Talk to Surveyor Menak at the far northeast part of the western half (on the map) of the Commonlands. He tells you to get the wheel from the camp of little people. Head to the dreg camp, and double-click the rocks next to the dock. Go back to Menak and he will tell you to talk to Engineer Klaska. Klaska is just to the east of Menak. Talk to him and he tells you to find 3 things. First: Sacred Bottle of Contentment. It is just south of the dock where you found the wheel, and resembles a group of bottles on the shoreline. Then, find the Vial of Interaction which is just slightly east of the dock where you found the wheel... the vial is a single bottle inside a little 1-room hut of the Dregs.
The final step is to locate the Ancient Alkaline Barrel, but I have not found that yet. When I do, I'll post about it, and hopefully submit information/screenshots about the reward.
Hey, so I found the barrel. It's at loc: -153.32, -46.45, -829.97 in a camp-like area. After finding this and once again examining the wheel, you are finally prompted to go talk to Engineer Klaaska again.
There is a little surprise as to what exactly the Wheel of Vaniki is, but the reward is nice. At level 19, I got about 5% experience for doing the quest, along with the ring I hope they've attached to this quest, called: Vaniki's Ring.