There are various locations in the world of Gilienor, and those locations are the home of various factions. Now, one of the coolest locations you can find is the kingdom of Great Kourend. Of course, you will also be able to find various quests to do for each of these locations and factions, and one of these quest series is the Great Kourend Quest Series.
This series of quests is 8 in total and starts with the first quest ‘X Marks The Spot’ which is the tutorial quest for the Great Kourend area. Of course, just because it is a tutorial quest, doesn’t mean that you are going to be in for an easy time. If you are needing a guide, then here is our guide to this quest, and once you find the X, you will be able to start digging for some treasure.
What Is X Marks The Spot?
First, this quest focuses on a man named Veos. he’s a treasure hunter, although not a particularly good one, and requires the help of the player to find his treasure. The quest takes place in Lumbridge despite being a Great Kourend quest. Once you visit Veos at the Sheared Ram bar in Lumbridge, the quest can start.
Veos has 4 clues that all point to various locations around the town, but since he doesn’t know where to start looking, he needs your help to figure out all of the clues and find the treasure. To complete the quest, you will need to find have a spade in your inventory and free inventory space. Then, you’ll need to solve the first treasure scroll.
Solving The Scrolls
The First Treasure Scroll
The first clue on the scroll will state: “Within the town of Lumbridge lives a man named Bob. He walks out of his door and takes 1 step east, 7 steps north, 5 steps west, and 1 step south. Once he arrives, he digs a hole and buries his treasure.”
If you’ve been to Lumbridge before, or simply just need some new equipment, you will find Bob’s Brillant Axes, which is a blacksmith and repair shop; He is the Bob in the clue, and you will need to start at his door and follow the instructions on the scroll. One step east, seven steps north, five steps west, and one step south. After following the directions, you will be able to use your spade to dig into the dirt and find the second treasure scroll.
The Second Treasure Scroll
This scroll is a map, and upon the scroll, you will find the next location. This takes you behind Lumbridge Castle by the Cook’s kitchen, and you will be digging next to the large crate. After you dig up the tile, you will get a mysterious orb. That orb is the key to finding the next clue.
The Third Clue
You can put your hand on the orb, and much like other treasure hunts, the orb will either raise or lower in temperature depending on how close or how far away from the treasure you are. The temperature is based on distance, and you can walk to different locations and see if the orb has gotten even warmer or colder. Warmer means that you are closer to the location of the fourth scroll, and colder means you are further away.
It’s a bit of a long walk, but you will find the tile you need near Leela who is near the Draynor Jail. You will find a bush and will need to walk four steps from the bush to find the place to dig. You will also need to make sure to avoid the bandit jail guards nearby because they will attack you. After you did, you will find the last treasure scroll.
The Fourth Clue Scroll
The fourth clue is a bit of cryptography that is called Caesar’s Shift. This puzzle takes letters and moves them all to a specific place down the alphabet. For example, if the word ball was to be spelled in Caesar’s Shift of 2, then it would be spelled like: DCNN. Each of the four letters in BALLise shoved down two letters, and that’s the code.
The cipher for the fourth clue is ESBZOPS QJH QFO, and to solve the cipher, we need to count how many times different letters appear in the cipher. Then start guessing and checking to see what letters could correspond to each of the letters in the cipher. One of the easiest things to do is pick a letter that appears the most often and insert a vowel since those are most likely to be multiples in a word.
Then see how many letters the vowel is from the current letter in the scroll, and start trying to put words together. If that doesn’t work, then try another vowel or another common consonant. To avoid all the guessing and checking for this puzzle, this answer when decoded is Draynor Pig-Pen.
Simply go to the pigpen and dig in the center of it, and you will be able to find an ancient casket. You will also hear some faint whispering, but you won’t be able to hear what it says.
Returning to Veos
Once you have the casket, go to where Veos is, outside of the Rusty Anchor Pub, and then hand him the casket. He will give you your reward and if you ask about what the casket is about, he will state that it is nothing. It’s just something he might need in Great Kourand. You will get your reward of 1 quest point, 200 coins, an antique lamp, and a beginner clue scroll.
That’s the end of the quest, but as you’ve probably guessed it is not the end of the story. However, we never really figure out what is inside the ancient casket, although some inferences can be made.
