Escort quest and lost merchant

[Nori]

Got a couple of questions. Are the amount of escort quests limited? So I can't really get imbue item up to level 5?

Also, in the rogue hideout I finally managed to save the merchant and he gives me a pitifully small amount of gold and says meet him in Last Hope (I think that is the name), I go there and don't see anything that might be him, except for the shop at the bottom with the sad merchant who says they are closed. Is he supposed to be around somewhere to talk to or did I miss something? I thought saving him would get me some kind of cool reward.

[Grey]

I think there are 6-8 escorts in every game, or something like that. Best way top get imbue item up to level 5 is to get the whole stone alchemy tree as a reward, but it'll mean spending a cat point and several generics to pump it up.

The merchant opens up a shop to the north-east of Last Hope. In previous betas it had exceptional items - nowadays it's not that distinguishable from other stores, though it's the only shop to sell lanterns and pick axes.

[Nori]

Okay. Thanks!

[Tom]

The merchant opens up a shop to the north-east of Last Hope. In previous betas it had exceptional items - nowadays it's not that distinguishable from other stores, though it's the only shop to sell lanterns and pick axes.

Perhaps true, but IMO there are slightly better things here.

Found The Choker (1200$) and The Star among other things.
Also the Egg bag that cost 0$.

Nothing spectacular, but still....

[Hachem_Muche]

There are 9 escorts predesignated at various locations (dungeons and levels) during character creation. There is a bug, however, that prevents some of them from spawning the first time you enter an appropriate level, and you may have to back track to trigger them.