Divine Divinity

Developer/Publisher:  Larian Studios

Walkthrough by Steve Metzler (2003)

Conventions
Once again, I've chosen to eschew that handy yet game spoiling Table of Contents. OK, so this Guide is loaded with outright spoilers anyway, but I try not to ruin all the fun right up front by providing you with a listing of all the important locations you will visit. If you're looking for references to a particular location, person, weapon, etc., then just search for it in your browser.

Directions are given assuming that the top of your screen is north, and the longer direction names are abbreviated, like SW for southwest.

Tips
Before you even THINK about starting to play, download and apply the latest 'hot fix' (version 1.34), which may be obtained here on the official Divine Divinity site.

You can play as either a Warrior, Survivor (cross between a rogue and a thief), or a Wizard. Since you can freely choose skills from any class, I would recommend that you play as a Warrior the first time through, making use of Wizard spells like Freeze to augment your combat abilities, and Survivor skills like Lockpick to get you past locked doors and chests. As with most RPGs, playing as a pure Wizard is the hardest, especially in the early stages of the game when your character is relatively weak. Anyway, it's your call. Being able to choose skills from other classes means that you can build literally any kind of character you please!

Save your game before talking to each shopkeeper for the very first time, or before opening a locked cupboard or chest. Reason being... the items you'll buy or find are RANDOMLY GENERATED each time. Those of you with much patience can keep reloading until you get the items you want! And you should also save the game before you have shopkeepers identify items for you. An item is usually worth more after it's identified, but if it's not worth more than the cost of identification, you just lost some money :-(

Remember to save after every battle, or even partway through a really tough one when you've made significant progress. There's nothing worse than traversing a large area, fighting five tough battles along the way, then having to do it all over again because you got killed in the sixth battle without having a prior save!

There are a few 'killer' skills in this game, that make it possible to defeat even the toughest creatures. You would be well advised to have at least one of them in your repertoire, though using them too often can make the game too easy:

• Freeze - immobilises your enemies for 3 seconds per level of the spell.
• Poison Weapon - poison on a weapon gets them every time with only a few blows.
• Deadly Gift - a single death scorpion released from a scorpion trap can take out nearly anything that moves.

It's not immediately obvious how to pick up or drop a partial amount of items that are stacked. For instance, say you have 12 scorpion traps together in your inventory, and you want to drop 6 of them to lighten your load. What you do is: drag them out of your inventory, then before you drop them on the ground, hold down the Ctrl key. When you then drop them, you will get a panel allowing you to select just how how many you want to drop. Of course, the process works the same for picking things up: hold down the Ctrl key while dragging the items into your inventory.

It's also not obvious how to use scorpion traps and trail bombs. You first need to take at least one level of the Survivor skill Deadly Gift. Then when you select that skill and right-click, you'll get a choice of which type of item to use (based on what's currently in your inventory). Click on the item type to use, then the next time you right-click, an item of the type you chose will be deployed.

Another skill worth having is the Warrior's Enchant Weapon skill. Once you have at least one level of this skill, when you click on an equipped weapon or piece of armour that can be charmed, you'll see how many free charm slots that item has. You can then drag charms from your inventory into a free charm slot. Be careful about applying powerful charms to not particularly powerful items that you are likely to ditch later on, because there's no way to reclaim the charms from items you no longer have equipped.

Even though there is a specialised Survivor skill that you can use to poison arrows, you can also just as easily use the Poison Weapon skill to poison any bow or crossbow! It's handy to have a decent ranged weapon early on in the game for taking on enemies that can kill you with a single blow should they get too close.

You need at least 2 levels of Alchemy skill before you can drop flasks onto mushrooms to make potions. Alchemy is a skill well worth having, as it saves you having to buy potions all the time.

Make an effort to find the various teleporters scattered throughout the land, and the scrolls that activate those that belong to each race. The teleporter I used most was the one behind the Ars Magicana shop, as there are several nice shops in that immediate area that you can use to identify and trade valuable items that you find. Early on in the game, a wizard will give you a map of the teleporters. Study it carefully, because it gives you a very good idea of the layout of the entire kingdom. Don't worry though. I'll tell you where you can find the activation scrolls for each race's teleporters, and will also provide the locations of the most important teleporters :-)

You should use the blue flags to mark places of interest, especially in the first village until you get used to finding your way around. Also useful in dungeons for marking exits from each level, etc. Be sure to make use of the mini-map too. Stick it in any corner of your screen, and it will alert you to approaching monsters, as well as helping you to run quickly through areas that you've already visited.

Well, that's probably enough of the up-front stuff for now. Bring on the demons!

Aleroth
You find yourself next to a bed in someone's basement. You'll be coming back here a lot to rest, a much more economical way to restore health and mana than by quaffing potions! Pick up the Minor Health Potion from the table to your right, then go upstairs and grab the Worn Dirk off the table. There's also a Minor Health Potion on a table in the room to the east. When you walk into the room to the west, Joram, one of the Aleroth healers, starts speaking to you. If you pursue all the conversation paths, you'll get Quest 1 below.

In the graveyard in the north part of Aleroth, there's a grave with a bronze key on it. This key opens the house just NE of Joram's. Move the boxes there to reveal a hatch. In the cellar, when you approach the locked vase in the centre, Jake the zombie (yup, that was his grave) will appear. I managed to kill him with a high level 2 character using a dirk that gave me Assassin's Kiss. If you can do this, it's worth a whole lot of XP and will take you nearly to level 4! Good luck. You can always wait till a little later on to tackle Jake if he's too tough for you now.

There's a locked house all the way in the NE part of Aleroth. The door is on the east side. The key is in a barrel next to the door. You can sleep in the bed there, but why bother as you've already got the use of the one in Joram's cellar? You can gain entrance to the cellar here through a hatch. Just a few barrels down there. I happened to find some scorpion traps in one.

When you first attempt to leave Aleroth, Seth will stop you. See Quest 11 below.

Quests

• 1.  Restore Mardaneus' sanity - 11000 XP and Reputation +3.
  You get this quest by talking to Joram at the very start of the game. It seems that the healer Mardaneus may have been possessed by a demon. Indeed, as soon as you exit Joram's house, you witness a cut scene between Lanilor, another of the healers, and Mardaneus, who does seem to be spouting some strange dialogue. So, head SW and witness another scene whereby Mardaneus mistakes Lanilor for a demon and casts Freeze on the poor blighter. You now have Quest 2 as well.

• 2.  Rescue Lanilor the elf from his icy prison - 1000 XP.
  Mardaneus has barred his front door, and rest assured your Lockpick skills are too lacking at this stage to open it. However, if you enter the wooden well to the east of Mardaneus' house, you gain entrance to his basement. On a wooden box to the south is a bronze key that gets you past the locked door further to the south. Just head SW then, and up the ladder into Mardaneus' house. Speak with him, and it's easier than you think to convince him to reverse the spell on Lanilor. When you speak to Lanilor after he's unfrozen, he'll tell you that he feels the secret to Mardaneus' sanity most likely lies in the catacombs beneath Aleroth (and thus you receive Quest 3). After completing this quest, you have the run of Mardaneus' house. There's a key on the floor of his front room. It unlocks the chest in the back room, which usually contains a decent weapon or piece of armour.

• 3.  Unlock the entrance to the catacombs beneath Aleroth - 1000 XP.
  The entrance to the catacombs is in the very centre of Aleroth. Lanilor told you what to do, but you could easily figure out that you need to rotate all 4 dragon statues to the north just by playing with them, because they click into place. I wouldn't venture down here until you're at least a level 2 character with the best armour and weapon (or spell) you can arm. And it also helps to have one of Lanilor's teleporter pyramids (see Quest 4) with you, the other right near the bed in Joram's basement. You should also probably complete Quests 6 and 7, which gives you level 1 Restoration. Anyway, once you decide to venture into the catacombs...

  Catacombs level 1
  Immediately you enter, to the south, you'll find a book left by Mardaneus within a pentagram of candles warning you not to go into the catacombs. Sure thing! On the wall to the north there is a lever that opens the locked door to the east. Keep wandering until you find another lever that takes you through another locked door (there's a locked door before that you will need a special key to get through). Then you get to fight your first skeletons. Next you'll find a blue magic orb, and then a sapphire key (this gets you through that door you couldn't unlock earlier, but there's really no need to go back there). Keep on wandering until you have found 3 magic orbs. Finally, you'll come to a room containing another pentagram of candles. Lighting the candles summons a skeletal warrior, not too tough to defeat. There's a locked door to the west here, opened by a lever on the north wall. At the end of a corridor after this door, you'll encounter a party of orcs. Talk to their leader, Smiruk, to obtain Quest 8. From there, continue south. All the way in the SW part of this level you will find a large female statue with a book lodged behind it. Read the sad story of Gregar Brock. Lighting the candle there will summon Gregar, and he makes a tenacious fighting companion with a lot of vitality to spare. Don't take him above ground though, or he will instantly perish (thankfully, above ground does not include your bed in Joram's cellar, where you can teleport to for occasional rest even with Gregar in your company). In a room to the north of where you found Gregar, there's a room containing 3 pentagrams. A manuscript there from the evil Thelyron tells you what must be done. Place each of the magic orbs you found in the centre of a pentagram, and a portal opens up! Going through the portal gets you past a locked door into the next room. There are 2 stairways there. The one leading up takes you back outside, and you don't want to go there yet. So, take the stairway that leads down to...

  Catacombs level 2
  On this level, the monsters get a bit tougher :-( There are quite a few axes lying around with ID level 2, but none of these is Slasher. However, there are two small rooms to the north of this level. The one to the east has a floor tile in it leads you to Slasher (the broad axe in a room to the SE that needs ID level 4), but you have to get past a tough skeletal guardian first. Take Slasher back to Smiruk, but MAKE SURE you don't have any other axes that you want to keep with you because he takes all of them! He'll identify Slasher for you using a very novel Identify technique :-) This completes Quest 8. Of course, you could always hold onto Slasher instead, but it would be quite a while before you'd be able to wield it. Having it identified by a shopkeeper and then selling it would be a better option. When you're ready to leave this level, the entrance to the next level is in a room to the NW.

  Catacombs level 3
  Well, the book inside the pentagram here says it all. You'll need to open the 4 outer tombs before you can open the 2 inner ones. Opening each outer tomb unleashes quite a few skeletal warriors, and a tough skeletal conjurer, guardian, or a ghoul, so be prepared. Actually, you can only open ONE of the inner tombs after you've got the 4 outer ones open, and it may be either the left one or the right one (both still register as 'locked' even after you've opened the 4 tombs). This had me confused for quite a while. But either one takes you down to the next level, and that's the important thing.

