Search the Community

It felt quite sedate to be running around the desert, following the squarks of an undead chicken. After the choc-ice fiasco of hours spent learning what didn't work, then using Ava's Alerter to simply dig in random bits of sand was quite lovely. I also really enjoyed setting up the colony, once I had all of the metal cases and, more importantly, their contents. I love my Construction. I've only been allowed to do a house before and now, here I was, creating a whole colony! (Well, three stalls and a tent, but it's getting there.) The next bit wasn't bad either. I had to return to Ape Atoll. This wasn't too taxing, but it felt like it initially. That's when I took a deep breath and set about working out my route. Then I remembered that there was no choc-ice. I was suffering from Post Traumatic Choc-Ice Transportation Syndrome, that was all. So I just strolled over to the nearest fairy ring and used the agility short-cut. No hassle. Then bimbled on over to the auntie and child house, dressed as a gorilla, and punched several knife-fighting ninja monkeys into unconsciousness. I stole their knives and pocketed some gold pieces in the process. Do you ever read these blogs and think about how bizarre half of these sentences would be, out of context? Back to the colony and I was now further than anyone had been, when I'd been updating the RS Wiki yesterday. I don't normally do things like that, but no-one at Sal's seemed to be doing it at the time. Only one or two people were doing it on the Wiki, but at least we could inform each other there. I'm pretty certain that every 'it doesn't work', on choc ice transportation matters, mentioned on that page was originally discovered by me. I spoke to the monkeys, then meandered off to see Senliten. It was all going quite well. I hadn't even had to fight anything, but it was looking like the quest was over. Yeah. Shortly afterwards, I was tooling up to face down three monsters. I don't usually read guides (I'm often writing them), but I always hate the boss part in quests. Seeing as I was coming to it the day afterwards, rather than the same day, I figured that I'd swot up on what I was going to face. As it's still so new, the information hadn't yet been filtered anywhere into the most efficient way of killing them. I had some scope for manoeuvre. Leeuni was first and she wasn't a bit of bother. I walked in with my best melee outfit on (dragonboots, dragonskirt, torso, slayer helmet, ring of life, barrows gloves, DFS, whip, glory, Ardy farming allotment transportation cape) and supped an extreme super-set. She kept taking my slayer hat off, so that she could see my lips. She patently fancied me. That didn't stop me smacking her around with a whip, until she shattered into tiny pieces. Then I took back the monkey she had abducted. No trouble at all. Ayuni was next up. Her lair was straight through the kalphite queen's lair and through a door to the north. It took me a long time to get my horrified gaze past that bit. So I had to go, on my own, through the kalphite queen's lair and.... Right, I had to enter the kalphite queen's lair... While the kalphite queen was at home, I had to step into... A cup of tea was clearly needed. And someone was coming with me. I chose Yippy. He's might be able to heal me in time with his whizzy thing. As it was, I never once saw the kalphite queen. I saw her guards, but not the lady insect herself. I climbed down the hole, ran along the east side of the room and dived through the door to the north. I didn't even look to the west. For all I know, Zezima, Gertjaars, King Duffy, the entire of the Wilderness Guardians and several JMods were creating an honour guard to get me through. Or the kalphite queen had been surprised in the process of fixing her hair and couldn't get to me in time. I don't know! I just know that I ran and she didn't even fire anything at me. Ayuni, however, did. I found her to be the most problematic of the three bosses. I've since read up on why and discovered that I really need to learn how to read. I protected range all the way through, while protect from mage would have been more appropriate. I wore my range outfit this time (black dhide, dragonboots (I failed to realise in time that I hadn't swapped them for snakeskin), barrows gloves, Neitiznot hat, glory, ring of life, Ardy farming allotment transportation cape) and carried a rune crossbow, with ruby bolts (e) and broad bolts. I took too few prayer pots (I only had two 4 doses), as Ayuni drains your prayer if you get too close. Ayuni was a nightmare of a battle. It took me a while to realise that I hadn't supped my extreme ranging pot nor my extreme defence. I was eating food like I'd just emerged from a famine. She's a slow and ponderous boss, but she also teleports. I was running around, trying to fire bolts at her, but she'd keep teleporting beside me. I did try to get into a safespot that I'd read about, but she teleported right next to me. Each time she did that, my prayer was drained. Worst of all, I couldn't do any damage to her! You can cope with such maladies, if it's only a case of outliving her, but at this rate, she'd be outliving my next thirteen generations! Then everything changed in an instant. I was strongly debating using my Lletya crystal to abandon this fight, when I heard the Nomad Scream. A massive chunk of life had been taken out of her and that just set trend. Suddenly every bolt I fired was hitting true. She was three-quarters dead before I even had chance to swop to my broad bolts. Nevertheless, I was still down to my last spud, with no prayer potions at all, when she eventually died. I'm guessing that choosing the correct protection prayer, and remembering to pot up, would have helped greatly here. Does that make me a pwnage ranger that I still won in those circumstances? Eruni is the one that the few commentators out there were warning about. There was a fair bit of discussion going on, amongst people who sounded like they were good at combat, about the best way to take her out. Most were advocating melee. Most were getting quite stressed. I surveyed all of the evidence and made my own informed choice. I pretty much went in the same set up as with Ayuni. I had two careful considerations here. The first was that Eruni was killing people. I have loads of black dragonhide, so it wouldn't cost me too greatly when I died. Also, I've already got level 88 in attack, strength and defence, but I'm a whisker away from a range level. It might help me get level 88 range, if I shot her, instead of flaying her. Are you all proud of me making such analytical decisions on combat here? To be honest, I don't know what all of the fuss was about. Eruni stays put in the middle of the room, surrounded by pillars. Within two steps, in any direction, there was somewhere to cower, hugging Yippy for comfort shelter, in order to re-pot or have a picnic. I learned very quickly, during the opening seconds really, that switching auto-retaliate off was a good idea. You have to kill the lesser demons, as they spawn, or else she is invunerable. But the lesser demons try to drag you into her path. My advice is to put your foot down, switch auto-retaliate off and fire bolts at them from behind a pillar. Not a bit of trouble. :D So the short answer to how to combat them is: pray protect from mage for all three; kill them. Thereon, it was all a bit of a stroll. I reinstated the monkey colony; and acted really cool and sophisicated when I met the goddess, Apmeken. After all, I am a Wiccan, we talk to goddesses all the time. Before wandering back to Nardah (forgot carpet fare, so had to walk), where I maintained the same decorum and maturity in front of royalty. And it was all over. Comparable with Desert Treasure, I'd say.

There are a handful of quests which seem to make up a kind of Ivy League of terror. Their names ricochet across Runescape on the lips of quivering adventurers. Their very mention doesn't so much bring forth tips as traumatized mutterings. 'I died three times...' 'I lost my whip...' 'I hated that quest...' For those who haven't even attempted them, the warnings are enough to tuck them away as things to do in the vague, unformed future. Not now, never now. For as long as I've been playing, 'Contact' has been in that league. When I completed 'Itchlarin's Little Helper' with barely my life intact, I made enquiries amongst my friends and was unequivocably told, 'No, you aren't even close to the levels needful to do this one.' Ok, quiver, fear and forget it. Besides, what does the guide say: Quest Walkthrough: Contact I warrant that half of Sal's, not to mention the general public, only get that far before turning back in search of another quest. It only takes a few runs around the Pyramid Plunder mini-game to start thinking wistfully about a bank in Sophanem. I awoke this morning after a bizarre dream involving Richey Manic as a small boy and me having to carry him up a steep hill or else something bad would happen. How bad could 'Contact' be after that? Yuan said yesterday that it's quite easy. Ok, so he's level 126 combat with a plethora of high-level artillery, but how bad could it be? My fate was sealed when I logged on to find Henrique running around Sophanem, in my world, helping Itchlarin out. I asked if he fancied another quest after this and he did. I carefully read the guide, as in past the bit where it says you can die, and spent a while in Nardah bank dressing and preparing. Then Henrique logged off and never came back. Meanwhile, in the chat channel, Demsla was telling about his two deaths in this quest and his armour losses. I was paused in the act of going to do it alone, when Demsla piped up. 'If you can lend me a weapon and a prayer pot, I'll come with you.' Deal! I can't quite express how nervous Demsla and I were as we loitered at the top of the trapdoor. In chat, Daz had the guide primed just in case. I was doing something that I never do, I had a second browser open and on constant view on my tiny monitor. Lag aside, it also meant that I had a little window showing Runescape and had to scroll across to either access my bag or put on a protect prayer. We were as ready as we would ever be. Using the maze map on Sal's site as our guide, Demsla and I picked our way to the ladder. We only ran into a couple of mage warriors, which didn't do much through our protect from mage, then we were there. What?! Huh?! That was the terrifying maze that everyone goes on about? :P I'd got through every thieving and agility trap as if I was strolling through Lumbridge. Easy didn't cover it! We quickly searched the body, got our parchment and teled back to Al-Kharid wondering what all the fuss was about. Round two, we flew to Polly, then to Nardah, restocked and wandered off over the desert so blase about going to do this maze again. Blase, that was, until we did it. It didn't quite live up to its reputation this time, but was closer. First a mage put out my lantern, but I scrolled my screen across until I could relight it; then I was late putting on my protect from mage and got hit for 15. An agility trap whacked Demsla for 17, then the thieving trap hit me for another 15. We paused to regroup and heal. Lag really got me on a moving wall, but it was all good, until I ran around a corner and fell down a hole. I immediately used my Ectophial and was out of there, finding Demsla standing beside me at the Temple. We'd had a strategy that if either one of us died, the other would grab the stuff and teleport out. Both of us thought that the other was just being nice and had left too when the trapdoor opened. I hadn't realized that he'd fallen down the same hole and neither had he me. LOL We restocked and was in Al-Kharid, when Daz gave an SOS that he'd died in Rimmington. I immediately banked for room, then gloried over there, but wasn't in time to pick up his mithril armour. :/ Back to Al-Kharid, Demsla and I descended for round three. We discovered that it had been a good thing that we'd fallen, as neither one of us had spoken to Osman outside Sophanem gates. LOL Only slightly more wary than before, but a lot more relaxed than on the first attempt, I nonetheless managed to fall down precisely the same hole! Why isn't there a smiley that says 'nub'? I'm in need of one. Demsla abandoned in the maze, I recharged my Ectophial and, via chat channel, agreed that he should stay there. He made his way to the ladder, while I blushed my embarrassed way back to the maze. This time I made it through without mishap. :/ Stupidity aside, this should be a really short quest. We were already at the final fight, with strategies formed at the ladderhead. We didn't know if we'd be in a cut-scene or if we could cover each other. (It was the former, which shouldn't have surprised us, since the guide clearly states that it would be.) What was confusing was the prayer advice. The guide says that melee or range are best, but the illustration shows a player with protect from mage over his/her head. We strayed onto other sites to determine that protect from melee is the one to go for. The plan? Demsla to go down first, in his rune armour and level 91 combat. That was his suggestion, on the basis that he'd got a slightly higher chance of survival than me, in my red dragonhide and level 87 combat. If either one of us died, the other would grab their stuff and tele. We were in this together. Demsla went first. I waited about 30 seconds, then followed him down the ladder. Soon as the cut-scene finished, I could see the monster on my mini-map, but no tell-tale green dot beside him. There was silence on the chat channel, then Demsla confirmed that he was fighting. He also reported that it was a fairly easy fight and that he was winning. He had a great safe spot, he told me. I crept closer, but still no sign. We were definitely in different realms. The call came that he'd won. Yay and Wootness! My turn. I switched on protect from melee and got my dragonhide bottom into the path of the Giant Scarab. I wasn't making a dent, but a mage had appeared behind me and was making a dent in me. I ran beside the corpse, trying to put the scarab between me and it. It worked! I've since seen Simple's map and wish I'd nipped into blogs before this point. Mine was a safe spot, but I'm wondering how much of that was due to circumstance. We weren't fighting in the arena. I'd hung around so much, that the scarab was past the corpse and halfway into the passage. By running by and standing next to Kaleef's body, I was able to use the scarab itself as a shield against its helpers. I was poisoned often. I took two (4) super antis and used all but one drop. I also took two prayer pots and used one of them up too. I still wasn't doing damage, though the frequent poisonings were hurting me. I healed, then noticed the super attack and combat potions I'd bought. :s For not being able to see my bag properly! I gulped some of those down, as Demsla assured me via chat that even his might hadn't damaged the scarab for the first ten blows. I raised my dragon skimmy, with two sips of anti left, and whack! Hit the scarab for 17. Thereon my hits were landing! Its hitpoints went down pretty quickly, until, nearly dead, it poisoned me a final time. I used that penultimate drop of anti poison, hit and it died. Yay! I had eaten about four monks and a couple of karambwan, but that's all. I hereby demand that 'Contact' comes out of the terror list of horrific quests and is replaced by 'Haunted Mine', which no-one seems to warn about in advance! LOL Thanks for the adventure, Demsla, that was fun!

Erm... some of us have been members of Amnesty International for 26 years, you know. That rules out just about all of these. Life imprisonment then. It's a fair cop. Wooot! You'll be wanting to know how. I wore: Helm of Neitiznot, stuffed full of swamp plague scrolls; black dhide top and bottoms; Saradomin prayerbook; Soul Wars cape; dragonboots; ring of life; amulet of glory; and Barrows gloves. I took: Shelley. He was stuffed full of sharks, with just one swamp titan pouch at the end. I had in my inventory: extreme super-set; Lletya teleport crystal; two prayer potions; two special attack recover potions; 10 Sara Brews; five super restore potions; and the rest sharks. (This was an error - you don't need prayer potions, when you have something else in there, as that was restoring my prayer too. I'm suspecting the super-restores.) Strategy: Don't panic. Detailed strategy: * If the floor shakes and she sticks her nose in the air, use the special attack from Korasi's sword on her. * If a defiler appears, hit it. You don't have to kill it, just make it attack you instead of the rangers. * If you're by the queen, have protect from melee on. * If you're one square or more from the queen, have protect from mage on. * Keep your HP to above 600. * Outlive her.

