Oh yeah, this game is multiplayer...

Al-Arqas was supposed to be next on the list, but, tired of playing with Elderwulf, I decided to skip ahead to my next character. Kalixia, the Dual-Wielding Finesse fighter, portalled into Holtburg and was immediately assailed with intense lag. I was suddenly reminded that, oh yeah, other people play this game.

Some of those white dots on the radar are actually buffbots, but still and all it was encouraging to know Dereth is not as empty as the critics say. Holtburg was always Dereth's most popular town, probably due to it being first on the list of potential starter towns in the early days. It's also pretty well laid out:

Holtburg sits on the side of a hill, with an upper level and a lower one. The basic services: archmage, weaponsmith and jeweler, and healer, are all down on the lower level, along with a cow for tipping purposes. (Surprisingly useful, but too boring and grindy for me.) Up on the hill is the tavern with all the newbie quests, the lifestone, and the traditional hang-out spot for buffbots and social types. There's also the Pathwarden, whom I get my armor from after the usual haze-the-newbie runaround. Before portalling in, I ran the training academy to get used to how a finesse fighter plays. Surprisingly well, it turns out. She does just as much damage as a heavy, and with faster feet and animations. However, the Pathwarden quickly acquaints me with the drawback: cripplingly low carry weight. I pick up the hauberk and I'm immediately at 256% burden. Even after putting all my academy exp into strength, I'm still at more than 110% with just the bare necessities. The other flaw is that, since I'm pumping my strength, I still have very low health. Maybe cow tipping isn't such a bad idea after all...

But never let it be said that I back off from a challenge. So, I grab my twin Academy Daggers and head out to the first stop on the Holtburg newbie tour: The good ol' Holtburg Redoubt.

The redoubt is fairly indistinct in terms of level design, but a lot of work has gone into the lore. The sign by the entrance gives the summary, and the inside looks like a place that's actually been lived in: Storage rooms, desks, bedrooms, and cooking pits now being used by drudges. And also signs of struggle. This is the inside of Brogard's quarters:

Note the bones and the Tumerok skull on the floor. The drudge is my personal addition to the decor.

Kalixia is damn good with her daggers, and her Melee Defense is good too, but the burden limit rears it's ugly head again. Not only can I only take small loot items, but I was unable to bring any potions. I do okay on health, but since dual-wielders swing twice as often I'm soon running very low on stamina. Fortunately, I find the old bunkroom, which has no enemies and closeable doors. This allows me to sit down and have a rest. Potions are so inexpensive that everyone forgets you can just sit down and wait a bit to recover stamina.

Anyway, I clear out the dungeon, grabbing all eight of the necessary items and managing to grab some valuable loot items from the last room. With the experience from turning in the quest items, I boost my Strength to the point where I can stock up on basic supplies. Then it's off to the next stop, the Cave of Alabree. As soon as I walk in, two complications become apparent. First complication: the shreath are breeding.

See, every spring, Turbine gets into the spirit of the season by having the less-than-sapient creatures of Dereth have babies. So for a while, chickens have small chicks with them, bunnies have baby bunnies, and shreth have shrethlets. Bottom line: there are three times as many enemies in this dungeon as there should be. Since my Endurance is still gimped, this is a huge problem. Fortunately, complication two benefits me: I'm not the only newb in this dungeon.

There's a War Mage running around here, a guy named Grenlock. He doesn't say much, probably because walking/fighting and talking at the same time is a tough skill to get down, but we both have the same thought: safety in numbers. So, we wordlessly agree to team up, and proceed into the dungeon, me pulling aggro and and him sniping shreth with his War Magic. We make a pretty good team, and soon find the first objective in the cave: a letter from Brogard to his wife and daughter. The second objective is Brogard's Axe, unfortunately neither of us knows where it is. After wandering aimlessly for a bit, we find a tunnel sloping down. Looks promising. Unfortunately, at the bottom is a huge nest of shreth and shrethlets. We put up the best fight we can, but we're overwhelmed and I get sent to the lifestone.

So, my first death. I'm not too distressed about it, since the dungeon wasn't fair during breeding season, but I do kick myself for A) being so focused on Strength that I forgot to boost Endurance, and B) forgetting all about my Lugian gems. But, no sense sitting and whining, so I remedy these problems and head right back to the cave. Grenlock is nowhere to be found. I find no corpse either, so I'm guessing he retreated rather than get killed. If you're reading this, Gren, thanks for the helping hand and I'm sorry for my screwups.

What I do find, however, is another ally:

I didn't get his name, but he was playing one of the new Lugian player characters. Alabree's popular tonight, lucky for my gimped self. Between the two of us, we're more than capable of handling the shreth. Unfortunately, my friend turns back at the tunnel down, leaving me to retrieve my corpse on the own. Fortunately, I notice belatedly that the shrethlets only aggro if you attack mommy, otherwise they just watch her swinging on you. So I take the hits from the adults while looting the chest, only to discover that the axe isn't here. Well, now I know why the Lugian turned back.

I wander the dungeon for a while, searching for and not finding my new friends. I manage to avoid any major fights, but I can't find the blasted axe anywhere! I'm out of stamina potions and just about to give up when I notice a door I had missed earlier. It's named "Armory Door". Ah-ha! Inside, I quickly shut the door, so that the shreth inside and I aren't disturbed.

After finishing them off with minimal trouble, I look around and find the axe right there on the floor. Success! I take the axe and the letter back to Flinrala and get experience in return. She points me immediately to the next quest. A farmer named Alfrin (hanging, like all of the Holtburg questgivers, in the bar), has had his grain stolen by some drudges.

By now it's getting late. Mindful of what happened in Samsur, I call it a night.

All in all, a satisfying evening. Nice to play with other players once in a while. Kalixia is clearly going to take some getting used to, however. By this point with my other characters, I was putting exp into Arcane Lore, yet with the finesse template every point that doesn't go to Strength has to go to Endurance. Once my Strength is good enough, I should be able to catch up, but it remains to be seen if a high Quickness is better than a high Strength in the long run. The template is definitely a challenge at levels this low, though.