As a First Resort

As a First Resort... is an experienced quest where you agree to aid the ogresses of Oo'glog in expanding their hot springs into a proper resort. The quest acclaimed amongst players as it unlocks the Oo'glog spa, where pools can do anything from restore prayer points to give unlimited run energy for a period of time.

Development team

 * Developer: Ingrid J
 * Graphics: Paul B
 * Quality Assurance: Adam D
 * QuestHelp: Gillan M
 * Audio: Adam B, Dan A

Speak with the chief
Speak to Chief Tess in Oo'glog. She tells you that she cannot open her business for customers until the "bossy lady" at the bank in Oo'glog allows her to do so. Offer to help, and the chief asks you to talk with Balnea, the "human lady" in the ogre village's bank. Enter the bank, across the path from the chief's hut, and talk to Balnea. After a long dialogue filled with business-speak, Balnea asks you to help turn Oo'glog into a health spa.

Agree, and she sends you first to help the village's chef set up a spit and cooking fire. After agreeing to help Balnea, you can use the bank.

Establish the catering facilities

 * Items needed: 10 eucalyptus logs, 8 achey logs, 4 spears, 2 raw chompies, and a tinderbox.

Speak to the ogre cook, Chargurr, just north of the bank. She tells you she needs a big fire with lots of logs to cook chompy. Tell her you can get what she needs. Give Chargurr eight achey logs and ten eucalyptus logs. You put the logs in the pit to create an unlit fire.

Speak with Chargurr again. She tells you she wants big, long spears to cook chompies on. Give her four spears to be used as spits. If you forgot to get the spears, the level-86 ogresses wielding spears just outside the west entrance to the village drop them.

Talk with Chargurr, and tell her you would like to give her the four spears. You hang them in the trees, over the logs. Again, speak with Chargurr, who now needs 2 chompy birds. Fetch raw chompy birds. Speak with Chargurr. You stick the chompies on the spears. Talk to her again, and now she instructs you to light the fire which will give you 500 experience if you have the level.

Talk with her again, and use a tinderbox on the unlit fire to light it. Speak to Chargurr one last time to finish this first task.

Advancing the relaxation technologies

 * Items needed: 8 stripy feathers or a Bird snare

Speak to Balnea in the bank. She asks you to help Snurgh, the hotel manager in the building in the south-east corner of the village. Give her eight stripy feathers from Tropical Wagtails. Return to Balnea for the next task.

Solidifying Kringk's assets

 * Items needed: 8 larupia furs (tatty or regular), 4 wolf bones (If you need to trap the larupias, bring a teasing stick, knife, and hatchet.)

Have another jargon-laced conversation with Balnea. She says your next task is to help Kringk in the hair salon just east of the bank. Take four wolf bones and eight larupia furs to Kringk. She asks how can she do hair with no tools. Tell her you will help. Talk to her again, and give her the four "wolfsie bones" and eight "Lup-Lup furses" to complete this task.

Pushing the envelope
Speak to Balnea a fourth time. She asks you to help Seegud, who is in the hut north-east of the bank.

Talk with Seegud. She tells you she needs to clear flying bugs from the five spa pools by lighting fires in the fire pits next to each pool. For each type of bug, you need to burn eucalyptus logs and a specific plant to keep the swarm away. Seegud has placed stones beside each fire pit to help her remember what to burn. These are not the correct combinations to put in the fire, you will need to write down the correct combinations yourself.

You will need to collect the plants from outside of Oo'glog, if you haven't done so already, and combine them with eucalyptus logs to light the fires. Go north-west from Seegud, and examine the pile of stones between the salt-water spring and the fire pit. In your chat window, you see a description of the stones.

Place the logs and the plants that match the stones in the fire pit, and light them with a tinderbox. You quickly notice something is not right: the bugs are still hovering over the pool and a mischievous ogre child is laughing. Return to Seegud, and speak with her. She says the ogre children have mixed up the stones. You now need to discover which plants the mixed-up stones represent.

Talk with Snarrl, an ogre child just north-west of Seegud and by the salt-water spring. She recommends you start with the thermal bath. Head north-east of Seegud to the thermal bath.

Which stones match which plants is different for each player. Discover their new relationships through a process of elimination. Grab a pencil and paper, and as you learn which stone represents which plant, write the match down so you do not have to figure it out again. Examine the pile of stones next to the thermal bath.

Place the logs and one of the plants in the fire pit, and light them. If you get the message, "The fire has a pungent aroma, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on the insects," add more logs and a different plant to the fire pit and light them. Note that you do need to use logs each time, despite the animation if something else is added first. Imagine that the eucalyptus logs are just another plant.

If you get the message, "The pungent smell makes the insects disperse," write down the stone colour that corresponds to the correct plant. After you disperse the insects from the thermal pool, talk to either Grubb or Snarrk, who are walking around just to the east of the pool. The ogre child suggests you next try the stones by the mud bath. Go east to the mud bath. Examine the pile of stones on the east side of the bath, and use process of elimination again to match the stones to the plants.

