Contact!

Contact! is a members quest that takes place in the Kharidian Desert, in which a player attempts to help the city of Sophanem contact its neighbouring city of Menaphos.

Starting off
Travel to Sophanem and speak to the High Priest in the southwestern temple (south of Pyramid Plunder). There will be a cut scene that will say that they have been having problems getting in contact with their sister city of Menaphos, due to Coenus and his archers aggressively guarding the gates. Ask him about ways of getting into Menaphos and pick the option about accessing "from below".

Talk to Jex, who is in the North-east part of the city in a building with a broken altar. He will tell you how to access the dungeons beneath the building. Go down the ladder east of Jex and talk to the guard if you haven't got any lighting source already. He will sell you a torch for 200 coins, and a tinderbox for 50 coins. A bullseye lantern is a better choice because it will go out less often, but you must take your tinderbox into the dungeon. Alternatively you can take a seers village headband as your light source as it never goes out. Silver, and gold torches from the Gielinor Games also work, as they never run out. It is strongly recommended that you take good food (monkfish or above), an emergency escape teleport such as the ectophial, a tinderbox, light source such as a bullseye lantern, and an antipoison potion.

Dungeon
Note: The dungeon under Sophanem is very dangerous, and protection prayers are strongly advised for protection from the monsters that patrol the dungeon.

Turn auto-retaliate off through the ability bar, since it might cause you to waste some prayer points fighting back, and/or also cause you to run into a trap, if you're hit at an inopportune moment. Go down the trapdoor and follow the dungeon around until you get to the ladder north of the South-west corner using protect from magic prayer.

When following the route to the right, the player will only encounter scarab mages. Therefore, use protect from magic and keep auto-retaliate off.

Traps
The dungeon is ridden with various types of traps, which should generally be avoided or bypassed.

Note: Scarab mages can extinguish your light source even if it's a closed lantern, unless you are using the Seers' headband. You will not be able to continue attacking (if you were in combat) until your light source is relit.

Lower Dungeon

 * Once you have found the correct ladder (see map above), follow the passage around until you come to the corpse of Kaleef. Search the corpse to get a parchment, read it and continue west to Maisa. Once you tell her that Kaleef is dead, she wants to confirm your identity before trusting you.

Tell her that you helped rescue Prince Ali, and that he was being held in Draynor Village. Ozan and Leela assisted you.

(The answer to the first set of choices for question one is Draynor Village, and the answer for the second set of choices is Ozan and Leela)

She will then decide you are trustworthy and tell you to speak to Osman, the spy master in Al-Kharid.

Osman
Travel to Al-Kharid and speak to Osman, who is standing against a pillar inside the palace. (If you try to enter the throne room and are told the palace is on lockdown, you must first do the two quests that replaced Prince Ali Rescue ~ Stolen Hearts and Diamond in the Rough.) Try to convince him to come to Sophanem (picking the "It would drive a wedge between the Menaphite cities." option does the trick).

Before returning to Sophanem, make whatever arrangements are necessary to battle a level 124 Giant scarab.
 * Good food (Monkfish or better are recommended)
 * One or two prayer potions
 * A one-click escape teleport
 * Light source

Travel back to Sophanem. Osman is just outside the gates. Talk to him again and suggest the secret entrance just north of the city. You will then see a cutscene where Osman sneaks past Jex into the caves below by blackjacking him.

The Final Battle: Giant Scarab
Go back through Sophanem Dungeon to where you found the body of Kaleef. Once you have passed through the maze turn auto-retaliate back on in order to avoid being interrupted in your fight. As soon as you go down the ladder you will see another cut scene where a large scarab appears.

The Giant Scarab may not summon his minions if you stand behind Kaleef's body, which can make the fight considerably easier.

Travel into the cave and fight the level 124 Giant Scarab, which can hit up to 200 with melee and ranged. It summons level 68 Locust riders and Scarab mages (which can also do 90 life points of damage with poison) to aid it, which will attack the player at the same time. The riders will attack with ranged or melee, and the mages will attack with magic so you are being attacked by all 3 combat styles at once.

It is recommended to defeat the magic-casters and rangers as soon as they spawn, but ignore the melee riders as your prayer makes them harmless.

Magic:
 * The scarab is easiest to defeat with magic. Use Protect from Ranged. The scarab is particularly weak to earth spells. Ice Rush is a quick way to beat the scarab. A full set of batwing robes or Ahrim's robes are effective, as well as a staff of light.


 * Since the scarab will use only ranged attacks, you should save your food for the minions and defeat them as quickly as possible, as they have low life points (around 200, easily killable in one hit of Ice Rush) but regularly hit above 100. You can then return your focus to the boss; just make sure not to run out of prayer. With the proper tactics and a decent magic level, it is possible to not need a single dose of potion or food.

