Old School RuneScape | Stronghold Of Security

Since Old School RuneScape has a couple of different dungeons, I thought I'd go explore Stronghold of Security. In there, I'd be able to get some gold, a pair of boots, and the Skull Sceptre. Along with having a bit of an adventure.

I'm shocked that more games have not attempted to do something like Stronghold of Security. It’s an attempt to bring some rather basic account security information to the player and give them a bit of a reward for doing so.

Before Starting

Before heading into Stronghold Of Security there were three things, I wanted to take care of right away. One of them I already had enabled is having an authenticator set up for the account. The second one was having a bank pin, and the third one was simply verifying these and getting a small reward for doing so.

One thing I had not set up at the time was a bank pin. Which would require once logged into the account a bank pin to be entered to unlock the bank. If you forget the pin you must go through a recovery attempt that has a three-day time lock.

This was quite simple to set up. I just had to walk up to any banking NPC in the game and have a chat with them. Look for the set up a pin option and then set up a pin. Once that was done, I now had everything I needed to go talk to an NPC called Count Check who gave me a small lamp for experience and verified account security measures had been set up on my account.

For this adventure, I decided to switch over to ranged combat. I would be facing many higher-level creatures while down in this dungeon and if I wanted to get all parts for the Skull Scepter I'd need to do some farming.

The reason I'm using range is I would need to bring a lot of food to go melee down in this dungeon. Like in many zones, there are safe spots where you can sit and do range damage without taking damage. Many of these consist of doors, objects on the ground, and other things you can find within the natural terrain of the zone itself. Making this quite the ideal way to go.

Floor 1: Vault Of War

After that, I went to the barbarian village where the entryway into Stronghold Of Security is. You climb down a hole in between some mineable rocks. The dungeon itself consists of four levels of increasing difficulty.

In the first room, I checked a skeleton that had some Stronghold of Security Notes. This gave lots of background information about the dungeon and many other interesting things to take note of. I however only lightly skimmed through it since I was not going to be needing its help.

On each floor, a piece of the Skull Scepter would drop. I also needed to make it to the end room that had a way to exit or go down deeper into the dungeon. Along with a one-time claim reward for making it that far in.

Along the way, there would be many of these double doors. They served as a nice safe spot to heal up or recover from running around. It also gave me time to plan out my next route forward.

They, however, have a different primary purpose than giving me a safe spot to think about things. They gave you different scenarios that would ask you things like “who you should share your account info with,” dealing with scams, and other basic security account-related tasks.

I got them all right on my first attempt. I have no clue what happens if you answer the question wrong. All I do know is once you answer the quest right you get to progress through the door. There were many questions throughout the entire dungeon and even on this floor, I had to answer. They started repeating by the time I made my way to the second floor. Even by the time I made it to the fourth floor, I was on occasion seeing a new question.

I ended up spending some time farming minotaur for the Right Skull half of the Sceptre itself. There were some nice fence pillars in the middle of a giant room that had much minotaur in it. Since they were quite low health having 22 health it did not take me long to kill enough to get the drop I needed.

While I ended up looting quite a few helms while farming Minotaur. I ended up just dumping them on the ground since I did not want to run up to a bank. Thankfully many other drops in this dungeon since there is no bank are either noted or naturally stack. Outside of that I also buried any bones I looted for a level of prayer.

The map also clearly marked where I needed to go to move forward. I ended up in the large room that had a Gift of Peace. I ended up getting 2k gold from the chest in that room before heading down to the second level of the dungeon.

Floor 2: Catacomb of Famine

This next floor ended up being quite a nice light zone that was easy to navigate. I do have more advanced graphics turned on due to RuneLite which might have made many of these levels in this dungeon look quite evil.

Unlike the first floor where I did not care much about getting hit since everything down here appears to be aggressive. Even with level 50 defense, I was ready to heal up in a safe area if needed. Thankfully I had over-prepared by bringing five lobsters. I mostly only needed them on the final floor.

Like the first floor, I had quite a few doors to pass through and questions to answer. This time around there were a lot more creatures in the more maze-like areas I had to navigate through. This seemed more like a trend that would be contained for the rest of the dungeon.

The Grain of Plenty gave me 3k gold and access to the next floor down. I rather liked how central the location of this one was for the entire floor. It made it easy to go around wandering a bit looking for the creature I needed to hunt. It also made it easy to get back to an exit point if I needed one.

