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For the music track, see Back to the Freezer (music track).
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Back to the Freezer is the fourth quest in the Penguin quest series.

Official description[]

The penguins are back for another slippery tale of subterfuge and ramshackle science that'll leave you questioning the very fabric of reality…as well as the good taste of its puns.

Rewards include hearty chunks of XP to ward off the polar chill, as well as improvements to the XP rewards from Penguin Hide & Seek and the Circus.

And with that, you're on your own. Can you circumvent the latest flashpoint in Gielinor's coldest war? There's only one way to find out..

Walkthrough[]

Start pointQuest map icon
Back to the Freezer icon
Speak to Chuck at Ardougne Zoo.
Member requirementP2P icon Members only
Official difficultyMaster Master
Official lengthMedium to Long
RequirementsSkill requirements are not boostable unless marked with a [B] for boostable.
Quest Quests:
Items requiredItems from the tool belt are not listed unless they do not work or are not automatically added.
Recommended
Enemies to defeat

The mission[]

Chuck chathead
Talking to Skot and Mundsen

Meeting with Skot and Mundsen in Rellekka

To start the quest, speak to Chuck in his enclosure at the south side of the Ardougne Zoo. He asks you to meet with two PBJ agents, Skot and Mundsen, who have reported increased penguin activity on the Iceberg. He provides you with a passphrase consisting of three parts: "The weather on the holiday location is weather option and the fish option are to die for." The phrase varies by player and will be noted in your quest journal.

Travel to Rellekka and talk to Skot and Mundsen, who are north of the marketplace. After you provide the correct passphrase, Skot and Mundsen tell you that Pescaling Pax is plotting to permanently lower the temperature of Gielinor.

A short cutscene takes place on the iceberg, where the penguins launch a flying telephone booth. When they land in the desert, the landscape becomes covered in snow before the cutscene ends.

Investigating the T.A.R.D.I.S.[]

Items needed: Protection from the desert heat
Talking to Dundee

Talking to Croc and Dundee near the crash site

Skot and Mundsen asks you to travel to the crash site south-west of Pollnivneach to investigate, stating that they are too "busy" to do so themselves. You can get there by breaking a Pollnivneach tablet, taking a magic carpet from the Shantay Pass to South Pollnivneach, using the Bandit Camp Lodestone and running east or teleporting to Sumona with a ring of slaying.

Speak with Dundee just north-east of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and ask him about the penguins. He didn't see anything, but he provides you with a crocspeak amulet which allows you to speak with the crocodile near Dundee's camp.

Equip the amulet and speak with Croc, who asks you to help with the temperature in the area, stating that he doesn't like the cold. After talking with Croc, you discover Croc used to be an inhabitant of the Ardougne Zoo and is familiar with Chuck, though he didn't believe his penguin stories until now.

Investigate the T.A.R.D.I.S. to the south-west of Dundee's camp. You find a sign that reads "Terraforming Arctic Refrigeration Dispersing Ice Spreader" before deciding you should tell Chuck what they have found.

The secret-secret agent[]

Back to the Freezer clockwork suit

Getting into the clockwork suit

Bring Chuck up to speed with your findings. He suggests you find the PBJ agent that has infiltrated the "extreme penguin cell"; the problem is the agent's identity is so secret that even Chuck doesn't know his name. However, he does provide a clue: "The only thing I do know about him, is that his favorite food is sardines." If you don't have a clockwork suit with you, Chuck will give you one.

Travel back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. and upon speaking with a named penguin, your clockwork penguin suit is automatically put on (your cape, main hand and off-hand slots must all be empty). Speak with Emperor Wing, Gordon, Hugh, and Elon to gather clues towards figuring out who the agent is. After talking to all four penguins, a new option appears to ask if the penguin is a spy.

Speak to the secret agent, Gordon, and ask him if he is a spy. He tells you his plan to sabotage the penguins, and directs you towards his locker in a secret bunker on the Iceberg.

The secret bunker[]

Items needed: Ice cooler
Back to the Freezer secret bunker (present) map

A map of the secret bunker in the present

Travel to the iceberg via the small boat north of the Fremennik lodestone and use the G.P.S. you received from Gordon to locate the secret bunker. After some interference, you discover a mysterious hatch leading to the secret bunker. Change into your disguise by talking with Jim to the east. Return to the hatch, type the CHIP and FIN code (1234), and enter the bunker.

