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I wanted to do 'Shadow of the Storm' so that I could carry on with the 'Recipe for Disaster' quest. It took me a while to prepare, mainly because I was wandering around the wrong mining areas after silver. I finally remembered that there were silver mines in Al-Kharid, so took myself there. Within seconds, a green dot appeared on my screen - it was Guildwars tracking me there, shortly followed by a second green dot, which was Pepsimax randomly turning up there. We were doing a lot of that throughout the day. There were a whole gang of us all on World 77, either by accident or design, so you'd often be passing through an area and bumping into someone on the chat channel as they passed through too. It was fun! Back to the quest and I was finally ready, albeit with a run back to the bank to grab a shield and some waterskins, as I'd forgotten. This is another quest where space in your inventory is at a premium. I had three changes of clothes for the final part - desert robes to hang around outside, black robes to get into the 'evil' gang and dragonhide for when the demon turned up. On top of that, I had to leave room for a book and four demonic sigils, before I could even think about waterskins, food and potions. As it was, I didn't take enough waterskins (ironic, given the amount I have in my bank) and, at one point, was so close to dying of thirst that Guildwars got as far as the Shanty Pass with water to rescue me! Fortunately, I finished talking to the golem and was able to stay indoors thereon. This was lucky indeed, as I eventually took more damage from the thirst than I did from the demon! There is a lot of back story to this quest, which made it seem longer than it actually was in the guide. However, that information was all needful, so thank you guide writers.

I'm writing whilst on a massive high, because I've completed Haunted Mine! This was through a lot of help from my friends and I strongly doubt that I would have survived it alone. The background here is that I've attempted it twice before. The first time I teled with barely any life left and the second time I died. Whiskas88 is going to be reading this with a mixture of cheering for my success and exasperation, as he's been trying to get me to repeat it for weeks, but under his protection. Only this dinnerhour, he managed to squeeze out of me a promise that I'd do it today or after my holiday in Scotland (next week), but I was thinking that I'd stay over after work and use my office's fast computer. Not this one here, which lags terribly. In the meantime, though three things happened to render today not feasible. Firstly, my eldest nephew received his GCSE results, which were great enough to get him into college. Woot! Secondly, college-going people tend to get money from their delighted relatives, which translated here as buying himself Runescape membership. Thirdly, my youngest nephew, already feeling the bite of f2p, with a bank full of membership things, negotiated a deal whereby he cleaned my car and I bought him membership for a month. I couldn't really stay over at work, with celebrations and two nephews wanting my credit card in front of a computer (with me attached to it). The upshot was that by the time I got onto my computer, my youngest nephew was back home logging onto his to enjoy his membership. He joined my chat channel and, while I was mining iron to make his brother some starter armour, he was getting to know several Slammers. I met up with him and led him to Varrock, where first Whiskas88 and then Guildwars took him away to do Gertrude's Cat, while I smithed the armour. Many adventures ensued, including me getting kidnapped by the freaky forester and being so busy chatting that I quickly clicked through the blarb. It was only when I came to do the random that I realized I'd clicked through, unread, the bit where he told me what pheasant to kill! I had no teleport on me and only an iron longsword to fend off whatever lived wherever he'd send me, if I got it wrong. Ooops. I went for the two-tailed one and... yes... it was the wrong one. Fortunately, I only ended up in Lumby Castle Basement. Whiskas had to leave, so Guildwars tend Jdeh (my nephew) through the rest of the quest. We were briefly joined by Cougarsrule9, in a lovely new outfit. Jdeh was off to bed and there's just me and Guildwars loitering around outside Gertrude's house. 'So...' Guildwars said, 'Haunted Mine next?' I did the 'panic' emote several times on the pavement, but Guildwars didn't seem moved by this. I did it a few more times for luck, but he was still looking at me with a 'well, are you going to do it?' look. I was saved by the bell, logging off to take a phone call, but that pause got me thinking. I was still thinking when I logged back on and Teacuptime offered me sharks to do the quest with, plus his company alongside Guildwars's. With two of them ready, prepared and offering sharks, what can a girl do? To start with, she can get her backside to Canifis quickly and get a new druid pouch, because she died carrying it last time! Teacuptime had given me some lower level food to run across the swamp with and fill the pouch. I was about it when Guildwars appeared en route to meet me at the mine's entrance. I quickly ran back to the bank and prepared myself. I was dressed in rune legs and platebody, with my helm of Neitiznot, rune kiteshield and dragon longsword. I wore a glory and a ring of life. I carried with me four prayer potions, a druid pouch, a strange fruit, a chisel, a super set, combat potion and lots of sharks. As I reached Guildwars, it occurred to me that I had no spaces left for pickpocketing the zealot for the key or for picking up the fungus. I handed Guildwars my chisel and strange fruit. Teacuptime met us, resplendent in his quest cape, and the three of us snaked our way into the mine shaft. They were both, stupidly, following me, which meant that we immediately got lost. Opening the guide froze my computer twice, so Teacuptime took the lead. We'd have been there all night else and they'd have eventually rumbled my strategy - get lost in the mine, never have to fight the ghost. ;) (Joke) From thereon, it was Teacuptime and Guildwars taking turns to lead the way, from fungi to control board to train to the final battle. I hadn't been too nervous until we approached that door. Then it all came back to me why this was a dangerous place. I asked if it was too late to chicken out, but apparently it was. I wasn't reassured by the fact that Guildwars's hell cat waited outside. Cats are psychic, you know. They know when it's best not to go inside places. I entertained the idea of waiting with the cat, to protect it, but it was looking at me in a certain way. I sussed that it was out there as Guildwars's ally, ensuring that I went inside to where both gentlemen were waiting for me. It was now or never. I had a last check that I'd switched off my auto-retaliate, as had been advised on here and, I'm sure, was ultimately a huge factor in me surviving. I didn't get so yanked into the path of things nor was I trapped on tracks as often as before. That was a truly great tip. I took a sip of each in the superset, plus the combat potion, and traded the remaining vials with Teacuptime, who handed me more sharks in return. It was time. The fight itself had me shaking like a leaf, the adrenaline rushing as several hits seemed to half wipe out my hp, but strangely enough, it was almost enjoyable. I found myself able to mentally slow down enough to plan my moves and routes, monitoring my prayer and hp points with, seemingly, all the time in the world. Teacuptime and Guildwars were standing in the middle, encouraging me, which really helped, particularly at the mid-point, when it felt like I wasn't getting enough big hits on the ghost. The biggest help though came in the form of sharks, monkfish and prayer potions, scattered across the room in all the places that the ghost could be found and also liberally scattered across the middle section. As I ran, I picked them up, ate them and finally... WOOT! He was dead and everything stopped moving! Guildwars and Teacuptime were dancing and cheering in the middle of the room, while I just hyperactively shook like a leaf. Now all the pent up panic came out and I couldn't think what to do next! Teacuptime answered, 'We take a moment to chill.' We collected all the food and pots lying on the floor, then I took the key from the crate and my chisel from Guildwars, before being led through the mine shafts to the area with the shards. I had to laugh as we left the room. Teacuptime piped up, 'We're going to need a lot more fish to get Skilla through that one.' LMFAO! I collected several shards, dropping them on the floor in order to get another, then picking them all up afterwards. We teleported to Lumby and wooted in front of the castle for a bit, before trading all the things that we had of each other's. I was so grateful to them both! And to everyone else who offered supplies or themselves accompanying me, particularly Whiskas88, who's been trying so hard to get me to do it. The only sour note in this coda was an individual in my chat channel, who was ignoring us all telling him, on several occasions, that we were questing. As I was finishing, he suddenly tantrummed out, 'oh my gosh!!! I HATE YOU MERCH!!!' That's fair enough, I don't need to be loved, though that's a nice added bonus where it happens. But neither do I have to accommodate people acting like that in my chat channel. I responded that that's fine and I'm kicking you, then did it. It was hardly the warning that I advocated in a previous post, which probably makes me a hypocrite, but a human one. He knew damn well that it was me doing it. Within a minute or so, he reappeared in there under another name, telling us that it was him and stating that he was sorry, but also making a comment that made it clear that he hadn't understood why he was being kicked. I was still filled with adrenaline, glee, relief, excitement and all the rest, in the immediate aftermath of finishing the quest, but I looked and that heavy, black sense of duty threatened to penetrate my mood, as I realized I should explain why he was kicked. Before I could do so though, one of my generals piped up, 'And I'm kicking you for avoiding a ban.' He was gone and, at that moment in time, I have to say I was thankful for it.

After the 'Haunted Mine', I had the bug for questing again and figured that I could get a couple more in today before I went away. I settled on 'Temple of Ikov' first, because a read through of the guide made me think that it would be quick enough to complete in a dinnerhour. Of course, I hadn't factored in how long it would take me to get myself down to under 3kg in weight. 'Diet isn't a big enough word'... Carefully reading through the guide again, it finally dawned on me that I didn't have to do any major fighting whilst under 3kg in weight. I could do the bridge part first, then come back to the bank, grab ranging stuff and return to the fray. I reached that point and was paralyzed once more with indecision in the bank. I was being asked to take 20 limpwurt root, plus carry enough food/prayer pots to see me through a prolonged period of being attacked by lvl 61 spiders and then go onto a fight with the boss monster. I was still mithering over it, when my dinnerhour came to an end and I had to go back to doing what I'm paid for instead. *sigh* Armed with the knowledge (from a post to Sal's forum) that these limpwurt roots couldn't be noted, I returned to the quest from home with most of my bag taken up with them. I wore my blue dragonhide, with magic bow, packed a glory (for quick teleportation), a load of steel arrows (the highest I can smith), a single prayer pot and 3 or 4 sharks. I needn't have worried. I used protect from melee until my prayer ran out and, not wanting to waste the p pot before the final fight, I experimented with just running past spiders and hoping for the best. It was a good strategy as I should have employed sooner. Most spiders ended up trapped outside the inlets, because they'd attacked too soon, while those that did hit never scored even a one or two. I would have pronounced them incapable of hurting me, had it not been for that last spider, on the way out, who hit me for five as I blew it a raspberry. I was a little dubious of the guide's assertion that only 20 ice arrows were needed for the big monster, particularly since the first couple of shots made no dent in him at all. However, the rest did and he died very quickly. Not a strong monster at all! The lesser demons guiding the shiny key were a bit of a surprise, but I'd drunk the contents of a vial of prayer potion before attacking the weak boss monster, so I had enough protect from melee to jog past them. I had intended to speak to the Guardians, because Lucian looked a bit evil if in my humble opinion. The cackling didn't help his cause. However, I forgot to take his pendant off being canting with the nearest guardian, so it all ended with my bow out again and a pile of bones on the floor in front of me. Contributory negligence, if you ask me. Thereon, the quest was soon over, with me nipping into Seers' Bank for Varrock teleports and handing over the staff to Lucian there. I reached level 61 fletching with the xp from that.

