Runescape: Morytania Hard Tasks

More Morytania... We ran through the easy and medium tasks pretty much without any slowdowns. Next up is the hard tasks. This was noticeably more difficult than the first two, but nothing that really caused any major hold-ups. Bear in mind, Monique and I are quest-fiends. We do every quest as soon as we can, and try our best to get all the little hidden extras that sometimes come along. We love new content, so when I'm talking about these tasks, it's from that perspective. If you haven't done the respective quests first, it could take quite a bit of time to get up to speed.

Just a bit to the north

First was killing Tarn Razorlor. "Detarnation" is simple if you've got a ring of Slaying. Just bop in, and run a bit north. If you've already killed him, all you have to do is walk into the room. Over and done.

Doing "Runecraft Carrier" was a bit of a hiccup. Having to break a Blood Altar teleport tablet presupposes you've earned one from the Runecrafting Guild game, which Monique and I have never done. Way back when it came out, we pronounced it boring and moved on. Now we had to go back and earn Runecrafting Guild tokens. It only needs 45, and we got that after one game. Not too bad.

Shade-Shattering Ka-Bloom was a horse of another color, though. I've never gone back and done much with vyres after the quests involving them. So my Flail of Ivandis was amazingly low in burn count for vyre corpses. This took a while, but it wasn't a massive task. Seems like it only took a couple of hours to kill the vyre, then a bit of time to burn them at the Columbarium. Doing Bloom itself was supremely easy, I just needed the vyre count above 200. Ran just barely inside the Mort Myre gate, and finished with a sigh of relief.

The graphics are much better than back when I used this course!

Back to the easy stuff. In "They'll just throw it away again", all that's needed is to take a quick lap around the Werewolf Agility Course, out in the swamp area behind the Canifis bank and across the river. Ring of Charos needed to get in. Neither Monique nor I ever played Skullball, but I can remember putting many hours in here trying to level up. Long time ago. When the lap was done, we handed in our sticks and moved on.

In Time Saver, we popped over to the Slayer Tower via the Slayer Ring, ran to the River Salve, crossed the bridge, climbed up the river bank, and slipped through the fence. Then back through, because the 'trigger' to get task credit is for the other direction.

Huge Success is one of those tasks that you do by accident. It requires either setting a house teleport to Kharyrll (Canifis), or using yours if it's already set. We didn't plan for this one, just did it accidentally in the course of going to Canifis.

The Barrows task didn't really appeal to me. For "I Brought Your Stuff Back", I thought you'd actually have to go into the dungeon beneath the crypts. Used to have really good luck with Barrows, then my luck went away. So I don't really like Barrows any more. Turned out a lot easier than expected, though. All you have to do is walk into the Barrows enclosure while wearing a full set of (any) Barrows gear. Take a quick teleport with Draken's Medallion, stroll in, and it's done. Not so bad after all.

Just One More Key built from the earlier task involving casting "Bloom". We saved all our Vyre corpses from building up the kill count, took them to the Columbarium, and burnt them. You get credit for this task by just using one key in the Columbarium alcoves, but we went ahead and burned all the corpses while we were at it. Got some decent drops, nothing spectacular.

We went back to Darkmeyer again for "Raising the Stakes". If you've already done the associated quest, this is a snap. Monique had to make another Silver Sickle(b), but I was lucky enough to have spares in the bank. Sickles in hand, we cut and fletched a Blisterwood Polearm on the spot. Job well done.

In a repeating theme for the Morytania tasks, next up was a return to Temple Trekking. In "Trekkin' Ain't Easy" you have to take a hard companion through the hard route. I was very lucky. In and out with only 3 events, and kept my Companion safe all the way. Monique got the neverending route... We honestly thought the game had decided to continue throwing events at her until she failed. Eventually, she won through. and finished the task. We've played a lot of Temple Trekking and Burg de Rhott Ramble since then, and have never again seen such a long trek. Must have just been a fluke.

The last Hard Task was "Better Than Cursing The Darkness." Go to the Haunted Woods. Either use the piece of bark from when you chopped a Hollow Tree down, or just chop one off right there on the spot. The Ring of Fire is one of the rewards from doing "All Fired Up." Wear the ring, and use the piece of bark to light a Haunted Woods Torch. Quick, easy, and done.

