Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura Any% Route Guide (Note: This run does NOT utilize the Unofficial Arcanum Patch or High Res Patch)

This guide will give the breakdown of the Any% route for Arcanum. This is a Single Segment run. Time officially begins at Virgil's dialogue, and ends with the beginning of the cutscene following Kerghan's death.

Before beginning the run, set the following options:

- Difficulty: Easy
- Default Combat Mode: Fast Turn Based
- Always Run: On
- Auto Switch Weapons: Off

Character Creation:

- Name: Whatever you want it to be. Doesn't matter.
- Gender: Female has higher CON, and Male has higher STR. Doesn't make much difference in the run, at least as of now.
- Race: Elf
- Background: Only Child

You should have 5 points to spend. Spend them in the following spell schools:
- Morph: 'Hardened Hands' and 'Weaken'
- Fire: 'Agility of Fire'
- Summoning: 'Plague of Insects' and 'Orcish Champion'

Press the green arrow at the bottom-right. You should be on the initial shop screen.
- Purchase 1 'Light Fatigue Restore' at the bottom. Blue potion. Do not buy ANYTHING else.

Set the fatigue potion in the far-left of your first hotbar. The hotbars do not appear on this screen, but you are still able to slot the potion in them.

Press the green arrow at the bottom-right. The first two cutscenes will play; skip them by pressing Escape. Get ready to start the run, it begins as soon as Virgil's dialogue starts.

The Crash:

- As soon as you hear Virgil speak, use the Dialogue Skip trick to exit the conversation. Press 'R' to enter combat, and start zipping towards the southeast section of the map. Keep going until you pass a large stone monolith and end up in the corner of a pass with stone walls on either side. You are far enough past the monolith if you look up and see the blue World Map icon lit up.
  
  (NOTE: An assassin is supposed to show up and start a fight with you. He also reveals the location of Shrouded Hills. Using Fast Turn-Based combat movement SHOULD allow you to bypass him entirely. Consider restarting if his manages to get into dialogue with you.)
   
- Press 'W' to open the World Map once you're far enough past the monolith. There's a small bridge to the southeast of your location. Sometimes the assassin's encounter flag triggers anyway and you can see Shrouded Hills on the map. If not, you need to get your cursor at about the center of the bridge, set a waypoint, and head that way. You won't know you landed on the right spot until you get there.
  
- If you did land in the right spot, you'll end up in Shrouded Hills. If not, you'll just end up in random wilderness. You'll have to go to the World Map and try to find the right spot. This is usually a run-killer.

- ***A note on the World Map: You can, and usually will, end up in random encounters. You need to get out of them ASAP by running far enough away from the enemies so you can re-enter the World Map and get moving again.***

  ***Some enemies you can enter combat immediately by pressing 'R' and start zipping away from them, scrolling as you go. Others you need to actually run away with entering combat. Encounters are RNG.***

Shrouded Hills:

- Enter combat with 'R' and start zipping to the northeast, following the path past the city hall. You will see a woman with a wagon on the left side of the path. Stop and barter with her.

- Buy 1 'Fatigue Slower' and 1 'Potion of Haste'. Leave the screen and keep moving to the northeast, hugging the water line as it appears.

- Soon you'll see 3 thugs and a bridge. Position yourself by the water, to the left of the wagon cart. A barrel with a lamp should be directly north of you. Leave combat by pressing 'R'.

- Utilize the Shrouded Hills Bridge (o.k.a. the Pickpocket Glitch) to bypass the thugs and the gate. Re-enter combat and start zipping northeast until you can enter the World Map.

- Scroll northeast on the map until you see a river open up into the ocean. It will be to the right of a tree stump. You need to set a waypoint right at the mouth of that river. This is the same thing you did with Shrouded Hills. You're going to be heading to Tarant, but you won't know if you clicked in the right spot until you get there.
  
- Once your waypoint is set, start traveling. Be aware, you will likely hit 2-3 encounters; get out of them as fast as possible. If you're lucky enough to not hit ANY encounters, buy a lottery ticket.

Tarant:

- Once you're in Tarant, re-enter combat and start zipping across the bridge. Don't accidentally click the guards, or you can kiss your run goodbye.

- There's a small booth just past the guards. Leave combat, click the booth and choose to go to Vermillion Station. This is the train station.

- ***A note on money: Money is extremely tight in this run. If you misclick and go somewhere else in Tarant, or you buy the wrong train ticket, or buy the wrong potions, you're done.***

- Once you're at the train station, re-enter combat and zip up to the booth. Leave combat and buy a ticket to Blackroot.

- Re-enter combat, and zip up and out to the left. Keep going past the front of the train, and turn northwest past the train. Go just far enough that the World Map icon lights up.

- This is the beginning of the Train Waypoint glitch, explained in another video. Abridged version:
	+ Scroll southeast until you see the coast. There should be a lone tree in the far-right corner. Set a waypoint between that tree and the coast.
	+ Leave the World Map (DO NOT TRAVEL), and go talk to the conductor. Head to Blackroot.
	+ Once in Blackroot, enter combat and head northwest past the train until you can enter the World Map again.
	+ Open the World Map. You should be in Blackroot, with a path leading east towards the waypoint you set. Go ahead and travel.
	+ If you did it correctly, you should be heading southeast across the ocean towards Thanatos.
	
- As soon as you reach Thanatos, right-click to stop traveling. If you wait too long, you'll end up at the original waypoint that you initially set.

