Back From Vacation

After spending a week getting 75 Runecrafting, THEN spending a good deal of time getting 1k tickets at Brimhaven Agility Arena, I had to take a break.  When it starts feeling like work, it's time to do something else for a while.  But the vacation is over.

I'm officially down to 3 skills below 75:  Herblore (74), Thieving (71) and Hunter (71).  And Herblore is getting close.

There were also 2 quests to do when I got back, and both were a little tough.  Blood Runs Deep in particular gave me a good measure of trouble (and I died twice), and it took me a couple days to finish.

A mixed blessing out of The Temple of Senntisten (the other quest) are the Curses.  It's an alternate "prayer book" if you will.  Gone now are the low level prayers that are pretty much wasted because of Chivalry and Piety.  Likewise, Piety's equivelent Curse (as far as I can tell) requires 95 Prayer.  And the price of dragon bones continues to skyrocket...not that I would ever buy them.  All penguin points are now going to Prayer.

Of course, now that those two quests are done, Jagex has released their second Grandmaster quest.  And from what I've been hearing, it's nasty.  I meet all the requirements (except for the two Soul Wars requirements), but with my "all skills 75+" goal being just around the corner, that quest is way on the back burner for now.

My origional goal is likewise on track.  I managed to get 75 Farming (for Magic Trees), and I'm 2 Summoning levels from 80.  As close as I am, I still imagine it's going to take several million GP to get there (not to mention several Slayer assignments).

Long time, no see

I've been somewhat lax in posting on my blog as of late (as anyone can see), so let me bring everything up to date. I'll start with my progress on the Grand Master quest.

December 6: 65 Farming
December 16: 55 Hunting
December 17: 65 Herblore
December 22: 75 Magic
December 23: While Guthix Sleeps quest finished

The grand master quest wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but there was a tense moment where my hit points dropped into the teens.

They've likewise released several achievement diaries, and currently this is where a majority of my focus is on training at the moment. Here's a list of what I still need to do there:

Lumbridge: Complete
Falador: Hard
Fremennik: Complete
Karamja: Hard
Seer's Village: Hard
Varrock: Complete

Inferno Adze is temporarily on hold, while I stockpile wood from Miscelania. I will probably start burning after I finish the diaries. I have recently decided that I'd like Firemaking to be my first skill cape.

I've fallen in with a small group of people who have also given me several different focuses. First and foremost: there are several NPC's who will give or sell you things once a day. Bert in Yannelle for sand, Aherin in Catherby for seaweed and pineapples, and Zaff for battlestaffs (Zaff I was already doing). The Seer's diary added Geoffry in the flax field to the list as well. Doing these things every day have done incredible things for my Crafting and Magic skills (not even to mention my Runescape finances) by making it possible to assemble 64 Air Battlestaves per day.

On top of these daily skiller errands, I can check/kill a Jade Vine for Farming and Slayer experience, I can kill Bork for a handful of higher level charms, and now I can kill a Phoenix for phoenix feathers (which is a component for a Summoning pouch I'll be able to make in the future). I'd like to say I do all my "dailys" on a daily basis, but I usually only do the combat ones a couple times a week.

In addition to these dailys, this group has gotten me into Star Hunting. While I can't remember specifically when, I'm sure I've mentioned that I hate mining. If I haven't previously, I'll do so now: I hate mining. Most of the better locations are remote, and the ore doesn't respawn fast enough to make it entertaining for me. But Star Hunting has made it possible for me to level Mining as never before. Currently, I'm about 20k or so from 80 Mining (which had been 67 for a really long time).

The best part about Star Hunting is that it's a 20-30 minute bout of single-click mining every 2 hours. It leaves me plenty of time to work on other things. The diversion (as it's called) also gives you some loot, but with my skills, the loot's not really all that great. But it does give me some cosmic runes (which I do find useful) and the gold ore is really starting to build up in my bank (once I have a good amount, I'll smelt them with gold smithing gauntlets). A quick 50k each day for something I'd do anyways is also quite welcome.

Another side benefit of star hunting is that it has helped eleviate some of my fear of the Wilderness and the Revenants that inhabit it. After heeding a piece of advice from one of my hunting team, I can now hold my own against lower level Revenants, and I kill a good number of them when they attack.

Combat-wise, I've been training Strength with Slayer. I spent a bit of time making some money and bought a Saradomin Sword (not a Godsword, unfortunately), which I am extremely fond of. It's twice as fast as a regular 2-handed sword, hit's well, and does a decent amount of damage. It's a great companion with proselyte armor, as it gives a +2 Prayer bonus.

Well, that about brings you up to date. I'm going to try to post a little more often from now on.

The Longest Mile: Conclusion

As it stands, all that stands in the way of my quest cape is 2 combat levels. I look at my combat experience to try and determine how best to get those levels.

I'm very close to levelling in Attack, Defence and Hit Points, and Dream Mentor will give me 15k in Attack and Hit Points (I can save the lamp for later)...which could potentially shoot me past 85 combat if I'm not careful. I pick up a couple of slayer tasks to see what I can do.

