I’ve completed Brenetto’s quest, so let’s see what he has to say.
Brenetto: *GASP* “Oh, fantastic! You’ve calibrated the last three pieces of my new device! A Fortian Lightboard, I call it! It aids in counting, with even greater accuracy!”

This translates to me retaining more chain between battles.

Brenetto: “Yes, yes, an improvement to the abacus, of course! So I shall take it back now.

I guess we’ve tested it sufficiently? He pledges to meet me again at a later date for a new improvement on the model.

Now onto an actual storyline quest.

Qualstio: “‘Can I help you?’ What kinda greeting is that from an Officer of Nal?”
Rookie Officer: “I, uh, oh. Is there an official greeting? I’m still new, you see…”
Qualstio: “Don’t worry about it, doll.

…

Just play it safe. I hear those boys can play pretty rough!”

What is with Qualstio and the casual misogyny, seriously? The setting otherwise seems pretty good about characters not treating women any differently than men, but Qualstio always seems to talk to women very differently.

Plus there’s the fact the one female officer we see is a stuttering “rookie”. At least she’s a lot nicer than the rest of the officers, but isn’t there a stereotype about women being nicer and more polite too? So, not much of a counterbalance.

Anyway, Ilganyag is building up notoriety, and the officers are talking about it. They’re normally above taking help from guilds, so they’re a bit confused on what they should do. This officer has no such qualms about asking for a favor, though: bandits in the surrounding woods are supplying the city with illegal liquor, and she wants to stop them. The liquor is laced with “boxberries” which are apparently vaguely nasty in some way that isn’t explained. Also their pits are toxic, so some poison might be getting mixed in as well. If boxberries themselves aren’t poisonous then what’s bad about them, exactly? Do they cause vomiting and diarrhea? Do they contain potent hallucinogens that fry your brain?

Rookie Officer: “A lot of bad batches made their way into Nal. They’re brewed up by bandits who don’t know better.”

That’s a rather generous interpretation. I can’t see what reasons the bandits could have for poisoning Nal and attracting attention to themselves other than self-destructive spite, though, so sure, incompetence it is.

The officer wants the guild to find the actual suppliers and destroy their still, attacking the root of the problem.

Rookie Officer: “I tell you, the best thing for Nal right now would be to torch the whole damn forest.”

Agh no it’s the only place in your entire city-state where plants actually grow! Have you ever considered just relocating the city there? No? Content to sit in your rainy swampy wasteland of misery and despair forever? Maybe Nalians wouldn’t be so grumpy and bitter if they lived in a functional ecosystem. The bandits have the right idea.

The quest prompt tells me there are no special objectives. This is a lie. Developer oversight, I presume?

The male officer says “We’re pretty far from the city, so there aren’t as many hiking trails in the woods as normal. You’ll have to find some weak spots in the overgrowth to get through the trees. The bandits here have a whole network of these paths. Should be easy to spot.” This is the quest’s gimmick: There are a number of trails you can’t see the end of, and have to make educated guesses as to which one is the best option.

The female officer says “It’s not safe past this clearing. You’re gonna want to get in without being seen, if ya can. This is one of the unlisted objectives (appropriately called “Invisible”). Bring back the filter plates from 3 of ’em as proof. And try not to start any fires, okay?” It would be kind of funny if you could actually do that.

That red arrow marks one of the trails. I can investigate it.

You can’t make out any ending to this trail. It’s probably pretty curvy and long. It doesn’t look too traveled, though. Potentially risky. I’ll investigate the others first.

To the left is another trail: Judging form the amount of light visible in the tunnel, you’d say this one doesn’t go too far. The bandits roaming around here probably used it quite recently, due to its proximity to the main road.

To the right of where I came in are a whole bunch of trails. The first one tells me You’ll have to push against a lot of Brackenburr bushes to make it to the other side. There will be a lot of noise. The trail doesn’t appear too long, on the other hand. It could be worth a try.

Next one: The foliage is extremely thick here, but despite that, you swore you heard some voices coming from up ahead. So, avoid that one like the plague.

And finally: A very short, clear trail lies here. Almost suspiciously so.

