Ambermoon: Dead Weight

 

The party arrives in a new town and immediately confronts a mystery.

          

In the last entry, I remarked that "by the time you finish a dungeon, you feel that you're a real expert on fighting that type of monster." A few hours later, I'm an expert on fighting stone golems. If I never see one of those bastards again, it will be too soon.

   

 When I closed the last session, I had just adopted Selena, the sylph thief, into my party. (Try saying "sylph thief" five times fast.) I started this session by getting her up to speed. She came with a good 40 learning points, so I spent 10 of them on "Attacking" (which got her to her maximum of 50 right away) and then spent the rest in the Thieves' Guild chambers on "Find Traps," "Lockpicking," and "Disarm Traps." That left me nothing for critical hits, but her maximum in that skill is only 2, and I figured (correctly) that she'd gain another level soon.

   

While in the guild, I remembered the Test of Thieves. It was a small area of the existing tavern cellar. The first test was simply getting through the locked and trapped entrance door. Inside, there were two doors that required keys to open, and those keys were behind more locked and trapped doors or in locked and trapped chests. There were some battles with giant spiders, cave lizards, and bandits, so it was less a Test of Thieves than a Test of Thieves and Their Friends. It also made me wonder how the guild chooses what members to sacrifice every time someone wants to take the test.

      

It makes you wonder how the guild keeps going if four of them have to die for every one person who takes the test.

       

As I had already guessed, picking locks is a separate thing from using lockpicks. Anyone can use lockpicks, and as long as the door or chest doesn't require a specific key, they always work. Using the "Lockpicking" skill, conversely, does not require a pick. Its success is entirely dependent on the thief's skill level. In this universe, I guess everyone has some base skill with lockpicks, but only thieves can do it without special tools.

   

You can try finding traps and picking locks multiple times, with no penalty, which makes me wonder if there's much utility in pumping up those statistics above a certain level. However, disarming traps has a chance of failing, damaging the party, so it's worth the investment. Selena failed at a couple of traps the first time during the test, but as far as I could tell, her failure had no effect on the party.

     

Selena gets it on the second try.

      

The centerpiece of the Test of Thieves was a box floating in a well, too far below the rim of the well for us to reach. We needed to somehow cause the well water to rise up to a level where we could reach it. The solution was, of course, found in the Aesopesque fable that I recounted a few entries ago, found in a book in the House of Healers. The game spoiled it a bit, though. First, there's a guy standing right outside the Test of Thieves who tells you that he once read an awesome story in the House of Healers. Second, there's a pile of sling stones in the room next to the well. I would have preferred that the game make the solution a bit more obtuse. What's particularly silly is that the pile of sling stones isn't large enough to raise the water to the requisite level. You have to leave the test, go to the store in Spannenberg, and buy about 100 more stones. (That is, unless I missed something in the test.) 

         

How about we just lower someone with a rope?

      

A key in the box opened the final door to a chamber with a final trapped-and-locked chest. It contained a complete set of gear for a thief, including:

   

• Cloaking Cap: +2 armor, casts "Magical Shield" 3 times.
• Swift Shoes: +2 armor, +10 speed, casts "Hurry" 5 times.
• Shadow Belt: +8 armor, +10 dexterity, casts "Blind" 5 times.
• Murderblade: +10 damage, +1 critical hits, casts "Poison" 5 times.
• 10 lockpicks
• 5 ropes

   

It also had 1000 gold, another Windpearl, a set of wishing coins, and a full set of excavation equipment (shovel, pickaxe, crowbar). I guess I could have sold those golden horseshoes.

   

With that accomplished, all I had left on my list was to finish collecting the ingredients for the Swamp Fever cure, and that meant going back to the Temple of Gala. I returned and went through the candle-lighting ritual that I recounted last time.

     

The temple took about three hours, its time bolstered somewhat by my own stubbornness. I had to defeat dozens of stone golems and two granite golems, easily the toughest enemies I've faced so far in the game. I swiftly learned to swallow my pride and sleep between every battle (fortunately, I had plenty of food), which usually meant waiting for half the day so that the game would let me sleep. I exhausted every single one of my healing and mana potions. 

        

Re-solving the entry puzzle.

