Nice Monster Ethics

The monsters I fight regularly are very well behaved, more so than I would expect - them being aggressive monsters and all. One moment they try to beat the living daylights out of me and the next moment, when I decide to eat some food or drink a potion, they nicely wait for me to finish with what I'm eating or drinking before taking their next swing at me! No wonder I always come out winning (or running / teleporting away :-))

Mega frog eggs?

When I caught an impling in my net today, it seems to have just nicked some frog spawn from an unsuspecting gnome. (Why gnomes like to eat that stuff is beyond me...) At first glance its size didn't seem strange to me, but after I dumped it on the ground the frog eggs proved larger than my feet! The frogs that are kept by the gnomes are not much larger, so I wonder what kind of frog this was the spawn of?

Ouch my teeth!

I like to chew on seeds sometimes while I'm pondering what to do next. So this afternoon I reached in my backpack for some watermelon seeds and popped them into my mouth, not really paying too much attention to what I'm doing, untill... Ouch! I bite on something very hard. Turns out I'm chewing some onyx bolttips! Why oh why do they have to look so much alike?

Not my diary

The Shilo inn owner made me aware of a diary that is supposed to me mine. It is filled with boasts about what I would have done in the Karamja neighbourhood. It looks quite genuine, I have done most of the things listed, but a few I would never do, so it cannot be my diary. You see, I am a friendly and peaceful person and I will never physically attack other people. The lines about me entering and winning the Thzaar fight caves therefore cannot be true. The diary cannot be mine.

Unlucky rabbit foot

Some time ago when I was hunting rabbits I fashioned a necklace from a rabbit foot. They are supposed to be lucky for the wearer (not so lucky for the rabbit) and at first I think I actually found more birds nests than usual but no more. As I was making magic shortbows yesterday I remembered I forgot to wear my rabbit foot, so I went to get it from storage. During the rest of the day I haven't found any birds nests and to be honest I cannot remember when I last encountered one. Seems rabbit feet aren't so lucky for the wearer either...

Gibberish from Shanty

Last week on the pier in Karamja I ran into a shifty person who names himself Shanty Claws. He informed me of the plight of some poor children who had been kidnapped and, being the good adventurer that I am, I proceeded to rescue then from their new "job" of fuelling a stove. What confused me though is the words that this Shanty used while talking to me. He offered a festive tree for my, in his words, "player owned house". I do not know this "player" he talks about and I can assure you that my house is my own! I do not rent it from anybody; why, I built it with my own two hands. Also he mentioned a member service I should be on. I think I'll go ask at the HAM what he is talking about as I cannot relate this to anything I have encountered as a citizen of Runescape. Maybe they started a new drive and are recruiting members for it?

Been away hunting

It has been some time since my last entry. I have been traveling around the lands from the Feldip Hills to the desert sands to the Piscatoris woods and back home via the ice regions of Fremenik. In all that time I have been hunting down furry critters, tracking them, building traps, leaving out boxes with bait to lure them. I learned to flush rabbits out of their holes using ferocious ferrets, snaring them when they run from their burrows. I had some fun netting butterflies. One thing I haven't mastered is to catch the ferrets and squirrels on the slopes north of Falador, nor to net the butterflies at the Gnome stronghold or snare rabbits in Miscelania. I had my mind set to some warm hats made of bear or fox fur, but although they are quite easy to find I haven't succeeded in trapping them. Maybe I'll be able to learn that in the future? I cannot get over the fact that in some regions the furries allow me to catch them while the same type of animals are seemingly untouchable in other regions...

Restless toy maker

Because I like to make things with my hands, I have become quite an accomplished crafter. I even put a nice workbench in my home to tinker by myself. At the workbench I make clockwork toys like wind-up mice or cats that follow you around. While I'm busy with my handywork I become restless. There is no other word for it. Every time I make something, be it a simple clockwork mechanism or a complete cat, I always have to get up from my chair and stand next to the workbench to admire what I made before I can sit back down to make another piece. I'm getting tired of this standing up and sitting down, but there's no way to stop it I'm afraid.

All face south

While ranging Black Demons during an assignment Duradel gave me something strange happened. Every time one of the demons came back into this world, it turned around to face south. Now that I think of it, it has been happening with other types of creatures too lately. What is it that they find so interesting or frightening that they always have to look that way? Do we have to start to prepare for what is coming?

Elusive big swordfish

I decided to show off my fishing skill by hanging a stuffed swordfish on the wall in my house. I harpooned a few of them and went to the taxidermist to get one prepared. She laughed and told me the specimen I brought her was not very interesting. A bigger variant of the swordfish I normally catch is rumored to swim amongst them, so I set out to catch one of those big swordfish to get stuffed. I have been at it for almost a week now, must have caught hundreds if not thousands of swordfish, but nothing bigger than I was used to. Im beginning to wonder of I've been had...

Chilly hardwood trees

When I walked from the kingdom I am regent of to the bankers on the neighbouring island, I felt chilly. These islands are north of Fremenik and at their borders ice and snow can sometimes be found. The cold reminded me of the pinguins that can be seen on their little rock off the Etceteria coast. Pinguins always are fun to look at for a while. They were still there running on the snow. What was new however were a couple of teak and mahogany trees on the coastline that partly blocked my view of the pinguins. Wait a minute... teak and mahogany? This far north? I always thought those hardwood trees only grow in the tropics (I know of a grove in Tai Bo Wannai.) The gardener that planted them might be in for a dissapointment when his trees fail to grow in this cold...

Tiles, tiles, tiles!

It seems that the Lumbridge Cook was tired of his old kitchen. He has had the place re-tiled and bought himself a matching black-and-white blocked pair of trousers. When I first entered his newly redecorated kitchen I didn't know where to look; black and white tiles everywhere! The floor now demands your attention so much, it is difficult to imagine keeping your head at what your cooking...

Hold your breath

When I needed to bake a fish cake a few weeks ago, Murphy fashioned a breathing aparatus from a fishing bowl so that I could go under water and get me some crab. Today on my way up the slayer castle while my mose hurt from the peg needed against the stench of the abberant spectres something dawned on me. If the diving aparatus can shield me from water, it should certainly shield me from the gas that spectres use on their victims. Apart from the obvious benefit of not hurting your nose like the peg does, wearing a bowl does not require any slayer training. Something to try next time I venture there?

Poor fairy Queen

The fairy queen is ill! When I went down to the lost city Zanaris it struck me as soon as I arrived; instead of the healthy green grass that used to cover the ground, I now saw a harsh blueish grass. It hurt my eyes every time I caught myself staring at it. Zanaris doesn't look a bit like the underground farm it used to look like... I tried to help the fairy Queen by retrieving the golden secateurs in which she infused her energy but to no avail. The fairy godfather who took over when the Queen fell ill is holding on to the secateurs so that fairy Nuff cannot use them to heal the Queen. I dont like that godfather one bit, and I hope something can be done to get rid of him!

Lazy mind crafter

Duradel sent me to slay Kurasks yesterday and I decided to use magic to defeat them. The only effective spell against Kurasks is the slayer dart which takes 1 death and 4! mind runes. Today I ran out of mind runes and decided to craft the remaining runes myself. It is a tiresome affair climbing that hill while being distracted by raccoons and bears. After a few trips I didn't find it much fun anymore so I decided to check out Ali's store. He only keeps a few runes of each type so that does not help much. Now I am standing in the wizards guild in Yanille. Turns out they sell mind runes for only 4 coins each with a lot more in stock :-)

Mining cart mystery

When I go to the dwarf city to brew Slayers Respite I normally take the mining cart from Wolf Mountain. Last time while I was shaken from left to right in the little cart I could not seem to find my prayer book and staff while I was sure I had taken those with me. Also my feet felt cold in that metal cart. When the ride was over I was standing next to the track and my boots, staff and prayer book were on my feet and in my hands and I could not remember why I thought I misplaced them. Strange...

Green clad imps

Santa is in the land again and it seems that even those pesky little imps are in on the festivities. First time I spotted them I was walking on Varrock square admiring the tree that was put there by a troll I remember from one of my travels. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something greenish running by. The green clothes seem to slow the imps down a bit. Previously the only thing I could do is hit them while running after them, but now I managed to catch one by the legs and shake him. When he complained; "Oi, put me down", I almost wet myself laughing! He dropped a colourful bauble and ran off again.

Kegs and glasses

I have been brewing different kinds of beer the last few months, notably Axemans' delite, Cider and Slayers' respite. When I started brewing, I had no Calquat tree planted and therefore I stored by beer in glasses to be used later. Now I do have Calquat kegs at my disposal and I use those to store 4 glasses worth of beer at once. I have found ways to pour beer from a barrel into a keg or into glasses and ways to pour beer from a keg into empty glasses but I cannot find out how to do the reverse; filling kegs with beer I have in glasses. I feel stupid that I haven't found a way until this day. The task seems easy enough, but I can't get the beer back into the keg.

Goblins, not hobs...

Today I got a slayer assignment of goblins. I felt kinda sorry for the little guys so I decided to go after their bigger cousins the hobgoblins. After I tracked down a few I spoke to Duradel to check on my progress and he smacked me! He could not understand why I went after hobgoblins when the assignment clearly stated goblins. Silly me; how could I have thought hobgoblins are a kind of goblins?

Perfect square holes

I have walked through the castle in Canafis lots of times before it hit me. The holes in the floors where the spiked chains run through are perfect squares! It's a mystery how this can be; the castle is falling apart, loose floor boards, crumbling walls and smashed up furniture. And in the midst of this rubble are those perfect square holes. No crumbling edges, no round corners, just smooth squares! There must be a secret behind their form, but at the moment it escapes me...

Gnomish shortcut chains

As rumour has it, the gnomes have been using shortcuts to get around Runescape. Most of the time it's a squeeze for us big humans to use the gnomish shortcuts but with a bit of exercise they will save us some time too. The stepping stones in some rivers clearly cannot be shortcuts used by gnomes. We have problems sometimes to make the jump from one stone to the other, let alone gnomes with their short legs :-) Also the spikey chains that can be found in the castle north of Canafis are not likely gnomish in origin. Their links are quite big and can cut open your hands badly even when wearing gloves. A gnome would loose a complete hand if she was not very careful with these, maybe a reason why I have yet to spot a gnome running around in that castle?