Chapter 3: Prologue-Hiatus

July 26, 2008

After a bit of a hiatus, I've decided to return to Runescape.

The reason why I took a break was simple. I was bored and went to check out other things:

My website: I have a Geocities account that I maintain and periodically tear down to the ground just so I can rebuild it. Recent updates include a new account with a new name, and moving the things I wanted to the new site, and the addition of some slick flash nav menus. I will be adding a section on my Runescape acomplishments, few that they are thus far.

Guild Wars: Total and complete waste of time and money. I'll give you my official review of the game:

Civilization IV: I absolutely love that game, but I can only play it so much before I'm bored to tears with it. It's one that I play for a couple days and put it away for a few months or more.

History Channel: My favorite channel on cable. I get in moods where I want to do nothing but watch TV, and this is my normal choice.

Youtube: I have days where I'll just search Youtube for random stuff. I usually end up getting mad at the psychotic conspiracy theorists. That's where I'm at now.

Why Come Back?

I always knew I'd come back. I always do. I've gone long spans without playing and letting my membership expire, but I always come back. I enjoy the way the community works better in this game than I do in any other game. I usually start over...but not this time. I have the perfect character name and I've already done some noteworthy things. This one's for keeps.

Chapter 3: Episode 13-Brimhaven at 40 Agility

Brimhaven Agility Arena is my favorite place to train Agility. It's very "active" and challenging at almost any level, and gives some of the best rewards (even the XP gained from the obstacles is good). At 20 Agility, you can negotiate about half of the obstacles, and while you probably won't get a lot of tickets, the XP gained from traversing the obstacles can make the trip there worth it.

At 40 Agility, you are capable of negotiating all of the obstacles at Brimhaven Agility Arena, but due to the nature of some of the traps, you still have to be careful. Dart traps lower your Agility by 2 every time they hit you. Risking these traps at lower level can put those 40 Agility obstacles out of your reach. This makes taking an agility potion or two a good idea.

The key to Brimhaven is longevity. The longer you can stay, the more tickets you'll get for your 200 gp. The traps deal damage depending on how many hit points you have: the more hit points you have, the more damage you take. The trick is keeping your hit points under 20. The best food to do this is cake: they only heal 3 points, and you can use each cake 3 times. This, in effect, taking 27 cakes gives you 81 pieces of food (you need 1 space for the 200 gp)!

It helps your longevity to get to know the layout of Brimhaven. Knowing where the worst traps are can help you plan your path so you don't have to encounter them. Dart traps can really ruin your day after a few failures, and falling off the hand holds (more often than not) will cause you to miss tagging a pilar.

Lastly, maintain your patience. I've trained Agility beyond 70 exclusively at Brimhaven on other characters, and even at higher levels you miss tags. And once you miss a tag, it's not uncommon to miss two or three times (or more) in a row before catching up.

I decide I'm going to work straight through to 50 Agility. I'll need to acquire about 200 tickets, cashed in 100 at a time. This is just an estimation, since I don't really know how much XP I'll get from the obstacles. I'll make a log of how many tickets I get per inventory of cakes.

First trip: 115 tickets (100 turned in for 47 Agility)
Second trip: 48 Agility from obstacles, 100 tickets with about 8 cakes left (51 Agility)

This gets me to my goal, and knocks another requirement off the list.

Chapter 3: Episode 12-Deforestation in progress

My Woodcutting skill is seriously hurting (compared to the rest of my requirements, anyways), so I felt the need to work on it a bit. But before I do (yep, you guessed it), I'm going to get a bit of a jump start by nailing a few quests.

One that comes to mind immedately is the Saving Scratch Uglogwee part of Recipe for Disaster. While looking into that, I realize there's a second part of RFD that I qualify for: Saving the Dwarf. I'm currently in Lumbridge, so I grab everything I need from across the river and my bank and set out to do them at the same time.

Once I've got everything, I teleport to Castle Wars and go and see Rantz again. He gives me a bit of a run around, but I've got my Jubbly pretty quickly. I then teleport to Falador, get the recipe for "Asgoldenian Ale" and I walk up to the White Wolf Mountain shortcut. 4 beers later, I've got a rock cake. I'm wearing my ice gloves, so that saves me a trip to the other mountain. I just use the home teleport spell, use both items on their respective people, and Quest Complete X 2: 2 Quest Points, 2500 Cooking, 1000 Slayer, 1500 Woodcutting, Ranged, and Crafting XP (30 Slayer, 33 Ranged)

I then set off to the willow trees around the lake north of Lumbridge Castle, and I cut and burn willows. While I'm not keeping track of numbers, quite a few willow logs go up in flames. I manage to take my Woodcutting from 42 to 50 and my Firemaking from 35 to 49. I also got 2 more birds nests, with a banana tree seed (which conveniently enough, I can plant!).

