Sea Of Thieves Tutorial Key Disappeared
Sofiel Kustra
Conventions
Once again, I've chosen to eschew that handy yet game spoiling Table of Contents. OK, so this Guide is loaded with outright spoilers anyway, but I try not to ruin all the fun right up front by providing you with a listing of all the important locations you will visit. If you're looking for references to a particular location, person, weapon, etc., then just search for it in your browser.
You can play as either a Warrior, Survivor (cross between a rogue and a thief), or a Wizard. Since you can freely choose skills from any class, I would recommend that you play as a Warrior the first time through, making use of Wizard spells like Freeze to augment your combat abilities, and Survivor skills like Lockpick to get you past locked doors and chests. As with most RPGs, playing as a pure Wizard is the hardest, especially in the early stages of the game when your character is relatively weak. Anyway, it's your call. Being able to choose skills from other classes means that you can build literally any kind of character you please!
Save your game before talking to each shopkeeper for the very first time, or before opening a locked cupboard or chest. Reason being... the items you'll buy or find are RANDOMLY GENERATED each time. Those of you with much patience can keep reloading until you get the items you want! And you should also save the game before you have shopkeepers identify items for you. An item is usually worth more after it's identified, but if it's not worth more than the cost of identification, you just lost some money :-(
Remember to save after every battle, or even partway through a really tough one when you've made significant progress. There's nothing worse than traversing a large area, fighting five tough battles along the way, then having to do it all over again because you got killed in the sixth battle without having a prior save!
There are a few 'killer' skills in this game, that make it possible to defeat even the toughest creatures. You would be well advised to have at least one of them in your repertoire, though using them too often can make the game too easy:
- Freeze - immobilises your enemies for 3 seconds per level of the spell.
- Poison Weapon - poison on a weapon gets them every time with only a few blows.
- Deadly Gift - a single death scorpion released from a scorpion trap can take out nearly anything that moves.
It's not immediately obvious how to pick up or drop a partial amount of items that are stacked. For instance, say you have 12 scorpion traps together in your inventory, and you want to drop 6 of them to lighten your load. What you do is: drag them out of your inventory, then before you drop them on the ground, hold down the Ctrl key. When you then drop them, you will get a panel allowing you to select just how how many you want to drop. Of course, the process works the same for picking things up: hold down the Ctrl key while dragging the items into your inventory.
It's also not obvious how to use scorpion traps and trail bombs. You first need to take at least one level of the Survivor skill Deadly Gift. Then when you select that skill and right-click, you'll get a choice of which type of item to use (based on what's currently in your inventory). Click on the item type to use, then the next time you right-click, an item of the type you chose will be deployed.
Another skill worth having is the Warrior's Enchant Weapon skill. Once you have at least one level of this skill, when you click on an equipped weapon or piece of armour that can be charmed, you'll see how many free charm slots that item has. You can then drag charms from your inventory into a free charm slot. Be careful about applying powerful charms to not particularly powerful items that you are likely to ditch later on, because there's no way to reclaim the charms from items you no longer have equipped.
Even though there is a specialised Survivor skill that you can use to poison arrows, you can also just as easily use the Poison Weapon skill to poison any bow or crossbow! It's handy to have a decent ranged weapon early on in the game for taking on enemies that can kill you with a single blow should they get too close.
Make an effort to find the various teleporters scattered throughout the land, and the scrolls that activate those that belong to each race. The teleporter I used most was the one behind the Ars Magicana shop, as there are several nice shops in that immediate area that you can use to identify and trade valuable items that you find. Early on in the game, a wizard will give you a map of the teleporters. Study it carefully, because it gives you a very good idea of the layout of the entire kingdom. Don't worry though. I'll tell you where you can find the activation scrolls for each race's teleporters, and will also provide the locations of the most important teleporters :-)
You should use the blue flags to mark places of interest, especially in the first village until you get used to finding your way around. Also useful in dungeons for marking exits from each level, etc. Be sure to make use of the mini-map too. Stick it in any corner of your screen, and it will alert you to approaching monsters, as well as helping you to run quickly through areas that you've already visited.
Aleroth
You find yourself next to a bed in someone's basement. You'll be coming back here a lot to rest, a much more economical way to restore health and mana than by quaffing potions! Pick up the Minor Health Potion from the table to your right, then go upstairs and grab the Worn Dirk off the table. There's also a Minor Health Potion on a table in the room to the east. When you walk into the room to the west, Joram, one of the Aleroth healers, starts speaking to you. If you pursue all the conversation paths, you'll get Quest 1 below.
