IamTardis's Blog

One of the things I've been up to besides an occasional evening scaping, is the retouching of old familyphotographs. By now, I am kind of getting the hang of it. Example: this photograph of my mother when she was 2. Left the original, in the middle the black and white retouched one and on the right I added colour to the picture. Lot of work, but great to do!

Suddenly a poem entered my head. That in itself is nothing really special, as I have a blog full of them, but usually I write in dutch - my native tongue - but this time the poem was english. NAturally, I hurried to pencil and paper and wrote it down immediately! And this is the poem in question. Totally not related to rs, but oh well. I'm posting it anywayz.

Red boots she wears

Rubyred boots with studs

She hugs a great dane and says

"Hey Toto, we're best buds!"

An experienced one she became

Having travelled through the land

The fiery spark clearly in her eyes

As danger and fear were always close at hand

And now there she is, strong and wise

She surely calls no one her boss

Yet still she signs letters with xxx

And writes to us:

"Love from Dorothy of Oz"

Boy did I have time to scape these last few weeks. Not! In total I was online for like one day or less in the last month. Too much real life getting in the way :)

Well, and a bit computery too, I am teaching myself how to photoshop at the moment, plus of course I have my work and my household-chores and everything. But I also like to walk and of course taking my camera with me, as I have taken up one of my old hobbies: photography. The picture I want to share with you, is one that made it from my camera to the interwebz without alterations whatsoever. I didn't even crop it, as the composition was okay with me to begin with.

This picture is a detail of the local cathedral bell tower. The tower has six sides and a clock on each side. So, no matter from what direction you look at the tower, you always see at least two clocks. The tower is nicknamed "Drunk Man's Tower" because of that, even though it's official name is Jozefchurch.

So Happy New Years, everyone!

These last few weeks/month my runescape-time has been very limited. There's this thing called "outside" getting in the way :) So much to do and so little time! I foresee that my scaping time will remain limited the upcoming weeks and months, so I decided to somehwat let go of my 80-base-goal. Especially since two new skills will be coming out this year. I still need to level farm (yes I know, farm runs), hunter (bigchin!), slayer (slooooooooooow), summoning and dungeoneering. I will continue to pour lamp/jot/troll invasion xp into these skills, and I promised myself I will do at least one game of bigchin each time I am on. But other than that, I won't pursue any goals anymore.

Or so I thought last Monday.

But of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't come up with something new virtually immediately. Subconsciously the idea took hold in my mind months ago, and yesterday my subconscious kicked that idea into my conscious mind. I decided that I would do it. I even made an rs-resolution out of it.

I will learn to gwd this year.

My hyt buddies already advised me on necessary gear, so my first goal is to acquire Ahrims, Karils and Torags. Plus an item of each god. Maybe I will skip bandos and use Oog'logs bandos-pool instead. And I moved my armadyl-pendant from the "useless stuff"-tab to my "battle-gear"-tab in my bank.

Next I will check out how to get there. And maybe take a look inside. I should be able to die without real losses if I take nothing with me. Just to see what it's like downthere in the God Wars Dungeon :)

Ciao,

Ingrid.

Last week I finished another song:

Quite a while ago I started the quest called The Ritual of the Mahjarrat. It had quite a spectacular start: I had to check out Mos le'Harmless, because something unusual was going on there. When I got there I was sent outside the city gates, and died quite fast-ish. Someone or something was hurling fireballs at me! I figured I might live if I dodged them fireballs by hiding behind the trees. And thus I went to the eastern part of the island, hopping from tree to tree. Secretly peeking around the stem of the last tree before the eastern beach, I saw a couple of Dragonkin. Ew! Quickly I reported back to Sir Tiffy, because obviously he wanted to knew about those scary creatures.

He took me to the archives and after some rummaging around there, he told me I had to go find Robert the Strong. Robert the Strong? Oh wait, isn't that Bob the Cat? I looked everywhere in gielinor, and finally found that cat at the Troll Mountain. Talking to him was quite difficult, because attacking trolls kept interrupting us. "Stupid trolls", I thought to myself. Well, at least I found Bob. He gave me his collar, which contained two fairy ring codes that directed me to some place called Kethsi. After some puzzling and some looking around in Kethsi I got some tetrahedrons, some notes. I had to run around and climb up and down walls and ladders. It felt like a mini-version of the city of Meyerditch. Finally I found the information we needed and I could report back to Sir Tiffy. I ended up with stuff I needed to prepare the ritual site for the Mahjarrat Ritual. It was real far north, out in the snow and the cold. As ordered I placed the beacons and Arrav's heart and all.

