Loar Shade - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

Shades are found in the town of Mort'ton. The quickest way to get there is to use the short-cut from Canifis you learn about in the quest In Search of the Myreque. Go through the trap door south of the bar in Canifis, open the secret door to the south, then follow the tunnel to the end. Go through the doors into the swamp, then run south to the bridge. Cross the bridge, then run southwest/south to the ferryboat; click on it and you'll arrive in Mort'ton.

The best place to fight these is near the temple in the northeast part of the town. Use World 77, the designated Shades of Mort'ton world; the temple is always up there, so the shades will constantly spawn to attack it, making it easier for you to fight them.

While the temple can sometimes be overrun with shades, making killing them in bulk easy, at busy times there may be so many people around that you have to compete for them. In this case, try fighting them just south of the bridge to the temple, where they tend to spawn and congregate before attacking the temple itself.

Equipment

Standard melee, ranged or magic gear as appropriate. Wear a Salve amulet if meleeing, as it will increase accuracy and damage.

Dharoking is effective here and very fast.

Supplies

High-level players don't need food; lower-levels will need more. Super attack and super strength pots are recommended, as always, to speed kills and increase the percentage of one-hit kills. Super defence pots will be handy for lower levels.

Familiar

A beast of burden is essential for carrying extra remains, if you are collecting or pyring them. I assumed in my tests the use of a bull ant, just to keep things "conservative"; a higher-level beast would be better, of course, though a war tortoise pouch is probably not worth its cost here.

Combat Notes

These monsters are easily killed, and you can find remains that others leave behind scattered on the ground around the temple. They have a special attack that weakens your Strength slightly, which occurs randomly.

Watch out for ghasts that encroach on the northern part of the temple; they'll rot your food unless you carry a filled druid pouch.

A Loar shade may begin as a loar shadow, and turn into a shade when combat commences.

If you are just fighting the shades for combat XP or a Slayer assignment, you can kill up to 400 of them per hour. If collecting the remains and banking them in Burgh de Rott, the kill count will of course drop drastically, due to the time needed to pick them up and bank them; of course, lots of people just leave the remains on the ground, so if that's what you're after you can just pick them up without needing to fight much at all. Again, a beast of burden is extremely useful.

If you want to pyre the shades, here's the best way to do it. I assume you have level 40 Summoning for a bull ant familiar, which is quite useful; if you can use a higher-level beast of burden, even better. I also assume you already have some 4-dose sacred oils (bought or made at the temple) and oak logs.

Get out a bull ant pouch and summon it, then take out a tinderbox, 9 4-dose sacred oils and 18 oak logs. If you have a higher-level beast of burden take more; if not using a beast, you can only do 13 logs at a time. You can use any type of logs, but I recommend oak; they give much more Prayer XP per shade than regular logs, and they're cheap; you need level 20 Firemaking for them. You can use even higher-level logs too; you'll get more Firemaking XP, but the Prayer XP only goes up a tiny bit over oak logs, and higher-level logs cost more and also use up more sacred oil. If your Firemaking level is high you should consider burning higher-level shades instead of using higher logs with loar remains -- that way you can get better rewards!

Use the sacred oil on the logs; 2 doses are needed per log, so you should end up with 18 oak pyre logs. Put 9 of these in the bull ant and bank the empty vials. If you are lower level and need food to fight the shades, take it out now. Also take out a super attack and super strength potion, take a sip of each and put the rest back in the bank.

Run north to the temple or the area just south of it as mentioned above, and kill 18 loar shades. (You could also just pick up remains others have left behind -- that's faster but of course you get no combat XP).

Now run to the pyre station just west of the general store. Burn 9 shades using the 9 pyre logs in your inventory, then take the second set of 9 logs from the bull ant and repeat. Each time you burn a shade a reward will appear on the stand next to the pyre: a key or some gold. The key can be one of the three lowest types -- bronze with red, brown or crimson trim -- while the gold is 200-300 gp. You also get Prayer XP and Firemaking XP depending on the logs used. You only have a few seconds to grab the key or gold before it disappears, so don't be too slow! You'll usually get around 12-14 keys per 18 shades.

When done, run north to the shade tomb and open the door. When you get inside, run to the bronze doors to the east or west and open them. Then find the chests that match the colors of the keys you have. You'll be attacked by Phrin Shades; ignore them. Open each chest to collect the reward inside, which can be one or more items and possibly gold as well. Be sure to click "Continue" after the initial message; sometimes you'll get a bonus of a few swamp paste (to use building the temple.)

When completely done, exit the tomb (no keys required) and run to the general store. Sell any junk items that aren't worth keeping or alching (steel med helms, magic staffs etc.) and then return to Burgh de Rott. Bank, use Unburden scrolls or energy potions to restore run energy, and repeat; it should take around 12 minutes total for 18.

Drop Notes

Loar shades drop only loar remains. These can be pyred to get the very lowest-level rewards from the Shades of Mort'ton chests, mostly steel and black weapons and armor.