Enchantasy: Truth and Consequences

Thanks for spelling it out for me.

        

It's been a while since I played a session of this game, and it took me more than an hour to review my past entries and notes and get myself oriented. Rather than spend a lot of time recapping here, I'll direct you to the beginning of my last entry on the game, which summarizes the plot and the major missions as I understood them. The only things I accomplished after that were a) finding a lot more dead mages; b) freeing Trent from Duke Hawthorne's castle; c) obtaining a pass to the pirate village; d) learning of a "Underground" faction centered in Aramon; and e) finding a very weird alien dungeon. I still don't know where that latter thing fits into the story.

    

I hoped to wrap it up in one more entry, but this game has a way of opening entire new quest lines just when you're starting to feel like you're whittling them down to a manageable number. I started this session with a list of tasks and clues about 20 items long, some of them rather cryptic (I was clearly not planning to take a month off), so I rolled a random number and settled on the first one: "Go to Sonora and ask around about the MYSTIC BOW and ROTAS." 

     

This session, I finally found the stupid key.

      

Before I get into it, there are a couple of things to understand about how I've been playing the game. Since I don't think I'm getting any more character development, combat is a chore. I've been running from every outdoor combat. If I'd run from 50% of them in previous sessions, I would have gotten through the game a lot more quickly. You can't run from indoor combats, so to get through them as quickly as possible, I've been filling every spare inventory slot with mana potions, relying on mass damage spells to soften enemy parties, and mopping them up with arrows. Thus, every time I reach a new port, I end up restocking potions, arrows, and food. I've been eliding these side trips and will mostly continue to do so.

     

It's nice when the game saves me a trip to the store.

      

We took the boat to Portsmith and walked to Sonora, but no one knew anything about the bow or the famous archer (Rotas) who supposedly wielded it, but as I explored, I remembered the entire Oasis plot line: I can't get into a club because I don't have a pass; a guy who has a pass wants a magic carrot. I assume whoever knows about the bow is in the Oasis Club. I thus retraced my steps back to Portsmith. In Portsmith, I checked to see that Trent got home safely from Duke Hawthorne's castle, and he had. His father thanked me, and we got experience points.

   

My next random roll was "Return to Duke Hawthorne's via pirate and see if anything is different; cast 'Glass Door' in dungeon room with locked doors." That last bit had come from commenter RandomGamer. We took the boat to Hazlett, where I intended to steal a skiff and head down the coast to the pirate. On the way, I happened to talk to a guy on the docks in Hazlett, and I fed him CARROT because I've been giving that to everyone. Surprisingly, he knew something about it: magic carrots are in a cavern on an island southeast of Keldar. The cave entrance is hidden, but invoking the word ISULE opens it.

          

This was lucky.

     

I should also note that at this point, I was also feeding every NPC I passed the keywords GHOST, BOOK, and GHOST BOOK because I had no leads on this item, which a guy in Aramon was asking for.

    

The trip to Duke Hawthorne's was also a bust. Nothing new happened from arriving by pirate (as opposed to the underground passage that brought me there last time), and casting "Glass Door" in the basement just revealed three rooms on the other sides of the doors. I suppose what RandomGamer wanted me to see is that I had already been in those rooms. The north door, for instance, goes to the jail where I was briefly incarcerated. But I couldn't really tell that for sure until I visited the castle again later and walked around the other sides.

   

Well, that was a revelation.

       

Next up: "Go to Aramon and ask John about the UNDERGROUND." This mission, at least, bore fruit. John was in a locked house where I had to knock and ask for him. He had a long speech. In summary: John and Jamall formed the Underground when they discovered signs of evil returning to the land, and the Mage Council downplayed their concerns. Jamall got the Prince of Savallia (whose name I still don't know) involved, but the Prince was later kidnapped by Duke Hawthorne. John believes we'll need the Grimoire to defeat the growing evil. He said that once we have it, I should go to a secret hideout in the mountains in northern Sonora. The lookout has been instructed to let me in, but only if I have the Grimoire. This hideout must be what Jamall's note to the Prince (which I've been carrying since the first session) referred to: "Meet me at the mountain."