Thanatos:

- If you're not still in the World Map, bring it up and set a waypoint between the west coast and the southern mountains. Then, set another waypoint south-southwest of that. The second waypoint should be about equal distance away from the west, south, and east coast. Refer to the Any% video for guidance.
  
- Pray for good encounter RNG.

- If you set the second waypoint correctly, you should end up in Land Bridge. Open your inventory, and quickly gulp down the 'Fatigue Slower' and 'Potion of Haste'. Enter combat, and start zipping southeast.

- You're on the clock now, even moreso than before. You will end up in a jungle section that you need to get through quickly. Your goal is to head southeast, taking a winding path through the jungle, avoiding encounters. You won't be fighting anything, but if any mobs aggro you they will slow you down by delaying your movement to take their own turn. Refer to the video for a decent path through this mess.
  
- Once you're through the jungle, you should see a house. Go inside, leave combat, and talk to Nasrudin, the dude standing at the window. Just click through the first option in each part of his conversation tree until a cutscene starts.

- Skip the cutscene, then end the conversation. You should have leveled up. Enter the character screen with 'C', go to the Magic section, and buy 'Guardian Ogre' from the Summoning school.

- Quickly summon a Guardian Ogre next to Nasrudin. Hover your cursor over him and hit F2 to order your Ogre to start fighting him.

- As soon as combat starts, hit Spacebar to change from Fast Turn Based combat to Real-Time combat. Quickly summon another ogre, and hit F2 again. This part is clunky. Nasrudin should focus the ogres, but sometimes he decides to run up on you instead. Just run around the house if he does. The ogres usually manage to bring him down quickly.
  
- Once he's dead, you'll be transported to the final section of the game: The Void.

The Void:

- As soon as you zone in, dismiss your ogres by right-clicking the spell icons at the top of the screen. Re-enter combat and press Spacebar to get back into Fast Turn Based mode.

- Start zipping east until you reach a small bronze pad with a yellow light in the middle of it. Zip onto the pad and you'll be transported to the next part.

- From here, you want to head east-veering southeast past some floating jellyfish. You should see a set of stairs. Click them as soon as you can.

- You'll be out of combat when you zone in. Re-enter combat, and zip through the door on the left, past the guards. Talk to the Arronax, the guy stuck in the forcefield. 

- Just pick the first option of each conversation tree until you hear the level up sound, then exit his dialogue. Re-enter combat and zip northwest through the door and into a purple ring.

- This next part is tricky. Put yourself at the bridge, but before the two weird towers on either side. Click 'C' to enter the character screen, go to the Fire School, and buy everything up to Fireflash.

- Scroll (DO NOT ZIP) northeast until you see the two guards. Cast Fireflash between them so they it hits them both. Ideally you want them down in 2-3 casts, 4 at maximum. The idea is to conserve mana.

- Once they're down, go into the character screen again and buy everything up to and including 'Sanctuary' in the White Necromancy tree, and 'Body of Fire' in the Fire tree.

- Leave the character screen and gulp the Light Fatigue Restore potion that you set in your hotbar forever ago. Cast 'Sanctuary' on yourself and head northeast across the bridge and into the building.

- ***This next part is a doozy: The idea is to get through by making as few moves as possible. Moving consumes fatigue, and we've currently got a fatigue-eating spell turned on. We need fatigue to cast spells at the boss.***
  ***There's a back-up strat if your buffs drop off and you run short on fatigue, but it consumes some precious time.***
  ***Also, in the next section sometimes the 'End of Round' after you've used all of your action points zipping around kind of hangs; you can cycle combat by press 'R' to exit then again to re-enter.***
  
- Start by heading northeast until you see a gold ring, then zip onto it.

- Next, you head northeast then east. You can see the gold ring in the adjacent room; just keep clicking it and your character should path its way there.

- Third area, head southeast, then round the corner and start going northeast. You should see the gold ring on your left. If you zip up the hall a bit, then position your cursor in the big room before the ring, your character should be able to zip up and around through the hallway into the room. Once you're there, head southwest to the ring. Final boss time.
  

Kerghan:

- This is it. The End. The final boss should start speaking to you immediately. You can either leave the conversation and get ready, OR do the back-up strat if you're low on Fatigue.

- If you have less than half your fatigue, DON'T leave the conversation. Keep clicking the first option until the cutscene starts, then skip the cutscene by hitting Escape. Then leave the conversation via the Dialogue skip. You should have full Fatigue now.
  
- From here, whether you did the back-up strat or not, quickly summon a Guardian Ogre next to Kerghan. Hover over Kerghan and hit F2 to order the ogre to start fighting.

- As the fight begins, zombies will rise up. 4 total, one after the other. Leave your 'Sanctuary' spell on until all 4 have risen up and started attacking Kerghan, then dismiss your buff by right-clicking the icon at the top.

- If you didn't buy 'Body of Fire' before, you need to quickly do so now. Enter the character screen, and buy 'Body of Fire' from the Fire School.

- The zombies will beat up on Kerghan for a bit. You can cast 'Weaken' on him if you have Fatigue to spare. Regardless, have a 'Body of Fire' cast ready to go. O

- Once they've depleted his health, Kerghan will revert to his human form with an invulnerability shield.

- Once the transformation animation has finished, quickly cast 'Body of Fire' on him. If it takes, he'll transform into a Fire Elemental and the zombies will finish him off.

- Time is as soon as the cutscene starts.

Congratulations! This is a short run where you're constantly moving. Gains will be made in efficient pathing and menuing. Decent RNG will make a big difference as well.