Halfway

(Idea) A walled market town at the bridge where the Sallow Road crosses the Sallow, with roads out in four directions (concept halfway-overworld-a). Neither side owns it. It runs under the Halfway Truce, kept by an elected Reeve and enforced at the gate. The Act 1 hub.

The truce

• Everyone may trade; every customer is served.
• No casting inside the walls, except in the Proving Ring under its wards.
• No recruiting by force, no un-teaching, no Warden courts.
• Breaking it gets a visitor barred at the gate: Halfway is the first town where the main tab's "refused entry by gate guards" (section 7) can happen. Act 1 never makes the player break it.

Districts

Rough layout: the Sallow runs along one side with the bridge and landing; the Bridge Gate opens onto the Truce Stone; the two Rows run parallel from the stone with the Middle Market between them, so the Pale Row and Amber Row face each other across the square; the Split Loaf closes the far end of the square; Quarry Lane leaves from one corner to the Proving Ring in the old quarry, still inside the walls and the truce stones (the one place inside them where casting is allowed); the gate square is at the far end beyond the inn. Keep the square open in the upper middle of the screen, with stall fronts on the sides.

People

Shops

Prices are in copper, the one currency: Halfway's holed copper coins (concept items/currency-a, which also shows Evane silver and Facet tokens; those are valuables to sell, not money). Every item here is (Idea). Ids, effects and prices follow the items tab's catalogue (VEL-61); dry_boots, rope, lamp_oil and twinhold_road_map are quest props with no catalogue row. Items can't be used in battle yet; the battle effects listed assume they will be.

Act 1 income: 60 copper from the Reeve, and Truce Board jobs. Glints pay in materials, never copper: glint_quicksilver (about 1 per 2 glints), which any shop buys at 4. The protagonist starts Act 1 with whatever the Prologue gives (nothing today; the items tab proposes 20 copper from Aske at the send-off), so the first tonic costs a Truce Board job or a few sales of quicksilver.

The Proving Ring

• An old quarry turned arena: a round sand floor, tiered stone seats, pale blue banners on one side and amber on the other.
• Ring wards: old training-golem glyphs painted under the sand, so every spell pulls its punches. Nobody is hurt badly; a beaten fighter is stopped, not killed.
• It is the one place PvP lives (main tab, section 10): no open-world PvP, no taking anyone's things. Later it hosts player bouts and the scheduled tournaments with their leaderboard.
• In Act 1 it hosts the story bout with Tamsin, and optionally a Ring Card of NPC challengers (section 11).

Halfway music and sound

One loop built from two motifs played together: a mirrored, symmetrical Evane phrase and an off-kilter Facet one, over market percussion. The Split Loaf has its own warm ambience; the Proving Ring has a crowd loop. The existing loops are music_sallowbank_loop, music_overworld_loop, music_barn_night_loop, music_battle_loop and music_victory_sting.

From Walkthrough: Prologue and Act 1 › Halfway

The Halfway Market (section 6) has three parts, named as the Act 1 walkthrough names them: the Pale Row (Evane stalls under pale blue awnings), the Amber Row (Facet stalls under amber lamps), and the Middle Market, Halfway's own traders, between them. Stall and keeper names follow the Act 1 walkthrough, which lists what its scenes use.

From Items and Economy › Shops: Acts 1–2 and the Undermere › Halfway (Act 1 hub)

Look

Stalls in pale blue and amber side by side; the Proving Ring in an old quarry

From Story Bible › Key Locations

Spawns

Spawn_from_overworld, Spawn_split_loaf (waking), Spawn_from_ring, Spawn_from_pale_road, Spawn_from_amber_road

Exits

Exit_to_overworld, Exit_to_ring (if the Ring is its own scene), Exit_to_pale_road, Exit_to_amber_road

Landmarks

Truce Stone, the two Rows, the Split Loaf, the Market and Truce boards, the Barge Landing, the Quarry, the two gates.

From Walkthrough: Prologue and Act 1 › Locations