This is a guide I made from my own experience of restarting characters from nothing several times.
This is a "speed" guide in every sense of the word: how to unlock everything fast AND make your character move fast to get up to speed faster. (Aha! See what I did there? Ahem.)
Anyways, there ARE some spoilers, so I'll kindly redact them for your benefit.
This guide will also take into account different skill choices at the start for Human, Elf and Cat. I mean, Rakshasa.
Let's begin.
Anagoge Island
- Classes available: unarmed (control), sword (melee), archery (ranged), psychology (support)
- Crafts available: fishing, pathology, skinning, alchemy, mycology, lore, teleportation, pet rat?
So, you start with nothing.
Grab the nearby sword from the bag with tack, scarf it down (sword optional) and proceed to beat any nearby skeleton as per the tutorial. Don't forget your complementary bottle under the dock and in the shack above you.
continue beating skeletons until you get 4 femurs.
Go towards the left until you see a statue, and read it. Lore!
Nearby, you should see a hot elven chick named Lawara. Try to jack the contents of her trunk, eat her soup, then give her a good boning. I mean, the femurs. For a favor.
This'll reward you with an amethyst for teleporting. Useful! Grab the sack just north of Lawara by the broken telepad.
Next, you'll find a spoon further down the beach next to a puzzle.Spoiler:
Pick mushrooms, fill a bottle with water, and get crabs along the way. Grab the spoon, then go back towards the beach at the start. Kill the spiders between Lawara and the lighthouse for a high chance at another amethyst (I found up to 5 amethysts once with this method). Look for a second spoon somewhere around here, and go talk to the guy who doesn't remember your name in the lighthouse. I don't remember his.
Learn about teleporting, then read his books for alchemy recipes and more lore.
Go north a bit, look for some strange dirt piles, and loot the bag in another shack near the working telepad. Bind to the pad, then go south a bit to a door in the hill. Go in, then look for a paper in a room about spore bombs. Neat!
Go downstairs in the basement.Immediately go to the right of the barrier, and loot the chest for a bow with arrows, and get a rather powerful sword from the weapon rack.
Explore a bit, or head back now. There are some notes on that level that give a nifty spell to counter brain drain.
Stop by Lawara and give her the spoons. This gets you an autopsy kit for poking around in dead things, good for archery/skinning/butchering! If you take an hour to hang out with her and give her more stuff, you can get a skinning knife at "friends" and a lice comb. Useful later!
Optional: learning psychology.
Spider Cave
Now at this point, you have a couple options.
- Option 1: Teleport out.
- Option 2: Spider cave.
Teleporting out will lead you immediately to the story quest NPC, but you can always pick that up later. It's east of Serbule Keep by the edge of the map. Instead, for speed, we're exiting through the spider cave!
Head back to the basement. At this point, you can easily beat big head for some loot. Go further down through the basement, light the lamps, explore, get some loot, then make your way to the top left corner of the map. Use the lever to enter the spider cave dungeon, but we're not leaving yet!
Go left, straight, and take your first left to the end. On the table next to some bodies is a book. Read that, and loot the bodies for some spider eggs. Next, kill a few spiders for giant and regular spider eggs; about 10 of the giant ones. KEEP THESE. Now, exit. We'll come back here later.
Serbule Hills
- Classes available: shield (tanky and speedy), bard (support), dancing (???)
- Crafts available: gardening, calligraphy, carpentry, butchering, cooking
At this point any sensible player would probably have a full inventory. Immediately go to the inn on the west side of the map. Follow the sign on the road. Sell some crap there, whatever you can, BUT KEEP THEM SPIDER LEGS AND EGGS.
The tarvernkeeper, Durstin, will hint at someone who buys junk down the road. Go out of the inn, and milk both cows.
Craft your first speed booster.
The Durstin also has a butcher knife, and some jobs to offer. Pick up his favor quests, and talk to Tyler, the drunk hobo in the back. Get the shield favor and the Ranalan one, and the citrus one if you saw some oranges or something in the tavernkeeper's buy used tab.
Go south, skip the fort (Baroness lives there) and go to Sammie, the dwarf on the hill, to sell your crap gear for some gold. Save the Baroness to sell other crap no one else will buy, like augments. Sammie also teaches calligraphy for sword users.
While at Sammie, get the pages from her box, then go back north to Julius for the next bit. Turn in to Durstin.
Now, back to the spider cave. Explore around, get the 3rd page, and Tyler's shield. Pick up some gear from the spiders while you're at it, since it's a nice upgrade at this point. Grab the quest items, pick up any plates/goblets/bottles, exit, and turn in. Go east from the spider cave a little bit for the Ranalan quest, and learn shield now if you want a class with an early speed boost.
To be continued: Serbule favor quests, speed boots, storage, and inventory expansion!
