Nomad's Requiem

Nomad's Requiem is a Grandmaster quest, the second to be released after While Guthix Sleeps. In comparison, Nomad's Requiem is much shorter than While Guthix Sleeps. However, it is generally regarded to be more difficult because of the final boss battle, which is among the most difficult fights any player will experience. Players should use extreme caution in the battle against Nomad.

Walkthrough
Notes:
 * The temple under Soul Wars is very dangerous, even players with high Agility can exhaust their run energy if they try to run all the time. Players are advised to bring items that can restore energy and use the salt-water spring in Oo'glog if possible.
 * If you log out while in the temple, you will be in the Soul Wars entry area when you next log in. This can be used as a quick way to exit the temple when deep inside it.
 * If you do not log out or leave the dungeon, the spectral enemies will not respawn.



Zimberfizz' Suspicions
To start the quest, speak with Zimberfizz at Soul Wars. He will comment that Nomad is being sneaky at night, coming out of his tent all sparkly. He suspects Nomad is up to some evil schemes. Agree to help. He will ask to investigate Nomad's tent, who will interrupt the conversation and then teleport away for "some business to attend". Afterwards, inspect Nomad's tent and you will discover a trapdoor. Climb down to see a cutscene.

Nomad will approach three characters from While Guthix Sleeps, an Elite Dark Mage, warrior and ranger, who are angry at him. Nomad comments on them, saying he had expected some stronger people. Then, the provoked warrior will approach Nomad and hit him, although he does no damage. Nomad laughs and kills the man with a strike of his staff. The mage is scared and wants to back out, although Nomad also prepares a spell to kill him. The mage starts to pray, but Nomad easily hits through the prayer. The enraged ranger says that the "master" will not be happy with Nomad's treachery and sets off, although he is frozen by Nomad, who also starts to load a powerful spell. The ranger fires a few arrows but before any damage can be done, Nomad unleashes his spell that hits almost a 1000 damage on the ranger, who dies. Nomad comments on the easiness of the fight and departs.

Nomad's Temple
Go up the ladder you are standing next to and talk to Zimberfizz again, who will tell you to go down and talk to Nomad. Alternatively you can just talk to Nomad after his fight without going back to Zimberfizz. Nomad will warn you not to return again and forget what you have seen, or you will not get out of the temple, as he thinks you are an assassin. He then teleports away. Search the ex-adventurer's bag near the entrance to obtain a bronze pickaxe. (The other items in the pack are useless, although the cooked herring can be used as food if you wish.)

Return and talk to Zimberfizz, and he will tell you to return to Nomad's Temple and thwart whatever evil scheme Nomad is up to. Down there, you must find a way to enter the arcane doorway (the white gateway) in the main room. This is done by disabling the power source for both cables.

Water Channel Rooms



 * Go in the south-west room. Here, water must be directed to flow a certain way by moving pillars. However, water must first be sent to this room. (If you move the pillars before directing water to this room, the pillars reset when you leave the room.) Beware of the aggressive Spectral attendants in this room. The pattern found on the top of each pillar shows which water channels are opened.
 * Note that any defeated attendants will not respawn (but they will respawn if logged off), and it is extremely recommended to defeat them, at least on the bottom floor (where you spend the longest duration). To defeat them, it is advised you use Protect from Melee or safe-spot-range/maging (by trapping them behind a drain).
 * Go up the ladder in the south-east part of the room. Pull both levers. Beware of the spectral attendants in this room. Note that there is mineable rubble, but that the flow does not need to pass into that chamber until the below puzzle is completed.
 * Go up the ladder in the north-east part of the room and push both pillars so that they cover the drains. Again, beware of the spectral attendants in this room.
 * Go down to the middle floor and check that water is flowing to the south channel in the room. If it is not, work the levers until it is.
 * Go down to the bottom room. To begin the puzzle. The aim of the puzzle is to have all 3 streams at the northern end (flowing into the machine) activated. The number of open channels feeding the flowers does not matter.
 * The shapes on the top of each pillar shows the direction of the waTrap.png flow beneath it. Use this to determine which direction a given pillars will allow the water to flow. When you get the 'Yes, the device looks to be out of order now' message in the chatbox then you have disabled the device.
 * You can trap all the creatures, on the bottom floor, by getting them to follow you and luring round the device at the north of the room. This saves prayer if you unable to kill them.

Elemental Creature Power Room
Go back to the middle (2nd) floor in the Water Channel rooms (south west door in the entrance).

Mine the rubble next to the east channel. Pull the south lever once to change the water flow to the east channel. This will cause a waterfall to form in the southeast room—it is no longer needed in the south-west room because the machine is broken.

Note: If there is only a trickle of water coming out of the ceiling in the south-east room, you have not worked the levers correctly.

