RSC Preservation Player Diary - Telna

[Telna]

Hi! New player here, already found the wiki etc, setting a long-term goal for myself to complete all 50 quests in release order under ironman conditions, with no members content until after Dragon Slayer. When I introduced myself in the discord others suggested recording my progress in the forum, so here I am!

Prior experience: Played RS2 f2p as a kid, later on spent a fair bit of time into RS3 and a little of OSRS. My partner Temper plays both games extensively and I have a lot of knowledge of both through her. However, I've never played or even seen RSC gameplay before!

Day 1

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Quest 0) Tutorial Island

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Oh geeze this is not at all the tutorial island I remember. Kind of incredible? It's definitely giving relevant advice for this version of the game, but the writing sure is something else. Why on earth are Fishing and Cooking not taught together? And we only mine 1 tin and "oh yeah if you find copper you can smelt them for bronze"? Truly a legendary tutorial. I do enjoy the examine texts! (The low-effort writing really adds to the charm, and I'm not saying that to be critical) Immediate hangups with the controls: Not being able to rotate the camera vertically is strange but I'll get used to it, and I got stuck at the quest advisor for a while because I didn't notice the dialogue options in the top-left (curse of modern screen sizes, I suppose). Anyway, we eventually reached the boatman and set off to Lumbridge!

Quest 1) Cook's Assistant

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What else would we do first? Take an egg and bucket, milk a cow (no 'dairy cow', just a cow), pick some grain and mill it, bring everything back, unlock the fancy range! I'm really glad Jagex has never changed this one. That's 1 Quest Point and Level 4 Cooking!



Tried to talk to Hans on the way out, accidentally left-click attacked him. Oops!

To prepare for Sheep Shearer, I have to free up my inventory for wool. That means headed to Draynor for banking, and oh gosh is the lack of a run button standing out. I've always had a fondness for older-than-old-school design like this, and I'm looking forward to familiarising myself with the pace of this game, but right now on Day 1 it's rough. Somehow the jail guards never attacked me all day, maybe they aren't aggressive? (Or maybe they can't catch me even when I enter their range)
Next issue: The bank interface. I keep accidentally not banking everything! Made a mental note to double-check my inventory when leaving the bank to make sure it only has what I intend to take. Hopefully this is another mechanic I get familiar with soon?

Quest 2) Sheep Shearer

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Check the wiki for where the shear spawn is, and... I have to buy it for 1gp. At least I didn't bank my gold! Somehow this quest is faster on RSC thanks to being able to shear the same sheep repeatedly. The spinning wheel using each piece of wool individually on the wheel feels like an alarming portent for what skill training in this game is going to look like... I'm sure it'll be fine? +1 Quest Point, +2 Crafting levels!



That just leaves one more quest in Lumbridge...

Quest 3) The Restless Ghost

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Alright! Into the swamp to get our amulet of ghostspeak, and... there's no path into the swamp from Lumbridge? Wait, really? So we go all the way around via draynor into the swamp, and of course he's in the furthest corner from the entrance. Hello Urhney, I've come to repossess your house! (No I don't know why, I just wanted this house!) This piece of dialogue is a vivid memory I've had from childhood, and I'm glad it's never changed either!
All the way back around to talk to the ghost, and... it wants a skull from the "warlocks to the south-west". Well, at least this trip isn't as far?
Stopped by the bank on the way over for some food, and escaping the angry skeleton wasn't a problem. One more trip back to Lumbridge and that's quest complete for Level 6 Prayer and +1 Quest Point!



I've let Temper know I'm going to need help for Shield of Arrav, and she's happy to take a break from Trailblazer Reloaded to experience RSC. I'll be doing the Black Arm Gang, so it's time for some serious combat training. Went for chickens over goblins for the feather drop and building up some food reserves, and set a target of Level 10 Strength/Attack/Defense before moving to Varrock.
Half an hour gets 10 Strength...



Ten more minutes of running around and I reach 10 Cooking. I've decided this is enough food and I'm getting really tired of walking to Draynor every 25 kills, so after this I stop picking up the unstackable raw chicken and just hang out at the farm to complete my combat goal.



Level 10 Attack is another fifteen minutes...



And one more fifteen-minute session earned Level 10 Defense.



All the 3.75 exp chicken bones also manage to finally add up to 10 Prayer! This really looks like the slowest skill in the game and it's not even close, given we started at Level 6 from the previous quest. The only saving grace seems to be that Level 40 will be enough to actually unlock all the prayers? It's definitely interesting seeing how dissimilar the skills are to each other.



With our chicken slaughter complete, it's over to Varrock for the remaining three release-day quests!

Quest 4) Shield of Arrav

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I'm a little worried about the Level 25 Weaponmaster in my near future, so I start by checking out the shops and figuring out what I can afford. Turns out the items in my bank don't have quite as much value to the general store as I was hoping (maybe I train magic sooner rather than later?), so I ultimately just settle on some bronze chain mail to avoid cleaning myself out.

