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Anyone want to watch a combat lvl 109 pwn Nomad? Rachie sent me this privately to give me hope. It's so good that I want to big it up here: Go Rachie Yea!

The main thing thwarting me now with Nomad are the lack of supplies. I've got a whole thieving level pickpocketing gnomes and listening to the back catalogue of the Salcast, whilst waiting for someone to sell me Sara Brews. I got really disheartened, because I thought I had enough for one more run. I went to the digsite to boost my prayer, then to Oo'glog to boost my hp, before returning to the Soul Wars tent and summoning Shelley. That's when I discovered that I was four Sara Brews short. I stood there trying to buy them and got two when I relocated to Edgeville Bank. But all the time my hp were coming down, as the Oo'glog pool boost wore off and I knew that I couldn't just nip back without dismissing Shelley again. That was all possible, but psychologically it all felt like An Omen. I shouldn't go into Nomad already thinking that it's a doomed trip. In the end, I went mining instead. I'd logged off and done real life for a while, then logged back on and mined over 300 gold ore before I saw a green dot nudging its way through the sea of white dots and lava titans. It was Timothy Gold and he was trading me. Two Sara Brews glistened in his trade screen. I swopped them for two gold ore (it was nice of Jagex to name an ore after Tim, don't you think?) for space, with the intention of paying him proper money for the brews when we were both in a bank. When that moment came, Timothy Gold was lost somewhere in Gielinor. He couldn't for the life of him work out where he was, so that I could come and pay him hard cash. His only scenery were some purple elephants. >.> Well, that was obviously Zanaris. Purple elephants = evidence of hallucinogenic drugs. As does Zanaris. But Tim was just chuckling at me and said that I could have the brews as a present. Awww. Thank you. >.< Supplies finally secured, off I went. I know that people say that this is easy, because you respawn at Soul Wars upon death, but there still is some faffing between fights. If you want to go in with default stats, fine. But I prefer to swop my 83 prayer for the 95 given at the digsite. I prefer to have 103 hp instead of 86, so that means going to the digsite. It therefore took me a short while to get prepared, but when I did, it was an amazing fight. Everything went so smoothly! I'd taken the advice of Matej and Helm, so I didn't have a talon beast. I'd taken Tim's advice, so I was on normal prayers instead of curses. I'd taken Neo Avatars's advice, so I was praying steel skin, eagle eye and protect from melee. I was so utterly relaxed and I pre-empted every movement that Nomad made. I evaded every 75 hit. I hit him hard. He entered berserker mode and I desperately ate and fired. But I didn't hit high enough and the Sara Brews ran out. He was so close to death. I think that one more Sara Brew or one higher hitting bolt would have finished it. His bar was almost completely red. I had time. I recalled Vaskor leading a hide-and-seek around the pillars, while his Titan pwnt Nomad. I tried it, but not only did Shelley follow me, but Nomad screamed 'face me' and I dashed out again in fear of him healing himself. Then I died. Neo was waiting for me up above. I was slightly frustrated, but not defeated. I had proved to myself that I could do this, as that last bit involved only luck. In fact, I'm starting to see that there is an element of luck involved in beating Nomad. You can do everything right, but you're also relying upon your bolts to hit high at the right moments. Neo dusted me off and raised my flagging spirits. I still had four full restores, one full super restore, one full ranging potion and a couple of bits of restores on me. The way was clear. Fewer restores and more Saras. I could do this. Unfortunately, I was back to the supply issue. Neo had a great idea, which was to order Sara Brew (3) instead of (4), then decant them. I did that, but there was no rush to sell to me. I went away and came back a few hours later. I had the Sara Brews! Ultimately, I wandered back into the Soul Wars area with 96 Sara Brew (4) in my bank. This next time, I learned first-hand why ruby bolts (e) can be dangerous. Nomad was down to about half health, when he hit the big one. I tumbled to 1hp, just as a secondary splash hit me for 8hp. I had time to see Nomad covered in what seemed like a localised shower of red rain, then I died. Presumably that was the flaw in ruby bolts (e) that had just pwnt me. I know from others that the answer is to not range Nomad, as he charges for the big one, or to swop to diamond bolts (e) instead. You can get five hits in with the latter, but that comes at a cost of an inventory space. Between the second and third attempts, I could tell that I was losing concentration. I gloried to Al-Kharid instead of Draynor. I turned up at the boat to Oo'glog without any money. Those little things that tell you that you shouldn't be fighting bosses at the moment. You should be chilling out instead. So I did. I teleported home and sat in my menagerie for a while, watching all the animals and birds potter around. I also took the time to compare my Ardy3 cloak with the legends cape and the obsidian cape. It didn't take much of that for me to take my obsidian cape off the cape rack and take it with me for another attempt. That was an absolutely epic fail. I didn't evade the second 75. I ate when I should have been shooting. I shot when I should have been eating. In short, Nomad deserved to win that one and he did. I'd only taken a quarter of his health away, before I was back in Soul Wars sobbing over my grave. The major lesson was clear there though - don't go if you've frustrated yourself into making stupid mistakes. I gave up for the night.

I've been going on suicide missions into Nomad, just to familiarise myself with how he fights. In those, I go dressed as though its real, but with broad bolts instead of those precious ruby bolts (s). I'm wearing black dhide, dragon boots, Helm of Neitiznot, barrows gloves and amulet of glory, whilst carrying a rune crossbow and Saradomin prayer book. My inventory is just full of sharks. I've done several of these and I've got to the point where I can survive easily until the sharks run out. I can predict and dodge the 75s every time and I know when to shoot and when to stay still. Half an hour ago, I did one of those and survived longer than normal. It really was a case that if I'd had enough food, I was confident that I could take him. I landed eventually at the tent with a group of people rushing to my grave. They were headed by Acespyro and, as far as I could see, their mission in life at the moment is to give heart to the brave questers attempting this. They scream out 'gf', as soon as they see you running. Your grave is blessed and they ask you for all the details that you really want to give right then. They're great! I mention Acespyro, because later on he was the only one left doing it, but he really does buoy you up. Go Acespyro! That last practice run though, I realised that I was as ready as I was going to be. I nipped to the digsite to boost my prayer to as high as it could go (95), then used a Varrock teleport-spirit tree-mad dash across ogress infested land in order to use the hitpoint and energy boosting spas. Glorying back to Edgeville, I packed for my serious attempt. I swopped the broad bolts for ruby bolts (s), then packed two range potions, five super restore, eight ordinary restore and the rest Sara Brews. I also had Shelley with me, packed with Sara Brews, and a pouch for a talon beast. Many of the guides and advice I'd heard of told me to dismiss my BOB once in there, then summon a fighting creature. I was brilliant. I know that I go on about myself as a fighting noob, but in that fight I was fantastic. It felt almost leisurely, as I got Nomad down to half health, then further. He even healed himself to half again without me worrying too much. However, there were a couple of things that I hadn't practiced and they were throwing me. Usually, when I'm fighting, I have food and potions. I'm fine at resource managing them. However, I don't have a great deal of experience at using the Sara Brew and restore combination. I understand that it's supposedly 2 sips of Sara to one sip of restore. But in the heat of battle, I can't count to two. LOL I know that sounds ridiculously, but as things are coming at you, thick and fast, I can't rememember if I've just sipped Sara once or twice, I can't remember if I did that restore sip afterwards. It all goes completely out of my head and while I'm trying to recall it, Nomad has just hit me again. Nevertheless, I coped. As my health pummeted, I sipped Sara. If I wasn't sure about the restore, I sipped an ordinary one. If my prayer was dying, then I hurriedly sipped a super restore. A couple of times, I even sipped a range pot just because I hadn't been up in the blue pots for a while. Then I had to remember to drop the empty vials and take more from Shelley, right up until she wasn't filling the spaces anymore. It's probably not resource management, but it was working. As soon as I was sure that Shelley was no longer carrying pots, I sought to dismiss him in favour of the talon beast. This was my undoing. I'm also not experienced at using familiars in a combat situation. I had just evaded a 75, so I was behind a pillar. I thought I'd dismissed him, but was diving out of there, so that Nomad wouldn't scream 'face me' and heal himself. Shelley was still there though. *sigh* The fight went on, but that was bothering me. I made it through the clones and had found my rhythym again. I had plenty of Saras and restores left and I told myself, 'you're actually going to succeed here'. It seemed so smooth and beautiful. Nomad teleported me to the centre and started charging up for his max hit. I calmly dismissed Shelley and summoned the talon beast. I had a smile on my face even. Then I noticed something. I'd been so busy faffing with familiars, that I hadn't sussed that my last sip of Sara Brew hadn't happened. I'd clicked on it, but for some reason it hadn't happened. I was 81 hp and my total is 86. I hurriedly rushed to take that sip, but it was too late. Nomad released his special and I was dead. Acespyro was great. He listened to it all, as I berated myself over and over again for my utter stupidity, then told me to just go back in and do it again. I'd learned that mistake and I'd do it next time. He was probably right, but I'm out of ruby bolts (e) and Sara Brews. I've put a bid on at the GE. I really do think that I'm going to do this now. It's not impossible. I have to concentrate, as Acespyro repeatedly said, but I was so ridiculously close that I know I can do it. The big question is whether I just leave Shelley with me (we're old mates, so there's also the psychological thing of having a friend in there, even if he is pixels) or attempt the talon beast summoning again. It was definitely the summoning that threw me so much that I made a stupid mistake last time.

I write these blog entries for many reasons, though primarily because I enjoy writing. One of the secondary reasons is that I understand that sometime in the future they will, along with everyone else's blogs, historical sources. Newcomers or researchers will be able to look back and catch a glimpse of what it felt like to be playing and within the game at that moment in time. When the major concerns of today have sunk between time, guides and familiarity, tomorrow's readers will learn what it was to be there when it was new. That said, I'm utterly unapologetic about a third blog in a row about Nomad. He's still there, niggling at me like a dodgy tooth. Right now, on any world, you can enter Soul Wars and hang out at the tent just inside the entrance. There will be people repeatedly going up against Nomad. There's a camaderie around it, where the same faces reappear, rush to their gave in the nearby graveyard, then stand around in a communal post-match analysis. Weapons are loaned free of charge. Those who have successfully defeated the boss are still there. They're passing on advice and receiving the heartfelt congratulations of those still to succeed. But mostly, I think that they're still there for the atmosphere. When everyone is in the same situation, then a kind of Dunkirk spirit pops up. It's infectious. People hang out at the bank chest, just to fletch or train herblore or any of those other skills that require you to hang around banks. The air around is of frustration, but manifests as grim determination. As one person after another cries out, 'I give up!', then there are another five consoling them and urging them just to carry on going. They will succeed in the end. I did try to ignore Nomad today. I've done my penguins, my circus, my farming run, my thieving run, my skeletal horror and even an air battlestave crafting run. But the lure of Nomad is strong. I've taken to doing practice runs. Just going in there with black dhide top and chaps, dragon boots, Helm of Neitiznot, barrows gloves, Sara prayer book, rune crossbow, broad bolts and glory. I'll only have an inventory of sharks, because the object here isn't to beat him, it's to find out how he fights. I'm not scared of Nomad. I don't get that palms sweating, heart pounding, head floating panicky sensation that I get up, say, God Wars. I'll quite happily meander on in, get some range practice on Nomad, then die. I've learned that, when the orange mines appear, you should immediately run north out of the gap. Then range him. Very soon, he'll build up to the 75 hit, during which time you fun as fast as you can to a southern pillar, then stand on the square that up against the pillar's furthest corner. I've evaded several 75s that way. Nomad is a verbose individual and will always warn you what he's about to do. He'll also give you plenty of time before huge hits, so that you can ensure that you're maximum health. I've also noticed that if I watch the clones, the last to move will be Nomad. Take him out and they all go away. There's even a pause after the hp -1 hit, so that you can recover. In short, I'm seeing the gaps where strategy has to fit. The next step, of course, is to work out how to damage him, whilst doing all of this tactical hit dodging. Apparently the way forward is the set up that I've already described, but swopping the broad bolts with ruby bolts (e) and removing the sharks. I've been hearing warnings, that I don't really understand, that you should have a change of ammunition for the big hits. Apparently if your ruby bolt special hits at the wrong time, you die. Why is this? >.> Time and time again, I'm also hearing about the wonders of Bandos Godsword. This was the most loaned item outside the tent, both last night and today. It has a special attack which should be used immediately upon Nomad. This ruins his defence. Then either BGS or ruby bolts all the way, with the caution already repeated. Therefore my price to pay is either 28m for a BGS or else batting my eyelashes winsomely in the direction of Egghebrecht, until he hands his BGS over to me for an hour or ten. It's true to say that the only Quest Capes that I've been seeing are sitting on the backs of maxed out players. I reckon I've only seen a dozen or so since the quest came out, but those are generally on players with combat levels in the high 130s. That is, until today. I was in Edgeville Bank alching battlestaves, when Mainly Matt walked in. I knew him from last night, when he and I were both repeatedly having practice runs (well, I think he was trying it for real) on Nomad. Suddenly there he was again, only this time clad in a Quest Cape and a huge grin. He's level 113 and he had just beaten Nomad. Here are his stats: Mainly Matt told me that he'd spent millions on countless attempts, before just now succeeding. His set up was the same as mine, except that he had the elemental shield (is that the purple one?) instead of my Sara Book. He had taken in 13 super restores and the rest Sara Brews and had been accompanied by his version of Shelley, holding a full inventory of Sara Brews too. He'd shot ruby bolts all the way. If he could do it, two combat levels lower than me, with comparable, but very slightly lower individual combat stats, then I know I can do it too. It's Mainly Matt who's really given me heart now that my Quest Cape will be back over my shoulders soon. I'll probably do some more practice runs, with just sharks, before risking precious super restores, but I intend to keep trying now. :D

