Weapons finally do damage

The biggest change this time is one you feel the moment you swing. The weapon in your hand drives your damage now. Until today your fists and a fine blade landed the same blow, a weapon showed numbers on the stats panel but the fight never read them, so raw Strength did all the talking. Done with that. The weapon adds its own range to every swing, and it climbs the further up the rack you go.

There is a first stab at misses in the maths too. A well-armoured fighter can slip a physical blow outright. We tied it to armour and kept it narrow on purpose, so only someone geared deep into the protective end earns any dodge, and nothing in the early game starts whiffing. The ranges are deliberately modest and the dodge number is ours, likely to move once it is felt in a fight. Two things still missing: the flat damage bonus printed on armour and trinkets is not counted yet (some pieces carry wild figures we want to check first), and nothing stops a fresh character from strapping on gear far above their level.

Food that feeds you, potions that heal

Every edible used to be inert. You could double-click an apple all day and nothing happened. They do their job now.

The three draughts are the bigger gulp. The orange mends sixty health, the purple four hundred, the red fills you to the brim.

These are the measured end of the scale on purpose. The fancier brews, cures and mana and buffs, and the spoiled things you should not eat, are still inert.

The opening, with a guide

A new character wakes carrying the whole starter outfit in their pack rather than already dressed, your attire, a fresh pair of boots, an apple, two slices of bread, a stick. You dress yourself, which is the same lesson the stick was teaching.

A guiding spirit meets you in a dialog when you wake, instead of a line of text along the top that is easy to miss. It tells you what you are carrying and where to head. Walk East to the edge of the map and the spirit asks whether you are sure, because the road runs one way. Say yes and you wake upstairs in the Mileth Inn, the dream fading, before stepping down to meet Riona. The dream-only fire spell you practised with does not survive the waking.

That was some dream. Could it be? I am an Aisling!

Two small fixes rode along. The teachers who send you onward were still pointing at a gate that no longer stands, and they say to follow the path East now. And the inn stairs drop you right beside Riona instead of across the room.

Mileth keeps filling in

Daithi, the special-skill master, stands in his hall now and sells the one tool a budding rogue needs. We built the Lockpicks item from scratch.

Fair warning, lock-picking itself is not built yet, the locked chests and the skills that use a pick, so for now a set of picks is a tool waiting for its job.

Colm the courier keeps the Mileth post office and will explain how mail works. The restaurant and tavern have their people, Oona behind the food counter, the barmaid Aingeal, Duana who dances, Teague the beggar with his rumours, and Theradus, who talks of a sword made from dragon scale. A few strangers who had drifted into those rooms went off to where they actually live.

The most useful change for a thin purse: Cian the alchemist is a buyer now, not a seller. He pays real coin for the spoiled food and oddments the crypt vermin drop, where before that junk sold for nothing. Clear rats and spiders below, carry the spoils up to Cian, and there is your earliest steady income.

And three masters reward you simply for listening. Torrance the armorer, Devlin the White Magic Master, and Keallach the Combat Skill Master each give a lecture in their hall off the square, seven thousand experience in all for hearing them out. Two of them had been stranded on the wrong maps and could not be reached at all before.

Swing something if you get the chance.

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