The quest for stuff

Apparently the Wardens of the Facility Hub don't like people running around in explorer gear, because they keep sending me to get armor. Today's objective is the Halls of Helm, where I am to retrieve... a shield. And a helm, of course. As this is a Dericost ruin, I expect Undead, which is once again troublesome because I still have no fire weapon.

Fortunately, it's mostly fairly weak Zombies and the occasional Lich. Between Lugian gems and good tactics, I have little trouble. The key is to put something between you and their War Magic, then wait for them to get tired of ranged attacks and come to you. Above, you see this strategy in action. Both Frost Bolts and throwing weapons strike the wall harmlessly, then when he switches to melee the shape of the wall brings him right to me, and out of the protection of any comrades fighting with him.

The enemies are unremarkable, but the architecture is interesting. It's given to large, open chambers with multiple levels. Below, the main room as seen from one of it's upper floors:

To find the boss, however, I have to go down into the depths. I find him in an impressive-looking room with thrones and torches:

Rather then charge in there, though, I keep to my strategy and take cover, waiting for him to come to me.

Once I finish him off, his zombie pals come at me and I have to clobber them as well. Not too hard. I pick up the requested shield and helm, then go through the door at the back of his chamber. It turns out this dungeon isn't done yet. Rather than an exit portal, the door opens onto a tunnel that leads up into the eaves.

I'm not sure what was up with this chair, here. I note with some amusement that It allows us to peep into what appears to be a bedroom across the way...

Anyway, the shield is useless to a Dual Wielder and I sell it. But the Helm is quite good for this point in the game:

Overall, the Halls of the Helm were fun and rewarding, but not enough to fill a whole blog post. So I move right on to the next quest, the Colier Mines. The goal here is the Baron's Amulet of Life Giving, held by the undead Baron Colier.

Colier is going for the "damned town look. There's a monolith warning of terrible things along the road into town, along with a lot of dead trees, and the place itself has been trashed by Banderlings and Drudges. I've been told two of these squatters have keys I need, so I run around the town kicking ass for awhile. The enemies include Banderling Guards (below on the left,) which wear the weirdest armor I've ever seen. WTF is that, anyway? It looks like an evening dress with the skirt torn off.

The portal into the mine is in a basement. I wish I had something illuminating to say about the mine's aesthetic but, well, it's a bunch of mining tunnels. The inhabitants are mainly drudges and banderlings. Suspecting a lot of twisty passages await me, I try to navigate it using the right-hand rule. This is successful: after going around the entire immediate area and coming back to the start, I have successfully gotten a handle on where the major points of interest are, including a lever-locked door that I leave for now. I've also found an area full of jail cells. One of the keys I found back in town is described as being a jail key (the other I've already used to get through a door just inside the portal), so I use it to do some exploring. I find a unique zombie that carries a third key. This one is described as opening a chest.

Since I haven't found any unpickably locked chests in here, I figure it's time to yank that lever. beyond lies a pit, which I bravely jump into. On the level below the drudges are traded in for a new enemy: human miners turned into undead zombies.

I start putting things together. I'm after the Baron's Amulet of Life Giving, yes? Which is guarded by miners and, eventually, the baron himself, all of which have turned undead. Is that how the amulet gives life? If so, count me out.

In any case, these zombies either don't have War Magic or don't use it often, leaving them barely tougher than the banderlings. On the lower level I also find the chest that belongs to the curator's key, inside which I find... two more keys, for a door and a chest respectively. The chest is suppossedly in the Baron's quarters. So, I'm getting close to the end. However, the only door forward appears to be unreachable due to a cave-in:

I later find out that this is actually the door into the Baron's quarters. But I obviously can't get to it, so I wander around looking for a door somewhere in this level. In actuality, the key goes to a door that I passed earlier, while right-handing my way through the upper level. Unfortunately, I forgot about it and it takes my stupid ass nearly half an hour of poking around before I figure out I have to go back to the start and retrace all my steps.

Once that's done, however, the remainder of the dungeon is straightforward. I pass through some more tunnels full of Undead Miners and banderlings, then reach this ominous-looking corridor:

On the other side is a series of rooms that appear to have once been inhabited. The Baron is close, I can feel it. Finally, I reach his quarters, where I take on him and a few guards for a boss fight.

