Town Centre West

Back above ground, on the other side of the river now. There are a couple of Blades to deal with before circling north to find a new workshop - 'Magic Hammer'. Here we can work with Iron and Bronze for the first time, so Hagane can be forged. Time to clean up the inventory...

Firstly we'll upgrade the shield a bit. Bronze and Bronze will only make another Bronze item, naturally, but the combined quality of the Targe and Quad Shield gets us a Circle Shield. Every little bit helps...

Now for the armour. A Bronze Spangenhelm and an Iron Chain Coif combine to make a Hagane Cabasset:



Note the increase in overall defence stats. Little increments like this as you go through the game is what the equipment system is all about. I won't go into great detail with it, as it's hardly thrilling reading, but here I'll give some insight into the kind of thing it entails. I upgraded the other armour pieces, some into Hagane and some into better pieces of Bronze or Iron. The two facets to upgrading are the materials and the items. The range of materials is:

Wood
Leather
Bronze
Iron
Hagane
Silver
Damascus

Silver and Damascus can't be forged from anything lower, and can only be found (apart from a couple of rare occasions). However, Silver and Damascus can 'absorb' lesser materials, essentially upgrading a favourite item into a better material. Say you've built up a very nice Human-type sword and managed to upgrade it to Hagane along the way. You would then be able to use a Damascus item to upgrade the same sword to Damascus, keeping its stats intact. The variations and exceptions to this are vast and varied, so this is only a very rough guide.

Items are a bit more straightforward. Basically, combining the best item you have of a certain type with a lesser one of the same type will usually give you the next one up. Wildcards come into play - combining, say, a short sword with a heavy mace can get you a crossbow(!).

Here's an example with a sword. The Sword weapon list goes:

Spatha
Scimitar
Rapier
Short Sword
Firangi
Shamshir
Falchion
Shotel
Kora
Khopesh
Wakizashi
Rhomphaia

Bronze Rapier plus Iron Spatha...

And we have a Hagane Short Sword. Again, note the stat increase, especially in strength.

Note that it wasn't a Rapier/Scimitar combination. That's one of the anomalies in the list. The first few weapons tend not to combine higher. It's when you get to the third or fourth that you can fairly confidently use that rule. Still, here you can see early on how two items combine to make a higher one.

After going through all the other equipment, discarding defunct stuff and attaching gems where appropriate, we have a pretty good set going:

Things starting to creep up the quality lists.

Through the use of gems and the consistent use of weapons we've also got a decent set of individual weapons for enemy types:



It's never particularly easy to explain all that, but honestly it makes a lot more sense when you're in the game! The most important thing to note about all this though, is that it's almost entirely optional. You don't have to get involved in this stuff at all to make it through the game enjoyably. This is the extra layer for the stat hounds really. As long as you make your way through collecting the better equipment and being consistent with your weapon choices against enemy types you will be fine. A bit of combining here and there just to buff things up a little or improve the material will be enough.

Speaking of the game...

Ashley crosses back over the river via a cloudstone and comes across another mysteriously sealed door:


Continuing round, Ashley spies Sydney! He decides to observe...




Samantha: We can pass through here.


Guildenstern: Ancient Kildean lettering... It's quite worn, nigh unreadable.
Samantha: Anything useful?
Guildenstern: I think not. Yet...

Guildenstern: The carvings are particularly deep in places.
Samantha: They're quite charming... What do they mean?
Guildenstern: There's more here... And here.

Guildenstern: Ah, truly. These were written before the birth of St. Iocus... A time when sorcerers were common as sellswords.

Samantha: The cardinal, he will stop the legacy of Mullenkamp... the Grimoires... from falling into the wrong hands, will he not?
Guildenstern: ... Of course, my love. To cede its power to a fanatic such as Sydney would be madness. I fear he already has the Gran Grimoire. What think you?
Samantha: I do not know. Yet surely we would not be here, chatting so amiably, if he had.

Guildenstern: It is only a book... a covenant. Yet it is the Prime Mover, the machinery of life itself.



Sydney: You wouldn't know what to do with such power!
Guildenstern: Then pray tell, for what purpose have you been in league with the duke these many years? You seek to control men... nay, to control god Himself!!
Sydney: Oh, please. Warping the minds of men and shepherding the masses has always been your church's domain. You lure sheep with empty miracles and a dead god.

Sydney: A poor little lamb, bleating for your faith as though it were milk of the poppy.

Sydney: Yet mark your saviour well, for he is one of the demons you so fear, Samantha.
Samantha: Be silent!




Sydney: Ahh, truly the cardinal's own hand. Your will is strong, Guildenstern.
Guildenstern: ... You are not the only shepherd here, Sydney!!








Samantha: The fiend!!
Guildenstern: Run, Sydney, run. You will be ours in the end.

Ashley can't pass through the rusted gate either, but a way round can be found by passing through one of the derelict buildings. There are a couple more Blades about, which gives the chance to test out the new Hagane sword...





Finally, Ashley descends into the Undercity...