I wanted to go into an area of Old School RuneScape and try and do just about everything you could as a free-to-play player. While out doing some random questing I ended up discovering and unlocking access to Ruins Of Camdozaal. This as it turns out would end up having quite a lot of different things for me to do.

The fun part about Ruins Of Camdozaal was being able to set a bigger goal and a bunch of smaller ones. I wanted to give mining, fishing, combat, and exploration a go inside this place. Most of these helped accomplish a larger goal of acquiring the Barronite Mace.

Below Ice Mountain Quest

First, to get into Ruins Of Camdozaal I had to complete a rather easy quest that took some walking around, solving NPCS issues, and discovering I was being used. The quest I'm referring to is called Below Ice Mountain.

I had to go talk with someone named Willow and get her crew back together again to pull off what they were hoping was some kind of heist. She, however, told me they were archaeologists. It ended up being a bit of a shock to me with how things ended up going down.

So, I went out and got her crew back together again. They mostly had me go out and do silly things. From needing to train to “flex” to making a sandwich for a thief who was no longer permitted to order his favorite food for stealing.

At the time a lot of this just seemed stupid and a waste of time. I had no idea at the time that unlocking Ruins Of Camdozaal would result in me spending a few days inside working on a couple of different things.

That is one of the things I've started to love a lot about Old School RuneScape so far. You never know if you are just doing some one thing that leads to nothing much else. You could also be setting yourself up for quite an adventure. In this case, it ended up being the ladder.

Once everyone was willing to get back into the crew. We blew a hole into the mountain taking out the door. That is when they found out the vast treasure they were hoping would be inside was not. They also decided right then and there to eliminate me as a witness to the crime they had just committed.

Instead of killing me themselves. I was left for dead. Thankfully for me, I was able to defeat a level 25 Ancient Guardian golem which was not much of an issue at all for me. I even had some food with me just in case I needed to heal but that ended up not being the issue.

Once the golem was defeated the quest ended and the real adventure began. The only part of the reward I cared about was unlocking the Ruins of Camdozaal. I suppose that one quest point will come in handy one day when I'm no longer a free-to-play player.

The ruins of Camdozaal ended up being a lot bigger than I was expecting. I did some exploring around just to see what kind of trouble I could get myself into. I was also on an information-seeking mission at this point. At the time I had no idea what I could even do here.

I ended up running into an NPC called Ramarno who was quite a wealth of information. I ended up finding out I could work towards an item called Barronite Mace that required gathering three pieces. There was a maze to run for treasure. Finally, I could help power the place with Barronite Shards and in exchange, I'd get boosts while inside this zone.

The Barronite Mace itself required me to do three different activities for a rare drop. I had to mine for Barronite for deposits that I could break open at a special forge for the headpiece. I had to fish at one of the many spots inside for the Barronite handle. I also needed to defeat golems for the Barronite guard drop.

Mining For Barronite Shards And Barronite Head

I decided since I needed lots of Barronite shards anyways I might as well start with mining. It seemed like that would give the most. Mining was also quite a peaceful activity where I just had to click on a new ore vine every so often.

I ended up mining for quite a few hours. At least I got a couple of mining levels out of the deal. While mining was not that great here, experience-wise. I did end up getting a few uncut gems. Along with a lot of those Barronite shards I needed.

I’d mine till my inventory was full of mostly Barronite deposits. Then I'd go over to a special anvil and bust them open. This is when I had a chance to get the Barronite head. To my shock, I ended up getting just about everything a free-to-play player can get out of the deposits even multiples of long before getting the head part of the weapon.

I ended up getting a few ancient relics that I can turn into a museum which I don’t know much about. That crazy thing is I did not get all the ancient items to drop either. You would think with 4 ancient legers, an ancient globe, and two ancient carcanets I'd have everything one could get.

At least after far more full inventors of the deposit than I want to think about. I ended up looting the first piece I needed for the weapon. I did not even realize I had acquired it either as I was half asleep at that point. It did energize me enough to want to keep going.

Ramarno’s Shard Exchange

At least not all my time was wasted. I ended up farming so many shards I unlocked every boost at Ramarno’s shard exchange this zone had. Even with some leftovers that I could use on maze runs to see how that loot was.