A cutscene appeared after I touched the Stone of Jas, and some guy called General Khazard wanted to kill me. Yaips! And he had a dog too! I teleported out (thank you, Ectophial!), went to the nearest bank and pulled out my trusty dragon armour, along with some food and some prayer potions. Back I went to General Khazard. When I tried to kill him, he summoned his dog again. I tried killing the dog, but it kept coming back. After a couple of tries, I lured it to a tree and managed to get him stuck there. Now, I had my hands free to kill General Khazard. And thus I did. Another cutscene showed me the appearance of Lucien. He summoned Ice Titans, and I had to kill two of them.

I went in to that fight without restocking, thinking I would just ectophial my way to safety when my health got too low. Well, that didn't really work out as I planned. I managed to kill the first Ice Titan, and nearly killed the second, when he killed me. I found myself back in Edgeville. Thank Guthix for gravestones! I returned to the gravestone to collect my gear and went to the bank to restock. After that I went back to the ritual site. I had two Ice Titans to kill. Upon entering the site I changed my camera angle somewhat, because I learned the hard way that Lucien throws black skull-thingies which hit hard if you don't run from it. Now that I went in fully restocked, and I knew how to dodge those black skulls, it was relatively easy to kill those Ice Titans. Yet another cutscene, and Lucien now summoned Ice Demons. I had to kill those too. In I went, without restocking, and of course I died. At least I died while killing the second Ice Demon. I once again went to get my gear back and restocked. In I went again and managed to kill those Ice Demons. Even though they did try to trap me with those icycles they threw.

Once again a cutscene.

Somehow I had to kill armoured zombies now. It was beginning to look like a series of slayer tasks. In any case, after those Ice Titans and Ice Demons, some armoured zombies weren't exactly the most exciting beasties to slay. I slayed them and managed to lure Arrav to his heart. Then Azzanadra suddenly wanted me to fix the south beacon, it broke apart. To add to the fun, something called a glacor attacked me with what looked like magic. Quickly I put up the protect-magic prayer and turned auto-retaliate off. After collecting the four beacon parts, assembling it and putting it back up again, I got another cutscene. I watched the ritual finish, how two Dragonkin appeared, who killed Lucien just like that. They must be really tough creatures, to be able to kill someone like Lucien that easily.

In any case, after hiding the Stone of Jas (so those Dragonkin wouldn't come messing with us again) we went back to Draynor, saw a vision of the Dragonkin destroying it, and suddenly I found myself at Falador park. Quest complete.

Wow! I managed to survive all that! I managed to die only four times!

The Ritual of the Mahjarrat being the last quest I needed to complete, I teleported to Draynor, to the wise old man, and got myself a nice, good looking quest cape. And I am ever so proud of it!

Even though I did cheat at the Pest Queen and Nomad with those instakill-darts. But hey, there were difficult. At least for me. Those darts were worth it 100%.

<3

Queeny

PS: of course I used the xp lamps from the quest to get some skills nearer the magical 80!

At the moment I am at the point where I need to level only five skills: dungeoneering, slayer, hunter, farming and summoning.

During the august and september sizzling summer I have been a member. Not really surprising, as I have been a member since 2006. But, because I have been a member, I got both the 70k xp and the fate cards today.

In hyt chat we discussed both these things since the news about them first came out. I doubted a lot as to which skill I would use the XP on. I settled on money-draining skills, which narrowed the choice down for me to summoning, prayer, construction and herblore. While the lazy hazy summerdays passed I managed to save up enough money to buy enough dragon bones and enough oak plank to get me 80 prayer and 80 construction. (I'm still working towards 80-base remember). So, that left herblore and summoning. Since I felt herblore was more important than summoning, I finally decided to use that 700k xp on herblore.

Today I got the promissory note. I exchanged it for 7 100k-xp lamps and am now only 65k xp away from 80 herblore. I still have to do Troll Invasion for octobre, and will use that xp for herblore too. When that's not enough, I will add either some jack-of-trades-xp or some penguin-points xp, depending on how much xp I still have to go after spending the Troll Invasion xp. I think I will have 80 herblore by the end of the week.

But, besides that promissory note I also got the fate cards. Obviously. Ever since I heard about them, I wanted to use one on the Pest Queen. I tried and died on her ever so much. So much, that I knew that my only alternative to insta-kill-darting her was levelling up my combat a lot, then training myself in the use of spirit kyatts, and, most important, levelling up herblore to at least level 82, so I could use a mature greenman's ale to boost to level 84. And then make recover special potions. I discovered I really needed those in the fight against the Pest Queen, since I had to use the Korasi special so often to prevent the Queen's special attack.

Yesterday my hyt buddies began reporting getting the cards. And the insta-kill darts. My mind starting churning over my plan to use a dart on the Pest Queen. It felt like cheating. Wouldn't I be more proud of myself if I actually did the fight? On the other hand, I suck at fighting in rs, and I really suck at bossing. The Giant Mole is boss enough for me. Barrows still scares me, even though I discovered it's absolutely doable, even for me. So I decided that using an instakill dart would be really cheating. But I also knew I wanted to cheat. I just hated the Pest Queen so much. When I got the cards today, I exchanged one for an instakill dart and talked to Sir Tiffy in Falador Park. And I used that dart on the Pest Queen.

