OSRS’s Newest Quest: Below Ice Mountain

            Recently a new questline and mining area has opened up in Old School OSRS. The reason for these additions, other than just being fun, was specifically to give new mining experiences to low-level non-member players. So while this might not be something all that intriguing to high-level members, this a great time to join the game, or for non-members to make new characters.  Of course, players can always purchase OSRS accounts that are already leveled to bypass the entire leveling process.   Goes to show that the development team doesn’t solely dedicate their time to projects for the customers that have the capability of giving more money. A rare moment to warm hearts jaded by the cold, calculating gaming industry.

            So what exactly is the new low-level content? To access it you will have to initiate the questline Below Ice Mountain. An enthusiastic archaeologist named Willow has appeared South of Ice Mountain near the Dwarven Mines. She knows of an intriguing new site she wants to investigate, but the door to access the site is sealed shut. The only way to investigate the new discovery is by bringing Willow’s crew back together. As always, there is more to the story than what lies on the surface, and you’ll learn more about Willow and her crew as the quest progresses.

            Once the quest is complete you’ll have access to the dungeon hidden below Ice Mountain and the plethora of rewards and challenges that await you there. It contains tons of places for low-level characters to increase their skills and to find rare items and treasure. What sort of treasure? Don’t worry, we won’t keep you in the dark.

            Firstly, there will be a potential for a prayer skill bonus with a special offering ritual. The ritual requires an offering of prepared fish from the cave, which means the potential skill gain is actually a bit broader than just prayer, but the prayer bonus is the most noteworthy. First, you need to catch some fish from within the cave. Then, with the prep tables provided within the dungeon, you have to prepare the fish without ruining it. Then, lastly, you need to offer the first at a special alter in order to raise your pray skill. Make sure you don’t eat the fish, just give the prepared food to an alter and your all done. More rewarding than some other prayer-raising abilities, but definitely more time-consuming. You get what you invest, and for something, the rituals may be worth it.

            Another skill-raising activity that players can access in the dungeon is golem cores. By hunting and defeating golems, these enemies will occasionally drop corrupted cores. Using your runecrafting ability with these cores allows you to transform them so that they can be offered to alters down in the dungeon when these offerings are made to the alters, the player will be awarded XP and runes. This is more beneficial than, but again it is more time-consuming.

            To no one surprise, one of the most beneficial activities you can access in this new dungeon is mining. It was clearly intended to be one of the key focuses of this new dungeon. Down in the dungeon, you will primarily be working to mine barronite loads. Barronite loads can be smithed to create a handful of things. Most commonly barronite can be smithed to create barronite. The smithed barronite can be used to purchase a few different things, including buffs that make navigating the dungeon and its challenges specifically easier.

            That isn’t the only thing that barronite loads contain though. True to the quest that brought you to this place, you can also find ancient relics buried in the earth and stone too. If you bring these relics to Varrok then you will receive coin in exchange for all of your hard work.

            Smithed Barronite is also the currency used to access The Vault hidden deep within the dungeon. What is The Vault? It’s a vault full of treasure of course! Inside the chests and their placement will be randomized each time you access it, as will the open and shut doors you have access to. The player’s goal will be to race against the clock and try to open as many chests as they can before security escorts them from the vault. If the player doesn’t get out before the time limit runs out, then they lose all the treasure they found. A fun game with plenty of excitement and rewards, not something totally new to the non-members.

            Lastly, spread out through the multiple challenges within this dungeon are several rare items that players can assemble and gain access to. To start we have the barronite mace. This is an untradable rare item. The barronite mace has the unique effect of being a golembane weapon and aiding in your hunting in the dungeon. The mace requires 3 components: the handle, which is found while fishing, the guard, which will drop from a dead golem, and the head, which is found by mining barronite deposits. After these components are obtained, an NPC will tell you how to assemble them and, bam, you got yourself a new magic weapon.

            The other rare item you can fix up for yourself is the Dwarven hammer. You can find a broken hammer while mining and one of the NPCs in the dungeon will tell you how to repair it. Once repaired,  it will operate as a normal hammer, with the advantage of being able to equip it to your primary hand slot like a weapon, freeing up the other hand. The Dwarven Hammer does not have any combat stats though.

            Those are all the things that the OSRS devs had to share about their new quest and dungeon. They did say that this information was spoiler-free and safe to share, hinting that this new dungeon may have more secrets buried deeper for those with the patients, a keen eye, and enough luck to scope it out. Good luck to all the new players in this challenging adventure. We are excited to see how it changes in the coming weeks.