These were called Hard Tasks. If you haven't completed all the requirements first, it could be time-consuming to become qualified. But the tasks themselves were simple enough. As a reward, you get the improved Morytania Legs 3 from the old guy at the Barrows. In addition to the benefits of Legs 1 and 2, you get:

(If wearing) Better overall keys from burning shades. 50% more experience burning the remains. A chance of getting more Blood Runes when Runecrafting at the Blood Altar. Plus even odds of keeping your Blood Altar Teletab when using it.

(All the time) Talk to ghosts without your Ghostspeak Amulet. Halve the amount of prayer drain while in the Barrows. 10% more from the Temple Trekking rewards. Double runes from the Barrows chest. And Robin in Port Phasmatys will give you 26 bonemeal and slaim each day for 26 bones. (Don't note the bones, he won't take them.)

The exp lamp from Hard Tasks is good for 20,000 exp, but has to be for skills above level 65.  There might have been a hiccup or two along the way, but for the most part, the hard tasks won't slow down a higher level player. It didn't take long to finish this set at all.  Overall, I had a good bit of fun running through these!

Runescape Easter 2012: Chocatrice vs Evil Chicken

And if you look closely, you'll find my Ghast from the Morytania tasks!

 Just a quick update today.  I haven't permanently disappeared, just been very focused on the Morytania Elite tasks.  Monique and I did take a brief break to do the Easter 2012 event (A Fowl Easter).  It was cute, and humorous.  Apparently the Easter Bunny suffered a mishap this year.  Depending on whether you talk to the Chocatrice, or the Evil Chicken, (both can be found in the Varrock town square by the fountain) you hear a different version.  Chocatrice claims the Easter Bunny fell off White Wolf Mountain, with a rock tied to his foot.  Evil Chicken says he fell into a lava pit.  Both are pretty happy about it.  But each has his own agenda, and you have to choose which evil boss you want to support.

Before his unfortunate incident, E.B. (Easter Bunny) managed to hide 5 eggs.  Our task  was to collect those eggs.  At least 3 will get you a face mask.  Either a chocolate mask, or a fried egg mask, depending on who you're supporting.  But you can't just deliver the eggs.  You have to shoot them with the Egg-sterminator (No, I'm not making this up) to hatch the chicks, then shoot them again to turn the chicks into either a marshmallow chocolate treat, or a drumstick.  Horrible!  It' so sick I just had to laugh.  Those poor chicks are so cute, too.  They pop out of the egg with a high jump, and when they land, just innocently wander around peeping at things.  Until you shoot them.

Turn those poor edible remains in to your appropriate leader, and you get the appropriate mask.  But wait... there's more!  Yep, you can turn right around and do another egg hunt for the other side.  You get to be a double agent!  This is what we did, to collect both masks.  Then, if you've hard-shelled enough, go for it one more time.  Collect all five eggs 3 different times, for the final reward.  So we ran around, collecting all 5 eggs, 3 different times.  In return, our Eggsterminator is permanent.  Otherwise, when the event is over, the Eggsterminator melts away.

A Chocochick just hatching out!

Also, Every time you get 5 eggs during a single hunt, you get a small experience reward.  Pretty much in the same style and for the same points as a random event.  It's not much, and I sure wouldn't do the whole event over and over just for that.  But as long as it's there... I'm gonna cash it in!

One final bit of icing on the cake... if you're wearing one of the 2 masks, and another player shoots you with the Eggsterminator, there's a hidden emote.  You'll be spun fully around, with a mildly different animation depending on whether you're wearing the egg mask or the chocolate mask.  To be honest, we had a hard time telling the two emotes apart.  But it didn't stop us from shooting each other for a while!

Hit me again!

That was the description.  As far as opinion goes, maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it, but it just didn't seem as fun as most seasonal events.  It was cute, it was funny (in a mean sort of way), and had plenty of added content depending on how thorough you wanted to be.  The difficulty was easy enough to get finished pretty quickly.  There was even a bonus.  A new hunt starts every two hours.  Whoever is the first person to find a certain egg during the current hunt, has their name announced on the public chat for all to see.  Not that Monique or I ever managed that.  We were more 'follow the leader' this time around.