I hope I never ever run into her again. And I still absolutely disagree with everyone who says she's easy.

<3

Queeny

Now this is unexpected, but very nice nonetheless:

On opening seed nests from MTK i just got my very first spirit seed. AND my very first magic seed!

Okay, after doubting and deliberating for a long time, I decided to put it up. The song is called "photoshopping everywhere". The drums and the bass guitar come from apple garageband, the other guitars and the singing I did myself. If you want the mp3, you can get it at my site. If you want the garageband file to mess around with, send me a message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIgeIV3vKbc&feature=plcp

These last few weeks I have slowly but surely been making progress towards the 80 base and the 80-milestone cape. I got 80 craft now, so of course I crafted the accompanying milestone cape and put it in my bank as a reminder. Now it sits there in my clothing tab teasing me each time I pull out my 70-milestone cape.

Wearing that purple cape is my main goal now. However, to reach that goal I will have to patiently grind on. So many skills to level! Lately I don't mind the grind so much. I just grind away while talking to my hyt buddies or maybe watch a little TV or a movie or something like that.

And we got yelps-lamps, troll invasion and penguin points too.

Last weekend I did reach another goal I kind of had set for myself. When dominion tower came out, I was way too low combat to enter. And 110 was so far away! With some questing and some slayering my combat levels slowly rose. Suddenly there were 10 levels left to go, then 9, then 8 and so on. I decided my 80 base goal was more important to me, but I had to level my combat skills too and decided that if I would get 110 combat while doing that, I surely would take a break and visit the dominion tower.

Last weekend I reached both 80 attack and 110 combat. And of course, I visited dom tower. I felt so proud!! I only battled like three monsters or so in the endurance mode. I totally forgot about Sigmund. And when I tried again I ran into a boss which required me to wear ice gloves. And I forgot ice gloves of course, so I couldn't wield a weapon and died. Fortunately the dominion tower is safe. Now I can kind of practise bossing in a safe zone :) without having to worry about losing gear or having to get back to my gravestone in time.

And when bosses don't scare me so much anymore, maybe I can go out in Gielinor and beat the King Black Dragon or the Kalphite Queen. Or Dagganoth Kings? Who knows! The only monster I ever hunted was the mole under Falador Park. But that one only has one skull in its tip.it monster hunting guide. Each and every time I promise myself to attend the events of TMHT. And each time I forget about it, or am not even online. Real life does take precendence over runescape.

For now, I am happily working towards 80 defence via slayer. Every now and then I collect my MTK resources and buy unfinished irit potions and eyes of newt off them. Herblore is one of the skills to level. After that, I am thinking about continuing until I get 85 defence. If I manage to get 85 magic too somewhere inbetween, I can wear gano. And they tell me Nomad is a sinch to defeat when you're wearing gano. And I still have to defeat Nomad. And the pest queen. And the dagganoth mother. Maybe I can practise killing the daggy mommy during my vacation. In september I have a whole week. It would be real cool to be able to kill all those quest bosses myself. Apart from the Pest Queen maybe. Queens shouldn't need to kill eachother, should they?

If all else fails, maybe I can cheat on that pest queen by using an instakill dart.

Otherwise I guess I will have to wait until I managed to level herblore enough for me to be able to make a restore special potion. I run out of specials real quick and after that die to her special attacks.

So much to do, so little time!

Ciao,

Queeny

Just a quickie to let you all know my song is finished. Kind of. It's version 0.1 :)

Lyrics are dutch, but since I'm a real lousy singer (I tried singing it, believe me it sounds awful) I put in violins instead of the vocals. MIDI is such a wonderful thing. Be kind to my song. It's my first "baby".

And this is it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j623grrLxLc&feature=plcp

hugs,

Queeny

(who just learned youtube vids are included in the blog entry)

A while ago I did the Do No Evil quest. After some chatting with desert gods to find out about a past monkey colony in the desert and getting orders to build a new one, I found myself running around Gielinor with melting ice-creams to convince King Awowogei. After some hassle to rebuild the colony, the three wise monkeys were kidnapped and I had to defeat three bosses. Miracle of miracles, I managed to kill all three with dying on twice. Quest finished.

But after the quest, you get the possibility of finding an elite clue scroll. I like clue scrolls, so I really wanted that elite. It would be my first elite ever! After a while I found the first clue scroll at Lunar Isle. It contained an arrow pointing roughly south-east. I was a bit puzzled by this but decided to venture in the direction the arrow was pointing (on tip.it I would later learn this is called a compass clue). I teleported to Ardougne and checked the clue again. The arrow was pointing roughly south-west. I ran around the countryside for quite a bit, while amazing myself to the moving mounds there (strykewyrms, I am told there are called) Finally I discovered the next clue scroll at the fishing spots near Mobilizing Armies.