Go to the southeast room and get several pieces of elemental fuel out of the fuel hopper. The Spectral tenders in this room are not aggressive, unlike the spectral attendants in the other rooms. If you do not have room, bank your food - it is not needed here.

Use the fuel ("place elemental fuel") to lure three elemental creatures out of the device in the room and onto the water flowing out of the ceiling. Only one creature can be lured at time. To lure a creature, place a piece of fuel on the floor near the machine. As it comes out and eats it, place another piece of fuel nearer the waterfall. You can easily space the food 4 squares apart - even diagonally. Continue luring the creature until you can place a piece of fuel right in the waterfall itself (right click the waterfall's square and choose 'Walk here' to get there) or simply place a piece of fuel on the other side of the waterfall. The water destroys the creature. If a creature eats a piece of fuel before you place the next piece, you have only 2–3 seconds to place the fuel before it gives up and returns to the device. In this case, you must begin again with another creature. Be aware that the creatures try to move in straight lines to the fuel, so obstacles like walls between the fuel and the creature will cause the creature to get stuck. Repeat this procedure until all three creatures are destroyed.



The second doorway
Return to the room with the arcane door and go through the door. In this new room, there is another arcane door to the north, again protected by two power cables that must be turned off. Beware of the aggressive Spectral worshippers in this area.

Sentient Vines Tunnels


Go west and go through a door in the west wall. Go west down a corridor until you come to the first room. Beware of the aggressive Spectral cultivators in this area. A set of animated roots guard the power device, preventing you from getting to it. If you try to attack the roots, you discover that they are unassailable when bunched like this. You must find a way to unbunch them.

Continue west following the vines on the floor. Beware of the spectral cultivators. In four places, find and destroy the individual roots that stick up from the ground. You hear a loud roar when you destroy the fourth root.

Return to the room with the power device. A level 525 Decaying avatar has appeared there. Kill it (some strategies can be found here). When fighting the avatar, it will try to heal using roots that grow from the floor during the battle. Destroy the root before it can eat it and it won't heal. If it eats a root, it heals to full health, prolonging the battle. (The first root appears when the avatar reaches 3/4 life points, the second at 1/2, and the third at 1/4.) Don't worry too much if the avatar does get to the roots; after the third root, no more appear. The roots appear in the following order: NW, SE and NE of the room. A good tip would be to position yourself in between the area the root will appear and the avatar when fighting him. This way you have a good chance to melee the root and destroy it before the avatar gets to it. When the avatar is killed, the waving roots disappear and the power device is automatically damaged. Another good tip would be to use the Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee prayer and use enchanted ruby bolts, since that can deal up to 2000 damage. Since the avatar does not hit through prayer, one only has to bring prayer potions and simple melee gear to defeat the avatar. If using a cannon, you can position yourself so the avatar stands directly overtop the cannon, that way it will constantly be hit by cannonfire.

If you leave the fight before killing the avatar (for example, by teleporting out of the temple), you will have to start the fight from the beginning again, but you won't have to destroy the four roots to get the avatar to appear. However, if you log out of the game in the avatar arena, it resets and you have to destroy all the roots again to face the avatar.

Smoke Room
Items to bring for the next section: Runes for Fire wave (1 blood rune, 5 air runes, and 7 fire runes) equipment with a high prayer bonus (if you plan to use Piety), and possibly food/restore potions (if you are not using Piety). Although it may be a good idea to bring food and restore potions anyway, just incase your prayer runs out. A prayer potion or two may also help.

Return to the arcane door area and go east. At the doorway in the east wall, talk to the dying knight and then examine his body when he dies. You get a clue about being pious, which means the Piety prayer will help you in the next room, so high prayer boosting gear is recommended.

If you want to use Piety here, make sure your prayer book is set to normal. Now turn on Piety (optional but highly recommended) and enter the east room. Without Piety, every half a second the haze in the east room drains ten life points as well as prayer and other stats. A facemask does not protect you, but Piety prevents damage and stat drain. You may want to change your graphics settings to safe mode, as it can be highly difficult to see in HD.

Collect the 5 stone slabs scattered throughout the room and build a bridge across the central pool, at the point where two slabs are already in the pool. To build, go to the current edge of the bridge and select "Place slab".

The western part of the room is multi-combat and contains several aggressive Corruption beasts, and Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee negates their attacks. You do not have to kill the beasts, but each one you kill 'uplifts your spirit' which fully recharges your prayer points.

When the bridge is built, cross to the eastern part of the room. No beasts are here, so turn off your protection prayer. Cast fire wave on the explosive barrels to detonate them and destroy the machine. Note that the haze could have drained your Magic level, so drinking a Restore potion is sometimes mandatory to reach 75 if you need to restore your level. If you did not use Piety, you may need to bring restore potions with you to restore your magic level enough to cast your chosen fire spell.

