IamTardis

So, I got 99 herblore. That means I have quite the amount of overload potions in my bank. Well, flasks, actually. So, when Kuradal assigned me Mithril Dragons, I took a sip of overload potion to test it. And wow did those Mithril Dragons die fast at my super-duper-overloaded combat stats! I discovered that overloads are simply awesome, as not only they boost your stats really good, but they remain boosted too for the complete overload time. Since I was used to super- and extreme potions, I expected for the overload effect to gradually decrease over time, as the superpotions do. But it didn't. My stats remained boosted until I got a message in my chatbox that said I felt normal again. Well, that was visible immediately: those mithril dragons suddenly died a lot slower :) So, gradually I am getting used to being in the high range of combat stats. And getting used to that I have access to overloads. I took those overloads to The Mighty Falls' Graardor, you know, that Kyzaj fight at Yubiusk. I tried that battle before, and usually got him down to somewhere around 23k lifepoints before dying. But that was before overloads, and with that good mithril-dragon-tryout in the back of my head, I rather impulsively decided to try again. I was strong now, after all, because I could overload. To be sure, I did take a sign of life. That way, when I died I could continue from where I was. I killed Graardor, partly because of the overload and partly because I tried him before and got more and more succesfull at dodging that sweep-special of his. Still, when the fight was over I had 133 lifepoints left (eoc lifepoints) and no sign of life. So it was close, but I did it! And then, last Sunday afternoon, some people in hyt decided to go to the Kalphite King. Moments after they went, Dragonkng198 came into hyt, rather jokingly complaining they didn't take him along. So I responded "don't worry you can always teach me how to dks", expecting it to be a joke. Well, that joke got serious real quick, as Draggle immediately took me up on that offer. We met at Neitiznot bank, where we ran a first-time-ever-checklist to make sure I had everything in terms of weapons, potions and food that I needed to survive for a bit. Then we went to waterbirth island, where we had to navigate a lot of caverns filled with a lot of aggressive beasties before we even got to the caverns where the Dagannoth Kings live. I had no real idea where we were going but I soon understood that I just had to go for the next ladder while following Draggle. At the last resting place before the fight cavern, Draggle explained what I needed to do: which protection prayers, which King, which weapon. It was quite a lot to take in, so I focused on remembering how to start: I had to equip my Cobalt Balmung and attack some guy called Supreme. From there on, I would have to mage something, and after that I had to range something. Well, it was very much overwhelming and challenging and thrilling and fun, as I had to switch weapons (and ability bars) all the time, but I managed to keep up, mostly thanks to Draggle and thanks to that little dialog box that you get when you hover over a monster that has an icon in it stating the monsters weakness. Naturally, at first I forgot to re-pot, so my overload ran out and my prayer ran out. But eventually I got the hang of that too. Still, I hadn't time to talk, because I had too much other stuff to pay attention too, being totally new to this kind of thing. In the end I even managed to outhit Draggle on Supreme a couple of times, which was very surprising as he has 99 melee stats and was wielding dual drygore maces, and I have lvl 86 melee stats with a Cobalt Balmung. That Balmung must be really really effective on dagannoths. And apparently the game wanted me to come back to dks soon, as my first drop ever from Dagannoth Supreme was a Dragon Hatchet. Beginners luck, no doubt, but a nice surprise nevertheless. Once I have enough geepee to be able to buy decent range armour again (I spent it all on supplies for herblore and prayer), I will sure pay the Dagannoth Kings another visit!