He's not much tougher than the ordinary Undead Miners. I start the fight by sneak attacking him and it goes downhill for him from there. I unlock the chest and loot it, finding the Amulet and some valuable treasure. I also find a number of strange stones lying about the room:

Checking the wiki, I find out that these are for a quest that I won't be doing for a long time, so I turn it in to the town crier. I consider whether putting on the Amulet is worth the price of potentially becoming a zombie, but luckily it's a moot point since the enchantments are crap:

On the other hand, I do manage to find this among the loot:

And just in time, too. Next up is the Green Mire Grave, with its halls full of Mosswarts. Good place to give it a workout, don't you think?

This dungeon is a dungeon

The objective in Glenden Wood Dungeon is to clobber the local Banderling strongman and bring back his armor. The Warden mentions a degree of key-hunting will be necessary, so I expect a fairly large dungeon. I consider taking a look around Glenden Wood proper before starting, but I head the wrong way on the road and have to dive into the portal while fleeing from a Skeleton Lord.

Inside, I meet a mage who's trying to run this quest himself and take out a drudge that's beating on him. He offers a fellowship, and while I'm not averse to the idea, I prefer to go solo when I can. I decline and tell him to go first, then log out. Twenty minutes later, I log back in to see that he's either done his thing or moved out, leaving the spawns for me.

Enemies in this dungeon are numerous but simple, mostly 20ish banderlings which are weak against my lightning lancet and brown drudges which are weak against anything weapon-like. The Dull Dagger performs quite well, although the fact that it can't be tethered proves a small drawback. Some of the rooms have interesting flavor. Beyond a large dining hall lies a kitchen-like area where a Banderling Ogre watches over two tame Fire Aurochs:

Unfortunately, this is not the Ogre I'm looking for, so onward I go. I stumble into a long corridor with lots of side rooms, each containing a trio of drudges or banderlings. The side rooms often contain drudges and nothing else. I fight through them with little trouble, finding nothing in the rooms but the loot on them. Disappointing, but it's still good experience. I eventually find the first key on a Drudge Servant with a unique name:

The key opens a door nearby that takes me upstairs to a small room overlooking a larger one. However, with Liches downstairs tossing War Magic around, I have to back up and try a different path. It doesn't much matter, because the path I take eventually brings me around to the same point:

These liches are a real piece of work. I hide behind the door, and they shoot arrows at me and wait. I open the door to take the fight to them, and immediately get smacked with a Force Bolt. Then they charge, after I have the door open. Fortunately, between a decent magic resist, my Lugian gems, and a quick finger with the potion hotkey, I manage to beat them. A small room inside the larger one holds a unique banderling who has the second key:

That's two out of I don't know how many. Further on I find the dungeon's most impressive room: a series of corridors lined with locked gates holding enemies. Jail cells. Sonnovabich, this dungeon is a dungeon!

While I like a good fight as much as the next MMOer, breaking into each of these cells and massacring the occupants seems tedious and unrewarding, so instead I look for a way on to the next area. I think I find it in a tunnel leading downward to a cave system, but therein lies a nasty surprise:

Yikes! That's way too rich for my blood. And there's several of them down here, too. I consider picking a fight with one, but then slap myself, whazzamattawithyou? I try to sneak around behind their backs, I find a portal to a level 80 area while avoiding fights, but not much else. So I head back up to the prison, figuring there must be another way. The only other exit is through two locked doors. Neither key works on them. I pick the lock of the first, but the second proves too tough for me. Burdened down with loot and with little idea where to go next, I /lifestone to Cragstone to sell and resupply.

When I return to the dungeon, I decide to take a different path at the start in hopes of finding another key somewhere. The path I choose takes me upstairs, where I find balconies overlooking both start room and  this one:

The pit visible behind the small structure in the center is worth mentioning: My radar picks up some very tempting loot down there (we're talking multiple level IV enchantments), but it's also a very long drop into a nest of Armoredillos. Given that, plus the fact that I can't meet the lore requirements, I ignore it.

After meticulously combing every inch of the dungeon looking for a key or a room I've missed, I find nothing and wind up back at the jail cells. I now have three options to find the third key:

A) Systematically kill every creature in each of these cells, hoping one has the key.
B) Jump into the pit, hoping there's a path down there which will lead to the key.
C) Brave the Granite Golems downstairs to see if I can find the key there.

