Stage 6: Bootleg Bay: Fountain of Magic, Temple of the Fist & Tsantsa
Approx. level 10-13 Bootleg Bay Free Haven
You arrive on the tropical, very-easy-rated shores of Bootleg Bay, fresh from Free Haven and sitting around level 10-13. The headline beat here is the main quest: drink from the Fountain of Magic to complete Lord Newton's Sorcerer promotion, which in turn unlocks the path to Wizard. Along the way you will touch the Bootleg Bay obelisk for an Auto Notes clue, destroy the evil crystal in the Temple of the Fist for the village acolyte, plant a statuette on a northern island pedestal, and thread the switch-maze of the Temple of Tsantsa to free Sherell. Cannibals, lizardmen and cobras are everywhere but individually weak, so this is a profitable, low-risk milking ground.
Get to Bootleg Bay (and stock up in Free Haven first)
Use Free Haven as your staging town before you sail or walk east. Pick up the relevant quests from the townsfolk while you are here: Carlo Tormini gives Rescue Sherell, and you can buy the spell memberships and books you will lean on this stage from the western guilds. If you have it, Water Walk (Water Guild) or Fly makes the island-hopping in Bootleg Bay trivial; if not, you can still reach everything on foot and by jumping. Expert Disarm Trap training is available here from Ivan Magyar for the trapped chests ahead.
Travel east to Bootleg Bay: it is a 5-day walk from Free Haven, or you can ride the boat circuit. The Sorcerer promotion quest itself is handed out by Lord Newton in Mist, so make sure that quest is already in your log before you drink anything.
Touch the Bootleg Bay obelisk (Auto Notes clue)
Coming ashore on the far eastern mainland, fight through the cannibals and lizardmen and walk to the obelisk (Bootleg Bay holds obelisk #11 of the 15-obelisk set). Touch its black screen to copy a clue into your Auto Notes. You do not need to solve anything now — this is one piece of the late-game obelisk treasure puzzle, so just collect it while you are passing.
Drink the Fountain of Magic (Sorcerer promotion)
Continue east along the shore, clearing everything in your path, until you reach a fountain northeast of the coastal village of Harecksburg. It restores hit points and grants +20 Spell Points — and it is the Fountain of Magic. Make sure every party member drinks from it, then return to Lord Albert Newton in Mist to complete the Sorcerer-to-Wizard promotion. This is the main-quest beat of the stage: finishing it promotes your Sorcerer to Wizard and opens the follow-up Wizard-to-Archmage quest (Crystal of Terrax, much later).
With the GrayFace patch installed, the old fountain exploits are gone: you can no longer re-drink a one-use fountain by deactivating party members, and shared 'used' flags between fountains are fixed. Each fountain now works exactly once per buff period as intended — so drink the Fountain of Magic and the area's stat fountains once and move on.
⚙ Patch note: fountain bugs are fixed — you can no longer drink repeatedly by deactivating party members, and the Blackshire/Kriegspire fountains no longer wrongly share a single 'used' flag. Each fountain now works as intended (one use per buff period).
Pick up the Destroy the Crystal quest from Winston Schezar in the house attached to the village temple, then head into the small Temple of the Fist east along the coast. This is a short dungeon. Do not enter the room with the skull pile. Take the left path for a swarm of rats, a couple of items, and a hidden switch in a secret area in the northwest room — if you have Expert Perception you can pull a scroll out of the skull pile from outside without stepping in.
Take the right path to a door guarded by three Monks; clear them and loot the cabinet (a second cabinet farther up holds only a useless scroll). Climb the incline to the final room, which holds roughly 8-10 Monks. Once they are dead, touch the crystal to destroy it, then return to the village temple to claim your reward from the acolyte.
Place a statuette on the north island pedestal
Use Fly or Water Walk to reach the small islands offshore. One of the northern islands holds a pedestal for Twillen's statuette quest (the quest from Twillen in Blackshire). Place a statuette here — Bootleg Bay's pedestal sits on the north island. There are only five pedestals in the whole land (Bootleg Bay, Mire of the Damned, Kriegspire, Dragonsand and Sweet Water), and none of them are reachable by Town Portal, so knock this one out while you are already island-hopping.
Fly east of the pedestal island to the northeastern island and enter the Temple of Tsantsa. It is a sprawling, loop-shaped maze filled with cannibals and cobras (all low-HP and easy — cobras only poison, no elemental defenses to worry about), so the real challenge is navigation, not combat. Go up the stairs and pick off the unaware cannibals one at a time. The temple is one big outer loop dotted with switch-rooms; flipping the right switches eventually opens the two big doors to the central chamber where the cell lies. Grab the Cell Key from a chest in the southwestern rooms as you go (the exact switch order is in the spoiler tip below).