I start looking towards Tears of Guthix, and see that I need a bullseye lantern. Since I'm only 2 crafting levels away from making those, I head over to Ardougne to steal some silver bars for crafting. I need 258 bars to get 49 crafting by making tiaras.

The silver stall takes too long to respawn, so I teleport to Falador and try my luck at the Crafting Guild. The silver is unoccupied and I set to the task of mining the silver. I get the silver mined, and smith the bars and make tiaras, which gets me almost to 49. I had some diamonds, which I cut to get me the rest of the way.

I can now do Tears of Guthix, and it's an extremely fast and simple quest. Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, 1k Crafting, access to the Tears of Guthix cave.


I can now go in and get some free XP. This will go to my lowest skill, which right now is Summoning. While I have no idea exactly how much XP i got, I did get 35 tears. This gets me to 7 Summoning.

This leaves me with 7 more requirements to meet, most of which are only a couple of levels away.

Chapter 3: Episode 11-Herblore 30 to 36

I'm getting closer to Legends with every passing day, so I've decided it's time to buckle down and start reaching those requirements. Herblore is probably the farthest right now, so I decide to start there. I head over to the Sorceress' Garden to start picking herbs.

Depending on which garden I currently have access to, I may make a trip through to gather sq'irk juice first, if it looks like I may get enough to get in a better one. I need 15 levels to get into the next highest garden, but even though I don't think I'll get enough in one run, I need the thieving levels and it may very well be worth it to get inside.

Spring Garden:
First trip: 24 glasses of juice/32400 Thieving XP (42 Thieving)
Second trip: 12 glasses of juice/16200 Thieving XP (45 Thieving)

The next trips are for herbs, in the autumn garden. 2350

First trip: 1 glass of juice, 1 Ranarr, 2 Harralander, 6 Marrentill kept (17 herbs to sell)
Second trip: 1 glass of juice, 5 Marrentill, 3 Harralander, 3 Ranarr kept (13 herbs to sell)
Third trip: 1 glass of juice, 3 Ranarr, 6 Harralander, 5 Marrentill kept (12 herbs to sell)

I sell those extra herbs and use the money to buy 57 Harralander. This gives me 68 Harralander to make Energy Potions out of. This also means that I need to get ahold of 68 chocolate bars. I use the respawn in Zanaris, since the one in the Cooking Guild always has someone grabbing it. Collecting respawns is one of my least favorite activities. I manage to get them all made, as well as making the Marrentill into Anti-Poison. This gets me to 33 Herblore.

First trip: 3 glasses of juice (47 Thieving), 6 Tarromin, 1 Marrentill, 3 Harralander, 4 Ranarr kept (10 herbs to sell)
Second trip: 5 glasses of juice (48 Thieving), 3 Tarromin, 3 Marrentill, 5 Harralander, 1 Ranarr kept (10 herbs to sell)

I only need a few more potions to get to Agility Potions, so I buy 10 Harralander so I can get there. I also buy 4 Toadflax, which I will need soon enough (I also have 6 from a random event for a total of 10). I sell 45 of the energy potions, buy 45 vials of water, and bank the rest (this gives me about 15k towards my new rune battleaxe).

My current Thieving XP total shows that I'm 6 glasses from 50, which is what I need for Legends. I decide to split those up between my first 2 trips.

First trip: 3 glasses of juice (49 Thieving), 2 Ranarr kept (22 herbs to sell)
Second trip: 3 glasses of juice (50 Thieving), 3 Ranarr kept (21 herbs to sell)
Third trip: 1 Ranarr kept (27 herbs to sell)

I can't sell the Harralander and Marentill right away, so I save the Harralander and make Anti-Poison with the Marentill. The money I get from selling the herbs buys me 20 more Toadflax. I make the potions west of Falador, and it gets me to 35 Herblore.

I'm growing tired of the Sorceress' Garden for now, so I decide to make some iron bars to get the money for herbs (and my battleaxe: I ended up spending some of that money to get my character back the way he used to look after Recruitment Drive).

I need a little over 42k for the herbs alone, which is well over 200 bars. I would only need about 75 steel bars, however. I decide that steel would be better, and it will give me more Smithing XP as well (which I need). The bars give me more than enough, and I get 36 Herblore, and I also have just enough money to buy back my axe!

I think I've had enough Herblore for right now...