As none of those sound appealing, I choose D) Forget the key and wail on the door with my lockpicks until it gives. Luckily, I brought spare lockpicks. After a few minutes and a bit of persistence, I succeed. Shortly past the door, I find the boss:

He may be big, but he's also inattentive. I sneak attack him from behind before he aggros, then follow up with my lightning lancet and pretty soon he hits the ground. The Hauberk is mine. I forgot to get a screenshot, but as you can see from this wiki link, it's disappointing. Sure, the enchant is nice, but it doesn't make a bit of difference to a Finesse fighter. Plus the AL is crap and an armor that fills that many slots better damn well come with more than one enchantment. I show it to the warden, then sell it.

Later I check the wiki to see if I missed anything. Turns out that third key was on a Giant Silver Rat in one of the jail cells. I also found a fourth on the boss, which opened a chest that I had already picked. And down in the Golem room was an item needed for a large and tricky quest, which I will get around to some day.

Glenden Wood dungeon is not a bad dungeon, but it annoyed me. There are too many enemies. They're weak, so there's little chance of death, but it gets repetitive after awhile. And the layout is a little too confusing, with the needle-and-haystack search for the third key being especially poor form. So while it's okay and I can see it being good grinding for lowbies, I'm glad to move on to the next quest.

Another impractical wine cellar

Having completed my test-drive phase, it's time to anoint my main. Of the four options, I rule out Elderwulf first, being less than impressed with his performance. Neira goes next, for essentially being redundant. She doesn't seem to do more damage than Ferrion, and lacks the additional benefit of Cleaving. That leaves Ferrion and Kalixia, and after thinking on it a while, I've decided as Kalixia for my main, and Ferrion as my major alt. While she's weaker, I like the extra challenge and fringe benefits that the Finesse template provides, particularly the increased run speed. With that decided, I go about getting her a little upgrade:

Ta-dah! Explorer armor is, in my opinion, terribly underrated. No, it's not uber, but it looks great and provides an excellent set of level III buffs. (I actually thought it provided a full suite of creature and life buffs. No such luck, but it's still a good deal for a player who's struggling to bring his Arcane Lore up.) Getting it is a bit more trouble than I figured, though. I had plenty enough Lucky Gold Letters from the key dungeons, but they were spread around all my characters. To mule them safely, I decided to buy a house, but that required a Writ of Refuge. The only writ-granting items I felt I had a chance of getting at this point were the Minor Atlan Stones. It turned out that getting to those stones is a lot harder than I remember, with level 50 spawns guarding them. After Ferrion got killed once and sent running once, I decided "eff this" and muled my stuff the old-fashioned way instead: Find abandoned dungeon, drop stuff on ground, log out log in. No need for drama.

The stamps weren't trouble at all. Once I'd checked the chart on the wiki I was able to plan a route to get everything I needed in two trips: one at the end of one session and the beginning of the next. I hit a snag late in the game when the info on obtaining the Ring of Quickness turned out to be wrong. The wiki says Samsur/Nanto, but it's actually Samsur/Yanshi. Fortunately I could correct that without waiting another day. Despite these snags, I got a full set of gear and, thus armed, set off for my next destination: the facility hub and it's wellspring of low-level questing.

The hub's design is practical rather than aesthetic. The corridor branches out in three directions. Center takes you to three grind-heavy but rewarding questlines. Left and right each take you to a series of rooms, each holding 3 portals to quest dungeons appropriate to a low-level character. The above picture, for example, is taken from the level 10+ room. There's also the 15+ room, the 20+ room, and so on. Before each portal is a Warden that explains the quest to you. First up is the Ice Tachi quest:

It's so simple as to be barely worth mentioning, but it's a good tutorial for how the Facility Hub works: you get the quest reward, turn it in to the warden for an experience bonus, then keep it for your own use. In this case, the Tachi is a decent lowbie weapon with multiple level II enchants, but since it's Heavy and I'm Finesse, I make a note to give it to an Ivory Crafter for some extra exp.

From here, I move straight on to the Folthid Cellar quest, which is a lot more substantial. The objective is the Dagger of Tikola, although the warden will also accept the Dull Dagger as proof of my success. (I thought the Dull Dagger was a red herring that existed to fake out people at the halfway point, but this turns out to not be the case.) The quest starts off with me visiting Lady Raxanza Folthid (there's a mouthful of a name), who gives me a key and asks me to bring back a drink for her. What is it with these nobles and their exotic drinks? Aleval, Lubziklan, that guy from Al-Arqas, and now Lady Folthid have all asked me to retrieve liquors they foolishly keep stored in dens full of monsters. Can't they go to the bar or something? Or maybe, you know, not store their spirits in effing dungeons?

