RuneScape Desperate Times Quest Guide
The Desperate Times RuneScape quest offers an adventure that continues the Elder Gods quest series. It follows on from meeting Jas in Sliske’s Endgame, and also features Seren. The following guide will show you how to complete the quest, as well as discuss the requirements and rewards that you will receive. It can be a lengthy quest too, and you will want to know what you are getting into and what you will need to have on your character before delving in.
The following guide will include:
- Desperate Times RuneScape Quest Requirements
- Step-by-step Guide
- Desperate Times Quest Rewards
Before we get started on the guide itself, lets see what your requirements will be for the upcoming quest.
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Table of Contents
Desperate Times RuneScape Quest Requirements
In terms of skill requirements, you will need to be level 50 in Mining, Smithing, and Divination. As for items, you will need 3 rune bars, 2 runite stone spirits, 10 mind runes, 10 gleaming energy, a Skull of Remembrance or equipment to get into the Black Knights’ Fortress. Finally you will need either a necklace of Charos, or just an Old necklace.
It is recommended that you have access to fairy rings too. A Dig Site pendant will also come in handy to access the Varrock Dig Site. As for teleports, having two teleports to Varrock and two Phoenix lair teleports will be of great use.
Desperate Times Step-by-Step RuneScape Quest Guide
Without further ado, here’s the actual guide.
Starting the Quest – Burthorpe Castle
To get started, head to Burthorpe Castle and go to the first floor to speak to Seren. You will be invited to join her council, and she will tell you that life on Gielinor is regarded as food for the elder gods’ unborn offspring. The goal of the council is to prove that their lives are worth something and shouldn’t be treated as food, and to plan to take this appeal to the elder gods. The first of these elders is Bik, and there are plans to build a garden to impress them. You will then discuss where to find a suitable location, plus the seed collection and team you will be using.
Finding Land, a Task Force, and Seeds
Firstly, you can sort the land by going to speak to Zarador so you can use the Feldip Hunting Grounds. Alternatively, you can ask Vanescula Draken for the Morytania swamps, or you could ask Osman for the northern desert instead. Next you will need a task force, so you can ask Brundt the Chieftain to use Fremennik, Sir Amik for White Knights, or Moia can even summon an undead force to work with you. Finally, you can find the seeds by speaking to King Roald, Azzanadra, or Garlandia. Once you know who you are going with, confirm your choice even though the council will deny it for individual reasons based on who you choose.
This will continue for three of your chosen combinations, until it triggers an appearance from Kerapac, who will state that Seren’s plan is going to fail, and offers an alternative way of going forward. This involves putting the elder gods to permanent rest with the use of the Elder Artefacts. The council will agree to this plan, all except Seren. Meanwhile, Thok will state that he can scare the elder gods away, after which Kerapac will send you and Thok to The Needle, which you can find to the west of the Piscatoris Fishing Colony.
Arriving at the Needle
Once you have made your way to the Needle, speak with Kerapac. He will ask if you can feel the power from the artefact. Whichever option you choose, Kerapac will state the he can charge the Needle, but not without causing temporal instabilities to appear. You can close the five that appear by clicking them, after which you need to go back to Kerapac. He will inform you that the Elder Artefact have somewhat of a form of consciousness, and to advance he will need to find the mage known as Charos.
With that in mind, head over to Charo’s tomb, which can be found under McGrubor’s Wood. You can use a home teleport to get yourself to the Seer’s Village lodestone if you wish. Or you can use the Fairy Ring and go south-east to the strange hole that’s found there. In the tomb, check out the coffin to receive a letter from Charos. Rather eerily, the letter will state that Charos knows what you are up to and that you will have to play a game to find him. The game involves finding three keys located in three different areas, which centres around the use of a riddle. These keys can be used to power up his old necklace, which will in turn remove his disguise.
Charos’ Necklace Key Locations
The First Key Location
Firstly, you will need to head to the Varrock Dig Site. You will notice that a group of people are gathered around a strange portal, so step inside. Once in there, you will find a room with a puzzle in the middle of it, which leads to a number of other rooms. To beat this puzzle, you need to go to the doors lead to chests, which can be unlocked by standing on magic portals on the floor. After you have unlocked them, you have to complete a riddle to open the chest, which will give you a four-letter code to enter into the lock to open it.
If the room has a note of an old recipe, then your code will be the first letter of the ingredients in order, so FCDE. It’s a common theme throughout where it surrounds the first letter of each word of items in the room elsewhere too. This is true for a room that has four items on the ground that you can’t pick up. The first letter of each item gives you the code PJCD. If it’s the room with the coins on the ground, then its based on how many coins are there. The room with the plaques in again adopts the first letter of the shields in order, which spells LFDV. There’s a room that has a single item on the ground, so its a choice of either BEER, DART, or CAKE. Finally, if you enter a room containing a herb,, then the code of course, is HERB.
