Betrayal a Bit North of Krondor

 

Locklear name-drops half the title.

      

All right, in previous entries, we had our fun, but now it's time to get to Krondor. The Moredhel is up to something and Prince Arutha needs to know about it. 

   

I saved the last game in the village of Hawk's Hollow. I guess I didn't explore the buildings because the encounters are new to me this time. A man named Lucan invites us into his house and tries to pick Locklear's pocket, but Locklear catches him and forces him to teach the trio about picking locks, which increases our abilities. A paranoid resident demands to examine our hands before telling us to be alert for scrolls. It's late, so we stay at the Dusty Dwarf Inn, which otherwise has the usual services. After this night, we're finally back to full health and stamina.

    

We head west along the main road, looking for the road south that will lead us to Krondor. We're soon attacked by two Moredhel warriors, who we dispatch while taking a little damage.

         

And our statistics improve!

      

Further along, we come to a shop where Locklear mistakes the pieces of armor hanging from the rafters for body parts. We all (I assume) have a good laugh at his expense. It turns out to be a repair shop run by a gnome named Joseph the Animal. I'm not sure what use he is. He won't repair weapons, and we're capable of getting armor to around 85% on our own. Even though we're doing pretty well with money these days, we leave without getting any help.

      

Locklear is kind of an idiot.

      

A few observations about travel as we move on:

    

• Nighttime comes fast, especially if you're frequently pausing to, say, write blog notes.

• It would be nice if the game didn't decide on its own to spin me around so often.

• There's something off about the speed of turning or the visual feedback associated with turning. I routinely turn what appears from the view window to be 90 degrees but which registers on the compass as only half that.

• The button that has you automatically follow the main road is useful, but I worry it discourages exploration, like most "fast travel" systems.

• It's a lot faster and easier to move in the map view, but you miss things.

           

Cruising along using the automap.

       

We next encounter the Temple of Killian on the north side of the road. Like I guess all temples, it has a teleporter. We can take it to the only other temple we've visited, the Temple of Ishap, which would cost 85 sovereigns. That seems like a lot to go up the road, but I like the idea of having to pay for fast travel in general.

    

Three more Moredhel attack before we come to the southern turn, where we have to carefully navigate a trap. Locklear concludes from the complexity of the trap that Delekhan, the Moredhel general, is mobilizing spies already placed within the kingdom (rather than simply following us from the north). Gorath objects that word of his escape could only have traveled as fast as we have, to which Owyn suggests the possibility that Delekhan is using "mind speech" to communicate over long distances. Gorath replies that Owyn's hypothesis would fit with what he heard about some of the magicians surrounding Delekhan, including one named Nago.

    

I'm mostly able to ignore the graphics, but every so often it hits me all over again how ridiculous Owyn looks.

      

The Bitter Sea appears to our west as we continue south. We soon find yet another Moredhel box: "The light one breaks but never falls. His brother falls but never breaks." I figure this out partly by the riddle and partly by the available letters. (DAY) breaks but never falls and (NIGHT) falls but never breaks. It's cute. I've never heard it before, but I guess it's an old one, as plenty of web sites offer it with no reference to Krondor. The chest has a "Flamecast" scroll, 57 royals, and a torch.

      

Ocean in view. Oh, the joy.

     

On the way southeast, we encounter:

   

• A party of three Moredhel.

• A guy named Chanty living in a house alone. Although he talks with us at first, he becomes suspicious, slams the door, and won't answer it again.

• An empty house

• Another party of three Moredhel. We get the jump on them, and Owyn softens them up with "Flamecast."

• Another Moredhel chest: "A precious gift, this, yet it has no end or beginning, and in the middle, nothing." I want it to be DONUT, but it only has four letters. (RING), clearly. It has a couple of shells and 28 royals.

• "Though easy to spot, when allowed to plum, it is hard to see, when held in a room." I get it (SMOKE) mostly from the letters. 

    

We come to the town of Questor's View just as night is falling. I'm hoping for an inn, as we're pretty beat up again, and it fortunately has one: Babon's Hostel. I pay for some food and drink and we talk to some non-consequential NPCs before going to bed. The next morning, we explore the rest of the town. A resident gives us some rations for the road, and we decline to pay a sword trainer's fee of 75 sovereigns.

     

He's talking about a bird. This is somehow the only screenshot I took between the Temple of Killian and Questor's View. Either something went wrong with my CTRL key or I just got really immersed in the game.

