Ambermoon: Ancient History

Nah, we're good.

         

We're pretty deep in the game, so it's time for a plot recap. Ambermoon, the sequel to Amberstar, takes place in the world of Lyramion. In Amberstar, a party of adventurers foiled (or thought they foiled) the return of a demon-wizard named Tarbos, who had been exiled to one of the planet's moons. It turns out they only delayed his return, or perhaps accomplished nothing at all, as 40 years after the first game, the moon came crashing into the planet, causing earthquakes and tidal waves and turning the continent of Lyramion into a bunch of islands.

   

The main character in Ambermoon is the grandchild of the hero of the first game--in my case, a granddaughter named Qamara. When the game began, grandfather was on his deathbed, where a vision from his old associate, Shandra, told him that a new evil was rising. Grandfather suggested that Qamara try to commune with Shandra at his grave in Newlake. To get to Newlake, I had to first solve multiple quests for the towns of Spannenberg and Burnville, which finally culminated in acquiring a ship, with which we could sail to all the Lyramionic Islands.

       

Arriving at the windgate hub--as if we need more fast travel options.

       

The main quest took us to Newlake, where the spirit of Shandra said that trouble was brewing in the Temple of the Brotherhood of Tarbos (the name gives it away). But the temple is guarded by a powerful demon, and the only way we can bypass it is with a spell called "Demon's Sleep." This requires various reagents gathered from across the islands. At this point, I have all of them except the Kalmir Herb, which is supposed to be found at the "island with the Tower of Lebab."

   

As we've seen, the game has been generous about upgrading my transportation options. I started on foot and was able to buy a team of horses in Spannenberg to help get around that island. For the first couple dozen hours of gameplay, I was limited to land travel only. The Spannenberg quest culminated in a ring that gave me 99 "Swimming" skill, allowing one character to swim through calm waters to Burnville's island, where I found a skiff that could support the entire party in calm waters. After Burnville was saved, I was able to pay to repair the "Magic Disc" I had found in my grandfather's basement, which combines horse and skiff and allows travel over flat land surfaces and calm waters. During the Burnville quest, I also rescued Spannenberg's shipwright, and he gave me a ship, finally allowing us to leave the starting islands. After defeating the Witch Master, I found a magic broom that combines all previous transportation options and allows swift travel over both land and sea--everything except mountain ranges.

        

Reassembling the Windchain.

       

As far as I'm concerned, the game could have stopped here, but it offers a few more upgrades. The first is in the form of the "windgate" transportation system. As this session began, I had 13 Windpearls (I only needed 12) and the Windgate necklace. I flew to the Island of the Winds, used a key to enter the Shrine of the Winds, and put the pearls and necklace on the right altar. It fused them into a single Windchain that, when used, added a permanent icon to the game interface.

    

The Island of the Winds has a hub of I think 10 windgates, but it turned out all but one were broken on the other side. In the Shrine of the Winds, I also had to combine the Xenobil Staff and a regular gem to create a Construction Staff. This staff allows me to repair broken windgates, but I have to travel to them the long way first.

        

Entering a windgate that's broken on the other side.

     

Meanwhile, my explorations of the windgates found one that was not broken on the other end. It took me to an island that I determined by coordinates was Sansri's Island. The island is completely ringed by mountains, so if I'd tried to visit without using the windgate, I would have failed.

   

I had a reason to be here. The King of Illien had asked us to get some of Sansri's blood to reverse a stoning spell she placed on the eagles that are under Illien's protection. We also have a blood debt to pay; in Amberstar, she told the hero that a particular scroll would destroy the demon Bralkur, and it ended up doing nothing  at all.

       

The island had two buildings: Sansri's Temple and the town of Snakesign. I went to the temple first but couldn't get out of the first room. It had no exits and no secret doors.

        

It did have some cool wall art.