  Catacombs level 4
  This is another sprawling level with little of interest, except to the far SE there's a lever that unlocks a door which leads to... the room where Lanilor's lost teleporter pyramid is/was. Kill all the skeletal warriors and then retrieve the pyramid from the room in the NE of this area, if you don't already have the thing. There's also a portal stone here which takes you back to Mardaneus' basement, but that would only have been useful to you earlier on. In any case, the stairway down to the next level of the catacombs is in a room to the west of here.

  Catacombs level 5
  Yes, this is one HECK of a big dungeon. In the four corners of this level are sets of pedestals, each with a floor tile in the centre. Through each floor tile is a small room containing a tough monster. I used the skill Deadly Gift to release a death scorpion to take on the 2 toughest ones. Worth a lot of XP and treasure. In the one to the SE, I found a Dragon Amulet amongst some cobwebs. I thought this amulet might be the first piece of the fabled Dragon Armor set. But alas, when identified, it turned out to be an Amulet of Glory. Very valuable nonetheless...
  The large room in the centre of the level contains the reason you came all this way. As soon as you enter, a friendly skeleton engages you in conversation, and explains how they have been trying to resurrect their dead master for ages, with no success. Of course, this is Thelyron he's talking about, the necromancer whose journals you've been finding all over the place. As he demonstrates the ritual they've been performing, it's plain to see that the skeleton at the NW lever has... abandoned his post. Up to you to take his place then, and thus you get Quest 9. Once you've resurrected Thelyron, go talk to him. At first he seems friendly enough for a deadly necromancer, but then he suddenly freaks out when he realises that life as a resurrected zombie is really not all it's cracked up to be. He asks you to kill him, and you have no choice. As soon as your character does this, all hell breaks loose. Again, I found that releasing a death scorpion or 2 at least keeps the tougher monsters that appear at bay while you pick apart the easier ones. Alternatively, you can just run straight out of the room the way you came in. Mardaneus appears then, and all the creatures die instantly, but you don't get any of the XP for killing them that way (you also lose out on 2000 bonus quest XP, and a Reputation point). In either case, a portal appears when you leave the room, and you can take it back to Aleroth. But make sure to go back and pick up all the loot first. You've just solved Quest 1, and so long Gregar Brock if he made it this far!

• 4.  Find the second teleporter pyramid - 1500 XP.
  As soon as you open the entrance to the catacombs, Lanilor approaches and hands you a curious artefact. Now... I recommend dropping the pyramid he gives you right there, and going after the other one straight away. To do this, use Browse skills/Drop and use pyramid. You wind up in the midst of a few skeletons, but you can always teleport straight back, right? As soon as you arrive in the room with the skeletons, click and hold on the stone there and drag it into your inventory. Then run over to the east a few paces, hit the space bar to give yourself a breather, then Browse skills/Use pyramid. Voila! Right back where you started with both pyramids and 1500 easy XP :-)

• 5.  Collect herbs for George - 500 XP.
  George's shop is located in the SE part of Aleroth. After the initial conversation, he'll ask you to fetch some drudanae for him. When he goes into the next room to show you, follow him in, then quickly exit and pilfer all the items from his shop. The key on top of the cabinet that is in the north part of the room unlocks the chest. If you get this right, George will not get angry with you, and you've just acquired a whole lot of stuff on the cheap, most notably some Chain Armor. Then head over to Lanilor (west of Joram's), and ask his permission to take some herbs from his garden, which is west of his house. When you return to George with the drudanae, he's got the door to the next room locked, but you can get in there later on...

• 6.  Find a cure for Verlat - 1500 XP and Reputation +1.
  Otho the dwarf healer's house is just to the north of Lanilor's. If you keep quizzing him about The Source, he'll tell you of the dilemma whereby the lizard healer Goemoe only has one healing stone left in his shrine, but there are two wounded soldiers needing a cure. Verlat is Otho's patient, but he won't tell you where Goemoe's shrine is because he's afraid you'll only save one of the soldiers. Anyway, head for Goemoe's house, which is to the north of George's place. Speak to him and you'll get Quest 7.

• 7.  Find a cure for Simon - 1500 XP, Reputation +1, and level 1 Restoration!
  Hmm. What can you do with only one healing gem? Well... in the house to the north of Joram's, you'll find a magic mirror sitting there. A book next to the mirror explains how to use it. Great, just what we need! So, go to the healing shrine located just to the north of Goemoe's house and take the one remaining healing gem. Then, stand in the middle of the pond that is just to the south of Goemoe's house, drop the magic mirror in, followed by the gem, and then fish out two gems (the original plus the duplicate). Then go back to Otho's house and give one of the healing gems to Verlat in the back room (this completes Quest 6). Then head back to Goemoe's and give the other healing gem to Simon. Talk to Goemoe afterwards, and he'll teach you the Restoration spell as a reward.

• 8.  Retrieve the magic axe called Slasher - 3500 XP.
  On level 1 of the catacombs, you encounter Smiruk and his party of orcs. His magic axe, Slasher, is lost somewhere in the catacombs. Must keep an eye out for it in our travels...

• 9.  Help the dead necromancer - 3500 XP.
  You get this quest by speaking to the friendly skeleton in level 5 of the catacombs. Just take your post at the lever in the NW corner, and the ritual to resurrect Thelyron will begin. When it's your turn, hit the lever and... that was easy! I wonder how long those poor fools had been trying to raise the old guy.

• 10.  George murdered! Expose George's murderer - 54000 XP and Restoration +1.
  When you return to George's shop after completing Quest 1, you'll find that someone has murdered poor George. You get this quest by speaking to Mardaneus after you discover George's body. This one could take a while to solve... meanwhile, you can use one of the keys found by George's body to enter his locked room. Moving the pillow reveals a composite key, which opens the locked chest there.
  Eventually, you'll have both the requisite stats and the oportunity to avenge the murder of George. It happens in Verdistis, in the cellar of Pierce's Wine Barrel, on the east side of the town... once you've killed George's murderer, return to Mardaneus in Aleroth to collect your reward.

• 11.  Find a solution to the plague problem in Rivertown - 20000 XP and Reputation +1.
  Once you go outside the gates of Aleroth (to the south), the warrior Seth will shepherd you back inside and you get this quest. Speak to Mardaneus again, and you will get Quest 12.

• 12.  An escort for the healers - 13000 XP.
  Go back and talk to Seth again, and he will tell you to seek out General Alix in the Rivertown barracks to arrange an escort. So, head straight south along the path towards Rivertown... once you've gone a fair way's south, you'll be accosted by a dragon rider. No matter what course of action you take, you're dead in short order. But fear not, the game shall not end so quickly. Salvation is there in the form of the wizard Zandalor, who vanquishes your foe, and is also there to resurrect you. Zandalor puts the Dwarven Bread Inn on your map (where you're to rendezvous with him and the other Marked Ones), gives you a map of the teleporters (very useful! Study it), and the scroll of the teleporters of the mages to get you started. You've also just received Quests 13 and 14. From there, keep heading south until you find a bridge with a few soldiers fighting some trolls on it. Help them out. Once over the bridge, you're in Rivertown. From there, you might want to seek out General Alix. Just have a good look at the red flags on your world map, and you'll see the barracks where General Alix is stationed to the SE. The building where she is located is in the north part of the barracks. Talk to her, and she will agree to send a party to escort the healers. You'll also get Rivertown Quest 4 from Alix.

• 13.  Find the teleporter activation scrolls - speedy travel.
  Zandalor has given you a map showing the locations of all the teleporters. When you hover your cursor over one on the map, it shows you which race built that teleporter, and thus which scroll you need to activate it. So far, using the scroll of the mages that Zandalor gave you, it's only possible to use the teleporter located just outside the gates of Aleroth, to the west. Here's where and how to find the other scrolls:
  • Captain Mitox (see Rivertown Quest 4) has the teleporter scroll of the humans.
  • The teleporter scroll of the dwarves is in the possession of a dwarf named Krasnegar, who is normally in a back room of the Dwarven Bread Inn. If you politely refuse his offer of gemstones, he walks out and leaves the scroll on the table... I say normally, because once I was fighting orcs right outside the Inn, and Krasnegar came out to help. In that case, he said he was on his way to deliver the scroll to the dwarven village of Glenborus. However, if you then go into the back room of the Dwarven Bread Inn, the scroll is still there on the table! Oh well, I guess he's just a forgetful little guy.
  • After you've found an escort for the healers, they'll all be staying at the Blue Boar Inn for the remainder of the game. Goemoe is in one of the rooms there, and if you approach him inquiring if he knows anything about the lizards' teleporter scroll, he'll admit to having it. Once you tell him that Zandalor gave you the scroll of the mages, he'll trust you enough to hand over the scroll of the lizards!
  • Elredor in the archers guild (far SW of Rivertown) will give you the teleporter scroll of the elves. Just talk to him.
  • The teleporter scroll of the orcs is a bit difficult to come by. You must enter the tent just to the north of the jail pits, all the way in the SE of orc territory (the SE section of the Rivertown area). Once you kill him, the orc chief, Baluk, coughs up a platinum key that you can use to progressively open all the chests in that tent until you get to the one with the teleporter scroll in it. Alternatively, once you have Lockpick level 3, you can just lockpick the chest in the NE corner of the tent.
  • The teleporter scroll of the imps is located in the dungeon underneath the imps' deserted castle. See Dark Forest Quest 6.

• 14.  Meet the wizard Zandalor at the Dwarven Bread Inn - failed to complete.
  Locate the Dwarven Bread Inn on you map (just to the SE of Stormfist Castle) and head there. Note one of the dwarves' teleporters located just to the NW of the inn. You meet another Marked One named Wouter in the back toom. He tells you that Zandalor has gone to Stormfist Castle to find the third Marked One. Don't worry that you have apparently failed this quest, as it was impossible to complete. It's just a plot device. However, you now have Rivertown Quest 2 to contend with...

Rivertown
This is an enormous area, just over the bridge from Aleroth. You will be here for a large portion of the game.

In the farmlands part of Rivertown (west side), you will find many bundles of straw. Two of these can be employed to make a bed. Just click on one that's lying flat on the ground, and it will spread out to make half a bed. Then drop another bundle onto it, and... hay presto, a place to sleep! (sorry, couldn't resist that pun :-) You can carry around two bundles of straw, ready to make a bed at any time, but they are quite heavy. For the moment, you have the teleporter pyramids anyway, but later on these will become unavailable and it's handy knowing how to make a bed then.

In the farmlands area, SW of the Blue Boar Inn, there's a thugs hideout. The leader is pretty tough to knock off, but he coughs up a key when he dies, and the locked chest it opens contains 1900+ gold coins, and a few potions.

Just to the NW of the Blue Boar Inn, in the SE corner of a field, you'll find the farmlands teleporter concealed amongst some bundles of straw.

There is a cathedral immediately to the north of the cursed abbey. As soon as you enter, you get Quest 26 below.

