Shades of Twilight

Yup, as of last night, I finally reached Varant, the barren desert south of Trelis! It’s day 26 in game time, and my character is now level 43. Amazing huh, he’s higher level now, but much poorer – only about 136,000 gold to his name compared to my previous one which is level 41, but has about 243,000 gold when I last saved him.

It’s probably because I spend less money on the first guy “levelling up”. I still have some skill points left unused on the first one, but on my current one, he’s left with like 14 points or something. In other words, I have been training him up pretty much regularly. Hence, I spend more on him. Also, since I no longer liberate towns and cities after the first 2, less income available from looting all the homes and weapons and items from dead orcs this time around, so money is slightly harder to come by, although 136,000 gold coins isn’t really a small amount.

Also my current character is better equipped because of his better skills too… now he is able to use both a crossbow as well as a regular bow. I am currently leaning towards going with just the bow and drop the crossbow altogether although number-wise, the crossbow does more damage.

Actually, if I really wanted to, I could technically lure orc out of town singly, and kill ’em, without them ever going KOS on me now that I know the trick to say “BITE ME” when they accuse me of murder.

So here I am out in Varant desert, re-doing the quests for Braga again. I think I might chance it and liberate Braga if given the quest to do so again.

Yeah, after all this time, I’m still running around in Myrtana. Specifically, I’m still in Geldern. I’m now slowly running through the quests for it, and seeing as I already have completed Geldern the first time around on the other character, I kinda knew where to go to do what.

Actually, the funniest part of this game is here in Geldern as well. Well, funniest so far anyway. The old alchemist, Renwick, is a hoot! It’s almost as funny as the various scenes in Neverwinter Nights 2 even! The devs should have spent more time making these funny moments and dialogues!

In any case, my character has finally reached level 41. Now he’s exactly the same level as my other character. The thing I noticed is that, in game time, this is only his 22nd day. On the first character, he only reached level 41 after 35 days in-game! So yeah, going through the game a 2nd time around really does speed it up!

I also think I might have found a money-making exploit. If this were an MMORPG, it’d probably be banned immediately.

Just go up to the orc guards standing outside the doorways to the city, and draw your weapon. Stand in front of him and he’ll tell you to put it away or he’ll come and beat you up. Let him go into this mode, then TURN AND RUN! Go to a secluded area and knock him out. Take his stuff. Once he wakes up, he’ll walk back to his post, and magically a new weapon will appear.

Repeat this a few times and you can easily make 3,000 to 5,000 gold in the space of a few mins, because he will ALWAYS spawn a new weapon, and you can knock him out and take his weapon. Collect a few of these and go sell ’em to any merchant. If you are brave, or crazy enough, go punch a few orcs around the city. Run out of the city when they all start chasing you, and slowly beat them all up and grab their stuff.

Remember! Do NOT kill them! Just knock them out. It won’t affect your reputation in the city nor will the orcs go KOS on you.

When I got home, I didn’t make a U-turn south into Varant after all. I actually headed north into Sildern and FINALLY, FINALLY did the quests there. Well, I didn’t complete every single quest in Sildern, but I did enough to get 75% rep with the orcs so I could do more quests for them.

The thing is, one of these quests left undone is a “liberate” quest – it’s so hard to resist the temptation to liberate the city just to complete the quest, but I know if I liberate one more city, I would bring the whole orc community down on me…

In any case, as of last night, my last save was back in Geldern. I’m now wondering if I should complete Geldern before heading down south into Varant. Might as well, since Geldern is the last city in Myrtana left for me to do. I might do it, I might not. I think I can learn one more “permanent skill” there, the one to be immune to “weakness”. I remember my level 41 guy had it but my current level 39 guy doesn’t – and my current guy has been to MORE places than my level 41 one!

Ah well, we’ll see how it goes tonight.