Dark Sun: Shattered Lands
A FAQ/Walkthrough
by Sethan

::: Contents :::

1. Information                 (0100)
2. Character Basics            (0200)
3. Spells and Psionic Powers   (0300)
4. More Things You Should Know (0400)
5. Bestiary                    (0500)
6. Walkthrough                 (0600)
7. Magical Items               (0700)
8. Credits                     (0800)


--- 1. Information ------------------------------------------------- (0100) ---

Welcome to one of the most complicated games SSI put out under it's turn with
the Dungeons and Dragons license. The only games more complex would be the
older Gold Box games, to which this is somewhat a successor. The land of the
same is Athas, which was once a paradise but magic sapped the life out of the
sun and turned it a dark red. This in turn changed the climate and caused most
of the world to be a desert wasteland (and deathtrap). Since then, civilization
has broken down and most of the world exists in a "kill or be killed" state.

Your party are newly procured slaves shipped to the city of Draj and thrown
into the gladitorial arena for the amusement of the crowd and the almighty
Sorceror King. Your goal is, naturally enough, to make your escape and attempt
to forge a more pleasant civilization outside the walls of the city. There are
easily a dozen ways to complete your tasks, which makes this game very
flexible; some things are worth experience and compel you towards being "tough
but fair and helpful" to strangers. Other things are rather deeply hidden and
you can go two or three playthroughs without finding them.

That's not to say the game is perfect. There are a "nice" suite of bugs and
glitches which can occur and some event scripts are broken. There are reports
of items disappearing once the limit is reached in an area. A few items seem to
have no use other than to be junk, but reason compels to wonder what you can do
with them. Some of the spells and abilities you can learn are high on the
"useless but sound cool" scale. And most of all, the psionic powers are not
exactly the same as spells for those who knew the core rules well. But it's
still quite fun to play around with.


--- 2. Character Basics -------------------------------------------- (0200) ---

There are a lot of things to know about your characters but let's start at the
top. There are a number of base statistics which control what you can do and
how well you can do it. You can randomly roll these statistics or edit them to
whatever you like within the range for each race and class.

(I'll note there's no penalty for editing each statistic to the highest you can
get, and nobody will ever know except you and whomever you show the statistics
to. There is a certain charm to doing it "naturally" by rolling for a good set
of statistics and taking it.)

Strength: This is a measure of the character's physical power. The characters
with high strength are suited for melee combat, and carry more items than
weaker characters. It also helps with feats of power you may need to perform to
progress the game.

Dexterity: The more agile and quick a character is, the higher their Dexterity.
This is most important for ranged combat weapons and thieves' skills. It's also
able to help with Armor Class a little, to a point.

Constitution: A measure of overall health, Constitution is mostly a measure of
how many times the character can be risen from the dead. Each time they come
back, the Constitution score drops by 1. Also, if their Constitution is high
enough the character earns some bonus Hit Points.

Intelligence: This measures memory, concentration, and the ability to reason
and learn. Preservers benefit from a high score in Intelligence, and
Psionicists get bonus Power Points, but otherwise it isn't of immense use.

Wisdom: While Intelligence mostly deals with what people would consider raw
knowledge, Wisdom concerns common sense and wits. Clerics recieve extra spells
for having a Wisdom of 16 or higher, and a character resists spell effects
better for having a high Wisdom.

Charisma: Charisma is mostly a measure of how personable the character is, and
how easy it is to sway other people into seeing their way as right. This really
shines when it comes to interacting with NPCs in the game, because it can make
a serious difference in how easily it is to win their trust or even get them to
deal with your party.

Hit Points: Hit Points (HP) measure the amount of punishment a character can
take before falling over. Naturally, you want this as high as possible. As a
character gains levels in their class(es), more HP is assigned depending on the
class. If a character's HP reaches 0 then they're knocked out and left on the
ground. If it goes to -10 or below, then you are looking at a dead body and
some significant trouble to bring them back. Be warned, unconscious characters
on the ground will still take damage from area-effect spells.

Power Points: Power Points (PP) are used to cast psionic powers, unlike spell
slots for magic. Primarily, Psionicists will always earn more than other
classes, and some of the abilities require an upkeep cost in order to remain in
effect. Luckily, having your PP reduced to 0 has no ill effects. All characters
get psionic powers, which are determined when you create them.

Armor Class: This number ranges from 10 to -10 (it's a little odd but bear with
it). Each piece of armor has a particular bonus it grants . . . downwards. The
better your armor, the lower the number. For the most part the game system is
balanced towards an AC of 0. If you want to improve your AC, scavenge as many
pieces of armor as you can; chest, arms, legs, and shields all help out.

THAC0: This is another statistic you should look at, and like the Armor Class
you need to bear with it and understand. The name of it is "To Hit Armor Class
0", which translates simply to the number you need to exceed on a 20-sided die
to hit a target with an AC of 0. To figure out what your chances really are to
hit that opponent, you subtract their AC from your THAC0; this does mean a
negative AC *adds* to the THAC0 number. Yes, I told you this was odd. Don't ask
me why it's done this way.

Next is the importance of the race chosen for each character. Each race gets
their own bonuses and penalities, some of which are better tradeoffs than
others. Only nonhuman characters can choose to multi-class themselves, which is
itself a double-edged sword. Notably, there are a few instances where the race
of a character matters and can affect conversations or events.

Humans: Humans are extraordinarily average for use, but they have no
restrictions in the classes they can choose. Remarkably, they have the option
to dual-class to expand their abilities; dual-classing means they choose a new
class and start leveling in the chosen class. The downside is they lose access
to their previous class abilities, and may no longer advance in those classes
left behind. Once that level rises past their old one, the old class abilities
return and allow them to call on both sets of abilities. Humans can dual-class
twice, to a maximum of three classes.

Half-Giants: Half-Giants represent pure physical power, and as such they are
really good at that. Their Strength can go to 24, which means they have a good
chance of smearing anything they go after physically. Having a high
Constitution limit, they also can get absurdly high HP scores. They can choose
to be Fighters, Gladiators, Rangers, Clerics, Psionicists, or a number of
combination multi-classes.

Half-Elves: Half-Elves are exactly what they sound like, and as such get a part
of Elven grace and frailty mixed with Human robustness. Ideally, you can use a
Half-Elf for a broad multi-classed character; since their statistics don't
have much in the way of bonuses or penalties you can be assured they won't be
too hampered at whatever they choose. They may choose to be any class, or some
combinations of multiple classes.

Dwarves: Next to Half-Giants as exceptional physical specimens, Dwarves are
good at soaking up damage and dishing it out. Primarily, you choose a Dwarf
because you need a good melee class mixed with something which isn't so good at
melee. Dwarves may choose to be Fighters, Gladiators, Clerics, Thieves,
Psionicists, or combinations thereof.

Muls: Let's make this clear first, Muls are half-dwarves bred for gladitorial
combat and hard labor. They're not bright, they're not personable, but they are
very good at what they do. Muls may choose to be any of the classes Dwarves can
be, with slightly different statistic adjustments. They also only come in male,
which may or may not matter to you.

Elves: Tall, thin, and wiry, the Elves of Athas are not to be considered weak
or sylphlike. They're remarkably quick and agile, which means they're well-
suited for being Thieves or Rangers. They can be any class except Druids.
Naturally, you can multi-class them too.

Halflings: Shorter and lighter than Dwarves, they are essentially miniature
Humans. But where Humans are good for just about anything, Halflings lack the
strength and poise. They're just as quick as Elves are, but they are better
suited for other things than melee combat. Halflings can't be Preservers,
otherwise you're free to choose whatever classes you like.

Thri-kreen: For those who really dislike humanoids, there's the mantis-like
Thri-Kreen females. Let's note the obvious; due to being completely inhuman in
shape, they cannot wear armor, cloaks, belts, boots, rings . . . if this
surprises you and aggrivates you, I'll note they have some advantages to make
up for it. They are quick, get many many more attacks than a humanoid, and
they have a chance of paralyzing the enemy. They also get what amounts to a
boomerang ranged weapon, superior to the sling and rivaling the bow in power.
They can choose to be anything but Preservers and Thieves, and multi-class of
course.

So, now we get into the third part of creating a character: the class. The
class is important, since it not only determines how much HP and PP you will
have, but also what sort of weapons and armor you can use. Some of the classes
have some pretty serious rules as to equipment they can use, so be aware before
you choose. Unless you like finding a lot of equipment you can't use. (Also, be
mindful if you choose a Thri-Kreen you WILL be highly limited in what you can
use.) One thing to note is the "Prime Requisite"; if you have a 16 or greater
in all these statistics then you get an extra 10% experience gained.

Fighters: This is a relatively simple class, and the name says it all. Fighters
can use any weapons and armor you like, but don't get access to spellcasting.
They do get access to psionics, though. They must have a Strength of at least
9, and their Prime Requisite is Strength.

Gladiators: Meant for fighting in the arenas on Athas, Gladiators are
essentially an upgrade to Fighters. They must have a Strength of at least 13,
Dexterity of at least 12, and Constitution of at least 15. They are permitted
all equipment, and get a bonus to their armor once they reach fifth level.
(Yes, this means it goes one number lower.) Their Prime Requisite is Strength.

Rangers: A cross between a Druid and Fighter, Rangers are trained to survive
and know their way in the wilderness. In Athas, this means they are a little
more desirable to have around than in other worlds. Rangers must have a
Strength and Dexterity of at least 13, and a Wisdom and Constitution of at
least 14. They are allowed to use any kind of armor and weapons, but heavy
armor interferes with their abilities (which translates to "don't give it to
them"). They also are allowed to wield two (non-heavy) weapons without a
penalty to their chances to hit. After gaining eighth level, they can cast
minor Clerical magic, based on which elemental sphere you choose. Their Prime
Requisites are Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom.

Thieves: This isn't your usual thieving scoundrel, this is your quick-footed
and light-fingered assassin. They can pick locks on doors if they're good
enough, and if you send them around behind an enemy (across from where you
originally attacked them) they can do bonus damage. They can only use light
armor, but should have the Dexterity to make up for it. Thieves must have a
Dexterity of at least 9, and that is their Prime Requisite.

Preservers: Where other worlds have wizards, sorcerors and magicians Athas has
Preservers. They get access to plenty of offensive spells as they progress,
and you should beware any you see in the wild; they're usually referred to as
"Defilers". Being struck means you cannot cast magic; couple this with low HP
and being forbidden from using armor, and you're looking at a prime target for
enemies to go after. Preservers must have an Intelligence of at least 9, and
it is also their Prime Requisite.

Clerics: Following one of four elemental spheres of influence, Clerics are your
basic healer. Except as a bonus, they are unrestricted in the armor they can
wear; their weapon choices are dictated not by the type of weapon but the
material it is made out of. For Fire, they're restricted to weapons associated
with Fire (such as Obsidian). For Earth, they are permitted to use stone, wood,
or metal. For Water, they are permitted to use wood or bone weapons. Air gets
the worst blow since they're only permitted ranged weapons. The sphere you
choose dictates the types of spells your Cleric will be granted as a Cleric, so
be aware of that. Clerics must have a Wisdom of 9 at minimum, and if they meet
the Prime Requisite of 16 or higher in Wisdom there will also be bonus spells.

Druids: Druids are like Clerics, only slightly backwards; they're unrestricted
in use of weapons but they're forbidden from using armor. Like Clerics, you
must choose an elemental sphere and it dictates their spells; like Clerics
having a Wisdom greater than 16 will grant bonus spells. Druids must have a
Wisdom of at least 12 and a Charisma of at least 15; these are also their Prime
Requisites.

Psionicists: First thing is first: each character will have access to some
Psionic powers along one line. Psionicists can reach along all three lines.
They are restricted to lighter weapons (anything but long swords, essentially)
and light armor only. They must have a Constitution of at least 11, an
Intelligence of at least 12, and a Wisdom of at least 15. Their Prime
Requisites are Constitution and Wisdom.


--- 3. Spells and Psionic Powers ----------------------------------- (0300) ---

If you're going to get very far in this game, you're going to need to
understand the way these work. Preservers and Clerics get a pool of spells to
use depending on their levels across several levels of potency. Every third
class level, you reach the next level of spells to use. Clerics can use any
spell within their chosen elemental sphere (and up to third-level Cosmos
spells). Druids aren't restricted with Cosmos spells in level. Preservers have
to learn the spells one at a time, as they level (or learn from scrolls). The
best advice to give you is to read each spell carefully and check them out
before choosing one. Having at least one wide-area spell in your Preserver's
repetoire is good, considering you can blast away some encounters from a range
and make it a lot easier on yourself. Not duplicating spells your Cleric or
Druid can cast is likewise smart, since you will have a limited arsenal with
your Preserver.

Psionicists are a different story entirely. Psionic powers have two numbers
which are important: The Power Score and the PP Cost; the score is figured
differently for each particular power. When a character attempts to use a
power, first there is an unseen check agaisnt the Power Score. Each point in
the score represents a 5% chance of success. As a Psionicist levels up, they
can enhance a power or pick up a new one. There are some powers which must be
maintained, and thus constantly drain PP while active. Of special note is
"Mind Blank", which any character has access to and actively protects them from
psionic attacks. It has no cost to maintain or cast, and while you're told it's
"always on" this is incorrect. You must turn it on, and then keep an eye out
for it to need refreshing.

Cleric Spells by Sphere (Spell Name (level))

Cosmos: Bless (1), Cause Fear (1), Cause Light Wounds (1), Cure Light Wounds
(1), Curse (1), Entangle (1), Invisibility to Undead (1), Protection From Evil
(1), Remove Fear (1), Shillelagh (1), Aid (2), Barkskin (2), Charm Person or
Mammal (2), Find Traps (2), Hold Person (2), Spiritual Hammer (2), Bestow Curse
(3), Cause Blindness or Deafness (3), Cure Blindness or Deafness (3), Cure
Disease (3), Dispel Magic (3), Magical Vestment (3), Negative Plane Protection
(3), Prayer (3), Remove Curse (3), Remove Paralysis (3), Summon Insects (3),
Abjure (4), Cause Serious Wounds (4), Cure Serious Wounds (4), Cloak of Bravery
(4), Cloak of Fear (4), Free Action (4), Neutralize Poison (4), Poison (4),
Protection from Evil 10' Radius (4), Cause Critical Wounds (5), Cure Critical
Wounds (5), Dispel Evil (5), Raise Dead (5), Slay Living (5)

Earth: Magical Stone (1), Dust Devil (2), Conjure Lesser Elemental (3),
Condense (4), Dust Cloud (4), Conjure Elemental (5), Ironskin (5), Quicksand
(5)

Water: Conjure Lesser Elemental (3), Blood Flow (4), Dehydrate (4), Conjure
Elemental (5), Quicksand (5)

Fire: Flame Blade (2), Resist Cold (2), Resist Fire (2), Conjure Lesser
Elemental (3), Protection from Fire (3), Focus Heat (4), Produce Fire (4),
Conjure Elemental (5), Flame Strike (5), Wall of Fire (5)

Air: Conjure Lesser Elemental (3), Dust Cloud (4), Protection from Lightning
(4), Conjure Elemental (5), Deflection (5), Insect Plague (5)

Preserver Spells by Level

Level 1: Armor, Burning Hands, Charm Person, Chill Touch, Color Spray, Enlarge,
Gaze Reflection, Grease, Magic Missile, Shield, Shocking Grasp, Wall of Fog

Level 2: Blur, Detect Invisibility, Flaming Sphere, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust,
Invisibility, Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Protection from Paralysis, Scare,
Stinking Cloud, Strength, Web

Level 3: Blink, Dispel Magic, Fireball, Flame Arrow, Haste, Hold Person, Hold
Undead, Lightning Bolt, Minute Meteors, Minor Malison, Monster Summoning I,
Protection from Normal Arrows, Slow, Spirit Armor, Vampiric Touch

Level 4: Charm Monster, Confusion, Evard's Black Tentacles, Fear, Fire Shield,
Ice Storm, Improved Invisibility, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Minor Spell
Turning, Monster Summoning II, Rainbow Pattern, Solid Fog, Stoneskin, Turn
Pebble to Boulder, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice

Level 5: Chaos, Cloudkill, Cone of Cold, Conjure Elemental, Dismissal,
Domination, Feeblemind, Hold Monster, Lower Resistance, Monster Summoning III,
Summon Shadow, Wall of Force, Wall of Stone


--- 4. More Things You Should Know --------------------------------- (0400) ---

This is a catch-all for the various bits and pieces you would normally discover
on your own frustratingly too late.