It doesn't take me long to rack up levels in all 3 skills...and no combat level. Rather than risk putting me too close to another level, I stop by Tears of Guthix to get a few Summoning levels. I end up with 34 Summoning, which brings me up to 84 Combat.

I decide that the safest way to get the last combat level is to break down and actually train Summoning. I've got over 2k charms of various colors, so that part won't be a problem. The exorbatant cost, however, does present a problem to me, and I spend well over 500k gp racking up 8 more levels. Now close to broke, I have my 85 Combat level.

I decide to take on Dream Mentor first. This is the one that worries me. I know what I'm up against, and I'm well aware that I've got my work cut out for me. Nothing left but to do it. It's a struggle, and in the process I learn a valuable lesson: if you're making headway, don't leave the "dream world" unless you're about to die. Doing so starts you at the beginning.

It takes a few hours, but I finally find my happy medium between Rings of Recoil, potions and food and get down to the 4th and last monster. This one is only a bit over 100 combat level, and doesn't hit very much. I was somewhat concerned that I didn't have any food left at this point (luckily I still had plenty of HP). It doesn't hit very often, and doesn't hit very hard at all. I finish the quest and get 2 quest points (for a total of 269 quest points).

Then it's off to do Smoking Kills. Two things I didn't like about this quest: it's a desert quest in the worst part of the desert (around the ruins from Dealing with Scabarous quest), and I've never done it before.

I heard it was easy...and it turns out to be true. While there were some close moments, it was nothing too tense and I finish the quest easily. I now have 270 quest points: enough to get a quest cape.

(click for a full-sized image...and take note of my combat level)

As you've seen, this cape requires a lot of work...and at a point almost total devotion to the mission. While this is the easiest Cape of Acomplishment to get, it requires constant maintaince. Every time a new quest comes out, I can't wear my cape until I finish it. But once you've got it, the maintaince isn't difficult.

It took me a little over 6 months to get the cape.

The Longest Mile: Part 1

Being down to 3 quests now, I find myself driven...well, that and the fact that I've already got the hardest piece of work out of the way (69 Smithing). So it's time to make a few decisions on what to do next.

On one hand, I have the Rocking Out quest. For this, I still need 4 Crafting levels and 1 Thieving level. Crafting takes a while, since I like doing it at Shades of Mort'ton. Thieving can also take a while, if I decide to use the Sorceress' Garden Minigame.

On the other hand, I have the Devious Minds quest. For this, I need 6 Runecrafting levels. While I don't mind runecrafting, I like it a lot better when I'm making Law runes. I don't enjoy high alchemy magic training, and Nature runes don't sell for as much as they used to. But the up side is that both mining pure essence and crafting runes through the abyss are relatively quick.

I'm anxious to get another quest done soon, so I opt for the runecrafting level and Devious Minds.

I do my calculations, and they show that I need to make about 4.5k Nature runes to go from 44 to 50 Runecrafting. Since I have a 66 Magic, I mine through the Mages Guild in Yannelle. This is, by far, the shortest trip between the teleporting npc and the bank, and mining essence here takes very little time at all. It takes me only about 4-5 game hours to get what I need.

Then it's off to craft. Before I start, I use some of the money I've amassed to buy 12 more Amulets of Glory to complete my Runecrafting/Prayer training kit of 28 (by the way: the total value of 28 Glorys is aproximately 1.26 million gp). I charge my used ones and get to work.

Before PKing left, it was rather unwise to wear anything valuable while crafting runes in the abyss because there were people who would wait by the Zammarok Mage (probably because they were poor PKers and couldn't take anyone geared for a fight). It was also hard on your run energy, since most armor is somewhat heavy. Jagex has thankfully solved both problems. While PKers were replaced by Revenants, the Revenants are little more than an annoyance most times. Also, after the As a Last Resort quest, you have access to the Ogre spa (yeah I know how it sounds) which have pools with some helpful affects. The spa that helps in Runecrafting is the salt-water spring, which gives you unlimited run for a period of time determined by your Agility level. While the effect lasts less than a half hour for me, it is well worth the trip back if you can use Fairy Rings. The whole process takes only about 3-4 hours.

It was here that I made an expensive and rather noobish mistake. Knowing that I need a large essence pouch, I return to the abyss to hunt abyss creatures in order to find one. This is not wise, and I would suggest that if you have access to Fairy Rings, that you should use the abyss area that you can access with coordinates: ALR. First of all, you don't get skulled and your prayer doesn't get drained. Another benefit is that it's not multi-combat.

It was here that I died a most moronic and expensive death, mostly due to the fact that I couldn't see my Hit Point bar because of all of the attacks I was weathering. I lost a full set of rune armor (with a dragon medium helmet), my dragon scimitar, and one of the Glorys I had just bought (not even taking into account that I also lost all the pouches I had currently found). I tried desperately to return to my grave marker to retrieve my items, but I still have the noob one and it fell as soon as I arrived at it. This set me back almost 1 million gp (but in the process I upgraded to Dragon Platelegs and Dragon Gloves). I decided to sell the Nature runes to offset the cost.

