Side quests in FFXIV are a form of endgame, and whoever doesn’t think so, should spend some time exploring these terrific stories – especially the Endwalker and Shadowbringer ones. If you’re on the same journey as me, trying to complete them, but you’re utterly confused by the quest “Secret In The Box” in Old Sharlayan, this quick guide will help you save hours of riddle solving and will take you straight to the quest completion – if you don’t find any satisfaction in doing it yourself, that is.
If this is the first time you’re hearing about the quest, it’s basically a 3-part puzzle where you need to locate three guardians within Old Sharlayan based on some vague clues. If you’d like to start the quest, you should go to the Stadium, and find a girl sitting on the bench with a mysterious box beside her, right over at (x: 10.6, y: 11.1).
Rewards
For the completion of this quest, you’ll receive Experience Points, a bit of Gil, and a guaranteed Chondrite Ring Coffer, awarding you with a Star Quartz Ring of Fending, Slaying, Aiming, Casting, or Healing, of item level 545. The ring you’ll receive depends on the job you currently have equipped when you’re opening the coffer, so pay attention to that if you need the ring for leveling. Now, considering how much time and effort you actually need to invest to solve these clues, in my opinion, the award is not too impressive, and I definitely expected at least a minion or something like that. That’s why I even decided to make this post – so that others wouldn’t feel too disappointed over spending so much time only to loot a ring that admittedly does sell for about 25k gil on the Market Board, but isn’t particularly impressive.
Clue solving
Alright, let’s talk about the riddles. The first one is: “Towards wisdom aspiring, a keeper doth gaze, by young minds inquiring and new trails blazed. Yet the mind is a muscle, in rest it doth grow, so let all embrace slumber, the better to know.” To solve it, you should go to The Studium Aetheryte, and then go to (X:7.9, Y:13.8). You will see a “Sleepy Student” with blue hair standing in front of a stone pillar. Highlight her, then perform the /doze emote to obtain the first key.
The second riddle is: “By life ever-flowing, a keeper doth wait, clutching a prize, his hunger to sate. Yet no prize is so coveted as one golden-hued, the mention of which is never thought rude.” For this one, you will have to head to The Rostra Aetheryte. From there, go to (X:9.0, Y:7.3) to find a friendly squirrel named Nutkin. Highlight Nutkin and type “golden acorn” into Say Chat Channel, and hit enter. This will give you the second key to the riddle.
The third riddle is: “Blessed by the nymphai, a keeper doth stand, Enthralled in a tale, a book in his hand. Yet evocative as letters on parchment may be, tis words said and heard which impel destiny.” The solution to the third riddle is the easiest of all of them and only has you speak to a person rather than perform and emote or use a specific Chat Channel. First, head to The Rostra Aetheryte, then to (X:11.5, Y:8.5). Here, you will find a male Au Ra Izumi. Just speak to him and you’ll receive the third key, and that should be enough for you to complete all the quest and get your reward!
That’s all you need to know in order to solve “Secret In The Box” and save a lot of hours. If you’ve got some tips of your own, make sure to leave them in the comments, and if you’re more of a visual person, and you don’t mind getting easy wins in-game, you can check out all of this in my video – and subscribe for more awesome FFXIV stuff!
Mom's Den 