Follow the hallway south and then west to the center, and enter the doors to the main research facility. Enter the locker room directly west, and search Gordon's locker to find the de-lore-ing device parts list and the incomplete device. Search the following areas to find the items needed to complete the device:

Item Description Location
Hat (Back to the Freezer) Hat Something to cap it all off Hide and Seek staging area (north-east)
Flax (Back to the Freezer) Flax Something to bind the pieces together 'Some like it' - Cold Storage (south-west)
Hammer (Back to the Freezer) Hammer Something Thor-ific
Ice cubes Ice cubes Something to keep the device cool Chill-out room (north-west)
The Penguin Book of Gielinor The Penguin Book of Gielinor The knowledge to bring it all together

Use the items on each other to create a flax cap-ice-i-tor, and then use this "capacitor" on the incomplete de-lore-ing device to complete it.

Time travelling[]

Back to the Freezer monkey island

An odd place

Back to the Freezer Ping and Pong

An even odder place

Back to the Freezer Mining Guild

Not-robots mining

Operate the completed De-lore-ing device and you will travel to an isolated island inhabited by monkeys. Operating the device again informs you that the device requires calibration. Grab the monkey wrench on the ground and use it on the device to tighten the nuts and operate the device again.

Malfunctioning again, the device teleports you to a fenced-in area in "Fin-inor" where Ping and Pong are caged. Grab the penguin bongos and cowbells and use them on the device to "fin-tune" it.

Operating the device again teleports you to a cabbage field with the Gower brothers. The device has now stopped working entirely, but picking a cabbage and using it on the device will prime it and will once again be operable.

You now arrive at the Mining Guild with men mining coal and mithril rocks. The device is now crashed and requires something to get it restarted. The men with rune pickaxes are bots, so talk to the man with a dragon pickaxe. The man suggests to "give it a kick" and gives you a pair of worthless old boots. Use the boots on the device to "re-boot" it, and it is now functional and finally transports you to the secret bunker in the past upon being operated one last time.

The past secret bunker[]

Back to the Freezer secret bunker (past) map

A map of the secret bunker in the past

Talk to Gordon in the laboratory to the south-west, who refers you to Elon in the central room (with the T.A.R.D.I.S.). Speak to Elon and he asks you to collect items from around the base. Search the following areas to complete Elon's list:

Item Location Notes
Lemon sole rune 1985 lemon sole runes 'Area 51' (west) Gather 2000 Pure S-now from the pile of snow, clean the Mysterious Ice Block with the lemon found in crate next to it, then investigate it to create the lemon sole runes.
Killerwatt energy 121 killerwatt energy Prison (east) Talk to Buzz the killerwatt to obtain 21 killerwatt energy. The remaining 100 must be obtained by killing 10 killerwatts in the killerwatt plane, entered through the top floor of Draynor Manor.
'fishvention' rod 'fishvention' rod N/A Use the cog from a crate in 'Some like it' - Cold Storage (south-west) on the fishing rod in the War room (south) to create the 'fishvention' rod.
Cool-ant Cool-ant N/A Use the coolant holder from a crate in 'Some like it' - Cold Storage (south-west) on the ice maker in the Chill-out room (north-west) to create the cool-ant.
Ice box Ice box N/A Use an ice cooler on the ice maker in the Chill-out room (north-west) to create the ice box.

The puzzle[]

Items needed: 50 of each: bright, flickering, gleaming, and sparkling energy

After you bring Elon the required items, he asks you to find a way to charge the T.A.R.D.I.S. Use 50 of each Bright, Flickering, Gleaming and Sparkling energy on the energy container to the north-west corner of the room, then charge the batteries by solving the puzzle at the Battery Control Station.

The puzzle works the same way as the board game Mastermind, in which you must figure out the order of the pegs (in this case the pegs are the energy types). Select which energy types you would like to place in each of the 4 slots, and try to solve. To the right of your selection, you be given either nothing, a number of grey squares, a number of white squares, or any combination of these.

  • A white square means you have a peg of the right colour in the wrong spot.
  • A grey square means you have a peg of the right colour in the right spot.
  • If neither of these is present it means you have no pegs of the right colour.
  • The squares location is always to the far left, this does not indicate which peg it is referring to.

