A Soul's Bane

Development team

 * Developer: Tim C
 * Graphics: John S
 * Quality Assurance: Andrew C
 * QuestHelp: Ingrid J, Gillan M
 * Audio: Ian T

Walkthrough


Go east of Varrock, through the gate just south of the earth altar, speak to Launa. Alternatively, take a glider to the digsite or use a digsite pendant and walk northwest..

Take a rope and use it on the rift, then climb down into the rift. There are several "rooms" which players need to get through to complete the quest.

It's worth noting here that this quest does not need to be done all at once - each room has an exit which will take you back to the top of the rift and allow you to enter again at a different time. It will remember the rooms you have completed.

Rage


"Why should I, Tolna, be trapped in such a wretched place? Arrghh, It's not fair! Feel my ANGER!"

This room represents Tolna's anger and frustrates players because they sometimes have trouble hitting monsters with certain weapons.

There are four types of monster in this room, and each can only be attacked with a specific weapon.


 * Anger sword - kills Angry unicorn
 * Anger spear - kills Angry bear
 * Anger mace - kills Angry giant rat
 * Anger battleaxe - kills Angry goblin

When players enter this room they should see a weapons rack. Players should remove their own weapon, select a weapon from the rack that corresponds to a nearby creature, and wield it instead. Creatures can only be damaged with the anger weapon that corresponds to that specific creature, and a player may only have one anger weapon in their possession at a time. Players can do spectacular amounts of damage (into the quadruple digits) on these creatures, as the player does 1000% of their normal damage with that weapon. Unfortunately, it is not possible to level up your strength, defence, or attack fighting these angry animals as players do not receive any experience points for killing them.

Each creature killed raises the "rage level" bar at the top of the screen. After approximately 10-12 kills of the player's choice of angry creatures, the bar will reach maximum and the player will yell, swirl, and kill all remaining monsters in the room. A cut scene in which the boy leaves his mother for the more lucrative mines follows, and players can then exit out of the rage room near the east end of the cave and go into the fear room.

"Woah, how did I do that? There's something truly mental about this place!"

Fear


"It's so quiet and dark. I FEAR I may never escape this horrid place. Mum, Dad, help me!

This room represents Tolna's fear by giving players a frightening jolt when they do not know whether a Fear reaper will attack. Light sources will have no effect on the lighting in this room. In this room, players must search the dark holes. There will be fear reapers in some of them. Finding them can take several minutes, and the most effective way to find them is just to go around the room methodically. You can use a poisoned weapon on them. Every time your player kills one, he/she will become less afraid of the creature. After you've killed 5 you will get another cutscene and one of the holes will turn into an exit. Go into this for the next room.

"Hey, this place isn't so scary after all, it's just a figment of someone's imagination."

Confusion
''Where am I, How long have I been here? Oh, why am I so CONFUSED?''

This room represents Tolna's confusion by flabbergasting players, because doors lead nowhere and some beasts cannot be hurt.

The key to pass this room is not related to any of the six "confusing doors", but the five Confusion beasts.

Four are fake. Upon attacking them the player receives a message, "Is this creature even real?" as the player's attack registers 0 damage. However, upon hitting these creatures, though the blue hitsplat indicates 0 damage dealt, you still gain experience. After hitting them 8 times and apparently not doing any damage (this is not true), they will disappear with the message, "The creature wasn't even real." When you kill the authentic creature, there will be a message, "Those other monsters were just hallucinations!" (When they respawn, the first beast to move is authentic)

Once you kill the real beast, all 5 will respawn and one of the confusion doors will disappear. Upon any respawn, the location of the authentic beast becomes randomised.

Fortunately, the authentic beast is fairly easy to determine. It is the only one that takes damage, and is the only one that makes a sound when it is hit. Killing the authentic beast produces a respawn of all 5 creatures. Both the fake and authentic beasts attack with weak poison for 10 damage. (Note: You cannot kill the "real" beast while one of the fake ones are attacking you, so be sure to run away first to get them to stop attacking before you go after the real one.) However, the above methods may become frustrating to players unless they can perfectly remember which confusion beasts they have already hit (the ones that register no damage). A much easier method would be to attack each beast with a fast-hitting weapon, such as a whip (or if ranging, magic shortbow and arrows or throwing knives), until they disappear. This will register that the beast is not real. The beast will not respawn until the real one is killed. Then one of the above methods can be used, such as noticing the first one that moves once another round of confusion beasts respawns. This way, one can take only 2 doses of antipoison or 1 dose of super antipoison to successfully clear this room.

You must kill the real beast 5 times before the next flashback appears (where the boy finds himself alone in the cave, feeling "hopeless") and you are allowed to leave through the only "confusing door" left after the other 5 disappear.

 NOTE:  All of the Confusion Beasts can take poison damage from a poisoned weapon. This is not an indicator of the authentic beast.

It may take many doses of anti-poison to kill all the beasts 5 times. It is recommended to bring at least 2 full 4 dose anti-poisons. (more or less depending on a player's combat level)

Even though you do 0 damage to the fake creatures, you still get the amount of experience you would normally get if you were able to deal damage. A possible hidden update has made this fact obsolete.

If a player is finding it hard to determine the real creature, because they have low accuracy and it is taking to long to make the creature disappear, one can trap a creature behind a door, and use a ranged or magic attack to attract another monster, to test if it is the real one.

Hopelessness
''What's the point? No-One will ever help me. I'm not worth anything, will anyone ever combat my HOPELESSNESS?''

This room represents Tolna's hopelessness, because some players give up when the hopeless creatures will die and the bridge may not appear.

In this room, players will find five Hopeless creatures. Each has three forms and therefore needs to be killed three times to make them die permanently. The hopeless creatures will get smaller every time you kill them. When they have all been killed, the Bridge of Hope will appear. An easy way to kill them quickly is to use dwarf multicannon after Dwarf Cannon quest. Warning: you will lose the cannon but can get new one from Nulodion for free. Players are not advised to eat while fighting these as eating anything will heal the creature 75% of its current lifepoints, although higher levels shouldn't need to eat at all in this part.



Tolna
"Why should I speak to you? Besides, I'm no longer the boy you once knew." After crossing the bridge, players will see a short cutscene involving Tolna's father pleading with his son, and then must defeat the inhuman version of Tolna, a three-headed monster.

Each of the three level 46 heads can attack with either range or melee and poison. They are easier to defeat with range or magic rather than melee as attacking any head with melee will place the player in range of all three heads which will then attack simultaneously. Higher level players will have no problem with any choice of attack. Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee may be used for players to safely melee the monsters. Once you have defeated the heads, Tolna will become human again and thank you. Talk to him and he will return you to the surface. Talk to him again on the surface to complete the quest and receive your reward.

Reward

 * 1 Quest Point
 * 500 Defence experience
 * 500 Constitution experience
 * 500 Coins
 * Access to the Dungeon of Tolna for combat training

Should players go into the dungeon (after the quest), they will enter what looks like a waiting room, able to walk into one of the four rooms (representing Tolna's rage, fear, confusion and hopelessness) and train on the creatures there. The creatures in these rooms do not behave the same as they did before. The Hopeless Creatures can only be killed once, the Rage Creatures are at easier levels to fight, can be hit with any weapon and do not receive ludicrous amounts of damage, the Confusion Beasts do not poison, and all of the Confusion Beasts can be killed. None of the creatures in the rooms drop items.

Music unlocked

 * Wrath and Ruin in the anger room
 * Fear and Loathing in the fear room
 * Method of Madness in the confusion room
 * No Way Out in the hopelessness room

Required for completing
Completion of A Soul&#39;s Bane is required for the following:
 * Medium Varrock Tasks (need not complete the whole quest)

Trivia

 * The last room you enter when you fight Tolna is in the shape of a human brain, the minimap gives you a better image of this, the larger darkest part of it, is the cerebellum.
 * Upon completing this quest one's Adventurer's Log will read: "I found and rescued the poor kid Tolna. That dungeon really was a mix of emotions."
 * The poison inflicted by the confusion beasts and Tolna does not drain prayer when cured by the Prayer Book from The Great Brain Robbery.
 * After completing the quest, if you talk to Juna, your character will say, "...So I defeated all the monsters in Tolna's subconscious and he escaped from the rift." to which she replies, "The most fearsome monsters are to be found in the darkness of our own minds."