The Firemaker's Curse Pt 2

Quests

Entry posted by Merch Gwyar January 15, 2012

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https://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/blogs/entry/66939-the-firemakers-curse-pt-2/

Following on from part one, I was in the ninth room. Sometimes you can seriously over-think a situation. I was definitely doing this here. I was doing a lot of running into that room, doing my best, then dying around the third wave. On one notable occasion, I made it to the fourth wave, but then someone came into the room IRL and that brief loss of concentration was enough to see me zeroed.

But this wasn't just idle suicide runs. I was watching constantly for patterns in where fireballs spawned and what they did next. I was getting so far because I anticipated their arrival and raced ahead of them to protect myself. It was coming a minor obsession. Position one, stand by the entrance door. Ah! Ok, when this happens, you have to rush up there. Do not get caught in the centre, because the blue fireballs are about to appear. I have them lured! Woot! Now to race to the entrance door again, because this is where I was killed last time. Go! Go! Go!

Unusually for me (who won't even log into Canting while questing, because I like to immerse myself into the story), I was in Skype. The above was pretty much being given as a running commentary, while I worked that room like a boss. Finally there was a bit of a pause and Jethraw blithely commented, "I just used food to stop myself dying."

....

It's times like this that I really know I deserve the title of noob. I teleported out to Lletya, fetched an inventory full of sharks and returned. I made it through first time, when I could heal between fireball attacks. My pride wasn't salved at all by the fact that I did it with Jethraw, MFI and Tabt laughing at me.

Ahead of me were two more decision rooms and a firemaking puzzle. I saved both of my companions in the former, because it was downright obvious who had been possessed. They weren't exactly subtle about their personality changes. I had more difficultly in the puzzle room. I assessed immediately what I had to do, but I wasn't fast enough. Tabt was doing the same room and she was out of there much more quickly. It was a big puzzle, but the main issue was that I really needed the toilet. One I'd realigned my priorities and run to the loo, I got those fires lit correctly on the second try. Moral of the story: do not ignore your physical needs, even when you think you can pwn a puzzle!

I'm not sure what the deal was with the tunnel to the boss room (yeah, there was one after all ;_:mad:. As I walked through, something was hitting me, but I couldn't see what it was! I just outlived their attacks and kept on going. However, there was a secondary threat, which just gave me the giggles. These were black shadow fingers, which seemed to come from the edges of my browser itself! I right-clicked and found the 'deter' option, which seemed to work. Not very fast though, because I was too busy crying with laughter over them. Entertainment for the win!

By now, I'd already been warned that there was a boss. That made me sad, so did cast a bit of a stain over the latter part of the quest. I was trying not to worry about it, but Vanstrom is still too recent. I love quests with a passion, but the thought of another twitch combat situation coming as standard is ruining that. Several people had told me to stop fretting. This one wasn't Nomad. It wasn't Vanstrom. I would have no trouble at all; and even if I did, I had to recall one very big, shining fact - I had ultimately defeated both of those bosses. Why worry about pixels that I pwnt? I proved myself better than them.

Even with that in mind, I entered the boss room in some trepidation. Fortunately, you're not thrown straight into the fight. In fact, I had all of the time in the world to wander around and take the measure of the arena. I could examine things and speculate on how they might help me. For example, there were two large pools and they had to be dangerous to a being made of fire. Amorite? Tabt was already in the fight and, at my prompting, she advised me to bring range weapons. I always default to range anyway. I'd started this quest in dhide, as I do every quest, but I'd switched to normal clothes halfway through. But she also mentioned a lot of running about. I didn't need armour at all. I'd be better off in agility clothes to lessen my weight.

She was using throwing knives, so I copied her. I nipped out to the Rogue's Den and brought 100 of each from Martin. Tabt and I both came to the same conclusion - it doesn't matter what weapons you use. You could use your fist if you liked, though that would be highly unadvisable. Your hits aren't based on the greatness of your arsenal. It's on the amount of fires that have been lit. No fires = no damage. 1 fire = 100 damage. 2 fires = 200 damage etc. I returned to the arena wearing my agility legs and top with some boots of lightness. I was clutching steel knives (with 100 iron and bronze also in my bag) and the rest of my inventory was sharks.

Round one was a near miss, but it was all my own fault. I was so busy lighting fires, that I forgot to actually throw the knives at her. I had loads of fires though! The whole place was lit up like a major witches Sabbat. Unfortunately, Char was still stomping around with hardly a scratch on her. By the time I realised my error, I was nearly out of food. I started chucking knives at her, but I didn't have enough healing power left to make it to the end. I died when she was three quarters dead. I didn't end up outside with a gravestone flashing though. I was transported up onto the balcony with 300 hp. I'm not sure if you can actually die in there, or if that is the general procedure for noobishness.

I whooshed myself back to Lletya so I could dust myself down. I returned with the same outfit and supplies. I'd used 57 of my steel knives, so I switched to the 100 bronze ones instead. By now, we'd worked out that it didn't matter what you threw at her, as long as you actually did throw something. This was a sound judgement.

Having attempted this once, I wasn't nearly so worried the second time. In some regards, there were Vanstrom-esque elements. You had to keep running, so you didn't receive damage. On the other hand, Char is very slow. While I could dash around using my agility level to the max, she could only plod after me like a golem. It was very easy to get ahead, light a fire, then rush on. I tended to keep to the walls, as that gave me a bigger area to run around. I went for the run on, light a fire, run on, throw something at her, run on, light a fire technique. It was working well enough, but Tabt had one better. She argued that it's better to get several shots hitting a lower number in, than to fire just one with a high target. I switched to her way.

When Char glowed white, I raced ahead and made fires. When she glowed orange, I raced ahead, but constantly threw bronze knives at her. Luring her onto the pools did cause her to sizzle, but I'm not sure what other benefit was occurring. The narrative mentioned cooling off times, but I never did work out what that actually meant. When she was half dead, she summoned walls of fire to move down towards you. There are gates in them, which I managed to run through the first two or three times. Then I was really jammy. I didn't notice the wall until it was nearly on me. I panic clicked and accidentally got the precise spot that I needed! No harm! Woot!

I was doing brilliantly and quite at ease until close to the end. I misclicked and got too close to her. Char hit me for 500. I ran away to heal, but hadn't seen a wall coming at me. It hit me head-on and I was suddenly in very big danger. My heartbeat was sounding in my ear and I was eating panic sharks like they were going out of fashion. Tabt was calmly telling me to keep on moving, "It doesn't matter how low your hitpoints, if she can't catch you. Run, Merch! Run!" So I ran and ran some more, but all into the wrong direction. I rushed away to the right and she was nearly upon me. I throw a bronze knife, while telling Tabt that I was dead.

I wasn't. But Char was. In shock, it took me a moment to realise. Halfway through Tabt's commiserations and offers of rocktails, I wooted and changed my story. Boss over! Quest done! Flawless victory! :eyebrows:

Stats immediately after defeating Char.

It took a bit longer to piece it together. Char had nearly caught me because I'd lit one fire too many. It gave me 700 damage range to throw at her. That final knife had been high enough and hard enough to bring her down. It took another ten minutes before I realised another fact. It was something that would have freaked me out had I known it at the time. That knife was the last one in my worn inventory.

I've had some near misses in my time, but finishing a boss fight with my last knife and only 58 hitpoints has to be a contender for the closest of all. I didn't care. I was ecstatic. I'd made it to the end with all of my firemakers alive to tell the tale; and I'd beaten Char. Woot!