The next clue contained two conveyor-belt like things wrapping around each other. I had to move the runes on it to match. So _this_ is what a celtic knot is! I heard about celtic knots clues, because some people in my friend chat don't really like them and mentioned not liking "celtic knots cl00s" once. Since then I always wondered what a celtic knot clue was.

I moved the tracks around for a bit to get the hang of it, and then decided to first search for unique rune combinations. The red and the grey track both contained only one mist rune, so I tried combining the mist runes of both at all intersections until all red/grey intersections were green-ringed. After that it was a matter of moving the blue track until the whole picture was a green-ringed gumbo. Celtic knot solved!

After that I got some orb clues and a couple of slider puzzle clues and another celtic knot, which I solved as fast as the first one. Finally, I got a casket. I just did my first elite clue!

And I am planning to do a lot more. I like them.

Okay, so this has nothing what-so-ever to do with Runescape, but I wanted to share this with y'all nevertheless. Yesterday and today I wrote a song. My first song. Ever. So I'm kinda proud of it, even though it's a very simple one :)

And here's the link to it: http://musescore.com/user/39519/scores/57597

Be kind to it. It's my first "baby" :)

Last post I was one or two levels away from level 70 dungeoneering, and the 70-milestone-cape. I channelled all my free xp into dungeoneering and then last Saturday evening I got to the point that I needed only 8k-ish xp. I could wait for a couple of joats of course, but I decided to pull myself together and do some floors to gain the remaining xp. I started at floor 16, for that one was unticked and thus I would get some prestige, which adds nicely to the xp total. Two cursebearer-bosses and one skinweaver-boss later the levelup fireworks filled my screen.

YAY!!

Of course I immediately left the dungeon to bank and equip my beautiful 70-milestone cape. I made that when I got 70 craft and it has been sitting in my bank ever since. Until now! It looked great, but since I thought the pink colour clashed with the clothes I was wearing, I decided to pay a visit to the Varrock clothes store and get a new, matching, outfit. And that looked so cool that I ran to the falador hairdresser after that to get a matching hairdo. And I wear that cape to everywhere I don't need armour, obsidian cape or ardougne-3 cape; I am real proud of it.

Although, being me, I of course have new goals already: get 75 range and do Within the Light, get my combat level way up and kill both the Pest Queen and the Blood-Runs-Deep-Dagganoth Mother (both of which I am kind of stuck at now), do pest control and conquest games and get full void, and get all my skills 80+, so I can make and equip the 80-milestone cape. I need to level lots of skills though, currently I am working on 80 firemaking. But besides that I need to level attack, strength, defense, ranged, prayer, summoning, farming, herblore, construction (ew, larders), dungeoneering, hunter, crafting, fletching, and whatever I forgot. At least I already got 80 mining, 80 smithing, 83-ish runecraft en some 82-ish agility. And 90 woodcutting.

Hey, I already got 1 skill ready for the 90+-goal!

I have a week's vacation coming up. Better start to do some decent farmruns then, they tell me it's good gp and I need gp if I want to level prayer and herblore. Time to save up!

A couple of weeks ago I had one skill left to go to reach my all-skills-70-plus goal. Well, I have been making progress at that using pengy points, tears of guthix xp and troll invasion points. They got me 69 dungeoneering so far. I didn't do any actual dungeoneering; so I am still stuck with an insanely low amount of tokens. Every now and then it bugs me that I am nowhere near an arcane necklace or some cool chaotic weapons. But oh well. I just don't have the patience for dg, I'm just gonna have to learn to live with that I guess. In any case I'm just a week or maybe two off from my 70-goal, for I am gonna dump all free xp into dungeoneering now, including the Jack-of-all-Trades points and possible SoF-lamps.

The good news is that last week I managed to scrape together the courage to face the iron dragons. I was told by my Slayer Master to kill fourty of them. It took me half a polypore staff, but I managed to kill all requested fourty Iron Dragons. I even managed to kill a Steel Dragon who attacked me when I just finished off my last Iron Dragon. So now I am not afraid of them anymore, and I want to level my combat so I can melee them in the future. As for slayer, I think I will take some lower-level assignments, maybe from Mazchna or so, and then do some range-slaying. I now have 72 range level, but since I want to do the Within the Light Quest I need 75. And when I'm levelling range anyway, I might as well kill two birds with one stone and get some slay xp along the way.

As far as questing is concerned, I got myself kind of in a predicament.

