Prerequisite: Empty no More, donate ten items to the Museum
Reward: $150
Unlocks: Museum expansion
In order to trigger this quest you first need to complete Empty no More, which itself requires visiting Starlet Town's Museum for the first time. It's located right beside the Community Center, roughly in the center of town. Dropping off one item will get the ball rolling.
Your next step in this quest is collecting and dropping off ten items to the Museum. Getting one item is simple enough; getting ten is trickier. There are a bunch of ways you can collect items for the Museum:
- Go fishing. There are a ton of fish in the watering holes throughout Empty no More. The fish you can catch change based on your Fishing Pole, where you're fishing, the time of day, and the time of year. Complete Visit the Beach Shack to receive a Fishing Pole.
- Catch bugs. They scurry all over Coral Island, and you can snag them with a Bug Net. Try to catch them whenever you see one on your travels. Similar to fish, the bug population will vary based on the time of day and / or year. Complete Visit the Beach Shack to receive a Bug Net.
- Go diving. The innumerable pieces of trash hide the occasional Chest. You can take these to the Blacksmith to break open. These often contain Gems or Artifacts that you can donate to the Museum. The quest Into the Ocean will get you started on diving.
- Go Mining. If you enter the Cavern in the northwest of Coral Island you'll find a multi-level dungeon that's filled with rocks for you to bust up with your Pickaxe. It's not uncommon to come across Geodes that, similar to Chests, contain items that you can donate to the Museum.
If you want to keep track of the things you've collected without going to the Museum you can check your Journal in the menu. Note that this does not track the things you've submitted to the Museum, only the items that you've collected at least once.
Donate ten items to the Museum's Drop Box and Scott will immediately stop by to speak with you. He's not content with the state of the Museum, and wants to make it substantially larger so it can house a huge collection of items. The town doesn't have the money for an expansion, alas, but he thinks a Pickstarter campaign can get the money needed for an expansion.
The rub, of course, is that you need enough items to fill a huge Museum, and Scott gives you a new number of donated items to shoot for: 50. Yeesh. This quest will likely take you a while, and will require you to explore every avenue of item collection to get the job done. Still, the methods outlined above will, eventually, earn you all the fish, bugs, gems, artifacts, and whatever else to fill up the Museum.
Once you've donated your 50th item Scott will begin the Pickstarter Process. A few days later you'll get a letter in the mail asking you to head to the Museum, where Scott will officially trigger the Pickstarter campaign. You're told to wait a week for the Pickstarter Campaign to end, though you actually have to wait around two weeks before anything substantial happens.
Once time is up Scott will swing by to invite you to participate in the opening of the newer, better Museum. This will result in a much larger space to view items you've donated to the Museum. Scott will also give you the Soft Bristle Brush, which unlocks the ability to find Fossils and Torn Pages, both of which can also be placed in the Museum.