Oh crap. 'Conquest' wasn't the boss fight. More as the full horror enfolds. It's 2.10pm and, in the waiting room, the assembled red combat people are all saying that no-one has yet beaten the Void Queen. RS Wiki stops dead at this point, so it seems that none of their contributors have beaten her. So far only one You Tube video up. It's part one of the boss fight, by lolwtfmanrofl, so I don't know if he's succeeded and is just rendering part two. His comment is: 'Sorry to everyone for the shizzle quality and the fact that you cant see the typing, annotations are now added to both parts of the video, the recorder i used wasnt the best in the world, again i appologise.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_bXGHbxE8c Edit: His Part Two is up. Lolwtfmanrofl does successfully kill her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq7M7eVrdcU His main points so far: * Pray protect melee, while you fight the queen * Pray protect mage, while you protect your multiple void knight rangers * The Void Queen will charge up a special attack, which can hit 500hp; using Korasi's sword special will stop this * Keep your hp above 600 * Don't let your void knight rangers die I've looked at his inventory. It's all Sara Brews and Super Restores. I keep getting Nomad flashbacks. I know I'm a wuss but I haven't even tried yet. :) Edit: RS Wiki just updated: D: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've attempted to pwn her and got her to half health, before I teleported out to Lletya. I dressed in full prossy, with a Fally 3 shield, Bandos boots, glory, barrows gloves and ring of life. I took an extreme super-set, two restore special bar brews, 3 prayer potions, one elf crystal and the rest tuna spuds. I also took a swamp titan and some scrolls for him. Once in, it wasn't quite as scary as I'd worked myself up to. It's a long way to run back to it, but you can teleport out to Lletya. There's a lot going on though, so it's a fight more suitable to twitch players than myself. You have to kill defilers as soon as they spawn, but this is happening in a range bigger than my full screen. You have to hit the queen with your special attack, as soon as she starts charging up. This only takes 15% of your bar, so it's not as scary as I was imagining. If you don't, then she'll hit you for 500hp and kill all of your helpers. My main problem was running out of food and not being able to control the swamp titan. I used two of the special scrolls on her, but she didn't get poisoned. My titan didn't appear to be hitting her nor any of the defilers. Is there anyone here with training on using swamp titans, who could give me some tips please? Also, the queen heals herself and I don't know how. I'm suspecting it's the drones, but I can't attack them. Only the rangers can. My other problem is remembering to a) switch prayer on; b) keep switching between the correct prayers. She hits really high, if you're not protecting correctly. That's protect melee up close and protect mage from one square away. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This quest is rattling me a bit, so I'm going to chill out watching 'Monkey Life' for a bit. That way, more red combat people will have solved her and I'll resort to fully using their guides. The wiki already has a different set of recommended armour than I'd chosen! In the meantime, the void queen is at large and while I'm out trying to save Gielinor, I haven't seen Teacuptime at all! This, then, is a message to him: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Attempt number two, with Cossack having told me how to get my Titan to attack, was much more relaxed. Again I got her past half health. Again I ran out of food myself. The trick is to kill the defilers. They are attacking your archers. The archers are the only ones who can kill the drones. The drones heal the queen. Basically, it seems that the main strategy is to kill defilers and to ensure that you nullify the queen's special with Korasi's sword's special attack. Presumably the rest would then take care of itself. Trying again with Shelley for more food. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Went with Shelley and a Titan pouch. However, they don't stop hitting you long enough to dismiss Shelley, when he's done with giving you food. :) The result was the same as it's been the previous twice. I've got the void queen down to half health, but run out of food myself. I wasn't spam eating either, only going for it when needful. Tanyakins wanted a picture of her. This is the one I got a milisecond after I'd clicked to go to Lletya. I'm under the deflect melee prayer icon, but I think my body was already half in Lletya.

I have to admit to a mixture of trepidation, in with the excitement, as the system update counted down to this quest. It was good timing as well. I hadn't long finished my penguins and killed my jade vine. I'd just that second emptied my bank of ore and gems, through several visits to Edgeville furnace. I was just looking to see what was next. But a grandmaster quest. Last time that happened, Nomad was seared into our collective consciousness; and my personal trauma. And this quest recommended 100+ combat level and had a title that bounced off Nietzsche. Nevertheless, I wanted my quest cape back and I'm a quester, Guthix damn it! A glance at the requirements said that I was in, so I went to Fally. But Captain Korasi was having none of it. The information to start this quest is classified until I'm knowledgable enough. Go and do the Conquest Tutorial. WTF?! I've had a Conquest Tutorial. Calanon did it. Calanon and I spend hours playing Conquest a couple of weekends back. He got a Void deflector out of it. I let him win repeatedly until it was so. Then he let me win repeatedly, so I could get mine. Unfortunately, this takes so long that I'd only just got my ranks nearly to where I started. We need to meet up again, with several hours to spare, so I can go all the way on to filling that spot in my costume room. Korasi was of the opinion that tutorials by Calanon don't count. Nor does playing the game for several hours. You have to do the in-game Tutorial. That counts. *sigh* So I went to the Void Knight's Island and spent 4 minutes reviewing all that Calanon had taught me. Now I was ready. Something that I hate in quests is when you're interupted to go and get supplies. Therefore, I do reveal what's needed first: hammer, tinderbox, hard leather, limestone brick and logs. My quest begins, as do the others, with me getting the supplies ready in my bank. Hammer and tinderbox were already there. A quick visit to the copse next to Fally West Bank sorted out the logs. Up at the limestone mine, you could spot the questers. Dude001 was already there mining; Shikaeru came while I was filling my inventory. Then off to Lumbridge, where there wasn't many people in the cowfield at all. Josephboyoo needed his cowhides, so I couldn't buy them. I moved across to the other side of the field, so not to compete with his range training. Quick massacre and visit to Al-Kharid later, I was ready to start the quest proper. As soon as I entered the Black Knights' fortress, Commander Colby shouted at me and then teleported me to the storage area. I ran around the vast area, until I realised that I was actually under Taverley. I even picked up a dusty key en route. What I should have done was speak to the bloke, who was standing right next to where I teleported into the room. I only found him, when I went back to bless someone's grave. One word from him and I was in a puzzle room. Here is the solution: At least, it was for me. But the puzzle isn't over. I thought that you just had to get the weights to 15 in each. So I shoved in two 5s, a 3 and a 2 into each balance tray. That really didn't look right. They were skewif. I spoke to Captain Gilroy again, but he was neither use nor ornament. Realising that this was maths, I had a fruitless few minutes trying stuff. Then gave up and did something that I never usually do. I checked the RS wiki for a guide. It was there! I copied their formula and carried on. I thought that the next bit was really clever! We were ambushed by a variety of Pest Control creatures. I started fighting back, but they were healing. They also took much longer to get injured than normal. It's one of those situations when a level 64 is really 164. Back in the real world, if a void creature is healing, then there's a spinner around. I gave up the fight and went looking. It was hiding in a corner. I killed the spinner and the rest were suddenly vulnerable. I then lured the brawler to protect me, while I picked off the others one by one. Easy for someone with knowledge of pest control. I should imagine it would be annoying for those with none. Afterwards, it was forge repairing time. It it turned out that I hadn't needed to collect all of those supplies earlier on. They were all waiting for me now in various crates. Oh well. I by-passed the couple of other questers, as I had mine already in my bag. Next up, it was a jigsaw puzzle. You have to place all of the pieces to fill three panels. That passed quite quickly. LOL We were into a room with a void pest portal. Lots of testosterone fuelled shouting things, between the white and black knights, but they eventually agreed to co-operate. We went through and there's a bit of story, which was really interesting. Then we reached the 'boss' fight. It was a game of Conquest. *sigh* Jagex are back to the promoting minigames through quests strategy again. Desist! I know it's their way of promoting lots of extra game hours to play, but it's really annoying. I'd probably go and explore Conquest anyway, through the more subtle promotion of having an empty space in my costume room. It really rankles, though, when it's in your face advertising like this. Especially when it's interupting one of my favourite RS pursuits: questing. Anyway, I played 'Conquest', but retreated. I only had a scout left, but Grayzag had a torcher and defiler. I didn't fancy my chances. I thought the retreat would just restart the game. It didn't. It teleported me right out of there. I took the opportunity to nip and check my GE, then bank all of my armour etc. I wasn't going to need them. Then I stopped for lunch, beause I'd lost enthusiasm for the quest. It was the insertion of the minigame that did that, not the actual losing. Until then, I was really enjoying the quest. Now fed and watered, I'll go back and play 'Conquest' again, so I can get my questcape back.

I'd just lured Syd into my dungeon (as you do). Building mode on. Oak door demolished. Syd sent for more planks. Operation Get Second Construction Stone activated. Oh crap. System update. I have never hammered doors together so fast. Ikea ought to employ me as a demonstrator. 40 doors rose and fell, while Syd repeatedly broke the 12 second mile. The strange rock appeared in my inventory as the countdown reached 50 seconds to go. I raced upstairs and teleported to Edgeville. That was just adrenaline fuelled noobishness. I could have used the glory around my neck, instead of the one upstairs. As it was, that was the perfect place to teleport to. I was ready! Gunnar's Ground is a free to play quest, designed with newcomers in mind. There's no fighting involved; no tools or other resources are required to take with you. As long as you have level 5 crafting, then you can just turn up and complete the quest. Much of the proceedings are in conversation, so it's potentially a very fast quest. I just know that the You Tube offerings here are going to be people competing to get it done in the shortest possible time. I will fail. It took me ten minutes waiting, several world hops and a visit to the forums, before I learned that I didn't have to challenge Haakon. Some trollish players were having a field-day. They were camping out at Haakon and slashing him down as soon as he arose. Haakon has a remarkably long spawn time, unless it just feels like that when you're waiting. In one world, there was a level 45 player, called Epic Jonsson, who was obviously having the time of his life. He had a dark bow and just let rip. I'd tried reasoning with him, explaining that this was part of a quest and we were all waiting to speak with him. He said that he understood and stepped back. I was mid-conversation with Haakon, when the next arrow hit. It took three shots for Epic to kill him, but he was so amused. That's when I took myself to the RSOF 15-16-128-61704650: I had responses from a handful of my peers, who'd already sussed that you could skip that bit. Then Mod Jack, the developer, responded: The rest of the quest passed within minutes, even accounting for the fact that I asked every question and read every answer. Including 'where is Edgeville?' You never know! There might be something important in there! All in all, Gunnar's Ground was a sweet, entertaining, little quest. Nothing really for a higher level to write home about, though I did manage level 66 Dungeoneering at the end. Nothing to do with the quest per se, just that it gave me a 200xp ancient lamp to rub and I was less than 100xp from a dungeoneering level. :D However, having said that it's no great shakes in itself, I recognise history in the making, when I see it. For a start, this is the first quest ever where I've been able to do this: Doing a quest, whilst wearing a quest cape? :D I thought it was a glitch, until I ran into There. He explained that this quest replaces 'Romeo and Juliet'. A passer-by added that I wouldn't gain quest points from it, as I'd already had them from 'Romeo and Juliet'. In short, I could have skipped this quest and gone to do some smithing instead. But I'm a quester, I'm in there! I didn't think I'd have any rewards at all from it, but I still did it. I did get the rewards, minus the quest points. Secondly, this quest is going to do to Varrock what has happened in every old town IRL. I've already seen it happen. A player asked another player where dwarf is now. The response was that he's in Juliet's house. No, he's not. He's in Dororan's house. :D However, that house will continue to be Juliet's house for anyone who played before today. Just like you would search in vain for the River Fleet in London (without a spade and a gasmask obviously), but we still talk about Fleet Street. I warrant that Juliet will live on in oral memory, long after the guides all speak of Dororan's House. I also liked this quest because you get to have close ups of your outfit! I snapped away like a tourist. Here you go!