I then set out to do Devious Minds. The hardest part of this quest is training for it (65 Smithing), and it only takes me about a half hour to finish it. This puts me to 265 quest points.

I then set out to train crafting. I make the trip to Mort'ton and build the temple for several hours (getting 2 levels in the process) before I get bored and try to come up with another way to train. I try the gem rocks in Shilo Village, but it's slow and I get far more junk than I do anything useful (although I do manage to increase my stock of games necklaces and rings of dueling). I give up on this and head to Varrock to buy some battlestaves from the shop there. I can only buy 32 a day, so this doesn't get me very far. I high alch them to get my money back and try to come up with something else.

It was then that I decided to look to see what the Grand Exchange had to offer. I found that battlestaves sold for about 8.7k gp max, which is still less than the 9.3k gp alchemy value. I don't hold out much hope, but I put a max price bid on 50 battlestaves...and I get them. While I'm not making a whole lot of money off making them, I'm not losing anything (which is one of the most important parts of power-training).

The battlestaff market quickly dried up, leaving me 12k experience shy of the needed 66 crafting, so I return to Mort'ton for about an hour to finish this up.

Then all that is left is the one Thieving level to get. I decide that it's time for me to do the Penguin Hide and Seek this week in order to get some fast experience. It takes me less than a half hour, but I find myself about 9k experience short. While I wasn't looking to get into sq'irk gathering right now, I make some quick calculations in my head to learn that I only need about 4 glasses of juice, so I spend another hour gathering the fruit to make juice for Osman. My calculations were a bit off, leaving me with not quite 500 experience left to go. I managed to pick this up by stealing from the stalls in Ardougne.

Then I'm off to do Rocking Out. While it's not a difficult quest, it's long and requires a lot of running around doing favors for people. It also helps to watch a lot of MacGuyver reruns to sort out this out without a guide. After an hour of mind numbing errand-running, the quest is done.

I now have 267 Quest points, with only 2 more quests to do.

Easier said than done...

I had originally intended to smith the 6k+ mithril bars into knives, but now that I've put a price tag on this particular level, it doesn't really sit well with me. 5.2 mil is a whole lot just to blow on a skill. But I had a little time to think about it...

My first instinct was to see what the bars were worth, in order to try and make a bit of money. I check, and indeed: I'll make about 3 million more off my origional investment (for a total of 8 million gp). This was my origional plan.

You can only make 5 mithril bars at a time, because you have to carry an obscene amount of coal, too. This make the smelting of 6k+ bars take a very long time. 3 days to be exact.

To smelt somewhere in the neighborhood of 15k mithril bars would take about 8-9 days, so this doesn't sit well with me either. So I do several groups of calculations based on sale prices of the mithril bars vs. the cost of buying gold ores to smith with goldsmithing gauntlets. I settle on a nice little happy medium in my mind: I sell all but 1k of the mithril bars, and buy enough gold ore to get me to 69 smithing. This leaves me with about 3.5 million gp left over. I use part of my proceeds to buy a dragon woodcutting axe, and bank the rest for future usage (I end up with about 1.8 million gp left over). Doing things this way has given me a nice profit, 5k mithril throwing knives, 69 smithing, and more gold bars than I'll probably ever use.

With this done, I start ectoing the baby dragon bones I gathered a while back (along with a few good bones from zogre hunting) in order to get the Prayer level I need for Summer's End. I only need 2 levels (one of them rather short), and while I process all the bones, I only ecto what I need to get 55 Prayer.

It is at this point that I unwittingly walk headlong into hell.

To say that Summer's End is a difficult quest would totally reset the scale (making quests like Dream Mentor moderate difficulty level by comparison), so I'll create a new difficulty level for quests of this magnitude: OMFG! Yep, that about says it all.

I went into this quest with no illusions that I would probably die numerous times. I had little idea at the time that I would die more times than I could possibly count. In fact, I spent 3 days doing little in the quest other than dying. I struggled on several points, which I will outline below:

1) I lived in horror of losing the dragon wood cutting axe I had just bought. This was silly, since armor was totally unnecessary (and would also reduce your run faster, resulting in an unavoidable, horrible, and nearly instantaneous death), any axe you would think about using would probably be the most expensive item in your inventory. When in doubt, check the screen that tells you which items you'll keep upon death.

2) I spent a great deal of time trying to do it the way someone else did. Don't do this. Every quest guide I looked at offered very little in the way of help. Look at what they did to get a general idea of what is expected, and find a way that suits you best. My way was to cut the roots closest to the exit. If the beast wandered on the radar, I left the cave and waited a minute before I went back in. I did this until I had 5 logs. Then I went in and built a pyre and lit it. Building the pyre is the hardest part, as if you leave before you light it, you lose any logs you put down. It's best to run back and forth: put on a log, run to the other side of the room. The second and third parts are easier, since you're not required to stand in one place for any amount of time. Another thing to note that no other guide mentioned is that (during the second part) when the "dark core" leaves the beast, the beast stops shooting. This makes it relatively easy to lure it.

