Search the Community

I fear that I've placed you all in grave danger. It all started out so heroically as well. I was canting with Sir Tiffy and he charged me with a mission. The further I investigated, the greater my dread... Gielinor was being over-run with sea slugs again! But I'm a reknowned adventurer with a large sword, so I thought I could save you. *hangs head in shame* If it hadn't been for my ethereal friend, Savant, I'd have been possessed and that's a fate worse than death. As it is, the sea slugs have only increased in power. I'm sorry. I'm assuming that it doesn't take everyone else five hours to complete 'Slug Menace'. In fact, Hydro informed me that it took her half an hour. :lol: However, I paused often to cant away; Whiskas, then Mking, met me en route and we stood in various village centres, notably Witchhaven planning parties; then I was side-tracked for a long while mediating in a diplomatic issue. Eventually, after having been waylaid twice to meet people and look at houses, I returned to my quest and finished it. :( 'Slug Menace' wasn't at all taxing for my level. It was a stroll through of a quest and the boss monster was despatched in about five whacks of my sword. I loved the emote as I killed him though! I kind of leapt into the air almost Matrix-esque, only to land with the killing swipe of my dragon skimmy. I have no idea how I did that. Otherwise, it was an extremely enjoyable quest. There's obviously scope for a follow-up, presumably encountering Mother Mallum again, thus putting right the damage that I'd inadvertently caused today. This felt more like 'Empire Strikes Back' than 'The Return of the Jedi'. I'm looking forward to the next installment. :D

Whilst perusing my hiscores in the last blog entry, I decided it was time to create some more goals. I looked to see what skills need a little work on them, but kept being drawn back to prayer. Prayer is annoying me. It's all 61 in a sea of 70s, but difficult to raise without simultaneously raising the skills surrounding it. >: So I looked for cheats. Was there anything in my quests yet to do which would give me huge prayer boosts without defeating the object by also giving me huge combat boosts? That's when I saw it. 'Recipe for Disaster', the whole reason that I did 'Desert Treasure', but then promptly forgot about. It was now time for a food fight. :/ I immediately swopped dragonhide for melee-wear, picked up a couple of prayer potions, a couple of stat restores and several monkfish and left for Lumbridge. Yes, I was a living example of 'more haste less speed', though I did have the good sense to also enter the chat channel, where sounder minds, in the form of Whiskas, Legolas, Pen Knee and Demsla could shout caution. None of this was needful on the first fight. As soon as I tried to enter, the Gypsy informed me that I couldn't use prayer. Can't use prayer?! What kind of fight is this? :o :/ as Pen Knee would say. Nonetheless the guide told me that it was an easy fight, so I didn't bother putting the prayer pots back into the bank. I figured that I'd just pwn the first two, then come out in time for the one billed 'a bit tricky'. Cocky wench, aren't I? Agrith Na-na wasn't quite as easy as I was anticipating. I was never in any real danger, but I was there for several minutes and I did eat half of my bag of monkfish. The most worrying thing of all was that if he was moderately challenging, what were the monsters above him going to be like? I commented as such to the chat channel and Whiskas informed me that I was fighting a giant banana. I looked closely and indeed I was. A very strange looking banana, still slightly green, but also a dead one by the time I'd finished with him. The Culinomancer made a few threats, while I checked my bag. Full health and several monkfish, it would be ok. But it wasn't. I suddenly noticed that I was punching Flambeed, the giant rock cake, instead of slapping it around with my dragon skimmy. Had I been so stupid as to accidentally unwield my sword? I wielded it again and returned to hitting it. But no! It was back in my bag! OMG! Was this the one with the stat drops? Had my defence, or attack, or whatever it was I needed to wield the sword dropped to 0? I didn't bother checking, I just sipped a bit of stat restore and wielded it again. It was back in my bag! Noooo! I hurriedly asked the question on the chat channel, and several voices called back that I should be wearing ice gloves. Oooops... yes, I did recall reading something of the like... I ran. I was soon back, sporting my lovely gloves, and this time I was able to wield my skimmy and fight like the reknowned warrior that I am. The cake made a valiant attempt to hit back, but since when has a cake stood a chance of surviving with me in the room? It was soon pwned. But what was this? I appeared to be an ice cube! I left. I chose very carefully this time. I read the guide, then selected my black dragonhide, my purple elemental hat and matching shield and rune boots. I wore my glory and a ring of life, then wielded my dragon skimmy. In my bag were copious amounts of monkfish, two 4 doses of super-stat restore and then... I hovered... a super-set. Why the hovering? Well, it was the super-defence. I have piles of super-attack and super-strength, but haven't the level to make the super-defence. I think that I've been cradling this three-dose vial of super-defence since Uncledot gave it to me months ago. I was fighting the champion lesser demon at the time and he came to support me. Since then, I've carried that vial of super-defence into dungeons, arenas, caves, so many boss fights, and never once sipped it. I could take it into this one, just in case. So I went to pwn Karamel. It was all going very well to be fair. She ice barraged me, I hit her with my sword, rinse and repeat. I sipped super-attack, super-strength and super-stat restore like it was going out of fashion, which was a bit of a flaw. I reached the point where one good whack and she'd be dead, but then I ran out of potions. I had all the monkfish, but only a super-defence staring at me, and my stats were falling like no-one's business. On the other hand, with all that fish and mage protection gear, she wasn't really making any headway with me either. For at least five minutes, we stood there hitting each other. She got the occasional 3, but I just got 0s. Whiskas asked for a stat update and I informed him, and the others, that they were all down to 1, except for my hitpoints, which were full. He, Legolas and Demsla took it in turns to talk me into leaving, as I was never going to get anywhere. It would be 0s until, well, the end of time, I suppose. Pen Knee added, 'You might get a 1, if you're very, very lucky.' I didn't want to leave, mostly because I also knew that I hadn't got any more super stat restore. This was the last of what Kuemper gave me for 'Desert Treasure'. I had a single, solitary drop in the bank, which would serve to repair me when I got out, but nothing I could bring in to finish the job. It occurred to me that if my stats were restored by that, I could run back and she might still be in her current state of only a slither of life left. I ran into a crowded bank and quickly grabbed the potion. Conversation flooded around me fast and full, but I spotted a 'gratz' happening in the chat channel. I clicked on 'clan' to see what was happening and to congratulate the level just achieved in there, which is how I came to see what Pen Knee had said beforehand. If I met her at the duel arena, she would kill me and thus restore my stats. :P That would so worked and wouldn't have wasted the precious restore potion. I guess the modern parlance is, 'oh noes'. I did run back, but Karamel was fully restored too and it wasn't worth the fight. That's me running back into herblore for a bit then! Though it seems that ordinary stat restore potion might do the job just as well, after all, I can't use prayer in there.

Logging on to find myself all dressed up and nowhere to fight, I called out in the channel and Lumbridge basement bank alike for stat restore pots or harralandar. Yes, very lazy, I know. I was unaware that Cougar was en route to give me some :/ , when I bought 3 pots from a player there. Round two! This seemed to be a much easier fight than my last attempt. Whereas then I'd got through 3 (4) super restore pots, this time I only got through one ordinary (4) strength pot, which was very strange. Karamel high me high a couple of times, but I hit higher. In one gorgeous sequence, I hit 18, 16, 17 and 9 one after the other. She was very quickly nearly dead. Then she rallied. She fought like a demon with all of her bar red above her head, yet carried on and on. It seemed to be like that for a long time, with damage being done to me, but I kept my stats up and still had a bag full of monks. After an age, the final hit knocked her for 3 and she was gone. I briefly glimpsed Dessourt and everything froze. It opened out into extreme lag, wherein I could right-click on the portal and select to use it, but Dessourt hit and repeatedly pulled me away from it. My life-bar rushed across with red, but I shovelled monks into my mouth so fast that my character risked indigestion, yet still couldn't get to the portal. Finally, finally, I was on and clicked for the 6th or 7th time trying to leave. I saw Dessourt raise his arms to hit and the page froze again. It was stuck on the 'page loading' view for so long, before all shifted. I thought that I'd be in Lumby Castle, but I wasn't. I was in Fally, as the ring of life had done it's work. Why it should freeze and lag on Dessourt, but none of the previous three, I have no idea. I do think, though, that it's a fight better done on a faster computer.

Poor Cougar had logged on at half 5am, her time, and had been hanging around in Canifis waiting for me to turn up. IRL, I'm organising a huge annual conference, so I was on the 'phone with a VIP at the time I'd said I'd be logging on to fight Dessous. Erk! I finally made it and immediately tooled up and teleported to Ardoughe to restock on garlic and spices; a quick Ectophial emptying later and I was racing along the top of the swamp to meet Cougar. Time to get the blood diamond. I spoke to Malak, sacrificed a bit of blood for the pot, ran outside and after Cougar, through the trapdoor, along the tunnel and out onto the bridge. The difference in computer speed was immediately apparent. When I loitered on the bridge this time, it wasn't through lag, it was through me accidentally clicking 'climb up tree' instead of 'down'. Then Cougar and I were in the swamp and ready to go. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to put the map up. Cachi. Neither one of us knew where we were going, so it was the blind leading the blind all over the swamp. Somewhere along the way, we got split up and, with no sign of the graveyard in sight and my food rapidly becoming rotten, I made the decision to Ectophial my way out of there. I let Cougar know and she agreed that this was the best course of action. She was about to meet me there, when a storm appeared on her real life horizons. I know where she lives (broadly) and I know that can involve houses flying into new lands, so I was just as anxious for her to run to safety as she was! Anyway, apologies for not being prepared, cariad, and I hope you're out of the swamp now too. As for myself, I appeared at the Ectofuntus Temple only shortly before Demsla. He was clad in nature runecrafting garb, tiara and spotted cape akimbo, but knew precisely where the graveyard was. He asked me to follow and this time we took the route through the Haunted Woods, throwing off vampires as they attacked. Before long, we were wandering into the graveyard and, as Demsla wished me luck, whilst preparing to collect my stuff if it all went wrong, I switched on protect from melee and touched the tomb with my pot of blood. Dessous arose with a roar and a yellow arrow flashing above his head. My computer notably didn't freeze. It seemed, for at least half of the fight, that I'd succeeded in trapping him on the other side of the fence. So convincingly was this was I momentarily switched to 'protect from missiles', but Dessous chose that instant to teleport to my side. Oh dear. I switched back to 'protect from melee' and, for the first time, seriously needed to eat something. Nonetheless, the fight was soon over and all was good. Demsla and I used the Ectophial to return to the temple, then raced from there down to Canifis. I shed my clothes as I ran, preferring to lose nothing needlessly should I encounter the stranger. Clad only in boots of lightness and a glory, I entered the bank and shoved everything inside. But... what was this? Disaster! My bank was full! I had to withdraw some random stuff just to stash my blue mystic and leave one space free for the diamond. With a bag now containing a mixture of bank fillers, I went to speak to Malak. I received the diamond and had to wait through a lot of conversation, before I was free to glory myself to Edgeville (Canifis hasn't got a deposit box). I raced and banked it safe and sound. Then had a clear out. Most of my bank is now emptied into Pepsi's.

