Back to my Roots

Back to my Roots is a quest about the Jade Vine Maze on Karamja, which you have to traverse in order to get a sapling for Lord Handelmort's mansion's garden. Like its prequel, The Hand in the Sand, and its sequel, Returning Clarence, the quest is filled with puns on words.

Development team

 * Developer: Marion C
 * Graphics: Matthew M, Matthew S, Kavi M
 * Quality Assurance: Adam D
 * QuestHelp: Gillan M
 * Audio: Dan A

Helping Horacio
Start the quest by talking to Horacio, in East Ardougne, and offer to help him with his gardening. He can be found in the garden of the big house just north-west of the Ardougne Market, near the two fountains. He'll want you to get a special vine that grows near Shilo Village. He cannot give too much information and he recommends visiting Wizard Cromperty in East Ardougne.

Now go to Cromperty in his house northeast of the market, behind the servants' guild, and he will ask you to investigate the reason the RPDT is not delivering Cromperty's parcel.

The next stop is the RPDT headquarters south of the southern Ardougne bank. Talk to any of the RPDT employees. The employee will say that the smelly package is delayed because the address is unreadable. The RPDT employee takes the subtle hint that a non RPDT employee can open the parcel, so locate the parcel on the table and open it. Inside there is a severed wizard's hand. It has no use during the course of the quest, but it is used in the Returning Clarence miniquest.

Go back to Cromperty and talk to him. He opens the package and discovers that the item in the package appears to be broken. Make a new pot lid out of soft clay. Make sure to put the unfired pot lid in the pottery oven. You can find a Potter's wheel and a Pottery oven west across the river from the north bank. Note that a pot lid made prior to talking to Cromperty will not work. Similarly a pot lid purchased on the Grand Exchange will not suffice; Cromperty will say the lid is too small.

Talking to Garth
Cromperty's next instructions are to talk to Garth, the farmer near the fruit tree patch in Brimhaven. A boat to Brimhaven can be found slightly east of the RPDT workers, for 30 coins or for free with ring of charos (a), or use the Karamja lodestone and run north. Garth will tell you how to get the jade vine to grow in Horacio's garden. You can use the cart of Hajedy to get to Shilo Village very quickly. Hajedy is located only a few steps east of Garth. Teleporting to the Al Kharid lodestone and using the glider if you are able is also a quick way to travel to the maze.

Karamja vine maze
Note: You CANNOT take a familiar with you into the maze.

What to bring
Note: there is a bank in Shilo Village. For this part you will need to bring a normal pot, Wizard Cromperty's pot lid, a plant pot with soil, and on toolbelt or inventory, a machete, a spade, a Woodcutting hatchet, and a pair of secateurs. Given that the maze is loaded with aggressive monsters, take decent armour, food and anti-poison. A super defence potion is recommended as well. The alternative to food, armour and anti-poisons is to take a few prayer potions, equipment with prayer bonus and a Prayer book with a holy symbol to cure from poison. With this method, the Protection from Melee prayer (level 43 Prayer required) will halve damage, except the damage taken from failing obstacles and occasional poisoning.

How to get to the maze
The quickest way to the maze is to use either the Wicked Hood teleport to the nature altar or by using the Karamja lodestone (assuming you have activated it), then run southeast. If you do not have access to either of those options, follow these instructions (refer to the picture for more help on getting to the maze): From the Shilo Village exit, go east and jump on the stepping stones. Go far north past the maze to a log, cross it, and go south again. An alternative path is to walk around Shilo and go east along the northern fence of Shilo. Try to find an endpoint of a vine to climb onto on the north-west corner of the maze. The 'climb-on' vine point forms the maze entry. As the maze is fairly close to the Nature runecrafting altar, all paths to the maze are fairly similar to the nature runecrafting trips.

The Eagle transport system provides an alternative entry point further down the path through the maze. Unfortunately, that transport option is pretty isolated. You can also use the Fairy ring code Karamja: South of Tai Bwo Wannai Village Shilo Village and run straight east past the nature altar, or a Spirit graahk to teleport you (57 summoning required). The fastest way is to use the wicked hood's teleport to the Nature Altar. This is usually the fastest way to the maze, unless you used Hajedy's cart to get to Shilo Village.

The creatures
In the maze are many creatures, some aggressive, some poisonous. Players should bring anti-poison potions and food.


 * Monkey level 8.
 * Jungle spider level 49. (poisonous)
 * Giant ant soldier level 70.
 * Giant ant worker level 49.
 * Tenacious toucan level 84.
 * Giant Wasp level 70.
 * Frog level 77. (poisonous)
 * Pernicious parrot level 63.
 * Snake wrapped around tree. Not attack-able but can poison. High Agility enables evading of snake strikes.

The path through the maze
The maze has a number of navigational options:
 * Enter a hole
 * Enter vine
 * Climb up/down vine
 * Cut/squeeze/crawl through vines hanging down
 * Swing-on vine

Tip: Scars on vines will help players to find their way.

The end of the maze features the vine root. It can be obtained by finding the patches of loose soil, where right clicking will show "Dig Loose soil", which is used to expose the vine root. Then a new option will appear to allow cutting the root. Use the root cutting on the plant pot. With a bit of luck it will grow.

If the cutting does not grow, dig up and cut another root in a different soil spot. Note that there are FIVE spots to dig in (two northeast of the trunk, one north of the trunk, one west of the trunk, and one off in the corner to the southwest of the trunk), and only one of those five spots will yield the root that will grow. Use the root cutting with the plant pot filled with soil. If it fails to grow you will retain the plant pot with soil. When the vine root cutting successfully grows, use your plant pot on your normal pot to end up with a sealed pot. That pot now contains the root. NOTE: Be careful not to teleport until the root has grown and has been sealed in the pot. If the sealed pot is lost, talk to Garth to get another.

