Summoning Goal Reached!

Finally:

This, coupled with my 75 Farming have opened the door for two long term goals:  99 Woodcutting and 99 Fletching.  With the Hydra's scrolls I can re-grow my planted Magic trees instantly.  No more wilderness woodcutting, no more competing for resources.  But that's for the future.

Coincidentally, I reached another goal that I wasn't actively working on:

Runite ore is the best ore there is to mine.  While I can't quite smith it yet, it still sells for about 16k per ore.

Next on the list:

Obviously, the "All Skills 75+" goal is next on my plate.  While I was a fan on Hunter in the past, I had been having difficulty getting back into it.  Imp boxes (71 Hunter) was hard enough for me to get, and I was having some trouble trying to figure out how to handle this.

One thing that is kind of breaking me out of my rut is the new-ish group of hunting animals in the elf land.  While I can't catch Grenwall yet, I can catch their bait:  Pawya.  So I gave it a shot...

Unlike any other hunter animal that you catch with box traps, bait is REQUIRED.  And the bait isn't cheap, either.  Papayas have been on the rise thanks to the new "extreme" potions (Grenwall quills is an ingredient for one of them).  And I quickly learned that you lose a lot of bait.

It's hard not to notice players using the Fruit Bat familiars.  Anyone who's played has seen this.  The constant sound of the scrolls being used and bananas, lemons, limes and other fruit littering the ground everywhere is usually a dead giveaway.  When asked why, everyone who's doing it will tell you:  "I'm making money."  And the only fruit that is currently worth going through hours of clicking for is:  PAPAYAS.

So, having never used a Fruit Bat familiar before, I bought back 100 of the pouches I've sold, converted most into scrolls and set to work.  First thing I noticed is that you get a papaya every time it drops fruit.  So I started keeping track of what I spent Vs. what I'm "making" (I'm not really making any money since I'm not selling it).

The profit is high.  And when I say it's high, I mean:  "WHOA MAMA!"  I don't have any solid numbers on this yet, but I will soon, and I'll post the result here.  But so far, I'm up 500k gp.

I'm currently in the process of figuring up some percentages on profitability, as well as bait loss ratios when catching Pawya.  I'll post them once I've got them.

One final note today:  that Ardougne Achievement Diary Elite task list is really bugging me, so I've decided to gradually work on Smithing.  Summoning will come soon enough (as soon as I get back to Slayer).  Progress will be slow, and I maintain no illusions about getting it any day soon, but I am working on it when I can.  Gold ore with the Crafting Gauntlets from the Family Crest quest currently seems like the way to go, but I may mix it up with Adamant bars from GWD.

Completed Goals

Big news today.

First of all, I completed half of the goal I mentioned in my last post:



Dragon Full Helm: 15,600,000 gp

This fulfills a long standing dream I've had since I started: Full Dragon Armor. As usual, it was up 1 million from when I last checked the price. Typical. But I still like it, and that's all that matters.

Next, I've finally acquired something I had been hunting for a while:



Full Lumberjack!

The Woodcutting bonus is small, but every little bit helps. I found some advice on the forums to stay to the easy path and avoid encounters (fewer combats means faster trips, faster trips means more trips, more trips means more chances to get it).

I am still working on the Firemaking cape, and I'm still doing Shades of Mort'ton in order to get it. My current plan is to use the money to train up Construction, and to do Summoning when I have the charms for it. I currently have a bunch right now, so I'll be doing some soon. As of this moment, I have 500 Sacred Oil (4), and I'm cutting the logs for them now.

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Other News: They opened up a new cavern in the Dwarven Mines under Ice Mountain called the Living Rock Caverns. New monsters with ok drops from what I've seen so far. In my Full Dragon, they don't hit me often, but they are quite easy to hit. Doing this I managed to get an Attack level, a Strength level and a Combat level.

I'm now 110 Combat level.

With this new cavern, they introduced new fish which require a high Fishing level. The lowest of these are Cavefish, which require an 85 Fishing. I spent the night before I went fishing Monkfish in order to get the level for it.

I don't know how they are as food yet, as I'm not currently working on combat and haven't even cooked any of the one's I've acquired so far.