I did have a long blog written out about slayer, but then my mother asked if she could borrow the computer for a few mins. I went to make us a cup of tea and, when I returned, discovered that she'd closed all of the windows. She's used to the old version, where you had a window per website, not tabs, as we have now. It would have told you all about killing 30 Ankou, then happiness as I got harpie bug swarms (and ooops, as I chose the wrong sandwich from the sandwich lady), followed by another 91 bloodvelds, which were despatched a lot more smoothly than last time! I logged on today with a whole Sunday stretched out in front of me and contemplated going to kill the werewolves of my latest slayer assignment. However, Sundays feel like they ought to be quest day and I do have several crying out to be done. I'd finally decided upon 'Cold War', when Pepsimax logged on. After a bit of canting, I remembered that I'd squirreled away an addy med helm, from those dropped by the harpie bugs, for him. He was in Lumby, so I teleported over there, as he swopped worlds. (NB Pepsimax is male! Sorry cariad! I've been referring to him as female throughout these blog entries.) As I was in Lumbridge now, I switched my plans to starting 'Recipe for Disaster' instead. I knew that I couldn't do all of them, as I haven't completed 'Shadow of the Storm' or 'Legends', which are needful for later installments, but I could certainly get myself up to there. I invited Pepsimax to do the first one with me, which he agreed. We teleported over to the Barbarian Outpost and then strangeness occurred. I mentioned, in our chat channel, that Pepsi hadn't turned up. Suddenly the willow tree beside me responded that he was right there. What? On closer inspection, walking around the tree, I spotted a miniscule Pepsimax hiding in the daisies. Once we'd ascertained that he could see himself as normal sized, we moved on. I waited, because I could still see him tiny by the door back there, with his voice coming from there as well, but he was adamant that he was beside me. It was spooky. I set off up the hill feeling like Orpheus wanting to turn around, but Pepsi maintained that he was following me. Finally, near to Olaf's place, he was suddenly there. Very strange. We were just buying the stuff needful for our quest, when Skilla 4lyfe IMed me. When he'd first said that he was going to attempt Shilo Village (as a level 3), I'd offered to come and help with the bodyguarding. Now the call came and this was the moment. Pepsimax and I hurried through our shopping at the Grand Tree, then raced to Yanille to collect the final supplies there, before teleporting back to Lumbridge. Everyone was now waiting on me to arrive back there, so it was a little too rushed. I apologized to Pepsi for abandoning our quest and hopped into Skilla's world. It was a lot of fun. A long train of us, including myself, Skilla and Whiskas88, plus others whom I'd never met before. Haleth seems a really lovely person; he was one of them. We set off to Karamja, stopping in the pub in Edgeville for some Dutch courage, before charging on across the jungle. Do you know just how many things in the jungle there are to kill a lvl 3 person, with only 11hp? Spiders everywhere for a start! We careered across with us all racing around killing anything that might attack him, until someone pointed out that a chat channel would be great for such things. I was already in one, but, as Pepsi was the only person in there with me, I asked him if he'd like to join the Shilo Village quest channel. I then informed the posse that I was with that I was coming but bringing someone with me. We'd reached around the halfway point in the quest, when one of Skilla's friends asked who Pepsimax was. I called out that he's a friend from Sal's, who came with me when I joined the chat. Ok. We crossed the jungle again, when someone else asked. The person whose chat it was replied that he didn't know. I was busy pwning a spider, so by the time I'd typed up the same information AGAIN, the chat owner had just booted him. Wtf?! Which was precisely Pepsi's reaction in private IM with me, also worried that he'd done something wrong. I was then trying to IM reassurance back via the slow method of private IM, whilst also trying to watch out for things attacking Skilla AND watching the instructions on this stage of the quest in the chat channel. Of course, feeling very annoyed about it at the same time. There was a coda. A little later on, Pepsimax (who was in my world, as we'd been questing together earlier) IMed to say that he was trapped by the lvl 83 lion looking thing. I knew precisely where it was and it wasn't too far away. We were at a stage where Skilla was talking to the Shaman, but I didn't have the quest guide open. I didn't know if the next bit was dangerous enough that I needed to be there absolutely, or if it was one where the others could keep him safe until I rejoined. I asked about 5 times, but couldn't get a response. I didn't expect from from Skilla, as he was in a cut scene elsewhere, but the same player who'd booted Pepsi in the first place was right next to me. He wasn't endearing himself to me, I can tell you. I came extremely close to just telling them to cer i crafi, and even took a few steps off into the direction of Pepsi, but then it occured to me that I'd promised Skilla I'd protect him and none of this was his fault. Just on it, I noticed Kuemper was on-line. I decided that if she wasn't available for a little rescuing, then I'd go; but if she was, I'd stay at Skilla's side. She was and Pepsimax was duly extracted from the lion's paws by her; whilst I found Skilla and followed him instead. In short, I gave up taking orders from the other player and went for keeping my promise by closing marking the man himself. I had to leave them a little later anyway, as I was having my Sunday dinner cooked for me and it was ready. Yay! I returned to finish the 'Recipe for Disaster' installment and move on to the next one. Via IM, I'd learned that the quest had been abandoned for the moment, as so many people were off having lunch. I was partway through the next bit when the call came again. The Shilo Village posse were re-assembling, could I come? Yes, I could. A full meal and a glass of wine had reawakened my enthusiasm for the quest and we were good to go! Except we weren't. One person hadn't arrived yet, so we were dancing around the basement of Lumby Castle trying not to log out before he did. This went on and on and on. Yes, it was the same player from earlier, the one who'd irritated me so much. In fact, nearly an hour went by and he still hadn't arrived. By now, with Skilla insisting that we really couldn't do it without him, we'd all gone our separate ways again. I finished the second and third parts and was halfway through the fourth part, when I found Skilla and Haleth still in the basement. We had a quick game of grab the cabbage, which was hilarious. It involved three of us standing around a table, first one to grab the respawning cabbage wins. I lost miserably. LOL I then announced my intention to go swimming, which is part of the fourth part, said my goodbyes and left. I'd got as far as Draynor when suddenly I had a fishbowl helmeted Skilla on my tail. He was coming swimming too! I'm glad he was, because I'd have been hopelessly lost without him showing me where to go and who to talk to! Haleth met up in Port Khazard, then Whiskas88 met us actually in the ocean. I really enjoyed swimming down there, practicing the glitch that a couple of them knew about (and so do Jagex), whereby you end up walking on the ocean bed, but mostly, I enjoyed the swimming. All three gentlemen helped me do this bit of the quest, showing me the person to talk to, the entrance to the mudskippers and where the kelp was (I was standing on it when I asked...). Finally I was killing crabs with Whiskas, when he and Skilla started talking about crab helmets and claws. Skilla swam off and ran to Yanille to get us a chisel, while we carried on killing crabs. I finally emerged with my crab helmet and claw, looking great, as did Whiskas. Skilla led us, as a pirate, with us his 'salty minions' through to Ardoughe and then to the zoo. Next thing you know, Skilla's turned into a penguin, Whiskas has turned into a monkey, then bounding along the pathways comes a huge gorilla purporting to be a returning Haleth. I'm standing there in my crab outfit, dancing along with this menagerie. It was very funny. We eventually made it to Catherby, where I bought the cod for the final part of this installment of the quest. Then back to Lumby, where Pirate Pete was saved. By the time I left the room, I'd lost my three monkeys, so moved on to do the 5th part of the quest. I'd made it all over to the Wizard's Tower and was trying to ID NPCs, when I got one wrong. The cut scene covering my chat faded to reveal a couple of the Shilo Village posse screaming for me to come over. The absent bodyguard had finally turned up. I zapped myself back there and tooled up, then we were good to go again. This was the hardest part, with the big fight at the end, and there was apparently some deep planning gone into it. I witnessed it and I'm still not sure what it was, other than we all had to stand in specific places and drop food whenever the player killing the monsters was needing it. Skilla was safely on the other side of the stone. One monster... two monsters... down! One to go! And... I'm not sure what to blog, because I honestly don't know why the quest was suddenly abandoned. The player fighting him had to go, which was fine, because there were a handful of us left who could have pwned it easily. Instead, everyone teled out except for me, Whiskas and Skilla. I'd typed up a 'what's happening?', but Skilla was already going. Whiskas abandoned his home tele to check as I was ok, but I was. I home teled back too with him and asked there. But everyone had logged off or gone away and Skilla waited long enough just to express his disappointment, then logged off. Whiskas was as nonplussed as me. I went on to finish the fifth installment of 'Recipe for Disaster' then, but Evil Dave will have to wait until I've done 'Shadows of the Storm'.

I did 'The Feud' quest by accident. After using the ring of duelling to leave the desert after 'The Golem', I was running back to Al-Kharid, when I saw the quest symbol next to Ali. I had half an hour before going to the cinema ('Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does; does he swing from a web? No because he's a pig'), so I decided to start the quest, then come back another time. I wandered down to the Shanty Pass and, once inside, spoke to Irena, thus started 'The Tourist Trap' too. They both seemed pretty easy and straight-forward, but I decided to stay with 'The Feud' for the time being. I pushed on through until the part where I needed to meet the hag, then paused to grab a veggie bacon sandwich. Returning, I walked off west into the desert, until I reached a hilltop circle surrounded by cacti and determined that the hag would be all over here. I retraced my steps back to the town, circumnavigated the high sand-dudes and set out west again from their northern face. The hag was right there! You could see her house from the town. (Pause to go to the cinema and laugh a lot at the film) Once back, it occurred to me that I was actually going to finish this quest, so I should have been more prepared. I finally read what was coming up and noted that I was going to need a weapon. I briefly wondered if I could punch a lvl 75 and lvl 70 to death, using my protect from melee, but thought that it would possibly be too close. I didn't want to write a blog saying that I'd been killed by a level 70, because I'd been too lazy to fetch a sword. I nipped to Nardah and back, tooled up, and very quickly finished the quest thereon. This quest gave me a weird taste in my mouth. When I first started playing Runescape (Yule time 2006), I quickly became addicted. I searched google for information on the game and read all sorts of articles and things. This is how I found Sal's site. Another thing that I found was something in the petition site, which accused Jagex of racism and cited the desert as its evidence. At that time, I'd only ever been in Al-Kharid (I was F2P) and could't see it myself. Yes, the guards said things like, 'let me help you with this infidel', but that was hardly racism. It was NPC loyalty to each other fighting invaders who had, after all, walked into their palace and attacked them. The community of Al-Kharid had many different sorts of people, from the highly intelligent spy to the sharp salesman. I had the petition makers pegged as over-sensitive, wishing to find racism wherever there were people not pasty white. I hadn't given it another thought in the intervening months, except when I did the H.A.M. quests and noted that this was evidence against that charge. The racist H.A.M. members are hardly portrayed as sympathetic and you actively fight against their views in the Dogeshaan quests. Then I did 'The Feud'. Here, I've finally found what the petition-makers must have had in mind. One of the more dangerous tenets of racism is to view anyone of a different race to yourself being 'all the same'. Once you have them cloned, then you can dismiss them as other, or sub-human, then it's easier to deny their humanity, along with their human rights or even their right to exist. This quest played heavily on the fact that everyone is called Ali and that everyone has an uncle called Ali. In fact, ALL of their uncles are called Ali. Even women are called Ali. Wft?! None of the Alis come out of it looking like decent human beings either; they are all in a huge conspiracy to part you from your money and to commit crimes. I don't know. It just made me very uncomfortable. On the other hand, the thieving xp at the end of this raised me two levels. Woot! Level 52 thieving now.