- Multi-classing is nice, but the experience gain is divided among the classes
rather than focused. You also only gain a fraction of the HP you would for a
level up. This translates to a slower pace of leveling up, and less HP growth.

- Don't kill anyone if you don't have to, because you might need them later.
This goes double after your escape from the slave pens, because you're supposed
to be the good guys. Nominally. Besides, it is very likely you can make a quest
or errand unsolvable.

- Non-magical bone and obsidian weapons break, seemingly randomly. You can go
the whole game and never break a weapon, or you can break all of them in your
first arena match. Likewise, some enemies might corrode or destroy your armor
with attacks. Be cautious and save often.

- Save in several different slots as you progress. You're given a rather large
amount of them, so make use of at least two to store your saves. Alas for the
game, there are some glitches which may occur from time to time which can
render something unreachable, or you discover that mouthy person you hauled off
and slew was necessary. (As noted above.)

- Always check magic items' effects before you use them. Fruits are among the
most precious commodity you can have (think of them as analogous to potions in
other worlds), but there are a few which are more useful to save for later. And
there are some which simply aren't useful.

- Monitor your area map; monsters and NPCs will always show up on it. Wild
spawns will usually head right for your position, so you should be aware of
their arrival before you engage another group.

- Items are bartered for and sold at the price listed in your inventory; you do
not sell at half value, nor buy at twice what you sell for. For this reason you
run a fairly zero-sum game of economics; it makes sense if you think about it.
What this means is there's no penalty to purchasing armor to fill a gap, then
replacing it later on with something better. This will not happen too often,
but you won't be penalized for it.

- You can start the game with a premade party, which isn't a bad one at all;
you're given a half-giant Gladiator, a Thri-Kreen Fighter/Druid/Psionicist, a
Human Preserver/Gladiator (dual-classed out of Gladiator), and an Elven
Preserver/Druid/Thief. The downside to the multi-classing going on is a
markedly slow growth of HP and slow leveling time.

Here are some known bugs which may strike, and therefore are a good reason to
keep older saves ready.

- Items will sometimes disappear from inventory, including chests with things
in them. It is possible plot-sensitive items will disappear, or even terrain
objects such as doors or field containers. This can make the game unwinnable

- When saving in the middle of an area where many things are in motion, some
objects to interact with might disappear. As in, objects necessary to continue
through the game. Notably, this error has cropped up in the Sewers and made it
impossible to collect many items which access areas. You can technically still
brute-force your way through if you know what you are doing.

- On occasion there may be an inventory bug where a clear inventory square
will read as something else. This item will have an odd price, and might
even be equippable. Get rid of these as soon as you can by stuffing them into
a box and just abandoning it somewhere. This does not seem to do anything bad;
equipping it or selling it might make errors happen.

- Sometimes the game crashes/locks at seemingly random times; there is no way
to predict with any accuracy. Properly patched versions should not experience
this as often.

- There are a great number of events which do not seem to trigger with any
reliability. I have investigated some of them, but I found it difficult to
get more information on what messes up triggers. Some events I've seen
mentioned but never experienced; I've noted some of these. Sometimes I've had
one end of an event but never reliably gotten it to finish.

- Fun with charm effects, and enemy conversation triggers! If you charm an
enemy who you talk with to begin a battle, they remain alive after. And you
can talk to them again to trigger the same script, some of the time.

--- 5. Bestiary ---------------------------------------------------- (0500) ---

--- Monsters ---

Slig: Green-skinned apparent cousins of the tougher slaad, these are pests
which continue to appear from time to time in order to harass you. Your front-
line melee fighters should be able to kill them quickly once they run up on
you. The biggest danger of fighting sligs is how they seem to travel in packs.

Screamer Beetle: Think a big blue-and-purple beetle and you're thinking about
right for a screamer beetle. With a "scream" ranged attack, these otherwise
fragile creatures can be a nice distraction when in the arena and mixed into a
group. They are about the same strength as sligs, and again their real danger
can come in numbers and the added ability to attack your Preserver or whomever
is battered enough to be their focus.

Sand Howler: These wolflike creatures have four eyes and a paralyzing gaze,
which can leave you in a bind against something stronger in the arena, or just
to be picked apart by a pack while in the wilderness. They're not that hardy,
but the number of attacks they can rattle off can put a dent in a Preserver
rather quickly. Their eyes are an item you will find a need for, so when you
find them in the wild try to find room for the leftovers.

Strine: These look more sinister than they are, resembling large armored
porcupines, but they are a sign things are getting tougher inside the arena.
They have an attack to throw their spines, and a fair bit more health than most
of the lesser beasts. They can provide a nice challenge in high numbers, and
shouldn't be taken too lightly.

Daggoran: A large gold toadlike being, they have some rudimentary ability with
psionics which can be dangerous. They have Control Body, which means the
ability to turn your own party members against you. Mind Blank was made for
this sort of defense, if you can get it up and prepared in time. They should
never be taken lightly, and you should focus on each one in turn until it is
dead rather than leave one standing. This is purely because of the Control
Body potential.

Silt Runner: In the arena only, these creatures resemble gray-skinned humanoids
and have a vast movement range. They like to snipe with slings and will always
be mixed in with melee-type enemies. They are remarkably fragile against
melee attacks, so you will likely not have too much trouble with a strong
fighter.

Ssurian: Reptilian residents of Athas, they are a decent rival in power to
guards from Draj but sadly dangerous only in large numbers. To that point,
you will often find they will attack you in numbers; if this surprises you, you
are playing the wrong game. Expect a nice mixture of melee and ranged combat,
and decent treasures being guarded or left behind.

Dune Reaper: Resembling a praying mantis crossed with a horse and about as
large, these should always be treated carefully. They get five attacks, and
a rather large potential for damage. Mixed with a decent move rate, they can
very quickly destroy your melee fighters or spellcasters. The best option is
to use Ego Whip, Grease, or some other spell to prevent them from getting
attacks and taking them out one by one.

Mountain Stalker: This giant black-skinned monstrosity has tentacled hands
which it flails to attack. They're relatively slow but hardy, and can dish out
four powerful attacks in a round. In the arena, you'll usually only get two at
most; in the wild, you may have to face up to five. To be honest, there is a
significant risk of dying when facing these even to higher-level characters.

Otyugh: These large yellowish creatures have four tentacled arms and exactly
as many attacks. They have a large amount of health and while they don't deal
huge chunks of damage they can be dangerous. They start showing up in the
arena when you make serious progress getting toughened, and can make things
difficult.

Xorn: Rock monsters with four arms and a mouth on top, they have a large
damage output and high health. Added into this is high armor class, and you
have a headache to fight. Two things can keep them from being worse; they are
extraordinarily slow movers, and they generally don't come more than three
to a group in the wild.

Fire Eel: You won't see fire eels above ground, but in the wild you will see
them in large groups. They breathe fire when they attack, and this can be
quite damaging. Protections from fire will cut down on the risk, so
preparations are advised before tackling a pack of fire eels. Their tongues
are desired by alchemists, so be sure to pick them up after a battle.

Bulette: Again, the most you will see of a bulette on the first look is a
mound of sand moving your way. They hunt in pairs, at most, and can be very
dangerous. They have very high health and armor, and a vast potential of
damage output; these things will kill you very easily if you take them
lightly. Keep them away from your spellcasters, and leave your thieves out
of combat this time.

Mastyrial: A scorpion-like creature with a humanoid torso, mastyrials are
dangerous. They have a poison stinger, which can and will deal a chunk of
damage on successful hit (15 or 30). They have a lot of health, movement,
armor, and are very good at hitting you. Approach with caution and focus
damage on one of them at a time. And keep them away from your Preserver!

Styr: Picture a four-armed statue which can move, and that's a styr.
They breathe fire, and are rather tenacious; take them carefully. You will
not face these in the wild, only as set creatures in defense of an area.
The good news? You will likely see them only after you have the strength to
deal with them.

Babau: One of the few demonic entities in the game, babau are a real pain to
deal with. Luckily, they're not wild and are set to defend one area of the
game. Once destroyed, they do not return. Don't attempt to use any spells
other than damaging ones against them, as they will not likely be fazed.

Vrock: A tougher, faster demon you will face around the same area as babau.
These resemble humanoid vultures, and are impossible to mistake for anything
but bad news. Don't take them lightly, because they can and will dish out
serious damage to their targets. They also are immune to even lesser magical
weaponry, anything less than a +2 is going to just bounce off. As with
babau, don't focus on using too much magic against them, though psionics can
sometimes fare better.

Blue Slaad: You'll see these only rarely, and likely once or twice in the
arena. They look just like blue sligs, but don't be decieved; they are much
tougher. Nonmagical weapons simply don't have any effect on them, which means
you need to be creative with fighting them. They also have a poisonous attack
which can kill you easily, and a good chance to hit with it. Attack them
all-out and try to keep them from having a chance to attack and deal damage.

Red Slaad: Crimson cousins of blue slaad, they lack the deadly poison and
instead have an innate regeneration and magic resistance. The good news is,
they seem to lack the requirement of magical weapons to be hurt. The bad
news is, they're still able to dish out respectable damage. Don't
underestimate them, and don't engage them in the wild if you are likely to
add in another fight.

Wyvern: Flying dragons with a poison stinger on their tails, you will need to
be careful dealing with them. They are fast, agile, and have a high chance of
hitting you. Good news for you, they're found only in a particular area and
not wild. The bad news is you'll have to face quite a number of them. Hit them
first, and hard.

Tyrian Slime: Puddles of iridescent slime, they live in the sewer systems and
are an occupational hazard of trying to travel. Their gelatinous forms make
it impossible to hurt one through blunt weapons or ranged attacks; it's time
to break out swords and axes to fight them. They also have full immunity to
fire and acid, which makes a few area-effect spells you will have early on
worthless. They deal additional acid damage when hitting, which can lead easily
to a dead Preserver if you allow it. They also can throw down a sticky web to
keep you from getting to them for melee purposes.

Dagolar Slime: Created through experimentation on Tyrian slimes, Dagolar
slimes are gifted with psionic powers and a slight bit more health. They are
found only around Dagolar, and while aggressive they are just about as easy
to take down as Tyrian slimes. Watch out for their potential to Ego Whip melee-
fighting characters in order to fight back. They are worth significantly more
experience than their Tyrian cousins, and thus very much worth hunting down.

Dark Spider: Large black spiders, you shouldn't have cause to fight them too
much. There are three things you should know about them though. First,
they're intelligent and can have access to psionic abilities. Secondly, they
have a poison bite which is "Save or die" style. Lastly, picking a fight with
them is likely to involve a large number of them, and they're fairly mobile.

Magera: Brutish, large, and capable of dealing heavy blows, you'll find
these creatures quite widely spread. They should be treated just like half-
giant opponents, because they are pretty much "close enough". Don't expose
yourself to being attacked by a large number at once, if at all possible.

Rampager: Huge grey creatures with two-fingered claws, rampagers are
showcased early on to you. This is your warning about how dangerous they are,
and you will luckily meet them only rarely. Their massive damage output and
fear-inducing roar can make your party die without much warning. They also can
corrode armor and weapons, which will leave you ill-equipped rather fast.
Don't engage unless you're fully prepared to fight, and don't be afraid of
running if they haven't engaged combat yet.

--- Elementals ---

A general rule about elementals, you will discover soon you need magical
weapons to be effective against them. The greater the elemental, the higher
the magic value; +2 should be enough for you to be able to disassemble them
without a problem.

Air Elemental: Wispy humanoid forms in mist, air elementals are difficult
to hit but generally not much of a threat alone. The downside to this is
noticing they are never alone; usually they come in groups of five or six.
Luckily, the lesser elementals don't require magical weapons to fight
effectively.

Earth Elemental: Slow, stocky beings made of rocks, they pack quite a wallop.
They're relatively rare to see but can be a pain to deal with due to their
nature making them tough to damage. Approach as you would any other melee
fighter, and destroy completely with focused efforts.

Fire Elemental: Fire elementals are about as dangerous as you would expect;
they're fast, and can deal a lot of damage on successful hits. Furthermore,
they require magical weapons to be damaged. In a consolation you find them in
one area and they don't roam wild.

Water Elemental: I have not seen water elementals outside of being summoned,
most likely due to Athas not having much water to spare. Approach with caution
and expect powerful strikes when you deal with them.

--- Undead ---

Zombie: These are rather standard risen corpses, and you will see them in all
sorts of places waiting to take you out. They're not terribly good at it,
however, and just are an annoyance. Later they become minions mixed with more
dangerous enemies in the area, and can be bad roadblocks.

Shadow: Incorporeal undead which are vaguely man-shaped black spots. They're
difficult to deal with since they require magical weapons to be hit. This is
really the biggest hurdle to deal with, since they don't have a terribly
large amount of health.

Greater Shadow: As the name implies, this is a stronger version of the shadow,
and reacts much the same way. All you need to do is give them more health,
and a cold-damage addition to their attack. Be careful about them, because
they can deal a surprising amount of damage and corrode armor.

--- Humanoids ---

Renegade (Halfling): These annoyances are pretty good at nailing you with
sling attacks, and are among the early fighters in the arena. They crumple
easily under a focused assault, which is recommended. They will always leave
you a bone long sword and a sling, meaning they're not good for loot purposes.

Wild Mul: Melee fighters who enjoy using clubs, they're dangerous for being
able to deal respectable  damage in melee combat. After you graduate to tougher
monsters in the arena, they're almost not worth taking out first. With two
clubs and leather armor, they're not valuable targets.

Defiler: While you have Preservers in your party, Defilers are your enemies
more often than not. They have access to some serious potential damage, and if
you don't take pains to damage them every turn you will discover just how much
they can heap onto you. Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, and the like will all come
your way. Priority targets number one if you see them.

