Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before Playing This Game

[Mr. Moyer]

I'm just going to toss out some information about certain skills, a couple of bugged quests that you might accidentally screw up, and unlisted game controls. This is all stuff that I had to discover on my own, by playing the game and re-starting several times to get things right. It's very annoying to get halfway into a game and be forced to re-start, so maybe some of you will find this information useful in saving you a lot of wasted time and skill points.

0. When you install this game, it includes a copy of the game's manual. It is a pdf file that gets stored in the game directory "...Steam\Steamapps\Common\DivineDivinity\dd_manual.pdf"

1. Weapon Mastery skills are a bit broken. You may find from an online search that there is a patch for this game that changes the weapon skills from a set damage (such as 5 + 35, which means it may add anywhere between 5 and 40) to a percentage of its original damage. Steam and Larian websites DO NOT have that patch so the only weapon that gets a percentage boost instead of a set number of damage boost is the mace. Also, DO NOT get Sword Mastery level 5. It only gives you a tiny bit of extra damage, but you lose the speed boost so your sword attacks become very slow. Stop boosting sword master at level 4. Also, the bow mastery skill only improves the speed between shots, there is no damage bonus for the bow. The crossbow mastery skill has a small damage boost but no significant speed boost until you get it up to level 5 and even then it is still very slow.

2. The arrow skills REPLACE your regular bow/crossbow shots. So if you have a bow that can do 32 - 112 damage and you use an elemental shot skill for 8 - 32 damage, your bolt will only do 8 - 32; it does not get added to your normal shot damage. Also, the True Shot skill is supposed to add a small amount of damage to your bow/crossbow attacks but it seems to be broken so it does NOTHING. Another broken skill is the Assassin's Kiss, which has a small chance to do "backstab" if you use a dagger. It does not work with any other weapon. The "backstab" attack is supposed to make the dagger attack do double damage. However, that does not seem to actually increase the damage at all; it does the same amount of damage as a regular attack.

3. The Deathblow attack, whether it is attached to your weapon or if you get it from the skill, is a little bit glitched. When you do Deathblow to kill an enemy, their corpse still registers as having some health remaining so they stay on your map as red dots. Also, you cannot revive an enemy that died from Deathblow using the Ressurect spell. They are dead, but the game treats them like they are just permanently paralyzed. The elemental damage you can find on melee weapons only adds a little bit of damage (but every bit counts) so if you get one of those it's good but don't waste time looking for them specifically. The best melee weapon boosters are Freeze and Stun. EVERY enemy is vulnerable to freeze if it is on a weapon (the magic spell only works on enemies with low spirit resistance though) and it does just what you think it should... it freezes the enemy and it lasts for several seconds. The stun attack is also nice because it hits pretty often and it paralyzes the enemy for one to two seconds which means you can hit them but they can't hit you.

4. The Poison Weapon skill works by letting you drag a bottle of poison potion onto a weapon. This gives it a certain number of poison attacks. The level of Poison Weapon skill only determines how many attacks you do before the poison wears off. Small poison potion does a little bit of poison damage; medium potions do a little more damage; and super poison potions do quite a bit of damage. The Super Poison Potion version seems to do more damage than a Poison (5) weapon spell. You can use Poison Weapon on a bow, and that seems to do more damage than the Poison Arrow skill. Poison Skin is similar but it coats your skin in poison so enemies who hit you take poison damage.

5. You can throw items (boulders, barrels, etc.) at enemies. Click to pick them up, drag them across the screen and drop them in a place where their flight will cause them to hit an enemy. They don't do very much damage but it's funny to watch once or twice. You cannot directly target enemies so it's mostly based on how lucky you are with your aim. You can also throw potions this way (or drag and toss them from your inventory) which is quite useful with the poison potion, which breaks to release a small cloud of poison gas.

6. You can throw spears. Equip a spear and set the Spear Mastery skill as your active skill. Then you can right click to throw the spear. The spear does a certain percent of its original damage when you throw it; the amount is determined by your level of spear master skill. You can toss the spear as often as you want to without losing it. It costs a little bit of mana to throw the spear, as indicated by the spear master skill description. However, spears do not function with the warrior's special attack that spins you around to hit all enemies near you.

