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.

Chapter 3: Episode 11-Herblore 30 to 36

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 2-Episode 11: Bat wing, snake skin, and other petty evils

(The title was taken from the movie "Excalabur")

I'm down to just a few skills that are below 25 (which is one of my goals for this round), and decide that herblore is next. Herblore is a super-handy skill that can make you a bit of money at higher levels, and is almost a necessity for successful and cost effective Barrows runs.

For the herbs, I'm gathering them from the Sorceress' garden. I'm only going to make the best potions I can, and I'll sell all the other herbs to suppliment my current needs. I'll be working out of the garden of spring.

This will just be a log as well, since I've already discussed in some detail the actual garden itself.

Start: 1 Grimy Avantoe, 1 Grimy Guam, 1 Limpwurt Root (6 Herblore)
Load #1: 5 Avantoe, 7 Guam, 3 Irit, 6 Harralander, 4 Tarromin (sold for 22,838 gp)
3 Marrentill kept/23 marrentill , 21 Tarromin, and 20 Limpwurt Root bought (15 Herblore)
Load #2: 6 Guam, 7 Marrentill, 3 Harralander, 5 Irit, 4 Avantoe (sold for 23,783 gp)
3 Tarromin kept/15 Tarromin and 18 Limpwurt Root bought (18 Herblore)
Load #3: (2 trips) 3 Harralander, 7 Avantoe, 13 Irit, 9 Guam, 12 Marrentill (sold for 34,642)
12 Tarromin kept/45 Limpwurt root, 33 Tarromin bought (22 Herblore)
59 Strength Potion (4) sold, 200 vials of water, 28 Harralander (24 Herblore)

I then spent 7k of my own money to buy 8 more Harralander to get to 25 Herblore.

Tips on Herblore:

Combine your potions. Lots of people don't bother to do this and sell these potions as (3) dose potions. 1k of 3 dose potions will condense into 750 4 dose potions. If you're buying large lots of water filled vials and selling 3 dose potions, you're wasting 25k gp per 1k potions.

Train combat and herblore at the same time. Chaos Druids in Taverly dungeon drop herbs very regularly, as do lots of other monsters. Use help sites to find out what drops what you're looking for.

Chapter 2-Episode 5: From 1 to 24 Thief in less than a second!

Sorceress Garden is the greatest and fastest (albeit occasionally aggrivating) power-training tool for Thief there is in Runescape. Not only can you get massive amounts of Thief experience, you get pretty decent Farming experience as well. I don't like Farming at lower levels, and usually try to wait untill I can plant something that doesn't grow wild all over the world (like potatos, onions and cabbages). On the other hand, at level 1 Thief, there's nothing worth stealing. This minigame solves both problems in spades.

I'm not going to get into any specifics about how the game works, but I will show the best hiding places for each garden. I will also show you the best way to power-train Thief.

To start off, you need a mortar and pestle (available at the herblore shop in Taverly) and a lot of beer mugs. In fact, you should only have enoug empty space to hold enough squirks for 1 glass (4 fruits). Grab the fruit, make a glass, repeat untill all the glasses are filled.

When I'm done, I make a couple of extra trips to the herb patch and fill my inventory. Unfortunately I don't get anything I can use yet. I head back to Osman and turn in my squirk juice for a massive 7,700 Thieving experience points. While it took longer than a second to gather 110 squirk fruits, I did go from 1 to 24 in a single leap.

Tips for Sorceress' garden:

Find the safe spots. There are numerous places in each maze that you can stand and not be seen by the elementals, despite the fact that they move right past you. These are usually corners or gaps in the walls.

Know when to walk, know when to run. Since running is advised through a large portion of most mazes, there are spots where you have ample time to walk. While it doesn't seem like much, it makes all the difference when you don't have a high agility.

Lighten your load. Don't wear or carry anything, unless it's an item that provides negative encumberance modifiers. These include (but may not be exclusive to) Boots of Lightness, Spotted Cape or a Spottier Cape. This decreases the drain on your run energy quite dramatically.

Let other players pass! Once you get the hang of moving through the maze, the biggest problem you'll have is another player. You are bound to find someone who hasn't really figured the minigame out yet, and if they lure an elemental in your direction, it'll catch you too (and even sometimes instead of the player who got caught. Don't try to move when other players do untill you know that they know their way around.