Guards: These go under various names, but their concept remains the same:
leather armor, a bone or obsidian long sword, bows, and a tendency to attack
in groups of five or greater. Their tendency to use ranged attacks even with
your Fighter or Gladiator in their faces can lead to many interesting uses of
swear words. The good news is, they rarely become tougher as you progress,
merely being increased in number and spread out over a greater area. Some of
them carry a randomized item which can be anything from a piece of junk to a
valuable piece of fruit or gemstone.

Templar: Priests devoted to the Sorceror-King, they are dangerous combatants
and should be killed off swiftly. They aren't always called by "Templar" in
the info screen so be aware. More than likely they possess serious psionic
abilities which can make you hurt. They have better equipment than mere guards,
which means you'll often find interesting loot afterwards. They also have a
greater tendency to carry interesting magical fruit or treasures on them.

Guards (Half-Giants): These are separated into a segment all on their own.
While they are not as commonly found as human guards, they make up for it in
being able to land dangerously powerful blows. They use two clubs, and carry
one other piece of gear which is random. Take care of these enemies with a
Hold Person or other similar spell in order to reduce the chance of them
reducing a Preserver to a red paste.

Thri-Kreen: Since they're a character type, let me list them here. As a
character, you're likely to see them use a weapon to fight, but in the wild
you are more likely to see them use natural weapons. This doesn't change the
fact they will swing at least five times on you, and they will have a chance at
paralyzing you. Approach with a moderate amount of caution, because they can
still be defeated easily.

Tohr-Kreen: Green-eyed, spear-wielding, hardier cousins to the thri-kreen,
they move much faster and hit harder. They will be mixed in with some arena
battles once you reach the higher-end of the spectrum. In the wild, you'll see
them in small bands hunting you down tenaciously. I recommend Hold Monster or
Ego Whip to prevent them from shredding you immediately, and taking out active
threats first before focusing on ones prevented from tearing you apart. Don't
try to hold them at range, because their immense movement rate wil ensure they
catch you anyway.


--- 6. Walkthrough ------------------------------------------------- (0600) ---

--- First Fight ---

The game opens on your first fight in the Arena of Draj. You're treated to
watching a defiler being torn apart by a Rampager before you are sent to fight.
This first battle is against three Sligs and a Screamer Beetle, and it's
pretty simple to perform. If you completed it fast enough the crowd will throw
money to you, which is not a lot of money but it can add up. You have the
option to yell back at the announcer, which can trigger additional (and
tougher) fights. You should only do this if you got through unscathed.


--- The Arena ---

Now you have the opportunity to look around the arena, and handle the small
list of things to get done. There are bodies around the floor which have a few
useful items on them, though the Bone Gythka isn't nearly as useful after
getting some other weaponry. There are some tied up people here, but you are
best off not dealing with them until you have water. There's also a vulture
which you can smack the feathers off and take. (As of this edition I have not
found a use for it.)

In subsequent visits, you will be told to approach the center of the arena for
your battle. It's best to try to get most of the fights near the center
outside of obstructions. Each fight gets progressively more difficult, but when
you reach the fifth trip out into the arena you will be challenged by Scar to
either escape with him or fight for dominance in the pens. I have not heard of
any upper limit to the battles, but you will continue getting tougher fights
until you either force your escape or die in the arena.


--- The Slave Pens ---

When you enter, you'll meet Kurzak the head guard. He'll talk with you for a
while, and you can buy a water flask from him for 40cp. I'd advise against it,
since there's a free one around the corner. You can't bribe him enough to do
more than escort you from the pens to the arena. Legcrusher will tell you what
will be coming early on, but after you're drawing the tough battles he loses
track and doesn't know. Once you are shut in the pens, it's time to meet the
fellow slaves. There's Scar, the King of the Pens, and his gang. There's Merzol
and his thugs plotting an attack on the guards. There's Trustee, who is trusted
enough to have the keys. There's Gilal, who is a nice girl hiding in her cell.
There's Mirlon, who is amiable but wants something from you. And lastly there's
Dinos, who is the cook and very happy with his place.

The east hall has an empty water pot in one of the cells, and you will hear
Merzol's gang plotting escape when you near the cell. He tells you to buzz off
until you've won three separate engagements in the arena, and is quite
belligerent. You can't really reason with him and if you annoy him too much
Merzol will attack. For all his mouth runs, his gang goes down quite easily
when you focus. His escape plan is, creatively enough, beating the blood out of
the guards and then just holding the place yourselves.

The next cell on the right has a campfire circle there, which signifies the
only places you can rest and recover in the game. Keep your eye out for these
as you progress, because they're rarer than you might expect. Also, if you walk
close to the campfire while it's "on" (it toggles with each rest) you will be
asked to cook the vulture. Do so, it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

Beyond that cell lies some empty ones, but stop and chat with Gilal; she has a
little bit of information about the slave pens but if you try to talk beyond
that she suddenly gets a headache and clams up. Talk Trustee into letting you
in to see Dinos, and have a talk with the cook. He asks who was screaming, and
if you tell the truth he asks to be escorted to Gilal. Do so, and he manages to
fix her up; you get a nice experience boost for both getting in to see Dinos
and leading him to cure Gilal. Now Gilal can tell you a little more, but she's
still not much help.

Dinos' suite is nice and spacious, and has a water trough set up; be sure to
fill your water pot! You can also rummage in his wardrobe for a bit, and maybe
turn up something useful. His conversation is nice and enlightening, but he's
not going to be any help in an escape attempt.

Scar doesn't feel you're seasoned enough to talk with him about escape, and
would like you to make a name for yourself before actually doing anything.
After you win a few engagements, he'll mention a plan and ask you to decide on
if you're in or out.

Mirlon has a proposition, that you can bribe the guards to let you out. To do
this, though, he needs a gem which his fellow slave had hidden. Seryon had it
on him, and he was staked out in the arena; he's probably dead by now. You
probably don't remember seeing the gem no matter how much you searched, but
there's the use of water. If you proceed to rehydrate the tied-up prisoner
after a match he explains he hid the gem. Mirlon is pleased to get the gem, but
as soon as you try to take advantage of the escape plan he sells you out and
makes a run for it himself.

There's a locked door which Trustee advises you to stay clear of if you try to
open it while he's around. Haunted, who does he think he's kidding? Knocking on
the door allows it to open into a ruined room, and the door slams shut behind
you with no handle on this side! A zombie walks through the west wall to
attack, but you should be able to handle it. Once dead, there's the sound of a
locking door; this is your hint to search for a button. Once you push it, you
can walk through and into a crypt or tomb of some kind. Gather the loot from
the chest and coffin, and leave. You have to break down the door to get out,
but that's not a problem.

Some of the haystacks can be searched for a variety of things, of which this is
a partial list: a handful of ceramic coins, a wooden club, a small bug which
crawls away, a broken pot, an old soiled loincloth (eww!), a scorpion which
stings you for a little damage, and a bone needle (worth 10 experience to
whomever finds it).

After some time, Kurzak will call you to the door. If you don't answer fast
enough he'll send Legcrusher to fetch you. And if you disobey the half-giant
then you trigger the escape alarm and have to fight a lot of guards coming in
through that door. You probably saw them the first time you arrived. Or, you
can knock on the door and demand to fight. I highly recommend going as far as
you can with the bouts so you can gain levels. However, the lack of decent
equipment and the tendency of your bone swords to break means you will
eventually reach a fight you aren't equipped to win.


--- The Escape ---

This deserves its own section, because the game changes as soon as you decide
to take a break for it. There are several scenarios you can follow to get here,
presented by some of your fellow slaves. Or you can make your own way out,
however you choose. The end result is still the same: you need to get your way
to the hidden exit into the sewer system waterways. Each guard here has the
same five pieces of equipment, and a random object which can be useless (junk,
a pick or shovel) or worth hanging onto (fruit, coins, gems). But most
importantly, they have obsidian swords, bows, and arrows. This will give your
team a needed offensive boost, along with some material to sell in the
slightly-near future. The Templars are slightly tougher, and yet have nicer
armor on them to snatch.

If you are careful and cautious, you can wind up funneling the guards into a
nice ambush in a few areas where you can kill them without their bows coming
into play. Please know they will happily sit at range and shoot you to death if
you aren't cautious of that. The half-giant guards also pack a wallop with two
wooden clubs and can seriously put a crimp in your escape plans. If you want to
really get yourself geared for the coming hardships, sweep the guards out and
start looting. You'll find no less than three chests, and three bags which
expand your inventory space significantly.

A quieter escape is possible, if you take apart Dinos' door and exit through
the fountain square. The guard posted there calls for help but the fountain
drowns him out; he's easily dispatched if alone. A room nearby has some piles
of junk you can search (and possibly find some magical arrows or gems). From
there you can continue east to meet Pehctul the head templar. He seems amiable
enough, offering you some healing fruit in return for doing a job for him. The
game is up as soon as you take a peek at his guavas and notice they're deadly
poisonous. Kill him and take his stuff, which includes a nice "Obsidian
Bloodwrath" +1 sword. Keep the guavas instead of throwing them out; they're
worth a nice chunk of coins.

A hidden passage out through a monster pen will allow you to avoid the guards,
as Gilal told you. Though you will have to fight through a mountain stalker to
get to the hidden passage, it's a fair exchange in difficulty.

When you reach the northwestern area, you can find another water pot in the
main kitchen already full, and a stash of grain. You can choose to raid it for
food to carry along or you can just trust your cooked vulture will suffice.
Opening the grate requires either a feat of strength or someone to pick the
lock.

REMEMBER: Once you start the escape, the Arena is sealed off forever and you
can't go fight again. But that should go without saying; the more important
part is doing everything you need to in the Arena floor and not leaving items
behind there.


--- The Sewers ---

Welcome to the sewer waterways, and you're welcomed immediately by some tari
(ratmen) who want to shake you down for coins. They really picked the wrong
people to do this to; it's not all that hard to intimidate them into letting
you pass. Talking with the thugs will net you some extra information to guide
you along, and some signs there is territorial disputes going on. Next, you
will note there are drains in the walls and you can search some of them. There
are a number of things you can find in here: a rat you disturbed (and earned a
bite for your troubles), a skull, an empty bottle reeking of mold, a leather
belt, a stone dagger, a cheap necklace, a broken pot, a shell horn (be certain
you get one of these!), and a Tyrian Slime. Notably, the slime will crawl out
and attack. There are a few items which you will always find in the same place,
regardless of the randomness, but I'll note those as we get to them. The
skeletons in the sewers seem to have randomized loot, sometimes just having a
few pieces of leather gear (which doesn't help your armor class any) and
sometimes having gems or weaponry.

In the center area of the map there is a cult worshipping the Sorceror-King led
by a cast-out templar. You can avoid doing anything to annoy them easily enough
if you talk your way through. To the east of that place is the high warrens,
where there's a campsite. It's important you talk with the chief here, because
he has a special request of you. His daughter was taken by the crazy cult and
is slated to be sacrifice. He'll reward you if you can go rescue her. Then
there's the low warrens near where you entered.
</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
Taking on the cult is easy, you can talk and walk yourself right in to see the
leader. Once there you find you can't talk him out of sacrificing somebody and
if it's not going to be the rat-girl then it will be your party! We can't have
that, so it's fighting time. He has a pair of gloves which will inflict
blindness if he touches you, and some spells he will throw out; this makes him
definitely your primary target to take out. His worshippers are really not too
much of a challenge if you spent a lot of time in the arena. Once he's dead you
can pick up a bone crank lever to open the doors with broken wheels and enter
his back room. Rescue the girl, but she starts talking about other worshippers
who went off to arm themselves. Loot the chest nearby with a scroll of Color
Spray in it, and get back quickly.

Back at the high warrens, the joyful reunion is interrupted by the attack on
the Skull Temple. Assist them in defending the temple, and from losing too many
of their people; everyone is going to rush to attack, even the daughter. She
can very easily be killed. Meanwhile, the skull guardians inside the temple
usually will withstand a rush attack until you can get someone in there to help
out. A Hold Person spell or Ego Whip will help tremendously to keep the cult
members from causing damages. Once you're done, the chief will be grateful and
hand over a metal Helm of Contemplation. This lovely piece of equipment
protects you from gaze attacks, and is extra armor to boot. He'll mention he
found it in the Flushing Tunnels, north of here, and there are often other
useful things found there.

The Skull Temple will admit you now, to speak with the Skull Elders. These are
enchanted skulls created by someone named Dagolar who possess the memories of
the rat-men who came before; they are not too clear about what is ahead for
you but if you're respectful and ask nicely they will give you a bowl to talk
to them with inside the sewer tunnels, and a staff which can be used to see
Dagolar. You're now done here, and it's time to consider what to do next.

As a note, you can trade bags of grain to Churr after you defeat the templar
for either 5cp or a piece of leather armor. You're getting the raw end of the
deal on these offers, but another reason to return is to check out the drain
in Churr's room. There's a ring worth 500cp in the drain, though you will get
a protest from Churr. He won't try to stop you, being an utter coward.

The northern area is crawling with monsters, and it is a huge loop. Stones just
under the surface make walkways you can use, or even fight on to be defensive.
Tyrian Slimes and Sligs make appearances here, often large packs of Sligs.
You'll find more drains to search, but one along the western edge of the area
contains a scroll with Enlarge on it (your Preserver can learn it free of
charge). The northwestern corner with the Flushing Tunnels seems cut off but
someone agile enough can climb the wall. As soon as you do, a Red Slaad is
going to move to attack; shoot him before he gets too close and you can spend
combat turns picking him apart with ranged hits before he even gets close
enough to threaten you. The skeleton here is randomized, like I said earlier,
and one of the drains is, but the other two contain a nice gem worth 750cp and
a metal +1 axe. As a heavy weapon, it limits your options very slightly, but
magical weapons are always nice.

To the center is the outflow, but if you try to leave you find guards have beat
you here and staked it out. If you're in good shape, this fight isn't a serious
danger. But if you're chewed up still and haven't rested there will be
problems. There are about a dozen guards who will take up archery practice on
you, meaning you will have to consider methods of handling this. Wall of Fog
can be rather useful to slow it down, and you can focus on one group at a time.
If you're feeling sneakier, you can continue east and find the secondary exit
hidden behind a secret wall; the switch is not hard to find. This will net you
some more experience and a quieter escape.

Further east is the entrance to Dagolar's tower, but you must have the Staff of
Parting to open it. A small room nearby holds more skeletons with loot on them,
so gather it up and move on. Regardless of the exit you choose, you will be
stopped by a mental contact from the Dragon of Tyr! This is your copy
protection, and you get three chances before he decides you're too stupid to
live and fries your brains. I can't really help you here, but I expect you can
blunder through if you save before initiating the inquisition.


--- Dagolar's Tower ---

Here is a very dangerous place, since there is no resting spot inside and there
are plenty of enemies and ways to chew yourself up. The Dagolar Slimes are like
larger versions of Tyrian Slimes with some psionic attacks and not a notable
amount more HP; the good news is they're worth almost four times as much
experience! You can search the drainage grates and holes in this area, but as
of this edition I haven't found too many useful objects inside them. Oh, and as
a general rule here you should save often and take it slowly.

