Contact!

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"Contact" redirects here. For the lunar spell, see NPC Contact.

This article has a quick guide found here. It briefly summarises the steps needed for completion.

Contact! (#117)

File:Contact!.png
Release date	10 January 2007 (Update)
Voice-over	No
Official difficulty	Master
Quest series	Desert (#4)
Age	Fifth Age
Developers Main developer(s) Chris J, Matt H Graphics Concept Unknown edit Quality Assurance Core Unknown edit Audio Composition Unknown edit

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Contact! is a members quest that takes place in the Kharidian Desert, in which a player attempts to help the city of Sophanem contact its neighbouring city of Menaphos.

Official description

“	The High Priest of Icthlarin has problems again - this time with the inhabitants of Menaphos. Sophanem is recovering from the plague, yet most of its citizens are still trapped on the other side of the river. Diplomacy has failed and subterfuge beckons. Clearly, this is the sort of job that a shifty adventurer could excel in.	”
	— Game Guide

Walkthrough

Start point	Speak to the High Priest of Icthlarin
Official difficulty	Master
Length	Medium
Requirements	Quests: Contact! Icthlarin's Little Helper Diamond in the Rough Stolen Hearts Gertrude's Cat The Restless Ghost
Items required	Items from the tool belt are not listed unless they do not work or are not automatically added. Any light source (recommended Seers' headband, a bullseye lantern, or any of the Torches from the Gielinor Games) Recommended: Pharaoh's sceptre for faster teleportation 43+ prayer and one or two prayer potions A few energy potions An Amulet of glory, Broomstick, or the Al Kharid lodestone teleport One click teleportation and/or Ring of life (in case you fall into the scarab traps) Food; monkfish or better Several antipoison potions Decent armour and weapons
Enemies to defeat	Giant scarab (level 86)

Starting off

File:High Priest (Sophanem) chathead.png

Travel to Sophanem and speak to the High Priest in the southwestern temple (south of Pyramid Plunder). There will be a cut scene that will say that they have been having problems getting in contact with their sister city of Menaphos, due to Coenus and his archers aggressively guarding the gates. Ask him about ways of getting into Menaphos and pick the option about accessing "from below".

Talk to Jex, who is in the North-east part of the city in a building with a broken altar. He will tell you how to access the dungeons beneath the building. Go down the ladder east of Jex and talk to the guard if you haven't got any lighting source already. He will sell you a torch for 200 coins, and a tinderbox for 50 coins. A bullseye lantern is a better choice because it will go out less often. Alternatively you can take a Seers' headband as your light source as it never goes out. The silver and gold torches from the Gielinor Games also work, as they never run out. It is strongly recommended that you take good food (monkfish or above), an emergency escape teleport such as the ectophial, a tinderbox, a light source such as a bullseye lantern, and an antipoison potion or two.

Dungeon

File:Sophanem dungeon map with legend.png

A map of the Sophanem dungeon

Note: The dungeon under Sophanem is very dangerous, and protection prayers are strongly advised for protection from the monsters that patrol the dungeon.

Turn auto-retaliate off through the ability bar, since it might cause you to waste some time fighting back, and/or also cause you to run into a trap, if you're hit at an inopportune moment. Go down the trapdoor and follow the dungeon around until you get to the ladder north of the South-west corner using protect from magic prayer.

When following the route to the right, the player will only encounter scarab mages. Therefore, use protect from magic and keep auto-retaliate off.

Traps

The dungeon is ridden with various types of traps, which should generally be avoided or bypassed. The magic ability Surge cannot be used to bypass the traps.

