My inventory filled up after clearing the start of the island and looting Vacca's cave. The hermit ran out of money, so I teleported back to Lovis's smith to sell the remainder. I wasn't expecting Carlin to have anything useful, but he had an axe with a level 9 Increased Damage enchantment and a shield with Life Line 9.
Getting 42 experience points from most opponents on Sentinel Island, and mindreading everyone (even the expensive but pretty much useless initial servant ones), I quickly went into debt. With the island cleared, the quest with the sisters done and Sassan's ring retrieved, I was still down 762 experience points (though any quest after that would be enough to clear the debt).
Speaking of the sisters, the first time I fought them I got loot geared to a mage character: a bracelet (+7 Magic Damage, +2 Destruction, 2 charm slots, 1 enchantment - Spontaneous Combustion 7), necklace (+6 Intelligence, +2 magic Missile, 2 charm slots, 1 enchantment - Poison Aura 2), a belt (+0.07 HP Regeneration, +0.07 Mana Regeneration, 2 charm slots, 1 enchantment - Healing Aura 6) and a lesser damage charm.
The second try gave less loot, but at least one piece was usable; I upgraded my belt (+42 Hit Points, +0.07 HP Regeneration, 2 charm slots, 1 enchantment - Healing Aura 7) and got a couple crappy resistance charms and some earrings worth a bit of gold (+5 Magic Damage, +2 Healing, 2 charm slots, 1 enchantment - Healing Aura 7).
After resurrecting Sassan and clearing the battle tower up to finding the demon's name, I headed back to Broken Valley to turn in the remaining quests there, loot a couple storage areas I hadn't gotten to, and finish up with the fortune teller and Bellegar. Checking merchants, Derk gave me equipment with several enchantment upgrades: Life leech 9 and 10, Increased Damage 10, Butcher 9 and Melee Protection 9 (had 8 and 10 already). I didn't reload. Lamotte gave me Poison 10 and Ranged protection 10 on the second try, while Locke had Static Charge 8. I reloaded 3 times for Needleman and Mara, but they didn't offer anything good.
Returning to the battle tower, reporting the demon's name to Sassan brought me to level 24, so I did another quick round of the merchants. Sam had Increased Magical Damage 10, Carlin had Poison 9 and Ranged Protection 9 (both on the second try), Derk had Life Line 10 on the first try and nobody else had anything (didn't bother reloading).
The fight in the throne room was relatively easy, but I spent more time running around than actually fighting (not that anyone did too much damage with Sassan healing me), since I wanted to take out all the abominations before tackling Razakel and Laiken. Then I figured this would be a good time to learn Splitting Arrows, and reloaded to try the fight again; it did help clear out the weaker opponents faster. The second time around the loot drops were worse (and they were not great to start with), but I got a better quality charm from Laiken's chest.
The first dragon fight was also easy, and like D2:ED you just start getting the hang of things when you automatically return to the battle tower.
In the Master's chambers, picking up the 'Note from Maxos' completed a quest; one of the rewards offered was a bracelet with a level 10 Healing Aura, so I took that over the gold as my second choice.
Speaking of gold, in D2:ED I had enough gold when I got the battle tower to fully upgrade the runners right away, as well as unlearn my skills and raise the level cap of a few. In DKS I only had enough gold to upgrade Dick, and had to send him out a few times to get diamonds to sell so I could upgrade Tom, to send out for malachite ore. Heading outside again to finish off the remainder of Sentinel Island helped a bit, but there wasn't a lot of loot (of course the trip was worthwhile just for the treasure from the boat in the tree and the dragon skill book from one of the trees).
After reaching the bunker, disabling the barrier and visiting Dragon Cliff Castle, I returned to the battle tower to farm diamonds and malachite ore, so I could get all the gold from the traveling merchant on the path to High Hall and the harbour. The first encounter he offered me a ring a little better than one I had, so I bought it and the malachite gem, then sold stuff to get all the gold. Then I reloaded to try again, and got nothing (besides the gem). On my third try I got a bracelet (+5 Heightened Reflexes, +2 Ranger Strength, 2 charm slots and 1 enchantment slot), a belt (+49 HP, +48 mana, 2 charm slots, 1 enchantment), a bow with a level 9 Mana Leech enchantment and a cleaver with a level 10 Fire Curse enchantment. After selling all the diamonds and malachite ore I had, Carleton still had over 12k gold left, so I sold the plants I had on me, a couple pieces of alternate and older jewelry, some leggings I kept that were comparable in quality to the ones I was using and the belt I had equipped. Then I sold all my Healing, Revitalizing and Rejuvenation potions, figuring I could make more and that would clean up that section of inventory (so I didn't have 5 size versions of everything), as well as 51 chicken legs. That still left 2266 gold, but I wasn't reloading again, and had left more gold than that in Broken Valley (didn't think to make level 1 dexterity and resistance potions to sell, etc, as mentioned by Senior Cinco and Joram in the
selling equipment topic).
Despite this belt being an upgrade for one that I had recently gotten, I removed the level 2 Retribution Aura and added a level 10 Healing Aura. Maybe I should have sent a runner for the ingredients to add a Static Charge enchantment, or something, but even if I don't keep this belt for very long, I'm still ahead of how many malachite gems I used in D2:ED, and I ended that game with plenty to spare. In D2:ED on level 13 I added a level 10 Healing Aura to the Talisman of the North and the Wishing Well bracelet, and about the same time or shortly after added another to a belt; that held me over until I was ready to head to the Hall of Echoes.
In DKS I'm using a different necklace (switching to the talisman when turning in quests) and got experience from the Wishing Well.
The bracelet from Carleton replaces one I had been using since level 2 (gotten from the beholded near the destroyed chapel), though I'll hang on to the old one for the +2 Mindread bonus.
I unlearned my skills (not that I miss-spent very many points, but I did have 3 of my own in Unarmed Expertise, which I no longer use) and put 1 point back into Healing, Evade and Regenerate, 5 points into Lockpick, Mana Efficiency, Ranger Stealth and Explosive Arrows, 8 into Ranger Strength, 7 into Splitting Arrows (not sure I need that many in the last two; I just added points until I hit a level restriction), and 1 point into Stun Arrows and Poison Arrows. This left 2 free skill points. In theory I should eventually boost Death Blow, but it isn't a high priority (unless I start having trouble doing damage fast enough).
My base stats remain as they were at level 15, with 44 unassigned points.