Chapter 3: Episode 10-Two birds with one stone

Dragon bones are very expensive, and I'd rather avoid training combat by killing baby dragons (I'm sure to get plenty of combat experience from the quests I need to do). The problem is that I still need 12 more Prayer levels. Since I need quest points anyways, I search the quest rewards page in the Runescape online manual to find some quests that I qualify for that give lots of Prayer XP.

The Holy Grail fits the bill, with an added "bonus" of a large chunk of Defence XP. Again, combat level concerns enter my mind since I still don't have the required 50 Strength, and I find myself grateful that I haven't completed Tree Gnome Village. Oh well, that chunk of Prayer XP is just too good to pass up.

The Holy Grail isn't difficult, but I do have to fight a monster that's more powerful than any I've faced so far. But I'm emboldened by my recent string of successes, and I set off to do the quest.

The only fight, while it takes a while, goes better than expected. At this rate, I'll never get rid of these sharks...

Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 11,000 Prayer and 15,300 Defence XP (35 Prayer, 50 Defence, 57 Combat Level).

This puts me 7 levels from what I need for Legends, and 8 short of Protection from Melee (which is my goal). I notice that I'm relatively close to a level so I head off to ecto the bones I got from Zogre Flesh Eaters. I ecto those, and I'm close to yet another level.

I decide to try and fulfill the Rag and Bone Man's quest and his wish list. That's a nice 5500 xp. I have 5 bones, but I don't know what they are (they're in pots already), so I'll have to take them to the man so I can see what I still need to get. I still need a giant rat bone, a big frog leg, and a monkey paw. I grab first two in Lumbridge, and teleport to Karajima to get the last one. Quest Complete: 500 Cooking and Prayer XP. While I can't complete the wish list yet (I need 40 slayer and Horror From the Deep), I'm now set up to start collecting as I go along.

I notice I can get quite a bit from One Small Favor, and that requires Shilo Village...which I need anyways for Legends. That puts Shilo Village top on my list of places to be right now. I don't have a great deal of difficulty with most of the quest, but I do manage to fall crossing the bridge to that tiny island off the south west coast more times than I fell during the entire Underground Pass. It doesn't take long for me to be ready for the final fight.

While the levels don't concern me, it's the fact that I have to fight 3 in a row. But then again, I did fight 3 demons in Underground Pass one right after the other. Despite my minor concerns, the fight is relatively uneventful, and I still have 10 sharks left over. Quest Complete: 3875 Crafting XP, Access to Shilo Village and the Gem Rocks.

While I didn't get a Crafting level, I got a much need Strength level (46 now) fighting Nazastarool.

One Small Favor, while it's not hard, is rather annoying. The quest quite literally runs you all over the world. On a good note, during my trip to H.A.M. Headquarters, I found a Ham cloak lying on the ground (this was the last piece I needed for a future quest).

The battle does not go well. Not because the level 92 monster is out of my league, but because I can't kill it fast enough (another timed battle). After 3 unsuccessful attempts, I try mage. I wear rings of recoil this time around, because I'm certain I'll take more damage. My suspicion was correct, but the rings don't work (they recoil 0 points). I do hit it more often, though and I kill it...although I end up using all but 6 of my sharks (and I use up a lot of my noob food).

It takes about 3 hours total, but I finally finish the trip back. Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, Glider to Feldip Hills, 2 Red Lamps (10k XP each), Key Ring, can make Guthix Rest tea. I use a lamp on Prayer, which gets me to 40. Since I figure I can get 3 levels on my own, I use the second lamp on Crafting, since I probably won't have access to my snake skin source until after Legends. This gets me to 47.

3 Prayer levels is well over 13k XP, which is more than 100k worth of Dragon Bones. So I decide to hit a few more quests. Recruitment Drive gives some prayer and doesn't require a lot of running around. While it only gives 1k XP for Prayer, it also gives 1k to Herblore XP, which will put me very close to 30. There's nothing required for the quest, except that you need to be a female. So I shell out 3k and do the quest. Quest Complete: 1000 Prayer, Agility and Herblore XP, Initiate Helm (41 Agility).

I decide to try and finish this Prayer training run by snatching another large chunk of XP from the Troll Stronghold quest. Again, there's a quest requirement, which is Death Plateau. Neither is overly difficult, but Troll Stronghold is somewhat lengthy. On the bright side, I'll only really need one of the lamps for Prayer (this should put me about 3k from 43). I'm thinking of using the other lamp on either Smithing or Crafting (probably Smithing, since I don't have very far to go in Crafting). Here's my shopping list for Death Plateau:

10 Bread (2)
10 Cooked Trout (1)
An Iron Bar (2)
Asgarnian Ale (3)
About 130gp (1)
1 Blurberry Special (3)

(1) Denotes items I've already got stockpiled in the bank.
(2) Denotes items I made myself
(3) Denotes items bought from an NPC

It doesn't take very long to gather everything together, and I set off to Burthorpe to get the two quests done. The first quest is just a bit of walking back and forth, and doesn't take long. Nothing to see here, move along. Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, 3000 Attack, Steel Claws, The ability to smith claws. I don't get a level, but I'm about 1.5k away.