This morning, while I was doing my dailies, the conversation in Canting turned to updates. The perceived wisdom was that traditionally first updates of the year are crap. Yes, obviously we'd all read Timothy Gold's blog all about it and so were trying to pass ourselves off as clever. Unfortunately, we all rumbled each other, so that failed. Just on it, Timothy himself came into Canting, so none of us could pretend to have an original thought in our heads anymore. He did remind us that we should trust Mark. I paid lip-service to the notion, then was happily surprised a few hours later, when, having nipped on to check my GE, a system update began counting down. It was a quest! Woot! And happiness! On the subject of quests, I first had a bizarre meeting with xG Star Rawx in the GE. He informed me that he'd searched Google for 'Blood Runs Deep' and had come up with my blog. He'd just looked at it and I turned up right next to him. LOL I was mostly amazed that my blog should turn up when xG Star Rawx didn't include my name or Sal's. In retrospect, it was pretty unreal that we should then bump into each other in game. Guthix has a weird sense of humour. I logged off for the system update and rushed to read what was in store for us. Timothy was right! We should trust Mark! It was not only a quest, but a grandmaster one at that. After much bouncing around in sheer delight, I was whooshing off in glory to Edgeville and pogoing on the spot in front of Zimberfizz. There was some talking, but in my head it went a bit like, 'I can has quest pl0x?' to which he replied, 'Yesh.' Then some detail. I was soon underneath Soul Wars, wearing my default 'going to do a quest' outfit of full dhide, green hat, range weaponry, glory and ring of life. I carried a rogue's kit and various potions, plus some sharks. I love those first moments of a brand new quest. It's like running out over virgin snow, because no-one yet know what lies ahead. No guides have been written; no-one is wearing a quest cape; and all you have to go on is what your explorations find and what fellow players are saying around you. Down in that temple, there were no other players. It was me and my observations. I observed a level 699 Nomad pwning some elite black noobs, then I observed a dead ex-adventurer on the floor. I naturally looted his dead body for the spoils of war: a rope, a pickaxe and a cooked herring, then I was off exploring the 'hood. After a thorough examination of the hall, it seemed that I needed to break the energy field covering the arcane doorway. These led to two low doorways on the other side, so I tentatively crawled through one of them. Here I needed to get some elemental creatures out of a machine. I stood in front of it for a while, stopping the spectral tenders doing their job. That was a fail. It didn't starve the dudes inside into coming out. I followed one ghost back to the fuel store and took some fuel out of the trough. Experimentally using it on everything failed, so I dropped some on the floor. There came a nervewracking moment when the elemental creature came straight at me, cracking electricity and looking like a menacing version of the nomming ghost out of 'Ghostbusters'. It didn't attack me, but it ate the fuel, then waited for more. When none was forthcoming, it returned to the machine. Ha! Gotcha. I looked around for where it needed luring too. The sodden area near to the back seemed likely, as things like dripping ceilings are rarely just there. Especially when the examine text is talking about cracks and rooms above. I went looking for this room, though you'd think that the room above was actually Soul Wars itself, wouldn't you? I actually found it through the other low doorway, where the spectral whatevers were aggressive this time. There were blocks set up, but we'd seen these before in the Glouphrie quest series. I did note that they had pictures on the top and channels for water. I squirreled the information away as Obviously Significant and dashed up the ladder in the corner of the room. I had to go up two floors and do a bit of mining, before the drips in the first room were now a veritable waterfall. Thereon came my favourite bit in the quest. It was time to show these elementals why I'm such a pwnage defender in Barbarian Assault. All of the skills needed for that were exactly what was needed for this. Timing, placement, leading the creatures by the stomach to the trap. Three of them died very quickly and the machine died. I was very disappointed I could have done that all day. :P With that energy supply gone, I returned to the second room, where I employed my highly tactical strategy of pulling any lever until the environment is doing what I want it to. To whit, in this situation, channelling the water back downstairs. I ran back to the first floor, where I studied the pictures and still spent ages working out where to put everything. I got there in the finish! For the record, here is the pattern that you need. Please note the pictures on the top of the blocks, as they tell you where the water is being channelled. That's with the camera pointing north by the way. I paused for housework and my tea then, before getting side-tracked by 'Unseen Academicals' by Terry Pratchett. Incidentally that's why I've barely been on Runescape (snow notwithstanding) this year. I've got the latest Diana Gabaldon, plus this book, as well has having Sims 2. Side-tracked completely, oh yes. By the time I was back, there was quite a crowd gathered around the entrance tent to the quest. I was a little perturbed to note that they were, without exception, red. There wasn't a single quest cape amongst them, but there were a lot of people in their 120s and 130s sobbing over the difficulty of the final boss. I tried not to worry about this and just carried on inside to have a look through the arcane gateway. It didn't take long to find a dying knight, who left me messages about being pious and also about setting things alight. I went back to the bank for prayer boosting stuff, a tinderbox and some fire spells. It turned out that I'd guessed that one correctly, but for the tinderbox. That wasn't needed. I ended up in a room where you can only survive with piety on. If you kill the corrupted creatures, then your prayer is fully restored. Hurrah. You also have to collect slabs from around the room and build yourself some stepping stones across a stream to a little island. Once there, I quickly saw a row of barrels filled with explosives. I know my history and Guido Fawkes led the way on this one. I cast a fire spell at them and they spectacularly blew up. Feeling very accomplished, I went to see what was in the next room. This had roots which couldn't be destroyed, surrounded by rooms with roots which could be. I went around killing them, returned to the middle and there was a huge avatar glaring at me. Fortunately, I still had my range stuff and there was an obvious safespot. My new max hit is 200 and I managed that with ruby bolts (e) and ranging potion. :D I'm still smug about that one. :P I logged off again then for a celebratory cup of tea. Logging off down there means that you log back on next to the bank chest in Soul Wars. I was surrounded by a lot of worried conversation, by people still looking very red, who couldn't kill the boss. The forum here at Sal's was similarly full of the same. I realised that I was actually at this point. I asked around, "Do you know how I can kill Nomad?" Some bloke looked me up and down with utter disdain and said, "You can't. I can." Then did his questcape twirl. All level 135 of him. Other people were talking about ruby bolts (e), which made me happy, seeing as I was already carrying them. Upon hearing that it was multi-combat, I also took out my secret weapon - a huge kitty! Is anyone else getting the Star Wars references here? I took one look had had to resist the urge to scream, "Yoooooooooouuuuu'rrrrrrreeeeeeeee not my faaaaaaaaaaaaaather!" Unfortunately, the snobbish bloke from outside was right. I can't kill Nomad. I've tried. I've wasted most of my Sara Brews and Super Restore potion, several summoning creatures and untold sharks attempting it, not to mention all of the ruby bolts. I've also lost two Ava Accumulators, but they're easily replaced. *sigh* It feels weird not wearing my questcape. :P When I said that I give up, there was a chorus of protests and reassurances from Canting. Aximili said it best though. He told me that it's best for the moment, just until I've cooled down and someone's got round to writing the Killing Nomad Guide for Noobs. He's right. I probably will be back, but it's looking to me like that 85+ in all combat disciplines advice was less a recommendation and more a requirement. You Tube is starting to fill up with maxed out players getting killed by Nomad, then finally succeeding. I feel like a complete noob with 83/84 in all combat skills. I was barely making a dent in him. The most I got him down to was three-quarters health; and that was with curses leeching everything I could leech from him. Incidentally, the cat was crap. He just followed me around and didn't try to attack Nomad. Unlike Shelley, who got stuck in as soon as the fight began. I guess I'll take Aximili's advice and see what tomorrow holds, but for now, it feels like I've finally been pwned by a quest and I miss my questcape. :P

Stumblebunk, writing on the RSOF, has worked out the current xp required for a Quest Cape: Last night, I thoroughly depressed myself reading forum posts on various websites, including the RSOF, looking for that report that would tell me that I had a chance of getting mine back. They were largely full of people with combat levels of 80-134 bewailing their loss; interspersed here and there with maxed out players going, 'Ha ha! You should have trained like I did!' Occasionally you'd get an extremely high level, standing behind a shield of having killed Nomad, appealing to everyone to stop rubbing salt into the wounds. They meant well, but their defence of us noobs had a tinge of pity about it, that didn't help my mood. My position now is that I do want my questcape back, but I don't feel like I can. I'm only finding players in their 130s who have defeated Nomad. If it was just a case of me getting my 115 backside into the arena and keep on trying until I succeed, then I'd be blowing my ranger boot savings on Sara Brews and I'd be in there right now. What I'm reading across the board though is that I have no chance whatsoever, unless I go and train combat a lot more. Combat bores me stupid, unless it's an extremely scary boss, in which case, it enduces panic attacks. Therefore I appear to have the choice between giving up on my questcape until I holistically make it to the 130s, or else pay for a game that's become tedious. So there's my price right now. Live with it; wait for someone to break the boss and explain how a 115 can do it; or else train, train, train. Suddenly 'An Echo in the Bone' by Diana Gabaldon, with a comfy chair and a pot of tea is looking far more enticing than Runescape. :D The other thing that I kept finding were discussions about how the quest cape has suddenly leapt in prestige to the point where it rivals the fire cape. Until now, I had the unofficial hierarchy as being: Slayer Cape, Fire Cape, then all of the other skillcapes according to their general reputation. I knew that the Quest Cape had crept up there to be viewed somewhere on a par with the better thought of skillcapes, but I've been reading posts where people are putting it second only to the Slayer Cape. Is that true? It seems very high to me. Having recently attempted Jad, I currently have an endless well of respect to those with a Fire Cape. Is Nomad comparable to Jad? Yes, he is, I'm in agreement there. (And panicked about those predicting that a future quest will involve having to kill Jad, as Jagex are currently working their way through the minigames with their quests.) But the route to Nomad is nowhere near as arduous as the route to Jad. Actually 'Nomad's Requiem' was a fairly easy-mid-range quest for me, right up until that impossible boss.

Sal's Realm quest guide: Blood Runs Deep. Wow! What a quest! It goes on forever, with a lot of fighting and near death experiences along the way, but wow! To be honest, I wasn't expecting a quest today. I have important real life stuff to be doing, so I only had a tab with Rs on it, so I could occasionally check the GE. I'm using Sparhawke's flipping technique extremely well on addy arrowtips. :P It was during one such check that the system update began, late into the afternoon. The people of the GE naturally started speculating, with the Christmas event being the favourite. I silently suspecting that they were nerfing prayers, so kept quiet. I did, however, open another tab and look on the homepage. Oh my Guthix! A quest! I naturally went hyperactive, running around the GE and doing my questcape emote, then grabbed my stuff and raced to Moonclan. Then Jagex kicked me off, as I hadn't actually come out in time for the quest to be loaded. And I was back. -.- I hurtled from Pirate's Cove into Moonclan and charged into Baba Yaga's house to have some fighting talk. She was all for going into a dream and starting the fight right now, but this had shades of Dream Mentor to it and I wasn't going to get far in just a green hat and a glory. I bade her hold that thought, while I dashed to the bank. Being a cunning girl, I'd already spotted that the dude in the picture was dressed in range stuff, so I did too. I also ran over to the altar and switched to lunar prayers, on the basis that dead people can get back to their gravestone a lot more quickly with a home teleport to Moonclan. That done, I rushed back to Baba Yaga, basking in my cleverness, and immediately got kicked off Moonclan for not having my seal of passage on me. Noob witch. Dude tried to stop me boarding the boat without my seal, but I told him that I was only going as far as Pirate's Cove. The captain there doesn't give a monkeys about passports, so he just let me back to Moonclan. I snatched my Seal from the bank and returned to Baba Yaga. Once in the dream, I had a lovely time watching dags march past like stormtroopers in a Death Star. Then it all went a bit pear-shaped, as the monsters were coming and the lecturn wouldn't work and, yeah, yeah. I ended up with a maging blob and a big dag attacking me from across the platform. Fortunately, my broad bolts, deflect from mage and a bag full of tuna spuds meant that I was never in too much trouble. Baba Yaga got us out and Oneiromancer turned up doing that telepathic thing that I can't hear. I called them on their rudeness and the message got conveyed to me too. Dags overwhelming Relekka. Nooo! I immediately (after a bank trip) offered my services and Baba Yaga sent me there, by nicking my Seal of Passage. >.> The next part was so much fun! Everyone who was doing at the quest at the time was in the same battle. As it had only just been released, that meant that a lot of people were there. We all got stuck in together, taking out dags that were attacking other people and generally creating a bloodbath. At this point, of course, none of us realised that this was fundamentally a slayer task. We had to get the kill on 50 dags each. So ignorant were we that when someone turned up with a cannon, we all cheered. LOL It was only as the first few started getting the messages that we realised what the craic was here, then it became the usual slayer task growling. This time with half of Runescape all descended upon the same creatures in the same spot. *sigh* But until then, wow! We were having fun! I'm the one in the Fremmy hat and the black dhide, by the way. The next part was a little more frustrating, but still fun. It was effectively Temple Trekking, but with high level dags and mage blobs, and you couldn't let your follower get too far behind you. Round one, I ran off and King Vargas got captured and taken back. Round two, I was within a sniff of the finishing post and the noob got himself killed, despite nomming loads of my tuna potatoes. I climbed the ladder that time to find another player safe with his follower but without any food at all, with only 41hp. I gave him my remaining two spuds and went to see what was ahead. I was sooooo close! Round three, I was better aware of what I was doing. I concentrated more on keeping my follower alive than myself. We made it through, then the noob caused a landslide and killed me. I love the Norse mythology references in this. The axe that I was given as a present is called Balmung, which is a legendary weapon belonging to Sigfrid. Then I got to go to Valhalla and meet the goddess, Eir. In Norse legend, she's able to awaken the dead, which was good news for me. Restored to life by the Goddess, I continued on my merry way. Eman's going to >:P at me, because I got married to Prince Brand, after conducting a lovely service myself off the top of my head. Then it was business as usual and back to the fighting. We bimbled off to Waterbirth Island and entered the cave. My addy titan and I met up with dag sentinels and this was the first time that I got stuck. I'd hit holes into one, but the other kept healing him. By the time I'd eaten the last of my spuds and gobbled down another two prayer potions, I just had to flee. I appealed for help on the Sal's forum, then had a nice cup of tea. That worked. I got inspiration and was soon back down there. I had to kill them both together! I alternated my whacks - one for you, one for you, and another one for you... ouch! That's got to hurt... and another one for you. That sort of thing. It worked! They were too injured to keep healing each other and so they both died. Thus it was that I entered one of the hardest boss fights of my life. I had four attempts. I used up over 300 blood runes; 50 odd sharks; loads of prayer potions and super sets... I had to stop and buy more runes along the way. Finally, finally, on the fourth attempt, I made it. It's a long, hard fight, and you have to be aware of so much, but I got there. For those yet to undertake this fight, please do take weapons and runes for all four elemental mage spells; range; and your Balmung for melee. You won't succeed missing out any of those, as she susses what's missing and so keeps returning to that. Also, once the battle has started, don't stand next to her, as her melee hits hardest. If you stand just along the wall, you only have to worry about mage and range. You'll need protection from mage, melee and range, by the way; you'll need protect from melee, even if you're standing away from her, as one mistake will have you crumpling under hits of 30. I wooted very loudly when she finally collapsed on the floor. She doesn't die, she just lies there with a bit of a headache, while you seal the door on her oubliette. That did feel cruel. I'm always pleased with myself post-quest, when I put on my quest cape again and do a victory emote. Today though, I was actually proud of myself too. The rewards included three lots of 150k xp, which could only be used for combat related skills, not including slayer or summoning. I put all 450k onto prayer. It's been a long time since I've got levels so quickly in succession, but there was level 81 and then there was level 82. It was a sweet, sweet feeling. There are still a handful of slots to fill, mainly during the Australasian/Asian afternoon or early evening. Anyone got anything for them please? Parade? Scavenger hunt? Mass farming run? Nature ramble? Soup kitchen?

