Bonus XP Weekend!

From the Jagex Website:

"When you initially log in on the weekend, you will gain approx 2.7x XP for all "normal training" activities (see the question below for a list). While you are logged in, a timer will be running over the time you are logged into the game. Over time, the bonus will decrease to a minimum of 1.1x your usual rate."

HOLY CRAP!

Something of this magnitude needs careful and meticulous planning.  Priorities need to be set and materials need to be gathered.  Because when that timer starts, Wrthlss Noob is going to explode.  I have Friday and Saturday off, so I fully intend to spend every waking moment possible training something.  Apologies in advance to Dylan and Zack.

Expensive skills are currently a priority, followed immedately by hard to train skills and skills which require special, untradable materials (Summoning).

Herblore immedately rises to the top of that list, as does Construction.  Both skills are skills that I really want to train up.  Smithing makes the list from the "hard to train" category, and while Summoning would normally be high on this priority list, I'm happy with my current level.  Fletching makes the cut as a wildcard, from the "skills I hate to train" category.

Current Priority List (as of 3/8/10):

#1)  Herblore
#2)  Smithing
#3)  Construction/Magic
#4)  Summoning
#5)  Fletching

My weekend rounders will be Fishing, with possibly a little bit of Slayer and Runecrafting thrown in for good measure.

Preps:

Herblore:  I have bought about 3m gp worth of herb seeds, and I plan to continue to farm and possibly do more Herblore throughout the weekend.  *NEW*  I realized that I would save a lot of time by making unfinished potions, and so this is done.  I currently have over 2.6k various unfinished potions stockpiled.

Smithing:  I have made plans for trips to GWD to obtain Adamant bars, and I'm saving the bars made from ores obtained from star bonuses.  While my goal is 2.5k bars, I will continue to add to this total as time permits.  I need at least 89 Smithing for the Ardy Achievement Diary.  2.5k bars will insure at least 80 Smithing.

Construction/Magic:  I have a signifigant number of mahogany logs, which I intend to use Plank Make during the bonus weekend.  I have not yet made sure that I have enough runes/money for this, but calculations are forthcoming.  I have no particular goal for either skill, other than "higher than they are now."  *NEW*  Plank Make kills a lot of time, so I decided to make the planks beforehand.  While Magic is not necessarily off the table, making planks is.

Summoning:  I do not intend to persue charms (outside of daily Bork battles), but I will be gathering the necessary secondaries to use the charms I have.  *NEW*  I've changed my mind, and decided to do a little Slayer in order to boost my charms.  This is not a signifigant focus, however.

Fletching:  This is an extremely small priority, and really I just want to save myself some time in the future by boosing it a level or two in a short time.  Bank space will quickly become an issue, so I don't want to have a lot of logs hanging out in my bank.  So, I need 431 Yew logs to train my Fletching to 85 (Mage Longbow).  I intend to have 1k Magic logs that I will fletch and string.  These will either be sold or alched.

Fishing:  I have a goal of 90 Fishing, so that I can fish Rocktail.  I'll be switching back and forth between Monkfish (to sell) and Sharks (for food).

Slayer:  Not a terribly large concern, but I can't pass up the chance of some bonus Slayer xp.  Iron Dragons is up currently, and I'll stick with that for starters to save a few charges on my Gloves of Dragonslaying.  This is just to break up the monotny of Fishing.

I will not repost, but instead, will make relative changes here.

More Goals Reached

The biggest news to report today is:



Yes, I now have 99 Firemaking, and the coveted (by me at least) Firemaking Skillcape!

While I had last reported that I was going to do beacons to get it, I learned through trial and error that simply burning logs was a lot quicker, but beacons gave better experience per log. Since availability of logs was nowhere close to an issue for me, I opted for the former.

Other News:

Hiscores:  I've recently broken into the top 50,000 players in Runescape!

Ardougne Achievement Diary: A new achievement diary was released for the Ardougne area. I completed Easy, Medium and Hard diaries...only to learn that there is an "Elite" achievement list.

I've always been one of those "do it all in the first day" kind of guys, but these Elite tasks really smacked me down. Hard. I've got 2 serious sticking points: 91 Smithing and 93 Summoning. That's going to be fun.

New Goals:

One of the things I haven't liked about my character is his inability to use the Giant Pouch when runecrafting. While I'm not 100% sure, I believe that 75 Runecrafting is one of the requirements for an Ardougne diary Elite task. So I've decided to get 75 Runecrafting.

I plan to do it by crafting Death runes (about 5k at a time) to get money to buy pure essence to use at the ZMI Runecrafting Altar.

Runecrafting is a skill I don't really like because of the time it takes. But after I get it to 75, this will trigger the start of my next set of goals: all skills 75+.

This will not affect my current goal of 80 Summoning.

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.

Chapter 4-Episode 6: The Last Little Bit

Legends Quest is so close I can taste it! I start off this run with a 54 Magic and 42 Herblore, which puts me 5 total levels away from where I need to be...with two of those levels being extremely close.

