Sometimes, just going off nowhere you are supposed to be ends up going really well. Even something as silly as just let's get to the top of some mountain. It can help sometimes to instead go off and do something more around your level as well to get back on track.

So, we were far from anywhere we should have been. I’m talking, I don’t even know why we thought it would be a good idea to be there. There were so many questions and other things to do at my level. Instead of any of that, we were near a place called the Pillars of Creation and what ended up being a dragon cave. Thankfully, no dragons were hunting us down and killing us.

If anything, we should have headed north of our encampment or used the new tower we just unlocked. There are an endless number of things to be doing over there. That, however, would have been far too easy.

On top of that, we had been climbing up a mountain the hard way. At least the person I was playing with was. I was just following, hoping not to die. He mined up and a mountain more or less. I’m sure it would have been faster just to have walked around, but that is not nearly as fun.

It’s clear we still have a ways to go. However, there is some copper to mine. It’s not like we could not find copper closer to home. It was, however, there, and we needed some. So we were mining away, minding our own business. Well, one of the spots we cleared of ore ended up creating a hole into a cave. It would have been rude not to have grown into the cave and find out what we just discovered.

We are wandering around this strange cave, and apparently, he had some higher-level quest for this area. I myself, to this day, don’t think I've ever found this dragon quest myself. It leads to a golden chest with a weapon in it. Since I'm the melee being the “tank” of the group, and he is more ranged, he gifts me the sword.

The sword itself was just insane. A Dragon Sword of all things. Not only was it one of the coolest-looking weapons I'd pick up for quite some time, if ever. It was like level 23 or so once I used some runes to level it up. It also had so much bonus damage that I would not end up replacing this sword for what felt like forever.

Having this weapon as early in my progression as I did was like giving me god powers. Just about anything I hit around my level was dead. Bosses, they were a couple of hits, and they would be dead. This thing was just nuts.

So good in fact, I would not replace this weapon for about sixty hours of gameplay or even longer. That is just crazy! If only I could have found a bow that nice as well. Those seem to be much harder to acquire.

I don’t know how many times I'd find another legendary weapon and think this has to be an upgrade. More times than not, it did not even come close. Even after I'd replaced this sword, it then turned into my backup weapon when my main weapon broke. It’s a real shame this game only has armor skins but not weapon skins. I’d have loved to keep this look for the rest of my enjoyment of this game.

Once we get the sword and head back home to repair. We headed back out. Yet again, instead of trying to find a way around the mountain. We were mining it. Anytime it would turn nighttime, I'd switch over to holding a torch so he could see where to mine the next steps as we kept going up this mountain.

Mountains in Enshrouded are proper mountains. They really feel like a real-life one. Where do you think you are about to make it to the peak of the mountain? Then you realize, as you are climbing, that you now see a new peak. That cycle then repeats repeatedly till you are finally at the peak of the mountain. In our case, I don’t think we ever made it. We found something else and got sidetracked, and then went down the mountain to chase after whatever shiny thing that lured us away.

In the end, I think we were trying to get to a place called Inner Sanctum. Needless to say, that place would have murdered us. If I recall, it was covered in lava. We also could not open the door once we got there. It was well worth getting a new sword along the way.

After that, we went into an ancient valley on the other side of the map to free the farmer and bring him back to our encampment. Farming corps back at our base would end up being a massive deal. That, however, is not what happened for a while. We both kind of just ignored this NPC for the longest time. It was much later before realizing that when trying to craft some crazy items that the amount of farming needed to be done for some plants was going to be insane. Then, suddenly, having the farmer and being able to grow crops and plants became a lifesaver in itself.

While many vaults we have rescued NPCs from before were rather simple. Some of them are only a room or two in size. This one required having three buttons to unlock the main door to get to the room where the farmer was.

This place had some jumping puzzles over lava. The biggest part was not getting greedy. You needed to save up your stamina for the climbing parts. If you did not rest after jumping over some areas, you would run out of stamina and either land in lava or take massive fall damage. Both outcomes usually were death. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything like that (ok, maybe a little.)

Final Thoughts

It’s kind of funny. Even when you think you are doing something that won’t lead to getting much out of it. Out of nowhere, you end up with an insane weapon that ends up aiding you on a lot of adventures for quite a long time.

Information

Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about Enshrouded.

Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.

Disclosure: This content was written during early access.