Fiction

Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber
IV. The Lords of Quarmall pp.61–92 [the end]

And that is also the end of The First Book of Lankhmar, meaning I'm theoretically halfway through the series. That said, I've read four of its seven books, which cover 24 stories and leave 13 to go. It won't come as much of a surprise, then, that those 13 include three of the four longest tales (Lords of Quarmall ranks third), including the only full-length novel — which is what's up next (after I read an unrelated book or two first, just for variety's sake).

Video Games

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition

When I started Skyrim, I aimed to not use fast travel — half the fun is traversing the world and stumbling upon things. Eventually I caved and began to use it to quickly transport loot for sale; then, after I’d explored some regions so thoroughly there were no more landmarks to discover and the random encounters were becoming repetitive, I allowed myself to skip around those areas sometimes. I think this ‘limited and specific’ kind of use is preferable to both “no fast travel whatsoever” and “using fast travel willy-nilly”.

However, there are some quests that require you to ping back and forth around the map to complete their objectives. I’ve mostly tried to treat these as either a way to explore new areas (setting off to the next objective, getting sidetracked by a gazillions things on the way, and eventually reaching my goal several hours of playtime later) or let them sit in my journal, thinking “I’ll do that next time I’m in the area anyway”. The latter is part of why I have a lot of stuff backed up; and, honestly, I can’t remember the storylines associated with many of them, because in some cases it’s been literally hundreds of hours since I received the quest. I did once do a quest like that by fast travelling back and forth to its various objectives. It meant I completed it promptly, but it also felt kinda unsatisfying to ‘cheat’ like that.

Nonetheless, with the amount of stuff I’ve got sat waiting, and the aforementioned struggle to follow storylines properly (I’ve also completed quests where I’ve just ticked the boxes having forgotten why I’m doing what I'm doing, and that’s even more unsatisfying), maybe it’s time to allow myself to do a bit more teleporting and get a few things properly completed. I mean, I’ve still got three cities left unvisited, including some major ones (one is part of an entire new island), and they’re definitely gonna bring a whole lot more stuff to do! And that's without starting/resuming any of the major questlines...