'The Golem' was a cute, little quest to do in a dinnerhour at work. It's probably the only quest in the entire of Runescape where you unlock a portal, leading to a ferocious elder demon, to find out that it's already dead without your help. Bless it. I started off a little lost. Looking at the map in the guide, I assumed that the transport icon referred to the northern-most fairy ring. Out I stepped and headed south, then more south, hitting cachti as my waterskins emptied, until I reached the town-whose-name-I-forget-but-I-once-saved and knew that I'd missed it. I turned around and headed north again, noting wryly that the massive desert lizards no longer attack me, even when I blow raspberries at them. I found the ruins soon enough then, but never did ascertain what the transport icon near it refers to. There was a little bit of running around, all of which could have been wiped out if I'd had my mind on it, instead of paying attention to a colleague trying to get information on her project budget for next year. I explained the situation to her and stupidly teleported to Varrock at the same time. I'd meant to use the ring of duelling to get to Al-Kharid, then use the glider to end up at the digsite. Instead I had to run. RUN! Me?! In finding the phoenix, to the north of the desert, I also discovered bits of the terrain as I'd never explored before. Where did that door in the cliff lead to? I marked it for returning another day. All in all though, a pleasant, short quest. If you are combat 84 and under, watch out for the massive desert lizards, otherwise there's nothing to harm you, as long as you remember your water.

I can't believe that I didn't do 'Animal Magnetism' sooner. It was either extremely easy, with all running around on various teleport routes, or else it seemed it in relation to some of the quests that I've done recently. There's not much really to report, as I followed the guide and nothing quirky or life-threatening occurred. I remembered all my items for the quest and it was a simple bang-bang-bang, it's done. I got no new levels at the end of it, but I did get a lovely new backpack, which I understand collects arrows for me. Ava gave an upgraded one immediately, as my range level apparently warranted it. Thank you once again those of you who take the time to write the guides. As I know that I've used blogs before now, searching for the quests, to get those personal bits of information that have no place in the guides, then I will run through my preparations for the benefit of future questers finding mine. I started in Draynor Bank and fortunately had the iron ore, two mithril axes, ghostspeak amulet, the hammer, a ball of wool, a silver bar and an unholy symbol mould in there. I picked up a glory, an ectophial, a ring of duelling and a games necklace. I started the quest then, by wandering up to Draynor Manor and having a cant with Ava. Next port of call was Al-Kharid, using the ring of duelling. There I smelted the iron into five bars (used 8 ore, because I hadn't put a ring of forging on), crafted a holy symbol (in its unblessed form, it's called a Saradomin (sp?) symbol) and strung it. I gloried myself to Edgeville, then visited Brother Jered in the monastry from there. He blessed the symbol, so it's now holy. I used the Ectophial to take myself to the temple, then to Alice to continue the quest. I had to run to the Old Crone and back, but then it was a glory back to Draynor and Ava. Later on, a games necklace got me to Tureal and the glory took me back to Draynor. Instead of rushing straight to the undead tree, I grabbed a basket of strawberries (heals 6hp and you can have 5 of them in a single space, if they're in a basket - ideal for those thieving trips!) and went to mug HAM members instead. I got the buttons on the first bit of pickpocketing, but then filled an inventory trying to acquire hard leather. I'm not even convinced that they drop it, but they do drop cow hide. Because I'm nice, I ran to the general store and deposited all the steel daggers and HAM clothing that I'd robbed. I spent most of my early Runescape weeks buying such things from this store and checking every 30 seconds, just to see if someone had added that coveted iron axe etc. Being so close, I ran to Al-Kharid (though I could have used my glory) to get the cow hide tanned into hard leather. A glory back to Draynor and job's a good 'un, I could finish the quest without leaving the manor again.

What can be said to describe this quest more precisely than this: I now want to sit somewhere quiet and have a nice Laphroaig. I haven't been that close to dying in a quest since the Fremmenik Isles days (well, apart from the crane incident obviously). At the end, I stood outside a door, from which I had just fled with 30hp left. I had no food and a bag full of things that I'd rather not lose. I had teleports and I was quite safe where I was standing, but to leave and come back could take hours. I was speaking to Audina, in IM, and she was offering to bring food and teleports to me, but I thought of what she'd have to come through and realized I'd be waiting for a good hour. It was now or never... For the first two or three hours, I was really enjoying Underground Pass. Instead of running around all over Runescape, you are moving forward, marking your progression in which new caves and passageways are open to you; the whole quest littered with little senses of achievement. I was very lucky with my grid pathway, because after the first square being the last one I tried, I found each of the next four straight away. All was going really well, in fact, until I realized that I'd left my spade behind. I had to teleport out and retrace my steps, which took some time. My first real hurdle came not long on, when I fell through a swamp and was teleported to somewhere as I didn't know. I explored the environment for a while, until I found a place to climb out, only to find myself right at the beginning of the quest again. For those who haven't done this, the terrain is basically a huge network of caves and canyons, which you have to use your agility and thieving skills to get through. If you get it wrong (and so much of it is luck, that you will), you can get hit for quite a bit. I was regularly being smacked for 18. Nontheless, despite having had to make my way through it three times, my biggest concern for most of the early part was room in my bag. I'd read the bit in the guide about needing a lot of food, so had really over-catered. I could have done with it all later, but early on, I needed the room. Finally though, I made it to the final temple setting. There are things to fight and kill (3 level 91 demons and a level 89 spider), but they are the least of your worries. It's the bridges that you have to cross. There's food as long as your money doesn't run out - a loaf of bread, some stew and a meat pie; but every fall hits you hard - 16s and 18s. Then there are the distances. I'm level 50 agility, but in my armour each run was using up my run energy about halfway through. Each destination averaged three places to fall and you fall regularly. Then, because of the hassle of getting there, you don't really want to abandon it halfway through to do another day, on account of having to traverse all of that to reach here again. By the home stretch, I was seriously considering logging out of Runescape for good. It wasn't fun, it wasn't entertaining and it wasn't washing away the tensions of the day, which is what I normally associate with the game. I told myself to give it one more go, then fell again. Just on it, another player appeared at the same stage in the quest. I hadn't seen anyone else, except one other person, who didn't speak. This player buoyed me along and even taxi-ed me on another run. He went first over the bridges and made it, then waited for me. I leapt, and fell. But his encouragement beforehand had been just enough to see me through the next three attempts and then, finally, I was over them all. The true home stretch. I just had to put a blasted doll in a well and I could go home. I helped myself to some Zammy robes, by killing the people wearing them, then removed everything I was wearing except for one set of robes. I opened the door and ran the second the strikes stopped. It was no good! They returned before I could put the doll in and really hit hard. I panicked and ran for the door, but it took a while to open. It opened and I was outside. 30hp left and no wish to go through that again. I surveyed the contents of my bag. Dragon longsword, helm of Neitiznot, glory, rune legs, platebody and kite. There were other things too, but those would be the expensive ones. The big decision was to teleport out and return, though all of those obstacles, which hurt and took so long, but with more food and having banked some stuff; or stay and risk losing it. Audina was in IM, offering to come, but it would take her just as long. I made my decision and IMed her, 'I'm going in. Wish me luck'. 'Good luck.' I tried protect from mage and ran, this time using 'use doll -> well' as my way of running across the ground. It was hitting through my protection and I thought I was gone, as Iban started his ranting and raving. Then I was gone. Back to a cave floor, with a brand new Iban staff and some runes. I was safe! And I'd done it! No more bridges! No losses at all! I was down to 18hp, but the quest was over. 'kin Hell! That was a hard one!

There is an element of the Tai Bwo Wannai quest where you need a spear, steel or better, to give one of the brothers as a present. How hard could this be, do you think? When I read the guide, I skated over it, thinking that when the time came, I could nip into the village and buy one from somewhere. If that failed, then I'd just kill tribesmen until one of them dropped one. All good, until I reached that point. No-one sells spears in Tai Bwo Wannai Village. For an hour, I killed the same tribesman over and over again, until my bed called and I wrote last night's blog. Kuemper offered a spear as a result of that, but when I logged on this dinnertime, she wasn't there. I was still standing in position to kill the tribesman, so hoped that sod's law would kick in and attacked the poor cariad. It didn't. 20 minutes later, I was still attacking him over and over again and made the decision that he was never going to drop anything higher than an iron spear (not including the bag full of mithril javelins etc). Remembering that Kuemper had got her's from hobgoblins in the first place, I gloried myself to Draynor and then ran over to the peninsula west of Rimmington. Half an hour of dead hobgoblins later, I have a bag full of bronze spears, steel swords and daggers, limpwurt root and runes, but not a steel spear in sight. That's when it occurred to me to actually check my in-game smithing guide. Whoa! I can make steel spears! They are only level 35! All I need is a willow log and single steel bar. Cachi! I had stupidly left without a charged glory, but fortunately had a ring of duelling on. I took myself to Castle Wars, discovered a lack of steel bars, but enough coal and iron to superheat, grabbed my axe and teleported myself to my house in Yanille. I could have sworn there were willow trees near Yanille. There aren't. I was all up by Ardoughe before I found one. Of course, I'd come without teleport runes, so I had to run back to Yanille to use the anvil and... nothing. I can't even see the spear option in the menu. Wtf?! I logged out and into the Runescape manual proper. Spear smithing is in the Barbarian Training, that I haven't explored yet. Back into the game, back into the bank and off to the Barbarian Outpost. I had a lovely conversation with Otto, in which he filled up my bag with a fishing rod, but no mention of spears. I tried fishing, thinking that that would unlock the information, but I had no bait. After 10 fruitless minutes trying to make Otto let me learn about spears, I flicked again and re-read the manual, in case the information was there. It was. Otto will only talk about spears after completion of a quest. Which quest? Tai Bwo Wannai. Arrrrrrggggghhhhhh! I was just about to log off when, halleujah! There is a Goddess! Kuemper logged on. I quickly IMed an hello and, 'yes, please, I would like to take you up on the offer of that spear...' Next thing you know, I'm in Zanaris, via Edgeville, and there is the beautiful woman herself handing me a steel spear! Woot! It took a grand total of two hours to procure a spear. Note to anyone reading who is planning to do this quest - get your spear sorted out first!