3) Finally, I lost a lot of food because I was initially filling my entire inventory with food. Don't do this, because you're very likely to lose it. It's best to just take about 10 pieces. The problem is that once you have to start eating, it will slow your movement down to some extent. Once you get hit, you're likely to get hit again soon. A good tactic is to run straight past the beast to the opposite side of the room, while eating. It does wonders to put you out of the range of the splash.

My only advice for this quest is to be patient and watch what's going on. If you watch long enough, you'll be able to identify your window of opportunity.

With this horrible quest done, I have a grand total of 264 quest points.

The quest also boosted me up to 30 summoning. An objective a long time in the coming has been achieved: all my skills now rank on hiscores.

The Cost of 69 Smithing

First things first:

I replanted my 4 fruit trees in an effort to help my Farming skill...which wasn't quite enough for 2 levels. This forced me to hit the Vinesweeper minigame again. In spite of the rabbits and the idiots stealing xp from me, it only took me about 2 hours to get to 53.

This opened the way for me to get Back to My Roots out of the way. This quest isn't really hard, but it's best to use a guide to keep you from getting lost in the jade vine maze. The final fight would have undoubtedly been easier if I had access to a dragon hatchet, but my rune axe worked alright anyways.

News Flash: Pking worlds are here. Big deal. On to the next subject.

Now I've decided to get the nasty requirement out of the way: Smithing. I need 14 levels in all, which will meet the qualifications for two different quests (both of which have other requirements). I could mine, but I decide to buy ores instead, since I need 6160 Mithril ores and 24,640 coal. The price tag for all of this? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million gp.

First thing I do is sell those yew logs. I don't need them right now, and I can always get more somewhat easily. Then I head off to do...yep, you guessed it: fish.

I fish about 1k lobs, and when I head off to sell them I noticed a bit of a side-effect of the recent Pking activity: food prices are skyrocketing. This is good for me, but it's not going to last. I'm all too familiar with the process: something new hits Runescape, prices of related items go way up untill they stop selling altogether. It is at this point that prices will then plummet back to their origional value. I switch over to sharks, in an effort to cash in quickly before the bottom drops out.

This happens a couple of days later, and I spend some time with fish on the Grand Exchange that won't even sell at minimum price. Not to worry, I have a back-up plan: I pop off to cut some yews. I only cut a few hundred before the fish sell, so I head to the GE to turn my gold into coal.

It's not long before the whole fish market crashes, and I'm relagated to wood cutting to buy the last 5k coal. A friend of mine lent me his dragon hatchet, which did help speed up the process. I only needed to cut about 2k yew logs at this point.

With the logs cut, I spend the money on the last of my coal. I finally did a price check on the ores (although I didn't think to get a screen shot).

The final cost of 69 Smithing for me? 5.2 million gold pieces.

I hate Woodcutting

Boring, boring, BOOOOOOOORING!!!!!

I hate it. I always have and I always will. Still, I need it. Since it's cheaper than Smithing, I decided to spend a bit doing it. I've spent close to a week to get to 71, which was all I needed to do Grim Tales. Another quest point, and a snazzy new helmet (which isn't as good as my dragon medium helm). It only took me another day to get to 72, which is all the Woodcutting I need to do to get my quest cape. I've also amassed about 2.3k yew logs. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with those yet, though.

I also did the penguin hide and seek, which got me another 2 points of Farming. But since I still need 2 more levels, I decided to plant all the tree seeds I got from Woodcutting (a willow, a maple, 3 apple trees, a banana tree, 2 orange trees and 2 curry trees). I should get a lot of xp from these after I check the ones growing now, and the one's I'll plant tomorrow. Maybe 2 levels, but I doubt it. Time (which is a major factor in Farming unfortunately) will tell.

That's 261 quest points, with 6 quests left to do!

Agility and two more big ones

I did as I said I was going to do in my last post (for once), and spent a few hours at Brimhaven Agility Arena, where I managed to break my current record for most tickets in a single trip (150 tickets!). While I did extremely well my first trip, I got seriously beat down on my second trip. Luckily, I didn't need very many after my first trip. While I met the qualifications for two quests, I still need more training to do them.

After my agility training, I went over to the Edgeville dungeon to train range on hill giants. I choose hill giants because they're relatively easy to hit, and I can get xp fast. I started out with my magic composite bow and mithril arrows, but as the hours began to drag on, I decided to experiment with something else. I made about 1k steel throwing knives a while back, so I went and grabbed them to see how they worked.

I was astounded to realize that I hit dramatically faster with the knives than I did with a bow...and I only lost 1 point of my maximum damage! This allowed me to get the rest of the xp I needed in a remarkably short amount of time.

This opened the way for me to do Mourning's End Part 1. The only really good part about this quest is the fact that you end up with a sweet looking bazooka. It didn't take a whole lot of time to finish this quest, despite the bit of running around you have to do.

Finishing this quest opened up the way to Mourning's End Part 2, which I set about doing immedately upon finishing the previous quest. Unfortunately, this is one of the quests that I absolutely hate, because there is a lot of work involved in finishing it. The rewards aren't really that great at my level either. The only good thing about finishing this quest is knowing that you don't have to do it again. Get it over with and done is my philosophy...and it takes me two days.

