Icthlarin's Little Helper

Details
Important Note: It is possible to get out of the city without purposely dying, finishing the quest, or using a teleport. There is a small crack in the north-eastern corner of the wall near the locust. You can re-enter the city from a cave north-east of where the quest started.

Walkthrough
Visit the Wanderer by her tent just west of the Agility Pyramid.

The Wanderer will have a strange reaction to your cat (if you don't have it with you, it won't work.) She will tell you that if you get your cat away from her, she will tell you about the secret entrance to Sophanem. Once your character picks the cat up, the wanderer will ask for a tinderbox and full waterskin. Once you give them to her, she will hypnotize you and you'll enter a small cave (you can now use this passage to enter the city at any time). The entrance to that cave is north-east from wanderer's tent, in a rock. You will enter at the eastern side of the city.

You will end up outside a pyramid in Sophanem many hours later, and an unholy symbol will appear in your inventory, which you can't bank, but turns to dust if you drop it. If you wish to be insulted by the ghost you find yourself next to, you can speak to it using a ghostspeak amulet. Touch the north door of the southern pyramid to begin the first flashback.

If you ever have to leave Sophanem and want to get back in, just enter the small cave east of the wanderer.

Flashback 1
Every now and again during the quest, you'll experience a flashback where you remember what you did while you were hypnotised. You need to play through these in order to progress through the quest.

Beware, dying in the flashback is no different from a normal death so make sure to bring plenty of strong food. Also, a mysterious force will block any teleports so be careful.



During the first flashback, you will need to go through the pyramid. You'll see some wall crushers. Stand next to the wall crushers and they will slide back into the wall. Stepping diagonally will mean instant death.

Once you're past the crusher blocks, you'll find pit traps in the next hallway. If you step on the wrong spot, you'll fall into a pit and end up at the beginning of the pyramid. Stay along the right wall until you pass the whitish rectangle on the wall, then go to the left side. Continue walking until you are opposite the next whitish rectangle. Go back to the right side until you pass a candle. Switch to the left wall, and you will be done.

'''The fourth image in the gallery below shows where the first set of traps are. The normal squares represent the traps, the red squares represents the path you should take.'''

You'll see Mummies (level 84). They will attack you, you will have to fight them. You'll also see Scarab swarms (level 98) crack out of the ground. They hit either 0-2 rapid damage continuously and can do a 3 damage poison condition, although they are slow. Continue to some more wall crushers. Past these, you'll eventually find a large pit. Jump over it with running option turned off. This is crucial because some more wall crushers will come sliding at you, and you will need the (walking time) timing to just miss them. If you fail to clear the pit you will return to the area right after the floor traps and take 5 damage.

Go to the left (west) door and open the puzzle door. You need to solve a puzzle. The objective is to flip all of the tiles onto their gold sides. There is no required number of flips that you must make, nor is there any sort of limit. Each time you flip a tile, the 8 tiles around it will also flip. Once you've solved it, you'll wake up fully healed outside the pyramid.

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After Flashback 1
After you finish the flashback, talk to the Sphinx (with your cat), asking for help, and she will ask you this question: "A husband and a wife have 6 sons. Each son has a sister. How many people are in the family?" The answer is 9. If you guess wrongly, you will lose your cat! Once answered correctly you will receive a Sphinx's token so you can speak to the High Priest.

Go to the High Priest, located on the west side of the city (in the temple), and ask him about the remains. He will tell you to put them in the burial chamber, and that you will need the help of your cat. Before entering the pyramid, take note of what examine text you have when examining your canopic jar!

Go back through the pyramid. When you again try to jump the pit, you'll enter another flashback.

Click to enlarge!

Flashback 2
You'll be starting exactly where you left off with your last flashback. Go through the door (no puzzle this time) and pick up the jar that you had in your inventory before (there are four on the ground). Depending on your jar, you will fight a different guardian god: either Apmeken(examine text has a lid shaped like an ape), Het(man), Crondis(crocodile) or Scabaras(bug). Their levels range from 75 to 81. Protect from Magic(or melee depending on the attack) prayer can make this battle a walk in the park.

Once you've defeated it, pick up the canopic jar. Jump back over the pit to end the flashback. If you ever find yourself out of antipoison, kill Locusts in the city and eat their meat for a small source of food.

Click to enlarge!

After Flashback 2
After the flashback is over, you will say to yourself that you think you should put the canopic jar back. Go to the west door. This time you have to solve a puzzle identical to the previous one. Turn all of the tiles to their gold side, then enter the room. Drop the jar where you found it and go back to the High Priest.

