Warriors of Legend: I'll Do You One Better

 

I don't like people who sic their pets on me.

    

As this session begins, we've fully explored Illandria and are ready to try again to find Moc Madure, hiding in some caverns beneath Mount Gunderbad. We already explored the caverns a bit in a previous session, but we were driven away by large trolls. I guess you have to equip the "stone heart" like a shield to kill those creatures. Maybe I missed an NPC back in town who would have told me that. I also wonder if spells might work on them, but I didn't try. There are only a couple of the trolls, in any event.

   

We get access to a few more caves and find more treasure, including a complete suit of mithril, as far as I can tell the best armor in the game so far. I have to wonder if I'm missing something, though. I keep fighting my way to deep caverns and finding +2 swords and Dragon Mail, in the treasure piles, but statistically they don't seem to perform as well as Thor's Hammers, which show up all the time in post-combat loot, and mithril mail, which is sold back in town. Perhaps there's something more complex than just attack and defense power going on. Maybe certain weapons work best against different types of enemies (though the hammers seem to kill things awfully fast) or certain armor protects against different types of attacks. I don't know how you'd determine this.

      

This sounds like a cool item, but it pales in comparison to the "Thor's Hammers" we found during the first hour.

    

As I fight dragons and giant spiders and trolls, it really hits me how ridiculous combat is in this game. You have to left-click on enemies to attack once and right-click to attack repeatedly. Why would you ever just want to attack once? Meanwhile, the first character to attack usually blocks the enemy so it's impossible, with everyone moving, to successfully click again on the enemy with a different character without accidentally clicking the first character. Why is there no "everyone attack the closest enemy" option, or otherwise some kind of auto-attack like in Drakkhen (which this interface roughly resembles)?

      

At least it's easier to click on the giant enemies.

      

Eventually, we find our way to a bridge over a flow of lava. With Brand leading the way, we cross. Halfway across, Brand drops suddenly through the bridge and into the lava. On a reload, I try crossing higher/further to my left, but I end up in the lava even sooner. It takes a few reloads before I can find the right path. If there are any environmental cues, I can't see them.

     

Following each other to the beyond.

       

On the other side of the bridge, the passage winds to a stone door. Behind are passageways to two caverns. Two large dragon heads come out of each of the two passages and start breathing fire, but we're able to make quick work of them. 

     

It looks to me like you guys live uncomfortable lives.

      

The left passage goes to another dragon head and then to a treasure room, where we find a Skeleton Key and some herbs.

   

The right passage goes to Moc Madure, a dragon-headed guy sitting pathetically on a throne. "I don't like people who kill my pets," he says. "Death is too good for you." As soon as dialogue ends, he starts tossing fireballs at us and kills two of the characters almost immediately. My hammers don't seem to do any damage to him at all. I assume the Dragon Sword will kill him, but I have no luck there, either.

   

Finally, I turn to spells. It takes me a bunch of tries, and even after those tries, and later experimentation, I can't quite figure out what's happening with targeting. It's hard to click on the right place with a spell to get it to actually cast. My perception is that it's harder if the spellcaster is holding a shield instead of an ankh or Book of Sorcery, but I could just be imagining. Either way, "Armageddon" doesn't seem to do anything to him. But after about half a dozen attempts, I manage to nail him with a "Flaming Death" spell, which kills him.

      

Right at the moment I hit him. This shot was hard to get.

      

Beyond his throne room is a chamber with an obelisk that holds his part of the Chaos Key, plus another Skeleton Key.

   

By the time I get back to Illandria and sell all my loot, I have enough money for all of the spell scrolls I haven't already bought, so I decide to get serious about investigating the magic system. Spells are created by mixing reagents, and scrolls provide the recipes. I verified that you can't just buy a scroll, check out the recipe, and reload. You have to have had the scroll in your possession at least once. After that, once you record the recipe, you can sell it.

         

"Invisibility" requires powder, mandrake, and berries.

     

There are 17 reagents: dragon's blood, carrot, serpent's eye, ox heart, grain, powder, bone, bat's wing, lion's mane, mandrake, clover, rat's tail, herbs, herbs, berries, garlic, mushroom. All but dragon's blood are sold in shops for 5 gold pieces each. You have to get dragon's blood from the dragons in the Mount Gunderbad caves. Annoyingly, each character only has 10 slots for reagents (which stack), so one character can't hold all of them. When you mix reagents into spells, you can fortunately cycle through the characters as you toss them into the cauldron.

   

Aspects of inventory management discourage much spell use. You can only buy reagents one at a time, and you can only mix spells one at a time. There's no way to move all the reagents between characters (as a stack) to speed up the mixing process; you have to move them one by one.

   

Once created, spells are inventory items that can be traded among characters, but I've been having Astrovir do all the casting.

      

My list of cleric spells and their reagents.