Trap	Image	Description
Floor Trap - Spikes	A Floor Trap	By selecting 'Search floor', these can be avoided using Agility. If you run over them without searching, you will be hit for up to 600 life points.
Wall Trap	A Wall Trap	These traps can be disabled by selecting 'Search Odd markings', which requires Thieving. Similar to the wall traps in Rogue's Den, be very careful to select the wall with the trap and search it. If you do not, then you will walk through (and get hit) before you're asked to disable it. If you run through them you will be hit for up to 600 life points.
Crusher Blocks	Crusher Blocks	Simply move diagonally and carefully around them. If you run into them you will be hit for 200 life points of damage. These are also found in the pyramid in Icthlarin's Little Helper.
Sand Pits	A Sand Pit	Walk around the pit, it's worth it. If you step on these, the ground will crack open and a scarab swarm will come out and poison you.
Scarab Trap	A Scarab Trap	In order to avoid these traps, simply walk near the opposite wall at each scarab trap on the wall. Here are three reasons why: These are the most dangerous of all the traps, which are very similar to the pits in Desert Treasure, because if you walk next to a scarab trap it will extinguish any light source except a seer's headband. And even if you have a light source, it causes you to fall to the bottom level, which is full of several hard-hitting Scarab monsters. You can get hit for over 1000 damage by the group of aggressive Scarabs in the pit. If both situations happen, click your emergency teleport for safety, do not try light your source.

Note: Scarab mages can extinguish your light source even if it's a closed lantern, unless you are using the Seers' headband. You will not be able to continue attacking (if you were in combat) until your light source is relit.

Lower dungeon

File:Maisa in dungeon.png

Meeting Maisa in the lowest level of the dungeon

• Once you have found the correct ladder (see map above), follow the passage around until you come to the corpse of Kaleef. Search the corpse to get a parchment, read it and continue west to Maisa. Once you tell her that Kaleef is dead, she wants to confirm your identity before trusting you.

Tell her that you helped rescue Prince Ali, and that he was being held in Draynor Village. Ozan and Leela assisted you.

She will then decide you are trustworthy and tell you to speak to Osman, the spymaster in Al-Kharid.

Osman

File:Co osman sneaking.png

Osman sneaks into the temple, after knocking Jex out.

Travel to Al-Kharid and speak to Osman, who is standing against a pillar inside the palace. (If you try to enter the throne room and are told the palace is on lockdown, you must first do the two quests that replaced Prince Ali Rescue ~ Stolen Hearts and Diamond in the Rough.) Try to convince him to come to Sophanem (picking the "It would drive a wedge between the Menaphite cities." option does the trick).

Osman sneaks into Sophanem

The music that plays when Osman is sneaking into Sophanem.

noicon

Before returning to Sophanem, make whatever arrangements are necessary to battle a level 86 Giant scarab.

• Good food (Monkfish or better are recommended)
• One or two prayer potions
• About two full anti-poison potions OR Greater Poison Purge Aura (or better)
• A one-click escape teleport
• Light source

Travel back to Sophanem. Osman is just outside the gates. Talk to him again and suggest the secret entrance just north of the city. You will then see a cutscene where Osman sneaks past Jex into the caves below by blackjacking him.

The final battle

Giant Scarab!

Go back through Sophanem Dungeon to where you found the body of Kaleef. Once you have passed through the maze turn auto-retaliate back on in order to avoid being interrupted in your fight. As soon as you go down the ladder you will see another cut scene where a large scarab appears.

File:Scarab fight.png

Battling the nasty bug.

File:Contact - scarab safespot.png

One of the possible safespots (wait in the tunnel till the bug approaches the far side of the room)

Travel into the cave and fight the level 86 Giant scarab with 20000 life points. It can hit up to 200 with melee and ranged. It summons level 68 Locust riders and Scarab mages with 2700 life points (which can also do 90 life points of damage with poison) to aid it, which will attack the player at the same time. The riders will attack with ranged or melee, and the mages will attack with magic so you are being attacked by all 3 combat styles at once.

Magic:

Use Protect from Ranged. A full set of batwing robes is more than enough for armour, as well as a tier 50 or 60 magic weapon such as a God staff.

