Xenowars | Defense, Dungeon, And Dung
Old School RuneScape | Trying Pyramid Plunder
Now that I had some levels of thieving, I thought I'd give Pyramid Plunder a try. I would not be able to run all floors of it as that would require level 91. I was, however, quite curious in seeing it.
Pyramid Plunder is in Sophanem. This would require going through the desert to get there. Thankfully you can take two magic carpet rides to go from Shantay Pass to Pollniveach to Sophanem.
Once in Sophanem Pyramid Plunder can be found in Jalsavrah Pyramid. However, the mini-game only starts by entering the correct side of the pyramid and that changes every so often. So, you must go around checking each of the four possible entryways and hoping to find the mummy that starts it all.
There is also a scepter that will take you right to the mummy to start. I however did not have any luck in looting one while running Pyramid Plunder. If I had I'd have sold it for the almost 2 million gold, it’s going for on the market and bought some needed upgrades.
Once you find the right entryway you get a small amount of thieving experience as your first clue you have entered the side where he is currently spawned. You then talk to the mummy to be taken into the mini-game.
The main reason I wanted to check out this mini-game was to see how the leveling experience was. I did not like the other options I had to get a better experience per hour. I also did not want to spend days or even weeks at the fruit stand collecting a small amount of experience either. Which is what I used to level up my thieving skill to the point it is now.
I quickly learned this was just not going to be a great way to grind out experience. The biggest issue was getting poisoned all the time. Sure, I could buy an antidote that would give me short-term protection. That would however be costing me like 30k gold an hour if I were to buy them from other players.
I did, however, bring quite a large amount of food with me. I was hoping that it would be enough to run the pyramid a few times and get a general feeling for it. This ended up being the case.
The pyramid has eight floors and a time limit. Each floor has a trap you must pass. Then you have a gold chest, urns, sarcophagus, and locked doors taking you up to the next floor.
I quickly realized that checking the gold chest and the sarcophagus for last was best. You can get a swam out of the chest that attacks you. There is also a chance from opening the sarcophagus you get the mummy who will also attack me.
The biggest issue however is the urns themselves. The urns have snakes in them that poison you. While you can check the earn for snakes there is a chance you will still get poison damaged anywise.
You also take a point of damage attempting to open urns if there are no snakes in them. Between getting poisoned for three damage every poison cycle, taking damage from opening urns, and the mummy attacking you.
The amount of damage I was taking quickly started to add up. It did not take long before I found myself getting low on food. This is an issue as the poison lasts for over three minutes. On top of that, I was in the middle of the desert where I could take heat damage as well while I was outside of the pyramid.
Since I only had a high enough skill to clear up to room three. I decided it was not worth looting anything in the lower first two floors. So, I just would start working on picking locks in those and get through them as quickly as I could.
I then decided it was best to check all the urns first. Then I'd go and check the golden chest before finishing on the sarcophagus. I’d then click on the exit since I lacked the skill to go to the next floor. Were I'd have to repeat the entire thing again.
I ended up staying till I got to my next level. For all the trouble it was to get experience it did not seem so worth it. Sure, I would have had 120 experiences if there were no snakes in the urns. While with like 80 for checking and finding a snake in an urn while I was on the third floor.
Lower floors rewarded less experience, so I was just getting a small amount from lockpicking the doors open. While this I was gaining experience quicker than I was at the fruit stand even after having to check which of the four ways in had the mummy and all the time it took to get back to the third floor.
It was way too much effort. On top of that, I had not looted anything worth much. Most stuff was under 200 gold. The chances of me getting the scepter and selling it for nearly 2 million gold are quite low. I could spend a month grinding the third floor and more than likely not getting the scepter.
Final Thoughts
With how little I ended up running the pyramid it just did not seem worthwhile to invest in what I needed to run it further. At least not for my current thieving level. This will be a place I check out again when I have quite a few more levels in thieving. For now, I'll have to find elsewhere to grind my thieving levels.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape