Thanks. I poked around the northwest corner of the map and there’s not much there other than the dragons’ lairs, which I can’t get into now and I assume will be needed in the main storyline later. The Lich fight took me two tries and even then a character died, and while exploring I had a fight similar to the old null bug fight in terms of difficulty: on a mountain path are two fights of mutant lizards and ur-basilisks with one drake each. When you get to the top of the mountain there’s a third fight, this time with five drakes and some ice puddings or some other creature that can turn the floor to fire or ice that I wasn’t quite strong enough for. I’m taking it as a sign that I’m not supposed to be up there yet and it’s supposed to be one of the last areas you go to, probably at the part of the game after the golems and Blackcrag when (I assume) you see the dragons. It’s too far from home base to use the Recall Crystal.

So I’m poking around the area around Lorelei that I overlooked the first time through. I went to the east coast of the troglodyte area north into the golem territory, then looped around going south on the western shore of the giant lake, leaving the bulk of the area affected by the giants unexplored until now, after I had taken care of that storyline. After that and wrapping up a few quests I’ll do the golems.

I’m hitting something that comes up maybe 2/3 of the way through video games, and open-world games in particular, for me, when I start losing interest a bit and it’s a bit more of a chore to sit down and get started. Basically I’m less eager to play – yet another knock against games that boast “100+ hours of gameplay”. But I’m always able to soldier on, except for Final Fantasy V, which I set aside laat year and haven’t picked back up. But even that I plan to finish, if my save has survived my Windows reinstallation (I don’t see why it wouldn’t).

Getting bud this afternoon. I’m not sure if I feel like I’ll be playing much video games while high this time since I’m less immediately eager.