            

The Temple was in a few major sections. Each section had a spinner in a central corridor, which just added to the level's frustration. Spinners in this game don't just spin you once. They spin you repeatedly at regular intervals of around 3 seconds. And you have to be very careful how you walk out of them because you can easily trigger them and get spun again. You want to move only directly--forward, backward, or strafe. Trying to turn takes too long. So the typical scenario is that I'm heading north along the corridor and suddenly get spun around so I'm facing east. I look at the compass and see that I'm facing east and realize that to get out of this situation, what I want to do is strafe to the . . Whoops! Too late. I just got spun again.

    

Anyway, the exit from the first area was blocked by a double set of doors requiring two stones called Tears of Gala. These were held by two granite golems, who I could only face after defeating several waves of stone golems first.

       

Solving a simple navigation puzzle.

     

Stone golems are capable of casting earth-based destruction spells like "Mud Sling" and "Rockfall." But those spells are almost a blessing next to their physical attacks. They get two per round and can hit for a dozen or so points each. A successful one-two punch could knock one of my character's health bars down by a third. They're immune to "Lame" and "Sleep." I don't know about any other status spells, but I didn't have any memorized. They could be damaged with damage spells, but my mage only had a limited number of those that he could cast. Most of the time, it came down to melee attacks.

   

Each party had between one and four stone golems. One was no problem. If I was lucky, I might not even have to sleep afterwards. I could usually defeat two, but I would need to rest immediately. Three required a lot of luck and all my spell power. Four required a lot of luck, all my spell power, and a good portion of my saved healing potions. I got a fair amount of use of the mage spell "Magical Arrow," which hits every enemy in a single row (though not for much) and "Winddevil," which does a reasonable amount of damage to one enemy. 

   

These guys are lined up perfect for a "Magic Arrow."

      

The Tears of Gala were both held by granite golems. They were easily as hard as three stone golems put together. Thankfully, there were only two of them, and they attacked individually. They're capable of casting "Earthquake" and "Earthslide," mass-damage spells with frankly terrifying animations.

    

I reloaded a lot in this dungeon, and frankly I could have made it easier on myself. My characters each gained about four levels in this dungeon alone; after one or two of them, I could have taken a break, got some more training, and spent some of my tens of thousands of gold pieces on more potions. Instead, I stubbornly fought, died, and reloaded. At one point, I found a chest with a ridiculous number of spell scrolls--something like 97 scrolls of 24 different types of spells. Some of the spells might have been useful, but I wanted to take the time to study them, not learn them under pressure just to defeat the enemies in this particular dungeon, so I loaded up my party and saved them for later.

      

A granite golem's terrifying spell sends a rolling wall of earth at us.

      

The one good thing about the dungeon is that there were a number of glowing balls of light that increased the attributes of anyone who touched them. There was no way to tell what attribute would be increased, so I gave most of them to Qamara. I think I accidentally had Egil or Nelvin as the active character when touching one or two.

    

The dungeon culminated in a large room full of teleporters. They moved around the room, so there was no way to map them. Each one took me to a small room with a return teleporter and yet another battle with one, two, or three stone golems. I was out of potions by this time and reloading more than ever when things didn't go my way. It turns out that one of the teleporters went to the exit, but I had no way of knowing which one it was. As I entered each teleporter, it vanished from the room, reducing the selection. I found the one I wanted when there were only three left.

     

This was a lot of trouble for a little water.

     

The exit took us to an outdoor area with a small pond--the Spring of Life. Walking into it completely healed our wounds. I filled up one of the vials that I had bought at the alchemist's shop. Back in the dungeon, a lever opened the way back to the beginning, and we ran out, leaving a few stone golems somewhere behind us.

   

We returned to Spannenberg and Father Anthony, who brewed a Swamp Fever antidote. We took it to the sick child. She swallowed it and recovered so fast that her icon hopped out of bed and started jumping rope after a few seconds. Her father gave me a Windpearl as a reward, and the girl gave me a Ring of Sobek. The ring, identified at the sage's, turns out to bestow 99 "Swimming" ability (Sobek is the god of the sea, apparently). 

      

The final Spannenberg quest.

     

It was about 02:30 in the morning when I finished the Temple of Gala. I had to be up at 06:30 the next morning. That's how much I wanted to get the dungeon finished. When I exited, Qamara was Level 15, Egil and Nelvin Level 10, and Selena Level 7. They all had a fair number of training points available. I took Selena to the chief bandit to get her 2 points of "Critical Hits," then spent some more on the other thief skills. Egil still hasn't maximized "Attacking," but he's getting close. More important, he finally got two attacks per round on his last level-up.

