Summerset: Quest The Vault of Moawita; Can I reset the quest and start over?

Ulfson

Several months ago I abandoned the quest Vault of Moawita given in College of Psijics Ruins. And I suspect that I deleted several museum pieces from my inventory. I went back to the quest giver in the college and can't get the quest again. One piece is in a museum case from months ago. I have The Psijic Codex. But several of the chests are not appearing for me to loot.
Are the chests random spawns or should they be at the location if I don't have the item already?
Does anyone know if or how I can reset the quest and start over?

Happy Trails

Shadowshire

@Ulfson Note: I have edited my initial reply, as shown by the text that has a strikethrough line signifying that it is not correct.

Ulfson wrote: »

Several months ago I abandoned the quest Vault of Moawita given in College of Psijics Ruins. And I suspect that I deleted several museum pieces from my inventory. I went back to the quest giver in the college and can't get the quest again. One piece is in a museum case from months ago. I have The Psijic Codex. But several of the chests are not appearing for me to loot.

Are the chests random spawns or should they be at the location if I don't have the item already?
Does anyone know if or how I can reset the quest and start over?

Happy Trails

(1) If a quest is listed in a character's Journal, then the player should be able to abandon it. Usually, the character can return to the quest-giver and obtain it again, although that is not always possible. Some quests begin when a character finds an object or reads a document. Subsequently it cannot be found and/or will not reappear, regardless of whether the player chose to abandon the associated quest. (There is a repeatable daily quest in Craglorn which begins with the character reading a plaque, which does not disappear.)

If I recall correctly, the particular "quest" to retrieve the artifacts stolen from the Vault of Moawita is not listed in the character's Journal. In that regard, I doubt that a character can "abandon" it and "start over". Either the character proceeds to find each stolen artifact and return it to its respective display case, or the character does not do that. In my experience, the Thieves Dead Drop chests which contain them are not randomly spawned -- i.e., my character eventually found each one where it was allegedly located.

Note that the display case for the Staff of Towers (SoT) remains empty after all of the others are filled.

(2) In my experience, the character should also obtain and complete the Quest to find and seal 9 Time Breaches in Summerset. After those are sealed, the character obtains a series of Quests to find and seal the remaining Time Breaches that are scattered throughout Tamriel. Periodically, the character returns to the quest-giver to report that 9 breaches have been sealed, and receives another quest, with a corresponding map and more seals, to continue to find and seal others (until, eventually all are sealed).

At a couple of points in the course of that odyssey, the character will also be given Quests to recover one or more of the eight pieces of the SoT. So, in my experience, it appears to be necessary to pursue that quest line in order to recover the entire SoT. As far as I know, there is no other way to obtain the quests to retrieve its pieces. Of course, the exact location of each piece will be discovered by player characters who follow the quest line.

Nonetheless, I doubt whether another character can simply go to each of their exact locations to recover each of the eight pieces of the SoT. The "mound of dirt" under which a piece is buried probably will not be displayed unless the character has the Quest to recover it.

(2) Does the character still have the Augur of the Obscure in their Bags? When the character is in the vicinity of a stolen artifact, the software displays an Interactive Prompt to activate the Augur. When activated, the Augur makes some comments about the artifact. Also, a glow appears around the character's head until the character either (a) finds the Thieves Dead Drop chest which contains it and loots it, or (b) moves away from its vicinity. Returning to the vicinity of a stolen artifact causes the Interactive Prompt to be displayed again -- unless the character has found and looted its chest.

So, if the Interactive Prompt is not displayed, then check the character's Bags for the Augur. If the Augur of the Obscure is missing, then I don't know whether Customer Support can restore it, or how the character can obtain another one.

(3) In my experience, the chest disappears after a character loots it. Have you returned to any of the locations to search for the Thieves Dead Drop chest? ... (strikethrough text moved) .... Probably the game software "flags" whether an artifact has been found and looted. (In theory, the flag can be set when it should not be, i.e., perchance the software has a "bug".) It might be possible for Customer Support to edit the record(s) and clear the flags for the destroyed artifacts.

But I suspect that they cannot or will not do that, if only because each such artifact is not supposed to ever be destroyed. Indeed, IMHO, it should be "indestructable". Of course, inevitably one or more players will prefer to destroy an artifact in order to recover the Bag storage space -- instead of delivering the artifact to the display case in the Vault of Moawita (duh!).

Be that as it may, no doubt a confirmation dialog is displayed to verify that the player wants to destroy the item. So, before the player confirms that they want to destroy an item, they must beware that they might never be able to obtain that specific item again, especially a Quest category item.

Ask Customer Support whether they can help you. Good luck!

If a looted artifact is destroyed, then, as implied in the OP, the Augur of the Obscure IP will not be displayed when the character returns to the vicinity where it was previously located. Consequently, the character cannot find the chest and loot it again.

If the Augur is in the character's bags, but no Interactive Prompt is displayed when the character is in the vicinity of an artifact, then that would probably be because

Hippie4927

I don't have the answer to the OP's question but I DO know that the Augur has nothing to do with that quest.

Shadowshire

Hippie4927 wrote: »

I don't have the answer to the OP's question but I DO know that the Augur has nothing to do with that quest.

You could be right. The primary purpose of the Augur of the Obscure is to alert the player while the character is in the vicinity of a Time Breach. It has been a while since my character sought and found all of the stolen artifacts, except the Staff of Towers (SoT). Since he was searching for both Time Breaches and the Thieves Dead Drop chests at the same time, perhaps I have erroneously associated the Augur with the stolen artifacts.

Nonetheless, most recently, that character completed a Quest to find the first four pieces of the Staff of Towers -- each of which is associated with a Time Breach -- in four different locations. The general location of each piece is known, and disclosed to the player/character. As the character approaches the area in which a piece of the SoT is located, the Interactive Prompt for the Augur of the Obscure is displayed, whether the player needs to activate it. After finding and sealing the breach, the character follows a visual trail of "sprites" that leads to the location of the piece of the SoT, which is buried under a mound of dirt. When all four pieces have been dug-up and stored in the Bags, the character returns to the Ritemaster which gave the Quest, to deliver the pieces and receive the Quest reward.

Four more pieces of the SoT remain to be found, sometime in the future after the character has found more Time Breaches throughout Tamriel and sealed them. ....

Ulfson

Hi,
Thanks for the replies. I do find some thieves dead drop chests now but not the ones that held the items I must have deleted. I think the answer is no it can't be restarted. I'll live without it.

Shadowshire

@Ulfson

Ulfson wrote: »

Hi,
Thanks for the replies. I do find some thieves dead drop chests now but not the ones that held the items I must have deleted. I think the answer is no it can't be restarted. I'll live without it.

I hope that their absence will not prevent your character from completing all of the Quests to, first, find and seal the Time Breaches in Summerset, and then throughout the rest of Tamriel. Each completed Quest unlocks one ability in the Psijic Order skill tree.

That Quest chain includes at least two other Quests during which the character finds and seals a Time Breach, then follows a visual trail of "sprites" to the location of one of the eight pieces of the Staff of Towers (SoT). During the first such quest, the character closes four different Time Breaches, and, for each one, follows the trail to one piece of the SoT.

On the face of it, I suppose it is possible to find and recover all eight pieces of the SoT, regardless of whether all of the other stolen artifacts have been found and returned to their respective display cases in the Vault of Moawita.

Nonetheless, whether all of the stolen artifacts have been recovered might affect whether your character's initiation into the Order of Psijics will be "confirmed". I haven't played far enough yet to know. So, you might find it necessary to ask Customer Support for assistance.