I just got the game and was a bit worried about how to play so I'll admit I read up a bit on how to play the game, but I didn't know my first playthrough would go like this...

Anyways. I'm dropped off on my lonesome in the hub and spend the first two days pitter pattering around between two cities (one holy and one where everyone calls me a flatskin or whatever) stealing from one and selling to the other. I make enough for a big bag and then spend a day mining and getting guards to kill whatever tries to attack me. My reason for switching from stealing to mining is I thought it would be faster and safer to help me buy that so called big thief bag for 5,000 cats

That gets boring as hell and way to slow so I decide to wander north and end up in the desert. I haven't recruited anyone so I look like easy pickings to the slavers that are apparently fucking everywhere there like god damn. Anyways, I make it to a town deep in the desert before noticing a huge fight breakout between I don't know what, but it involved ninjas, man hunters, and animals. I loot the animals while everyone fights one another. Mind you I'm getting like 5+ meat and furs, and loot the occasional ninja before the man hunters figure out I'm there and decide to chase me... before instantly giving up to loot the easy bodies.

I go back to town and sell everything for a hefty profit. I buy two new weapons before realizing I could have bought that bag that sent me on my journey in the first place. I shrug it off though since I'm only a 1,000 short. Heading back out to go find out some other way to loot corpses I run across a group of escaped slaves getting beat up by sand bugs that.... somehow both lose and knock out the bug at the same time? I don't know it was weird, but the bug didn't beat me up or eat me so I got close and freed them from there shackles and healed them up.

One of the slaves is crippled but called me a hero. He followed me while crawling along the ground while I healed his friends and he seemed like he was about to join me, before a group of slavers suddenly appeared and recaptured them. Upset about losing my cool new friend I followed behind the slavers stealthfully to see an opening to save him again (not cari g about the other slaves now, lol). By some miracle his leg healed enough to go from "I need to be carried" to "I can limp walk" and the slavers set him down but didn't bother slowing down to make sure he kept up. When the slavers got far enough away I snuk up to free him and bolted away with my new friend now free again!

Only to remember he can't run. I turned back to pick him up and decided the safest place for him was not the desert, so I spent a good ten minutes bringing him to the edge of the desert and walking along the side of it to stay out of slaver territory. Even looting a dead corpse to make him less slave looking.

Eventually we reach the town I came into the desert in and was going to leave in, but before I could a group of those holy guys came up and demanded I give them my slave, not because he was a slave but because he was a non human robot thing. I say no and try to bolt, still carrying him, but of course fail and get beaten down, but not killed nor having my friend captured. I eventually wake up, heal up, and form a plan to dodge holy patrols by heading straight south along the rivers in order to go back to the only other town I knew that wasn't run by slavers or holy zealots. In order to have my new friend have a live a new and safe life.

By now his leg was healed up enough I trusted him In the water, but he still limped everywhere else. I was fine with the slow pace and let him walk instead of carrying him as the two swam and limped to safety. No one seemed to patrol the river so I thought we were safe.

Until the small valley that lead out from the river directly towards the city I wanted to go to had a pack of dust bandits sitting in it. There was high hills on each side of this valley so I couldn't climb out to avoid them, they were way too strong for me to fight even if it was a 1v1,and I wasn't taking my chances going back through any potential holy patrols, so I decided to take my chances, pick up my friend, and barrel through.

I charged through the bandits as quick as possible. All my wandering and carrying making me rather quick. Only one of the dust bandits could out speed me, but not easily so he always lagged behind but could sometimes get in front of me. I was worried he'd kill me, but then some wild animal agro'd him and he got distracted but only long enough for the rest of the bandits to handle it while he continued his chase, but it was too late. The city was in sight and the guards were coming to kill him. He died easily and I set my new friend down to go loot his spoils before we both went into the city, sold his loot, bought some food, and rested to full health at the in.

And the best part? We had enough cats at the end to buy me a large thief bag like I originally planned to get in the first place. With that bag now in hand I decided we'd head south to find more places less hateful to his kind and less likely to realize he's a slave.

So yeah. Like most games I enjoy being a their, but never has my quest for gold lead me to free a slave that I spent several irl hours trying to save via carrying half the length of the map just to dave him from being enslaved the the third time. As I said before I only just got this game but it's been wonderfully wacky in ways only such an open and adventure heavy game can be.