You can imagine my little face when I saw the system update starting. A new quest this week had been promised last week and I'd been waiting for it since Tuesday. I'd been up the KBD, because Lapalok gave me 63 black dragons for my slayer task. Lack of super defence potions stopped play, so I was in the GE fletching my way through 200 yew logs, when the counter began. I wooted around the middle desk. I happy danced in three different styles, screaming, 'New quest ftw!', then did my questcape emote a few times. The denizens of the GE were strangely unmoved. They just did their thing until Jagex kicked us off. I don't know why I was getting so excited, as I had to go out. I started the quest, rushing to Nardah, then zapping myself to the digsite. I had the conversation which pointed to doing a Barrows run, plus another part. Then I had to go and do real life. >:/ Much later on, I was back. I ran into Canting to see if, by some miracle, Josh's school had a day off and he'd be waiting in there specifically to guide me through the Barrows again. He wasn't. Teacuptime was in there, but had never done Barrows, and Fred_Lay was about to leave. I decided to trust my memory and do it myself. I've only ever been to Barrows twice in my life. The first time unlocked the music, but all I was required to do was wear default clothing and follow Zach into a tumuli, whilst resisting his encouragement to venture further. The second time, Joshua Mack thought it was a travesty that I'd never done Barrows. He took me and I got some Torag's Hammers. Today, I was there desperately recalling Josh's strategy of doing Barrows. I remembered that it had started with a runecrafting run to get some Death runes, so I did that. I was eventually in Morytania, standing in a field full of tumuli. I'd been in the wiki and so I had equipment for range, mage AND melee, plus an order to do them in. Dharok was first. I went in wearing full Guthans, minus the spear. I then proceeded to hit Dharok over the head with a slayer staff. Ideally, I would have been casting magic dart at him, but I could not get that autocast to work. I worked it out though. In my zest to start it, I kept switching it off. That sorted, it didn't take many hits to pwn him. Next I went to see Karil, holding my whip and shield. That was easier. He died. Being wise to the ways of autocasting magic darts now, Verac was soon dispatched too. I switched to my black dhide, rune crossbow and broad bolts to visit Ahrim. He too was soon killed, but by now I'd taken a bit of damage. Torag is reputedly one of the easier brothers, but not when you're smacking him with his brother's spear and the damn thing won't heal you. I eventually slaughtered him and limped out having to nom a couple of my emergency sharks. I was a bit worried about facing Guthan, because I was wearing his clothes. He might have Views on that. Teacuptime assured me that Guthan has a spare set. This transpired to be correct, though one does have to ponder how Teacuptime knew that. He's never done Barrows, yet he has knowledge of the contents of Guthan's wardrobe. >.> I didn't find out about Guthan's state of attire though until I was in the tunnel. The noob wasn't in his crypt, he was out there. I went in and killed some bloodworms, whilst trying to remember what Josh had told me about this 'hood. I recall something about having to kill over 25 creatures, preferably different ones. I also recalled that I'd meet a brother down there and I should kill him. Guthan was waiting in room two. We were equally matched in armour, though I switched to whip and spirit shield and he didn't. He died. I then had the Problem of the Doors. This happened last time as well. I'd try to look and something would attack me. I'd get a millisecond to photographically memorise the puzzle, then when I'd returned, it would have changed. This time I was ready for it. I just clicked on anything the second it flashed up. It was the wrong answer. :( I heard the catacomb changing and I had to go into another room instead. I admit to getting a tad lost. I swear that I was going round and round in circles for a while. Are you supposed to end up in that little gulley around the sides of the rooms? Anyway, I eventually found the door to the inner sanctum in a room containing some skeletons and Granny Anne. I keep bumping into Granny Anne. She saved me from an iron dragon once and now she's everywhere that I go. I hope she doesn't think I'm stalking her. >.> Anyway, she and I pwnt some skeletons and looking at the puzzle was quite leisurely this time. I went in with 31 kills, plus all six brothers dead. I got the artefact and a load of runes, then scarpered. The second journey was slightly more problematic insofar as I had three options as to where the destination might be. It was a frozen place, in the north, to the north-west of the Wilderness. My most dreaded theory was that it was in the God Wars dungeon. I remembered there being a frozen door in there, though Gerasimos, now in Canting, said that I might be thinking of Zamorak's area. Putting that on a back-burner for now, I went to check out the first of my other theories. It was that place where I froze the Mahjarrat in a previous quest. I took the canoe from the snowy hunting area and went to see. There was no joy there. My second theory was the ice plateau in the Wilderness itself. I mentioned this, but Gerasimos was already on the case. He had the map open and had spotted a brand new castle. It lead from the ice plateau! I stepped out of my dungeon and looked East. I could see its wall. I trudged up the snowy bank and could see more clearly that western wall, but with no access from there. It was time to go to the Wild. This was a situation not helped by the fact that Gerasimos had to go, so I didn't even have someone to hold my hand. ;_; This I did, taking the lever from Edgeville and running up along the northern coast and down past the agility arena. Shin Asashin came into Canting just then with the opening line, 'How's the new quest?' I loved the correct assumption that I was doing it and commented so. He replied, 'We know you!' LOL I calmed down a lot with him canting with me. I even sat down to rest my bones and get my energy counter back up. Shin Asashin had to leave though, as I found the new castle, so I said my goodbyes and I was on my own for the next part. I really enjoyed this. It was a maze with puzzles. My favourite! Ok, there were also things attacking me, but they were nubs and I was wearing Guthans. They lost. I spent a happy hour or so working out what to put where. I even had a lucky break in the middle. You end up with an orb with a fragment on it, which wouldn't fit anywhere. I do quests using the Rule of Neo Avatars. This is something which I learned after I'd been convinced to stop using guides in order to get the full effect of the quest. (Great advice that!) Neo said that when entering a new area, he first checks everything. In this case, there were loads of crates to be looted, so I attempted to loot them all. They only yielded a hammer. Faced with my damaged orb, I figured that a chisel would work here. I figured that I'd missed that spawn/chest, so backtracked. I went all the way out of the trapdoor with no chisel found. As I ran across the top, my cursor ran across a broken pedestal with an option to fit an orb. Experimentally, I did and it was the right thing to do! The fragment was just enough to wedge it in. I suppose that I should have noted on the way in that there was a broken pedestal, but the unsuccessful chisel quest worked just as well. Thereon, it was just more enjoyment in fathoming out the maze until I could see the boss in front of me. As one of the first wave of players doing this, I really was walking in without a map. There were no guides. It was too early to even have rumours muttered at you in banks. I was in Guthans with full health and full prayer. I had a few sharks, but I also had the spear. At this moment, however, I was holding my whip and spirit shield. I sipped one each of a super-set (last vial of super defence ftl) and stepped forward with protect from melee on. I just made it out of there with 20hp left, after not panicking this time and using my glory to get to Edgeville. The Ice Demon is ICE CUBE MAN! Not only that, but he poisons you too! I nipped up to the monastry, where a monk kindly healed me. I replenished my prayer while I was up there, then back to the bank. I'd already deposited all of my stuff and had a sip of anti-poison. This time I went in black dhide, clutching a Sara prayer book, for the mage defence. I also had on my dragon boots, glory, Ardy3 cloak, barrows gloves (well, Forinthy bracelet for the dash across the Wild) and a ring of life. The dude was an Ice Demon, so I'd taken runes for my highest fire-based spell, which was at level 75 (I forget what it was). I'd also included my whip. I had a super-set, prayer potion and anti-poison+. A rev ork attacked from the agility place, as I passed, but he didn't follow. I quickly reached the entrance and was given the option to continue from where I left it or to start again. I went for continuing from where I'd left off, assuming that this would put me in the room with the Ice Demon. It didn't. It put me at the start of the maze. I mentally squirrelled away the information that there was a glitch, then ran on. I had to re-open just one ice gate, but I was soon at the place for the boss fight. A glance at the clock, however, told me that my nephews were due any second. I figured that they might like to watch this, so logged out. I waited for about a quarter of an hour, but they hadn't turned up. I told myself they'd lost their chance (because I'm secretly evil) and so logged back on. Nooo! I was back at the beginning of the maze! I thought maybe Jagex had mixed the links up, so chose the 'do it again' option. I was back at the beginning of the maze, but with NO doors open. I got it now. Option one is the equivalent of crossing the halfway flag in SuperMario Bros. You can close the DS, but when you start again, you'll be halfway along the course, but with your coins in your bag. You won't be at the point where you left. Option two is the equivalent of switching the DS off, you will have to do the whole level again. Got it. I did the maze again and my nephews still hadn't turned up. I went to see the boss and started attacking with my fire spell. It wasn't making a dent. He wasn't even getting a hitpoint green line above his head. On the other hand, with all of my magic defence and pretect from mage on, I wasn't taking much damage either. I let fly about ten of the spells before giving up and switching to melee. This worked. Every whack with my whip tore chunks of life out of him and he was soon dead at my feet. I'd eaten just one tuna and sweetcorn spud and that included the damage taken on the way in! Daz Rhyfelwr and Jdeh Rhyfela turned up just as I was in the final cut-scene. I do love those cut-scenes, which seem to be a quite recent innnovation. I love seeing the effect of this quest on random points around the world. :/ All in all, I enjoyed the quest and I got new prayers at the end of it! Who can sneeze at that? I also got level 75 summoning, using a lamp at the end, which put all of my skills above 75. Plus I got a chunk of prayer xp, which can't be bad. In the other news, a huge thank you to Nezantra, who's created a banner for me to link to the blog entry on the Canting Winter Festival. I'll ensure that this is at the foot of all blog entries from now until the event, so everyone can find it easily. Just click on the banner! There are still a handful of slots to fill, mainly during the American evening, while the Europeans are fast asleep. Anyone got anything for them please? Parade? Scavenger hunt? Mass farming run? Nature ramble? Soup kitchen?

**SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT READ ON IF YOU STILL WANT TO SOLVE IT YOURSELF, AS SOME CLUES ARE REVEALED.** I've heard a lot of mixed reviews about the Cryptic Clue Fest, but I personally really enjoyed it. I did each one on the day of their release, so I was having to work it out for myself. I fell for some of the tricks and misdirection too, whilst learning that half the time, we pwn ourselves, without anyone needing to do it for us. I learned about the Clue Fest while Daz Rhyfelwr and Jdeh Rhyfela were at my house. As they had commandeered all computers here, I'd curled up with Terry Pratchett's 'Darwin's Watch'. It was them who simultaneously found the update. I leaned over Jdeh's laptop and read the clue. I looked at the grid and had the whole thing solved in seconds. By the time I logged on to do it though, I'd watched both of them already do it. I already knew not to have anything extra in my bag and to have the items in the correct order. I breezed through it! Day two saw me seriously over-thinking things. I read the clue and noted all of the references to travelling all over Gielinor, reading between the lines etc I was such a smug git meandering to the Jolly Boar with my items. A sextant, watch and chart! Travel, lines, treasure, adventure! They all led to gridlines and therefore co-ordinates. Solved. Except it wasn't. *dies* I spoke to the bartender and he wasn't telling me anything. I asked aloud if I had the right items and listed them. The small crowd in the pub informed me that I hadn't. One helpfully added that they will be f2p items, as this event is in f2p too. I logged off and re-read the clue. I mithered at it on and off for an hour, whilst doing real life stuff. I'm not sure whether it was a sudden insight or a misclick on my mouse that saw me highlighting a bit of a clue. Partially both, as in the idea came, but I didn't seriously expect it to be correct. I highlighted a 'of t' and immediately sat up more straightly and highlighted the rest. It took whole seconds to solve it then. LOL Day three was cruel. I read it and bit my lip. Worse update ever! Jagex shouldn't create maths puzzles when they know that I'm playing. >:P To be fair, I didn't even read the thing. I skim-read enough to know that it was maths, then picked up the 'phone to call our family's version of Near. I told Jdeh Rhyfela that today's puzzle was maths and he cheered. (Note to self: My nephew is obviously insane, arrange for a psychiatrist to speak with him.) I asked him to call me back when he'd got the answers, then hung up and went to make a cup of tea. He didn't call back. In fact, he still hasn't called back and I know that he's finished all of the clues. Nub. In lieu of any assistance from familial nubcakes, I attempted the first part on my own. It was surprisingly easy, thus teaching me a value lesson in not pwning myself before I begin. I made some notes, but I didn't even need the calculator. Puzzle solved. I skim-read puzzle two, grimaced and looked at puzzle three. That one was extremely easy, I'd got it solved as quickly as I was reading it. I looked back at puzzle two. I read and re-read it. I switched on the calculator just to show willing. I read and re-read it again. I whimpered. I made about two pages worth of notes and sums. I came up with several answers. In the end, I had one which almost looked right, other than the fact that there were a lot of numbers after the decimal points. In the end, I admitted defeat and regressed to a ten year old. My Dad solved it in about a minute. The absolute worst of all of this is that it wasn't even a mathematical question. If I hadn't been so panicked about all of the complicated maths, I'd have read the thing properly and realised it was a logic puzzle, not a maths one. It was only as he gave me the answer and I had that spark of suspicion, that I re-read the blarb and could have slapped myself. 'They split the rights to the land evenly...' was perhaps the most important line in all of that... :P Jdeh probably hadn't called back because he was too busy laughing. Desperate to redeem my blushes, I was ready for day four. Unfortunately, I also had a computer to fix; the housework to do; a toilet seat to fit (don't ask); and half an essay to write. Therefore it was about three o'clock before I even saw it. I opened it up, read it and blinked. My eyes rose for a re-read, at least it wasn't maths. The 'phone beside me rang and Daz Rhyfelwr said, "Hi..." That's as far as he got before I replied, "Yeah, I've only just read it." We stayed on the 'phone working it out between us. Given the wont of the chaos elemental to mix up his words, we were trying to re-arrange the sentence to make sense. I was in wikipedia looking up Roman deities, after noting Jove and Romulan. I was thinking along the lines of Romulus and Remus. We'd practically ignored the maths bit at the bottom. That was so simple that even I'd got it. We were thinking ourselves into huge knots, right up until the point where we stopped. We stepped back and consolidated our knowledge. Why on Earth would Jagex create a puzzle that required a deep knowledge of Ancient Roman History? Why would they add a maths formula, which was being ignored because it was Maths? Once I'd backed out of the history distraction and looked at what was there, it was solved very quickly. I wasn't logged into the game, but Daz was. As I decoded the message, he wrote it down and collected the stuff. By the time I logged on, he was already in Al-Kharid cashing them in for information. He traded me the items and I did the same. Our happy dancing and general smugness soon froze in the face of a hidden round five. Nevertheless, bring it on! I was thoroughly enjoying myself now. It had occurred to me that each time I'd been thwarted, it had been because I'd either over-thought things or else given up before I'd even tried. I screenied each point of the conversation giving us the fifth clue, so Daz and I could use it as reference. We instantly sussed who we needed to speak with, it was just the items that had us stumped. At that point though, we thought we had that solved too. I attached myself to him and he led us to Varrock Library, while I sat with a pen and paper re-arranging the phrase. My assumption (correctly) was that it was an anagram. Still on the 'phone, Daz chucked out ideas too. We reached the library and joined several other players in talking to Reldo and searching all of the shelves. Everyone there admitted defeat and we all brainstormed. Me, Daz and about six other players threw ideas into the mix and eventually someone shouted, "Imps! Who was the last person researching imps?" We left for the Wizard's Tower in one long train of people! We were half out of Varrock, when I asked why we weren't just glorying to Draynor. LOL I wish I hadn't said that though, because it instantly broke up the gang. We all reassembled there, after arriving separately, then scattered throughout the tower, searching bookcases in the library, speaking with wizards. I ended up in that ice place, where we'd done the Christmas 2008 event. I stupidly left the spot and then spent a few minutes trying to get back to it. By now, Daz's Nan was in the background going, "Are you still talking to Auntie *Merch* about this Runescape?" I shouted my apologies and suggested that we talk only in-game, calling each other back if we had a lead. I then promptly lost him. I didn't want to go into Canting for fear of our conversation spoiling it for those yet to do the clue, but I eventually did go in. By now, I'd re-read the part about crystal balls and so was visiting every witch in f2p. Others were too, as the doors were left open from Draynor Manor to Hettie. LOL It was at Hettie's house where I had to say my goodbyes, as it was time for tea. I'd logged off and opened up the homepage, with a view to looking in the forums for extra clues, when realisation hit me. What if the place to 'read up on that' wasn't actually INSIDE the game? With that insight, I went looking and found the blasted clues. Before I could read them though, Daz called me back. He had the items. Someone had blurted it out right next to him and then dropped the items on the floor. He'd picked them up and tried them. They were correct. That's something about these items. That day, there were so many sets of items being bandied about. You could see bright sparks everywhere realising that, if they could create a rush on certain items, then they'd be a) supplied to the GE eventually or b) the price of that item would rise. Imp beads were favourites. I went up Karamja later to get some bananas. As I walked over to the Fight Caves to bank them, I witnessed a volcano side teeming with players attacking every imp in sight. I knew why. I'd been in Lumbridge and I'd heard two different versions. One had been 'five red beads, 1 rope and 1 starting horn'; another had been '2 yellow beads, 42gp and 8 redberry pies'. While in Karamja, I heard a third version, 'one of each colour bead'. I swear that by the end of Sunday, the GE would have been full of beads, all risen in price through the maximum orders placed on them. LOL By the time I finished my tea, I had the answers from Daz (which featured no imp beads at all) and the questions up on my screen waiting to be solved. One glance told me that Daz's list was correct. I would have got them easily, but it was all good. I traded them in and got my magnifying glass with its special emote. I really did enjoy that. Thanks Jagex.

You won't believe what just happened to me. There's going to have to be a whole new category of Nub opened up just to accommodate how ridiculously narbish I just was. :P Ok, let's start at the beginning. Lapalok gave me scarabites as a slayer task. I said, after the last debacle, that I'd give them one more try having learned from all of my mistakes. This was my big moment. However, I wasn't in a slayer mood. I was in a quest mood. Last week, a JMod said that there would be a quest this week. They tend to happen on Tuesdays, don't they? I was up at quarter past seven this morning, getting things done in time to go to the Job Centre. I was back by half nine and did lots of grown up, boring stuff. All of this left me tapping my fingers waiting for the quest by noon. I ate my dinner. I filled in another job application. I kept checking back. No quest. I got sad. By 2pm, I'd had enough of not having a quest to do, so I searched through the miniquests to see if there were any that I hadn't done. I'd seen a to do list on Jaxana's blog that mentioned a follow up to Hand in the Sand. I knew I hadn't done that. As I went through, I spotted something: Scarabite Research. I don't usually use guides, as it's much more fun to do quests without them. However, I had no recollection of this one starting, as it's been months, if not years, since Dealing with Scarabites. I had a quick look through to find out how to start. It was perfect! Remember how I'd kept picking up notes when I did my first scarabite task? Well this miniquest gives you something to do with them. The single most important detail here is that, once each note is in your book, it won't be dropped again. The biggest pain in the backside, when killing loads of scarabites is accidentally picking up notes. Here was a way to kill them for slayer without that being a factor. I logged on and took myself over to Sophanem. Shelley got packed up with sharks. I had my dwarf multicannon and the 394 cannonballs left over from last time. I debated putting on my Guthans armour, but the need for the enchanted tiara argued against that. I ended up in my torso, dragon skirt, spirit shield, whip, ring of life, combat bracelet, glory and dragon boots. With a couple of prayer potions in my bag, a holy wrench and a slayer ring, it was all good. It really was all good. I did all 42 scarabites in one go. I'd been home and fetched my Scarabite Research book. As they dropped notes, I picked them up, right-clicked them and they disappeared. You didn't even have to read the blarb, they just went into the book and were logged. I'd killed most of the scarabites before I even needed more fish off Shelley. I raced to the safe spot, just west, and one scarabite followed. Once he was dead, it was almost leisurely how Shelley and I swopped drops for fish. I don't feel that I missed a drop out there and, once I'd collected notes, they become noticeably rarer to find on the floor. I did run out of cannonballs though. With just 7 scarabites left, I stood with my back to the cannon and meleed them. Shelley was finishing a few off right next to me. They were in a kind of bottleneck too, so it all worked, particularly since the ranger was distracted trying to kill Shelley. I pretty much strolled out of there quite happy to leave these creatures as slayer assignments. Once you know what you're doing out there (ie the location of the safe spot) and you have your scarabite notebook on you to collect notes into, then they're a lot easier. Once back in Sophanem bank, I compared my book to that in the guide. I learned that there were still five notes left to collect, but I decided to leave those until the next slayer assignment. All told, I'd ensured that 8 sets of notes would never be on the floor again. This miniquest's rewards aren't really that great, so it's more a quest for multi-tasking to. There was, however, a second part to the quest which got my attention. This involved going back into the Ullek Dungeon to search through two chests, which each contained notes. These notes will never be drops, as you have to collect them from the chests. I figured that I'd get them out of the way, then I'd put the notebook away. Shelley went back to Summoning Land, so I briefly debated taking Yippy with me on the dungeon thing. It didn't seem worth it though. The guide didn't make it look like I'd be in there for long and it was pretty straight-forward. I packed a couple of super anti-poisons, a vial of Recilym's Balm, two prayer potions, my Fally 3 shield and my Fremmy Helm. Then there was most of a bag full of sharks, plus the book. I looked for the key to get in, but it seemed that I didn't have it. I thought I'd go and have a look, then return to the bank if I needed to re-do all of those entrance puzzles. I didn't. I didn't need the key either. As I'd opened the antechamber in the quest, it stayed open. I swopped from enchanted tiara to Fremmy Helm and cautiously stepped inside. I felt my way for traps and found one. The option came to attempt to bypass it using agility. I agreed to that and I was successful. I continued creeping through corridors, hiding behind walls whenever I saw a yellow dot. It was all going like clockwork and I was quite calm. I spotted a chest in another room and plotted my route towards it. It involved passing a scarabite mage, but that was all good. I stepped out. There was a trap. After all that creeping and testing every inch on the way there, you'd think that I'd remember to do so at the 11th hour, wouldn't you? No. To compound matters, I'd also neglected to switch off auto-retaliate after my slayer task. I ran past the mage fine, but hit the trap. That both poisoned and diseased me. I reached for my anti-poison, but the mage attacked and yanked me back over the trap. I ran away back over the trap, but he kept pulling me back! I rushed to change prayers, to protect from mage, but I was running out of hitpoints! I needed food! The poison and the disease were both hitting high and constantly, on top of the damage already done by the mage. I was starting to really panic. I couldn't find my bag icon! In my ears was the sound of my heartbeat. I recalled, suddenly, that I was wearing my torso. I would lose it and never have another place-holder, as Jagex changed the drop to destroy. I saw myself plunge to 2hp and then it was all over. I was in Camelot. I was in Camelot, still wearing all of my armour! The ring of life had saved me! I clicked on the bag icon and gobbled down three sharks in my panic. Then I drank anti-poison and Recilym's Balm, but the hits were still coming high. In an absolute panic attack, I raced to the bank, dumping in all that I wore and all that I carried. My hitpoints had already dipped again to 35. I stood in the middle of Seers' Bank and just collapsed onto the floor, shaking like a leaf, with protect from melee still above my head. There were a few people in there. There was one bloke in full Guthans just standing over me, looking. I commented, 'I'm not going to switch off my protect from melee until I'm convinced that I'm safe.' IRL I was shaking so much. There on the floor in Seers' Bank, I was a quivering wreck. The poison/disease was still hitting up in the 7s and 8s, despite me having had some anti-poison and balm. I left that prayer on until my prayer points ran out. I just sat there gabbling crap, trying to calm down. Fortunately, the kind denizens of the bank were equal to the task. Laura Kim came to stand by me, asking what had happened and generally talking me off the ceiling, then she sat down with me, looking after me. She was precisely what I needed! An in-game mother to tell me that it's ok and to ensure that I was eating. Leon Joker is the bloke in the green and grey robes, on the left-hand side. He came over to see if I was alright too, because I was just babbling at Laura, getting the fright out of my system. Then Wc Kingz came in. He was only 500xp away from his next fletching level, but he took the time out to sit with me too. There is no emote for dealing with clinical shock, so this was the best we could manage. He too sat down with Laura Kim and I, letting me tell the story all over again. Bless them, they calmed me right down. I thanked them, then went into my bank for that British solve all. Laura Kim and I had a nice cup of tea, but Wc Kingz doesn't like tea, so he declined. Finally, the poison/disease wore off and my heart had settled down from a screeching whine to something approaching normal. Wc Kingz got up and happy danced at me being healed. I got up and joined him, laughing as I did. I commented that the one silver lining was that it all gave me a good story to write in my blog. I then started to explain that I write this blog and they'd all be in it and, if they wanted to see the screenies I'd taken, it would be on Sal's Realm of Runescape... at least one of them had already heard of the blog. :P Yeah, I blushed. Thank you for reading, cariad. And thanks everyone in Seers' Bank for putting up with my panic attacks, particularly Laura Kim and Wc Kingz for sitting with me for so long. :P

