Betrayal at Krondor: Right Back Where We Started From

This might be the first time in CRPG history that a PC acknowledges he's screwing around instead of doing the main quest.

        

This session begins in Chapter 6. The Moredhel legions have been temporarily defeated, but a new (or perhaps allied) threat has arisen. Magicians from the Tsurani Empire have kidnapped Pug's adopted daughter, Gamina. Pug has gone looking for her, leaving only a cryptic message about the Book of Macros, a master wizard whose actions have shaped the history of the kingdom. The quest to find more information has taken apprentice wizard Owyn and Moredhel expatriate Gorath into the sewers of Krondor, where they learn that a mysterious figure named the Crawler has killed the head of the local thieves' guild. The Crawler is amassing power and has corrupted Abbot Graves in Malac's Cross to be his head magician.

    

Gorath and Owyn tried to follow the lead to Malac's Cross, but they have been kept at bay by groups of Pantathians, evil serpentine spellcasters who have allied with the Moredhel in the past. The key problems are that a) they have devastating spells, including "Fetters of Rime," which freezes my characters, b) there are only two of us, and c) there are five of them. Even on the rare occasion that I can surprise them, I don't get enough actions before they start hurling devastating spells my way. I try a few strategies. They stand up to more than one "Evil Seek," even at full power. "Thoughts Like Clouds" is supposed to confuse spellcasters, but it only works on one at a time. I don't know why I'd cast it over "Fetters of Rime." I think at first that maybe "Unfortunate Flux" is the answer, as it summons spirits, but this isn't a real summoning spell, just one that pelts a single enemy with damage for one round.

      

Confuses one enemy spellcaster.

    

That last spell reminds me that there is something that summons allies, though: that horn that summons hounds. Is it the Horn of Doskar, or is that from Serpent Isle? Either way, I know I've seen it in a shop. My notes show two magic shops, one in Silden and one in Dencamp. Silden is just down the road. I decide to head there and see what they have. 

   

On the way, I figure it won't hurt to see what the Oracle of Aal knows. As usual, Owyn collapses into a heap as the party approaches the dragon statue and ends up talking with her mentally. He has three new dialogue options: "Book of Macros," "Sword," and "Pug." The Oracle is surprisingly helpful. She says that the Book of Macros doesn't exist, but we can find the knowledge we need at the Abbey of Ishap in Sarth; that the Guarda Revanche (a magic sword) is hidden in a place "that is ancient and was once home to those known as the Valheru"; that Pug is wandering a distant world in search of his daughter; that Pug won't find his daughter but will instead "reawaken forces sleeping since the Valheru waged their wars across the universe"; and that the Book of Macros—which doesn't exist—will be the thing that saves him.

      

I feel like "betrayed" ought to be capitalized.

       

We surprisingly find nothing on the way to Silden—I thought the world would be seeded with new encounters. The shop, alas, does not sell anything that will help us, although I use the occasion to refresh herb packs and restoratives. Before heading all the way up to Dencamp, I search my screenshots to at least verify that it has the horn, and it does. It turns out to be called the Horn of Algon-Kokoon. Thinking I'm putting a lot of faith into the extra benefit conveyed by two hounds, I gird up and start the long journey north. (I'm aware I could shorten it by teleporting through the mirrors in the temples, but I don't have a lot of money. I do like this game's approach to fast travel, though; it ought to pinch a bit.)

    

Rogues, rogue mages, and pirates attack us on the road. "Evil Seek" curiously works on pirates but not rogues. We make some money.

       

Gorath has really internalized this mission. I don't think he's even met Pug.

       

As we get further north, Owyn suddenly speaks up and says he wants to go to Cavall Keep to check on his uncle and cousin. Gorath disagrees but says he will go where Owyn leads. I noted last time that Owyn, against common sense, seems to be the leader of this pair. This is more proof.

