Shades of Mort'ton (minigame)



The Shades of Mort'ton is a multi-part activity in which players perform the various tasks involved in cremating shades. The players will create the ingredients to make the various forms of pyre logs which then are used to cremate Shades. Players will then enter the Shade Catacombs under the town, hunting for the treasure chests which are unlocked by the various keys they receive by burning the shades. Players may also enter the catacombs simply to hunt the more powerful shades that lurk within.

Rewards:
Players often play the game simply to get sacred oil, which sells for a high price, aside from being used for cremating Shades, and Vyre corpses at the Columbarium which is related to the Legacy of Seergaze quest. Players also may turn Serum 207 into Serum 208 at the temple.

The Shades of Mort'ton activity provides a variety of experience, primarily in Crafting, Prayer, and Firemaking. Players can possibly also gain an amount of Combat and Herblore experience from this activity. The activity is somewhat lucrative, with clue scrolls being a semi-common reward from a shade key, and the other rewards being worth selling. This activity is one of the cheapest methods to gain large quantities of Crafting experience, by repairing the temple, but at around 12 experience points a second (with flamtaer hammer) it is very slow for the money saved. Players must have completed the Shades of Mort'ton quest before they can take part in this activity.

The intended primary reward from this activity is the shade key. This key unlocks the various chests found in the shade catacombs, which can generate significantly valuable rewards. See the section below on unlocking chests.

Loar Shades:
A combat level of at least 81 is  strongly  recommended to avoid being constantly hassled by the loar shades whilst building the temple and cremating the shade remains. Loar Shades will not break off of a targeted player so long as that player is within the greater geographical area, much like the behaviour of the now deposed revenants in the wilderness, except that they are far weaker. They are so tenacious that once a shade targets a player, it can be lured through the entire length of the wandering path and halfway through mort myre swamp before the shade is forced to turn back at a programmed boundary. These shades will also actively seek to find and engage a player if they hide behind an object. If any shade achieves a clear 'line of sight' to a player, they will approach along that path and attack when able. Shades can only attack one at a time, as Mort'ton is a single combat zone, but other shades in the area will still be attracted to the player and tend to up while waiting for the player to finish combat. On top of all this, but these creatures are numerous, making the entire area completely inhospitable until the player has reached the level at which a Loar shade is no longer aggressive.

Mort'ton Notes
Accessing this area, and hence this activity, requires completion of the quests; Priest in Peril, and Shades of Mort'ton.

Nature Spirit does not have to be completed, or even technically started. Players can actually access southern morytania via a very long roundabout walk. On the south side of the haunted woods, there is a passage into the eastern mort myre swamp (no gate). There is a passage from the east swamp to the west swamp through the wall of weeds which will require a great deal of wandering around in the east swamp to get to. Once in the west swamp heading south through the winding path will finally bring the player to mort'ton, without ever passing through the monks gate.

There are many much easier methods of reaching mort'ton once players have completed further quests such as Fairytale II and In Aid of the Myreque.

It is highly recommended to use a dose of Serum 208 on Razmire and Ulsquire as soon as possible for assistance, trading, and supplies. Completing In Aid of the Myreque before this activity is strongly recommended, as it gives players access to the local bank in Burgh de Rott, without which players will have to trek all the way back and forth from Canifis on every trip.

The official Shades of Mort'ton world is world 88.

Sanctifying The Oil
Sacred oil is used to create the various types of Pyre logs. To create one of the many types of pyre log, a player must use a vial of sacred oil on the chosen type of log. Sacred oil is created from Olive oil which can be bought from the Mort'ton General Store. The olive oil must be blessed on the fire altar in the temple north-east of Mort'ton in order to be sanctified into Sacred Oil. To do this, you will need to help build and defend the Temple of Mort'ton as was done in the quest. Sanctity is gained by either building/reinforcing the temple walls, or by killing the shades that come to attack the temple. Killing shades is recommended only for players proficient in combat, as only the kill itself generates sanctity, not the combat. As a player's sanctity percentage is constantly draining (around 1% every 30–50 seconds), this method would be counterproductive if the player is unable to quickly bring down the shade.