I started The Void Stares Back, figuring that I should be able to kill the Pest Queen. I managed to defeat the Balance Elemental too, right? I even got along rather nicely at first, without needing a guide. Even that conquest-game against the pests I managed to win; I only lost once there. But then I faced the Pest Queen. She maybe just a bunch of pixels, but she looks real scary! And invincable too! Those damn beasties are constantly healing her faster than I can hit her, and I shouted to my laptop: "hey, that's no fair!", among other nasty things. I really love my laptop for not BSOD'ing on me for all that.

I think the Pest Queen is gonna be even more of a challenge than Char and Vanstrom combined, and you all know how "easy" I found those two. So far I died about five times to her, read some manuals and watched some videos. Damn defilers. Well, albeit a difficult assignment, I am gonna kill her someday. And then I will be the proud owner of a real Korasi Sword. I got to wield it in the Pest Queen fight already, and I love how it looks and how it hits and all. But I need to practise a lot on killing the pest queen, on spotting those defilers and all. I wonder whether I will make it before the combat update!

For now I am happy relaxing, pest queen avoiding and doing some LRC mining. Coal deposits of course, since my mining level is only 78 and I don't feel like potting or so at the moment. I'll get 80 mining in due time, and get some nice coal along the way to sell at the GE for some nice extra geepee. I got 80 constitution during my Iron Dragon task, and I can now equip a whole range of new, yet expensive armour, like torva and all. Maybe I will look into all that armour tonight after work and household chores.

Last time I told you all about how I was striving for 70+ in all skills. Well, I've been gradually making progress at that, albeit slow. Especially the skills I dislike the most take a lot of time. I prefer to use my sometimes limited scaping time to do fun things. For example, I like to runespan, because that's mostly afk and I can take the time to pay attention to the dearly beloved HYT! friend chat. Because runespanning is so easy, I am thinking of getting my first 99 in runecrafting. But I dismissed that, for getting a 99 does not really appeal to me. The 70+-goal still does appeal to me, I must say. And because of a diversion of the grind I felt I needed, I am unexpectedly almost there.

I was at the point where I only needed to level farming, hunter and dungeoneering. As I don't really like these skills, I was already dumping my penguin points into them. When I had 67 farm I suddenly felt like doing a quest. At the moment I have the levels to complete every quest but Within the Light (that one needs 75 ranged). I heard stories about While Guthix Sleeps being a great quest, so I decided to give that one a ago. After surviving Love Story's Zenevivia I can take on anything, right? It was an interesting quest, and I managed to did most of it without a quest guide, and without hints. The puzzles and all were great fun, and I needed a week before getting to the boss fight. Okay, it was a busy week, I had only time to scape for an hour or two in the evening. But it was a fun quest. And when I completed all potions thingys I put all of the dolmen on the table, the barrier unlocked and I ran southeast.

And there it was: the Stone Of Jas. And when I touched it, a guardian appeared called the Balance Elemental. Given it's high 400-ish combat level, I reckoned he was the Endboss for the quest. Since Vanstrom and Char I must have been improving at quest bosses, because I only died five times before beating him. At first, I pulled out my polypore staff and some broad bolts. I felt that didn't really work, I tried melee-ing with my trusty abbyssal whip, but I didn't feel comfortable with that either. After dying for the fifth time I decide to figure out what good regular bolts were, got my runite crossbow and went to GE to buy diamond tipped bolts. Enchanted of course. A couple of minutes later, the Balance Elemental was dead.

Wow, that sure was easier than I expected.

Hey wait, are those tormented demons materializing? Well, I was standing real close to the Stone of Jas when they appeared and I discovered that staying close to the stone improves your health and combat stats significantly. I slayed those two tormented demons like a pro. And suddenly I was staring at the Quest Complete box.

One of the rewards was four times 100k xp in a skill. I picked farming and hunter of course, and managed to get both of them at lvl 70. So now I only have dungeoneering left to level. Unfortunately, I really hate dungeoneering. But I need to dg anyway: I need both the xp and the tokens if I want to level. Because, at 80 attack (and I'm 78 at the moment) you unlock the chaotic rapier and all. Provided you have the correct dungeoneering level.

I really need to teach myself to dg properly. At least I managed to unlock floor 31 last evening, so now I'll maybe even learn how to team-dg.

Or maybe I'll finish some quests first (hi Nomad!) or maybe I'll finish that Iron Dragons slayer assignment. That sure sounds easier than getting a gazzillion dg-tokens.

On to the Quest Cape?

Since my last post I didn't do any difficult quests. No amazing adventures to tell about. Instead, I have been grinding away at one of my longer-term goals: getting all skills 70+. Part of this is slayer-assignment-avoidance, since I've been tasked with Iron Dragons. Anyway, some time ago I managed to earn some good money with all that double-rune-morytania-legs-stuff down at the Barrows, so I bought myself some oak planks, moved my poh to Taverly and started making oak larders to level construction to 70. I got 78 attack before, and then I discovered that 70 construction was the only thing I needed to complete The Void Stares Back. So I made larders. And more larders. And more larders even. I am very thankful for my HYT friend chat, it would have been ever so boring without my HYT buddies. When I got 70 construction, I could not stand to see another larder. But hey, I got 70 construction! Another step closer to wearing that beautiful pinkish 70-cape.

