money 5500g, renown 400, 6 boasts

OK, these boasts are:

no protection 300/800
without a scratch 300/1800
fist fighter 300 / 1400
cave dweller 200 / 500
sacrifice innocent 200/500
protect boy 200/900

It's sort of unfair to give you these boasts when you have no idea what is in the cave besides Hobbes! Here's the thing. The boy is held captive by an evil nymph who you either slay or bring a "new victim" for her sacrifice. So I would do the kill cave dweller / protect boy pair, but an evil person might simply bring in a new innocent.

Note if you haven't done it already, hack at the bushes in the center of lookout point to get a silver key.

OK, your path is:
go south to greatwood
on to greatwood lake
on to gorge
on to greatwood cullis gate
west - top route to Rose Cottage

There's a demon gate at rose cottage who wants ... a rose. Awwwwwwwww. On to the grandma's house. "James is my grandson" and he's missing. She gives you a hexagon key. OK, head back east again. Now go around to the southwest path to the caves. Hack the bushes to get into the cave entrance.

This level involves a TON of fighting so be ready for it. First, you fight a huge mob of Hobbes in the entry area. To the west is the Cave Side Chamber with a guy calling for help. Kill the hobbes there, and release the bandit. "Me and my lads were searching the cave for treasure" he says. He wants to go with you, but I say no. Leave him there.

Now on the other side is a door to a larder, with more enemies and a chest. You need 5 keys to open it.

Continue on to the far end door. Now you're in the main chamber with lots of enemies. Two chests hold 1000 g total plus a flame augmentation. If you haven't augmented your weapons yet, now is the time to start. Just choose them in your inventory.

The next door leads to the moonlit tunnel. Luckily there's nothing there, for now. There will be on your way back. The last room is the Focus Chamber.

Walk down to see the boy trapped in a blue light, and the evil nymph who laughs at you. She wants you to replace her sacrifice. Instead, kill her. This won't be easy, she spawns new hobbes for you. My trick here is to constantly run, zapping her with lightning as I go. Every mana-out pause, I slay whatever hobbes are there and then start anew. Note that when she dies the field around the boy goes away - but the hobbes start attacking the boy immediately. So try to get her down to nearly-dead and then kill the hobbes around before finishing her off.

Now comes the fun part. Bring the boy along from room to room, having him wait at the entrance of each one while you clear out the enemies. It'll be a long hard fight but eventually you get back to the cottage. He says he hates granny, that it was her idea for him to go cave exploring! So you talk to the granny and in the meantime the kid grabs his stuff and takes off.

6,970g; 1,758 renown; 12,761 exp; hobbe head trophy

At this point I earned the sexy hero pose :)

Fable Walkthrough