Characters accumulate experience individually, and quite often, I have found my AI-controlled character gaining experience more rapidly. No matter where you are in relation to the character you have left behind, if you rejoin the link, the other character will automatically come and find you. As you travel the countryside fighting dozens of monster types ranging from spiders and skeletons to lizard-men and goblins, delving into dungeons and completing quests, your characters accumulate experience towards character levels. Characters of different classes have different maximums for the various attributes. It is possible to surpass these upper limits by finding magical weapons, armor, rings and amulets that increase your ability to hit, damage inflicted, armor class, resistance, manna levels, etc.
Skills are also partially class-dependent.
The skills of your character can be taught in the Village, though this costs money, or can be acquired throughout your quests as you develop your experience. Other character related elements that require managing are food, rest, and a rather interesting one over the course of repeated games, age. Then you will have to find youth potions in order to keep your character young, fit and efficient. As in most fantasy games, magic plays an important role in DarkStone. The magic system is relatively simple, consisting of single-use scrolls, rechargeable items which contain limited casts of their respective spells, and spell books.