Total quest points: 260.

Currently, my plan is now to get started on Woodcutting. I need some big levels, so this should take me a bit of time. I intend to head to Seer's Village to cut maple logs, although I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with the logs. I'll probably "fletch and drop."

A few more behind me

It's been a long time in comming, but I managed to get 59 Slayer, and I'm well below my combat requirements. This is good news, since I thought that getting the Slayer level I needed might push me a bit over what I needed combat-wise. I've got plenty of room to maneuver.

I still need 1 more Defence level for Kings Ransom, so I go and play with the fire giants in Brimhaven dungeon for an hour or so to get it. This quest isn't very hard, it's just a lot of running around...and I'm still trying to figure out why I needed a 65 Defence for it. The highest level armor you need to wear is black.

Having finished Contact!, I decided that Dealing with Scabarous should be next on my list. I made this decision based on two factors: Thieving would be the easiest skill to get two fast levels out of, and to be finally finished with the desert based quests. This will give me leave to move my house to Yannelle at my convenience. The only reason it's been in Pollvenich so long is to make it easier to get to these quest locations.

After some minor calculations I determined that it would take 19 glasses of the red squirk juice to get me from 58 Thieving to 60. While this might not seem like a whole lot, keep in mind that you need 3 red fruit for each glass (for a total of 57 fruit). I was very lucky in my time at the Sorceress Garden in that I didn't experience much in the way of lag. Lag kills you there.

Dealing with Scabarous isn't really a difficult quest if you know what you're doing. It's also one of those quests that will kill you the moment you think you've got a handle on it. My advice to any of you is NEVER THINK YOU'VE GOT THE QUEST BEAT UNTIL YOU GOT THE XP REWARD! Case in point is to follow:

I'm doing this quest, and I know that most everything I'll be facing will be both hostile and dangerous. The average enemy level is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100, and while they don't hit obscenely hard, they do hit often enough to make it a problem. I run through, kill a bunch of zombies, skeletons and scabarites to get the information for the archeologists. I switch to mage to kill the giant level 200 something scarab (while having to allocate more power to everything else because my skills aren't overly exceptional), and kill it easily.

I think to myself at this point: "Hard part over. Cakewalk from here." As I'm running through the underground tunnels filled with scabarites, I'm not paying as much attention to my HP as I should be. I lag for a second, and I'm dead. I lost a bunch of sharks, 2 full prayer potions, about 75 blood runes, 7 times as many water runes, and my Mystic hat, gloves and boots. Never think you've got it beat. Never.

On a side note, I'd like to point out here that Sal's Realm of Runescape has wrong information posted about this quest. It says that the giant scarab uses magic and melee attacks. This is wrong. While it does melee, it's ranged attack is just that: ranged. I used protection from range and stayed outside the door and took absolutely no damage.

I also went out and did the new Defender of Varrock quest. While I had a few concerns about the Wilderness, the quest didn't turn out to be very difficult. It gave me a Smithing level and two Hunting levels.

I now have 256 Quest points.

I'm thinking that my next plan will be to head out to Brimhaven Agility Arena to get 60 Agility. This would fulfill requirements for two quests.

Several (not so) small victories

I decided to buy the salmon (3,651 to be exact) I needed for 70 Cooking, and spent a couple of hours cooking them at the Rogue's Den in Burthorpe. This is a nice place to power-train Cooking, since the banker is nice enough to hang out by a campfire. I'm planning on saving the cooked salmon to make admiral pies, which I'll cook using the "Make Pie" Lunar spell (this will ensure that I never burn any pies, giving me 100% of the possible xp). But that's for a future date, as all the Cooking I need right now is level 70.

Saving the monkey ambassador (Recipe for Disaster) is annoying, since you'll almost always have to gather the stuff to make the dish 3 times (the first time one of the idiot monkeys eats the ingredients, the second time because you burn the stupid thing). Also, getting a gorrilla greegree is problematic at mid range combat levels, because they heal themselves and you can never do enough damage to finish them off. If you run into this, head to a busy world. Then beat the daylights out of one and ask the guy who's hitting in the high 30's or higher (and there will be one around real close) to give him a whack for you. You'll get the drop.

The Culinomancer was a little more tricky, but not by much really. I already knew what to expect, and I just left and resupplied/re-equipped after I killed one of his beasties. The hardest part is not being able to use Prayer, but with good food, even this isn't a big deal. Yes, I have finally closed the book on this truly epic quest!

I also made another attempt at Contact! after I finished RFD, which finally proved to be successful! I didn't do much differently (I maged again), other than move around to a corner to where the first of the scarab's buddies couldn't get to me. When the other two spawned behind me, I ran to the other side of the scarab, which pinned the meleer in my former hiding spot, behind the scarab. I also took care to stay just far enough away from the scarab so it wouldn't melee me (and in case anyone's wondering, it RANGES, it doesn't mage. A fatal mistake to make, let me tell you). This left me to deal only with the signifigant damage dealt by the mage-bug. I did it with 6 sharks to spare, and I didn't even have to use a Prayer Potion!