This will then reveal a grid of words that can be used to solve the puzzle. This will unlock all of the chests, and the method is similar to the Treasure Trails puzzle box. Each word describes a tile, and you need to have each tile in the same position that goes with its location in the grid itself.
The Second and Third Key Locations
To find the other keys, you need to head to the first floor of the Varrock Palace. This can be reached through the portal that is hidden behind the clothing screen. Another location is on the ground floor of the Black Knights’ Fortress. The portal is in the south-east room, not too far from the entrance. You are going to need an outfit to gain access to the castle, which you can find on the armour rack to the northwest on the outer wall of the Edgeville monastery.
Solve the slider puzzle rooms in order to get the last keys. Once you have the third key, you will receive a bloodied scroll that says URIT on it several times. Reading the scroll that has different letters spells RELDO. This will see the player suggested that you should head to Varrock Palace Library, so we will be heading there next.
Building the Device
Now that we have an idea of where to go, head to the Varrock Palace and talk to Reldo who can be found in the library. You can now use the necklace that you have powered to see Charos appear.
Kerapac and Thok will arrive and outline what the plan of action is regarding the Needle, in which Kerapac will allow Charos to create his own device to help stop the Needle. Thok will have a different idea to this, and will be sent by Charos to go and adopt his own method.
Charos will then ask you for three rune bars, two runite stone spirits, and 10 gleaming energy and mind runes to help build the device for Kerapac. Once you have these items, hand them to Charos who will build the device. You will then be told to head back to the Needle and meet him there.
Entering the Needle
Just as Charos is about to use the device on the Needle, he and Thok are attacked by Gail. Kerapac will then send you into the Needle whilst he distracts Gail. This will take you to the very depths of Guthix’s Cave, and you will need to beat Sliske clones here to collect their broken mask shards. They spawn when you walk into specific areas, so you need to make sure that you are exploring your surroundings thoroughly so that they all appear. After you beat the five clones, the shards will make Sliske’s mask, which you can now wear to become Sliske. Go over to the end of the cave to find and kill Guthix, after which you will be sent to Naragun.
Here, you need to find the five memories of Armadyl, Bandos, Saradomin, Seren, and Zamorak. You will find Guthix near the Fairy Ring, so speak to him to be transported to his cave. Once inside, switch each of the mutable anima a single time. You will find four switches, and you will notice that the light orbs will cross paths with each other a couple of times. Once you’ve done this, you will be in a clone of the Empyrean Citadel. This will see Sliske appearing in the centre and talk to you about the gods. After that, go into the room to the west with Gielinor. You then need to use Agility shortcuts to navigate the room, and keep heading through all of the rooms until you jump down into a new location.
Completing the Desperate Times RuneScape Quest
You will now be in Sliske’s Labyrinth. To advance through this area, you need to change the redirect anima to go to Kerapac. The last room is at the end of the Dragonkin Laboratory, where players need to thaw out the frozen nodes. Find the memory wisps in the north-east and the south-east. Listen to Kerapac speaking to his son Vicendithas about how to get back to Orthen. After all of this has been completed, a cutscene will play.
This scene eventually sees Gail turning back into Primrose, here human form. Kerapac will then use the power of the Elder Artefact to teleport and fly away to plan the net phase. So, speak to Charos, who will vent his frustrations, whilst Prmrose will state she needs to visit her mother. You need to now head back to the council and inform them of the events that have transpired. Seren will now know that Kerapac is going to use the Needl’s power to sacrifice the planet of Gielinor to destroy the elder gods. This inspires Seren to come up with a plan to kill Kerapac using Charos and the rest of the council, thus ending the current quest.
RuneScape Desperate Times Quest Rewards
For completing this quest, you will receive 3 quest points. Also, you will get a pocket slot item called Charos’ Clue Carrier, and a master clue scroll. You can expect to receive a huge XP lamp too, plus two Treasure Hunter keys, and two Hearts of Ice.
For finishing the Desperate Times Runescape quest, you will unlock some music tracks too. These include the Chamber of Guthix track, as well as The Charos Enigma, Seren’s Plea, and True or False. The True or False track can also be unlocked during the Hero’s Welcome quest in the Fremmenik series.
Finally, for completing this intermediate quest, you will also get the Desperate Times achievement. It can be a long quest to complete, but it offers a great story along the way and some pretty neat rewards, so its certainly worth your time doing.
If you have followed this entire guide, then congratulations for beating the quest!