First you meet a crazed rat-man (Mow) who claims to be the watcher of the
watergate and he wants to help you kill Dagolar. He'll be your guide and he
knows nearly everything about what you encounter. First he explains you need to
kill some guards to get necklaces to enter. The guards are to the east, and
they're not quite themselves. They're not much harder than the arena guards, so
don't be intimidated. A chest in here holds a bone mace in case you want to use
it. Be sure you have everyone wearing the Hound Necklaces when you approach the
entrance, and save in a different slot before entering. The door slams shut
behind you, and now the only way out is to kill Dagolar.

But first, you have his crazed templar associate Keldar (what is it with
templars who go crazy?) who wants to write down how you wish to die. Why?
Everyone needs a hobby, he says. He'll teleport away and sic some shadows and
zombies on you; crush them and let's move on. This area is huge and you can
find several places to be interested in. I'll list them off below so you can
consider them.

There is a chamber with torture equipment and Keldar ran away there; you can
fight him there or let him escape again and deal with more minor undead.
Heading west you find Dagolar is running a water pump and heater along the
northern wall, and it is drawn into a cauldron where you can throw in special
powder for a random effect. The effects are amusing and Mow will keep screaming
how you shouldn't be wasting time. The powder can be used once, and then the
pool "needs to rest" before you can coax an effect out of it again. I'm not
sure how long it does need to rest, because there's a neat glitch; as long as
Mow is with you, the pool "resets" instantly! The pool can summon an allied
zombie or Dagolar slime, an enemy zombie or Dagolar slime, drive all your
characters to single-digit health, dump someone's inventory on the ground, dump
EVERYONE'S inventory on the ground, or no effect whatsoever. You have six vials
of powder in the room, which if you read a little earlier means you can
potentially fight six Dagolar slimes for experience.

A chamber near this room holds some experimental cages which have animals in
them; don't move too close or they lash out at you. The room holds a skeleton
with some minor loot on it. Near this chamber is another which has many other
skeletons and some heavy piles of bone in it. Loot it and let's move on.

Another chamber holds a magic circle and some pots of Tyrian Slime, along with
a book. Here your Preserver can read the book and create a Dagolar Slime if
they can get the spells right. Yes, this means more free experience if you have
the opportunity. Go ahead and knock yourself out, because you can use every
boost you can get.

In the south-center are the dungeons with prisoners being driven slowly mad by
Dagolar, and they don't have much to talk with you about. Approaching them with
the Hound Necklace on kills them instantly; since you no longer needed them
after the Door of Eyes you could ditch them at any time. Several rooms nearby
here hold chests and some minor loot to grab.

Now, to the heart of the matter. Dagolar's room is protected by an archway
which has fire flowing. You can attempt to jump through it and land on the
plate which shuts it off (this is guaranteed to hurt, and just softens you up).
You can also throw the heavy bones through to land on the plate; four piles
will trip it and you can pass. Keldar waits in the antechamber and will lose
his witty demeanor as he sees you are simply not going to die easily; he'll
summon six Dagolar slimes to attack and you can take him out. I highly
recommend making sure he's not casting by hitting him at range or charging him
to kill in melee. Once you beat him (and pick up his equipment with the amusing
book) you can push to the back room; if Mow is still alive and with you,
Dagolar will destroy him and make a grand speech about how you aren't the
first to come after him. He's not hard to take out, but if you can't stop him
from casting you will be hurt.

Once you leave into the antechamber Dagolar pops up and commends you on
destroying his decoy, and decides he has to get his hands dirty to do this
himself. More Dagolar slimes, and he has some serious spellpower to fight you.
This time, you can't use ranged attacks on him so you need to come get him. He
has some nice loot, and you will get a massive experience boost for destroying
him. He has a Living Cloak which serves as protection from most missile
attacks, and a real nice metal +3 dagger. This is an exceptional weapon to hand
to anyone, since its damage output is quite insane; it also raises the Charisma
of one who uses it. Beyond that, there's a wand of Control Body and a wand of
Magic Missile (they has limited uses, so be careful).

You can finish the dungeon in the way listed above, or you can become more
creative and put some pieces together which you found in the dungeon.
Gorbatrix the zombie is locked up as "My Biggest Mistake" and Mow screams at
you not to enter when you try to open the door. If you read some of the scrolls
left around, it's clear Gorbatrix was once Dagolar's brother, and this is what
happened to him. On entering, Gorbatrix approaches and Mow flips out and goes
crazy; he reveals he's actually Dagolar and he "didn't mean it". Then he's
gone and Gorbatrix wants you to follow him. The zombie walks through the fire
arch to click it off, meaning you don't have to do anything . . . once you
reach the antechamber, Dagolar is still flipping out and if Keldar is still
here there's something quite amusing which happens. This will allow you to kill
Dagolar without needing to go through a lot of trouble, though you will need
to go through more of his slimes. A lot more of his slimes.

After destroying Dagolar, all enemies you haven't killed will be removed from
the area, and a campfire circle will spawn in Dagolar's room in the northwest.
I recommend using it.


--- Fields of Draj ---

Fresh air at last, and depending on where you came out there might be some
guards. The good news is how lightly defended this place is. There are three
major areas of the crop fields, one in the northeast, one in the southwest,
one in the southeast. There are only a few things to do here, some more
important than others. Any serf not in the fields will have something you need
to talk with them about, so do so.

One of the serfs wishes to escape, and can bribe you with a huge gemstone he
pried out of an obelisk to the southwest. Take him up on the offer when you
clear the way, and return the gem to see it glow . . . ominous! But important.
Another serf will sell you stolen magic fruit: red pears (400cp), lemons
(500cp), green grapes (175cp), corn (250cp), orange grapes (425cp). More
importantly, he will buy the junk and gems you've hauled with you through your
escape! Take this opportunity to divest yourself of things you don't have a use
for but are worthwhile. As a note, NEVER sell gems which look like the one you
put in the obelisk. No, don't do that; you will regret it.

Old One-Eye in the center of the field will talk with you for a bit, but he
can't help you except to point out a weak point in the fence along the eastern
side. Yes, the guards are aware of it and there's a token group there. If
you're rescuing the serf, better off taking the main exit after you clear it;
that isn't hard, considering you can easily rush them and take them out.

The exit to the east will take you to a stranded caravan which has been
attacked by raiders. The exit to the north will get you closer to the village
of Teaquetzl; it's advantageous to head there as early as possible so you can
begin the game's real plot. Yes, you can re-enter the sewers and from there to
the slave pens in case you left something behind. This is significantly more
trouble than it's worth.

There is a minor glitch; sometimes the serf will not follow you, and will
reset his dialogue. This means you will get a duplicate obelisk gem. I have
found a cure for this glitch is to enter Teaquetzl Environs first, then return
and collect him. There is no apparent time limit on leading him to safety.


--- Teaquetzl Environs ---

So you rescued that poor serf from enslavement, only to watch him fall prey to
the denizens of the desert wild. Let this also serve as a warning to you: this
world does not mess around. You can, and will likely, be ambushed just as
easily as this man. The only difference is you have a better chance of survival
thanks to your time in the arena.

On the body before you is a messenger's scroll which contains a rather chilling
warning: an army is being gathered to sweep the wastes and crush the
independent villages one by one. The warning needs to be delivered, but most
interesting is the mention of heroes and visionaries; who in the world could
that possibly be?

The man standing there is less than pleased with the prospect and not very
helpful but he does have a campfire you can share (and rest up at). From here
there are four other exits, though only three are of interest. The northern
one leads to Teaquetzl village, the west one into the Salt Flats, and the
eastern one into the Red Sands Area. (No, really, the game refers to it as
such.)

There is a ssurian female traveling around, but she won't hurt you unless you
seriously provoke her. You have a chance to help her out later on, if you pay
attention to clues. Oh, and the guard to let you into the village would like
you very much to have a reason to come in or he'll try to throw you out on
your ear. Time to go find a good reason to enter other than the message and
"prophecy" mentioned on it.

Enemies in this area include fire eels, red slaad, dune reapers, mastyrials,
defilers with bodyguards, and bulettes.


--- Red Sands Area ---

This area is disrupted by the large ridge in the center area, which can be
walked up onto and along. Three people call this area home, and there's
another interesting obelisk here without a gem. First among these people is
a sage who insists on you being part of the "Veiled Alliance" and wants to
donate some items to help you. One of which is the gem from that obelisk, and
the other is a rod of metal detection. It has limited actual use, but it's a
nice gesture.

There's a man near some tents who is an alchemist (Notaku), and will have
three tasks for you to perform. These tasks coincide with your needs to
investigate and complete the main quest so it never hurts to check up on the
tasks. First he wants you to deliver some rankite pith to Father Garyn in
Teaquetzl and will pay you for the task. Once you have done that, you can come
back and discover he wants a "Terror Bloom" which can be found at one of the
other villages. Lastly, he wants a stinger from a mastyrial near Gedron. He'll
also pay you for recovering specific components which he can refine into usable
things; no you don't get to figure out what things are used for but he pays
well for fire eel tongues, sand howler eyes, and Tyrian butterfly wings. I
mean it, if you want to work for some extra money then this is the way to go
about it.

Notaku will pay you 50cp for sand howler eyes (75cp if you successfully talk
him up), 150cp for fire eel tongues, and 450cp for Tyrian butterfly wings.
Only the butterfly wings are exhaustable in supply, but after you sell him a
specific component you will not get another option to sell to him; the items
will no longer drop. When you return a Terror Bloom to him he will give you
Derth's Wand, which fires a Lightning Bolt for a few times. Returning the
specially treated mastyrial stinger will earn you the El's Shield, the best
shield you can get, as well as a lemon and an orange. A side-note; when you
return the Terror Bloom another item is added to the game which you will get
much later on and is as good as the shield. I do not know if the mastyrial
stinger likewise triggers a changed item; I did not discover one in my play.

Lastly, there is a man (Demothi) who claims to have trained a mastyrial (Alita)
to fight for and obey him; certainly it seems to be tamed, but he wants a bag
of salt to trade for it. This isn't a good deal, and you don't happen to have
any salt on you.

There are four exits here: to the south there is a stranded and ruined caravan,
to the west is the Teaquetzl Environs, to the east is a rocky plain, and to the
north is the Druid's Oasis.

Enemies in this area include sand howlers, dune reapers, strine, rampagers,
otyughs, tohr-kreen, defilers with bodyguards, and rogue earth elementals.


--- Teaquetzl Village ---

Welcome to Teaquetzl, where the guards are surly and the villagers are helpful.
Something wrong there, right? Wrong! This is Athas. The guard will demand to
know your business, which is easier to explain if you have the pith in hand.
He'll direct you towards Father Garyn and let you go. Take care of business
there, and chat him up; he's a pretty good source of information.

There are a number of merchants here worth noting. The bowyer will sell you
ranged weapons in case you still need some to fill out your party's equipment.
The weaponsmith has a couple nice pieces, including a metal long sword. Just
about any standard piece of equipment can be bought here, and you can sell off
what you don't need. The armorsmith invites you to use his forge if you wish,
provided you have what it takes to make anything. He'll also sell you some
metal chainmail leggings for 3000cp, of which he has a limited amount.
Nevertheless, it's a pleasant addition to your armor.

The visionary will greet you and talk in riddles, and if you can puzzle out
what he's talking about you can get a good idea of what's in store for you. But
you can also get a sense of why the townsfolk think the man is a lunatic. You
can go talk to Chahl and Lieutenant Kwerin after your meeting, and you start to
get the sense of what's going on with the townsfolk. It's relatively obvious
they've had a chance to settle into complacency with the well and the lack of
pressing doom. Kwerin is unhappy with the leadership, viewing Chahl as nothing
more than a rockheaded mul. Dominy is the well master and explains how he found
this supply of water which hasn't run dry yet. It's an interesting
conversation, which points to some interesting thoughts.

Concerning the well, something the visionary said suggests there's something in
the bottom of it. Draw some water for the well, and then look into it to see
something below! Climb down it to enter a long-ruined temple complex and listen
to the story of the shade. While you're here grab the gem from the floor and
take it out to plug it into the obelisk. The visionary handed you a special rod
known as Llod's Rod. It's time to play with strange toys; the rod proves to
have a key use which will make things a whole lot easier on your feet. The rod
can teleport you to any active obelisk (one which has the gem replaced inside
it) so long as you are above ground or otherwise unwarded.

Most importantly for yourself, there's a house with a campfire circle in it
which is now yours. Some gifts have been placed there for you to enjoy. Your
initial offerings are a +2 Swiftbite (a bone long sword), white grapes, lemon,
a half-dozen +2 arrows, 2 gems (worth 50cp), and two chests to store things.
Your home has four static chest objects where your gifts will later be
deposited. This is a wonderful place to stash chests of supplies too if you
want to clean out your inventory some. Especially once you have the obelisk
functional so you can return at nearly any time; this will allow you to store
extra pieces of armor or weapons (or arrows) for resupplies.

Now it's time for you to get to work recruiting. You have your first lead from
your delivery of the pith extract: the village of Gedron. That's the good news.
The bad news, you're about to delve into one of the roughest territories in the
game. First of all, it would be nice to deal with the local areas and see what
you can discover. Let's head to take care of some loose ends to the east.

As you recruit villages, your rewards will be given out. For recruiting Gedron,
you will be given a wooden +1 Phrain's Bow, 6 wooden arrows +2, a scroll of
Turn Pebble to Boulder, and an Orange. For recruiting Cedrilite, the council
springs for a leather Helm of Might, a psionic bracelet of Share Strength, a
Red Pear, and 6 Wooden Arrows +3.


--- Ruined Caravan ---

Entering this area from the east, you will undoubtedly notice the caravan
early. Or what's left of it; magera bandits hit it hard and carted off nearly
everyone. There are a couple rough battles against magera which can be a
handful due to having high damage. It's always recommended to use paralysis
or suppression spells/powers to make things easier if you can.

Once you rescue everyone, the caravan's scouting party returns and they prepare
to head off. In thanks they'll give you a +1 Hornblade, which is a bone short
sword. If you've started gathering people for your alliance, Kalinin will agree
in order to get shelter fast for his people. (As far as I can tell, there is no
additional reward for you to add these folks to the alliance.)

Near the bandits' holding area is a bridge over a small ravine; when you walk
over it you can see something below. But without a rope you can't go down
there. Luckily, there's a plant nearby with thick vines which you can use, and
climb down into another section of the underground temple. You can't do too
much here, until you have learned more about the sad story of the temple. But
remember this place, because you will need to come back.

After you have cleared the area, sand howlers, rampagers, strine, and other
beasts will roam the area.

There are two exits here, one back to the Fields of Draj and the other north
into the Red Sands area.