Tl;dr account: It's a quest. Slightly longer tl;dr: This was a very long, puzzle ridden quest. It was very intuitive, in so far as you didn't have to have great leaps of logic to follow the plot nor to work out what to do next. A thorough search of your environment, or a conversation with one of your companions, would set you on the right track. The puzzles were challenging, but not impossible. It took me just over 3 hours to complete the whole quest. There was a bit of fighting at the end, but nothing to frighten nubs like me. The rewards were a bit so-so, though they did include 5k Construction xp. All Construction xp automatically makes for good rewards. Yay! :P I was joking yesterday that I ought to have td;dr bits at the top of my blogs, for all of those who just skim-read it looking for their name. Like MFI. So there you go! I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth attempting to go to the ZMI altar. Last time I did that, I paused to open my treasure trail chest to see what new things had been added to it. Next thing you know, I'm stuffed for several days, as my bank is full of heraldic stuff. Fast forward through several days of friends holding stuff and buying heraldic items for me, then I've got everything back into my treasure chest. However, I've hardly got any money left and I never did get to the ZMI altar. Today, I finished work, then trundled off to my house to get costumes out to fill up my bank. I'm off to ZMI! However, I'd just that second filled my bank to capacity and was wandering out across Yanille, when the system update started. I rushed to check the Recent Updates forum, learned that it's a quest, then calmly returned all of my costumes to my house. Me and a player named Head Slave were waiting in the Void Outpost, synchronising questcape emotes, when the timer ran out. Quest time! After a quick cant with Commander Tyr (I can't see his name without thinking of the god Tyr; then wondering where Fenric is), Korasi, Jessika and I went off to Port Sarim for a spot of hunting. It was like that thing where you have to search snow-mounds with a noose-wand in your hand. But with more slime. And with fewer occasions of Kaylaalak kicking them, so that the creature inside flies across the ground and makes her giggle. In fact none of that at all, because Kaylaalak wasn't there and neither was whatever was sliming the place. We eventually ended up in the pub, as you do. After sifting through the junk on the floor to find my key (reminded me of my student days), we conned our way into the pub's cellar and all was set for the Barrel Puzzle. Round one was me kicking my way up to the empty barrel, while thinking, 'well, this is easy'. Then I reached the barrel and realised that I had no way of kicking it diagonally down the route that I'd just arrived. More thought was clearly needed. I ended up utterly intrigued by it. It took me about 20 mins to manoeuvre the empty barrel to the door. I felt so smug! I took a picture, in case anyone at Sal's needed it, then performed the last kick to get it through the door. Nothing happened. No amount of kicking the barrel, nor screaming at Jessika and Korasi to get off their backsides and open the door, was getting us out of there. It was only as I was appealing for help in my blog and on Sal's forum, that I noticed the hole in the wall. Cachi. Oh well! It was a good job that I was enjoying the puzzle! It took me about half an hour to work out the solution, but here it is: I've drawn some lines in, so you can see the passage of the barrel. My own journey down involved running to wherever I could to kick the thing. There was a bit of talking, then we were off to the Caribbean Karamja, for a bit of DIY on a shop, before crawling through the bushes in the banana plantation. Remember that really annoying Archangel lL bloke? He was there with his friend. We didn't say hello. I followed some more slime, checked out a hole, then it was off to Rimmington for the next puzzle! Yay! You know you get twitch combat, where you have to move really quickly in order to stop yourself dying? Well, this was the puzzle equivalent. Twitch puzzling. You have to move really quickly, forming instant strategy on what knobs to twiddle with first, or the machine dies. It took me five attempts, with a lot of really impressive explosions in between, until I cracked it. I think I was doing well though. When I came out after the fourth try, I heard a player say, "Exploding lab #13!" While other comments gave me the impression that the other players present thought that a mere 13 wasn't bad. My strategy was basically to memorise what machine did what; then to pay attention to the unstable chemicals. Sometimes, when you were asked to change the mixture, you didn't need to put both ingredients in. It was a trick to make you activate the instability. Soon as I clicked with that and memorised the unstable elements, I passed next time. That wasn't a difficult puzzle, but I do wish that Jagex wouldn't include them. It was fine on my computer, but it would have been a nightmare on my old one. It reminded me of a similar exercise that we had to do just around the corner, outside the chemists, with all the sulfur and coal. A slow connection or lag in either of those and you're unable to finish the task. Jessika teleported us to Falador, then there was some faffing around with boxes and canting with Sir Tiffy and Sir Amik. Then I was off on a treasure trail. Elite reward, pl0x! I started very well, by undertaking a marathon run all over to the River Lum, south of Barbarian Village bridge, before realising that I had the map upside down. With the river now on the right, I stumbled and panted all the way to those trees just north of Fally wall, on the lake. That's when I noticed the rocks at the bottom of my map. I paused for a rest with the busker, then ran through Fally and clambered through the hole in the wall. I found the clue in a nice little patch of riverside woodland, just to the north-west of the Fally west mine. I don't think I've ever been there before. Pretty. The next clue involved finding a man 'whose path had gone astray', south of Fally and east of a guild. I had to give him an onion and wave at him. I ran to my farming patch, where I have onions growing and harvested one. Then I tried to give it to the highwayman. He looked at me like I was a noob and wandered off. I meandered up and tried to give it to that dark wizard bloke, who hangs around with white, blue, red and brown wizards, randomly killing things. He said, "What...? Why are you waving your items at me?!" Or words to that effect. I tried again. He wasn't having it. Having exhausted my best guesses at who to give an onion to, I went for an exploration of the area. I discovered that I had been over-thinking things a tad. There was someone called 'man', who was lost. He was right next to an onion field and only a few yards away from the gate that I'd rushed through on my way from my last clue. *sigh* Man gave me a new clue scroll. This involved a holy flower bed, a fountain and a splash of red with blue flowers. I hurtled up to Taverley and inspected their horticultural arrangements. It took me ages, and a re-read of the clue, to work out that I should be east of Ice Mountain, not Wolf Mountain. Freaking noob. So I teleported to Edgeville and jogged over to the monastery. The particular flower that I was after was red, with three sets of blue flowers around it. It took me an inspection of every flowerbed, before I found it hiding under the building bridge. -.- The next was a co-ordinate clue, which I'd suspected due to the need for sextant, map and compass. Fortunately, there was a player there (sorry! I didn't note your name! Boomberboy, I think), whom I'd helped with the barrel puzzle, by sending him to my blog to find the solution. He had caught up and he knew already where the co-ordinates were going to lead - a trapdoor behind the black knight's fortress. It was easy to find the place. It was the trapdoor festooned in player graves... However, said players were already back to retrieve their stuff and they passed on important information. Drain your prayer before you go in. The boss is a level 110 black knight, which heals itself from your prayer. Ok, thanks! Korasi, Jessika and I climbed down the hatch, then had a little game of Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf? That's when you have to creep up to somewhere and not be seen, when they turn around. Yeah. Bit of thieving, espionage, sneaky summoning stuff and random violence later, we were through the door. I managed to secure us a key, by nicking tools off slaves and vandalising desks, then it was boss time! I had absolutely no problem whatsoever. I had to eat about 3 tuna and sweetcorn spuds, but otherwise nothing. I think that the tricky thing was to learn to have your prayer drained before entering. As I already knew that, I sailed through the boss fight. All good! We were teleported back to the Void Outpost. Canted with Tyr. Then I got my 5k construction xp and some other stuff. All in all, I enjoyed that quest. Thanks!

I have the best job in the world. No, really. Who else could be e-mailing their boss going, 'blah... blah... proof-reading... blah... blah... San Sebastian... blah... blah... tax office... blah blah...' and have the boss immediately e-mail back with, 'I'm sorting it out this end, you log onto Runescape - new quest!' Ok! In fact, who else can spend a portion of their working day writing blogs about the extinction of the dinosaurs? But that's by the by. As it happened, I couldn't just log on to do my quest, because I'm still at war with the tax office. When I took this job, I naively thought that the official conversation would go something like this: Me: Hello Mr Taxman T: Hello Merch Gwyar Me: I want to pay my taxes T: Oooh! I can has pl0x! Me: Yes, here you are *hands over money* T: kthxbai Me: *goes to play Runescape* You would be amazed how difficult it is to pay your taxes in Britain. True story. I'm still not set up and that's not through want of trying. Anyway, after two and a half hours being passed from pillar to post and sitting in long telephone queues, playing the same looped single piece of music over and over again, I was ready for my quest. I put on my questing outfit (black dhide; green, pointy hat; rune crossbow; shield-with-a-face-on-it; boots of lightness; ring of life; glory; barrows gloves) and packed the usual supplies (anti-poison; couple of sharks; prayer potion; bolts; rogue's kit; ectophial), then gloried myself to Draynor. I have to admit that post-Nomad, I'm wary of quests. It used to be that I got very excited on quest day, but now I kind of sidle up to the quest site with a feverent prayer on my lips, 'Please, Guthix, don't let it be another Nomad'. It wasn't. In fact, it was another very enjoyable quest. I have noticed that Jagex seem to release things in batches. There was a run on combat quests, which culminated in Nomad; before that there was a run on Mahjarret quests. At the moment, we're in the midst of a run on puzzle quests. This is great for me, as I love puzzles, but I do feel sorry for those who hate them. I do wish quests could be mixed up a bit. A noob quest; followed by a combat quest; followed by a puzzle quest etc, instead of these batches. It is cheating, but I do approve of the table at the beginning that gives you a list of the items that you need for the quest. I approve of it, even as I'm thinking that it's not quite right. For me though, I always read it, then go on a gathering or shopping spree, before starting my quest. It does amuse me when, in the quest, the moment comes for your companion (in this case the Wise, Old Man) to ask you to collect things. The first time, I replied something like, 'Oh! I just happen to have a chisel on me!' Before running off after him. The second time was hilarious. The Wise, Old Man went off on one. I should have screenied the exact dialogue, but it was something like, 'How do you just happen to have 2 oak planks, a steel bar and a mithril bar on you?' And I'm all, 'errrmmmm'. There was this big, awkward moment, then he just shrugged it off and we got on with the quest. I love it because it almost pulls down the fourth wall, but just stops short of doing so. I hate it when the fourth wall is torn down in game, but those near misses are really funny. The first puzzle, hacking into the house teletab, was fairly simple for me; the second puzzle saw me being so meticulous. I had my clockwork dummy covering every square of every room in that dungeon. I felt so accomplished when I found all of the traps. I even sent him back to one room, because I was suspicious of there only being one trap in there. But all in all, it was fun to complete them. I also enjoyed the cut scenes. I liked how Dionysis and Zenevivia did that circling dance thing that we all do. I'm sure that that was originally a player invention, so it was fun to see it happen with NPCs too. Runescape's greatest questers gang up on an old lady... apparently. The fight was one of those three times lucky moments. The first time, I was doing fine. We had her down to under half health, when my prayer ran out. I thought this would be fine, as I'd already clocked where her gilded altar was. I took off for it, but Zenevivia screamed, 'I didn't give you permission to explore my house!' and zapped with with a nasty spell. I was soon losing health drastically, so I ectophialled out. The second time, I took extra prayer potions, but they didn't seem to help much. She was hitting hard through my prayer. I also took emerald bolts (e), but I couldn't get her poisoned. I noted that she was praying against my range, so I ectophialled out again. The third time, I took my whip, as well as extra prayer potions. This time it was much easier. I ran around like a madwoman, just avoiding her shoots, while the Wise, Old Man got in some direct hits. Each time I was close, I whacked her with my whip. She repelled me for a bit of damage, but she'd taken more. Then I'd run away. Soon as I was across the room, I'd shoot her with a bolt, then start running again. It worked well. There was a spot, near to the end, when the Wise, Old Man tried to say something. I couldn't read it fast enough, as I was running and so it flashed off as quickly as it arrived. I still don't know what he said, but she didn't seem to be taking any damage then. It was only when I stood still and took damage myself that she did too. The fight seemed to go on forever, but eventually she was on the floor begging for forgiveness. I also enjoyed all of the codas. Watching the Wise, Old Man and Zenevivia attempt to raid the Wizards' Tower; cutting the tree from under the guard; releasing Mabel from the sack. There were some lovely rewards. Naturally all of the Construction xp made me happy. My next quest is to fully understand the rest of my rewards. What precisely are dungeon pits and how do they differ from normal dungeon rooms? They aren't mentioned in the official manual yet!

I turn my back for 30 seconds and Jagex takes my quest cape off me! :D Nevertheless, it's back where it belongs now. The blarb on this quest said that it was a short, novice quest, so I didn't think too much of it. I meandered over to Fally Park and had a cant with Sir Tiffy. He told me that I had to complete a Pest Control game before I could do my quest. I pointed to that summer when I was obsessed with the minigame and played hundreds of games of it. It's all in my blog, as I wrote about it at the time. How me and the gang made rousing speeches in the boat, 'Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more or we'll dam up this wall with the void knight dead!' and 'we'll fight them at the portals, we'll fight them on the platform, we'll fight them at the gates...' etc. Alongside such classics as 'Men of Harlech' with the lyrics changed with each new singing. But Sir Tiffy was unmoved. I then pointed to the almost full void in my wardrobe, where I'm only missing the mage hat. Sir Tiffy still pointed in the vague direction of Port Sarim, 'Get thee into a Pest Control game, nub!' That's when I realised what was happening. This was going to be a quest that was so short that it needed a game of Pest Control just to pad it out a bit. Ok. Five minutes later I was back with 1190gp and 2 pest control points, after having run through the novice game. Sir Tiffy gave up at this point and let me do the quest. Having now done the quest, I don't think it needed the padding at all. Ok, it wasn't the longest quest in Runescape history, but there was enough there to make it pass as one. I've known shorter quests. It seemed to be one of the old school quests - talk to loads of people, run errands, get your quest points - but it wasn't. By the end of it, I was really impressed. I do love puzzles and a couple of those challenged me. The sliding puzzle challenged me because you couldn't shift the central block. If I could have moved that, it would have been over in seconds! But instead I had to solve it by only moving the outer ones. The other challenge was the one where I had to move three knights across a bridge. These kind of puzzles don't usually faze me at all, but I had a 'phone call halfway through which gave me much food for thought. I don't think I was paying attention very well. LOL I loved the final puzzle. It reminds me of those childhood games, where you had to work out who sat next to who at a dinnertable. I deliberately made it harder for myself by doing it in my head, rather than using a pen and paper. Then, right at the very end, I struggled between what two of them were thinking, so ended up jotting it all down from scratch anyway. :D All in all, an enjoyable quest, but nothing to write home about. And where was the level 55 creature that the introduction table told me that I had to pwn? I took my armour and whip especially.

This morning I nipped into the cooking guild for my breakfast. As I busied myself moving between bank and range, another player kept getting under my feet. Odeon was dressed almost identically. Both of us were clad in our Varrock 3 armour (ideal for getting through the door) and our quest capes, but we didn't initially speak. It was that awkward shuffling of strangers, both intent on sizzling fish without burning them, and anyway, I was chatting in Canting. Then Odeon went, . I glanced at him, then around the room; I had a quick reccy over the wall at the wider cooking guild, but nothing untoward appeared to be happening. I responded with a >.>. Odeon replied with >>? To which I ran out of emoticons and resorted to speaking. 'You said :D, so I was looking to ensure that we weren't being invaded by orks or something.' Odeon assured me that there were no orks in the vicinity. In fact, it was highly unlikely that there would be so far south. After a moment, he added an afterthought, 'except maybe in Zanaris.' To this, I had to smile, as I've only recently dealt with that particular infestation. In fact, Zanaris is now completely ork-free, because I went on a bit of a mission there to help out the Fairy Queen. I couldn't resist smugly telling Odeon that it's ok, I've dealt with the orks in Zanaris. This caused a bit of consternation, as he paused in his fish cooking to look at me with a puzzled frown. The weird thing was that he too had done just that. In roughly the same time frame too. In fact, as we compared experiences, it transpired that the Fairy Queen and her general, the Tooth Fairy, had set us both the same task! We had each, individually, taken out the Fairy Godfather. Even more bizarre, when I mentioned that I'd been given a self-filling watering can as a reward, he gasped and said he'd received the same! We both cooked in silence for a few seconds, taking this in. I resolved to see the Fairy Queen ASAP and have this out with her. Why on Earth is she making both Odeon and I save Zanaris? In fact, that's got terrible implications insofar as she must have reinstated the Fairy Godfather, opened the rift and let the orks back in, in order for both of us to do that. Odeon was thinking along the same lines. "Perhaps it's some kind of tourist trap," he mused. And that's when things really got weird. It's best if you just read the conversation of us comparing notes here: Before we could get to the bottom of it, a black cat appeared. In an obvious pointer towards some kind of Gielinor wide conspiracy theory, Odeon was abducted right in front of my face! In utter shock, I just mindlessly finished cooking my fish. I was considering marching over to Draynor right then and there to confront the Wise, Old Man. After all, something is happening with all of these quests if both Odeon and I are having to separately rescue the same people and relieve the same places. And now for him to just be taken like that! I was about to rush out and kick bottom, when Odeon was suddenly returned. He stared at me wild-eyed and informed me that he'd just been taken to a parallel dimension. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, as he accused, "Perhaps YOU are from a parallel dimension!" This did seem a likely explanation, especially since my next quest was already lined up. I told him about it, "I'm having to go to a parallel dimension now. I've got to find a place called Real Life." Odeon nodded, sagely, "I've heard of this place." "Then find a place called Work." "Good luck." He said. I thanked him and we said our goodbyes. Bit shocking for first thing in a morning though, wouldn't you agree?

