Dark Sun: Sanitation Work

 

The "sewers" somehow have outgoing drains. There are apparently sewers for the sewers.

      

After my failure to fight my way out of the slave pits in the last entry, I reloaded an earlier save with the intention of spending longer in the arena and thus getting my characters to a higher level. It was a useful exercise, although not for the reasons that I expected.

    

I resisted making any changes to the party, but only after I opened the character creator and verified that 14 is the highest statistic the half-giant ever rolls for dexterity. Thus, I couldn't do any better without cheating. By then, I had become attached to my ragtag group, even if they were sub-optimal, and I was determined to find a way to usher them through the game.

   

I had to replay a lot of the content in the slave pits, and somehow while clicking quickly through the dialogue options, I ended up offending Merzol and his henchmen. That led to a combat in which we killed the crew--and thus cut off that possibility for escape. The precious treasure they were guarding in their haystack was 100 ceramic pieces. I was pleased to see that after their deaths, other NPCs referred to Merzol in the past tense. That type of adaptability is rare for the era.

     

Note the past tense on Merzol.

        

This time around, I got the location of the hidden gem from Semyon (the slave tied up in the arena). It was in a pot in Dinos's kitchen, which we smashed with the "sword" icon. Once I knew that was a gameplay element, of course we smashed every pot that we found. We didn't find any more valuables, but I like to think I dealt a blow to the evil sorcerer-king by ruining his pot budget.

    

The party bankrupts the corrupt city-state.

     

The amusing thing is that Semyon stayed in the arena. Every time we fought a battle, he was standing where we'd left him. He would try to help us in every battle, but for some reason he only had about 3 movement points per round, and usually the battle was over before he'd even closed half the distance between his starting position and the melee. He had almost limped to the front line for our last battle. I suppose he's still there.

   

Last time, you heard how Scar wouldn't talk to the party until we'd been in the arena four times. Well, apparently four was both a minimum and a maximum for Scar, because on our fifth visit--even though we hadn't talked with him--there he was. In the announcer's telling, "Scar has become so disgusted with the survival of these scum [i.e, the party] that he has offered to kill them himself to make room in the pens for real gladiators!" The game gave me some dialogue options, including one that would have given us the chance (I think) to participate in Scar's escape plan, just as before, but I just chose the one that led to combat.

    

A lot of potential outcomes in these dialogue options with Scar.

  

Scar attacked with himself and his three henchmen. What he didn't know is that my ranger had made Level 3 as a druid in our last combat (or maybe from finding the gem in the smashed pot) and thus had access to "Hold Person." All four of our enemies got held on the first try. "Hold Person" isn't the instant death sentence here that it is in the Gold Box. Characters attacking held enemies must still make their attack rolls (probably at a bonus). But if they hit, they hit with a significant damage bonus, and it wasn't long before Scar's party was dead.

       

I love how the announcer says this before we've even finished killing Scar's henchmen.

     

That left us as essentially the only fighters left in the slave pens. Gilal and Mirlon never seemed to get called to combat. It also left us with only a couple of escape options: give a gem to the suspicious Mirlon or just start fighting our way out.

   

We only fought one more arena combat before making our escape. In it, we faced a wild mull, a strine, and a couple other enemies. It wasn't too bad. But every time we showed up for our seventh combat, we got attacked by multiple high-level foes like daggorans, mountain stalkers, and dune reapers. I tried out a lot of potential spells, but they would just run up and shred my characters. Each of them is capable of 4-6 attacks per round doing an average of around 15 damage. I'd love to hear your strategies for fighting them, but nothing really worked for me.

      

This was not survivable.

      

Nonetheless, by now I had two characters capable of "Hold Person," and I figured that would be the secret to all the guards in the slave pens. Overall, it's pretty stupid to keep spellcasters as slaves and then put them in situations that allow them to improve as spellcasters--at least without some kind of magic-suppressing collar or other mechanism of control.

   

Anyway, after all that replaying, it turned out that my failure to escape the first time was mostly about bad positioning, bad luck, and failure to make use of the overhead map, which clearly shows the positions of enemies. This time, I started by killing Kurzak and Legcrusher, then running down through the slave pens before the general alarm rang, and out the western door of Dinos's quarters. Most of the guards followed down into the slave pens but got hung up there as the party ran to the western side of the map. By watching the overhead map, I was able to avoid clumps of guards while picking off individuals one at a time.  

    

You have to zoom in to see it, but the map shows all the guards clumped in the slave pens to the east while we're in a corridor in the southwest.

     

I was relieved when I made it to the sewer exit in the northwest corner, and I made a save there, but I ultimately ended up killing all the slavers by chasing them around the map, never attacking groups of more than two or three at a time. "Hold Person" helped, but it wasn't as necessary as I'd first assumed. I opened every chest and looted every body, although I didn't find a lot of useful items. The "templar" in charge of the slave pens, who attacked me alone in his lavish quarters, had a +1 longsword called "Bloodwrath." Almost everything else was a handful of ceramic pieces or, if I was lucky, some magic arrows.