--- Druid's Oasis ---

This area seems empty, but there are a couple things you can do. The southeast
corner has an oasis with some seed pods in it, and Tyrian butterflies. You may
recall being asked to find wings by the alchemist but there's a trick to
getting  them. Grab a seed pod and plant it, and the druid of the oasis
appears and thanks you. He asks what he can do for you, and you can ask for
butterfly wings, or decline a reward. Declining a reward gets you some
experience points, but if you are fast you can catch him before he disappears
again and request butterfly wings; he'll give you six or so. Harming a
butterfly will bring him out, to yell at you and if you act contrite enough he
will also give you some.

To the north near that exit there's a man in a green robe. When you approach it
turns out to be a familiar face who recognizes you just as quickly. "Oh no
. ." He'll beg to be spared and offer the location of a treasure if you leave
him be. He'll tell you at the "Dragon's Eye" there is something buried, and
direct you westwards. Or you can kill him and his five guardsmen and loot some
precious gems off his corpse along with a scroll of Stoneskin and two
nonmagical rings.

I've never seen spawned monsters on this particular area, so I don't think they
will show up. Take it as a breather you walk through and be grateful.

Two exits: to the south is the Red Sands Area and to the north is the Slaver
Camp.

--- Slaver Camp ---

The major feature here is a walled encampment to the north, and the fields
around the place have some tough groups which can spawn. Approaching the camp
will get you ordered to halt and identify yourself. You can bully your way
through, but if creatures followed you and start fighting near the camp the
guards will raise an alarm. (This is a silly glitch, and can happen just about
everywhere.)  You can, of course, simply cut your way in and free the slaves in
the back easily enough.

But if you can bully your way past pretending to have authority to talk to the
leader, you can get close to their camp and interrupt some haggling. It turns
out the elf here is selling slaves to a templar from Draj, and that templar
recognizes you. If you are quick with the suggestion, the elves decide the
templar isn't worth fighting for and will ally with you.

The slaver guards are armed with metal axes, bows, and leather armor; the ones
guarding the slave pen have bone long swords. The templar has a bone mace and
some metal chain sleeves on him. And the captain of the slavers has a bone +1
gythka and some +1 arrows on him, along with a metal long sword. Overall, this
will be a very nice haul for sale and to flesh out your own equipment. If you
can convince the slavers to ally with you, you'll be given the +1 bone gythka
as a gift.

Three slaves are up for sale, one of which is a warrior of Gedron who was sold
into slavery by a man called Wyrmias. If by chance you've already freed the
town and secured an alliance, he'll rush home. A second slave captured is from
Teaquetzl itself and will return home when you tell him it's safe. Another is
from a caravan to the south which got attacked, and they'll leave to try to
return.

The three exits here lead to the Elven Caravan in the north, the Battlefield to
the west, and the Druid's Oasis in the south.

Enemies in this area include fire eels, red slaad, blue slaad, dune reapers,
sand howlers, bulettes, a defiler and his bodyguards, and various other
monsters who want to make your trip less pleasant.


--- Battlefield ---

This area is a broad expanse of empty waste, except for a lone figure who turns
out to be a Drajian messenger. He'll summon a blue slaad to fight you when you
try to talk to him, and attack. He carries his message, a scroll of Fire
Shield, and some gear. The message is from the head templar of the slave pens
saying to cut off the escaped gladiators before they find one of the towns.
You'll get some experience bonus for reading it, and you're free to travel.

You may also run into Hototo, chief of the White Sand Outlaws. He's
transporting a slave through the area, and he is expecting Dagger. Since he
catches you, you can pose as Dagger or his associate and listen in. The slave
he is escorting is docile and will follow you all around the area. I haven't
yet figured out just WHAT to do about this, since the slave doesn't appear to
switch zones with you. According to some research, Dagger is supposed to show
up to claim his slave, and you can kill him. When he dies, the slave comes to
his senses and you can get a campfire circle here.

This has not happened to me, as I cannot seem to find just the right place to
find Dagger.

There will, on occasion, be bulettes present.

Three exits: To the east is the Slave Camp, to the north is into the Deep
Wilds, the west is into the Hot Springs.


--- Elven Caravan ---

Entering the caravan, you're greeted by a suspicious guard who wants to ensure
you're not there to raid the place and wantonly slaughter. Just be pleasant
instead of adversarial and you'll be all right. Then he'll direct you to see
the caravan leader and then to Larissa the local seer.

The wagon master will greet you and tell you about the caravan rather nicely.
She'll invite you to rest at the visitor's circle, and to make sure you talk to
everyone. As mentioned a couple times now, there are bandit attacks going on
from two separate bands. You'll be offered a chance to do some work taking care
of these bands, which you'll have to do anyway. Be sure you accept the missions
here before you go and take care of it, or you won't get the option of claiming
a reward.

Larissa is a seer, and if you talk to her for a bit, she will be openly
dismissive of the visionary in Teaquetzl. She claims she hasn't forseen any
doom for the villages, and therefore he must be a fraud. She will talk with
you, though, and her advice is more direct and as helpful as that of the
visionary.

Jark sells armor and weapons, for a decent price. He'll sell nearly any piece
of normal equipment you have found as of yet, and between him and the merchants
in Teaquetzl you can get any nonmagical weapon or armor you can find. Even
Chatkchas for thri-kreen. This is a good place to remember if you need to
replace broken armor or weapons.

Kel in the southwest offers priceless artifacts for sale, or so he claims. And
they're from all over Athas, absolutely priceless and irreplacable. He tells a
lot of good stories about his items, but there's a hole in what he tells. See,
he pried this big yellow gem out of the obelisk, but believes it's utterly
nonmagical. Right about now you should reconsider buying any of this things
unless you have money to burn. Frankly, I doubt anything "special" he sells has
any use beyond merely looking good in your inventory.

Kel's goods are as follows: Apple (500cp), Scroll of Web (6000cp), 8 Wooden
Arrows +1 (2000cp), Lime (300cp), Corn (250cp), Scroll of Spirit Armor (9000cp)
Gem (1000cp), Serpent's Ring (250cp), Degula's Tear (1000cp), Dreaming Eye
(1500cp), Metal Soulcrusher Axe (1000cp), Talisman Venom (50cp), Leather
Dapartea's Helm (20cp), Leather Koeatl's Cloak (100cp),  Wooden Seeker (500cp).
None of the "mystical artifacts" show any signs of magic when you check them
out (and the Sage knows nothing about any of them) so buy at your own risk.
The scrolls and magical food are still quite useful, and Soulcrusher is still
a magical axe. And of course, the obelisk gem is very important.

Tobrian the wine seller will almost aggressively offer you a sample of his
wine, which should put the suspiciousness in you. If you accept, you most
likely will wind up falling over asleep and wake up without your goods and
being sold to slavers to the south. You can fight your way out through the
whole group, or you can boast of your fighting prowess and only have to kill
four Daggorans. You still have access to your magic, so you should be capable
of handling this.

If you resist the poison (this can be neatly accomplished with a Neutralize
Poison just before drinking) you can accuse Tobrian of poisoning you, but he
professes to nothing. If you return from your escape from the slavers, he'll
break down and swear it was never HIS idea, it was THEIR idea and he had no
choice! See, he saved your things here for you. You can threaten to take this
up with the Driana the caravan master if you like. And once you get there, he
spins a tale of how you demanded wine for free and when guards walked by you
decided to spin a tale and try to weasel your way out. Tell the truth about
what happened, and you will most likely win your judgement. Depending on how
this went down, you will be given 500cp in compensation (for resisting the
poison) or you will be given 1000cp and his wagon. He winds up fined a hefty
sum and dismissed from the caravan ("Be glad this isn't a harsher punishment"
implying she contemplated leaving him in your hands).

At the visitor's circle you will find Katura, who came here from Teaquetzl for
supplies. After a little chatter, she'll depart saying she's due back. The
campfire is good to rest up, so you can continue on your way. On later visits
you will find a couple people who can tell you about local things of interest,
and you should listen to them. They'll tell you some useful things.


--- Salt Flats ---

Well this is a nice looking area! The designs are interesting, and the company
is not aggressive. There's a huge dragon taking up most of the area, a couple
other symbols, and four ways out. Start by chatting up the wandering folk.

First is a salt merchant, who is collecting fine salt to purify and use as
trade in far places. If you ask him about buying salt, he'll quote you a price
of 2000cp; you might be able to talk him down and he'll hand you the salt.
There's only one use for this salt, and since it's a long road to
disappointment you don't necessarily want to spend the money.

There's a ssurian following a dust devil around, and he will talk with you for
a while describing what he's doing here. It seems he's striking out to form a
new tribe and the dust devil is going to lead him in the journey as his totem.
If you're respectful and manage to learn all you can, and earn his respect you
will be given some experience points as a reward. Now for the second half of
this small sidequest: return to the area to the east and tell the other ssurian
about him, mentioning he is starting a tribe and his totem is the dust devil.
She'll opt to join him and your efforts will mark you a friend of this new
tribe (or at least "not prey"). Return to ask her how things turned out, and
if you declined to receive a reward before she wil give you a magic ring:
"Steadfast Ring". It raises a character's Constitution by 3 points, which
can be very nice!

If you were told by the announcer about the special treasure, grab a shovel and
use it over the eye in the dragon painting. A chest pops out with a few nice
pieces of treasure and the A'poss Heart crystal. This is important, because
with it you can start handling the sidequest under the desert. You'll also like
the treasure, I'm quite sure.

Lastly, in the northwestern corner there is a man walking along a symbol. He
claims to be too busy to talk, and tells you to walk the path with him if you
wish enlightenment. Walk along the symbol carefully and slowly, and you'll
start to notice an effect. Once you finish you will be granted some experience,
and the man will actually speak to you kindly. If you ask, he will offer some
psionic bracelets (the Psionicist equivalent of scrolls) for sale; be prepared
to pay a lot for them! He will sell you Lemons (500cp), Stone Daggers (1cp),
Ego Whip, Synaptic Static, Psionic Blast, Intellect Fortress (9000cp each). He
also has a +2 wooden quarterstaff for sale (4800cp), which you should probably
purchase.

On occasion you will notice enemies here, which may be any of the following:
mountain stalkers, xorn [NOTE:: To be finished]

Four exits here lead to various places: to the west is Cedrilite Village, to
the south are the Lava Fields, to the north is the Painted Desert, and to the
east are the Teaquetzl Environs.


--- Lava Fields ---

There's very little reason to leave this alone, unless you haven't gotten some
magical weapons yet. Fire elementals have overrun the area, and there is a
defiler being blamed for it. There's some confusion on just who is to blame, as
the old man insists he is being attacked while the younger ranger near the
ruins in question tells you roughly to buzz off.

When trying to clarify it with the older man, he'll start screaming at you
about how the elementals are there to kill him, and then one will come
approaching and attack you immediately. The solution isn't apparent but you
have to use your head: the old guy is the defiler, and he is the one summoning
elementals. Kill him and take his stuff, which includes an Iron Necklace (this
casts Fireball a set number of times). Return to speak with the ranger and
he'll thank you for settling the matter. You'll receive a bracelet of Energy
Containment for your efforts.

A strange bug occurs when you approach the ruins, the hermit (dead or alive)
will begin screaming at you to leave and summon some lesser fire elementals.
If you approach before talking with the ranger, you'll be given his Iron
Necklace (which will not be duplicated, naturally).

Enemies spawning here include daggorans, thri-kreen, tohr-kreen, and the
occasional fire elemental.

The only exits here are to the Salt Flats, and to the Meteor Crater.


--- Meteor Crater ---

There are thri-kreen all over this place, and they will hunt you down for
intruding. They're not too dangerous, but more of an annoyance. This area is a
nice spot to play around in, as one of the travelers said at the Elven Caravan.
There are lava domes all over the place which can be cracked open for
gemstones, so long as you have a pickaxe on hand. Be careful, as some of these
are traps which are bad to trigger and don't go away. I didn't take an exact
count, but between 60 and 70 lava domes are around here, which can yield one
gem each (ranging from 100cp to 1000cp value). Do the math; this should be
more than enough money to overcome financial problems.

To the western edge, there is a large meteor impact crater, which still has a
piece embedded in the bottom. What you're looking for is a way to trigger the
large geyser and force the meteorite loose. There are seven smaller geysers
which flow regularly . . . and seven heavy rocks which can be found in the
area. Scouring the area will allow you to find them, and you will need to match
each one to the particular geyser it fits. Once you plug all the small geysers,
the large one will explode and the meteorite will be flung southwards. Be aware
you may take damage from the explosion of the large geyser if you are too
close.

With the meteorite in hand, you can notice it's got a significant amount of
metal in it. Taking that meteorite to the smith's shop in Teaquetzl, you can
smelt it down into a metal rod radiating unearthly energies; furthermore you
can make it into a +1 metal axe.

[Rumors abound about being able to use the "sword blank" item for something
similar, but I haven't figured anything out.]

This area holds a large number of thri-kreen as enemies. As they're only level
2 enemies, they tend to die after roughly 12 to 14 damage. The trouble is in
the sheer number which can come after you.


--- Painted Desert ---

Here you'll find a large oasis of water with some guards around it. They're not
happy to see you and would cheerfully recruit you as slaves if they had the
chance. Fighting back leads to a huge battle which will sweep around the edges
to take out archery-happy guards and the templar leading them. The druid of the
area will thank you for your efforts, and reward you for your kind services.

You can come at this area another way, by being recruited in another area and
brought here to fight the druid. Having the chance, then, to turn on the group
you came with and then clean out the oasis. It makes slightly more sense in this
context, but it is almost random in being triggered.

Xorn sometimes make an appearance here, along with some other enemies. I have
not come through this area to make a near complete listing. There really is not
too much in this place.

The two exits from this area lead south to the Salt Flats and north to the Hot
Spring.


--- Hot Spring ---

On entering, you're stopped by a man who claims to have escaped from a slave
band mining copper. If you have the rod of metal detection on you, you do seem
to get a response, but there's already some templar who's been convinced there
is a large and profitable vein here. If you spent some time with the Elven
Caravan, you probably met the man who told him that.

You can let yourself be press-ganged into digging, which takes shifts of
swinging the pick at a hole and then bagging the sand with a shovel. There is
an uncommon glitch where you can't seem to bag the sand, which means you can't
proceed. I have tried a couple times, but never found anything there. Killing
these idiots is easy, and you can earn a few nice things from the templar's
corpse.

Further to the north there are some traveling warriors who expect to join the
fight against the villages. They're not that bright, and you can likewise kill
them.

Three exits exist here, one leading east into the Battlefield, another leads
north into Gedron Village, and the south one enters the Painted Desert.


--- Gedron Village ---

On arriving here, you're likely to notice the townsfolk acting really odd.
There's a merchant who hawks his wares as the finest broken pots in Athas, for
instance. Further exploration leads you to the healer, Linara, who is keeping
people sedated for their own good. You can deliver the pith extract to her at
last, and she explains why she needs it. A psionicist called Wyrmias is using
the town as his personal toybox and sometimes makes the folk self-destructive
for his own amusement. Her sister fled rather than fight, because she wasn't
quite strong enough. The able-bodied warriors were sold into slavery, and
Wyrmias is expending his energies searching for something.

