Serpent Isle: Snake in the Grass

Oddly, this seems to work.

      

With Monitor at our backs and the rest of the Serpent Isle ahead of us, we hit the road. I am toying with adopting a more interesting exploration pattern, but the Inn of the Sleeping Bull is so close to Monitor I've already wandered into it a couple of times by accident.

 

Sleeping Bull is a small settlement on the coast northeast of Monitor. It is named after a legend involving a mage who created a stone bull to drive off trespassers. It consists of the central inn, several small houses around its periphery, a livestock pen, a barn with a forge in it, a dock, and a nearby guard tower. The inn is a large building with multiple guest rooms. I have several reasons to stop there, or at least I think I do:

    

• We have to warn them about the goblins' plans to attack.

• I have a note to Ruggs from his paramour in Fawn.

• I found out Ruggs is a member of the Fellowship, likely one of the people traveling with Batlin, and I'd thus like to interrogate him. 

• The slippers that replaced my swamp boots might have come from there.

      

I'm not able to achieve most of these goals. First, Ruggs isn't staying there. I don't know where I got the idea that he is. And the pikemen at Bull Tower aren't interested in anything I have to say, and the dialogue option doesn't come up with any of the other NPCs in the area. As for the other NPCs and encounters:

   

• Miggim is the librarian from Monk Isle, hiding in the barn. He says he was the one who found the passages in the writings of Xenka that foretold my coming and my destiny to repair the disorder in the land. He says that Xenka disappeared but may still be alive. He thinks someone is going to try to assassinate me soon.

• There's a Victrola against the wall in the inn's common room. I didn't know the people of this world had recorded sound. You can double-click on it to get a slider, which allows you to choose one of eight tunes. The NPCs have various reactions to the selections (e.g., "This tune is most dark"; "Everybody dance!"; "Another song, perhaps?").

     

"The Love Boat" theme song is my go-to TouchTunes selection.

      

• Many of the NPCs mention Hawk, captain of the Arbella, who put into port at the Bull during a storm and refused to sail again, stranding his annoyed passengers. One of them, Flindo, complained to the pikemen of Monitor about it. When they questioned Hawk, he took a swing at one of them, landing him in jail, unable to pay the fine to free himself. At first, I thought he must be one of the corpses back in Monitor, but Argus tells me that he's being held in Bull Tower. I'll need his ship if I want to get to Moonshade, and his ship won't sail without him aboard. 

        

Possession is 9/10ths of the law, Shamino.

      

• Selina, a well-dressed woman from Moonshade, runs up and immediately asks for my protection. She says that people have been disappearing from the inn, either because of the teleport storms or "something more sinister." The missing people include Silverplate, who built the inn; Angus, the current owner; an employee named Theron; and two guests, a mage and a very strong man. She looks exactly like Lydia, the tattoo artist in Monitor who poisoned me.

• Flindo is a provisioner visiting from Moonshade, stranded because of Captain Hawk's refusal to sail. He offers to introduce me around Moonshade if he ever gets back there; he even knows Filbercio the MageLord's mistress, Frigidazzi. He tells me more about the denizens of the inn and the disappearances; I guess Silverplate, who was Angus's grandfather, disappeared a long time ago. Silverplate was apparently a pirate, and some think his treasure is still hidden on the inn's grounds. He also tells me about Stoneheart, a banned substance that enhances certain spells; it may be the "ruddy rock" that has replaced my Black Sword. It's found in the Mountains of Freedom, which Filbercio has made a prison for his enemies.

• Ensorcio is a mage exiled from Moonshade after a dalliance with an adept's daughter. He's rude to me immediately, saying that the Knights of Monitor are "tyrants." He has nothing but contempt for the skirt-chasing Filbercio and the corrupt Council of Mages back home. He befriended Batlin during the latter's two visits to the Bull. He mentions that Batlin's gargoyle companion was named Palos. Batlin originally visited with Palos alone, but then returned with Brunt, a dull muscleman, and Deadeye, a one-eyed pirate. He thinks Batlin stole a serpent's jawbone that Ensorcio had received from his master, Vasculio, who had received it from Erstam. Erstam is still alive, living as a hermit on an island off Moonshade. Vasculio was exiled for necromancy and his experimentations with Stoneheart. For a bribe, he teaches me how to use my chunk of Stonehart to create "Bloodspawn" needed for death spells. He also sells spells, for when I have a spellbook.

