The Needle Skips

For the achievement, see The Needle Skips (achievement).

This article has a quick guide found here. Quick guides provide a brief summary of the steps needed for completion.

The Needle Skips (#221)
Release date	19 November 2018 (Update)
Members	Yes
Voice Over	Yes
Official difficulty	Novice
Quest series	None
Age	Sixth Age
Developers
Main developer(s)	Mod Osborne, Mod Krista
Graphics
Concept	Unknown edit
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance	Unknown edit
Audio
Composition	Mod Grace
Infobox • Talk page

The Needle Skips is a quest featuring the story of a local family and The Needle, one of the Elder Artefacts. It is one of few quests that are fully voice-acted, and has a mystery theme that takes after previous quests like One Piercing Note. The Needle Skips is very narrative-driven, and players must find and enter clues to unlock the full story.

Mod Osborne and Mod Krista, prior to her departure from Jagex, began working on the quest as part of the 2017 Game Jam.

Overview

Start point	Investigate the needle on the hill west of Piscatoris
Member requirement	Members only
Official difficulty	Novice
Official length	Short
Requirements	Skill requirements are not boostable unless marked with a [B] for boostable. None
Items required	Items from the tool belt are not listed unless they do not work or are not automatically added. None
Recommended	Four empty inventory slots Phoenix Lair Teleport for quick access to the quest area
Enemies to defeat	None

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Starting out

Begin the quest by searching the Needle, located west of Piscatoris. Upon searching the Needle, you will enter a short dialogue and cut-scene showing the nearby buildings while the player wonders what has happened. After the cut-scene, the player will receive a shard of the needle and a Mysterious Body will appear laying on the ground beside the Needle. A search of the body will reveal that the body appears to be frozen in time, with a message saying "Megan" written in blood near it. Communing with the shard will allow the player to search for keywords from the story. By entering the message found near the body, the player will unlock a memory that is viewable through the shard.

Continue searching the quest area for additional keywords, and enter them into the shard to unlock more memories and/or add characters and items to the quest area. Throughout the quest, scenery such as fireplaces, bookcases and bushes will have to be interacted with.

A temporal portal will appear next to the Needle once chapters are completed. Use the portal to progress to the next chapter. Note that it is not necessary for the player to unlock all memories to progress.

It should be noted that one can enter all of the keywords for a section, play through the story, and then interact with the necessary scenery to progress the quest. The interactions and the memory unlocks don't need to be done in any particular order to complete the quest.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 is told from Megan's perspective.

If you are interested in the story, type in the first word of each subchapter, for it to play in order. Be careful as some words are repeated so typing in one word will play 2 memories, most likely out of order. Read through all the subchapters and choose words that only appear in the subchapter you are trying to play.

If you're not interested in the story, you can skip to the end of this section by entering the word fire or fireplace into your needle shard and interacting with the fireplace. Go to the portal next to the Needle to progress to next chapter.

Below are all keywords needed to fill up Megan's section of the shard.

Chapter 1
30th	abandon	adventure	angry	apprentice	argument	attack	banquet
bed	birthday	bleeding	blood	blue	books	brand	calendar
cart	choir	cloth	cook	creatures	cry	death	disease
doctor	dying	fear	fireplace	flames	friends	fuel	gail
gods	hannibus	help	homeowner	house	husband	illness	imagination
joss	journey	killed	laziness	learn	letter	love	marriage
medicine	megan	misery	monsters	month	mother	murdered	needle
pack	poetry	potions	prayers	primrose	ramblings	saradomin	scar
sea trolls	secret	sing	sloop	song	spear	spells	stranger
study	temper	thinner	tower	toys	voice	wand	weak
wishes	wizards	yak	year	zamorak

Below are all words categorised into the subchapters as seen on the shard.

Subchapter	Keywords
Crushed under a pile of books	books, gods, husband, imagination, joss, marriage, saradomin, toys, wizards, zamorak, secret
The day we moved here	books, cart, help, homeowner, journey, megan, yak
The men I have loved	angry, love, prayers, saradomin
Temper-temper	abandoned, husband, joss, laziness, temper, wand
The arrogance of wizards	learn, tower, study, wizards
The blue woman	abandoned, blue, gail, husband, joss, love, monsters, needle, spells, stranger
Imagining another family	creatures, friends, imagination, letter, monsters, poetry, ramblings, sing, song
Songbird	choir, sing, song, voice
A wilting flower	argument, bed, disease, dying, fear, illness, love, misery, mother, primrose, weak
A year	angry, creatures, disease, doctor, dying, illness, monsters, thinner, year
I would pay any price	doctor, medicine, potions
Papercuts	adventure, cry, hannibus, weak
Pulling closed the curtain	attack, bleeding, blood, death, house, imagination, killed, murdered, sea trolls, spear
The worst moment	attack, sea trolls
Damn you Saradomin	gods, prayers, saradomin, sea trolls
A second chance	30th, birthday, calendar, homeowner, megan, month, wishes
No one's going to harm you again	30th, birthday, month
The wizard's tower	apprentice, banquet, cart, cloth, cook, joss, tower, pack, sloop, wizards
The wizard's apprentice	apprentice, sloop
An unforgivable act	adventure, friends, hannibus
The fire within us	brand, flames, fireplace, fuel, letter, poetry, scar

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is told from Primrose's perspective. If you're not interested in the story, you can skip to the end of this section by entering the word birthday. Go to the portal next to the Needle to progress to next chapter.