I jump right into Troll Stronghold, and right at the begining is a fight I've been waiting for: Dad. He's only level 101, but fighting him is always a bit challenging. Besides...he's beating you up with a telephone pole! This battle is anything but uneventful, as I don't have Protection from Melee. Dad hit's me for a couple of breath-taking 25's, and has brought my shark total down to 3 (these are from the same batch I bought for Dragon Slayer).

I know a level 113 Troll General is coming up soon, so I return to the GE to stock up on sharks. He can hit as high as 33, and I can't protect from it. I absolutely will be using rings of recoil on this guy. I also take my ectophial, in case I need to beat a hasty retreat. I manage to get myself a total of 23 sharks. If that's not enough, I just simply can't do this quest yet. This fight is a little scary for me right now, because the last thing I want to do right now is have to make enough money to replace the armor I could very well lose. I do decide against wearing my rune helm and Amulet of Glory though. This way, the only major thing I'll need to replace is my rune battleaxe, unless I use Protect Item during the fight (since I don't have Protection from Melee, I am going to do this).

The battle does not go anywhere close to "as planned". I get murdered extremely quickly, and I don't even get an opportunity to turn Protect Item on. I can't do this one without Protection from Melee. But I only lost my battle axe (and a good deal of food).

I decide to give Prayer a break after this. I'm hoping to come up with another idea for training while I work on other things.

Chapter 3-Episode 9: Underground Pass

Enough stalling I say...time to get on with it.

Of course, before I do, I have to do Biohazard, and before I can do Biohazard, I've got to do Plague City. Plague City is a pretty straightforward and simple rescue quest, and luckily I don't have much running around to do for supplies, because I've already got dwellberries. All I have to get is snapegrass, which is somewhat close to the Mudskipper Point fairy rings. Once I have that, I head over to Ardougne to grab a portrait of Elena and do the quest. Quest Complete: 2425 Mining, Teleport to Ardougne spell.

With that one done, I can start Biohazard immedately (I just rescued the quest giver). While there's a lot of running around involved, everything I need for the quest is obtained in the process. One thing I always get a laugh out of is poisoning the stew with a rotten apple:

Quest Complete: 3 Quest Points, 1250 Thieving XP (30 Theiving)

I immedately start Underground Pass, and head to the store to stock up on rope (I'm probably going to need it). I then gear up with this as my standard gear:

I'm not going to go into all the aggrivation I went through...if you haven't done the quest I'll let that part suprise you. But, just out of curiosity, I'm going to keep a tally of statistics:

Times entered: 2

Times fallen: 5

Emergency teleports: Not once!

Quest Complete: 5 Quest Points, 3000 Agility and Attack XP, Iban's Staff (45 Attack)

Oddly enough, while I didn't actually keep track, I probably fell close to two dozen times the last time I did this quest...and I had almost 70 Agility. I had to leave twice because I ran out of food from falling. This time, the only time I really left was to get a spade, which I had forgotten.

I'm also going to post this here so I have it when I need it next:

Chapter 3-Episode 8: Chompy Hunting!

While I hate range, there are two things I've always enjoyed doing with it: chompy hunting and zogre hunting. Thus I now intend to do these quests to open these events up to me. But before I even get started, I need to raise my fletching to 30 so I qualify for Zogre Flesh Eaters.

Checking Sal's Runescape Skill Calculator, I see that it will take me making 212 unstrung oak long bows to get there. Instead of using the cut and drop method, though, I bank the logs so I can fletch them all at once. This saves massive amounts of time that I'd spend right clicking on all the bows to get rid of them. This way, I can note them and sell them at the store.

I hit 41 Woodcutting near the end of my collecting, so I slip up to the GE to buy a nice rune woodcutting axe in an effort to speed things up. It does, and it only takes me a few minutes to cut the last 2 inventory loads.

Zogre Flesh Eaters has another requirement: Jungle Potion. This is a quick "run around and gather some stuff" quest, which gives a bit of herblore experience. I head off to Karajima to do that one first. Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, 775 Herblore XP (27 Herblore).