7. If you are stealing from a house or a shop, do not let anyone see you or they will call the guards and your reputation will go down. Pickpocket will also send your reputation down if you get caught. Lockpick will not make anyone mad, it is only if you put items from the house or shop or NPC's pocket into your backpack that triggers the criminal reaction. If you get arrested, you can either bribe the guard to let you out, or you can just wait until the sentence is over. I never waited so I don't know what happens then. If you visit the jail, you can also drop some lockpicks into your cell so next time you get arrested you can pick them up and use them to escape.

8. You can scroll the screen without moving yourself. Hold SHIFT and move the mouse to the edge of the screen to look around. Release SHIFT to bring it back to yourself. I think CAPSLOCK is like a scroll toggle switch, too.

9. As soon as you leave Aleroth (the first little village where you start) either by going out the village gate or by climbing the ladder near Smiruk the Orc in the Catacombs, you will meet the knight Seth. Seth will ask you to tell the healers to go to Rivertown to help cure a plague (which you will end up dealing with yourself anyway) and then he will ask you to go see the general to arrange for some soldiers to escort the healers so they don't all get killed by orcs in the woods. This is the only mission in the game that is on a timer. You have something like seven days, from the time Seth or Lanilor the Elf asks you to go get the soldiers, to get from Aleroth to the Rivertown Army Barracks and talk with General Alix. If you take too long, Alix yells at you when you finally get there and you do not get the XP reward for the quest, plus you fail the quest. However, you still receive the next mission to deliver the letter to Mitox, who will then ask you to be a commando-style raider against the orc army as usual. So, be careful when you're chasing rabbits around Aleroth because they might lead you out the gate!

10. The higher your level is, the less experience you will get from killing enemies. At some point, rabbits/frogs/rats will stop giving you any XP at all. So, the way to maximize your XP and get the highest level in this game, is to kill all the low-level enemies early. When you see your XP bar about to fill up to the next level, that is the best time to kill a very strong enemy so you still get the best possible XP from them and they might cause you to gain more than one level-up. After all the enemies are dead, then you can go talk to people about solving quests since the XP reward from quests does not decrease when you level-up.

11. The higher your level is, the better chances you have of finding good items and bigger piles of gold from dead enemies and various containers.

12. There is ONLY one way to increase the damage from magic attacks: spend your skill points to buy higher levels in that magic attack skill or learn it from a spell book. Increasing your intelligence will not boost your magic attack power; it only boosts the amount of magic you have available to cast spells. Luckily, there is no spell cooldown in this game so you can cast spells just as fast as you can right-click on your mouse as long as you have enough magic.

13. Blue and red potions heal a set amount of vitality or magic, so once your vitality and magic get up above 200, those potions become useless by themselves. With Alchemy skill level 1, you can combine a red and blue potion to make a white potion. The white potions will heal a percentage of your maximum vitality AND magic. Small ones are good for half of your maximum; medium and super white potions both fill the entire vitality and magic bar for you. The yellow potions also restore a percentage of your maximum stamina (the yellow bar), with the small ones filling half of the bar and the medium and super ones filling the entire bar.

14. After you get a high enough Alchemy skill level, you can drag and drop empty flasks onto plants to make potions. Level 2 lets you make small potions, level 3 lets you make medium potions, and level 4 lets you make super potions. Green plants, grey mushrooms, garbage, and rotten food will let you make poison potions. Red plants let you make healing potions. Blue plants let you make magic potions. Yellow plants let you make stamina potions. The Drudanae plants in Lanilor the Elf's garden will let you make Drugs. Drugs will boost your Poison Resistance by a TON but they will drop your Spirit Resistance by a TON. If you try to make a potion by dragging a bottle over a plant, but your Alchemy level is too low, the plant will disappear but you get no potion. Once you use a plant, it is gone forever. Alchemy level 5 will let you drag a small or medium potion onto the Augmentor plants to make a bigger potion from it.

15. The Resurrect spell is a little bit glitched. If you cast it on a dead person or enemy, it brings them back to life and they will basically just stand around looking stupid unless another enemy gets close to them and then they will attack it. If you want them to follow you then after Resurrect you will need to cast Aura of Command on them. If you leave a resurrected zombie in place and walk far enough away, the game forgets that they were resurrected as friendly and they revert to enemy again so you can kill them multiple times for more XP and additional chances that they might drop something you can use. However, boss-type enemies will not revert to enemy they remain as friendly ghosts. This includes people (humans, dwarves, and elves), the orc camp leader, the assassins sent by Doctor Elrath, and any enemies with individual names. Sometimes you can click on the ghost of a friendly person and still talk/trade with them. If a resurrected ghost gets killed while they are still in ghost form, they do not leave a corpse and you cannot resurrect them again. So if you want to kill them a few times you have to kill them, resurrect them, walk far away, come back and kill them again, resurrect them again, walk far away, ... etc.

16. The Knowledge Skill, which adds a tiny percentage to XP gained from monster kills and quest rewards, is less useful than you might think. If you have Knowledge level 5 through the ENTIRE game you will only gain an additional 1 or maybe 2 levels, and since you should finish the game at around level 50-something anyway it really is not worth wasting your skill points to get Knowledge.

17. If you want a little extra XP and you don't mind being very evil, or if you want to steal from a house but there are too many people around, try this. Most attack spells require a valid enemy target. Poison Cloud does not. You still cannot directly target friendly people but you can cast the spell at their feet and they will take damage just like an enemy would. They won't get mad at you and your reputation will not go down. They will just get sick and gradually die. If the spell does kill them, you get XP for the kill and they might drop some stuff. WARNING: picking up dropped stuff from a dead friendly person is just like stealing from a house, if someone else sees you doing it they will get mad and call the guards. The spell does very little damage though so it may take a few casts before you kill someone. Guards will usually just stand there and let you kill them. Sometimes you can get a big group of them together and hit all of them with a single cloud. Citizens, poor citizens, merchants, and other regular people will start running around when they get poisoned but they will still take damage for a few seconds before it wears off. If you try to cast the cloud too fast and it hits someone before the previous cloud's effects wear off, the second cloud will not hurt them. Citizens and guards take 4 damage per hit, and there are several hits before the poison wears off. The various dwarves in Glenborus have some poison resistance so they only take 2 damage per hit. Increasing the spell's skill level does not increase the damage per hit, it only makes the target take more hits before the poison effects wear off.

18. General Alix gives you a letter for Mitox. You can click it to read it if you want to but it doesn't say anything that you can't figure out on your own. Certainly nothing important. It basically says that local politics are preventing Alix from sending reinforcements for another week, so Mitox just has to hold out for a week and then reinforcements will be available; and it says Mitox should use you to do the jobs that nobody else can do. If you read the note, Mitox gets mad but it has no actual effect on anything. If you don't read it, Mitox will like you better but that also has no actual effect on anything.

19. Once you get to Rivertown, in the market area there is a quest that is a little bit bugged. Here is the best way to do that quest to make sure you get the right XP from everyone involved. First, talk to Marcus the merchant who always stays outdoors and sells mostly food. He'll ask you to go look for his delivery cart. Head south-east from the Dwarven Bread Inn then and talk to both cart drivers, who will ask you to get them a new wheel. Go back to Marcus and have him give you the wheel (you can ask about a reward and he'll give you 50 gold now, too) and then go back to the cart to find that it has been destroyed. You can drop the cart wheel now, you're finished with it and it is heavy. Follow the blood on the road north and then east into the woods until you reach the dead bodies of the cart drivers. Click on both bodies. Follow the gold and at the end of that trail you should find a cave. You will have to kill two bandits inside. There is a lever that opens the cage and the bandits drop the keys to the chests inside the cage. Also make sure you read AND TAKE the note on the table. Now go back to Marcus and tell him what happened. Visit Tingalf outside the blacksmith shop and talk to him until he mentions a secret stash of goods. Go to the west side of the market and speak to Lt. Robin the guard about Tingalf. Go back and talk to Marcus about Tingalf. Now you can go into the sewer grate in the middle of the market. Go east a bit and you should be approached by some shady people. There is no actual password; you just have to kill them all. Read AND TAKE the note they drop. You can also open some chests in their pile of goods if you have enough Lockpick skill. Go back up to the market and tell Lt. Ralph what you found, then mention that Tingalf was involved. Then go back to Marcus and tell him what happened. Now, when you get to Verdistis and get into the Merchant Guild, the guild master will ask you to investigate a Rivertown merchant. At that point you can just tell him that Tingalf has already been arrested and ask him about a reward.

[Raze_Larian]

The original digital release of the game changed the expertise skills to be all percentage based, but there was a critical new bug introduced. In fixing that bug the skills were accidentally reverted back to the previous state.

AFAIK, though, the only broken skills are True Shot and the damage portion of Crosbow Expertise. I had no problem with Sword Expertise on level 5 in the original disk version or the Steam version of the game, and don't recall anyone ever reporting a slowdown in attack speed. The damage bonus from Asassin's Kiss is random; it should show the regular damage in red floating text during combat, and backstab damage in blue. Attack the same strong opponent with and without Assassin's Kiss, and you will find you need consistently fewer hits to kill it with the skill.

I didn't have a problem with Deathblow on my sword for the end of my first game (disk version). There is a problem with mixing any 2 of the passive Stun skill, Stun on a weapon and Frost on a weapon that can result in the death animation not finishing. It should finish on its own after a while, or you can force it to by casting an area effect spell that doesn't need a target (like Hell Spikes) on the opponent, or walk through it so the crosses on the mini-map overlap.

Broken barrels do more damage to opponents than whole ones.

AFAIK the escort mission isn't on a timer, but if it is not done by the time you complete any of the quests that give you an invitation to the castle, then they will move on their own (same for restoring Mardaneus' sanity and healing the 2 soldiers in Aleroth).
There is a timed quest in Verdistis, involving vandalism; if you accept the quest it must be completed that game day.

You can get a level of Alchemy as a quest reward in the Dark Forest (Free skills, and spell books you can buy[www.larian.com]), though it certainly wouldn't hurt to invest a skill point before then to make restoration potions[www.larian.com].
Early in my first game I almost invested in Elven Stamina, but as I boosted my constitution running out of stamina became much less of a problem.

The Drudanae super drug potions give +100 poison resistance, -100 spiritual resistance (temporary effect, though it lasts awhile).

The teleporter pyramids (or pads) would also help with that Resurrect trick.

Tips and Tactics.

[Mr. Moyer]

Response to Raze:
Yes you're right about the sword skill, my bad. It doesn't slow down; it actually adds a little more speed. The problem is that level 5 drops the damage bonus completely so your swords are very fast but less powerful than they were at level 1 of sword mastery. I didn't have the game up when I wrote that so I got the bonus wrong from memory; I just checked it in game though and the damage bonus vanishes at level 5.

The "escort for the healers" quest IS on a timer; it may be a few days more than a week in the game, I never bothered to check the exact timing but if you wait long enough General Alix will send an escort without your help so you fail the mission. I have done it after running around the Farmlands and the Market but without doing any of the major quests to advance the story, and I did not go to Verdistis or the Dark Forest. I'm not exactly sure what the trigger is but it seems to be timed. It does not affect any of the quests with Mitox though so it's not a big deal you just miss some XP and reputation points from Alix if you wait too long. The healers will still move to the inn either way. It probably also expires if you get a castle invitation from someone else though.

Maybe it's just me but I NEVER saw any damage increase from Backstab with daggers, the only blue damage numbers I ever got were from poison, lightning, fire, and spirit damage. Besides that, it is very rare to find a dagger with decent killing power so I gave up on them pretty early in the game. Maybe if I had waited to get Assassin's Kiss level 4 or 5 it would have started showing some damage but at level 1 and 2 I saw no benefit from it except the word "Backstab!!!" popped up on screen sometimes when I hit enemies.

The accidentally-undead enemies I found to be caused by deathblow quite often, but on some rare occasions the freeze/stun combo also did it. That only happened to me two or three times with the freeze/stun weapon, but it was like every deathblow kill had the glitch. You still get the XP and I think you still get their loot drop... they just don't actually die for the purposes of the Resurrect skill and they sometimes remain as a red "enemy" dot on your minimap. With freeze/stun it seems like you just have to wait a minute or two and they will eventually die, but with deathblow the effect is permanent. So this problem is not going to mess up anything important but it is something to be aware of when you decide which weapons to use and which weapon skills to upgrade. If you like to use Resurrect a lot, then try to avoid using weapons with Deathblow. If you don't care about Resurrect, then you can use Deathblow without fear of any major problems. (For those who don't know, deathblow is the move that causes the screen to shake and instantly kills an enemy regardless of how much health it has left. The skill level of Deathblow determines the percent possibility of doing a deathblow with each attack.)

[Raze_Larian]

The damage bonus not being listed in the tool tip for Sword Expertise is merely a cosmetic problem. I just double checked, and there is an increase in damage done compared to lower levels of the skill.

There must be a timer on the escort quest as well as an automatic advancement if you do any of the main plot quests that give you an invitation to the castle.

Maybe at low levels, with daggers that didn't do much damage, the backstab bonus was too low to list? (rounded down to zero, or absorbed by the opponent's armour) I checked it at level 5, just to maximize the chance of it hitting.
The game is biased towards swords, with only one potentially very good dagger consistently in the game. Even with Assassin's Kiss maxed, a good dagger wouldn't match the damage of a decent sword.

My Sword of the Gods had Deathblow(3) on it, and I didn't notice a problem, but then it wasn't triggered that frequently and I wasn't trying to resurrect any opponents at the end of the game. I didn't like the screen shake effect, so had it happened more often I would have reloaded a save before getting the sword, or just switched back to my holy sword.

[raubrey]

I'm replaying the game now so am a fan of DD. I just want to say the original poster could turn his post into a guide with a little tweaking. In any case, it is nice to see the effort put forth in the post -- even if this isn't the best game it is very worthy in my opinion for its genre. I'm glad to see there is still interest in it and hope the info helps someone. I forgot too much of the details of the game (just restarted) to comment on damage.

[Mr. Moyer]

I don't think the sword master 5 will still have the damage boost; I think the programmers may have forgotten to link the effect to the skill. I definitely noticed my sword damage changed from phenomenal to crappy when I went from sword skill 4 to 5. You may be right about the daggers though, Raze. I gave up on them pretty early, when daggers were still doing less than 20 damage per hit, so maybe it was just that the backstab damage was too small to register. The only good thing about daggers anyway is that they have a very low weight so you can use a dagger instead of a heavier weapon and that will allow you to carry a little bit more stuff before your backpack gets too heavy. I still have one of the good daggers in a chest near my new house in Verdistis... maybe I'll get it out of the box and play with the Assassin's Kiss skill to see if I notice a difference now that I'm stronger and I have a few skill points I don't mind wasting in the AK skill.

Raubrey, I started the series with Ego Draconis and am only just now playing DD because I wanted to know the back-story there. You're right it is a fun game.

[Minnie]

Thanks for all these tips!

[Pax]

This could be considered a spoiler by some, so I'm blacking it out.

A few things I've discovered:

oo EVERY bookshelf is capable of giving you a spellbook, if the bookshelf has multiple independently highlightable shelves, each shelf can give you a spellbook. The trick is not to mouse-over any portions of the bookshelf or any of the individually highlightable shelves before you save, then reload and check same bookcase or individual shelf again (and only it) until a spellbook appears. Do each individual shelf separately, a 3-shelf bookcase can yield 3 spellbooks. (This can take a lot of reloads but, on Hard, it could really help you make it through the Aleroth dungeon.) I got an Aura of Guarding from one of Joram's shelves (house you start game in) and it was fantastic help in the dungeon.

oo Spellshield is awesome! It protects against poisoners, all spiders, snakes, stinging insects and zombies, as well as obvious magic users. It also helps protect against flaming arrows.

oo Mardaneus is a great vendor, he gives you the best prices when selling your loot, even if your Trader's Tongue isn't that high. Sometimes he can have quite a bit of gold, but I save before starting the trade with any vendor, since the amount of gold and what items vendors hold are random and change with each reload.

oo Life Leech on a weapon is great on Easy or Normal, but not as helpful on Hard. Frost, on the other hand, is always invaluable. Frost (especially 3 or above) can save your life, even against a really bad baddie. If you need to, you can whack 'em frozen and run for it. Frost on a weapon works on ALL enemies, the Freeze and Energy Cage spells won't. Undead are immune to both those spells, but Frost on a weapon will even freeze a ghost.

oo If you've befriended the kitty in Aleroth, don't let it near you when you use your teleporter pyramid, it could wind up teleporting with you to a very bad-for-kitties area.

oo Paying the performer standing outside the mage shop in Rivertown to recite some poetry is worth big XPs, plus you make instant friends with the mage shop owner.

oo Snakes don't like undertakers.

oo Before you save the lost kid, make sure to go up the road toward Verdistis and encounter the Knight (who's fighting trolls), he'll ask you to explore Dark Cave too. Extra quest, extra XP, Bless spell reward from him. Be prepared, saving the kid costs you 2 or 3 Stat-points, random(?), 1 each from 2 or 3 of your 4 Stats.

oo There are 2 quests that give Restoration as a reward, so don't spend your points past 3 on that skill... and remember you could also find ANY of the spells in a bookcase, including Restoration.

oo If you're playing as a Mage, be prepared for humiliation when you're forced to be Lord Protector. Magic's negated in the castle, so you just stand there (even if you're pretty good with a bow) while Janus kills all the orcs.

oo ALWAYS save before mousing over special items, one-of-a-kind rings, necklaces, weapons and armor (that includes items that start out in your backpack... ring, bow, helm, Holy Weapon). That way if you don't like the stats on the item you can reload and try for something better.

[Raze_Larian]

About the performer outside Kistandalius' shop;
Paying him also gives you a brief opportunity to loot the back of the shop, without being teleported away.

About the lost kid north of Ars Magicana;
Saving him does result in a random loss of stat points, from 1 to 4, but most commonly 3. There are many more bonuses for stats and levels that can easily make up for that, though.

[raubrey]

I've played the game twice and didn't make friends with any kitty. I feel slighted. That's pretty funny about the teleporter though Pax, I can imagine. haha

[Raze_Larian]

The cat in Aleroth (from the intro video) will follow you around if you 'talk' to it.

[Pax]

Was aware of the looting ability from another post about the Graveyard key. Tried it once for the key, but in later play-thrus decided I could wait until I wound up in the Graveyard.

"Many more bonuses for stats and levels"?! Really?! Guess I missed those. Should I talk to more NPCs? Must be missing some quests. If they're not legal that could be why... play as a goodie-two-shoes.

Did the Holy Weapon quest once, but hated the Fame hit I had to take (Fame is how I keep score, 54 is my best so far). Got the Sword of the Gods shortly after anyway.

[Pax]

Was glad I saved before I teleported, raubrey, my kitty looked so out-of-place in that dungeon. LOL I reloaded, ran into Joram's cellar, then went back and teleported without telling the kitty hi so it wouldn't follow me, that worked. We must protect of furry friends. (grin)

[Raze_Larian]

About stat / level boosts:
You can get a random +5 or -5 bonus to a stat from the Shrine of Good and Evil, just SW of the dwarven village.

There is a +5 or +10 bonus to the stat of your choice from the Wishing Well, with a donation of 1k or 10k, respectively. Alternately, you can get enough experience to reach the next level (same reward whether you donate 1k or 10k), which is arguably the better choice.

Finnigan's magic lockpick has a +20 agility bonus.

There is a level bonus from a jug in the bee/wasp garden and a 5 level bonus after the Blessing Ceremony.

For equipment bonuses, at the end of my first game I had a total of 106 primary stat points from equipment (and a single charm), on top of my base value of 307 combined. While I did save and reload for the dragon set pieces, etc, even if you take whatever drops or shows up at merchants, you can still easily get significantly more than 4 bonus stat points.


For the holy item quest
I went for the sword, as well my first game, only to be replaced not long after by the Sword of the Gods. I was tempted to get the amulet, but switching to a one handed sword allowed mt to start using the dragon shield, so at the time it seemed the better upgrade. I don't really care about the reputation hit required to complete the quest; IIRC I ended my first game at 51. You should be able to get to 56: Reputation-list-spoiler[www.larian.com].

[raubrey]

Yeah Raze, I remember a cat ...I didn't talk to it properly, apparently. It's probably a good thing. I think the teleporter was Satan spawn...I got into all kinds of trouble with it the first playthrough. I learned the error of my ways though.

I walk a good bit in RPGs even when I don't have to do so, but man when that Imp took those away my feelings of despair showed me I had become addicted to high-speed transportation in games. In any case, I love the teleport system in Divine...it's got a nice balance to it.

Keep up the good work Pax with the fluffy friends. Me, I'll do them a favor and keep a distance. I'm a master of friendly fire.

[Raze_Larian]

I cleared the Rivertown sewers before entering the castle, and did much of the Ferol and Verdistis maps, so getting my teleporter stones back was relatively painless. I had to stash loot in a barrel along the way, though, to come back for later.

Get yourself a frog statuette if you want to travel fast without the teleporters.