Grasping Kuemper's spear to my bosom, I stepped into the fairy ring and arrived back in the jungle a few short steps away from the gentleman who needed it. But first, I needed to cook a karambwan and grind it to a paste with my pestle and mortar, alongside a raw karambwan. I'd been lumping some logs all over the quest just for this moment, yet a sudden suspicion gripped me. I'd only bought two karambwan with me and one was bound to burn, judging by the way this quest was going. It didn't! It cooked perfectly first time. I clicked on the raw fish and onto my pestle and mortar, grinding it into a paste - all good; I clicked on the cooked karambwan... and ate it. I ate something called 'poison karambwan' and right on cue flashed green. Yep, I even amaze myself with my own stupidity sometimes as well. Fortunately, I also know myself very well and so never step foot into the jungle these days without an anti-poison potion in my bag. It was a super anti as well, so cured me in an instant. I turned around and walked back to the fairy ring without further ado and cooked a second karambwan in Zanaris, where I was close enough to a bank to forestall any further disasters. In fact, I got myself to the point where I could just step out of the fairy ring again and use the damn spear on the lad and be done. Yay! After a short cut-scene, he agreed to go home. He even skinned my monkey for me. I left him, making the seaweed sandwich en route, and ran east, over the log, into the nearest zogre and killed it. Picking up the bones, I ran north and spoke to the third brother. A couple of steps away from him was another fairy ring, which I used to get back to near Tinsey. After twice falling off the bridge trying to get to him (sustaining 30hp of damage and wishing I'd brought some food for the third attempt), I finally got within a stone wall of him. We had a little dance, because I'd clicked to talk to him and he was behind that wall. Everytime he moved, I did, but we weren't canting. I moved and finally could give him the seaweed sandwich, have the chat about zogre bones and, using my duelling ring, zap myself to Al Kharid. There I cooked and marinated the zogre bones, fed myself some fish, then took more for the journey back. A glory to Karamja to speak to the fisherman, then I ran down to the island and back to Tinsey. I managed the bridge there and back without any hassle at all this time. I took back with me the crafting instructions, used the fairy ring to get back to Traiderch (sp?) and that was it. Quest over, but for some conversations with father and sons back at the village. Woot! It's quite fitting, in a way, that I ended up having three blog entries over a quest called 'Tai Bwo Wannai TRIO'.

I'm not convinced that I've spelt the name of this quest correctly in the title, but it's the one I'm part way through. I read through the guide and looked in my bank, judged it to be a relatively short quest, so took off to do it. That was at 10 to 10. It's now half past midnight and I'm not even close to getting a single brother to go home. The fishing at the beginning distracted me first. I've never had the level to fish karambwan before and they hold a special place in my bank. When I was a little noob, my friend Audina gave me 50 odd of them to see me through Dragon Slayer. They actually saw me and a friend through it, with some left over. In the intervening months, I've carefully rationed the remaining fish. Even Horror of the Deep, a notoriously nasty fight littered with stories of people having died during it, only saw me with a couple of karambwan in my bag. The rest were swordfish. Even Fremmenik Isles and all the times I died there, I never had more than five. Now suddenly I have the level, the pot, the bait and the fishing spot to catch my own! :) I'd just caught some, when a player walked up behind me and asked if I could catch him some too. They are so much hassle to catch that I didn't really want to, but I also don't like turning people down like that. I said that I could spare him two, as I needed the others for a quest. He replied that two would be fine, as he also needed them for a quest, and he'd trade me two ranarr seeds. Hold on, stop, reverse! You'll do what?! Having so much karambwan and ranarr seeds in my bag, I thought that a bank stop might be wise, so gloried to Edgeville and back, wandering along the island collecting bananas, run, seaweed and monkey corpses. I was amazed at how much time had already passed. See what happens when you start fishing...? I realized that I'd left my pestle and mortar in the bank, so took a cart to Shilo Village to grab it from there, then ran to give Tinsey his alcohol. Banana Rum sounded gorgeous. I nearly drank it myself en route, which might explain why I fell off the bridge twice. The damage is high! I lost 28 hitpoints in those two falls, then poison spiders hit me for 8 (all told) as I ran back to his brother. I considered returning for food, but figured I'd just get Tamayne to skin my monkey for me first... ... just get Tamayne to skin my monkey for me first... you don't half end up writing surreal things in a Runescape blog, yet they make perfect sense in context. He refused anyway, until I'd helped him. I accompanied him on a hunt, in which he didn't win, then gave him some agility potion to shut him up. He still wanted a spear, so I nipped up to the village to see if I could buy one. I couldn't. The guide had already told me that, but I lived in hope. I had 30 odd hitpoints, 14 prayer points and an anti-poison, so I attacked the tribesman. I'd forgotten that I was carrying my crossbow and bolts, so the lack of life and piety didn't matter too much in the end. I killed him over and over and over again. I've got mithril javelins, iron spears, steel javelins, 100% favour, hundreds of trading sticks, limpwurt root and lovely, purple cloth. What I didn't get was any spear which was steel or higher. Ryan, in IM, confirmed that javelins and spears aren't the same thing at all. *sigh* I was there for an hour, when I asked a passing player for advice. He suggested doing the Legends quest, as some creature there (presumably in the guild) drops addy spears a lot. He then asked me to switch on 'accept aid' as he wanted to give me a present. Intrigued, I did so, hunting around for the accept aid button, which I haven't used since I was about lvl 5 running in terror past the Varrock mugger. He gave me power of vengeance. I'm abed now, but I'll be back tomorrow. Killing the same tribesman over and over and over again. In other news: I got level 64 cooking and level 58 fletching, which brought my total xp to 1300. I remember reading on the forum months ago about a PKing clan, which would only accept high level players, 1300 or other total skills. At the time I thought that well beyond my reach, even if I wanted to join a PKing clan. Now I'm here. Then, in the middle of all that tribesman repeated murdering, my hitpoints flashed to 69. Inexplicably, given that I only reached combat 84 in the week, that was enough to send me to combat level 85!

Having been side-tracked into doing the Enakhra's Lament quest, whilst procuring granite, I did finally turn my attention back to the King's Ransom. There was no preparation time, because it had all been done yesterday. Thank you, Mrcsupertrain, for the black armour. If you want to catch me in-game, I'll pop over to wherever you are fletching today and return it. The guide was, as always, extremely comprehensive, so thank you all who produced it. There is very little running around in quest, and those always on the teleport routes, so it did appear to be quite fast moving. I was surprised upon reaching the end of my dinnerhour only part way through it, as it didn't feel like so much time had passed. Because of work, I did the quest in three stages: first, I got as far as clearing Anna's name; secondly, I got as far as donning my armour to go and rescue Arthur; then thirdly, absurdly quickly, I teleported to Edgeville, ran up to the Black Knight's Fortress and rescued Arthur... again. I swear, if that boy doesn't learn to look after himself surrounded by knights, I'm taking over Camelot myself. Tsh. The xp at the end was very lovely, but I waited for fireworks above my head post-quest and nothing happened. Eh? I hovered over the boxes to discover that I'm such levels now that even 33k of defence isn't budging me up a bit. Ooops! In the accidental realms of slightly high-levelled players now. LOL Intrigued, I nipped onto the forum to look in the Sal's hiscores. I was shocked to discover that I'm number 350. How did that happen? My self-perspection is that I'm low-to-middling player, higher than the new players, but nowhere near the towering heights of most of the people here. I then checked myself against Slammers whom I'd assumed to be trail-blazing way ahead of me, only to realize that I'm actually comparable! Weird. I'm going to have to alter my world-view a bit now. *grin* After Holy Grail, I talked a little about the Arthurian legend, as it touched the Fisher King. This quest again was bouncing off the legends, but this time bringing in Morgan Le Faye. Though I did enjoy her portrayal, I do want to take the opportunity to point out that it isn't historically viable and, in fact, is more than a bit dodgy. Was there an historical Morgan before we even start here? There are hundreds of books, sources, legends etc all purporting to tell the 'real' story of Arthur. There are some really convincing arguments in them (and some proper giant leaps for historian kind, with flimsy evidence too). Some facts do persistantly emerge though. One is that Morgan is a title, not a name. It comes from the Welsh 'mor' meaning sea; and 'gan' a suffix meaning 'priestess'. Morgan, therefore, translates as 'priestess on or by the sea'. The 'Le Fey' bit, in all its variations, didn't appear until the legend had been to France and back, during mediaeval times. Those tellings basically took the earlier, very human, Morgan and turned her into a slightly more supernatural being, if not a goddess. The Fey, in French terms, were the fairies, but moreover were the Fates. Not quite the gossamer-winged, inch high fairies that turned up after Elizabethan times, but more divine than that. We now have a priestess by the sea (or on the sea), who is a demi-Goddess. She's not, as yet, evil. There once lived a nasty piece of work called Thomas Malory. He and his friends ran riot around England, literally. On one occasion, they broke into the manor home of an aristocratic family and, finding the lord of the manor away from home, Malory raped the Lady of the Manor. Taking a lot of valuables with them, they'd disappeared into the countryside before the alarm could be raised. The next night, they returned and Malory raped the Lady again before fleeing. This wasn't the reason that he was eventually arrested and banged into the Tower of London though. That came after they broke into a monastry and stole the gold chalices, crosses and platters, while also raiding the store cupboards. While in the Tower, Malory started writing. Initially, it was all largely misogonist rantings (he really, really hated women), but none of this was winning friends and influencing people. Then he started on his 'Le Morte d'Arthur' - his version of the Arthur legend. You will be familiar with this version, whether you know it or not, as it's since become the definitive one. Many things are notable about it, but we're mostly looking here at his treatment of women, because it's the portrayal of Morgan, due to the 'King's Ransom quest' and earlier ones, which is our jumping off point. Guinevere had originally been a warrior queen - think Boudicca and you've got her - but under Malory's pen, she became a pallid, insepid, weak adulteress, who brings about the whole downfall of Arthur and Camelot, because she can't keep her hands off Lancelot. Vivienne was originally a central figure and an influential priestess, but became reduced to an arm waving a sword out of the lake. Igerna (Igraine) had originally been a competent, strong queen in her own right, but was downgraded to the mere, again adulterous wife of Gorlais. They all fared slightly better than the rest of the women, who were more or less written out of the story. Then there's what Malory did to Morgan. She is the incestuous, seducing sister; the betraying daughter; the evil sorceress, whose whole reason for being, from childhood to adulthood, is working out how to destroy Arthur. Guinevere causes destruction because she's too fluffy, weak and childish to know any better; she's a naughty schoolgirl. But Morgan is intelligent enough to be evil personified. When you compare the Malory version (and later ones, which derive from his) with the earlier versions, you profoundly wish that there had been a really good psychiatrist in the Tower of London, to sit Malory down and look at his issues. I started this waffle asking 'was there a real, historical Morgan?' and the answer is that the earliest versions (written in the Celtic languages, especially Welsh, Breton and Scottish Gaelic) do mention an intriguingly suitable candidate. She is schooled in various skills compatible with being a priestess of the times. She is mentioned in separate tones to those talking about the queen (a warrior, as well as extremely capable of running the realm) and the other women around. She was almost certainly a druidess or something similiar; the wise woman or clergy of their tribe. Her name was Gwyar, later Anna (again an Anglicisation of priestess, the same source which afterwards settled on the 'gan' of 'Morgan'). Gwyar appears to have been the priestess living by the sea or on an island just off the coast of the British mainland. Whether this was up in Scotland or on Ynys Enylli (modern day Bardsey, off the coast of the Lleyn Peninsula in Wales) isn't certain. Merch Gwyar, incidentally, translates as 'daughter of Gwyar' or, in terms more recognisable to a modern group, 'daughter of Morgan Le Faye'. I've finished waffling now. Good quest.