Quests

• 1.  Deal with the Trolls - 17500 XP, Reputation +3, and 1300+ gold coins.
  Talk to Homer, who is standing outside his farmhouse just to the SE of the bridge between Aleroth and Rivertown. It would appear the troll lair is back across the bridge and to the SW. Indeed, there is a cave there. You'd want to be at least level 10 with a good weapon and/or spell(s) available before taking on the pack of trolls! I found Poison Weapon to be quite effective. After you've slain all the trolls, a composite key that you find gets you into a locked chest in the south part of the cave that contains 1200+ gold coins. When you return to Homer to let him know that you've taken care of the trolls, he'll give you another 100 gold coins.

• 2.  Find Zandalor - see Quest 24.
  When you meet Wouter at the Dwarven Bread Inn, he tells you that Zandalor has gone to Stormfist Castle. So head on over there and speak with the captain of the guard. Hmm. Seems you need to doing something heroic in order to gain entry. You've just been given Quest 3. And it will be quite a while indeed before you can manage to find our good friend Zandalor...

• 3.  Enter Stormfist Castle - Quest 17.
  South of the entrance to Stormfist Castle, you'll find the watch headquarters. Speak to Commander Ralph there, and it would seem you have 3 options for gaining entrance to Stormfist Castle:
  1. Find out who murdered the duke. See Quest 13.
  2. Find out what is causing the Rivertown plague. See Quest 9.
  3. Help the army to defeat the invading orcs. You accomplish this by completing Quests 6, 7, and 8.

• 4.  Contact Captain Mitox - 9000 XP.
  General Alix gives you a sealed message to deliver to Captain Mitox, who's stationed in the village to the SE of here (he's usually inside the general store, or in that vicinity). Of course, you can open the message and gain a possibly valuable piece of information from it, but then Captain Mitox will know you've read it and will be quite angry with you. However, if you agree to take on Quests 6 for him, he'll get over it. I'll leave it up to you. You still get the same amount of XP for delivering the message whether you open it or not. Mitox also hands you the scroll for the human teleporters!
  If you approach the village along the road that runs south from the barracks, you should bump into a poor villager. For a few gold coins, he'll tell you his story, and put the entrance to a secret mining shaft that runs under the orc camp on your map. A very handy thing to know.

• 5.  Gareth's feign death potion - 20000 XP and key to weapons room of the barracks.
  Gareth is standing just outside the armoury, in the SW part of the barracks. He wants you to find him a feign death potion so that he can get out of the army. Another thing to be on the lookout for. See Quest 26 below for the solution.

• 6.  Ravage the supply train - 15000 XP and Reputation +3.
  You must complete Quest 4 first. Then Captain Mitox marks the location of the orc supply train on your map, and gives you a barrel of explosives. I'd suggest using the mining shaft to get there. The hatch entrance to the shaft is located in a building just to the SW of the general store. Head to the east, and then south. You'll likely encounter your first giant orc down here. These suckers are tough. But I found that a combination of Freeze and Poison Weapon did the job nicely. Once you exit the shaft via the SE exit, you'll find yourself right in the midst of some heavy orcs, but all you need do is run over a very short distance to the east where the supply train is, and drop the explosives that Mitox gave you right in the middle of the supply train. You witness a nice animation, and your character winds up back by the mineshaft entrance again! Get out while you can, and return to Mitox, who'll then give you Quest 7.

• 7.  Poison the orc water supply - 15000 XP and Reputation +3.
  Mitox gives you a bottle of poison that his mages have concocted, and marks the location of the orcs' water supply on your map. This time, you should use the mining shaft as in Quest 6, but take the exit to the NE instead. It's still quite a ways from there to the well, but Survivor characters can wait till nightfall and sneak all the way there (you're going to need a few stamina potions though). Other character types are going to have to get there using a combination of running and fighting. Once you've put the poison in the orc well, it's best to just run all the way back to the mineshaft entrance. When you report back to Mitox, you get Quest 8.

• 8.  Meet General Alix at the Barracks - 11000 XP.
  You have to complete Quests 6 and 7 first, then Mitox suggests you return to General Alix for a reward. Indeed, when you go the barracks and speak to Alix, she presents you with an invitation from Duke Janus to visit Stormfist Castle. See Quest 17.

• 9.  Who is responsible for the harvest disaster? - 11000 XP and Reputation +1.
  There's a large farmhouse just to the NW of the Stormfist Castle walls. Lots of chickens around the place. Enter via the south of the farmhouse, go through another door, and you'll find Hugh and his wife Elli. Talk to Hugh, and you'll discover that all the crops have taken on a sickish green colour. You suspect poison, but Hugh is not so sure. Well, a bit to the NW of the poor area of Rivertown, there's a cave guarded by a bunch of orcs. When you enter the cave (but only after speaking to Hugh first!), you'll find an orc there named Tipsix and a lot of barrels full of poison. Once you've killed him, he drops a golden key. Return to Hugh, who then gives you Quest 10.

• 10.  Where does this key fit? - 11000 XP.
  You need to complete Quest 9 before you get this quest. Where does the key fit? Well... seeing as this is a guide, I suppose I must tell you :-) Go to the Blue Boar Inn. Head through the bar to the west, and then down the hatch. Your golden key opens a locked door in the SE part of the cellar, and it's filled with the same barrels of poison as you found in the cave with Tipsix! Head back up and talk to the owner, Splinter. He tells you that the room in the cellar is rented to a Dr. Elrath, and puts the location of Elrath's house on your map, if it isn't there already. So... I think it's time to pay the good Dr. Elrath a visit, don't you?

  Dr. Elrath's house is located just to the SE of the market area. To the SE of his house there's a boulder next to a wall. Moving it reveals a key. The front door is a little difficult to find. You have to go to the north side of the house, and use the Alt key so you can see the door. The key you found under the boulder gets you in... but Dr. Elrath is usually just sitting right there (if not, you're in luck). If you've come here as a result of Quest 10, you can accuse him of storing poison in the basement of the Blue Boar Inn. But he just says that the key was stolen from him some time ago, and that the person that stole the key must have put the poison there. Anyway, it doesn't really matter for what reason you came here. Elrath says he's leaving, turfs you out, and locks the door again. Now, unless you have at least level 2 Lockpick skill, you can't get back inside!

  When you finally do manage to get back into his house, he isn't there, and you notice that all the interior doors are locked. The trick to opening them has to do with the lanterns. Here's the order you need to extinguish them in: first, extinguish the lantern on the west wall, and also the one to the right of the front door. Then go through the first open door, and extingusih the lantern right there, which opens the 2nd door. Go into the bedroom next and extinguish the lantern on the north wall. Then go all the way back and extinguish the one to the left of the front door. Finally, extinguish the one next to the first door you opened, and now you can go down into the basement.

  Once there, you have to move all the boxes blocking the door to the west. Then you discover it's locked, but the bronze key for this door is in the chest on the north wall. Once through the door and into the corridor, be careful. Elrath has poison-trapped the corridor. Finally, before you open the next door, be prepared. Elrath has a fearsome creature called a djinn guarding the place, and it has vitality of 1000+. A poisoned weapon or scorpion trap is the way to go here. Once though, I got it with about 30 shots from a crossbow by running around in circles so it couldn't touch me :-) Once you've vanquished the djinn, pick up the 'letter of Elrath' that's on the table in the centre of the room (you've just completed Aleroth Quest 11). When you go back upstairs, Elrath is waiting there and turfs you out of the house again. You need to go see Commander Ralph, in the watch building located south of Stormfist Castle. But Elrath sends some assassins after you, so be on the alert! Once you get the letter to Commander Ralph, you're home free and into Stormfist Castle with an invitation from young Duke Janus. See Quest 17.

• 11.  Looking for missing boy - 11000 XP.
  As you approach the market area on the road from the south, a woman named Caroline will approach you. It appears her little boy is missing, and she fears he may have been playing near the Dark Cave, to the north of the market area. She puts the cave on your map. Sure enough, when you enter the cave, a vampire has taken her son hostage. It would appear that the only way to save Caroline's son is to let the vampire take a bite out of you instead! You lose a few stat points by allowing him to bite you (I lost 3 Strength, 1 Agility, 1 Intelligence), but I suppose it's worth it just to save the boy. You now get Quest 12 as a result. By the way, you did notice that this vampire bore a striking resemblance to the guy who was accosting George back in Aleroth shortly before he was killed?

• 12.  Kill the vampire - see Aleroth Quest 10.
  After he bites you, the vampire retreats behind his locked door. Once, I was able to lockpick this door and drive him out of his coffin. But he was too powerful for me to defeat at this stage in the game. Perhaps later?

• 13.  Expose the duke's murderer - an invitation to Stormfist Castle.
  Commander Ralph (located in the watch building to the south of Stormfist Castle) gives you the name and location of a Merchant in Verdistis, Sir Dante, who should be able to tell you something more about this affair. The road to Verdistis is in the far NE of Rivertown...

• 14.  Catch the thief! - 15000 XP and Reputation +3.
  There's a farmhouse near the SW corner of Stormfist Castle, with farmers Reginald and Tom standing outside it. Tom tells you that someone has been stealing his cows at night, and he'd like you to find out who it is. Well... you have to wander around and talk to a lot of people to solve this one. Eventually, you'll meet Dorian. His house is the one in the NW of the poor area. Enter his cellar through the hatch and you'll find the evidence you're looking for. If you cover up for him (because he's giving the meat to the other poor people), then you technically fail to solve this quest, but you get the XP and Reputation increase documented above, and this does seem like the best solution to the problem.

• 15.  Philosophy of life - 6000 XP and 1 level of Restoration!
  Just north of Stormfist Castle there are 3 people standing on a bend in the road. Speak with Otto. They would like to worship their god Nemris in Nericon's Garden (just to the north of here), but they say the gate is locked and a merchant named Blake has the key. Blake's store is on the west side of the market area, but he will only give you the key to Nericon's Garden if your Reputation is high enough. Mine was 18 at the time he finally agreed to give me the key. Even then, you must pay some gold coins for the privilege. So... head for Nericon's Garden with Blake's key. Gee, there sure are a lot of frogs around here. Remember that Blake mentioned something about frogs? Notice how when you hover your cursor over them that they're for some reason extremely hostile? Well, the key to solving this quest is that you must kill all the frogs! A ranged weapon is very helpful in this regard. Once you've done that, a portal opens. Go through the portal and take all the gold coins (and the frog statuette if you aren't swimming in the damn things already). Then exit and talk to the statue in the north part of garden, but save before you do! I'll leave it to you to figure out the answers to the questions he asks of you. Once you've answered the three questions correctly, Otto and the other two followers come rushing in to worship their god...

