It was great to be back in my home region where I was not that concerned about coming across anything. At this point, you would think things would stop attacking you. The local bandits never learn like the wildlife.
I was also thrilled to see winter had passed. I’m not sure if other regions have different sessions like this place. I’ll be having plans to try and avoid this region the next time it starts snowing as well. It’s a great excuse to start adventuring out into harder parts of the game. For now, however, I had some things to settle here.
Since it had been a couple of days the cave and fort had reset. I went and did them rather quickly. As I expected the new backpack, I got last time helped save a lot of time. I only needed to dump a couple of mostly worthless stuff on the ground to carry out the rest of the loot. Cutting down what would take four or more trips down to just two from running the two dungeons.
Since I did not need money for a house in the forest region as of yet. I decided after my farming runs to pick up some new skills. Some of the skills I would be working on getting required mana. Which I've never unlocked before.
Thankfully some of the other skills I acquired just burn a small amount of health or stamina for using them. Most of the stuff I wanted was just to boost my damage output. Most of the issue would end up being having those short-term buffs activated right before I found myself in a combat situation. This was easier to say than to do. As often bad situations found me all on their own.
It turns out unlocking mana in this game is rather easy. It however like many things comes at quite a heavy price for doing so. No, you don’t spend silver to get it. You have to sacrifice in a chamber your life and stamina to gain mana. The more you give up forever the more mana you end up acquiring.
Since I still prefer to use melee damage and most of what I was going to cast in terms of spells was to boost that damage. I only gave up twenty or so health and stamina. I then had plans to come back later once I gained further health and stamina from quests and passives to get a bit more mana.
I ended up having to head into a place called Conflux Mountain. There were a few different entrances. They each considered their path to the chamber and had their challenges.
I just picked one at random about halfway up the mountain that I ended up finding. It seemed like the place was a giant maze. I also noticed every time I had to choose which direction to go there was a blue skull in one of the directions. As luck would have it those blue skulls were marking the correct path forward in the maze.
Mana in this game is also so strange. More times than not I'd only have access to half my total mana. Sleeping in tents or beds was seen as coming out of alignment with your magical side. As a result, up to 50% of your mana bar was burnt. While there are ways to recover it, I never noticed much of a need.
I was stockpiling a few mana potions knowing one day I'd need them. I’m also glad I ended up using them as needed. As much later in the game I'd end up picking up a small amount of passive mana regen.
Also, the ocean fish meals I made myself also gave a small amount of mana regen. More times than not that was all I needed. I was mostly using spells to gain frost damage for my weapon.
With mana now unlocked and a few skills gained to use. I decided to ensure when I progressed toward the main storyline that I could not fail and end up losing access to the starting town.
I went into a dungeon that had three leaders I needed to take out. Sure, I could have talked them into fighting each other. I however wanted revenge for how things went the first time around.
I was shocked when I first entered the dungeon I was not jumped within moments by two guards and one of the leaders. No one seemed to care I was even either. It seems like not having that quest active yet has quite an advantage.
I was even able to walk up to the first leader I needed to take out and talk to him. I notice an opportunity to send him off to kill one of the other leaders as a challenge to him after getting him drunk.
I however wanted the honor of taking him out myself. Once I took him out, I took his key and progressed forward. Killing the two guards that normally would have attacked me right away on my other character.
I then progressed forward taking out the other two leaders. I had no idea if they would end up respawning and I'd have to kill them again. All I knew for certain was this time around I knew I could kill them.
I then went into the very room that had been looted and where my loot would have been kept when I was a prisoner here. Expect the zone had reset since that was quite a long time ago. As expected, my old gear which was quite outdated now was gone.
I was rather expecting this place to be more challenging than it was. Only one of the leaders was able to take me out on my first attempt. He ended up having some ranged support that I did not kill quickly enough.
Since I already had the place quite cleared out before engaging with the leaders. There was not much of a challenge to get back to him and finish the job once and for all.
Final Thoughts
Later on, I'd discover I just had to kill them once and the three bandit leaders were done for. I’d even return to my starting town a couple of times just to make sure the quest to take them out did not appear out of nowhere as some kind of hidden timer. It never did.
I kind of had a feeling it would be that way. After I got my revenge upon returning to town. The main guard there told me he had received word of what went down. I however was not going to fully trust there was not some trick or misunderstanding on my part.
This was also the point in the game I decided to start pressing forward a bit on the main storyline. I would however have some other major things I wanted to get out of the way before. But I knew for the time being I could move the main storyline ahead a little bit and into the next region.
Information
Outward Definitive Edition.Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about