I wasn't actually planning on doing any more quests tonight, then I met the one and only Mrcsupertrain and he gave me some black armour for the King's Ransom quest. Woot! Thank you, cariad. It was lovely timing as well, because I've been following the progress of his bid for level 99 fletching in his blog. He asked us all to name locations wherein he could fletch a level, so that he didn't get bored stupid being in the same place each time. I suggested the Warrior's Guild bank and, as I've been watching him getting closer and closer to the level where he'd be there, I'd already planned to support him by turning up with a bag full of yew logs. Ok, it's not exactly 1k worth, but I'm only a level 68 woodcutter, you know! LOL Unfortunately, I could never catch him on, even as I added his name, but I had the logs ready nontheless. I figured that if he posted the level below, hence signalling time for the Warrior's Guild, I'd IM folk who I could see on to see if any were on his friend list and could give me the head's up on what world to go and cheerlead in. No need. He read my blog, offered the black armour and met me in Edgeville Bank. It turned out that he'd popped over from the Warrior's Guild, where he had been indeed fletching through that level, and I was able to present him with his logs. :( I love it when a plan comes together! LOL So off I trot to the guide to see what I'd need. I ran off to the monastry to top up my prayer again, then into the dwarven mines to mine, superheat and smith the iron chainbody and bronze med helm. Whilst there I just randomly mined until my bag was full. Teleported to Cammy, grabbed everything else and... granite?! Where the proverbial do you get granite from? Log out, onto the website to hunt through the mining guide and there's granite, but there's also much talk of Enakhra's Lament quest. I had visions of trapsing all over to the desert, only to discover that I'd need to have done that quest in order to access the granite, though Mrcsupertrain thought it would be alright. I decided to take everything for that quest just in case. You need so much stuff! The majority of things, I had in my bank. I just had to get some oak and willow logs from around Seer's, then run to Catherby for the candle, before teleporting to Ardoughe to nick a cake (more successfully than I did the other night :() and finally I was good to go. I had a grand total of 5 spaces left in my bag and that only after I'd put some of the waterskins back. I only took 4, instead of my normal 6. (I have a bit of a waterskin fetish, I reckon. I have 34 of them in the bank, all full to the brim, and I still pick up more everytime someone abandons them on the floor. It's probably all those festivals I've been to, where a bottle of water is essential. I daren't enter the desert without plenty!) I used the fairy ring to get to the one by the Kalphite cave, then headed south. Then a bit east, then more south, until I was so thoroughly lost that I nearly took a screenie and ran here for help, 'If you recognize this place, can you IM me please? Or come and get me...' I wandered around for literally a waterskin and a half's worth of drinking, until I found a bandit camp. Two players were having a bandit genocide, but neither knew where the granite quarry was. It occurred to me to look more closely at the guide then and lo! The granite quarry is south of the bandit camp. Woot! It was more or less plain sailing thereon. I rarely looked at the guide at all, as the quest itself leads you through step by step. I did check and you can mine granite without having done the quest, but seeing as I was there with all the stuff, I went for it. I'd over-catered on the runes, as I thought I'd be properly fighting with them, but one fire blast, one air blast and one crumble undead sorted everything out. With protect from melee on, I never had to fight once in there. It was an absorbing, enjoyable quest, with decent rewards. The 7000xp in several different skills got me to level 53 crafting, level 61 mining and very close to another level in firemaking, plus only 10k away from my goal of 66 mage. Yeah! Plus I can talk to camels now. I'm assuming that the conversation will go like this, 'Why are you kicking me?' Camel: 'Because you're there.' Me: 'You know Skilla 4lyfe? Practically lives in the desert?' Camel: 'Yes, of course, we all know Skilla.' Me: 'Well, he's a mate of mine and if you don't stop kicking me, I'll get him to pwn you.' Either that or this: Me: 'Camel, why are you kicking me, you noob?' Camel: 'Don't call me a noob! Why would you say that?' Me: 'Because only a real noob would kick a lvl 84 holding a dragon longsword, when they are your level.' Camel: 'Point taken... byeeeeeee!' This camel necklace is going to be so much fun. :D

After Holy Grail, I was well up for more questing. I checked out King's Ransom, but haven't got the black armour, so I opted for Mountain Daughter instead. It was just up the road and I had all the tools in my bank. In contrast to Holy Grail, Mountain Daughter annoyed me so much that I considered abandoning the quest halfway through to finish another time. I did see it through though and have my 1k attack and 2k prayer, along with a bear head. The frustration was simply with the sheer amount of running back and forwards from the Mountain Camp to Rellekka, then round and round the lake. Having to go between two places running, fairly far apart, is almost worse than have to trek all over Runescape. Then trying to find the messenger! :D :( :( I think that just about sums it up. I searched all over the area, running occasionally to discover yet another unicorn or bear (and their children), without seeing him anywhere. I searched Rellekka, just in case, and spoke to the chieftain, who hadn't seen him, then wandered back out and around that area for ages. Eventually a player walked by and I was just about to ask him if he'd seen the bloke, when he walked right past me! I clicked on him and was trailed right up to the mining area, before he deigned to speak to me. I lost connection mid-conversation and, once it was up again, he'd wandered off again. I figured enough had been said to warrant seeing the Chieftain about a safe passage. Back to Rellekka, but no, it hadn't registered. Once more into the forest... finally having the conversation, retrieving the safe passage and off to find him again. None of those findings were quick. Near the end, there's a bit where you have to chop down dead trees. They all have this option, but the majority tell you that 'there's nothing to gain from chopping this down'. I was there for ages. I finally got one down, but neither clicking ahead on the game itself or in the mini-map got me any closer to the cave entrance. I chopped it again and was back to square one. This went on five or six times, until another player emerged from the entrance and suddenly I could move forward. It must have been some kind of safety device to ensure that only one player at a time is down in the cave. The quest was finally over, but it's made me want to stop doing quests now and go fishing or something instead.

There was a reason why I wanted to do the Holy Grail quest, but I still can't remember what it was, even after completing it. *rolls eyes* I thoroughly enjoyed this quest. There was a lot of running around, but most of the locations were on or near the teleport trail, so it was all good. I had to destroy the display cabinet in my house to get Excalibur out, but no hassle. I can just rebuild it for some construction xp. I have some DIY to do in there anyway, as I'm adding a second portal chamber. Back to the quest, it was all pretty straight forward and the fight didn't even see me break a sweat with protect from melee on. I think that one of the things that I so loved about the quest was that I know the original legend backwards, in several versions and also the spiritual context. I'm not sure that Jagex are so familiar with that latter part, but most of the elements were there. As I was working my way through it, I was thinking through the wider connotations and the legend itself, which in turn touched my spirituality. Another version of it, in another age, another genre and a younger audience, is always fascinating to see. I loved how Pedwyr (Percival) had to become the Fisher King's son and his rescue by myself restored the land; all so that it could be me who did the quest. The only alternative would be to have my character morph somehow into Pedwyr, which would have been weird. It's quite brave, in a way, to have such a well known quest diverted into a game. There did seem to be a little confusion of extra details though, which made me wonder if another version had been tried as draft before they released the version here now. For example, the Grail Maidens were wandering around the castle with no real purpose. You could speak to them, but they just welcomed you to the castle. You don't need several of them to do that. Also Galahad mentions the Grail Hallows (spear etc), but there's no more tell of them. I had expected to have to see them and to ask the questions: 'What are they? What is the meaning of them? Whom do they serve?' etc As it was, the elements were there - the wasteground restored etc - but without the backstory, I'm guessing that those less familiar with the legend wouldn't have understood why that was so at all. The ending was even stranger, in context: The Fisher King DIED?! Eh? And why was the Grail just lying around a table for me to simply pick up? Nontheless, I can now tell folk that I have the Holy Grail and all is well in the world. :D

