Before doing so, however, I take a walk around Shoushi to re-familiarize myself with it. Of all the towns on Dereth, Shoushi is the most metropolitan-looking. The walls and the clustered buildings create a sense of a well-ordered city. The square in the center is walled in, as if someone had to keep the bustle out. And the spire provides not only that touch of grandeur, but is a great place to take pictures. I snap one for the blog's title. But adventure calls, and so my mind soon turns to more practical matters. I pick up some basic supplies: Full array of packs, health and stamina potions, and gems from the Lugian merchant in case I get into more trouble than I can handle. Also a Shoushi portal gem, just in case I have to make an escape faster than /lifestone allows. When I finally get around to talking to Oi-Teng, he refers me to Lou Ka, who gives me a list of eight items to retrieve from the ruins of an old underground mansion. (To outlanders: many Derethian dwellings are underground, built by the Empyrean predecessors and taken over by humans later. And by hordes of monsters soon after.)
Let me tell you, Shoushi newbie quests don't pull punches. Right inside the mansion portal, I come up against a Phyntos Wasp. These things are probably the most notorious newbie-killers in the game. They're child's play once your level is in the double digits, but their War Magic is a nasty shock for first-timers, knocking an average of 15 points off your health. Fortunately, I was smart enough to put most of my Training Center experience into boosting my health, so I dust him off without any real danger.
Braid Mansion makes a very good newbie dungeon. The helix-shaped hallways are a bit confusing, but other then that the layout is very straightforward: three floors which hold a sampler platter of the game's creatures. I faced mosswarts, shreaths, monougas, and another wasp or two while gathering up the needed items. I was a bit klutzy with the controls still, but the fights were easy enough to manage without serious difficulty. A bigger problem was managing the loot. Monty Haul is alive and well in Dereth, and everything I slew had four of five items, some of them valuable and some of them trash. Not that I'm complaining. It sure beats some MMOs where you have to grind for every damn thing. But with your carry weight limited, figuring out what to take with you is a bit of a challenge. My philosophy is to take magical gems, jewelry, clothing, and light weapons, plus any trophy items or gear I think I might be able to use. Armor or weapons with high burden values are not worth taking unless they're better than your current gear. When in doubt, grab what looks good and sort 'em out back in town. You've got to keep moving in AC, because enemies respawn fast.
Back at town, I deliver Lou Ka's stuff and turn in some Pynthos Wasp wings to the local collector. Sorting through the loot, I find some usable stuff, including gloves and a crown with an effective AL above 200. Also a decent frost mace which becomes my new main hand weapon. Then Lou Ka sends me to Nen Ai for my next quest. Nan Ai has a pet drudge (low-level goblin-like enemy) that she keeps as a pet, and he's a very picky eater. I have to fetch a specific brand of cheese and cider from an old underground cathedral that's infested with less-friendly drudges. This setup raises a number of questions. Why is Nen Ai is keeping a dangerous creature as a pet? Why she can't store her food somewhere more practical? Why is this drudge making exotic food demands instead of being grateful he doesn't have to feed on human garbage like every other drudge in Dereth? But XP is XP, so down I go.
The cheese is easily found, it's right there in a kitchen on the first floor. The cider is a different story, though. I have to go first upstairs, into what looks like a living area, then way downstairs into a series of humid caves where the drudges I've been fighting all the way are joined by some carrion shreath. Unfortunately for them, shreath are weak against cold, so my new club dispatches them with ease. Along the way, I also find something new: the cloak pictured above. Cloaks are something that the players always wanted in AC, but were only recently added. I want to try it on and see how it looks on Neria, but unfortunately, I don't meet the level restriction. So I instead shove it in a pack for future use and roll on. I find the cider at the end of a hall, guarded by two drudges. I grab it and then hike my way back through the dungeon. The return trip is uneventful, unless you count me finding some goggles on a shreath corpse. Fittingly, they do nothing:
By this point, I'm beginning to realize some of the tradeoffs on the new weapon system. First of all, it's hard to get a handle on what weapons you can use. With the old system, it was easy: Axes were axes, spears were spears, pointy bladed instruments were swords (except when they were daggers), etc.. Now, you've got to actually examine the weapon to figure out whether it's usable or trash. And while Dual Wield increases my power, it also means I have to manage twice as many weapons. (AC has seven damage "elements", and matching your opponent's weakness can be the difference between a difficult ten-minute fight and a quick dustup. To simplify things, I decide to hotkey weapons with a physical element to my offhand, and magical ones to my main hand. I can always change weapons manually if I run into a hard place. From the cathedral's loot, I pick out a dirk and an acid mace to start my next mission: the Shreath Hive.
Having been through this dungeon on both my previous ventures into Dereth, I know I'm going to be under fire right from the start. See, the first room of this dungeon is designed well from an aesthetic perspective but poorly in terms of gameplay. It's basically a huge room with a pit below and two levels of catwalks above, accessable by a tunnel. However, their are drudges on each level, and they have a tendency to jump down from above to try and get you. One landed on my head for ten damage, lucky I still had that pointy crown. :) Above you can see me in the middle of the fight. Note also the Shoushi town stamp sitting by the portal, which I grab. I'll need it to get some explorer gear later on.
I'm here in the Shreath Hive to find four stones representing the philosophical basis on Sho culture. Oi-Teng has been sending newbies to fetch them for him since the game opened in '99. I think he plants them here himself as part of the "obnoxious old mentor" routine. My radar picks up the first one on the catwalks above, so up I go. Fighting drudges all the way up, I notice a problem with my choice of weapons. They're slow. The damage is good, but the animations are glacial. Having some experience I neglected to spend, I boost my Quickness by 20 points, to no appreciable effect. To truly alleviate the problem I'll need Swift Killer spells, so I make a note to start boosting my Item Magic. Despite the trouble, I make it to the top, where you can get a passable sense of this room's grandeur:
Then it's back downstairs, into the pit at the bottom, and through it to a series of sewer-like tunnels. Here, the dungeon starts to live up to its name, with shreath all over. I switch to the frost weapon to bash my way through them. They aren't hard, but in AC multiple weak enemies can add up. After taking a bit more damage then I'd like, I boost my defenses with the lugian gems, which gives me some more breathing room. Exploring the tunnels I find the second stone and a balcony looking over one of the more impressive rooms of the game:
As you can see, it's some nice architecture, but I'm more interested in the third stone, sitting on a lower balcony just offscreen. I remember that the fourth and last stone is through a passage in the central column, for which I have to get down to the bottom floor. Exploring the sewer tunnels further, I find a winding path leading down, and grab the third stone along the way. It's at this point I realize what I'm in for down there. This room is basically the first on steroids: balconies and tunnels full of shreath all along the edges means that as soon as I draw aggro, I'll have every shreath in the area coming down to get me. I consider making a run for it, but that rarely works, and least with a low Run skill: you just wind up with the mobs striking at your back when I can't fight back. No, I'll have to take this bull by the horns:
The ensuing fight is suitably epic, for a melee with gimped weapons. I need a stamina potion or two, and have a little scare when a Pynthos Wasp joins the fray, but my skills prevail and eventually they all lie dead at my feet. I want to loot the bodies, but with the respawn timer ticking I leave them behind and run for the passageway instead. The final room is a little anticlimactic by comparison: three shreath which I polish off easily, earning the last stone, a chest full of good loot, and two chests full of junky loot. Back in town, I turn in the stones, and sell my loot. The three dungeons I ran tonight have given me enough coin to buy my first MMD Trade Note, which I consider a worthwhile evening.
Tune in next time, as Neria and I take this show on the road!