Once the central doors open, lure the snakes and cannibals inside out a few at a time, clear the room, then go down the north stairs. Take the door to the north, descend to the cell, and open it with the Cell Key to free Sherell Ivaneh. She joins you; escort her back to her house in eastern Free Haven for the reward. Town Portal to Free Haven (your last big town) is the fastest exit.
Show spoiler — Switch-maze order (the loop solution)
The Tsantsa switches all live in side-rooms along the single outer loop, plus one in the room south of the middle. The reliable method: walk the whole outer ring once, flipping every switch you find in each side-room (some release cannibals behind you — just turn and kill them), then mop up the southern and western rooms you skipped. The very last switch sits in the northeasternmost room and opens the central double doors. When you reach the swirling-floor room, cross it only on the swirling tile itself — the rest of the floor damages you. There is also a secret room packed with gold tucked off the early right-hand rooms, and the Cell Key waits in a chest in the southwestern rooms.
Bootleg Bay is rated very easy and is a great farming stop. The cannibal family (Cannibal 21 HP, Head Hunter 30 HP, Witch Doctor 40 HP) and the lizardman family (Lizard Man 13 HP, Lizard Archer 25 HP, Lizard Wizard 45 HP) are all low-HP and worth clearing for XP and chests. The catch is the casters: human witch doctors throw Deadly Swarm, ogre witch doctors throw Fire Blast, and the lizard archers/wizards endlessly spit arrows and electric balls — annoying in numbers, so use cover and turn-based mode to pick them off. Witch Doctors carry 5-point resistances across all elements (and Lizard Wizards 10-point fire/elec/cold/pois), so favor physical hits and arrows over single-element spells against those two. Inside the temples, the Monks of the Fist and the cobras of Tsantsa are easy; the only real time-sink is the pair of high-armor-class Master Monks — expect to whiff a lot, so buff accuracy or just grind the hits. Avoid selling human bones unless you are happy tanking the reputation hit (save them for Lon Miller in Free Haven instead).
✅ Clear
- Cannibals / Head Hunters / Witch Doctors (21-40 HP, no/low resist) - free XP and chests
- Lizard Men / Lizard Archers (13-25 HP) - weak, worth clearing for loot
- Temple of the Fist Monks and Temple of Tsantsa cannibals + cobras - easy, hold the quest items
⏭ Skip
- Tightly-packed Lizard Archer/Wizard groups in the open - they fire endlessly; pull them in cover or run past
- Master Monks in the temples if you are missing every swing - their armor class is brutal at low accuracy
- Picking up human bones to sell in Rockham - the finder's fee tanks your reputation
Northeast of the Temple of the Fist you can spot the Temple of the Sun. It holds the Sacred Chalice (the Priest-to-High-Priest promotion item) and an optional Minotaur King fight. Both the Master Monks guarding the chalice and the Minotaur King (who casts Finger of Death) are too much for a level 10-13 party, so skip it for now — you will come back during the promotion-finale push in Stage 10.
Bootleg Bay also contains the Hall of the Fire Lord, an optional side dungeon (the Fire Lord quest) built around an amber/teleporter gimmick — every character needs 1 amber to use the teleporters for free, and it is the source of the Crystal Skull used much later to absorb radioactivity in the Tomb of VARN at Dragonsand. It is not on the main path, so skip it this stage and return when you want the Fire Lord reward or the Crystal Skull.
While you are clearing the area, hit the permanent stat fountains scattered around Bootleg Bay: +2 Personality and +2 Intellect (near the Temple of the Fist) are permanent boosts, and there are temporary +20 Might / +20 Spell Point fountains as well. With the GrayFace patch each one is a single, honest use, so collect the permanent ones on every character now. Once Sherell is freed, Town Portal back to Free Haven turns the whole loop into a quick out-and-back: deliver Sherell, train, then sail to Mist to cash in the Sorcerer promotion — chaining three quest turn-ins and a wave of training off one fast-travel hub.
✅ Clear
- Cannibals / Head Hunters / Witch Doctors (21-40 HP) - low HP, good XP and chests; favor arrows/physical vs Witch Doctors' all-element resist
- Lizard Men / Lizard Archers (13-25 HP) - weak, clear for loot
- Temple of the Fist Monks and Temple of Tsantsa cannibals/cobras - easy and hold the quest objectives (evil crystal, Cell Key, Sherell)
⏭ Skip
- Dense Lizard Archer/Wizard packs in the open - endless ranged fire; use cover or run past
- Master Monks if your accuracy is low - punishing armor class wastes turns
- Temple of the Sun (Master Monks + Minotaur King) and Hall of the Fire Lord - too hard / optional at this level; return later
- Temple of the Fist — now
- Temple of Tsantsa — now
- Temple of the Sun — later (Stage 10: Sacred Chalice + Minotaur King)
- Hall of the Fire Lord — later (optional Fire Lord side quest; Crystal Skull source)