In any case, the Folthid Cellar is very well-designed. It's twisty, but not to the extent that you get confused. The first half takes place in a series of tunnels around the central room shown above. You have to pull the lever (visible on the left), to open a door on the bottom floor. A skilled jumper could probably take a few leaps and cut the quest time way down, but I take the long and simple path in the hopes of finding more loot along the way. The enemies are Mosswarts to start, with a few Golems thrown in along the way. Mosswarts are a bit of a problem since their weakness is fire, the one element I don't have access to. But they're weak, so I manage pretty well.

Once I get through the door, though, it's a slightly different story. The Old Nectar Lady Folthid requested is in a chest here, but there's also a window into the lower levels of the dungeon. Back in the old days, the quest didn't tell you about the dagger, and this would have been the hint that there was more to this errand than meets the eye. In any event, the way forward is to jump down into the green tunnels. The tunnels are inhabited by Mosswart Shamans and Undeads, nothing special. Then comes the big trouble:

Liches. Their weapons aren't so tough, but their War Magic is brutal. Plus, their only big weakness is fire which, again, I don't have. I wind up fighting three at once (forgetting about my Lugian gems, AGAIN), and it's just too much. I die.

Those who have been paying attention will remember that I picked up a rare gem back in Holtburg. When I die, I drop it. Further, since it's late and I'm tired, I'm not able to go back for it tonight, which means that by the time I do get to it, the corpse has decayed. I'm not terribly put out, though. Honestly, the gem was kind of fools gold. It's so awesome that you don't want to use it unless you're in a really bad bind, but if you're in a situation that bad it probably won't help. I suppose I could have hopped over to the marketplace and traded it for something uber, but what's that going to do other than make the lowbie game boring and tedious. Although now that I think of it, I could have traded it for a writ to solve my housing problem...

Um, anyway! After logging in the next day I decide to go in better prepared this time. I hop through the town network to Cragstone, where I offload my loot and turn in the Ice Tachi to an Ivory Collector. The lion's share of the experience goes into Magic Resist. I also visit the Healer and invest in Health Tinctures and Stamina Elixirs, because 25 health per potion is not going to cut it anymore. Thus prepared, I head back into the dungeon, bull through the first half, then use my gems before jumping down into the tunnels.

With the preparations I've made, the Liches are much easier, although I still have to keep on my toes. I resist more often, and chug more efficiently when I don't. Problem is, they still come in groups of two and three, sometime accompanied by Mosswart Shamans. I also have no idea where I'm supposed to be going. I bumble around a lot, finding a lever, and then another, and then a blind leap into a pit. At this point I've only got 2 health tinctures left (Gotta bring more next time.) I consider turning back, but since I've come this far, I figure might as well try to finish it up. At the pit's bottom is a path leading to the final fight: neither Liches nor Mosswarts nor Golems, but a quartet of Sclavus.

Sclavus are essentially lizardmen (or maybe snakemen, whatever) that have made the BlackMire Swamp south of old Yanshi their personal fiefdom. They're predisposed to throwing weapons and Life Magic. I can't remember their vulnerabilities, so I go with lightning. (Later I check the wiki and see it's cold, which makes perfect sense because cold-blooded reptiles can't maintain their body heat, duh.) The battle is tense since I'm so low on potions, but if they have War Magic they don't use it, and in the end my melee skills are better than theirs. The chest in the room contains the Dull Dagger and an Ancient Shard of Metal.

The prize I'm after, the Dagger of Tikola, is on one of the Sclavus bodies, along with a key leading to the exit portal. I whoop on seeing that the dagger is a fire weapon... then boo when it's Light instead of Finesse. Damn. I show it to the Warden to prove my awesomeness, then toss it to the vendor for a few hundred pyreals. On the other hand, the Dull Dagger looks like it might be useful. No enchants or multi-strike, but an absurdly high max damage. I decide to give it a test drive next quest.

Before calling it a night, I check the wiki and discover that this Metal Shard is supposed to be given to an NPC on the surface. Doing so nets me a big experience reward and an infodump about an unrelated quest:

I suspect I'll be following up on this lead later.