The denizens of the firepit underneath the pub in Burthorpe were shuddering with horror at the amount of monkfish that I was burning. I wore a chef's hat, because one of them thought it would make a difference, but I couldn't see much of one if there was. Then someone piped up, 'You need the steel gauntlets from the Family Crest quest'. I do, do I? After hearing of the bonus it would make to cooking, I concurred with that assessment of the situation and zapped myself off to Ardoughe. This is where I'd left myself in that quest months ago. I'd been such a new player that I couldn't even cook half the food needful for the first section of it. I went and bought it from the fishmonger, then hung around the range until I could find someone who could cook it for me. I remember it taking ages for someone to emerge who could cook my single, solitary bass for me. Then they burned it. I was crestfallen, because it was fairly expensive to buy for a noob like me and, moreover, what if the person who could cook it disappeared? What if they couldn't really cook bass and were just messing with me? In the time it had taken me to be so paranoid, the player had run off to the bank and returned with one that they'd cooked earlier. :-D Even to this day, if I'm in Catherby, I'll listen out for someone starting the Family Crest quest. I've cooked bass for others before now, and I've deposited cooked bass in the general store. But that was then. Naturally a noob like that couldn't have got past the level 28 hobgoblins, let alone the ogres and the hellhounds, so the quest was abandoned at the point where I needed to mine the perfect gold. This evening, it took all of about five minutes to get there, find the dungeon, work my way through the levers and mine the gold. As promised in the guide on the website, there were indeed players in there keeping the hellhounds occupied. I quickly worked my way right up to the killing of Chronozon (sp?), but the preparation for that revealed a distinct lack of death runes in my bank. I needed them for all the blast spells. The guide also seemed a little hazy on the point about whether you could melee the monster, once you'd hit it with these spells. I ended up standing beside Aubury buying death runes as a single one appeared. It took a while to get the 20 that I figured would see me safe enough. I double-checked the guide and froze. This dungeon is in the Wildy. Cachi. Demsla and Teacuptime (as people on at that moment, though I had my private chat off) came really close to having an IM from me going, 'I'm scared! I've got to go into the Wildy! Please come with me!' But I figured that I'm a big girl now and I could at least have a reccy. I had monkfish. Much monkfish, in fact. I could stay alive. If another player, especially a mage, came within 50 feet of me, I'd bang 'protect from mage' on and Ectophial my way out of there the second their freezing spell wore off. Then and only then would I shake with fright all over the two gentlemen in my friends' list. I walked to Edgeville to give myself time to panic and run away. I didn't. I entered the dungeon and walked to the gates. The banner came up: 'This is the ?!$£ Wildy, where people kill you maliciously and without provocation; and higher levels used to lure you. You'll lose your helm again if you come in here and no-one will be sympathetic after you've broken your oath never to step foot in here again. It's sure and certain death. Do you want to enter? Yes or No.' Or whatever it says. I entered. Level 10 thugs have NO business attacking me. I'm level 83, which is way more than twice their strength, plus a bit more. Nontheless no-one had told the thugs this, so I had one hitting me with an iron dagger all up the corridor. Git. I was now expecting to find chaos druids, but I was in a 'hood full of skeletons and some monkey bars. REALLY scared now, I had to take my eyes off the screen in order to look up monkey bars in the guide. They weren't there. I switched back to Runescape. OMG! What now? Log out, in certain knowledge that when I log back in, I'm BOUND to be surrounded by evil mages all trying to get my Helm of Neitiznot. Do I scream for Demsla and Teacuptime to come and get me, 'cause I'm scared...? A spider was sniffing my leg and I didn't like the look of it, so I moved to find a safe place to the west. That's when I saw the leg of a HUGE, BLACK DEMON. Erk! I ran, thinking, 'but at least that one was mentioned in the guide'. I ran to find a safe place not near a dangerous demon, when I found the demon I'd come to kill. Ok. It's now or never. If you don't kill this demon, a PKer is going to come and get you. ZAP IT! So I did. Only a spider was hitting me and wouldn't stop. I wasn't hitting back because I had my auto-retaliate switched off, but that wasn't stopping it. I ran into what looked like a safe place and, shockingly, it actually was. The spider desisted all attacks and the demon was just pacing around, minding his own business, ignoring me. I waited a few seconds and nothing hurt me, so I released my first blast. Four blasts, one for each element, raged across that dungeon, three definitely hit, but the fourth had gone while the demon was the other side of the room, so I couldn't be certain. I zapped him with that one again. I don't know my own strength. Even wearing full rune and a strength amulet, I had still hit him with five hard enough spells that he was now three quarters dead. I had a dilemma then, do I run out with my sword, or carry on with the blasts? Given the hassle I'd had getting the death runes and the fact that I wanted some in reserve in case he regenerated, I ran out with my sword. Two, three, four whacks... and he was dead. A level 172 demon, just dead like that. Wow. Yes, I got my backside out of there, as soon as the crest part was picked up, and very quickly finished it thereon. Woot! I have steel gauntlets. Now, back to the cooking.

'Swan Song' was high on my list of priority quests to complete, not just because I've just reached monkfish level in fishing, but because I also had a clue scroll. As it happens, I've checked the clue scroll again and it's the fishing guild I'm supposed to be in, not the colony. *rolls eyes* Nontheless, I've just completed a really enjoyable quest, with not too much running around out of teleport range. The preparation took nearly as long as the quest itself, but that was due to the combination runes. I wandered into Yanille pub after a Wizard's Mind Bomb, but they don't stock it there. A quick peruse of Sal's site sent me over to Fally pub instead. I zapped myself back to Yanille and entered the Magic Guild for the first time. Exciting! I ran riot around every floor, randomly stealing vials and talking to people. I had, of course, forgotten my money for the rest of the Mystic Blue outfit, but there's next time. I eventually settled down enough to focus on the job at hand and so sought out the rune seller. He doesn't sell combination runes. Ok. I asked around the guild and then in Yanille Bank, but no-one thought that you could buy them. I should have tried Sal's site again, that fount of all Runescape knowledge, as that would have informed me that the Mage Training Arena in the desert sells them, but I didn't. Instead, I quickly read the bit about creating combination runes, noted all the various talismen (talismans?) I'd need, and had to log out as I was in my dinnerhour at work. Once home after a hard days widening participation into regional universities, I kitted myself out and used the fairy ring to get to the 'safe' Abyss. The leeches don't attack me anymore, but the walkers and guardians do. I was in there for years (so it felt) before I had every needed talisman except the fire one. I was trying for that, throwing away mind tallies left, right and centre, when a leech died and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. A giant pouch! Wow! Ok, it's going to be years before I can use it, but I have a giant pouch! Shortly on, I finally completed my talisman set and could go home. Right around now, I should have been logging off to write a class for tomorrow night, but I thought I'd just craft the runes and speak to the wise, old man. It's been a series of 'I'll just do....' to the point where it's now 5 to 10 and I still haven't started it. Back to the plot, I hadn't refreshed my memory since dinnertime on the complicated process of crafting these runes, so ended up standing at the water altar, wearing full rune, shield, dragonsword and water tiara, carrying a water and an air talisman, plus 30 air runes and nothing was happening. I noticed the King of Runecrafting, Teacuptime, on-line so shot him an SOS. He pointed out that also having pure essense would be helpful at this point. The mist runes occurred quite quickly on me adding that ingredient; the lava runes took a little longer, as I accidentally created a load of earth runes before getting it right. The preparation and start of the quest was quite fast thereon. I ran up to a tree and hit it, but I was rolling a cigarette at the same time and so totally failed to notice that the tree was an Ent. I need to find out how to fix rune axes now, though I think it's Bob in Lumbridge, unless I can do it on Doric's whetstone myself. Up to the Barbarian Village then, to create and bake a pot lid, and to kill seven Barbarian. There was someone training on them, shouting, 'Yeeeeaaaahhhhh!' back as they did. I joined in with him and got the giggles. Zapped myself to Draynor and we're good to go. The biggest thing I got from this quest was a sense of how far I've come in combat situations. Eversince level 43 prayer, combat has been easier, but as I started this, I was level 51. You get a mental idea of your own capabilities, but I haven't updated mine in my own mind for a while. I knew I was taking on 7 level 79 sea trolls early on, so figured that prayer would see me through one or two of them, then I had lobsters and those star fish things that Audina gave me to see me through the rest. As it happened, my prayer ran out just as I pwned the last of the seven. It couldn't have been timed better actually. This did leave me with a slight worry that I'd have no space for monkfish catching, as I'd counted on eating lobsters in that fight. I'd forgotten about the iron bars and logs though and got rid of those before I went near the sea. Either I'm VERY strong or the sea trolls attacking, whilst I fished for monkfish, were very weak. I ate a grand total of one lobster, though I fought these three (lvl 60 something, 80 something and 101) without prayer. There was a bit of running around then, but I could teleport to all places. Before I took the pot and lid to the necromancer, I restocked on fish and prayer potions, then he teleported me back to the colony. I was expecting, from the guide, to be fighting in a war before I had to face the lvl 170 monster. It wasn't like that. It was a fun cut scene, which I could sit back and enjoy instead. The boss monster caused me a bit of trouble at first, because she was cutting through protect from melee and range. I shot down to half my hp, shovelling lobsters down my mouth and thinking that I'd had it, she was pwning me, when I tried protect from mage. Yes! Finally I was able to heal properly and get on with killing her. My first half a dozen hits didn't seem to make a dent and very, very occasionally, she'd hit me through my protect from mage, but suddenly I got her with a 18 hit and thereon she went downhill quite quickly. It was over! The prayer xp put me over lvl 52, which meant that this morning all of my prayer would have been highlighted, but I didn't do it this morning. I did it about four hours after two new prayers had been added! LOL I really enjoyed that quest and thank you, Teacuptime, for talking me through the combination runecrafting part. Now, I'd better go and write this class...