And now that I only need to get 70 farming, 70 hunter and 70 dungeoneering I am dumping all my lamps, pengy points and troll invasion points into those skills. Farming first, because that one I kind of dislike the most. Both hunter and dungeoneering I don't really like to level. Hunter because I find it boring and dungeoneering because I feel hopelessly lost in a team. So this weekend's Runespan double points is a nice excuse to take a break from levelling both skills. I started at level 72 friday, I am now 76 and expect to get 77 tonight (hi bloods!). And in world 99 I run into my hyt buddies every now and then in the runespan. I am even thinking of camping the runespan until I get level 80 and I can wear that wicked top. That would be ever so awesome.

And aside from alll that I secretly am watching vids on the bosses of the quests I still have to do. I discovered last week that I have the levels for Love Story, Blood Runs Deep, While Guthix Sleeps and Ritual of the Majharrat (however you spell that). And Nomad's requiem. Those bosses seem tough to me. Those quests will be a grand adventure!

Maybe those Iron Dragons are a better idea.

But I do want that Korasi Sword...

After those exciting adventures with Char and firemaking I decided to relax a bit and do nothing special. This in part has been motivated by the fact that real life takes quite some attention too. But despite the relaxation there were still some goals to achieve. One of these is doing as much quests as I can with my levels. One of these quests was Dream Mentor. The guide said something about high-level monsters to beat, so I decided to stock up once again before trying, thinking this would be at least as difficult as Vanstrom or Char.

However, I forgot that I bought a polypore staff upon reaching magic level 80.

And I planned to use that of course. On top of that, I discovered the lectern allowed safespotting (and no I didn't read a guide for that). The combination of pps and safespot made me breeze through that fight, and I can now honestly say Dream Mentor is easy. And then I was fed up with quests for a while and decided to focus on my "all skills level 70+" goal. I cheated a bit by buying a lot of silver bars so I could start crafting tiaras immediately, and not having to mine all that silver in the diy-way. I wanted 70 crafting of course, but I decided to go for level 75 because that unlocks the slayer ring.

Finally I got that level (yay me) and immediately I went to Sumona to see how many points I needed to learn to craft a slayer ring. I ran 100 points short, so I took a slayer assignment from her. First I got elves, which isn't so bad in Lletya because of the prayer altar upstairs.

Then I got iron dragons. Not feeling up to them, I am now fully immersed in the new Runespan. After all, my runecrafting level also needs to be 70+, so that's a good excuse to avoid Iron Dragons, right? Like lots of other players I immediately went to the Runespan upon logging in, and in once evening I gained 3 runecrafting levels (66 - 69). And I like the runespan too! I'm thinking about camping there for a while.

Y'all remember a couple of blogs ago I told you about Char? That fiery lady whom I could not beat?

Well, of course the story didn't end there, because I kept on trying. I figured if I practised enough on battling her, I'd finally get the hang of it. At first, I had to learn to stay away from her when she was white. Wowsers, she hits real hard when she's glowing white. Second, I had to make sure I had a fast range-weapon. Or at least, most of the guides told me. So after some deliberation, I settled on steel darts. I bought like 3k or so of them at the GE, because I really thought I'd need them. I had to practise a lot.

So then it was that I could survive for a while, and even hurt Char. Most of the time, I managed to keep like 5 or 6 fires lit. I discovered that isn't enough if you want to make a real impact on her. So next on my list was learning how to keep more fires going. That took me a lot of videoguides (thank Guthix for youtube). Last week I saw a guide which clearly aimed at keeping Char wandering around in circles in the middle of the room, while keeping fires going at the edges of the room. That way, it's much more difficult for Char to stomp out your fires. I thought that was a great idea, practised a little on it - dying a couple of times of course - and last Saturday I knew how to keep like 10+ fires going. And I was actually getting to the point that I thought: "Hey it's actually easy to keep going 10+ fires if you know the trick". And with like 10 fires going, you can hit Char in the four-digit-numbers, which speeds up the killing a lot. I was quite happy with the way things were progressing.

And then that wall of fire raged through the room.

And I died, not being able to navigate that gap fast enough.

I put runescape aside quite angrily, and decided to play some guitar to calm down.

But of course I couldn't stay away for long. Thinking it over, I realized I was almost there, the only thing left standing between me and victory was learning how to get through that gap in the firewall. So once again I took to youtube, watching videoguides and paying extra attention to those moving firewalls. I observed everything about how other players did it, how they ran, how they clicked and their video-angle. Taking my cues from that, I decided to try again yesterday afternoon, and after a couple of failed attempts (and dying :) ) I managed to get the hang of "gapping".