But still, it just seemed flat this time.  Maybe I was too focused on the Morytania tasks.  I  do tend to obsess on just one thing until it's done.  Or maybe the hunt was just too much 'same old, same old'.  Not sure.  Last year's Easter content was spectacular, maybe this one just didn't measure up by comparison.

Maybe it was just me.  What was your opinion?

Runescape: Morytania Medium Tasks

Now that Jagex finally released the Morytania tasks, Monique and I have been running through them a bit each day.  For fun, and because it just makes sense, we've started with the easy tasks, and are working our way up.  The last blog covered all the easy tasks, and they were pretty much an easy run exactly as advertised.  Next comes the Medium tasks.  Starting right off the bat, this doesn't seem very different from the easy tasks.  To begin with, we hopped a charter ship to Port Phasmatys.  This takes a couple of ecto tokens unless you've complete Ghosts Ahoy. 

Then it's on the the Burgh de Rott Ramble, which is the reverse of the Temple Trekking game.  This one's pretty easy, since there's no prerequisite as to who you have to choose, or which route to take.  Just grab one of the easy companions, and zip through whichever route sounds fun.  Even if you don't play Ramble or Trekking, this one's really easy.

The next task is just as easy as the boat charter task.  Use your ectophial.  That's it.  If you've got the ectophial, this one takes barely a moment.  It was also one of those Monique and I completed by accident.  When we were headed over that way, we didn't realize the ectophial was actually a later task.  Guess we should have looked ahead and planned, but it's just more fun to take them one at a time. 

The Yeast They Can Do involved buying brewing yeast from Metarialus.  He lives (bad pun) in the Green Ghost Inn, down in the cellar.  By the way, you'll need your Ghostspeak amulet.  Keep the yeast, you'll use it later (Unless you're one of those organized folk that plan everything out for maximum efficiency.  In that case, you probably came prepared for the other task involving brewing.)

For the Flamtaer task, we both had to go buy another hammer.  Ours were sacrificed years ago to the god of 'not enough bank space'.  I vaguely remember that way back then, we thought 13,000 gold was a significant expense (The cost of a Flamtaer Hammer).  Years later, 13k is about what we get from the free daily Flax that Geoffrey... er, Flax... gives out.  I like all those little freebies Runescape offers as you achieve new things.  Don't always bother with them, but it's a nice extra bonus.  Anyway, once you've got the hammer, this one's just a quick dash in and you're done. 

The Fairy Rings are along the same line as the charter boat or the ectophial task.  All you have to do is teleport in from a fairy ring.  I'll even save you having to look it up... the code is ALQ.  Most likely, you've already accidentally done this one, especially if you hunt penguins weekly.

Barking up the wrong tree is another one of those where you need to keep for a later task.  Go to Canifis, click on the other side of the river, and just run around a bit.  The hollow trees are easy to find.  (No Keebler elves, though.)  Cut some bark, and bank it for later.  The next task involved using the western gate of Port Phasmatys.  Since we were already close, we just ran over that way.  I think we had to be leaving the town for it to count.  Don't remember for sure, but it seems like just running into town from the swamp didn't work.  We had to use the side gate as we were leaving to make it official.  Or maybe it just required a two-way use.

Ready? Trek! found us running through Temple Trekking once again.  This is definitely an ongoing theme.  From easy to elite, Temple Trekking (and Burg de Rott) are thoroughly woven into the Morytania task set.  In this one, we had to take a medium companion through a medium route.  Okay,still easy enough.  And only one run-through.  No big problems, yet.

Here's where it started getting my attention.  Unlock a chest in the Shade Catacombs?  Right, like I'm going to remember how to do that.  It was plain luck that I remembered how to get to the Shade Catacombs!  Wound up googling how to do it.  Found some sacred oil still in my bank after all this time, but it wasn't enough.  Turns out easy enough to just buy more from the GE.  Because of the tasks being newly released, I had to pay a lot more than the GE price.  But when we offered enough, they were quickly available.  Went through all the appropriate steps.  Killed a shade in Mort'ton, burned the remains on the west side of town, took the resulting keys to the catacombs.  No, it really wasn't hard.  Just tedious. 

 Back to the simple;  our next goal was to trap a swamp lizard.  In the Haunted Woods, there's a hunter icon just a little south from the Werewolf Agility Course.  Bringing a rope and a small fishing net allowed us to quickly net our quota of swamp lizard.  Had to bring an extra net... the one in out toolbelts didn't work.

