Question about a design issue

I'm almost finished with my first single-player RPG map and I'm quite pleased with it. But I'm a little bit stuck on one issue.

I have an optional quest in the map. The optional quest is discovered by approaching this one village where there is some dialogue between characters. The quest involves rescuing some units.

What I'm wondering is, what if the player rescues the units without ever discovering the quest, because it is possible to skip passed the village. I can make it so it's a plain unit rescue if the quest was not discovered. Or I can make it so that the player must travel through the village before reaching the units to be rescued (although it would be difficult since my map isn't designed for that). Or I can use a trigger to place the units to be rescued only when the quest is discovered so that there's nothing to rescue if the player doesn't enter the village...

What do you all think is the best solution for this?

I had a similar side quest in my Battle of Eden project. My sidequest goes like this, you approach a Sheep Tender, he tells you the Orc's are poaching his sheep and so on. You have to go out on the map and find 5 missing sheep. But to prevent people from seeing the sheep before the quest, I simply hid them. Then when you get the quest it unhides the sheep. This is my way, there are more ways though.

In my map, when you get to the area where the units are to be rescued, there is a cutscene and pretty big battle to be fought. If I just hide everything...

Well, I guess it could work. That's probably the correct way to do it. If the quest has not been "discovered," I guess the player shouldn't get the benefit of the quest -- i.e. the rescued units.

I think I'll work on that. I'll have to use triggers to disable/enable the cinematic, but it should work.

If anyone else has comments on the subject, I'm still listening. :)

just hide the units and turn off the cinematic trigger. When you get the quest, turn on the cine trigger, and unhide the units.