennik Trials before doing the quest, Erjolf will comment on your achievement and address you with your Fremennik name.
 * The Fairy ring network is very useful for this quest. Ring D-K-S is right next to the cave entrance where the quest starts and also gives easy access to the Trollweiss Hunting area. Rings B-I-Q and D-L-Q go to the Kharidian Desert and are moderately close to where the statue can be found. After the quest, ring D-L-Q can be used to get to Nardah to talk to Ali the Wise.
 * Interestingly, rafts appear as NPC's on the minimap.
 * When Erjolf is showing the player how to create the fire rafts, if the player right clicks on him it will say 'Erjolf - Level 1' But it will not do this at any other time.
 * When leaving the final cave, the exit has a ladder on the minimap, instead of a red line as usual for cave openings.
 * If you leave one of the water tunnels blocked and leave the cave, the stream in the next cave is empty and fish are floundering on the ground. The fish do not appear on the minimap and you can not examine them.
 * The location of the ritual site was placed in an area that used to be covered. The site was also the last piece of unexplored area in the middle of the mainland.
 * If you blocked all of the streams with snow and then asked for another demonstration, the raft would still move even though later on in the tutorial, it tells you about the current with it being blocked.
 * If you blocked at least one of the streams with snow and go back to the previous cave, the water stream will be drained and you will be able to walk across between the entrance and the exit without having to jump the flat rocks.
 * The quest name, The Tale of the Muspah, is likely a pun on the item used to complete the quest, the Muspah tail (also referred to as the 'Tail' of the Muspah). The same pun was used in reverse with A Tail of Two Cats.
 * When this quest was released, canoe trees had their appearance changed minorly.
 * If you look at your quest log, where it should say "the creature in the ice is a muspah", it says "creaure", instead of "creature"
 * During the quest, when you talk to Ali the Wise, he will tell you that the Muspah is just a folktale. When you go back to the Muspah cave, if you examine the Muspah, it will say, "A scary folktale monster!"
 * A day before this quest was released, Jagex released a Twitter post which was obviously hinting to the release of this quest and the removal of the 2009 Easter event . "RS - Well that's the factory fixed, I wonder what the kids up north have been up to whilst we've been busy splitting heirs?..."
 * Jhallan in wall.png you log out with a wall east of you while Jhallan is following you; he will spawn in the wall when you log back in. Ironically, he is frozen in ice when this occurs (you can just exit the cave to make him respawn right). This glitch has yet to be fixed.
 * Even though you use the "Enchant Sapphire" spell, you may be on the Lunar or Ancient Magicks spellbooks.
 * There is a grammatically ambiguous section of dialogue while speaking with Jhallan, he says: "During my slumber I must have dreamt of the Muspah,  an horrific  creature from my people's imagination. The term "an horrific" may sound wrong in its modern usage, and is usually used as "A horrific" as the "h" in horrific is not a vowel. However, certain native speakers pronounce horrific with a softer, less audible "h", thus requiring the article "an" instead of "a".
 * Upon completing this quest one's Adventurer's Log will read: "I’ve learned more about the Mahjarrat and found Jhallan a place to hibernate under the ritual stone."
 * Jhallan seems to be one of the few non-agressive Mahjarrat, not wanting to get involved in Gielinor and just wanting to rest.
 * Agility level is not a requirement for the quest, however the jumping stones require almost inhuman leaps to get across.
 * When asking Jhallan about the time he spent in the ice block, he will tell you that he lived for thousands of years, and that he was around when the Wilderness was "a paradise given to us by the gods". This could refer to the time in which Zaros ruled Gielinor, and the Wilderness was not as it is today.
 * If you light fires around Jhallan after the end of the quest when he has been re-frozen, the fires will not melt even the outer layer of ice.

Tale of the Muspah