Train your crew, work on your battle strategies, and equip your best gear and you will be fine.

Virtuous Dante Ramsey

Sounds like you are a well-prepared pirate, Silver Misty. You're a strong bucanneer, you have highly skilled and able companions, and I think you should be ready for anything. The hydra, yes, I think it is the most challenging dungeon in Aquila, so being aware of that is not fearful, but sensible, knowing you need a strategy in place. As for the Nefarious Tower, that is going to be a strictly optional instance -- you don't have to attempt it. The story will be there for you whether you go into the Tower (which I have every intention of doing!) or not. Also, the Nefarious Tower is designed for group play: you are not expected to enter it going alone (though I will try that too, of course! ). So when the Tower is ready, find some high level friends to go in with you and give it a try!

What about those pirates that may not be so prepared, as you say? Well, first, if you get beaten a couple times, Boochbeard is there to remind you that maybe you should bump up your level a bit by doing some sidequests (if you haven't done them already) and/or raising the level of your companions. And you, Misty, are sensibly aware of how very important it is to have skilled companions. Now raising companion level is easier than ever. You can give your companions tasks to raise their experience level all by themselves (brawling), or send them out to get gold to purchase tomes or even find training tomes themselves. No more do we need to scrimp and save to buy those training tomes as often as possible at the expense of other nice piratey equipment. So any pirate, with a little preparation and patience, is able to take proper care of their companions, enabling any of our youthful adventurers to tackle whatever challenge will come their way.