This is another quest I don't really remember, though what little I do remember (or have gleaned from other sources) doesn't suggest this is going to be fun. I faintly remember corralling sheep, which considering the ferret puzzles in Daemonheim is sure to be well-implemented and not in the least bit infuriating, and Mod JD said in the July Pub Quiz stream that this was his least favourite quest.

Still, this is a Very Important Quest, because it kicks off the Elf quest series (even though elves don't come into it for quite a while), which makes this step one on the long road to Prifddinas. So, here we go.

We start off with Councillor Halgrive complaining about the plague in West Ardougne. This is already starting to git a smidge close to home. But he gives us our quest, which is to herd sheep into a special pen and then commit sheep genocide, Guthix forgive us. I'm already not liking the sound of this, but at least he's forcing us to use PPE, directing us to Doctor Orbon to acquire some. Alas, there's apparently no budget for PPE in Ardougne, so we have to self-finance it:

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Lookin' snazzy, though I can't help but notice the lack of face mask. Considering Halgrive was talking about reducing airborne transmission, this feels very concerning to me. Unfortunately my Slayer level is only 1, so I can't wear a face mask. Hold on a sec...

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There we go, much better. Now I am observing proper safety standards as dictated by the East Ardougne Board of Health. #wearamask.

Anyway, that brief-but-necessary diversion over, on to the sheep! I know they're milling around north of Ardougne, because I see them all the time on my main using the lodestone, so I head up there, grab my cattle prod, and start proddin'. First sheep was pretty easy; maybe this isn't going to be so bad. Second sheep was pretty easy too, as was the third (actually "sick-looking sheep (4)." Okay, so where the hell is number 3? Oh, there they are, way off in the distance. Alrighty then. Yeah, that one also wasn't so bad.

What the hell, man? This seems like an almost legendarily-annoying quest, why was it so easy? Curious, I head to the wiki to look at the quest's update history, and sure enough:

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Okay, that explains it. Anyway, back to sheep murder. I've got the poison Halgrive gave me, but I'm not 100% sure how to give it to the sheep; I don't see any food troughs around, like with the rats in Clock Tower, so I try just using it on them.

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Wow, that's pretty grim. Anyway, I've swiftly got four sets of contaminated bones, which are swiftly incinerated, and then back to Halgrive for my reward.

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Okay, I take back what I said before about the budget. Though that does beg the question of why Doctor Orbon has to make his PPE himself, but the intricacies of Ardougnian bureaucracy are beyond me. Quest complete.

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So, this quest did not live up to its reputation, probably because it was pretty spectacularly nerfed a few years ago, long after most people would have played it. On its own, there's not much to recommend about this quest, but viewed in the context of the entire quest series, it's a very good introduction: it gets us personally invested in the plague, as well as starting off with us being partially complicit in it. Good first chapter, but needless to say it needs the other chapters to really make sense.