      

The subtitle made that clear.

    

Good information, but nothing that helps me now, so I rolled again and moved on to the next one: "Find Baldric's burial place on the mountaintop west of Tiernan, on the other side of a dungeon." I had spied the dungeon entrance in a previous entry, so I knew where to go. I went back to Hazlett, stole the skiff again, and headed down the river to the entrance.

      

Arriving at a new dungeon.

     

The dungeon had a lot of boulders I needed to destroy with a pickaxe, plus a lot of battles, but it helped me with a few magic potions along the way. I emerged in a small meadow surrounded by mountains with a gravestone in the center. The stone read: "BALDRIC: Great Warrior." I reluctantly dug in front of it and soon had the Mystic Sword. I gave it to Jared the Fighter. His great sword had a weapon strength of 20; the Mystic Sword has a strength of 25. I'm not sure if it's required for something or just the best weapon.

      

Wars not make one great.

       

I stopped in Dalia on the way back to Hazlett because RandomGamer had suggested I missed the keyword to JOIN the Archaeological Society. The head of the Society indeed responded to the keyword: "Talk to Herbert over there. He's in charge of new membership." Unfortunately, there are three other people in the room (all sitting in chairs) and none of them would talk to me. 

        

Over where?

      

While I had a skiff around the southeasternmost continent, I decided to make another search for the grave of Blaze, the thief who burgled the jewelry store in Macino. I'd been trying to solve that quest since July. I found it without much trouble--I'm not sure how I missed it before--dug, and got the key. 

   

We returned to Macino, went to the dungeon for the dozenth time, unlocked the door, and found Blaze's hideout. The jewelry was in a chest. 

    

At last!

      

Back in town, I returned the jewelry to the shop owner. They rewarded me with a sling called a Gem Shot. I'm not sure what to make of it. It's less powerful than the great sling I already had, yet it does something odd in combat--some kind of extra damage or something. I'm not really sure how to interpret the graphic. 

       

But what does it do?

       

My next random item was "weird alien dungeon." I made my way across the continent of Thule to the dock where I could catch the magic whale. On the way, I found the house of a farmer I'd never met before. His name was Thorley. He said he collected antiques, but I couldn't otherwise get any word out of him.

   

I'm not sure what happened next. I think I realized that I couldn't walk to the far western side and that I needed a boat. My next screenshot shows me outside Keldar, searching for the island with the magic carrot cave. I tried a few islands before I found the right one. 

       

The I)nvoke command doesn't get invoked often.

      

Fortunately, the cave wasn't very big and had no encounters other than the carrots, which we had to dig for. 

     

I hope I don't need more than 11 of them.

      

I then took the boat to the western side of the island and caught the magic whale at the dock (using the fog horn). As before, it took me to an island with a cave that opened into a futuristic building complete with computers and robots. The robot that greeted me, looking like R2D2, told me that he and the base were the creation of the Jeeni, who hope to conquer all planets in the galaxy. The base was abandoned for unknown reasons.

    

Other than fighting about 10 battles with cobras, rats, and bats, the only thing to do in the dungeon was to find a laser gun in a crack in the floor. The droid kept popping up as I explored; he apparently decided we were friends and he would help me. So we got out of there with a laser gun. It has a weapon strength of 6 compared to 20 for the Ancient Bow. It doesn't seem to do appreciably more damage. At least it doesn't require arrows. There was no reason I couldn't have gotten it on my last visit except that I thought the dungeon was going to be more extensive in both size and plot.

    

An Astromech helps me find a laser gun . . .

 

. . . which I employ against some bats.