I'm out of runes now, so it's back to making Mithril Bars so I can buy more Death and Air runes. I go back and finish the potions I have to make, and when I'm on my way to the GE to sell them, I get a Maze Random that gives me about 230 Death runes! So lucky...

The skill calculator that I'm using tells me that I now need 85 more Combat Potions to get 45 Herblore (I bought 50 with the money from the potions), so I head off to make a few more Mithril bars, so I can get my levels and finally be done with it. Before I know it, I'm done, and I go and buy back my "Cash Kit", get enough Harralander to get me to 45...and have a tidy profit left over!

I'm concerned about my HP level. Very Concerned. I'm concerned because the last time I got a HP level, I got a Combat level too. Now at 61, I can't handle too many more levels before I put my goal in jeopardy. On the bright side: my Ranged skill is relatively low (33 Ranged), so I could get quite a few levels before it affects my combat level. But regardless of everything, I'm going to get HP experience. It's inevidible.

I decide not to worry about it, and head back to the goats. I use Magic until I get 56, then I grab those 1k iron knives I had just made last week (did you notice how I said then; you never know when you'll find a use for something? I said that because I wasn't joking). I rack up 3 Range levels getting the goat horns I need for the potions.

I get off light once again: no HP levels, and no Combat Levels. I'm still Combat Level 61, with one quest in my way...which won't get me a whole lot of combat XP.

Before I start Family Crest, I pop over to the GE to sell those potions I made. I sell them all, since I can now make super Attack potions...which is one part of the highly coveted "Super Set" (3 potions sold as a set: super Attack, super Strength, and super Defence. This term is pre-GE, and as a result, all but obsoltete. But the potions still exist are still readily available separately). They don't all sell right away, so I set off to do the quest.

I look at the shopping list, and I make sure I get everything I need. While I also need cooked fish that I don't have, I take the necessary gear to get it, since I'll be in Catherby when I need them. With any luck, I'll be able to do the quest without stopping at the bank.

Now, Family Crest requires a 59 Magic to complete, but here's where I did a bit of out-of-the-box thinking. I head to Falador and stock up on Wizard Mind Bonbs, which at my level add 3 to my Magic. Again, this isn't exactly a secret, but it's something that isn't obviously aparent. You have to look at how the quest is phrased. If it says "Requirements," that means you can't start the quest without it. If it says "You need x Skill to complete this quest," it's not a requirement to start, but you need the equivalent level to finish the quest. It also helps to know what all the food items do, and how you can scrape up an extra level here and there. On a side note, all my potions sold while I was buying my Mind Bombs: a total profit of more than 107k.

I just want to be clear on this: Family Crest is not a difficult quest by any stretch of the imagination. The hardest part of this quest is training for it. Once you got the levels, the rest is easy...with the possible exception of the lever puzzle east of Ardougne. Personally, this is probably the 4th time I've dealt with this puzzle (the second time for the quest), so I pretty much have it memorized. All in all, the quest's a breeze. Quest Complete: 1 Quest Point, Steel Gauntlets, a skill embue for the gauntlets. This was, of course, done at 56 Magic.

The gauntlets are one of those "must have" items. Of course, the only way to "have" them is to do the quest. They have 3 imbue abilities:

Cooking Gauntlets: Possibly one of the most useful imbuments for the gauntlets. It increases your odds of successfully cooking fish.

Goldsmithing Gauntlets: Another useful imbument, but secondary in my opinion to the above. It increases the XP from smelting gold ore into bars.

Chaos Gauntlets: In my opinion, this is the least useful of the imbuments, but it does have it's uses. It increases the damage done by spells powered by Chaos Runes. These gauntlets are useful for power-training Magic cheaply.

I don't bother imbuing the gauntlets just yet, since I won't be needing them immedately. I have my eye on something else now.....

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 4-Episode 4: The Bizarre Relationships of Skills

Skills maintain strange relationships with each other, as I was quick to discover. It's not at all uncommon for a higher level in one skill can make it easier to train others, and you are occasionally able to train two skills with the same action. Power training is made much faster and easier with planning and a bit of creative usage of other skills.

For example: I currently need levels in both Magic and Smithing for Legends Quest. Of course, we all know about the spell: Superheat Item (in case you don't, it basically allows you to to get Magic XP while Smithing without running to a forge, all for the cost of 1 Nature rune and 4 Fire runes). While it isn't a big secret, most people choose not to do it and get their Magic XP and Smithing XP separately.

If you can't cast High Alchemy, Superheat Item is the greatest spell for power training. People believe that it costs too much, but if you do it correctly, it won't cost you a single gp. If you aren't concerned with making money, Superheating will more than pay for itself if you mine your own ores and sell the bars (and it's not like anyone ever got pwned at Bounty Hunter because they had a high Mining).

I'm going to train Magic and Smithing with Superheat for as long as I can stand it. I get bored easily, so I'm going to do this by the truck load of coal (meaning I'm going to fill the coal trucks in Seer's Village once and make the bars).