For Finding Your Balance, we had to make a Guthix Balance potion completely within Morytania.  All it took was Harralander, Red Spider's Eggs, and a vial of water to make a Restore Potion.  Then we added Garlic and Silver Dust.  For this one, the GE was a great way to get all the parts.  Then just ecto in, mix the brew, and we're ready to hit the next one.

The Beer Inn-spectre is a follow-on from when we had to come down here for the easier tasks.  We did ours at the same time, but if you're coming here from scratch, you'll want to come prepared to make either Ale, or Cider.  Cider is simpler, but both are easy enough.  For Cider, just bring 16 cooking apples and 4 empty buckets.  For ale, it's 2 buckets of water, a couple of barley malts, ale yeast, and whatever main ingredient you choose.  I think we used ground chocolate, but don't really remember.  This kind of stuff is Monique's specialty, so I just followed her instructions.

Brain Bending is a somewhat creepy telegrab assignment.  Get to the Canifis tavern (Hair of the Dog) any way you like.  If you've got a house teleport for it, that's easiest.  Bring enough runes to telegrab, then use the telegrab spell on the pickled brain.  It's on one of the tables.  All it requires is 33 magic.  If you've made it this far, I suspect you won't have any trouble with the magic requirement.

While you're at the Hair of the Dog, now's a good time to run around to the trap door behind it.  While it's described as 'exploring' the tunnel, in reality, all we had to do was step through the secret door in the cellar wall.  If you've already leveled Zachary Bragg in Temple Trekking to 99 (you lucky dog!) then it's easiest to enter the tunnel from the backside.  Or toggle the shortcut off.  Otherwise it skips you past the part you'll need.




This next part is pretty cool.  Not because it's harder, easier, or interesting.  But because it's associated with the rewards from the medium Morytania tasks.  The task involves making cannonballs while in Port Phasmatys.  All you need is a steel bar and the ammo mould.  The cool part is that once you've complete the medium tasks, forever after you'll do cannonballs in Port Phasmatys twice as fast as normal.  Since the bank is just across the street from the furnace, that's a pretty cool deal.  At least, if you're a do-it-yourselfer, or if you make cannonballs for sale.

The Higher, the Badder is a fun task.  We just grabbed our slayer helm, used the slayer ring to get the the Slayer Tower, and climbed the shortcut in the severed hand room.  On the following floor, we just killed anything that caught our fancy.  I went after the Infernal Mages.  Not sure, but I think I saw Monique killing a Bloodveld.  Either way, quick, easy, done.

From the Slayer Tower, we sprinted south to the farming patch.  Thanks again to Monique's specialty being farming, we had already planted Bittercap Mushrooms in advance.  A quick stopover to pick them, and it was time to move on.  If you haven't pre-planted for them, expect about a 4-hour wait for them to mature.  You can always move ahead to other tasks, and come back later.

Polterheist was one of those 'complicated' ones.  Neither of us had been to the haunted mine in such a long time, we had forgotten how to get there.  Turns out, you need a Crystal-mine key, but that's okay, ours was still on the key ring from the "One Small Favor" quest.  I had also forgotten the tools in the mine will attack you.  I tried to grab a pick-axe to hit the rock with, and it started hitting me.  No real threat, and it was relatively easy to find the mithril and mine some. 

 For our final Medium Morytania task, we had to check out Razmire's supplies in the Mort'ton Builder's Merchants shop.  If you've already fed him a Serum 208, he's permanently cured and this is no problem.  Otherwise, he'll need either a Serum 207 or 208 to be able to interact with you.  Later, one of the rewards is from Razmire.  Come back once you've done all the medium tasks, and he'll give free lumber away.  It's limited, but figure whatever you choose, you'll get between 6k and 10k worth of planks daily.  Personally, it's a long ways out of my way for such a small reward.  But it's there.  If I'm running through, I'll sure stop and grab some.