        

Snakesign was a typical town, with an inn, a blacksmith, a healer, a general store, and a sage. From a priest in the tavern, I learned that the lower levels of the temple were destroyed during the flood and remain partly underwater. A young man said that Sansri's winged guards were killed during the flood, so Sansri has replaced them with minotaurs (which doesn't really fit her snake theme). A bandit on the street was worried about war with Illien. A beggar told me that to get into Sansri's Temple, you must have a Serpentstone, which is sold at the general store. But when you leave the temple, the stone turns to dust, forcing you to buy another one. The beggar thinks that it's a scam between the general store proprietor and the priests of Sansri.

      

A beggar offers a conspiracy theory.

       

The Serpentstone sold for 2,500 gold in the general store, and it was only one of several things worth buying. The store had a pair of Lightning Boots, which add 25 to speed; a Target Brooch, which adds 25 to the "Attack" skill; and a Mithril Shirt, which offers 25 protection for virtually no weight.

       

I'm just a smidge short.

      

To afford everything, I ended up taking the windgate back to the hub, then flying to my house and retrieving most of our money from the chests. I took the opportunity to repair the windgate north of Spannenberg, which must have given me a ton of experience, as almost everyone leveled up. 

   

We returned to Snakesign, bought the items, and went back to the temple. This time, the presence of the Serpentstone caused a teleporter to become available in the foyer, taking us deeper into the temple. 

   

The temple was two stories, quite large, and absolutely full of combats with minotaurs. I'm guessing I fought around 30 battles with them. Every single battle had exactly four minotaurs who all started in the same locations on the battle grid and did pretty much the same things. I used the opportunity to get rid of a lot of scrolls. 

       

Learning about a monster with "Monster Knowledge."

       

Let me talk about magic for a bit. As I've previously reported, the game has four schools of magic: mysticism, healing, alchemy, and destruction. Each school has a pure spellcaster capable of wielding that form of magic: mystic, healer, alchemist, and mage. The first three schools also have hybrid classes capable of learning those spells, but fewer of them, and with fewer mana points: ranger, paladin, and adventurer. I don't know why there's no fighter/mage class capable of wielding destruction magic. Thieves can use scrolls from all the classes but not learn any of the spells innately.

The schools are very well differentiated. Destruction, as you might imagine, is all offensive spells. About 60% of them do damage, while the other 40% have status effects like "Lame" (paralysis), "Sleep," "Aging," "Blind," and "Madness." Those that do damage come in three varieties: damage to a single opponent, damage to a row of opponents, and damage to every opponent on the map. There are about half a dozen of each, escalating in power as they cost more learning points to learn and more spell points to cast. For instance, if you want to damage a row of enemies, you can choose from "Magic Arrows," "Landslide," "Thunderbolt," "Firestorm," or "Ice Storm." As you move up the scale, the spells also come in batches based on the type of damage, from generic magic ("Magic Projectile," "Magic Arrows") to earth-based magic ("Rockfall," "Landslide") to wind magic ("Winddevil," "Windhowler") to fire magic ("Fire Beam," "Firestorm") and finally to ice magic ("Ice Storm," "Ice Shower"). (I'm honestly not sure if any enemies are immune to particular types of damage. If so, I don't think I've seen it.) Learning point cost ranges from 1 to 25, and spell point cost (to cast) ranges from 5 to 250 ("Dissolve"). The key to spending your spell points wisely is to not get too redundant. If you already have "Earthquake," the lowest "damage everyone" spell, you probably don't want to spend any learning points on "Cyclone," the next "damage everyone" level. You probably want to jump the next level up to "Pillar of Fire."

        

Mass damage spells never get old.

       

Mysticism contains navigation and utility spells. It includes "Monster Knowledge," which gives you statistics for your enemies; "Identification," which identifies unknown items so you don't have to take them to sages; and "Mystic Map," which gives you a map of the dungeon you're in. Those are the three that I find most valuable. There are a lot of other ones that show you various features on the automaps, including secret doors, traps, monsters, and people, but my system of exploration pretty much ensures that I find all of these things anyway. I have dozens of scrolls for these spells that I'll probably never use.

               

A full map of the level is one of mysticism's more useful spells.