The Client Of Kourend
The Client of Kourend is a second quest that comes after the quest ‘X Marks The Spot’ Veos asks for your help again with a client from the mainland who wants to know more about the city. The quest itself requires an article all its own, but the gist of it is this. You hear more whispers telling you what to do and where to go, and most players assume that they are the same faint whispers that came from the ancient casket.
You will need to go to a dark altar and activate an orb you have received, and once you activate the orb, it will shatter and you will be told by the voice to go back to Veos again. You can then go back to Veos but he will claim he hasn’t seen you since taking you to Great Kourend.
Before either of you can move, Veos becomes possessed by his client, and despite your questions, you won’t get anything from him. Then he will release Veos and you will be rewarded for the quest, without Veros being the wiser about what happened or who was controlling him.
Many players think that Veos was possessed or at least under the influence of whatever was in the casket and that the orb was what was inside the casket. Whenever you shattered the orb on the Dark Altar, that was when you released what was inside. That darkness, whatever it was, also weaves its corruption around the rest of the houses of Kourend. This forms the plot for the other quests you must do for the Quests Of Great Kourend questline.
The Workings Of Xeric
You discover, throughout working through the remaining quests of the Greater Korend questline, that Xeric, the previous evil old king of Great Korend, was behind the machinations of this series of quests. He was a demon lord who once held the entire city in his grip but was overthrown and fled into the woodlands. He didn’t have a body but was able to control Veos through his minion Xamphur, who you fight in the final quest.
Again, we might be able to assume that Xeric’s form was inside that orb, the orb was smashed at Xeric’s dark altar because a possessed Veos told you to do so, and he and his minions do show up at the final questline.
Often during the quest, you are dealing with corruption, things not acting as they should, and people embracing their darker influences. It’s all theory and inferencing, but it certainly makes the quest more fun. Given that we don’t see what happens to the ancient casket or ever see it again, that’s all that we have.
It also makes Xeric a much more evil villain, because he will have been manipulating events on the side since the start of the questline. That’s certainly a little terrifying if you think about it!
What Do You Get For Completing X Marks The Spot?
You will get your reward of 1 quest point, 200 coins, an antique lamp, and a beginner clue scroll. Let’s break some of these items down. A quest point, or a certain number of them, is often required to get to certain areas in the game, access special features, or enter certain guilds.
The coins are self-explanatory, and the antique lamps give massive XP boosts in a skill of your choice as long as it is over a certain level. Finally, beginner clue scrolls act like the quest you just went on. They are designed to be a series of puzzles that require you to go to certain places, do certain things, and equip certain items. Then you can get a reward for your trouble.
X Marks The Spot FAQ
Question: Do I Have To Be At A Low Level To Do The Quest?
Answer: Well, in most cases this quest is found at Lumberage, where every single player’s first adventure into Old School Runescape begins. So most of the time players are gravitating towards this tutorial questline simply because it is there. Still, if you can resist the urge and go play the game and even go to Gran Korend, then you can always come back to start X Marks The Spot later.
Veos even has special dialogue for you if you have gone to Gran Korend before coming to meet him, and any combat you do on these quests will be much easier. Still, being at a higher level is not required, namely because of our next question.
Question: Do The Clues/Puzzles Change?
Answer: If you are worried that one day this guide might be out of date, then don’t worry. The puzzles themselves do not change at all. You will find the same clues no matter what level you are on or when you play the game. It can make things repetitive if you have played the game before, but it can also make things easy. If you know the answers, then you can just go for it and progress through the quest that much faster.
Thankfully, other puzzle scrolls and puzzles in the game will be random enough so that repeated attempts should feel fresh and if you are the type of person who likes to play Old School Runescape with new characters.
Question: Where Do I Get A Spade?
Answer: Spades are pretty useful in the game for farming and treasure trails that require you to dig, and can even be helpful in some questions. You can find spades in several locations, and the most common location you’ll look through at the beginning of the game is at farming shops and general stores. They can be bought cheaply, and you can also find them at your player-owned house.
You just need to make a ‘tool store 2’ upgrade to your house and then you will have a never-ending supply of spades! Rogue kits also have them, but as said before at a very low level you will be finding them in farming shops and general stores.
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