Soloying KBD and KQ

Merch Gwyar's recent adventures in the lair of the King Black Dragon inspired me to finally stand up against these famous Runescape bosses. King Black Dragon and Kalphite Queen. You might be surprised, but I haven't even seen these legendary creatures before. Yet the reason was simple. I am not in a clan and I always viewed myself to be too low level to attemp a solo expedition against these monsters. And I didn't want to die. I did try to solo one of the god wars bosses, though. Of course, unsuccesfully. But that's beside the point - just shows my inconsistency.

Anyway, Merch's story made me try. I started with the KBD. Suprisingly the hardest part of that expedition was just to get there. I don't use wilderness teleports (expect for lvl 55 one) and prefer to start all my expeditions from Edgeville. So I did this time too. And everything was fine right until I reached the great demons and got attacked there by a revenant orc. Orcs are not very hard to deal with, so instead of rushing undeground I stood my ground and fought. When it was over I went down and tried to pull the lever. I was teleblocked... Ouch... So I spent next 10 mins or so killing spiders down there and watching my food supply steadily diminishing, because I didn't have an antipoison with me. Finally, the lever worked and I faced the dragon. Eight sharks later it was dead and I stayed for respawn. At the end of the second battle all my food was spent, but I was alive and KBD wasn't. Checked.

It was Kalphite Queen's turn now. And there I died...
I actually looked her up and read that players use Verac barrows set to fight against this creature (apparently to be able to hit through protective prayer). So I went to the GE and bought myself a set. Properly dressed up and having a rope, teletab and usual food/pots in my inventory I started from Shantay pass, went down the well (using my rope) and ran through the Kalphite tunnels to the last room with guardians. There was another well, but I didn't have another rope. Bummer. Well, I teletabbed to Catherby, grabbed two ropes and quickly retraced my steps to the lair entrance. There I used my second rope and went down to face the Queen. What can I say, she was tough. Very tough. But I still managed to kill her first form and even went half through the second before my food ran out. Not to worry I thought and looked for the teletab. It wasn't there... I used it up during my "ropes" detour... I turned on one item protection and died... And you know what, Verac helm (3M+) wasn't protected over the rest of the equipment! So I lost it along with my Farming cape, dragon boots, ring of wealth and barrows gloves. Something like 3.7M loss, I think. I'll remember my seventh Runescape death very well :-)
But I knew I could fight the Kalphite Queen then. So I quickly resupplied at the GE (yes with new Verac helm..), Lumbridge (gloves) and Draynor (cape), took teletab, two ropes and went down to the tunnels for the third time. When I reached the Queen, she was still in the second form with half life left, I easily finished her off and waited for respawn. Killed the first form, teleported out, restocked, came back and killed the second form. Checked.

I am not a combat newb anymore ;-)