Dealing with Scabaras

High Priest

 * Talk to the High Priest in Sophanem (located at the temple west of the Agility Pyramid) who'll request help with identifying a corpse.
 * Go upstairs. Continue the conversation, and find out that the corpse is not quite dead and is, in fact, Maisa.
 * Talk to the not so dead Maisa. She mentions that there are tunnels from the east coast of the desert that lead into those from Sophanem.
 * Go downstairs and talk to the High Priest to get his support for the mission to explore these tunnels.
 * Go south-east from the entrance to Sophanem, through the lizards and vultures, and down to the swamp area.
 * Make your way through to the north west corner of the swamp, using the 'Push through reeds' menu option when your path is blocked by reeds.
 * Approach the rock stairway from the south, climb over the fallen pillar and then go up the stairs. Speak to Lead archaeologist Abigail and Assistant archaeologist Kerner at the camp (there is a water source beside the camp for refilling your waterskins).

Artefacts

 * Before the archaeologists will help you you must perform two tasks for them. The first is to answer a number of mathematical questions, and the second is to collect some items to give to Simon Templeton.
 * The mathematical questions use 'round down division', so they are a bit different. The questions are different for each player. An example of the sums and the answers:
 * Which is highest: 98 + 98, 97 + 99 or 91 * 2.5 (the last one)
 * 227 + 90 + 95 = 412
 * 412 + 0.5 * 79 = 412 + 39.5 = 451.5 => 451
 * 451 / 4 = 112.75 => 112
 * The main idea is round down after a division or multiplication.


 * The items are:
 * One Pyramid top artifact from the top of the Agility Pyramid. The golden Agility Pyramid artefact requires climbing to the top of the pyramid using the climbing wall, just before the top.
 * 10 gold artifacts from the Pyramid Plunder mini-game. The gold artefacts are tradeable.
 * 6, 9, or 18 distressed bronze items (equivalent of 18 bronze bars). The bronze items are different for each player and can be smithed or purchased from shops or players. They include:
 * There are 2 ways to distress the bronze items:
 * use one bucket of camel dung on the bronze items while standing under the hot desert sun or (Note: the camel dung is NOT used up in the process)
 * put them into the empty crate given to the player by the lead archaeologist with one bucket of dung which turns it into a smelly crate, then hand it over to the archaeologists to distress them which will take some time.
 * You must give all of these items to Simon Templeton. Note: He will only take the pyramid plunder items as a whole (all 10). Simon will accept each of the group of items separately.
 * Simon will then give you an artefact receipt, head back to the archaeologist site.

Taking Notes

 * Abigail will give the player an empty Scabaras research book and ask to collect 4 Scabarite notes and copy them into a notebook. These notes can be found on the corpses of the skeletons, Dried zombies and scabarites north of the archaeologist camp (east of Sophanem). There are several different notes to collect, each with a different examine text. These are 'cheap papyrus', 'fine papyrus', 'scented papyrus', 'shabby papyrus', 'smelly papyrus' and 'well-made papyrus'.
 * When at least 4 notes have been gathered add them to the research book and talk to the archaeologist again. She will give you the Scabarite key that will unlock the door to the dungeon. Head north to enter the dungeon.
 * The notebook is subject of a miniquest where the remaining notes are needed to receive a 10,000 coins reward.
 * Note: If you use a rope on the overhanging rock to the western most part of the plateau, it will remain there as a shortcut for subsequent uses. The shortcut leads to the southeastern part of the Agility Pyramid. The shortcut requires 25 agility.

Dungeon Puzzle

 * Enter dungeon and talk to the Clay Golem to learn about the puzzle that needs to be mastered. There are four rooms, each with a lever at the far end.
 * Each room contains a lever that needs pulling.
 * There is a time limit within which all levers need to be pulled.
 * The door mechanism is powered by a furnace. The furnace lights automatically. Higher level logs require a higher firemaking level - maple logs require 65 firemaking, yew logs require 80 firemaking, and magic logs require 95 firemaking to be used in the furnace. Using higher level logs may increase the time to solve the puzzle. There is a collection of three logs in the room, but it's recommended that you bring your own in case you fail the puzzle or run out of time.
 * Talk to the Golem to assign priority to the four rooms
 * Room 1 requires crossing an oily pipe (Agility). Assigning more priority to this task will make the pipe less oily and therefore easier to cross.
 * Room 2 requires pulling a stuck lever (Strength). Assigning more priority to this task will lighten the lever and therefore make it easier to pull (requiring a lower strength level).
 * Room 3 requires slaying a level 206 scarab (Combat). Assigning more priority to this task will damage the scarab.
 * Room 4 requires solving a puzzle and manipulating a mechanism (Thieving). Assigning more priority to this task will allow more attempts at the puzzle.
 * Depending on your skill set, set the priority and race through the rooms. For most players with the minimum quest requirements, the priority should be in this order:  Thieving room, agility room, combat room, strength room.
 * The respective potions for the agility room and strength room can help with pulling the levers.
 * Using power on the combat room can inflict 105 (full power), 70 (second highest), 35 (second lowest), and 1 (lowest) damage.
 * The Giant scarab in the third room is relatively easy to defeat compared to his counterpart in Contact!. The scarab will attack with Melee and Ranged. Melee, with a protection prayer from one of the two attacks, is generally effective if you bring food.  A powerful magic spell such as Ice Rush or Slayer dart can be used even more effectively if you stand outside the room and use Protect from Missiles.
 * The puzzle in the fourth room is nerve wracking due to the time constraints and the count down clock. The purpose of the puzzle is to find sets of three identical runes in a 6 by 6 square. Only three runes can be displayed at any instance. Clicking the fourth will clear the three others unless they were identical. The right hand side shows a mechanism that is divided in an upper and a lower part. Clicking that part during the puzzle will add some time to the puzzle countdown clock. However, this can sometimes backfire, and take away 1 or 2 turns for you to solve the puzzle.
 * If you do not make any mistakes, you need at most 24 turns to solve the puzzle: 12 to check all 36 runes, and 12 to match all of them. You must manipulate the mechanism at least once to obtain this number of turns. Also, if this is your last room, then there is virtually no time limit, as long as you stay on the puzzle screen.


