Woot, I finally figured it out by trying something I was already using in some of my previous armor quests! It was a little tricky, but it is flawless now as far as I can tell!
I posted the entire quest in the quest submissions forum
here. As it is written now, it is fully complete with itemids for armor upgrades from Elemental Armor Class Sets to GoD Armor Class Sets. There are 4 custom quest items I have in my quest, but that could easily be replaced by 1 item, or as many as you like.
I hope someone finds this thread useful if they ever want to do something similar to this