     

Anything I do will just prove his point, Iolo.

  

• Kane is a shepherd waiting for passage to Moonshade. His older brother, Edrin, was hit by lightning one night, leaving behind a parrot (also running around the inn) that Kane calls Ale because of the bird's fondness for the drink. He hopes the mages of Moonshade can tell him what happened to his brother. I could tell him, but I have no dialogue option to do so.

• Argus is the son of Devra and the missing Angus. A knight in Monitor and former Captain of the Wolf Command, he came home when his mother wrote about his father's disappearance, although he was already thinking of resigning his command over disgust at how far the knights have fallen. Argus's brother, Wilfred, is also a knight. 

• Devra is the wife of the missing Angus and mother of Argus and Wilfred. She has our swamp boots, which we trade for her missing slippers. She asks for our help finding Angus. The night he disappeared, she heard some noise in the cellar but found nothing there.

• Devra also exchanges money, including gold nuggets, gems, and jewelry! I guess I left some valuables back in the goblin camp. We have 75 gems, though, which would give us 3,750 gold if we exchanged them all. 

• The inn's register shows that "Batlin of Fawn" stayed twice. Some of the NPCs above are listed but not all of them. Nakholy of Fawn, Rodolfo of Moonshade, and Rishar of Monitor are three other names; the latter two may be the other missing guests. On the other hand, Selina's "mage and very strong man" may be Batlin and Brunt.

   

I wonder if many players give up the game during the Sleeping Bull visit. I like NPC dialogue--I make it a key part of my GIMLET, even--but there's way too much of it here, delivered by NPCs who bustle around the same room, making it hard to identify all of them. It took me two hours just to get through all the dialogue in a single room.

   

It's nighttime when we're finished, so we rent a room and head upstairs. I pick the locks on the other doors, just to check for evidence. Each of the rooms has a scroll in a nearby drawer that welcomes guests to the inn. That's cute. Another room has a journal in a drawer in which the author complains about working for Batlin ("I wish he'd fall off a cliff"). The author says he wants to return to Britannia and particularly Buccaneer's Den. All of the rooms have closets with switches. I don't know what they do, but we flip them all up.

     

I half expected to find a Book of the Fellowship in the same drawer.

    

After a night's sleep--our room has four beds--we eat some food and start poking around the inn. The basement proves to be too dark without torches, and I've run out, so we have to head back to Monitor to buy more. On the way, we stop by the guard tower to free Captain Hawk, but when we offer to pay his fine of 100 monetari, the guard suddenly says they want 600 instead. 

   

We go to Krayg's shop for torches--I can't believe I'm buying torches--and return to the inn. As we walk in, Selina approaches and says that she's heard we need finances. We reject her help and go back to the basement. (Aside: there is perhaps nothing more annoying in this game than trying to find a torch in the dark in a crowded backpack.) The rooms are full of beer casks, and just like in The Black Gate, if you turn one on, your party members freak out.

         

But they have nothing to say when you steal or kill innocents.

         

There's also a locked metal door in a corner with no obvious means of opening it. This seems to be the sort of thing the switches might open, so I return to the second floor to make sure we flipped all of them, and it turns out we missed one in the first room. And yet, the door is still closed after we flip it. We return to the basement, this time hunting for secret doors, and we find one in the gap between two kegs. It leads to a small room with a switch and two chests. One of the chests has a key--at this point, the number of keys I'm carrying becomes officially unwieldy. The other explodes but has some monetari and bandages.

  

The switch opens the metal door, which leads to another stairway going downward. It takes us to a cavern full of little cells--apparently Silverplate's prison. One of the cells has a corpse lying on a straw mat. There's a scroll on his body that identifies him as Bren, Silverplate's bos'n. Bren indicates that Silverplate was crazy, having accused the author of theft. Silverplate somehow used the switches in the inn's rooms to spy on his men, but only if the "master wardrobe," situated somewhere in the catacombs, is active. Silverplate also talked about a "serpent gate" somewhere where the torches mark the hidden entrance.  

      

I guess Silverplate didn't give up piracy even after he built the inn.

     

Further along the catacombs, we find a secret door across from a pair of torches. In the caverns beyond, we're attacked by little rats, giant spiders, and slugs. We find some nice armor upgrades, money, a magic scroll with "Create Food," and three empty trapped chests that leave two of us poisoned.