Almost as soon as I logged on, Legolas was enquiring as to whether I fancied doing more to 'Desert Treasure'. I was well up for that, thinking that if I could get the Smoke Diamond tonight, I could attempt the pyramid run tomorrow from work. Kuemper volunteered to come too, so Legolas, she and I met at Al-Kharid and went in procession to Polly, then into the smokey well. Legolas had left his mask back in the bank, so while he ran to get it, Kuemper and I made a start on lighting the torches. We were most of the way to the first one, when Kuemper disappeared. She'd been updating her virus check, so I knew what it was. I carried on and she was soon back, running to meet me at the first torch. We were ready to go. She volunteered to have the map up, to save my computer from unnecessary lag. In running after her, I experienced the same problem as with 'Monkey Madness' - you can't remain attached to someone and still drink super-energy potions and eat sweets. That said, it was mostly a matter of ensuring that Kuemper's green dot was always in view and that I was running after it. The lighting of the torches also gave me some trouble, as I couldn't find the option 'standing torch' to touch with my tinderbox on two on them. I got there eventually, but there were unwelcome delays in lighting them, before we were off to the next. Thereon, things went remarkably smoothly. No fire giant attacked me in the chest room, possibly because Legolas was standing in there glaring at them, while Kuemper was at my side waving a large whip around. I picked up the warm key on the first attempt, then raced to the doorway in readiness to go fight the boss. Without the need to run now, the three of us were able to take a leisurely stroll up there. I swopped my energy potions for Kuemper's monkfish, waited for them to both position themselves in the room, then used the key on the door. I did attempt to place either Kuemper or Legolas between me and Fareed, but it wasn't happening. Either he circumnavigated them, or one of us moved. After several long seconds, it occurred to me that this didn't matter. I was hitting high with my water spells, while my dragonhide and protect from melee meant that he was hardly touching me at all. In short, he was extremely quickly despatched and I was running around desperately trying to find the diamond that he should have dropped. Kuemper drily pointed out that it would be in my bag and, indeed, it was. I gloried out to Edgeville, used the deposit box and announced to the chat channel, and thereore Kuemper and Legolas, that all four diamonds were now stashed in my bank. A chat wide discussion ensued as to whether I could cope with the pyramid on my home computer. The fact that I'd pwned 'Contact' on it, with that seeming a similiar experience, swung the decision towards at least giving it a go. I banked all weapons, leaving on my red dragonhide, boots of lightness and spotted cape, along with my ring of life and a glory. I then packed super anti-poisons, super-energy potions, prayer potions, camulet, ectophial and monkfish. After praying at the monastry, I returned to Edgeville to get the four diamonds, leaving it to the last minute for fear of the Stranger. Using the camulet, I appeared in the temple and walked up into the desert. This was nerve-wracking, as I didn't want to waste energy running, but I was fully aware that if the Stranger appeared now, I'd lose all four, hard-won diamonds. Kuemper joined me as I spoke with Eblis, then led me to the Pyramid. I was so pleased to place the diamonds. This was the point I was hoping to achieve tonight, as the run could happen at work. The diamonds were safely out of my possession and so I could forget about the Stranger. Nonetheless, I was prepared to give the run a go. I knew it was random and your agility levels have no real bearing on the situation. In an account I'd read beforehand, someone level 67 had been ejected from the temple 10 times, while someone level 57 had only had it happen twice. Those I'd spoken to amongst my friends had all been thrown out at least once, sometimes several times. Kuemper wished me well and went to stand at the altar inside. I was on my own. That was a wild run! In the first room, you could see where the ladder was and so you could click on it and just let your character get herself there, while you gobbled potions. I kept protect from melee on constantly and only got poisoned once. With my auto-retaliate off, I wasn't dragged into any fights, I just ran like the wind, on and on. Level two and three both saw me without an immediately apparent ladder to head towards, but fortunately, on both levels, I ran in the right direction. Level four didn't involve a ladder, but right at the tip of my screen, I could see a green dot. Kuemper! Unfortunately, I couldn't see the route to her, as the maze was three times the size of my mini-map, so I ran off in one direction, letting that green dot guide me home. I should have trusted my instinct. As I went further on, I could see the corridor leading to the room with Kuemper in it, but it was coming from the opposite side of the screen. I ran back, retracing my steps and came so close, but it was a dead end. Noooo! In the event, I'd been in the right place to start with, but had to return there. I ran, and ran, and drank, and ran, at one point trapped between a mummy and a swarm of scarabs, but pushed by and ran. Always I kept my eye on Kuemper's green dot, aware suddenly that it had been joined by others, all green, all guiding me towards them. I was in the corridor and there was the door before me. A mummy leapt out and tried to keep me from it, but inside there were friends cheering, Kuemper, Guildwars, Legolas, others, I raced by and opened the door. :D One short conversation later and it was all over. I had completed one of the hardest quests I've experienced on Runescape. Yes! I was on a high that I surfed for the rest of the night! (In fact, as I woke up this morning, it came to me that I'd done 'Desert Treasure' and I was grinning as I brushed my teeth. :D) Legolas, bless him, took me to the Duel Arena, donned rune armour and gave me some runes. He let me kill him, just so I could try out the ancient magic! Wow! They are strong! Thank you everyone who accompanied and/or supplied provisions for this quest. I doubt I would have finished without you and would certainly have lost things along the way. You are all great friends. :)

What other easy, Sunday type quests are there to do, when you're in a quest mood? That Legolas has a lot to answer for... LOL I was considering Olaf's Quest or maybe the second slug one, but Legolas piped up, 'Let's do a bit of 'Desert Treasure'.' I had two considerations, one that my melee doesn't go to the next level (Legolas responded that I'm awarded 20k mage xp from this one, which I can absorb) and the second being that I only had 20 death runes (Skull asked me to meet him in f2p and promptly handed me 150 deaths). All good to go then. Shadow Diamond Most of the afternoon was spent standing in a tent, in the Bandit's Camp, slowly going insane as poison ripped through my body, while lockpick after lockpick broke in the locks. I lost count after 80. During this time, a succession of people stood beside me occasionally handing over lockpicks, food or anti-poisons. Thank you Legolas, Kuemper, Cougar and Demsla, who each had their time in that tent with me. You can imagine the jubilation when I finally got the cross! I reckon it could easily have been somewhere around the 90th - 100th time I tried. I know I worked through my stash of 68 picks and I was given many more by the others. I also used a ridiculous amount of my own and other people's 4 dose anti-poisons. I have a lot of good friends. Several minutes were spent jumping for joy in the tent, before I was persuaded to go to Ardoughe and actually continue the quest. I spoke to the gentleman about the visibility ring, then ran off to the bank in the grounds of the Gnome Stronghold. There I was joined by Demsla, Cougar and Kuemper, before setting off in a procession to the ladder and down into Damis's lair. I've heard a lot about this Damis. I'd heard mainly that he is the worst of the bosses to be fought in this quest, so it was with some trepidation (and lag) that I followed my three brave and lovely companions into the middle of his arena. I was extremely surprised at how quickly I killed him, then he respawned, the git. I'm guessing that my job was helped a great deal by the other three running around killing everything else in the room, but even so, it didn't take me too long to despatch Damis. There was only one dodgy moment when, in the heat of confusion, I didn't notice that my prayer had run out! I quickly drank a dose of prayer potion, switched it back on, drank another for luck, then started eating. I hadn't spotted, in all this activity, that he'd hit me for 22 twice. I just got on with healing myself and finishing him off, to be told that later on. Soon as the diamond was in my bag, I tried to glory out, but got hit and couldn't. I ran to the side and managed to get out the second time. Using the bank deposit box instead of messing around with the windows, I had it safely stashed before any mysterious strangers turned up. My report on the infamous Damis then? Not at all hard, but then again, I had three strong helpers making it easy for me. Ice Diamond It was Cougar's idea to go for a second diamond, while I had folk helping me. We all met up in the pub in Burthorpe, as her suggestion was to attempt the ice diamond. Demsla, unfortunately, had to leave, but not before he'd loaned me his spiky boots. It was down to Kuemper, Cougar and I, therefore, to teleport to Trollheim and go for a walk in the snow. Oh bless that poor, little troll child! He was so upset. I was glad to go through the ice gate to find his parents for him. It didn't seem to take long to kill the five ice trolls. I lost count though and only sussed how many I'd killed when I counted the bones in my inventory. The three of us had a meeting by the gate and it was decided that there was no need to restock. I had enough supplies on my own to take on Kamil, let alone the supplies carried by Kuemper and Cougar. We took off through the trolls and into a cave. It was down with the wolves where my stupidity really kicked in. I'd noticed the boots in my bag and wondered if I should be wearing them. I clicked to find out, forgetting that this would release me from following Kuemper through the frozen wastes. No, no boots and, oh no, no Kuemper! She and Cougar quickly came back for me, but not before my computer had frozen and things had become very confused. Nonetheless, we made it to the slopes to kill Kamil. This idiot here had got auto-retaliate off, because of the trolls and wolves. This had also unset the spell command, so I'm sure that Kamil got a few hits in without me hitting back. I'm equally sure that my first couple of smacks on his head was just from a staff with no fire bolt at all. I don't know though, because the lag and confusion were high. I lagged so badly that it was hard work to shovel food into my mouth and before I knew it, I was standing in Fally. As my screen was filled with castle, rather than myself, it took a couple of seconds to realize that I hadn't lost anything. Eh? The ring of life had done its work. Wootness! I let Kuemper and Cougar know and they got themselves out of that place. A little regrouping later, and Kuemper and I were back on Trollheim. Cougar, however, was out of law runes and we'd left before she could say. She began the slow walk up, as we set off for the gate. This time, I knew the direction myself, so was able to run up there myself. I also knew to stop messing around worrying about boots in the middle of lvl 100+ wolves, that's a much later kind of thing. Before we knew it, Kuemper and I were standing on the slope, with Kamil approaching. This was a much easier fight. I don't know what was going on with my computer, but I didn't have half the lag. I just stood there fire bolting it and, whenever it ice barraged me, I'd nibble on some monkfish and wash it down with super restore potion, then returned to hitting it with mage spells when it desisted from that. Very quickly, the dude was dead and Kuemper and I were happy dancing on the ice. We went for a walk then, thoroughly lost, though I was having so much fun! Cougar had got as far as the ice gate, when we found the path. Now was time for the boots! :P We slipped and slid all over the path, but it felt like something out of the 'Wizard of Oz', and I really enjoyed it. Going splat on your face on the ice might be bad for the hp, but it's really funny to watch in an infantile kind of way. I admit to giggling my way behind Kuemper all the way to the frozen troll parents. It had been stressed by me, both in the guide and by my companions throughout the day, that as soon as I have a diamond and I'm able, I'm to get it in the bank. Poor Kuemper was left stranded and without information after I released the parents. Their conversation led to me being immediately teleported to the gate, then more conversation. Suddenly I have the diamond and didn't hang around. I gloried to Edgeville and again used the deposit box to stash it before the stranger came. Only then did I have half a second to announce to the chat channel, and Kuemper in particular, what had happened. Cougar reckoned that it wasn't Damis, but Kamil, which is the most difficult DT boss of them all. Others concurred and I have to say that I do too, though I've only two (and a half) to go on. There's a lot going on and many things to watch, not just prayer and hp, but reducing stats as well. Kamil is just an added obstacle on top of all that. Blood Diamond There was a bit of an interval between the earlier two and this one. I was up for going as far as I could now, but prior to the quest this was the part that concerned me. It wasn't so much Dessous himself, but my computer's capacity to see me through it. This was the boss as I'd gone with Henrique and Reaver to witness the fight before. My computer had frozen completely, so I'd watched a static scene for a long time, before it moved and there was Henrique asking me what was what. So here we were again, only this time I would be in the firing line. I decided to do the section up to the fight, then do that bit from work. However, when the time came to visit Canifis for the blood letting part, the chat channel en masse volunteered to just give it a go. I watched Cougar organising everyone brilliantly. She had Kie stationed at the Ectofuntus, as that's where I'd go if I teleported out and, in Haunted Mine, it's also where I died, while Iggy was stationed at Fally, as that's where I'd appear if I died. Meanwhile, a cast of thousands came with me into the swamp. Guildwars, Kuemper, Cougar, CJ and Alex, I believe, were all there, along with a random person picked up in Canifis Bank, who just came to see what the excitement was. I know that some of these had empty inventories, so to pick up my stuff, while everyone else had supplies. Fully anticipating a frozen computer, I switched on 'protect from melee' the second before I touched the coffin with the blessed pot, and I clicked the position behind the fence in the same movement as summoning Dessous. The others watched me run to that position and then start maging from behind the fence. Dessous teleported to beside me, but even so was so close to dying when I disappeared. Iggy announced to the group that I was beside him in Fally. All of my stuff was intact, as the ring of life had done its job again. That's what they saw. What I saw was this: I saw that throughout the fight and no frantic clicking on the spot, nor logging out, nor even switching from my prayer screen was going to work. It was thoroughly and definitely frozen. I didn't even know I'd made it over the fence. In fact, I'd been beside Iggy in Falador long enough for him to alert the group and them to respond, before I saw anything but that above picture. We abandoned quest after that, and headed to Castle Wars en masse. This is a fight to happen from my work computer, oh yes. Thank you again everyone who helped, either with encouragement from the chat channel or actually alongside me, leading, feeding supplies and supporting. You are all wonderful.

I'm still keen to achieve level 70 in all combat skills (exc prayer) before I allow any of them to creep to 71. I'm actually only 2k away from 71 in attack, and not too far behind in strength, either of which would raise my combat level overall to 89. Before I do anything, I carefully check that any potential melee setting isn't on attack. If I'm woodcutting, my axe is set to defence. I've got over 25k xp to play with there. LOL I'm in a quest mood again, so hunted through the remaining rations to see what was a nice, easy, Sunday morning sort of a quest. Match-making some trolls seemed like the way forward, so I scrolled to the rewards. 4k in strength, mmmm.... fortunately I could absorb that without knocking strength to level 71, so I went for it. How much fun?! I'm keeping my sled! Oh yes. I've even picked up a couple more sleds to stash in the bank against the possibility I might one day be killed while holding my sled. I was a little side-tracked up there, sliding all over the mountain having much fun, before finally deciding that I really ought to find and pick the flowers. Ug was crying in there. I was well prepared in advance, collecting the wax and swamp tar, plus other items before I even started the quest. At combat level 88, with 60 prayer, none of the running through trolls situations posed much of a problem, though they would for someone lower levelled. I did find that by the time I came to fight Argghh! I was down to 14 prayer points. I'd anticipated this and could have nipped off prior to the battle to pray, or I could have packed a prayer potion, but I had 15 monkfish sitting in my bag, so went for it. Contrary to the advice given in the guide, I used a dragon skimmy, which has no 'crush' option. As I was going to be using defence anyway, I might as well go for the speed of the skimmy. He was half-dead by the time my 14 prayer points drained away from 'protect from melee', but I only ate one monkfish before despatching him. There were only two sticky points, insofar as I was concerned, the first being that I packed one too few Trollheim teleports, so had to run from the arena back through the cave system. I could then use agility shortcuts to by-pass the thrower trolls, as I had no prayer by then (or run-on energy for that matter). The other came with asking Tenzing about the flowers. When I spoke to him, there was no option to discuss such matters, so I bought a couple pairs of climbing boots off him (12gp from him, but you'd be amazed how many times you hear 'buying climbing boots 5k' in Edgeville Bank), we talked about him being a Sherpa, finding secret routes, his house, then we had an awkward silence. I double-checked the guide and also the quest diary, all said that he should be amenible to talking flowers around now. I clicked to speak to him again and magically the option had appeared. Yay! This has got to be one of the most enjoyable quests in Runescape. Sledging ftw!