How much excitement can one girl take? I only had an hour yesterday afternoon, so I planned on nipping in to plant some seeds up Trollheim, then logging straight back out to do real life stuff. The homepage loaded and there it was! Mourning's End Pt 3, also known as 'Within the Light'! :D Sod real life, I had a quest to do. I got my backside up Lletya, harvested my coconuts and spoke to Arianwyn. Three missions please: chant into a crystal in the Temple of Light; fetch a spare set of mourner clothes; and speak to the gnome inventor in the Mourner HQ. I immediately went to Edgeville, put on a Forinthry (sp?) bracelet and ran into the Wild to be teleported into the Abyss. Ninja-ed into the Death Rift and there tried to sing to my crystal. It wasn't having it. I leapt into the portal and tried from the mysterious ruins. The energy was too strong to enchant it there. I should try outside the building. The place was full of high levels in mourner clothes. They were walking in and out of the light gate like it wasn't there. I, however, was pacing up and down alongside it, right-clicking everything I could find. I asked several times of different people how they were walking through, but no-one replied for about 10 minutes. In the end, a player reminded me of the light locations. Mine was evidently set for access from the Temple of Light itself, not the death rift. Anyway, the player further informed me, I could only enchant my crystal from the other side, through the Mourner HQ. I thanked him and zapped myself home to replenish my prayer and grab my mourner outfit from the wardrobe. Back to West Ardy, I slipped through the fence and down the trapdoor. I nicked another tarnished key off the desk and spoke with the gnome, promising him freedom for his help. Then I ran into the dungeon behind to enchant my crystal. There are dark beasts down there! :o I'd forgotten about them. I ran past screaming, but they only hit me for a couple of hp, so it was all good. Then it was a case of inching through the dungeon, being told by the crystal that this was too close to mourners, then too close to dark beasts. Eventually I straddled the corpse of a fallen slave and it was all good. The crystal said I had a lovely singing voice. *preens* From there, I ran up to the Arandor Pass. While I sat down to replenish my energy, I watched a player in a slayer cape and Godsword, with combat level 3 billion or something daft, going in to attack the travelling mourner. The player's hp was right down to a slither, which made me blink, as the mourner was only level 11. I just assumed that he'd come straight from fighting something big and scary, because I'd forgotten about that mourner. In fact, I forgot right up until the time when I hit him and immediately sank to 20hp. :o Fortunately, I had some sharks to nom, so urgently did that, before realising that that mourner was still alive. It took a few more whacks to kill him, so to strip his flayed corpse of his outfit and carry it bloody back to Arianwyn. Level 11 my backside. It was like killing Bork! We bimbled off to the Temple of Light, appearing just outside the door with the dead slave on the floor. I remember him there from the last quest, which means that he's been slowly decomposing for several years. Yet, he's not. He's still covered in fresh-looking blood. I was about to remark on this to Arianwyn, along with a theory that this area is in statis, but the elf seemed anxious to get on. He'd obviously never been in the Temple of Light before. We promptly got lost. Arianwyn made the classic schoolboy error of following me. A long list of people from Gilded Sabre to CCFCBoy could have put him right on that score, but Arianwyn patently hadn't spoken to them. We entered the Temple, turned left and were miles away in a dead end, getting smacked around by shadows, by the time I thought to log off and find a map of the dungeon. Thank you to Neo Avatars for creating that on the Sal's site. Thank you to Arianwyn for one-hitting shadows with his crystal saw, while I read Neo's map. Eventually (emphasis on the eventually), we arrived at the entrance to the Death Altar, which I could now assess. Quick word with Thorgel and I was being asked to enter the altar. I tried to follow, but that wasn't happening. I right-clicked around the room for a bit, but there was no way to follow. I briefly considered zapping out to Edgeville and the Abyss, but I wasn't sure that Arianwyn would hang around for that. I stopped to ask his advice and the dude gave me a death talisman. Woot! Now we're cooking on gas. Once inside the Death Altar, I had a word with Thorgel and much fun ensued. I got to stand on the altar itself! All sorts of things were happening around me. There were more red vengeance skulls in the air than are in your average RSMV! It was great! I appeared back on the floor, encircled with thousands of flowers, then ran around like a consummate hippy. Hurrah! Off I ran, out of the Death Altar, out of the light gate, up to the second light gate. I made it to the stairs and the flower effect wore off. Oops! I was supposed to make it all the way to the third floor crystal pillar like this. Epic phail much? There I had to stop, as I was out of time. Three hours later, I was back, leaping up onto the altar again to refresh my flower power. This time, another player asked me how to get up there and, by the time I'd told him to speak to Thorgel and he arranges it, the effect had worn off again. This didn't bode well for getting through two gates, up to the next floor, along two corridors, through another gate, touching a crystal and returning through all of that in reverse, before it wore off again. As it was, I don't know how, but the flower power stayed strong on the third attempt. I ran as fast as I could, constantly expecting it to wear off, but it didn't. I made it back to the pillar, as if I had all of the time in the world, and suddenly I was in a cut scene. Thus began the light sequence. This is how Mourning's End Part 2 must have been for everyone else. That quest is generally met with shivers and PTSD twitches from other quest nubs. My experience was that it was hard, but not so traumatic. I didn't use a guide either. *smirks* Of course, the addition of Kayla leading me around and going, 'light this! Rotate that! Add this!', whilst feeding me food and killing shadows in my way might be a factor there. Not to mention that Reaver appeared mid-way, delivering supplies, and also killed shadows. Yeah, Mourning's End Part 2 was great for me. :s So here was effectively Mourning's End Part 3, me alone with the lights and the quest too new for anyone to have even thought of a guide. On the bright side, it was an engaging puzzle and nothing was trying to kill me. Later on, I kept bumping into people in Lletya, who'd abandoned the quest here until someone wrote a guide, because they simply couldn't work it out. I'm not convinced that I worked it out. I just kept rotating crystals until something happened. It was a strategy that worked! The second floor involved a maze, with crystal spikes and a bit of ranging at the other end. On the way there, I just couldn't get the timing and so nommed my entire ration of sharks reaching the crossbow. This didn't bode well for the return journey, but I attempted it anyway. Guthix must have got round to overseeing me, as I managed to time everything right then and reached the other end without a single hit. Arianwyn had disappeared though. I clicked on everyone else's Arianwyns and ran around like a headless chicken for a bit, before thinking to speak to Thorgel. He informed me that Arianwyn had sodded off home, so I clicked my elf crystal and followed suit. I was back in Lletya, where I harvested my coconuts and wandered back inside. I met Gwir the Scribe. Gwir is Welsh for truth and is most famously used in the Druidic battlecry, 'Gwir erbyn ar y byd', or 'truth against the world'. Purportedly, Boudicca used that battlecry. I noted that they are still using Welsh language words up there and thanked Guthix that the Welsh speaking mod came back, so we could have our quest. It wasn't until I read the comments to my last blog that I was given further pause. Teacuptime noted that Gwir the Scribe could be a nod to a well-known Runescape blogger. I admit to blinking muchly at that, though I concluded that it's coincidental. I doubt very much that anyone in Jagex reads my blog. To my mind, this was confirmed when I thought of earlier on, when a second character was introduced named Iestin. Iestin (or Iestyn) is a Welsh name (pron Yes-tin) roughly equivalent to the English Justin. It means 'justice', hence the two new characters are Truth and Justice. Incidentally, Gwir would be pronounced more like Gw-ear, while Gwyar is pronounced roughly Gw-ire. (Edit: It's been pointed out to me that Iestyn/Iestin/Justin doesn't mean 'justice' at all. It means 'righteous, upright and moral'. That's messed up my hypothesis a bit! :s) Anyway, back to the plot. I was just about to hand over my report to Arianwyn, when I suddenly remembered that gnome inventor from the beginning of the quest. I ran from Arianwyn's house, dashed to the bank, hotfooted it over to Ardy and retraced my steps down to the Mourners HQ. A quick word with the Head Mourner and the gnome later, I was ready to return and finish the quest. All good! Much skillcape emoting in the middle of Lletya, oh yes. I enjoyed that. :D

I've done something really stupid! I spotted yesterday's update, which allows a second teleport destination to be added to the tiny elf crystal. Today, I finally made it to Eluned and spoke to her with enchanted crystals in my bag. She sang, I sang, she sang, I sang, all highly amusing and resulted in the Temple of Light being added underneath Lletya as a destination. I assumed that it would only be the ten crystals in my bag. It's not. It's all of my enchanted crystals, as in all 69 in my bank. This would be very lovely but for the fact that the second destination means that these crystals are no longer one-click teleports. I put this to the test. I was in Soph. and attacked a locus. As it hit me, I activated my crystal. I had the menu flash - Lletya, Temple of Light, nowhere - then the locus hit me again and it disappeared. In short, the elf crystal is now the same as a glory or games necklace, in that it's neither use nor ornament taking it into a fight for a quick getaway. If KBD is hitting me to within a heartbeat of death, I can't zap myself out of harm's reach, unless I take an ectophial. Elf crystals were always preferable to the ectophial because they deposited you within sniffing distance of a bank, plus you could get back easily. While an ectophial puts you within a short run of a bank, if you die upon reaching the spot (as happened to me, heavily poisoned, once), there's no quick way of getting there to reclaim your stuff. I'm really worried.

Can't you tell that I'm more often in Canting these days? I keep getting diverted off what I was doing, in order to do something else. :lol: I had nearly 2k worth of maple longbows to string, which I'd bought unformed off someone pleading in the GE. I already had the bowstrings, as I go and collect flax off Geoffrey most days, then spin it myself. Maple longbows are selling surprisingly well at the moment. I was within 14k of a fletching level, when my nephew IRL, Daz, logged into Canting. He was about to go and get the blood diamond. I asked if he wanted someone there to help trap Dessous and he did. I grabbed my ectophial and some sharks, then took off across the swamp. The graveyard didn't look very far away on the map, but there are all of these reeds and the end of the world and stuff. You end up going twenty miles out of your way, just to pass close to where you were ages ago. Nevertheless, I was eventually standing next to my nephew. I positioned myself next to the fence, in precisely the place where Henrique had had me stand all those years ago. It occurred to me that this might be my first time actually seeing this fight, despite having been in it. I was always on frozen and lagging computers before. Dessous came out of the grave, Daz ran around me and started firing off his spells. Dessous just walked straight through me and started paling the Hell out of my nephew. *sigh* The next few seconds were a study in Daz running back and forth trying to trap the vampire. But Dessous didn't even bother with his famous leaps over the fence. He just walks through them and me and anything else in his path these days. Against all expectation, Daz did it! With me still standing at the tip of the fence, Dessous remarkably became trapped and Daz started firing off his spells. Dessous was taking some serious damage. However, gob here noticed that Daz was still praying against melee. I advised him to switch to protect from range. The instant he did, Dessous was back over the fence and laying in some good ones, before Daz finally killed him. Go Daz! He commented that he had to walk the long way, as he'd come without a teleport. At my house, on Thursday evening, he'd been looking to get to somewhere. I'd suggested his glory, but he replied that he hadn't got one. He was on my computer, so there was nothing I could do about that at the time. Right now though he was at his house, so I took the glory from around my neck and gave it to him. I then ectophialled out and meandered down to the Canifis bank. Daz was already there, preparing for claiming the smoke diamond. It turned out that he'd got the ice and earth diamonds, ie the two hardest, completely on his own! As I had a slayer ring and he didn't, we made our own ways to the Smokey Dungeon. Once inside, we ran along lighting all of the torches and getting the key with no difficulty at all. Then came the fight with Fareed. I stepped in to act as a barrier, so that Daz could trap him behind me. Once again, this proved difficult. Fareed just kept side-stepping me. I also couldn't help but notice that Daz was apparently trying to kick Fareed to death. >.> It transpired that he couldn't hold his air staff, as it was too hot to handle, thus had no way to fire off any water spells. I asked in Canting if anyone was in a position to bring air runes. If they hadn't been, then I'd have run to Nardah. Kayla immediately called out that she was on her way, bless her. I met her at the chest and brought her to Daz, just outside the gate, beyond which Fareed was glaring. We both stepped inside, but Daz was knocking holes in Fareed now without using us as safespots at all. Fareed was dead within seconds. I screamed, 'Go, go, go!' in fear of the stranger coming, just as another figure appeared through the gate. For a milli-second, I thought it was the stranger, come to poison Daz and take all of this worldly possessions. But this particular 'stranger' looked suspiciously familiar. Joshua Mack said hi to us all. We greeted our friend and had a mini-reunion. Then I noticed Daz stil there and wandering out into the maze. As first Kayla, then Josh rushed to follow him, I started up a barrage of, 'what are you still doing here?! Go and bank! Teleport out and....' blah blah blah. I'd attached myself to the back of Josh by now, so we were all going in single-file procession through the poodles. By the time I'd got onto, 'have you got enough food?' etc, Josh just sighed and commented drily, 'Merch, have you heard of the word 'over-protective'?' I started protesting that once you'd changed the nappies of someone, you wanted to protect them, no matter how tall they get, no matter how easily they can now pick you up and carry you around a room. Kayla and Josh were just agreed on the notion that they wanted to see video evidence of Daz carrying me around a room. >:( Daz and I took the carpet to Nardah. Josh and Kayla declared themselves without money. They were halfway across the desert, running, by the time I managed to finish typing, 'I've got spare money!' They decided it was no matter, they were running to Nardah anyway. They arrived not too long after Daz and I did. Kayla had her air runes returned, refusing money for those used. I also tried to give her sharks for her sun-damage, but she refused seafood. I gave her chocolate instead. Then she had to log off to go to work. As Daz ran to do his diamonds, I put away a stash of energy and prayer potions, plus food. I was about to suggest carpets, but Josh was all for another dash across the desert. Why not? I led the way, with Josh going, 'left, left, left!' then, 'right! Merch, right!' Typical men. Don't they realise that it's all dependent on the angle of your view as to which way was left or right. After a bit of screaming at me, Josh just scurried in front and declared himself leading from now on. -.- We went via Eblis, so that I could buy an ancient staff as a present for Daz. I had faith in his completion! Plus this was something which had been done for me. I still remember now the frantic pace of that run, then the relief at seeing Kitt Fox's green dot waiting in the final room. I recall how, once it was over, Guildwars was waiting for me with a present of this staff. I'd never bought one, hence I was able to buy one from Eblis now. Just on it, we spotted Daz. His diamonds placed, he was about to enter. I called out to ask if he wanted energy pots etc (I'd already given him a load of purple sweets), but he was already in. Josh raced up the stairs and followed him. I did too, but the lads had gone. Then Josh shouted, 'Go up, Merch'. I did and the pair of us meandered around to the back of the pyramid to wait for him, as Kitt and then so many others had waited for me. My heart was in my mouth. I paced up and down that back wall looking for Daz's dot to appear at the top of my minimap. It felt like ten years had passed and he didn't appear. In the end, Josh handed me his wizard hat and decided to go look for him, through the maze, so to meet him en route. I agonised over doing the same, but let's face it, Josh has 99 hp and a fair better grasp of pwning things than I have. Plus I was highlighting the way home. Josh fed reports back into Canting. Daz wasn't on this level, nor the one above, nor the one above. Then bingo! Josh had him and was reporting back the flight through the individual mazes and down the stairs. I was chewing my nails, trying to find the jumping up and down emote to see over that blasted wall. Then they were there! You'd think that after going the wrong way myself, when I did this, I'd have remembered. I watched their dots disappear east instead of west, but it still didn't click. Josh had just done that journey in reverse and it didn't click with him either. I was screaming encouragement into Canting, watching Daz's green dot emerge against the sidewall, then stop. Josh rushed after him. Then stopped. It was a dead end. I remembered then. Oh dear. Josh apologised, as he had directed the way, but to be fair I was equally at fault here. Sorry Daz! The lads then retraced their steps and I saw them coming the opposite route. There were screams of being poisoned. Why hadn't I brought an anti-poison with me?! I had 16 prayer pots and the rest sharks and super energy, no anti! Feeling like an epic phail, I immediately raced out of the door, seeking to clear the way. No need, they were coming. I ran the last few yards with them and into the door. Woot! He'd made it! There was much happy dancing then from all three of us. I handed Daz some sharks first, then his ancient staff, though he had to return a couple of sharks due to the trade restrictions. Then I tried to get Josh to have his wizard hat and sharks to heal him. 'Just one shark', Josh replied, so I took out the others. What ensued has been detailed in the 'Josh Owned Me' blog. >:( Next time I was on, it was to make my way back to Lletya, where I finally managed to string through that last 14k of xp to gain level 81 fletching. Samsonic was beside me at the time, doing a bit of herblore, so congratulated me. I screenied it, but unfortunately another player had just rushed in and stood on top of Sam. Mind you, it looks like Sam's got a farming cape from this. LOL Whilst this was going on, Wolfhe was in Canting asking about a back route to the Troll Stronghold. He was on Lunar Magicks and therefore couldn't just teleport to Trollheim like normal people. He really didn't fancy the long walk from Burthorpe either. I was certain that there was a back way through the Keldagrim entrance and down along the troll tunnel. I thought you went through a door there and ended up in the prison block underneath the Troll Stronghold. Wolfhe went to investigate and reported back that he was now shivering his butt off at the foot of Trollweiss. He concluded that there was no back way. I was certain that there was. I vaguely remembered hunting Guildwars down once, from a starting position up Trollheim, in the slayer caves. Wolfhe found a plan B, involving nature amulets and their teleport function, but I remained convinced of a route there from near Relekka. As he abandoned looking for one, I put my bows and strings back into the bank and set off. This was a mission now. I trapsed all over the Mountain Village, able to see the farming patch and sunbathing lephrachaun, but unable to get to them. I circumnavigated the lake. I returned to the Keldagrim entrance and went to see if there was another door into Troll country. Nope. I just found myself at the foot of Trollweiss, as Wolfhe had, with no way up, as Wolfhe had said. I even bimbled up to the top of the mountain, trudging through snow and ice, trying to get over the top. No joy anywhere. Then I had a brainwave. I'd start from the Troll Stronghold and find the path down. I gloried to Edgeville for runes, then teleported to Trollheim. There was a single pizza on the floor. I went by the 30 second rule and picked it up, dusted off the dirt and was about to go down, when another player, dressed for Godwars, teleported in. 'Is this your pizza?' I queried. It was indeed. I traded it back to him, though it turned out that there should have been two. One had already disappeared. Good job I rescued this one then! Rushing down the mountain, I dodged trolls and started up the slope into the Stronghold. There was a player standing there clutching a dragon skimmy. 'Are you alright?' I asked. Pur3 A5af replied that he was doing Eadgar's Ruse but had come without any logs. He didn't yet have the capacity for a Trollheim teleport, so he was equally looking at a long walk back. I did my bit for questing kind and, as Pur3 A5af was in Canting by then, I'm pleased to report that he completed his quest and is now looking at 'Dream Mentor'. Meanwhile, I was back on track. I'd been to harvest my farming patch, then ventured down into the deep, dark depths of the Troll Stronghold. I passed a level 171 troll named Arrg, which I mentally noted for future slayer tasks. On and on I went, creeping past the sleeping guards in the prison block, until I finally reached the door to the outside. I stepped through to discover myself on a mountainside. I stepped back in, to ensure that I could. I could easily. Back out onto the mountain, I hiked on down, over some rocks, and within seconds found myself outside the Relekka Slayer Caves! So there you have it! A back route into the Troll Stronghold. Climbing boots are necessary, to scramble over rocks, but the journey isn't much longer than teleporting to Trollheim. Wolfhe met me outside the Slayer Caves and we did the route in reverse. Basically, if you're facing the slayer cave entrance, then turn left. Climb up the hill, until you see some rocks. Climb over them, wearing your climbing boots, then swing another left as the opportunity takes you. You will be in front of a door. Through there is the troll prison, so just make your way to the top of the Troll Stronghold. All good!