   

Some Moredhel—ironically, with hounds—harry us south of Cavall Keep. When we reach the keep, we find that Count Corvallis and Ugyne aren't there: they have gone to Kenting Rush to "take charge of affairs for Lady Boswich." We continue north to that city and find Ugyne on the road. She and her father are in the area to join forces with Arutha. After Owyn satisfies himself that she's okay, we move on.

     

I guess we won't be going this way.

       

Unfortunately, the way north from here is choked with mercenaries. No matter how many we beat, they leave no bodies and their visible numbers in the world don't diminish. Owyn is soon knocked out. The game seems to be trying to keep us from getting farther north and thus creating a situation where it would have to explain why we can't reunite with James or Locklear. As we cannot get to Dencamp this way, the only option is to head all the way back south to Silden. This whole trip was largely wasted.

   

Or maybe not. I find the Temple of Kahooli nearby. As expected, the teleporters won't take us to any place north of here (I'm not sure there are any), but I pay 149 sovereigns to zip west to the Temple of Ishap, south of Tyr-Sog. Once there, I went north to Tyr-Sog long enough to confirm that a) the Inclindel is again impassable, and b) Prince Arutha's soldiers refuse to let us go to the east. At least they just tell us that we can't, rather than attacking us in endless waves.

     

Let's hope Delekhan doesn't figure out this trick.

      

Thus, we go west, intending to go through Yabon, LaMut, Zun, and Questor's View before arriving at Sarth to check out the Oracle of Aal's lead. This is territory we explored in the opening minutes of the game. I remember my high school English teacher, Dan Beetz—a man I will remember until the day I die—once saying that sometimes the only way you can tell how much you've changed is to return to a place that hasn't changed. Such reflection is uniquely possible in this game, where the body of the Moredhel that Gorath killed in the opening cinematic is still lying on the ground.

     

Should we bury him?

       

As we walk south—hey, there's the chest whose password was DIE!—we reflect on how far we've come. Once a local rube and a distrusted enemy soldier, now an arch-mage and an unlikely agent of the Prince. The only battles are, oddly, with packs of hounds. (Is this supposed to be irony? We go looking for a device that summons hounds and are in turn attacked by hounds?) We sneak by a couple of battles, which I know because the game tells me the "Stealth" skill has increased.

     

Like so.

       

We have to fight some rogues north of Questor's View, and one of them has a ring called Roric's Seal on him. It has an odd description; I'm not sure whether it's a quest item or magic item.

    

I don't think there's even a "Roric" in the game.

        

Eventually, we come into sight of Sarth. Brother Marc intercepts us on the road and advises us to steer clear of the city, as Brother Dominic has fallen ill with Quegian Fever. The danger is not so much the fever but what the powerful Dominic might do with his magic while affected by the fever. Owyn suggests that we might be able to enter the city through some old mines (I don't know how that helps), but Marc says the maps to the mines are with the tax collector in Eggley. Owyn also asks about books that will teach him a chess move called Abbar's Turn. Marc takes 100 sovereigns, disappears, and returns with a text that gives Owyn the knowledge he's looking for. Maybe this will come in handy in Malac's Cross, where there's a chess master that we've met before. 

        

Why is Borther Marc always wandering around outside? I find that suspicious.

           

The "mines" thing is explained when we try to enter Sarth and find that Dominic has warded all of the doors.

   

Two steps to the east of Sarth, Owyn is knocked out in a battle against seven rogues. He's back on his feet only for a few minutes, after which he's knocked out again in a battle against some giant scorpions. And then again in a battle against six Moredhel and one Moredhel mage. Gorath doesn't survive that one, either. This game is really eager to kick our asses this chapter. On a reload, we end up sneaking by that last battle.

         

"Near Death" is Owyn's default state lately.

        

Before long, we find ourselves where we started, outside Malac's Cross, contemplating five Pentathians. All the sneaking at least seems to have helped; in the next few attempts at the battle, we manage to at least surprise them a couple of times. Reloading and "Evil Seek" finally save the day. I have to cast it three times to kill them. One of them gets away, and both Own and Gorath are down to single digits in health. Nonetheless, we win. 