Quest Point total is now 252.

Small Fortunes

Before I get into the ludicrous amount of money I just got done spending, I'd like to note that while training Slayer, I met the requirements to do Path of Glophrie. It's not a spectacular quest or a difficult quest...and I didn't get much of anything out of it other than a bit of xp and the ability to make crystal chimes...which I hope I never need. I still need 2 Slayer levels, 3 Defence levels, 3 Prayer levels and 12 Ranged levels. I'm still Combat level 80.

Over the past two days, I've spent well over 1 million gp to get Herblore to 57. While my out-of-pocket expenses only amounted to a bit over 600k, I sold the potions I made to get more money for herbs. I didn't waste money by making any Super-Strength Potions, since the herbs were 3 times more, with the added expense of limpwort root. Besides, the Super-Energy potions sold for more.

This allowed me to finish Fairy Tale part 2, and gives me a total of 249 quest points.

I also made 3 more attempts at finishing Contact!. The third trip resulted in my third death during this quest. My next attempt I think I'll try melee, and weather the melee attacks while protecting from the magic attacks. But that will come another day...

I've decided to spend some money on levelling cooking. I'll take me 3,651 Salmon to get 70 (which I have just bought), which I need to finish Recipe for Disaster. The lamp from finishing this quest would also be a nice little boost to my Slayer level.

Magic and Slayer

Since I was so close to doing Swan Song, I decided to go ahead and train Magic up another level. While I struggled to figure out how I wanted to go about it, I remembered something that I totally forgot: Mage Training Arena.

I've been wanting to go here anyways. Bones to Peaches (which is a reward there) is a very handy spell, especially when you're doing Slayer assignments. For anyone who isn't already aware: Mage Training Arena is cheap and easy Magic xp...and lots of it. It's so easy, that I managed to get my level in about an hour.

I'm starting to like the Dragon Battleaxe less and less as I go along. Unless you have a good attack (well, better than 61 at least), it's hard to hit with it. It even forced me to run from the sea troll queen because her ability to hit me far outweighed my ability to hit her. Once I returned with the scimitar, she didn't last long.

Just a tip for anyone reading: don't do very difficult quests without a Dragon Scimitar...or a Dragon Longsword at the very least.

Now I can't totally blame my initial failure on my weapon of choice. I admittedly came to the fight unprepared (I didn't have a lot of food, low prayer, and no prayer potions specifically). Once I recharged my prayer, upgraded my food a bit, and donned my beloved Proselyte, I probably wouldn't have had much trouble using a battleaxe. But with the scimitar, the fight ended extremely quickly (in fact, I didn't even need the prayer potion I brought).

With that quest done, I return to combat training in an effort to get a few Slayer levels. I managed 4 Defence, 2 Ranged, 2 Hit Point and 2 Slayer levels. I'd also like to add that any doubts I had about Jellies being a good assignment were totally squashed after making more than 150k off drops, alched and sold loot, and the subsequent Level 3 Clue Scroll I got from them.

On a more concerning note (at least to me, anyways) is the fact that my combat level is still skyrocketing. It's 79 now, and I still need 6 Defence levels, 3 Prayer levels and 14 Ranged levels. I need to see if there's a way to level my Ranged without racking up a dozen Hit Point levels. I so do not want to go to Pest Control.

I think I'm gonna buy a cannon. At least it'll be fast.

And I now have 246 Quest Points.

Lunar spells and a new quest

While it took me most of the weekend, I got 61 Crafting (not to mention over 700 Sacred Oil (4)...) and got Lunar Diplomacy out of the way. While lunar spells are somewhat useless to me at the moment, it feels good to have access to it...and to have 74 Lunar Staves. I also got some cool clothes out of the deal, too.

A new quest was released today: Summer's End. I almost meet the requirements for it...other than 4 more levels of Prayer. Luckily, I've been stockpiling baby dragon bones, so maybe by the time I finish my current Slayer assignment, I'll have enough bones to get me to 55 Prayer. Hopefully...but probably not.

One of the requirements for the quest was to "dodge" a level 700+ monster's attacks. This fills me with a teeny bit of trepidation. I think I'll wait until Sal's releases a guide for it, so I can see what's involved.

Since I'll need the levels eventually, I'll probably go ahead and ecto my bones anyways. At least I'll be ready when I get the guts for it.

Total Quest Points: 244.

It's been a while...

Not a whole lot has happened since I've last posted.

I've got a couple more quests done, namely TotTz-Ket-Dill, As a First Resort, and the Rag and Bone Man's wish list. This puts me at a grand total of 242 Quest Points.

I now qualify for Lunar Diplomacy in the Magic department. Now all I need is a 61 Crafting. I also need another level in Magic to be able to do Swan Song.

I've done a whole lot of fishing to get the money I needed to level Construction and Magic, and I'm now 2 levels away from sharks. While sharks take longer, it'll take far fewer to get a signifigant amount of cash.