Well, I've finished it and I'm still utterly underwhelmed. The whole quest lacked any storyline; little in the way of intuitive journeying; and annoying repetitions. I did enjoy the sliding puzzle. It was frustrating at times and the reason I was doing it wasn't clear, but the actuality of it was fine. It felt as if the quest designer squealed with delight at working out a difficult puzzle, then just cobbled some fluff around the edges in order to declare it a quest. Why did I do anything in this quest? No idea. For those still struggling with it, here are some tips: 1, The levers push the squares. They are working like crowbars, levering the squares into the empty spaces. You can move individual squares or whole rows like this. 2, In the top, left-hand corner of your screen is a magnifying glass. If you press this, you'll get a birds eye view of all but the square behind the middle tower. I found it easier to work using this view. 3, You only have 50 moves to complete each section, unless you power up some bonus moves. There is only the first puzzle where you can't release bonus moves. 4, The power is coming from the generator to the east, ie the bottom of your screen in the bird's eye view. Every position will have to link to this power generator. 5, Bonus 50 moves: Stick a small block in front of the power generator. Line up another to the north of it (right of it in your birds eye view); then place the 2 storey block to the north of that (right of that). This links up with the hole at the north-eastern side (far right-hand corner) and gives you 50 bonus moves. You can only do this after you've released the 2 storey block with the completion of puzzle 1. 6, Bonus infinite moves: Stick a small block in front of the power generator. Line up another to the south of it (left of it in your birds eye view); then place the 3 storey block to the south of that (left of that). This links up with the hole at the south-eastern side (far left-hand corner) and causes the counter to jam. It'll jam on 62 moves and won't budge, even when you move the blocks. That gives you infinite amount of moves from here on. You can only do this after you've released the 3 storey block with the completion of puzzle 2. 7, While puzzles 1 and 2 end with cut-scenes, you'll get nothing for the completion of puzzle 3. You may get a message suggesting that you power the machine up. Ignore the message and carry on to position 4. You should see the tower start noticeably spinning. If that doesn't happen, then rearrange everything into position 3 again, then back to position 4. The second time, it should definitely start spinning. The guides are full of the front view of position 4, but I struggled with the back. Here's a picture of the back of the blocks: Click Me. For the front view, go and look at N3wb's guide in progress. Suddenly I was confronted with a spinning machine and happy times. Still no archangel descending to tell me what to do (give or take Teacuptime yelling, 'red button timmmmmeeee!' in Canting), but I think you're supposed to have noticed the control room when you entered. I certainly noticed the red button. There is something so primal about a red button. It screams, 'press me', even when you haven't a clue what's going to happen next. Nuclear bomb? Rain of fish? The Manic Street Preachers turning up to give an impromptu performance? However, by now the sheer lack of storyline to this quest was a standing joke in Canting. It was case of que sera sera, let's go and press a red button. This I did, then received a huge electric shock. That's fair enough. If you will go tatting with unknown machinery, in secret places, just because your church robbing activities led you to thinking it's a good idea, then an electric shock sounds about right. The force of it knocked my defence right down, but did give me a body bar. Yay! Now what? I don't think I've ever checked my quest diary so often as in this quest. Usually I go whole quests without opening it. If I do have to, then it's generally to double-check that I've not missed something, if an environment is a bit confusing or busy. In this quest, it was practically propped open, in a vain attempt to work out what I was supposed to be doing at any given moment. It remained the world's most badly-written guide ever. And while we're on the subject of badly written, let's just contemplate the quest diary at this point: Body body....? And you spell the word 'really', with two ls. :) I'm being pedantic. *hands up* I stuck another primed bar in the slot and went back downstairs. It really wasn't too bad, as positions 3 and 4 are very close. You just have to move the three storey block back and forth, then snake those blocks around the central generator, until it all connects. I'd left it in position four, so I just did this, then moved it all back again. I had to do that twice, press the button, receive another electric shock, then I had my two body bars. Yippee. It didn't mention how to make my body body *looks for an eye rolling smiley* ;) *that will have to do* But I just went to same anvil as I've made all of my elemental armour on. It informed me that I needed my battered book. I had my ragged book on me. That was no good. I raced upstairs and dashed over the road to the house there. Instead I searched the bookcase and grabbed a book. Back into the elemental workshop, I realised that this was a slashed book. I now had a slashed book and a ragged book, but the anvil (which didn't trust me to remember how to smith anything, despite my prowess with adamantite these days) demanded the battered book. I experimentally used my body bars on it anyway and it worked. So for battered book, read 'slashed book from across the road'. Not ragged book that set you on this quest. Not battered book from the bookcase back home. Slashed book. Savvy? With great relief, the quest was over. ;) My questcape emote has been updated. I now start it looking trapped in a wind machine, before rising up and circling in the opposite direction, while stars cascade down my veil-aura. Very pretty. Oh! The body armour makes a tinkly noise and blue bits whoosh around you when you put it on. You jaggle like a New Age shop as you walk. It's quite groovy and looks very electric blue. Right, I'm off to work...

Normally I'm thoroughly excited about a new quest. But this afternoon, I was working on registering Canting members at Runehead (they accepted us) and that was turning into a quest all of its own. I'll talk about that in another blog. Really, I only went onto Runescape because I was parked at Trollheim herb patch and it had been well over 72 mins since I last logged on. I did so and there it was, 'Elemental Workshop Pt 3'. Instead of wooting, I glanced with a sinking heart at my list. Like a good, little Virgo, I do enjoy creating a good list. But here was a quest. List, quest, list, quest. It wouldn't have been any competition if it was anything but 'Elemental Workshop', but I can't remember being overly excited by that storyline in the past. I planted my herbs and chose the list. I came back a little later and decided to just get the quest out of the way. In Seers' Bank, I grabbed my default quest kit: black dhide, bow, arrows, anti-poison, couple of noms, Rogue's Kit and, remembering previous quests in this line, a knife. All around me people were screaming to buy soft clay. Taking the hint, I nipped home to Yanille and went to mine some clay just outside the gates. All prepared and ready, I returned, spoke to Geoffrey for my daily flax, then meandered into the church. I found the ragged book and looked around for an NPC to talk to. Nothing. I used my knife on the book. Nothing. I read the book. Quest began. It wasn't rocket science to work out how to make the key. Even the quest opening screen told me that I needed to kill a level 35 earth elemental and take some coal. The big clue was right there that I was going to need elemental ore. I wandered down to the elemental workshop, then pwned an elemental with rune arrows. Overkill ftw! The book had dropped huge hints about the front cover being 'the key', plus I had that overheard conversation about soft clay. I used my soft clay on the front of the book to get the mould. I drew on lvl 82 crafting knowledge and used the elemental bar on the furnace with a key mould in my hand. Voila! La key! I read my book thoroughly three times. Lots of talk of primed elemental bars. I went and made one of them. Now what. This is something that I really dislike about this quest. It's not at all intuitive. There's no real storyline. Yes, I've found a book with blatant hints on key-making, then some blarb about animating servants made from body energy. Even if I hadn't read my Mary Shelley, I'd have that incident down in Morytania to make me wary of such things. But let's pretend that I'm an idiot; after all that's how most quests begin. You remove all common sense and intelligence, then set off on a journey. I suppose it's alright in a Tarot sense. We start that journey as the Fool. Sorry, side-tracked there. Anyway, I'm on my quest. I have my key. I remember the door downstairs that I strongly suspect is going to feature here. Key, door. Bit of a link there. But is that all? I did what any experienced quester does. I started clicking on everything in the room in the hope of more clues and ensuring that nothing important is overlooked. Unfortunately, I'm in a room which has already held two quests. The anvil, just for an example, is still trying to guide me through Elemental Workshop Pt 2. In the end, I just gave up on the whole thing and went downstairs to check out the door. Unsurprisingly, it opened. I found the control room and inspected the slot. Looked like something flat could slot in there. Feeling very superior, I shoved in the primed elemental bar that I'd prepared earlier and yay the door opened. Inside was an inactive red button and not a lot else. A lever for opening and closing the door. Time to investigate downstairs. It was the Nomad of puzzle quests. All of those twitch fighting questers, who sneered with smug glee over 'Nomad's Requiem', are now in the RSOF protesting loudly. It didn't take long for me to work out that I was looking at a giant sliding puzzle. My thoughts immediately went to Kayla, who hates these with a passion. But for myself, I was finally interested in this quest. I love sliding puzzles. I spent large portions of my childhood doing them. This was my sort of quest puzzle! Until I actually tried to do it that is. Note there was nothing telling me to do it. I was doing it in the same spirit as a small child sees a brightly coloured toy and makes grabby hands. It was there, so I started playing with it. This, of course, left me with no end game. What was I supposed to be doing here and why? After a while of moving squares randomly around, I tried investigating the whole room, above and below, again. Nothing really to write home about. A half-scrawled diagram, which meant nothing. It really was back to, 'here's toy, go play'. I can has storyline, pl0x? A while longer of having no idea what I was supposed to be doing, I went into Canting. About half of the people there were doing the quest and were equally stumped by it. My moment of clarity came when I sussed that the levers push the squares. Now I knew how to use it, but no idea what was going on. H Alger solved the first puzzle. I even resorted to looking at the guide in progress here, but I was further along than Newb was at the time. I checked out the Runescape Wiki, but even the collective brainpower there only had the first puzzle solved. Nevertheless, I now had a picture to work towards. It was quickly solved too. Real life kicked in, so it was a while before I was back. I quickly knocked out the second puzzle, then H Alger talked me through gaining infinite moves. (Link the 3 storey tower to the bottom left hole, then use another couple of baby blocks to link that to the bottom spinning generator thingie.) I knocked out number 3 solution, using the pictures now appearing on Runescape Wiki, then went abed. Yesterday, I'd worked over an hour, so I decided to use it today. I'd do my Tears, finish the quest, then go to work. Ha! I did the fourth puzzle easily enough, but nothing happened. I checked my quest diary. It was still saying that I'd only done two puzzles. I reversed and did the third again. I kept getting the message that 'nothing interesting happened, maybe if it was powered first'. I'm still getting it. I've tried this, this and this. All guides talk of the tower being lowered, but that hasn't happened for me. It's supposed to be unlocked by completion of the third puzzle. None of the guides in progress on any site, including our own and Runescape Wiki, are mentioning that message at all. I've appealed for help here and on the RSOF. I was told on the latter to repeat the first two puzzles. I did that, nothing. Others have given me advice that read like advanced level engineering manuals. Connect the driving cog to the middle height recepticle... what?! So here I am. I've usually finished work by now and I haven't even started. I'm at the same puzzle as I was when I went to bed last night. I'm enjoying the sliding puzzle, but left utterly underwhelmed by the lack of intuitive narrative in the questline. I hate having to resort to guides, as that takes the fun out of quests; it's even worse when you a) don't understand the guides or b) the guide writers don't seem to have uncovered what you have. Part of me is wondering if I've missed out something vital or else there's some kind of glitch. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

I don't often write about real life in this blog, because that's not what anyone is here for. Most of all me. However, this weekend I had a real life quest and thought I'd tell you about it. My friend, EM, has no telephone and no internet connection. For a decade, we stay in contact by me randomly turning up and knocking on his front door. It could be once a month or a couple of times a year. He opens the door, puts the kettle on and we just fall back into step. It's all good. All good, that is, until I'm ridiculously busy closing a national project/office for a few months, followed by 18 months of being unemployed and therefore not being able to afford the petrol money to travel all up there to visit him. Friday night, I sat down and worked it out. It had been two and a half years since I last saw him. That's a long time. That's a quest. I packed an overnight bag, told everyone here that I'll either be back very late or not at all, then set off up on motorway to the Wirral. Friday night rush hour slowed down my usual driving like a lunatic approach to getting anywhere, but eventually I arrived at his town. It was half past 8 and the sky was burning. Not just the the toxic gases from the local industries, but also with the most brilliant sunset! Locked in my room for so long, I'd forgotten about sunsets and this was an incredible one. The hippy in me was happy. I rang the buzzer for access to his flat and it was answered. Unfortunately, it was answered by a young, blonde woman with a baby, not an aging, grey-haired druid. The lady was lovely, but she couldn't help me. She had been there over a year and all she knew of the previous occupant was that he'd been evicted two years before. She'd heard rumours that he was in a home or prison or something. 'kay. I set off to his ex-wife's house, where two of his adult kids still live. Unfortunately, there was no answer at their flat. No problem. I got back into the car and drove to the next estate, where a stranger opened the door at my friend's mother's house. He informed me that Mrs M had died two years ago. So there I was. Twenty minutes after arriving, sitting in my car, stunned by the news of Mrs M; while also worried about my friend. The town where they lived has a population of 64,100 people, crammed into flats and the council estates, between port and refinery. If you've ever watched 'Shameless', then I'm convinced that it was based on this place. Even my mates who live there nod wryly at that one. If you look like the police or a social worker, then no-one is going to know anything. I had absolutely nothing to go on, however I did have a couple of things in my favour. Firstly, I look nothing like the police or a social worker; I look like a short-arsed, female crusty. I've been told that I do 'little girl lost' very well and, given the amount of times that I get searched trying to get into venues, I must look like someone who's taken a lot of drugs. All very good attributes towards gaining instant acceptance in this town. Secondly, I have 301 quest points and a quest cape! I set off into his old local pub. There the licensee was new and had never heard of him. However, he called over some of the old-timers. One of them was able to tell me that EM was still alive, but living on the opposite part of town. He didn't know where precisely. But that was good. At least I'd now discounted half of the town. As they all shrugged with, 'awww, you've come such a long way' kind of comments, I asked for a list of the main pubs over there. I then asked for which of them had a quiz machine. (Me and EM used to finance whole nights out by going from quiz machine to quiz machine in each pub. Answer enough questions correctly and they gave you a tenner jackpot.) I was directed to the Horse and Jockey. Hurrah! It took another twenty minutes to find the pub, including a stint being utterly lost amongst the backstreets of the refinery; where the sky glows orange at night and the air has a bitter, acidic taste in your mouth. In my defence, I was following the directions of the woman in the first pub at the time. It's just that her directions were crap. Eventually though, I found my way back to the carpark of the local industrial museum, which had been mentioned. There was a bloke in a van there and, when I mentioned the pub, he knew the way. However, he warned me that it was a git to find, if you didn't know the backstreets. Nevermind though, he would take me. There are probably whole 'Don't Do This At Home Kids' warnings attached to following strange men in vans out of dark carparks into unfamiliar streets, but I wouldn't have hurt him. He was safe enough. He set off and I tailed him in my car to the Horse and Jockey. Woot! Once in there, the lady behind the bar had never heard of him and neither had any of the regulars. I was just planning my next move, when the licensee came up from the cellars and was asked the question. He checked a couple of facts with me and suddenly grinned. He thought he might know someone who knows him. He got out his 'phone and called a friend, asked on it and the grin grew broader. He handed me the 'phone, which was a bit of a problem, as I'm partially deaf and was getting by in the pub conversations only by lip-reading. It turned out ok though, because it was only a small pub and everyone was interested in this quest by now. They all went silent and I could hear the bloke perfectly. He didn't know the address, but he did know what the house looked like. I left the pub knowing that it was in a street on the other side of the motorway, up by the railway bridge, down on the left somewhere. I set off again. None of the houses up the first street matched the description (terraced, white painted house with an over-hang on the front door). I turned off down a side-street and halfway down, there it was. I knocked the door and, precisely an hour and quarter after I'd arrived in the town, I was face to face with my friend. EM's face was a picture. He said that only five people in the world know where he's living now and I'd managed to track one of them down. He'd not been in either a home nor prison. His mother isn't dead either. She's been hospitalised for months and isn't far off, but she is alive and kicking at the moment. When I told him my route, he said that that should never have worked. He doesn't even go into the Horse and Jockey. In fact, he's pretty much been a hermit for two years and was pretty much ready to vegetate into old age in front of the telly. Sod that, I said, let's go to Wales. By midnight, we were huddled under a sleeping bag, on the very tip of the Braich y Pwll, at the end of the Llŷn Peninsula. The Irish Sea was crashing into the rocks far beneath and Bardsey Island (the Avalon of legend) was just a silhouette in the darkness. Everytime the lighthouse turned, it lit up for a millisecond, then plunged into blackness again. It was freezing up there, with the wind quite icy at our backs, but my night vision isn't bad. I'd set off down the mountain slope towards the cliff, until I located a great outcrop of rocks. Squatting down in front of them, it was relatively warm, so I went and fetched him. It was here that we sat, looking up at the vast canopy of stars, unhindered by light pollution, pointing out constellations like the Great Saucepan, the Great W, the Great V and the Headless Donkey. EM was certain that I was making some of these up. He of such little faith. Quest completed. -.-

