I am UNSTUCK! in Avernum. After about a half-month trapped in the Golem Factory and asking on the Spiderweb forums, to no success, I sent my save file to a guy and he solved the dungeon up to the top floor. Thanks, guy. The Golem Factory is unique hell in its puzzles plus hitting spacebar and going into combat mode incessantly to avoid the lasers while fighting infinitely spawning golems and trying to figure out what the hell you’re trying to do. Turns out I was overlooking a lever on the right side of the upper floor. Now I just have to go to Blackcrag (the mayor of Tevrono is grateful but the authorities in Gale still throw you in jail – don’t they know your reputation is “Famous”? How do they not recognize you?)

I’m curious: if the Factory is optional, what happens if you skip it? Berra identifies the boss at the top of the Golem Spire as a crystal soul (pain in the ass boss immune to everything – I had to look up the solution, which involves mirrors and redirecting a beam onto the boss), sends you to Anaxinander, who sends you to the vahnatai settlement in Upper Avernum, which is abandoned. A building previously off-limits is open, which has a vahnatai shade that tells you the Empire is its enemy for stealing the souls and that if you stand in their way you’ll die. A new cave east of the settlement has crystals with Rentar-Ihrno’s spirit saying the same thing.

These seem pretty story-important. What happens if you skip the factory?