The new Dwarf quest (Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf) is also done, keeping me eligiable to wear my Quest cape...even though I'm still wearing my cooking cape. This opened up a new area with monsters that drop a new handheld cannon and the long awaited Dragon Pickaxe. I haven't been to the cavern yet (I'm assuming it's going to be busy for a while), nor have I price checked handheld cannons or pickaxes. I'm assuming they're going to be expensive, so it'll be a bit before I got one of either.

Combining Goals

While doing the various things I do to make money, I got a little bored and went out to do the Temple Trekking/Burgh de Rott Ramble minigame for a bit. While I didn't get a Lumberjack shirt (much to my continued annoyance), I did stockpile some shade remains. So, once I got tired of trekking, I decided to burn some shades.

I, of course, didn't just burn the small number I got from trekking: I decided to make a day of it. I stockpiled 250 sacred oil (4), 250 magic logs, and 250 shades. I ended up making about 1.2M gp. I also got somewhere in the neighborhood of 120k firemaking xp.

This got me to thinking...instead of just wasting time burning maple logs for weeks to get 99 firemaking, why not burn shades? It might take the same amount of time (or a bit more), but I'll have a whole lot of money when all is said and done.

Now, I've never played for money. But (much like in the real world) money does help. I am going to get the firemaking skillcape anyways, so why not do it in a way that I end up ahead financially? Plus, I'll also get a decent amount of crafting and prayer xp, too. Finally, the minigame is rather easy (although it is a bit labor intensive) and I enjoy it.

As a result, my firemaking skillcape goal and my Dragon Full Helm goal have met unexpectedly at a bizarre crossroads out in the middle of nowhere and became unlikely travelling partners.

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In other news: All of my melee stats are now 79. With 80's across the board in combat, I'm temted to try to get all my combat stats 80+. It would give me an excuse to do some work on my prayer. I already have a goal to get summoning to 80, and I could train range and prayer at the same time by killing dragons. These are only thoughts, however, as I still have a long way to go for 80 in my melee stats.

I am also just a stone's throw from 74 summoning.

Back Again

After a small hiatus (call it a "mental health" holiday), I've returned with news. Not much news, but some.

Before my vacation, I got my Cooking Skillcape. While I would have undoubtedly achieved this on my own (at some point) I managed this with the help of some friends. I shaved weeks of cooking (and months of procrastinating) off my time with the help, primarily of (but not exclusive to) two of my friends: Nana Sam and Zenia2008. Since they both had cooking capes themselves, they appointed me their personal Runescape chef.

And I didn't have to make any Summer Pies. I hate making pies.

I also bought a good number of raw Manta Rays, and cooked them to sell, like was suggested to me by someone else. And he wasn't kidding when he said it was a profit. In fact...it was staggering at the time. Even while burning 16% on average, I made nearly 1k gp per Manta Ray BOUGHT (yes, that's right, bought, not sold). Between those and my daily tasks, I made enough money to make one of my long standing dreams come true.

Wait for it.

Drumroll please?



Dragon Platebody: 10, 600,000 gp.

After seeing myself in my new armor, I decided I have to get the whole set. All of which I need now is the full helm. Which is more than the platebody (of course). So, of course, my goal of a Firemaking Skillcape are temporarily on the back burner.

Chapter 4-Episode 4: "I'll take 100k worth of Herblore XP pl0x!"

I absolutely HATE buying skill levels. This is because I can only think of about 12,382,483,934 different things I would rather do with all that money...give or take. But there are times when it's difficult to avoid...this being one of them.

I need a bit more than 7 levels in Herblore for Legends. It could potentially take me a week to get enough herbs to acomplish this. Sorceress' Garden is far from reliable, and killing Chaos Druids will undoubtedly give me a bit more combat experience than I'd like right now, since I've already got a 60 Combat Level. And the #1 thing on that list of 12 billion+ things I'd rather do with the money? Magic. Heavy sigh...

My recent smithing venture has given me 100k gp, and I intend to see exactly how many Herblore levels I can buy with that. My plan is to make enough combat potions to get me 1 more level, and then make Prayer Potions for as long as I can. I may adjust this based on cost and ease of obtaining the necessary materials.