He will ask if you could prepare a ceremony by helping the towns Carpenter and Embalmer. Find the Embalmer to the south of the temple and talk to him. He will ask for a bucket of sap, linen, and a bag of salt. To get a bag of salt, you can either buy it from a slayer master or go to the lake north of Sophanem and use an empty bucket on it. Then use the bucket on the centrepiece inside of Sophanem in the southeast region of the city. You will pour the bucket of water into the font, and the water will evaporate, leaving salt that was in the water. search the font and take the salt. A bucket of sap can be obtained by using a knife with an evergreen tree while you have a bucket. Then head to the city's eastern side to find the carpenter. Give him your willow log. (After the quest he will buy willow logs from you at 40gp each in groups of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20.) Next, head a bit north to the linen worker, named Raetul with a purple headpiece. Buy a sheet of linen for 30gp. Then go back to the Embalmer. Give the items to him. (After the quest he will buy buckets of sap from you at 30gp each in groups of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20.)

Head back to the High Priest and he will tell you to talk to the Carpenter. Go speak to the Carpenter (who is at the pottery wheel). He will ask you for a willow log to make the symbol(this will take some time to make) after that time is up he will give you the Holy symbol. Next, go back into the southern pyramid and try to jump the pit. When you try, you'll enter another flashback.

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Flashback 3
You will find yourself outside the west (left) room and will have an Unholy symbol in your inventory. Go to the east (right) room. Enter it and use the symbol with any Sarcophagus around the walls. Go back through the door.

Searching the sarcophagi can result in poison gas (7 poison damage) or scarabs attacking.

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After Flashback 3
You will speak to yourself again, saying that you should not have done that. Jump across the pit again and reenter the eastern burial chamber. After a cutscene, you'll learn that the Wanderer was behind it. She is really the Devourer, Amascut, an evil goddess, and she'll possess one of the priests. You will fight a level 91 Possessed Priest. Use Protect from Magic prayer and kill him. He will drop an attack, strength, magic, defence, or agility potion. Regardless of which one drops, it will have 4 doses.

Talk to the High Priest again then leave the room.

Click to enlarge!

Flashback 4
You'll experience another flashback. This one is simply a cutscene. You will be escaping from the pyramid, and Icthlarin, god of the dead, will dehypnotize you with the help of the previous high priest.

Click to enlarge!

After Flashback 4
You will find yourself back in the eastern burial chamber. Head outside and talk to the High Priest to complete the quest. Note that if you have food and don't feel like making your way completely back through the pyramid, just fail the pit and then purposely step on the trapdoor to get back to the beginning with only around 10 damage. Congratulations! Quest Complete!

Reward



 * 2 Quest points
 * 4,500 Experience
 * 4,000 Experience
 * 4,000 Experience
 * Amulet of Catspeak
 * Access to the city of Sophanem

Music
Music tracks unlocked:


 * Hypnotized
 * Mirage
 * Sphinx

Afterwards
If you wear the Amulet of Catspeak and talk to your cat, you can watch a final cutscene where you are first hypnotized by the wanderer and given the holy symbol. Your cat will then explain to you what the wanderer's plans were all about.

Trivia

 * When the Ring of Life is used during the flashback you will be teleported out of the flashback, but you cannot enter Sophanem again. This bug has been fixed by Jagex.
 * The level 84 mummies found in the Pyramid are wielding Egyptian Khopesh swords, which actually seem to have evolved from specialized Canaanite battleaxes.
 * Even if you manage to get rid of the canopic jar, upon entering the pyramid you'll get a message: "You see a strange jar on the floor. It seems oddly familiar, as if you'd seen it before, so you decide to pick it up."
 * When you leave the pyramid after the first flashback, you say "What in the name of Guthix is going on?". There is a similar remark made by the adventurer in the Forgettable Tale quest.
 * Some of the pillars in the Pyramid have a glitch where it does not say what they are when right-clicking them.
 * After, if you talk to your cat and choose the option saying you are confused, then you see Flashback 5 about when you were hypnotized.
 * If you eat while the black circular flashback effect is on the screen, it will disappear.
 * When you buy linen from the town's linen worker, he sells you the linen before you know that the transaction was agreed, and then says, "Thank you come again". This could be a reference to Apu, from the TV show The Simpsons. Or from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
 * Most of the quest is very similar to the backstory of the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, in which a Sphinx sets a plague on the city of Thebes and to save the city, Oedipus has to answer a riddle correctly.