Quest Issue: Lord Grimrot's Love

[Dolalin]

Let's try and gather some info about this quest.

This quest originally resulted in the Electrum-bladed Wakizashi. Source @ 18/07/1999:

Lord Grimlot's Love: This is the quest for the Electrum-Bladed Wakizashi.
Lord Grimlot tells you about his poor, misguided beloved Arlena, who has run
away from him to Mistmoore castle. Being the sentimental type, he wants you
to track down the lass, kill her and return her lute of the gypsy to him.
When you return it to Grimrot, you will receive two items: a blackened
blade hilt (LORE) and a note, and more info on how to complete the quest.
Take the note to the NPC Dekam N'Tazi near SK guild in Neriak, and you will
get a LORE item, blackened iron mold, a container with 2 slots in it plus a
combine button. He will also explains you need some metal to forge the
blade. We tried different types of metal, from silver to platnium, enchanted
and plain, and found only enchanted electrum bar works. Put the enchanted
electrum bar + hilt into the mold and hit combine to make the wakizashi,
remember the blade is NO DROP so only the user should combine the items.
Banky wrote in message ...

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....Y/yJFs7Jr0V40J

The earliest web archive link from everquest.gamestats.com (which used to be Allakhazam, by the way, if you see it referred to as such in old Newsgroup posts) is from 05/10/1999, and the quest spoiler had been updated by this point to show it no longer resulted in the Wakizashi:

Lord Grimlot's Love: This quest no longer results in the Electrum-Bladed Wakizashi. I am not sure what if anything you get for this. Lord Grimlot tells you about his poor, misguided beloved Arlena, who has run away from him to Mistmoore castle. Being the sentimental type, he wants you to track down the lass, kill her and return her either the lute of the gypsy or her bones.

https://web.archive.org/web/19991005...gamestats.com/

If you note the two-three extra spaces after the colon, in both the quoted newsgroup text and in the October 5th source version, they are the same. I think the quote is authentic.

However there is a newsgroup post from around the same time that contradicts this account of how the quest worked (@ 10/08/1999):

>> Yep, I saw that one too. That spoiler is _wrong_. Mine is right.
>
> Just curious: have you/your friends verified that the other spoiler
> doesn't
>work? It wouldn't surprise me if there were two different ways to get
>the weapon.
Yes, plenty of people have tried giving Arlena's lute to Grimrot, and all you
get is some xp, faction, and gold, not a blackened blade hilt. Whoever thought
up that quest on Allakhazam's had a great imagination.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....I/P-3p1BLbVsEJ

I will continue gathering information on this, but the consensus from what I have found so far is that there was an NPC named Arlena in Mistmoore after launch, who was later removed.

The Prima Kunark strategy guide has her styled as `Lady Arlena`, but in the South Karana section:

https://vdocuments.mx/download/48825...fficial-eguide

So maybe that was her name in-game.