 * As each puzzle assignment is random, the easy way to solve the puzzle is to prepare a paper with a 6 by 6 grid and copy the runes as you walk the rows (or the columns). Use these notes to find the triples.

High Priest of Scabaras

 * After pulling all the levers you will be allowed to enter the rest of the dungeon. Watch out for floor traps, they may disease you starting at 12! Consequently, Relicym's balm, bracelet of inoculation or Super restore potions may be of use.
 * The High Priest of Scabaras is located to the north, in a room to the east. Look after a door on the minimap. Beware of the monsters on the way! It might be useful to turn off auto-retaliate. The area is multi-combat and many monsters use distance attack (range mostly).
 * Talk to him and get him to attack you (later on in the quest you'll tell the high priest that you fought him, talked to him and made him see sense). By commenting negatively on one of the priests combat skills, he'll try to use that combat style. The priest is level 179. After fighting talk to him again, or he'll disappear. If that occurs, leave the room and go back in again.
 * After he has attacked you, talk to him again using the following sequence:
 * "I'm not here to contemplate. I'm here to slay!"
 * "Why did you cease your contemplation?"
 * "Why this sudden change in policy?"
 * "Sounds like the devourer dragged you into heresy for her own ends."
 * Return to the high priest of Sophanem and talk to him, and the quest is complete!

Reward

 * 1 Quest Point
 * 7k Strength experience
 * 7k Thieving experience
 * 7k Agility experience
 * 7k Prayer experience
 * The ability to craft an enchanted water tiara - Protects you from the desert heat effect

Enchanted Water Tiara

 * To craft a enchanted tiara use water runes on a normal water tiara(they will be stored inside the tiara) ; this will cost 3 water runes each time you need to drink in the desert.
 * Destroy the enchanted tiara to get the normal water tiara and remaining water runes back, they will drop on the ground.

Trivia
'Alas, the scarabs have eaten the scroll with the rewards. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for us to find the spare.'
 * The lead archaeologist remarks on how she would not want to 'have a ghastly death marked on a makeshift grave', referring back to the recent update of gravestones.
 * The dealing with Scabaras release marked the first revealing of Unknown--blackened areas on the World map--in months.
 * When the quest first came out the spoiler said that:
 * When the quest was first released, both the Knowledge Base article and the Quest Journal gave the wrong required Thieving Level. The actual requirement was 5 levels higher.
 * Originally there was a mistake on the website saying that players now have access to a new slayer monster.
 * Originally on the recent updates on Runescape.com it showed another copy of the update, this was later fixed.
 * Page 8 of your notes foreshadows the return of Scabaras, and also mentions the bitterness that would ensue in his loneliness.

Mini quest

 * Complete the archaeologist's notebook for a 10,000 gold piece bonus reward. You can get the pages from the following spots:


 * Archaeologist plateau area: Kill about 20 Mummies, 20 Zombies, and 20 skeletons. Each type drops a particular set of pages.
 * Swampy area east of plateau: Kill about 20 Scarab Lancers, 20 Scarab Rangers, 20 unmounted Rangers, 20 unmounted Lancers. Again, each type drops a particular set.
 * Scarab Priest dungeon: Kill about 20 Scarabas Lancers, 20 Scarabas Rangers, and 20 Scarabas Mages. Search the two chests for some additional pages.


 * Bring the notebook, and talk to the Head Archaeologist for your reward.

Additional reward

 * Talk to Simon Templeton about the job he mentioned during the quest. He sends you to talk with the Pyramid Plunder mummy. After the mummy refuses, return to Simon, and he will now accept noted pyramid treasures to exchange for gold! However, you cannot exchange noted gold artifacts.

Music

 * Main article: List of music


 * Copris Lunaris
 * Scarabaeoidea
 * Tune from the Dune