I've been wanting to do 'Fairy Tale Pt 2' ever since I finished the first one, but the stumbling block was that level 57 herblore. At the time of finished the first one, that seemed to be a very long way off. Though I've been working on herblore eversince, it's not been doggedly so, until today. Yesterday, I reached level 56, with a lot of kwuarm leaves in the bank, so many so that I honestly thought I'd hit 57 with them. It's been a tacit understanding with myself that when I did, then the quest would be next. But I didn't hit it. I was several thousand xp short. Cachi. Today has been a long haul of chain-farming. Ordinarily I enjoy it, but today I felt like I had to do it, which always takes the shine off things. Even so, I still ended up 2k xp short, with no herb seeds that I could plant (other than marrentill, but that wasn't going to give me the xp I needed) nor leaves to turn into potions. I decided that I'd bigged myself up so much to do the quest, that I was just going to get a Greenman's Ale and do it. Yay! I practically skipped from the pub in Yanille to the bank. I grabbed my range equipment (I've got black dragonhide waiting for me to get to level 70! Wootness! I'm 69 at the moment), pestle and mortar, water-filled vial, dramen staff, ectophial and some food. I packed 1000 mithril arrows, but I was wielding the 49 adamantite ones instead. I zapped myself to Edgeville and was halfway to the fairy ring, when it occurred to me that a bow would be good too. LOL I ran into Cougar en route, then Whiskas88. The latter had been waiting at the Zanaris fairy ring for me, as he wanted to escort me to the Goraks. I'm so glad he did! The fairy ring wasn't the shelter that I thought it would be. As soon as I started ranging them, they went for me, hitting quite high. I ran for the cloud bank, with Whiskas bodyguarding me with a big sword, then we both waited in that cloud until we'd healed ourselves. To kill? Ok. We stepped outside, Whiskas getting the first one, then I ranged one over his shoulder. What's this? Whiskas was perfectly positioned to shield me! The Gorak couldn't reach me from behind him. Yay! The Gorak was nearly dead when another appeared from the south and attacked Whiskas. It dragged him away, so my Gorak could hit me, but that was no big deal. It was so injured, that it only got one big whack in before I despatched it with a special attack addy arrow. Woot! I fled back to the fairy ring, taking damage all the way, shoved a monkfish down my throat and was out. The momentum sent me all the way over the fence ringing the wheat field in Zanaris. But Whiskas hadn't followed. There were an anxious few seconds, while Whiskas revealed he was taking refuge in a cloud, but then he too appeared and all was good. I only had one sticky moment with the herblore, when my Greenman's Ale wore off almost instantly. I had to go back to Yanille to buy two more, but, predictably, I was able to make the potion after drinking the first of those. The rest of the quest was extremely enjoyable and I wish I could do it again! Thank you guide writers and Jagex.

I'm usually quite laissez-faire in the event of a new quest coming out. I'm in no rush for my quest cape and so it's a case of adding it to the list of those outstanding, so when I'm in a questing mood, I can pick and choose as if it was a box of chocolates. However, my general interest in 'Back to my Roots' as an emerging quest quickly turned to a priority to do as soon as possible once I'd read about the rewards. There was a lot of xp there in areas which I am already training, plus the 'Tears of Guthix' style promise of weekly top-ups. I was also not a million miles away from the requirements. I'd been doing slayer for a couple of days before this was announced and so I only needed to notch that up one level, whilst also raising another half a level in woodcutting. Yesterday, both of these had been accomplished and it was time to go. I got the preliminaries out of the way, gathering materials needed, talking to gardeners and wizards, making pot lids, the usual stuff, then got down to the real nitty-gritty. I dressed myself and packed to enter the maze. What was unusual about this preparation was the scarcity of specialist knowledge, opinion, forewarnings and tips. Ordinarily, the entire of Runescape have done a quest before I saunter on down to try it out. This is why I occasionally end up with a huge bodyguard around me for the difficult fights, because I'm the only one left who doesn't know what she's letting herself in for. This time, the situation was utterly reversed. There's only a handful of people who seem to have done it, mainly because everyone else is currently standing dejectedly in an allotment somewhere planting their first ever potatoes and marigolds. (An aside: I have never seen the farming plots so crowded, nor have I ever shown quite so many people simultaneously how to use a rake.) You have Yuan shrugging it all off as very easy, Neo and Simple both writing guides which make it look straight-forward with the right preparation and Kuemper giving it a long, appraising look, with me in mind, and declaring it nothing that I couldn't handle. Then, on Friday, as Simple said her goodbyes after the fire giant massacre, she traded me something to help with the quest. I don't know if I have a very trustworthy face or if she is suffering from a momentary lapse of reason, but the something was her personal, full set of Guthans armour. This is so far out of my league that I was yet to be suitably worried by this. I was touched and I understood that it was A Good Thing, but I didn't get the full enormity of the loan until that moment of leaving for the maze. As I stood in Ardoughe South Bank, I asked in the chat channel if Kuemper wouldn't mind just doing an inventory check for me? She told me to shoot, so I did. 'I'm wearing full Guthans, ring of life, glory, boots of lightness. In my bag...' The channel went yampy. It was extremely full and just about every voice was reacting to the Guthans. Ermmm... I'll look after it. I have an ectophial. If I'm in danger, I'll leave. I was strolling down onto the pier, secure in the knowledge that Kuemper had given my kit a thumbs up, but the excitement was playing on my mind. I paused to check what I'd lose in the event that I did die. It was all good, I'd keep most of the armour and would only lose the spear. It had been unstated between Simple and I, but my view on such things is that if I borrow something belonging to someone else and then lose or damage it, I will pay for its replacement. That's how it works. I was reassured by the fact that all I was really risking was a spear, until I asked in the chat channel how much a potential replacement might cost. Henrique told me. In the ensuing silence, Kuemper posted, 'Merch faints.' Understatement, but definitely in the ballpark. I nearly turned around right there and then, to bank it safe and sound until I could hand it back, probably in the safest bank in Gielinor, with an armed guard encircling us. But after much to-ing and fro-ing on the pier, I caught the boat to Brimhaven. I was already in Shilo looking for a protruding vine, when Kuemper suddenly piped up in the chat channel, 'Merch, would you like me to come with you into the maze?' ''kin Hell, yes. Yes, I would. Unquestionably, I would really like that and, if I'm to die, please will you pick up this spear as quickly as possible and cling onto it for dear life until it's back in Simple's hands. Yes, please, thank you.' Actually, that's more what I thought, I think that I actually said was, 'Yes, please. :D' Kuemper duly arrived and informed me that I was looking for the vine on totally the wrong side of the river. I attached myself to her and she led me to where I needed to be. Thank you, cariad. Having been in the maze, I could concur with the emerging consensus that it's a reasonably difficult situation, insofar as you have many creatures and insects hitting and/or poisoning you, but this is in no way insurmountable. You are climbing all over vines anyway, so just move onto your next bit of vine and they'll leave you alone. I'm in full agreement with everyone else's view that, as long as you are prepared, it doesn't have to be a mortally dangerous place. By prepared, I would recommend as a priority that you include amongst your accessories a combat level 103 friend, who can walk in front of you killing all the bugs in your path. This only leaves you with the little ones, which are nowhere near as nasty. At least that's how it should have gone and, to a certain extent, it did. However, none of the guides nor any of the people reporting upon it had included one huge, fundamental disclaimer: do not attempt this maze on Merch Gwyar's very slow and prone to lagging/freezing computer. I can categorically say that if I had not been wearing Simple's Guthans, with all that defensive power, I would have been dead. I can equally categorically say that if Kuemper had not been so on the ball, returning each time I disappeared from behind her and killing anything attacking me, whilst calling short, important commands 'cut the vine!' or 'crawl through!', I would have been dead. From what I saw, even without Kuemper's vital assistance, I could have survived that maze on a fast computer, but on mine, absolutely not. There were at least two occasions when both of us were amazed that I was still alive, both times when I'd stared in cold dread at an inanimate screen, splashed through with high damage marks and a life-line statically telling me that at that moment I was dying, but somehow we got through. Kuemper, bless her, as we staggered back to the safety of Ardoughe and the urgent, frantic enquiries about the survival status of Guthans, smiled at me through my heartfelt, gushing thank yous. She replied, 'As much as I like you, Merch, I like that armour more.' lmfao! Henrique was there to meet us and to accompany us as I went to fight the final battle. I wasn't too concerned by this prospect, as the first thing I'd done in the town was bank the spear, relaxing into the happy knowledge that should I get pwned now, the only things I'd lose belonged to me. But I was horrified by what he was now telling me. Guthans degrades and so it'll need restoring back to full power before I can hand it back to its owner. You pay someone to do this. I felt my mouth go dry and the colour drain from my face, but I had to ask the question. How much money? I was already calculating precisely how many nature rune runs I'd have to do to make just one million, in full anticipation that this was going to be several. I think Henrique sensed my quiet panic, because he quickly added, 'Merch, I'll give you the money to get it done, if you want.' 'How much will it be?' He and Kuemper replied more or less together, '5k'. The breath I'd been holding erupted into relieved laughter and I thanked him for his offer, but I think I could manage that. Besides, our summit meeting and equip check, in the middle of Ardoughe market square, revealed that it wasn't even degraded. Yay! The final fight? With protect from melee on, I sipped two doses of prayer potion (I was lvl 56 prayer at the time) and calmly hacked the weed to death with my rune axe. I got poisoned once and a creeping vine froze me, but not my computer, twice, each time administering a little bit of damage. In short, it was a piece of the proverbial and the Guthans was never once even in the vicinity of danger. As for me, I took more damage from the guard dog afterwards than I did from the weed, until Henrique kindly bludgeoned it for me, while I spoke to the gardener and received all that wonderful xp. I rose three levels, one apiece in agility, slayer and farming, while woodcutting also got a substantial lift, though not all the way to 73. Simple and Kuemper, thank you again for getting me to that point. Given the state of my computer, I don't think that could have happened without you individual interventions. {{{{{hugs}}}}} The party afterwards, enthusiastically organized by Henrique, thrown in Kuemper's house and attended by loads of us, was brilliant. Woot! Thanks for that.

The impetus for starting 'Rum Deal' ws largely another tidy up in my bank. I'd accidentally started it a while ago and so had the seed sitting there taking up space. I also wanted the holy wrench, as several guides mention it, so it seemed like the thing to own. It all went rather well until the bit where I had to place something in the hopper. The guide stated simply that the hopper was 'upstairs'. Almost immediately, I found the ladder leading to another floor, but saw no hopper. In fairness, the hopper was there all along, but I'd clicked on the pressure barrel and assumed that the bit next to it was all the same thing. Unable to see it, I embarked upon a mammoth adventure, running all over the compound, trying to find anything that could possibly be described as 'upstairs'. It did set me up nicely for finding things later on, but I reckon it took me longer to find the hopper than it did to complete the entire rest of the quest! Otherwise, the quest was pretty straight-forward, with the guide extremely helpful as usual. The speed of my computer gave me some trouble during the mountain and fishing bits, as the proximity of the sea caused it to lag and freeze. The boss fight though was pure delight. By pure fluke I touched the machinery with the wrench while standing in a perfect safe spot for a ranger. I didn't need prayer or food, becasue I was taking absolutely no damage. There's a screenshot of it in my previous blog entry. I also thought that some of the dialogue was hilarious. I laughed out loud at the part where I'm discussed as per my suitability to do the pirates' dirty work. It was something like, 'is Merch Gwyar brave, good at fighting, etc etc' to which the response was, 'yes, she's also gullible, unconscious and tied up in the basement.' LOL Once I'd completed a very enjoyable quest, I was in the mood to carry on. The sequel, 'Cabin Fever', seemed the obvious choice and appeared to be very easy judging by the guide. Indeed it was. That is, it should have been. Proximity to oceans and my computer are a terrible combination. I frequently froze, sometimes in the most inconvenient places. At my combat level, the pirates shouldn't have caused me any damage, but when I'm standing there without my auto-retaliate on, unable to move, as they batter me repeatedly... let's just say that as soon as I could move again, it was to empty the Ectophial to save my own life. I also managed to have two teleporting randoms. The Demon Drill Sergeant and Molly both took it upon themselves to remove me from the ship, which placed me back at the Port upon my return. Fortunately, you could pick up where you left off, unfortunately, I'd lost everything that I'd taken from various chests. The demon took me just as I was returning from the enemy ship with 10 pieces of plunder, which had to be replundered. Arrrr. Molly took me just as I was about to load the cannon for the destroying the ship sequence, which meant that I had multiple sets of firing equipment to disappear. Bless them. Guildwars incredulously learned that I was still doing this quest well over an hour after I started it. He claims that it took him only 15 minutes from start to finish. I'll warrant that he didn't stop mid-quest to dress up as a ghost and invade a shop with a load of friends. :D Again, despite the technical challenges my end, this as an hilarious and highly enjoyable quest. Hurrah Jagex.