(Sorry I've abandoned you for a few days. I've got access to Ancestry.co.uk again and I've just made a massive breakthrough in my family history. It distracted me. :P) I'm a few days late on reporting about Fairy Tale Pt 3, but I loved it! Loved it! A glance at the title made me have to resist the urge to sing, 'Men of Harlech', which then turned into the tune that I sang in my head all the way through the quest. I'm guessing only the old gits reading this will get the reference. For the young pups, here's your clue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q8EM0G8tjg Not the most historically accurate film ever produced and apologies for likening orks to zulus, but Jagex started it. (Just checked the comments to the previous blog entry. Boom called it. :P) My first 'oooh this is nice' came not from the quest, but from the graphics. As I logged in there was a notice telling me that Jagex were hacking my computer to find my optimum settings. Was this ok? Yeah, whatever, just hurry up so I can do the quest. When that had finished, suddenly I was staring at a transformed Gielinor. There were bumps in the landscape, ditches and small hillocks, that hadn't been there before. There was light and shade on an epic scale. Fire left flickers on the walls. It was all a lot darker, but that's ok. I think I'm a closet Goth anyway (at least, I like the Cure and the colour black). It was all very pretty. Moreover, the game doesn't seem to lag so much. How can it be that I have more graphics and less lag? Very strange. All very pretty, but I had a quest to do. I grabbed my dramen staff and headed for the fairy ring by Edgeville. I now disappear through it in a whirl of purple and blue-green particles, as opposed to the multi-coloured flowers. I like it! I was immediately waylaid into the quest start, bypassing Zanaris completely. This was fine, as that's where I was headed anyway. The Queen's HQ was heaving with people, so it was difficult to find anyone, but that won't be a problem for anyone not doing it 30 seconds after it was released. The downside of this was that the general public were shouting out clues and spoilers. I do like to do quests on my own, but the running commentary was like having a gaggle of guides in game. I came close to switching public chat off, but just on it the lads arrived IRL, so I logged out anyway. By the time I was back, there were fewer people and it was ok. Before that though I laughed until I cried. I don't know why it was quite so funny, but it just tickled me. It was this picture: It's not really so funny without the animation with it, but I howled at the time. :P There's not much to report on the middle section of the quest. It was all very straight forward and I soon had all three teeth. As long as you read your dossier, they were easy to find. Later on, I was by the fairy ring in Zanaris and a surprisingly number of people were asking me for advice on that part. I stood there for about 10 minutes helping various questers. But honestly, just read the dossier. It's practically a 'how to' guide on teeth collection. Once I'd got my teeth and reported back, I did think that the narrative was a little confusing. I got the fact that I was supposed to arm myself for battle, which I did. I got the fact that I needed the teeth and the wand, so I brought those. What was puzzling was the farming of the teeth. The briefing had made it look like I had to go and farm those first, then proceed to the battle. I ran around the HQ for a while, looking for the family patches, before returning to the tooth fairy to see if I'd missed something. She just repeated that I was to go to the battle. I considered going to one of my farming allotments and pulling up my veg to try and grown them there, but the briefing had shown some very distinct patches, which didn't exist out in the world. I actually set off there, with the teeth unplanted in my bag, thinking that I'd missed an important part of the quest. I figured that I'd get there and be sent away to go and plant them, but at least there might be information there as to where. En route, I spotted a wonderful glitch. The two players creating it had discovered it by accident. STFU NAISE and Oo Elixir oO had simply donned their greegrees and attempted to go down the hollow log, when this happened: The triangular 'wing' that you can see clearly in the first picture kept swinging from side to side. When the topmost player took his rune armour off, to reveal a brown top, he looked like some kind of locust perched up there. :P It was all very hilarious, but then another player arrived and said that he was reporting them for bug abuse. Both players said that they'd already reported the glitch and anyway, it was a graphics glitch from which neither were gaining an unfair advantage in-game. Their heckler assured them that they'd be banned by morning, then went on his cheery way through the fairy rings. That really did leech the fun out of the moment. I told them that I was certain that this wasn't a bannable offence. After all, they'd just done Jagex a favour by finding it and reporting it. No-one was getting rich out of this. No extra gain was being had. It was just a graphical glitch. We broke up and went on our way. Once at the battlescene, I still couldn't immediately find a farming patch. I decided to just carry on with the quest and that was the correct thing to do. I peered through the vines and watched the cutscene. The Tooth Fairy appeared behind me and finally it all became clear. I took the teeth into the battlezone and the farming patches were in there. The first thing that I did upon entering was to plant my teeth. I've since learned that others fight the orks first and then plant the teeth. It did me no harm. I had allies in the immediate fight, who took out orks on their own. It did mean that I had a short period with the Fairy Godfather, where he had two shields down and one still remaining. My spirit ork had died (I'd been so busy fighting that I'd forgotten all about the healing wand. I r nub), so I just impotently hit the Fairy Godfather, whilst staying alive long enough for the ork to grow again. Then it was plain sailing. I have to say that the rift itself reminded me of the current series of Dr Who. That crack is surely the same shape. I was very, very pleased with the rewards. A watering can that fills itself up! :o No more will I design my farming run around where the easy access water sources are. Fairy rings that can be used without a dramen staff! :o This is great and I really appreciate it. However, I'm loathe to dump my dramen staffs and lunar staff. I've had those dramen staffs for years! I remember the quest where I got them, which was really hard for my level at the time. It was such an achievement to wield the staff. Now they are just spacehogging in my bank. I really should get over the sentimentality and dump them. Is everyone else dumping their lunar staff? That's another spacehogger now, but it's not like it can be stored with the rest of the lunar outfit in my house. For the moment, both dramen and lunar staffs are still in my bank, as I can't bring myself to dump them. The xp rewards were lovely too, but then there were more! Josh asked if I'd got all of the extras. I'd been to Martin and received the weeding reward. I haven't fully checked that out yet. I'm assuming that, once I've spoken to the gardeners, my allotments will never grown weeds again. Josh assured me that I hadn't found all the rewards, so led me on an expedition to recover them. I got 250k gp worth of herbs from the cave in Feldip, plus a fairy ring there which is close to the summoning obelisk. I got 10k xp firemaking and a fairy ring in Mos Le Harmless, after I'd lit a fire and repaired the bridges. I think that was it, but lovely rewards they were! Afterwards, I took the time to explore the new look Zanaris fully. I even switched 'run' off, because the place is so hippy now that you naturally have to slow to a Glastonbury pace. I really love it. I love all of the secret pathways, which always existed, but now look like secret pathways. I even wandered into the market, where I've only been about twice in my life before. I don't have to pay a diamond's entry now, so I just wandered in and out at will. Well done, Jagex, it's one of my favourite places in Gielnor now for real.

*flails and points* Noooooooo!!!! I seriously, seriously overslept this morning. I don't know what happened there. I generally have around 4-5 hours sleep a night before I wake up naturally and I'm bright and cheery for the day. But somewhere between a migraine a couple of days ago and a cold yesterday, I got tired around midnight last night, then slept until half 10 this morning. I woke up and stared in utter disbelief at the clock. However, my cold seemed to have gone away and after the usual intake of caffeine and nicotine, I went to work. I've just finished in time for my nephews to arrive, only to find that Jagex have released 'Fairy Tale Pt III'! :o What's the chances of Jdeh Rhyfela and Daz Rhyfelwr going, 'you know, I really fancy sitting down with a good book this evening, you play Runescape Auntie Merch'? >.> ... ... ... Ok, *dons dutiful Auntie hat* I'll do the quest later on and then be back to report upon it properly. Edit: '.... the spoils of this war include another magic farming tool and use of the fairy ring network without a staff.' :o ^_^ :P :) :P :)

Full of Pie might have set the trend, but cake for Rs achievements has been embraced with aplomb in our 'hood. Daz Rhyfelwr and Jdeh Rhyfela turned up at my house on Thursday with Nomad Cakes! This was in honour of my having pwnt Nomad a week and half before (as they'd forgotten them the previous Thursday). I was really touched! They both individually claimed to have baked and iced them. I can confirm that they were delicious! The momentus award ceremony was marred only slightly by Jdeh Rhyfela informing me that each sprinkle represents each time that Nomad kicked my backside. >^_^ :D Ok, I laughed. We had another IRL Nomad moment a month or so ago. In an incident involving a settee, my sister-in-law calling and possibly the dog, Daz's laptop ended up with a smashed screen on the living room floor. Horrified at the prospect of anyone being unplugged, I took him up to the local computer repair shop. It was back within a few days and then we had a bit of a shock. The computer repair shop hasn't got a big sign. It's basically a tiny shop run by a couple of geeks, whom I'd trust much more than the big department stores. In fact, I was quoted £500 by the store who sold us the laptop, after I'd called mostly to check the warranty and insurance. This little shop charged Daz £110 instead. The sign above the door mostly says, 'Computers!' I wasn't even aware that they had a name. They do. 'Nomad Computers'. D: True story that.

*QUEST SPOILERS HERE* Sal's Official Guide, written by Desireful, can be found here. Now onto my highly subjective review: Every post-Nomad quest has had me twitching slightly in nervous regard, but 'The Blood Pact' was really nothing to worry about. It was very short and easy for my level. In fact, I think it only took me five minutes because I read carefully though all of the available dialogue, in case there was something extremely important that I might need to know. I walked into the quest unarmed and wearing my usual black dhide, boots of lightness, green hat and glory. I didn't need to return for supplies. The ranger was kicked into submission and I was given weapons for the other two. The quest was designed for those straight off Tutorial Island. Once put into that context, I think it's a lovely quest. It teaches about the combat triangle and doesn't seek to place one medium of combat above another. The end result is a collection of weapons - a sword, a bow and a staff - which the intrepid adventurer can take away with them. The weapons even look good. I was carrying Kayle's bow around for ages. (I have to admit to smiling and thinking of Kayla, when I saw that name.) There is even a stock of arrows and runes to take away, so our fledging warrior, mage or ranger can test out their new toys. I heard so much disdain for those, as I hung around for a bit after the quest, but then I saw a low levelled player clutching his new bow. I traded him my stack of bronze arrows and he was so grateful that he didn't stop saying 'thank you' for a full minute. I think that some people forget how difficult it is to arm yourself in the early days. This fills that niche beautifully. Which isn't to say that I thought the quest entirely perfect. The premise was that Xenia was testing me to see if I was a good enough quester. There was all of this blarb at the end that said she could have intervened if I struggled. All of this works well if it's an early quest or if the player has a low combat level. It's a little inconsistant if the player is a veteran quester and high levelled in combat, because Xenia tells you, at the beginning of the quest, that she's heard of your reputation. She knows you as someone who has access to the Legends' Guild. So first she tells me that I'm a legend even amongst the elite members of the Legends' Guild, then, five minutes later, said that she wanted to test my combat prowess. On level 3 opponents? How about those Fallen Heroes (levels 92-106), the black demons (level 182) and Nezikchened (level 187), whom I had to fight in order to gain access to the Legends' Guild? If I was to totally immerse myself into my character, then Xenia's test would be quite insulting and certainly questions her reasoning ability. There was a minor point of annoyance in the middle of the quest. I'd got my staff and runes and hurried to the stairs to meet the melee opponent. En route, I set my autocast in preparation for this. As I touched the stairs, Xenia stopped me, switched off my autocast, then called me back to teach me how to switch on autocast. I can see how that would be useful information for someone who has never fought with mage before, but if autocast is already on, it's a bit weird. The RSOF made me laugh afterwards. There was a (presumably) tongue-in-cheek complaint about the derogatory comments made towards Zamorak and his followers. The poster stated that, as a Zamorakian himself, he would have preferred to have sided with the three members of the Blood Pact. They were his fellow adherrents and he anyway preferred them to Xenia and the woman weak enough to have been abducted. He cited religious hatred in the comments made towards Zamorak and furthermore preached that Zamorak would prevail. Several other Zamorakians supported his thread, while everyone else just laughed. I suppose though that there is a semi-serious point made in there. If this is directed at someone new to the game, they aren't given the chance to align with any Rs deity, before hearing that Zamorak is bad. One Zamorakian on the forums did make a counterpart. He said that those three were a disgrace to Zamorak, as they were so puny and snivling, and that he personally was happy to remove them from the game. Zamorak's followers should be all powerful and those who weren't deserved to die. As a Guthix girl myself, I just watched the debate in bemusement. But there we go. It was a short quest, but I enjoyed it.