        

Gorath's been frozen, but Owyn's got this.

      

And of course one of the bastards has a Horn of Algon Kokoon on his corpse. 

        

One for you, game.

       

At last, we make it to Malac's Cross. The city is in a panic from the Pantathian presence. They blame Abbot Graves and are about ready to revolt. After resting a couple of nights at the inn—Ivan Skaald has no interest in talking to us about chess—we visit the temple, where Owyn uses the impending riot to coerce Graves into explaining what's happening. Graves breaks down and admits to getting his position by framing the previous abbot for theft. The Crawler found out about this and used it to blackmail Graves. He had Graves write to Pug and arrange for a magical tutor to be sent periodically to Malac's Cross to teach the sons and daughters of the nobility. In truth, the tutor taught only the Crawler and his minions. When Pug found out about this, he withdrew the tutor, leaving Graves unable to fulfill his bargain with the Crawler. The Crawler then demanded that Graves recover an artifact, probably the Book of Macros. When he refused, the Crawler unleashed the Pantathians (who it sounds like he works for) on the city. 

          

You have to love his defense: "I'm guilty, but the people don't know I'm guilty, so it would be unjust for them to kill me."

         

Graves asks us to find someone named Mitchel Waylander, who can arrange for Graves's flight from the city. Without Graves there, the Pantathians will have no reason to stay. Searching my notes, I find that Waylander is the head of the Glazers' Guild in Romney. The subtitle of this entry is going to have something to do with recursion.

   

As we've already cleared the way, it takes a few days but not much effort to reach Romney. Unfortunately, I can't find any sign of Waylander. We start searching houses in the area. We're just about to give up when we find him in the last house in the town of Sloop, a bit south of Romney. Waylander intimates that the Crawler and Graves were somehow responsible for the guild war in Chapter 2. This game really would benefit from a replay. I have to remind myself to keep a more careful log of clues, allusions, and mysteries in future titles that have a plot this thick.

       

Maybe you could elaborate on that a bit?

       

Waylander gives us a note to take to Graves that will allow him to seek help from the Glazers' Guild in Malac's Cross. Before heading back to the city, we stop in Darkmoor to deliver the ale cask, which we got from Ivan Skaald, to Petrumh (as per a side-quest we got last entry). She rewards us with 16 doses of Fadamor's Formula, which improves combat damage.

   

Back in the city, Graves takes the note. Owyn encourages him to "strike back at the Crawler" by telling us how to get the Book of Macros. Graves says that's not the artifact he was told to retrieve. The Crawler doesn't want the book; he wants the Guarda Revanche. As for the book, Graves can only suggest that we seek Tomas, Pug's companion from their youth, who also had some dealings with Macros. Tomas is a major character in the first two books. The problem is that he is the "warleader of the Elves in Elvandar" (he's not an elf himself, but that's a long story), which is not on the game map, at least not through any road that I can see.

         

The game has a way of randomly emphasizing words.

      

Out of leads on both the Book of Macros and the Guarda Revanche, we turn to the Sarth quest. We head to Eggley, via Sethanon, stopping at Nia's shop to replenish our herbal packs and restoratives. In Eggley, we learn that the tax collector, Stellan, is dead. We manage to break into his old office and find a deed to the Mines of Mac Bourgalan Dok. The deed notes that the caverns are sealed by a magical door which can only be opened with the accompanying map.

   

Great, but where are these caverns? There's a mountain range in between Eggley and Sarth, so we begin circumnavigating the range, looking for openings, all the while being attacked by Moredhel and rogues. We get all the way around the range to Sarth again before we realize that the mines aren't an external entrance, but rather an option on the Sarth menu screen. 

        

That's what we came for.