With my new equipment I say hello to Reldo and make my way over to the Black Arm Gang. Katrine gives us the crossbow quest, and after getting the key from Temper and testing our new skills on a mugger near the door I make my way upstairs! This is my first real opportunity to test out the RSC mechanic of "retreaating from combat to eat before re-engaging". It takes most of my inventory of food as I learn how to do this sensibly, but the Weaponmaster does fall and I get out of there with the crossbows! Returning to Katrine gives me access to my shield half, and after coordinating with Temper we've completed the quest for 600 coins and +1 Quest Point! Time to start thinking tomorrow about what I want to buy...



That's all for Day 1! Next time I'll be playing Romeo & Juliet and taking on the Darkwizards in Demon Slayer. Here's my current hiscores page for a summary:

[Telna]

Quick note: After thinking a bit about my release-order goal, I elected to expand the restrictions slightly with no access to Asgarnia until I complete the ten quests that predate its release.

Day 2

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Quest 5) Romeo & Juliet

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Starting off with a quick run around Varrock! Nothing much to say here other than poor Juliet and even on classic, I still have no idea why this is worth 5 Quest Points.



Before starting the next quest, I decided to look into spending my reward from Shield of Arrav. Picked up a Bronze Platemail and an Iron Plateskirt from the shop, then went to the Aubrey's rune shop to look into magic training. Turns out another player called Dumbledore was buying out the stock at the time for their own training, and I accidentally wrecked the setup they had created with a trapped mugger for safespotting when it aggro'd onto me. Sorry about that! (It didn't take them long to fix it up, anyway)

Quest 6) Demon Slayer

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First real boss, and the last of the original six quests! Starting off with some busywork talking to the guard captain and fishing a key out of the drain, then we're headed over to the Wizard's Tower for the last key. Apparently we need 25 bones for a ritual? Traiborn is not very funny. Decided to take it out on the local wizards with the few runes I was able to buy! This was enough to get me to Level 5. Magic trains pretty quickly for how powerful it seems to be! Being able to cast it alongside melee with zero penalty is huge.



Of course, that wasn't enough for 25 bones, and without magic support it took a lot more food against the Level 16 wizards. Since I was in Draynor anyway, I decided to make a start on fishing shrimps to restock. After finaly putting together the bones and getting the last key, it was time to return to Varrock to collect Silverlight! This was actually my first weapon upgrade since arriving on RuneScape with the tutorial bronze long sword. Gear is pretty tough to get in this game without some decent gp reserves! I might need to try smithing some upgrades before the next major boss.

Decided to train up a little more before actually taking on the boss, and what better target than the Darkwizards themselves? A little effort brought me to Level 12 in Attack+Strength+Defense (I've been sticking to controlled today since I don't feel like micromanaging combat styles). This felt comfortable enough to make an attempt after another restock of my food supply, so I crept around the henge and attacked Delrith head-on! He hit pretty hard and I struggled a bit to find gaps between the Darkwizards to disengage and heal, but eventually I was able to recite the incantation and finish him for +3 Quest Points!

Quest 7) Ernest the Chicken

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With the six release-day quests completed, Al Kharid and Draynor Manor unlock! Our next quest is another quick and fun run around the latter location, and I have very fond memories of doing this quest in RS2 growing up. I remember memorising the basement lever puzzle and helping my classmates through the quest... and it turns out the QoL feature of unlocked doors being slightly ajar isn't a thing in RSC, and at some point my brain decided to stop having the solution memorised. Well, time to try every door after pulling each lever until I find the solution through trial-and-error follow the guide! Still a top-tier quest, though. +4 Quest Points makes 16 total, officially making us half-worthy of the Champion's Guild!



Our next quest is Vampire Slayer, which looks to be a tougher fight than Delrith... I think it's time to get my equipment up to at least a basic standard. This means training our mining and smithing skills! According to the wiki it's 6.25 exp per bronze bar smelted + 12.5 exp per bar smithed for 18.75 smithing exp total. I'd like to push to Level 15 Smithing right away so that I can make a start on Iron next time. That means 129 bronze bars, which I'll round up to 140 for 10 inventories worth of ore (2 inventory slots set aside for pickaxe/hammer and sleeping bag). One uncut sapphire dropped during the hour-long session, and I eventually come out of it with Level 20 mining and 139 Copper + Tin ores!



Next was over to Al Kharid to smelt the ores (a relatively comfortable process that pushed me to Level 8), and then back to Varrock for smithing. I started off with short swords for profitability, and took them over to the general store. The price very quickly crashed, so for the next set I went to the sword shop. Wait, the specialist shop buys my equipment for more coins than the general store did! Well, that's good to know. To avoid more price crashing (and speed up the smithing process, the anvil UI is WILD) I start mixing in long swords and eventually two-handed swords and chain mail. I keep a large bronze helm and kiteshield for my own use, and come out with Level 15 smithing and over 1600gp!



After the mess with the rune shop earlier, there's a particular purchase I've been keeping an eye on: a Staff of Air. With the unexpectedly strong windfall from our smithing session, I drop by Zaff's shop and pick one up for myself! I won't be using it right away, but next time I seriously train magic I expect it'll save more time and gp than that.

Quest 8) Vampire Slayer

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With our latest distraction now out of the way, it's time to put an end to the Count. I run to Varrock and back to learn how to slay a vampire (and accidentally end up needing to buy two beers for Doctor Harlow thanks to picking the wrong dialogue option with the first one. But hey, I put the required equipment together, put on my full set of gear, fill up with my remaining food from the Delrith fight, and head into the manor cellar!