I pick the one closest to the entrance. It doesn’t feel as risky as the rest – I can’t see the exit to any of the trails, apparently, and supposedly, this one wasn’t used recently. True to its word, the path is long and curvy, and I end up…

Safe! Somehow the bandit facing north doesn’t see me. And there’s one of the stills!

This is one of the stills! A swift kick to put it out of commission. That seems a bit awkward. Feels like it should be “A swift kick will put it out of commission.” But, whatever, I destroy it with a loud shattering noise. The bandits don’t take any notice.

There’s a new trail to my right. This trail follows alongside the creek. It is pretty well-worn, and you can’t hear anything over the rushing of the water. Risky. But, my only other options for getting over there are the one I heard voices from and the one the narrator explicitly called “suspicious”, so…

And I’m safe! Apparently the suspiciously short trail was completely safe as well. Darn you, narrator! That’ll teach me to listen to disembodied voices.

There’s no still here, so I go north, and…

SACK! All the goodies will be mine.

Strangely, though, there’s no way to sneak around this guy. That’s odd; I think this is the first time I’ve been forced to forfeit a special objective to get a treasure. Most quests so far may have placed it at the end of a risky or difficult path, but you could always get it without compromising anything else.

…And he’s all on his own. He doesn’t stand a chance against my army of six. So, what’s in the bag?

This appears to be a forest bandit’s belongings. A Human’s, most likely, as it doesn’t reek like Shra. There are several bundles of dried meat tucked inside. Must be someone’s lunch. It doesn’t look rotten or tainted.

…

D:

I just killed a guy so I could eat his lunch. Now I feel horrible. I eat it anyway and get some body essence because I am a terrible, terrible person. The optional pickups in Nal really do a good job of instilling that. D:

The world is being eaten by the void here. Must be a mapping error.

There’s a fork to the west. I find another still to the north and destroy it. It’s actually rather cleverly placed; if you go west first, it’s too high up for you to see. You won’t know there’s anything there unless you explore the northern path. To the west is another trail: There are Spry Cones littering the forst floor through here. They’ll make quite a lot of noise if tread upon too heavily. If a GROUP of us or if anyone in HEAVY armor goes through here, we’ll surely alert anyone who’s hiding out nearby. Hm. Guess I’ll need to disband then. I think I’ll try the leftmost path in the starting area first though. I haven’t seen anything that connects up to it, so there might be something there…

…Nuts. Forgot about the “recently traveled” bit.

Here’s the other end of the path from before, so I guess they connect to the same place.

To the north is what looks like the main camp. (Hm, I wonder if that campfire can also be used to calibrate Brenetto’s stone?) Even though I already bungled the stealth mission, I’ll try to avoid them. This path Looks like a simple shortcut through the patch of trees here. It’s pretty well-worn. Well, I don’t really have any other option.

…That still. That still is a creepy phantom still and I have no idea how it works. This mission is repeatable; I tried it again to see if I could get through without alerting anyone, and somehow, it just wasn’t here. The only way to complete the quest was to fight the bandits. So, I thought, alright, maybe it only appears on the first run through and the only way to get a stealth-win is on the first try. So I reset to before I did the quest and try again, this time with only Dehl so I can get through the noisy trail, and it wasn’t there that time either.

I have no idea. However, I won’t be destroying it just yet.

There is a Shra tied to a post here at the back of the camp. It looks at you with wild but sorrowful eyes. It’s roped with Flarevine, a very tough material with a soporific poison that keeps captives from trying to chew through it. That’s pretty clever. However, someone with a slashing type weapon could cut through it, if available: either someone alone, or a group leader.

I cut the rope with Dehl’s blunted sword. I guess he’s experienced a change of heart. That or the fact that everyone else is around to nag him. The shra stands up, looks around for a bit, then dashes off into the trees. It escaped. And, not even a “thank you.” Can they even speak human language?

Well, I’m free to destroy the last still now.

Three of the tainted stills are trashed. The Officer apprentice will be praised when she returns with these filter plates.

No rank up, hooray! Hopefully the favor curve is starting to level off a bit.

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