       

Next: "Talk to the descendants of Wilmer in Kadaar; find out what was in the envelope." This relates to the quest for the Magian Gem, which is behind a locked door in a manor house on an island south of Omphalos. Fortunately, Kadaar was right next to where the magic whale dropped us off. I knocked at the appropriate door and Trevor answered. He ushered me into a room with his father, Trevelyan. Unfortunately, I was too late. Some mage named Howland had visited recently, claiming to be on Mage Council business. He ransacked Trevelyan's bedroom and stole some papers that had belonged to Wilmer. Trevelyan was angry and wanted me to take his complaint to Rudimon.

      

Trevelyan looks a bit like a woman. That becomes important in a minute.

      

I rowed back to Keldar and visited Rudimon, who asked if I knew anything about "Lucille's complaint." At some point, the Trevor/Trevelyan combo must have been "Lucille," and the author changed some of the dialogue but not the rest. [Ed., No, that was just me missing some dialogue. Lucille must be Trevor's mother and Trevelyan's husband. Trevelyan is playing piano in the tavern.] Anyway, Rudimon already knew about Howland's theft of the papers and suggested that I speak to him in Portsmith. But he also presciently suggested that I seek a hermit named Harmon south of Meridion.

 

In Portsmith, on the way to Howland, I passed by the great library and figured they might know something about the Ghost Book. Not only did they know about it; they had it. I just had to search a bookcase on the fourth floor. I later took it to the guy who wanted it and received--wait for it--25 gold pieces. I like the presence of side quests, but that was a little insulting.

       

Please accept this fist to your nose.

       

Howland, meanwhile, said he knew nothing of LUCILLE or PAPERS but was clearly lying. Rather than let us just beat the snot out of him, we had to grit our teeth and move on. 

      

Yeah, that doesn't sound suspicious at all.

    

We found Harmon, who had refused to speak to us on our previous visit. He told us about a magical talking rabbit with the power to tell if someone is lying. The rabbit had been a man named Wiley, who was known far and wide as a "village liar." A mage named Osbert, who hated liars, turned him into a rabbit. No one can talk to the magic rabbit unless he eats a magic carrot. Osbert and Wiley lived in Luppi Village on the same island as Duke Hawthorne's castle. I had somehow missed that there was a town on the island.

      

All I have to do is find a rabbit somewhere in the woods.

    

I now had one carrot and two things to do with it. I gave the one I already had to the guy in Tiernan and got the Oasis Club pass from him. Then I went back to Keldar, back to the island, and dug up another one.  On the way, I visited the house of Rainger, another to-do item, who told me that there's a magic sling in a secret chamber in the dungeon of the Royal Castle. If only I could get past the fields of fire in that dungeon.

        

I didn't think it was that funny.

    

I paid the pirate to take me back to Duke Hawthorne's island and found the rabbit in the southernmost region. After eating the magic carrot, I was able to talk to him. He said his curse could be broken with a scroll from Osbert's old manor in town, and that Osbert hid the key in the bushes outside his house. (Osbert apparently died some time ago.) I followed his instructions and recovered the scroll.

          

Good thing everyone left this alone for 50 years.

      

I returned to Wiley and restored him to human form. In gratitude, he gave me a magic charm that I could use to determine if someone is lying. As when I got a similar device in Ultima VII, I immediately started thinking about all the people I could use it on, but the cynic in me suspects that the author didn't program that many interactions with the charm. We'll see, I guess.

      

What if he's lying about what the charm does?

      

Meanwhile, in Luppi Village, I met a mage named Zadok whose spell book had been "confiscated" by Duke Hawthorne. Hawthorne was apparently trying to teach himself magic. Zadok wanted me to recover the book, and he referred me to his confederate inside the castle, a guard named Guthrie.

   

For the third time, I invaded Duke Hawthorne's castle. Guthrie was drinking in the tavern. He told me I would need to find a blank Visitor's Pass in the basement, after which he could fill it out. He said his wife, a chambermaid named Rosellen, could help me out after that.

       

"I have a plan. I'm going to sit here drinking while you do all the work."

