Killed... By A Crane
Entry posted by Merch Gwyar
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I was in Morytania, so decided to actually follow the clue scroll that I've had forever. It involved going down the other side of the swamp with a spade, so, in full knowledge that there are many quests down there that I haven't done, I went hunting through the list to find one. The first, alphabetically, is 'Haunted Mine', so I packed a chisel and some fish and off I went.
I got so lost in the swamp. I used the short cut, in reverse, that had been opened up in an earlier quest months ago. It took me a bit of running around to even find the tree to climb, then I couldn't move across it. Several high level players appeared and walked through me to disappear down the other side, but I could not work out how to go forward. Eventually I made it one step and it took a while to fathom how I'd done that. Finally I sussed that I have to click certain parts of the bridge. I did feel like a fool.
Off I went running to find the boat, stopping en route to kill visible ghasts, before I realized that I was horribly lost. I couldn't see the boat, the tree, the nature altar or anything distinguishable except miles of swamp and attacking ghasts. I was down to 9 pieces of nature's bounty. Arggghhh! I ran south until I saw a building and headed towards it in the hope of shelter. Beside it was the boat. Woot!
I'd switched my auto-retaliate off as I ran through the village with all the plague ridden people. They've suffered enough without my dragon sword in their faces. But as I emerged from the other side, something was hitting me. I couldn't see it, only the lifebar above my head running down from 66 to 57. I ran further west, but still it was hitting me. What WAS it? All only became clear when I stopped running and switched my auto-retaliate back on. It was some kind of ghost following me out into the swamp. I killed it.
I quickly found the spot to dig and, indeed, dug. I ended up with page one of my Guthix book, 2 battle firestaffs, 6 green firelighters, a rannar weed and 64 air runes. Very nice. Of course, it was with this precious cargo in my bag that I set off on the quest, by first talking to, then robbing the Zealot.
From thereon, it was time-consuming and involved a lot of walking around, up and down ladders, but the Sal's Guide was very comprehensive. I made it to the final battle without any major mishaps and set about dispatching the lvl 95 monster with my protect from range on. Ha! I saw quite quickly why the guide described it as a 'difficult' ghost. It runs around, launching poltergiest activity on you. If you run across a track to hit it, then the trains come to life and ram you repeatedly, hitting up to 7 points of damage. If you run past a crane, then it also comes to life, hitting you up to 10 points of damage. Meanwhile, the ghost, out of reach and unrangeable (or unmageable) is constantly throwing pickaxes at you for fairly high levels of damage. My lagging computer was horrible to use to try and dodge such things.
Realizing quickly on that I'd misjudged this situation in the preparation, I clicked my Ectophial and got out of there. This time I took the key, the 9 remaining nature's bounty, four prayer pots, a strange fruit, a chisel, an Ectophial and much swordfish. I wore my rune platebody and legs, plus kiteshield, dragon longsword, helm of Neitiznot, my brand new bonesack, a ring of life and an amulet of defence. This time I reached the mouth of the mine without getting lost in the swamp and having found the boat first time.
During the journey though, I'd been canting with two friends - Whiskas88, who informed me that he'd nearly died and only got through the quest with the help of a friend, and The Bomma21, who offered to come and do it with me. He'd still got the final ghost to kill as well, as he'd not got protect from range when he did it the first time. I gratefully accepted the offer, my mind already ringing from the notion that even Whiskas88 had nearly been killed at this! But had to wait for Bomma to meet me. I passed the time showing the Zealot my zombie dances.
Finally, Bomma arrived and we set off to pick glowing fungus and kill ghosts. It took ages, nearly half of the quest to date to do again, but eventually we were at the door. That's when, in real life, my Dad announced that he'd come over all Gordon Ramsey and, noting that I'd had no tea yet, had made some for me as well as my Mum. Yay! But... timing... I had to explain all of this to Bomma and leave him to it with a sinking heart. We were supposed to be surety and cover for each other and now I was abandoning him at the final struggle. :(
I logged back on 20 minutes later to find that Bomma had logged out. It was an ominous sign - did this mean he'd died and gone to drown his sorrows in a cup of tea? (He returned much later to inform me that there's a glitch in the system. He's reported it to Jagex, but the door won't open for him after he was killed by the ghost in the past. He'd simply tried to open it, failed, teleported out and was now safely off somewhere in Runescape.) I walked in through the door, attempted to take the key and the battle began. I was doing quite well, despite the lag. The ghost was running from one side of the top part to the other, so I got a few good whacks in, even trapping him at one bit, though he eventually ran through me. Then disaster struck.
He was positioned so that, for me to hit him, I was having to stand on the tracks. A train rammed me repeatedly hitting quite high each time, just as my prayer was running out. I quickly sipped two doses of prayer potion and then threw swordfish down my throat. Fast as I was eating, the ghost was sending darts which seemed to not be cushioned by my prayer at all! I ran to the other side after him with only one swordfish left. His life was so low that I thought a couple of good hits would have him killed and the quest nearly over, but I only got one in before the whole train thing happened again. My computer isn't fast enough to run and in my panic, I got myself trapped behind a crate. I ate the final swordfish, as the darts rained down and ran out to deliver that (hopefully) final hit. Before I could do so, the darts knocked me so low that I needed to get out of there. I paused to click on my ectophial, just as a crane turned and hit me.
I had the briefest glimpse of the Ectophungus Temple, before I was starting naked in Fally. Having lost my Ectophial, I had to ran to the bank, teleport to Varrock, then run back to the temple. Everything was gone. There were several players (all over 100 combat) using the temple to pray, but though I asked them all, none claimed to have been there when I died. :-( I had hoped. If it had been someone else, I'd have picked up their stuff and waited for their return, I've done it in the past, but no-one there had, or else they weren't saying.
I lost my rune kiteshield, Helm of Neitiznot, Ectophial, ring of life, amulet of defence, bonesack, boots of lightness, amulet of defence and some prayer potions. It was only the Helm that upset me, because I worked so hard to get it. It was the reward from the Fremmenik Isles, which had been the bane of my life for so long, until Whiskas88 helped me finish it. I was really proud of that helm. Also, I'm not at all rich at the moment, because of buying all that furniture recently. I've got 200k in the bank. The good news is that I've investigated today and it turns out that I can replace the helm for 50k. :-) Suddenly the losses don't seem quite so bad.
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