Congratulations Guildwars! Here are some pictures I took on the momentus occasion that Guildwars received his Quest Cape from the Old, Wise Man. Is this the first time that every person in the room has been at the same place at the same time in the same world? Probably not, but it looked impressive anyway! These are the party-goers, though later Kitt left and Gumguy3 appeared in her stead. (l-r clockwise (I think!)): Gumguy3 walking about; Zach, Shadow, CJ, me (other side): Reaver, Cougar, Firyon, Guildwars. There were others there as well by then. But they were all over the house and therefore not pictured. I think that Kieyanar is in the doorway, just out of shot, at the forefront of this pic. If you look carefully, you can just see a tiny bit of colour suggesting her presence, which shows up as someone there on the original's mini-map (not shown here).

I accidentally started 'My Arm's Big Adventure', so decided to return and see it through. Particularly as there was talk of another herb patch for the planting. I had a little false start, through not reading the guide properly, in that I was walking around Al-Kharid desperately trying to get the camels to stop trying to involve me in their mostly unrequited, tangled love triangle, and to give me some dung instead. I even had to listen to poetry, allegedly penned by our very own Cam. Finally I did read on and realized that no-one was going to excrete on demand, even Cam the Camel, until I'd reached that part in the quest. I took myself to Trollheim. The quest itself was hilarious. Highpoints involve the trip to Tai Wannai Bwo ('are we nearly dere yer?') with Captain Barnaby screaming in the background and also 'Da Rumble in Der Jungle'. Poor Murcaily crying on my shoulder, when it was all I could do to stop laughing IRL. The travelling per se was really fun, whether it was following My Arm through Trollheim, seeing cut scened routes of secret doors or finding myself shimmering and ending up in Ardoughe. All fun. I had no need at all of all those Trollheim and other teleports that I'd packed in anticipation of all this moving around. There were two big clues that the fight was going to be difficult. The first was My Arm abandoning me in Ardoughe, just a few steps from the bank, with two comments that I was going to need my 'fighting stuff'. More importantly, in the guide, Simple had written, 'the general consensus is this is a very hard monster to deal with'. The recommendation was to range it, which suited me, as raising my range level is part of my short-term plans. I donned my red dragonhide, accuracy amulet, Ava's Accummulator and magic bow. I also included both addy and rune arrows, plus the last drop of ranging potion, left over from 'Monkey Madness' (thank you, Simple, it saw me through another quest). The rest of the space in my bag was taken up with farming equipment, a plant cure, two prayer potions, Trollheim teleport and monkfish. In retrospect, I should have worn a ring of life. I teleported back to Trollheim and climbed up onto the gardening roof. Before I even started the goutweed growing sequence, I paced out the area. The guide pointed to a safe spot to the North-East, but when I surveyed the terrain, there were two possible contenders in that area. Instead, I studied the picture, matching up colours and the size and shapes of rocks, until I finally found the place from which it was taken. It was to the North-West. Ok, there must be a typo in the guide, but it was all good now. I spoke to My Arm and began trading farming equipment. As soon as My Arm spoke of giant birds, I ran to the spot already marked out. Nothing happened. After a while, I realized that this was likely to be a permanent situation, so ventured back out to speak to My Arm. He immediately started to say the same, so I couldn't have let him say it before! Soon enough, the baby Roc was swooping down upon us and My Arm was panicking, 'Save the Goutweed! Save the Goutweed!' I let loose a volley of arrows, then ran to the spot. The baby Roc followed me and was soon killed. All good so far, but then the Mother Roc turned up. This fight all went wrong, though, in the post-mortem, it does seem that I wasn't hit by the third and most deadly attack, as I'd had my protect from range on. I couldn't hit it from my spot, so dashed out to 'call' it to me. I got a shot in, but it hit me harder. I dashed back, but it wouldn't follow. What I had now was a spot where I was safe, but wherein I couldn't even see it to range it. With the addition of the Roc, this place looked far less like the picture in the guide. I dashed out again, close to My Arm, and was picked up and thrown about like a rag-doll. Even through my prayer, I was being hit high and hard, shovelling monkfish down my throat with hardly any damage being done in return. I was quickly sliding into deep trouble, sounding a loud, 'oh cachi!', into the chat channel. Everyone assumed I'd died, but when I let them know that I was just about hanging on, Cougar came running. I relaxed slightly, knowing that she was there to pick up my stuff if I died, but as I was in a cut scene, she couldn't hand me the food she'd brought. It had a quarter of its life left, and I had half of mine, with two monkfish remaining. I had to call it now, leave via the Ectophial, or try to see it through. My next shot did fairly high damage, enough to render it feasible that I might get through this. It hung on with only a slither of life for ages! But I killed. With only 13hp and about 6 prayer points left, I let loose the arrow that killed it. You can imagine the happy dancing that I did then! Once down the ladder and up again, I could see Cougar, and her swordfish refreshed me no end. All in all, it was a really fun quest and I'm glad that I did it. Sod's law, of course, dictates and I'm out of herb seeds to plant into the plot. LOL While all of this had been going on, I'd been watching the fun and games in the chat channel. Guildwars had collected a lot of really good prizes and had initiated a game called 'Hunt the Guildwars'. He fed us clues, starting with the cryptic and then, as people hunted in vain and begged for hints, let his clues become easier and easier. The first one to physically find him got the prize. I'd been quietly playing, guessing without typing anything, where I thought he might be, but couldn't join in until my quest was over. I won the next three games after that! Then lost two to Cougar, before it was time for the Grand Finale. We were all hunting then. Poised with teleports and trying to work out a location from his earliest clue, 'my comrades are all dead, but I must go on. Death must surely greet me.' Or words to that effect. I thought of that wounded soldier lying on the floor on the track to the Death Plateau. Suddenly, Guildwars added, 'I wish I'd brought the right equipment, as the sign warned me.' Yes! He hasn't got climbing boots on, but I have. I raced to Burthorpe and ran up the track until my energy ran out. I was expecting to see others, but reports were coming in, 'mmm, not here', yet no green dots showed on my mini map. This included the point where you would need climbing boots to carry on. Nonetheless, I was soon climbing all over Death Plateau and Troll Mountain, becoming even less convinced than ever that he was actually here. Coming at it from a different angle, I didn't, at first, recognize the Relekka Slayer Caves, so entered and stood in fear of what I'd found. He'd said 'challenging' when he'd been planning this finale. I crept along, through the crawlers and suddenly saw a green dot in another tunnel. Woot! I ran again, calling out, 'I've found you!' But he kept running away from me. Eh? I even told the chat channel that I'd found him, but my energy kept running out and I couldn't catch him even when I saw him pause. He did eventually stop, after I'd called again, 'I see you!' It wasn't Guildwars. It was Reaver. LOL He grinned and said, 'Great minds think alike, eh?' We walked up together, splitting the prize, though, in truth, Reaver could have had it. He had more energy than me and could have reached Guildwars long before. We were right, you see, Guild was at the end of the slayer caves, waiting with some amazing prizes. All this goes to show just what a lovely person and a consumate gentleman Reaver is; and also how much fun Guildwars can engender, with great prizes too! Yay! Thank you all, I enjoyed that.

I woke up this morning and felt extremely nauseaous. :D After throwing up a few times and having a lie down, I felt a lot better by early afternoon (and no, unless 3 wise men and some shepherds are about to turn up, it's not that). I wrote a bit of my class, then decided to do a quest in Runescape. 'Cold War' was the winner. :) It's long, but very funny. Highlights include shocking a level 11, whilst dressed as a penguin in Lumbridge sheep enclosure, and also sitting on an iceberg, again as a penguin, playing the bongos. I did that for a while, my little penguin wings flapping down on those skins, baby. I was hot! I do, however, get Noob of the Day Award for the crafting table incident. I'd already collected all the stuff needful (including having a lovely moment when I asked if someone in Edgeville Bank had a steel bar to sell and was given two as a present :)), so was running around in my bomber jacket following the guide. I reached the part where I had to teleport to my house and make a penguin outfit. Here's what the guide has to say on the matter: My crafting table didn't say that. It said I could make a clockwork mechanism, a clockwork horsey or a clockwork toy. There was absolutely no talk of penguins. *averts eye contact with all currently heckling as they spot the obvious step here* I re-read the book that Larry had given me, several times. Nothing. It occurred to me that maybe I didn't have the level 3 crafting table, though that was strange. I thought I had everything that a level 50 construction wench could have, so I should have level 4. I logged out and checked it all against several guides. The picture looked the same as a level 4 constuction, but again no talk of penguins. Glitch? I logged out and in a few times to no avail. I hunted to see if there was some other requirement, crafting maybe, but no, all should be in order. I definitely had the materials, even my quest book agreed with that. I tried using the silk on the clockwork, then the wood. No joy. Back to the table. If it was level 2, then I could upgrade. I found that all I needed were two molten glass, so I ran to the bank to get them. No upgrade button. Wtf?! There was a remove table one though. I clicked that and confirmed that yes, I did indeed want to remove it, now give me the upgrade button. Nothing. Cachi. I tried to rebuild it and the narrator's invisible voice warned that I needed a saw for such things. *blush* I grabbed a saw from my tool rack and tried again with the molten glass. You need a table to start with before you can upgrade it. *sigh* I ran back to the bank, took out my axe and some money, chopped down an oak tree, sent Lydia (my cook-cum-maid-cum-errand woman) to the sawmill for planks, then made the trable. You can't just upgrade to the highest level you can make. You have to build every other stage along the way. :) Another run to the bank and sending Lydia to the sawmill and finally, I absolutely and categorically had a level 4 crafting table. The options said 'clockwork mechanism, clockwork horsey or clockwork toy'. What?! Noooo! I came back out of Runescape, hunting through every skilling guide on the internet. They all said that post-level 3 I should have loads of options. I returned to the crafting table and used the clockwork on it and the silk and the plank. Then it occurred to me. I pressed 'clockwork toy'. Yep, there are my options, all sorts of things. Penguins. It was plain sailing after that and hilarious too. Penguins playing bongos ftw!

I've managed to leave myself stranded in what I thought was the Karamja Jungle, without a weapon nor food and antis. That is until Kuemper pointed out that I was actually in the Feldip Hills, which isn't quite so dire. Nonetheless, I have to wait for a vine to grow in order to get out again, so I thought I'd come and blog all about today's adventures. I have done not one, not two, but three quests! How's that for industrious? The Throne of Miscellania I am now a monarch and so I expect to be referred to as Your Highness hereon. Ignore Joshua Mack and Cougar, who will both swear that they are the de facto monarchs, I have just usurped them. To be fair, I'm actually a regent, but it's close as damn it. This quest was all Zach's fault. He kept talking about selling coal as he hadn't mined, because his slaves in Miscellania had done it for him. I feel that it's my duty as a human being to stamp out slavery where I can, so I set off to the Isles to end this tyranny, and besides, I wanted the coal too. It was a reasonably quick and simple quest. A bit of running backwards and forwards in the middle, but I was on a fast computer, so it was all good. I got carried away with helping out on the tasks, so wound up with 94% approval before I thought to check, but otherwise I finished so soon that I had time to start another quest before my dinnerhour was up. Royal Trouble The king who awarded the quest points previously was the same person as started this one, so the two kind of sequed into each other. More running about, but less than before, then I was ready to start the final battle sequence. All very quick. I paused then as work interupted for the rest of the afternoon. :D I finished earning my bread at around half five, which is another way of saying 'go and sit in a line of traffic for ages', so decided to finish my quest before heading home. I read up on the finale and noted the level 149 snake, succeeding a corridor whereby you had to run past its earlier incarnations. This implied several creatures ranging from low level up to about 120 all attacking me before I reached the crevice. I packed accordingly with two of my four remaining sharks, anti-poison x 2, prayer pots x 2, super-attack which Demsla left in my bag, combat potion and lots of monkfish. I then re-read the part where I'd need 10 spaces free for various lift-fixing parts, plus at least one space, if not more, for diary pages. Cachi. I unpacked, taking only one each of the potions (exclusing the combat, which I left behind) and taking only 2 sharks and 2 monks. I fixed the lift without too many mistakes, then reviewed what I had left in my bag. It was all messy and, in the heat of battle, you need to have things tidy in there. I moved a shark and accidentally ate it. :) Calling myself all the noobs in the world, I just stared at it. I'd been hoping not to eat any of them, as they are supposed to be for 'Desert Treasure', so were both only here as a last resort in this battle. Now one was stupidly gone. Deep breath. One shark, two monks and those pots. It wasn't going to be enough for a level 149 attacking with both range and melee. I walked back up, into the fairy ring and restocked with monks. The tunnel part was very straight forward, with no damage done at all, while the cut scene was entertaining. I steeled myself, double-checked that my auto-retaliate was off, that my run was on, then switched to prayer, so I could apply protect from melee quickly. I walked around the corner into the sea of yellow dots. Nothing, very notably, happened. I indeed saw a lot of snakes, but none of them were interested in me. I ended up sauntering through, prayer off, quite simply not being attacked. I reached the final crevice, final battle. Yes. I did have protect from melee on. It had gone down from 56 to 41 before the thing was dead at my feet. I'd had one sip of anti-poison and hadn't touched a single other pot nor any of my food. The monster itself had been ridiculously cute and so it felt evil killing it. I was now stuck with a full bag and three items to pick up. I dropped a plank and ate two monks, just to get the drops. The problem continued once I was up the rope, because the queen couldn't give me either the letter or the reward (20k) until I'd buried the big bones and gone to give a guard the box (until I realized it was empty, then I just dropped it). Even then, I only got the letter, so had to run across to Miscellania, hand it over, run back, get the money, run back to Miscellania and finish the quest. Woot! Eagle's Peak After many adventures actually getting home (boxer dog loose on the road and it taking a good hour before I could get someone in authority to a) be in and b) agree to do something; in the meantime, I had a crash course in big dog handling and, being a short-arse, couldn't hold it, so nearly had several crash courses in more serious traffic related ways), I finally logged on to find Demsla all set up and ready to go on 'Eagle's Peak'. I quickly banked my fighting equipment and teled over to Ardoughe to start it. Demsla, bless him, had collected all the supplies needful and knew what to do. All I had to do was accept the trade, then follow him. It was a great way of seeing the scenery. :) Unfortunately, we'd got as far as acquiring eagle outfits, when he had to go. :) He was adamant that I should continue without him though, so I did. It was all straight forward and fun, until I reached the final cave. Here were footprints and the guide says that I should track then in the way I'd ordinarily hunt. I looked around for Juna. She was nowhere to be seen. Cougar talked of noose-wands, whilst Zach sent me to Yanille to buy the same. *sigh* Noose-wands sound bad. Those in the chat channel assured me that it was a humane way of restraining the small furry creatures, while you sheared them for their fur, a bit like with sheep. Ok, I could live with that, so I bought a noose-hold and returned to the cave. When the kebbit eventually did turn up, I had no choice but to hit it with my noose-hold until its blood splattered all over the walls and I was able to pick out an intensine soaked feather from its pulped remains. Not quite how it had been described beforehand. I was soon finished then, which is how I come to be stranded in the Feldip Hills. I used a rope on the Jungle Eagle, climbed out of its cave, then wandered off without a map. Hopefully the vine would have grown by now.

