Toktz-ket-dill
Entry posted by Merch Gwyar
477 views
Toktz-ket-dill was billed as a quest for 
20k Construction experience ^_^ so I made it a priority. Well, third in my list of Important Things to Do, underneath getting a second torso and attending Fat Wrecked's memorial in Varrock. As well as the :( 20k Construction experience :/, there were other good reasons why I should do this quest, not least the fact that the whole city was in danger of collapse.
Anyway, I made my way over there last night and marvelled in the new graphics. It actually does look like a place where you'd burn your feet off just by stepping foot on the floor, as well as dehydrate within seconds. I peered through the door and none of the other players appeared to be a) combusting or b) fainting with heat exhaustion, so I risked it. It's was all good. I'd forgotten that Jagex haven't written sweat into Runescape yet.
I very quickly got the opening sequence out of the way, canting about language, visiting the library and then teleporting to Varrock to visit the library there too. I'm sure that it was all very fascinating, but I'd moved away from the norm of not being in Canting Away whilst doing quests and the conversation in there was really interesting. It was basically a well-behaved, intelligently argued debate upon whether war can ever be good and/or necessary. Not once did anyone stoop to personal insults nor engage in any dirty tricks of debate, which meant that all of the points raised were thought-provoking and persuasive. It certainly distracted me from faffing around with editing and casting a Tzxhaar play.
There was a pause there to attend the memorial recounted in yesterday's blog, so the rest of the quest wasn't picked up until just now. I ended up horribly confused during the aforementioned editing and casting sequence. I'd got it so that most of them were happy, except one, but whenever it seemed all right, I'd return to the writer/director and find that there weren't the options to tell him what I wanted to tell him. I had to keep remembering who had said what and to have the conversations again, before it all eventually fell into place. Ordinarily, I write these quest blog entries with half a mind to save others making my mistakes, but I really couldn't tell you how I resolved the play questions. By the end of the maze of compromise and diplomacy, I couldn't have retraced my steps through if I tried.
Next came the shoring up of rock-falls, cave-ins and collapsed walls. As a brilliant Construction worker, I made short work of that. :( I only once made things worse by using a pillar where a plank would have done. In two of the caverns, there were fire and lava creatures to pwn. The first fire creature was dead with about three water blasts, but its twin in the second cavern used up about 43 blood runes before it too perished. I couldn't understand that, as it was exactly the same combat level and I was using the same spell. Whereas my three strikes in the first cavern were true, most of my multitude in the second cavern just seemed to bounce off him. I was suspecting that I was either using the wrong combat or else the wrong spell, when one finally hit and caused 9hp damage. Conversely, both lava creatures died very quickly with just steel arrows in their faces.
I knew that the boss monster was coming up next, so I returned to the bank to arm myself and stock up with potions and food. Here I paused, nervous for the first time. At dinnertime, I'd read about Cougar's sudden trip to Camelot whilst taking on this giant armadillo and, as much as she's a trend-setter in other respects, I didn't fancy emulating her here. I logged out to research the fight. Jeremy commented in my blog yesterday that I shouldn't use protection prayers; Cougar had and she had died; Mole Leader's guide advocated protect from missiles. As I'd had my protect from mage on for the entire time I was trying to kill the second fire creature, I was down to just 23 prayer points. What should I do? Was it the protection prayers that was Cougar's undoing? If so, why is the person in the picture in Mole Leader's guide not dead?
In the end, I used a prayer potion to restore my points to full capacity, then packed it alongside a super-set and a load of tuna and corn spuds. Now for weaponry. The rune pickaxe was a given, as everyone called that essential, but what should I use thereon? My whip is the best weapon I have, so I packed that, however Mole Leader was talking about crush weapons. I investigated and my whip doesn't have a crush option. I experimentally wielded my dragon scimitar and that didn't have one either. I've still never got that anchor repaired (worried that I'd be wasting money there that could be spent on things like portal holders instead :(). In the end, I spotted an ancient mace and took that out to see. Yes! A crush option! This would do. I didn't bother looking at my stats, because I was afeared that it would say it's a crap weapon, but I had no other with crush on it, so it would have to do. Pickaxe, whip, ancient mace and Lilshu's shield, that was my arsenal. For armour, I wore dragon boots, helm of Neitiznot, fighter torso, dragon plateskirt, barrows gloves, ring of life and amulet of glory. I was set.
Something which I really love about this quest is the fact that squeezing through the crack or returning through a previously mined entrance will either deposit you back at the first entrance, or else in the section of mine you last secured. There's no needless running about. 
I therefore climbed through the crack and was automatically in the cavern where I had to mine a northern entrance to encounter the boss. You can imagine my surprise when I sipped my superset, mined through and instead of a level 100 armadillo hitting me for 22, I found a level 74 player mining ore. :/
I explained to said player that I was expecting to be in a boss fight here, but he didn't replay. In a complete absense of anything trying to kill me, I wandered over to another mine entrance and started tentatively mining it. A warning told me that I could hear something big moving about, did I want to enter? Yes! Bring it on! (Before I lose my nerve.)
Once inside, I didn't switch on any protection prayers, but set about the armadillo with my pickaxe. It didn't cause any damage on me at all, though I did on it. After about a dozen whacks with my pickaxe, its armour shattered and I was left with a choice between my whip and my ancient mace. I selected the latter and hit it. It did well! In fact, I made extremely short work of pwning it, taking only 2hp damage on myself throughout the entire fight! :o If it hadn't been for the fact that I had an empty vial in my bag, I wouldn't have had any room to pick up the big bones (which I buried) and the 1000 tokkul!
Outside again, I basked in the praise of those I'd helped, then got 'treated' to a play. I achieved level 72 mining, but more importantly I got :( 20k Construction experience :/! (Oh, and some other stuff.)
12 Comments
Recommended Comments