         

The mines constitute a small map with only three rooms, staffed with giant spiders and scorpions. One room has our first fairy chests for a while, and I can't get the first of them:

    

• "A box beneath a tree, inside some tasty meat. Kept for a month or more, it still tastes just as sweet." There are six letters, but SMOKER isn't an option even if the time frame made sense.

• "Two brothers wanted to race a course, to see which had the slowest horse. Since neither wanted to spur his mare, what must they do to make it fair?" I've heard this one before, and I know the answer, but it takes me a little while to figure out the specific words it wants (TRADE MARES). This just has some armor and a weapon I have no room for.

   

We reach a staircase, and the rest of the mine's navigation is covered by text rather than actual exploration. We emerge in Sarth's library, where the startled priests wonder why they've been trapped for days with no explanation. We explain about Quegian Fever, Dominic, and how his delusions probably caused him to activate the defenses. They begin researching a cure while we begin researching the Book of Macros. Among the books they read is another linking Macros to Thomas, and Owyn suggests that we seek him out in Elvandar. This time, it comes with a more specific suggestion: a passage near LaMut. I then remember that the dungeon we explored back in #@$!* August, Mac Mordain Cadal, had additional levels that were blocked back in Chapter 1. I double check, and this is the very dungeon that Pug and Tomas enter after visiting Elvandar in Magician.

We already cleared this section of road, so we make it to Mac Mordain Cadal unmolested except for one battle with rogues that we must have sneaked by before. In the entryway, the dwarf Naddur Ban Dok meets us and confirms that the dwarves have broken through the blockage that prevented us from exploring further during our earlier visit. He warns that the Elvandar elves are unlikely to welcome Gorath. But we go on anyway.

        

    

I'm getting a bit impatient with this chapter, so I just hug the right wall rather than try to explore everything exhaustively. The first level has surprisingly not been restocked with monsters, let alone treasures, so we reach the second level without incident. The second level has battles, but not tough ones. There are small groups of rogues, I think one rogue mage.

   

After swinging across a pit, we meet a kobold who wants us to bring him a suit of Grey Tower Plate. I think we saw one recently, but I'm not inclined to leave the mines to go find it. 

          

I'm not sure where the dragon comes into it. Is the Gray Tower Plate the bribe?

        

The penultimate battle of the dungeon comes in a large room with three trolls, a gravestone, and a bunch of chests. The gravestone warns us to leave the place, "or your suffering will be a thousand times worse than that of the one now buried beneath this marker." We ignore it and find some good treasure in the chests, suffering no ill consequences that I can see. Lacking a shovel, we do not dig up the grave.

       

As we approach the exit, the ground rumbles, and we're attacked by a stone-golem-like creature called a Brak Nurr. The idea that any single creature can threaten us is amusing. Plus, I think we defeated one of these back in Chapter 1. Although my "Fetters of Rime" misses, Gorath is able to kill it in two rounds.

        

It's almost cute.

        

The dungeon exits into a pretty forest map, which surprises me. I was expecting a menu town for some reason—probably because the main map shows no roads in this area, although I now see that it has a single city, Caldara, the capital of the dwarves in Magician. A dwarf named McCannur Ban Dok greets us as we step forward. He tells us that wyverns sent by Delekhan have attacked the area, setting fires. Tomas has been wounded in a skirmish with the Moredhel.

         

Reasonably nice forest textures.

        

As we enter the forest, Gorath warns Owyn that the elves of Elvandar have placed magics in the forest to prevent Moredhel from crossing, and that they might have more difficulty than they perceive. "I only wanted you to know," Gorath says ominously, "that I have come to consider you a friend." 

   

Most of the houses in the region are abandoned, the businesses closed. A few residents confirm the stories of the wyverns. At the one open shop, we spend a lot of gold on something called a Key of Lineages. 

   

It soon becomes clear that this is going to be a large map, so I reluctantly wrap up, with no idea how much more time remains to this chapter or to this game. There are many things to like about Betrayal at Krondor, but it's starting to wear out its welcome.

    

Time so far: 57 hours