I've heard tell that 'Enlightened Journey' isn't hard, but is long. In truth, my run through of it shouldn't have been long, as I already had a fully grown willow tree, but it's taken most of the day to do. Demsla was in the Underground Pass, when he asked what I was up to. I replied that I was gathering things for 'Enlightened Journey'. There was a tense moment as we all waited to see if he'd jump over the bridges and pwn Iban ok, he fell, he fell again, he made it! The magician was killed and the wooting was heard all over Runescape. I got back to what I was doing, ie trying to find Ali in Al-Kharid. It took me the best part of half an hour in all, in between showing someone where the fire altar was, then following someone who took me to the other side of Al-Kharid, before realizing he was wrong. Then there was the bit when a lower level asked me if I'd do a clue scroll for him, as it was dangerous for his level, and we'd split the winnings. Ok. But they aren't tradeable. Moreover, he tried dropping it, despite my protest that I didn't think I'd be able to pick it up. Many more adventures of this ilk, before I finally found Ali and got into a long, long conversation, which I think is leading to 'Rogue Trader'. By now, Demsla was well out of that horrible place and wondering if I fancied letting him join me. He hadn't done the quest either. Ok! We split the collections. I got papyrus, empty sacks for sandbags, two sacks of spuds and the two dyes, while he napped the silk, the bowls and the candles. This took forever, mostly because I was beseiged with IMs, as well as the chat channel being busy, as well as random passers-by asking for advice. I'd only got the papyrus and the redberries by the time Demsla was ready and waiting in Draynor. I hurried. We were on the verge of meeting up, when I got word that my lunch (which was being cooked for me, woot!) was nearly ready. Was that the time? Cachi! I asked Demsla to give me an hour, whereupon he promptly left to do 'Eadgar's Ruse', while I logged off and did real life things. Once back, I loitered in Draynor waiting on Demsla, then the pair of us ran to Entrana. Lag was REALLY bad, so I couldn't correct a misclick which took us all over the island to the wrong side of the river facing Auguste. Demsla led us back. We secured our willow trees and instructions, then left to plant them. This is where things really should have been fast, because, as I said, I already had a willow tree. Demsla and I established that the twigs were tradeable too. Unfortunately, I still hadn't switched off my private IMs. Demsla had already planted his tree, left for something to eat and was off doing other things, before I'd even got to Fally to plant mine. I raced off to no less than three SOSs, one case of someone needing to return stuff that I'd lent them, one urgent sale and another (which I really didn't mind) nipping into another world to cut some gems for a friend. The latter unexpectedly saw me leaving with some lovely and very welcome presents. I went to plant my tree. I'd periodically return to Lumby to hack branches off the fully grown willow already there. The first round got me 10, with the second another 4. I could have gone there and then, but I needed another 10 for Demsla. Each time I returned thereon, I was only pulling off one or two before it needed to replenish its branches. :D Once I notably got side-tracked by Reaver calling into the chat channel about NPCs inviting people into the party room in world 70. The room was packed! I raced over there to check it out, as did others in our chat channel. The party chest was full to bursting before the balloons were released, with some people getting fairly high level armour out of it. I netted a cosmic tally and some iron ore. Finally, I had all the willow twigs needful (I bet the other tree would have grown by then...), switched private IM off and was ready to roll. Demsla met me in Draynor and we exchanged twigs, before racing off to Entrana to finish this thing. I hadn't scrolled down (or previously read) the guidelines on Sal's website about how to fly this thing. In fact, I'd largely being doing it without the guide until this point. I naturally crashed it. I ran back to Entrana, pausing en route to chop logs and bank my axe. I was about to step on the balloon again, this time with knowledge that there are instructions on the website to fly it, when my nephew typed into the chat channel, 'Merch, I need your help.' I asked where he was, but no response. I resolved to smack him next time I see him, as we have a plan whereby if he's in trouble, he types the location in before anything else. Guildwars prompted too, 'Daz, what seems to be the trouble?' No response from him, but the chat channel suddenly went yampy. Cougar was screaming for help from Varrock; Pepsi was dead in Lumbridge and upset enough to mention the 'quit' word; Daz was AWOL having sent an SOS; and I was stuck in Entrana, carrying only a glory and some logs, wondering what on earth I should be doing, who I should be helping or if I should just be leaving it all to the 13 other people present and just get on the balloon. Legolas logged on and made the mistake of asking, 'what's happening?' As Kitt succinctly reeled them off, it suddenly seemed far less chaotic. Eman and Kitt helped Cougar, Whiskas and others helped Pepsi and Daz finally gave a location, where Guildwars and I could meet him. Phew! In the calm of the Grand Tree, Daz explained that he'd got lost down Taverley Dungeon, had seen a level 227 black dragon and had used the games necklace. His silence therefore became explained under the panic of escaping. Before I realized that, I was stamping and using my angry emote, assuming from his opening comments that he just wanted quest advice. Sorry, cariad. By now, all in all, it was about six hours since I'd first decided to do this quest. I'd have done it within one, I reckon, if it hadn't been for the constant interuptions and 'save me' IMs (mostly private, the chat channel gang are very good at the nearest person going... in fact, they are mostly resourceful enough not to need rescuing). Nqueen asked me how many people I had on my friend's list, when I had to put her in a queue for coming to help. I counted whilst waiting for my willow tree to grow more branches. 98. No wonder my Runescape days seem largely punctuated these days by advising people via private IM how to do things. I've decided based on today that from now on I'm going to keep my IM off. I'll chat in the channel where, if it's urgent enough, people can ask if I'd switch it on for five mins, but I'm in Runescape because I'm burned out from moderating elsewhere. If I keep this up, I might as well go back to that. At least chat is entertaining and habitually has at least a dozen other people who can answer questions too. Back to the plot, I think that Guildwars sensed that I really just wanted to get back to my own quest, because he offered to take Daz to where he needed to go, pwning skeletons to clear his passage along the way. I went back to Entrana and surprisingly quickly thereon, finished the quest. I look well cool in my bomber jacket and hat now. A brilliant revelation occurred thereon. Since I've been playing Runescape, I've occasionally noticed rocks where the mini-map shows a transport symbol. I've never been able to find out what those rocks are until now. They are balloon ports! As I wander around Taverley, I can see my balloon still sitting there, right where there used to be immobile rocks. Yay!

This was another quest which was relatively straight forward using the guide. My biggest problem throughout was space in my inventory, though this was my fault. I'd decided to pack both a legends cape and Ava's accumulator for a start and I was halfway across the desert, when I spotted the accumulator and tried to put it on, only to find the legends cape in my bag. Also I hadn't banked my boots of lightness when I put my desert boots on, hence I was carrying them around. I also took 3 monks, which I never used. All in all, it was an easy quest for my level. I had a few sticky moments with various conversations, which invariably put me in jail. For example, there's a specific male slave as you need to speak with and if you bother the other slaves too much, then you'll attract the attention of a guard, who'll jail you. Also I got the conversations with the captain and the mine driver a bit wrong, so I tested every option until I was good. This put me in jail several times. The guide also doesn't mention what to do once you've escape the jail. You have to climb the rocks, then a cliff, repeating these steps in reverse on the opposite side until you're outside the gate again. You will take damage during this, but only 1s or 2s. This is fine for me, but if a low level was doing it, it would be a thing to look out for. If you lose the key, then you will have to fight the captain again for it. All in all though, a nice leisurely quest. Thank you, guide writers. The stage, of course, is now set for me to do 'Desert Treasure', which was the goal in doing 'The Tourist Trap'. However, I need to do some herb-collecting and potion-making before I'm ready for that.

Something I've noticed about these RfD sub-quests, they are never as bad as the quest(s) you have to do as a requirement for doing them. In order to complete the Awowogei part of RfD, I had to do 'Monkey Madness' and get to level 70 cooking. The quest itself was really easy after all that. The guide was excellent and I was never in serious danger. The only thing that I packed as wasn't mentioned in the guide was an anti-poison, which I did use, as I got hit by a scorpion en route to the snake pit. I took a lot of food, which I didn't use until the end, when I regularly failed the agility course sections before finally making it to the end. Even then I only ate a couple of monkfish and the first of those was, in part, a restorative against the damage taken in the earlier poisoning. Around this quest, I encountered two random acts of kindness. In the first, I had just returned to Ape Atoll, held my greegree and was walking towards the jungle, which would lead me to the gate, when another player said, 'hi'. I greeted her back and, as we were going in the same direction, she offered herself as taxi down to the gate. Once there, she said her goodbyes and we parted to go our separate ways. I thought that was really lovely of her. In the second, I'd just returned to Lumbridge basement, when a player ran in poisoned. He didn't have an anti, so I traded him the one I'd just brought back from Ape Atoll. All the previous quests have left me very short of potions though, so I asked him if he could trade me back the remainder when he'd taken a sip, as it was my only one. He was busy saving his own life, so responded, 'thank you very much', but another player was trading me. He handed me 10 noted super antis, then pressed 'accept' before I could offer anything. :D In the other news, I attended two parties this evening, after driving very fast across my region to get home in time for one of them. Zach achieved level 92 cooking, then held a drop-party with a rune battleaxe. Willy Wonka won it! :o I shot off to the party I'd meant to be at all along, Dr Skull's 'going to f2p' party. He was dropping all his member stuff, so I left with several seeds and a diamond. As people left, only myself, Skull, Skilla 4lyfe and Mont... (something, sorry didn't catch his full name) were left. We took the opportunity to go to the Fishing Trawler, which I'd never done before. Unfortunately, it was a bit laggy, so I was fixing leaks with paste, but it looked like I was just standing there. *rolls eyes* There were only four of us, so we ended up sinking, but it was so much fun. I enjoyed the swimming around, in shark-infested water, afterwards too. I also nipped over to the Lighthouse to kill 71 dagannoth. This was despite someone turning up with a cannon. That was a weird situation, because the place was full of people, borderline needing to world hop for lack of things to kill. This was the circumstances in which the cannon user turned up and so was met with an outcry from all those already in there. The cannon stopped and I carried on slaying, though I noticed that suddenly there were a lot of dagannoth in my area. I realized that many of the people shouting down the cannon user must have left in protest. Ok, fair enough, but then the cannon started again! I thought he'd left too. I got into a row with him and there was a lot of apologies from the individual with the cannon. Meanwhile, the remaining melee players, all of them in their 100s, all started reassuring him and inviting him to carry on. It seemed that, with the departure of everyone else, his cannon was helping them. They were, without exception, training attack, whilst picking up seeds. The cannon user was training range, with no interest in the drops. Only I was there doing slayer. The cannon user was caught between me becoming increasingly sarcastic and cutting with my trying to get him to stop and four or five other people telling him to please carry on as he was stopping them getting swamped. He was doing nothing but firing cannonballs and apologizing over and over again.