I'm quite satisfied with Folthid Cellar, which is one of the better quests I've run thus far. It's a meaty dungeon with a good variety of enemies and not too high a challenge level, plus some decent flavor with the levers and the secret window. I especially like the implied lore in the dungeon: At first it seems to be a simple mosswart infestation, then it turns out the shamans are conspiring with a group of liches, and then the Sclavus turn out to be behind it all. And finally, the sequel hook. Fun. Next up is the Glendon Wood Dungeon, which I can't remember doing before. We'll see if it's as interesting.

Victory lap

So, last time I said I was done with newbie content. Not quite. There's one more quest in this vein that I have to accomplish, and that's the Sanamar merchant quest. This one is basically designed to introduce newbies who start in Sanamar to the wider world of Dereth. You're asked to help a merchant expand his trading empire, and to do this you go around to the other three newbie towns, run a quest for a businessman in each of them, and then get their yea or nay response. Since I've finished most of the other newb content, this seems a very appropriate finale for this phase of my AC life.

First on the itinerary is Renald the Eldest, of Holtburg. The name's kind of a joke. Since release Holtburg has been home to two shopkeepers, Renald the Younger and Renald the Elder. Guess this is the head honcho. He's a cantakerous old coot, and wants me to fetch a mug that some drudges stole before he'll consider my reply. He gives me coordinates, which makes finding the place easy, but finding my way to it is a little trickier. Overland travel tends to annoy me. There always seems to be a cluster of enemies too powerful for me between here and there. This forces me to take long detours, get lost, and occasionally run for my life.

Fortunately, I don't meet anything too tough on my way to retrieve the mug. It's in a bunker, not a dungeon, but I do have to rough up a bunch of brown drudges outside before getting in.

I return the mug to Renald, who says, essentially, "Thanks for the offer, but I'm actually a racist and there's no way I'll do business with that effing smurf." Well thanks, asshole. At least he has the decency to give me a 15K trade note for my trouble.

Hoping for more luck in Shoushi, I hop a portal there and talk to the herbalist Gonjoku Dan. He wants me to find him a certain rare herb.

The cave is not really worth mentioning: generic twisty tunnels populated by Mosswarts. The herb is on a big spike of rock in the final room, and annoyingly blends into the scenery. If I hadn't been cycling the targets with [ and ] out of habit, I would have never even noticed it. The fighting is good, though. I find a Swamp Stone among the corpses, which would have been foreshadowing for my next post, but isn't.

In exchange for my help, Dan gives me his agreement and a unique potion. This would be good, if it wasn't a one-use potion with a crappy effect. So, I move on to Yaraq and my old friend, Lubziklan al-Luq.

Lubby still doesn't see the wisdom in security, and thus I'm off to another dungeon to bash drudges and retrieve stolen goods. This dungeon, however, turns out to be exceptionally well-designed. It's drudges all the way, but every room is interesting. One especially impressive one has a mesh floor, through which you can see the room below.

Later, down a spiral staircase, I find a series of corridors where I fight a lot of drudges.

Navigating the corridors, I eventually reach a multi-level room with drudges perched on the upper level. They actually do a decent job tactically. One jumps down to fight me, while the other snipes me with throwing daggers. Further in, taking shortcuts via lockpicking, I run into a room with an obvious secret door:

Somewhat obnoxiously, the secret passage is simply a longer route to the final room, although I do get to beat up some Red Rats for their tails.

The final room is a suitably epic finale to AC newbiedom: A battle royale in a room with at least a dozen drudges of all colors, some of which snipe me with throwing daggers et al while their companions engage in melee. Despite challenging odds and needing to use a few potions, I prevail and return to the al-Luq estate with not only the needed wine, but a Glorious Apple as well.

His reaction to the apple is a bit troubling. I mean, given that his business is apples, you'd think he'd know that apple trees are grown from clippings, not seeds. Between him and his party-girl, aduterating daughter, I worry about the economic future of Yaraq. The al-Luqs are set up to run the whole town into the ground. Occupy Yaraq, anyone? Before that can happen, I get my Slaving-for-the-Man ass out of town and back to Sanamar, where I turn in the agreements, and Renald's insult, for some exp, some money, and a pack that I already have.

And that wraps up newbiedom. Now it's on to... LOWBIEDOM!

Green town in the desert

I had another quest to do from Sanamar, but since I skipped Al-Arqas initially, I figured that now is a good time to make up for it.

