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(contents of these chests are random of course) if you're lucky.

Eventually, you'll run into a very large room with a skeleton (sometimes two), a goblin or two, and a mage. This mage can be defeated, and you should target him with everything you've got and take him out quickly. Even a barbarian or other tough character can be knocked down pretty easily by this guy if you don't close with him and take him out immediately. Ahh the wonders of second level characters. It might even be a good idea to save your game prior to entering this room in case things go badly with a few magic missiles the mage likes to target on your tender behind.

Note also that this mage fires magic missiles in pairs, which means he's at least 3rd level, perhaps 4th (1 magic missile at 1st level, another at 3rd, and so on for the odd levels to a maximum of 5 magic missiles at level 9). While this might not seem significant now, knowing little details like that will help you later in the game. 3rd edition D&D players will have a distinct advantage playing this game, at least starting out.

There is no real boss to this level, and when you eventually get to the stables where two figures are fighting off a group of goblins, you are at the final scene of the prelude. Both of the figures are characters you'll be dealing with and hearing about throughout chapter 1 of the game. Help them out if you want, but you probably won't be doing much damage compared to them. As the combat proceeds, you'll notice a nymph, a yuan-ti, and an intellect devourer all teleport out of the room. These are the Waterdhavian creatures you were sent to protect - there is no way to keep them from leaving, so don't waste your time trying.

When the goblins are defeated talk to Fenthik and learn more about the story.
Make sure you tell them that you will indeed help, and you will level up again!
(Quest completed) Now they will leave, you can level up and leave as well because there's nothing else for you here.

Congratulations; you are now done with the prelude!

Quests:
1) Academy Training. This entry is automatically in your journal when you first start the game. You finish it by completing your training quest and talking to the man who shows you how to level up.

2) Combat Training. You get it when you first enter combat, simple enough right?
You finish this quest in the stables when you tell them that you will help them and level up for the second time.

Just a word for the wise now, if you had any trouble at all with this first level of the game you should seriously consider turning off your computer, because it is about to get insanely more difficult. With that said lets move onto...
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B. CHAPTER I

City Core
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You start off in the sanatorium. There's nothing much to do here but talk to the people you just met in the previous section. You can persuade the nurses to tell you some information about Desther and his Helmites, that they showed up soon after the plague hit.
Head north to the Hall of Justice and meet Aribeth. Learn some more about the plague and receive the stone of recall. Before leaving go to the door directly across from where you came in, on the right. It's the only other door that isn't locked.

In here talk to Olef and get a quest (you might need to use persuasion to get the quest) Collect items and go back out and you can choose to hire a thief (you may want to wait till you get all the other choices)

As soon as you exit Bethany comes running up, if you help her then you get another quest, more on this in the quest section.

In the Moonstone Mask (you can see sign on map) Gills can give you an alternative to the Olef quest, if you want to be an evil alignment. I kept Olef's quest so I don't know anything about it (Note from Sorial:
You can do both. I did the tombs quest first, then visited the Moonstone
Mask to get information on Olef to blackmail him with). Also in the
Moonstone Mask, Ophala the owner will give you a quest if you can persuade her to, again look at the quest section. (you do not need to persuade her to actually get the quest, you can acquire it later on)

In the Shining Knight's arms and armor, if you talk to the shop keep about rare items he will give you a key to the back room where a dwarf will make rare and magic items if you bring him combinations of jewels and magic items. He also gives you a book that lists all the possible combinations. Here's the list, for those of you who might want to plan ahead. Please offer any corrections, as I've already found a discrepancy between what the game says and what reality creates. Each item uses a magic version of it's namesake and the component listed:

Chromatic Breastplate:                Diamond. Base AC 6
Scales of Truth:                      Holy water. Base AC 5
Leather Whitebone Armor:              Gargoyle skull. Base AC 3
*BUG ALERT* This recipe actually creates magic half plate armor, base AC 7, with a
+2 magic bonus, even if you use magic leather armor in the recipe like the name suggests)
Sentinel battleaxe:                   Adamantite
Double axe of the Tall Kin:           Adamantite
Stonefire great axe:                  Adamantite
Ice reaver handaxe:                   Dragon blood
Gladiator club:                       Ironwood
Ironwood dire mace:                   Ironwood
Reaver heavy flail:                   Dragon blood
Storm light hammer:                   Diamond
Foundation light flail:               Ironwood
Mace of disruption:                   Holy water
Drone morning star:                   Faerie dust
Rune hammer:                          Adamantite
Harbinger great sword:                Adamantite
Sword saint katana:                   Adamantite
Astral blade longsword:               Diamond
Namarra rapier:                       Dragon blood
Desert wind scimitar:                 Adamantite
Feyduster shortsword:                 Faerie dust
Uthgardt ceremonial two-bladed sword: Ironwood
Ravager halberd:                      Dragonblood
Sea reaver scythe:                    Adamantite
Fey spear:                            Faerie dust
Golden sickle:                        Holy water

In the Trade of Blades you can now hire a henchman of almost any class you want. Personally I chose the bard, because she has every skill, especially the helpful attack and defense bonus songs, as well as pick locks and melee. Here's a breakdown of the henchmen you can receive:

Tomi Undergallows: Rogue, and very good at it. Fights well enough, but best serves you in melee, not ranged combat. He gets sneak attacks, and they pack one hell of a wallop as long as you're tying up the enemy so he can flank. You can get him in the Hall of Justice where Aribeth is at, right by the door going out.