      

Hallelujah!

     

With that, I had solved all of the quests on the island. The only ones left in my log required me to visit the nearby isle of Burnville. I spent some time wondering how to get there. The obvious answer--a ship--was unavailable because the shipwright was in Burnville.

         

The less-obvious answer.

      

I had just acquired a ring that allowed me to swim, of course, but it only works on one character. Some experimentation shows that the ring allows for swimming in still water immediately around the island, but not choppier water in the open ocean. There is a channel of still water that goes south from Spannenberg's island to Burnville's island, where there's a raft on a dock. After failing to come up with another solution, I shrugged, jumped in the water, let Egil, Nelvin, and Selena die, swam to Burnville, grabbed the raft, took it back to Spannenberg, went to the House of Healing, and resurrected everyone.

      

They all made this same joke.

      

With everyone alive and hale again, we jumped on the raft and returned to Burnville. Only a small part of the island, with the dock, was accessible by raft; the rest was surrounded by mountains or deep water. Walking off the dock, we found ourselves in a small valley with a dungeon entrance at the east end. There was no other way to go, so we entered.

       

Qamara makes a grim ride on the raft.

     

Almost immediately, we were attacked by orcs. It's a measure of how much we've grown since the last orc battle that we didn't need "Lame" or any other spells. After clearing out the area, we found a locked door. It opened with the key that the healer in Spannenberg had given us.

        

A few hours ago, this battle would have been unwinnable. Now, it's nothing.

        

On the other side of the door, we met the orcs' leader, a fire giant. He attacked by himself. Despite some fire-based spells, he wasn't very hard. I cast a couple of damage spells on him but mostly took care of him with melee attacks. Egil's second attack per round is really helping out; it's like having another party member. Qamara hit Level 16 after the battle. The fire giant had a nearby treasure chest with a small amount of gold and a bunch of regular weapons and armor--"the property of the victims of the fire giant," the game said. I had better stuff than anything in the chest. 

       

I wouldn't say that we're particularly "sensible."

      

The dungeon disgorged us into a desert. From there, we hunted our way around the island until we found Burnville. The town's name was prescient, it seems: "As you enter the town, you immediately see there must have been huge fires," the game said. "Almost all the houses are badly damaged and everything is black with soot. There seems to be no one around and it is deathly still."

        

Curiously, everything looks okay from the outside.

        

We hunted around town. At most of the buildings and shops, the game noted that we "searched through all the rooms, calling, but the house is apparently desolate and empty." It did let us enter one building, however--a large House of Healing in the center of town. The building was empty like the others, but on a bookcase, we found a diary and a key.

      

No idea what the key is for.

      

The diary was written by Sabine, the daughter of the healer from Spannneberg, who we'd come to town to find. In it, she recounted how a huge red dragon appeared one day and blasted the city with fire. It then spoke to the denizens, demanding that they subject themselves as slaves to his master, the Master of Fire. Sabine thought that this Master of Fire must inhabit "the old tower of black magicians." The dragon gave the populace one week to agree to this servitude, then left. The townspeople took a vote and decided to resist. When the dragon returned and heard their answers, he summoned other dragons. They gathered the townspeople in nets and flew off with them. Sabine hid and was left behind. She tried to go to Spannenberg for help, but the fire giant--also apparently in the service of this Fire Master, who he called "Luminor"--blocked her passage through the tunnels. With no other recourse, she vowed to go to the tower alone and try to free her people from Luminor.

       

Searching around town.

       

There was one other visitable place in Burnville. Through a secret door, we found a ladder down to Nalven's Magic School. Nalven, a recluse, was completely unaware what had happened above him, though he was concerned that no pupils had arrived in recent weeks. He offered spell scrolls and training on reading and using magic. I invested some training points for Nelvin. 

    

Why, yes, I do!

     

I guess the next step is to find this tower and see if I can free the people. I enjoyed both parts of this session. The stone golems were a bit too numerous, but they were authentically challenging and thus satisfying to beat. I liked the way that the game set up the mystery of Burnville; exploring the deserted town was authentically creepy.

         

Before my next entry, I want to sit down and make a list of all the spells that I'm going to consider essential so I make sure I leave enough training points for them. Then I'll look over my existing scrolls and see which ones I want to try to memorize. I'm happy to take non-spoilery suggestions on this.

   

Time so far: 33 hours