Having things like a 5% boost to drop rates and a 5% increase chance of finding different things might not sound like much. In a game like this, with how much grinding there is that is a huge difference over many hours.

Next up I decided I'd tackle fishing. The fish you catch here can be prepared and turned in for a prayer experience. That seemed like quite a nice little bonus since I did not need any more shards anyway. Granted I'd find some of them as well.

Fishing For Barronite Handle And Prayer Experience

As far as the prayer experience went. It did not seem that great. At least I could fill my inventory rather quickly and it did not take long to prepare the fish either. While I do need prayer experience, I'm not so sure I'd return to this place to grind this out further.

At the very least I might have only been about three or four inventories in of fishing when I looted the handle to the weapon. I was in so much shock at how quickly it came I quickly ran over to the bank in Ruins Of Camdozaal to drop it off.

I am also rather glad this place has a bank. The golems that dropped the last piece I needed were just a couple of steps away from the bank. Making it quite easy to offload all the loot I was getting. From uncut gems, ores, and lots of near-worthless ruins. I ended up looting a lot of inventories full of stuff from the two different kinds of golems I hunted.

This last part of the grind felt like it took forever. I ended up switching out of the range setup I had on and switched over to Melee. Seemed only fitting anyway since I was grinding for a melee weapon. The golems got in a lot fewer hits with the better melee gear on. I was also doing some better damage back to them.

Farming Golems For Barronite Guard

Since I had lots of cooked lobster to use as healing. I decided to mainly farm the level 30 Mind Golems. I ended up taking my defense from level 40 to 50 before switching over to strength to start leveling that up as well before I got the drop I needed.

The golems are also a bit strange. You must wake them up first before you can attack them. That also created a bit of a delay between being able to attack the next one.

I ended up settling in for quite a grind. By the second day, It's been ages since I've grinded that long for a single drop in a game. I was considering just giving up and finding something else to do. I, however, did not want to just have two of the three pieces I needed and not have the actual weapon. So, I kept going for a bit longer.

Barronite Mace

While running off to the bank and auto-dumping everything in there. I noticed I still had something left in my inventory. I ended up looting the guard drop. I went over to Ramarno and asked him to make the weapon for me. Along with the three drops and 1,500 shards I was now the owner of Barronite Mace!

You just need to click on one of the items you have for the mace and then click on me. He will ask you some questions. You want to make the mace. There is an option to turn in mace parts for a small amount of shards. It seems rather pointless how hard these items were to acquire. I’d rather just have some backup parts in case I need to remake the mace if something were to happen later in PvP in the wilderness.

Camdozaal Vault Maze

One Final Thing I had left in here to do was run the maze called Camdozaal Vault. You must pay 750 Barronite shards to enter it. You only get 60 seconds to grab things and get back out. If you run out of time you walk away with nothing.

The maze itself always has a set layout. What changes are a bunch of doors inside the maze. If the door is blue you can click on it to get past it. If the door is yellow, it’s sealed and acts as a barrier.

I did not like how much having to click on the blue doorways to get past them slowed me down. I also found the 60-second timer to be quite annoying. You must quickly work out a path forward and then go for it.

All the best chests are in the back. I ended up running this maze three times. Each time I only got one of the better chests once and sometimes on my way back if I felt I had time I grabbed some lesser chests if I even got anything at all.

The loot was so disappointing after so few attempts and not getting anywhere near “good” at running the maze. I decided I had seen enough. This activity in this zone was just not for me. On a good run, I got an uncut diamond worth 2.2k gold for the time I took to get 750 shards it did not seem anywhere near worth my time.

Final Thoughts

I was not expecting to have so much to do in Ruins Of Camdozaal. Even for fun after getting the mace I went back and attacked some further golems. I did slightly more damage with the mace which was expected.

It was quite a lot of fun to do so much in a zone and walk away with a weapon. While I won’t always be using the mace I got over the rune weapon I have. It will come in handy anytime blunt damage is best or I find myself farming away in the Ruins Of Camdozaal.

As far as gold making was for this place. It was not that great for the couple of days I spent here. I ended up looting around 75k in loot. Excluding any rewards, I got from random mini-games that took me out of the zone.

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Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape