What's the point of clearing elixir wells?

[jshepler]

From the faq, the story starts "The fools of the old world ruthlessly mined the earth for a magical elixir, and unleashed a ruinous fog, the Shroud — and corrupted creatures — from the depths."

So I get the quest to clear the first well. I defeat the boss and chop down the root, and ... nothing happened. Is something supposed to happen? I had expected the shroud in the area to be removed or something.

Since working down through the tower and fighting the boss all happens in the shroud, I didn't have any time to explore the tower after chopping down the root. Is there something else I need to do? The quest was completed, so don't think so.

On a related note, after chopping down the root, I didn't have time to explore. I didn't even have time to go back up the tower and leave the shrouded area. I had to exit the game before I died (I assume that's what happens when you run out of time). Loading the game spawned me back at base. Is there some kind of quick exit thing I missed?

I really feel like I'm missing things. Clearing the well doesn't seem to have a purpose other than a boss fight and getting the shroud core. Is that it?

[Rex Smashington]

You need the shroud cores to expand your base. The game is still very bare bones as far as content they're allowing us to try so the base itself doesn't have much use yet. You can fit all the crafting stations in to the tier 1 base with tons of room left over. But I imagine the base will have much more utility in later versions so you'll definitely need the shroud cores to expand.

[jshepler]

Sure, farm bosses and get cores. But what does that have to do with the well itself?

Chopping down the root doesn't seem to do anything. The icon on map gets a check mark, presumably to indicate it's been cleared. But so what? What does that mean?

[Rex Smashington]

Originally posted by jshepler:

Sure, farm bosses and get cores. But what does that have to do with the well itself?

Chopping down the root doesn't seem to do anything. The icon on map gets a check mark, presumably to indicate it's been cleared. But so what? What does that mean?

Yeah I assumed that meant the shroud would go away. I thought that was the goal of the game to remove the shroud from every part of the world. Maybe just not implemented yet? Not sure.

[SNIPER X]

I can't even get to the boss because I crash every time I enter the first well area.

[Lailantie]

The shroud does and actually should go away after clearing a shroud root, in a certain radius around the root. You are no longer in the shroud then, you killed all enemies, so you have a lot of time to explore and search for golden chests. I have no idea why the shroud did not disappear for you after chopping the root.

Edit: sorry I just realized the original question was last October.

[KnuckleHead]

The shroud clears and you also get skill point for chopping it down.

[Oswald]

You get 3 skill points for every Elixir well you chop. However you can't repeat them.
leveling up gives 2 skill points, and shroud roots give 1 skill point.