• 16.  Finding the Holy Weapon - 34000 XP and a very powerful item of your choosing.
  You get this quest when you find the first of the three Strange Weapons. You can find them in any order, depending on where your wanders take you. Here are the three weapons and their locations:
  1. Strange Dagger - Verdistis, Ducal Inn, Rob's room in basement. You must join the thieves guild to get access to this weapon.
  2. Strange Amulet - Dark Forest, Elven Ruins, in cobwebs after entering through platform in pond.
  3. Strange Sword - Iona's dungeon, northern area. You get chucked in here upon leaving Stormfist Castle when Janus dismisses you from service.

  Once you've found all three Strange Weapons, then find the stairway that's hidden in a clump of trees to the NE of the Cathedral. Once down there, DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THE 4 TOMBS, or you will break this quest. Stand in the hex floor pattern to the SE of the statue there, and it will speak to you. You have a choice of which of the three Holy Weapons you'd prefer. Once you've made your choice, the other two items are destroyed and merged with this one to produce a very powerful third item, which is one of the following depending on your preference:

  • Strange Dagger becomes: Small nobleman's dagger. Guaranteed to do much more damage than your average dagger.
  • Strange Amulet becomes: Nobleman's amulet, probably the least powerful of the 3 items.
  • Strange Sword becomes: Nobleman's sword, a nice one-handed weapon.

  The attributes of the various items you create are somewhat random, so I can't tell you exactly what you'll wind up with... but it will be good, you can bet on that :-)

• 17.  An appointment with the new ruler of Ferol - 27500 XP and Reputation +10.
  You get this quest once you've received an invitation to visit Janus at Stormfist Castle. Now, you might think this sounds crazy, but the first thing you should do before you enter the castle is go to the farmlands and put two bundles of straw in your inventory. Also make sure you're stocked up on potions. It's not that you're going to need this stuff inside the castle. It's for where you're going directly AFTER you visit the castle! Once you're ready to roll, head over to Stormfist Castle and flash your fancy invitation at the captain of the guard. As soon as you enter the castle, you're accosted by a mischievous imp (really, is there any other kind?) named ZixZax. And... he promptly relieves you of your teleporter pyramids! Nothing you can do to prevent this happening, by the way. Are you getting a bad feeling about this yet? Anyway, you follow one of Janus' aides inside and are presented to his majesty, the spoiled little brat. Guess where you're expected to spend the next 40 years of your life? (though obviously not, because that would put quite a dent in the ol' gameplay, yah?) But anyway, you're now in the service of Janus, at least for the time being, so better do as he says and meet him in his quarters (north, then east, then SE), where you get Quest 18.

• 18.  Find the white cat - 15000 XP.
  This Janus really is an annoying little twit. He's obviously got nothing better to do than send you all over the castle on his petty little errands. Oh well, best get stuck into it as you're not going anywhere in a hurry... from Janus' room, just wander down the hall south a bit, and you'll be approached by a white cat. Hey, it's Zandalor's friend, Arhu, the little guy that woke you up at the start of the game! You learn that Zandalor has apparently gone off in search of the third Marked One, who he fears Janus is holding prisoner somewhere in the depths of the castle dungeons. Actually, now that you've found the cat, you're free to do a little exploring of your own because Janus isn't expecting you back for a while. So, in the SW part of the castle, there's a room just north of the locked armoury with a bronze key that unlocks the armoury sitting right there on the table. In the SW part of the armoury, there's a shield requiring ID level 5. Once identified, this turns out to be the Shield of the Dragon, part of the fabled Dragon Armor set. When you're finished exploring, return to Janus to get the next boring quest.

• 19.  Deliver a love letter to Lela - 15000 XP.
  Lela's room is just to the south of Janus' room. Deliver the letter Janus gives you and then return to him.

• 20.  Flowers for Lela - 15000 XP.
  These are located outside the castle building by the front gate, just to the east of the well. When you return to see Janus after this errand he is no longer in his room. So, go to the throne room. You witness an embarrassing exchange between Janus and Bronthion, a very important elf. After it's over, Janus sends you on Quest 21.

• 21.  Find the teddy bear - 15000 XP.
  The teddy bear is in the corner just outside Janus' room. After you deliver it to Lela and are exiting her room, Janus' aide runs up to you and says that you are to attend a meeting in the throne room with some merchants from Verdistis forthwith. See Quest 22.

• 22.  Escaping Stormfist Castle - 15000 XP and Reputation -15.
  The merchants have come from Verdistis to support Janus in the war against the orcs. Right in the middle of the meeting, some orcs break into the castle and attempt to assassinate Janus. No matter how quick you are to draw you sword and kill most of the orcs, Janus still has to raise his hand. As punishment for not being as good a 'protector' as you should have been, Janus has you turfed out of the castle (yippee! Free at last), but tarnishes your reputation in the process (hey, we can live with that). However, your freedom is short-lived... you won't get far from Stormfist Castle before Elona catches up with you. Turns out that Janus' advisor is actually a wicked hag in disguise named Iona. You are whisked to her dungeon, and now have a new prison to escape from. There are two orcs guarding your cell. But all you need do is try to open the locked door, then move away, and Arhu comes to the rescue! He takes care of both orcs, and hands you the key to your cell. Once out of the cell, there is little of interest on this floor, so just head up the stairway in the SW corner to get Quest 23.

• 23.  Find your equipment in Iona's dungeon - 41000 XP.
  Arhu is there when you reach the top of the stairs, and indicates that a chest behind a locked door contains all your gear. The key to open this door is plainly seen in a room to the east. And now it's time to retrieve your belongings and fight your way out of this place. Unless you're a really strong character at this stage in the proceedings, it's best just to take the shortest path out of this dungeon, fighting as little as possible (not that you won't have quite a bit of fighting to do nonetheless). To find your way out, just keep heading west. You'll have to make the occasional detour either north or south, but the further you get to the west, the closer you are to the stairway that leads back to the outside world. However, there are a few interesting diversions here for the curious. Firstly, there's an intriguing manuscript in a room all the way to the NE. With it, you can summon a horde of skeletons and other creatures, including a tough lich. Only for those desperately in need of more XP though, otherwise I'd give it a miss for now (you should come back here later though, when your character is much stronger... say at least level 25. See section entitled 'Iona's dungeon revisited' below).

  Also, in the northen part of the dungeon, there's a skeleton chained to the wall in a niche. At his feet is a lone candle in a pentagram. If you extinguish this candle, a section of the wall to the north opens. It looks like there are a lot of gems for the taking in this room, but it turns out to be an illusion when you try to pick one of them up. However, there does remain a Stange Sword. This is one of the three Holy Weapons (see Quest 16). And in a room in the SE part of this dungeon, there is a portal in the centre of three pedestals that hold ancient pyramids, much like the ones you just lost. But this portal is guarded by some tough skeletons. Touching any of the pyramids in an attempt to put it in your inventory just seems to invoke more of them! However, if you can manage to step on the portal in all this mayhem, it takes you very close to the exit from the dungeon. It looks like you are trapped, but you can walk right through a 'rock wall' to the south, and then the way out is just to the SW of here.

  Anyway, there are some very tough battles to be fought in this dungeon. Once you've gone as far as you're willing to go regards topping up your Vitality and Magic with precious potions, it's time to find a calm place to deploy those two bundles of straw you brought with you to make a bed. Finally, when you find a stairway leading up all the way on the west side of the dungeon, you'll have your freedom... you get 11000 of the above XP for finding your equipment, and the rest when you exit Iona's dungeon. You find yourself in a graveyard. Arhu is there again, and you get Quest 24 as a result. But Iona appears right after you finish speaking to Arhu, and you have to fight some tough zombies. I wound up running like hell for the graveyard gate, which is just to the SE of here! Once outside, you'll bump into Apollo, who'll give you Quest 25.

• 24.  Find out what happened to Zandalor - 55000 XP.
  If you're already a member of the thieves guild, you can start looking for ideas about how to get back into Stormfist Castle by talking to Rob in the Ducal Inn, Verdistis (if you're not a member of this prestigious guild, then see Verdistis Quest 6 for details). Rob tells you to speak to Lain, in the poor area of Rivertown. Indeed, Lain's house is on the east side of the poor area. If you move some stuff inside his house, a hatch is revealed. Then, there's what appears to be a locked hatch in his cellar. But you can go down there no problem. Once in the sewers, head east, then south to the entrance of Stormfist Castle's treasure room. Before you go in there, beware that you will not be able to cast any spells once you enter, so be sure to have a lot of health potions to hand...

  If you head east, then south, then all the way west once you enter the treasure room, you'll encounter a deathknight and a bunch of orcs (that you saw in the animation concerning the death of the other Marked One when you first entered the treasure room). There are a few ways to get past these foul creatures. Firstly, you could just kill them all... but there's also a possibility to turn yourself into a frog or other such creature and sneak by them to meet Zandalor in the room to the west. Anyway, once you meet up with Zandalor, he wants you to retrieve the Sword of Lies. He gives you a password that allows you to get past the door all the way to the NE (27500 XP for this, but be careful. Lots of traps on the way). Once you get past this door, you'll find a toy dragon there (a hint that Janus has been here), but no Sword of Lies (make sure you get the dialogue that tells you the Sword of Lies is gone). Return to Zandalor then, and he'll get you both out of there (the other 27500 XP). But when you return to the Dwarven Bread Inn, you see a cutscene whereby Wouter is lured outside and killed by a dragon rider. There is nothing you could do to prevent this happening, and now you are the only remaining Marked One. Once you are ready, talk to Zandalor, and he will transport you to the Council of Seven. See section concerning Council of Seven below for further details...

• 25.  Help Apollo finding his friend Shrimpo - 30000 XP.
  You meet Apollo as soon as you exit the graveyard after escaping from Iona's dungeon. If you accept his quest, then in the NE part of the graveyard you'll find a circle of tombstones. Once you've read the inscriptions on all these tombstones, a lobster-like creature appears to attack you. That's Shrimpo alright. After you dispatch him, Apollo appears and tells you what can only be described as a very long fish story :-)

• 26.  Desecration? - 30000 XP and 1000 gold coins.
  You'll get this quest in the cathedral, located to the north of the cursed abbey. Be careful, because the spirits you encounter are pretty easy to get by, but there's a tough lich in there! If you have a bit of patience, you can try drawing the lich out of the cathedral and a fair way down the footpath. Then just outrun him, circle back to the cathedral, and he won't come back after you. Anyway, when you first entered the cathedral, you saw the priest hurry to his confession chair in the east part of the cathedral. Click on it, and you're transported to the basement, where you find Father Theofolus. Hmm. Sounds like this Vinny lad might be worth tracking down. But it's actually very easy to sort this one out. Once you head back up the ladder, you'll see Vinny pissing into the celebratory wine. Obviously, this is the desecration Father Theofolus has been worried about. Just talk to him at the altar then, and collect your reward. If you question him further, you'll also discern that he sells a feign death potion! Just the trick for solving Quest 5.