    

Our first magic weapon!

         

With the corpses of men and pots behind us, we pried our way down into the absurdly spacious sewers, an act that got us 5,000 experience points each, enough for several characters to level up. That seemed excessive for the act of opening the grate, and I started to complain about it, but then I realized that "Congratulations! The party has gained experience" has been a feature of SSI D&D games for several years already. They just don't usually tell you how much.

     

But we've killed everyone who could possibly train us!

       

Only steps into the underworld, we were "greeted" by a pack of rat-men called Tari. ("I, rat" in reverse? How lazy.) They demanded that we pay for passage. We refused and threatened when they got uppity about it. They backed down. One of them told another to "tell Churr we have visitors." In further dialogue, they related that "Nestmaster Churr" is their leader, and that he's wrapped up in some plot with the "high warren chief's daughter." The sewers are divided into "warrens," and Churr apparently rules the Low Warrens. Other "selfish, cowardly" Tari live in the High Warrens. There are zombies in the "flushing tunnels" far to the north.

     

I feel like the first dialogue option isn't sincere.

      

Churr was just up the tunnel and asked us to join his Tari in an attack on the High Warren's Tari. I initially said no. In further conversation, Churr related in addition to the High Warren Tari, there is a third faction in the sewers: the "worshipers," Tari who worship the sorcerer-king in exchange for food. They are led by someone named Mikquetzl. Although I didn't agree to help in the attack, I gave a few bags of grain (which I'd snatched from a storeroom in the slave pens) to his hungry people for 5 ceramic pieces each.

    

We continued through the warrens. Some doors required us to find a nearby wheel to open. Some gates I could break down. Some drains and skeletons had items of small or no value in them (e.g., daggers, skulls, bottles of mold). Some wheels were broken. I continue to be frustrated by the interface, which is perfect except requiring the player to right-click through different action icons, which always reset after you do anything. Most of the time, you want it on the "talk/use" icon, but it won't stay there by default and there's no easy keyboard shortcut to bring it back.

   

A Tari guarding a gate refused to let us pass until we said we were escaped gladiators. He said his chief would want to see us and let us through. The chief of the High Warrens, whose name we never got, was more polite and articulate than Churr. He asked us to rescue his kidnapped daughter. She was taken on the way back from the Skull Temple, but the kidnappers have not sent a ransom note or any demands. The chief suspected Churr. Back in the Low Warrens, Churr said that Mikquetzl had paid him to kidnap the High Warren chief's daughter. She was probably sacrificed. 

     

I didn't understand the first dialogue option until I realized it was literal.

        

Not far from the chief was the Skull Temple, a religious location for Tari where the memories of their elders are preserved through the magic of someone named Dagolar. This mysterious figure also somehow changed a group of Tari (they look different, among other things), making them the guardians of the temple. The temple guard gave us a bone crank to use on the doors with broken wheels. I found more about Dagolar from a scroll in a treasure chest behind one of the doors opened by the crank. The scroll was written by Dagolar's brother, intent on punishing Dagolar for the "abominations he creates." He mentioned hiding the Staff of Parting before entering Dagolar's tunnels. 

  

The High Warrens had a firepit where we could rest, heal, and recover the spells we used in the slave pens. I think the only way to rest in this game is to use those firepits.

  

Moving through the tunnels, we were attacked by a new enemy: Tyrian slimes. They entrapped my characters in sticky webs, and despite not being very hard, I lost a lot of hit points fighting the first batch. But they have a high experience value (2,000), and I killed five of them. Violencia made Level 5 as a gladiator after the battle, and Yester made Level 4 as a preserver. He got his second Level 2 magic selection, and I chose "Stinking Cloud." (I had chosen "Acid Arrow" for his first.) I got attacked by a few more groups in this area. 

   

I scaled a wall in the northern tunnels and was attacked by a red slaad--the first time I've faced such a monster on this blog, I think. They're mostly physical creatures but have some self-healing and magic-resistance capabilities. I killed this one without too much trouble, and Yester made Level 5 as a druid. 

     

I think success was based on individual attributes, but somehow the whole party got over.

    

In one of the drains near the red slaad, we found a +1 axe that I gave to Sunstroke (half-giant fighter/cleric). Sligs attacked us further in the tunnels. There were no undead.

     

We found two exits from the sewers. One, in the northeast corner, was activated with a lever that we discovered while searching a pipe. The second was in the north-center. As we approached, guards poured through the two doorways. It was a difficult battle because new guards kept appearing in subsequent rounds, but in general, "Hold Person" did its job. We thus could have exited at any point, but we thought we'd see the plot through.

     

No matter how many I killed, more kept appearing. I think there were ultimately 12.