Mking is in a quest mood at the moment. He's been taking on some of the toughest quests in the game, which leaves the risk of sudden death at the bosses. This was not a problem at all when, with exquisite timing, he managed to die at 'Dream Mentor' during one of the rare moments when I was on Lunar Magicks. His grave was blessed before he'd finished the first, 'Noooooooooo!' Then came 'Contact'. Before he set off, he'd checked that I'd be willing to come, if he got into difficulties. I was happy to do so. I blithely commented that I had a Phoarah's Sceptre these days, so it would be easy to get to Soph. It wasn't until he was picking his way through that maze that I stopped cooking in the Cooking Guild and stared blankly out of the window. I'd just remembered the maze. Moreover, it had occurred to me to wonder where his potential grave would end up. I carefully replaced my cooking gauntlets and took out some anti-poison instead. Not wanting to tempt the Fates or batter his confidence by suggesting that I was already en route, I set off silently. If he succeeded, he'd have never known I'd been down there. If he didn't, it might shave whole minutes off the time needed to bless his grave. I remember 'Contact'. I did it in the old days, before HD Runescape, when the deadly maze was a mass of differently coloured squares. It took me a while to do it, because of that line. The same line that I know gave Teacuptime pause too at the time. I wonder how many Slammers and visitors to the site have put 'Contact' off until it was absolutely unavoidable, because of that line. Forewarning: At almost any level you can easily die during this quest! Contact guide, written by Cxkslei I did 'Contact' and it wasn't that scary at all. Others had a terrible time, but it was one of those which I managed to sail through. Unlike 'Haunted Mine', which still makes me twitch now. And 'Nomad's Requiem', which I can't even think about. I went back to the 'Contact' maze when Whiskas did it. Again the maze was simple. A walk in the park. No trouble at all. In short, I had no worries whatsoever about meandering through it now to the ladder, down which Mking would be pwning a scarab. It was all good. Forewarning: At almost any level you can easily die during this quest! The maze looks so different these days. The high definition makes the traps slightly (emphasis on the slightly) harder to spot. The sandpit still looks like someone coloured a circle in with yellow and plonked it on the floor, but the rest is nicely crafted. None of it was causing me any difficulty and, in fact, I was just enjoying seeing its new graphics. Then suddenly the ground opened and I was falling. Forewarning: At almost any level you can easily die during this quest! In the old days, you couldn't see what was under there. Falling was usually accompanied by your lantern being extinguished and, as there are things down there to one hit the unwary, you were too busy teleporting out to faff around with illuminating the scene. Today though, I was wearing Seers Headband 3, which is a bright and, importantly, inextinguishable light. I can report that the basement of the maze contains several mages and high level scarabs. They pile you. I saw them in a flash, then emptied my Ectophial. I arrived, breathless and incredulous, in Morytania. I'm level 118 now! I could cope easily with that maze several levels lower. *rolls eyes* By now, Mking was getting into difficulties and so I confessed that I had nearly been there. I told him that I was coming back and not to fret. In the meantime, Daisyjake1 was in Canting. The woman is level 138. She's got 99s in *checks the hiscores and blinks* everything... *checks again more carefully* Train your runecrafting and construction! > : ( She's ranked 798 in the whole game. Forewarning: At almost any level you can easily die during this quest! She was also in the ZMI altar and bored stupid. Knowing her, it would have been altruism that sent her to the maze to rescue Mking, but the runecrafting as an alternative made her very grateful for the diversion. :P As I limped to a bank to eat my way back out of the heartbeat thundering in my ears, I did briefly consider letting Daisyjake1 deal with it. But, in honesty, the maze had finally become a challenge. I was going to beat it in HD if it killed me. We reached Soph at roughly the same time. Mking had now escaped the scarabs and was waiting at the ladder. He had been going to teleport out for food, but we stopped him. Both Daisyjake1 and I were packed to the gills with potions and noms. He was good. We set off. Despite the fact that wine and whisky were definitely factors in the rescue party's lives, we navigated all the way to the Scarab Trap with no difficulties. "Here is where I got trapped last time", I informed her, before stepping out and promptly getting caught in the same trap. :sleep2: I stood in Morytania with the map open, trying to describe the route to Daisyjake1. "Go all the way south ..." I told her. "Merch! How can I go all the way south? It's a maze!" Daisyjake1 replied. Two seconds later, she disappeared down another trap. Forewarning: At almost any level you can easily die during this quest! Daisyjake1 reached the maze again before I did, but waited for me, when she knew that I was coming. Again, we made it all the way to that same Scarab Trap with no hassle whatsoever. I asked her how she'd navigated it before and she wasn't quite sure. She experimentally tried to recreate the passage and promptly disappeared into a hole in the ground. Noooo! I dashed forward and was somehow clear. I stood blinking, staring back at it. How the....? Eventually we worked it out. There was a picture of a scarab on the wall. You had to just pass on the opposite side to it, just like avoiding a sand trap. -.- It was with some relief that I reached Mking. I handed over food and he went back in to fight, just as Daisyjake1 made it back to us. She had much better food. I'd send him in with sharks and a couple of monkfish. She had rocktails! While we waited, she gave me four of them. :D Then we went to see if we could watch the fight. We couldn't see him. The deadly arena was empty for us, but for a remarkably preserved corpse up by the entrance. In a parallel world, Mking was right in this room, fighting to the death. For us, there was just the pitter-patter scattering of rats. We made our way above again and waited, discussing whisky and our mutual love of literature. Mking left to change into his mage clothes and make his way back. While chaos reigned all around us, in the form of crushing walls and cursed creatures, it was lovely and peaceful, sitting there, discussing Diana Gabaldon and Frank Delaney. Mking returned then and it was almost a surprise to see him. I'd forgotten why we were even there! He pwnt the scarab easily with mage. There were loads of exclaimations from the arena about why he hadn't used mage in the first place. Up above, me and Daisyjake1 just wooted, as he reported that the scarab was dead. In a way, I was also sad though. I was enjoying chilling out in the ladder room. Congratulations conveyed, there was no more diversion from the ZMI Altar for Daisyjake1. She teleported out. I'd been planning to go into the bath for hours, I said my goodbyes and teleported out too. I paused at Edgeville to bank my stuff, as I said goodbye in Canting. Forewarning: At almost any level you can easily die during this quest! Mking hadn't teleported out. I didn't realise that. He got caught by a trap on the way out and died in the basement below. -.- I paused mid-logging and quickly grabbed my stuff. I was halfway through the maze, when Mking called out that his gravestone had collapsed. :( But, on the bright side, he'd beaten the quest! :D

I DID IT!!!!! Shine on silver girl! And good fight, Nomad.

I was raised to believe that all things come in threes. If two people die suddenly, you're on tenderhooks waiting for the third. Two cousins announce that they're pregnant and everyone buys three Congratulations cards, because there will be a third. For good and bad, great or ill, things happen in threes. I'm now old enough to have seen this repeated enough times in reality to start repeating it to the next generation in my turn. Because I believe it like I believe this blog is in front of me, then I knew I was going to beat Nomad today. If I could categorise my life into what was wrong, then it boiled down to three things: 1, I was out of work; 2, I didn't have a Glastonbury Festival ticket, for the first time in years; and 3, I hadn't killed Nomad. On Friday, I saw that there were extra Glastonbury Festival tickets on sale in April. On Saturday, I got a job. On Sunday, how could I not beat Nomad? Things come in threes. Always. I went in believing with all of my heart that I not only could do this, I was going to do it. It was written in the stars. It was Fated. It was the third thing. And yes, you did just read that correctly. I have a job. :D This is the perfect moment to pass on my first thanks. To the wonderful, gallant and utterly generous Mr Fred Lay. Yesterday, he hired me as the Content Writer for his business website. I'll put up the link to that once I've written for it. :P You can't imagine what that did for my self-esteem and confidence. Merci beaucoup, Mr Lay. I've had so much advice over the months; I've watched videos, read blogs, had long conversations with people. I knew how to kill Nomad, I just couldn't do it. Two days ago, I was smelting gold in Edgeville, when a voice called out, "Do you want tips on killing Nomad, Merch Gwyar?" I jumped out of my skin. It turned out to be a player named Wa, who graciously took the time to share all of her tips. She reads this blog, so thank you, Wa. I bumped into her yesterday as well and she asked had I beaten Nomad yet. I hadn't. It had to be today. Friday was Glastonbury Festival chance. Saturday was a job. Sunday was Nomad. The rule of threes. I woke up this morning know that this was Nomad day. I took my time getting ready. Josh is forever trying to teach me how to look at my stats and choose the best armour accordingly. I therefore stood in my costume room trying on things. It was quite a surprise to discover that void ranger actually gave me less of a range boost than black dhide with a Robin Hood hat. I also tried every shield in my bank and arrived at the Zammy prayer book. I only got really stuck when it came to my hands. If I wore my barrows gloves, then I'd have a 5+ boost over the regen bracelet, that Karl had sold me for this very purpose. So did I want 5+ boost or faster healing? Frilly Undys, a player in Edgeville bank, settled it. He was wearing posh armour and was high levelled. He said that, with the same choice, he would go for barrows gloves. Then I started raiding Teacuptime's wardrobe. First I temporarily bought his amulet of ranging off him. Then took everything else that might help: Until in the end, my final choice of Nomad pwning outfit was this: Finally, as I had 'bought' all of that off Teacuptime, I was still able to borrow a Bandos Godsword off TheArcturus1. I took Shelley with me and he was filled with Sara Brews. My bag held Arct's BGS; the diamond bolts (e) recommended by Wa; a Fire Titan; a ranging potion; 10 super restores; and the rest Sara Brews. I was ready. Nearly. That was just in-game. I logged off, rolled three cigarettes and made a cup of tea. In the meantime, I got waylaid and made to watch a snippet from Sports Relief, which was hilarious. I was made to watch it as motivation. :D Still laughing over that, I brought my cup of tea upstairs and announced to Canting that it was time. A last sup of a super set, I hurried inside and set my prayers at the door. Despite Wa's advice, I was still on ancient curses. Mostly because I'd forgotten to swop. I prayed leech defence and leech range. I walked in, got through the preliminaries and down Nomad jumped from his throne. My special was ready and Arct's BGS swathed through to hit 240. I had no idea if that was even good or bad. I immediately switched to rune crossbow with the ruby bolts (e) already loaded. Then I stood there. I have no idea why I stood there. Ordinarily, I'd have scarpered to the pillars and started the whole cat and mouse thing that gets me so close normally. Instead, I just stood in front of him shooting bolts. I stayed there until the bombs arrived, then hurried backwards through the gulley. I still shot at him from that vantage point, until he said that I can't hide from his wrath. That line from the Rs Wiki always comes back to me at this point, I can and I should. I legged it, not to my usual third pillar from the top, but to the very end pillar to the west. I hid behind it as the 75 hit, then came out. It all went a bit pear-shaped then. I don't know what was happening. In a volley of weaponry that almost got me killed, I was spam-clicking Saras and trying to drink out of empty vials and not dashing behind the pillar. I'm not sure how I survived, but I remember telling myself at the time that it's ok to fail this one. I have 1000 Sara Brews and 60 super restores. This is the first time I've fought him in weeks. I'm bound to be rusty. Yet I did somehow survive it. As the clones arrived, I was able to nip back behind that last pillar and sort myself out. That was the last time that I came even close to panicking. I didn't use the cat and mouse pillar tactic, unless it was absolutely necessary. I know that was stupid, but it gave me one less thing to worry about. Instead, I concentrated on getting at least one shot in before each sip of a potion. I evaded each 75 hit behind the pillar and I sat out each clone event behind that same pillar, but the rest of the time, I just stood and fought. Shelley, bless him, took off during one 75 hit. I was hiding and Shelley was out there kicking butt. Then came the second moment when I thought it was all over. Nomad and I were fighting in the arena, a step away from the last pillar and suddenly there was silence. My whole screen froze. I waited because this was a terrible thing. If I was to lag out, but die just before, would Teacuptime's millions of pounds worth of stuff be under that gravestone? I reasoned that it would be and reached to close the screen. Before I could click though, it all came back to life. I was in the centre of the arena and Nomad was gearing up for his massive hit. I was really low. I spam drank Saras and, the second my hp topped 1000, I clicked onto him. My ruby special was released straight away and a second later, he smacked me for the big one. I was alive! Moreover, he had just had to replenish his hitpoints to half. I was at the halfway point! Thereon, it seemed to go more smoothly. Though we did most of our fighting within a step of the last pillar, I didn't slow him down by using it in general fighting. I evaded the 75 and the clones, that was all. Then suddenly he was in beserker mode. It took me by surprise! It was all too soon! Shelley hadn't given me all of his Sara Brews and so I hadn't dismissed him. My plan had been to take out the Fire Titan during the next clone event after Shelley had handed me all of the Saras. Seeing as he never ran out, I never got to summon the titan. Now here I was in beserker mode, where I always, always died. I was perturbed to say the least. >.> Ok, I was scared stupid. True story. In my head, as if caught on a loop, was a line from 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. It went 'shine on silver, girl'. I know why. In a previous blog, I can't even remember which one or who said it, someone simply commented, 'shine on silver, girl'. At the time, I'd nodded and acknowledged it. It made me feel better. Now it was unbidden in my head. You know what I've just realised? I'd got the lyrics wrong. They are, 'Sail on silver, girl, sail on by; your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way. See how they shine.' I know what's happened there. In the old days, in another world, when I was top of my game in something, there was a moment when a whole forum basically responded to one of my posts with 'shine on you crazy diamond'. The two just mixed up in my head. *wipes away a little tear* Anyway back to the fight. I was at the exact point where I usually died, but I wasn't hiding. I had the presense of mind to switch on my pre-set prayers, so that deflect melee now joined leech range and leech defence. I latched onto that reeling loop of 'shine on silver, girl' and it calmed me down. I didn't have the Fire Titan, but, beside me, Shelley was fighting beak and claw with everything that he had. I remembered Wa saying that she'd just spam-clicked Saras and somehow survived the Berserker mode. I did the same. I remembered right in the early days of Nomad's release, someone saying that as long as you got a shot in between sipping potion, you had a chance. I made sure I got a shot in, even when it was really, bloody dangerous. Five times Nomad called me 'pathetic' and it should have been over. Five times I sipped another Sara Brew just in time. Then a super restore, then a range pot, whenever it occurred to me that I'd had too much Sara. I didn't know what I was doing, I just had to survive. 'Shine on silver, girl', don't panic; spam-click Saras, don't die; get a shot in between potion sipping, give yourself a chance. And I was glad that it was Shelley there fighting alongside me, because we've been friends for ages and I don't know the titan and I was really scared. And it was over. I had doomed the world. I was in utter shock. IRL I just said, 'Oh my God' over and over again. I was shaking like a leaf. I tried to type 'omg' into Canting, but it all moves too fast. You don't walk out of there on your own steam, the game plucks you out and sticks you next to Zimmer-whatsit. You don't even have to click on him, because the conversation starts. I was aware of someone standing behind me asking if I'd succeeded or if I'd left. I found out later that it was TheArcturus1 and Cossack127, but at the time I had all of this conversation to go through and I couldn't take it all in. I just sped through it. Partially to answer Arct and Coss, but mostly because I was stunned. I wasn't reading it. I normally do and I'd have thought in advance that I'd have wanted to savour it, but I could barely read. My mind had gone onto utter shutdown. My sensibilities had been pre-empted. All I had was the unbelievable knowledge that I'd done it, coupled with that 'shine on silver, girl' over and over in my head. There's no pause between the conversation upstairs and that below. You're just suddenly lifted from one to the other. I told the imp that he looked ridiculous, I know that. I finally also had the presense of mind to take a screenshot. Click that picture to see a bigger version. It was definitely over now. I was left stumbling into the arms of Arct and Coss, trembling from head to toe, just going, 'omg' like something demented. I think it was them who broke the news to Canting, because I had no brain to even think to do it. Arct traded me some gin. I knocked it back. After about three centuries of saying, 'omg', I thought to go into the bank and get my quest cape out. And, you know what, the rest I'm going to tell in pictures, because they say it. But thank you so much everyone who helped, supported, suggested strategies, gave me supplies, encouraged me and were just there! Thank you. :P

