Greetings, traveller. My name's Arna, and I am as much an adventurer as you. Though I didn't have much choice in the matter, I grew to enjoy it to a certain degree. Compiling my writings into this Book I hope I'll stop you from making mistakes that can get one killed, and also introduce you into the art of dual-wielding sword with a dagger, a perfect style for isolating and defeating an opponent of any kind.

So,before thinking of an adventure, you should learn the basics of both tactics and supplying oneself.
Staring with the first I'll slowly move to the second, as that's how your journey would probably go.

• Before starting buying supplies and getting ready you should sleep in an inn, since that's the only way you can save your progress besides the occasional bed's around. It would also be a good idea to sleep right after you fully bought supplies, since it would let you to restart much faster.
  
  
• Then, you would need to find water and get some food for your adventure. First is stored in a waterskin, which can be replenished in any well by right-clicking on it. Second is easy to buy on any market, and since at first you'll be short on money, you probably should buy bread or cheese, since they are both filling and cheap. 4-6 pieces would suffice for a dungeon, and let you fight off hunger. Later, however, as money becomes less of a problem you'll probably switch to something less space-wieldy, such as a smoked ham. Ideally, you should get any cheap alchohol to deal with pain after battling.
  
  
• It would be good to get a dagger for piercing damage in the off-hand, and shiv is dirt-cheap. It can be bought from a smith. However, while dual-wielding is interesting and has benefits, it cuts damage to 75% in the main hand with your sword and 50% in your off hand.
  
  
• You'll also need to buy a splint from the herbalist, as well as some leeches. I'll expand on survivial in the next section, so you could make an informed choice.

• Your heath panel looks like this, and you can always access it by pressing C or though the icons to the left of the health bar. Each bodypart has a limit after which injuries start to mount. They both lower your abilities to fight and start to accumulate pain. That's what splints are for. They let you stabilize an injury through inventory, stopping pain accumulation.
  
  
• However, to heal you will need to rest or apply something like leeches/healing salve. Ideally, you should do both, since the leeches/salve restore bodypart condition, restoring the max hp, while resting only return you to the level that your body allows.
  
  
• To enter rest mode, you use R or an icon in the modes section of you lower bar. It lets you restore after a battle or simply speed up energy&health restoration. However, rest mode makes you incredibly vunrebale, as you can't see you enemies approaching and are off-guard. Make sure you finished a fight and are relatively safe defore sitting to rest.
  
  
• Your hunger and thirst meter apply debuffs and weaken you at 25, 50 and 75 percent. Ideally, you should check them before engaging, so that you won't disrupt a battle.
  
  
• Intoxication rises when you drink, use potions or otherwise poison yourself. You can lower it by resting or using antitoxin, since when it's high it makes you vomit, debuffs and otherwise harms the adventure.

• Diagonal and horisontal movement are somewhat different. While second always works directly, the first sometimes does, sometimes - doesn't, which depends on the obstructions along the way. Remember it when moving, since correct maneuverability strongly helps while fighting - it let's you both stall your opponents and get extra turns.
  
  
• While travelling through the world, remeber to check with your map and understand you position in relation to the villages and the target, as well as the path to take. It's also good to know that moving alongside borders is safer, since there are less directions an opponent could spring.
  
  
• You can inspect any creature you encounter by right clicking on them and choosing to do so. A panel like this will appear, describing the enemy awareness of you, it's danger level and health/energy percentages. There also are it's abilities described lower, which will come handy in planning anything.
  
• Ideally, you should stay away from any creatures except for your mission targets, since fights in the beginning can be costly. Even more so for bears, since they will simply tear you apart.
  
  
• You can find food along the way, most of which is poisonous to a degree. Penny buns, on the other hand, are good for the taking.
  
  
• Since you can't directly see the enemy's health through inspection, you should guess it by looking at the danger level. If you choose to engage, look at your first attack's damage and compare it to the missing percentage of the enemy's health. After that, you'll know the proper number.

As I grew up in my father's estate, I was raised as a warrior from the very beginning. So, though proper understanding of battle requires some practive, I can prevent some easy mistakes in dungeoneering.

• When approaching an enemy camp, move tile by tile, trying to see the enemies without alarming them. After that, understanding the positions, you should try to move from such an angle that only one of the enemies would notice. As soon as it does, backpedal back into the woods, trying to engage one versus one and then rest. Repeat till the camp is cleared and you are ready to descend.
  
  
• While you are getting into melee range, either let your opponent cross all the tiles between you to give you the attack advantage or move in when you are 2 tiles away. That way you will also be able to attack first.
  
  
• To get turn advantages, use the terrain around you. By moving behind something you will make your opponent take extra steps to circumvent around.
  
  
• Remember to rest and heal your wounds after the battle, as well as to check hunger/thirst/pain.
  
  
• Plan each encounter before engaging. Find the locations you want your opponent to cross and the place in which to fight, as well as how exactly you would do that. Inspect your enemy as well, to get a proper understanding of their skills so you could factor them in.
  
  
• Get used to pressing ''1'' each room. It uses the trap detection skill, which you can find in the lower panel as well.
  
  
• When you find a trap, don't disable it unless it directly stops your path and can't be circumvented. Traps can be allies in a fight if you lead an opponent into them, and very useful ones at that.
  
  
• While storing loot, factor in how much it costs in relation to an inventory tile. A shield that takes 4 tiles and costs 130 is less valuable than a 3-tiled sword with 120 in cost.
  
  
• By right-clicking on yourself you can shout, alerting enemies nearby. It is useful for luring them into a trap or a bad position.

As I have mentioned before, when I was growing up I was trained as an offensive duelist. Ambushing an isolated opponent and overwhelming him in close combat by sheer speed and number of attack that confuse/bleed the enemy.

As you start on the path to learning this style of fighting, remeber, that fast pace, dodging and counter attacking are necessary. Therefore, focus on agility.

At first, it is necessary to learn to Seize the Initiative:

Double attacks with dagger and sword give you both slashing and piercing attacks, and since you are making two attacks at once, you quickly overwhelm an opponent. As you train yourself to counter-attack, you start getting the results even faster.

Since at first the dagger tree would be unavailable to you, taking the second skill would come to a choice between Offensive Tactic and Cleaving Strike:

First is much more useful since it let's you constantly down cooldowns and also gives a slight bonus, while the second usually deals less damage than a doublestrike, and is thus strongly situaional. However, Cleaving Strike opens you a path toward learning Onrush and Keeing Distance, which are both very useful:

As soon as your get a dagger treatise, learn Double Lunge and Painful Stabs. The fist maps cleanly onto the Offensive Tactic while the second is a stance to be activated right before the enemy comes into melee:

Since painful stabs are a stance, they ideally combine with the next skill you'll learn - Stance Training.
It makes Painful Stabs incredibly deadly if setup for it is made before the battle.

Summarizing - the ideal skill progression will go somehow like this:
Seize the Initiative+Offensive Tactics, Double Lunge + Painful Stabs. Stance Training. Cleaving Strike + Onrush.


After this, you are pretty good at combat with a proper synergy between abilities. However, you may want more.
In that case, I would suggest going with Deadly Trick, an ideal way to get a break or a killing strike. After that, you need to go for Counterattack Mastery, Coup de Grace and Danse Macabre.