Dank Dungeons and Fresh Mountain Air

So, I wasn't able to play for the past few days due to sickness. (And because there were mad cows in the towns. Eff april fools. Eff it straight to hell.) I finally got back on last night, and set off to Nanto to pick up the town stamp and sample the place's newbie quests.

The portal from the Town Network describes Nanto as a "sleepy Sho town", and that proves to be a very apt description. I remember Nanto being fairly active in the early days of the game, but after the starter towns were pared down from 9 to just 3, Turbine more or less abandoned it. That's a shame, because the area is one of the most scenic in all Dereth. The pic above makes the town look gloomier than it is (It was night in-game when I took it), but gives you a good idea of the town's "feel": rustic houses on the slopes of a mountain, trails weaving through it, dominated by a high mages' tower. Almost the exact opposite of the urban Shoushi.

As befits the "sleepy" part, there's little to do around here. Poking around a little, I find the Matron Hive South (a level 40 dungeon), a Tusker called "Ook" who serves no apparent purpose, and a barkeep that has good food but only two small rumors. Since old-school starter quests begin at the outposts, I take a jog out of town. When I arrive at the east outpost, I find the former advocate tower sitting in the middle of a scorched patch of earth. This was the in-lore explanation for the elimination of six starter towns: someone who was experimenting with the portals from Ispar divided by zero and blew them the eff up.

But the people remain, and in the outpost proper I find the questgiver, Inuo KonKou. He lost a book while turning a local dungeon into his personal eagle scout project.

I follow his somewhat vague directions east, and along the way am treated to a rather impressive light show in the sky:

I'm not sure if it was a weather effect, an aurora, or some kind of graphical glitch, but it was really impressive in-game. Less impressive was the Azure Gromnie who surprised me along the way. I take him down easily, but I'm reminded that this Nanto isn't newbville anymore: the quest content is still here, but the outside spawn maps have been updated. I get to the dungeon - annoyingly called "Lytaway", when the questgiver called it "The Kindled Path" - and get down to searching. The dungeon itself is nothing special, just a short linear path with lowbie drudges, but the aesthetic design is good. As KonKou said, he filled it all with candles:

There's exactly one fork in the path down, so of course I miss it and hit the exit portal instead, but doubling back I soon find the staircase I missed. After bashing some more drudges, I find the book, as well as a chest  with some decent loot. I take a peek at KonKou's magnum opus and am slightly annoyed to realize he'd only written one page:

So he sent me down into a dungeon to retrieve a manuscript that he had barely started. You know, I could have just spotted him the handful of pyreals for a new book and let the drudges be. He only had to ask...

In addition to the loot and the book, I found some broken tapers in the dungeon, which mister lightheaded suggests taking to the archmage's apprentice in Nanto proper. Presumably, this is a hook to the next quest. Before doing so, however, I hike over to the north outpost for the other starter quest. This one is disappointing: no dungeon, just deliver a letter to the archmage's apprentice. Also, a guy in the upstairs room of the outpost babbles some randomly-generated fortune-cookie b.s.:

Bleh. So I head on over to the archmage tower in Nanto proper. The apprentice (she has a name, you know. It's Shin Ro.) gives me some pocket change for the tapers and a new quest for the letter: go into the Water Temple Dungeon and find a bottle of special water for her.

The Water Temple dungeon is near a waterfall which looks pretty cool (in a low-rez way). Unfortunately, I forgot to take a screenshot. As for the temple, it's like Lyteway: good aesthetics, low challenge rating. It succeeds at conveying the sense of a damp, misty cave pretty well, in my opinion:

Anyway, after clobbering some more drudges, I find the bottle in a chest in the back, as well as the Nanto town stamp at the entrance. There are also several decorative screens in the dungeon, one of which just fails to hide a secret passage leading to a hidden basement, unfortunately there's nothing there but a few drudges. Returning the bottle to Shin Ro completes my objectives for the night. In addition, I've collected a few choice pieces of armor with superior AL to my Pathwarden Shirt. However, I decide to stick with the shirt for now, for two reasons: One, I still need the Strength II enchantment on it, and two, the new stuff makes me look like a colorblind ponce:

Since Tailoring costs bigger money than I've got right now, I stick with the Pathwarden gear.

Before logging off I chat with the NPCs to see if there's any lowbie content I've missed. To make a long story short, I get two quests: one to beat up some rats in a local dungeon, and one to retrieve a lost book for a local poet, Miyako Nujou-Wah. I fail to find either due to the vague directions, and after some confused wandering in circles, I hit the wiki to find coordinates. The path to the rat cave goes through an area where various level 50 enemies spawn. (No way + Forget it) * Screw you = HELL NO!

When I find the tunnels Miyako spoke of, however, they're worth the entire trip. I'm dropped into a series of carved-out tunnels dominated by crystal formations:

From there, tunnels branch out in four directions, each of which shows off a different dungeon style. One is a  fiery volcanic cave:

The next is a mysterious ice cavern:

Another is a mossy ruin, overgrown with foliage:

And the last is filled with weird purple light, since Turbine apparently didn't have a texture set for "Air":

I bash some drudges and find the book in a chest. I have to say Miyako's verse doesn't impress me:

That's uh... very... emo.

Also less-then-impressive is her reward:

A single casting of a level 4 buff? Seriously? THAT'S a quest reward? Even in the good ol' days  Turbine should have known better.

So, the verdict on the Nanto experience: great scenery, poor questing. Overall I found it satisfying, but I'm hoping my next stop will offer a bit more excitement.