By trying different combinations and observing the outcome of the grey/white squares, you must figure out which colour pegs belong in which spots, thus solving the puzzle. Each row is a separate guess at the four-energy sequence (Meaning there are 10 guesses per attempt). Resetting the puzzle will change the correct sequence.

By setting each of the slots to the same colour, the number of grey squares shows how many of that colour is in the solution. Doing this for three colours gives the number of each colour needed. The number of the fourth colour pegs is the remaining number of pegs not identified by the first three. This can use up to three turns, but then only determining the order remains.

A tip to make the puzzle easier is to reset and test each colour until the solution only has 2 colours in it. Then there are a lot fewer combinations that you need to test.

Return to the present[]

After solving the puzzle, the T.A.R.D.I.S. is completed. Talk to Elon (current room), Gordon (laboratory to the south-west) and Hugh (chill-out room to the north-west) and then inform Emperor Wing in the main research facility afterwards. Shortly afterwards, the cool-ant starts to leak around the facility. You may now pilot the T.A.R.D.I.S. and escape.

Following a cutscene, the T.A.R.D.I.S. crashes in the desert because of the player's lack of knowledge on how to pilot it: the very fact that you went back in time to prevent the crash caused it to happen, closing the time loop and starting another cycle. Return to Chuck in the Ardougne Zoo to report the case. You express concern that despite Gordon sabotaging the machine in the past, the T.A.R.D.I.S. has landed and could cause the desert to freeze.

Chuck informs you, however, that the T.A.R.D.I.S. machine had already been sabotaged and was harmless when it landed, and so its cooling power is under control. Begrudgingly, you accept the outcome and Chuck rewards you.

Rewards[]

Back to the Freezer reward
  • 1 quest point
  • 1 antique lamp (found during the quest)
  • 25,000 Divination experience
  • 25,000 Runecrafting experience
  • 15,000 Slayer experience
  • 15,000 Agility experience
  • 10,000 Invention experience (if you have completed the Invention tutorial. Otherwise it can be claimed from Chuck after you have completed the Invention tutorial).
  • 1 additional penguin to find in Penguin Hide and Seek
  • Experience in Penguin Hide and Seek and Balthazar Beauregard's Big Top Bonanza now scale with level
    • Penguin Hide and Seek experience is now 40 experience per level per point (up from 25 per level per point - a 60% increase at all levels)
    • Big Top Bonanza experience is 1.5 times as much compared to before
  • 2 Treasure Hunter keys and 2 Hearts of Ice
Music unlocked

Transcript[]

Trivia[]

Back to the Freezer head banner

The head banner for the quest

Back to the Freezer cabbages

The Gowers and one million cabbages

  • The quest summary that appears in the player's Event Log in Runemetrics says "I travelled back in time in an attempt to thwart another of the Penguins nefarious schemes and stopped Gielinor being terraformed and sent back to the ice age."
  • The quest makes references to franchises containing time travel, such as Doctor Who, Back to the Future, Bill & Ted and Star Trek.
    • Ping & Pong, when imprisoned in the Pillory in the future, quote Bill & Ted.
  • The penguins describe the going-away party, saying "There was black ice, vanilla ice, cyan ice, and yellow snow." These are all references to non-edible forms of ice.
  • Ping's dialogue "And that's when we bit the head off a fish on stage!" is a reference to an incident involving Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat live on stage.
  • The examine text for the door in the version of the mining guild visited during the quest is "Hold the door." This is a reference to a scene from Game of Thrones.
  • The mining guild in the quest references bots being used for mining, as the player with the dragon pickaxe (who unlike the others, is not a bot) notes that they all look alike, as well as gnome balls being used to prevent the bots from skilling.
  • The PBJ's secret agent mentions inventing a device during his 'Twiblick All-day Passion Projects' time, which allows the penguins time to work on their own passionate projects, a reference to the "Thursday, All-Day, Personal Projects" in which Jagex employees are able to spend every other Thursday working on a project they feel passionately about, from which this quest came initially.
  • When reporting to Emperor Wing before boarding the T.A.R.D.I.S., he asks "Can you fly this T.A.R.D.I.S., and land it?" to which the player responds "Surely you can't be serious!" and Emperor Wing says "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." This is a reference to the film Airplane!.
  • The Divination puzzle goes up to eleven, a reference to the 1984 film This is Spinal Tap.
  • The room where the lemon sole runes is referred to as 'Area 5.1', a reference to the United States Air Force facility Area 51.
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