Grimgnaw: Lawful Evil monk of the long death. Nasty little guy who hits like a truck, especially at higher levels. He's almost as good to have around as the barbarian, sometimes better considering he has stunning fist.

Daelan Red Tiger: The Red Tiger part means he's part of the Red Tiger
Uthgardt tribe. This is one tough customer, and quite smart for a half orc. He's not very useful other than for combat, but worth it for that.

Sharwyn: Moderate in a fight, certainly not the combat equal of Daelan or Grimgnaw, but not a pushover either. Her real bonuses come from the spells she'll cast on you (bull's strength, etc.) and the ones she'll cast on the enemy (nothing nearly as nice as what she'll cast on you ;)
She can pick locks and sing bard's songs (they give you higher attack rolls and things like that, depending on her level).

Linu La'neral: Not very tough in combat, but can heal and cast bless/aid which is helpful. Her real bonus is turn undead, which she'll do automatically if undead are around. It can take out or at least hinder an entire room of undead quite quickly, making places like Helm's Hold or the Beggar's Nest quite a bit easier.

Boddyknock Glinckle: Gnomish sorcerer. (someone feel free to give a little info about this guy before I choose to use him and find out myself)

You get two quests as you hire a henchman, one just tells you the basic rules and what happens when your henchman dies (you can never complete this), another is the story of your henchman, each henchman has a different background story and will eventually tell you the whole thing leading to a quest. (You need to be level 5+ before they will tell you the whole story and the quest goals become clear)When you picked your henchman you can buy a ticket for the gauntlet, a fighting pit type thing for 50 gold, the gauntlet is located in black lake. (more info in quest section)

You can now go around exploring the town, picking up odds and ends, please keep in mind you have many choices ahead of you right now, you can head to Blacklake, you need to collect all four components for the cure, as well as the four tombs if you accepted either the good or bad artifacts quest.

I suggest the Peninsula District first because it has the book that tells you the locations for the temples (Look at artifacts quest) even though in my opinion it had the hardest boss. Remember you can do the districts in any order and complete the quests in any order but I will list them in the order of "easiest" to "hardest".


Peninsula District
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There isn't much to do here, the guards tell you to report to the person in charge, which is on the other side of the district. You don't really need to do this as she just tells you the blatantly obvious, and you can get the quest completed and pass on without visiting her. Your goal here is to get inside the prison and stop the revolt. There are two ways to do this, one you can go through the underground tunnels directly into the prison, and another way is to go into the sewer system kill the gang of thugs and retrieve the key to the front door. Each involve a quest which aren't listed at the bottom because it's basically just your access of getting in and no thought is involved.

To be able to access the underground tunnels you need to talk to one of the two servants of the queen. They will tell you that a key is hidden under the mat and that they want you to check and make sure she's ok. The girl who tells you this is on the west side, and the man is somewhere close to the middle north-eastern part.  I suggest going to the girl on the west side because that is where the tomb that Olef/Gil gave you (see quest section below for more information)

Once you get in the prison you can choose to release a guard that is in one of the cells, you don't gain any experience or quests but he tells you what is going on.  Make your way to the second floor, collecting items if you want and a man will whisper for you to follow him.

You may be hesitant but don't worry, he will tell you more about what is going on and describes the basic layout of the prison. Again just explore the level and head downstairs.

This is the final floor of this dungeon and when you get to the end (a lot of locked doors) you see the chief of the prison run downstairs leaving a half-orc to kill you.

Mini-Boss: Half-Orc
This guy packs quite a punch with his double axe. Just keep using healing potions if you need to and he will eventually give up. If you have a lot of trouble you might want to consider wandering the peninsula and trying to level up.

Once he gives up you can kill him, get some more information and then kill him, or get some information and let him go. Choice is totally up to you. No matter what you choose you can now head downstairs and prepare yourself for a most annoying boss fight.

Boss - Intellect Devourer
Definitely the most annoying boss in the first chapter. Once you go downstairs the head of the guard will attack you. He blabbers on as you fight hits very hard and has a decent amount of life. After he falls a little bug thing will pop out and attack you. Do as much damage as you can before it runs to a nearby body and jumps in. Fortunately all the guards he can possess are much weaker than the head gaeoler, so they'll fall quickly.

You now have to go through the process of killing all these guards, fighting the bug in between, and each time he comes out of a body his life is completely restored!  There are maybe 4 or 5 bodies for him to take, and when he runs out of places to run he will finally fight you. He hits just as hard as the guard captain, and has a little bit more life.

After you kill him take the 1/4th cure and use your stone of recall to go back to the Hall of Justice. You can give the 1/4th cure to her and you will get some gold and experience, you can also give the artifact to whoever you accepted the quest from.

Strategy hint by Kev:
You can also persuade the guards down here to leave before fighting the brain eater, therefore giving him no place to run,  you can do it with little persuade