I'm going to spend about an hour doing part of the Shades of Mort'ton minigame in order to see how long it'll take me to get to 61 Crafting.

-----

While I specifically remember hearing someone say you can get as much at 15k Crafting xp from Shades of Mort'ton, I figured it out to be more along the lines of 8k an hour...which still isn't bad. Making the pyre logs is the most time consuming part of that minigame anyways.

My plan is to continue with Shades...until I get bored with it, of course.

60 Attack!

As I said in my last post, Desert Treasure, All Fired Up and Spirit of Summer were #1 on the list. And they're both finished! Desert Treasure gets easier every time I do it, and as I always say: the shopping list is the hardest part of that quest. Spirit of Summer was kind of cool, too. They worked Summoning into the quest extremely well. I'll save any judgments on All Fired Up for when I actually mess around with the minigame.

Since I had decided that the two evil quests (Haunted Mine and Contact!) needed to wait until I got 60 Attack, I decide to train for a quest that I'm very close to qualifying for: Fremnink Isles. It only takes about a half hour of cutting Maple trees to get this.

I get all the way through to the end, and before I can have a go at the troll king, I have second thoughts. I'm not totally keen on the idea of buying a weapon that I'm just going to turn around and sell again in a couple of Attack Levels (a rune halberd, which is ideal for this quest). This is not even taking into account that I'm worried about getting murdered.

I made a decision to raise my attack, not only for Fremnink Isles, but so I can get the rest of the quests done that I've already started. Of course, since I don't enjoy just finding a random monster to kill for hours on end, I set out to do a few slayer assignments.

My combat level is now 71, so I can head to Chaeldar for assignments. I've always liked training through her, and she doesn't dissappoint me this time around. I get a few really decent assignments, with one of my favorites being Basilisks. I get my desired attack level, and get Slayer up to 48 (and a combat level of 72).

Now I need new weapons. Luckily, I don't have a lot invested in weaponry right now, so I don't have to worry about taking a loss when I sell my old gear. Of course, Dragon weapons are dramatically more expensive than rune. Time to fish...again.

I spent a day and a half fishing lobsters, in order to get the money I needed. On my shopping list are a Dragon Battleaxe and a Dragon Halberd. 1.5k is the number of lobsters I need to get that kind of cash. Another concern of mine is the fact that lobsters are no longer selling for the mid range price. In fact, you can't sell them for a gp more than minimum. The fish buyers have spoken, I suppose. I also do a bit of farming while I'm in Catherby, if for no other reason than to grow some more Ranarrs for Prayer potions.

The fishing has a couple of side benefits that I didn't really forsee. First was a 70 Fishing. The other was that while I was fishing, someone reminded me that you have to talk to Daero to get your xp from Monkey Madness (yes, as my name suggests, I am a total noob). I pop off to get it, and end up leveling in every melee combat stat (and get a 74 combat level too).

I also played around a bit with that farming minigame (the name of which escapes me right now), and got to like it a little. It's similar to "Minesweeper" so it didn't take me long to get the hang of it. The rewards are pretty good, although you do have to work for it.

I end up with not only enough money for the halberd and axe, but I got enough left over to buy a Dragon Scimitar. I briefly toyed with the idea of buying 3 more Glory amulets, but doing this has become something of a bad omen for me. Buying an extra Glory or two before doing something dangerous almost guarantees that I'll end up losing one in the process.

It was a good call, as I ended up using the scimitar to finish Haunted Mine. It was a rather easy victory with one of the better weapons in the game. I also finished Fremnink Isles in a dramatically easy fashion (in fact, I had more trouble killing the 10 trolls than I did killing the troll king).

The funniest thing is that the Defence xp that I selected from Fremnink Isles got me up to 55 Defence (which is high enough to wear the helm you get from the quest).

This gives me a grand total of 234 quest points.

A big one off the list

I haven't done many quests the past few days, but I knocked two relatively big ones off the list: Monkey Madness and My Arm's Big Adventure.

I've already died twice trying to complete Contact! That quest is really beginning to aggrivate me. I need to find a new help site in order to figure out how to finish this one, as Sal's is incredibly vague on the whole fight. They say to fight and they say to use Prayer...and that's about it really.

I'm two Attack levels from dragon weapons right now. I'm looking forward to finishing the few quests I qualify for now, so I can train a little more than I am now. Once I get dragon weapons, Haunted Mine should be a snap.

At this moment, I've decided to take a bit of a working break from questing. I mined enough gems to make all of the silver I got from Temple Trekking to make Staves and Flails of Ivandis (for use in the same minigame). By the time I finish, I should have at least 13 of each.

I have a 3 day weekend, and I plan to spend it on RS. I'm hoping to get a good deal done. I plan to do Desert Treasure, as well as Spirit of Summer (which I now qualify for thanks to Tears of Guthix) and the new quest: All Fired Up. I'm also hoping to have a little time to train Attack (via Slayer) so I can finish Haunted Mine.

Currently, my quest points are 226.

Fewer and farther between

I've made another pass over the quest list, and I've finished more quests than I actually remember doing. One thing I do know is that the quests I have left require a lot of effort. And so much more effort will be required before all's said and done.