This was Jagex's tweet on Twitter: # It'll soon be time in #RuneScape to head west and meet up with some old friends. Ajdabout 17 hours ago from CoTweet Does that sound like access to Prifddinas to you? :) Edit: Here's the German language Twitter hint, as translated on the official forums by fluffy-er It's got to be an allusion to the Temple of Light and therefore MEP3, surely! And the French Twitter hint! Translated by Novus Lux on the official forums: MEP3! :) It's got to be!

I love quests. I know this is fairly obvious, seeing as I have a quest cape, but therein lies the problem. Before I had my cape, if I was in a quest mood, I just went and did one. These days, I'm waiting for a new quest to happen before I can do one. When I log on and the invisible narrator tells me that my quest cape is now in my inventory, as I haven't done all of the quests, you should see my little face. I have a little dance and do some wooting, then I'm straight off to do my quest. Yay! Only today was different. It was Wednesday! Through a combination of stupidity and design, 90% of my weekly xp boost events happen on Wednesdays. The circus and penguins reset. The skeletal horror is rebuilt (yes, I know I originally did that on a Monday, but it was at 1am, which pushed the rebuilding to Tuesdays. I missed just one Tuesday and now we're onto Wednesday). Being in Ardounge for the penguins, I tend to go and kill my jade plant as well. There's only Tears of Guthix which is on Fridays and that only because I ridiculously forgot about it one week. It used to be on Wednesdays too. So I sat through the patronising endurance test that is Employability Group and awarded myself an afternoon off job searching, so I could do my Wednesday rounds. I logged on and there was a quest. <_< Big decision time ended with me going to do the circus anyway, as it was only down the round. I left there and saw my first penguin just by chance. That settled it. I rushed around getting penguins in the world's quiestest chat channel. There were only four of us in there and everyone was so respectful. There wasn't a single 'is there a penguin in *insert random place*' or 'lumby update plzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111!!' Instead it was four people calmly calling out the penguins as we found them, usually ending up in the same place together. One person was in contact with someone in the full-to-bursting W60_Penguins, so we had head's up from them too. All round, it was a very pleasant experience. Then I said my goodbyes, killed the jade plant, killed the skeletal horror and rushed to Keldagrim. It had only taken just under an hour. Usually I volunteer to trap penguins, so that's why that generally takes much longer. :P I did enjoy myself with 'Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf'. I was expecting the level 100 boss fight to happen near to the end, as usual, so it was a surprise when it occurred near to the beginning. When there was a report of a choas dwarf in the watchtower, I thought that would just be a level 48, that you pwn and carry on with the quest. I was still wearing my melee clothes from killing the Skeletal Horror and I had five sharks in my bag. I didn't bother to restock, as I didn't think the fight would be anything much. Ha! Got you! It was the level 100 and she has a sodding great big gun. :ohnoes: The blarb had mentioned a possibly magic weapon that looked like a cannon. I started with protecting from mage and nearly got pwnt. I switched to protect from range and that was much better. I emerged shaken but not down. It was all good. Thereon, there were no more boss fights. I did kill another chaos dwarf near to the end, but I didn't have to. I could have just run through the door. I did after collecting his bones. The majority of the quest was much more up my street. Here is a box full of st00f and no verbal clues. Go solve the mystery. I did with aplomb. I love that sort of thing. I did receive one visual clue, due to the number of players also doing the quest. I watched one put the bowl onto the firepit and so copied him. Otherwise, I worked out the rest for myself. I particularly liked having to work out which coloured blocks to apply at each junction. Riding around in mining carts all day, who wouldn't be having fun? :( The sheer number of players also contributed to the only time I was truly stuck in this quest. I'd been to fetch the package and came back looking for the commander. I naturally started with the Black Guard HQ, only to find three identical Commander Veldamans (sp) there. I attempted a conversation with each one, but none of them wanted to know. I even followed one, who was trailing another player, halfway back to the mine, after using my package on him. What was apparently happening was that each player involved in a certain point of the quest was producing another Commander, as he had to follow them out. Everyone could see everyone else's commanders, which led to much confusion. It was only after the dozen or so questers at that point had gone away, that I was able to establish that my own commander was gone. Then I clicked to speak with the Supreme Commander and lieutenant, which kicked me back on course with my quest. I love the fact that I now have a quicker way to get to Keldagrim. Until now, my voyages there, mostly for building supplies, usually involve a goblin orb, then the train. Now I can go straight from the GE! Woot! And the minecarts are free! :o Anything that gets me around Runescape more quickly always gets my vote. The 30k in firemaking, 30k in strength and 30k in hunter weren't shabby either. Oh! I happy danced. Then I decided to go and look at the new battlefield, as it felt rude not to. I got a hand cannon with my second kill (worth 40k, already up to 42k), once I'd ventured further inside and stopped killing my own side, that is. -.- By now it was time to log out, as I had an appointment for some minor surgery IRL. Things cut out of me, I was back and ready to get some cannon shot for my new weapon. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Not only had more people done the quest, but all of the schools were out. The place was absolutely heaving with people, two of whom had produced dwarf cannons. It wasn't pretty. I did some jumping, but all worlds were the same, so I gave up and logged off for the evening. I logged on again this morning and it was much more pleasant. I was on a Dutch world, simply because it was the least populated European world at the time. It was still full, but everyone there was apparently a Dutch adult. They were canting away in Dutch, right up until I asked a question, in the tentative hope that someone with the answer spoke English. They did. (Obviously, as every Dutch person whom I've ever met speaks 15 languages fluently.) Not only that, but they all switched to English, even chatting amongst themselves, out of politeness for the non-Dutch speaking person there. Yes, I felt guilty about my lack of education on languages. Though the place was full, everyone was respectful. If you were first fighting a cannoneer, you were left alone. No-one tried to take anyone else's foe. We all just waited for the next to spawn and we never waited longer than a minute. After about 20 mins, including one trip out to restock on prayer points and food, I got my hand cannon shot. 100 of them stacked, with a value of over 200k! I said my goodbyes and logged off then for some job hunting. Yeah. *sigh* I didn't log on again until mid-afternoon and quickly realised that the cohort in the room had changed drastically. Now everyone was rushing for whichever dwarf spawned. It was strongest person wins, rather than the fair play ethos of before. That was frustrating enough, but then someone fetched out a cannon. *double sigh* I hopped through several worlds, including India, which lags like Hell for me, let alone those further away. The same story was repeated everywhere. Fewer players than had been there in the morning, but all of them gnashing and grabbing like toddlers in a playschool. I started doing some demographic research, largely trying to work out if a school day had ended somewhere in the world or if this was dinnertime. The latter meant I could log for an hour, then come back; the former meant I was done for the day. I was surprised and a little saddened by the results. They mostly turned out to be American teenagers, skipping school for the day, here in the hope of a dragon pickaxe. I'm trying to imagine getting away with that as a child. My Mum would have battered me for even considering it. I kept hopping right up until the languages changed and I realised that the Scandinavian and continental Germanic countries had finished their school day. I think I'll try again tomorrow. To finish, here's a shout out to Timothy Gold, who wished me a happy birthday in his excellent blog. He hasn't got comments enabled, so I couldn't thank him there. Also hello to Lnbo, who greeted me mid-quest yesterday, saying that he likes this blog. Thank you for reading it. *waves*

By the very fact that I'm wearing a questcape, anyone reading this blog must know that there are several quests that I've completed and not recorded here. The quests were, in fact, the first things that I did upon returning to Runescape. I did them gradually. A quest a week, then every other day, in a way that broke up the tedium of job-hunting in a world without jobs and also eased me back into the game. I passed through eleven quests like this, which were the sum of the releases while I'd been away. One of those was Summer's End. I was astounded and not a little outraged after that quest to see how it's not even ranked as 'hard' in many forums, including the official one. I experienced it as in the same category as 'Mourning's End Pt II' or 'Desert Treasure'. It wasn't particularly long, but it was ferocious. I would say that I've never died so often, but that would be to ignore the vengence Merch bomb of Soul Wars. I had started Summer's End well enough. The beast only ate one albino rat familiar, before its twin lured it into the cave. Then I started on the first cave room. I lost my entire stock of tuna and sweetcorn potatoes in there, after repeated deaths. In retrospect, I shouldn't have taken food at all. I had to pause once to trudge out to Lumbridge Swamp and drop ghostspeak amulets onto the floor, until I had about 16 of them. I fully expected to have to come back and replace them again, but fortunately read the part that said I didn't actually need it until it was time to go into the next room. I became very, very adept at collecting the logs, but also expert at dying whilst trying to place them into the firepits. I took to watching umpteen YouTube videos of other people doing it and reading every guide on the internet, just for tips on how to survive that room. Luckily for me, I read something that isn't mentioned in Sal's guide - do not light any firepit until you have filled all three and can do them all together. I did eventually succeed and completed rooms two and three at the first attempt. I was very proud of completing it. Yesterday, I got the opportunity to relive the quest by proxy. My nephew, 02Daz16, arrived at my house with some distressing news. Not only was his computer playing up, but he hadn't known not to light any firepits. He had lit two of them, but died before lighting the third. Now the beast was shooting hard and fast, every five seconds releasing a range attack which could one-hit kill my nephew. He wasn't even properly getting to the logs before dying. That was the fate that awaited him on the off-chance that his computer even let him have a go. So he was at my house, on my fast computer. I stood behind his chair and watched two attempts. The beast was three times as scary as when I'd died so often before him. I stared with my jaw dropped wondering how on earth Daz could get past this part of the quest, both of us vowing to get that important tip added to the quest guide as soon as possible. Do not light the firepits until all logs are in place. Each lit pit makes the beast angrier, faster and with a wider ranging splash of death! We talked strategy and then, with me watching with bated breath and him nervously clicking the mouse, it was put into action. First it was the first of many trips to Ooglog to get infinite run energy and extra hitpoints. He returned with no food on him at all, because it's all too fast to eat. He only needed five cursed logs, but had, perhaps, a nail-biting second at each root to get one, before the beast was unleashing its full fury onto him. Daz manoeuvred his character to run straight at the beast. A constant back and forth across the vast cavern, between the legs of the beast, so that it lumbered in turning and gave him a second more to hit the root. Twice more, Daz died with only one or two logs secured. He had the idea of trying to cast snare onto it. The first time, he was killed before he could even see the beast. The second time, he cast it, but the beast was invincible. It cannot be attacked in spirit form! So we, well he with me cheerleading beside him, returned to the original strategy. It was long winded, but working! He concentrated on running and clicking the root. I concentrated on the beast, screaming at him to run when it released its range. Heartstopping minutes drew out and passed, but only three logs were in his bag. I yelled at him to leave the cave and he did, looking at me IRL puzzled. It had occurred to me that if he banked his runes, then he could die with impunity. He would keep those three cursed logs and so would only ever have to get two more. We paused for tea. Upon our return, there was Jdeh too, on the other side of Daz's chair, both of us yelling in his ears. Yet this time it happened quickly! Two more logs were secured and Daz dashed out of the cave for us to have another strategy meeting. Ooglog's spa pools gave him his boosts again, then he was back in. He used the firepit nearest to the door, dropping a log, then racing underneath the beast to the far side, touching the wall and back again to drop another log. After three logs, he got hit, so I shrieked at him to leave the cave. For some reason, I believed that, as long as you don't die, your logs will remain in the firepit. He ate and re-entered. The logs were gone! I could have cried for him. I felt so guilty. But he grit his teeth and we were back to strategy one. With remarkable speed he replaced his lost logs and ran for the exit. Once more to Ooglog and then back into that killing cavern for what seemed like the billionth time. Back and forth, he ran, under the beast, to the wall, to the firepit, under the beast and to the wall. He had four in there and was placing the fifth when he was hit. I yelled for him to leave, thinking that he'd at least save one log, but I'm stupid and it hadn't occurred to me that he'd save it anyway. Fortunately, in the way of teenagers everywhere, Daz wasn't taking a blind bit of notice of his exciteable auntie. He must have touched the tinderbox to the firepit with only a handful of hitpoints left, but it was enough! It was lit! I released a roaring woot that must have been heard several streets away and bounced upon and down on the carpet. Daz simply rediscovered the art of breathing. As with myself, Daz didn't struggle half so much with the second room. He concentrated on running, I stood behind him watching the message box for the dark core emerging and Jdeh stood to the other side watching the minimap. When it came out, I shrieked, Jdeh yelled 'backwards' or 'forwards' (depending on its location) and Daz reacted for fear of going deaf. He got two in before his infinite run ran out... <.< One quick trip to Ooglog later and the third was captured very easily. The third room was one which I had found very easy. Despite, or maybe because of, two people 'helping' him memorise the graves, Daz died twice before succeeding in channelling each backlash correctly. Then it was all over. Jdeh got to have a turn on the computer, while Daz and I settled on the settee with well deserved cups of tea and crowed our victories. 'Medium' level task, my backside! It's HARD!