It doesn't go so well. I escape with my life, but certainly not my dignity. Time for more training... I definitely need some more food, and I've noticed some Darkwizards next to the Draynor bank along with an Imp. Those Darkwizards can drop runes, so perhaps we can devise a more complex strategy? Either way, the plan is Level 15 combat stats. I hang out in this area for the next couple of hours, fighting the two Darkwizard spawns and banking all their drops. I've also noticed Imp Catcher on deck for the next quest after this, so I fight the nearby Imp as well. I get three beads! Yellow, black, and yellow again. Well, it's a start. The Darkwizards struggle to damage me now, and I only need the occasional bite of food. The result is quite the smorgasboard of stats! We reach Level 11 Prayer...



Level 15 Fighting...



Level 9 Fishing...



Level 2 Woodcut and Firemaking...



and Level 17 Cooking! I know Cooking isn't the most challenging skill to work around given how it tends to outpace Fishing, but it's still nice to see the total level accumulate.



With my combat level increased by 3 to 17, I feel a lot more comfortable taking on Count Draynor once more. Especially with my secret weapon... the runes gathered from the Darkwizards! After this fight, it's clear to me that I need to be using magic in every difficult battle. The power increase from simply casting Water Strike alongside my melee attacks was enormous! It also boosted me to Level 8 Magic.



Finally, I switch to the stake at the last moment and hammer it into the vampire to end the fight and complete the quest! 3 more Quest Points brings me to a total of 19, and the Attack experience gained brings me all the way to Level 21! I guess I'll be micromanaging combat styles next time after all.



That's everything for Day 2! Four more quests complete and quite a lot of low level skill training to go with it. Next time will be the remaining two beads for Imp Catcher... I'll have to see about finding a location with multiple spawns. Here's my current hiscore table!

[Marwolf]

Such a fun read!

[Telna]

Thanks! I'm glad this is entertaining - I'm certainly having a lot of fun!
I think one of my favourite things about the game so far over OSRS/RS3 is how much more cohesive the world feels without 20+ years of content layered on top of itself. I can handle a game that's slow-paced or that lacks QoL features as long as the game itself knows that that's what it wants to be, I guess? The world feels more real and it's easier to become invested in it as a result.
Anyway, on with the diary!

Day 3

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Quest 9) Imp Catcher

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Well, I spent the night dreading this one. I already made a start on it yesterday farming the Draynor Imp next to the Darkwizards there, coming out with 2 yellow beads and a black bead. That's 2/4, right? How many kills do I have already, anyway?



Well, it's a start. Given I'm still limited to Misthalin thanks to my quest progression, I open up the wiki and find a group of three spawns around the southwest of Edgeville to camp. Getting settled into a call with Temper and friends, I prepare for the long haul.

I'd just finished settling into a rhythm when the white bead dropped. Just one to go already, I wonder how many duplicates I'll get before it drops?

...No duplicates. Just a few minutes later the red bead drops as well, and just like that I'm returning to the Wizard's Tower to turn in my quest for Level 13 Magic, the Amulet of Accuracy, and another Quest Point!



And what about the final kill count?



I am a spoon. (19% chance to be at least this lucky)

Quest 10) Prince Ali Rescue

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Time for another big runaround quest! This one is a lot bigger than the previous quests with resources to be gathered all across the world, which is really cool. Starting off with a trip to Al-Kharid (and yes, I refuse to pay 10 coins for the gate), where the chancellor spontaneously gives me a bucket of water when I complain about the heat. Oh, Runescape...

After being assessed of the situation, I go to visit Leela and get the full details, and then to Aggie for paste and dye. Miraculously (and I genuinely did not do this intentionally), the bucket of water turns out to be needed for the paste! That's one small timesave, which I immediately negate by forgetting to bring a pot to the windmill to collect the required flour after I mill it. Next is Ned for a rope and a wig. I check my bank and see two balls of wool out of a required three for the wig. Perhaps it would have been better to have spent just a little longer on the imp quest? There's nothing else to do here, so I'm over to Varrock next.

Mine some clay, get more water to soften it, buy a pink skirt, spin more wool, dye a wig, imprint a key, learn I also need three beers. Buy them on the way to Al Kharid, turn in the key imprints, back to Leela to get the key, get Joe drunk, tie up Keli, and finish the quest! It's hard not to make it sound tedious, but I did really enjoy this as the first larger-scale noncombat quest. And hey, now I can use the Al Kharid gate! (also 700 coins and 3 Quest Points)



With ten quests done, we are now up to the point of Asgarnia's release! After my earlier run-in at the Varrock rune store, I've been keeping an eye on the global map and noticed that Port Sarim is consistently much emptier with a second rune store. After vividly demonstrating the power of magic in RSC to myself yesterday against Count Draynor, I'd like to get some more magic training in. The most cost-effective way will be wind strike buying mind runes, and we did just get a big influx of gp, so it's over to Port Sarim to start buying Mind Runes, and I'll stock up on Chaos Runes too for when we unlock wind bolt.

