Nightfall

Leave the Observatory, and go over to the north of the university. A priest in red robes should have appeared. If he isn't there, simply wander around and keep talking. Eventually he'll appear, and you must await the coming of doom. Night will fall.

When you wake up again, you will be in the destroyed Saro University. Fight your way through it. There are two people you can talk to here: Theremon is hiding in the place where you read the papers about the nightfall, and Sheerin is beyond the walls in the very vest. Talk to them, then leave.

Go up north to Bartertown. Pay the entrance fee, and get some equipment and (more importantly) food. Low-level characters have trouble creating food with Manna, and will need plenty of food to stay alive. A peculiar effect: level 1 characters can get a lot of food with Manna, while level 2, 3, 4, etc. can't produce food at all. So crank out plenty of food while your priests are level one, and you'll save some food-purchasing money.

Go up north by the road. You'll get to a guarded bridge: just attack the priests there. Once done, Go up north to Saro City. If you started out with a fresh party, you might not be able to manage the dungeon yet. But the entrance is in the very southeast.

You will want to get to the far north. The easiest way is by the ogres. Go up by the road, and eventually you'll hear a voice speaking to you. Listen to the voice, and go find where it came from. Gofannon can give you plenty of help. You can grab some food, and also browse the shelves for some spells. You'll need some Mage Lore to get them though: just remember to buy a little Mage Lore each time you train.

You'll want to talk to Gofannon about the Hobgoblins. He sends you on a quest to slay a Bighorn Sheep. Just go up into the mountains, and eventually one should appear as a wandering monster. Kill it by whatever way you can, and return with the meat to Gofannon. Listen to his directions. There's a water pool east of the road. Go there, lay the meat on the ground, and hide. The first of the Hobgoblins should appear soon. When he gets there, charge. Use plenty of curses, etc. on it, and chop at him until he drops.

Go back to Gofannon, and he should send you on the quest to slay the second Hobgoblin. She will be west of the road, in a mine. By the way, many of the mines contain a good amount of cash: you should check most of them for easy gold. You'll need to fight two groups of monsters: the first is a group of ogres, the second is a group of ogres along with a Hobgoblin. Win both encounters, and go back to Gofannon.

He will tell you of New Ogreville, which is to the west of the road, and you can only access it by mountain. So just head north from his home, and explore everything. You should eventually get to a guarded tunnel. There are some ogres in here, but they're rather sporadic and you won't have much trouble. To get past the stalagmites, there are some hidden levers you need to pull. At the end of the tunnel you will fight the third Hobgoblin. You should be able to beat him and send him shambling back out.

New Ogreville isn't a particularly difficult dungeon: the Hobgoblins are to the very southeast of the place. Kill all three, and you're done. Grab the treasure and leave. Go to Golfannon and report your success. Now go over to the road, and north. The ogre checkpoint will be removed by Gofannon. Go on through. It leads to Amgando, and you should go talk to the mayor there to receive your reward for the quest.

Now you should go back to Saro City and tackle the second quest: contacting Coriolanus. Go in by the southeast, talk to the boy, and get the message scroll. Now fight your way through. You're going to need to ascend the ramparts of the city. But there's nothing hard about the fights: it can basically be handled by sending a single fighter, heavily blessed and hasted, against the enemy soldiers. No low-level monster can handle that. Circle the ramparts and kill everyone. Then pick an exit, and go down.

Coriolanus is in the center building. You basically have to get there and call out your name. Make sure you're in Town Mode, and standing straight in front of the door. The guards inside will let you in. Talk to Coriolanus, get to reply scroll, then go back up to Amgando by the ogre route. Get your second reward. The third quest is the settlement of the warlords on the western coast. When you approach the area, you will get into a fight between humans and Nephilim. Pick the Nephilim side. It won't be too hard. The Nephils will give you a charm, allowing you into their fortress in the southwest. You can explore it if you want: there's a bunch of treasure in there. There are also some puzzles in one of the basements, but they're fairly simple. They're basically all cat-related.