Like most quest cape wearers, I went to do Fur and Seek on the day it came out. There's not much to report, as it was a fairly straight-forward and quick quest. The Odd Old Man basically gave me a list of creatures to kill and I went and killed them. There was much surreal fun to be had in the sight of people turning up with Godswords and Barrows armour to wait in line to kill a black unicorn, but otherwise it was an uneventful quest. Bit of drying out hides on a rack later, I'd finished the quest and was whirling around on the spot doing my skillcape emote. Then the adventure really began. The Odd Old Man had a wishlist. At the time when I completed the quest, no-one knew what the ultimate reward from that would be, so it was a lot of people standing around making educated guesses from the clues on the wishlist, as to what he wanted killing next. I had my own guesses, many of which turned out to be totally wrong once I had a proper list in front of me. Over the course of the next week, I set about slowly working my way around the highlighted creatures and killing them. My first port of call was, bizarrely enough, the Wilderness. I landed at the Wilderness Volcano after completing a clue scroll and knew that I had to get a green dragon tailbone for the wishlist. That was, at least, one thing that everyone hanging around the Odd Old Man had agreed to. I donned my black dragonhide outfit, plus a Forinthy bracelet, ring of life and my pointy green hat. I carried my whip and an anti-dragon shield. In my bag was a superset, prayer potions, an anti-fire potion, an anti-poison and plenty of tuna and sweetcorn spuds. Around the corner, I spotted the Moss Giant and I wondered if he counted as something that dropped a 'Shoulder of a Giant'. He did! First drop after the first Moss Giant despatched, there was the bone I needed. Woot! I continued on to the green dragon, supping anti-fire as I went. I attracted one's attention by the great strategy of running right in front of it. However, before it could attempt to pwn me, there was that ominous whooosh sound. A rev. ork was on my tail. I ran away fast, back to the Moss Giants, with the ork flinging mage attacks at me, then finally lost him somewhere in the vicinity of the Bandit Camp. No I hadn't! He was still coming! I discovered a secret passage that takes you from the North-East of the exterior of the camp inside it. The Bandits immediately piled me, so I ran to the general store trying to shake everyone off. It occurred to me that orks are ghosts and, therefore, can sail through walls. I peered nervously out, but couldn't see him. I counted to ten, opened the door and legged it south. I was rounding the corner of the volcano, when I saw a yellow dot and panicked myself into using my games necklace to zap up onto the platform above. It was probably a unicorn. After restocking, I had stern words with myself about not abandoning this now. I won, though it was close, and after a bit of a rest, I ran back around the volcano into the midst of the green dragons. It was very easy then. First kill got me the tailbone and I thankfully retreated to safety. Well, sort of safety, insofar as I returned to my slayer task of gargoyles, which involved passing the crawling hands. I killed one en route and got that bone too. My second destination was Brimhaven Dungeon. I was over there anyway, doing my usual run of picking coconuts, collecting strange fruit, emptying every tree of pineapples, then picking my calquat fruit. I paused en route to the ship back to Ardy, staring at the entrance to Brimhaven Dungeon with a pineapple in my hand. If the wishlist asked for dragon bones, lots therefore, then all those metal ones in there were probably in the frame. I nipped to pick my berries, then tooled up for the dungeon. I went in my best melee outfit (torso, dragon skirt, dragon boots, Barrows gloves, glory, ring of life, whip) plus an anti-dragon shield; then packed anti-fire potions, prayer potions, a super-set, my rune axe, my Karamja gloves and plenty of food. Birdie came with me for moral support, as he often does when no human friends are logged on. This again was largely without incident. I ran and killed two iron dragons, before the second one dropped a bone. I retreated to give Birdie some of the drops, but a Black Demon had Views on me standing there, so we had to run away back into the dragons. An iron dragon, no doubt grief-striken over the loss of his friends, attempted to pick a fight, so Birdie and I ran away again. The Black Demon had wandered off, so I was able to swop stuff with Birdie, then rush back to kill a steel dragon. It dropped the bone on the first go. The red dragon was next. That too was easy and the first drop contained the bone. It does feel rather strange for someone with my heritage (Welsh) to be killing Y Ddraig Goch, but otherwise it was all well. The bronze dragons were slightly more problematic. For a start, it took six of them before one got round to dropping the bone, then you have the dogs. Is it possible to attack or maintain a fight with a bronze dragon without killing all of the dogs first? They actually cut INTO the battle several times. Thereon, Birdie and I banked, before rushing to Taverley Dungeon. The blue dragon was dispatched very quickly, but I paused to collect dragon scale for herblore. Birdie was packed up with that, while I had several of them too. I thought it would be a simple matter to nip next door and get the black dragon too. It wasn't. There were people training range there. I hopped through loads of worlds, but each time I did, Birdie seemed to lose a minute on his time. I hadn't got a replacement Birdie pouch, as I hadn't expected to be down there so long. Eventually, I realised that if I hopped again, there would be no time to kill the dragon and retreat to a bank, before Birdie disappeared and dropped his cargo of dragon scale. I explained this situation to the ranger and mage occupied in my latest world. They knew damn well that I only wanted to kill one, once, then I'd have to go anyway. Their two dragons almost simultaneously got killed and we awaited the respawn. Next thing you know, both rushed to reclaim a black dragon apiece. After the 'lol' from them both (because it was oh so amusing for them to be mean individuals), one even had the gall to compliment me on my quest cape and ask for advise on Desert Treasure. I replied with a curt 'TYVM, but I'm going to bank.' If he'd just let me have a dragon for a couple of minutes, I'd have spent that time telling him all he needed to know about any quest. Noobs. My next expedition was to the Fremmenik Slayer Caves. I have 77 slayer, but needed 78 slayer to kill an Aquanite. I'd vaguely thought that I'd not finish collecting these bones until I'd got that extra level, then someone introduced me to the presense in the game of Wild Pies. I bought five off the GE and researched the Aquanite. I turned up dressed in black dragonhide and dragon boots, with my elemental hat and shield, carrying a dragon skimmy. I paused at the entrance to buy the golden fleece, then ran in to meet the Aquanite. They are strange looking things, aren't they? One half of a wild pie knocked me up five slayer levels, so I was able to kill three of them before the boost ran out. I ate the other half and killed another three. No range ammy though. :( I got the bone on the second kill and teleported out of there, totally missing the fact that I had to kill a turoth in the room next door. End of Part 1

Another day's wishlist bone collecting began with a trip to Ape Atoll. Normally, if I'm going there, I just teleported into the town itself, but there was a list up now for me to look at, so I knew that I needed to go via Crash Island for the big snake. It's been a long time since I did Recipe for Disaster. I couldn't remember where Daero was, though I vaguely recalled going to the east side of the Grand Tree to speak with him. I tried every floor. I resorted to standing there running my mouse over every gnome in sight and still couldn't find him. In the end, I spotted a mithril-clad adventurer rushing into the pub, so ran after her to ask if she knew. She'd disappeared, but right at the spot where she went, there was Daero. I spoke to him and got blindfolded. Once in the hanger, I assumed that I had to go outside to find Crash Island. I ran around the hanger until I saw the exit sign. That led me to a seemingly random point in the grounds of the Gnome Stronghold, which was very disorientating! Back into the Grand Tree, I returned to Daero and the hanger, then spoke to his friend and got my flight to Crash Island. I set off looking for a giant snake. As the island is small, with one big 'here is a dungeon' sign in the centre, it didn't take long to find them. I was piled by bugs en route and soon ended up poisoned. I had an anti-poison, as I always do when going to Ape Atoll for anything but agility, so sipped that and climbed down the hole. Soon as I was in there, it all came flooding back. Four snakes attacked me and many more wriggled through holes in the wall, though never made it to the floor. I was killing my fourth snake whilst noting this and also noting that the other three hadn't respawned. What if they don't? What if I run out of snakes before any of them give me a spine? I needn't have worried. The fourth coughed up and I exited to travel on to Ape Atoll. Monkey guards are the world's easiest opponents. True, they are big, scary things and they pile you, but it all happens while you're literally standing on top of an altar. I was praying protect from melee and piety, they were healing themselves and doing funny dances, but I was always going to win that one. It ended up that the most worrying aspect of it all was the level 1 poisonous spider. I was in danger of running out of anti-poison, basically fighting on the wave of my last bit of protection, when one of the monkey guards finally dropped a footbone. It was all good. Looking down the list, I finally spotted that Turoth. Sighing greatly, I retraced my steps through the Fremmenik Slayer Caves with a leaf-bladed sword, pwned it and left again. No big story there. I nipped back to Edgeville and looked at the two hunting ones. I had to do a lot of reading about deadfall and pit traps before I could attempt them, as my hunting xp tends to come from Tears of Guthix. I have got all of the hunting outfits, but they came as gifts from Cougarsrule9. :( So I stood in Edgeville Bank asking advice on where I could buy a teasing stick. A kind gentleman directed me to Yanille's hunting shop, but gave me a teasing stick as a present before I left. Yay! I set off with enough provision to get several bones. I took Birdie with me for extra storage. The cunning plan was to use deadfall traps on Wild Kebbits until they gave me some long, sharp claws, then nip to the snowy hunter area for some sabre-like teeth from the sabre-toothed kyatt. Then I'd probably go into the desert to get a camel bone and maybe take in the tortoise before needing to bank. That was the plan. Birdie and I were stuffed with logs, an axe, a knife, my enchanted tiara, superset, food, anti-poison (I knew nothing about kebbits), prayer potion, slayer ring and a dramen staff. We went to Piscatoris and ran around for ages trying to find the Wild Kebbit. There were spikey ones aplenty and also chinchompas, but we roamed miles before we finally found the Wild Kebbit. We were soon out of space. I'd used up all of my logs and Birdie's logs and resorted to chopping down evergreen trees. We had loads of kebbit claws, which I kept because they were new and exciting. I was in full melee gear just waiting with Birdie for another boulder to fall and another kebbit's legs to stick out. We had to bank and come back, this time with nothing but logs, knife and axe. By the finish, I was glad that the kebbits were dying! Pesky things! I had 32 kebbit claws in my possession by the time one of them finally dropped the long, sharp claws needful for the quest. Birdie and I exchanged glances and took ourselves, via the bank, to the Snowy Hunter area. The Sabre-Tooth Kyatts must have known that they had a noob in their midst. They probably got the hint when I only set up one pit trap, then got mauled half to death by a kyatt who refused to keep jumping over it. A little wiser, I set up all three traps and then it mostly turned into a Benny Hill sketch, with me, Birdie and various kyatts running around and around in circles. I was getting kyatt fur and tatty kyatt fur and big bones, but absolutely no teeth. Suddenly the counter flashed up to say that Birdie had to go home. I sighed and switched to activate my glory. It was empty of charges. I turned to the slayer ring, but it had gone! I must have banked it in Piscatoris between kebbits. I got the 30 second warning, as I dropped to the floor to homeport to Lumbridge. Birdie followed and we raced to the trapdoor. I was down there, rugby tackling the chest, when I got the notice that he'd dropped his cargo somewhere. I ran out and picked up 12 tatty kyatt furs from the floor of Lumbridge Castle's reception area, then quietly stopped for a cup of tea. All told, it took 26 trapped and dead kyatts before anyone gave us any teeth. I suspected a conspiracy between Jagex, my hunting friends and the Odd Old Man, because between the kebbits and the kyatts, I ended up with over 11k hunting xp! From the frozen north to the parched south, I ran around the desert killing camels (Ugthankis) for ages. I got to learn where they all respawned by the end of it and totally lost count of how many I killed, because one of them dropped the neckbone. Even up against some stiff competition from the kebbits, I think that the camel bone was the hardest to get, in terms of amount of creatures killed before I finally had it in my bag. Though out of chronological order, I want to finish this part with the tortoise. I went to the battlefield for this one, mostly because it was late and I didn't want to run around transforming my crystal saw into crystal chimes. I killed three, reasonably easily, before I got the drop. The notable thing here was how hilarious it was! After you kill an armoured tortoise, the three gnomes riding it angrily turn on you. You have level 5 gnome mages and rangers trying to hurt you, while the driver hits you with his fists. He's screaming in your face, 'This is for Dobbie!' and 'Tortoise Murderer!' I was crying with laughter! Poor things. End of Part Two.

