The route

I · Fire, rings and the first altar

Firemaking on the castle row

Firemaking 1–99

Firemaking needs nothing but a tinderbox and logs, and the run took it from 1 to 99 in one pass along the tiles outside Lumbridge Castle. Helper accounts stood beside the row and dropped logs on the tiles ahead. The account lit each log where it lay and stepped to the next, at a steady four ticks a log once its level made the lighting quick. A dropped log becomes anyone’s to take after a hundred ticks, so the droppers kept only a little ahead of the flames.

It comes first because it depends on nothing. One quest much later, Sea Slug, needs Firemaking 30 to light a torch. The step ran on its price, and Firemaking was the run’s first 99.

Tricks: Answering the level-up page at once

I · Fire, rings and the first altar

Enchanting rings

Magic 8–59

Enchanting rings is the quickest Magic a new account can do. Each level it gives here opens a spell the route casts next. Three helpers stood at the end of the castle row with sapphire, emerald, ruby and diamond rings; the account enchanted sixty and traded them back as it went.

At Magic 59 it could teleport to Falador, Camelot and Ardougne, the jumps that carry it between most of the steps that follow, and cast Fire Blast, the spell the first quest that fights is won with. The run order had weighed casting on the walk to the next quest instead, and measured it slower than standing still and teleporting after.

Tricks: Trading in one burst

I · Fire, rings and the first altar

Doric’s Quest

Mining 1–49

Quest rewards are the cheapest levels on the route. Doric’s Quest asks for a handful of ore and three conversations, and its reward lifts Mining from 1 to 49 at once. A helper met the account at Doric’s house with the ores, and in the same trade the account handed back the last of the enchanted rings.

Where a conversation offered no choice, the account didn’t read it page by page: it clicked through blind, five continues in one tick, the most the server accepts. Every quest on the route was talked through that way.

Tricks: Quests picked for what they unlock · Five dialogue clicks in one tick

I · Fire, rings and the first altar

The air altar

Runecraft 1–44

The air altar is the first a new account can use, and the route went there early because of who was waiting. Seven helper accounts stood in the altar room with essence. The account took a load from one, crafted it, and traded with the next, seven loads in all, which took Runecraft to 44.

The rest of Runecraft waited for a better altar, much later in the route, when more helpers could be lined up for it.

II · Wood, bones and ore

Plague City

Mining 49–64

Plague City is mostly talking, twenty-six short errands around West Ardougne. Its reward lifts Mining from 49 to 64, but the quest is here for what it teaches at the end: the Ardougne teleport. From here on the route uses that teleport more than any other, for the Fight Arena, the cannon quest, the spiders and the knights.

Tricks: Five dialogue clicks in one tick · Quests picked for what they unlock

II · Wood, bones and ore

Mining iron by the zoo

Mining 64–99

Mining works like the axe: a knife on a log between swings brings the next swing sooner. The account mined iron at the six rocks south of the Ardougne zoo, a short teleport from where Plague City ends.

Other bots wanted the same rocks. Soon after the step began another group crowded the cluster, the account’s script tried two other sites, found them taken too, and logged out. The swarm’s lead agent ruled that it should wait rather than walk back into the same contest, since a wait logged out costs nothing, and 7 min later the account logged back in and finished the band.

The step ran 313 ticks over its price.

Tricks: The knife-on-logs reset · Logged-out time is free

III · Quests that fight

The gnome course and The Grand Tree

Agility 1–76 · Attack 80–94 · Magic 65–74

The Grand Tree’s climb needs Agility 25, and the account had none, so it ran laps of the Gnome Stronghold’s course until it got there: the only plain training in this stretch. The quest then pays Agility in its reward, up to 76, which is why the Agility course at the very end of the route starts there and not from nothing.

Then a click went missing. Partway through, a cupboard search didn’t register: the script had sent the click once and waited for a result that never came. The account logged out; when it logged back in, the search took on the first try.

The quest’s demon fell to Fire Bolt, under Protect from Melee like every fight before it.

Tricks: Quests picked for what they unlock · Five dialogue clicks in one tick

III · Quests that fight

Fight Arena

Attack 94–99 · Thieving 1–57 · Magic 74–76

Fight Arena is three fights in General Khazard’s arena, and the account won them the same way, with Fire Blast from under Protect from Melee.

Its reward is the reason for its place. It finishes Attack, the run’s fifth 99, and it gives Thieving 57, enough to pickpocket the Ardougne knights, which is where the route trains the rest of Thieving.

Tricks: Quests picked for what they unlock

III · Quests that fight

Dwarf Cannon

Crafting 1–42

Dwarf Cannon earns the multicannon, and the route needs the cannon twice: for Ranged at the spiders straight after, and again near the very end. Its reward also lifts Crafting from 1 to 42.

Most of its time goes on mending the railings of the dwarves’ camp, where each repair is a roll that can fail, so the step’s length is partly luck. This time it ran 41 ticks under its price.

Tricks: Quests picked for what they unlock · Five dialogue clicks in one tick

III · Quests that fight

The cannon at the spiders

Ranged 1–50

The cannon trains Ranged on its own. Once it is set down and loaded it fires at whatever is near, and its hits count for the player who set it. A helper carried the four pieces and the cannonballs to the poison spiders in the Wilderness; the account set the cannon up, stood beside it with auto-retaliate off, and picked it up again.

