EFFORTPOST Darklands LP Part V: We finally briefly go out into the dark lands

We're finally ready to risk leaving the city and heading out into the countryside. But first, why would we even want to?

There's lots of things that we just can't get here in Duisburg. Remember how in part 2 I mentioned that knowledge of saints and alchemical formulas is going to be critical later in the game. We can't learn them all here. The shops here don't carry every product we might need. If we want an exotic weapon like a composite bow we'll have to search for a place that sells them. Also most items in the game have a quality rating and different cities are better at making different kinds of items. The best swords can be found in Nurnburg, the best hammers in Prag, and so on. Alchemy requires a lot of traveling to find the various components needed for making potions. If you want training, not all cities have a physician or alchemist who is actually skilled enough to teach you. And of course at some point we'll start doing quests which will send us all over the Empire.

Let's see if we can pick up a little knowledge here before we leave.

Saints

Remember that urban monastery where the nuns healed our wounds? That's not all they do. They have a library where one of our party can learn about a saint. There are many, many saints in the game, I think over 100, but this library gives us the choice of 4 of them. This is one of the things in Darklands that got a young Redactor to go into the real world library and read about these people so I could remember who they are and which ones to pick in the game. Let's see how my hagiography holds up:

• Edward the Confessor - This one is easy. He was a famous King of England.

• St. Jude - We just read about him earlier because coincidentally this happens to be one of the saints that Yuna started the game already knowing.

• St. Albert - I blanked on this one. Tried to look him up but there's a million St. Alberts. Many of the saints in this game are really obscure ones who were important to medieval Christians but forgotten today, not ones who are currently hip and trendy. I think the one referred to here is a king in early medieval England.

• St. Maurice - I used to know about this guy but forgot and had to look him up too. He was an Egyptian general in the Roman army. Long story short, he refused to kill civilians so he was martyred.

TW: If you're religious you might find what I'm about to say a little bit flippant and offensive because we're going to be comparing these saints based on what they can do for us in a video game. I totally get that, but I would argue that keeping them in mind even when doing frivolous things like playing games is a good thing. It never got in the way of me appreciating these peoples' lives and martyrdom. In fact it got me to learn who they were. In a later episode I'll go more in depth about how Christianity is depicted in the game, but for now just trust me that this is not atheist edgelords trying to take down God, either me or the people who made the game.

Having gotten that out of the way, let's ask ourselves, what can these saints do for us? Let's remember who we've already got. Redactor has St. Anthony, who does a lot of great things but is especially good for academics and dealing with people. Yuna has St. Jude, who can bail us out of desperate situations but isn't particularly focused on anything. So with that in mind, let's evaluate our choices.

• Edward - He was a king, so I'm guessing in the game he will help us deal with nobility or something. And IIRC he was a scholar who spent a lot of time studying. That overlaps a lot with what St. Anthony already can do for us.

• Jude - Even though Yuna already knows him, it's actually worth considering having Redactor learn him too. Having two people who can pray to the patron of lost causes would be useful.

• Albert - I have no idea who this is so that rules him out.

• Maurice - He was a soldier, so it's likely that he can temporarily boost our weapon skills. At this point, early in the game, that could give us a crucial edge in a tough fight.

Well that's not exactly what I was expecting. Sometimes saints end up being patrons of all kinds of places, jobs, etc. that are not immediately obvious. I gotta read more about this guy to figure out what he could possibly have to do with alchemy. Unfortunately, note the "Success: 0". He's one of the saints who doesn't just listen to every whiner. Yuna will need to earn the right to talk to him by living a virtuous life. In order to keep things simple for my loyal readers I haven't asked any saints to intercede for me yet, but in a later episode I will explain how that works.

What does this have to do with travel? Remember how the nuns healed us that one time but they're not going to just do it over and over again? Many things in Darklands are like this. It's intended to avoid the "water finds a crack" problem. You can't just always stay in the same place and do the same thing. The librarians here won't let you back in again for a long time, maybe 6 months. But there are other libraries out there.