• 27.  Remove the curse - 65500 XP and Reputation +2.
  In the very north of the farmlands, you should bump into a farmer named Finn. He'll talk of strange goings-on in the abbey to the north. Zandalor also put this place on your map, saying you might find out something to do with the teleporter scrolls... I wouldn't venture in there until you're at least a level 20 character. Anyway, once you do get inside the actual building, head for the SE part of it, and there's a stairway down into the basement there. Once in the basement, watch out for traps, and make your way south. You'll find a locked wooden door there, but a lever on the wall directly to the west opens it. Then when you're as far south in the basement as you can get, you'll find another lever. Use it, and a door in the NW part of the basement (close to where you first entered the basement) is unlocked. The object of your quest is in this room, a spectre called The Engineer. Let him tell you his story, and then pay him 1000 gold coins to remove the curse (38000 of the above XP). Believe me, you don't want to fight him and the legions of undead he summons if you don't pay! If you also got the quest from Finn, then you get an additional 27500 XP and some Reputation points. But don't leave yet. On a table in the centre of the room is the teleporter scroll of the humans (but you probably have that already). And in the NW part of this room, wedged between two bookcases, is a Dragon Amulet - but yet again this turns out not to be part of the famous Dragon Armor set :-(

• 28.  Kidnapped by a zombie - 22500 XP and Reputation +1.
  Just to the SW of the barracks, there's a graveyard. Immediately you enter, a woman named Elora is kidnapped by zombies. You just have to enter one of the pits in the centre of the graveyard, then fight your way to Elora in the NE part of the area you wind up in. As soon as you reach her, the quest is completed.

• 29.  Free the hostages - 38000 XP, Reputation +2, and 500+ gold coins.
  As you approach the archers guild (far SW of Rivertown), a boy will tell you that his parents are being held hostage in their house, which is to the SE of here. Beware that the place is guarded by some really tough mercenaries. Take the key you find to the NE of the house, and use it to enter the door in the NW part (entering any other door dooms them to death by the thieves). If you head back to the archers guild after you free the hostages and speak to Arnie, he'll tell you that there's some stuff of his you may have that's in a locked chest. But the key to the chest is in a locked cupboard, the key to that is on the leader of the thieves, and he's a tough bloke to kill... anyway, if you do manage to kill this Raven character, the chest contains a fair amount of gold coins.

• 30.  Restore Maria's reputation - 30000 XP, membership in the merchants guild... and an opportunity to buy a house.
  In a house just to the north of the quarantined area, you'll find Maria. She tells you how a corrupt member of the merchants guild had her father falsely arrested and destroyed the reputation of her family. Maria puts the location of Malcom's house on your map. You can go talk to Malcom (room in the SE of the merchants guild in Verdistis). If you ask him about ways to join the guild, he'll ask you to assassinate Maria in return for guild membership. But you already spoke with her, and this is NOT a good idea in the light of what you know. So... pay a visit to Malcom's house. It's just to the SW of Sir Dante's mansion. The book you are looking for is on top of a cupboard in the back room. Drag it into your inventory. Then pay a visit to Trevor, the guild master, in the room to the NW in the merchants guild. After you expose Malcom and restore Maria's reputation, he'll offer you free membership in the guild if you ask about it. But you're not finished here just yet. Go back to Maria, and tell her that you shopped Malcom. She then returns to Verdistis, reputation restored. Now you can go back to Trevor and inquire about buying a house. He tells you that you need a recommendation from someone who was born in Verdistis. And Maria is now right there in the merchants guild! So ask Trevor about buying the house one more time, then go speak to Maria. She talks to Trevor on your behalf, and now you can either buy (for 30000 gold coins) or rent (for 1000 gold coins a month) Malcom's old house from Trevor. You get 42000 XP for this, but I don't really see the point. There are cheaper ways to get XP!

Verdistis
You get here by taking the road that leads to the far NE part of Rivertown.

As you wander towards the town watch in the centre of Verdistis, you should be approached by Verlat, one of the soldiers you healed in Aleroth. He'll hand you a sapphire ring, a very powerful family heirloom. Get it identified at your earliest opportunity and wear it!

Quests

• 1.  The brooch - 54000 XP and 1000 gold coins.
  If you're trying to find out who murdered the duke for Commander Ralph, then the location of Sir Dante's mansion should already be on your map. If not, it's in the NW part of Verdistis. There's a big lock on the front gate, but the gate is open. Enter the mansion, and keep going till you're in a hall with locked doors. There's an unlocked door here to the left, and Dante's assisstant Rendall is through there. Speak with him, and you'll get this quest to retrieve a valuable brooch from a dwarven jeweller. But this is a long, long way to go just for 1000 gold coins reward. In any case, you don't have to undertake this quest to get an audience with Sir Dante. Just walk right into the next room, where you can get Quest 2.

  Anyway, if you do decide to undertake this quest, you should be at least at level 20. You have a long journey ahead of you, and a lot of tough critters to kill. Head to the Dark Forest (entrance in far SW of Rivertown area). From there, head along the path south, and then west until you come to the cleft in the rocks that leads to the dwarven halls (it's marked with a red flag on your map). Some tough forest trolls along here. A crossbow used in conjunction with Poison Weapon works a treat here. Once inside the dwarven halls, you'll see the dwarven jeweler's little red flag to the south. You'll have to take one of the portals to get across the River of Gold. Before you speak to Elmer Vignus, be sure to save your game. It's easy enough to get the brooch alright, but Elmer has a really good selection of amulets and rings, (generated at random) and you'll want to reload a few times to make sure you get the piece you're looking for :-)

• 2.  Steal Sir Patrick's title deed - 15000 XP.
  Commander Ralph told you that Sir Dante has contacts in the Assassins Guild, and when you ask Dante about this, he says he'll reveal his contact if you do him a little favour. You must steal a title deed from his arch rival Sir Patrick. Sir Dante puts Sir Patrick's mansion on the map. When you first go there, it appears that you are cut off from most of the mansion. But there's a portal stone that's partially concealed on the west side of the estate. Once you've used the portal stone to get inside, you have to unlock all 4 doors off the central room before you can gain access to the western roon, and this is how you do it: pull the lever in the SE room down. This unlocks the door to the NE room. Pull the lever in the NW room down. This unlocks the door to the SW room. Pull the lever in the centre room down. This locks all four doors leading to the levers, and unlocks the room to the west, where Sir Patrick's title deed is sitting on a table. When you return to Sir Dante, he reluctantly gives you the name of a member of the Assassins Guild, Yarun, who is presently on the premises of the Merchants Guild, in the NW part of Verdistis. See Quest 3 for further details.

• 3.  Get in touch with the Assassins Guild - 22500 XP and Reputation -2.
  Once you get to the Merchants Guild, you'll find Yarun in a room to the SW. When you speak with Yarun and mention Dante, he'll become very defensive. Very soon, you will find 3 assassins bearing down on you, and Yarun disappears. Well, he's disappeared into the wooden cupboard there. Once you click on it, you end up in the basement. When you head further south, you run into Yarun again. Be prepared to fight your way through a ton of assassins, and they are tough! You see that Yarun runs away to the east, so follow him. He eventually winds up in a room to the east, and just north of the room with the big circular hollow spot in the middle. He reluctantly agrees to arrange a meeting between yourself and Cybu, the alleged killer of the duke, marking the spot on your map.

• 4.  Meet Cybu, the murderer of the Duke - Quest 5.
  You have to complete Quest 3 in order to get this one. Then meet Cybu, listen to his story, and kill him! Make sure that you pick up the manuscript near Cybu's body, which implicates him in the murder of the duke; else, you'll face a long trek back here to retrieve it after you talk to Commander Ralph without being able to substantiate your claims. You now have Quest 5.

• 5.  Report to Commander Ralph - 13000 XP, Reputation +5, and Rivertown Quest 17.
  You get this quest as a result of completing Quest 4. Make sure you have the manuscript that was dropped by Cybu when he died before you talk to Commander Ralph, or else you'll have to go all the way back to Verdistis to fetch it. Once you can produce the evidence, you'll finally get your invitation to Stormfist Castle.

• 6.  First thieves guild test - 13000 XP and Quest 7.
  If you're interested in joining the thieves guild, talk to Rob behind the bar at the Ducal Inn. Rob asks you to relieve a guy over in the corner (named Sweeney) of a necklace. You only need the 1st level of Pickpocket skill to do this, but you won't be able to get anywhere with no Pickpocket skill at all, so don't even bother if that is the case.

• 7.  Second thieves guild test - 35500 XP, membership in the thieves guild, and Reputation -2.
  You need to complete Quest 6 first, then Rob gives you another test. Just go down the hatch into the basement, head into the next room, and lockpick the door to the north there. I'm not sure, but I think you need at least 2 levels of the Lockpick skill to get by here. Anyway, just pick up the bottle of ale that's on the floor in that room, and head back to Rob. You are now a member of the thieves guild. In addition to the rewards mentioned above, Rob will also teach you one level of either: Lockpick, Disarm Traps, or Pickpocket. And finally... now that you have the run of the house, you can pay a visit to the thieves guild headquarters. Head back to the basement, and then keep going through doors to the east until you are accosted by Rodgar. He wants to have a bet with you, but you need to fork over 5000 gold coins in order to participate (you'll also need Lockpick level 5 to complete it). See Quest 9 for details. Anyway, once you speak to Rodgar, go through a door to the north, and keep heading north till you come to Rob's room. You are warned before you enter to 'be careful', but you're only here for one thing, and no one seems to mind that you take it: in a book on a table, you'll find a Strange Dagger, which is one of three Holy Weapons. See Rivertown Quest 16.

• 8.  Avenge Graham - 38000 XP.
  Graham is standing at the bar in the Ducal Inn. He'll tell you that a soldier named Cirgon scarred him in a fight, and that he wants to be avenged. Cirgon's house is in the west part of Verdistis. He tells a different story. Go back and talk to Graham. Technically, you fail to solve the quest, but you get the XP for finding an amicable resolution to the problem.

• 9.  Lock picking bet - 25000 XP and 5000+ gold coins.
  You need to have Lockpick level 5 to complete this quest. Don't bother otherwise, because it will cost you 5000 gold coins just to participate. Once you're ready, talk to Rodgar, and he takes the 5000 off you right away. Then follow his instructions. Once you've picked the 5th lock (door to the treasure room, and feel free to pilfer anything while you're in there), you can then return to Rodgar to collect your reward. He returns your original 5000 gold coin wager, and gives you about 5000 more as a prize.

