IamTardis

Love this, like your writing!

Congratulations!

Congratulations FSM!!

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!

Recently I managed to defeat Vanstrom Klaus and thus end the quest Branches of Darkmeyer. After finishing the quest I checked out the tips at the end of the quest guide and noted a small error. The quest guide says the bank is an NOC called 'Vyre Treasurer' but it has been replaced with a bank chest for some time now.

Actually it does kinda look like an upside-down obby christmas tree! I hope Jagex check these forums, somewhere on tif I saw some artwork which suggested the tzhaar capes could look like flowing lava. And the kiln cape of course looked more awesome than the fire cape. I would really love it to see that in-game.

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. :)

Okay, so here's my real life picture, from a photoshoot I did. You can check out the rest at my picasa albums.