Return to the arcane door area. You can now enter the next arcane doorway and face Nomad. If you are not ready, go stock up first.

Showdown against Nomad

 * If you die, you respawn at Soul Wars, with your gravestone appearing in one of the graveyards on the island. This allows you to bring expensive items, as death is not a problem.



Enter the doorway. You will approach Nomad, who is sitting on an immense throne. He will be surprised that you have come anyway. You can ask him what the throne's purpose is, and he will explain that it channels the soul power from the soul fragments put into the Obelisk into himself, in order to give him enough power to defeat his former master, whose identity Nomad will not tell, as he thinks you already know it. He tells you that, now you know this, you must die, and he attacks you. He attacks with class-less, but magic-based attacks which are unblockable by prayer or curse and often hit in the 300's. He also has a number of special attacks. In the first, he puts flame vortices around you, which deal quite a bit of damage when stepped on. Next, he will clone himself and all the clones will attack you. Find the real Nomad to continue the fight. When he warns you cannot hide from him, he fires a spell at you that hits for 750 damage, but can be soaked or fully absorbed by a pillar. Finally, he may teleport you to the middle of the room and commence charging a spell for several seconds. You cannot move, but must heal to full life points, as the spell hits for your maximum HP minus one. This spell too is soaked as magic damage. In the end, Nomad will slash at you with rapid melee attacks.

Kill Nomad, who says you have doomed the world on death, and leave the Temple.

Nomad's Requiem
You will appear outside Nomad's tent. Talk to Zimberfizz and tell him Nomad is dead. He will not believe it and follow you to his body. You will even kick the head to make sure he is dead. Zimberfizz is content, puts on a new outfit and the two of you leave. However, as you walk out, Nomad stands up and teleports away!

Reward



 * 3 Quest points
 * 70 Zeal points
 * Soul Wars cape
 * Soul Wars is added to your list of respawn points
 * Decaying Avatar and Nomad become available as bosses in the Dominion Tower.

Music unlocked

 * Battle of Souls
 * Desolate Ruins

Required for completing

 * Varrock Tasks:
 * Elite: "Nomadness"

Trivia

 * While in the Smoke room, when you click on the slab you are standing on, your character will do a pirouette and say 'Ta-da!'.
 * After completing the quest, the 'Quest complete' text in the Adventurer's Log reads: I foiled Nomad's secret plans behind Soul Wars, leaving the battleground in the hands of Zimberfizz.
 * The floors of temple dungeon are shaped in the characters G, O and D, so in one word GOD.

Combat tactics

 * Ruby bolts (e) have a chance of hitting 20% of the target's remaining life points. When Nomad goes berserk, he will be at 1/4 his full life points. Therefore, the maximum damage that ruby bolts (e) can deal is 750, but the chance of the special activating is not very high. Diamond bolts (e) have a higher chance of activating and lowering Nomad's defence to ranged attacks, which is more useful since it doesn't hurt you in the process like the Ruby bolts (e) do.
 * The Farseer shield can be a big help as it lessens his -1 LP hit, allowing you to save some food for the rest of the fight.
 * It was once possible to avoid Nomad's most powerful attack (Disintegrate). After Nomad's clones had disappeared and he resumed normal attacks, the player could run south towards the exit door. As Nomad was launching his sixth attack after the clones had disappeared, attempting to exit through the door would result in the message, "And where do you think you are going?" The player would then be teleported back to the centre of the arena. If this were done correctly, Nomad would say, "Face me!" before launching more regular attacks (restarting the cycle). This technique was removed on 20 December 2010.

Statistics & Requirements

 * This is the second Grandmaster quest released, after While Guthix Sleeps.
 * Nomad is revealed to be level 699 during this quest, making him the strongest attackable quest monster, taking the title from the Balance Elemental.

Bugs

 * A bug existed that allowed Nomad to be killed without retaliating or using any of his special attacks by using a Spirit Kyatt. This allowed many low levels that would not have been able to defeat Nomad normally to complete the quest. This has been fixed.
 * A rare glitch causes your familiar to disappear during the cutscene before you fight Nomad. The next familiar you summon would have all of the items you lost. For example, if you had 18 brews in your war tortoise and lost it, summoning a Terror bird would have 18 brews even though it only holds 12.
 * There is currently a glitch with Nomad that causes him to say "Face me!" even if you are in attacking range, to fix this simply attack him.
 * There is currently a glitch that causes Nomad to completely disappear from the battleground, it's known to happen when hiding behind a pillar between special moves. There is no way to fix this, all that can be done is leaving through the arcane doorway.

Cultural references

 * The herring and other items in the explorer's bag is most likely a reference to the idiom, "a red herring".
 * The word "requiem" is Latin for rest or peace. However, the meaning in the quest's title is more likely the common/modern usage - a musical service, musical composition, and/or song for the repose of, and/or in honour of, the dead.