   

We also find the serpent gate and a nearby chest with an "Explosion" scroll, a key, and a map to something called the "Dark Path." The key opens a nearby door with a teleporter on the other side. I'm confused what these "serpent gates" are. I thought they were teleporters. We head back upstairs to the rooms, but the switches still do nothing.

       

I'm glad I'm blogging about this game, because I'd otherwise lose track of it very quickly.

   

Returning to the catacombs, we try a different path and end up at a door that reads "WARDROBE ROOM." One of my keys opens it. The large cavern beyond has four fountains in the corners. They seem to poison, cure poison, put you to sleep, and make you invisible. There's a stone structure in the center with multiple alcoves and switches and a row of treasure chests on the back wall. Almost immediately, partly because being invisible yourself makes it easier to see, we notice an invisible chest on the north wall. This chest has a couple of magic scrolls and a sack with money. I'm more grateful for the sack, which I use to store all my keys. I put it on the Avatar's waist, as people are in the habit of giving us keys, and items given to us go there first. 

        

Time to get organized.

     

The chests in the back all explode, except one that has a key and a map to Silverplate's treasure. It shows a dungeon deep in the Glacier Mountains, which I can't find on my main map. But it shows them next to the Skullcrusher Mountains, which my game map shows far to the north. 

       

The key, meanwhile, opens the door to the "master switch." After we activate that, each of the switches in the alcoves takes us to a different room in the Sleeping Bull, and the switches in those rooms take us back again. 

      

This huge contraption saves the user from two flights of stairs.

      

Back in the inn, we have no new dialogue options with Devra or Argus, and I'm not sure we really solved the mystery. Did the disappearances occur while people were fiddling with switches in their rooms? If so, who activated the master switch in those cases? Did they occur when people stumbled into the catacombs? If so, how did they get past all the locked doors, and why couldn't they get back? I assume Batlin used the jawbone to teleport via the serpent gate (Erstam's account in the manual mentions this can be done), but did he take Angus with him? If so, what happened to the others? Did the various skeletons we found belong to them?

       

We exchange some more money to pay Hawk's fine, but now the pikeman suddenly wants 1,400. It's a little annoying that, as a knight of Monitor, I don't have any sway over him nor any way to report this extortion. 

      

#$%@% hell, Shamino.

         

We return to the inn to spring Selina's fairly obvious trap. I assumed she was Miggim's assassin the moment I met her. She relates that one of the teleportation storms zapped away a lighthouse on the coast to the northeast, leaving some kind of vault in its place. She has the key, which she says she got from her boyfriend, who has since deserted her. It's probably Batlin. She'll show me the way in, but only if she joins the party. She suggests that we leave the rest of the companions behind for their safety, but I refuse, more out of a desire to avoid having to swap inventory around. Selina is Level 1 with horrible statistics (12, 12, 14). She wears chain armor, fishnet stockings (which I resist giving to Dupre), and a Gwani cloak. In her pack, she has a key and a "Columna's Intuition" scroll, whatever that is.

       

Those don't really seem to go with this outfit.

     

On the way up the coast, we pass a monolith and happen to notice the outline of an invisible locked chest atop it. I note this for later.

   

A little ways up the coast is a two-story brick structure with bars on the windows and a sign out front that reads, "EXPLODING POWDER MAKER." I enter and note that it's occupied by two ethereal figures that seem to be ghosts. I run away screaming. 

     

The place looks pretty dangerous anyway.

    

Further along, we come to a large stone building, also with bars on the windows. The teleportation storm picked up not only the building but also half of the surrounding street of whatever city it came from.

   

We unlock a side door with Selina's key and enter. Once we enter, complete chaos ensues. Spinning teleporters appear, gating in cyclopes, trolls, headless, skeletons, and mongbats, at the same time scattering the party in rooms all over the building. As we try to fight them, we keep triggering more teleporters. Finally, I just ignore the enemies and start looting chests. The place has numerous gold bars, nuggets, and coins. 

        

Does "finders keepers" apply to an entire building?

    

When we exit, Selina says, "We are attacked again! Now that we have the gold, I think that it is time for me to use my Blink Ring and escape. I'll see thee at the inn!" With that, she's gone . . . leaving all her stuff on the ground. And we weren't even attacked again. I'm not sure what she was talking about. I never saw Selina again, nor any other assassin that Miggim would have been talking about. Is it possible that with Miggim's warning, my choice to keep my companions with me stopped Selina from attacking?

