Move on from here.

"Something about what that player said bothers me a little," you remark after some thought. "She said that a level limit had been placed on this area, up to Level 5."

"What's that gotta do with anything?"

"Possibly, everything. I'm already Level 5, for one," you point out. "It's likely that we won't get any stronger than this if we continue to linger around and attack weaklings. Now that we've started leveling like players do, we might be bound by similar restrictions."

"Well, that sucks," mutters the thug. "Now whadda we do?"

"That... poses another problem. I don't know what will happen if we go near any player settlements. I could pass off as an inexperienced gnomish mage since nobody picks that racial combination, but I dunno what we're going to do about you."

"Great, so it's me bloody fault then, innit?"

"Not quite. As long as the gameworld acknowledges you as an appropriate NPC, we should be able to legitimately enter any suitably aligned settlement... Don't you have any kind of guild or gang to call on?"

"I wish! Thugs like me here are the lowest of the low. We're smaller than small fry," he grumbles. "What about you? Yer a cultist, ain'tcha? Got any gnome buddies or something?"

"Not likely. I don't even know what kind of otherworldly monstrosity I'm supposed to be dedicated to," you shrug. "And simply by that association, I don't think any gnome would take too kindly to my presence. Gnomes have always had a suspicion thing going on when it comes to magic."

"Wonder-fucking-tastic," sighs the cutpurse. "This is sounding worse and worse by the bloody second..."

"Can't be as bad as rotting away here for eternity," you remind him. "...The way I see it, we could try our luck and move ahead, away from this dump and see where it leads us. Maybe we'll come across neutral territory and look for... information, hints, anything."

"First we'd have to survive," points out the thug. "There's mountains northwest of here, and a thick swamp northeast of here! No idea where either of them leads, but both seem pretty crapsack if you ask me!"