Chapter 1: The World of the Condemned

The hero is thrown off the cliff at the edge of the magical Barrier and crashes into the pond at the exchange point of the Colony. He surfaces to a fist in his face - Bullit, one of Gomez's men, giving every new arrival the welcome the Old Camp calls the Baptism. The shadow Diego pulls Bullit off him, drags him to his feet and starts the standard briefing: the three camps of the Colony, the pecking order of the Old Camp (ore barons, guards, shadows, diggers), the Fire Mages in the castle, the bandits and mercenaries of the New Camp, the mad Brotherhood of the Sleeper out in the swamp. The first real task is already tied to the hero's neck: a sealed letter for the Fire Mages, handed over before the drop.

Up on the palisade above the exchange point, the guardsman Orry offers a few extra words about the island and the Colony to anyone who climbs up to ask. The rocks around the platform yield the hero's first tools: a pickaxe at the abandoned mine that doubles as a first weapon, a rusty sword past the bridge where a molerat waits, and enough meat bug meat off the creatures behind the gate to make the first trainer visit pay for itself. Climbing the abandoned-mine ridge adds young molerats, scavengers and a goblin to the tally. The descent into the valley runs into the bandit hunters Drax and Ratford; a bottle of beer for Drax opens a proper hunting lesson in exchange for ore and a learning point. The road then follows the river across a second bridge to the gate of the Old Camp.

Inside the Old Camp the captain of the guard Thorus funnels every arrival into one of three tracks. The hero's offer to serve Gomez sends him back to Diego, who hands out the Trial of Trust - steal the mine supply list out of the Old Mine - and a parallel charge to earn a name in the outer ring. In the arena district the cook Snaf wants mushrooms for his recipe; the guardsmen Bloodwyn and Jackal shake down the diggers for protection money, and refusing to pay sets Herek and Grim on the hero for a cheap back-alley ambush.

The Colony is a world between three camps, and the first chapter is about walking all three. Mordrag escorts willing recruits to the New Camp; Baal Parvez leads the other way, out through the swamp to the Swamp Camp. Both guides clear the road of the monsters that make solo travel lethal, and both walks count as the hero's real introduction to the rest of the colony.

At the New Camp the rice fields belong to the Rice Lord and his enforcer Lefty; the farmer Horatio teaches the strength-punch to anyone who promises to use it on the Rice Lord's men. On the dam Homer asks for the lurkers to be thinned out, and in the living cave Roscoe guards the passage to Lares - the ring Mordrag handed over (or the doctored Old-Mine supply list from Ian) opens the door. Lares sets the hero on Cipher's swampweed trade and puts Gorn on the task of evicting Shrike from the mercenaries' hut. Deeper in, the Free Mine hands the hero miner's clothes via Swiney; Baloro wants his weapon back, and the bandit tavern past the shafts holds Baal Isidro and Jeremiah with their own threads back into the Horatio-vs-Rice-Lord arc.

The Swamp Camp, reached along Baal Parvez's path, adds the third set of errands: Cor Kalom and the Recipe of the Sect, Fortuno's daily swampweed ration, and the first whispers of the Great Calling that will dominate the next chapter.

The Trial of Trust drives the hero into the Old Mine. Before the entrance the templar Gor-Na-Drak teaches the minecrawler-mandible trick for free, a habit that saves ore in every later chapter. The mine also holds Aaron's chest and Ulbert's storage shed as side-errands, and its lower galleries hide a bone bow and the Stone Breaker - a hammer that turns every crawler duel from a gamble into work. With the stolen list in hand the hero returns to Diego, who signs him off, and the Old Camp admission quests finally open the castle gate: Gomez accepts his service.

The camp paths resolve the way they always do - Shadow or guardsman under Thorus, bandit or mercenary under Lares and Lee, novice under Cor Kalom. With the first robe on his back the hero finally carries the letter to the Fire Mages: the novice path runs a swampweed package to Bartholo first, the bandit path adds Cronos's own letter on top. The chapter closes with the hero established in one camp, known in the other two, and the second Brotherhood mission - or its bandit-track equivalent from Raven / Mordrag - already waiting.