Alchemy

Let's see if Redactor will be more successful. He knows three formulas for potions. We aren't going to actually make any of them any time soon because we first need to collect the necessary components which involves a lot of traveling and a lot of paying money, two things we haven't done yet. But maybe he can learn a formula now that will be useful later.

Notice that we only managed to find this guy because Redactor knows enough about alchemy. Let's try to trade formulas with him. If we're very lucky he'll accept and we'll get a new formula for free. But it's very unlikely. Redactor only knows those 3 formulas and with 13 charisma he is not, as Richard Nixon would say, a "personality boy". Alchemists aren't trying to be helpful like monks and nuns, they're neurodivergent neckbeards who need their ego to be stroked. Normally we would have Sasha handle a task like this as she has amazing charisma and knows how to speak well, but in this case it's got to be Redactor who does the talking. This is a really low-percentage shot like when I try to talk to girls but hey, it never hurts to try, does it? At least that's what I tell myself when I'm sexually harassing women on the internet.

It actually worked! He just gave us a formula for Stonetar. This is sticky goo, extremely useful stuff. You can use it in battle to slow down your enemies and it helps in all kinds of weird unexpected situations. Someday we will definitely be making this.

Why don't we just do this constantly in the hopes that we'll get lucky again and get another formula? It's like with the library. You can't pester these guys every day. If you want to discover new things you've got to go to new places.

Travel

Okay, I've been jerking you around long enough. It's time to get to what I promised you. We're going to leave town and go out into the wilderness of Germany in 1400, ravaged by plague and warfare, where you're stalked by everything from wolves to satanists to demons straight out of heck.

Note how you're given 6 different options just for leaving the city. These would be relevant if the cops were out looking for us, but we're clean so we can just walk through.

Wow, thanks buttholes for not even removing the fricking copy protection from the game before you sold it to me. I'm used to playing a cracked version where you can just click on anything and it lets you pass. But this time it booted me back to DOS. I guess next time I'll look it up in the fricking manual again just like in living in fricking 1992 again. Last time I saved was before I got that Stonetar formula so that's lost. Anyway, let's try this again.

Okay, here we are out in the open world where we hear that iconic music.

Anton's original marseys still remain among the best.

Let's walk around for a second. Oh wait, we just ran into a random encounter. Dealing with these is half of the game. If you've played King of Dragon Pass or Six Ages you'll get how this works. If you haven't, you're in for a learning experience. We're going to be constantly running into enemies, problems, opportunities, all kinds of stuff as we walk around the Empire.

These are just some old geezers who want an escort to Duisberg. Why not? TBQH there's not actually any purpose for us to be out here other than for me to show you what the world map looks like.

Through this act of Christian charity, Yuna's Virtue has increased. Maybe some of those saints will pay more attention to her.

Where should we go? Let's check out that village to the east.

Okay that's pretty dire. That last sentence "There is nothing you can do here." I have always found really haunting. So yeah, there's some pretty dark stuff going on out here. We'll find out later how that village got destroyed.

Let's follow that road up north. I know Duisberg is somewhere in the lower Rhine area, I think Westphalia. Oh look, it turns out there's another city very close by.

It's Wesel, a city I don't know that well. Just that it's pretty far down the river. I think we're almost getting into the Netherlands. I guess I'll just walk right in. Wait a second. A toll? B-word, please. I haven't paid a dime for music since Napster got started and I'm sure as heck not paying any toll to walk into your little shithole town. Let's have Sasha try to use her charm and get these guards to simp for her.

Frickin' moids, man. Works every time.

Next episode: Actually I'm not sure what to do. So far I've planned these out really well to gradually introduce important gameplay mechanics, but at this point we're in an awkward stage. There's big parts of the game that we can't get into yet just because we can't afford it. Maybe I'll grind for a little while and then we'll be in a position to take on our first quests. And if anything goes wrong I can just savescum and never tell you about it.