The coal truck holds 120 pieces of coal, and you can carry up to 28 in your inventory (provided you don't get a lot of gems). 148 coal is enough to make 74 Steel Bars, and thus I'll need at the most 74 Nature runes per load. Now that I can teleport to Camelot, the trips back and forth will be a bit cheaper (teletabs are almost 1k gp, and fairy rings don't really get you as close as I'd like).

Current GE pricing shows me that in order to buy enough Nature runes each load, I'll have to sell 32 of the possible 74 bars per trip. This leaves me with 42 extra bars. I plan to make 1k iron knives, and possibly sell the rest of the bars to buy Death runes. Knives are very fast range weapons, and they may (or may not) come in handy in the future.

Somewhere along the way, I decide to finish Elemental Workshop II (since I was in the neighborhood). Doing this gives me a 50 Crafting, and a Smithing level (from 48 to 49 at the point I did it). One more requirement off the list, and another will very soon be joining it.

It takes a long time, and near the end I simply decide to stop selling bars and I smith them for the experience. I make 10 total full sets of steel armor in the process. After almost two whole days of mining and smithing, I finally get 50 Smithing and a 51 Magic.

Doing all the mining myself has also given me another benefit: access to lots of sapphires and emeralds. A while back, I had unwisely choosen to sell a lot of Games Necklaces and Dueling Rings for extra cash that I needed, so I was down to single digit quantities of both. I now have close to 40 of each.

I also broke down and finished the last of the Lumbridge achievement diary. It was worth it, as I got another lamp for 1.5k XP, which I added to Herblore (my next target), and it gives me a teleport to the cabbage fields south of Falador. It'll come in somewhat handy for farming there, as well as trips to Port Sarim and Rimmington. It's not extremely handy, since I've already got a teleport to Draynor Village with my Amulet of Glory.

This leaves 3 more skills...

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 2-Episode 10: Slayer Training

There's nothing really exciting about training slayer, so this will just be a short hint and an assignment log (which I'll probably replace on a separate site).

First thing about slayer is that you'll undoubtedly need food. So, if you don't have a good fishing and/or cooking skill, Slayer will be a very expensive hobby. I can catch and cook rainbow fish, and have plenty of stripy feathers to catch them, hopefully enough to get me to lobsters. My plan is to fish and cook rainbow fish until I can catch and cook lobsters, then after I have about 200 or so I'll to slayer assignments until I run out of food.

Fairy Rings are also very helpful on slayer assignments, as many of the locations of these monsters are out of the way. And being close to a fairy ring means you're close to a bank if you have a Dramen staff. This is why I always carry one.

Assignment: 88 Shades/13 Slayer, 39 Attack, 37 Hit Points, 47 Combat Level
Assignment: 68 Hill Giants/22 Slayer, 40 Attack, 45 Defence, 38 Hit Points, 24 Prayer, 48 Combat Level
Assignment: 11 Vampires/36 Strength, 39 Hit Points, 49 Combat Level
Assignment: 110 Rock Slugs/26 Slayer, 47 Defence

After the shades, I mined 144 iron and sold them to buy a rune battleaxe. I didn't need it yet, but I was 1 level away from 40 Attack.

Before taking on the rock slugs, I trained my Herblore up to the point to where I could make Anti-Poison potions. Lumbridge Swamp Caves have numerous poisonous creatures. I also did Lost Tribe quest to make it easier to get into the caves (Quest Complete: 3,000 Mining [46 Mining]).

I saw my first double digit hit today as well.

Tips for Slayer:

Use a slayer gem occasionally. Pay attention to which slayer master is talking to you. They will provide the assignments that are more appropriate for a person of your level. Even if you don't use it while on assignments, you should still use it to see who's talking to you.

Use good food, and optimize their effects. The better the food, the longer you can stay out there fighting. Know how much your food heals, and never eat before your hit points drop that many.

Know the monsters you're fighting. Know what their max hit is, how many hit points they have, and if they're more vulnerable to a certain type of attack. Knowing this, you'll be able to judge how long an assignment will take, the best type of food to use, and how best to fight them. You should also make sure you don't need special equipment to fight them.

Know your Slayer areas. Know the lay out, and know what monsters are where and what they can do to you. Lumbridge caves in particular can be quite treacherous if you're not prepared. Some areas also have agility shortcuts that take you past dangerous slayer monsters. It's not a totally bad idea to take any special equipment for mosters you may have to pass, in case you accidentally attack one or they turn out to be hostile. Keep in mind that, while most slayer monsters won't attack you, there are some really nasty ones that will (abhorant specters and dark beasts in particular).

Know the outlying area. Sometimes there are spots for you to restock your food supplies (i.e. fishing spots or food animals like cows). While these spots may not provide top notch food, if you plan it right, you could save yourself a trip to the bank. To make better use of these areas, make sure to bring any tools you may need (fishing equipment, axe & tinderbox, ect).

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.