I suspect a few of you laughed at that last sentence, because I'm just now finding out that Chaos Runes aren't buyable! Now I understand why Magic is so powerful in this game, because gathering the runes for the good spells is really difficult. Well, I'll still buy the Mind Runes. The stock here is slightly lower than at Varrock, but it restocks quickly enough that I don't really mind, especially when it means less competition! I decide to proceed with the original plan for now anyway, and return to my old friends the Draynor Darkwizards in hopes that they drop me some extra runes while I train on them.

After my big influx of Attack experience from Vampire Slayer, and with no real threat posed by my level 13 foes at this point, I sit on Aggressive style and start building up my Strength level while I cast. I'm not here for all that long, but I pick up 12 Prayer and 16 Strength on my way to 17 Magic and the unlock of wind bolt. (Not that I'll probably be using it on anything I don't strictly need to...)



With a brief training session completed, I elect to finish the day with the easier two of the new Asgarnia quests.

Quest 11) Witch's Potion

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This quest falls over so quickly there's honestly nothing to say about it. I'm glad I trained my magic before this quest, though! The reward takes me up to Level 19 Magic and 24 Quest Points. Closing in on Dragon Slayer!

Quest 12) Doric's Quest

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Another quick one! After briefly struggling to locate the entrance to the Dwarven Mine, I head in and start digging up the requested resources. The amount of effort required to get even 1 Iron Ore even at 21 Mining is quite alarming, but at least I only need 2 and the copper and clay are quick. I think I won't be doing any more mining until I buy myself a better pickaxe! I just spent a fair bit of my Prince Ali Rescue gp on mind runes, but if I line up Black Knight's Fortress to be my first quest tomorrow I should be able to replenish my gold reserves! Regardless, with the required mining completed, I turn in my resources to Doric and earn two more Mining levels and a Quest Point for my trouble.



That's all for today, as I spent the rest of my time researching how I'd like to go about training up my combat level for Dragon Slayer (and also discovering I can trade in my Plate Mail for a Plate Top). Given what I learned about the scarcity of high-level runes today, I feel like ice warriors and chaos druids might be good choices when the time comes, depending on how unpleasant the Wilderness turns out to be in RSC. Anyway, here's my current hiscore sheet!

[Telna]

Day 4

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Quest 13) Black Knights' Fortress

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Our first goal today is to make some money through a new quest! We make our first visit to the White Knights' Castle in Falador (which looks almost unrecognisable thanks to every building in this game having the same iconic architectural style) and receive our spy mission. ("I cower in a corner at the first sign of danger!" "that's okay spy work involves a little bit of hiding in corners") Off we go to the fortress!

...Well, we apparently aren't allowed in until we dress up to look like a guard. Thank you guard for telling us exactly how to look like a guard! One trip to Varrock later and we are now inside the Fortress! Hmm, "Push Odd-looking wall"... cute way to do a secret passage. Listen in and we need a cabbage? I saw some in the cabbage patch right nearby. After grabbing one, I try to go in the other direction and am told the high-level black knights will try to kill me as soon as I enter their meeting room. I hide and cower at the first sign of danger, so I refuse to enter that room until they've all wandered into the opposite corner! When the moment strikes, I rush in and run to the opposite door before they can get to me. From there, it's a little more exploration until I find the hole to drop the cabbage into. Success! Returning to Falador nets me 3 Quest Points and a huge 2500 coins.



The next quest is The Knight's Sword, but I'd like to plan the exp reward to push me to Level 30 Smithing and skip the bulk of the iron grind. Step 1 is to spend my quest reward! I duck into the Dwarven Mine and spend 1300 gold on a Mithril Pickaxe, then head toward Varrock and spend the remaining 1300 on a Mithril Long Sword (I had a bit over 100 left over from previous activities). These should serve me well for a while! Now to the southeast mine where I start mining iron directly to 30 Mining. The grind is quick, and picking up a few assorted gems along the way leaves me with 192 Iron ore.



I take the bars down to Al Kharid to test my smelting luck. First inventory 16/28 cool, second inventory 12/28 okay that balances out... 16/28, 17/28, 17/28, 16/28, 16/24, sorry, what?! That's 110/192 total for a 57.3% smelt rate. It's one-in-39 to get at least this lucky! Guess I'm still a spoon.

There was also a fun conversation going on in the nearby Varrock bank while I smithed my bars into various swords and helmets - somehow Preservation feels more social than either modern runescape game despite having 0.1% of the player base. I'm really enjoying the close-knit community! Anyway, It only takes about 60 bars to get me to my goal of 21 Smithing, letting me bank the other 50 for future profit (and even the bars I did smith turned into products worth another 1800 gold). About time I took on the quest!

Quest 14) The Knight's Sword

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Starting off with a bit of a runaround to make redberry pie. Not too challenging, simply heading up to Varrock and back via the windmill and Lumbridge range to bake a pie. Thankfully I don't burn it! Over to Thurgo, who asks me to get a picture of the sword. On my way back to Falador, the local Highwayman aggros on to me and helpfully gives me a cape. I soon find out I need a distraction, and while I wait for Temper to be available to help out I decide to go on a sidequest. After all, I don't want a black cape, I want my cape! Two woad leaves and onions and one visit to Aggie later, I'm wearing a very fancy green cape. It's only +2 armour, but it looks cool!

