Huh, I guess I wasted my time going back to Shrouded Hills with loot I got from Black Root then. Well, not entirely since I got some nice gear from the gypsy while I was there but it still means I'm going to have to move stuff back whenever I get TP.

While I didn't keep the progress from that run, I did try taking the train to Tarant and I'd have to agree that the dialogue is a pain. Do tech players really have to put up with the entirety of it every time they use the train? At least a mage can just say they have a strong aptitude and get past most of it. Then again, I guess a techie could do that too if he really wanted to.

The first time I went through that dialogue was ridiculous. First they ask if anyone is an elf (which I found odd since saying yes didn't stop them from asking more questions.) Then they ask for age which I gave as 100-200, then they ask for aptitude which I gave as moderate (I figured 60 would be moderate,) etc. etc. until finally she told me to go to first class. I go to the conductor and he tells me my magic is too strong so I have to go to the mage's caboose. I couldn't help but wonder what the point of the entire conversation was if they had a watch that would just tell them whether someone was allowed to ride first class...

I ran into an even weirder issue in Tarant when trying to use the subway though. It let me use the one by the train station to get to the commercial area but it wouldn't let me use that one to go back. Apparently the commercial district's subway trains are more sensitive than the ones coming from the train station...

Edit: here's the thread I was thinking of in the original version of this reply: http://www.gog.com/forum/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura/sudden_drop_in_magical_aptitude/post8 Your aptitude can change just depending on where in the city you are, so maybe that's what happened to you.

Oh. That makes sense I guess. Kinda makes me wonder about a few details in that regard but it would probably be better to ask those questions in that thread rather than continuing to derail this one. =]

Thanks

The rat-infested warehouse in Tarant is the best place in the game for an unofficial hoarding headquarters. It's got (by my recollection) two chests, two barrels, a dresser-type container, and three big metal cage containers. They're all safe, and there are so many you can sort your junk for easy retrieval.

In addition, you'll be going to Tarant on and off the whole game. It's a central location.

Perhaps, but twohandedsword has a point in that if you're a mage with TP then you get dropped right outside the door to the Black Root inn. That makes it the fastest place for a mage to go to either store or retrieve loot and (I assume) they don't really need as much of the game's random loot as a tech player. So far I've just been storing pretty much everything I've found but if I really cared to sort my loot I'd probably just pawn most of it (after googling it to make sure it isn't needed for a quest) and keep a handful of armor pieces/weapons/potions. I wouldn't really need many containers to easily deal with that so the choice of storage location would be more reliant upon general convenience.

Btw, reason #6 not to use the train unless absolutely necessary: the halfling pickpocket hanging out in the Tarant station. I usually go into combat mode and carefully click my way through, rather than trying to avoid/outrun her.

I always join the T.U. and then she becomes friendly. But I don't use trains anyway; well, very rarely in fact.

Y'know, I had heard about that once before when researching this game but I could never find information on what she steals. I didn't have any trouble outrunning her the one time I was in the station though so it didn't really matter. I let her catch me once just to see what would happen and she just takes 100g.

It doesn't matter since they wouldn't let me ride the train by the time I finally actually wanted to anyway. I wanted to go pick up dog before I did too much more leveling in the game so I stopped by the Tarant station to get a ticket to Ashbury. When I tried to board the mage's caboose he told me to leave or he would call the guards and the woman at the front desk blamed me for wasting THEIR time and causing people trouble. These people have the worst customer service in the world...

Oh well, I wasn't surprised that happened anyway since I had read it could happen at high enough MA and I had been dumping pretty much every level into WP and spells to crank up my power and get teleport/disintegrate. Had to walk half the continent to get there but I got my dog anyway, and it didn't cost me over 200g to do it. Screw Tarant and their stupid train technology.

I usually avoid that by going to Ashbury directly from Black Root before my MA gets too high; as soon as you enter the town, it gets marked on your map (so you can TP back there later). While I'm there I always rescue Dog (whether I intend to keep him or not) and pick up a pair of Gauntlets of +2 DX from the dockside vendor.

If I don't grab Dog, I then head over to Tarant to do a few quick quests (including the one with the current owners of the Toome mine) and upgrade my armor a bit before heading back to Black Root and then Dernholm. Once I've done all that, I'm done with the train for the rest of the game.

Cool people travel by ship.

The REALLY cool people travel by ship... once. ;)

It's the half-orc blacksmith in Blackroot...

Anyway, I usually use the three containers in Shrouded Hills' temple, plus sometimes Ristezze's archive near his vendor chest.

They're easily accessible when arriving in the town and you can easily exit the town by going just south of the inn, if you already cleared the bridge.

With a single point invested in Pickpocketing, you can easily steal Ristezze's key (and rob him daily for easy money)... this will give free access to his archive during daytime.
Also, you can put unidentified items in his vendor chest and ask him to trade: he will identify your items, which you can then retrieve from his chest for free.

I've never tested it, so I don't know. But the rat-infested warehouse is easier and more convenient anyway, if you're going tech (or just don't have Teleportation). It's just south of the docks, so a quick subway ride takes you right there. It's also pretty close to Tarant's wise woman, in case you need a potion, or to have something identified.

best place to store stuff is any inn/etc where you can rent a room for the night. The dressers in those rooms are good for storage, like the inn in tarant. Even though you don't rent the room, you can still access the dresser which holds a lot of stuff, doesn't disappear, etc. Find an inn, see which room you get for renting at that inn, and use the dresser there (or table, or what ever).

Since Tarant is usually my "home base" city i use the inn there.