Below are all keywords needed to fill up Primrose's section of the shard.

Chapter 2
30th	apprentice	baba	beautiful	bed	birthday	book	books
boredom	bottle	boyfriend	burn	cloak	clown	constellations	dad
daemonheim	danced	demon	diary	dome	doubt	dubbo	friends
gail	ghost	giant	gilly	gossip	grave	hannibus	joss
key	letters	liar	lies	lizard	lizardman	look	lover
lying	magic	medicine	megan	metum	mum	overbearing	plagiarism
poison	possessed	potion	return	runt	scar	scary	shade
sheep	sickness	sloop	snake	strength	thing	thok	time
willikers

Below are all words categorised into the subchapters as seen on the shard. The keyword "metum" for the subchapter "A demon's name" will only be recognised after "birthday" is entered for the last subchapter. Even then, the memory won't be shown, and instead there will be a message "The Needle glows, recognising the name. But now is not the time to utter it."

Subchapter	Keywords
Imaginary friends	bed, boredom, friends, lying, thok, time, lies, liar
The last dragonrider	hannibus, lizardman, lizard, book, books, thok, baba, gilly
Between the pages	apprentice, boyfriend, dad, letters, lover, plagiarism, sloop, joss
Dubbo's story	baba, dubbo, giant, medicine, megan, overbearing, poison, runt, sheep, mum
My champion	thok, daemonheim, demon, ghost
The lonely demon	demon, possessed, thing
A moment's respite	medicine, poison, potion, strength
A big old bag of lies	burn, liar, lies, scar, sloop, snake, lying
A new lie every day	liar, lies, lying
The shade	shade, cloak
Silly old sheep	baba, sheep, gilly, willikers, bottle, medicine, gossip
Gilly	clown, gilly, key, time, willikers, cloak, diary
A moment of strength	diary, 30th, return
Dancing without music	30th, grave, return
The weaver's dance	danced, look, dome, constellations
The most beautiful woman	gail, strength, beautiful, scary, sickness, magic
A missing grave	grave, look
Happy birthday	doubt, birthday
A demon's name	metum
Travelling back	birthday

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is told from Gail's perspective. If you're not interested in the story, you can skip to the end of this section by entering the word wenla. Go to the Needle and investigate it to finish the chapter.

Below are all keywords needed to fill up Gail's section of the shard.

Chapter 3
anger	angry	bed	betrayed	book	buckthorn	burn	childhood
cost	cruel	dead	demon	disease	dying	ending	energy
evil	fainted	fainting	family	fate	father	fix	following
gail	happiness	happy	help	ill	illness	infected	knife
legs	loop	megan	metum	mistakes	monster	mother	necessary
necessary evil	needle	no	note	paper	parents	peeling	people
possessed	primrose	return	returning	scar	siblings	skin	stories
story	thing	traitor	wenla	worse

Below are all words categorised into the subchapters as seen on the shard. The keyword "metum" for the subchapter "A demon's name" won't show a memory, and instead there will be a message "The Needle glows, recognising the name. But now is not the time to utter it."

Subchapter	Keywords
Growing pains	childhood, father, mistakes, mother, needle, gail
Loneliness	happy, happiness, people, energy
What family means	family, happy, parents, siblings
Burning books	book, burn, anger, angry
There was someone in there with her	burn, demon, megan, possessed, scar, book
A demon's name	metum
An evil in the ink	demon, monster, possessed, thing
The agony of kindness	needle, returning
Just one more	cruel, disease, fate, illness, dying, dead
Easing her pain	disease, fix, illness, infected, legs, peeling, skin, worse
A necessary evil	evil, necessary evil
The note	note, paper
The beginning of the end	bed, buckthorn, evil, fainting, following, necessary, no, primrose, return
Family	buckthorn, cost, family, help, no, primrose
Closing the loop	ending, loop
Assuming the worst	fainting, fainted
The buckthorn bush	buckthorn
A dulled needle	betrayed, traitor, knife
This isn't the end	dead, dying, story, stories
The end of the chapter	wenla

The finale

Gail tells Megan what needs to happen

Go back to the Needle and continue to the finale. This time, you will end up in the present. You will need to find a cure for Gail, Primrose, and Megan. As Gail mentioned previously, the leaves and berries of the buckthorn bush can be used to cure illness.

