[xarax]

It is possible to get into and out of the swamp area (the last quest for the ring of protection) by climbing the mountains. It is very difficult, requires back flipping, and extreme patience. Set your options to easy mode and rare monster encounters to make it less annoying.

You start behind Vartugg's fortress. The mountain is easily climbable with a couple of back flips in strategic locations. After getting to the top, just run along the top all the way to the east and down into the swamp. Then enter the maze and do everything in there (find a walkthru description).

When you free the princess, the tower wizard will appear and he starts talking. If you stay for the duration of his speech, a script will kick in and teleport you away, locking down all of the moonbridges, so you can fight the end game bad guys.

If instead of listening to his speech, you RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN, and leave the map, then the script won't activate and you can use the moonbridges.

Getting out of the swamp is very difficult and takes a lot of time and patience. I've only found one place where I can climb over the mountains to get out. It's at a little stub, kind of looks like Florida on the map, near the stones. Back flipping up is tedious and the camera goes crazy in a couple of places. Just use the mini-map to point yourself in the correct direction and back flip up and along the razor thin ridge. After you get high enough, you should be able to face forward and carefully jump along the ridge to get up to the top of the mountain. Then just run along the mountain top until you can get down the other side and continue the game. I've done it several times, and it really helps to get the ring of protection early in the game.

You could also try importing your character into an earlier save game as described in my earlier post, but you may lose the ring of protection by doing so.

Once you have the ring of protection, you can finish the game at any time by just placing the ring onto its altar. The other wizard appears and gives a little speech, then teleports you to the end game where you will find all of the power artifacts for killing the final boss monster.

Hope this helps.