Finished Underground Pass a short while ago. A very interesting quest, very long and not terribly hard. In total I completed the whole thing only eating about 4 pieces of food. The "bosses" (greater demons) are nothing to worry about, and I almost think they're weaker than regular greater demons.
Rewards:
The rewards from this quest are nothing to go crazy about, 3k agility and 5k attack xp. Overall I'd say the rewards for this quest (due to it's extreme length and relative difficulty) are below average. Oh well. It is yet another example of those pivotal quests.
The other reward, which is going to be the main focus of this article, is Iban's Staff. It looks a little funky, a bit like Sauron's mace. Equipping it makes you appear to be running around with some large exotic flower. Thrilling.
Of course, Iban's staff would be nothing without a spell to go with it. Guess what it's called? Iban's blast.
The spell:
Iban's blast is a crazy powerful spell. It's not rare to hit in the low twenties (my max is 25 with decent mage bonus armor). For a lvl 50 spell, it hits way above it's level. Even fire blast can't match it.
It seems a little slow when casting. First you do this weird "firework" thing. Then you shoot a flaming skull out of the staff. It might seem a little slow, but the flaming skull travels much faster than any of the normal magic missile spells.
Iban's blast uses about the same runes as fire blast. Five fire, one death rune. Getting lots of fires is easy, just head to the flesh crawlers in the stronghold. Getting lots of death runes is hard, and unless you have an enormous amount of money on hand, it gets a little crazy. Of course you need to be wielding the staff to actually cast the spell.
The Staff:
Iban's staff has decent attack bonuses, though nothing to go crazy about. I would not use this as an actual melee weapon, but it's nice to know about. Please note: If you drop iban's staff it'll break. If you loose the staff you need to kill iban disciples until you get a broken staff. Then you need to get it repaired for a decent sum of money.
My biggest complaint about the staff is the lack of an autocast function for the spell. That's like buying a house without any doors or windows. Training with this staff is a double edged sword. Want to get bored real quick? Go ahead and use iban's blast. It's not like high alching is any less boring. Still it's annoying in a fight.
My other complaint about the staff is that it degrades. That's right, anything that isn't a godsword, and can fight worth it's cost, is degradable. Iban's blast will run out of charges after 120 casts. Annoying!
How to use the staff:
If your magic lvl is above 70, the simplest answer is: don't. It's a pain to use, and you can only use it effectively in very specific locations. Do note that it is EXTREMELY effective in these situations.
In order to train with it, you need to stay strictly within the boundries of the Underground pass. Running through the pass to the well (in front of the doors) every couple of minutes is NOT good for training. Therefor, you can only use this staff on two NPC's, the Paladins, and the Iban Disciples.
For training, i recommend the paladins, as they have horrible mage defense and more hitpoints. They drop horribly, so don't bother bringing a ring of wealth. The one drop you would want from them (lvl 2 clue scroll) isn't actually effected by a RoW.
If you want to make a little moolah (albeit, a LITTLE amount of moolah), head over to the disciples. They always drop robes that in total amount to 3k for two pieces. Sound great? Ehh, not really. There is no bank that is even remotely close by.
Overall the Iban's staff is a powerful weapon with an insanely powerful spell that has it's limitations. While it isn't nearly as good as many other magic spells/items, it can be useful for training at lower levels. I recommend getting it! You'll need to do the underground pass quest anyways.
