Walkthrough: Chapter 1

The games picks up in this chapter. Your stalwart group must leave the safety of Targos' walls and venture out into the wider world in search of the one known as Chimera.

Shaengarne Ford
Get ready for a really nasty battle as soon as you enter the pass. Torak, a brutish orc, wishes to stop you from advancing on his base. He sends a battalion of orcs after you and slips out the back way. You will have to destroy a few barrels before you can strike at the orcs, unless you feel able to take them down with bows. You might want to destroy all the barrels before going to battle - it is hard to destroy them when you are being pound upon. Do as you will and proceed to the northeast after the battle.

The next enemies that you will be introduced to are the Orc Firestarters. Runners will place explosive barrels on the ground and then the Firestarters will blow them up. Get away from them, or you are toast! Several of these barrels start placed on the map. The shamans use low level priest spells to buff their companions, so killing them is high priority.

Go to the northwest and clear the enemies from in front of a cabin. To the northwest there is another large group of enemies. Kill them all to save Dereth, a local druid. If you cleared the orcs out from in front of his cabin, he will teleport there. He will also ask you to save his wife Sabrina and opens a previously blocked path. Destroy the log by where you found him to destroy half of the large logjam.

Return to where you started. Go west and up the hills. Battle your way through the orcs and proceed to the logjam. Ignore it for now and go to the west. Kill more orcs to save Sabrina. Offer to escort her home for bonus experience. She will open up another path for you and will tell you of an orc ambush. Destroy the other half of the logjam and return to the cabin via the southern route (going straight east will start some unnecessary battles). Get your reward from Dereth and buy new spells from Sabrina. Go to the north and then to the east through the newly opened path to find a horde of orcs to slay. Kill them all to get rid of the potential ambush.

Go back to where there was a large logjam and proceed to the north. Watch as Torak pushes a rock over and runs away from your group. Kill his rear guard and rest before proceeding after the runaway orc.

Shaengarne Village
The second portion of this quest brings you to Torak's base. Here you'll have a few more optional quests, as well as plenty of enemies to kill. As soon as you enter the area you will be attacked by some orcs. An unannounced ally teleports in at the same time, and a thieving troll steals her sword. Kill the orcs and talk to her - she will ask you to retrieve her sword for her. Now head east and talk to Kaitlin. She wants you to rescue the trapped villagers. In the house that is just to the north of her, scour the rubble for a Potion of Invisibility. Drink it down and walk into the northern fort. Go to the left from the entrance and turn the wheel to open the gate to where the villagers are kept. Leave the orc fort.

Take your party to through the now open portion of the wall. Kill the horde of orcs and break a barrel to free the prisoners. Once they are free, report to Kaitlin. She now wants Torak dead. Go into the camp again and kill all the orcs there. Loot the place and report to Kaitlin for a reward. Go to the north of the fort to find Vrek's cave.

Enter the cave and get ready to kill many tough slimes. These slimes are resistant to damage from non-magical weapons, so make sure that you have a couple to use here. The Slime Zombies are also resistant, but not too tough. Go to the east and talk to Vrek to get some experience. Battle him and all the orc guards. Use an acid/fire spell to kill him when he is on the ground, or one of the potions that Emma gave you. Grab the sword and leave the cave.

Go back to Emma and show her the sword. If you rescued Dereth, Sabrina and the villagers, and refuse payment, she will give you the sword and experience. That is such a good deal! That is why it pays to be good! Go through the gate to the north of where the villagers were imprisoned to continue on your journey.

Shaengarne Pass
The next portion of your quest is one really long battle. You go from one fight to another - with many different kinds of foes. The first is a verbeeg - very weak foes. Then harpies and wererats accost you in a very large group, along with some orcs. This battle is a bit tougher. Do not run after anyone that flees! They will bring you into a second large group of foes! Kill them one at a time, but make sure that your mages keep the others busy (Sleep, Hold Person, etc). The other enemies that you fight here are highland cats and snakes, and spiders. There was also a Queen Spider, a really powerful foe! Basically head west to go to the next area.

Shaengarne Dam
The dam area is full of Malaritea priests and arctic boars, amongst other wild animals. Nothing here is too difficult to kill, but you should still proceed slowly. Going too fast will get you swarmed and killed. The objective here is to kill all the enemies and destroy the three support posts.

The first support post is right by the entrance to the area. Kill it and proceed to the west. Follow the sole path to find the second post next to a ramp. Destroy it and then tough the one to the west of it too. You'll get some planks that'll let you rebuild the bridge to the next area. Rest and prepare spells before going to the next area.

Shaengarne Bridge
There are two ways to complete this area - save the bridge or fail to save the bridge. You have to be really quick to save the bridge - you have to save both posts from the ogres, or the center of it will collapse. Kill all the monsters that you come across, but only go forward a bit at a time, or you'll get swarmed. Follow the eastern river and go onto the bridge. If you do this correctly, you'll leave 75% of the western monsters for later. Go east on the bridge until Xuki starts talking to you. Just brush her off to get some experience and charge her. If the charge is times right, she will have no time to cast Web. Sic one character on her and the rest on the pair of ogres. I would suggest taking them both down at once, but putting one to sleep is a worthy alternative. Kill the ogres, save both poles, and kill Xuki before saving your game.

You can search the bridge area to find a Bag of Holding. Grab all the loot from the ground and proceed cautiously to the west. You have to kill all the creatures here, if you want to keep the bridge safe! There are harpies, wererats, verbeeg, orcs and other things here, so watch yourself as you pick your fights. Take them slowly and you should be fine. A message will be displayed once you are done here, so until then kill everything in sight. Loot everything once everything is dead and then head west to return to Targos.