The mayor's house is in the center of town, and he'll talk for a bit before
Wyrmias takes over and proposes to you a task: he's looking for two pieces to a
broken statue in the town square, and if you retrieve them he promises to
leave. Wyrmias can be reached directly by finding a hidden door in the
antechamber, but he'll make you the same proposal if you meet him face to face.
And if you happen to have one of these pieces already, he'll take it from you.

The well here leads down into the underground ruined temple, to the prison of
A'Poss. Consult the relevant section if you intend to visit there. The obelisk
here is also missing its gem and the location is not readily apparent.

Once you return with the statue pieces, Wyrmias is ever so grateful and repairs
that statue. Then he'll offer you a free shot at him, taunting you as the last
thing he'll ask you to do. Take the shot, and he crumples; then the statue
animates, inhabited by Wyrmias now. He'll taunt you about the fantastic power
he has received thanks to you, and releases the town. But he insists you will
see him again "rather soon".

You can make that "right now" and strike at him; the statue is slow to depart
the area. It has a lot of health and a nice AC, plus can attack roughly as many
times as a thri-kreen since it has four arms. These attacks hurt. Furthermore,
you won't find much magic or psionics working. If you've come this far, you are
likely able to win against it; there are no guarantees, however.

Once freed, Gedron returns to sanity. You can met Linara and tell her about
this, and she reveals there's a safe she knew about in Wyrmias' room under the
rug. Inside you will find the gem from the obelisk, and a sword called "El's
Drinker". This +2 metal longsword is one of the rather nice magical weapons in
the game, as it has a Vampiric Touch it will cast on a successful hit.
Remember, Vampiric Touch will allow you to exceed your normal hit point limit
for a short while.

The mayor thanks you, but asks you to retrieve Gedron's warriors; they would
not return unless Wyrmias was killed. Once that is done, they will head back
and the mayor considers your offer of fighting Draj. Faced with the prospect,
he's not happy but he can deny you nothing for having freed the village.
Reluctantly he accepts the alliance.

When you return to Teaquetzl, the gate guard will acknowledge this, and the
council will thank you with gifts stored in your home (you MUST see the council
to claim them). These include a +1 Phrain's Bow, a half-dozen +2 arrows, a
scroll of Turn Pebble to Boulder, and an orange.

Three exits from the village lead to Arant's Camp in the north, the Deep Wild
to the east, and the Hot Spring to the south.


--- Deep Wild ---

On entering, a renegade halfling will run your way warning about the monsters
here. He's not kidding, this place is crawling with sincerely difficult
encounters. Two mastyrials are on his heels, and they'll catch you as easily as
him.

In the southwest area there is a clan of ssurians who are expecting to buy
slaves with a piece of statue and some coin. They'll deal with you instead, if
you make a better offer. And have slaves to trade. You need this statue piece,
but it's easier to simply put them to the sword and take it after. The good
news is hearing about the slaves to be traded: they're being held to the north
through Gedron. You can go free them if you like, but holding off is probably
the best idea. You could always haggle the price of the statue piece to 18,000
ceramic pieces. If you're swimming in cash and not willing to spill blood over
this (why stop now?) then you can get that piece without breaking a sweat.

Also in this area are nests which hang on the sides of rocks. If you can get
close enough you can invesitgate them for some nice pieces of treasure. Unlike
the sewer drains and skeletons, the items seem to be set instead of random.
You will find in here: red pear, a pouch with 10cp in it, a leather belt, an
apple, gems (two worth 500cp, one worth 750cp, one worth 1500cp), and a
bracelet of Mind Bar.

If you were sent here seeking the mastyrial stinger, you will need to go to the
north-center of the area. You can climb down onto some sand in order to get to
the other bird nests, and in that place is a mastyrial which is resting after
feeding. Killing it is simple, since it is alone. Returning the stinger to the
alchemist will get you a rather nice reward for the troubles.

Monsters found here include air elementals, mastyrials, mountain stalkers,
babau, red slaad, daggorans [NOTE:: List to be completed]. And there is a high
chance of them appearing on top of you, which makes this a truly dangerous area
to fight in. Don't let yourself idle here too long, or you can be piled

Three exits here, one leading west into Gedron Village, one leading north into
the Magera Camp, and one leading south into the Battlefield.


--- Magera Camp ---

On entering, you're more than likely to notice some magera gathered in the
center-west area. They sternly tell you to begone, the sacrifice is prepared
and you're not wanted here. Despite all the warnings, you can wander around and
take a look. There isn't much to look at, but there is a broken bridge which
separates the eastern area. Finding a grappling hook in the camp, it's likely
you can fish it up and fix it.

To the north there is a snake skeleton which you can follow down onto the silt,
where a woman is bound for sacrifice. She happens to be Jasmine, the sister of
Gedron's healer. As you free her, you are attacked by the silt horror. This
unique monster is represented by tentacles which home in on you and can
seriously hurt you and your new rescuee. After tearing them apart and forcing
the silt horror to retreat, a maddened druid proclaims you're ruining
everything and also attacks. Kill him, and take a statue piece from his corpse.
Jasmine thanks you for helping her, but can't return to Gedron until it's safe
for her. She will, however, give you some scrolls and her spellbook to show her
sister she's alive and well.

There's nothing more to do here, so you may choose to either leave to the south
and enter the Deep Wild, or to the west and meet the slave trader Arant.


--- Arant's Camp ---

Arant's guards are lazy, and complacent from their easy guard duties. Arant is
understandably a little peeved at them for this, especially because they don't
bother to escort you to their leader. He's selling slaves from Gedron, but he's
just about had it with this region. If you make the deals for him, he'll take
your money and consider it square. He'll also take around 8000cp for the
slaves, or a magic sword if you feel like giving one up. The easiest course is,
of course, to avoid dealing with him altogether, but where's the fun in that?
The fun is, you can kill him for some Grey's Scale armor; his guards are
pushovers, being rather close to what you've been dealing with as far as human
opponents go.

The slaves to be sold aren't pleased to be going back unless Wyrmias has been
dealt with. Once you tell them you're finished taking care of him, they will
agree to return to the village.

Of course, you can also turn around and try giving them to the ssurians for
their statue piece. But you'll still need to make your alliance with Gedron,
which is hard without their warriors.


--- Cedrilite Village ---

Welcome to a village under siege by wyvern riders, and you will be greeted as
soon as you enter with them. Three Castle Soldiers and their wyverns will run
for you and strike. They'll attack the hapless villagers too, so you might
want to do your best to protect them. The poison from wyverns will be
dangerous since you will be killed outright by the poison. After killing them
a villager will offer to escort you to the leader. Chaya will not be as warm as
you would expect, but if you're calm you can talk her down with a promise to
deal with the raiders. She'll give you the chest under her bed for the offer,
and in the chest is the obelisk gem for Cedrilite's obelisk. She will also
put a campfire circle down if you request it, so be sure to do so.

The villagers aren't exactly a talkative lot, but you can get a little more
information. Krikor the dwarf is charting the mountains, but he is surly and not
talkative until he realizes you won't leave him alone unless he answers your
questions. He'll tell you about a hidden tunnel system in the cliffs north of
town, and where to find the entrance.

Lukyan the lore master will be one of your contacts here, to discuss the
potential of a Terror Bloom. Only a rampager slain under the shadow of a</pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
serpent tree will provide one, and it happens there is a serpent tree in
Cedrilite. He also tells you the Terror Bloom is needed for poisons which are
among the most potent. He will also warn you of some of the fungi around here
being rather dangerous to disturb. Don't take this warning lightly.

Uskuye the warrior tells you how he saw the battle with the raiders, and it
impressed him. You can enlist his assistance in hunting the rampager, and he
is eager for such a fight. He's not too much assistance since the rampager will
lay waste to him all too easily. If you approach him at other times, he'll take
an offer to hunt some beasts with you.

To the northwest corner is the serpent tree. You can do this two ways, by
knocking on the trunk or by standing anywhere near the tree and blowing a horn.
The rampager rushes out fast and you will be in battle before you can set up.
Of course, you can set up before blowing the horn too, and that will work
out nicely. Having Ego Whip with a good level will make it easier, if you can
get it off.

The well to the south of the town leads down into the Underground Temple, in
the southern gate. This is a good way to enter, but you will be warned by the
guardians about the cursed nature of the ruins. If you have business in the
temple you can pass if you're adamant enough. Consult the section on the
Underground Temple for further information.

Finding the entrance to the tunnels, a character needs to be right next to the
special stone or you'll just get messages about how peculiar that stone is. If
you were informed about how to find the entrance there won't be too much
confusion. That entrance leads into the Spider Tunnels.

When you return to Chaya from destroying the bandits, she will hand you a Lime
and a Psionic Bracelet of Animal Affinity. If you didn't slay everything in
your way in the castle andkept the Druid of Howling Winds happy, he will offer
to protect the village and Chaya will agree to an alliance. Don't forget to get
your reward from the caravan after this!

Sometimes when you come into this area, some wild beasts will be around the
northern areas. Notably, otyughs and renegade halflings, xorn, and screamer
beetles among other sorts of unpleasant monsters.


--- Spider Tunnels ---

You enter at the south end of the tunnels, near a Mindhome settlement. There
are screamer beetles which will be coming for you, but by this time you should
be well able to handle them. The Rebel Mindhome will challenge you when you
enter their caves, and if you're nice to them they provide information. It
seems the dark spiders on the upper level don't like them coming through for
food, and kill intruders. You can volunteer to kill the spiders, or hold off
to learn more about the matter. You won't be penalized for holding off, since
you can change your mind. The First Mindhome were mentioned during the
conversation, and their settlement is to the east.

They're pleasant to talk to, and explain the spiders only attack them near
the fungus groves. They also talk about a new sort of fungus which is choking
out the others, and emits spores when disturbed. This might have something to
do with what the lore master of Cedrilite had mentioned. The First Folk don't
want a violent answer to this, so tread carefully while talking. Now, they
mentioned an Outcast, who lives to the far west in his own cavern. That might
be worth going to investigate, too.

The Outcast tells some interesting information after you calm him down. He
wants to prove he's valuable to the other Mindhome by getting the spiders to
stop fighting. He thinks there can be some sort of trade which benefits both
sides, but he's having a difficult time. He mentiones an ancient curse he
wants taken care of, and in return he'll get you to meet the spiders. Once
you agree, he'll lead you to the cliff guard and get you through.

Once there, you can go to look at the Cavern of the Ancients and work on
destroying the curse. The spider atop the cliff will ask you to not harm
spiders, and to see the Queen before you wander about. He'll tell you the
spiders in the fungus grove have become evil and cursed. Once handing you a
talisman for safe passage, you can go talk to the Queen.

She's imperious and assumptive, assuming you are there to help her end the
problems in the fungus grove. She will offer you treasure when you can return,
and aid against the people in the castle. She doesn't know how to destroy the
strange entity in the fungus groves, but she insists you do so. Once agreeing,
the Prince will appear and warn you about trusting her. If the rather vaguely
threatening wording of "reward" didn't already give you second thoughts. When
you agree to help him take care of the Queen, each party member is given 200
experience, and he directs you to look to the chamber with the symbol on the
floor for any clues.

Stepping on the symbol is bad, as that deals damage to you. The brick wall can
be struck, which will summon three Red Slaad to fight you. Hit first, and don't
let them hit you. Once they're dead you can pick up the contents of the sealed
room. Four Nagi's Talismans, and a chest of items. Writing on the floor
declares a curse on Tara, in the name of Nagi. Everlasting life, huh? The chest
holds a pendant, a scroll of Melf's Minute Meteors, and a journal. The journal
tells you all you may need to know about Tara and Nagi, as well as the entity
which you now must exterminate.

Put on the talismans, which prevents problems getting close to the fungus
groves. If you forget to put them on, spores explode every so often and you
get hurt. Of course, the talismans trick the fungus but not the enthralled Dark
Spiders. Avoid hurting them and just get the pendant to the hole in the floor.
Once you throw in the pendant, the hole seals and the spiders come to their
senses. You also get 3000 experience, whether or not you take out the Spiders.
A corpse nearby holds some loot, including a scroll of Hold Monster.

Freed from the control of the fungus, the spiders will want to be escorted
back. Be careful, since they're all so large in the passages you can get
trapped behind them easily. But they'll be some help as you leave, and run
right into three spiders from the Queen. It seems she wants you dead, and with
two mages there, the fight can take a chunk out of you.

A bit further, the Prince will approach and tell you it's time to overthrow
the Queen now that you've helped Darkhold. A civil war will erupt as the Queen,
two Dark Spiders, and four Spider Mages all try to kill you. The Prince will
fight for you, as will the ones you rescued from the fungus grove. Make sure
you don't kill anyone in the Prince's group, since that will not go over well.
When the Queen dies, she will drop a Banana and a Wooden Wildwynd Wand (it
casts Confusion).

Once you have slain the Queen, the Prince will want to talk to the Rebel
Mindhome and draw up peaceful plans. They're not buying it, initially, and
it is going to take some work to convince the Rebels about the peaceful
intent. If you can manage it, you'll be given 5000 experience per member;
the Mindhome now will give one of their people to sneak in and unlock the
castle gate. The alternative is alerting the castle guards and having to
fight a lot more up front.

You can also take the treasure from the spiders here, which contains some
metal chain armor, some gems of value, an Apple and an Orange Pear. An
extra silk rope is here, in case you needed it. Also, don't forget to
pick up the Silk Armor from the Outcast; it gives a rather nice boost to
those who wear light armor.


--- Wyvern Castle ---

Welcome to the castle. There's a lot here you should be aware of, and part of
it starts with heading to the lone man in the center of the castle area.
Chaero is the stablehand for the raiders, and he's not too bad a guy. He just
really likes wyverns and admires them. He'll spill a lot of information if you
just play nice. He wants a wyvern for himself, most of all, so if you offer
him one you won't need to worry about him raising an alarm.

Or will you? His offer is bogus; as soon as you get in the pen he recommends,
he locks you in and calls the guards. He is sincere about the wyvern thing, so
perhaps you should try to keep one alive. This is easiest done by rushing the
staircase in the north and using a spell to stall the guards from getting to
the switches. Entangle or Grease both are good choices for this. The side-
benefit is not needing to deal with the wyverns, which is good since they
have that truly hideous poison.

Coming down from the upper levels, the guards are all alerted and will come
running. Chaero is with them, and he will attack, so you are going to need to
kill him. Once you use the Wind Potion on this floor, all traces of Tara's
magic disappear and the Black Maze is freed. The grateful followers will
leave, to die in peace; one of them tells you where to find the Serpent Boots.
They're worth wearing, as they have a Displacement effect. Scour the halls for
all the containers you can here, because they'll be quite useful.

In the southeast corner a pair of vrocks protect the door. They can only be
hit by +2 or greater weapons, so you'll probably need to shuffle weapons to
your main warrior. You'll find a secret door by checking out the wall, and be
allowed to plunder the treasure vault. There's 60cp in stacks around the one
room, and a small fortune in gems. As well as another giant chest of jewels.
And most importantly, the Dark Flame.


