How ya' like them apples?

Geographically speaking, Yaraq was probably destined to be the hub of Gharun'dum activity on Dereth. Gharu lands are pretty much desert, so the Yaraq cove, a supremely fertile area on the coast of the Inner Sea, is prime real estate. The town itself has a very simple layout: one street, buildings on one side, the other overlooking the beaches, where newbies used to hunt skeletons back in the old days. Simple and straightforward, even if it does look a bit like a strip mall.

The town is somewhat more popular then Shoushi, as the buffbots milling around attest:

For those not familiar with AC: bots and third-party utilities are technically against the ToS (I think), but by long tradition Turbine turns a blind eye unless you're griefing or hogging spawns with unattended combat bots. Consequently, the game has a very strong community of modders and botmakers. Indeed, the in-game marketplace is built on the use of trade bots, and buffbots like this are a common sight in much-visited towns and locations.

Anyway, I left Neria in Yanshi, instead opting to rock this town with Elderwulf, the shield-carrier among my little adventuring party. I'm immediately disappointed in my starting gear: a 20 AL shield and tiny dirk. That's right, I'm a newb with a dagger. Hoping to find some better gear ASAP, I head over to the bar to meet with Mara al-Luq. Mara is the local rich bitch heiress very nice young daughter of Yaraq orchard baron Lubziklan al-Luq, who spends her spare time hanging around the bar and working for the explorer society. Surprising nobody who gives a bit of thought to it, my first job in Yaraq is to go to daddy dearest and get a list of stolen items to retrieve. (Favoritism, much?) The local drudge population has made quite an impressive living burglarizing his storehouse, and rather than hire some guards he'd have to pay daily wages, Lubby prefers sending bold adventurers like me into dungeons on scavenger hunts.

The drudges are holed up in the Sea Temple Catacombs, but for reasons that will eventually become obvious Lubziklan sends me to a Red Rat Lair nestled in one of his orchards instead. So, yes, I am now a newb with a dagger killing rats. I guess even the great MMOs can't resist the shtick.

The Rat Lair is a short and simple dungeon, just a hall with a few doors on either side and rats everywhere. So unremarkable I forgot to take a good screenshot, so you'll have to be satisfied with the one above. The rats don't put up too much of a fight, and I clear the place out with no real injuries and a few tails to turn into the Collector back in town. The main "treasure" here is a back way into the Sea Catacombs.

The catacombs themselves are a fairly simple dungeon notable for their use of rooms over rooms. Here you can see one path crossing another beneath. In theory, places like these can let you jump down for quick shortcuts, but in practice the items you need are scattered around all the levels, so you have to stay on the path. So I make my way slowly down, checking every nook and cranny for the items I need as I go. One of them is a pie left sitting out on the floor:

Somehow, I doubt this pie is still edible, but whatever. Down at the lowest level on the dungeon I find the drudges' treasure room:

Sheeeeeee! Well, no wonder they keep attacking the al-Luq stores. In a society where wealth is based on stolen human foodstuffs, this is a dragon's hoard. Anyway, I eventually find all the wanted items. Before /lifestoning, I take the portal out so that I can show you something:

This is the top of a mountain. Note the entrance to the Sea Temple Catacombs, on the radar just behind me.  Visible ahead of you is the Yaraq Cove. The town of Yaraq itself is out of sight. If you look carefully, you can just see the road going into town in this shot. This is the reason for the back door through the Red Rat Nest. In the old days, you had to actually run all this way, than up this mountain to get to the catacombs. It's quite a haul, and mountain climbing on Dereth is a dodgy prospect under the best circumstances. Lucky thing to all you newbs these quests were re-done after the starter towns changed.

Anyway, after returning Lubziklan's stolen property, I get sent to Ma'yad ibn Ibsar for my next quest. I'm getting pretty tired of beating up drudges, so I'm glad she's got something a little different for me: a missing persons case.

Sure enough, Akyafi is upstairs, enjoying the view. I can hardly fault him, it's a good view. You expect the first witness to stonewall you, but he's actually quite open about his business with Abmim. Which of course makes perfect sense: If I go off after Abmim, I'll probably wind up finishing the job he couldn't.

Since I've run this quest before, I know that it'll take me around the cove to the other end. So I set off to the south, remembering (falsely, as it turns out) that it will be the shorter way around. The trip is fairly uneventful. I encounter some low-level mobs and a bad guy whose cover is so hilariously obvious I had to take a screen:

No, no, nothing suspicious at all about that, Mr. in Town.