It stopped at Ranged 50, the level the magic shortbow needs. The bow waits for the last stretch; this short session only buys the level for it.

Tricks: A cannon carried by a helper

V · Charge and the knights

The knights in East Ardougne

Thieving 57–99 · Magic 81–99 · Fletching 1–99

Pickpocketing a knight fails now and then, and the knight stuns the thief for 11 ticks. A stunned account can’t steal, but it can still cast spells and fletch arrows, so the route trained Magic and Fletching inside those stuns. In the lab, Thieving took about as long with the stuns filled as with them left empty, and the other two skills came along almost free.

Magic went first. Charge, a spell that can be cast again on the very next tick, took it to 99 at one or two casts a stun. Then the stuns went to Fletching, which climbed from nothing by putting heads on arrows. Stuns also went to Superheat, two casts on iron ore at a time, which lifted Smithing to 41 and saved that much work at the anvil later. A courier account on the next tile traded in the first load of runes and ore, so the account never walked to a bank; the top-ups it was there to bring never came, and Superheat ran out of ore.

The step sits here because of what comes before and after it. The Mage Arena, just before, is the quest that teaches Charge, and the Fight Arena had already left Thieving high enough for the knights. The rune arrows fletched here are the ones the account fires at the spiders near the end.

Thieving stopped two pickpockets short and the account logged out for nine hours; three short logins finished it. The step ran 189 ticks over its price, and the nine hours cost nothing.

Tricks: Working through the Thieving stun · Charge, recast with no cooldown · Logged-out time is free

VI · Sea, altar and river

The body altar

Runecraft 44–99

The body altar stands in for the nature altar the run order first planned, because no nature talismans could be had. It is slower, and the run order priced the difference. Before the account went in, it logged out and straight back in, so that the altar’s helpers could log in during the wait without spending any of its ticks.

The first try was refused: the account still carried rune arrows from the knights, and the altar step needs a nearly empty pack. A fault in the runner then sent it walking toward a woodcutting tile from the first morning before it logged out. A short login equipped the arrows, which emptied their slot, and the next launch went straight to the altar.

Then a rota of helper accounts took turns trading it essence, each load crafted at once and the next trade already open, and Runecraft went from 44 to 99. The account logged out after the last craft, as planned.

Tricks: A relog that sees the world on its first tick · Trading in one burst

VI · Sea, altar and river

Fly fishing at Lumbridge

Fishing 78–99

Fly fishing on the river at Lumbridge finished Fishing, at 99, with the same trick as the axe and the pickaxe: a knife on a log between catches brings the next cast sooner. The account dropped every fish; nothing from this step is used later.

It ran 203 ticks over its price.

Tricks: The knife-on-logs reset · The knife reset on a slow server

VII · Varrock west

Smithing at the anvil

Smithing 41–99

Smithing at the anvil in west Varrock is the plainest step on the route. A helper stood beside the anvil and traded bars, and the account hammered them into platebodies, a load at a time.

Its price assumed the account would arrive at Smithing in the mid-fifties, from the Superheat casts at the knights. It arrived at 41: the knights’ courier never managed a top-up, so the casts ran out of ore. The run order had taken the casts’ worth off the anvil’s price, and the step ran 115 ticks over its price, about that much.

Tricks: Banking five clicks at a time · Trading in one burst

VII · Varrock west

The bank booth: Crafting, Herblore, and Cooking by wine

Crafting 48–99 · Herblore 28–99 · Cooking 30–99

The last three skills that aren’t fought for finished within half a minute of each other at a bank booth in west Varrock, and the order inside the step is the trick. Crafting and Herblore went first, from supplies a helper traded in: leather bodies and potions, made at the booth and banked as they came.

Cooking came last, by wine. A jug of wine ferments on a timer after it is made, and the game pays the Cooking when it ferments without checking the cook’s level. A helper had brewed hundreds of jugs and left them unfermented; the account banked them and let the timer ferment them all at once, cutting gems for Crafting while it waited.

The first firing took Cooking to the sixties and the second, one relog later, to 99.

Tricks: Wine that ferments without a Cooking check · A relog that sees the world on its first tick

VIII · The last four

The spiders: the cannon, then the bow

Defence 98–99 · Ranged 55–99 · Hitpoints 97–99

The last combat skills train together at the poison spiders. The cannon does most of the work for Ranged; the account meleed beside it with a scimitar until Defence reached 99, then switched to the magic shortbow and fired the rune arrows it had fletched at the knights. Hitpoints rises with every hit, so it finished here too, without a step of its own.

Overnight the helpers rebuilt the lost kit, and in the first seconds after the recovery login two of them traded it across. The account ran back to the spiders, set the cannon down again and finished all three skills.

The step ran 947 ticks over its price, 541 of them in the hatched stretch while the body stood among the spiders.

Tricks: A cannon carried by a helper · Trading in one burst

VIII · The last four

The Wilderness Agility Course

Agility 76–99

The route ends on the Wilderness Agility Course: laps of five obstacles in the deep Wilderness, from Agility 76 to 99. It is last for two reasons. A clean lap can’t be run any faster, so all that varies is how often the account falls, and nothing else on the route waits on it. And the hiscore stops counting at the last level-up, so whatever the account does after its last 99 costs nothing.

The account fell less often than the run order’s simulation expected, and the step ran 233 ticks under its price.

Tricks: Quests picked for what they unlock · A run host 3 ms from the server