Region 4: The Forest

The Forest belongs to bandits — Hans and his crew — and to the sealed Forest Mine at its heart. The area runs darker than the village: hostiles on the roads, a mine that will not open itself, and Bloated Zombies shuffling between the trees. It is the game's first genuinely hostile wilderness. The Forest Pass chain is how you earn the right to be here.

The mine entrance is the prize, and the key is people: Larry — the ally you freed with a pickaxe back in the opening dungeon — helps open the Forest Mine, and the bandits' dynamite provides the bang. Clearing Forest Pass completes the arrangement and pops Friends in Low Places. After that the mine becomes a standing resource site for the forge chains. The Bronze Age and Iron Age achievements — 100 bronze ingots, 100 iron ingots — are the long-term receipts.

Bring a Barracks squad before you bring yourself — bandits shoot back, and the forest's hostile zombies do not fight fair. Tool quality matters on both fronts: the +1 to +6 upgrade track applies to the tools your workers swing and to your own odds in a scrap. And do not stash every pickaxe you own; one of them already saved Larry once.

The gate quest of the area: the road through the Forest stays shut until the chain clears it, and the chain ends with the mine entrance blown open. Larry carries the dynamite storyline; Hans and the bandits carry the resistance. Friends in Low Places is the achievement receipt on the way out.