Feeling like I was really getting close now, I decided to try again, and again. And in the end on Sunday afternoon, Char suddenly said to me it was enough and she felt beaten by me.

Wow!

I did it!

I stared numbly at the screen at first, just couldn't believe I did it. Then when the message got home, I jumped up from my chair, dancing and jumping around the living room, while yelling: "I did it! I did it!". It felt real good.

And as I type this blog, I find myself smiling again.

It still feels good.

I did it.

In dutch we call this poem-type an "eleven", because of the eleven words. Don't know the name of it in english.

Green

Abyssal whip

Dragons in wilderness

I slay them all

Bots

These last few weeks the lands of Gielinor did not see much of me. Too much real life getting in the way, most of it connected to either work or first aid courses. Which does take priority over scaping in my mind. But nevertheless I saw the coming of the morytania achievement diaries.

JaGex made me real curious a week before they came out, and in a very clever way too: they accidentally released the morytania diary, but without any content. That got me *so* curious! I just couldn't wait to know what the diaries would contain. On friend chat we speculated a little, wondering whether we would have to do things like barrows runs, or something with ectotokens. We also wondered whether jagex would seize the opportunity to make ectotokens actually useful. Because at the moment you can't really spend them anywhere. Anyway, whatever I expected, i did not expect to have the levels to complete the hard diary. I thought I'd get easy and medium levels, and that would be it.

When they came out I immediately scrolled through the tasks; and as far as I could tell I could do a lot of them. I might even be able to get the hard set done! So I went to work, teleporting to the ectofuntus, doing some temple building at the Shades of Mort'ton, smithing cannonballs at the Port Phasmatys furnace, enjoyed a game of skull ball and navigating the Haunted Mines. What a maze those haunted mines are by the way, I totally forgot about that. And I'm planning to totally forget about it again. And when I finally managed to harvest some bittercap mushrooms I got the message to visit Robin in Port Phasmatys. I didn't even remember where Robin was, so I ended up running around Port Phasmatys for over fifteen minutes checking all the ghost villagers before I discovered Robin was a human being in the local pub. Despite all that, I was the proud owner of level 2 morytania pants, and immediately longed for a morytania plateskirt instead of the pants. With the same benefits of course. Now for the hard tasks! I set myself to kill Tarn, and got my salve amulet enchanted in the process, and in general completed almost all hard tasks. Except the one where you have to cast-bloom with an Ivandis flail with 200+ vyre cremations on it. I had like seven or so. And since burns are personal, lending isn't an option.

So now I'm frantically killing and cremating Vyres the moment I log on, because I do want to have the hard set done before April 11 and I very much hope it's the only task left for me.

I really want to get that lovely early bird bonus.

Fortunately I finished the Branches of Darkmeyer quest, so I can use a blisterwood polearm to kill them.

Watch out, you Vyres, for here I come!

After finishing Recipe for Disaster I felt strong. Strong enough to even try Branches of Darkmeyer, which at the end involves killing a Vyrewatch named Vanstrom Klaus. After doing all kinds of chores around Darkmeyer to get access to the Blisterwood tree, I grabbed myself a lot of blisterwood stakes and good food and tried it. Only to be killed by that blood special of his. Fortunately, I respawned in Canifis and used the Drakan medaillion to get back to Darkmeyer - and my gravestone - in time to get my gear back. I re-equipped and tried again. Only to be killed by Vanstrom's darkness special. Respawned at Canifis again, tele'd to Darkmeyer and my gravestone and got my gear back. It took quite a few tries to figure out how to tackle Vanstrom's special attacks. Quite a few tries and some helpful guide-videos on youtube. Long live youtube. After some twenty or so deaths, I got fed up with it, yelled all kinds of real nasty things to my poor helpless laptop and started to do some agility to calm down and forget about Vanstrom Klaus.

A couple of days and a lot of guide-videos later I decided to take a chance at it again. So I followed the same old routine: get Drakan Medaillion, teleport to Darkmeyer, gear up and go for it. Of course it didn't go perfectly the first time out, so I died a couple of times. I used so many blisterwood stakes I ended up running out of them, even though I started out with over 800 of them. But after getting new blisterwood stakes - and calming down, because I again was yelling at my poor innocent laptop - I decided to try for the last time that day. I felt like I actually stood a chance, I was getting the hang of evading those bloody and darkness special attacks. I just hoped there wouldn't be many of them. I preferred the bloodveld killing. And I got lucky: Suddenly the guy changed into mist, and I found myself pouring holy water all over the place and luring the mist in it. And then, after all that time, I managed to defeat him. Suddenly Mr Vanstrom Klaus was dead. "Yay ME!" I thought.