Run down the path from the house, and pick from the buckthorn bush by the river. Grind the leaves and crush the berries. Go inside the house and search the bookcase northeast of Megan. Talk to Megan who is possessed by the demon. She can only be freed by saying the demon's correct name, "Metum". (you must have searched the bookcase to get the name METUM)

Head upstairs and use the buckthorn smelling salts on Primrose, who is lying unconscious on the floor.

Use the crushed buckthorn berries, now called bottle of crushed berries, on the stove or fireplace in the house to create a buckthorn salve. Use this healing salve on Gail, who is still up on the hill next to the Needle. She will recover and go down to Megan to talk to her.

After the dialogue that follows, continue to the Needle, pick up the note, read it, and walk back to the house. Talk to Megan to finish the quest.

Congratulations, quest complete!

Rewards

• 1 quest point
• 1 small xp lamp
• 2 Treasure Hunter keys and 2 Hearts of Ice (Ironman accounts will not receive these)
  

Additional rewards/activities

• Discover all chapters to claim a medium lamp.
• For full completion, players can find all of the words in each chapter. After the quest is completed, players can replay chapters by searching the Needle (or the rubble that remains after Desperate Times). To get the large xp lamp you need to speak with Megan outside of the quest replays.
  

Music unlocked

• The Needle
• Megan's Tale
• Temporal Threads
• Darker Threads

Achievements

• The Needle Skips ( 0) – Complete this Novice quest.
• Pulling on the Threads ( 10) – Discover all of the chapters in 'The Needle Skips' and then claim your reward from Megan.

Required for completing

The Needle Skips is directly required for the following quests/miniquests:

• Desperate Times

It is therefore an indirect requirement for the following quests and miniquests:

• Full completion of Azzanadra's Quest
• Desperate Measures
• Sins of the Father

Transcript

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

Gallery

• 

  The Needle Skips teaser screen from the Winter Reveals talk at Runefest 2018.

• 

  Main characters from the quest: Primrose; Megan (mother of Primrose); and Gail.

Update history

The update history project is a work-in-progress – not all updates to this topic may be covered below. See here for how to help out!

• patch 30 November 2020 (Update):
  • The Shard of the Needle is now displayed correctly on the 'Quest Complete' screen for The Needle Skips.
  • The voiceover for Primrose's note to Gail in The Needle Skips now matches the text.

• patch 4 November 2019 (Update):
  • Fixed some dialogue during the needle skips quest.

• patch 19 August 2019 (Update):
  • During 'The Needle Skips' quest you will now correctly unlock the memory fragment 'A second chance' when using the keyword 'Megan'.
  • Fixed an issue where some chapters of the Needle Skips had their text cut off.

• patch 22 July 2019 (Update):
  • A grammatical issue within The Needle Skips has been resolved.
  • A mismatch between the voice-over and text for a certain line during The Needle Skips has been resolved.

• ninja 20 May 2019 (Update):
  • The Needle Skips quest has also been improved!
    • During The Needle Skips, keywords will now be coloured in the chatbox:
      • Red if the keyword is not valid.
      • Light green if the keyword is valid and has been newly discovered.
      • Dark green if the keyword is valid but has previously been discovered.
    • During The Needle Skips, if a new keyword has been discovered, the subchapter it belongs to will flash around the portrait.
    • During The Needle Skips, if you guess a correct keyword, the list will update immediately, allowing you to see if it belongs to the section you are currently viewing.
    • When searching for keywords in The Needle Skips, the search box will re-highlight if you guessed an incorrect word, saving you a click.
    • After uncovering a memory, the keyword interface will reopen with the search box highlighted.
    • During The Needle Skips, if you click on the search box within the keywords interface and close it, the search box will be re-highlighted once the interface is reopened.
    • During The Needle Skips, if the replay button is clicked in the keywords interface, the search box will be automatically highlighted.
    • During The Needle Skips, guessing a keyword will bring up 1 of 3 messages:
      • You have already discovered the word [keyword].
      • The word [keyword] doesn't reveal anything.
      • You have discovered the word [keyword].
      • When replaying chapters of The Needle Skips, players now have the option to leave the instance by selecting the 'Return to normal time' option.

• update 19 November 2018 (Update):
  • Added to game.

Trivia

• The Needle was first mentioned in Runescape: Idle Adventures, a mobile spin-off of RuneScape released in February 2016.
  • Similarly, Gail bears a close resemblance to Sally, the avatar of the Needle.
• As mentioned during "The fire within us", Megan owns a horse, which is one of the few references to horses within the game.
• Primrose and Gail's names may reference the The Hunger Games trilogy.
• Upon completion of the quest RuneMetrics state: "I released Megan from her self imposed torment and helped Primrose to fulfill her destiny and become Gail."
• This quest rewarded the 400th quest point to be released. Upon completion, if every quest released prior had been completed, players were finally able to claim the eighth lamp from Philipe Carnillean and Spot the black dragon.
• At the start of the quest, the needle hums with great power. This could be a reference to the Places of Power in the Witcher trilogy of video games.