Melee:
 * Using Protect from Melee prayer is recommended against the scarab, and having plenty of food is extremely helpful in this fight. Wearing dragonhide armour will help protect against both magic and ranging. The Giant Scarab has extremely high defence against slash attacks, so weapons that use only slash attacks are not recommended. The scarab is very weak to stabbing attacks, however, so a Zamorakian spear or Brackish Blade is a better choice. Assuming that all your melee stats are above 75, you should have no difficulty in dispatching it, using boosting potions and melee prayers. Another good method is to use a full Guthan's set, as the spear is only slightly less powerful than the Zamorakian Spear, uses the stab attack type, and you receive the bonus of the full set special - the chance that the damage you do will recover some of your health.
 * Another quite effective way is to use a Dragon halberd with the stab attack style to kill the Giant Scarab. Since it is an halberd, it can attack from 2 squares away, and when you will attack the scarab it will stay on its spot, only using its ranged attack (as long as you do not come closer to it) and allowing you to put on the protect from Ranged prayer. At the same time, it will protect you from the powerful Locust ranger's attacks, and you will be able to easily kill the other minions as the halberd has a high accuracy and strength bonus.

Ranged:
 * A crystal bow or rune crossbow would be the ideal weapon to fight the Scarab with. Use Karil's or royal dragonhide armour, and use Protect from Ranged. Diamond bolts (e) can also hit through its armour. A Hand Cannon also works as well, but before there use to be a chance that the weapon would explode on you so a backup weapon was recommended.

Battle notes
The battle site has lost most of its original safespots and cannon uses in updates. Still, if you stand a distance away, the scarab will not approach. A good method is to turn on protect from range, and range it with royal dragonhide and rune arrows, or any equivalent. Be sure to kill the riders as soon as possible, as they'll be the only thing that can really damage you.

In some apparently rare cases, you will get very lucky and the scarab will not summon a single monster to help him fight. Immediately attack the scarab, most likely using Ice Rush, before you get close to it. Your character will move to the most far away spot possible while still being able to attack.

You can protect yourself from the scarab by simply attracting the scarab then standing to the left of the skeleton right before kaleefs' body although doing this will allow the scarab to summon mages and locusts; however, it will not take long to kill if you are using Ice Rush, Iban Blast or an earth based spell.

If players are afraid of dying while fighting the giant scarab, it is recommended that they wear the Ring of life, but beware because you may be hit with enough damage to kill you before you teleport to your respawn location.

Note: The Anti-poison totem will not protect you from the Scarab's poison mandables. The poison hits for around 40 life points, and can be cured with antipoisons.

After the fight
Once the scarab is defeated, another cut scene will happen where Osman is revealed to be alive (since he blended into the shadows as a spy master). He talks to you and tells you to take the Keris on the floor, and then teleports away.

If you happen to die at the same time as the scarab or fail to pick up the Keris for some other reason, you can still get it from Osman in Al Kharid for free.

Go back to the high priest. It is suggested that you teleport out instead of tracing back through the dungeon, since there is no quick and easy way to get above ground. Restore prayer and lifepoints before coming to Sophanem again. He will confirm that Maisa was successful, and reward you.

Rewards

 * 1 Quest point
 * Keris, a dagger which is very effective against Kalphites and Scarabs
 * 7,000 experience
 * Access to Sophanem's bank under the Temple of Lesser Deities in the northeast corner (useful for Pyramid Plunder)
 * 2 extra spins on the Squeal of Fortune
 * Combat lamp giving 2 wishes each granting 7000 experience to:
 * Attack
 * Strength
 * Defence
 * Constitution
 * Ranged
 * Magic
 * Summoning (if over level 30)

Note: If you accidentally destroy the experience lamp, another may be obtained by seeing the High Priest.

Music unlocked

 * Back to Life
 * The Depths
 * Labyrinth
 * Beetle Juice

Required for completing
Completion of Contact! is required for the following:
 * Dealing with Scabaras
 * Desert Tasks:
 * Hard: "Ludikeris"

Trivia

 * Upon the completion of this quest, one's Adventurer's Log will read: "I kept my promise to Maisa and brought Osman to see her. As a result, the Sophanem exiles have returned and the city is bustling again."
 * If a player returns to Al-Kharid for any reason whilst Osman is inside the dungeon, an NPC named Osman will still be there who the player claim is an agent of Osman. The 'Agent' seems to deny existing.
 * There is currently a glitch where if you took a dose of Prayer Renewal before seeing the Giant Scarab cutscene, the swirls from the potion would appear around Osman. Sometimes you can even see your character in Osman's place for a short time.
 * There is a glitch where you will get the scarab down to zero hp, but it keeps attacking you and it won't die. Leaving the lower dungeon and then relogging seems to solve this glitch.
 * There is currently a stretching glitch involving Osman in the cutscene where he enters Sophanem and further into the quest. This is probably due to his graphical update as part of the Ozan Quest Double Bill update.
 * The dungeon is said to be very dark, but there are torches burning there. This may be another reference to Shadow (now Rock) magic.
 * If you finished Icthlarins little helper before the addition of Diamond in the Rough, you will be unable to talk to Osman until the completion of the quest.
 * The temple of minor gods may be a reference to the Discworld series of books in which there is a temple of small gods

Contact! Contact! Contact! Contact!