The list of what was left was very intimidating. By now an authorative list was up and I could see the mithril dragon again in my immediate future. For a while, I thought that it was either the mithril dragon or the skeletal wyvern. Then I realised it was both. Nevertheless, I've killed both before, so I knew that it could be done. My major concern was that I only had 60-odd broad bolts, which might just get me through, but I wasn't sure. I was also looking at a big follower of Bandos, which pointed towards the Bandos general or Bork. I didn't want to even think about that. Originally, I wasn't too concerned by the black dragon, as I thought that without a timer on it, I could hop an infinite amount of times in Taverley Dungeon, or else melee it in Zanaris. I started with the one which looked the most immediately scary. That was the mithril dragon. I went in black dragonhide, Helm of Neitiznot, snakeskin boots, anti-dragon shield, glory, ring of life, Barrows gloves and a rune crossbow. In my bag, I had over 200 ruby bolts, 30 diamond bolts and 60 broad bolts. I also carried an elf crystal, anti-fire potions, ranging potion, defence potion and several prayer potions, alongside the tuna and sweetcorn spuds. Just as when I'd gone with Whiskas, there was another player fighting the dragon at the immediate top of the stairs, so I moved to the one on the next platform. I very quickly got it to half-health, with the aid of the ruby bolts, but they aren't any good after half-health. Their special bonus stops working. I switched to the diamond bolts, but in the meantime, the other player had left, leaving 'his' dragon to respawn. In the moment of switching bolts, it was able to attack me. I ended up having to run onto the platform with 'my' dragon (picking up bolts on the way), using it as a shield, until it started meleeing me. Then I could run back to the narrow strip connecting them and carry on ranging. This happened again when I had to switch to broad bolts. It didn't drop the bone. I killed it again, with precisely the same difficulties involving the neighbouring dragon, but again it didn't drop the bone. Then I had to teleport out for my life. Back in Lletya, memories of 32 kebbits plagued my mind. What if it took 32+ mithril dragons to get this bone? What then? I started researching wildly, trying to find if there was anything else I could do to speed up the kills and make mithril dragon pwning more efficient. Then I spotted something on a wiki site. Until the mithril dragon turned up, the King Black Dragon was the highest ranked dragon in the game. This started the cogs turning. If the mithril dragon is stronger and I can solo it, then why can't I solo the KBD? I asked on the forum here and the concensus quickly came back. iJaCo, Yippee and Dark Runescape were all unanimous in stating that I could solo the KBD with my stats. My jaw dropped. I thanked them and retreated to think about it. The KBD, in my head, is legendary. Since I was a little Froob in Lumbridge, it's been out there as an almost mythical creature. High-levelled players gang up to tackle it together. You have to be amazingly high to successfully solo it. It felt more than a little strange to imagine that I was now one of those players even able to contemplate it. It was much, much later before I logged back on. I took myself to the Wilderness Volcano, then read loads of guides on various sites, before packing for the trip. Not that I went very far. I was logged into Canting and it must have dawned on those in there that I was doing a lot of talking about going to solo the KBD, but not actually leaving my safe plateau. In the end, both CCFCBoy and Eman sussed that I was scared and so hopped over to be with me. There was no standing around then, the lads were hollering warcries of 'go, go, go' and I was clinging to CCFCboy's tailcoat, as he rushed me and Eman out into deep Wilderness. Unfortunately, a weevil must have chewed through CCFCBoy's internet cable or something, as he kept lagging out and disappearing on us. After a particularly long such incident, we judged him not coming back, so I held onto Eman, as he ran over what looked like a huge ant-hill and out past the lava maze. CCFCBoy was back and beseiged by a rev. knight. We called out to see if he needed rescuing, but he was in default clothing and was carrying nothing, he bade us run on and so we did. Eman brought us to a stop at the gates of the lava maze. I've run past here a few times after penguins, without realising this was the entrance to the KBD. I've even been to the KBD before, but in a big group, and had been too busy rolling a cigarette to pay attention to the route. I potted up, as Eman ran through the routine of what to do when we got in there. I took it all in, whilst vaguely wondering why he felt the need to impart all this information right now. Why not as it happened? I soon found out. Eman was also in default clothing. He had had his thieving cape on, but even that had gone. Soon as he knew I was potted up and prepared, he raced us through the demons, into the spiders and onto the lever. I pulled it and was just in time to see Eman die under a volley of KBD fire and an Angel of Death gravestone appear where he'd been. I didn't give myself time to think or ask, I just blessed it, then took a swig of prayer potion before raging into vengeance against this big, terrifying creature, the KBD! No-one else was there. Eman was protesting my blessing his grave. There was only 1gp under there, which he hadn't realised about. He hadn't had time to warn me, but I didn't mind that. If a friend's gravestone, or any gravestone, appears in the Wild, I'm blessing it. Simple as that. He apologised and checked my progress. CCFCBoy kept reassuring me that he was on his way, dodging revs and lag, but determined to make it. I was facing down the KBD, grateful for all the text support, which soothed my thundering heart, while keeping an eye on my stats, prayer, health, anti-dragonfire... It all seemed so unreal. I just couldn't lodge the two thoughts in my head together, that the KBD is being soloed and it's me soloing it. It died. It left me 100 yew logs, dragonbones, a black dragon hide, some money, but no tailbone. The git. I assessed my stock and ran around looking to see if there was an altar in there, as I was low on prayer potion (mainly because I'd been so twitchy in drinking the stuff). I found a summoning altar and was inspecting it, when I saw a yellow dot appear on the minimap. Oh Guthix. Here we go again. I think I was more scared the second time, even knowing that I could beat this, than I was the first. I almost touched my elf crystal out of sheer fright. Then CCFCBoy was there! He raced in, all in his default clothing, cheering me along. I ran to attack the KBD before it could get CCFCBoy, but I dealt only zeros! The KBD turned on him and unleashed a great roar of fire. I hit it hard with my whip and, as it killed CCFCBoy, I got a 25hp hit in, then more. As if the geis against harming it was lifted, I was pwning this dragon! Woot! Even so, it was touch and go. I ran out of prayer potion, but my whip was hitting high. I looked anxiously at my prayer counter. It was down to 13, but there was only a slither of life in the KBD. I kept going, hitting 20, then 28, then 11. The KBD screamed and died and there was the tailbone. Yes! As I arrived in Lletya, my prayer ran out, that is how close it was. CCFCBoy was all for going to do the Bandos general next. He was talking about tanking it or killing the minions, while I took on the general. The like of Cougarsrule9 were saying, 'Bork'. Josh was running around an agility course somewhere in gnome country, assessing my chances against the Bandos general. He didn't categorically say I'd be victorious and Josh's idea of an 'easy' fight and mine are two very different things. I eventually agreed with CCFCBoy's strategy of trying Bork and, if he doesn't drop the bone, then we'll talk again about generals. I was slightly relieved, but there was still the prospect of Bork to consider. I've only fought him once, during the quest for my 5000 slayer xp. It was a hard fight and didn't seem worth repeating it for just 250xp in slayer. Nevertheless, I reasoned that I'm bigger, stronger and the sort of player who can solo the KBD now. Bork who? After getting lost in the Chaos Tunnels again, I eventually ended up in a Bork fight. It's still extremely hard and not worth 250xp slayer reward. Don't let me ever go there again. > Having said that, he dropped the bone, so it was all good. After those two fights, the mithril dragon and the Skeletal Wyvern were a bit of an anti-climax. I returned to the mithril dragon and got the position just at the top of the ladder. It's so much easier there! You don't have two mithril dragons fighting to kill you, you just have the one. As long as you're watching your stats, it's all good. This one, the third I killed in a day, dropped the tailbone and I was happy. The Skeletal Wyvern was even less eventful. I donned proselyte armour, went here, killed him and left. And that was it, every bone collected. For those who want a recap here, for those bones, I killed: Dragons: Blue, red, green and King Black; bronze, iron, steel and mithril; and the skeletal wyvern. Wild kebbit. Sabre-toothed kyatt. Turoth. Camel. Moss Giant. Bork. Armoured tortoise. Crawling Hand. Aquanite. Giant snake. Monkey Guard. Golden fleece was bought off Lalli. All of this led to the Skeletal Horror. It was level 320 and that was worrying. It was also 20 past 1 in the morning and I was tired. Josh was still on, but he and I were the only people left in Canting and he was saying his goodnights. Sensible people would have left it until the next day, but I'm not sensible. I'd come this far and killed such big monsters along the way. I put on my best melee outfit, took a superset, two prayer potions and a Sara Brew. I only had sharks left, as my spuds were long since depleted. I went and potted up, then met the Skeletal Horror. It wasn't so bad. Whether that was just me desensitised to scary creatures or the nature of the fight itself, I don't know, but I know that I'm not concerned about meeting him again next week. I took my 10k slayer xp and my 7k prayer and happy danced all the way to Varrock. :(

Is it me or was there a long time between this quest and the last one? I've only recently done 'Defender of Varrock' too, so this felt like a proper part two of a story. I'd been camped out at Trouble Brewing for days. We had a good team going and so were all raring to go, each with our specific roles, that ensured everyone got a key ingredient in each bottle of rum, as well as their 100 ingredients in. Two games had ensured that we were just getting faster, then a game started and, almost immediately, so did the system update counter. There was no way to finish a 20 minute game of Trouble Brewing in time, so half of the people left. One of my team-mates called out to carry on, as we still get experience. He was right! We gave up on strategy and just did those high experience things until Jagex forcefully kicked us out. Soon as I saw that it was a quest, my rum production got put on hold. I ran into Mos Le Harmless and got out my quest kit (some pots, a rogue kit and some food), added a spade because you always need a spade (except for this quest), shoved my green hat on, then rushed off to Nardah to see what Ali the Wise was whittering on about. I took notes. Going to the area where you sledge down the hill - add sledge. You don't need your sledge - remove sledge. It then occurred to me that I haven't been back there since Troll Romance and that was years ago! I had to have a quick look at the Troll Romance guide, just to see where it was. I recognised it then. It was the place I wandered into while trying to find the God Wars Dungeon a few weeks back. Everything was pretty straight-forward then. A lad followed me up to the top of the hill, then we both got side-tracked talking to that wandering gnome, before I followed the other player to the mine entrance. Then I was on my own. There were a series of blocks to mine, which I enjoyed. I liked working out how I could mine them, as they have to be done on at least two sides. You soon realise that every block in that patch is going to eventually be mined, so by the third lot, I saved time by mining everything in sight. Once inside the castle, I ransacked every room that I could get into; stood on tip-toe to peer into rooms that I couldn't access; had a bit of a fight with a deity; then meandered back to Nardah. There was a bit of delay after I spoke to the Mummy. I didn't have any sacred oil, so I nipped to Varrock to put on bids for all variations on a theme. Four dose, three dose, two dose, one dose - maximum price when they didn't sell immediately. I briefly flirted with the notion that everyone will be doing this and therefore sacred oil will skyrocket. I was amongst the first to know about it - merchanting ftw? Only for that plan to work, I needed to have vast quantities of sacred oil to begin with and I didn't. No-one was selling either. I left them on and went to fetch my dwellberries from McGrubbor's Wood. Then back to hang around the GE miserably calling out, 'Buying sacred oil, any amount in vial ~ Merch Gwyar'. No joy. Then I got savvy. I jumped to World 77, where the Shades of Mor'ton people hang out and tried again. Within seconds someone sold me a vial of 4 doses. I gave him 5k for it. It turned out my jar only needed one dose. Someone ran in then asking to buy sacred oil. Pitying a fellow quester, I sold it to him for cost. By now, the merchanters, with their quick minds for spotting a shift in the market, had sussed what was going on. Someone next to me called out that he was selling 131 4 dose sacred oil; someone else started selling their oil for 60k a bottle. I even saw the latter make a sale! Off I went to Nardah, took notes on what was being asked for me and had already worked out that I needed slayer boots and a grapple. However, this is where I started to get confused. There were people around me (no doubt those who had sacred oil in their banks to start with), who were talking about decoders and the such. I listened to get useful tips, but the people explaining it made it so over-complicated that I actually went away with totally the wrong idea! I should have ignored them and just sussed it out myself at the time. ;) Me and several others hurtled over to the Wild. There I had to stop for real life to happen. I didn't get back in until after 8pm. By now, it seemed like half of Runescape were trying to get through the doors in the zombie tunnels. I was getting battered half to death just trying to get a click on the door that didn't involve the person in front of me's head. I finally got through and ate a spud to repair my health, then rushed off to climb through a sewer. There was a lovely camaderie down there. People handing out macaw pouches to those who hadn't sussed to bring one; people standing near to the pipes, explaining the decoders; people handing out food to those too battered by the zombies. It was fun. Of course, you couldn't find your own macaw to have a chat with it, amongst the 30 million macaws down there already. I had to run halfway back just to have that conversation. Once in, I grabbed my pin number and decoders, opened the keypad and had a good look. It looked nothing like that lad back in Nardah had described. I thought of how I might have done it, but I didn't trust my idea next to that of someone already back wearing their quest cape. I attempted to encode it as I'd understood from his conversation. I was basically ignoring the decoders and, using my pin of FHCC, first number was the first number on F, 2nd was 2nd on H etc. That was very wrong. I was soon gassed and back out in the corridor, wrestling with that door again. I did it again, this time chatting with the helpful people outside. I was trying to add their information to that of the player in Nardah and went in even more confused than before. I was again gassed and thrown out. Third time, I ignored all former advice and did it as if I'd encountered it fresh and needed to work it out myself. This time, I got it. I used the arrows in the top right to place the decoder strips over the numbers. I entered the number revealed for each line. I opened the door. ;) It was all finished then really quickly. Grapple, grab, back to Nardah, chat, put quest cape back on. Very abrupt ending, I thought! But an enjoyable quest.

Completed both Garden of Tranquility and Swan Song today. I took a picture of Swan Song, but not of Garden of Tranquility. Now on to fishing Monkfish for a while.

Hey guys. Just want to know what armor and weapon you guys would recommend to do Shilo Village. [Click for my stats] Please do note that I only have like 3.7m.

Wow, its certainly been a long time since i've posted in here. The thing is, I recently got a brand new 16 gb ipod touch and have been using it for a while now. I also recently learned I have blepharitis, no it's not some terrible disease it just affects my eyes. All I have to do is wash my eyelids with a bit of baby shampoo every day and life will carry on as normal. That same day I learned I had blepharits I also learned I needed glasses. So I come here now with an eye disease wearing glases. Accually, it's not so bad. Everone thinks wearing gasses is so terrible, but eally, it's not that bad. Well, that's enough out of me, bye :D