I immedately see that Ranarr weed costs 6 times as much as Harralander, and only gives 4 more XP per potion. I decide to make combat potions the whole way. I buy 97 Harralander, 100 chaos runes and 300 fire runes with a bit over 100k. I had forgotten that I already had 8 unfinished Harralander potions, and 17 unfinished Ranarr potions. I guess I'll get a few Prayer Potions after all...

The reason that runes became a necessity is because I have to kill desert goats to get the other ingredients. I plan to melee them untill I hit 50 Strength, and then Mage the rest of them.

Shortly after I switch to Magic, another problem became apparent: I need runes. I head over to mine mithril and coal south of Lumbridge, and while I'm mining I realize something. I could buy the ore relatively cheaply, and simply mine coal...using Superheat to make the bars immedately. I rush back to the GE with an inventory full of mithril bars, which gives me just enough to buy 100 Nature runes and 100 Mithril ore. I then head over by the Legend's Guild and mine coal by the Grizzly Bears. It's relatively close to a bank, and works incredibly well. I sell the bars, buy 100 more Nature runes and 100 more Mithril ore. The net profit when all is said and done is a bit over 100k. I've discovered my new cash factory.

The initial 100k bought me exactly 3 levels, although Combat Potions actually sell, so I make most of my money back (after buying vials of water to replace the ones I lose in the process). After I run out of herbs, I head over by the Crafting Guild and finish up those Prayer Potions. I end up with about 15 full Prayer Potions (cash value, had I bought them: about 100k gp).

I check a skill calculator to see how many more Harralander I need to get to 45 (which is 255). I then set off to make the next 100 Mithril bars.

I make about 200 more Mithril bars, with which I buy runes and herbs, which eventually gets me up to 54 Magic and 42 Herblore. While Mining, I got a book from Mr. Mordaut...which reminded me I needed to pick up my Varrock armor from Achievement Diary. I should get another lamp in the process. Sure enough, I get another lamp for 1k more XP, which I add to Herblore. This puts me about 1.7k XP from 43.

On a side and unrelated note, I got another Mining and Smithing level in the process.

Time for a little break.

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 1-Episode 14: Slay, Be Slain, or Run Away...

Today is a good day. Membership! And...I noticed that at some point my old home world 60 has returned from the brink of oblivion (it was gone for many, many months). Breathless, and a bit nervous, I enter my beautiful, larger (way larger) world.

I start with my plan, but things prove to be difficult from the very start. No potions or rings are for sale for any price. My grandioise plan didn't take this into account.

So, while I wait (and think), I head over to gnome stronghold to train agility up to 25 (at 25 I can use the Skullball course...and I really hate the gnome stronghold). I don't have to wait long for my sales to go through. Now all that is left is the food. Before I head back to Varrock, I grab 3 planks from the Barbarian Outpost, since I'll need them in the quest.

Now my problem is money. For 22 tuna and corn potatos, I need about 30k. I have a bit over 9k, so it's time for my smithing manufacturing business to start up again. I buy 48 coal to get started.

While walking to the GE to sell my bars, an idea strikes me. I'm going to price rings of forging, and buy some of those. This way I can make more iron bars...which sell for about what I make off the steel ones. I put up an offer for 13, and wait about about 20 minutes before I get the message that my offer has been updated. With rings in hand, I head to Ardougne to use some of my larger new world. I use up two rings, and sell the bars. Another small hitch is that nobody is selling tuna potatos. My second, and almost as good, choice is sharks, which comes through immedately. I'm now ready.

I talk to the Guildmaster, who sends me to Ozariac, who gives me a quest and sends me back to the Guildmaster. I ask about everything, get my key, and set out to find the map pieces. First I head to Ice Mountain and talk to the oracle. From there I head to the Port Sarim jail, stopping in Falador on the way, where I buy a wizard mind bomb and grab some needed gear (a pick, a bucket, and 12k). I head to the jail and buy the first map piece. It's about here where it hits me...