But that's another quest, to be run another time. I head onward, dodging around a somewhat out-of-place Tumerok warrior, until finally the Mad Star ruins are in sight:

Shortly thereafter, near those pillars off to the left, I find something else: the corpse of Abmim ibn Ibsar, being nibbled on by Shallows Sharks. I think I remember reed/shallows sharks are vulnerable to lightning, and fortunately I've picked up a cestus that will do the job. So I go to work.

Unfortunately, either I've got the wrong vulnerability, or these guys are tougher than I remembered, or four-on-one is just too much. Before long I'm chugging potions one after another while the sharks chew up my thighs like I'm a fried chicken. After a tense few minutes (tense and costly, those potions ain't cheap), I eventually prevail, looting sharks and Abmim quick and GTFO before the respawn hits. Abmim, if his blade is any indication, was not a terribly nice man in life. (Though not a terribly good thief, either, if he couldn't even pinch a dagger with some half-decent enchants.)

I /lifestone and turn the knife in to Ma'yad. She's crestfallen, but apparently not surprised. Mission accomplished, but I want to get to the bottom of this Mad Star business. (Also, I remember there was more to it from my last visit to Dereth.) So I head back to the ruins, going north this time to avoid the shallow sharks. Near the ruins, I scale a nearby mountain (the one with the festival stone on top) to get a birds-eye view of the area:

The Mad Star is clearly connected to the tower which, as Akyafi noted, is infested with drudges. Note also the pillars nearby, home to a water wisp, and the small bunker visible just behind the tower, which conceals a portal and an undead guard. I head on down to kick drudge tail, and the fight proceeds in two phases: One against the drudges that jump off the tower top as they approach, and then my counter-attack on the drudges in the tower. As they're mostly lower-level drudges, it's not much trouble, despite my getting smacked with a Frost Bolt for 23 damage due to underestimating the Water Wisp.

In addition to the usual loot, I find a Scrawled Note, untranslated, on one of the drudges. Near the bunker, which can't be opened except by a switch, I find a second note which is all too legible:

Poor Abmim. If he had made it home, he might have been able to turn over a new leaf. The second page of the note indicates that Abmim's heading to the Pillars of the Inner Sea, which is where I found him being Shallow Shark food. So it seems that I ran this quest out of order. But actually, I like it better this way. Learning of Abmim's death before learning that he wasn't such a bad guy has more dramatic appeal. Anyway, I drop back to Yaraq and turn in this letter to Ma'yad, and the other to Akyafi. The translated noted babbles some barely-coherent nonsense and freaks Akyafi the hell out. So, of course, he sends me to the crypt (the bunker mentioned earlier) to do further recon.

Since I know the switch opening the crypt is atop the tower, I know I'm going to be fighting the drudges again. But this time, I wise up and take out the wisp first, after which the rest are pretty easy. Inside the crypt, I get my first taste (with this character, anyway,) of combat with the undead.

Undead ("zombie" style, which includes Undead, Zombies, and Liches) are much tougher than most of the enemies I've encountered thus far, mainly because their magic is stronger. Worse, their weakness is fire, which I don't have. Upon portaling in I'm immediately set upon by three of them, fortunately I get lucky in that they left their war magic home. No fool, I amp up with my Lugian gems after dispatching the first three rather than push my luck further. Straight down the hall lies the boss monster, secure in a sealed chamber:

Level 30 and has at least Life Magic, probably War too. Low health, but pretty nasty otherwise. It's not clear from this screenshot, but the layout of this dungeon is basically: one big room, with a bottom floor and a balcony, which is what you're looking out on now. Stairs down at the other end of the balcony. From the bottom floor, several tunnels lead into the rock and wind around, through a few gates, eventually leading to the chamber on the balcony where the boss waits. Because Life Magic isn't blocked by walls, the Mad Star Marionette can harass you with debuffs the entire time that you're trying to get to him, in addition to siccing the other undead around the dungeon on you. Clever design on Turbine's part.

Unfortunately for Turbine, the old melee-through-closed-doors trick works just as well with thin walls:

Making the situation even more absurd, I can even loot the corpse through the wall:

This accomplishes my mission, but it's not all there is to do here. I head downstairs, fighting undead all the way. Then I work my way through the tunnels, encountering more undead and a slightly tricky switch-and-door puzzle. Deep in those tunnels, I find a key on one of the enemies. This key goes to a locked door on the lower level of the main room, behind which I find the dungeon's other boss:

I remember one time getting a Pyreal Mote off this guy. No such luck today, but I do earn some decent loot from the Runed Chest after clobberizing him. Then it's back to town, to turn in the severed head and sell the rest of my loot. Annoyingly, we don't get any conclusion to just what was going on with the Mad Star and the crypts, but eh, it was probably virindi. It's always virindi, especially when it involves inexplicable purple lights.