Awwwyesssssss!! Managed to save up enough geepee to get this:

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to kill the Queen Black Dragon and earn a royal crossbow as well as my last Varrock Museum Kudos. That made me feel quite proud of myself and I felt that I was now really on the way of transforming from bad to badass. So, I decided to start practising fight caves. Because fire cape. And because Karamja tasks. And because challenge. After a couple of runs last weekend I now know how to get to Jad, to survive the first 62 waves. It took me some practise (again) but I figured out how to do it easily even with strategic safespotting and strategic use of the regenerate ability. I haven't been able to kill Jad yet. That prayer-switching definitely needs some more practise, but slowly I am starting to recognise Jads attacks. So, with enough patience I will get there. What baffles me about myself and this, is how reluctant I am to do this. I am scared of dying. Or losing. Or both. Probably losing, since being scared of dying in the fight caves is even more silly than at the Queen Black Dragon. With the fight caves being a totally safe mini game, there is no harm done in losing and dying at all. So I guess both Jad and the QBD have taught me that there's nothing wrong with taking a risk every now and then, and there's nothing wrong with losing every now and then. It doesn't diminish you as a person in the least (and naturally I wonder why I feel that way). And things will probably work out if you're patient and determined. And they also taught me that I somehow utterly and vehemently detest taking risks. I very much wonder why. And what I can do about it in real life. What risks have I avoided in real life? And what am I avoiding? And what beautiful things am I missing because of that? There are interesting times ahead for sure. Maybe my psychologist is right and I really am in the middle of a midlife crisis. Bring on the future!

Yes, yes, I know the Queen Black Dragon came out a long time ago and that most people find her somewhat easy. But still. Slowly but surely I have been gaining some nice combat levels these past few months, a lot of which came from dungeoneering. I started seriously dungeoneering because of the tasks. I don't remember who helped with the first task I encountered (use some food on a team member), but he/she set me off to do a lot of dungeoneering tasks. Including that one for which you need a fully upgraded ring of kinship, in other words a whopping 313k-plus-something in tokens. Gathering all these tokens took a lot of floors, battling a lot of bosses and gaining a lot of combat expee. Mage, mostly, but sometimes I ranged. Combining that with the slayering I did and do outside of dungeoneering and two or three weeks ago I found myself being the proud owner of a runescape account with 90+ mage and 90 ranged. 90 ranged! That's acension bows, but boy are they expensive. Since I also want to level expensive things like herblore, construction and summoning, getting an ascension bow was a no-no. "So get a royal crossbow", my fellow hyters said. Despite them repeatedly stating that it was really doable, even for me, I stuck to my trusty handcannon a long time. Mainly because getting a royal crossbow scared the hell out of me. A royal crossbow is made by the extreme breath of the Queen Black Dragon. And that's was scared me. The Queen Black Dragon! Beating her was a challenge the size of Mount Everest. "Scary!", I told myself. "I'll die!", I told myself. Still, I went to qbd once or twice, just to see what its like and to test where you gravestone ends up. It's nice to know you're able to get your gear back when you die. That's once of the things that's keeping me from gwd-bossing, even though everyone says I should be totally able to at least Graardor. Anyway, my gravestone turned out to end up right outside the qbd entrance portal. And getting there was so easy with the Port Sarim Lodestone. One very important hurdle was taken. So I started practising battling the Queen Black Dragon. Like once or twice a week. I hate dying, even though I'll respawn. I died a lot, at first mostly to firelines in the first stage. When I started to get the hang of the running-through-firelines-trick, I managed to empty the first qbd-healthbar. Suddenly she started spewing all these grotworms! "Wait!", i thought, "I am supposed to touch one of them artifacts now". There were like seven or eight grotworms before I got to the artifact. Needless to say, I died at the second stage. Getting past the second stage took me a while. Fortunately, I had lots of food because I was levelling fishing and cooking. Reaching that third stage was difficult, I died to firelines, I died to ghouly ghostthingies, I died to grotworms and I died because I remained at that over-the-water-platform too long. I learned that platform hits 1500 lifepoints if you hang around the artifact too long. I got stuck, and decided to quit qbd and go dungeoneeering instead. And that's when I gained those magic and ranged levels. Somewhere in the back of my head I still wanted a royal crossbow, but I was also scared of dying at the qbd. Sometimes I wondered why I was scared; it seemed a bit silly to be scared of her, after all, I would respawn and just get my gear back. I have a twelveminute gravestone, literally an ocean of time to get back to the qbd-portal. In the end, I asked my fellow hyters for tips regarding armour and all. Others could do it too, so I could too, right? The right armour, and especially weapons immediately made a difference (together with my improved magiclevels probably) and after just two tries I managed to get to the fourth stage. Boy, did I feel proud of myself! I got to stage 4, even! Maybe this was doable after all! After some more dying and lots more sharks I decided to switch from regular magic to ancient magicks. I got 92 a couple of days earlier, and 92 mage means blood barrage. They say that's a great spell. So why not try it out? Getting to the ancient piramid is so easy with that lodestone in the desert. Geared up again I went to the qbd-portal. One sip of super-anti-fire and one sip of super magic potion, and I was off! With blood barrage on auto-cast and carefully watching firelines and ghoulies I was at stage 4 before I knew it. Stage 4! The stage with the extreme breath and the brandishing. Carefully I positioned my avatar right in the middle before the QBD, precisely where the guides say you have to be in order to get an unforged royal crossbow brandhished. Fanatically I kept my health at near-maximum, so I could tank the extreme breath attack when it came. There it is! The extreme breath! Almost panically I clicked the brandish royal bow, and ate some sharks right after. Wow, I almost died there. I didn't have the time to check on my royal crossbow, would it be brandished or not? I had to navigate some firelines and defeat some ghostlyghouliethings. Better check later, and deal with surviving first. Wait, do I have to tick another artifact? Why yes! I run to the artifact, touch it, and suddenly an army of grotworms dies. A platform in the middle rises. My chatbox suddenly said the Queen Black Dragon wnet back to her slumber. Did I? Really? Could it be? Hesitating, I checked my inventory, and found a royal crossbow all ready for use. For a couple of seconds I just stared at it. "Royal crossbow" it said. No (unforged) addition anymore. I did it. I really did it. Entering the cellar under the platform, it started slowly to sink in that I did it. I beat the Queen Black Dragon and managed to get that damned royal crossbow. The Queen Black Dragon taught me that nothing apparently is really impossible, though sometimes things may take a hell of a lot of practisice before succeeding. But you'll succeed if you are willing to put in the time. And also I obviously detest taking risks, even small ones, why I do not know yet, but I'll figure out. It would be nice to know, because then I can use that knowlegde to be a better person in real life too. And whenever I will face something difficult, I'll think about my royal crossbow, and the epic fight between my adventurer and the Queen Black Dragon. I did it. I can do it.