Speaking of rewards, it's time to upgrade the Morytania Legs.  Speak to Robin in Port Phasmatys and you'll get some goodies.  Beginning with the Morytania Legs 2.  In addition to the Legs 1 abilities, here's the newest:
Wearing the legs, you can:
Smith cannonballs at double-speed in Port Phasmatys.
Teleport to the Ectofuntus slimepit 5 times daily.  Very cool if you're training prayer.
Any time (wearing the legs or not):
Get noted planks daily from Razmire.
Have your West-Canifis mushroom patch protected from disease.
Get 13 bonemeal and slime daily from Robin, in exchange for 13 bones. (Another great option for Prayer training.)
And finally, the haunted beings in the Abandoned mine won't bother to attack you any more.  Not that impressive.  I haven't been in that mine in years.  But still, you never know!

Oh, one last bit... if you finished this task before April 11, 2012, you get an early bird reward - a 15k exp lamp!

Runescape: Morytania Easy Tasks

Monique and I have been looking forward to the Morytania tasks.  Since the first announcement, we've hoped for a good set.  As usual, most were easy enough, but some required some extra work.  We broke it into stages.  Didn't want to use up all the fun right away.  Some, of course, we did accidentally.  Like when we used the Wicked Hood to go to the Blood Altar and make runes.  That's just part of our daily things to do, but it's also on the task list.

Other than the 'accidents', we mostly did them per plan, from easy to elite.  Starting with crating a Snelm in Morytania.  With the new tool belts, it was very easy to catch a snail, and turn it into a helm.  Having forgotten to wear a helm, I used mine for a while.

Killing a werewolf in human form was problematic.  Monique and I both threw away our Wolfbane dagger years ago, back when bank space was a lot smaller.  It had been so long, I had to Google where to find Drezel and get the dagger back from him.  Of course, once we had the daggers, the rest was simple enough.  Since we were already in the bottom of the Paterdomus church, a short run to Canifis, an easy fight, and another task done.  While we were messing around with werewolves, a game of werewolf skullball seemed appropriate.  Remembering the Ring of Charos... because without it you can't get in... headed for the Werewolf Agility Course.  I've either never played skullball, or it's been so many years it's been forgotten.  Fortunately, it was extremely easy.  One short round later, skullball was checked off the list.

Lab Clean-up Assistant under Castle Fenkenstrain followed.  I can remember training combat on these.  In the old days, (back when I had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow) it was so crowded, there was way too much competition to make them good training.  Now, running down there, it was like a morgue.  Or lab, anyway.  Nobody else was there, and taking an 'experiment' out was quick and painless.  The hardest part was getting in... we had forgotten which gravestone to push aside.  Since there's only a small handful, there weren't too many choices.  Once we went in through the secret entrance, it was a done deal.

Doing the altar at the Nature Grotto was another blast from the past.  After so much time passes, the memory gets kind of fuzzy.  But we both enjoyed the Nature Spirit quest, and it was kind of nice to re-visit.  I had also forgotten this is one of only 2 (I think) altars that boost your prayer points above maximum.  In the same general location, the Ghasts were thick as fleas on a dog, so we remembered to bring our Druid Pouches, and went Ghast poaching.  I haven't really looked at the Ghasts in a long time, the updated graphics make them look far more impressive than I remember!

 

 

Blooming Marvellous involved using the Silver Sickle(b) to grow fungus.  My favorite spot for that has always been just a bit south and west from the swamp gate by the cemetary.  There's a spot with three rotting logs close together, and if you stand in the right place, with some luck all three will grow fungus.  

Only Going Forward, We Can't Find Reverse - I love the pun here.  Star Trekking used to be one of my favorite songs.  Temple Trekking?  Not so much a favorite.  But still, taking an easy companion through the easy route was pretty darned... easy.  For the harder tasks later, I'm going to be very sorry I never played this game before!

One last task before the Easy list is complete.  We had to harvest limpwort from the farming patch near the ecto.  I hate farming, but after all these years, have managed to get mine to 80.  Monique got her first 99 in Farming, so no worries here.  We just needed to go plant the seed, then harvest it a few hours later.  I can't even begin to remember the last time I farmed in Port Phasmatys, but guess what?  There was a full-grown Limpwort waiting for me at my patch!  It's been there for years, and never died.  So I actually finished my final task while Monique was planting her seed.  I waited until she was done harvesting, then we went and got our Morytania Legs (1).  Cool job.  Easy as pie, all the way.

Coming next:  The Medium Tasks