Alchemy

Your first lesson

1. Find the Alchemist beside the Swamp circle in Lumbridge Swamp (127, 676), south of the bank.
2. Talk to them and choose Show me. The free lesson uses five of their pale ore to make your first water runes, once per character. Keep the runes.
3. This starts Who Wrote the Spells, a novice quest with no requirements. After the lesson, ask Aubury in Varrock where runes come from and follow the quest.
4. Finishing it gives the Alchemist's book, its first page with Assay and Trace, one quest point and 250 base Alchemy XP.

You can keep binding after the lesson; you do not have to finish the quest before mining your next load.

Pale ore

Bring a pickaxe. Pale rocks need Mining 1, do not deplete and give 5 base Mining XP per ore.

• Three rocks stand across the river from Lumbridge, near the fishing spots. They can all be mined from one standing spot (122, 634). Use the stepping stones at Agility 10, or walk round by the bridge.
• There are two more rocks each near Shantay Pass, Edgeville and Draynor.
• No shop sells or buys pale ore. You can mine it or trade with other players.
• Withdraw ore unnoted before binding it.

Circles and binding

Use pale ore on a circle and choose the rune. One action binds the ore your pack and materials allow. Afterwards, Bind repeats your last choice at that circle. Read shows what the circle can make and your yield.

Each safe circle supplies two elements. You still spend pale ore; you simply do not need to carry the element for those runes.

At a safe circle without your chosen element, bring one of the following per ore:

You start with one rune per ore. The chance of a second rises over the next 50 Alchemy levels.

When two to four players bind elemental or compound runes at the same safe circle within three seconds, a shared working gives 10% more runes for each other binder, up to 30%. The figure lights together. XP does not increase, and words, slates and the Blot do not receive this bonus.

Compound runes and Fuse

One compound rune can pay one rune of each of its elements when a spell needs both. If a spell needs only one of them, it pays that element. Compound runes and the new elemental staffs are members equipment: the free-to-play Wilderness restrictions still apply.

Binding starts at one compound per ore. From level 70 the chance of a second rises, reaching two per ore at 99.

Fuse uses existing elemental runes instead of ore. Use an elemental rune on a safe circle or chalk figure with its partner in your pack: one of each becomes one compound, for 1 base XP. Each compound still needs its level in the table. From level 95, use the runes on each other in your pack to Fuse without a circle.

Writ, chaos, death and blood

At Alchemy 70, the Blot binds pale ore into Writ runes: one per ore initially, rising to two at 99, for 93 base XP per ore. It also makes the Writ staff. It does not bind elemental runes, compounds, words or slates, and it does not transmute items.

Once you have found the Figure of Words, pale ore and Writ can make these runes:

Each ore gives the same XP as that circle's compound at your level. These recipes do not work at chalk figures. Law, nature, cosmic and soul runes are not made by Alchemy.

Unmake and Reshape

Use an eligible smithed piece on a safe circle or chalk figure to Unmake it. The piece is consumed and some of its original bars come back. Make room for the bars first.

The return starts at 50% of the piece's bars at that metal's unlock, rising to 70% at Alchemy 99. It's rounded down to whole bars, with at least one bar back and never all of them, so the same piece always gives the same amount at your level.

Only 33 pieces qualify. Open the in-game Alchemy guide's Unmaking tab for the exact list. A piece must be a qualifying tradeable Smithing item made from at least two bars; below rune, pieces stocked by shops are excluded. Do not assume every piece of armour can be unmade.

At Alchemy 47, Reshape turns an eligible piece into another eligible piece of the same metal for one nature rune. The result cannot require more bars or have a higher base value. Spare bars are lost.

Unmake and Fuse gain longer batches as you level:

Grow and Retune

Find the Figure of Kinds before using Grow. Use uncut gems on a safe circle or chalk figure:

Nothing grows into dragonstone.

From Alchemy 40, Retune changes an elemental battlestaff for ten runes of the new element and 50 base XP. Changing one element of a dual battlestaff costs the same, but needs the new pair's crafting level: 75, 80 or 90 as listed below. You cannot turn a dual staff into two copies of the same element. Retune can also turn five elemental runes into four of another element, for no XP.

Chalk figures

At Alchemy 25, choose Draw on chalk to make a small figure lasting two minutes. The Alchemist sells chalk for 5 coins. A chalk figure lets you Unmake, Reshape, Fuse, Grow, Retune and make the staffs whose recipes allow chalk.

