Chapter 4-Episode 1: Back At It

A lot has changed since I last played, so I decided to take a moment to explore some of the new changes. I'm playing in the new graphics mode, and I must say that I'm absolutely impressed. It looks cool, and they've even redone teleport animations! I can hardly wait to actually do some real mage.

I log in to find out that instead of having about 800 gp, that I now have 21k! I had put some plain tiaras on the GE, and during my time off, they all sold. Good news for me!

I then head off to Lumbridge, because I've also heard that there's a new achievement diary, so I head off to get that rolling. I'm disappointed with the changes to the achievement diary. I always felt part of the challenge was figuring out where the task was and how to pull it off. Now it directs you every step of the way. I shrug off my misgivings, and set about the task of trying to finish at least the easy part (I decide to do Varrock, too, since I'm in the area).

While looking around at some things not in the game, I'm now officially less happy with how Hiscores works. It used to only show the top 1 million players. Now it's the top 2 million players. It bugs me as it now takes so much less effort to make it onto that list.

I can't finish the Varrock (need Dig Site quest...I'll do it later) right now, so since I'm in the mood, I pop off to Karajima to try to finish the easy part over there. Looking at it, there's nothing I shouldn't be able to complete. On a side note, I didn't do terrible on my first trip to Fight Pits (considering I didn't take any food).

I was lucky enough to get a max hit before my unfortunate, yet anticipated demise.

I manage to complete the Karajima easy tasks as well as the Lumbridge beginner and easy tasks, and I'm one task away from finishing Varrock's easy tasks, too. I decide to jump back into questing, and I start with the Dig Site quest (this should allow me to get enough Kudos to complete Varrock's easy achievement diary).

Shopping List:
Tinderbox
Chisel
2 Rope
Pestle and Mortar
Vial
Uncut Opal
Cup of Tea
Leather Gloves
Leather Boots

I grab a pestle and mortar, vial, tinderbox, chisel and 2 rope from the bank, and steal a cup of tea on my way out of Varrock. Everything else I'll get at the dig site by pick pocketing workers.
While I end up buying the boots, everything goes off without a hitch...although it took a lot longer than it should have (I couldn't pickpocket hardly any of the items I needed). Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 2,000 Herblore XP, 15,300 Mining (54 Mining, 37 Herblore).

While the quest itself doesn't give me enough Kudos, I spend an hour in the cleaning room and find enough artifacts to get me there. With this final task, I have all easy achievement diary tasks complete.

While the item rewards are barely useful, I learn that they now give out experience lamps with each completed difficulty level. Those, coupled with a book from Mr. Mordaut, get me to Prayer level 41.