Before I get to that dragon, I have to kill a demon (keep in mind that I have done this quest several times, so I don't need to use a guide for it. I simply forgot about it). Which means I'm all but guaranteed to get a Hit Point level. This may make me combat level 37, which I'd rather avoid. I'm suddenly glad I bought extra food and rings. But first, I head over to the mine in Rimmington and mine a piece of clay. I fill my bucket at the well and make soft clay. Now, I go back to the bank to grab some food and rings.

As expected, the Hit Point level is inevidible. Another problem looming on the horizion is the fact that I have to kill so many monsters to find keys that I have a Defence level approaching rapidly. Fortunately, I kill the demon long before that level gets here. As I leave, I head over to the docks and buy the Lady Lumbridge for 2k.

I didn't gather materials prior to the quest, so I have to do that now before I can get any farther. I have the clay, but I still need to turn it into an unfired bowl...plus I need a sheet of silk, a wizard mind bomb, and a lobster pot. I only had enough for the ship when I left Melzar's Maze, so I didn't bother to stop by the fishing shop to get a lobster pot. So I use one of my extra Teletabs to go to Varrock and try the GE. My luck is changing, and I find the pot instantly. I take that and head to Barbarian Village to make the bowl. I use my dueling ring to go to Al Kharid, and buy the silk. Then it's a long walk to Ice Mountain, where I use these items to get my final map piece.

I assemble the map at the bank in Falador, and head to Draynor to see Ned. I talk him into sailing my ship, and he tells me he'll meet me there.

The moment of truth: to Crandor! The trip is uneventful...asside from the occasional dragon, flaming cabin boy, and crashing into islands. I head to the cave, and rush into the dragon's lair. The battle is a bit long, but far from difficult. The rings make all the difference. I decapitate the Dragon with plenty of food to spare.

Quest Complete: 18,650 exp for Strength and Attack, 2 Quest Points, Ability to wear Rune Platebodies (35 Strength, 44 Defence). I overshoot my combat level 40 goal by 2 whole combat levels. But it's still within the range of both my chapter 1 goals!

From the day Wrthlss Noob was created to right now, it has been less than 1 week by about 30 hours. From 25 gp and a wooden shield to full rune...and I'm even able to wear it by the time I'm Combat Level 42. And by doing this I've dispelled a commonly accepted myth: you can't make money with nooby levels. This is completely false, as I was making plenty of money 5 minutes after I got to Lumbridge.

Chapter 1 Complete.

Chapter 1-Episode 12: The Final Grind

This stands to be my last power levelling session in a free world, and I have some high goals to meet before I pay my membership (actually, I have some time to kill before payday). My list of things to do include:

Buy a rune platebody
30 Woodcutting (9 levels)
38 Fishing (8 levels)
35 Cooking (1 level)
27 Runecrafting (26 levels)

I'm also going to need about 20k-30k gp to buy food, potions, and other supplies for the fight. So I need a lot of levels, and about 70k gp. I make a base plan:

I will cut and burn oaks until 30 Woodcutting. I will then fly fish until level 38 (buying feathers, as I'm getting more and more concerned with my Hit Point experience level), and cook trout until I get 35 Cooking. I will sell the rest of the fish. I will then mine rune essence in Varrock (in lots of 500) and make the best runes I can until I get 27 Runecrafting. I will save these runes for when I train magic. Finally I will manufacture steel bars to get the money I need for the plate and the quest supplies.

The woodcutting, fishing and cooking go way faster than I expected, so I have plenty of time to devote to runecrafting and making money. I sell the fish, and only get about 6k for all of them, so I still have a ways to go yet. I head to Arbury's shop to start mining essence. I start off with 200, since that will get me to 9 Runecrafting. Making earth runes will bring me back to Varrock, so I can mine more essence then.

I finally get to 14, and start planning the runes I'm going to make to get to 27 Runecrafting. I plan on using these runes to train Magic after I do the Dragon Slayer quest, so I decide to make 500 mind runes. These will be the main rune of all my spellcasting until at least 17 Magic, so I want a lot of these. I mine 250 essence (since I make 2 mind runes per essence at this level), and start crafting.