Before I go into how epicly Nomad kicked my backside today, I want to give some shout-outs and thanks. First of all, a huge, huge thank you to Den the Men. He not only lent me his Bandos Godsword for 24 hours, but also his warrior ring. This latter involved me pawning my dwarf cannon with him, as he couldn't loan two things out at once. Thank you also to Dr Leviathan, who gave me 19 Sara Brews and then later on sold me another 50. Thanks too to I Kitra I, who gave me a present of 9 and a half Sara Brews. I've now depleted the brews in three banks. >.< Thank you to Eman, Dr Leviathan, I Kitra I and Cossack127 for waiting around at the Soul Wars tent, to encourage me when I was despairing. Thank you to all of the numerous people in Canting sending blessings, love and support via the chat channel. So what went so wrong? I eagerly logged on after running errands and going to appointments. Whilst lagging yesterday, I'd read dozens of guides. I'd fetched my Void Range from my house after reading Neo Avatar's blog. I was chomping at the bit and couldn't wait to get started. I'd also read a guide which recommended the hand cannon instead of rune crossbow and ruby bolts. I told Den the Men that I was going in with a Bandos Godsword and a hand cannon. He replied, 'Wow! You're really serious about this!' I nodded. This was personal. This was revenge. Unfortunately, between logging out in the morning and logging back in in the afternoon, I'd started lagging again. I spotted it (unmissable really) as I boosted my stats at the digsite and Oo'glog. By the time I was struggling to even get into the tent, I knew that this would never do. I tried the computer downstairs. It's new. It's got Windows 7. It's wired. There was no lag at all. However, I was now at an unfamiliar computer, with unfamiliar weaponry, on a chair that seemed too high, with a monitor that is Daz Rhyfelwr level of dark, doing everything with an unfamiliar mouse. I was also desperately trying to remember all those little tips I'd picked up the day before. Was that use rapid restore prayer or rapid heal? Protect mage or melee? Etc. In short, I walked in, had the conversation, then was so busy faffing with BGS specs and prayers that I was dead before I'd even sipped a single Sara Brew. I logged off and came back upstairs to my own Vista and wirelessed computer. I ran CCleaner, the anti-virus, the AdAware and then deleted the Runescape folder, as directed by Neo. I let Jagex auto-place me into a world and experimentally went to boost my stats at the digsite and Oo'glog. It all seemed suddenly fine again. I went in again. Nomad was hitting high and I was hitting low. I couldn't believe how many times the godsword hit without making a dent, while the hand cannon hit constant Os. I was focusing on the Godsword, only using the handcannon for barrage and clone moments. Also, I was trying to use a tactic described in a guide, which was unfamiliar, so I seemed to be running all over without getting as many hits as Nomad was getting. He was only half health when I died. By now I was frustrated and shaken. All I wanted from life was someone with combat know-how to sit down with me and go over my options. I'd lost faith in the hand cannon, while only the fact that I know that the Godsword Officially Pwns meant that I hadn't quite lost faith in that. That meant that I was doing something wrong with it. I asked around outside the tent, but there were only people there dismissing my Void Armour (it nerfs my accuracy apparently) and generally sending my spirits plummeting. I decided to try ruby bolts, rune crossbow and godsword, but by the time I was in Oo'glog, my confidence was on the floor. It wasn't so much Nomad per se, as my lack of knowledge about these amazing weapons that I had to play with. There was also pressure. The Godsword goes back to Den the Men tomorrow morning and I wouldn't be on this evening. I have things to do tomorrow morning too. In my mind, frustrated by my ignorance, it seemed like I had all of the tools, but I was fighting worse than usual. To say that I felt like crying is a bit of an over-statement, but I certainly had low spirits. I went into Canting, asking if anyone there had combat knowledge. It was all light-hearted in there, so I kept it light too, not actually telling them how gutted I was right now. Kamou quipped that the solution to winning is to kill your enemy before you died yourself. Zoorhana did suggest the Godsword/ruby bolts combo, which is what I'd asked on. I agreed to try it. I jumped into the spas and returned to Soul Wars. People there were offering advice that made me feel like I couldn't do it. In that state of mind, I returned to Nomad. I didn't get very far before, whilst rushing to get behind a pillar, I stepped on a landmine, while having low hitpoints. I was outside in the graveyard, having lost Shelley, who was carrying half of my super restores, as well as Sara Brews this time. I collected my stuff and just sat on the floor ready to cry. By now, Zach, Eman, Dr Leviathan and Kitra were in. The latter three rushed to Soul Wars, there to give me a pep talk. Kitra gave me 9 and a half Sara Brews. Eman sat on the floor beside me and outlined his strategy. He was there, combat level 111, with his questcape on. It was possible. I knew it was possible. Dr Leviathan outlined armour advice. I went from sitting in the dirt in a graveyard to being buoyed enough to give it another go. I had to succeed this time, as beyond this point, I was out of Sara Brews again. All of Canting were cheering me on and I stepped into Nomad determined and confident that I could do it. I tried to put Eman's strategy into operation, but mistimed things and died. The absolute and utter worst of this was that I was in there with Kitra and Dr Leviathan's Sara Brews. As I died so quickly, then the majority of those disappeared with Shelley. It felt as though I'd wasted them. Pus I had no more to go on with. I felt so ashamed of myself. Though the others urged me to carry on, I decided to cut my losses and log off. I apologised and said my goodbyes. A cup of tea, a cigarette and a couple of chapters of Diana Gabaldon's 'Echo in the Bone' later, I was feeling much better. I logged on and set about crafting, fletching and all those other fun things that don't involve suicide runs and wasting millions of gp. I put a bid on at the GE for more Sara Brews, but generally chilled out in-game for a while. I met up with Eman again, who gave me some more motivational speeches. In truth, I was feeling a lot better about things. After 3 hours of failed fighting, the break had done me the power of good. I mentioned that I had a bid on at the GE, but then Dr Leviathan was beside me offering to sell me 50 more Saras. I bought them off him and went for yet another round. This one was great. This time I did everything right. I used Eman's strategy. I hit high. The Godsword was used only for its special, but twice it hit in the 20s. I dodged attacks like they were the useless buzzing of a fly. It worked. Oh my Guthix, it worked. It was like some strange, intricate, deadly dance, but one which I was winning. Everything was in slow motion. I was doing this and I was going to win. There was a scary moment when I lagged, but I survived it. It went all the way until Nomad was saying, 'This. Ends. Now.' I still had almost a full inventory of Sara Brews left! I'd emptied Shelley of his brews, but I had plenty to go on with. I was going to winning. Absolutely going to win. But I recalled that I should be switching to protect to melee. I healed myself fully, took a restore sip, went to prayers.... yes, I lost focus. I missed Nomad screaming at me to face him. I only remembered him when he'd teleported himself back to the centre and rehealed himself fully. I could have kicked myself. I didn't have enough to start that whole fight again, so I basically suicided. The final round was almost as polished. It was all going great, right up until the moment when I misclicked and stepped on a landmine with low health. Nomad also had low health. I was actually expecting him to go into beserker mode at any second. :P So that's it at the end of play today. I know what to do. I know how to do it. I just haven't made it to the end yet. I'm out of Sara Brews again and only have enough super restore potions for one last fight (and then only if I heavily supplement it with ordinary restore potions). I've learned little things like you can hide for as long as you like behind a pillar, whilst the clones are out. Nomad doesn't reheal himself. I've also pretty much perfected the hit and run strategy of Eman's. I'm getting really good at resource management. Both of the final times, I came out with a lot of Sara Brews left. Plus I've learned that it's really not worth going in there if you're overly frustrated. In short, given enough supplies, I know that I will eventually kill Nomad. It's just taking a lot of money in the meantime.

I had two more attempts earlier. In the first I don't know if it was lag or misclicking/dead clicking, but he said 'face me', I tried, didn't move anywhere, and Nomad rehealed. He was nearly at beserker mode at the time. In the second, he was at beserker mode. I switched to diamond bolts, instead of ruby, and didn't seem to be hurting him very much at all. We fought for ages, but there were more Os on both sides than actual hits, right up until the time when he hit a lot and I didn't drink in time. I died. Edit: And a third attempt, defeated in beserker mode because I ran out of hitpoints. My invisible narrator kept telling me that I can't split potions into equal portions, so I may have been trying to drink from an empty vial again. However, after about 10 billion attempts at this bane on my Rs life, I thought I'd write 20 things that I know about fighting Nomad. 1, As you enter, you're in a cut-scene and can do nothing. Soon as he starts talking, click on a space or something in your inventory and he shuts up. You then have all the time in the world to sort out prayers, drink boosting potions, have a picnic, raise a family, whatever you fancy doing. Once you're ready to fight, just click on him and he'll start talking again. 2, Clicking the last option of all of the conversation choices is the fastest way to shut him up and start fighting. 3, He will always get the first hit in, even if you spam click him as he's jumping off the throne. 4, Using the pillars to slow down his attacks is good. 5, You've only got time for one sip of something whilst safespotting. If you attempt two sips, then you risk him calling you a coward and healing himself fully. 6, If he does call you a coward and heals himself, he will stop attacking you. You can skip around the room, pick up all of your fallen bolts, pull faces at him and cry. He will not attack you. This is a perfect opportunity to get right into his face and give him a piece of your mind. 7, Everything dropped on the floor of Nomad's 'hood stays there. It doesn't disappear after a certain amount of time, like it does in the real RS world. So if you run out of bolts, then quickly pick up the pile on the floor. It will be all of the bolts that you've fired so far, minus the ones that are lodged inside Nomad's vital organs causing him to slowly bleed to death. (NB The internal injuries don't happen fast enough to rely on them to pwn this boss.) 8, Look at the above picture. The left-hand square behind the left-hand pillar, of the two shown, is the perfect place to stand to dodge his, 'you cannot escape from my wrath' 75 hp bomb. You can and you should. That pillar is your friend. The one on the right-hand side is your other friend, as that's the one you fight him around normally. 9, You don't have to fight the clones at all. Nomad won't heal himself while they're around. In fact, that is a minute's worth of standing behind a pillar, getting yourself sorted out. This is a time of relaxation. A moment to sit back and realise that the reason you've been hitting like a noob is because you've spam drunk so many Sara Brews, that your stats are now in minus figures and you should sip a nice super restore or 12. It's a time to contemplate the wonders of the world and to call your familiar off that spot that he insists on hanging around in, thus thwarting your pitiful attempts at 'twitch' fighting. It's a long oasis of peace, in which to drop vials and restock with Shelley's potions. Then perhaps have a little dance or a sit back. Once the clones go away and Nomad charges though, you have to show yourself. Then it's game on again. 10, Ignore the people who say that, when frozen, you shouldn't use ruby bolts (e). You can and should! As long as you've drunk enough Sara Brews that your total hitpoints are at least 9 above your actual hitpoints level. This is because, if the ruby bolt special hits, you'll lose 8hp as well as the total -1 that he's about to hit you. 11, People with 99 in all combat levels can just stand there and tank him. Mere mortals have to use the pillars. 12, When Nomad is in beserker mode, you have to be standing on the next square. If this square is around the corner of a pillar, even if its diagonal edge is touching your square, it still counts as safespotting. If you're not on the next square, Nomad waits about 2 seconds before calling you a coward and healing himself. This is my favourite way to fail this fight. 13, You can only beat Nomad in void armour if you are Neo Avatars (edit: Or Massecure360). Everyone else is better off in black dragonhide. Something to do with range accuracy and magic defence. I dunno. Combat stats, things like that. *wanders out of my depth* 14, Standing on bombs hits you for 40hp and drains your run energy, which is bad when you wanted to run away from him to heal. 15, There is always an alley through the bombs directly south of where you're standing. You can run through it with impunity. 16, Putting on every leech prayer and a deflect prayer makes your prayer points drain faster than you can replete with super restore. Joshua Mack recommended leech range and leech defence only, with deflect from melee for the beserker part. Setting your quick prayers for the end game is good, as you can just click to have them all on. You have time before the fight to put on the two leech prayers alone. 17, Right-clicking your summoning icon allows you to set a left-click as collecting stuff from your BOB. This saves a lot of time. 18, Only noobs wear a Helm of Neitiznot to range Nomad. Something to do with losing range bonuses or something. Combat stats. *returns to that out of my depth place* 19, After safe-spotting to have a sip of something, it's easier to click the square that will put you back into Nomad's way, than attempting to find the 'attack Nomad' option from a long menu, which often includes several things about war tortoises before you even get to Nomad. 20, Nomad r nub. >:)

