Places of Joy and Sorrow

Of all the starter towns in Dereth, Yanshi has changed the most. To wit, it doesn't exist anymore. Turbine leveled it some time back, because a bad guy was doing bad stuff and shit needed to get real. The portal instead drops me off at New Yanshi, some distance to the west of the old town. New Yanshi is a hilltop fortress, complete with walls. And not the halfassed walls of Shoushi, either: real stone ramparts, with watchtowers and... nothing resembling a gate. Seems like a bit of a security flaw, that.

More impressive than what's inside the not-gate, however, is what the devs have parked outside. To the right, I see this:

Huh. That's new to me. I go down to take a closer look, and see that it's a wedding pavillion.

I'd heard about this while browsing the wiki. Apparently, two of the game's major lore characters got hitched awhile back, and there was a live event where nearly every major Turbine char showed up in their finery. Then the players competed in games for the amusement of all. Afterwards, some of the stuff stayed around for curious players to make use of. The fireworks launchers at the corners set off an impressive light show when used, unfortunately I gave up getting a good screenshot of it after three tries. Visible in the distance is what appears to be an arena of some sort. The platforms above are a racing game that involves running and jumping. I didn't fancy my first death in Dereth being a result of playing Super Mario, but I did go up to get a shot of the landscape:

As you can see from the dialogue box, the marriage ended badly: the bride was killed off by a bad guy because shit needed to get real again. There's always some disaster going on in Dereth, isn't there? Towns leveled, beloved characters killed for drama, 'dillos in the new area hitting with hollow weapons because some newb programmer didn't know what "slashing/piercing damage" meant...

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the reason Turbine held the wedding here is so that they had an overflow location if things got too portal-stormy. To the other side of New Yanshi are the festival grounds:

Fully equipped with archery ranges (with 50% more arch!), snack vendor, chessboards, stage for performances, racetracks, and "hang out and chat" stations under the fruit trees. I took a bunch of screen shots, then realized that posting them all would make this post boring, so I'll just show a few of my faves. This one shows one of the chessboards, with the sprinting track, another chessboard, and some archery ranges behind it, as well as the festival stone.

Here, you see the meeting hall, made up to be a kind of podium. Off to the side, take note of the lamp amongst trees, one of those "hang-out stations" I mentioned:

And here's a close-up of the festival stone. These had been plain pillars of rock when I first came to Dereth. When they turned on, and for what purpose, I don't know. Looks great, though.

But enough sightseeing. I was ready for some adventure! The Exploration Society Agent was a Scholar named Dai Ya, who charged me with finding the writings of an old philosopher.

Getting to Old Yanshi is a bit of a chore. I take the road leading away from the not-gate, only to find it loops around the first hill in a big circle. So I wasted ten or twenty minutes going in a big loop when I could have just cut across the festival grounds. But I do find the path. It's a longish trek with some level 15-20 foes along the way, but nothing I can't handle.

The ruins themselves are painful to look at. Almost literally; I get a shit-ton of graphics lag whenever I look toward the center of it. Must be Neria's proud Sho heart breaking. Inspiringly, the Stone of Yanshi (a lore-significant landmark) is still standing. I remember back in '00 coming here and watching newbs try and climb up on top. For old times' sake, I climb it myself and take a picture of Neria looking pensively out over the desolation. (And, uh, keeping an eye on the virindi NPC off in the corner. Hey, you gonna turn your back on a virindi?)

The outposts are north and south; I go north first, but a house full of rats just off the beaten path piques my interest:

Clearing it out, I find a note with a hint for the Sword of Lost Light Quest: a seventh key is needed, bought from an adventurer somewhere. I had forgotten that, so it's a god thing I took time out to check the house. When I reach the outpost, the questgiver sends me to retrieve a bracelet with sentimental value from a small drudge cave nearby:

Just to clarify, that's a cave, not a dungeon. No portal, just bash drudges and loot chest. Returning to the outpost earns me the first of Jhong Mi's writings:

Words to live by. Visible from the outpost are a few more landmarks, including a mage's tower enticingly perched on a hill nearby. Not being in any particular rush, I take some time to explore a little. After fighting off some drudges (one of whom takes a running jump from the upper floors of the tower to duke it out with me), I find the tower inhabited by a corpse with a note:

I have no idea what that's about, so I file it away to think about later, and auto-run south, back through the ruins, to the south outpost. I should probably mention that, even before it was slagged, Yanshi was not the most charming town in Dereth. It's basically along the border of a swamp, and the next questgiver's instructions lead me right into the swamp. I remembered it being very easy to get lost on this quest, but either my memory's whacked or my graphics card couldn't render very far back then, because the necessary landmarks are visible (albeit barely) from the outpost itself. I face some wasps along the way, but nothing too problematic.

The ruin itself is eerie. It's the kind of empty that you hear about in haunted-house stories: everything in order, as if the owners had just stepped out, yet not a single human soul. I heard a sound like a hammer throughout the first floor, as if a ghost were about.

Well, I don't believe in ghosts, but I do believe in drudges, and guess what comes out to play shortly? The ensuing fights are pretty straightforward, enough so that I didn't see any need to take screenshots. To cut a long story short, I find the writings in a chest behind a locked door (for which the questgiver had given me the key), then check out the rest of the dungeon. I find the Yanshi Town Stamp at the entrance, but nothing else of importance. The text of the second writing is not so inspiring as the first. In fact, it's kinda emo:

Since it's a long walk back to New Yanshi, I opt to save some time and head over to where Da Yai's going to send me anyway. Northwest of the ruins, a portal leads to the aptly-named Yanshi Tunnels:

This is a Lost Light Key dungeon, so I'll be facing the higher-level drudges from back in the Shoushi Grotto. I take time before going in to buff my weapons for an edge. Unfortunately, due to my low mana and failure to bring mana potions, I'm only able to do Swift Killer III and Blood Drinker III on each. Oops.

Despite this, the battle goes a lot smoother then the Shoushi Grotto. My weapons are less gimpy, my stock of health/stamina potions is quite sufficient, and these drudges didn't get the "How to open doors" memo. Actually, that last one's not entirely fair to the drudges. Most of these doors are locked, giving me my first chance to use my lockpicking skills. In short order I've found both the key and the last of Jhong Mei's writings. I continue on, clearing out the entire place with no problems.

It turns out I was wrong earlier: Da Yai doesn't send me over to the tunnels after turning in the first two writings. Apparently, this quest is so old that Turbine actually expected us to poke around the surrounding area with no guidance searching for them. In fact, checking the wiki I noted a fourth writing in a Reedshark Lair that I never knew existed. I admit that Yanshi is properly seeded for this kind of thing: In addition to the Rat house and Spire mentioned earlier, I found two or three little Drudge dens just by walking around. But free-form exploration doesn't work too well in Dereth: without obvious landmarks or coordinates, it's really easy to get lost, and while the lack of zoning is one of the game's unique points, it also means you can overshoot your target massively and never know about it.

Still, I had fun in Yanshi. I think I've pretty much got the hang of playing Neria, so tune in next time when I take one of my other characters out for a test-drive.