Since the scarab will use only ranged attacks, you should save your food for the minions and defeat them as quickly as possible. You can then return your focus to the boss; just make sure not to run out of prayer. With the proper tactics and a decent magic level, it is possible to not need a single dose of potion or food.

Melee:

Using Protect from Melee prayer is recommended against the scarab, and having plenty of food is extremely helpful in this fight. Assuming that your melee skills are above 60 and you have tier 60 weapons, you should have no difficulty in dispatching it, using boosting potions and melee prayers. 

Ranged:

A crystal bow or rune crossbow would be the ideal weapon to fight the Scarab with. Use Karil's or royal dragonhide armour, and use Protect from Ranged. A Hand Cannon also works as well, but bring a backup weapon in case it explodes.

Battle notes

The battle site has lost most of its original safespots and cannon uses in updates. Still, if you stand a distance away, the scarab will not approach. A good method is to turn on protect from range, and range it with royal dragonhide and rune arrows, or any equivalent. Be sure to kill the riders as soon as possible, as they'll be the only thing that can really damage you.

In some apparently rare cases, you will get very lucky and the scarab will not summon a single monster to help him fight.

You can protect yourself from the scarab by simply attracting the scarab then standing to the left of the skeleton right before Kaleefs' body although doing this will allow the scarab to summon mages and locusts.

Note: The Anti-poison totem will not protect you from the Scarab's poisonous mandibles. The poison hits for around 40 life points, and can be cured with antipoisons.

After the fight

Once the scarab is defeated, another cut scene will happen where Osman is revealed to be alive (since he blended into the shadows as a spymaster). He talks to you and tells you to take the Keris on the floor, and then teleports away.

If you happen to die at the same time as the scarab or fail to pick up the Keris for some other reason, you can still get it from Osman in Al Kharid for free.

Go back to the high priest. It is suggested that you teleport out instead of tracing back through the dungeon, since there is no quick and easy way to get above ground. He will confirm that Maisa was successful, and reward you. Quest complete!

Rewards

Contact! reward

• 1 quest point
• Keris, a dagger which is very effective against Kalphites and Scarabs
• 7,000 experience
• Access to Sophanem's bank under the Temple of Lesser Deities in the northeast corner (useful for Pyramid Plunder)
• Combat lamp giving 2 wishes each granting 7000 experience to:
  • Attack
  • Strength
  • Defence
  • Constitution
  • Ranged
  • Magic
  • Summoning (if over level 30)
• Template:Universal quest reward

Note: If you accidentally destroy the experience lamp, another may be obtained by seeing the High Priest.

Music unlocked

• Back to Life
• The Depths
• Labyrinth
• Beetle Juice

Required for completing

Completion of Contact! is required for the following:

• Dealing with Scabaras
• Desert Tasks:
  • Hard: "Ludikeris"

Transcript

This article on a quest has an associated dialogue page. Click here for a transcript of possible conversations encountered throughout the quest.

Trivia

• Upon the completion of this quest, one's Adventurer's Log will read: "I kept my promise to Maisa and brought Osman to see her. As a result, the Sophanem exiles have returned and the city is bustling again."
• If a player returns to Al-Kharid for any reason whilst Osman is inside the dungeon, an NPC named Osman will still be there who the player claim is an agent of Osman. The 'Agent' seems to deny existing.
• There is currently a glitch where if you took a dose of Prayer Renewal before seeing the Giant Scarab cutscene, the swirls from the potion would appear around Osman. Sometimes you can even see your character in Osman's place for a short time.
• There is a glitch where you will get the scarab down to zero hp, but it keeps attacking you and it won't die. Leaving the lower dungeon and then relogging seems to solve this glitch.
• The dungeon is said to be very dark, but there are torches burning there. This may be another reference to Shadow magic.
• If you finished Icthlarin's little Helper before the addition of Diamond in the Rough, you will be unable to talk to Osman until the completion of the quest.
• The temple of minor gods may be a reference to the Discworld series of books in which there is a temple of small gods.

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