Growing the vine
Go back to Ardougne, and talk to Horacio. Bring the root cutting sealed in the pot. The player must plant the vine in Horacio's vine patch, found northeast of Horacio with a gardening trowel. A tool leprechaun is nearby, for obtaining Farming tools if you already stored them. After planting the vine, a cut scene appears where the jade vine has grown out of control. Horacio now insists that the vine needs to be killed. Fortunately, there is an opportunity to prepare for the battle.

The battle
The wild jade vine will take normal damage by using a woodcutting hatchet as a weapon, all other weapons will only hit for 50 or less. The Inferno adze counts as a woodcutting hatchet. If you do not have one you can buy an iron hatchet from the general store just south west, but it is recommended you use rune or higher. It uses all three combat styles so you can not fully protect yourself with prayer, however its magic attack is much weaker and used less often than its melee attack. Therefore it is recommended to get magic defence, and then protect from melee. The vine's magic attack will poison for 70 damage (regardless of if it hits), so a dose of a super antipoison can be used to defend against it. The ranged attack is not a serious threat but it is recommend to still keep your health up as it occasionally hits up to 1000. It is recommended that you do NOT use a Prayer book. It will drain your prayer each time you use it, and the vine poisons quite frequently, causing you to waste a lot of your much needed prayer points. If you need to leave, you can exit through the arch, but you will have to start the battle over again. After killing the vine, cut the last remainder of it using your secateurs.

Now talk once more to Horacio to complete the quest.

Rewards

 * 1 quest point
 * Vine Farming Patch in East Ardougne
 * Jade Vine Seed
 * Vine Farming Patch in East Ardougne
 * Jade Vine Seed
 * Vine Farming Patch in East Ardougne
 * Jade Vine Seed

Access to:
 * Jade vine maze
 * 8 new creatures: Giant ant soldier, Giant ant worker, Tenacious toucan, Giant Wasp, Frog, Pernicious parrot, Wild jade vine, Karamjan Jungle eagle.
 * Transportation between Eagle's Peak and Karamja using the Karamjan Jungle eagle.
 * Ability to slay the Jade Vine for extra Slayer and Farming experience once every 15 hours.

Returning Clarence miniquest
If you collect 6 body parts, and prove who murdered him, Clarence can be buried and you will be richly rewarded.

Rewards

 * 200 blood runes
 * 100 law runes
 * 100 law runes

Repeatable rewards
A vine seed is part of the quest rewards. When lost, talk to Horacio to get a new one. Plant the seed in the west patch of the garden in front of the Handelmort mansion. Talk to Horacio and ask him to look after the vine patch. He'll want a payment of 10 wildblood hops. Those can be grown in any hops patch with 4 wildblood seeds, the payment is 1 nasturtium.

Growing a jade vine offers repeatable rewards, like the once per week Tears of Guthix activity. When the vine is fully grown, checking its health yields 1500 Farming experience. After a short time, the vine will grow branches. Pruning these with secateurs will provide 30 Farming experience. Without pruning, the jade vine will grow wild. As in the quest, the wild jade vine can be killed using a woodcutting axe and secateurs. This gives 2500 Slayer experience and a new vine seed. Talk to Horacio about the wild vine and he'll offer to kill it for a payment of 5 coconuts and 5 watermelons. Paying Horacio gets rid of the wild vine but yields no experience reward in any skill. After clearing the patch repeat the cycle. If a player loses the vine seed, he may ask Horacio for a new one. If the jade vine dies, then after clearing the patch of the dead jade vine, the player may ask Horacio for a new seed. The vine growth is approximately 15 hours. The vine turns wild a few hours after checking its health. If you trim the vine regularly, Horacio will continue to keep it in good health. If you allow the vine to grow out of control, you must kill it, receive a new seed, replant it, and again pay Horacio 10 wildblood hops if you'd like him to look after it for you.

Killing a wild vine during repeatable rewards makes it possible for a player to abandon the battle without a teleport by simply using the gate exit.

Music unlocked

 * Roots and Flutes (if not already unlocked by exploring the land just outside of the maze)

Required for completing
Completion of Back to my Roots is required for the following:
 * Returning Clarence miniquest
 * Ardougne Tasks:
 * Hard: "Vine-Detta"

Trivia

 * Upon the completion of this quest, one's Adventurer's Log will read: "I successfully navigated the vine maze to get a cutting of a very rare vine for Lord Handelmort."
 * After killing the Jade Vine the player tells Horacio to "stop vining", a play on 'stop whining',
 * On the first day of release if players clicked to see the spoilers they received the message: Good quest spoilers need time to take root. Come back when they're in season.
 * When speaking to Garth about preserving the vine root, he will mention Wizard Cromperty is a "wonderful wizard", and then he and your character will take turns saying "because" a few times. This is a reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
 * Your player also says "I'm off to see the wizard...". This is also a reference to the Wizard of Oz
 * This quest also gives 40,000 Woodcutting experience as a reward, at the time breaking the record in quest experience given in a single skill as a reward. The previous record holder was Monkey Madness, which gave 35,000 experience in 2 combat skills of the player's choice. However, this record was again broken with the release of While Guthix Sleeps, which gives 100,000 experience to four skills of the player's choice above level 65.

Back to my Roots Back to My Roots