Hi all, The development is progressing, and 8 of 10 main story quests have been implemented. Since the last post, I've been working on a key location for the latest story quest: Order Stronghold.
It is sort of a 'bonus level' full of loot, lore, adventurer marks, and a new crafting station - a worthy reward after the challenge that is getting there and an entire seven-quest chain before it.

The main entrance

After battling the demons of Spellscarred Desert, the player will find themselves at the steel gate of Order Tempest. The key that opens it was given to them by a princess from the previous story quest.

The main building

Unfortunately, you need another key - to pass the second steel gate and enter the stronghold's main building.

Central sentry

Central sentry is the only enemy in Order Stronghold and is its most lethal guardian. The player can defeat it to gain a key to unlock the second steel gate. It's one of the game's toughest enemies and can be battled repeatedly, as it keeps respawning. It also isn't hostile until the players attack it, so it's an optional fight. The visuals of the sentry are not final, I'm planning to change it a bit to look more unique from other sentries.

The steel kiln

The Stronghold's unique steel kiln - found east of the central sentry - can create steel weapons from material obtained by fighting steel sentries. The players can also craft steel gate keys here. That means the players can pass through the second steel gate without fighting the central sentry.

The warehouse

Located west of the central sentry, this building contains spare steel parts for steel sentries. Useful for crafting the new weapons! It requires Adventurer level 20, an alchemical bomb, and an iron square key to get in. The iron square key can be found inside the main building. So, let's head there!

The situation room

Right ahead of the entrance to the main building of the stronghold is a situation room, where the world-shaping decisions would be made by the members of the Order Tempest. It is a lore room! Here you can see a table with the map of Rezelot, one side of Kayos, the Locked World. This map is 200 years old, so there are differences between this map and the one seen in the map UI. There is one more noteworthy detail on the map, but that's up to the players to figure it out.

The key holder

Here the players will find a key holder, which holds four keys required to go through various locked doors in Order Stronghold.

The archives

The reason why the player character comes to the Stronghold is to access its archives. This is where the 8th story quest concludes and where some of the most important details about the game's story are revealed.

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So, that is all for this blog entry! Now that the 8th quest is done, I'm taking a short break from quest development to update the Steam demo version with some balance changes and perhaps update the store page as well. After that a very exciting part of the development is coming - the story's final quests! I will be making the final boss, an endgame area - the fallen city of Korrev, and so much more. Until next time!