Dark swamp and witch hut can be unlocked when doing the "Lost Acolyte" quest for Priestess. Earth Moss can be bought from Acolyte in the ruins, she can be found during the day.
If you done everything you should have option an option to talk with Jester about meeting with Scar. He will say it's not a good idea, but he suggest that if you want to try then you have bigger chance during the day. When visiting bandit camp during the day there will be a new option to infiltrate the camp.
You don't have to do much if it comes to saves. Ren'py keeps saves in different folder so even if you replace old version with a new one, you still should have your old save files (Just don't overwrite the old version, from what I heard it can lead to weird bugs).