A Void Dance
Entry posted by Merch Gwyar
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Tl;dr account: It's a quest.
Slightly longer tl;dr: This was a very long, puzzle ridden quest. It was very intuitive, in so far as you didn't have to have great leaps of logic to follow the plot nor to work out what to do next. A thorough search of your environment, or a conversation with one of your companions, would set you on the right track. The puzzles were challenging, but not impossible. It took me just over 3 hours to complete the whole quest. There was a bit of fighting at the end, but nothing to frighten nubs like me. The rewards were a bit so-so, though they did include 5k Construction xp. All Construction xp automatically makes for good rewards. Yay!
:P I was joking yesterday that I ought to have td;dr bits at the top of my blogs, for all of those who just skim-read it looking for their name. Like MFI. So there you go!
I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth attempting to go to the ZMI altar. Last time I did that, I paused to open my treasure trail chest to see what new things had been added to it. Next thing you know, I'm stuffed for several days, as my bank is full of heraldic stuff. Fast forward through several days of friends holding stuff and buying heraldic items for me, then I've got everything back into my treasure chest. However, I've hardly got any money left and I never did get to the ZMI altar. Today, I finished work, then trundled off to my house to get costumes out to fill up my bank. I'm off to ZMI! However, I'd just that second filled my bank to capacity and was wandering out across Yanille, when the system update started. I rushed to check the Recent Updates forum, learned that it's a quest, then calmly returned all of my costumes to my house.
Me and a player named Head Slave were waiting in the Void Outpost, synchronising questcape emotes, when the timer ran out. Quest time!
After a quick cant with Commander Tyr (I can't see his name without thinking of the god Tyr; then wondering where Fenric is), Korasi, Jessika and I went off to Port Sarim for a spot of hunting. It was like that thing where you have to search snow-mounds with a noose-wand in your hand. But with more slime. And with fewer occasions of Kaylaalak kicking them, so that the creature inside flies across the ground and makes her giggle. In fact none of that at all, because Kaylaalak wasn't there and neither was whatever was sliming the place.
We eventually ended up in the pub, as you do. After sifting through the junk on the floor to find my key (reminded me of my student days), we conned our way into the pub's cellar and all was set for the Barrel Puzzle. Round one was me kicking my way up to the empty barrel, while thinking, 'well, this is easy'. Then I reached the barrel and realised that I had no way of kicking it diagonally down the route that I'd just arrived. More thought was clearly needed. I ended up utterly intrigued by it. It took me about 20 mins to manoeuvre the empty barrel to the door. I felt so smug! I took a picture, in case anyone at Sal's needed it, then performed the last kick to get it through the door.
Nothing happened.
No amount of kicking the barrel, nor screaming at Jessika and Korasi to get off their backsides and open the door, was getting us out of there. It was only as I was appealing for help in my blog and on Sal's forum, that I noticed the hole in the wall. Cachi. Oh well! It was a good job that I was enjoying the puzzle! It took me about half an hour to work out the solution, but here it is:
I've drawn some lines in, so you can see the passage of the barrel. My own journey down involved running to wherever I could to kick the thing.
There was a bit of talking, then we were off to the Caribbean Karamja, for a bit of DIY on a shop, before crawling through the bushes in the banana plantation. Remember that really annoying Archangel lL bloke? He was there with his friend. We didn't say hello. I followed some more slime, checked out a hole, then it was off to Rimmington for the next puzzle! Yay!
You know you get twitch combat, where you have to move really quickly in order to stop yourself dying? Well, this was the puzzle equivalent. Twitch puzzling. You have to move really quickly, forming instant strategy on what knobs to twiddle with first, or the machine dies. It took me five attempts, with a lot of really impressive explosions in between, until I cracked it. I think I was doing well though. When I came out after the fourth try, I heard a player say, "Exploding lab #13!" While other comments gave me the impression that the other players present thought that a mere 13 wasn't bad. My strategy was basically to memorise what machine did what; then to pay attention to the unstable chemicals. Sometimes, when you were asked to change the mixture, you didn't need to put both ingredients in. It was a trick to make you activate the instability. Soon as I clicked with that and memorised the unstable elements, I passed next time.
That wasn't a difficult puzzle, but I do wish that Jagex wouldn't include them. It was fine on my computer, but it would have been a nightmare on my old one. It reminded me of a similar exercise that we had to do just around the corner, outside the chemists, with all the sulfur and coal. A slow connection or lag in either of those and you're unable to finish the task.
Jessika teleported us to Falador, then there was some faffing around with boxes and canting with Sir Tiffy and Sir Amik. Then I was off on a treasure trail. Elite reward, pl0x! I started very well, by undertaking a marathon run all over to the River Lum, south of Barbarian Village bridge, before realising that I had the map upside down. With the river now on the right, I stumbled and panted all the way to those trees just north of Fally wall, on the lake. That's when I noticed the rocks at the bottom of my map. I paused for a rest with the busker, then ran through Fally and clambered through the hole in the wall. I found the clue in a nice little patch of riverside woodland, just to the north-west of the Fally west mine. I don't think I've ever been there before. Pretty.
The next clue involved finding a man 'whose path had gone astray', south of Fally and east of a guild. I had to give him an onion and wave at him. I ran to my farming patch, where I have onions growing and harvested one. Then I tried to give it to the highwayman. He looked at me like I was a noob and wandered off. I meandered up and tried to give it to that dark wizard bloke, who hangs around with white, blue, red and brown wizards, randomly killing things. He said, "What...? Why are you waving your items at me?!" Or words to that effect. I tried again. He wasn't having it. Having exhausted my best guesses at who to give an onion to, I went for an exploration of the area. I discovered that I had been over-thinking things a tad. There was someone called 'man', who was lost. He was right next to an onion field and only a few yards away from the gate that I'd rushed through on my way from my last clue. *sigh*
Man gave me a new clue scroll. This involved a holy flower bed, a fountain and a splash of red with blue flowers. I hurtled up to Taverley and inspected their horticultural arrangements. It took me ages, and a re-read of the clue, to work out that I should be east of Ice Mountain, not Wolf Mountain. Freaking noob. So I teleported to Edgeville and jogged over to the monastery. The particular flower that I was after was red, with three sets of blue flowers around it. It took me an inspection of every flowerbed, before I found it hiding under the building bridge. -.- The next was a co-ordinate clue, which I'd suspected due to the need for sextant, map and compass. Fortunately, there was a player there (sorry! I didn't note your name! Boomberboy, I think), whom I'd helped with the barrel puzzle, by sending him to my blog to find the solution. He had caught up and he knew already where the co-ordinates were going to lead - a trapdoor behind the black knight's fortress.
It was easy to find the place. It was the trapdoor festooned in player graves... However, said players were already back to retrieve their stuff and they passed on important information. Drain your prayer before you go in. The boss is a level 110 black knight, which heals itself from your prayer. Ok, thanks! Korasi, Jessika and I climbed down the hatch, then had a little game of Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf? That's when you have to creep up to somewhere and not be seen, when they turn around. Yeah. Bit of thieving, espionage, sneaky summoning stuff and random violence later, we were through the door. I managed to secure us a key, by nicking tools off slaves and vandalising desks, then it was boss time!
I had absolutely no problem whatsoever. I had to eat about 3 tuna and sweetcorn spuds, but otherwise nothing. I think that the tricky thing was to learn to have your prayer drained before entering. As I already knew that, I sailed through the boss fight. All good!
We were teleported back to the Void Outpost. Canted with Tyr. Then I got my 5k construction xp and some other stuff.
All in all, I enjoyed that quest. Thanks!
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