After the high drama of the last quest I did, the Sir Amik Varze phase of the 'Recipe for Disaster' epic seemed so sedate. It was also extremely quick to do. I only had a relatively short lunch break, but figured I'd get as far as I could. I'd already picked the vanilla pod when I did 'Legends'. Well, more to the point, I picked it because Cougar did and kept waiting for it to turn up during the rest of the 'Legends' quest, before realizing belatedly that it was for this one. LOL I started therefore by taking a raw sweetcorn to the mill. I haven't entered that mill since my earliest days after leaving Tutorial Island, so it was a proper blast from the past. I smiled fond memories of the start of a severe addiction, then ran up and down the ladder trying to remember how to work the thing. I got there in the finish and meandered off to Draynor with my cornflour in my hands. I stopped for a little cant with the Wise Old Man, before changing into my Zammy robes and packing several different fighting runes. I kept silent while the Monks of Entrana searched me and they didn't seem to think there was anything odd about said runes being on my person, so let me onto their ship. I did cast crumble undead on a zombie, then sat back assuming that I was just casting it over and over again, as I'm sure I'd read about such an up-date. It was only as I delivered the death blow, that I realized that I'd mostly been kicking the thing to death. Whistling, I picked up the bronze axe he'd dropped and went off to fight the tree spirit. I hit the Dramen Tree and... nothing. I got a branch. That was easy. Have I permanently killed this tree spirit during 'Lost City' then? Works for me. I carried everything back to Lumby, then reached the end of my lunch-break. Worked REALLY hard this afternoon on RL, paid work, then logged back in after work, before going home. I'd already wandered over to Zanaris, before I remembered that I needed a raw chicken. Henrique and I put our brains together, but his suggestion of just going back to Lumby and getting one there seemed best. There wasn't any in this psychedelic wonderland anyway. On my return, I used the chicken and was immediately transported into a world of level 227, fire-breathing dragons and a level 159 evil chicken. Great. I'd forgotten that evil chickens fight mage, so took some damage in my rune platebody, before switching to protect from mage. Then I leisurely healed myself, while also testing out my dragon skimmy on the chicken. He died and I picked up its egg and feathers. I then turned to the scary things behind me. They are very big, aren't they? It took AGES to kill that dragon. I had protect from melee on and kept hitting it with my special attack whenever it hit me. It still took me three monkfish and a whole bottle and half of prayer potion before I finally despatched it. I hit so often with no damage done to it. Ah well, it was dead and I gained a black dragonhide, some dragon bones and the coveted dragon token. I mixed the brulee, then rubbed the token. The cute, little fairy dragon arrived and I laughed out loud at some of the choices I had for my boon. It was the horse option! LOL Jagex must have giggled their collective heads off as they added that. I was so tempted to request a horse, but was concerned that whatever the response would be, it might lose me my token and I'd have to kill the black dragon all over again. I went for the quest option and was soon back in Lumby freeing Sir Amik. Another one down, one monkey to free and a series of final battles, then it's all good.

From my earliest days playing 'Runescape', I've heard horrific tales of this quest, 'Monkey Madness'. People have always talked of it with the utmost respect and you can almost hear the capital letters at the front of each word, 'The Hardest Quest In the Entire of Runescape'. Ape Atoll is littered with the corpses of those who have tried and failed. Lumbridge and Falador have so many players suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, that I hear tell that the respective monarchs are thinking of opening a care home to treat them. 'Monkey Madness' looms so high in the pantheon of quests that I think I mentally decided to go for it only when I was level 126 combat with every skill at 99, just to ensure I was as ready as I could be. I'm level 86, with no skill anywhere near 99, but my friends have been nodding pointedly towards the quest for weeks. Yesterday night, I'd been escorting my nephew, Daz, on 'Priest in Peril', when Guildwars turned up with extra fish and weaponry. Somewhere in the confusion, Daz ended up dead and the exclaimations regarding this brought half the chat channel to first Lumbridge and then the Zamorak Temple. He'd lost nothing, as Guildwars swooped in to pick up Daz's mithril armour, and actually gained, as I gave him Zamorak robes as better protection against the mage attacks. Thereon it though, he had to log off, leaving a splattering of high level players hanging around the temple wondering what to do next. Talk turned to 'Monkey Madness' and I had the likes of Guildwars, Simple and Cougar looking at me pointedly. I capitulated. After all, look at THAT for a bodyguard! We raced off to pack and prepare, then I met everyone at the Grand Tree. I had so many survival presents from everyone, higher than things I could rustle up for myself. I doubted that, even with its reputation, I could die in this quest with this inventory or that bodyguard around me. I was so grateful to them all! So we set off. I knew there was some preliminary conversations with various gnomes and that I would be encountering a puzzle. The people with me spoke darkly of this puzzle, but I mentally dismissed it as, 'how hard could it be?' Besides, it just looked like a sliding piece picture puzzle and I spent half of my childhood doing those extremely quickly. HA! Yes, it was relatively difficult, because you had a lot of pieces which looked similiar - just bits of cloud. I did spend a while moving totally the wrong piece from the bottom to the very top, before realizing my mistake. Worst of all though was the lag that really made its presense felt at this stage, but was to continue to a greater or lesser extent for the rest of the quest. I would click fruitlessly on a piece several times, then totally the wrong one, on the opposite side of the vacant square, would move. It would then take several clicks for me to put it back again. All the time, my bodyguard were waiting and I was mortified at how long this was taking me! It took me just over half an hour, from start to finish, to get that sliding puzzle right. The top two rows were done quite fast, with the third row taking a bit more time. It was the 'four' section that really got me. The majority of that half an hour was spent on that four section, apologizing occasionally to those in my chat channel waiting to escort me through Ape Atoll. I tried to send them away, but they weren't having it. Eventually, seeing 25 mins had now gone, and under warning that should I log, I'd have to start again, I raced away from my computer, into the side of the house where my parents live. I woke my Mum up and got her to come and look. She didn't even bother with the 'how old are you?' look, because I think she was mortified too that one of hers had kept lots of people waiting for so long, but five mins of her moving pieces didn't result in that four section being done. It did, however, give me a breather. In hovering behind her, I worked out something I hadn't tried and so, when she gave up, I sat down and before she'd left the room, I got the section completed. The 'five' section was very quickly done thereon. Woot! I was so glad to finally announce that the puzzle was done and it was time to move on. By now, however, the lag was so bad. Opening my guide to read the next bit resulted in the white screen of death, so my bodyguard could only see me standing there, until I returned to life and apologized, 'Sorry, I opened the guide again...' I was assured that others could read the guide and lead us through, I should just follow and receive instructions. Ok, thank you! There are massive pros and cons about having such an esteemed entourage surrounding you on a major quest. The pros are obvious - you have, at every turn, people who are watching your back, clearing your way of potential attackers and handing you supplies. On top of that, you have encourage and as-it-happens advice, instructions and guidance. You are taxi-ed through dangerous terrains, with scouts killing even the level one spiders (which are a pain in the jacksy, as they respawn instantly and can and will poison you). I doubt anyone has ever done that quest with quite the protection I, very gratefully, had last night. The downside, though, is that there are a lot of people all assuming that a) someone else is reading the guide and b) someone else has given me the instructions. This is where we failed time and time again. The first attempt at the jail part was chaotic in the extreme. I had no idea what I was doing other than listening out for Simple's calls and acting accordingly. However, lag was so bad that by the time I received the instruction, the opposing one had been given. I ran forward to pick locks as, in real time, Simple was screaming at me to get back and hide. Instructions were being shouted from every corner and all of my friends had turned into monkeys or gorillas. This is a true story. On top of that, my friends weren't the only people there and, I'm assuming from Guildwars's reaction, there were players trying to add false information too. I obeyed his advice to switch off my public chat to 'friends' only. However, the grapevine was now buzzing and other Slammers had appeared to help out, who weren't already on my friends list. For example, it took me a few seconds to get the numbers after Reaver's name correct and my friends list now has several Reavers on it. I'm just hoping I'll remember the right one when I come to delete it all tomorrow. Thank you Reaver for all the fish and your presense guarding me at that stage! In all the confusion of not knowing which monkey to watch out for and which were friends or enemy player bouncing around the corridors, coupled with lag, the whole thing quickly became very overwhelming. Cougar eventually called it, stating that the lag was too bad to do this, so we all decanted to a British server, rather than the Canadian one we'd previously been in. That did speed things up a lot. Also, it didn't have so many strangers on it. Suddenly all the primates around me were either friends or NPC and I finally worked out which gorilla I had been supposed to avoid all along. We got out shortly after that. We rushed across a town into a depot, where my instructions were to go and find the mould and dentures. I set off across the room and was immediately back in the jail with a huge headache. As friendly monkeys bounded back, I was also advised to not go onto the lighter part of the floor. We made it to the depot, where everyone seemed to split up. Cougar called me to go down a hole, so I did and searched crates until I found the mould. She then disappeared up the rope and I watched, in chat channel, as there was much talk of killing monkeys before I got there. I understood that I was to wait at the foot of the rope until called up, but not long on, the talk in the channel was now, 'where's Merch gone?' I gave my location and was suddenly covered in monkeys going, 'what you doing down there, come on up'. So I did and, to be honest, I have no idea what happened next, other than I ended up back in jail. This time though, I knew what I was doing as well as everyone else, so we quickly enacted the great escape and I was led into the deep grass to find an invisible gnome. I had a conversation with said gnome, then we were all returning to Lumbridge to restock and regroup. This was later to become the most familiar, well-worn path. Guildwars, Cougar and myself (usually) would all home port to Lumbridge and restock in the basement. Then, it was off to Al-Kharid, via the church to pray, and the glider to the Grand Tree. There we would inevitably meet up with Simple and whomever else was coming and take the hangar to Crash Island, then onto Ape Atoll. Finally, we'd wait on the shoreline there counting heads and calling out in chat channel for whomever was missing. Different people led at different times, but it was Cougar who nervously led me into the tunnel, explaining en route that this was the most dangerous part of the quest. Ok. *Bites lip* Lay on, MacDuff. That first adrenaline charged rush through the tunnel was like nothing I've ever encountered in Runescape. Even the rush across the Fremmenik Isles seemed safe compared to this, simply because that was shorter. You can't be taxi-ed anywhere and still take pots, food and sweets, so I ran by my own steam, watching out for people running up ahead. Cougar had warned me to follow the path, as I couldn't get lost, but had evidently forgotten about the initial T junction. I saw someone run around the right hand side, so followed. Quickly, my bodyguard realized I was lost and came scampering to find me (all monkeys and gorillas), and I was soon back on track. It was around that time as I realized that the Govis bloke who had been around for so long wasn't part of us. He was someone else doing Monkey Madness, who knew a gang to tag onto when he saw it! A wild rush through thereon and we eventually reached the end. But the latter stages were filled with Cougar shouting out, via chat, that she's dying. She's taken one too many hits on my behalf and she's dying. I was on the verge of turning back for her, but Simple, Guildwars and Reaver were screaming at me to just keep running, get to the end! I was torn, but I ran and reached safety within seconds, to turn and watch Guildwars return into the chaos to get Cougar out. Everyone was wooting, we'd pulled it off! Not yet knowing if Cougar was safe or, if not, if Guildwars had got her Obby cape and such, and, indeed, if he'd made it back safely, I was instructed by the others to speak to the gnome. I did and was told that they were too busy painting to talk. It was only as a name was mentioned and I turned my screen around that I saw a foreman-looking gnome in the midst of all my protecting primates. I spoke to him, rapidly clicking through a lot of conversation, then finished to find Guildwars returning with a happily surviving Cougar. Woot! Simple prepared me for a return dash out thereon, but the vote was taken amongst the others for us all to home port out and restock. This we did. In Lumbridge Castle basement, Guildwars came to check my inventory for the next leg and, as I traded him everything, I mentioned the untradeable things I had too, the Ectophial, the dentures, the monkey mould... There was sudden consternation amongst those around me. Why had I still got the dentures and the mould? Why hadn't I given them to Zooknook? Hadn't he asked for them? The horrible realization dawned that I'd been so busy fretting on Cougar (which I shouldn't have been, because Guildwars had that situation so covered!), that I'd clicked through the conversation without any talk of handing over dentures et al. I freaked a bit, it has to be said. It was well past 2am here and all these people were being so wonderful escorting me, now we had to repeat a horrible step again. A step which had already nearly killed one of my friends. And... and... and... It also emerged that I'd not packed a gold bar in the rush, so even if that hadn't been the case, I still couldn't have handed over the stuff. While Guildwars very charmingly calmed me down and fetched a gold bar out of his bank chest, Cougar explained the situation to Simple via chat channel. To their credit, not one of them went 'Merch Gwyar, you.... *insert one of the many Welsh swearwords that they'd all been learning throughout this quest*'. They all simply said, 'ok, we're doing the tunnel again.' With the exception of Reaver, who had to leave. So we did it again. This time I was killed.... well, so we thought when I ended up in Falador with the chat channel buzzing with 'where's Merch?' 'I can't see Merch!' It took a couple of seconds to realize that the ring of life had saved me, which information I quickly communicated to those urgently hunting my stuff in the killing tunnels of Ape Atoll. Poison had done for me, but I must have eaten the anti-poison just as my hp fell below critical enough for the ring of life. Guildwars came to Fally to me, while the others regrouped and restocked elsewhere. We met again for the third attempt at the tunnel. This time we all made it through. Perhaps experience and constantly honed strategy amongst my bodyguard was telling, but escorted now by only (but not least!) Simple, Guildwars and Cougar, we all made it relatively easily and in one piece at Zooknook's side again. Only he wouldn't have my stuff off me. He just kept telling me that the tunnel building was going well, but slowly, but nothing interesting happened when I tried to hand over my stuff. A short conference highlighted a missed step. We hadn't spoken to Garkor and so didn't, technically, know to hand the stuff to Zooknook. It's only the knowledge of my bodyguards and Sal's guide having us there in the first place. I think you can imagine the mood in that tunnel. The knowledge that we'd have to do the jail part all over again, not to mention run for a fourth time back to where we now stood. So much fish and potions had been used! My store was depleted and everyone had been handing over things since the start of the quest. I knew that Guildwars was out of fish too and that I had no anti-poison and very few prayer potions left. Before either of us went down again, we'd need to do a bit of fishing and herblore. This said, the very wonderful Simple largely funded the final expedition of the night, at least for me and probably Guildwars too. Thank you, cariad. We returned to the island and I ended up in jail. This time, I misclicked in running to Simple once I'd escape my cell. I ended up running along the passageway and, miraculously, outside without being whacked by a gorilla. All this happened so fast, that the other three were still inside the jail poised to rescue and lead me out as normal, so I just ran to the only safe place I knew - the depot. Once I was safe, I answered the frantic calls in the chat channel with my location, just praying that they all knew where that was. Very quickly, Simple appeared at the door, then was beside me. Woot! She said to follow, but the door foiled me. She was out of my mini map before I was outside and Guildwars with her. Cougar loitered and I hitched on to her, we fled across the terrain towards Garkor, then... whack... I'm still not entirely sure what put me back into jail that time. We escaped again, this time with me having actually read the guide to help myself in extremity! But things went more according to plan. I followed Simple out, through the poison arrows, and out to the elusive Garkor himself. A conversation ensued and I now officially know to give things to Zooknook. We home ported to Lumby, but by now I was so tired. I knew that Simple was an hour ahead of me, so it was knocking on 4am for her, just as it was nearly 3am for me. Had the quest been close to finishing, I think we'd all have had the will to break on through, but Cougar and Guildwars went through the final steps and it seemed that we were only halfway. Both Simple and I had to call it a night. So there you have it, part one of this epic adventure as 'Monkey Madness' lives up to its name. I'm extraordinarily grateful to everyone who took part in this throughout the night. Simple, Cougar, Guildwars, Reaver and those in the chat channel, who desperately wanted to come, but hadn't the required quests to do so - Pepsimax, we'll have the next adventure. Williamxtreme, Aurorabwolf, Bluedragon and everyone else, thank you for the encouragement and moral support. Now... part two ftw. *sigh*