Everytime I craft nature runes, I make the long run from the Lost City bank, up to the fairy ring, out into the jungle, dodge the poisonous spiders and run alongside the wall to the mysterious ruins that will take me to the altar. Each time, my glance passes over that wall to the people mining inside and my thoughts turn to the bank inside that place. The only thing stopping me using it is the fact that I haven't got off my backside and done the Shilo Village quest. I craft my runes, I run the long journey back, often stopping to steal chocolate to add to harralander in order to create an energy potion for the next marathon. Of course, by the time I've finished crafting runes, I go about my business and totally forget about the quest until next time. No more. This time, I ran out of pure essence, then immediately opened up the quest guide on Sal's site and read through what I needed. I dallied in Falador, after mining the copper and tin for the bronze bar I'd need, because I remembered that I needed wool; then I thought the 9 pure essence left in my bank might just tip me over to level 47 runecrafting, if I made air runes (it didn't; I stopped 84xp short...); then I got caught up in merchanting. Finally though, I was ready and took myself off to the jungle again. As always, the guide was very good, but with a couple of glaring bits of vagueness that my weary brain had trouble filling in the gaps. I was doing this after teaching until quarter to midnight, so it was gone midnight before I was even in the jungle. I couldn't find the place to start! First of all, I had the screen turned around and didn't have the sense to realize that I was searching the west instead of the east. Then I wandered too far east, eventually crossing the river and running the gauntlet of jogres and spiders until I found ocean again. I gave up then and logged off to consult a map. It showed me where the dude was, but not obviously how to get to him. There were two rivers between us, to the south and the west, and my run on energy had depleted. I ended up walking along the coast, past the shipyard, visiting the glider (can't use him yet), up to a waterfall with an agility crossing. With jogres hitting me over the head, I tested to see if I had the agility level to cross it and yay! I had! Finally, around quarter past midnight, I'd found the person needful to even start. Thereon, it was plain sailing following the guide, coupled with a bit of luck. I'd seen a broodoo victim as I approached the hut, but before I reached it, a level 93 player came out of nowhere and just killed the victim. Result! The next bit of vagueness came with excavating that mound. Part of this was me getting quite tired and not reading it properly and part of it was a lack of clarity in the instructions. First time I found it, the text said that I didn't know why I was digging and so I'm giving up. I knew precisely why I was digging (the guide on Sal's site said so), but it wasn't enough. I walked all the way back to the hut to discuss things with the gentleman there again and finally found the conversation indicated in the guide. Round two, I was able to dig until a fissure appeared. Then it went pear-shaped again. I threw my candle down and the fissure closed. Ok. I dug again, but there was talk of darkness and I didn't have another candle. If I'd read the guide properly, I'd have read that I could buy these in a shop on the island, but I'd skipped that bit. I home-ported to Lumby and walked out into the swamp to buy one. 1000GP?!!!! For a candle?! You're having a laugh, aren't you? So I used my ring of duelling to get to Castle Wars, then used the bank there for Cammy runes, walked down to Catherby and bought five for 3gp each at the candleshop there. Then I used the ring of duelling to get to Al-Kharid, only to discover that the glider there won't deliver me to the jungle, so I used the ring again to get to Castle Wars, ran to the fairy ring and finally ended up on totally the wrong side of the island as I needed to be. I walked the rest of the way. Once more digging, I used one of my new candles on it. Nothing interesting happened. I dropped the candle, but it just dropped at my feet. I picked it up again and the fissure closed. I dug again and it opened, so I used my rope on it. Yay! It hung there. The fissure closed. I dug again. I tried with the candle. Nothing interesting happened. It closed. I dug again and revealed my rope. Clicking on it, I had the option to climb down. Sod the candle, I'm going. So I entered the zombie cavern and there was no indication that I had needed any more candles than the original one dropped in the first place. As spare candles filled my inventory, I ended up dropping them all over the jungle and its tunnels or caverns. Yes. From there on, other than the surprising strength of undead hits, it was plain sailing. I followed the guide right up until searching the dolmen for artefacts last night; then, in my dinnerhour, I finished the quest today. The first two main monsters were easy and I beat them without needing food. The final monster took a little longer, but I still only ate a single monkfish killing him. (I had to eat another one a few minutes later, after falling off the log, then the bridge twice...) But yay! I've left myself exploring Shilo Village, having sold all kinds of artefacts and antiques to some dude there for 6900gp all told. Now to work out the quickest route from that bank to the nature altar and I'm all good. Once again, thanks to the guide writers, you make our lives so much easier.

Honestly, you try to get to know the locals in this new village and next thing you know, you're trapsing all over Runescape, fighting level 92 magical beings and generally running around helping half a million strangers out. Yep, in my exploration of Shilo Village, I ended up doing the 'One Small Favour' quest, which is surely the longest (in terms of time to complete) quest in the game. The guide was excellent, though the quest instructions in-game were so simple to follow that I rarely had to consult it. I did have a skim-read through beforehand though and noted that there was a lot of nipping off from one place to the next, so I packed a load of law, earth and air runes. The cunning plan there is that my house is full of portals, so all I needed to do was teleport there in order to access loads of places in Runescape. Unfortunately, that plan wasn't as good in real life. The quest basically takes you from one favour to the next, but each time it's going just down the road. It's not worth teleporting anywhere, because it's only a short distance and the nearest place to teleport to is further away from where you are. I don't think I've walked and run so much since I was a little noob. It was enjoyable though, particularly since I have an enormous capacity to get side-tracked. Hence, I've ended up with full HAM robes, because each time I went into their HQ, I stayed for a while pickpocketing members. I did have the full set before, but sold them, then shortly afterwards, the wardrobe in my house allowed for them to be stashed there. I've shoved them in there now. I paused in the Seer's Village to spin some wool. Things like this. Then finally got bored of whatever and picked up the quest again. I had a free evening yesterday and it took me its entirety, plus my dinnerhour today, to finish it. I can now use the glider to get to the Feldip Hills and I have a steel keyring, though it appears that there are limitations on the keys available to add to it. I don't think I've cleared any space in my bank at all! Best of all though were the two lamps with 10k of xp in both. Oh! The responsibility! It took me the entire quest to decide where they were going and eventually I decided upon herblore and runecrafting. As as result I went up one level and two levels respectively. I was very close to putting it onto construction out of habit, but I really have got all the rooms I wanted in there, or slayer. I do prefer slayer to running around runecrafting though, which finally swung the decision that way. There are whole reasons why runecrafting is my lowest skill (not counting hunting), which is mainly due to the fact that all the running backwards and forwards to altars bores me to death.

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

I've been collecting bones towards the Rag and Bone Man Quest Pt 2 for months. The wish list had been whittled away to eight by last week, then I got the daganoth bone after completing the 'Horror of the Deep' quest. After handing that to the man, I wrote down a list of what was left: zogre, mogre, terrorbird, seagull, basilisk, massive desert lizard and vulture. I only really went for the terrorbird, because I was in the vicinity waiting for a tree to respawn earlier. I recounted those adventures in the last blog entry with the finale that I logged back in tonight, turned around, hit the nearest terrorbird and it dropped the required bone. Woot! Not long on, I achieved another level fletching and was inspired to go collecting the remaining bones. First stop was Jiggig. After 'Zogre Flesh Eaters', I'd been left with 100 mithril brutal arrows, which I largely wasted on wolves. I hadn't realized that I still had a zogre bone to collect (nor had any of the gits dropped one during the quest). Fortunately, I still have a large stash of mithril nails, so I teleported to Castle Wars, then wandered off into the Chompy Bird Hunting Grounds with nails, hammer, axe, knife and feathers. A few pollarded achey trees later, I had 119 mithril brutal arrows to play with. Naturally the first zogre I fired them at died after six arrows and dropped the bone. Thank you. I jogged over to Yanille, flashing orange, as I'd become diseased whilst picking up said bone and arrows, but losing no stats, because I was testing out the bracelet of innoculation. It's a lovely bracelet. It keeps you intact even as you announce to the world at large that you have the lurgy in random splodges. I spoke to Bert and put my order in for 84 buckets of sand direct into my bank, please, then used my house portals to teleport to Draynor. A short jog over to Port Sarim and the third seagull, that I launched a mithril brutal arrow at, gave me the bone. Ok, I realize that the weaponry might have been overkill, given that I could have probably slapped it to death in seconds, but I'd just spent ten minutes making them. They shall be used. That was when my bracelet of innoculation ran out of charges and crumpled to dust. The next orange splodge hit me for six in my hunting xp. That didn't bother me greatly, as that only exists to be lost because of the tears of Guthix, and I didn't need it. But common sense prevailed insofar as I was off to kill things and I didn't know what it would take next. I had some Recilym's Balm on me and two sips restored me to health. Less healthy was Skippy, who I found on the shoreline near Mudskipper Point. I hadn't read up on the mini-game, so niavely assumed that I just talked to him and somehow the mogres would just happen. He was very drunk and required a bucket of water over him. Less lazy, more prepared people run back to Draynor and return with a bucket of water. I'm not one of them, so I ran to Rimmington, found a couple of logs lying around in a shop and sold them to the general store in return for a bucket. This was filled at the well and promptly thrown over Skippy. Dude now asked for nettle tea. Right. Fortunately, I just happened to have an ectophial on me, so I went over to the temple, ran down to Canifis and used ice gloves (the only gloves I currently own) to pick some nettles. Teleported to my house and made nettle tea in my kitchen, then used the portal to get back to Draynor. Now he wants a hangover cure - snape grass, milk and chocolate. I have all but the milk in my bank, so went to Draynor to get them. I accidentally ate the chocolate whilst trying to use it in the pestle and mortar (a problem I encounter in real life too), but luckily had another. I then went and begged outside the house portal in Rimmington, until someone announced a house party. I hesitated a little while, then leapt in. The house was crawling with heavily armoured people and I told them, 'I know this is a little cheeky, but would you mind if I just nicked some milk?' No reply, so I ran around the house looking for the kitchen, reassured by the fact that everyone else seemed to be just running riot too, found it and secured my milk that way. I managed to avoid the throne room and dungeon, as Wildy-esque places, and left to find Skippy again. Now sober, he told me where to find mogres and what he was doing when he found one. I wondered around Mudskipper Point going, 'here mogre-mogre, here mogre-mogre', but the beach remained quiet. That's when I recalled some talk of fishing explosives, so home ported to Lumby and up into the bank for a dramen staff, in through the shack in the swamps and off to the slayer mistress to buy fishing explosive. I finally found myself face to face with a mogre, after teleporting back through the fairy rings. For the first 30 seconds, I was mainly whacking him with a dramen staff, until I noticed and switched to my dragon longsword. I seemed to have been doing damage to him though! lol The first mogre dropped the bone. Back into the fairy rings, I teleported to the Fremmenik Slayer Caves with a mirror shield. It was only as I was entering said caves that it occurred to me that I hadn't checked as the basilisks actually lived here or not. They did and I found them, after encountering the bizarrely mesmerizing pyrefiends. They are illuminous! My first basilisk dropped a mithril kiteshield, the second and third dropped money and the fourth dropped the bone. Woot! All I had left now were two in the desert, so I changed into desert robes and picked up some waterskins, then used the fairy ring down to the southern parts. I headed straight to the lizards, trying to find one which said 'massive desert lizard'. There isn't one. There are cute 'small lizards', and pretty 'desert lizards', and an alligator type thing called a 'lizard'. One of the latter attacked me as I ventured through their midst in search of the elusive 'massive desert lizard', then refused to die. What? It's bar was completely red and I kept hitting it for one or three, yet still the thing was biting me. I found refuse on a bridge and logged out to investigate. All the sites, Sal's included, kept telling me that I was in roughly the right place, but I also learned that you need ice cooler to kill a massive desert lizard. I wondered if I needed it on the lizard that had attacked me too. I also learned that I wasn't a million miles away from the vultures, though range and mage would be essential if I was to attack them in the air. I logged back in and ran down south, until airborn vultures and grounded goats surrounded me. I was about to admit defeat when I spotted a quest symbol and a tent. I tried to investigate, but my character wouldn't enter the tent. What I did spy though were two vultures on the ground. Two whacks with my sword later, there was only one and I had the vulture bone needful! After running back north, then nipping back to the Lost City, I returned with 10 ice coolers to begin my search anew for the massive desert lizard. Unable to find one and having already drunk the contents of one waterskin, I attacked a lizard instead. I did indeed need the ice cooler to finish it off, but did that mean anything? I also attacked the larger of the desert lizards and that also needed an ice cooler. Unsure, I killed more lizards whilst trying to make up my mind, largely for the big bones that they dropped. Six dead lizards later, the last one dropped the massive desert lizard bone! It was that after all! I took them all up to the Rag and Bone man, who said thank you with 5500xp in prayer, 2 quest points and a bonesack to carry with me. Yay!

