"You send a player to fetch some runes, then you send him/her to get more items, they only become more frustrated at the fact they have to travel back to the Grand Exchange." –Oblantic. Rune Mechanics is the crisp, new quest that Jagex has bestowed upon us and it is classified as a novice, pay-to-play quest. It is the spectacular sequel to Rune Mysteries which we completed as free-to-play players. This newfangled quest allows us to explore a place, that most of us haven't seen before, and we pick up a few wonderful rewards.

The starting place for Rune Mechanics is at the Mage Training Arena, where I had never been before the quest. I believe it is a place that is quite useless in our everyday activities, but it was also an entertaining spot to explore and hang around in. Although the real action starts downstairs in the nicely finished basement where Apprentice Clerval tells you his objectives. Now Mr. Clerval isn't the brightest crayon in the box and he is actually probably one of the dullest colored, but he is still hilarious to listen to. Anyways he kindly requests that you help him create this monster called a Rune Guardian, but he'll need your expertise to fetch the supplies to create one of these beastly beasts. This is really only a fetch quest and it bogs down the quest with the frustration of trying to compile the supplies. I think if Jagex made it more action-packed it would have been a lot more enjoyable. Then I wouldn't be ranting on about how you just fetch things most of the time. Although the quest is mostly a supplying quest; there is still a lot of excitement to follow.



The first exciting aspect of Rune Mechanics is the portal puzzle, which is closely related to chess. My first impression of the puzzle was that it was going to be quite simple and there wouldn't be any thought needed to complete it. I was incorrect, as it required full knowledge of how chess pieces move. The whole operation of it was to travel through endless portals to reach the green "x" and impress Wizard Edvin. It was quite frustrating for me because I'm not a keen chess player, but it is still a puzzle you can complete without being a master. And this brings me to the next action-packed part of the quest; the four minigames which will get you five Pizzazz points from. One of the wizards will send you to get five points from these minigames, which are actually kind of exciting. Out of the four games I chose the graveyard variation where you turn animal carcasses into bananas. You travel into this obscure dungeon, and when you changed the carcasses into bananas, it almost made the place more lively. Although there is one catch and that is where you'll lose hitpoints in there, and I went from seventy-one hitpoints to twenty-eight in five Pizzazz points. Overall the minigames were quite amusing and I'm looking forward to doing more in the future. On the contrary, the last part of the quest is the finest aspect.



Once you have complied all the required supplies to create a Rune Guardian, you speak to the vacuous Apprentice Clerval and he can't seem to do anything correctly. Mr. Clerval got on my nerves throughout the quest and this sent me over the top because you must do another puzzle. Although this puzzle involved repairing a mysterious table, which highly resembled the one with Frankenstein on it. You must correctly assemble the wires puzzle and you are provided with puzzle pieces which all the wires must match up. It reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle for three-year-olds, but it was surprisingly refreshing to the mind. After this you create the harmless Rune Guardian and it is actually quite cute with all the rock and the little staff it holds. This little creature goes along with the fabulous reward of: one quest point, nine-hundred Construction experience, 2,300 Magic experience, and 1,850 Runecrafting experience. I believe the reward is actually nice, and it gave me the advantage to level up my Runecrafting and Construction. Although you should keep in mind that it is a novice quest, so don't expect much if you are a high-leveled player (Level 100+). The quest provided us with a lot of awesome puzzles, but can it really stand the test for us players?



My overall opinion is that it rose above my expectations, and it was surprisingly entertaining. Even though I ran around most of the time fetching things for the feeble soon-to-be wizard; I still liked the puzzles. There is only one main problem and that is Apprentice Clerval. Now for some players he was probably tolerable, but for me that little stinker was quite annoying. He couldn't even carve the poor Rune Guardian and then he thinks his friends will be impressed that he created this monster! He didn't even create it; it was all me! All criticizing of the brainless apprentice aside, I think Jagex really hit this one off for the lower-leveled members. We all know that most of the new quests have been high difficulty, but I was relieved to finally see a quest that was a breeze. It is almost like Jagex is giving us a breath of fresh air with Rune Mechanics because of the simplicity and the logical thinking behind it. I felt like the requirements fit the quest perfectly and those are: the completion of Rune Mysteries, Wolf Whistle, twenty-seven Magic, twenty Runecrafting, and twenty-five Construction. The only thing I'd improve on is an explanation of the chess related puzzle. I believe it would have been quite helpful when trying to figure it out, but that almost would have been too simple for the player. Other than those flaws the quest was amazing, and I want to thank Jagex for creating an awesome novice quest.

All through the quest we had to deal with a screwball apprentice and ancient wizards who were actually intelligent. We found ourselves fetching the most random things, but through it all we got a lot of awesome rewards which in some way will benefit us in the future. The action-packed minigames and puzzles were the most exciting part of the quest, and it was a great sequel to the free-to-play quest we all cherished. All in all, Rune Mysteries is a masterpiece quest, and there will be no other quest like it in the history of RuneScape.