I can't say that I was entirely thrilled at the prospect of going back into this quest. When I logged in this morning, I looked through the contents of my bank with a sinking heart. So much had been used... I mentally rolled up my sleeves and set about restocking. I zapped or ran from allotment to allotment, planting irit leaves, then went and ranged a lot of unicorns, all of which resulted in some super anti-poison. I was just harvesting that when Cougar logged on. I already had Pepsimax in IM offering food and Bluedragon wanting to accompany me. Cougar asking when I was going to come and finish it pretty much sealed my fate. We were back to ape atoll and no more of this faffing around in Catherby. I finished mixing the antis and went to Lumby Basement. There, bless them all, were Pepsimax trading me fish, Tully come to deliver potions and both Cougar and Bluedragon armoured up and ready to go. The latter both traded me so to check my inventory, while Pepsimax opened up the guide and sat ready to advise us every step of the way. We took the well trodden route to Ape Atoll and I followed Cougar down into the caves. This time it was just me and her, as Bluedragon didn't have the supplies to get himself safely through too. It all went surprisingly well. I ran out of energy once, because I wasn't eating sweets, and I ran out of prayer once too, because I hadn't kept topping up the potions (I was low on both and hadn't quite sussed that both Cougar (via Tully) and Bluedragon had stashes of prayer potions). But nontheless, I was soon at the mage, with Cougar bounding right behind me, both of us perfectly fine. Woot! I traded him those accursed dentures, mould and bar and received the enchanted bar in return. We home ported back to Lumby for restocking. Pepsimax was still in there, standing in the basement, as he talked us through the next stage on the chat channel. We returned and this time Cougar's friend, Mad Curt, was there to help. I ran down into the town and ended up in jail. The lag hit again. It's mainly the jail where this happens, which is a right git, because that's where timing is everything. At one point, I lagged so badly that I practically froze at the door. I got hit unconscious three different times before I was able to step back and hide. Finally though, I was out and following Cougar to the temple, then into a safe space there. For some reason, I couldn't get the trapdoor open, though I ran out a couple of times and was standing on it. Cougar, Bluedragon and Curt were hitting gorillas left, right and centre, but I still couldn't get the trapdoor open. Meanwhile, in the chat channel, Eman arrived and announced he was coming too. Finally, in an instance no different to all the others, I managed to open the blasted door and climb down the ladder. With much wooting, Cougar followed me, but I did one of those weird things, where you click in one place on your minimap and end up running somewhere else. The others had followed us down, but Cougar had had to come and fetch me from the bottom and take me back to the ladder. I climbed up and used my bar on the fire wall. All good. :) I started getting badly hit then, so Curt led us into an exit. It was a small cave, lined with a firey floor, enough to recuperate in, which I did. Curt then wandered off over the fire, so I followed for much damage. He apologized profusely, not knowing I'd set to follow him and led me back to safety. This wasn't an exit, just a safe place, so we moved on out and back to the temple from whence we came. I climbed up. I was trapped! I'd had warning about this from Simple's notes and Pepsi's guidance via chat channel, so quickly climbed the ladder. I couldn't see the other ladder though for escape and ran all around the room with things hitting me, while those in chat wondered where I'd gone. I eventually found a safe spot and stayed there, healing and reassuring others on the chat channel. Not knowing precisely where I was, it took some doing to guide others to me. Meanwhile, Bluedragon is saying that he's poisoned with no anti on him. I had got some, so was desperately trying to get him to me. Cougar had sorted him out before he appeared beside me, shortly followed by Cougar. They led me back to my ladder again and I climbed down. Once again I was trapped and taking damage, despite their best efforts to kill the gorillas. I dashed back up the ladder to safety and everyone joined me there. The strategy couldn't be any different to before, so down they all went to kill gorillas. Cougar called me, I went and immediately followed her. A slither of opportunity was seized upon and Cougar led me out there to the aunt's house, but both she and Pepsi had to go. Bluedragon, Eman, Mad Curt and, by now, Reaver, stayed with me. I latched onto Bluedragon and ran out with him, as the aunt was distracted. Bit by bit, the conversation was had, though Eman thought that I should have said 'auntie' instead of 'uncle'. It didn't affect the plot, I was able to continue though the quest. At one point, lag hit bigtime, so I was caught by the aunt and sent back to jail. Bluedragon appeared apologizing for ages, with me saying it was ok and it was lag. Mad Curt interjected with, 'I think she gets it.' And he stopped saying 'sorry' after that. Bless him. Blue led me back to the auntie, where things progressed then quite smoothly. We did reach the moment when it dawned on us that Cougar, who'd logged, had been the one holding the bananas! LOL Eman sorted it by going out and picking some and it was all good. Cougar returned seconds after I'd received the tally and we were ready to go again. Cougar and I teled to Karamja, using glories, there to kill a monkey, then it was back to restock for another mad dash through the tunnel. I thought it was going to be me and Cougar alone in the tunnel, but Bluedragon came too. I was running around the penultimate bit when the news came that Blue was poisoned and no anti. Cougar screamed at me to keep going and, remembering a similiar situation from last night, I did. I reached the end of the tunnel to find that Blue was there, down to his last slither of life. I traded a super anti and he was saved. :) I let the chat channel know. Moments later, Cougar, no doubt also believing Blue to be out there in the tunnels, also arrived. I traded Zooknook and then I was a monkey! Yay! I was desperate for a drink then, so we agreed to meet up in Lumby Basement. Blue had no home teleport and had to make the return dash instead. He didn't even do it as a monkey! I waited on until his announcement came on the channel that he'd survived, then I logged out. I didn't really need a bodyguard for the next part, so I returned to find Ape Atoll a much different experience. I sauntered on down the slope with no-one ranging me or otherwise hitting me. I explored a bit of the village, loving the place and exclaiming over discoveries in the chat channel. Guildwars logged in and, when he learned that I had no idea where Garkor was, I turned to find a chimpaneze next to me grinning and suggesting that I follow him. He led me through the town then to all the different people I needed to speak with. I left him to go and do the Ardoughe part on my own, before meeting him back in Ape Atoll. I talked of doing the final battle there and then, but he wanted to stress that this was too difficult for not going in fully prepared. He asked me to tele back to Lumby, for restocking and inventory checking. We did so and, during the inventory checking, a player kept trading me so much that I didn't have time to read what Guildwars was saying! It was a complete stranger, whom I figured was a noob wanting to sell something. I traded out of an excuse to stop him trading me, but he was giving me a bottle of super defence potion. Wow! I didn't have any space, so declined, noticing then that his combat was over 100. I deposited a shark and then received the trade. 'For your quest', he told me, which was so lovely. With Guildwars now more confident than I was that I could survive the fight, he gave me a strategy and pep talk, then checked my inventory for a final time. I prepared to walk off to Al-Kharid again. Guildwars stopped me. I could activate the sigil where we stood. No need for that journey again. I pressed it before I'd even fully acknowledged I was going to do it, switched 'protect from mage' on and ran to find the famous bridges. What bridges? I was expecting a rope bridge like the one in 'Tai Bwo Wannai' or perhaps an overlook, like at the duelling arena. What I found was a huge arena, with sides. Guildwars had talked of them being at the sides, but they were more like lattice decoration in the floor than bridges. I'd fired a shot at the demon already and was ranging away, when it occurred to me that I wasn't taking damage and he evidentally was. I stayed put. I couldn't see the demon's hp bar, but I could see his legs and occasional splats, so figured that I must be on the bridge after all. I had one sip of range pot and two sips of prayer pot, then he was dead. What?! That was the easiest final battle of a quest as I've ever been in! After the harshness of the quest until that point, I'd thought this was going to be terrible, but it wasn't. It was a huge anti-climax, though Guildwars, upon hearing this, cited the expert preparation and quality of weaponry. He also told me that he'd done it with melee and had had great trouble! I saw Garkor approaching, with yellow arrow flashing over his head and assumed that maybe I had to do more fighting. I didn't. I just had to talk to him. He mentioned Zooknook, so I figured I'd have to do the tunnel again, but no, there was Zooknook walking towards me with a yellow arrow flashing on his head too. A brief conversation later and all that was left was to use my Ectophial, then to make my way back to the Grand Tree. I descended the ladder to a woot of congratulations from Guildwars, who was standing there. LOL Thank you cariad. I wasn't in time to get the screenie, though it was a lovely surprise. I spoke to the king and: I didn't think I'd ever see that for real! Guildwars asked me if I wanted to get some xp with no monsters. Ok. I followed him to the hangar gnome, who talked of going training, so assumed I'd be off fighting something. Instead there was cut scene, saying that it was now several hours later and woot! I had xp in strength and hitpoints. Double woot! I went up a level to 71 hp. Triple woot! I'm now combat 87! I spent some birthday money on a dragon scimmy (thank you!) and that was that. Monkey Madness done! A cast of thousands helped me with this quest, which deserves its reputation. I think I've managed to namecheck them all, but once again, thank you all. :)