In the graveyard in the north part of Aleroth, there's a grave with a bronze key on it. This key opens the house just NE of Joram's. Move the boxes there to reveal a hatch. In the cellar, when you approach the locked vase in the centre, Jake the zombie (yup, that was his grave) will appear. I managed to kill him with a high level 2 character using a dirk that gave me Assassin's Kiss. If you can do this, it's worth a whole lot of XP and will take you nearly to level 4! Good luck. You can always wait till a little later on to tackle Jake if he's too tough for you now.
There's a locked house all the way in the NE part of Aleroth. The door is on the east side. The key is in a barrel next to the door. You can sleep in the bed there, but why bother as you've already got the use of the one in Joram's cellar? You can gain entrance to the cellar here through a hatch. Just a few barrels down there. I happened to find some scorpion traps in one.
- 1. Restore Mardaneus' sanity - 11000 XP and Reputation +3.
You get this quest by talking to Joram at the very start of the game. It seems that the healer Mardaneus may have been possessed by a demon. Indeed, as soon as you exit Joram's house, you witness a cut scene between Lanilor, another of the healers, and Mardaneus, who does seem to be spouting some strange dialogue. So, head SW and witness another scene whereby Mardaneus mistakes Lanilor for a demon and casts Freeze on the poor blighter. You now have Quest 2 as well.
- 2. Rescue Lanilor the elf from his icy prison - 1000 XP.
Mardaneus has barred his front door, and rest assured your Lockpick skills are too lacking at this stage to open it. However, if you enter the wooden well to the east of Mardaneus' house, you gain entrance to his basement. On a wooden box to the south is a bronze key that gets you past the locked door further to the south. Just head SW then, and up the ladder into Mardaneus' house. Speak with him, and it's easier than you think to convince him to reverse the spell on Lanilor. When you speak to Lanilor after he's unfrozen, he'll tell you that he feels the secret to Mardaneus' sanity most likely lies in the catacombs beneath Aleroth (and thus you receive Quest 3). After completing this quest, you have the run of Mardaneus' house. There's a key on the floor of his front room. It unlocks the chest in the back room, which usually contains a decent weapon or piece of armour.
- 3. Unlock the entrance to the catacombs beneath Aleroth - 1000 XP.
The entrance to the catacombs is in the very centre of Aleroth. Lanilor told you what to do, but you could easily figure out that you need to rotate all 4 dragon statues to the north just by playing with them, because they click into place. I wouldn't venture down here until you're at least a level 2 character with the best armour and weapon (or spell) you can arm. And it also helps to have one of Lanilor's teleporter pyramids (see Quest 4) with you, the other right near the bed in Joram's basement. You should also probably complete Quests 6 and 7, which gives you level 1 Restoration. Anyway, once you decide to venture into the catacombs...
Catacombs level 1
Immediately you enter, to the south, you'll find a book left by Mardaneus within a pentagram of candles warning you not to go into the catacombs. Sure thing! On the wall to the north there is a lever that opens the locked door to the east. Keep wandering until you find another lever that takes you through another locked door (there's a locked door before that you will need a special key to get through). Then you get to fight your first skeletons. Next you'll find a blue magic orb, and then a sapphire key (this gets you through that door you couldn't unlock earlier, but there's really no need to go back there). Keep on wandering until you have found 3 magic orbs. Finally, you'll come to a room containing another pentagram of candles. Lighting the candles summons a skeletal warrior, not too tough to defeat. There's a locked door to the west here, opened by a lever on the north wall. At the end of a corridor after this door, you'll encounter a party of orcs. Talk to their leader, Smiruk, to obtain Quest 8. From there, continue south. All the way in the SW part of this level you will find a large female statue with a book lodged behind it. Read the sad story of Gregar Brock. Lighting the candle there will summon Gregar, and he makes a tenacious fighting companion with a lot of vitality to spare. Don't take him above ground though, or he will instantly perish (thankfully, above ground does not include your bed in Joram's cellar, where you can teleport to for occasional rest even with Gregar in your company). In a room to the north of where you found Gregar, there's a room containing 3 pentagrams. A manuscript there from the evil Thelyron tells you what must be done. Place each of the magic orbs you found in the centre of a pentagram, and a portal opens up! Going through the portal gets you past a locked door into the next room. There are 2 stairways there. The one leading up takes you back outside, and you don't want to go there yet. So, take the stairway that leads down to...