Serum 207

Serum 207 is a temporary cure for the afflicted villagers of Mort'ton, who are otherwise incoherent. A player who has read the Diary of Herbi Flax during the quest Shades of Mort'ton, and has a Herblore level of at least 15, may produce it by adding Tarromin and Ashes to a vial of water, giving 50 herblore experience.

The potion may be used on an afflicted villager, who will temporarily become coherent and reward the player. In addition to Shade keys and Level 1 clue scrolls, the possible rewards include all the items required to make the potion, allowing the process to be repeated for an inexpensive, if slow, method of training Herblore. It may also be used on the sacred flame in the Temple of Mort'ton to produce serum 208 (see the Shades of Mort'ton activity for more on that process). Serum 208 is required during the quest, and will give greater rewards when used on the afflicted.

Because ashes are cheaper than the other ingredients which may be combined with Tarromin, which is itself a cheaper herb, the potion is a herblore training option with an excellent price-to-experience ratio. To dispose of the potions afterwards, they can be withdrawn from the bank in noted form and dropped. Alternatively the vials can be emptied. The quickest way to do this is to drag a vial of Serum 207 over to the ability bar, so that a full inventory can be emptied in a few seconds by repeatedly tapping the key the vial is set to. Decanting noted vials into 4 doses at Bob Barker in the Grand Exchange further quickens the emptying of large quantities of Serum 207.

If emptying the vials without using the ability bar, the quickest method is to empty them per column of vials in inventory. Start at the top of a column, right click on a vial, select the empty option. Selecting the empty option moves the mouse pointer down about one row in the inventory, and a little practice can easily have it end up positioned over the next vial, whereupon the process is repeated. This greatly reduces the amount of time spent moving the mouse.

Cure Rewards
Curing the affliction of one of the Mort'ton villagers will cause them to give you one of the following items:


 * }

Note that none of these items are noted.

Cost-benefit analysis of curing
Simply subtract the current production price (seen below) from the current sale price of the reward items to see that players can easily break even by curing, and, given a few favorable results from any received clue scrolls, could even profit greatly (see the God robes sets).

In one test run where over 700 (4) dose serum were used, the number of tarromin herbs rewarded was actually more the number used to make the potions, generating a 100%+ profit. On the downside, the endeavor took nearly a week and a half of heavy playing to complete. (note; ALL items were retained. considerable time could be saved by dropping empty vials and undesired items)

Unfortunately, as curing or "using" the potion requires a massive time and energy commitment, especially for players who have made thousands of these potions, and given that the money spent is generally not monumental to begin with, the loss of money is widely held as acceptable. If the player is so inclined, however, the method is viable.

Production costs
This table is based on the Grand Exchange prices of a vial of water, the tarromin, and ashes. It is accurate assuming all three items are bought from the Grand Exchange. Note that the Serum 207 cannot be sold afterwards.

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Grimy tarromin is cleaned to become clean tarromin added with a vial of water to make tarromin potion (unf).

+ =

Then add ashes to make a 3-dose serum 207.

Trivia

 * Serum 207 used to be tradeable until an update in early 2008 where this ability was removed.
 * Originally, players may have found it economically easier to use an ash potion (unf), but with the update on 17 October 2012, this item was removed. Players must now use a tarromin potion (unf) with ashes.