--- Castle Towers ---

You appear in the center of a hall between two towers. The left tower has a
prisoner and a campfire circle sitting there, so it may be your first choice.
The east tower has a whole bunch of guards in front of it, so you might as
well take the path of least resistance first. Well, almost least resistance;
an Earth Elemental is guarding the door. Destroy it and peek at the corpse
near the door. It holds a Metal Chain Leg armor, and a +2 bow. The door holds
a captive druid, who thanks you for his freedom and asks a favor of you. He
wants you to take care of the raiders and Tara. Specifically, he wants the
Wyvern Hook which is used to capture wyverns and control them.

Once you agree to help him, you'll get a 500 experience point reward and the
key to see the Wyvern Master. He's directly to the south, and is bright enough
to offer you a place in his band for having the skill to reach him. He doesn't
attack you outright if you don't force his hand, and explains a little about
Tara. He may even offer you a bribe to go away. Eventually, you're going to
need to fight him, which isn't too hard. He has some fruit with him (A Banana
and Orange Pear) and two magical items. A Metal Wind's Ring and Leather Drake's
Armor. Once you take the hook to the Druid, he'll hand you a potion capable of
destroying Tara for good.

You can also search the Wyvern Master's room thoroughly and turn up a green
key hidden behind the bed. It's not exactly easy to spot, but if you run the
mouse over it a few times it almost pops out at you. The chest has some good
merchant stock in it for you to take advantage of once you return, and is
yet another useful container to expand your inventory space. In the treasure
room is 160cp scattered around, a few gems, and a chest of gems worth a nice
tidy sum.

Tara is still under the delusion she is ruler of a great group of wizards, but
it's fairly obvious she's only holding out hope. If you enter wearing Nagi's
Talismans, she immediately attacks you; without them, she banters for a very
short time before losing her composure and attacking you. Once you kill her,
make use of the Wind Potion and she will be gone for good. She will leave
behind Tynan's Heart and a Silver Necklace of Biofeedback.

The Druid will thank you for the deed of destroying Tara, and tell you about
the hidden treasure in the castle. You'll need to recover the Serpent Boots
from the lower castle to get to it, but that shouldn't be too hard. Right?


--- Rocky Area ---

This area has lots of rocky teeth dividing areas, and it can be difficult to
navigate by the map thanks to this. The first thing to deal with is a tribe of
ssurians who want you to clear the old and rebellious spirits in their ruins.
They're guarding a treasure, which you will be allowed to keep. About ten
shadows are in the area, and they can be difficult to overcome without
significant magical weapons in hand. Once you clear them, El's Ring is yours,
which increases a character's Dexterity by 3. The ssurians meet you, all
gathered up for you. Then you're told something a little disturbing - your
spirits will replace the ones you were foretold to destroy! These shaman
followers are simple pickings if you can get the first shot at them gathered
up. Otherwise you'll need to chew through them slowly.

To the north is a fossilized wyrm in the side of a cliff, guarded by magera
who don't want you anywhere near here and won't let themselves be intimidated.
You'll more than likely need to cut your way into the caverns to see what's
beyond. If you've visited the caravan you've heard of these raiders.

Farthest to the east is a pair of wanderers who wander around in a circle.
They seem friendly enough but they say they're protected by the Great Spire.
After showing it to you they'll seem to get orders from it and wander off
speaking gibberish and ramblings. As of this time I haven't actually
figured out what to do about them.

There are two exits here, one leading into the Wyrm Tunnels, and the other
leading west into the Red Sands Area.


--- Wyrm Tunnels ---

Welcome to the magera tribe tunnels, full of speechless slaves who direct you
towards their master and leader. This turns out to be the "Blind One", who
informs you he was the old leader and now uses telepathy due to having his
tongue and eyes made useless to keep him from causing trouble. The new master
is Balkazar, who is using the magera as sacrifices and tools to build himself
up more powerful. He gives you some advice, and tells you there will be no
help from anyone here.

And notably, you find there is no resistance as you wander through. You'll
find more bags and chests strewn about, a large number empty. Some others
have minor pieces of clothing in it, or common supplies. Overall you should
easily walk out with a dozen chests and half as many bags to add to your
collection.

The leaders can be bullied into letting you pass easily enough, if you talked
with the Blind One he tells you pretty much exactly what to say. Otherwise you
can bluff blatantly, and so long as you act haughty enough they'll let you
through.

To the southeast is the Fallen Temple and to the east is Balkazar's Sanctuary.
Follow the Blind One's advice and check out the temple first.

--- Fallen Temple ---

Well, this is nice and small, with a room full of vrocks to your south and a
tomb with a spirit within. You can fight the vrocks, or you can save them for
a little later and travel around to the tomb. Remember that vrocks are going to
take some serious magical power to destroy, and they're resistant to magic and
psionics. There is a scroll of Monster Summoning III in here, as a prize for
fighting them off.

The ghost called Tanelyv waits for you in the tomb and will tell you his story
if you are respectful. He wants you to help restore the temple, but this will
require you performing an act of charity. He wants you to lead the magera to
the temple and cure them, but the task is going to require a lot of effort on
your part. First, you need to convince the guards to let you do this. This
is not hard if you think about it before you speak.

Once you bring the Blind One to the chamber, he will enter and be healed. Then
he asks you to take him to the great chamber so he can speak to the slaves. As
you take care of this and wait, he will direct you to start a slave uprising
with him. As soon as you do, Balkazar will drop in and announce his displeasure
while leaving four babau to fight. This can be a little tricky, because those
babau will be rather close to you when the fight starts. If you held out long
enough to start this sidequest though, you should have plenty of +2 or better
weapons to beat them with. For healing the magera you'll be given 5000
experience per member, and have a clear track through here to Balkazar's
School.

Return to Tanelyv and he'll give you a Metal Ring of Insight which boosts
your Wisdom. Then he charges you with killing Balkazar, to finish cleansing
the evil. The white room to the south is now open, and you can use it to heal
up.


--- Balkazar's Sanctuary ---

Balkazar's stronghold lies ahead, and he's not going to let you just waltz in.
There are plenty of guardians who are ready to confront you; babau, vrocks,
styr, and other students. The area is rather huge, and two separate areas of
focus exist. There is the structure itself, and the islands of stone floating
just off the cliff. First, you'll be confronted by a Guardian who has a nice
obsidian chatkcha (which has a Produce Flame enchantment).

The islands of stone are where you will find a fair amount of treasure here,
but they are reached by a maze of teleporters. Styr wait on some of the
platforms to fight you, and they're difficult if you came here too early;
magical weapons are the only things useful against them. Consider it a sign
if you have significant trouble fighting them, a sign to turn back and come
later. By solving the teleporter maze, you will find a +1 Bone Draketooth. The
quickest path from the northeast corner is to go south, then northeast, then
northeast again. That should put you right on the platform with only one Styr
to fight. Granted, once you turn back you will have to fight four at once.

The main building is full of all sorts of empty rooms and books which suggest
what he is trying to do. You won't find much of interest inside the building,
so just collect the books and head towards Balkazar's room. He'll mistake you
for agents of Dagolar (which should be familiar to those who can think back
to what Dagolar said when you were coming for him) and you can tell him you
ended Dagolar. He'll offer a truce and talk of his plans to summon a great evil
entity forth inside the temple. You can agree to go there, but once you do
there's an endless loop of failures which will keep you busy. And you won't
be able to stop him directly, since his focus was not destroyed.

Balkazar won't take any damage unless you destroy the focus of his defenses
and magic first, and he won't give you any hints. When you hit him, he will
immediately summon a vrock on the character who hit him. This can quickly make
things much more difficult. The mirror in the other room from his study is
what you need to really aim at. Hitting it will punish you, but you can endure
long enough to shatter it and take out Balkazar. His spells will be dangerous,
so try to keep yourself strong.

Balkazar has an interesting staff which casts Slow on targets, and if you did
the errand for the Terror Bloom before coming here, he will have the extract
on him. You can put it into the mixing bowl near the wall (it takes some work
to find the exact place to make it work) and then dip in a dagger. You now
have a +2 Obsidian Terror Dagger. Move on to the vrocks in the next area to
find the treasure chamber. In it you will find a Belt of Might (which raises
your strength by 4 points to a maximum of 25), and the Light of Dawn. This
device casts Dismissal, which would have been more useful before Balkazar was
defeated.

A side note, you cannot seem to take the Unnamed Book out of this area. It
will simply return to the circle you picked it up from.

Once you are finished, you can claim your spoils from the area and go to see
about Tanelyv's restful repose. He'll thank you for destroying Balkazar, and
then dissipate. His armor is yours, and it's tremendously wonderful armor. The
chest and arms have a bonus of 4, while the legs have a bonus of 3.

Again, don't forget to get your reward from the elves.


--- Underground Temple ---

All over the region are holes and wells which have tapped into this place, and
you can find quite a lot of fun things to do. If you came down from Teaquetzl,
you enter in the northearstern corner; if you came down from Gedron, you enter
in the northwestern corner. If you enter from Cedrilite, you enter from the
south edge. And if you enter from the Ruined Caravan canyon, you enter inside
the southeastern corner.

If you enter from Teaquetzl, you will be addressed by the spirit here. Tynan
will want your help to release the curse on this temple, which can be done by
retrieving the heart crystals belonging to him and his beloved. Tristram is a
spirit you can reach by entering by the canyon near the Ruined Caravan, and she
has her own crystal. Tynan's was stolen a while ago and he has no idea where it
is. You will come across it later, without much trouble finding it.

You may also run into the spirit of A'Poss, the one who cursed this temple.
He's imprisoned under Gedron, and if you have his heart crystal you can offer
to free him unless you pass that option. He'll drop you a scroll of Summon
Shadow, before attacking you. Be warned, you need magical weapons to hurt him
and he can dish out quite a lot of pain to you. However, if you can get the
jump on him you can probably destroy him easily. (I am afraid I don't know the
long-term effects of that, but it can be done.)

You will be unable to complete this area until you have Tynan's Heart from
defeating Tara. Once you have it, you can use it to collect Tynan's spirit and
do the same to Tristam. You now need to enter from Cedrilite Village's well
and place the two heart crystals into the altar. First Tristam's and then
Tynan's. This will allow the two lovers a happy ending. You will earn 1000
experience for Tristam's Heart, and 6000 experience for completing the quest.
The earthen blocks will disappear, as will A'Poss if you haven't dealt with him
personally.

In Tynan's quarters you can find his diary which contains some information
concerning what happened here. Nothing here should be new since you talked with
Tynan himself, but you can tear out a scroll of Hold Undead. In the southwest
corner you can find a Sword Blank and some grain. In the northwest you can find
an empty chest and the exit to Gedron. In the north middle section there is a
room with lots of ceramic pieces spread on the floor and a weapons rack with a
+2 bone mace in it. It's a heavy weapon, but a higher enchantment. A chest near
the mace holds a Storm Ring. Be sure not to miss this.

Near the secluded chamber you met Tynan at in the northeast, you can find a few
items to pilfer, but nothing spectacular. To the south from that are some animal
pens which have various monsters in them. One of them has a stash of ceramic
pieces in it, so go help yourself to it. After this, the whole mess is cleared
out. Feel free to leave.


--- The War Approaches ---

Once you have allied with Gedron and Cedrilite, the final sequence will begin.
The next time you set foot in Teaquetzl, you will not be permitted to leave by
Llod's Rod or the well. I hope you are prepared. Collect your final reward for
the village(s) you recruited, and get prepared. The Visionary has a sign to
share of an ancient city unburied by shifting sands. Here you will find
something which will aid you if you can reach it. Of course, you can always
turn away.

--- Ancient City ---

You are greeted at the door by a creature who wants to tell you a story about
what happened here. The psurlon is pretty evasive about exactly how things
happened, but you are asked to secure a genie bottle for them to fix things.
It sounds like you could use that a little more than they could, though, but
keep it in mind. This ancient city is populated by shadows who still think
they're alive and living the last day they existed.

You'll have to fight some minor shadows who think they're guardsmen before
you can wander freely. The king is at his throne, bound to the dais. He isn't
deluded as firmly as the other shadows, knowing his fate. He will tell you a
little about what happened here, but a lot of what he has to say has holes
which need filling. He'll suggest finding Llod's laboratory and looking for
any clues.

If you step onto the dais by accident, the Shadow King will warn you exactly
once before attacking you. He's not that hard to deal with, and will leave
behind a nice magical mace for you: the +1 Obsidian Black Mace. And some
Metal Chain chest armor, for good measure.

The trouble is, the hints only muddy the waters of what exactly happened
here. And most importantly, who was to blame. From Llod's quarters, it's
necessary to travel to the north section through the traps to meet Cragg.
He'll yield up the genie if you can convince him you need it and aren't
going to give it to the psurlons. To get the genie, you are asked to find
Cragg's body to put it to rest.

You might see it, in the west hall. As you travel, traps spring to chew at
your health and xorn may spawn to make a fight or two. Once you reach it,
you are teleported to the sealed eastern hall. You're going to need to go
through another short gauntlet for the body, before you are put back at the
king's chamber. Deliver it to Cragg and he will hand over the genie bottle
to you. Along with a +3 two-handed axe.

The genie will give you three wishes, but there are some guidelines. The
genie will not kill anyone, nor undo any wishes made by another. You will
only get three wishes and no more. There are four possible wishes you can
have the genie grant. He can give you "wealth beyond compare", which is one
million ceramic pieces. He can heal you fully. He can duplicate a weapon you
currently possess. And he can give you help against the armies of Draj. If
you choose the assistance he will give you a Quicksilver Glove, and summon
the army of shadows out of the city to stop one wave of attackers.

You don't need to make all three wishes right away, and you will feel out
best which ones to wish for. Regardless of how you choose, you are finished
in the ancient ruin and can walk out the main door or have the genie move
you out as part of your wish.

(Author's Note: Something happened to my game, and it would not begin the
final battle sequence, despite all attempts to trigger it. Most of my
material which follows is from prior memories and is not guaranteed to be
100% accurate. However, the underlying advice and strategy is sound.)

--- The Final Battle ---

You're here, and so is the Drajian army. This is the toughest combat you will
face in the game, most simply due to the triple wave you will face. The first
wave is nothing spectacular, as it's just to soften you up and weaken you. If
you haven't used up the genie's wishes, you can go wild and choose to heal
after this wave. I highly recommend saving that for the second wave.

For the second wave, you'll receive aid from the leaders of villages you
recruited. This wave is a little more difficult due to increased health from
all the units. However, you should be quite able to win; the bigger concern is
your overall shape afterwards. If you have the genie, use it to heal you up
after this. You're going to need your characters at their freshest.

The final wave is against the leader of the Drajian army, and his elite cadre
of officers. And his black mastyrials, which are quite a bit more dangerous
than the normal kind. Anything you got left which can pack a punch is useful
here, where before you had a better use for area damages. Your allies will be
of some use, but you will likely lose them in the midst of battle.

Once you beat the general and his troops, the army retreats before your power,
and you are left with his special sword and the ability to take care of any
tasks you left unfinished.