Soon Temper arrives and I'm able to get the portrait. Next is time for blurite in the ice dungeon below, and the first thing I notice is how cramped this dungeon is. Aggressive monsters are everywhere, and my combat level doesn't really stand up to most of them. I manage to run past and sneak up to the blurite without serious incident, but then a giant walks up to attack me just as I finish mining. I retreat as soon as possible to heal up, but then on my way out an ice warrior moves in to intercept. I pull away to heal again but another one has stacked on top, and with the warrior landing 6s and 7s I find myself facing the death screen for the first time...

I wake up back in Lumbridge with my Mithril Long Sword, Iron Plate Top, and Mithril Pickaxe. I bank everything and run back in to save my things, but it gets messy with how much food was dropped alongside it. I'm able to grab the blurite along with my Iron Plateskirt and new Cape, but I pick up some shrimp as well which leads me to drop the blurite when I die again. I try to drop the shrimp at the last moment, but I die on the same tick which results in my waking up with the shrimp at my feet in Lumbridge! I go back in again and manage to hold the blurite in another death, but the ice warriors get to keep everything else. I suppose it's a lesson learned.

At the very least, I'm grateful now that I left some iron bars in my bank, as I'm able to simply withdraw two and turn them in alongside the blurite to get this replica sword created. Turning it in to the squire wraps up the quest for 1 more Quest Point and enough Smithing experience to jump me all the way to Level 30!



It was really messy, but we got it done without too much loss. I return to Varrock and craft a new Large Iron Helmet and Iron Kiteshield, then over to Goblin Village to continue my questing sequence. Talking to the goblin generals gets me... nothing. Wait, Goblin Diplomacy starts in Port Sarim?!

Quest 15) Goblin Diplomacy

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We talk to the bartender, who tells us to go and investigate Goblin Village. Apparently the quest was quietly reworked in 2006 to no longer require this extra step? It makes more sense from a standpoint of "why would we go to this weird goblin place where they're always fighting if we didn't already have an inkling that something was up", I suppose? Very silly. I decide to pre-prepare the dyes while I'm running around, since I remember the bulk of this quest, meaning that once I return to Goblin Village I only need the armour to dye. What's that, they don't have any armour laying around to let me use? Well, that's unfortunate for the local villagers.

The first armour drops on my second goblin kill, but the second and third take quite a bit longer. All in all, it takes 55 goblin kills to get the three drops (With an average of 38.4, less than 19% of players go this dry). I don't mind too much since I learned in the last quest how desperately I need the combat training, and it just so happens the kill that gets me 21 Strength is the same one that drops my last armour piece!



That equalises my Strength and Attack levels after the experience I gained from Vampire Slayer so long ago. Now I'll be able to switch to Defensive style and train my Defense later to match! For now, though, we help the generals figure out what they really wanted all along, and leave the village with an extra crafting level plus a whole 5 Quest Points. Why five? Why indeed.



I'm in the mood to reach the foot of the mountain that is Dragon Slayer tonight, and there's one more short quest in the way.

Quest 16) Pirate's Treasure

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This one's another very goofy runaround. I have a fun memory of running around as a child and figuring out how to smuggle the rum, and becoming an employee of the grocery store for all of one minute before abandoning Wydin forever is quite something. It was rather funny how comfortable it was to pick the bananas (the game even tells you when you pick the last one!), but how much work it was to load them into the chest (right click -> use -> use on crate). Thankfully I only ate one by mistake! Wyson had managed to get himself stuck behind the fence in Falador park, so I didn't even end up needing to fight him in the end, and I was able to finish up quickly with 2 more Quest Points and a decent haul of treasure! I sell the gold ring for extra gp, but keep the emerald for future crafting.



This brings us to a total of 36 Quest Points, with the free to play quest book now completed... with the exception of Dragon Slayer. It goes without saying that we have a lot of training to do before we'll be anywhere close to ready to face the Crandor Dragon. There is one major obstacle to future combat training, however, and it's one you may have seen the effects of in a previous screenshot - we lost all our food in the ice dungeon. There isn't too much time left in the day, but I'm going to finish up with some bait fishing.

We're starting off with 9 fishing and I'd ideally like to go all the way to 20 so that I can upgrade my methods again next time. I spend some of my gp on fishing bait at Port Sarim (buying 50 at a time to avoid being gouged excessively on price), and then wander over to neighbouring Draynor to catch some sardines and herring. I restock my bait each time I run out (costing 231gp each time) and chop nearby trees to cook the fish on the spot. The result is a decent collection of levels, including Level 25 Cooking...



Level 3 Woodcut and Level 4 Firemaking...



And of course, our goal of Level 20 Fishing!



All in all, the grind takes us about an hour, and provides us with plenty of food to use in our training sessions tomorrow. That's the end of Day 4, so here's the hiscore table!

[Telna]

Day 5

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So, we've finished all sixteen low-level free-to-play quests, which just leaves Dragon Slayer. Of course, it's going to be a lot of work before we can get there, so the next few days are going to be tracking my journey toward building up my combat skills (along with other supporting skills, which is all of them). As a reminder, I won't be entering the members area or using members skills until Dragon Slayer is completed.