I've been out at the Gnome Stronghold, cutting down a maple tree that I grew myself, and fletching up another level and a half. It takes a while for the tree to respawn, so I nipped over to kill some terrorbirds. I need the special bone that they'll eventually drop for the second part of the Rag and Bone man quest. To get the scene, you have to picture what I'm wearing. I'm clad in a frog princess dress, very floaty, white chiffon look, with pale blue highlights in the expanse of skirt. I added ice gloves when I was doing the Clock Tower quest and forgot to take them off again. I was only reminded when a player turned to me in the bank to give me a present - pale blue boots, which he thought might match my gloves and dress. They do. I look very glamorous, especially since I added a games necklace more for aesthetics than use. Add to this the rune axe and a rune satchel. This is what I've chosen to wear to kill terrorbirds. It's a fascinating sight. Each time a terrorbird attacks, I hit it with my handbag, then follow through with a whack with my axe. I'm amazed that the lovely dress isn't covered in blood yet. I look like a character lifted from 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' or, more precisely, 'Carrie', planted in a scene from a Disney film. 29 dead terrorbirds (and one mounted terrorbird, by accident) later and I still haven't got the required bone. Reckon my tree has respawned yet?

Having done all the quests in the vicinity of Yanille, I've now moved on to doing all of those in Keldagrim. That only involved finishing 'Between a Rock...', then doing 'The Forgettable Tale...' It took me several days to do, mainly because I was only on for short bursts of time. Day one, I got as far as talking to the Drunken Dwarf, then starting the collection of seeds. Day two, I finished the collection of seeds, but I was tired and didn't know as I could plant them and watch over them before falling asleep. (I know now that I could have, because they don't need watching.) Day three, I planted the seeds, after realizing that there was no lephrachaun to collect tools from. I spoke to the gardener and received a letter for Elstan in Fally. Teleported there, handed over the letter, planted some crops in that allotment and returned to Keldagrim to plant the kelda stout seeds. But I was more than a little inebriated (ironically, given the quest) in real life, as I'd been down the pub at a birthday party. I ended up falling asleep over the keyboard, so abandoned the seeds half-grown and went to bed. Day four is today. I logged on to find my kelda stout hops all fully grown, so whizzed quickly through the rest of the quest. I quite enjoyed it, but was very glad that the diagrams were on the Sal's website guides. After the second one, I worked out what the key was (to be fair, I hadn't actually tried before). At the quest's end, I received the 5000xp in cooking and farming both, which put me another level up in farming. Yay!

'Clock Tower' was such a quick and simple quest that I got it done within half of my lunch hour. I like to blog about my experiences of each quest, because I know that when I was stuck so often on a couple of quests for details that weren't mentioned in the guides, I did a search of blogs. I figured that mine could add to the common pool of knowledge for all of these. However, I haven't much to say about 'Clock Tower'. It was perhaps too easy a quest for my level and the guide covers it very comprehensively. I was surprised that the ogres hit 6, twice, but I was still able to just walk in, pick up the cog and walk out again. If being hit for 12 would be a problem to you, then take some food during the ogre part, otherwise it's a nice leisurely ten minute stroll of a quest. Got me 500gp and a quest point though. :)

There are some quests in Runescape which are discussed in hushed tones; people spend days, even weeks, preparing for them. Their roll call is like some great pantheon of exploits retold by the strong or the suicidal... Mourning's End Pt 2, Monkey Madness, Fremmenik Isles... and Horror from the Deep. Yesterday, I was scratching around the Grand Tree wondering if I'd done all the quests in the vicinity. Sal's website has every guide conceivable, with the unfortunate exception of one which says, 'You're in this 'hood and the quests in the area are...', hence I had to click through the guides until I found one locally. It was 'Horror from the Deep'. I had once accidentally started it, after exploring the area north of the lovely waterfall to discover the Giant's Causeway leading off to the Lighthouse. After a short cant with Larissa there, I had started the quest. Soon as I realized which one, I ran back across that causeway as fast as my agility level would take me and never went back. Later on, after Whiskas88 had escorted me through the Fremmenik Isles quest, there was a comment left in my blog saying that perhaps he could also take me through another horrible quest, 'Horror from the Deep'. I came over all Amy Winehouse, 'No, no, no, no, no...' But I'm bigger and stronger now and I wondered if combat level 80 people would be ok doing it. A quick question in the Sal's forum and folk were assuring me that I'd be fine. Just use blast spells and don't bother with melee or range. Blast spells... they'd be the ones with death runes, wouldn't they? But I've only got 42 death runes in my bank. *sigh* I spent a good half an hour south of Yanille, shooting ogre brutal arrows at wolves until the death rune respawned again. Run out, get bitten, shoot another arrow, pick up the rune, get bitten, pick up arrows, get bitten, run back to safety, shoot a wolf. After a while, I'd got another 40 odd death runes to add to my stash and would have packed up to leave it for another day, as I was at work. The computer there is much, much faster and I'd done overtime right into the heart of city rush hour. This is why I was still sitting at my desk ranging wolves, instead of home with a cup of tea, probably doing the same thing. I glanced at the clock. Rush hour would be receding now and driving out was more sensible than earlier, but a faster computer... with a nasty quest... I set off to the Lighthouse again, my armour reducing my agility drastically, so I fell off the rocks twice before making it across. Very quickly on, I'd fixed the bridge and the light; then had a stalker. He had no runes and no money. Did I have any spare so he could buy runes? Not on me, no. In the bank? Could we go to the bank and I could give him money to buy runes please? He's poor. Not really, no. I'm skint myself these days. He stood beside me in the lighthouse, crying, and I felt bad. I'm crap with beggars, but had to be firm. I hadn't anything TO give him. Meep. I used my games necklace to get back to Burthorpe bank and stocked up for the final fight. A dragonsword; a shield; 84 death runes; 1000 fire and earth runes; 650 water runes; 200 air runes; 280 mind runes; an ectophial for quick get away; air and water staffs; then 5 prayer potions; a steel sword; a mithril arrow (in my backpack); and the rest was fish. I hoped it would be enough. I wore my Zammy bottoms (with the top in my inventory); my green gnome hat; my rune platebody... if you consider that mix, you'll understand why I didn't take a screenshot. Fashion disaster. The method in my madness was that though I'd been told to ignore melee, I knew that I had to kill a lvl 100 Dagonnoth (sp?) first and didn't think I had enough runes to cover the job. My plan was to wear rune armour for the first one, and melee it, then when its Mum turned up, I could switch to Zammy robes; but I didn't want to waste the space in my inventory with changing both top and bottom, so compromised. Down I went, took a deep breath and stuck things into the door. Nothing happened on the other side. Ok, the stairs were probably a clue. I climbed down them and the monster came out of the water. I'd seen it swimming around in there and did wonder if I'd be swimming to fight it, but no, it came to me. Even level 100, it didn't take me long with my dragon longsword to dispatch it. Then, without a pause for breath, its mother is out of that water and charging towards me. Erk! I quickly switched to air staff, but totally forgot to put on the Zammy top as well, therefore fighting it in the same outfit outlined above. It took me a while to get into the habit of switching spells, because I'd switched auto retaliate off on the basis that I'd be doing it all manually. That was a stupid idea, so after a bit of experimenting, I switched it back on and left it on. I got prayer potions down my neck, with protect from melee constantly there, and once I had the hang of it, quite enjoyed the fight. I even switched to melee when the colour changed to orange. I'm not colour blind, but I realize now that I took all of my cues from the text. Was something else supposed to change colour? To be fair, everything was happening so fast that I didn't change the angle of my view, so could hardly see the monster, let alone the life bar above her head. Then she was dead. Wow! That was it?!? I hunted around for the special bone that I needed for the Rag and Bone man (another impetus for doing this quest), but couldn't see it. I returned upstairs to talk to the bloke there and received a Guthix damaged book, with no instructions on how or where to get the fabled pages that I keep seeing being sold in banks. I haven't anything like the money needed to buy one of them! Then something really weird happened. Soon as I examined the book, I got the hugest sense of deja vu. I could see myself having done that before and what happened next was just on the tip of memory, only I couldn't see it. It was a Sunday, bright sunshine, and I'd opened that book before. Reason told me that that was impossible, as I couldn't have entered the Lighthouse before, not having the key and all, let alone having held that book. Besides, this was Wednesday evening and a bit overcast. I shut down the computer then, still more than a little unnerved as it had been so very vivid, and drove home through deserted streets. Postscript: Once home, I surveyed my inventory. I'd only used 47 death runes, so more than I'd originally owned, but not enough to justify all that time I'd had with the wolves. Mind you, they'll come in again no doubt. I'd also only drunk the contents of one prayer potion, though I promptly messed up by accidentally clicking on one, so I had a dose of it whilst in perfect safety without prayer on. I'd eaten two karambam (sp?) fish and one swordfish, so I had ample to go back down and see if it's possible to kill another for its bones. Yes, it certainly is. The place is infested with them. Unfortunately, it's so busy and chaotic down there that my home computer couldn't cope. I was frozen with about six hit splodges giving various readings for a while and no way of knowing if I was still fighting, if my prayer had run out, who'd won if we had finished, if I was already fighting something else... There was another player in there who was frozen in the act of telling me that there's no need to use prayer down there. I had been responding 'how come?' Fortunately, everything came back with my dagonnoth dead, prayer still on, me still alive and already starting on a second monster. The required ribs were on the floor, so I slowly, with all the motion of a horribly lagging computer, picked it up and slow motioned my way back up the iron stairs to safety.