Once I get the 500 mind runes made, I set a goal of 300 essence worth of all the elemental runes. The number is arbitrary for the most part: I just want to ensure I have enough elemental runes to be able to use up most of the mind runes, with a bit of a reserve stockpile. I set off to Varrock to get started. I start with mining 300 essence for earth runes. I craft those, then mine 600 essence for the water and fire runes. I wait until last to make the air runes in order to get my runecrafting skill higher, because once it's past 22 I get 3 air runes per essence. By the time I get to the air runes, my Runecrafting level is 26. Making 73 essence into air runes will give me my goal, but I'm going to want a lot of airs so I mine 200 essence (which will give me 600 more). It doesn't take long to finish those, which gives me a 27 Runecrafting (and close to 28).

Now there's still a little matter of a rune platebody that I need to buy, and decide that mining has always worked out best for me as far as making cash, so I head over to the Grand Exchange to buy some coal. My plan is the same as it was the last time: mine enough iron to use up the coal making steel bars while mining the bits of silver as they are available, sell, and buy more coal. Here's the financial report:

Starting cash: 13,325 gp
1st run: 35 steel bars, 13 silver bars = 23,403 gp (bought 120 coal)
2nd run: 60 steel bars, 23 silver bars = 40,031 gp (bought 200 coal, 5k left over)
3rd run: 100 steel bars, 0 silver bars, 1 sapphire, 5 cut sapphires = 66,958 gp

This is more than enough for a rune platebody. I have 26k left for other quest related expenses, with plenty of room for rapid capital expansion (making my money grow).

Tomorrow is payday. Tomorrow is members. I can hardly wait!!!

Chapter 1-Episode 10: Time For New Gear

With my combat skills right where I want them, temporarily set asside my violent ways to prepare for membership, and subsequent attempt at the Dragon Slayer quest. I have a couple more quests to get done, some armor to buy, $5 to come up with, and an infamous dragon to slay...all of this long before it is commonly considered wise to do so. Admittedly it's not, but I think it's completely doable.

Rune armor by the piece is almost the same as the whole set (a bit over 143k max price)...and in fact if I may possibly be able to get it cheaper piece by piece. The main problem is money. I need lots of it. Cows are totally out (since I don't want any more combat experience), which leaves mining, smithing, fishing or woodcutting. I decide to do a little of everything. I start out, since I'm at the Grand Exchange, and check prices on iron ore and coal against what I can sell the smithed bars for. I will make at least 100 gp on each bar. The money I currently have isn't enough to justify the effort (I only have enough to make 25 bars, which is only about 2.5k).

I decide to experiment with mining silver and selling silver bars (people use them for crafting). What I'm concerned about is how quickly I can get rid of the bars. The silver bars sell quickly for the middle of the road price, so I decide to buy 80 coal and mine silver south-west of Varrock. This way I can mine some iron when it's open. I get 63 silver ore in the time it takes me to gather the needed iron. I make about 35k gp, which is more than enough to get started. I sell my full adamant set and buy a rune chainbody and a rune full helm.

I now set out to Lumbridge to fish salmon and trout. I'm relatively sure the salmon will sell, but I decide that if the trout don't sell quickly I'll just cook them for noob food and experience. Fortunately they both sell instantly and I get a bit over 20k. Out of curiosity, I put up the raw beef and the bones that have been stockpiling in my bank and was shocked to learn that these, too, sold almost instantly. This gave me enough for a rune kiteshield. All that is left now is the plate legs and platebody.

Fishing is far slower than the silver bars, so I go back to that. I stick near Varrock, since the mine north of Al Kharid is usually crowded. My goal is to mine 100 silver, and stockpile iron ore to sell. I'll be mining way more iron than silver, so this goal should have a good profit. Competition gets stiff, so I try to finish up in Al Kharid (which is the best free world smithing place anyways). It doesn't take long untill I have competition there as well, so I decide to smelt the silver and sell everything and see how much I have. I have less than 20K...I need more than twice that to get platelegs.

I decide to use the money I have to buy coal and smith steel bars. I have enough to buy 100 coal, and after I sell the 50 steel bars, I'll add about 10k to my cash total. Iron respawns faster than silver which makes it easy enough to get, and I can also mine the incidental silver ore for a small bonus.