       

Healing has, of course, spells that heal damage and all of the different status effects in the game, including fear, sleep, confusion, blindness, panic, poison, paralysis, disease, intoxication, aging, madness, petrification, and death. Some of these conditions are so rare (or, at least, have been so far) that I doubt I'll ever run out of the scrolls. There are also a few levels of turning undead. Almost all of my healer's casting ability goes to "Medium Heal," the highest cure-damage spell that she has. She can cast maybe 8 of them before resting. Because these healing spells are so important, it's tough to imagine replacing her with a paladin, even though I originally thought I might.

   

The alchemy school is a miscellany of the remaining spell types. It includes several levels of "Light" spells, exploration spells like "Create Food" and "Levitate," inventory spells like "Repair Item" and "Duplicate Item," and buffing spells like "Magic Weapon" (increases attack ability), "Anti-Magic Wall," and "Haste." I meant to say in an earlier entry, and forgot, that "Repair" means I haven't had to reload because of item breakages anymore, but those have decreased to almost never anyway. I had been neglecting the buffing spells until this session, and I found them very useful. They last for quite a while, often through half a dozen combats, so there's no need to be stingy with them.

        

Being able to "Repair" broken items saves me a lot of time.

       

On the subject of navigation, the alchemy school also has "Mark" and "Recall" spells, allowing instant travel back to the marked location. As useful as that sounds, getting around this game world is already so easy that I haven't tried them.

    

At the beginning of this session, I had hundreds of damage spell scrolls, so I divided them between my thief and mage and just had them go to town on the minotaurs. The creatures were very tough regardless. They hit hard and were capable of casting earth-based spells themselves. But Sabine kept up with healing, and it was rare that I was in any real danger. Each battle earned us nearly 500 experience points, and my characters continued to level rapidly. Each battle also delivered about 1,200 gold, so soon we were facing over-encumbrance again.

     

A minotaur hits me with a "Rockfall" spell.

       

Getting through the dungeon meant throwing a series of switches to open passages. I also had to destroy a couple of hourglasses with a special mallet.

     

I didn't really understand this.

     

On the second floor, we found a room with eight teleporters, seven of which led to battles with minotaurs and one of which, at last, led us to Sansri:

       

Before you stands a beautiful woman. At first glance you are entranced by her until you realize that her eyes radiate only coldness and death. As she starts to speak to you, you notice with astonishment and horror her snakelike tongue which curls down to her chin. "Sssso, mortal beingssss dare oncccce more to dissssturb me. Sssso, obssserve my power and die in agony. Ssssss . . ." With the last hiss, a horrific transformation takes place with Sansri. A five-headed hydra suddenly stands before you and, hissing loudly, starts to attack.

         

Sansri was a medusa in the last game, so I guess she's capable of several forms. She attacked with a pair of minotaurs. I think the battle was easier than any of the four-minotaur battles throughout the dungeon. We dispatched the minotaurs first and then swung away at the hydra until it was dead.

   

After the battle, the hydra changed forms back into a human(ish) woman, who had time to say, "Why mussssst I always lose? I hate you!" before dissolving into dust. You almost feel sorry for her.

     

The authors of Ambermoon, unlike the authors of Warriors of the Eternal Sun, know what a hydra is.

      

We looted from her body a vial of her blood, Sansri's Ring (+25 luck, +25 "Read Magic"), Sansri's Necklace (+5 shield, +5 anti-magic, +25 "Using Magic"), and a key. The key turned out to open the door to a cave that I missed during my initial explorations. In the cave, I faced a battle with eight minotaurs in which I used mass-damage spells liberally. The cave deposited us on the edge of the island (outside the mountain ring), where there was another ship.

    

We took the blood back to Illien and King Pelanis. As a reward, he gave us a key to his treasure chamber and a magic flute that allows us to summon an eagle, just like we had in Amberstar. Yes, it's another transportation option. This one lets you fly over everything, including mountains, thus replacing the broom (and everything else that came before it). The first thing I did was to ride it home so I could drop off all the gold we'd accumulated so I'd have room for anything in Pelanis's treasure chamber.