When the fire altar in the centre of the temple has been lit (with a Tinderbox), simply use a vial of olive oil on it to create sacred oil. When a player successfully lights the fire altar, 100 experience points in the Firemaking skill are received. It is possible to fail while attempting to light the fire. Players can only light the fire altar if they have more than 10% sanctity, as well as only being allowed to sanctify olive oil with Sanctity above 10%. Each time a player blesses an olive oil it will use 2.7% (for a 3 dose vial) or 3.6% (for a 4 dose vial). It is not only more profitable (slightly) but also more useful to decant your olive oil into 4 doses before bringing it to be blessed. If you're going to make Yew, Eucalyptus, or Magic pyre logs, you must have 4 doses.

Building The Temple


To get sanctity to make sacred oil, it is necessary to help with repairing the temple. When starting, three figures will appear in the top-right corner of the screen.

Repair State
This percentage indicates the condition of the temple. The number is raised by repairing the walls, and will gradually fall as shades attack and destroy it. Resources are used up by repairing the walls.

Resources
Resources are used for repairing the temple. Unlike the repair state, this is individual and not a shared statistic. When at the temple, choosing Repair Wall starts the repair process. First, certain items in inventory are turned into resources. Once this is done, the resources are drawn down as the temple is repaired.

The following items are used to create resources. All the items needed can be bought from Razmire Keelgan in Mort'ton. (Most can also be found or made elsewhere on RuneScape.) For each 5% resources, the following is required:


 * 1 x Timber beam or plank. Beams are much cheaper, so buy those.
 * 1 x limestone brick. Razmire Keelgan also sells limestone, which is cheaper and can be made into limestone bricks with a chisel, which he also sells. (This saves some money and gets extra crafting experience.)
 * 5 x swamp paste. This is the most expensive part if purchasing the items in the store. Plenty of swamp paste can be received from the chests in the Shade Catacombs, so rarely will there be a need to buy much if also doing that part of the activity. Swamp paste can also be made from Swamp Tar and Flour. Swamp tar spawns in the Mort Myre Swamp and the Lumbridge Swamp.

Also needed is a Hammer or Flamtaer Hammer to build the temple, the latter being much faster.

Sanctity
Sanctity is what is used to make Sacred Oil from Olive oil. This figure like resources is personal, and starts at 0. It increases by repairing or reinforcing the temple, or by killing the shades around it, giving 2% sanctity per kill. Sanctity will slowly decrease over time, and will reset to 0% upon logging off. When building the temple, approximately 5% sanctity is earned for each 1% of resources spent. Repairing is recommended over killing shades for raising sanctity quickly.

Creating The Pyre Logs
You can only cremate Shades with Pyre logs. Pyre logs can be created by using sacred oil on various types of logs. The table below shows what kind of logs are required to burn which kind of shade.


 * Note: Wearing Flame Gloves or a Ring of Fire will increase the Firemaking experience when cremating shades.
 * You need to have Teak Pyre logs or higher to cremate vyrewatch corpses.

Killing the Shades
To kill the shades, first you have to get to them. Loar shades are the easiest since they just wander around the village. The rest, though, inhabit the Shade Catacombs just north-west of the town. The entrance can be a little hard to find since it is tucked right up against a small hill on the northern edge of the village, against water and opening to the north. To get to the various higher level shades you will need various types of keys to get through the diffrent doors. Fortunately, higher level keys will open the matching type of door and will also open lower level doors. For example; a steel key will open steel and bronze doors. Your keys will not desintigrate when walking through doors. For more information about the levels of keys and how to get them, see Cremating the Shades.

As shades are undead, the Salve amulet (e) will boost Attack and Strength when fighting them, and the Gadderhammer is more effective than a Dragon Scimitar when fighting shades, although this depends on the player's levels as the Gadderhammer is a slow weapon. As there are no safe spots using Crumble Undead, although usable, may not be such a good idea. As a precaution, players should always keep at least one key in the bank of the highest type of metal the player can access so that the player can always kill additional shades without having to deal with the difficulty of burning all the types of shades again. This is also a good tactic for if a player dies in the catacombs; if the player had their only key on them when they died, they will probably not be able to burn all 4 types of shades in time to reach their grave.

Cremating the Shades


Once you have the Shade remains and the appropriate pyre logs, you can burn them. Note that all the materials for this activity are tradable, and can be bought on the grand exchange.

To cremate a shade first place your logs on any of the funeral pyres located around the south and west edge of Mort'ton. Then place the remains on top, then click again to light it if you have a tinderbox in your inventory. Light your fire promptly, the funeral pyre will despawn after about 60 seconds. You will see an animation of a shade's spirit floating up into the air, then either a key or a stack of coins will appear on the pedestal nearby. The type of key and how good it is depends on the level of shade. The number of coins you get this way are roughly equal to the high alchemy value of the item you would get from the chest it would open. Although you can leave the reward on the pedestal and then collect them all at once, there is a chance they may begin despawning if you take too long. It is best to let about 5 rewards stack this way then collect.