   

We head back to the inn. As we enter, we meet someone that either wasn't there before or we didn't pick out of the mass of NPCs milling about the common room: Wilfred, Argus's brother and Devra's other son. He has the most punchable face of any NPC I think I've ever seen. He doesn't like his brother, who he says fled Monitor after killing another knight named Flessar in a duel. Wilfred believes Batlin is responsible for his father's disappearance and is trying to find him. He reiterates that Batlin stole a blackrock serpent before he left Monitor.

        

Dupre, for the millionth time: No one knows what "the Avatar" means here.

    

Selina is nowhere to be found. I can't imagine the pikeman will accept 1,400 monetari any more than he would take 100 or 600, but I try. Naturally, he now wants 2,000. However, "gold bars" is also an option for paying the fine, and the pikeman happily takes them and gives me the key to his cell. This makes me wonder whether there was any place to get gold bars before now or whether the "bank job" was necessary. Anyway, we let Hawk out of his cell in the tower basement, and he says to meet him back at the inn.

     

I feel you, buddy.

     

Before going back there, I have a look at the map. I've included it below, focusing on the southwest section. We started next to those mountains to the southeast, then made our way to Monitor. In previous sessions, we explored north of Monitor up to Fawn, including all sides of the mountains with the Knight's Test and the forest to the northwest. This session, we explored from the Sleeping Bull on the eastern bay (across from the island called "CLAW") up the coast to the grassy northeastern peninsula, across the strait from the island that has Moonshade on it.

      

The area of the game so far.

      

We haven't explored the entirety of the southeast mountains (marked "FURNACE"), nor the rest of the coast leading up to the "SWAMP OF GORLAB." I decide I might as well take that all in before sailing to Moonshade--which I've already decided is my next destination because it's time I got a spellbook.

   

The southeastern expedition is a bust. There's only one entrance to Furnace, and I've already explored it. There are a few ruined buildings in the area nearby, but I don't find anything of interest in any of them. However, just south of the Sleeping Bull, I find another tree hollow with a key and two sacks. One of the sacks has potions; the other monetari.

   

At this point, I remember the invisible chest on top of the monolith. It's inaccessible from the ground, and I waste what seems like all day trying to build a stairway to the top of the damned thing with crates and bales of wool, but the bales don't really work for stairs and I can't find enough crates. I give up and leave it for later. Moving things around in this game can be annoying. Half the time, the game honks at you and tells you that something can't be moved where you're trying to move it because you were one pixel off.

      

This should have worked, but I couldn't walk on the barrel. It turns out you can't walk on bales of wool at all, but you can stack crates on top of them, but only if they're horizontal bales. It's very confusing.

       

Other findings:

   

• On the northwestern peninsula, north of the bank we burglarized, there's a non-ruined building made of black stone with an altar. No ideas.

       

This seems important.

     

• Something is flashing, barely visible, in a ruined building surrounded by foliage. It turns out to be a scroll with a "Blink" spell.

• The southwestern part of Serpent Isle is blocked from the rest of the island by a swamp full of slimes and alligators. We try to cross it via a thin thread of land, but something puts the party to sleep one by one. This sends me to a dream where I navigate a craggy landscape in the middle of a void. Cantra is there, in a stone house, begging for me to slay some beast before it devours her, but I see no beast. Another area has a bunch of naked people running around playing tag. Eventually, I find a building with a roaring bonfire. A sign says "ENTER THE FLAMES." I do, and we wake up back at the beginning of the swamp.

       

The Avatar explores Tel'Aran'Rhiod.

    

We find a little village on the coast between the swamp and Fawn. It's occupied by a bunch of Fellowship missionaries from Britannia, spouting the usual nonsense about the Triad of Inner Strength. Ruggs is there, and grateful for his letter. A little turd named Leon looks like he'd fit perfectly in a Prosperity Gospel meeting. I get to tell him that the Fellowship has been disbanded in Britannia.

       

A satisfying dialogue option.

    

A cartographer named Scots finally gives me a map that I can use in-game. He also tells me that Gwenno brought an obelisk to the Serpent Isle for the Fellowship before she went off on her own. The obelisk later exploded.

        

At last!

     

A girl named Alyssand turns out to be the owner of the engagement ring. She gives me my gauntlets back but says I can keep the ring since her fiance, Keth, disappeared when lightning struck his ship. Alyssand is not from Britannia; she joined the cult from Fawn. She tells us about the Cause, a secret group that believes the Oracle in Fawn has been corrupted by the city's leaders.