I, Merch Gwyar, am now officially a legend. (Stop laughing over there in the peanut gallery, I'm not that deaf as I can't hear you, you know... ) As I was saying, I'm now a legend. I didn't plan to actually finish the Legends quest, as I had left another task half completed, but Guildwars was showing off his cape and Cougar needed to start it so she could get vanilla pods, then I was in the area and... Next thing you know, me and Cougar are hacking down bits of jungle and emerging into that most dangerous bit of the Karamja Jungle. Well, so I thought, but in reality a few level 64 wolves eyeing you up for dinner and some strange birds don't quite match up to the Jogres and that lion-type thing over to the east. Nontheless, they can be a right pain in the proverbial, when you're trying to do things down there and they are nipping at you wanting to fight. Despite the thrice having to kill a huge, black demon (lvl 187) and three warriors (ranging from lvl 92 - 106), I was never in serious danger during this quest. I swallowed one and a half prayer potions all told and no food (during fights). I did, however, have to eat following injuries caused by getting stuck in crevices and falling off high ledges. One such fall caused 20hp of damage, just before I was going to fight the three warriors and one incarnation of the demon. That worried me. I ate one of my precious sharks and nervously walked off into what felt like certain doom. It wasn't. Even the final fight seemed very easily won with protect from melee activated. I think that the prestige and anticipation of the monsters in this quest is far worse than the actuality. You constantly have at least half of your bag filled with various items needful for wandering around the jungle and caves: an axe, a lockpick, a machete, a pickaxe, golden bowl, book of binding, holy spell/shaman notes, map, bull-roarer... these things are more or less standard and therefore with you throughout the journey. Add to that survival things in case of crisis, like an Ectophial and at least one fish, and you're starting to really limit yourself on what you can pack to survive these fights. My advice is not to worry on it. Also, I constantly had an anti-poison on my person, because jungles tend to need them, but never once even came close to needing it. That could have been left behind. The sheer length of this quest is legendary, third only to the lengths of 'One Small Favour' and the combined sub-quests of 'Recipe for Disaster'. Guildwars told me previously that it had taken him an hour and half from start to finish. I completed the quest in four sittings, though I think they lasted more than that in total. It didn't seem long to me though, because it was quartered. I did the first part with Cougar, up until smithing the golden bowl. Next day, I went from there to the creation of the Bravery potion. At stupid o'clock in the morning, I nipped back on and got myself right up to the planting of the Yommi Tree. Finally, this dinnertime, I completed the quest. It didn't seem so long that way, but it was extremely enjoyable. I think that this is the favourite of all the quests I've done thus far. The only major problem I encountered was that I couldn't make holy water vials. I've filled vials from my bowl and from the holy pool, then tried to bless them with the book, but it wasn't happening. :( It didn't seem to make any difference to the battles though, because my dragon longsword pwned the demon easily enough, all three times. I have left myself in the Legends' Guild, having obtained two smithing levels with the xp awarded at the close of this quest. My golden totem is there for everyone to see, just inside the door. I'm very proud. I then went wandering off on my own, heading downstairs where I spotted a danger sign. I examined it and it read, 'danger'. I'd changed out of my battle clothes, putting on my emerald green dress for photo opportunities, so had to scramble to see what I had in my bag. I equipped an axe and went exploring looking for all the world like a latter day Lizzie Borden. I found some ghosts, which hit me, so I hit them back and left. I've now made it upstairs and made two discoveries. One is that the reason that bloke didn't give me a cape when he gave me the xp is that you have to buy it yourself. The second is that I didn't bring any money with me. LOL My grand 'Woot! I'm a Legend!' moment will have to wait until I've just nipped to the bank in Ardoughe. ;) Anyway, bravo guide writers and Jagex. I thoroughly enjoyed this quest.

I did have every intention of completing this quest the evening before. In fact, I ran around collecting all the props I'd need, then met Cougar in Yanille, as we were doing it together. But time was pressing on and I ended up standing in front of Rantz yawning my head off. I announced to the chat channel and Cougar more than once that I was going to bed, then Cougar would reappear from the latest part of her quest to find me still standing there like a zombified macro. She would stand looking at me and say something like, 'Merch, weren't you going to bed?' 'Yeah, I'm going now.' I'd still be there when she ran by again. Next day, however, I was fresh and sprite as a spring lamb, bouncing around the Feldip Hills with everything needed for my quest. Woot! The slight technical hitch was that I'd forgotten how to hunt chompy birds. I had to have Cougar, in chat, talking me through it all from the knowledgable vantage point of having done it herself only the day before. Nontheless, it still took me a while (and six bloated toads) to grab my first chompy. Of course, seconds later, I had another chompy bird, as sod's law kicked in. Once it reached the stage of hunting jubbly birds though, my luck overflowed. Cougar warned me, via chat channel, that it would be better to drop all three ballooned bloated toads, as doing it one by one took forever. I did so, all in a row, then stepped back. No sooner had I done so than the massive bird appeared. It was bigger than me! But my mithril brutal arrows took it out. Of course, by this time, I could barely see it, as another TWO jubbly birds had appeared and were crowding me on my plateau. I swung around and killed both of them too, wondering why none were attacking me at all. Fairly quickly thereon, I finished the quest. It was fairly enjoyable, but neither here nor there on my list of liked - hated quests. Next on my list is 'Legends', as I can't get any further with 'Recipe for Disaster' without it. In the other news, I finally met up with Audioworm and we exchanged birthday presents. I got enough arrows to see me through the next session of bloodveld killing (they aren't my current slayer assignment, but I've had them so regularly of late that I'm anticipating they'll be here soon again), but the gift I had for him, I couldn't hand over, as it was a members' item. :lol: I had to substitute at the last moment. Thank you, cariad! On the subject of lovely things given to me, Kuemper has been doing treasure trails and she IMed me to say that she had the pages to complete my Guthix prayer book! Woot! I've been having fun eversince with reading out the various rites and blessings. Thank you again, cariad!

Having completed 'Shadow of the Storm', I was able to resume the sub-quests of 'Recipe for Disaster' by taking myself to Edgeville to visit Evil Dave and his lovely mother, Doris. I misunderstood totally the instructions concerning spices, so only packed five bowls of stew. My cunning plan had been to use each of the spices on a bowl of stew, work out the combination and then add that to the final bowl. I didn't realize that you had different quantities of individual spices to contend with as well. I did eventually have to start again (logging out resets the combination) with 12 bowls of stew instead. It all looked so straight-forward before I entered the Basement of Doom. I stood in the middle of a swarming mass of hell-rats, set my cat down and urged it to kill. My cat promptly accused me of being patronising and suggested that maybe I should kill the rats instead. It would then stroke MY head and speak inane words of praise in recompense. Yes, my cat is an overgrown, lazy thing, which isn't taking orders from anyone, especially the likes of me. Contrite, I visited Gertrude and discovered that she'd just had a litter of kittens ready to be rehoused, so I took one. Kittens are very small creatures to be running around catching hell-rats. All around me, people with strong, fully-grown and agile cats were exclaiming every thirty seconds, 'well done, puss! You caught it!', then rushing to grab their spice shakers. I loitered self-consciously in their midst, with this tiny fur-ball, commiserating yet another rat which got away, whilst encouraging it to use more claws next time. Another player pointed out that I wasn't feeding my kitten, then gave me two mackeral when I confessed I'd forgotten the catfood. I was shamed into nipping into Edgeville Bank for some cooked salmon. The monotony of rat-killing was broken by Guildwars turning up with his bull-roarer. I was even prompted to put my headphones on to hear that one and very impressive it was too. He left to do 'Eadgar's Ruse', whilst I waited on talking to Aurora, a player who was down there with her cat aiming for a cat award from Gertrude. After a while, my kitten transformed into a hell-kitten, which was truly a scary thing to behold. It made no difference to the general lack of rat catching going on, but did make it very difficult to distinguish my little red scurrying thing from the mass of other little red scurrying things. Finally, finally! I gathered enough spices to actually work out the combination and then enough to mix the spicy stew. Evil Dave was saved. In the other news, I've got a level 3 clue scroll, which had stalled for want of a rune warhammer. I was loathe to go and buy one, just to hold for 30 seconds in a bank, whilst blowing a raspberry. I'd been asking around to see if anyone had such a thing to lend me and this evening, Retep, a friend who's joined us via Audioworm, offered to loan me it. We met up in Cammy and I donned my blue dragonhide legs, held an elemental shield, took Retep's rune warhammer and led a procession, which now included Guildwars too, down past the fishing guild. Whereupon Retep bade us to stop, as I patently didn't know where I was going, and so led us back to the fishing guild door. I drank some fishing potion and wandered on in. It would have been helpful if I'd remembered to put auto-retaliate on, then the double agent hitting me as soon as I'd finished blowing my raspberry wouldn't have damaged me quite so much. Guildwars stood there with eyebrows raised, as I hurriedly swopped to a proper shield and dragonlongsword and started hitting back. He suggested that my rune armour might be good at this juncture. I had to admit that I hadn't brought any. I'd been so eager to snap up the offer of the warhammer that I hadn't prepared very well at all. Nontheless, I despatched my attacker forthwith and waited for my prize. Nothing. Guildwars commented, drily, that perhaps I should do the raspberry thing again. I did and nothing happened. Guildwars, with infinite patience, added, 'with the stuff back on'. Oh! Right! Ok.... I did and got another clue scroll. *sigh* Returning the borrowed warhammer to Retep and taking my leave of the gentlemen with me, I zapped off to Varrock to dig in the lumberyard. Another clue scroll. This one didn't seem too difficult though. It involved addy armour, so I mentally resolved to stalk Pepsi until he stripped and lent me that, then to take myself to Burthorpe pub. A couple of swift pints and I'd meander downstairs for my prize. Via the chat channel, Guildwars informed me that I was mistaken. The Rogues' General Store wasn't Martin in the basement of the Chicken and Toad, it was somewhere up the Wildy. What?! Nooooooo! Noooooo! Nooooo! I sobbed hysterically via chat channel, until Guildwars sent his demon butler with a cup of tea to shut me up. I've put the clue scroll back into my bank. Talking of banks, I spent a lot of time last night tidying it up. I'd accummulated so much junk from the quests that I've done recently that I couldn't fit another thing in. I stood in the basement of Lumbridge Castle filling vials, chiselling gems, high alching stuff and throwing other things out. A random noob got a couple of presents too. I was picking up random stuff and besieging the others in the chat channel with 'is this any good to keep?' type questions, before running out to do things like turn talismen into tiaras and the such. Thereon, Guildwars reached the stage in 'Eadgar's Ruse' where he needed to grab the goutweed. When I did this, it took a good hour and half, what with returning for food partway through. There had been me and a German lad just trying every which way but not and occasionally searching through every guide on the internet, trying to find just one Runescape site that gave us a map, or even a written strategy, through the maze. It was trial and error that got us through, though not before both of us had come so close to dying, through minor hits, that we'd had to individually take the dangerous trek to and fro the bank for food. Once I had the route though, I remembered it and always meant to go back to map it for Sal's. Going up there to guide Guildwars through gave me the opportunity and so I did. He was completed in seconds and I lingered afterwards to do this: Eadgar's Ruse Incidentally, look! Fame! Tai Bwo Wannai Trio Ok, so I'm not quite Neo Avatars, but I feel like I've contributed now instead of just taking!

This having a birthday malarkey is great! Pepsimax and Kayla have both also given me presents now. Thank you both very much. I've had the scorpion cage sitting in my bank for weeks, so I thought it time to follow through and actually do the quest. I found it to be relatively short and simple, but then I had a head's start insofar as I'd already done the pub crawl and also obtained my dusty key. I also have over level 31 prayer, so could easily run into the monastry. The only hairy moment came down in Taverley dungeon, when I was confronted by a room full of level 172 black demons and no obvious direction to run for the poison spider room. Protect from melee was a life-line in there, allowing me to calmly traverse the room until I found the passageway into the next one. It took some hunting then to find the room with the spider in, as you have to push quite far into the area before it becomes obvious (avoiding high level hellhounds in the process). All in all though, an enjoyable quest.

Someone told me the other day that they'd found Sal's through my blog. They'd been stuck on a quest, so had done a search. My description in my blog had come up before the guide and it was only through reading it that they'd realized there was a guide and gone to find that instead. No pressure then... I've a day off work today, ostentaciously to do all my washing etc from my holiday, but that's quickly done and left me with a day to play Runescape. I decided to get some quests done and started with 'Shades of Mort'ton' as it appeared to be quite quick and simple, judging by the guide. It wasn't. The main problem was supplies. I took everything mentioned, including a chisel, because I reasoned that those lumps of limestone might need one before they are bricks. I therefore struggled over the swamp with one tarromin, one water-filled vial, three planks, 5 limestone AND 5 limestone bricks (in retrospect, I think you only needed the bricks, as I've carried the limestone back with me), a hammer, a chisel, a druid pouch, two loar remains that were in my bank anyway, 15 swamp paste, a tinderbox, some ashes, logs... Very soon into the quest, it became obvious that I needed more space, but you're miles from a bank in Mort'ton. This problem became acute when it came time to kill the loar. Those remains that I'd brought with me weren't acceptable, so I dropped them. I soon had to drop the chisel, the druid pouch and one of my logs, eventually though, I could start building the temple. I was in World 131, as I thought that was the temple building world. I was alone and I was soon out of supplies without having once got the temple up above 3%. I was also nearly out of serum and money, through keep using it on the merchant and I desperately needed more logs and/or an axe. In fact, I'd recommend everyone attempting this quest to take an axe with them. Finally, someone wandered by and pointed me in the direction of World 77. World 77 would have made it so much easier to have completed the quest! It was thronged with people inside a fully built temple. I got my sanctity up to 10% again (having been gifted logs by someone there to make more serum), after having had 100% in the last world (you lose it as you log out). I was on 5% sanctity, when the update countdown started. Nooooo! I worked fast and finally managed to get that blasted oil onto the flames, thus creating sacred oil, with 30 seconds to spare. It wasn't plain sailing once I was back on either. I begged for logs and was given some, but messed up the pyre, by not putting the remains onto the wood before I tried lighting it. This lost me both logs and sacred oil. I hadn't enough money to buy more swamp paste, so got some olive oil, then killed loars until my sanctity was up. I swopped a timber beam for some logs and tried again. Woot! Finally completed! I've also killed loars until my sanctity was up enough to use the permanent serum on the shopkeeper and the monk-type bloke, which should make temple work a lot easier. Post-quest, I rushed off to meet WilliamXtreme in Lumby. He had an amazing birthday present for me! I stood there kissing him in Lumbridge town centre, with my Dad standing next to me wanting to check his bowling results. LOL Thank you again, William.