IamTardis

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?

Hey Dragoon, it's so terrific to read you're back on your way up!! Don't worry about the facebook status, it could be that she has a boyfriend but it could also very well be she didn't change it because she's in a rebound phase herself. Or maybe she broke up with her boyfriend long ago and simply forgot to change her marital status on FB. Or one of the million other reasons you can think of for a wrong status there. You Rock!! Have fun at work and while scaping, and make the most out of everything. And especially be sure to take the mental time to fully enjoy and appreciate everything you like, especially the small things. Hearing the wind in the trees, hearing the birds, the sun coming up as you pedal your way to work. Those little things mean so much. Big hugs, Queenie

I hope everything will turn out allright!!

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...

Sounds good! And remember, big steps are not necessary. A lot of tiny baby-steps achieve exactly the same and are usually easier to realize, just be sure they're all heading in the correct direction. Have fun at work and at voice-acting!

WHile I'm at it, I might as well post a pic from my last photoshoot: ...

Okay, so here's a picture of my American Football team, with me together with the other Medics on the far left:

Beautiful pictures!

So that was the package! I was ever so curious about that when you kept mentioning on hyt chat. You Go! Living in the Netherlands (which is a real bicycle-country) I know from experience what sweaty and sporty business biking can be. But you'll get in great shape :)

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.

argh! I kinda freaked out when rs wouldn't load. Fortunately we still have tif. I hope they're back online soon, because it takes ages for the world to load now. No hopping for a bit :) Edit: that stat-supplying-sig-thingy is offline too. I seriously wonder what the **** has broken down/is going on.

Now where is that like-button? Great post Draggle! It certainly made me lol irl! *hugs 2Nub and Alg*

They sound like awesome new books, and thanks for the tip on Gladiatrix. I think I'm gonna see that I get it too, I have a crush on everything that's Ancient-Rome-connected.

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.

Too bad you're not going to be online much, but I hope you'll be real happy with your new home! *cwtch* Queenie

If I am gonna write haiku-like poems they will probably be more senryu-like, as Haiku is supposed to deal with the pefection of nature and I don't really think nature's perfect. It can be beautiful, but not perfect. Maybe I'll try to write a runescape-senryu though.

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!

Please don't do that Jagex. I hate that sort of thing in castleville and the like, people buying big levels instead of working for it. You get too much of that in real life already. Please let runescape remain an honest place.

Love this, like your writing!

Congratulations!