• 10.  Do I want to summon a demon? - 42000 XP and a level of Banish.
  You get this quest by visiting Corinna the summoner's house, which is located just to the south of the park, which is itself south of the merchants guild. As you enter the house, you hear a commotion in the back room. When you open the door to this room, you find Corinna there, and she has almost managed to kill a demon that she summoned. Finish the demon off, then talk to Corinna. If you express an interest in summoning, she'll offer to train you, but she needs 3 items first (there's always a catch, isn't there?):
  1. A branch from a 'talking tree' in the Dark Forest - once you get this quest, the talking tree will be marked by a little red flag. It's in the SE part of the Dark Forest. If you approach the tree from the west, you should encounter a party of elves. They'll tell you that the tree is (unnecessarily) afraid of woodcutters. When you confront the talking tree after this, you'll then get the dialogue choice to say there is a woodcutter in the area. This will keep the tree preoccupied, and you'll be able to take a branch without fear of harm; otherwise, you'll have to grab it while the tree is attacking you. The branch you are seeking has a description like a weapon, and is on the right-hand side of the tree.
  2. A book on summoning from her friend, Penumbra - but Penumbra is being held captive in the thieves guild. If you're already a member of this prestigious guild, then no problem gaining entry; otherwise, you'll have to complete Quests 6 and 7 first. See Quest 11 for details on how to free Penumbra.
  3. A special bottle of wine from Pierce, the wine merchant - talk to Pierce, whose shop is located on the east side of Verdistis. When you tell him that you're looking for a special bottle of wine for Corinna the summoner, you find out that the last bottle was sold to a fellow named Anthrabert who is staying at the Ducal Inn. You get Quest 13 as a result.

  Once you have got all 3 of the necessary items, talk to Corinna again. She'll ask you to fetch a plant from her garden (nightflower, in north part of garden), and meet her in the basement. Talk to Corinna in the basement, then go stand in the western pentagram. She summons a demon, and then banishes it straight away. Talk to her again afterwards, and you complete this quest with a level of Banish thrown in to boot. Not exactly a stellar reward, but you got a lot of XP along the way!

• 11.  Free Penumbra - 113500 XP and Quest 12.
  Penumbra is being held in a locked room on the far eastern side of the thieves guild. Talk to the thief guarding her cell, go through all the dialogue choices, then exit the room through the door to the west. The guard goes to relieve himself then. Take the key from the table next to the door, and enter Penumbra's cell. She says to meet her back at Corinna's house, and promptly takes off (67500 XP). When you talk to her back at Corinna's house, you get the rest of the XP and Quest 12.

• 12.  Retrieve Penumbra's dagger - 67500 XP and Penumbra's book.
  Penumbra agrees to give you her book if you retrieve her dagger from the town watch, which is in the north part of Verdistis. Wait till the drunk watch commander, Kratus, leaves the room and take a key from inside the table to the right. Then wait for Kratus to come back, enter his room to the west, and head south though the locked door. Penumbra's dagger "Heartseeker" is in a chest on the west wall. You may have trouble getting back out through Kratus' room if he's still there. In that case, you can lockpick the door to the east that gets you around Kratus and back into the main room where you can then get back out on the street. Return to Penumbra and present her with the dagger to obtain your book of summoning.

• 13.  A bottle of wine - 58000 XP and a bottle of exquisite wine.
  Anthrabert's room is in the NW part of the Ducal Inn. He refuses to sell you the bottle of wine, but will give it to you in exchange for a favour... he wants you to burn the cart of Mpenzak the merchant, who is located in the NE part of Verdistis. Now, you can accept this quest, but a much better idea is to refuse. Anthrabert then gets someone else to perform the evil deed, and the next time you return to Mpenzak's cart, it is burnt to a cinder and a crowd has gathered. Talk to captain Perrewis there, and you can immediately implicate Anthrabert. Then go back to Anthrabert's now vacant room and pick up the bottle of wine from the floor!

Verdistis sewers
You can gain access to the sewers from 2 places:

1. The grate in the park, directly to the SW of the merchants guild.
2. A stairway in the SE part of the assassins guild, which is itself underneath the merchants guild (remember, you enter the assassins guild through a cupboard in a room in the SW part of the merchants guild).

There are a lot of lizards to kill down here, but for the most part it's pretty uninteresting, except for: a room all the way in the NE part of the sewers contains a body with a piece of a treasure map on it. For finding this, you get Quest 1 below (that is, if you haven't already found another piece of the treasure map somewhere else). In the SW part of the sewers, you'll find a teleporter. Just to the east of there, you notice the smell of poison when you enter a room. There's a well in the middle of the room. You get poisoned when you access it, but you find 10000 gold coins inside.

Quests

• 1.  Treasure maps - Quest 2.
  (Note: I lumped these two quests into the Verdistis sewers section of the guide because that's where I happened to find the first piece of the map that triggered these quests. No other reason) You have to find 4 pieces of a treasure map that are scattered all over the kingdom. Here are their locations:
  1. On a body in the far NE part of the Verdistis sewers.
  2. You can buy one off Mpenzak the merchant, who is located in the NE of Verdistis. You must already have at least one piece of the map to show him before he'll sell you his piece. He asks 500 for it, but you can haggle him down to 50.
  3. On a table in a cave full of spiders, which is NW of the archers guild.
  4. In a locked room in the far SW of the dwarven halls. You should be able to lockpick the door there, which is right next to the entrance to the mines beneath the dwarven halls. Take the scroll on the floor next to the bed.

  Once you have the 4 map pieces, you then get Quest 2.

• 2.  Bring on the treasure - Armor of Larian.
  Before you can embark on this quest, which is in reality a very complex 'Easter egg', you need the following things:
  1. Silver breastplate - see Dark Forest Quest 13.
  2. Five bottles of dwarven ale from Rimmer - see Dark Forest Quest 14. If you didn't complete this quest, then you can always buy the bottles from Rimmer instead.
  3. One teleporter stone with you, the other safely near a bed.
  4. Exactly 2002 gold coins. Stash the rest in a chest somewhere. The trick is to put all your gold coins in the chest, then drag a pile back into your inventory while pressing the Ctrl key. Then choose exactly 2002 coins from the resulting panel.
  5. Lockpick skill level 5 would be very handy to have, though probably not essential. There are a lot of locked doors where you're going, and you may not want to mess around trying to find all the keys and levers to open them.

  The entrance to the treasure cave is directly to the NW of the camp where the two guys who were collecting urns hang out. It's in a nook in the cliffs, just behind a large pine tree. You have to move your cursor all over the pine tree in order to find it. Once you get inside the cave, there's a huge spiderweb to the north that you walk through. Then in the NW corner, NE corner, and SE corner of this cave respectively, there are crystal balls. Drag each crystal ball into your inventory. Once you have all 3 crystal balls, head to the SW part of the cave where you'll find a large bowl. Drag each of the crystal balls into this bowl, and when you drop the third one in, a secret entrance opens up to the west. Head in there and touch the shrine. A tough demon appears. Once you defeat him, another entrance to the south opens up. Lots of bats in here, but they're easy to get by. To the SE there's a room with a few chests in it, and a lot of gold coins. Remember to resist the natural urge to pick up any coins, because you need exactly 2002 in your inventory! You can walk right through the north wall here. Pick up the the 4 ropes that are sitting on the portal, save your game, then step onto the portal... if you have the 5 bottles of dwarven wine and exactly 2002 gold coins in your inventory, you'll wind up in a new area (if you wind up back at the treasure cave entrance, then you had the wrong quantities of these items).

  Once you're in this new area, things get mighty strange. You have to realise that this whole thing is an Easter egg, a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the staff at Larian. So, you're going to see computers and stuff like that. Anyway, the first thing you notice is a knight and a demon having a go at each other. Ignore them, as you can't intervene. Open the first prison hatch you come to, and then use a rope on it. Descend into the cave below... and meet the Larian team! You can decide to release any or all of them if you like; I don't think it matters. Make your way to the far SE of the cave, and you will meet Swen. Head to the room to the north of where Swen is, take the stairway down, and kill all the bugs down there for Swen (these are computer programming bugs, get it? :-) Once you've got them all, return to Swen and he will upgrade your silver breastplate into Armor of Larian! Then use your teleporter stone to get out of there.

Dark Forest
You get here by following the path that leads to the SW from the archers guild, which is in the far SW of the Rivertown area.

Quests

• 1.  Find a Collectors Item - 30000 XP and 5000 gold coins.
  Not far from the entrance to the Dark Forest, just a bit to the south down the path, you'll find Raymond and Brian camped out. It seems that they gave a few mercenaries the task of finding an ancient burial vase, but the mercenaries have not returned. You can make an offer to beat the mercenaries to the vase, and thus collect the reward they would have received. Well... if you head east from there for a few hundred metres, and then slightly NE, you'll wind up in the middle of the elven ruins. There's a pond there, with a platform in the centre surrounded by flowers. If you go underground via this platform, the first thing you should find is one of the 3 Holy Weapons (see Rivertown Quest 16), the Strange Amulet, in the cobwebs there. Then just around the corner to the west, you'll find the ancient burial vase that you came here for. Be prepared to fight through some tough ghosts to get to it though!

• 2.  The sword in the stone - 99000 XP and Reputation +2.
  Just to the NE of the elven ruins, you come upon a sword stuck in a boulder. Pulling it out (46000 XP) unleashes an evil ghost. You can run away with the sword and have it identified, but you can't keep it for too long. Rumour hath it that the ghost will kill everyone in the elven village to the south if you do that. So... kill the ghost as soon as you can, wait till light emanates from the boulder, and then drag the sword back onto the boulder to trap him forever (remainder of the XP).

• 3.  Fight the mountain trolls - failed to solve quest.
  Just south of the elven ruins, you'll likely bump into a chap named Saphiro. He'll ask for your assistance fighting the mountain trolls, and he marks their location on your map. It's a bit to the west of here. But when you arrive there, it turns out to be a trap set by Saphiro and his buddies. So just kill them, and take all their nice gear.

• 4.  Becoming a member of the warriors guild - Quest 5.
  The warriors guild is located between two lakes to the south of the elven ruins. You have to go around the western lake, and then up a set of stairs when you get to the end of the path. Talk to Alrik inside the castle, and you get a key, along with Quest 5.

• 5.  The first test - 88000 XP and Quest 6.
  Head down the stairway to the west of Alrik, then head south and use the key he gave you to open the locked door to the south. Once you go down the stairway there, then head for the room to the north. Flipping the lever in that room unlocks the door to the west. The lever in the western room unlocks the door to the south, and the lever there unlocks the room to the east, where you will find... the guardian of the cyclops - one tough cookie that keeps conjuring stuff until you manage to kill him. Then grab the eye of the cyclops from the pedestal in the centre of the room and return to Alrik with it.