After you have successfully driven off the bugs, talk to Grunther, who is walking around near the mud bath. The ogre child recommends you try the stones by the salt-water spring. Head west, back to the salt-water spring. Examine the pile of stones on the east side of the spring, and use process of elimination to match up the stones with the plants.

After the bugs have dispersed, talk to Snarrl again. She suggests you try the sulphur spring next. Go west, again, to the sulphur spring. Examine the pile of stones to the south of the spring, and match the stones with the plants.

After the bugs leave, talk to either Grr'bah or Tyke, who are walking around near the Sulphur Spring. The ogre child says you have only the Bandos pool left. By now, if you have worked out how the stones and plants match up for the four preceding pools, you should know which plants to use in the last fire pit. Go west to the Bandos pool. Examine the stones on the west side of the red, copper-filled pool, and match up the stones with the plants one last time.

After dispersing all the bugs, speak to Seegud and then return to Balnea.

Accelerate the action point
Talk to Balnea to learn about the "one last outstanding matter." If you do not have 48 hunter, take your hunter potion now or you will not be able to continue. She asks you to trap the creatures wandering around the village. She suggests they may not be as easy to trap as you might think and recommends you talk with Chief Tess to learn how to catch the creatures.

Talk to Chief Tess. She tells you the animals in the area are clever so you have to be sneaky to catch them. You need to burn "stuffs" to lure the animals to the traps.

Four diseased kebbits

 * ''Items needed: knife, tinderbox, logs, a few fever grass

To catch the diseased kebbits, set deadfall traps on the boulders to the east and west of the salt-water spring. Catch two from one side and two from the other, as they will not follow you very far.

Bait the trap by using fever grass on the deadfall trap. Then light another fever grass and run around to lure a kebbit to the trap. The smouldering grass turns to ashes after about 30 seconds, so have a few in your inventory before starting. The smouldering method uses the weapon slot, so remove any weapons you are wielding before starting.

Note that diseased kebbits become aggressive if you burn tansymum nearby and may transmit disease if they attack. Also, If you try to set more than one trap at once, an ogre child scolds you: "Hey, you, human! You no allowed to clutter up Oo'glog wiv traps. You only set one at a time here."

Five wimpy birds

 * Items needed: Bird trap, tinderbox, a few tansymum

To clear Oo'glog of the wimpy birds, set a bird snare in the area west of the bank. Light a tansymum flower using a tinderbox and run around to attract the birds to the snare. Burning fever grass will scare wimpy birds away. Burning lavender will make them peck you.

A family of four platypodes
Rid Oo'glog of the platypodes by laying a box trap and then burning lavender in the area west of Chief Tess, by the sulphur spring. Platypodes have poison spurs. Do not burn fever grass as it may cause them to attack with their "webbed feet of doom".

Once you catch one, check the shaking box to put the platypus in your inventory. After you have caught the whole family (Patrick, Peanut, Penelope, and Peter), go to the north-east corner of the village, by the coast within Oo'glog (see the "baby platypus" part in the map above), and release the platypodes near the platypus holes. Each released platypus gives you a casket or an oyster.



It's go-time
Once you have caught all the creatures, return to Balnea one last time. You see a cutscene of the grand opening of the spa and the Wise Old Man taking the waters.

Congratulations, quest complete!

Reward

 * 1 Quest Point
 * 15,000 experience
 * 15,000 experience
 * 15,000 experience
 * A mixture of 4 items, either caskets or oysters
 * Access to spa facilities
 * Access to Oo'glog hunter area
 * Access to platypus summoning pet (level 10 Summoning). If you release your pet in the spot you released the others during the quest you will receive another casket or oyster
 * Access to Fresh Meat
 * Ability to travel to Oo'glog using the Charter ships
 * Ability to create Robust glass
 * 2 extra spins on the Squeal of Fortune

Music unlocked
Music tracks unlocked:
 * Bish Bash Bosh
 * Hot 'n' Bothered
 * Shaping Up
 * Spa Bizarre

Trivia

 * On the first day of release, when a player clicked to see spoilers it said: "The ogresses' customer relations has not yet incorporated this information into their incentivised pre-warning development plans. Please return when they have re-envisioned their interfacing and fed back to us."
 * Balnea's name comes from the Latin word for public bath, balnea.
 * During the final cutscene, the Wise Old Man says "Sat Sapienti," which means "sufficient for a wise man" in Latin.
 * When finished with the quest, the adventurer's log says "Balnea’s entrepreneurial spirit turned Oo'glog into a successful holiday resort for weary adventurers, if you like mud..."
 * There is a glitch where a whimpy bird might not be attracted or repelled by any grass or flowers. If this happens, switch worlds and attempt to lure it again.
 * When Balnea asks you to go to the hotel manager, she uses the word Positivewise. This is a reference to Newspeak, from the book 1984 by George Orwell.

As a First Resort... As a First Resort...