Has the decay time on various items been increased (for example, the skein)? When I did the quest a long time ago, I had no problem with the things I needed decaying, except for the black stones, but I managed that okay. However, I've recently introduced someone else to the game who has been trying to do the quests and he can't even get the skein to :the intended recipient: before it vanishes.

He's been told by others that it's not even worth the bother of doing the quests, which wasn't really true back when I was trying it. It was a nuisance, but it wasn't extremely frustrating (except for finding the librarian).

I went through both Newton Cavern quests very recently, and didn't notice any difference from when I did them as Tzara.

I did both quite recently and it took me a single go and less than 20 min for each. Obviously, it gets harder if you run low on portals. Your friend must've gotten very unlucky with decay times.

Yep, portals are your firends. They thing that gets me is when the iron portal closes on me and I'm one item away.

I did the gnome quest fairly quickly, and I had no problems, whatsoever.

But you always have a small chance that an item will decay soon after you get it, anyway.