Between a Rock...

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OS

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Between a Rock... (#74)

Release date	21 March 2005 (Update)
Members	Yes
Voice Over	No
Official difficulty	Experienced
Quest series	Rise of the Red Axe
Age	Fifth Age
Developers Main developer(s) Vincent Van M Graphics Concept Unknown edit Quality Assurance Core Unknown edit Audio Composition Unknown edit

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Between a Rock... is a quest about helping the old dwarf Dondakan, who is trying to access a legendary gold mine south of Keldagrim, but is unable to penetrate inside.

Official description

Hidden away from the fearsome trolls and the roaming Fremennik, the dwarves delve deep beneath the mountains in search for the ore they need to support their home of Keldagrim. One dwarf, in particular, has for years been trying to crack open a rock that seems to be impervious to any material that he's tried on it. Convinced that solving the riddle of the rock will lead him to unimaginable wealth, he has spent the latter part of his life on just this lump of stone. Help him out, but take care you don't end up in a tight spot!

Walkthrough

Start point	Speak to Dondakan in the Keldagrim mines east of Rellekka, and north of the mountain camp.
Member requirement	Members only
Official difficulty	Experienced
Official length	Medium
Requirements	Skill requirements are not boostable unless marked with a [B] for boostable. Quests: Between a Rock... Dwarf Cannon Fishing Contest 30 Defence 40 Mining 50 Smithing
Items required	Items from the tool belt are not listed unless they do not work or are not automatically added. 4 gold bars Ammo mould (cannot be used from tool belt, easily obtainable during quest.) 50 coins Recommended: Active lodestones in Burthorpe and Edgeville (to teleport close to a furnace and to travel by mine carts from Grand Exchange respectively) Completion of The Giant Dwarf (to quickly travel by carts to the underpass of White Wolf Mountain) 15 free inventory spaces to hold gold ore
Enemies to defeat	A few scorpions (level 14) Arzinian Avatar (level 50-56); combat level depends on amount of gold mined

Rock hard

Dondakan's location

Head to the Keldagrim south-west mine (if you are entering through the cave entrance: cross the river by speaking to the ferryman) and speak to Dondakan the dwarf; when asked why he is shooting cannonballs at a wall, Dondakan explains that the wall is in fact a "special" rock, by the fact that it is impenetrable. After having no success with a pickaxe and being abandoned by his colleagues, he requests your help in analysing and harnessing this enigma.

The dwarven scholar

Location of the dwarven engineer.

Accept, and he'll suggest entering the dwarf city and finding someone who knows their way around rocks or, if that fails, speaking to the librarian. If you haven't yet completed The Giant Dwarf quest, you will need to talk to the dwarven boatman to visit Keldagrim for the first time; the boatman is at the entrance upon first crossing the water.

In West Keldagrim, go inside the consortium, the largest building there. Directly east of the entrance, there'll be a Dwarven Engineer - speak to him and he'll tell you about Rolad, a renowned scholar who used to work with Dondakan on the rock. He eventually left, saying he wanted to travel the world and learn by experiences, and was last heard being with the Black Guard at Ice Mountain.

Arzinian Avatar

Teleport to the Falador lodestone and run north-east, or to the Edgeville one and head south-west. Rolad is in the north-eastern building, near the entrance to the dwarven mine. Mention Dondakan and his impervious rock, and he'll suddenly remember procuring a book which had details about the same rock, and how it got placed in the Keldagrim mines. He had torn out the relevant pages to study them, but has unfortunately misplaced the bunch, probably in the nearby underground mines.

Offer to help in retrieving the pages and climb down the ladder to enter the dwarven mine. Note that the pages may require multiple attempts to be obtained.

1. The first page can be found by killing scorpions.
2. The second is found when searching the mining carts.
3. The third one is found by mining any rock inside the mine.

Once you gather all the pages, they will automatically combine into pages. Return to Rolad with the pages, and he will give you a book on dwarven lore. Read the book to learn about the history of the solid rock, about how a certain Arzinian being from Bordanzan was trapped inside a mine containing "yellow stones", by a few elder dwarves' efforts. The mine collapsed into itself and formed into a single, extremely hard stone form, holding the entity inside it.

Yellow stones

Smelting a golden cannonball in Taverley

Head back to Dondakan and inform him about the trapped spirit and the gold. He tells you that the other metals like adamantite, runite and granite have failed to make a dent on the rock, to which you suggest using a "yellow material". Show him a gold ore or gold bar on him and he'll ask you to create a gold cannon ball out of it.

The gold ball went right through!

Bring one gold bar, and teleport to Lumbridge using the lodestone network; the furnace should be a few houses north of the lodestone. Use a gold bar on the furnace with an ammo mould on hand to make a golden cannonball. (If you have never made cannonballs previously, you may need to make a set from steel before the option to make gold ones becomes available.)

If you've completed the Easy set of the Varrock Tasks, another option is to teleport to Edgeville and smelt the cannonball at the furnace located just east of the lodestone, and then use the Grand Exchange trapdoor shortcut to get to Keldagrim. You cannot use a portable forge to make the cannonballs.