First Batch: 50 steel bars, 16 silver bars = more than 34k (bought 188 coal)
Second Batch: 89 steel bars, 28 silver bars = more than 60k.

I have more than enough for my legs, to complete my current combat kit (not that I'll be combating any day soon). Funniest thing is that, after the purchase, I have exactly what I started with! I also buy an adamant scimitar, which complete's my Dragon Slayer combat kit.

While I still have to get my rune platebody, I still have other things to see to so I call this work session done.

Chapter 1-Episode 4: The Great Cowslayer

New goals firmly in hand, I set out to get started. The first order of business is Quest Points: I need 32 and I have 12. 20 Quest Points is not as long a haul as it sounds. While I have got a few of the better yielding quests out of the way already, I still have a couple of good ones to choose from. I decide to balance good Quest Point rewards and good experience rewards. The quests on the list now are:

Black Knights Fortress (3 QP)
Doric's Quest (1 QP)

Earnest the Chicken (4 QP)

Prince Ali's Rescue (3 QP)

Romeo & Juliet (5 QP)

Rune Mysteries ([which I was planning on doing anyways] 1 QP)

Vampire Slayer (3 QP)

But before I get started, I want to beef up my Attack, Strength, and Defence at least 5 points each (which would bring me up to Mithril armor and Black weapons). Before I go and beef up my combat stats though, I need food. So I decided to head over to Port Sarim to buy a fishing pole and train fishing up at least 4 more levels (to about 10), which will also help my cooking skill.

While fishing I helped someone out by telling him where to find a fishing rod. He was really appreciative, and said that people in Runescape were nicer than they are in other online games. While I know that this isn't always the case, people do tend to have "niceness spurts". It doesn't seem like much, but it kinda felt like a rare moment. Speaking of rare moments, I just realized that I haven't had any randoms since I started this character. Not one.

I fill my inventory at Fishing level 12, and after cooking everything, I end up with a nice 31 sardines and 6 herring. I set off to the cows by the flour mill to start leveling combat. I like this place a great deal due to the close deposit boxes up by the gnomecopter thing (I still don't know what it is). I can clear my inventory of cowhides without making the trek to the castle, and if I bring a tinderbox and woodcutting axe, I can cook the meat. Doing this, I can stay here all but indefinately.

The need for food was aparently greatly overestimated, as I ended up depositing most of it to increase the time between drops. My hope is that by the time I reach 10 Attack, 10 Strength, and 20 Defence I'll have enough cowhides to buy Mithril armor and a black battle axe. The battles rage on for hours. Trust me when I say that cowslaying isn't at all as glamorous as it sounds. When all is said and done, I also have 17 Hit Points, 13 Prayer and a combat level of 17. My max hit with a steel battle axe is now 3. I run the cowhides over to the Grand Exchange to see if I have enough for either new armor or a weapon. It turns out that I killed a few more cows than I thought, and it's more than enough, leaving me a bit over 4k.

Chapter 1-Episode 3: The Ups and Downs of a Legend

I've had my eye on the Knight's Sword quest for a bit now (it gives a generous chunk of Smithing experience), so I decide to knock that one out of the way. This quest requires you to mine a special (and all but worthless) ore called "Blurite", which only exists in a cave that is overflowing with things that are extremely dangerous to a character with a combat level of 8. The bad thing about this quest is that it's time consuming and entails a lot of walking around (since I don't yet teleport). The good thing is that I'm familiar with the quest, so I know where the hiding places are.

I realize that I'm not able to make iron bars yet (of which I need two...4 if I want a copy of the sword for myself), so I decide to buy them. I also need a redberry pie (which I can now make myself), so i mine enough clay to make 10 pots and pie dishes. This way I'll have some extra food, since I'm down to my last 5 shrimp and cooked meat.

I learn quickly at Barbarian Village that I need a Crafting level of 7 to make pie dishes, so I decide to do Goblin Diplomacy for some quick crafting levels. This means I need to start slaughtering goblins to get goblin armor. I grab my trusty battle axe and get to work.