So thus it came to it that, when I got 74 firemaking, I was completely convinced I could defeat the Char at the end of that quest. After all, I defeated that Vanstrom guy, right? Wrong. It started out fairly okay, with puzzles I actually liked, with red, yellow and blue powder making all kinds of firey patterns on the floor using Flint's pitch can. And the group of firemakers reached the final cave, and, it being a quest, I had to confront Char.

And I did.

And I died.

And died again. And again. And again. And again.

Frustration grew as I kept dying and I started yelling at my poor innocent laptop again (it's a miracle that thing never goes on strike) and wishing JaGex all kinds of real nasty diseases.

I decided to leave Char in the lurch for a moment. And do something simple, like woodcutting yews.

Nice and easy.

While in the back of my mind a tiny voice is nagging me about Char.

She's one tough Lady!

After I defeated those beasties from The Elder Kiln quest (those new and improved Tzhaar look awesome by the way) I immediately felt more powerful. In part that was caused by gaining a combat level, and gaining a second one with the Early Bird Bonus. So it came to it that, after doing a Barrows run, I felt strong enough to try and take another shot at killing Karamel. The Karamel from the final fight in the Recipe for Disaster quest. I started that quest when it came out a couple of years ago, but because I obviously did not have the levels I got stuck at the final fight. It remained there on my quest list, three small yellow words at the op of the list. Recipe for disaster not finished yet, they shouted at me. At first I found that real annoying, I hate loose ends. But in order to finish it, I needed Desert Treasure and given my poor magic levels back then, that was totally not an option. So those three small yellow words stayed at the top of my quest list, and every now and then they got company for a couple of hours because of the quests I was doing.

Because of the access to Ancient Magicks, which had appealed to me for a long time, I finally decided to do Desert Treasure anyway, ignoring the advice from the friends in Friend Chat, saying that it might be a good idea to level magic some more because of some stat draining beasties. I decided to take super restore potions instead. It took a couple of deaths, but since I have a twelve-minute-gravestone I wasn't really worried by that. I would just get to my gravestone in time, get my stuff back and continue bravely on. And thus I did. In the end I managed to get those diamonds and all and finish Desert Treasure. Last hurdle to the Rfd-final fight taken. I teleported to Lumbridge, geared up and went into the portal. Both Agrith-Na-Na and Flambeed I managed to defeat, but then I was confronted with Karamel, who kept freezing me over and over again. Since I went in melee-style, I obviously died on her, and was real happy to have a gravestone. I tried again, with the same results. After that I got fed up with it, and decided to leave it for a moment.

A couple of weeks later, and after the Kiln quest, I felt confident enough to try Karamel again. Remembering that freezing I decided to go in with Magic, armed myself with enough runes for a lot of Fire Wave spells, some prayer potions just to be sure and Tuna Potatoes. Well, those fire waves really hit the mark, some time after I went in i suddenly saw Karamel dying. Wow, i succeeeded! On came Dessourt, who really did not prove much of a challenge, I found him easy to defeat. Or maybe my idea of easy and difficult was changed somewhat, after those Kiln and Karamel. I had to get out and gear up again for that Gelatinnoth Mother, and I kinda cheated by checking the tip.it guide on that, because I wanted to know what those colour changes meant. Being prepared and using the right spells at the right colour, I managed to defeat that beasty too, and before I knew it I faced to Culinaromancer himself, and killed him.

And suddenly I faced this box in the middle of my screen that said "Quest complete!"

Wow.

After all that time finally I had finished Recipe for Disaster.

It wasn't there at the top of my quest list anymore, no three small yellow words that said "Recipe for Disaster". It's now green, and it hides somewhere in that large list of green quests which I normally keep hidden.

I'm still not really used to the absence of those yellow words.

And of course I bought Barrows gloves from the chest :)

A couple weeks ago the weekly update featured the new Tzhaar and and the Elder Kiln quest. With an early bird bonus for those who managed to complete it within the first two weeks. At first I totally didn't plan to do the quest, it said something about fighting off multiple beasties of combat level 300 and higher. I really thought that was ought of my league. However, the people in the friend chat thought otherwise, and they convinced me to do the quest anyway. Since the dying safe I finally agreed with them and decided to give it a go.

I forgot to count how many times I died in that quest-fight-pits-thing, and I also forgot how many times I died later on, in that tunnel to the Kiln and in that Kiln battlefield. But it's far into the two-digit-numbers. I must've died at least thirty times, all in all. Despite all those deaths I managed to defeat all the beasties in the end, and thus earned myself the rank of YtHaar. Other, higher level, people will probably think it was just another quest, but for me it was difficult and I am real proud of being an YtHaar.

And of course I was real happy with the early bird bonus too.

YtHaar ftw!

Oh and by the way: I still think the new kiln cape looks like a bunch of mini-F117's strapped to your back, no matter what everyone says. :)