So, all in all, Yaraq newb is a lot tougher than Shoushi newb. Although I succeeded in all objectives without dying, I was not impressed with the Heavy Shield template's performance. I had figured that the shield would mean less damage, but the effect isn't noticeable. The effect of doing less damage due to having only one weapon is noticeable, and in fact I think Elderwulf takes more damage than Neria due to not being able to kill enemies as fast. But then again, Yaraq threw a lot of crap at me that Shoushi didn't. Undeads and Shallows Sharks are on a different level than drudges and shreaths, even in mass numbers. So maybe I should find a more comparable dungeon before giving up on Elderwulf entirely.

Before I call it a night, I stop to take a picture. Down in the tunnels I found a new bludgeoning weapon that helped me to beat the golem:

Yes. I've upgraded from "newb with a dagger" to "newb with a stick." Yay.

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.

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.

Wake up call

Although I'm done with the official starter quests, my do-everything mandate requires I stick around Shoushi for a bit more. One of the keys unlocking the Sword of Lost Light is here, and I need to pick it up. The barkeep's directions point me to the Shoushi Grotto, a dungeon on the side of a hill facing town. The location provides a good view of the city and the surrounding area, obstructive trees notwithstanding.

A severed drudge head at the entrance did nothing to dissuade me. But down the first ramp I remember something I had forgotten: between my first venture to Dereth and my second, the enemies here were upgraded. Instead of low-rent drudges, we now have vicious Virindi-altered drudges. Fortunately, this dungeon is a prime place to bust out the melee fighter's secret weapon: a door!

Yes. There has been, since the very early days of the game, a bug that allows you to melee enemies through closed doors. It's never been fixed because the players like abusing it, thus it's classified as a "glitch" rather than a "bug." Because of this, you can bash away at creatures freely, safe in the knowledge that the door will block any War Magic and you can step back a few paces at any time to heal safely out of melee range.

...or so I think, until I get down to the second level and realize, horror of horrors! The balance of power on Dereth has shifted mightily! Drudges have learned how to open doors!

So what was going to be a quick dungeon-crawl becomes a fairly hectic running battle. These drudges, as well as the Hunter Shreaths that also infest the place, are higher level than me and my weapons are still fairly gimped. The drudges never seem to fall fast enough, and I'm getting pinged for two and three points of damage per second. Fortunately, I have a few tricks of my own. Another weird glitch in the game is that a monster will sometimes psuedo-randomly say "eh, screw it," and just walk away from a battle, disinterested. Before, this wasn't terribly exploitable, given that they re-aggro as soon as you take a shot at them or one of their buddies. But with the new combat update, what it means is free Sneak Attacks.

I also have Lugian gems and know what elements to use (fire against the drudges, ice against the shreath). However, none of this can take away the element of the ticking clock. With neither Healing nor Life Magic, I'm reliant on potions for health and stamina restoration. Which work fine, but are limited. Additionally, it can take a while to get rid of these enemies, so I'm being stalked by the respawn timer. Despite the pressure, I still stop to loot the corpses. Which is very fortunate, since the bartender implied the key was lying around on the floor. Turns out, it's actually held by a drudge in the final room.

I make it to that room just in time. My potions are nearly out, but I have enough to finish off the last few drudges. pushing my luck a little, I go through a new passage out of said room, but it turns out to be a dead-end with a destroyed portal. Nothing I can do with that, so I consider this a successful mission and /lifestone back to Shoushi.

A harder quest than I was expecting, but in the end I was able to handle it without dying. The "chug potions" approach to healing is working. I was able to face a appropriate-level dungeon without too much difficulty. I'll make it a point to bring twice as many next time, though, since almost running out could have killed me if I  hadn't hit the end just in time. All in all, I feel like I've proved I still have some idea how to play this game.

I planned to get some more things done tonight, but back in real life I'm feeling under the weather, so I call it an early night. Before I do, however, I take a quick side-trip to Hebian-To (hate the brick texture on the Town Network, but the paintings are nice) to grab some level III item magic. Somewhat unfortunately, it's only after making the purchase that I realize my skill is only around 100, and I'll need 50 more points to cast them reliably. But hey, I'll need them eventually, and money is easy to get in this game, so whatever.

Next time, I really take this show on the road, hitting lesser-visited towns in search of town stamps and keys. See you then!