There are some points about the Epic 1.0 quest that make me scratch my head. I've read most of the the reviews years ago, and a couple points have me stumped.

'Mystery' Sub-quest: Platinum Speckled Powder
Chat with Merdan (SFG), he wants to give Niera ... something.
Forage a "Rose of Firiona" (FV, not No Trade)
Give the Rose to Merdan, receive a "Wood Painting"
Give the Painting to A Human Skeleton (FM), receive a "Silver Chained Locket"
Give the Locket to Niera, receive her Platinum Speckled Powder.Was anybody else as lost as I was?

Re: #3. Back in the day when Velious was new and my main character was bound in the Firiona Vie outpost it was not uncommon role playing for guys to give girls a "Lady's Mantle" as a gift. So maybe Merdan could give Niera a flower, that much I can understand.

Re: #4. Wood Painting, uh, okay. I seem to be missing the point here and I can not get wimpy Merdan to respond to any other questions regarding the painting. It identifies as "Painting for Niera" but she returns it to me. As to how the painting is supposed to get to the skelly? In Frontier Mountains?? Who figured out that tidbit?

Re: #5. Chatting with Niera ends with "Even if my life were in the balance, I would have a hard time giving it up." It being the small bag of speckled, flecked powder. This bit of reasoning I can understand, the locket identifies as "Niera's Locket" so giving it to her is not a stretch of the imagination.

No words spoken. Not about the painting, not about the locket. Hindsight helps put the pieces of the story into place, but steps like #4 make me wonder if something is missing or has been lost.

Any insight or clarification on this part of an old quest would be appreciated. Thank you!

The Skelly is Niera's mother, iirc. It's been a very long time, but I believe it was something similar to that. A NPC in SFG hints to such, I think (may have been FV, was 5 or 6 years sine I last looked at that.).

-Fenier