Today it was back to Two Worlds again, and I got quite a bit of questing and leveling done, putting me at level 26 (of 50, I think) with pretty good equipment. I’ve still barely touched the main quest, but at this rate it should be pretty easy by the time I get around to it.

I last left off in the big town of Tharbakin, where I finished picking up side quests and then, in the grand tradition of CRPGs, proceeded to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. I got a fair bit of money and good items here, which helped a lot. After that, I headed towards the final grom war camp again, though I had to ditch my horse soon after leaving the city after it got stuck on a slope. Stupid horse.

There were a few more villages along the way, and although the first one wouldn’t even let me in, the second one had a trainer that let me finally get the alchemy skill, and the third village had the alcohol I needed for one of the Tharbakin side quests, and a few quests of its own. I finished up some of those, got to the war camp, and got the totem and finished the war totem quest. Part of the main quest was marked nearby on the map, so I figured I’d swing by there while I was in the area, but upon arriving there they wouldn’t let me in there either. I think I need to gain more reputation with the Karga Clan first.

I was a lot stronger by this point, so I popped back to Brumhill, finished off the snow orcs, and got the moon eye gem for the final quest I’d picked up in the starting village. That was about it for the easier quests still in my quest log, so I figured I’d wander around and visit a couple of the northern towns I hadn’t been near yet. One I couldn’t get to due to an impassable wall, and the other was a Brotherhood outpost that had been devastated by explosions, but the place didn’t really look all that damaged. Aside from all the skeletons lying around, anyway.

There were some fairly simple side quests there and at another outpost further west, where I had to rid a mine of dwarves. I was also sent back to the starting dungeon where the tutorial took place, this time with a key to open a door I couldn’t before, unlocking a dwarven vortex of some sort. It supposedly flowed through and affected my body somehow, but there weren’t any stat changes that I noticed. I also ran across the ‘enlightened one’ at one point, who told me about the various factions and their history and conflicts. Like I care, I’m a mercenary… And I lost another horse when a wolf attacked it and it scurried up onto a rock, where I couldn’t get it down. Stupid horse.

I still had one quest that needed me to go to the capital city in the south, so I headed that way, only to get sidetracked by a couple quests near Tharbarkin again, this time for opposing factions. There doesn’t seem to be any benefit to working for a specific side or penalties for working for multiple sides, so I guess I’ll be doing all their quests.

I resumed heading to the capital city, and it was a fairly long trip, so of course there were diversions. A cave was guarded by someone who wanted a password I didn’t know yet. I started seeing more new monsters like wyverns and giant spiders. I met one of the main quest NPCs, Ho, along the way, and he told me where the rest of the relics I need to gather can be found. At the Four Stones village, there was a mage who had somehow duplicated himself and needed me to get help from a mage in the capital.

And finally I made it to the capital city itself, where I picked up a ton of new side quests and decided to stop there for the night.

Some other things of note:

I only just realized today that you can improve items of the same type by dragging them on top of each other (that’s what I get for not reading the manual). E.g., if you have a 10-16, +2 Str dagger and drag a 12-18, 4 fire dmg dagger on top of it, you now have something like a 13-22, +2 Str, 4 fire dmg dagger. It only works on items of the exact same type though, not just the same general category. E.g., a ‘jade-inset gold ring’ can only be combined with another ‘jade-inset gold ring’ and not an ‘amber-inset silver ring’.

Archers are becoming really annoying. If you try and get close to them, they start running away, and by the time you swing at them they’re probably out of range again, so you spend a lot of time just chasing after them. I have to use my halberd on them since it has a longer reach and thus a better chance of hitting as they’re running away. I might have to pump up my magic skills to where I can cast something to immobilize them.

And I really have to start experimenting with alchemy soon, since about half my inventory space is just plants and other alchemical ingredients. I used to worry constantly about not having enough strength to carry loot, but now I run out of inventory space first.