I teleport to Castle Wars and walk to Feldip Hills to start Big Chompy Bird Hunting. I didn't bring food, so I struggled a bit collecting wolf bones in the swamp (the wolves there are level 64). Another struggling point was finding the ingredients (mine were potato, equa leaves, and tomato). I couldn't remember where the tomato respawn was, so I made several trips back and forth before I found it. Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 262 Fletching, 1470 Cooking, 735 Range XP, ogre bow, ability to make ogre bows.

Zogre Flesh Eaters is a little more difficult, because you are almost guaranteed to get diseased in the course of the quest, and the disease drains your skills...both combat and non-combat. By the time I get to the point to where I can make Recylm's Balm, my herblore skill is too low to make it (maybe it's just me but this happens every time I do this quest). I use the Rapid Restore prayer, but it's still a long wait. Finally I get the potions made, the iron brutal arrows made, and finally learn to make the ogre composite bow. I gear up with my ectophial, sharks (the same 12 I've had left over from Dragon Slayer), lobsters and the super-restore potions I got from Grish at the beginning of the quest. I then head out to kill Slash Bash.

The fight is long, but isn't all that dangerous...although I did get hit for a couple consecutive double digit hits which forced me to use one of my sharks. I also get 3 Ourg bones (which are really good in the ectofuntus. Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, 2000 Range, Fletching, and Herblore XP, ability to make brutal arrows and Relicym's Balm potions (32 Range, 32 Fletching, 29 Herblore).

With these quests done, I set out to take a bit of a break for chompy hunting. I head to White Wolf mountain to gather wolf bones (these wolves are lower level), and make about 100 arrowheads (I get a Hit Point level and 56 Combat level). I head to the chompy hunting grounds south of Castle Wars, and I spend about an hour killing chompys. I end up killing 31, earning myself my Ogre Bowman hat (and end up getting more feathers than I used making the ogre arrows)!

Chapter 3: Episode 7-Crafting 40 to 45

Crafting can be a tricky skill to level, especially when you're forced to craft things that nobody buys. It can be expensive and time consuming, which is why I haven't really done a whole lot of power training in that skill. But now, with things the way they are, I need to train crafting for two reasons. The first, obviously, is for Legends. The second is the need for better range armor (Snakeskin).

I start off by crafting jewelry for enchanting. I still have 12 saphires, and 14 emeralds, and I plan to make them into saphire necklaces and emerald rings (I still have plenty of Rings of Recoil). Before I do any of that, though, I need gold bars. Luckily I have 454 gold ores in the bank, so I head to Port Phasymas to smelt them into bars. The furnace is directly across the street, and is by far the shortest trip between such locations in Runescape (Edgeville is close, but there's a door that you always have to open in between, which makes the process actually take longer. Besides, I can't use that without completing part of the Achievement Diary).

I use up my gems, and smith the rest of the bars into amulets, which gives me 43 Crafting. I decide to go and kill some cows and craft coifs until I reach 45, which I will then turn to crafting snakeskins.

Gathering the cowhides proves to be boring, so I craft the 126 I just gathered (44 crafting), and finish the level with tiaras. I simply keep a tiara mould in my inventory, and mine the silver in Al Kharid and smith the bars and make the tiaras on my way to the bank (I'd also like to note that I made over 18k gp just selling the unstrung amulets and finished coifs to a general store). It takes 77 tiaras to get me to 45 Crafting.

Now that I can work with snakeskins, I have a bit of work to do before I can get snakeskins easily.

Chapter 3: Episode 6-A look at Underground Pass

Underground Pass is one of the "biggie" requirements for Legends (and numerous other quests). It's not a novice quest by any stretch of the imagination, and often takes hours or days for a player to finish. I want to knock this one off right away and have it behind me.

It requires 25 Range, and the ability to defeat 3 level 91 demons. It also requires the Biohazard quest. It is recomended to have a 50 Thieving and a 50 Agility. I'm going to try it with a 29 Thieving and a 40 Agility. The range is a problem, only because I hate training range. So I look in the Runescape Quest Rewards listing to see if I qualify for any quests that give decent range experience.

Shadow of the Storm is one that only has a single quest requirement that I haven't done yet. The problem is that in this case my eyes may very well be bigger than my stomach. The demon hits for a good amount and I don't have any protection prayers. My hope is to manage the damage with food alone, and beat the demon quickly.

But before I do that quest, I must do The Golem. It's a somewhat easy quest that requires a bit of running around and materials which are fairly easy to get (the hardest thing being the papyarus, which I had to go to Ardougne to buy). The longest bit of walking is from Varrock to the Digsite and from Shantay Pass to Uzer (it's about the same distance). It takes me only about 20 minutes. Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, 1000 Crafting and Thieving experience (no levels). I also got 6 cut gems from the demon's throne.