     

Roads go north and south from Questor's View. The north road will take us back up to our starting point or let us reach Krondor through a clockwise trip through Eggley and Tanneurs. An NPC had previously suggested we avoid this road, but Locklear had also suspected that a psychic named Devon in Eggley might be the one communicating with the Moredhel general through mind magic. It's a tough call, but I decide to head directly south. In some later chapter, I'll exhaustively explore everything there is to do. For now, I want to get on with the plot.

      

Not all NPCs are useful.

     

We get attacked again by Moredhel. They tend to have archers these days, which adds a new challenge--one I usually negate with Owyn's "Despair Thy Eyes" spell. A farmer named Rowe meets us on the road and tells us of a terrible storm on its way; he offers to let us wait it out in his barn, though without Gorath ("I don't take in elves"). Locklear negotiates a rate of 10 gold pieces plus milking his cows in the morning. I'm annoyed by the offer, and the game hasn't shown any signs of having a weather system so far, so I decline. No inclement weather appears as we head south, even when we rest for a couple of days, so he was either trying to scam us or kill us. 

        

This is exactly how I pictured it in the book.

       

After another battle, we reach the city of Sarth, a menu fortress that I remember from Silverthorn. Unfortunately, the place offers no services, only a library where we can read several books that offer hints as to the mechanics of the game. There's no one to talk with in the fortress, but on the way out of town, we run into Brother Marc tending a field. He offers to train Owyn in magic for 50 sovereigns, which we accept. He also confirms there is no storm in the forecast, and he says that Rowe has been acting weird since his wife died. Marc also says he's been getting "dream sendings" with Gorath's face from an unknown source that must be close by.

    

The guy playing Brother Marc looks exactly like Dave Barry.

      

We are agonizingly close to Krondor, but I feel now like I'm meant to solve this "dream sending" quest, so we reluctantly turn around and head back north. On the way, we encounter Rowe again but have no new dialogue options. Now I'm curious what he's all about, so I accept his offer. He tells us his barn is pretty far to the south. "Knock on the door and my wife will fix you up." We already know his wife is dead, and his barn is now in the opposite direction that I want to travel. After some more dithering, I decide to see this encounter through and then reach Eggley by looping around from the south rather than continuing north.

    

On the way, we find a Moredhel chest (I forgot to write down the riddle) with 32 sovereigns, a shell, a suit of armor in near perfect condition, and an Amulet of the Upright Man, which adds 12% to my "Lockpick" skill. We stop at the Temple of Sung after that and unlock another teleporter. The priests are unable to sleep because of the "dream sending," which they think is "very close by."

         

My growing fast-travel options.

      

As we move south, we keep getting attacked by pirates, who Marc had warned us recently landed on the coast. Eventually, we reach Rowe's barn. As we enter, four Moredhel assassins apparate in front of our very eyes. One of them is a sorcerer, Nago, the very "dream sender" that Gorath told us about. 

      

It sounds like the other chapters' bosses will be anti-climactic.

         

There's no way to avoid surprise in the ensuing battle, which features three warriors and a mage who relentlessly blasts Owyn with "Flamecast" spells. After dying the first time, I buff with what limited potions I have and try again, this time concentrating on the mage first. I'm able to win, but with a lot of damage. The reward is 50 sovereigns, a two-handed broadsword, five "icers" that let you magically treat blades to do ice damage, and a note suggesting that the Moredhel have been placing fake notes concerning an attack to the south of Tanneurs in various chests.

 

I prepare to blind Nago.

            

In the aftermath, the party discusses whether Rowe had anything to do with the attack. "I think that bastard farmer set us up," Locklear opines. "He'd best have been paid well for his betrayal." The betrayal has happened! In the first chapter!

       

Funny how I haven't noticed anything while camping at night.

        

If Nago was the "dream sender," that means that the information I got about him being in Eggley were false or, more likely, I confused two different things. Just to be sure, I head back to the Temple of Sung. The priests confirm that the dreams have stopped. When the high priest credits this to the power of prayer, Gorath and Owyn bristle and inform the priest that in fact we solved the problem. As a reward, the priest teaches Owyn . . . well, I'm not sure. When I check my spells, he has "Gift of Sung" and "Hocho's Haven," neither of which I remember having before. Either he taught both or I picked up one somewhere else. Obviously, the "Gift of Sung" makes the most sense. 

    

Now able to smell Krondor, we run south and blunder into three more pirates, then two more, then three pirates and two Moredhel. I don't know why these pirates are involved, but they really don't want us to reach Krondor. I have plenty of rations, so I'm resting liberally between battles to restore health and stamina. We're able to surprise them in the last battle, fortunately, and I have Owyn start with a full-powered "Flamecast," which kills one of them right away and damages three others. Fortunately, they don't reach us during their turn that round, and I'm able to hit them with "Flamecast" a second time.