        

That doesn't mean she doesn't have a point.

    

Whew. That was a long update. This is a thick game, with lots going on. I came here to find Batlin and foil the Guardian's plans, but I still don't really understand what they are. The world is tearing itself apart with storms, which may have nothing to do with the Guardian. Either may or may not have anything to do with Xenka's prophecy. Each town has its own drama; goblins are attacking everyone; and something called the Bane of Chaos has possessed Cantra. I'm still trying to find most of my stuff, including a very dangerous Black Sword. Even in writing all of that out, I think I might have missed a few things. 

        

Lost item update:

 

• My spellbook was replaced with a chunk of pumice. Harnna thinks Krayg might know more about it. Krayg says such stones come from the center of the Earth, and Standarr often goes deep on his Quests of Courage. Standarr mentions a dungeon called Furnace.
  
• My Black Sword was replaced with a ruddy rock. The rock may be Stoneheart, a volatile substance found in caverns near Moonshade called the Mountains of Freedom.
  
• My glass sword was replaced with a pinecone. Pine trees are found in the great forest to the north, according to Harnna.
  
• The blackrock serpent was replaced by a pair of fine stockings.
• A hunk of mutton was replaced by a bottle of ice wine. Harnna suggests that I run it by Simon at the inn. Simon says it's probably made by the rangers of Moonshade.
  
• A leg of meat was replaced by 83 filari, a currency from one of the cities. Shamino's note oddly doesn't mention the money. This is the only trade in which I came out ahead.
  
• Rudyom's Wand was replaced by a strange apparatus. Harnna doesn't know what to make of it but thinks that it may have something to do with Fawn's statuary or Moonshade's magic.
  
• My magic armor was replaced by an enameled breast plate, "suitable for ceremonial occasions." Harnna says I should ask Standarr the armourer about it. Standarr says that he made it for Kylista, priestess of Fawn.
  
• My magic helm was replaced by a woman's fur cap. Shamino's note says it's "ridiculous." I think it's very practical and not obviously a woman's at all. Harnna thinks it might be the work of Cellia the Furrier. Cellia recognizes it and says she created it for a mage in Moonshade named Frigidazzi.
• My magic gauntlets were replaced by a ring. Shamino's note says that it's a "finely crafted ring, of silver, of a size to fit a small woman or child." I don't know what to make of the Avatar wearing it, then. Harnna points us to Lucilla, who is "interested in baubles and trinkets," but Lucilla only offers that it might be a marriage or engagement ring. Selina at the Sleeping Bull thinks it might be from a "lesser artisan" in Moonshade. But it really belongs to Alyssand in the Fellowship village.
  
• Dupre's Magebane has been replaced by a blue egg. Based on the thickness of the shell, Harnna thinks it probably comes from a bird that lives up north.
  
• Dupre's Shield has been replaced by a Shield of Monitor. Harnna mentions that it could belong to anyone, and I should inquire around and see if anyone is missing a shield. Later, I hear that Luther has a new magic shield.
  
• Shamino's 24 burst arrows were replaced with an odd hairbrush. "Crude," according to Shamino. Harnna has an odd reaction to it and says I should ask Templar about it. Templar says that it's a goblin hairbrush, made from the bones of their victims. Found in a goblin hut.
  
• Shamino's dagger was replaced with a severed limb. The note clarifies that it's a "bloody hand." Harnna suggests we check with Renfry to see if he's encountered a body missing a hand. Renfry doesn't know where it came from, but he deduces that it's "not dead," so some kind of magic is involved.
  
• Shamino's swamp boots were replaced with a pair of slippers, "such as might be worn in the privacy of one's home." Harnna doesn't believe they belong to anyone in Monitor and suggests I check with Krayg the Provisioner. Krayg says the closest place where someone might wear these is Sleeping Bull. They belong to the innkeeper's wife, Devra, who trades them back.

Technically, I think they were Shamino's.

• Shamino's magic bow was replaced with a bear skull Found in the opening minutes.
• Iolo's crossbow has been replaced with an urn with ashes. Harnna confirms what I already know: it's a funeral urn, and Caladin's grandfather's urn is missing. Found in the Monitor crypts.
  
• Five torches Iolo was carrying in his pack have been replaced by a pumpkin. Iolo's list doesn't mention this substitution, and all the others have been one-for-one.

 

Time so far: 16 hours