• 6.  The second test - 93500 XP, Boomerang +1, and membership in the warriors guild.
  You must complete Quest 5 first, then Alrik gives you this one. It involves killing a dragon rider. Hmm. Anyway, for the intrepid amongst you... he marks the location of the castle on your map. It's to the SW of here. This castle also happens to be known as the imps' deserted castle. You approach it from the south, and go up a set of stone stairs. Once inside, head down the stairway in the back room. You'll have to make your way to the NE part of the dungeon from there. In a room all the way to the north of the dungeon, you'll find the teleporter scroll of the imps, resting on a pile of rotten food. You eventually encounter a dragon rider... I found that a combination of releasing death scorpions and running away worked rather well in this situation. Once you've managed to bump off the dragon rider, you'll find the Dragonheart gem near his body. Take it back to Alrik, and he'll grant you membership in the warriors guild, as well as allowing you to keep the gem (see Quest 11).

• 7.  Evil transformation - 72000 XP.
  Somewhere in your wanderings in the southern part of the Dark Forest, you should come upon a boar that claims it's been transformed from a human into this form by an evil mage who lives in a house to the SE of here. He tells you that the way to gain entrance to Boratus' cellar is via a painting...

• 8.  Kill Boratus and find cure for his animals - 93500 XP and Reputation +2.
  So you find Boratus' house, touch the painting over the bed, and a section of the wall slides over. Move one of the barrels, head down to his cellar via the stairway in the back room, and note the locked chest on a table in the room to the south. Enter the room to the east, and then Lockpick the door to the south there and talk to Anthea, who has been transformed into a cow. She will implore you to find a cure. As soon as you exit Anthea's cell, Boratus comes down the stairs. Defeat him, then take his key. It opens the locked chest, where you will find a book inferring that only some holy water from the dwarven halls might be able to reverse the transformations. Thus you get Quest 9.

• 9.  Find the dwarven priest - 77500 XP and Quest 10.
  The priest you are looking for is named Penthalos, and his house is in the dwarven halls, directly south of the hall where the dwarven king hangs out. It's on an island, so you need to hop over there using one of the portal stones. Penthalos has holy water alright, but he doesn't have a proper vessel to hold it in :-( So we now have to go searching for a holy grail. See Quest 10.

• 10.  Find the grail - 93500 XP.
  Well, it turns out this grail is in a cave in the SW part of the Dark Forest, due west from the elven village. The cave entrance is located in a cleft in the rocks, NW of the imps' deserted castle. Once inside the cave, you have to defeat a tough infernal guardian, then go up the stairs and through the glowing door. Uh oh, this doesn't look good at all. Lots and lots of grail guardians lined up against the walls, obviously just waiting for you to take the grail so they can spring into action. Even worse, when you enter the room to the north where the grail is sitting on an altar, you awake a terrible creature from its slumber. Sure enough, once you move the holy grail into your inventory, he attacks. But it's then quite easy to make a mad dash back into the room to the south, and from there straight south and back out through the glowing door. Don't worry, they won't follow you!
  When you return to Penthalos with the empty grail, he nips off and fills it with holy water for you. Now you can return to Boratus' house, transform Anthea the cow back to her normal self, and you have completed Quest 8. Also, the next time you walk along the path north of the elven village, you'll run into the transformed boar and his mate. Funnily enough, he's now happy to remain as a boar, and you've just solved Quest 7!

• 11.  Dragon Armour - a set of really fine armour.
  You have to complete Council of Seven Quest 13 in order to officially get this quest, but no doubt you've found various pieces of the Dragon Armour before this. Here's a description of the pieces of the Dragon Armour set and where to find them:
  1. Shield of the Dragon - in armoury, SW corner of Stormfist Castle (see Rivertown Quest 18). I hope you got this item when you were in Stormfist Castle, because TECHNICALLY you can't ever go back there again. However, if you're absolutely stuck and need the Shield of the Dragon, there is a way to get back into the Castle... take both teleporter stones with you. Throw one inside the entrance to Stormfist (drag it as far past the captain of the guard as you can), then drop the other stone on the ground outside the entrance and use it to teleport inside the castle :-)
  2. Belt of the Dragon - in cellar of house to the south of Malcom's house in Verdistis. The key to this house is hidden in a tree trunk on the SW side of the house. The door it opens is on the west wall. In the back room, you'll find a shelf with another key on it (this key opens a locked chest in the cellar). You'll most likely drop through the rotten floorboards into the cellar, or you can use the hatch. In the back room of the cellar, move all the barrels to reveal the locked chest that contains the belt and 1000 gold coins.
  3. Gloves of the Dragon - in a funeral pyre to the south of the steps you use to enter the elven burial grounds, which are in the far south of the Dark Forest.
  4. Breastplate of the Dragonheart - when you complete Council of Seven Quest 13, the dwarven king tells you about the Dragon Armour set, and informs you that a rich merchant in Verdistis is in possession of the breastplate (and also that the dwarven king will give you the helm once you have the breastplate). So... head back to Verdistis and talk to Sir Patrick. He admits to having the breastplate in his basement, but he wants you to collect a debt from a fellow named Lucius before he'll hand it over. *sigh* You now have Quest 12. Once you have the breastplate in your possession, you'll also need the Dragonheart gem (see Quest 6). Then head back to the dwarven halls. Seek out Grischa the smith (on an island in the SW of the halls), and have him identify the Breastplate of the Dragon for you. Then ask him if he can repair the armour using the Dragonheart gem. He'll combine the two items to produce a brand new item, which you'll need to have him identify, called the Breastplate of the Dragonheart (note: it takes him 24 game hours to produce this, so you might want to go kill something in the meantime).
  5. Helmet of the Dragon - just go back to the dwarven king after Grischa has produced the Breastplate of the Dragonheart, and he'll give you the helm! Then go back to Grischa to get it identified.

  Once you are wearing the entire set of Dragon Armor, you'll get a bonus skill! I got Elemental Strike, your mileage may vary.

• 12.  Lucius' debts - 46000 XP, Reputation +2, and Breastplate of the Dragon!
  Lucius' house is just to the NE of Sir Patrick's place. Of course, the poor blighter hasn't a penny to his name, and he owes Sir Patrick 2500. Frankly, the best thing to do here is offer to pay the debt for him. It's only 2500 gold coins, and if you aren't swimming in gold at this stage in the game, then something is wrong. So you return to Sir Patrick, pay the 2500, and he immediately gives you the breastplate. Whew, that was easy! I thought I was going to have to rummage in the cellar for it and kill another 50 creatures to get my hands on the thing.

• 13.  Kill the stalker - silver breastplate.
  If you follow the path that leads west from the warriors guild, you'll come upon a hermit standing outside his house. He wants you to kill a demon that stalks the land around here, and lives in a cave to the SW. He marks the location of the stalker's lair on your map. Funnily enough, you'll notice a lot of butterflies as you approach the cave... but it's filled with vampiric ghouls. On the east side of the cave, you'll bump into the hermit again. Turns out he's the stalker, and has lured you here to feed on you. Poison Weapon does the trick here. Once he's dead, make sure you get the breastplate from the chest that's hidden in the NE part of this room. Once identified, it turns out to be a valuable silver breastplate. The description alludes to you being able to enchant it. Hmm. Indeed, this is one of the items that you will need to embark on Verdistis sewers Quest 2 once you've found all 4 pieces of the treasure map...

• 14.  Find Rimmer in Glenborus - 11000 XP and 5 bottles of dwarven ale.
  You'll find a dwarf named Strobur inside one of the houses on the islands in the dwarven halls. All you have to do is find his brother Rimmer and tell him that Strobur was asking for him. In Glenborus, the dwarven village, Rimmer hangs out in a building just to the north of the teleporter.

Iona's dungeon revisited
Like me, you probably beat a hasty retreat the first time you were in Iona's dungeon. But there's a lot of experience and treasure down there, and you can re-enter Iona's dungeon at any time, via the pit in the SW part of the graveyard where you originally exited. If you haven't explored the lower levels of the dungeon yet, then here's how you get there: make your way to the far NE corner of the dungeon, and touch the manuscript on the pedestal. The first time you repeat one of the 3 invocations in the manuscript, some tough creatures are summoned. Defeat them, then touch the manuscript 2 more times and repeat the remaining invocations. After you recite the third one, a stairway in the floor opens up, and you get Quest 1. Before undertaking this quest, beware that this is a VERY LONG dungeon crawl. I went from level 26 to 28 just killing all the critters down there.

Quests

• 1.  Iona's dungeon - 15000+ XP and an ID level 4 item.
  Enter the stairway that opened in the floor. This takes you to...

  Iona's dungeon level 2
  The objective of this quest is to find out who... or what is down here. Just keep heading west on this level, and you will come to another stairway that takes you to...

  Iona's dungeon level 3
  On this level, head all the way to the east to find a cave entrance that leads to...

  Cyrion, Iona's pet
  Cyrion is sleeping when you first enter the cave, but it awakes as soon as you advance into the cave, and it's one tough creature to kill. I found that a single death scorpion did the trick though. Once Cyrion is dead (I got 15144 XP for this), you've completed Quest 1. There's a locked chest in the south of the cave with a skull sitting on it. Just drag the skull into your inventory, and it becomes the key for this chest. I found a nice piece of armour in there, but as all items seem to be random in this game, you might find something entirely different.

Council of Seven
Zandalor takes you here upon completion of Rivertown Quest 24. Once you arrive, you immediately get Quest 1 below.

Quests

• 1.  Kill the succubus - access to Council of Seven members.
  The succubus retreats once she has imprisoned Zandalor. She's in the room to the far north here. Well... Freeze works fine on her. As does Deadly Gift and a single scorpion trap. After you're rid of her, make sure you check out the chests in the rooms to the NE and NW. And in a room to the far NW... you meet ZixZax again, and get your two teleporter pyramids back :-) Then speak with Zandalor in the room to the north to get Quest 2.

• 2.  Gather the Council of Seven - become the Divine One.
  You have to use a scrying stone to find each of the 7 council members. You can do this in any order you wish. See Quests 3 through 9 below. Once you've gathered all the council members, return to the Council of Seven and talk to Zandalor. Before you strike the Bell of Gathering to commence the ceremony that will turn you into the Divine One, I recommend you have the following items on you, because you're never coming back here:
  1. Two bundles of straw from the farmlands. A bed to rest on in the forsaken place where you're going will come in mighty handy!
  2. Both teleporter pyramids. You have to be able to get back to the bed you're going to make.
  3. All the healing, magick, and poison potions you can carry. No mushrooms to make potions from where you're going.

  Once you have all these items, and of course, the best weapons and armour you can find, strike the Bell of Gathering in the middle of all the council members and let the ceremony begin! After a lengthy and dramatic cut scene, you wind up in the Land of the Dead. See corresponding section below for instructions on how to proceed from there...

