Skyrim:An Axe to Find

Retrieve an ancient Nordic pickaxe for Glover Mallory. Quest Giver: Glover Mallory Location(s): Raven Rock Reward: Ancient Nordic Pickaxe or Leveled Gold ID: DLC2RR03Intro

Glover Mallory wants to prove a point.

Quick Walkthrough

1. Speak to Glover Mallory in Raven Rock.
2. Retrieve his ancient Nordic pickaxe from Crescius Caerellius.
3. Return to Glover Mallory.

Detailed Walkthrough

That Foolish Old Man

The blacksmith of Raven Rock, Glover Mallory, has plenty of problems, both with his affiliation with the Thieves Guild in Riften and his messy family affairs. Additionally, he's got a problem with an eighty year old ex-miner who borrowed his ancient Nordic pickaxe and forgot to give it back. Locate Glover Mallory near his smithy in the center of town and he will ask, "You haven't seen Crescius Caerellius have you? That foolish old man's taken my pickaxe again!" He will then explain that it's not an ordinary pickaxe, but a rarity in Solstheim. Since Glover has some shady business going on he will refuse to call the guards and will tell you, "Um, I prefer to handle these things on my own. Look, if you see Crescius, tell him to give me that pickaxe back and I'll pay you for the trouble." You can then ask what the pickaxe is good for and he will readily explain that it's the only tool able to crack stalhrim and that he traded that pickaxe with residents from Skaal Village.

The Damn Fool

Seek out Crescius Caerellius. If you have yet to finish The Final Descent you can find him around the clock inside Raven Rock Mine and you will have to initiate said quest before he will discuss the pickaxe. Otherwise, he will have returned to his daily routine and can be found either at home or in the mine. When you mention the pickaxe, he will immediately say, "The damn fool doesn't even deserve to have it! The pickaxe was made for mining, not selling. I'll bet he stole it from the Skaal in the first place."

Note: If you already have an Ancient Nordic Pickaxe in your inventory, you may not be able to open any dialogue with Crescius about it, preventing you from advancing the quest. If this happens, simply drop, store or sell the one in your inventory until after you have gotten beyond the above dialogue with him.

Once Crescius has enabled the dialogue about the pickaxe and responded to your inquiry as outlined above, you will have three reply options available, and the reward will differ depending on your decision:

Option	Dialogue				Result
"It doesn't belong to you."	"Oh, very well. Here. Tell him I hope he drops the thing on his foot."				Return to Glover Mallory with the axe.
"Fine, you keep it."	"Now you're finally talking some sense. A mining tool belongs in a mining family. Just tell him I lost it or something."				Return to Glover Mallory and lie.
"Let me think about this."	"Good. Now let me get back to what I was doing."				Nothing.

The Two Rewards

If you chose the first option, return to Glover and tell him you have his pickaxe, which he will then let you keep as a reward: "So you finally tracked down old Crescius, eh? Quite a character, isn't he. Tell you what. Since you went through all the trouble of finding it for me and all, you keep it." He will then tell you why: "I just wanted to remind that codger you can't just go around taking things from other people. Now that you've delivered the message, I'm satisfied. Besides, that pickaxe hasn't done me any good in years. Maybe you can put it to good use." If you chose the second option, he will be quite bitter about the whole thing but will still hand you a leveled amount of gold: "Blast! That careless old fool. Well, thanks for trying anyway. Here you go... for your trouble."

Levels	Reward
1–9	250
10–19	400
20–29	500
30–39	600
40+	750

Notes

• The quest name is a play on the phrase "ax to grind".
• Glover lets you keep the pickaxe as a reward for finishing the quest. However, it does not contribute to your carry weight as a quest item, so you may prefer to leave the quest uncompleted.
• If you let Crescius keep the pickaxe, you'll need to either buy one from Baldor Iron-Shaper in the Skaal Village or find one in random treasure before you can mine Stalhrim.

Quest Stages

An Axe to Find (DLC2RR03Intro)
Stage	Finishes Quest	Journal Entry
15		Objective 10: Retrieve the Ancient Nordic Pickaxe
20		Objective 20: Return Ancient Nordic Pickaxe to Glover Mallory
25		Objective 30: Tell Glover Mallory lie [sic] about the Ancient Nordic Pickaxe
200	Finishes quest

• The following empty quest stages were omitted from the table: 10.

Notes

• Any text displayed in angle brackets (e.g., <Alias=LocationHold>) is dynamically set by the Radiant Quest system, and will be filled in with the appropriate word(s) when seen in game.
• Not all Journal Entries may appear in your journal; which entries appear and which entries do not depends on the manner in which the quest is done.
• Stages are not always in order of progress. This is usually the case with quests that have multiple possible outcomes or quests where certain tasks may be done in any order. Some stages may therefore repeat objectives seen in other stages.
• If an entry is marked as "Finishes Quest" it means the quest disappears from the Active Quest list, but you may still receive new entries for that quest.
• On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage DLC2RR03Intro stage, where stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages, but it is possible to clear all stages of the quest using resetquest DLC2RR03Intro.