I was minding my own business in the deepest recesses of Gielinor. I'd got 87k thieving xp (including levelling up to 79) and nearly 100k firemaking xp by running around Dorgesh-Kaan, fixing lamps and raiding chests. I can do the high level chests now, which means mega xp. All good, all sedate, all... Joshua Mack has hunted me down. He's not only followed the trail to Dorgesh-Kaan, but he's even run up the stairs and looked around houses until he's found me. I look at his new Soul Wars cape and congratulate him. The conversation instantly turns to why I haven't got one. I repeat my mantra. When I have a massive stockpile of supplies, then I'll go in. I've got enough for two attempts, that's all. "Follow me," says Josh. The future unravelled in front of me, both trouser legs of a parallel world. In one, I could continue raiding chests until I got bored or ran out of light orbs. No doubt I would be trailing a high level mage in a Soul Wars cape, trying to reason me into pwn Nomad. In the other, I could give up now and follow him. I gave up. I don't know why. Temporary insanity? Josh took me to the bank in Dorgesh-Kaan. Not that he actually mentioned Nomad. It was more, 'bank all of your stuff and put your dhide on'. I pointed out that I've got full void range in the bank and that was approved. There was none of this going to the digsite or Oo'glog to boost prayer and hitpoints. As soon as I was dressed, we were off to Edgeville. He'd got me dressed in void range, Zammy book, rune crossbow with ruby bolts (e), glory, beacon ring, snakeskin boots and Ava's accumulator. In my bag were 12 super restores, while the rest of the spaces, plus Shelley's entire inventory, were filled with Sara Brews. No range pot. No superset. Nothing. Just get your backside into the tent now. I tried to argue for a practice run. He told me that this was my practice run. Go. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't. Today it worked. I went into the tent. I felt rusty, clumsy and too hot. My palms were sweating on a sticking mouse. There was a bit of lag. But for all of that, I got Nomad down to berserker mode with a few Saras and restores left. I really thought I was going to make it, then I made a stupid mistake. I accidentally clicked on an empty vial instead of a Sara Brew, thought I'd healed and, in the confusion of not having done so, Nomad hit and killed me. I learned to rearrange the pots in my bag during the clone time. You don't have to face them, so that time is for hiding behind a pillar sorting yourself out and refocusing. Once outside, Josh was ready to harangue me again. We were going to Draynor to replace my accumulator. This happened with Rafftank's steel arrows, once I pointed out that I had none. With Rafftank and Josh escorting me, I was soon in the Manor and back to Edgeville. TheArcturus1 and Eman were there now too. Arct loaned me his Bandos Godsword and gave me 11 Saras. Rafftank and Eman cheered. Josh kicked my backside back into the tent. This time it felt much smoother. However, I took some unlucky hits and that flustered me. I spam drank Saras before finding my equilibrium. It went to the wire, literally. We seemed to fight the berserker mode one in slow motion. After about half of the fight, he didn't seem to be hitting me as hard. By now, he was barely hitting at all. Maybe the fact that I'd had leech range and leech defence on throughout had a part to play in that. Maybe it was the 35 BGS special right at the beginning. But I was running out of Sara Brews! I looked anxiously at my bag and there saw the BGS again. It's a GODSWORD! These things have been the holiest of holies on the lips of great fighters for ages. Plus people talk of ruby bolts (e) not being so good after the half way mark. I switched to the BGS, but I wasn't getting any hits. I gobbled down the last of my Saras. Nomad was practically red-barred. It really felt like I was going to defeat him. One good hit from me. One bite from Shelley. That's all it would take! I hit a O. Shelley didn't hit at all. Nomad hit 10 and I was dead. Outside, the postmatch analysis was that I shouldn't have fought the last with the Godsword. Ruby bolts all the way. If I'd stuck with them, it would have been all good. I also learned something else, this time about gravestones. As much as I love gravestones for keeping my stuff, collecting said stuff can be annoying. You click on your grave and get a long list of things to collect. Each one another right-click and another choice. Why can't there be a 'collect all' here? I anxiously grab the expensive items first, then the remaining posts, then the empty vials. (Cossack, bless him, took 350 empty vials off me yesterday and trained his mage in filling them back up again. :D) Except you are guaranteed that halfway through, the list will disappear. You'll get the menu that starts with 'read Symbol of Guthix gravestone' or whatever it says, with no items at all. It can take several attempts, interpersed with 'Walk here Rafftank', before the list is back and I can continue grabbing vials. Joshua Mack watched all of this with obvious bemusement, eventually asking why I didn't just demolish the grave first? 'Because I would lose my stuff,' I replied, fretfully. He informed us that your stuff lies on the floor for 2 minutes afterwards. There was some disagreement about this amongst the assembled ranks of Arct, Rafftank and Eman. I ensured that I had the good stuff in my bag and then demolished the grave. Sure enough, there was a pile of empty vials sitting there, easily spam clicked to collect. :) That's going to save me a lot of hassle in the future! Of course the conversation turned to another attempt. I reminded them that I had had enough supplies for two attempts. That was the second. No more goes. Rafftank and Arcturus were soon trading me. Rafftank gave me super restores and another 75 steel arrows for the accumulator. Arcturus gave me more Sara Brews. One more attempt. I was against it. I was wound up and this hadn't worked out well last time I tried this wound up. I didn't want to be wasting their supplies! If you think on it, I've already wasted the supplies of Shirkar, Daisyjake and H Alger. I've got Arcturus now with the Celtic gift of the gab. Telling me that my chat channel has brought today awesome people, who wouldn't have met each other if not for me. Take the potions. Then I have Eman telling me that his successful attempt was whilst wound up. Rafftank, Josh and several people in Canting are all talking me off the ceiling and into the tent. I teleported to Draynor and replaced the accumulator. I rolled some cigarettes IRL. I went back to Edgeville. What followed was the most frustrating fight of all. I was brilliant. I was absolutely fantastic. I have never fought a boss so calmly, precisely and with such luck. The BGS hit high at the beginning. I released so many ruby bolt specials that the air seemed perpetually filled with that blood lust shriek. Shelley went at him like a demented tortoise out for destruction. It was clockwork. It was perfect. Nomad entered berserker mode and I hadn't even emptied Shelley's supplies. I had full hp and full prayer. In fact, this is what I had left, while Nomad was in berserker mode: My computer lagged. Right there at the end. I clicked like mad trying to attack him, but I was one square back when the lag occurred. He teleported to the middle with a cry of 'coward' and there was nothing I could do. I hid behind a pillar. I resisted the urge to cry. I logged out and back in. Apologies to any Welsh speakers in Canting at the time. The rant started with a few choice words, before switching to English to spill out the story. *sigh* Even Rafftank, with his irrepressible cheeriness, had to wonder where Lady Luck was where I'm concerned. Inorite.

That's more like it! A noob quest that had nothing to do with combat whatsoever. Ok, it was a little below my level (a lot below...), but it's something that's more inclusive than has been out in recent updates. I got to have an enjoyable romp through a fun quest, without stressing over anything. This is what questing should be like. I don't mean this quest precisely, but the variety that it engenders. Hard one last time, easy one this time; fighting one last time, skilling one this time. All good. Jagex have continued their theme of working through the minigames though. This time it's pushing the Mage Training Arena in Al-Kharid. You don't actually have to play the minigame nor do you have to collect any points from there, but it's in the vicinity. It might encourage people to see what's going on here when a quest isn't happening. What do we reckon the next quest will direct us to? Trouble Brewing? Fight Caves? Castle Wars? My money is on Trouble Brewing, as that's quite out of the way and underplayed. Even on world 104, there's usually only a handful of people playing, which is a shame as it's a great minigame. Back to this quest. It is a novice quest, but for all that, it had charm. There was a story and there were a couple of nice puzzles. The first was a maze, using portals. It reminded me of a big game of chess, but mostly because one of the moves was a bit like the move you make with the horsey. I plunged in and just used a few portals to learn how the grid marks worked. I quickly sussed them, but the challenge then was to get to where I needed to be. Within about a minute, I could see the room that would take me to the green spot, but I really couldn't get to it. I zoomed around the room, always knowing where I was going, but unable to work out a route. Eventually I sussed that the best place to do it was from the start. I couldn't get back there either. LOL I was greatly thwarted by having the giggles so much at this point, that I could hardly see the screen through tears of laughter. Finally I grew a brain and used the escape exit to get out again, then entered straight away. Within 3 moves, I was at the end and out. The solution is: The second puzzle was basically a jigsaw, which took all of 30 seconds to complete. LOL It really isn't rocket science. If you are stuck though, remember that finding the corner pieces always helps. They are obvious, as they are the ones with wires looping inwards. The other five pieces will then be apparent. Don't fret on it though. I started from the middle piece and worked out. I didn't get one wrong. It really is an easy jigsaw. I had more trouble with the combination runes. It wasn't the actual combining that was the problem. I had that all sorted. It was remembering to bring supplies. Attempt one: Forgot my water runes/mud staff. Attempt two: discovered that you can't substitute water runes for a mud staff. Attempt three: successfully brought water runes AND pure ess AND a water talisman. Steam runes were achieved. LOL I kept bumping into Fred Lay there as well, though I lost him after the second system update to correct something nerfed in quick chat. I also had trouble with the emeralds. As sod's law would have it, I'd nipped on this morning and turned 40 odd emeralds into rings of duelling. A few hours later, I needed two emeralds. They'd only been sitting in my bank for a week. *sigh* I started off at the Al-Kharid gem stall, but he was out of stock. I then teleported to Ardy, where the gem stall owner was out of stock too. So I stole a sapphire. Then I waited and waited and waited. I think it must take several years for the gems to respawn. I got bored after the first few months and so hopped. I continued stealing and hopping through about 10 worlds, until I'd finally got two emeralds and lots of sapphires. I banked the sapphires, cut the emeralds and I was nearly back in business. Nearly, I say, because I didn't have any mind runes in my bank. Fortunately a kind player named Ker2006 swopped me 5 mind for 5 body runes and I could complete the quest. Much fun!

I had absolutely no intention of attempting Nomad yesterday. Instead I was meandering along my daily route, collecting freebies and doing farming. Den the Men was slaughtering things in Kuradel's Dungeon and the sun was shining. I ended up in Catherby Bank just looking through my stats, looking for anything close to another level. I found it: ranging was only 36k from level 85. Den the Men and I started discussing the feasibility of me ranging skeletal wyverns, as they are my current slayer assignment, when I commented that the best range xp in the game at the moment comes from Nomad. LOL He's the reason that I am so close to another level. I quipped that I ought to go in there with inventories of sharks and just use him for range xp, with no serious attempt to kill him. During the conversation though something clicked in my mind. I actually spotted a will to go into Nomad that had been entirely missing for days. I pondered on the fact that, if I did go in for range xp rather than a questcape, then sod's law might kick in and I would kick Nomad's backside. The more I thought about it, the more I was up for doing it. Den the Men met me in Falador and lent me his Bandos Godsword for 3 hours. :D The attempt wasn't a completely epic fail, but was close enough to one. The trouble this time was how rusty I was. I hadn't done a practice run, because I've already been in there loads of times and I've watched videos in the meantime. That was wrong. I kept falling over my own feet, not standing in the right places and then having to spam eat Saras. I also kept getting confused as to Sara v restore brew ratio, unsure whether I'd had one sip or ten. In the end, Nomad was down to the last quarter of his life and I ran out of super restores. I loitered behind a pillar, while Den the Men recommended a tactical retreat by logging off. That should have been that. I commented that I wasn't going in again, but then logged off for a comfort break. LOL I love the phrase 'comfort break', so polite when 'just nipping to the loo' could just as easily fit into that sentence. By the time I was back, Den the Men was going, but Boombaye1 was there. I had several things I could be doing (more Grenwalls was an attractive idea), but it felt like a waste to have a BGS for another couple of hours without using it. I mentioned that I could go and kill skeletal wyverns with it. Fortunately, Boombaye was on hand to stop me being a disastrous noob. He patiently asked me to consider why that might not be a good idea. I eventually remembered the small detail of needing a shield with the wyverns. I went to Soul Wars instead. Much whacking people with a Godsword later, I logged out as Daz Rhyfelwr and Jdeh Rhyfela were here. By the time they'd gone home again, I logged on to find myself alone by the Soul Wars tent, still dressed for Nomad pwning. I didn't log onto Canting. I just grabbed an inventory of sharks, my crossbow and some broad bolts and went into to see Nomad. This was only ever a practice run, so it was more about cleaning away the rust from my strategy than anything. Nevertheless, I acquitted myself well and felt happy to try it again for real. This I did and it went absolutely like clockwork. Nomad said, 'This. Ends. Now.' and I quickly switched on 'protect from melee'. Within seconds, Nomad had teleported to the centre and healed himself. I was downhearted! I've been that close several times before as well. I logged out and back in, then tried again. The result was almost an identical repeat of the previous attempt. Again, Nomad said, 'This. Ends. Now'. This time, I stepped forward into the place where he could ordinarily hit me. He didn't. I reached for 'protect from melee' and, as I was doing so, Nomad teleported away and healed. I had plenty of supplies left, so I'd been so confident. Standing by the tent was another player, who had just succeeded. She said that it's better, during the beserker part, to step right away from the pillar. Though I was on the next square, there had been a corner of pillar there too. She reckoned that he couldn't melee me because of it and that there's no 'face me' and five seconds grace at the end. You just have to get next to him and take what's coming, then worry about protect from melee. I was gutted, but I think I might have gone for one final try right then, had it not been for one small detail. I had no bolts left. I'd been pushing it on that last go anyway and had taken in some broad bolts as back up. I needed them too. Fortunately, I learned that things don't tend to disappear as fast on the floor there. During one dash, I'd picked up the fallen ruby bolts to find that there were 75 of them in my inventory now! If I'd had more ruby bolts in my bank, I'd have gone in, but the thought of going to buy or make some, then coming back just made me sigh. I left it, all will to go back in draining away. I have learned something though. Once the clones are out, don't move. Stand behind your pillar and sort yourself out. Drop vials, heal yourself, talk strategy with your familiar, roll a cigarette, whatever you fancy doing. Nomad does heal. You don't even have to rush across to the next pillar. Just stand out of range and have a break. As soon as you see the clones teleporting away, rush across to the next pillar, just to put yourself momentarily into view. Nomad will be rushing back anyway, but you have to place him again. Subsequently running back to your original pillar will do that. Then the fight can go on. In short, 90% of my fights with him now are clockwork until the beserker mode. Then they tend to end with him healing himself because I'm, presumably, not standing in the right place.