       

I still don't see how we all fit on the eagle's back.

       

Pelanis's reward was 10,000 gold, 82 magical arrows, an Elf Bow, a Parry Ring, a Mithril Shirt, a Holy Horn, two Wishing Coins, a topaz, and two speed potions. 

   

Getting low on quests, we next flew north to the fortress of Godsbane. I stopped to restore the windgate on the island before tackling the fortress, which was completely surrounded by a thick barrier of mountains. I guess we couldn't have gotten here before we got the eagle from Pelanis.

       

Arriving at Godsbane.

     

The fortress was a single level culminating in two large chambers. To get to the chambers, I had to flip some switches and use some teleporters. I was attacked several times by parties of one or two guard golems, extremely easy enemies for my party.

    

One of the two final chambers contained a chest with the Amberstar. It kind of gave me a tingle to see it. This game has been generally quite good about callbacks to its predecessor. The second chamber held Gryban, the paladin character from Amberstar, reported to have been sleeping since the events of that game, guarding the Amberstar.

         

Maybe we'll sell it.

         

We had to give his name to a magic mouth to enter the chamber. Gryban was up and about, and he immediately offered to join the party. He had no responses to keywords like AMBERSTAR or TARBOS. I don't know, maybe I should have taken him. I was reluctant to give up my pure healer, but Gryban at Level 35 may in fact have more spell points than Sabine at Level 28. He'd obviously be more useful in combat. And yet, I'm happy with my little party. I like their backstories. I've learned their strengths and weaknesses and have a solid approach to combat with them. I don't need some Level 35 hero from the past swaggering in and upsetting the balance. He'd probably insist on leading, too. Thus, despite his grave warning that a "power which is not of this world" is about to destroy Lyramion, we left him in his chamber and exited the fortress--with the Amberstar, of course. I can only imagine we'll need it somewhere.

   

At this point, I had explored all the islands on the game map except three. One was just southeast of Godsbane--a long island with a desert called Seufzerwüste. I found nothing on the island except a windgate (which I repaired) and an oasis that completely healed the party. I only figured out what it did because I took drowning damage wading into it. There was something that looked like a flower on an island in the middle of the oasis, but I couldn't pick it up or anything.

         

This could be bad . . .

        

Before doing anything else, I decided to deal with my surfeit of training points. My characters' totals ranged from 26 (Qamara) to 153 (Valdyn). But even after I did the circuit of cities and put the maximum number of points into every useful skill, I still had plenty left over. I guess I'll have to channel all the excess into "Swimming."

       

Leaving the world better than we found it.

      

I also took the opportunity to repair windgates on the islands I'd already visited. I earned quite a lot of experience during this process. At the end of this session:

   

• Qamara the adventurer is Level 36. She just got her third attack per round.
• Egil the warrior is Level 25. He has 5 attacks per round.
• Nelvin the mage is Level 30.
• Selena the thief is Level 28.
• Sabine the healer is Level 29.
• Valdyn the ranger is Level 25.

              

Qamara's current statistics. Note that she's hit her maximums on most of her attributes and useful skills. You can equip items that boost you above the maximums but you cannot train above the maximums.

       

For open quests, we have:

   

• Explore the Tower of Lebab.

• Get the Kalmir Herb from the island with the Tower of Lebab, then make the potion, then invade the Temple of the Brotherhood of Tarbos.

• Explore a dungeon surrounded by mountains near Spannenberg that I just discovered.

• Explore the long north/south island to the southwest of the gameworld, which contains the abandoned dwarf city of Gemstone.

• Explore Donner's Old Labyrinth, but I don't have the key for it yet.

     

Given our high levels, our maxed statistics, and the diminishing game world left to explore, I would normally say it feels like the game is coming towards an end. But a commenter suggested that he didn't think I'd be able to finish it before I finished Serpent Isle, so I'm not sure what's going to happen. Not bored with it yet, though.

   

Time so far: 53 hours

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Please note that I posted an addendum to Les Chevaliers de l'An Mil; I wanted to keep everything in one entry in case I have to turn it into a BRIEF.