For all penguin hunters and lovers out there: Penguins are not only invading gielinor, but earth as well, starting with the Norwegian Military: Okay this is not a picture but a link,, but funny in itself so I thought I might post it anyway. A boingboing article about a knighted penguin. IRL. And seriously. Penguins are knights, apparently. http://boingboing.net/2014/04/21/here-is-a-picture-of-a-man-kni.html

So, this morning someone dropped this in my inbox, and it's too funny to not share:

So this week the Mahjarrat memories came out. Since I was divving anyway I figured I might as wel div that engrameter. It took me some time, but I managed to collect the fifteen memories and am now proudly followed by a Tiny Lucien. And I like him! He aks me "Sailing or riding?" and then when I choose either one he goes "SILENCE! I DECIDE". Not realizing I'm not listening to him anyway :) Or he asks me where I hid the stone of Jas. Or he tells me that I should respect "the tiny power of lucien". He's totally cute trying to be badass and all :)

So, how many pack yaks can you fit into Egde bank?

Totally not rs-related but very interesting and shareworthy nevertheless. A tedious accurate guide to the solar system, scaled on the Moon being precisely 1 pixel in size. : http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html That's a lot of emptyness!

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"

So I have been told to screenie and post this here. 1.2k pure essence drop from warped tortoise.

welcome back, Shyla!

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.

Me and kat? *hugs Crazy Eric*

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.

This close :)

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!

Good Luck Draggle *notes date in calendar*

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