My recent run gives me a total of 221 Quest Points and a 70 Combat Level. It annoys me that my Strength doesn't rate on Hiscores yet, and as a result the little picture at the top of the page doesn't accurately reflect my combat level. If I didn't want to be able to use dragon weapons so badly, I'd start training Strength right now.

You might have noticed that I broke 1200 total levels today.

After fighting and killing a level 227 Black Dragon today, Monkey Madness has become a bit more of a priority for me now. If I run out of quests before I get 60 Attack, I may just go ahead and do it anyways.

I currently have 4 quests that I can do without training, and I have 2 others that I may be able to get done if I put my mind to it (which I intend to do). And after I do Tears of Guthix tomorrow, I'll qualify for another one (maybe). But no matter what I do, I'm going to end up fishing soon. There's no avoiding it. While I have been fishing here and there to make money for things I need for the quests I'm doing. But after my unfortunate demise during Contact!, I no longer have much in the way of mage gear. I will need new robes (good robes this time) and a lot of Death Runes, not only to finish Contact!, but to do Desert Treasure.

This is probably what I'll do tomorrow.

Back to the top

Here's an update on my quest progress:

Murder Mystery
Observatory Quest
Olaf's Quest
Perils of Ice Mountain (another new quest that I hadn't done yet)
Scorpion Catcher
Sea Slug
Shades of Mort'ton
Sheep Herder
A Soul's Bane
Spirits of the Elid
Tai Bwo Wannai Trio (with a fishing potion)
Tale of Two Cats
Temple of Ikov
Throne of Miscelania
The Tourist Trap
Tower of Life
Tribal Totem
Troll Romance
Witches House

While I was doing Troll Romance, I experienced technical problems and lost connection. Unfortunately for me, it happened while I was standing smack in the center of a horde of ice trolls. While I wasn't there to see it, I'm assuming that they pummeled my character with ruthless enthuasium. I lost an Amulet of Glory, Rune Full Helm, Rune Battle Axe, Climbing Boots, Karajima Gloves, Explorer's Ring, a full prayer potion and about 15k worth of food. While it wasn't a crippling loss, it's still somewhat annoying to have to spend 3 hours fixing something...especially when you didn't break it. Thanks Jagex!

After reaching the end of the list, I went back and did two of the Keldagrim quests: The Giant Dwarf and Between a Rock...

I also started Ratcatchers, but since I didn't have free access to Keldagrim, I still have that part to do yet.

This pass has opened up several quests previously unavaliable to me, and a couple others will open up as I progress through the list again. I am also a couple thousand XP in two skills away from qualifying for two other quests.

I currently qualify for Monkey Madness, but I'm relatively certain that I won't be able to complete it until I have a 60 Attack and a Dragon Battle Axe. I only have 3 levels to go, so I'm kind of hoping that I'll get that in the course of my second pass (which I seriously doubt).

Currently, my quest points are: 203.

The Quest Cape quest!

I have come up with a new tactic for getting my quest cape. It provides a systematic process for deciding which quest I should work on, and when. In theory, my plan will help ensure that my combat level gets absolutely no higher than is required for the various quests.

I'm doing them in order, as they appear on the quest list. I do the ones I currently qualify for and skip the rest. My plan is to proceed to the bottom of the list like this, and once I reach the bottom, I start at the top again and do it again (many quests I can't do because I still have to do prerequisite quests). The only XP I have comming in right now is from quests, and gathering/making items for them.

To date, here's what I've gotten done.
Edgar's Ruse
Enkhara's Lament
Enlightened Journey
The Feud
Fight Arena
The Grand Tree
Hand in the Sand
Hazeel Cult (good way)
Horror from the Deep
Icthlarin's Little Helper
Making History
Meeting History (I've never done this quest before)
Monk's Friend

Not bad for 3 days work.

Currently my combat level is 67 (since my Strength and Hit Points aren't rated on Hiscores yet, the image at the top of the page isn't correct).

I started Haunted Mine, but I'm just not up to the task of finishing it yet (I need a better weapon, and a few more HP wouldn't hurt, either). I also skipped Monkey Madness, because of a similar reason.

A new guild and some more quests

Today's update gives us the long anticipated (I guess, anyways) Runecrafting Guild! And I say: So? I don't know how much I'll end up using it, as it doesn't seem overly useful. It does include a few things of possible interest: a essence pouch repair guy, a runecrafting mini-game and an "omni-talisman" which will work in place of any other talisman. I'll only be interested in the latter if it can be used to create an Omni-tiara, but I doubt things will be quite so simple.

Cold War turns out to be tougher than I thought, since the only access I have to Mahogany is Tai Bwo Wannai village. I spent most of the day doing the clean-up, not only because I need the log, but because I found a gout tuber. This allowed me to knock a tough taks off the Karajima Achievement Diary (in fact, during my time at Tai Bwo Wannai, I knocked about 4 or 5 tasks off the list). I eventually got the quest done though.

The only other thing I acomplished was the Dwarf Cannon quest.