Now it's time for Shadow of the Storm. Doing this will hopefully come very close to getting me the range level I need for Underground Pass. I need a black wizard hat, which means I need to go to Draynor. I'm totally sick, at this point, of walking to Draynor, so I head to the GE to see if I can sell anything to get me enough money to buy an Amulet of Glory. Not only will it give me more teleport locations, but it'll give me +8 to all my combat bonuses (which is a little better than my amulet of power), and I'll get more gems when mining. I sell all 6 of my diamonds, my 11 rubies (which I can't quite use just yet), and 20 gold ore and get plenty enough money to buy one.

I set off on the quest, as I already have almost everything I need to finish the quest already (I have to mine a silver ore to make a silver bar). It doesn't really take long to get to the fight I was dreading, and I head into it with sharks and a few lobsters.

Again, I way overestimated the danger I faced. Agrith-Naar doesn't really put up much in the way of a fight, and I whittle him down with my rune battleaxe and finish him off with Silverlight. Quest Complete: 10,000 Range experience (30 Range).

This gives me plenty of range for Underground Pass.

I can also wear a coif now, and I head off to finish that clue scroll I had banked. During the trail, I have to go from Burthorpe to Catherby. Since I don't yet have Teleport To Camelot, I decide to do the Fishing Contest quest really quickly (Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, 2437 Fishing XP, Access to underground shortcut), and while I'm in McGrubbor's Woods, I grab a couple bunches of Dwellberries since I'm going to need some in Biohazard. I end up getting a coif, a black dagger, and 52 gp (value: 308 gp).

I should have dropped it, but at least I cleared out a quest.

Chapter 3: Episode 5-Agility from 25-40

I need a bunch of Agility levels before I can do Legends. There are two places I could go at this point:

Gnome Stronghold: I could go and walk in a circle, over the same obstacles, time and time again. And go mad. I hate the Gnome Stronghold, and won't go back now that I don't have to. I'm just making it clear that it's an option at 25 Agility.

Skull Ball: A time-sensitive game where you kick a skull through goals on a course. Imagine if the Aadams Family mixed soccer and croquette. Best of all: the faster I complete the course, the better the reward! The only drawback? You gotta do a quest. Oh gee...turns out I need a few of those anyways!

The quest is Creature of Fenkenstrain. It's an incredibly easy quest that gives you a ring which (after another quest) at some point will have some good benefits. Right now, all it does is keep the werewolves at the agility course from wanting to have you over for dinner. I already have everything but the bronze wires in my bank, and since I have a little money, I save time by buying bronze bars and making them myself (it saves me a trip to Lumbridge or Al Kharid). If you have a dueling ring and an ectophial, this quest will take every bit of 30 minutes.

Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 1,000 Thieving experience, Ring of Charos (29 Thieving)

Then I head on to Skull Ball after I bank all my gear. I grab all the strange fruit I have in my bank in case I need run energy.

The trick to Skull Ball is knowing the course, and knowing how the skull reacts to kicks and hitting walls. Since the course never changes, you can use this knowledge to plan your kicks efficiently, thus taking less time. The trick is knowing what you want to do a couple of kicks in advance, so you can kick, and then run to about where the ball will stop.

Times through: About 30 (I may have missed a couple)

Best Time: 2:33

Now that I have 40 Agility, I'll train Agility at Brimhaven Agility Arena.

Chapter 3: Episode 4-The Beauty Of Waterfalls

Waterfall Quest is one of the greatest early combat trainers in existence...unfortunately, it's a one shot deal. But if you can manage to do this quest very early on, the pay-off would be dramatic. If you could manage to finish this quest at Combat Level 3, you'd instantly be close to combat level 30 without having to have fought anything at all. While I've never done this quest at level 3, I did it at around Combat Level 13 and ended up combat level 35. Best of all, there are no requirements to start the quest.

This probably sounds too good to be true...and it's very close to being just that. Trust me when I tell you that I'm understating when I say that there are signifigant risks in doing this quest at a low combat level. During the course of the quest, you have to make your way past some high level monsters: the highlight being the moss giants you have to run past without any weapons or armor. This is not even taking into account the spiders that drain your prayer and those fire giants who you'll still be right-clicking to fight for some time to come. I cannot stress this enough: At lower levels, you can LITERALLY die at any instant, as several of these monsters I've mentioned may very well have max hits higher than your total hit points.