• Chalk figures never bind pale ore, words or slates.
• Draw outside banks, events and instances, on clear ground where other players cannot attack you.
• The figure's own footprint must be clear and walkable: 3×3 for chalk or 5×5 for a staff, centred on you. Only one of your figures can stand at once, with at most two figures in an 8×8 area.
• A Pale, Crucible or Alchemist's staff draws a larger figure without spending chalk. It lasts up to ten minutes while you stay within ten tiles.

Dual battlestaffs

Use an elemental battlestaff on a safe circle or chalk figure with the second elemental battlestaff and ten runes of each element in your pack. Both staffs are consumed. Compound runes can pay the rune costs. Each finished dual staff gives 500 base Alchemy XP and needs Magic 50 to wield.

A wielded dual battlestaff supplies both of its elements for spells.

The other staffs

Recipes use up their ingredients. A recipe's compound runes may be drawn from your compound stacks.

• Pale staff: draws the larger chalk figure.
• Crucible staff: keeps Draw and lets you transmute from your pack. Use the material on the staff; pack actions handle one item at a time.
• Alchemist's staff: keeps those tools and can also bind slates from your pack. It is untradeable.
• Writ staff: supplies water and earth. Its Autocast works at monsters once you have written back the required book page; it does not target players.
• Fourfold staff: supplies air and fire first, then water at the second stage and earth at the last. Once fully awake it supplies all four elements.

Using the Pale staff's tools needs Alchemy 45; the Crucible staff's tools need 75, and the Alchemist's staff needs 99. The three tool staffs do not supply elemental runes. Pack transmuting and slate binding still refuse combat and places where chalk figures are not allowed.

Teleport slates and Snap

First find the Figure of Ways, available from Alchemy 25. Bind slates at any of the four safe circles from one pale ore and the runes below. Each gives 10 base Alchemy XP. Chalk figures cannot bind them; the Alchemist's staff can bind them from your pack.

Compound runes can pay the elemental part of a recipe. Snap consumes one slate and teleports you to that spell's destination, without a Magic level or further runes. Slates are tradeable and stackable.

Snap refuses combat and anywhere another player can attack you, including the Wilderness. You must also bank all pale ore, including noted ore, and wait two minutes after a rune bind before snapping. The usual item-teleport restrictions also apply. Ardougne and Watchtower still require you to have learned the matching teleport. A refused Snap keeps your slate.

The book and public spells

Open the Alchemist's book to replace the Magic tab with its spells. Close restores the standard spellbook and works even in combat. You cannot open the book while fighting. It shuts wherever another player can attack you, and its spells and written pages do not work there.

The book is kept on death, cannot be traded or dropped, and banks closed. The Alchemist can replace a lost copy for free after the first quest.

The publicly named spells are:

Assay and Trace come with Who Wrote the Spells. The Gilded Page, starting with the head wizard in Calvaria at Alchemy 55 after that quest, unlocks Write. The Alchemist sells blank pages for 25 coins each, in any amount. At Alchemy 99, the lecterns by the Swamp, Dunes, Summit and Crater circles write up to 30 pages at once, one every six seconds, for Write's runes and half its experience. A written page is consumed when used successfully, and its reader needs no spell level; travel and other use restrictions still apply.

Other pages start null. Their riddles, your level and what you discover determine when they are written back. Read the book's journal for your progress and ask the Alchemist for hints. The same applies to the three hidden figures; their discovery places are left for you to find.

Level 99 and the in-game guide

At 99, buy the Alchemy cape from the Void Quartermaster for 250,000 coins. While you wear it, each pale ore spent on a bind has a 10% chance to stay whole, including words and slates. Unwrite plays the cape's cosmetic effect.

Level 99 also unlocks the title the Alchemist. Alchemy counts toward total level, whose maximum is 2,079.

Click Alchemy in the Stats tab for the full in-game guide. Its tabs cover Runes, Compounds, Words, Slates, Unmaking, Transmuting, Staffs, Figures, Places and Book. Book spells appear there after you have written their pages back. Use it to check the exact eligible pieces, recipes and next unlock without leaving the game.

All XP figures on this page are base XP, before your skilling rate and bonuses. ::myxp shows your current rates; Cards and subscriptions explains the bonuses.