      

I found the pass in a barrel in an area that I had previously explored. I'm sure I would have searched that barrel on the first trip, so this was proof--along with the Ghost Book--that the game doesn't seed some of its objects until you've tripped the associated dialogues first. Anyway, I took the pass back to Guthrie and he forged it for me.

       

Do my characters not know the word "throne"?

     

With a visitor's pass, I was able to get into areas of the second floor that had previously been closed off. These areas included the throne room, the dining room, and the duke's chambers. The throne room was oddly empty. The duke was hanging around in the dining room with a bunch of guards. He yelled at me for bothering him and demanded that the guards not admit any more visitors.

       

Duke Hawthorne is clearly lawful evil.

      

I found Rosellen cleaning a study. She alerted me to a secret door in the duke's chambers. The secret door led to a hidden room with a treasure chest, which opened to Shyra's "Lockpick" ability. I've been training it every so often, and I've basically gotten to the point where she's successful unless any of the tumblers rolls a value higher than 90, which happens about a quarter of the time. The chest had a key that opened the rest of the locked doors in the castle.

           

"See Secrets" reveals the duke's secret door.

       

As I continued to explore, I met a woman named Euclea in a bedchamber. The duke wants to marry her, and he's holding her hostage until she agrees. The game gave me no opportunity to free her. She did say that she overheard the duke talking with an unknown mage about a plot to kidnap the Prince of Savallia.

       

I'm pretty sure I've never heard of this woman before.

        

If the Prince was in the castle, I never found him. The duke's key unlocked a door on the second level, which led to a room with a ladder, which led down to a secret room with a chair, a table, and two treasure chests. A secret door led out of this room to the throne room. This must have been where the duke was teaching himself magic. One chest had a note from "X" telling the duke that "the package has arrived safely." I assume that's the Prince.

         

Hawthorne even had a little book that instructed him on learning spells. That's so cute.

     

I found the spellbook in a different room, although writing a day later, I honestly can't remember where it was in relation to everything else. Anyway, I took it back to Zadok, who rewarded me with a Flame Scroll. "It is the only known means to dispel fire created by magic." I've been looking for something like this since the first session, when I encountered the impassable fire fields in the basement of the Royal Castle.

    

My last stop was a return to Howland. I guess the magic charm doesn't "detect lying" so much as force the other person to tell the truth, as he confessed immediately to having the papers. He also said he had been working with Duke Hawthorne to kidnap the Prince and to ensure that Hawthorne becomes the new king. The Prince is "being held by an evil named Xanoc" (I assume he meant "wizard"), the "X" of the duke's note, which is of course "Conax" spelled backwards. Conax was the mage dismissed from the Mage Council for "evil magic" a generation ago. We already figured all this out. "Tell Rudimon I'm sorry I betrayed the Council," Howland concluded.

       

This entire world is really slow on the uptake.

        

As I retrieved the papers from a chest in his room, I heard a scream outside. I returned to find Howland dead and a party of a dozen murderers in his room, which I promptly killed. The paper, meanwhile, gave a code of YELLOW, BLUE, WHITE.

        

Were they "murderers" before they killed Howland, or did killing Howland make them "murderers"? Is that their entire identity?

       

Things are coming to a head now. These are the things I have left to do, probably in this order:

    

• Use the Oasis Club pass to enter the club in Sonora and hopefully learn about the Mystic Bow.

• Use the Flame Scroll to suppress the fires in the Royal Castle dungeon and hopefully find the king's tiara and the magic sling.

• Use the code to enter the locked room in Ransley Manor and hopefully find the Magian Gem.

• Explore the pirate city and obtain the treasure map that leads to the Grimoire.

• Take the Grimoire, wherever I find it, to the Underground hideout in northeastern Sonora.

• Rescue the Prince, although I have no leads on where Xanoc might be hiding out.

     

Although I'm kind of done with Enchantasy as an RPG (partly my fault for over-grinding), this session offered a decent adventure game experience. I hope I can wrap it up in one more.

    

Time so far: 42 hours