The above point is somewhat irrelevant to me. I'm not doing it at level 3. I'm doing it at level 53. But I'll need this quest for Legends, and I want to get the quests with combat experience done early on so I can better manage my combat level. I can only really gain 12 combat levels and still achieve my goal.

I grab a rope and start the quest. When it sends me to Tree Gnome Village, I realize that I'm going to have to walk through the maze manually, so I decide to do that quest when I get there. It's not very long or difficult, the materials are easy enough to get, and it will also widen up my transportation ability a bit more, too (spirit trees). By the way...I don't suggest doing Tree Gnome Village at an early level.

After killing the Kazard warlord, I started having combat level concerns. I decided not to turn in the orbs just yet, and wait until after I completed Legends before finishing the quest, unless it turns out to be an obstacle in the future (the quest gives a lot of Attack experience, which I don't necessarily need right now). I instead, continue on to finish the quest. Quest Complete: 13,750 Attack and Strength experience, 2 cut diamonds, 2 gold bars, 40 mithril seeds (44 Attack, 43 Strength, 55 Combat level).

I did get black flowers from the seeds, but seeing as how they're not really worth as much as they were, I decided to keep them.

Chapter 3: Episode 3-Training Magic With Slayer

With my recent power fishing session, I ended up with far more food than I really needed. It might seem odd to hear someone say that, but for me it's true. Having a lot of food on hand only gives me an excuse not to train skills like Fishing and Cooking. I like to keep up on my skills, as more Hit Points always means the need for better food. What all this nonsense really means is that I sell off 500 of the cooked lobsters I have in the bank. This gives me enough to buy enough runes to cast about 800 Earth Blast (and eventually Fire Blast) spells.

The best way to train any combat skill is Slayer. So I start hitting up Vannaka for tasks. I'm not shooting for any particular Slayer level...I'm just looking to use up my chaos runes.

Assignment #1: 87 Shades/39 Magic, 43 Hit Points, 29 Slayer
Assignment #2: 40 Earth Warriors

The earth warriors were a bit of a concern, as the only place to find them is in the Wilderness. And that means Revenants. I did see a level 7 Revanant Imp, but it wasn't high enough level to cause me any problems.

I ran out of chaos runes with 27 earth warriors to go. I ended up close enough to 41 that 3 teleports got me there. At 41, I no longer need chaos runes as my most effective spell component; I now need death runes. This is how I was hoping it would work out, but in all honesty, there was no formula that I followed to get it this close. I just simply happened to have just enough money for just enough runes to get me where I wanted to go. Sheer, blind luck.

And every would-be hero needs a heaping share of luck.

Chapter 3: Episode 2-The Quest for Burgh De Rott

For some quests and training tools I want to use, I need a nice convenient bank on the other side of Mort Myre swamp. And that bank is in Burgh De Rott. While it's a run-down little village that doesn't have much to offer, it gives you 3 very important things:

#1) It gives you a bank near the Shades of Mort'ton quest/minigame.
#2) It gives you a bank near the Barrows minigame (not so important now, but very important in the future)
#3) It gives you access to the Burgh De Rott Ramble minigame (where you get Lumberjack clothes).

To get access to that bank, I have to knock out 2 quests: In Search of the Myreque and In Aid of the Myreque. Seeing as I need a lot more quest points (and I qualify for the quests), I set out to do them now.

I decide it would be best to gather the materials for both quests now:

Druid Pouch w/15+ uses (2)
Blessed Silver Sickle *
17 Planks (3)
261 Steel Nails (1)
Hammer *
1 Steel Longsword (1)
2 Steel Swords (1)
1 Steel Dagger (1)
1 Steel Mace (1)
1 Steel Warhammer (1)
About 50gp *
Spade *
5 Buckets *
Pick-axe *
10 Bronze axes (1)
4 Tinderboxes *
10 Snails (2)
1 Swamp Paste (1)
2 Steel bars (1)
1 Coal *
1 Mithril bar (4)
1 Silver bar *
1 cut Sapphire *
1 Cosmic rune *
1 Water rune *
1 Soft clay (1)
1 Rope (3)
Decent food *

* Denotes items I already had.

(1) Denotes items that I made myself.
(2) Denotes items I gathered in Mort Myre swamp.
(3) Denotes items I gathered through known respawns or very common monster drops.
(4) Dentoes items I bought off the Grand Exchange.

[Side Note: What I'm trying to get away from is buying items I need for quests and such out of my stockpiled cash (which isn't much right now). As you can see I only had to buy 1 item for these two quests.]