This time I had to farm level 35 Flesh Crawlers. I considered world hoping to find myself an empty spot room. I however lucked out and after around five minutes of farming Flesh Crawlers I ended up looting a Bottom Of Sceptre piece.

Since these things only had 25 health, they were not that hard to take down either. I had started this place at around level 40 range. While I was hoping to get a few levels here I had no idea it was more than just a couple. At this point, I was already heading towards my second level.

Floor 3: Pit of Pestilence

The next floor made me thankful for going with a ranged setup. I ended up taking things slowly by eating food and even waiting for my energy to run to go up a bit to try and avoid taking as much damage as possible when I could.

Again, the doors I had to pass through that asked different questions were quite easy to answer. Some of the possible answers I found were quite funny such as “remain in the same room” with the person to whom you gave your account password. They were trying to toss a real-world example of I'm sure something someone has done in the past regarding account sharing in there.

I would end up spending some time down here. I needed to hunt Catablepon which had 70 health and was around level 60. These took quite a few arrows to take down. This floor, however, would not be the longest amount of time I'd spend trying to farm for the next piece.

I did end up getting the Top of Sceptre without too much trouble. The save spot I found left me quite safe and within great range of pulling Catablepon to my location. Despite these things being of a much higher level. I felt quite safe knowing I could just click on the door behind me and be safe from damage if I found myself in a dire situation.

I also headed over to the Box of Health to claim my next reward. Which again was next to the next spot to drop down in. I did like the idea of there being an exit to the dungeon at each of these spots. While I never needed to leave early it was nice knowing I always had the option.

Floor 4: Sepulchre Of Death

The floor was quite twisted to look at. It’s a shame I was not playing this game around Halloween. I would have loved all the skeletons in the walls and the rather dark and red color pallet to this floor itself.

If it was not for the quite high level of creatures here, I could have wandered around for the fun of just seeing this floor for quite some time. I, however, had to be a bit more careful. While I could take a few hits from creatures on this floor. I did not want to use any food unless I had to.

It was, however, quite fun planning out a route to the final reward before going off grinding the last piece of the Sceptre I needed.

In the end, there was Cradle of Life and since I had the account setting correct I had an option of one of three pairs of boots. It also seems like I could return at any time and get more. They all have the same stats. They just have different looks to them. The last pair is called Fancier Boots which I picked combining the looks of the first two.

I ended up spending a few hours grinding away on Ankou for the Left Skull half of the Sceptre. Despite them having 65 health they took a while to kill. I even logged out and took a couple of breaks. I would end up world hopping around to find an empty spot. It seems I was not the only one struggling to loot the final piece.

I even tried a couple of different spots and none of them were perfect. Many times, the Ankou would run out of range so I'd have to leave my safe spot to go tag one. Other times Ankou or the skeletons in the area would end up wandering into my safe spot. Thankfully the doors to drop aggression were right there and this ended up taking a lot more damage than I did.

The Skull Sceptre

Once I had all four pieces, I started combining them. The two skull halves formed a strange skull. While the top and bottom Sceptre made a Ruined Sceptre. I then combined those two pieces to make the Skull Sceptre. All right from my inventory.

There was also an NPC in the end room named Solztun. He ended up imbuing the item. I’m rather glad I did as according to him if I had not after I've used my ten charges the entire thing would have broken.

This is also one of those items you must recharge in this game. If I want to recharge the item itself, I need to come back to Stronghold Of Security and grind for further drops. Thankfully I don’t need to collect all four parts again. I can just sit on the lower floors and quickly get some parts getting three charges per drop.

As far as what this item does. It teleports you back to the barbarian village right at the entryway to the Stronghold Of Security. Since I'm still a free-to-play player this one is of only a couple of ways to teleport around. This location is also quite close to the Grand Exchange, making it quite nice to have if I ever find myself quite far away and not wanting to run.

Final Thoughts

All in all, I ended up getting to finish off some short-term goals. It was nice to pick up a pair of boots I'll be using sometimes. Along with 10k gold just from the chests alone. While the 25k worth of loot I ended up getting for the many hours I spent down there was not that great. I at least took my range from 40 to 46, gained a level in prayer, and a health point as well.

This was not a bad little adventure to embark on. I hope there are a lot more dungeons like this one and some others I've done in the past. I love getting some items, levels, and gold out of the adventure in such places.

Information

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

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enjar
8 months ago

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