RUNESCAPE
This cache requires the finder to play the free online Role Playing Game (RPG)
Runescape to find clues to the
cache location. Runescape is a family oriented RPG based loosely along the lines
of Dungeons and Dragons and is playable through your web-browser with a small
plug in(thus is it compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac).
The posted coordinates are for a trail head, not the cache itself.
To proceed, click
here to load the Runescape homepage and follow the instructions under the "Create Account" menu. You will need to choose a username,
I simply used my geocaching.com nickname. You also must choose a world to play
in. You can pick anyone you want (they are all the same) and move between them freely at any time but I usually choose
World 17 (Toronto) because it is the closest server geographically and typically
has a low number of players. If you happen to be online in the same world as
another geocacher doing this cache chances are you'll run into them ;-)..
When you log in for the first time you are asked to design your character. You
can personalize your character's look by specifying details like beards, hair
color, body type , etc. Once that is finished you start on Tutorial Island where
you undergo a special 15-20 minute introduction to the game where you are shown
how to navigate, open doors, fish, fight, blacksmith, mine, chop wood, make
fire, money, all the important stuff! When the tutorial is completed you are
turned loose in the small rural town of Lumbridge in the Kingdom
of Misthalen where your search for the cache clues begin!
Have yourself a look at the Runescape World Map (Go to the Runescape main page, select the "How to play" link bottom left, then the "World Map" link). You are looking for the library in Varrock Palace (also in the Kingdom
of Misthalen) Once you locate the library speak to Reldo the Palace Librarian
about a quest and he will mention a book entitled "The Shield of Arrev".
The book will answer the questions which hide the location of the real-world
cache.
To find the real-world
cache substitute the unknowns in the following set of coordinates N45 25.XXX
W75 33.YYY.
1. XXX equals the amount of the King's bounty minus the number 577
2. YYY equals the approximate number of years it was the prized possession
of the Varrock Museum plus the number 177.
Good luck! Hopefully you'll enjoy the game as well as the cache hunt! Don't
speak the any 9 foot tall red scaly guys with horns and big leather wings or
any of his black robed friends hanging out near stonehenge. If your character
should meet it's demise in some way you will be re-incarnated in Lumbridge again.
The cache is a plastic tobacco container painted a few shades of green and is very close to the edge of the trail you should be on when searching for it.
If you have the time and energy it would be funny to zoom in with the arrow keys in Runescape take a screen capture of what your character looks like to post with your log. In Windows you can do this with the "Print Screen" key and then use Edit\paste in your favorite graphics program to edit and save it. The two screen captures in the cache details are of my character.