--- 7. Magical Items ----------------------------------------------- (0700) ---

On Athas, good equipment can be scarce and difficult to find. Magical equipment
is hoarded and kept  close, so it is not commonly something you find sitting in
a bush. And there are precious few garden-variety "+1 swords" here. No, the
items you find are going to be special and have their own unique twists. I'm
not saying simple weapons aren't going to be found; there are more than a few
you will find.

Shortly after you escape into the wilderness to fend for yourself, you will run
across a man who calls himself a sage. He'll tell you about magical items and
put some color to the named items you run across. Some items he will simply
have no clue what they may do, but those are fewer. Make him your friend,
because he's enlightening and entertaining.

What I've put into this section is a listing of what he will tell you about the
magical items he recognizes. Along with a few comments from me about them.

- Weapons -

Obsidian Bloodwrath: "This looks like a ritual sacrifice item of the templars
of Tectuktitlay. Its blade is magically sharpened to better pierce the hearts
of the dragon king's victims." The first magical sword you are likely to
encounter, this is a nice piece of equipment for you to hang onto. It will
fast become outclassed, however, in terms of a primary weapon.

Swift Bite: "The creator of this sword wanted to overcome stronger opponents
easily. Unfortunately, it was so powerful, he was hunted by thieves for years
until finally the extra damage and hitting ability could not save him." This is
a +2 bone longsword, and is one of those weapons you'll get a lot of use out
of. The enchantment on it makes it invaluable all the way to the final battle.
The only bad thing to say is there doesn't appear to be too much special about
it.

Dagolar's Dagger: "Dagolar's Dagger! He used it to slay the wizard who created
it for him. The extra damage it did ensured the wizard died in one blow." As a
+3 metal dagger, this weapon is extraordinarily useful even to the end. The
damage range is insanely good, too (1d4+3, which means 4-7 before adding in a
Strength bonus). Since it can be found so early, this is a good time to note a
thief will be able to backstab with this.

"Soulcrusher": "Soulcrusher, eh? Looks like a simple enchanted axe. It should
be easier to hit with it and the damage should be greater." Being a +1 metal
axe, it is worth the 1000cp you pay for it, since the other +1 metal magical
axe (found in the sewers) is supposedly worth 18300cp. It makes a good weapon
for a secondary melee combatant, until you get something better.

Hornblade: "Swords like these are made by a renegade halfling tribe to the
south. Though their power is not great, they do not break and help slightly
in combat." This is a rather decent weapon for an off hand, but it gets
outclassed fast by the later weapons. It will still serve well for the time
you have it. I'll note it's a short sword weapon, in a game where there are
no other short swords.

Draketooth: "A Draketooth! These must be harvested from live drakes to be
effective. Their strengthening properties make them worth the danger... to
those who survive." The sword does indeed increase Strength, by three
points. This does make the otherwise simple sword powerful. If the bonus
was higher, it would be a good weapon to use for overall use. Because it is
only a +1 weapon, however, it is hampered against most of the stronger
enemies.

Balkazar's Staff: "Balkazar used this staff to slow his enemies, so he could
toy with them before their deaths." Indeed, when this staff hits it can
produce a Slow spell centered on the target. The staff is useful for
controlling a large group of enemies, but not so much for simply fighting.
You might find a use swapping it from the simpler +2 quarterstaff you can
buy.

Terror Dagger: "This is an evil weapon, probably an assassin's weapon. I
thought you were from the Veiled Alliance. How could you wield such a
device?" Well you're not from the Veiled Alliance, for one. This weapon is
poisoned, and in Athas, poison means you either resist it or you die. Your
thief just had a very happy day. Give them Dagolar's Dagger in the other
hand, position well for backstabs, and you might well win most fights.

Darkflame: "I know nothing about this sword, other than its style is of a
quality equalled only by artifacts constructed centuries ago. This is
probably just such an artifact! It is wondrous, isn't it?" The sage is no
help with this weapon, but it is a heavy +2 Obsidian sword which will cast
Burning Hands on a hit. Believe me, this weapon is incredibly useful. I know
you will not be permitted to pair it up with another heavy weapon, but it
does fantastic damage anyway.

El's Drinker: "A wizard named El used this sword for great evil. The sword
was said to drink the blood of his enemies. Even now, the sword absorbs evil
into itself each time it is used." In fact, this is a pretty useful effect. The
Vampiric Touch effect will keep your main fighter standing in most battles, so
long as he can keep hitting. The only drawback is the heavy modifier, which
prevents you from wielding it with Darkflame.

Black Mace: "Many fear the Black Mace for its poison and strength." This thing
does both poison and Shocking Grasp, which is an astounding weapon. It is a +1
weapon, so it's not going to hit anything highly powerful but it is still
powerful. You will only get it towards the end of the game.

Phrain's Bow: "The wizard Phrain was hideously burned by acid. He created this
bow to take revenge in kind." Indeed, the bow will sometimes fire an Acid Arrow
after a hit. This can make the bow exceedingly useful for your ranged fighters.
Considering how early you can receive this, it can become a nice weapon for
what you have to fight.

- Armor -

Grey Scale: The Grey Scale was enchanted by the Druid of the Grey Isles. He
hoped to give it to his newborn son, but the child was stolen away by its
mother. The druid wore it in rememberance of the infant." This is pretty good
metal armor, granting some seriously powerful Armor Bonus. There's nothing
that special about it that I discovered beyond that.

Drake Leather: "Drake Leather armor is made from freshly-killed drake. Those
who manage to kill a drake well-deserve the prize! The leather is said to be
superior in strength, and it resists cold." The additional armor bonus is the
best part of this armor, since that puts it on par with all the heavier
nonmagical armor you will find. The Resist Cold enchantment is a good bonus.

Shimmer Armor: "Shimmer Armor allows you free action at all times, and protects
better than any other leather armor." Free Action means you can walk with
impunity through webs, entangling roots, grease, and won't be paralyzed. This
is an excellent piece of armor, don't disregard it for other armor you might
like the look of more.

Tanelyv's Armor: "The paladin Tanelyv was a great friend of mine. He must be
dead now, if you have his armor. He once boasted his armor was far stronger
than any other chain." And this is quite true, it protects close to what most
people would consider platemail to be. This being Athas, metal isn't going to
be made into huge plates though. The point still remains, though, this is the
best armor you can earn for your Fighter or Gladiator.

- Shields -

El's Shield: "The wizard El was created this shield to protect him from his
many foes. It is stronger than almost any other shield in existance." Despite
the strange phrasing, the lore is quite correct; El's Shield grants you a
whopping AC bonus of 3. This will be indispensible late in the game, as being
hit is quite undesirable.

- Clothing -

Helm of Contemplation: "Wearing a Helm of Contemplation creates a shield of
thought around you, protecting you against all psionic attacks." Despite what
the Sage says, the power listed is "Gaze Reflection" and it does pretty decent
against it. It's still a very useful piece of gear, since gaze attacks can be
dangerous.

Chameleon Gloves: "Be careful when you wear the Chameleon Gloves. They blind
whomever you touch." You equip these like a weapon, and they deal a rather
poor amount of damage. The real use is to blind people, however, so they can
be useful for some encounters. They are also worth a boatload of ceramic
pieces, if you want to sell them off.

Quicksilver Gauntlets: "Quicksilver Gauntlets allow you to graft any
one-handed melee weapon to your body. The weapon becomes easier to use and
does more damage than normal." I don't see this, as the gauntlets actually
cast Detonate on your target with each hit. This is probably not too useful
when you can get your hands on it, which is at the very end of the game.

Serpent Boots: "Serpent Boots cause their wearer to appear displaced to their
enemies." What this is good for is avoiding hits, since it puts your Armor
Class higher. Put these to use guarding your Preserver, since they likely
won't have stellar Armor Class. They have another function, but it's more of a
side-effect of the Displacement effect in plot terms.

Living Cloak: "A Living Cloak creates a barrier of air around its wearer. The
barrier deflects most thrown weapons. However, it is useless against purely
magical weapons, pure energy or light, raw heat or cold,  and gaze weapons."
As the Sage tells you, the effect of Inertial Barrier on the Living Cloak is
priceless; putting it on your Preserver will mean drawing fire and having it
be mostly ineffectual.

Belt of Might: "A Belt of Might gives its wearer great strength." Odd there are
other clothes which grant bonuses the sage doesn't know about. This one is
hands-down the strongest, no pun intended, so it's believable he would know
about it. The belt will raise anyone's Strengthby four points, to a maximum of
25. But Thri-kreen can't use it, since their profile is very nonhuman. An
interesting side-effect; if you shuffle it around people's bodies, you can
share the boost for as many as can wear it. If it wasn't hard to get your hands
on this belt, it would really make the game simpler.

- Jewelry -

Steadfast Ring: "The Ring of Steadfastness makes you more vigorous and
athletic." The +3 to Constitution can truly be useful on characters, because it
will make a difference. You will notice the wearer's hitpoints start going up
fast as they level, and they will shrug off more spells.

Wind Ring: "The Wind Ring blows away all normal missiles directed at you." Put
this on your spellcaster, and they will rarely fear being hit and made useless
during battle by arrows. This is perhaps the best use of it you can get.

Storm Ring: "The Storm Ring rains ice storms on your enemies. It eventually
expires, though." I didn't play around much with this, mostly because I don't
like using up charged items when I have spellcasters first. However, the fact
this can still be used as an item after getting struck by an errant arrow makes
it worth keeping around.

Light of Dawn: "Ah! The Light of Dawn! This powerful magic ring can banish an
otherplaner being forever from this realm. It was thought to be lost forever!"
Balkazar had it stashed away, because it could be so useful against him.
That's the bad news. The good news is it very much acts as advertised since
it casts Dismissal.

Ring of Insight: "Wearing the Ring of Insight grants you great wisdom."
Indeed, it gives a nice bump to your Wisdom score, which is good for Clerics
and Druids. It's not much use to anyone else, however.

El's Ring: "The evil wizard El had a clubfoot. He wore this ring to give him
greater dexterity in combat." In short, it makes you faster and more agile.
Give this ring either to someone who is slower than everyone else so they act
sooner, or your fastest person so they can go first consistently.

Iron Necklace: "An Iron Necklace throws fireballs. However, few charges can be
put into a necklace of this type." Extra Fireballs, as with any nice area of
effect spell, are really useful. Be mindful of the limit on how many times you
can use this. See my note for the Storm Ring; disrupted casting from being
struck will not seemingly affect using this.

Silver Necklace: "Wearing a Silver Necklace gives you control over the flow of
blood in your body. You may stop bleeding, or cushion blows by flooding key
portions of your body with blood." This Biofeedback ability is extraordinarily
useful to anyone who has low hitpoints. Extra Armor and a reduction in damage
is a tough thing to pass up.

- Wands -

Dagolar's Wand: "Dagolar controlled his foes with this wand. He made them watch
their fellows perish, while they were helpless to intervene. Use it wisely,
there are a limited number of charges left." Control Body is a nifty power, and
having a wand of it can make things rather simpler. As said, it has a limited
number of uses left. This is much more valuable if you do not have a Psionicist
who can learn Control Body.

Wand of Missiles: "Wands of Missles have put many good bowmen to shame.
However, they have limited charges, and many have expired in the course of
battle." Magic Missile is also a nifty little ability to be able to throw out,
since it never misses (though it may be resisted) and can often deal a good
chunk of damage.

Derth's Wand: "Derth fancied himself the lord of weather. He used this wand
from a high tower to rain lighting on his foes." Yes, there's a typo in the
script. The extra shots of Lightning Bolt are nice, the trouble is how limited
it is.

Wildwynd Wand: "Wildwynd intended this wand to shoot fireballs, but he muddled
the spell. Now the wand echoes his confusion to your enemies." Casts Confusion
on people, which can be vert fun to watch happen. As random as Confusion can
be, it's probably something you would fool around with and then shelf for more
stable spells.

- Fruit -

Banana: "Bananas are in great demand before every battle. Their strengthening
powers are well known." This can be very useful to make battles easier to take
on early. Later, survivability takes precedence over damage, so you will
probably be better off using defensive abilities instead of the Strength.

Guava: "Why are you carrying around a guava? They're poisonous." They're also
worth 100cp each, so they can make good things to save for selling later.

Apple: "The skin of whoever eats an apple becomes iron, repelling attacks
that would otherwise hurt them." Ironskin is a beautiful ability, hang onto
these apples for the really tough battles. Such as those towards the end of
the game.

Lemon: "The sour taste of a lemon clears the mind and restores psionic
powers." Indeed, they're fairly common around enemy Psionicists, and you
should get a fair amount given. For 500cp you can buy some out of the Fields
of Draj. You might not need to refresh your Psionicist's power too often, but
still hold on to one or two in case of emergencies.

Corn: "Corn makes your skin like bark." Barkskin is a nice ability to have at
your fingertips, but the 250cp for them can be used for other things more
useful. Luckily, there will be no small number of them which come to you during
the game.

Green Grapes: "Use Green Grapes when you need a blessing." This is a nice
ability to boost you in combat, though Bless is such a low-level spell it's
less likely you will be unable to spare the spell.

Orange Pear: "Use the orange pear when you need a little healing. But, be
careful, it will not give you much." These are nice to hang onto for long
times between resting points, or for between tough combats in an area. I do not
advocate selling these, as they have their uses.

Red Pear: "Eating a red, ripe pear cures you of serious wounds." I would
definitely hang onto these for when you are out and far from a campfire
circle. They aren't exactly easy to come by, so use them when you need them.

Lime: "The acidic tang of a lime will dispel any magic." True to cause, if you
have a serious negative spell put on you, then this is a good way to do it.

Orange: "The orange should only be used in battle. It will give you a little
extra strength to get you through combat." The Aid effect is quite useful,
but as he said it is quite useless except during battle.

Starfruit: "If you ever wish to be unseen by those that are undead, use the
starfruit. It will get you past them without a twitch." The trouble with this
lovely fruit is the lack of pressing undead to deal with for most of the game.
By the time you start finding Starfruits, you should be able to just crush
any undead you'll come up against.

Orange Grapes: "Like all grapes, the orange grapes are very beneficial to
you. These will clear your body of all poisons." The wide amount of poisonous
creatures which will come after you make these grapes very useful to hang onto.
Remember to take them before you face a poisoning creature, though, or it
won't do any good.

White Grapes: "White grapes will help you pray for any help you need." This
spell is as useful as Bless, but with an added bonus to make it tougher for
opponents. Since this doesn't stack, it's not useful to use with a bunch of
other abilities; but it IS a 3rd level spell, and thus it is more beneficial
to hang onto for your tougher battles.


- Other Devices -

Llod's Rod: "This was a toy that Llod made while experimenting. He worked for
a king that lived long ago. It will allow you to travel between the obelisks
that Llod left behind. However, some of these obelisks have lost their gems
and these must be replaced before the rod can be used." The rod itself is
intelligent and you can talk to it for more information, but this tool of
travel is immeasurably helpful to you in swiftly moving about the overworld.


--- 8. Closing ----------------------------------------------------- (0800) ---

If you want to send me any corrections or additions, please post on the
GameFAQs forum for this game and I'll get in contact. You can email me, but I
may not reply immediately. If you put "Dark Sun FAQ" in the subject line, I'll
know what you're talking about.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for playing!

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