       

"Flamecast" damages everyone within two squares, so if I hit that center guy, it should damage everyone except the guy to the far right.

        

Finally, we reach the final approach to the city. Although the game suggests that there might be more assassins ahead, we're able to reach it without another battle. 

       

It's odd how I'm narrating this game in the present tense but the game insists on using the past tense.

     

Before heading to the palace, we unload some of our excess items in shops and visit the Rainbow Parrot Inn. Finally, we go to enter the palace and find that we can't because the gate mechanism is broken. Even worse, the guard that we're able to talk to through the broken portcullis refuses to go fetch anyone who will be helpful. Prince Arutha is in a meeting with Pug and Makala. Seigneur James is missing. The guard says the only way to enter is to go through the sewers beneath the city. This seems awfully contrived.

        

No. I'm ready to go back and climb over the fence or wait until the prince's meeting with Pug is over. It's not going to last multiple days, is it?

        

No sooner have we entered the sewers than a boy named Limm (who the gate guard mentioned) appears and warns us against walking the "thieves' road." When he understands we're friends with people he knows, he offers to sell us lockpicks for 25 gold pieces. I have several sets, though, so I decline.

  

Hugging the right wall, it's a while before we reach the next encounter--a chest that blows up in our faces when we try to open it. It damages us so badly that I reload rather than trying to recover from it. I can't remember how to search for traps, or if indeed there's even a way to choose to search for them, but in investigating my new spells, I discover that "Scent of Sarig" allows you to see trapped chests for 12 hours. It works, and we're able to deactivate it, earning 21 sovereigns and 88 royals.

       

Some thieves guard a ladder.

     

After several battles with groups of 2 or 3 thieves, we come to a ladder heading up. We try to take it, but the grate at the top is locked and I can't pick it. This happens in a couple more places.

       

Maybe I should have gotten more training.

     

A battle with three black-clad figures leaves us badly wounded. Shortly afterwards, we meet Seigneur James, a main character from the novels. Originally a street thief known as "Jimmy the Hand," he moves up in the world after he helps Prince Arutha on a few missions. He's part of the party who finds the Silverthorn in the second book, and one sequence from that novel is one of the better narratives I've read told from a thief's point of view. In the following dialogue, Locklear mentions that the group of black-clad figures were "Nighthawks," an assassin's guild, but James says that they're impostors: "Someone has been trying to convince Prince Arutha that the Guild of Death has reestablished operations here in Krondor," possibly to incite the city guard to clear the thieves out of the sewers. Locklear fills James in on our adventures and quest, and James gives us a key to the grates.

     

Your "bump of trouble"?

      

The key doesn't fit the first grate we try it on, so we have to keep exploring. We fight a few more thief battles (it would have been nice if Jimmy had spread the word that we were cool) before we finally find the "correct" ladder and head up to the palace.

      

Prince Arutha and Pug greet the weary trio.

       

Chapter 1 ends with the characters complaining about their noxious experience in the sewers as they blunder into Prince Arutha and Pug. After an exchange of pleasantries, Locklear explains to the prince what we've discovered about the Moredhel and their activities. In a lightly-animated sequence, Gorath drops his hood to the prince's astonishment. Before Locklear can explain, a Moredhel assassin appears in the chamber and fires an arrow, which Pug destroys in-flight with a fireball. The fireball continues past the arrow and slays the assassin, and suddenly we're in Chapter 2: "Shadow of the Nighthawks."

       

The exciting end to the first chapter.

         

At the end of the first chapter, I find myself liking the game but not quite understanding why it's so many commenters' favorite. The story and text are good, sure, but the way that they're narrated in the past tense enhances the perception that the player is just ferrying the characters between plot points rather than actively participating in the story's development. The lack of options during dialogues and encounters also feeds this perception. It annoyed me, for instance, that I couldn't avoid the obvious ambush even though I, as a player, figured it out long before I entered the barn. The combat system is fine, but only fine, and the equipment system feels a little under-developed.

   

Perhaps the best part of the game is the open game world. I took advantage of part of it, but I certainly could have explored more, earned more money, perhaps found better gear, paid for more training, and earned more experience. Since I have a saved game from the bottom of the ladder: Do you think I've accomplished enough for Chapter 1, or should I head back outside and see what adventures await in some of the eastern cities?

     

Time so far: 13 hours