 * Loar: Low Bronze only (or 400-500 coins)
 * Phrin: High Bronze, low Steel (or 600-700 coins)
 * Riyl: High Steel, low Black (or 700-800 coins)
 * Asyn: High Black, low Silver (or 800-900 coins)
 * Fiyr: Silver only (or 1,500-5,000 coins)

Prayer experience is gained by burning the shades. The amount depends mainly on the type of shade cremated, and to a lesser extent on the type of log used. The experience obtained from each combination is shown in the table below.

Unlocking the chests


After the update on March, 15 2011, the Ring of Wealth now has an effect on the rewards from using a shade key. At the moment, it suffers from the same glitch which causes the ring to "shine more brightly" every time a slayer monster is killed.

Once you have your keys, you can go into the catacombs and unlock the chests which the keys open. The entrance to the catacombs is north-west of town, a little north-east of the bridge, through some doors built into the north side of a hill. The entrance is not marked on the minimap. Look for a torch on the bank of the swamp.

Each time you unlock a chest, the key will dissolve in the lock. If you want to come back and fight more of the shades of that level, make sure you leave at least one key to get through the doors with. It might be a good idea to leave one key in your bank when you finish, in case you want to come back and play again later.

To open a chest, match up the colour of the key with the lock of the chest, such as a Steel Key Black with a steel-trimmed chest with a lock painted black. If you're not sure the colour of the lock, you can examine the chest for more info. Inside the chest will usually be a few coins and one treasure, either being some runes, armour, or a clue scroll. Plus, sometimes if you press continue the dialogue, there will be a bit of swamp paste in the bottom of the chest as well, making it easier to repair the temple (since paste is the most expensive part). The levels of armour depend on the type of key.


 * Bronze yields Steel to Mithril items or a clue scroll
 * Steel yields Steel to Adamant items or a clue scroll
 * Black yields Black to Adamant items or a clue scroll
 * Silver yields Black to Rune items or a clue scroll

Additionally colour of the loop defines the probability of the key yielding one of the "better" items available. The order is (worst &lt; best):

Red &lt; Brown &lt; Crimson &lt; Black &lt; Purple

So in other words, a Silver Key Black is more likely to yield a better treasure than a Silver Key Brown, but all silver keys have the exact same set of possible rewards. Purple keys will have the highest chance of receiving a clue scroll.

It should be noted that this is the only place where fine cloth can be obtained. Fine cloth is needed to make splitbark armour. Any level of chest has a chance of yielding fine cloth, however the higher level chests have better chances.

It should also be noted that the chests also occasionally yield clue scrolls, with keys from loar shades yielding level 1 clues (occasionally, at best) transitioning upwards to fiyr shades which can regularly yield level 3 clues. (almost common, usually at least 1 every 35-50 keys, sometimes more common)

Banking
Some items you would want to have mainly depend on which type of shade you are hunting. They should consist of some low level food (if needed you can just kill and cook the snails to the west or just get some from the fishing spots to the south), some logs some olive or sacred oil, and the type of shade you plan to cremate. Below is a table showing what logs you need to cremate a shade. * recommended log to use

Please note that you should bring 100-200 logs if you want trips to be worth the effort.

Other activities
You can also use Sanctity from building the temple to make Serum 208 by using a Serum 207 on the fire. You must have a minimum of 20% Sanctity to make Serum 208.

Giving this to the Afflicted that wander the town will cure them, and they will reward you with some GP and other small gifts which are useful for that activity (olive oil, limestone, a few types of logs etc.) or grimy tarromin. You can use both serums to cure the Afflicted, but Serum 208 yields a greater reward, including the occasional Bronze key or level 1 Clue Scroll. Northwest of Mort'ton there are snails and trees so you can kill the snails, take their meat and cook it for healing if you get hurt. It is recommended to wear rune armour or better and wield at least a granite weapon. A perfect inventory for this would have: 1 tinderbox, 1 hatchet, 1 silver sickle(b), 1 chisel, at least 1,000 coins, good combat gear, 1 hammer or flamtaer hammer, and a number of druid pouch to keep the ghasts from rotting your food.

Music

 * Lair