Talk to Shawford in the Palisades to get your reward. The reward is higher, if you saved the bridge. Also, talk to Ulbrec to get some praise and your next quest. Resupply your party, rest and then leave town via the Palisades gate. Your goal is the Goblin Fortress.

Outside the Horde Fortress
Your first goal here is to get past the million guards in the area. You also have to destroy a trio of war drums, both for immediate experience point bonuses, and for one later. Talk to Ennelia to get a ton of local information. Heal her, if you can, or she won't be alive when you leave the fortress. Also, all three war drums must be destroyed, or she'll die anyways. As a side note - if an orc shaman sounds the alarm, worg riders teleport in behind you. If you really want some extra experience, let the drums live and you will be able to kill a ton of riders!

Go to the north and fight all the goblins and a winter wolf. Go east across the bridge (the northern one - the southern one is trapped). Try to go a few steps at a time and pull some enemies to you from the other side of the bridge. If you can split the enemy forces in this way, you will make your life very easy. Destroy the first drum - it is near the bridge.

In the northeastern corner of the map you will find a veritable horde of orcs and goblins. Kill them all and include Trugnuk in the bunch. Once he dies go a ways to the west to avoid any spells that he might have cast while alive. Grab the key to the warrens, destroy the drum and rest a bit before getting close to the next bridge.

Once again, try to grab the monsters from the other side of the bridge. Use Sleep and holding spells to make your job easier. If you do this correctly, you should never even come close to dying. Go across the bridge when there are no more visible monsters and wipe the rest of them off of the map. Further to the south there is the first bridge that you passed. Destroy the guards and the drum and then open the southeastern gate with the key that you found. Go through it, kill the pair of ogres and enter the goblin warrens when you are sure that the map has been cleared of foes.

The warrens are crawling with all kinds of goblins, orcs and orogs. There is nothing really new here, except for the Hardened Fire Trolls. These trolls are immune to all physical damage - use magical attacks to take them down. The process for this level is simple. Go south and find the Fireball scroll. Learn the spell and prepare a couple of them. Go west and use it for 'Fireball fishing' - simply toss one into a room and get whatever can walk out! Off of the main tunnel there is a side passage that leads to a small goblin named Pondmuck. He is really hungry and offers to help you, if you get him some food.

Proceed to the northwest and enter the spider caverns. The woolly spiders are not poisonous, so don't worry about them that much. Kill all of them and grab all the corpses. Bring them back to Pondmuck and give the queen's body to him. Then give him the rest. He will tell you a password. Don't rest with him (it is a trap) and go back to the entrance. Go to the northwest and knock on the door. Give in the password 'Chimera' and kill the door guard before he gets to the war drum. Wipe out the trolls and the rest of the area's troops.

To the south there is an orc named Vunarg. If you have a high enough Intimidate skill, you can make him run away, otherwise you will prompt a fight by talking to him. GO east and talk to Yquog to get a quest. He wants you to find a Dekanter Goblin named Kruntur and get a message from him. You should rest before heading to the northern exit.

The second floor is even more packed with enemies than the first one. Just take it a bit slower. Go to the west and fight your way through a ton of enemies to get to the Taskmaster. He drops the Black Ward Stone. Clear the way until you find some neutral monsters then talk to them. Tell them the password ('Xvim') and go through and talk to Kruntur. He wants some bracers that were stolen from him by the barghest. Return to Yquog and ask him for the bracers to get them. Bring the bracers to Kruntur to get the message. Bring the message to Yquog to finish the quest. Note - you can kill Yquog now, but it is not an easy fight. It is worth a lot of experience. If you choose to kill him, all of Kruntur's barghest guards will become aggressive and will kill you on sight. The first battle against them is long and with both groups of guards - including three Hardened Fire Trolls. This battle is NOT easy. Then you can finish off Kruntur's clan at your leisure, if you want to.

Go back to the second floor. Go north and then to the west. Kill the orc that sprints for the drum. Do not open the doors at the end of the hallway. If you want an easy battle, throw Fireballs (and other spells!) through the grating to hit the monsters inside. They are worth quite a bit of experience. Once they are dead, you can enter the cell and do the same thing to the ogres by the other door. Open the door and proceed down the hall until you get to a large animal pen. Kill the next batch of foes and grab the Iron Ward Stone off of Gumph's corpse. With the two ward stones you can approach the northern stairs and climb them (otherwise you get zapped).

Expect more of the same when walking around the Horde Fortress. Once you have escaped from the warrens, you will be above ground and in the fortress' courtyard. A horde of the usual will attack you - deal with them as usual and enter the fortress when you have killed everything and taken a nice rest.

The inside treats you to a nice battle against a pair of bugbears and an old orc. Listen to what he says - it is hilarious! Kill them and then open the door to witness a bizarre event. Send one character down the hall to pull in a large amount of enemies. Do this until you have pulled them all in. There is plenty of loot to find here - just wait until you have cleared the enemies from the halls and then loot away!

Guthma, the last boss of this chapter, is found in the central hallway. He is not that hard to kill, but does come with a few friends. Get ready to take them out first with spells, and then you shouldn't have any problems whittling away at his huge amount of hit points. Once he lies dead, search the southeastern rooms to find Braston, the missing ranger. Once you have cleared all the enemies and looted the entire place, get ready to walk him home to Ennelia. They'll reward you with a bow and some experience for your efforts. You can actually use the fortress' front door to get out.

Head back to town and get your next task from Ulbrec, your reward from Shawford and to make some preparations for the next stages of your journey. You should completely clean your inventory and buy any items that you may want. This is your last time here, so make it count! It takes time to clean your inventory, but is well worth it when it comes to finding more loot. Drop any useless quest items too! The only ones that you still need are Denham's Letters and the Cat Corpse - the others are a waste of space. When you are rested and ready to go, head to Oswald's airship - it is just to the north of the city hall.

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