I gather the snails last, which puts me in Canifis, conveniently enough the place I need to start the first quest. I could have finished it in one trip, but I teleported out to get more food after using some of the quest items. I tried to use fairy rings to get back in, but I couldn't use it yet. Turns out that I didn't need the food. Oh well...live and learn. Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 600 Attack, Strength, Defence, Hit Points, and Crafting, shortcut to Mort'ton.

For the next quest, I can only bring some of the items, and have to return to the bank to get more before I get my new bank opened. Once it's finally done, I have a few fights to deal with (at least I have help in the way of Velaf), which are sound tougher than they actually are. When it comes time to take Ivan to the Temple, I only give him a blessed silver sickle and 15 salmon. It's barely enough. I grab the books and return to Velaf to complete the quest. Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 2,000 Attack, Defence, Strength and Crafting exp (42 Attack, 40 Crafting).

Now I have a bank close to 2 minigames, 1 of which I'll be wanting to play soon (Shades of Mort'ton)

Chapter 3: Episode 1-Ecto Land

Prayer is a big concern, so I head to Port Phasmatys to do the Ghost's Ahoy quest. This will give me access to the greatest Prayer training facillity in Runescape: the Ectofuntus. The quest is somewhat easy, but you need a decent attack level to finish the quest.

The tea part is somewhat annoying, but if you've prepared before hand it's not much of a headache. If you haven't, but have access to the fairy rings, there's a ring to the south of her where you can get milk and make the tea.

The first thing I go after is the book. It's best to take 3 of each base color dyes (red, yellow, and blue), so you can get the model boat fixed in one trip. Here is where I had trouble when I first did this quest: the level 32 rock lobster. You need a decent attack level to hit it reliably. It's just like Count Draynor: if the battle goes on too long, the rock lobster will vanish and you'll have to start again. I tried to do this with a prayer/strength pure, and was totally unable to kill the lobster until I had 30 attack.

Next, I go for the robes. To get them, you need to get a petition signed by 10 ghosts. The trick to this is just checking around untill you've got 10 people to sign it for free.

Finally, I go for the translation book. I decide to train up fletching to 25 so I can make the bow myself (it's a low 6 levels). Absolutely the best place in Runescape to cut and drop oak bows is by the Champion's guild. There are 10+ oak trees there, and you don't often see a lot of traffic there (it's a good haul to the closest bank). Straying too far across the streets is something to watch out for, though (if you're Combat level 40 or lower), since the dark wizards hang out in that area too. I not only get 25 Woodcutting, I get 4 bird nests and two tree seeds (apple and curry).

I get my Ghostspeak amulet enchanted and finish the quest. Quest Complete: 2 Quest Points, 2400 Prayer exp, Ectophial (27 Prayer).

The ectophial is one of my favorite items in the game. It's a 1 click teleport like a teletab and it teleports you to the place you recharge it (making for infinite uses...as long as you remember to fill it up), and it's fairly close to a bank. The only downside is that it takes you pretty much out into the middle of nowhere...but in an emergency, anywhere else is better than where you are right now.

The ectophial, paired up with either Amulets of Glory or Rings of Dueling make worshiping the Ectofuntus dramatically faster.

Chapter 3: Prologue

As I walked to the (real life) store to get me some breakfast, I contemplated my options for a chapter 3 goal:

It's too early for me to start working on a skill cape or quest cape.

While I absolutely love ancients and find lunar spells somewhat useful, my current magic level still needs a lot of work, so Desert Treasure and Lunar Diplomacy are not priorities.

In fact...there are lots of things I'd like to do. It's just far to early for me to do them. But there is one thing that, when you've done it at a lower level, gets some interesting reactions: Legend's Quest.

I've done Legends way early before. One of the main differences between that character and this character, however, is Prayer level. I will more than likely need Protection from Melee. That means I need 19 Prayer levels. And that means I need to do Ghosts Ahoy very soon.

But I'm even getting ahead of myself here. Let's look at the breakdown on Legend's quest:

56 Magic, 52 Mining, 50 Agility, 50 Crafting, 50 Smithing, 50 Strength, 50 Thieving, 50 Woodcutting, 45 Herblore and 42 Prayer. And that's just the required skills. I still need to get Family Crest, Shilo Village, Underground Pass, and Waterfall Quests done. Underground Pass, in particular, is a rough quest for anyone of almost any level.

I was planning on training my Magic, Agility, and Prayer up to about 50 in this chapter anyways. There are 2 things that give me a bit of concern: 50 Strength and the Waterfall Quest. While they may be able to "co-exist" in my plan, this does spell a lot of combat experience for me.

One might wonder why combat experience would be a problem. It's a problem because I'm planning on having Legend's quest done between Combat Levels 60-65.

Yes, in fact, I am insane. Thanks for asking.