To start off the day, I'd like to get some more magic training in. To make this happen, I air strike the Draynor Darkwizards while running to and from Port Sarim to buy its mind rune stock. All the running back and forth is a bit unpleasant and I elect not to keep it up for long, but after about 40 minutes it does get me to 26 Magic and 17 Defense with an additional 150 mind runes that I bank.




After setting the magic training aside and switching to my melee gear, the two Draynor spawns aren't enough, so I move to Varrock and fight the spawns there to push for 21 Defense to equalise my combat stats. I start using my stock of Sardines to let me fight the level 25 Darkwizards for their better drops, and after another 40-odd minutes I reach 21 Defense and 14 Prayer! One of the level-up screenshots captures my inventory with all the runes I picked up during this grind, and it really shows a representation of what I'll be earning all day.



With all my fighting stats now equal at Level 21 (including hitpoints!), it's time to look at an armour upgrade. Looks like I can purchase a mithril platetop, platelegs, helmet and shield at various towns around the world for reasonable prices, so let's earn the gp to make that happen! My go-to moneymaker so far has been smithing, and I don't see any reason to change it up. Starting off by smithing my remaining iron bars from yesterday gets me to Level 31 Smithing, which is well within range to start working with steel.



So let's see how difficult steel is going to be. Starting off aiming for 27 steel bars (1 inventory of iron and 2 of coal...). I mine the iron first as a quick test shows me that it's much easier to extract, then go to Barbarian Village for the coal. It's slow going at first and I often go several 5-attempt clicks without getting anything, but when my luck runs well I can also have all four rocks briefly exhausted. I suppose with mining it's just high variance no matter what you do? I smith the inventory into axes and don't get any smithing levels (it looks like the skill really, really starts to slow down from here...), but sell them one-by-one to Bob's Axes while I afk for, wait, that one inventory was worth over 3000gp? Put together with the rest of my gold and I can buy the mithril plate top! Then at that rate, two more inventories of steel should get me the full set!

The mining gets comfortable enough before long, and I'm able to reach Level 35 with it from the coal. It's starting to pick up the pace now, and I'm able to enjoy myself, Smelting the bars then earns me 32 Smithing, and on the way back to Varrock I come across inferno846, who recognises me from this diary! We chat for a little bit before they move on, and I smith enough steel maces for 33 Smithing!



I switch to smithing medium helmets with the rest of my bars and sell my products to Peksa and Flynn. Then I sell off my old equipment and buy a Mithril Plateskirt, a Large Mithril Helm, and a Mithril Square Shie- wait what do you mean you have zero stock? And you just took my previous shield! Apparently, all I can do for now is re-smith the iron kiteshield I just sold. And of course, it takes me ten iron ores to smith three bars... I end up getting 36 Mining from it before I'm able to get my shield back.



But with my equipment finally all sorted, I'd like to try myself on something new, and I'm thinking of building up my prayer level against Giants in Edgeville Dungeon. I start off with the obligatory run to get a dusty key through plenty of aggressive level 30+ monsters. My 91 armour stat holds up well enough to get me through, and I'm able to pick up the key. However, once I reach the giants and start trying to fight back rather than simply run past enemies, it doesn't take me long to realise that training here isn't going to be sustainable at my current level. It was a good try though, and we don't seem too far off? Either way, we're back to the Darkwizards to drive up our levels.

I slowly go through my sardines as I train up my combat levels in controlled style over the next several hours. Soon inferno846 drops in to join me, and the two of us train together and farm up some runes. Two hours later, and with all my sardines consumed, I'm able to reach Level 24 in all my Melee skills along with Level 15 Prayer for a total combat level of 29!



I take a break at this point, but return later for another two hours to find a more satisfying stopping point. I start by earning Level 25 fighting alongside 16 Prayer...



At the very end, I let my HP run a little too low after my food has run out and have to retreat from a level 25 Darkwizard to restock and recover. Unfortunately, one of the level 13s manages to bodyblock my path out of the henge, and the enemy I tried to run from catches back up and re-aggros. It's terrifying for a moment, but thankfully my luck turns around and I'm able to finish it off in two clean hits and escape to the bank from there. That very kill earns me combat level 30!



While I'm training this, I realise I have enough gp in the bank left over from my mithril shopping spree to pick up an Adamantite Long Sword on the spot. Of course, actually wielding this will require 30 Attack, so I switch to an Aggressive style and let the levels roll in. 17 Prayer happens along the way, as well as 28 Hits. Finally, after a long day's work, I earn the right to wield my new sword!



On the way back to the bank for the last time, I see a message pop up in chat from Holly, another player I've seen around a lot (who I believe is farming death runes through raising cats?)

Telny already got mith :O

Who wouldn't smile at that? <3

To finish off the day, I'll share a screenshot of the runes in my bank after an accumulated 352 Level 13 Darkwizard kills + 146 Level 25 Darkwizard kills:


And as always, here is my current hiscore table:

[Telna]

Day 6

---

Second day of training for Dragon Slayer! My goals before starting the quest are to get 40 in Fighting + Magic, full adamantite, an emerald amulet, and as much prayer as I can get along with a comfortable supply of decent-level fish (at least tuna or lobster).