Al-Arqas is often confused with Samsur, and for good reason: it's the same damn idea. Oasis valley surrounded by mountains and deserts. I only get this one screenshot, because there's not much of anything worth seeing here. Turbine must have known this, since they placed the outposts such that you don't have to go more than two buildings into town at any point in the starter quests. The outposts are north and west, and the roads intersect at the north end of the town, right about where you can find the explorer society rep. I try  north first, following a trail marked out by rods in the sand. The Gharun'dum lands use these when the sands make actual roads impractical.

General chat is rather active tonight, and between people throwing crass insults at each other, I get the skinny from the questgiver:

I happen to remember that this quest doesn't involve a dungeon. Instead, you just head to a nearby bunker. So my initial reaction is "Man, how lazy is this woman?" I mean, level eleven mage and she can't take some newbie drudges? What is she, a burden mule? As it turns out, however, she has good reason to leave this to the professionals. Just like in Nanto, the spawn maps have been updated around the quest, so that I wind up facing level 20 skeletons and armoredillos on the way to this drudge hideout. Having walked through Sanamar with few problems, I'm overconfident and try to get some quick action. That was stupid on my part. Soon I'm chugging potions like a maniac to stay alive. It doesn't work, and I get an express trip back to the lifestone.

I don't know who to be angry at: Turbine for screwing up the spawn maps, or myself for charging in like Leeroy Jenkins and getting clobberized. (I had Lugain gems and forgot to use them, so the scale tips toward it being my fault.) On the return trip, I play a bit more reasonably. After carefully retrieving my corpse, I take the long way around to find the drudge camp. I avoid most of the high-level spawns, but unfortunately I can't avoid this one:

Way out of my league, and he's camped out right by the bunker I need to get to. While I'm trying to figure a way to sneak past him, he aggros on me. I duke it out with him a bit before confirming I'm hopelessly outclassed and switching tactics to running the eff away. I duck in the bunker hoping that he'll get stuck on the walls, but no dice. So now my gear knight is getting chased around an tiny underground room by a shadow while drudges take cheap shots at me like some kind of Derethian Tom & Jerry short. Finally, I manage to snatch the quest item from the ground and escape back upstairs and out of the bunker. This time, the Shadow does get hung up on the walls, and I /lifestone before anything else goes wrong.

The kicker? The quest item is an ordinary Drudge Charm, no different from the dozens or so I've turned in to collectors thus far in the game. Eff this quest.

Outpost number two is home to a questgiver in an improbably huge house, who has a more mundane, if overdone, task for me: retrieve an item of sentimental value from a nearby dungeon. As before, it's the overland journey which is the real problem. If you go straight to the dungeon, you encounter only drudges, but veer too far off the path and you have 20ish Armoredillos and Rifts. Fortunately, I manage to avoid drawing aggro from anything too much for me.

The Unfinished Temple dungeon is fairly straightforward. Drudges and weak Shreths, but good use of multiple levels. The action is below average, however, and a nostalgia trip in the form of a 10-year old meme invading the chat channel is more entertaining.

I find the knife she wants and return it, only to find she's pulling the same crap Ercel did back in Lytelthorpe:

So now not only am I getting sent to retrieve pointless crap, I'm being the butt of stupid pranks from the questgivers.

Anyway, in addition to the usual rewards, both of the outpost questgivers give me a recommendation letter to the explorer society rep in town. He's been looking for someone to fetch a very rare and obscure liquor from a nearby dungeon and gives me a key to... gosh, this sounds familiar. It sounds even more familiar when I get up on the cliffs around town and see the path to the dungeon:

Despite the desert setting, Al-Arqas is one of the big "Green Towns" of Dereth. Everything's made of recycled material.

Anyway, the Abandoned Shops are a highlight. Drudges everywhere, but the architecture is fairly good, and more importantly it looks like it was once a marketplace: all stalls and shops stocked with their goods. If anything it looks a little too impressive. The drudge occupants have uncharacteristically left everything in it's place, including the foodstuffs which should, by all rights, be rotten by now.

The Distillery Ambrosia is close to the entrance, but with lockpicks, you can go further down into the depths in search of more treasure. In addition to the chests, I find an especially interesting room which seems like a chapel of sorts:

But while the dungeon is nice, I have very little of interest to say about the quest. Bash drudges, grab item, receive reward. Same as always. So I head back, tag the questgiver, and move on.

If I seem to be particularly ornery with Al-Arqas, and with Sanamar for that matter, it's not entirely the game's fault. I've been doing newbie quests like this for weeks, and while it's provided some great moments, it's getting old. This is the last newb town I have to deal with, and thank god for that. I'm ready for something with a little more substance.