The western coast is inhabited by many rebel soldiers. You'll probably run into quite a few. You should eventually get to a guarded bridge, where the guards will ask for a pass. You don't have one yet, so you're going to need to look for camps. There are three camps, basically roughly strewn about the area. The first camp is in the east, in forests. The second is in the southwest, in swamp. The third is in the southeast, in mountains. After you finish the third, you will find a pass. Use it to get by the guards at the bridge, and head north.

You'll get to a series of drawbridges that are currently up (and thus impassable). A little west from that is Baron Oberon's castle. Explore the area. Talk to the prisoner in the very southeast. He can give you some valuable information: talk to him as much as possible. There's a secret passage leading from Vincenzio's workshop: the workshop is in the general southwest area, and the passage is somewhere in the northeast walls of the room. Look for secret doors along the passage itself. One of the rooms leads to Vincenzio's room: search everything and you'll find a rope.

There's an exit leading from the workshop east, leading to a chapel. The altar is more than it seems. Search thoroughly. Find a lever, turn it, and go through the secret passage again. You'll find a secret door to the kennels. Go through, and you'll get to a passage into the sea caves.

To get through the sea caves, you'll need some trickery. There's a place where you need to pass a tide. Combat mode should get you through. Then there's a place with stalagmites. Explore everything, and think about what the rope can do for you. A tight rope can help you get across slippery rocks. You need to 'use' the rope as four spots.

Once through the caves, you'll get to a cave with Slithzerikai. Fight your way through. Vincenzio will wait you at the end. Kill him and get through. Get some treasure from the rooms, then leave. Pull the lever to lower the drawbridges. Now head up to Amgando again (this time by the drawbridges) and claim your third reward.

Finally, you will need to deal with the Cult of Burning Darkness. How were they able to predict the coming of doom?

Their base lies beyond the huge swamp in the northwest. You will have to traverse it. To the very north there are some caves. Two of them bear special importance. One is a pixie cave, another the Temple of the Burning Darkness.

In the pixie cave, you will need to help the pixies defeat an Ursag, a ferocious, intelligent bear. Kill it, and you get as a reward some equipment. Most important among the equipment are a set of red robes. You will need to use them to get into the Temple.

Go up to the Temple, and when you get to the gate, use the red robes from your special items list. You'll be able to get in. However, the guards will notice something wrong immediately, and they will attack. Kill them, and you'll get a brass key.

Move around the place, killing everyone on the main path. At the end of the path is a small temple with some priests and an altar. Win the battle, and head towards the northwest door. Get through, search everything, then take the stairs.

The second level is difficult: fight through lots of acolytes and priests. You should eventually get to the northeast of the dungeon, where you must fight Mondior. It's a very difficult battle, and you may have to try several times to make it through, but when you do, you can take the door on the east side of the throne room and go through in search of stuff. You should get a small silver key, as well as some spells and other interesting things.

Now go to the far northwest. The Altar of Unholy Light requires a special way for you to walk. Take the central path in, but you have to move like a knight as in chess. Basically, that means taking two steps in one direction then one step in a direction perpendicular to the direction to which you have just moved. When you get to the altar, You can grab the knife on it. The shock fields won't last for too long: just get to a place without fields and wait it out. There's a secret door on the very northwest wall of the altar room. Go through it, find your way through the maze, and go through the magic barrier. Search the cabinets to get some ancient scrolls. Now get out of there and up to Amgando. You can go by the northwest passage through the tunnel. The way to get to Amgando once you're in the outdoors is by a water passage to the west.

Present the scrolls to the mayor of Amgando, and you will have fulfilled all four of the victory conditions. Leave by the northeast dock when you want. There are a few side quests you can do, but you have already restored civilization from a darkened land. Isn't that enough?

--From The Archives of Akhronath