Last time I reached 30 Attack to wield an adamantite longsword, so I decide to start the day by trying it out on the giants with the last of my herring. It's a quick session (I only have 5 herring left), but it's enough to get me to 18 Prayer!



Of course, 5 herring later I'm out of food, so it's time to upgrade to trout! My Day 1 chicken slaughter is finally paying dividends
I fish in Barbarian Village, cooking on the spot as usual. It only takes about half an hour to reach 25 Fishing to unlock pike, and along the way I also earn 4 Woodcut and 28 Cooking.



With our food stores resupplied, it's time to return to the giants! This time, however, I bring my staff of air and use fire strike to take down the giants. This turns out to help a lot! Getting around in the aggressive giant's cave is a little dangerous alone, but I'm not the only player here today - Artorias is set up in the middle of the cave AFK training on them with a dragon longsword (and doesn't mind if others pick up their drops), and Fuerikson is also training here on their own dragon slayer grind! The three of us are able to keep the spawns under control, making the dungeon a lot safer while we train.

My fire runes run out just before 29 magic, so I finish it off with wind strike and get out of there. Magic training turns out to be really quick when I have the runes to burn, this process only takes 10 minutes!



After restoring my food, I switch back to my longsword to train prayer and defense. This is much slower going, of course, but after another half-hour we manage 27 Defense and 20 Prayer.



I'm getting a little tired of struggling against the giants at this point, so I return to the darkwizards for the next half-hour and train up to 27 Strength.



In the mood to bounce back and forth, I bring my earth runes back to the giants for another round of magic training with earth strike! Once again, the runes only last a few minutes, but it's enough to push me to 31 Magic.



Back to the darkwizards for another half-hour burst, with my aim this time to achieve 30 Strength and really improve my damage potential. I also earn 21 Prayer along the way!



I finish off the combat session with one last visit to the giants, where I earn 28 Defence using up the last of my trout. I didn't realise at the time how much I was going back and forth! It was fun, though.



With the trout from my brief fishing session all gone, there's nothing to do but fish more. I previously stopped at Level 25 because I was thinking of moving to pike, but after considering how many feathers I have and how much hassle buying fishing bait would be, I decide I'd rather just stick with fly fishing all the way to 35. Time to settle in for another 90-minute session!



It's quite a few laps running back and forth between Edgeville and Barbarian Village, and of course a full inventory of trout gives just over 50% fatigue so I need to sleep every lap as well... At least it speeds up after Level 30 when the salmon start coming in as well! They'll be nice with the 9-heal food, but I also end up with almost 150 trout to get through first.

Along the way I reach Level 6 Woodcut...



Level 8 Firemaking...



Level 36 Cooking...



and our big goal of Level 35 Fishing!



With that, I'll be able to save the rest of our feathers for eventual Ranged training, and move on to harpooning tuna the next time we need food.

Now that I've resupplied myself for more combat, it's time to make 30 Defense happen! We got quite close before and I decide to stick with the lower-intensity darkwizards to make this happen. Along the way I reach 22 Prayer, which unlocks rapid heal!



I notice how low the drain rate on this prayer is, and immediately work it into my routine to finish the grind without additional food. It looks like it's honestly going to really make a difference for sustaining my hitpoints with less food required. Thanks to that, the last push to 30 Defense is quite quick!



With Base 30 Fighting skills, my next goal is to equip myself in full Adamantite armour and become properly comfortable facing the giants (whose combat level I now almost equal). This means making about 20kgp, which means mining + smithing! I decide to aim for 135 steel, which means 5 inventories of iron + 10 inventories of coal. Let the three-hour grind begin...



The iron mining goes quickly enough, and the pace of the skill at this level is comfortable enough that I don't get too bored or tired with it. The coal is a tougher push, and one that really makes me want to farm plenty of nature runes for when I unlock Superheat Item, but I don't mind it for now. And hey, 41 Mining!



Smelting 135 steel 9 at a time in Al Kharid turns out to be pretty rough going. I at least reach 34 Smithing from it, but when I eventually advance to mithril and up I am really going to be looking hard for alternative solutions.



Over to the anvils to menu my bars into products! I decide to split my bars at first between helmets and short swords (to get ripped off less on the decreasing sell prices), and to sell one inventory at a time at the nearby specialty shops (I don't want to go all the way to falador to sell). This turns out to be an interesting puzzle as the swords have a higher base price but drop in cost faster, while helmets have a lower base price but maintain more of their value when selling in bulk. I find a combination that nets me 4293gp per inventory of 27 bars, which feels pretty good! This brings me to 36 Smithing after about halfway.



At this point I start mixing in long swords as well to save time as they use two bars at once. On a per-bar basis these are worth significantly less gp than helmets or short swords, but it also allows me to avoid tanking the price of either product too strongly now. The result is 4292gp per inventory, and I'll happily pay 1gp for the timesave!

Once I finish selling everything, I find myself with over 26kgp - enough to buy a full Adamantite set! I get the plateskirt from Al Kharid, the Helmet from Barbarian Village, and for the plate top I'll be making my first visit to the Champion's Guild! The guildmaster tells me that the influence requirement to enter the guild will continue to increase as more quests are added to the game, which looks a little silly given how they stopped this practice with the release of membership! Upstairs I purchase my plate top from Valaine - "She runs the champion's store". I also take a look at Scavvo and his rune store - "He has lopsided eyes". I think perhaps they have lopsided examine texts! The rune equipment here doesn't look too compelling given there's no helmet or plate top, but I'm sure I'll be buying a couple of things there eventually. (Perhaps if my first attempt at Dragon Slayer goes awry?)