        

The "worshipers" were in the central-southwest part of the sewer map. We killed a few Tari who attacked us the moment we entered, then wrenched open a door to find Mikquetzl, a human. Our dialogue options were to say that we, too, worshiped Tectuktitlay (the sorcerer-king), demand the chief's daughter, or call Tectuktitlay the "son of a kank." A kank is apparently an insect creature in the setting. I had to Google it. Further dialogue revealed that Mikquetzl had been the sorcerer-king's high templar, but he was blamed for a slave uprising and cast into the sewers. He thought by converting the residents of the sewers to Tectuktitlay's cult, he could regain favor. We agreed to take the place of the girl on the "sacrificial altar." This allowed Mikquetzl to 18 points of automatic damage to Violencia before the combat began.

        

That's not quite what I meant when I demanded that you release the girl.

     

We killed Mikquetzl and his followers in a mostly-physical battle. The only interesting item he had were some Chameleon Gloves, which take the place of a weapon and do only 1-2 damage, but cause blindness or deafness. They also sell, according to the valuation, for 30,000 ceramic pieces. He had a bunch of grain sacks in the corner, but I decided it wasn't worth lugging them to Churr for 5 gold piece each.

   

A turn of the bone crank brought us into his chambers, where we found the chief's daughter (tied up) and a chest with a metal long sword, a gem, and two scrolls. The Tari woman was worried that Mikquetzl's followers would attack the Skull Temple, so we agreed to go back and help.

      

Because of her insistence that we go immediately, I never got half my questions answered.

    

The resulting battle was pretty hard owing to the sheer number of Tari enemies. I decided to try out my new "Summon Water Elemental" spell that Yester had gotten upon attaining druid Level 5, but the creature ended up never hitting anything. "Prayer" was more useful. We managed to wipe out the enemies, but not before they killed the High Warren chief's just-rescued daughter. He was less bothered about her death than we expected. He gave us a Helm of Contemplation as a reward, although the comment he offered with it--"May this helm protect you as well as it protected my daughter"--left us a little confused. A check of its stats once received indicates that it casts "Gaze-Reflection."

     

The chaotic melee of the final battle.

          

As the saviors of the Skull Temple, we were able to enter and speak to the skulls, which contain the spirits of the Tari elders. The spirits were reluctant to give up much, but upon repeated questioning, I learned that this Dagolar created the Tari; that I would need the Staff of Parting to enter his domain; that I'd find it in a drain in the room; and that if I took it to the northeast corner of the flushing tunnels, I could use it to enter Dagolar's domain. They also told me how to use the other two exits, which I already knew. I grabbed the staff and headed out to adventures to be related next time. 

I moved on to other topics and never got "What do you know about Draj?" again.

           

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• Enemies often drop fruit and other items to eat. When viewed in inventory, these items are marked with explicit spells that they invoke when eaten. For instance, grapes confer "Neutralize Poison," "Prayer," or "Bless" depending on the color. Starfruit confers "Invisibility to Undead." Guavas "Poison." Food is more expensive than weapons and armor; I don't know if this is because of the nature of the setting or because it has spell effects.

    

Violencia contemplates some healing grapes.

        

• I feel like the automatic overhead map perhaps gives too much away. It's a little too easy that the party can see it for the entire area even if they haven't explored the area.

• I like the resting system. So far, there's been one place per map where I could safely rest, and even then only at certain times. You can't be too wasteful with spells and hit points in individual combats.

     

The party can only rest at fire pits.

       

• On the other hand, I think D&D games lose something when you don't have to "train" to level up. I feel like there ought to be some kind of player input or ritual, even if it was just delayed until the next time the character rested.

• I keep instinctively going into the characters' inventories, selecting an item, and right-clicking to close the inventory and return to the main screen. The problem is that right-clicking doesn't close the inventory and return to the main screen; ESC does. I can't remember what game instilled right-clicking to close the inventory into my muscle memory.

• One of the useless items we could find in drains was a conch shell. "Using" it pronounced a long horn note. Given this is a desert planet, one wonders where all these shells are coming from.

    

We found something in the sewer drain. Let's put our lips on it!

       

• In combat, something weird keeps happening with Featherweight (ranger/thief). She gets attacked by enemies with missile weapons, but when the missiles reach her, there's an animation and sound that suggests a spell effect. She doesn't seem to take any damage. Is the game's way of indicating that she's dodging them or something?

• Right-clicking on spells in this game tells you what they do. Cool.

    

We almost have a proper GUI.

     

Aside from a few interface concerns, I am really loving this game. I love that it offers so many different types of encounters, side quests and areas, and paths to success. (I wouldn't mind if I found something like a shop sometime soon.) I love the dialogue options, the spell system, and the inventory system. My only concern is the pace of character leveling. As I close this session, Violencia is Level 6 as a gladiator and everyone else is Level 5 in their dual classes. The game maximum is 9 levels. I'm over halfway there--two-thirds in Violencia's case, although I can dual her--after only two maps. Maybe I should have triple-classed everyone.

    

Time so far: 9 hours