• 3.  Imp council member - 67500 XP and Reputation -2.
  Talk to the (supposed) imp council member in a room on the eastern side of the Ducal Inn, Verdistis. Touch his little crystal ball, and you wind up in a magical kingdom. You can side with either the bees or the wasps, it matters not. Most likely, you will not be able to completely satisfy the needs of either side. However, you eventually wind up with the key to the house in the north part of the kingdom, and the imp there will agree to accompany you to the Council of Seven. Use the crystal that the imp gives you to return to the Ducal Inn.

• 4.  Orc council member - 67500 XP and Reputation -2.
  Easy one. Just fight your way through about 500 orcs :-) until you get to the jail pits in the far SE corner of orc territory. The orcish council member (by the name of Kroxy) is in the jail pit to the SW.

• 5.  Convince Goemoe to join the Council of Seven - Quest 6.
  When you talk to any of the healers at the Blue Boar Inn, they will tell you that Goemoe left several hours ago without telling anyone else where he was going. So... now you have to head back to the Council of Seven and scry for him again. You get Quest 6 as a result.

• 6.  Goemoe has been captured! - 136500 XP and Reputation +1.
  When you scry for Goemoe again, you see that he's been morphed into a snake by an evil warlock. Zandalor recognises the house as being in Verdistis, and sends you off to speak to Trevor in the Verdistis merchants guild. Trevor is in a room to the NW of the guild building. He'll eventually tell you that he rented the house to a warlock named Cornelius. He marks the location of the house on your map. It's SE of the merchants guild. Visit there and kill all the thugs on the first floor. Then enter the cellar through the hatch in the back room. Oops. Cornelius freezes you! But Zandalor then arrives to save the day once more. Get the composite key from the table, and the polymorph wand from the room to the south. Then enter the locked door to the east, talk to the snake (54000 XP), and you restore Goemoe to his old ugly self. You get the rest of the XP when he agrees to join the Council of Seven.

• 7.  Wizard council member - 54000 XP.
  As soon as you scry for the wizard council member, you find out that it is indeed our good friend Zandalor. Nice one.

• 8.  Human council member - 93500 XP and Reputation +3.
  Mardaneus turns out to be the human council member. But when you return to Aleroth to collect him, you find that the door to his house is once again locked tight, and the village is overrun by orcs. Dispatch the orcs, then head for Lanilor's house (north of Mardaneus' house). A witch named Demona is there, and she attacks you. Once you've polished her off (another good job for a death scorpion), go into Lanilor's house and retrieve the key from the table in the back room. This is the key to Mardaneus' house, and he agrees to join the council.

• 9.  Elven council member - 117000 XP and Reputation +2.
  When you scry for the elven council member, you find out it is Bronthion, who led the elven delegation to Stormfist Castle when you were Lord Protector. He's in the elven village of Fui Nimble located in the middle of the Dark Forest. Bronthion is standing in the west part of the village. As usual, it's not easy to persuade him to join the council. You must complete Quests 10 and 11 for him before he will join.

• 10.  Find out who is guilty for [sic] destroying the elven burial grounds - Quest 11.
  Bronthion marks the location of the burial grounds on your map. He wants you to find out who is desecrating the grounds, and also to recover 3 holy relics. Exit the elven village to the south, and follow the road all the way south until the road ends and you find yourself at the bottom of some stairs that lead up to a funeral pyre. When you go up these stairs, you witness some dwarves behaving very strangely, and you get Quest 11.

• 11.  Rampant dwarves! - elven ceremonial items (holy relics).
  Head back down the stairs, then up north and to the west. Of all things, you begin to encounter... orcs! Eventually, you'll come to the gates of an orc camp. Keep fighting your way through the orcs, and you'll find a cave entrance in the NW part of the camp. More orcs. But in the west part of this dungeon, you'll find a lever that opens a portion of the wall. This leads to a place with a floor tile in the centre of the floor. Down there you find an enchantress named Josephina, and those rampant dwarves. They are really tough to get through, but you can keep going up the ladder to catch a breather. Once you've defeated all the dwarves, there's still Josephina to overcome. She's probably the toughest mini-boss you've met so far. Deadly gift works great here, along with Poison Weapon. Once she's gone, you may have trouble finding the 3 ceremonial items. Two of them are obvious, but the third item is actually the quarterstaff that Josephina was carrying. If you killed her near a wall, you may have to run your cursor all around the locality until you find it. If you simply can't find it, then restore to an earlier saved game and try to off her in a more visible part of the room. Return to Bronthion with the 3 items, tell him it was orcs disguised as dwarves causing all the fuss, and he will agree to join the council.

• 12.  Dwarven council member - 124000 XP and Reputation +2.
  When you scry for the dwarven council member, you find that he is in the dwarven village of Glenborus, east of Stormfist Castle. Talk to Eolus there, a figure dressed in white in the centre of the village. You'll find that the fabled Axe of Stone has been stolen from the shrine there, and the dwarves suspect that the elves are to blame. Eolus won't join the council until the Axe is retrieved. You thus get Quest 13, and once you've completed this quest, you can return to Eolus (who is now in the building directly to the south of the Axe of Stone shrine) and he will agree to join the council.

• 13.  Retrieve the Axe of Stone - Dark Forest Quest 11.
  Head to the dwarven halls, and go to the far SW part. You'll find an entrance there leading down to the mines. A few evil dwarves to kill down here. In the north part of the mines, you'll find another entrance leading down to a second level. Heavier going here, and as you approach the NE part of this level, you'll run into an evil character named Moriendor. Freeze works best with him. To the west of here is a room with an altar that holds a holy book, and behind that is the Axe of Stone. Take it, but don't leave the mines yet. In the far NE part of this level is a room with a pentagram of candles. On a table there is a manuscript that implicates this Moriendor in a plot to make the elves seem responsible for stealing the Axe of Stone! Return to the king of the dwarves with the Axe and this manuscript (indeed, those are the only two items the guards will let you pass with). You then get Dark Forest Quest 11, to assemble the Dragon Armour. Of course, you can now also return to Eolus to persuade him to join the council...

Land of the Dead
For the most part, I'm not going to document any quests or XP gains from now on, as they are largely irrelevant. While the game has been very interesting up to this point, from now on it becomes, frankly, one big long battle to the bitter end...

Depending on what level you were at before striking the Bell of Gathering, you should go up at least 5 or 6 levels as a result of becoming the Divine One. You'll find some new skills to avail of under Path of the Divine. But before you get carried away and waste all the experience you've just gained, please heed the following advice: the single most important skill from now on is Spirit Form. Each level of this skill gives you 20 seconds in which you can wander around without fear of anything attacking you! I recommend just taking 4 levels of this skill instantly. You see, at this stage in the proceedings, you probably don't need any more experience/levels. You just want to get to the endgame as quickly as possible, believe me. I completed the game the first time through as a level 37 warrior, using Spirit Form to get me past a whole slew of tough creatures. Anyway, enough said... you can ignore the orc and his cowardly mate. Very little help you can get from them. Just head south from here, and then east along the cliff wall, looking for a path through to the south (if you venture into the middle of this region, you'll have to fight a ton of tough imps. Very trying on the patience).

Once you've found the path through to the south, you'll bump into... Zandalor and Arhu! Follow Zandalor to the village near there, and you'll find that the orc Kroxy has survived as well, and is now playing shopkeeper. He's your last chance to stock up on items before the final push. Once you're all stocked up and rested, head straight for that red flag in the far SE corner of this area. You'll have to change into Spirit Form to get to the other side of the swamp. Get into the middle of the place surrounded by arches, and stand just to the SE of the steps leading up to the Black Ring entrance (if you stand directly south of the steps, you won't be able to get in). Then as soon as you change back into human form, click on the entrance to enter the Black Lake Dungeon...

Black Lake Dungeon
As soon as you enter this place where the Black Ring hang out, you'll witness a cut scene whereby Janus, who has now morphed into the Demon of Lies, begins to summon the demonic entity known as the Lord of Chaos. Your job is to try to prevent this summoning! Well, let's get to it. Head along the causeway until you come to a large platform. Kill all the tough creatures on this platform to give yourself a bit of breathing space. You'll note that on the north side of the platform, the Black Ring has erected a barrier of spikes preventing further passage. You must slay all 5 members of the Ring before you can progress to the endgame. Sorry, but this is where the game becomes a real slog. Although you might think that time is of the essence here because you're supposedly in a rush to stop the summoning... it's not. So first thing you do is make a nice bed out of those 2 bundles of straw you have with you, and drop a teleporter pyramid next to it. Then it's time to go kick some demon butt!

There are 5 long causeways leading away from the platform, each populated by tough creatures. Each of these causeways leads to a large fortress. Each fortress is essentially a maze with one of the mini-bosses you probably met earlier lurking at the end of the maze (one of: Cornelius, Demona, Josephina, Moriendor, or Iona). I recommend using Spirit Form to get by as many creatures as you can, unless you really need the XP. You can then defeat the mini-bosses using the usual combination of Freeze, Poison Weapon, Deadly Gift, or whatever your personal favourite happens to be. You know the drill by now. Once you've eliminated all 5 of these Black Ring members, you can return to the central platform and all the spikes that were blocking your passage to the north will be gone. Rest up one more time, then keep heading north from there until you get to the final fortress that contains the Demon of Lies...

This final fortress is larger and tougher than all the rest, of course. In order to get to the chamber where the Demon of Lies is performing the summoning ritual, you have to work your way through the entire fortress. There are 2 'levers' that you must press in order to gain access to this chamber - one in the SW and one in the SE of the fortress. There is no feedback obtained from pressing these levers, so just make sure you definitely pressed each one before leaving the area. Once you've pressed both levers, you can head back to the centre of the fortress to find the chamber containing the Demon of Lies.

Once you finally get to the Demon of Lies, you find out that you were too late to stop the summoning ritual (you fail to complete the quest). But don't worry, it's just a plot device to possibly pave the way for a sequel. No matter how quickly you got here, you wouldn't have been able to stop it... before you take on the Demon of Lies, do yourself a big favour and SAVE YOUR GAME! (always good advice. But when I originally played the game, with hotfix 1.32, if you used any death scorpions to win the final battle your game would freeze and you wouldn't get the closing cut scene. This is no longer the case with hotfix 1.34). I hope you brought along a lot of health and restoration potions. The Demon of Lies keeps spawning a copy of himself who in turn summons a deathknight, so this becomes a very tough and frenetic battle where you'll probably have to hit the space bar a lot as well as saving in the middle of battle whenever you've made good progress. When you finally do manage to off the beast, you'll get the final cut scene whereby he's banished back to hell and you see your character carrying what looks to be the baby/Lord of Chaos out of the Black Lake Dungeon, as Zandalor and Arhu look on from a distance.

Well, that's about it. Hope you enjoyed this game as much as I did, and here's hoping that Larian will make the endgame a little more interesting in the sequel!

See the metzomagic.com Review of Divine Divinity.

Copyright © Steve Metzler 2003. All rights reserved.