After a lot of hard work and running around, we now have full Adamantite! Time to revisit those giants. I'd also like to continue magic training, and helpfully the Varrock rune shop doesn't seem to be camped right now! I buy a pack of elemental and mind runes, and wonder what the body runes are even used for. I check my bank and realise I have over 150 of them? Looks like the only use is some small debuff spells. Well, it's something! I go in with some more fire strikes as well, and push three quick levels to 34 Magic before running out of fire strikes and switching back to melee.



At this point I don't have too much time left in the day, but the new armour set helps a lot, and I'm able to push to 23 Prayer...



and 31 Fighting! (I'm tired of micromanaging combat styles, so controlled it is)



It feels like I'm at a point now where every level is going to make the giants more and more comfortable, but it'll have to wait for next time to see this in action. For now, as always, here is my current hiscore table!

[Telna]

Day 7

---

Today marks our third day of Dragon Slayer training. To start things off, I notice that Aubrey isn't being camped today! Time to spend some gp and train my magic...

The plan is to buy up earth and water runes, then use them alongside my stockpiled body runes to cast Curse and Weaken on each giant as I enter combat with them. Applying some debuffs will help make the fights a little easier while I continue to level my melee combat.

This turns into 100 magic exp per giant, though I have to return to town every 10 giants to buy another 50-pack of runes. This slows down the melee training quite a bit, but I do pick up 32 Fighting along the way!



Artorias is AFK training here again today, which keeps the spawn rate down but also helps me bury some extra big bones to earn 26 Prayer as well.



Of course, the magic experience is very strong, and mixing in some fire strikes I'm able to powerlevel all the way to 39 Magic!



This feels like a very solid goal for now after two hours of magic training. While the giants do drop decent supplies of gp, constantly buying runes is getting both expensive and time-consuming so I put the magic away and focus in on training my melee Fighting.

Combat training is surprisingly slow, though I guess I am training four skills at once. I continue the grind for another two-and-a-half hours, slowly pushing up my combat and prayer exp. The prayer levels are really catching up from the big bones, and I'm able to push all the way to Level 29 Prayer!



Finally, after a total of five hours of giant-slaying across both magic-focus and melee-focus, I am able to reach Level 34 Fighting. Only three levels... it's going to be a lot of work to make Level 40 happen. Perhaps I should try and push to complete Dragon Slayer sooner?



Not really sure how to think about it, honestly. At this point I'm out of trout and would like a break anyway, so I decide to go for Level 40 Smithing. The gold and equipment the giants drop are actually worth a fair bit of gp on their own, but it's still several times less than what I can earn from smithing. Besides, I'd love to lock in a best-in-slot rune pickaxe, and 32000gp is beginning to look affordable! I do some quick calculations and it looks like 7 inventories of steel bars should get me there... which means 14 inventories of coal. Time for another two-and-a-half hours...



I honestly don't find mining and smithing to be too bad (at least so far), despite the enormous time investment. And hey, that was Level 46 Mining! Now my far my highest-levelled skill... I get the impression it's going to continue ridiculously outpacing smithing until I unlock superheat or find other ways of getting bars. Over to Al Kharid...



The smelting remains the least enjoyable part of this, mostly because I have to bank every nine actions. There's just no time to get into a groove! At least we get 37 Smithing out of it, which is enough to unlock large helmets. I make heavy use of these when I go to the anvil to start making a little more money from each trip!



The anvil menuing never ceases to be really, really silly, but by this stage of the process we've condensed our inventories significantly so it still ends up feeling short. The big exp is here, of course, and we reach 40 Smithing on the very last steel bar!

You might also have noticed that most of the doors in varrock are closed in that screenshot - blame MOONBOLT. I tried to fight back!

With nearly 40kgp in the bank now, it's just a short trip to the Dwarven Mine between me and my new rune pickaxe. I'm sure this will serve me well going forward, especially once I start mining gold for Crafting.

After all the long sessions today, I'd like to finish by training a few fishing levels on tuna to maintain my supplies for the next combat session. I buy a harpoon, catch the ferry to Musa Point, and start fishing on the dock!



This was a mistake. I didn't expect the catch rate to be so spectacularly bad! It had to have been 1/10 at the most. IIRC harpooning is one of those fishing methods that eventually unlocks a second fish, so I'm guessing it's meant to improve after that? I bail out after one inventory, though that was still enough to earn me 36 Fishing. I'll get the rest of the way to 40 fly fishing. Oh, and I reach Level 6 Woodcut fuelling a fire to cook my tuna. At least the cooking success rate was good?



Today was a bit here and there, with several long training sessions. I'm not entirely sure how realistic the Level 40 Fighting grind is going to be given the slow pace of training today, but I doubt it's getting better any time soon, and I really need the hitpoints before taking on the Dragon. I'll keep doing my best, but in the meantime, here are my current hiscores!