Back in the Keldagrim caves, show the golden cannonball to Dondakan. He eventually agrees to try shooting it at the rock. A cutscene ensues in which Dondakan fires the golden cannonball, and it passes right through the wall and disappears.

Astonished and excited, he plainly suggests throwing you at the wall, but he needs the schematics to modify the cannon to be able to fire a human. Considering the safe passage of the golden cannonball, he also tells you to make yourself a gold helmet, to phase through the wall.

Cannon ergonomics

The finished schematics

To correctly alter the cannon for safely shooting a human, you need to find all 4 sets of schematics:

• Dondakan gives you the first schematic.
• Read the dwarven lore book to find the base schematics, destroying the book in the process.
• One of the schematics is held by the Dwarven Engineer back in Keldagrim, at the ground level and west end of the Consortium. You can save some time by using the anvil to the west to create a gold helmet.
• For the final schematic, head under the White Wolf Mountain, located north of the Catherby and Taverley lodestones. Inside the tunnels, go to the pub and talk to Khorvak; he'll ask for a dwarven stout and you can agree or disagree to get him one. If you disagree, a unique monologue is said by the player. Otherwise, grab one stout off the table and hand it to him; regardless of the option you choose, he will give you the final schematics.

Once you have all the schematics, click "assemble" on any of the pieces to bring up an interface which shows the schematics, albeit scrambled out of order.

This part is simple pattern recognition. Try to piece together the humanoid figure medially placed atop the schematics. Schematic 1 lines up with the body of the figures, Schematic 2 lines up with the head and Schematic 3 lines up with the legs. They can be manipulated one at a time via the check boxes. This will make the pattern much easier to follow and understand. Once you put them all in their proper places — some trial and error is required — the screen will show: "That's it! It all makes sense now! If you were a dwarf, that is...".

To make a gold helmet, use three gold bars on an anvil. The anvils in Keldagrim can be found south-west of the bank and in the same room as the Dwarven engineer, on the ground floor of the palace.

If you've completed The Giant Dwarf quest, a fast way to get back to Keldagrim is by using the train cart in the south-east corridor of the cave under White Wolf Mountain.

Striking gold

Second thoughts

Bank in Keldagrim and withdraw any combat gear required to fight a level 50-56 enemy, along with your gold helmet; make sure to keep six to fifteen free inventory spaces for collecting gold ore. Once you are ready, go back to Dondakan with the completed schematics, and ask him to shoot you into the rock.

Once inside the rock, you will be surrounded by gold ore and veins; mine as much as you can. The upcoming enemy's combat level will be anywhere between level 50 and level 56, decided by how much ore you mine. With less than 6 ores, it will be level 56 and have the ability to regenerate infinitely; if the quantity of ores is between 6 and 14 it will be level 53, and with 15 gold ores or more it will be level 50. The gold ores must be in your inventory.

Too late!

Into the Rock

A non-unlockable music track that plays during the firing of you into the rock.

You must keep on your gold helmet whilst in the cave otherwise you'll be kicked out of it, and all of your mined gold will disappear.

You only have eight minutes in here to do everything, so be swift. When you have enough gold, head to the centre of the area, where you will find a set of flames. Go through the first wall of flames — do not stay for too long, or you will start taking damage — right click on the next ring of fire, and select talk. An Arzinian Avatar will come and attack you.

Fighting the Arzinian Avatar

The spirit can attack with any combat style; which form it takes is dependent on your highest combat skill. If your Magic level is higher than the other combat levels, the Avatar will attack with Ranged. See the Combat Triangle for more details.

You can use prayer for an easy fight; the spirit shouldn't take too long to kill. If you are close to dying, you can take your gold helmet off to leave the mine, or if you fail to defeat the demon within the time frame, you will be teleported outside the mine, losing all mined gold.

When you have defeated the demon's avatar, you will be teleported out of the mine. Speak to Dondakan to finish the quest.

Congratulations, quest complete!

Rewards

• 2 quest points
• 5,000 experience
• 5,000 experience
• 5,000 experience
• Adamant pickaxe +2
• Players may keep their gold helmet and access the Arzinian Mine, where 146 gold rocks and veins can be found with minimal competition. After the quest's completion, a dwarven boatman due east of the mine will bank the player's gold ore for a small fee. He keeps 20% of the ores, rounded up, or 10% if the player has the Ring of Charos (a).
• 2 Treasure Hunter keys and 2 Hearts of Ice
  

Music unlocked

• Claustrophobia - In the Arzinian Mines, during the quest
• In Between - In the Arzinian Mines, after completing the quest
• Time to Mine - After completing the quest.

Required for completing

Completion of Between a Rock... is required for the following:

• Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf

Transcript

This article on a quest has an associated dialogue page. Click here for a transcript of possible conversations encountered throughout the quest.

Trivia

• The quest name is a reference to the phrase "between a rock and a hard place."
• When you complete the quest, the quest complete scroll says, "Congratulations, you have been Between a Rock...!" This is one of the quests that note something different from the normal quest completion dialogue, along with My Arm's Big Adventure, One Small Favour, The Giant Dwarf and Horror from the Deep.
• After completing this quest, your Adventurer's Log will say: "A dwarf miner opened up a magical gold rock - by firing me at it from a cannon! Inside I had to fight a demon."