After the hunt, I end up with an 10 Defence and 13 Hit Points, so I head back to the Grand Exchange to upgrade to the sinister-looking Black Armor. I'm forced to sell my steel set in order to be able to afford it, and while nobody is selling immedately, my bid goes through as I'm gathering the dyes I need for the Goblin Diplomacy quest. I return to Varrock, suit up, and make the journey to Goblin Village. The quest is easy, and since I already have everything I need to finish, it doesn't take long at all. Quest Complete: 200 Crafting exp and a gold bar.

I end up with a Crafting level of 6...about 20 exp short of the 7 I need. I decide to make some extra pots (as these always come in handy) to get what I need. I manage to cook 6 out of the 9 pies, and I head to Falador to start Knight's Sword.

I do most of the major running around, and enter the cave to mine the blurite ore. I get inside, and get the ore without a hitch, but on my way out I get killed by the Ice Warriors guarding the ore. I lose my black legs, helm and my steel pick which I had just recently bought...not to mention the iron bars and ore that I had just mined. A bit of a setback, but I've recovered from far worse. I teleport out of there on the second attempt, and head to Al Kharid to get some more iron. After some friendly assistance from another player, I'm on my way back to Thurgo to get the sword. After taking the sword to the squire in Falador, Quest Complete: 12,725 Smithing Exp (Smithing level: 30).

I need to get a new set of legs for Demon Slayer (plus, I'd like to get a new steel pick), so I mine some iron in Rimmington to make some iron bars to sell. I end up with about 16 bars, which is plenty enough to buy the legs, and a steel pick to boot.

Having finished recouping my loss from earlier, I set my sights on Demon Slayer, which I start since I'm already there. This is another quest with a lot of running around in order to grab 3 keys to get a demon killing sword. The first key is easy, but i struggle a bit with the key in the sewers when I take a wrong turn and end up in an area with aggressive spiders. While they come close to killing me, they failed. Now I need 25 bones to get the third key, so I head back to Lumbridge to kill some giant rats (since there are rats in the swamp near where the key is). I choose rats because I can use the meat to make meat pies when my cooking level is high enough. Killing rats not only gives me 25 bones, but a 15 Defence and 14 Hit Points.

With all 3 keys in hand, I start back to Varrock to get the Silverlight, and kill Delrith. The major problem facing me is that there is a swarm of dark wizards hanging about, and they'll do their best to murder me. Food is another problem, as I only have 4 shrimp and 5 redberry pies left. I stop to do some fishing in Lumbridge. While shrimp are pretty much bottom of the barrel as far as food goes, my reasoning is that if I have a lot, I should be able to make easy work of the upcomming encounter. I end up with 25 shrimp, Fishing level 6 and Cooking level 15.

I ended up fighting the two level 7 dark wizards before I found out that you can hide behind the altar, which is what I did from the level 20 dark wizard. I had trouble hitting pretty much anything (and used 3 redberry pies and 23 shrimp), but eventually I killed Delrith and sent him back from whence he came. Quest Complete: Silverlight.

All that work for a sword which is not quite as good as the steel battle axe I already have.

Chapter 1-Episode 2: The Riddle of Steel

Now having a 5 Defence, the lure of a shiny set of steel armor is just too much to resist. So I set out from the cows north of Lumbridge to the Grand Exchange in Varrock. My primary concern at the moment is cost, as I only have a couple hundred gp. The bad news is that it costs about 2.5k-2.8k gp. I decide to sell the cow hides, and I make enough money for the set, with almost 1k left over!

Emboldened by my new armor, I decide to take on the Stronghold of Security to get the boots, and a generous chunk of gp. At lower levels this is a risky undertaking, but I've done it before with skillers so I grab my food and make the trip. I, of course, forgot to set my security questions, so at the end of the first level, I have to log out to do that. I got hit a lot on level 2, so I banked the 5k I had so far, as well as my shiny new armor. While I took a few hits on the last level, I managed to make it to the end and get my boots and a total of 10k gp.

With my finances secure for the time being, I headed back to the Grand Exchange in Varrock to see about a decent amulet. Since there are no amulets of strength for sale, I get an amulet of power (+6 to Att, Str, and Def), which may be a better choice anyways. Combat kit complete!

And the Riddle of Steel has been solved.