Vial

A Vial is a glass container that players generally use in Herblore to make and store potions. They can fill a Vial of water by using it on a water source (all the vials in their inventory will fill automatically), excluding wells (other than the well near the Edgeville bank and one on Entrana near the herb store). If a player attempts to fill a vial from a well, they will receive the message: "If I drop my vial down there, I don't think I'm likely to get it back.". Players can also use the lunar spell Humidify to fill vials with water.

Alternatively, they can use half a coconut on a vial to fill it with coconut milk. They can then add a herb and a secondary ingredient to make a potion, depending on their Herblore level.

When trying to use an empty vial on the red mist from killing Armoured zombies, players will receive the message: "I don't seem to be able to collect the mist with this."

In real life a vial would be cylindrical, whereas in RuneScape it has a wide bottom and tapered top. This makes it more like an Erlenmeyer flask.

Vials with nothing in them used to be referred to as "Empty Vial"s.

Dropping monsters

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Members
Two vials spawn in Frincos's Fabulous Herb Store in south-west Entrana aswell as a house in Mort'ton. The respawn rate is two every two minutes. A vial is also obtained through the Swept Away quest.

Non-members
Even though vials are mostly used in Herblore (a members-only skill), they are not a members-only item. The apothecary can make a strength potion to any player who supplies him with a limpwurt root and red spiders' eggs, and pays him 5 coins. The player can empty this vial or drink all the doses of the potion to obtain an empty vial. However, the potion itself is worth more than the empty vial.

Before it was removed, players could obtain a good number of vials simply by waiting outside Bounty Hunter, as player-killers used potions and then dropped the vials because they could not be taken into the craters.

Vials were also an incredibly common low value drop in PVP worlds and many can be collected in a short period of time.

Obtaining vials as drops from monsters
Some non-player characters, such as Chaos Druids, will drop vials when killed. Water Elementals always drop a vial of water, and are close to the bank. They are level 34, and players must have at least started Elemental Workshop I.

From NPCs
Members can buy vials in a Herblore shop (for example from Jatix in Taverley), or buy plant cures from gardeners and then empty the vial. Players can also buy them from the general stores in the following places:
 * Keldagrim - at Gunslik's Assorted Items. This is quite close to a bank without the need for any teleports. 300 water-filled vials can be purchased here.
 * Shilo Village - at Obli's General Store. This is also close to a bank, with no teleports required. A total of 2,020 water-filled and empty vials can be bought here.
 * Mort'ton - at Rasmire's General Store. Players need to have completed Shades of Mort'ton and In Aid of the Myreque. 300 water-filled vials can be purchased here.
 * Polypore Dungeon - at Polypore Dungeon Supplies. Only 20 vials can be bought here.
 * Lunar Isle - at Moon Clan General Store. This is very close to a bank, players need to have completed Lunar Diplomacy. 50 vial packs, which contain 1000 vials total, can be purchased here.

Other places to buy vials from NPCs include:
 * Aemad's Adventuring Supplies in East Ardougne.
 * Frincos's Fabulous Herb Store on Entrana.
 * Sigmund the Merchant in Rellekka - he sells empty and water-filled vials, and players can bank on Lunar Isle via a teleport (or, if the player is wearing Fremennik Sea Boots they can bank faster with Peer the Seer making this the fastest method of merching water-filled vials because you can buy them for 10 coins and sell them for coins.
 * Poletax the Herblore Skill Tutor in Burthorpe/Taverley.

Besides, players can obtain vials by decanting potions. First of all, buy as many cheap 4-dose potions as possible. Then, talk to either Bob Barter or Zahur and decant them to 1 dose (or 2 doses for Zahur), in which the NPC will charge the extra vials for its GE price. The player can repeat this process by decant them back to 4 doses, bank the empty vials, and start over again. This method can bypass the buy limit of 10,000 vials per 4 hours in GE, and allow players to obtain a large number of them in a short time.

From other players
After the Shop Improvement update in October 2007, the street prices of empty and water-filled vials dropped in price substantially, because shops began stocking them in infinite quantities. This in turn caused drops in the prices of several potions, due to the ease of obtaining vials.

The Grand Exchange (GE) was introduced the following month, and players can use this to trade vials freely with other players - the current price is coins each. For a while it was possible for players to buy from stores and sell on the GE for a profit, however now this is no longer possible.

The 2 September 2009 Personalised Shops update removed infinite quantities and replaced them with shops unique to each player account, so that one player's purchases or sales did not affect what was available to another player. Store quantities were reduced to 300, with a respawn rate of approximately 12.5 vials per hour. Prices of vials rose dramatically. Packs of vials were added to many stores with the 9 November 2009 Champions' Challenge update, and empty vial prices fell once again.

Making vials
Using the Crafting skill, members can make their own vials. This requires a glassblowing pipe, and molten glass. 33 Crafting is required to make the vial.

Vials appear to have a cork inserted into the top. However, nowhere during the process of making a vial do players come into contact with cork. Corks are not mentioned in game, even in examine texts.

Since the introduction of vial sets, the price of vials dropped from 181 gp to 1 gp because vials are now easier to buy, this made it harder for people casting the lunar spell humidify to make money via magic.