      

While I'm running around town collecting scrolls and reagents, I happen to re-visit Sahhar the Sage, who reminds me that I was supposed to find a secret room off of Moc Madure's treasure room. I forgot about that. With a sigh, I head back to the caverns and start testing out my various spells in and out of battle. This is what I can report:

    

• "Cure Poison" and "Heal" (cleric) do what they suggest and work fine.

     

Astrovir cures himself after a battle with a spider.

      

• I figure "Plank" (cleric) must be the solution to crossing the bridge safely, but it's not. When cast, a timer appears at the top of the game window, so clearly it's active, but it doesn't stop me from falling into the lava.

     

It would have been funny if this spell had just made you lie down uselessly for a few minutes.

      

• Similarly, I can't find any use for "Detect" or "Stone Speak" (cleric) despite casting them in a variety of locations.

• I assume "Unlock" (cleric) would have unlocked the doors I've been picking. Since I've already opened them, I can't test it.

    

It does not work on this lock.

      

• "Armageddon" (mage) destroys all enemies on a combat screen. Nice.

       

It does not destroy everybody across the entire world.

     

• "Fireball" and "Flaming Death" both shoot missiles at enemies. The enemies I try them on all die instantly.

    

I nail a guy with a fireball.

     

• "Freeze" also shoots a missile, but it doesn't seem to actually do any damage.

• "Invisibility," as far as I can tell, does nothing.

    

After fighting my way back to Moc Madure's lair and clicking on everything, I still can't find any hidden chamber, so I don't know what Sahhar is talking about. 

     

Sahhar's response to us not having anything for him. Is that another barbarian joke?

       

It's also clear that some of the dialogue in town has changed. (Also, houses have respawned items.) I don't really want to run around talking to everyone again, but where before I had dialogue options relating to Moc Madure, now everything is about the Black Witch. This one guy named Taggazah tells me a long story about her: A little girl was born blind and deaf, so her mother took her out into the woods and left her to be eaten by wolves. Instead, demons took residence in her, healing her sight and hearing, and she became known as the Witch of the Ghoul Forests of Zingara (another Conan reference). As for her real name: "The walls know. The very stones shall shout." And somehow a magic potion will make them speak.

    

He looks like another guy whose torso is cut off, but I think he's just sitting in the chair behind the table.

      

Back on the world map, we head to the ruins. Someone told me the Black Witch would be in the ruins, but I forget who. The Skeleton Key fits in the lock we previously discovered, and a wall section swings open. It takes us into a labyrinth in which we're repeatedly attacked by giant spiders, leaving us poisoned and making us grateful for that spell. 

 

The labyrinth is long and difficult to navigate, with teleporters, buttons, and levers. As with the lava caves, there are rooms with waterfalls and treasures, including a "Resurrection" spell scroll. There are more trolls, but fortunately I still have my Heart of Stone. There are glyphs on the walls in some places, and I try both potions and "Stone Speak" on them but get nothing. There's one place where the number 3-1-5-7 appear on a wall.

       

Another waste of a "Stone Speak" spell.

         

Eventually, I come to a long room full of stone tiles with letters. There are only six letters represented: MAGORH. When I step on the "wrong" one, a snake comes out of the ground and bites me. Through trial and error, I figure the name I'm supposed to be spelling out is GAMORRAH, but it's not that easy. First, if you're on a "G" and there are multiple "A" tiles next to it, the game only wants you to go on one of them; the other triggers the snake. Second, movement isn't precise enough in this game to navigate across such small letters. After taking a ton of damage, I just walk through the rest of it by waiting until I heal, walking a bit, getting bit, then waiting until I heal again. I don't mind. I have plenty of other things to do while waiting.

       

"How do you spell 'GAMORRAH'?"

        

The entrance to the Black Witch's chambers is on the other side. It's guarded by another troll. I kill it and enter her bedroom. "Welcome to my home, sweet children," she says. "You look tired and hungry. Might I have the honor of offering you a nice meal and a soft bed?" The game gives me several snarky responses.

     

Despite the way it's spelled here, I'm 99% sure those tiles wanted GAMORRAH.

     

I choose the second one, and she seems to like it. "You're a cool one. I almost regret killing you . . . Perhaps I shall simply let you defeat me. The centuries weigh heavily on me. Should you prevail, I would like one last jab at Khalimad. I bequeath to you a small detection spell that should prove very helpful. Do your best." (When it's all over, I do not have a detection spell, so I don't know what that was about.)

   

She then attacks. As with Moc Madure, regular weapons have no effect on her, so I start experimenting with spells. It takes me about six reloads, but I find that "Freeze" does the trick. Unfortunately, the process of casting it after combat begins—switch to Astrovir, click on "Inventory," wait for his inventory to load, click on the "mage spells" icon, wait for it to load, select the spell, click on the witch—takes so long that I can't complete it before she's able to kill at least one character. Fortunately, I have "Resurrection" now.

      

I even have a resurrection potion!

      

Just like Moc Madure, the Black Witch has a chamber with an obelisk, a piece of the Chaos Key, and a second key (the Dead Man's Key), plus a treasure chamber with a "True Seeing" potion and some other miscellaneous items. There's no way back except to go across that hateful floor again, which I leave for next time.

    

Why did they all need their own obelisks? It looks like each one alone could have united the pieces.

     

Miscellaneous notes:

      

• The game is dedicated to Catherine Anne Bartz-Todd, a producer for Virgin Games, who had a couple dozen titles to her credit (including Heimdall and Lands of Lore) despite being only 24 in 1993. She died in a motorcycle crash on California's Riverside Freeway on 6 August 1993. It's nice that they dedicated the game to her, but it's a bit morbid that the dedication is the first thing that comes up every time the party dies.

• The "fluffy pillows," which I cited as a mystery last time, come into play if you sleep at an inn. You apparently restore more hit points if you have one in your inventory. The thing is, hit points restore fairly quickly just by standing around, so it's rare that you would need to sleep at an inn (or even use a potion or spell).

• So far, there have been about eight types of weapons and four types of armor, helms, and shields. I have only found one type of footwear: leather boots.

• When I went to play this game the other day, I accidentally fired up Worlds of Legend instead. It made me realize how similar the games are. Both feature fixed parties of four members of different classes. Both seem Conan-inspired in their place and proper names. Both magic systems use reagent mixtures. Both have chaotic combat in which it's hard to click on the right things. Other than that, they're so different that it's hard to see how they could have possibly influenced each other.

• Among the many inventory mysteries are Mana Rings. My guess is that they regenerate mana faster than normal, the same way Regen Rings regenerate hit points. However, there are two colors of them, one regular blue and one dark blue or maybe purple. 

• I heard a couple dozen more barbarian jokes and they still have not repeated. (Best: "What would you get if you crossed a barbarian and a rabbit?" "A slow-breeding barbarian.") I'm sure there have been at least 50 jokes.

     

You guys just never give up.

    

• Stores have limited space and may run out of room as you sell things to them. I don't think they ever lose those items, so I suppose there's a maximum number of items that a player could ever sell. We saw this same limitation in WarWizard. 

       

Your stock room is too full for rings?

     

• Character development has been minimal. Everyone has gained 3 points of strength. My archer gained 2 points of agility from some early-game bow use, my thief 2 points of stealth from her lockpicking, and Astrovir 3 points of intelligence from casting.

    

I enjoy the process of exploring the game's locations. I like its graphics, although I think they make the common 1990s sin of trying to depict more than the resolution is really capable of supporting. But I feel like the authors made some bafflingly bad decisions in matters of interface, inventory, and RPG mechanics—less in a way that feels "rushed" and more in a way that just feels like they didn't know what they were doing. I guess is the norm for Synergistic games, which never seem aware that there's an entire genre going on around them.

     

Time so far: 9 hours

 

Game 547: Talisman (1985)

 

Have I bought a game or given the Illuminati access to my computer?

      

Talisman

United Kingdom

SLUG (developer); Games Workshop (publisher)

Released 1985 for ZX Spectrum

Date Started: 6 April 2025   

Date Ended: 7 April 2025

Total Hours: 2

Difficulty: Easy (2.0/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)    

       

I never feel like board games translated to computer games really work. Board games are typically a communal experience, and even when a computer game allows for multiple players, two people staring at a computer screen waiting for their turns is not quite the same thing as the same players around a board game table. The pieces of a board game are designed with the tactile experience in mind, the rules carefully calibrated to balance moments of suspense, agony, and triumph. The strengths of a computer are very different. We have noted many times that no computer RPG, however good, can authentically replicate a good tabletop RPG session. By the same token, no board game would be capable of adequately emulating, say, Tetris.

     

(Exception to this rule: When you've played a particular board game so many times that you can visualize it in your sleep, when its rules and terms are so ubiquitous they become cultural expressions, it can be fun to see them mimicked on the computer. Chess, checkers, blackjack, solitaire, and Monopoly can all work effectively as computer games because any board game version is already a variation on a classic model. These games are far more about their rules than any one physical or electronic interpretation of those rules.)

     

The Talisman game board.

      

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game debuted in 1983, designed by Scotsman Robert J. Harris, later to enjoy some renown as a novelist. His web site offers a history of the game. Harris designed the first version as a joke while in primary school; players played teachers on a quest to make it to the center of the board, where they would become headmasters. Years later, while in college, Harris's future wife introduced him to Dungeons & Dragons, and he had the idea of merging it with his board game to create a fantasy RPG experience with easier rules and no need for a game master. (Such was hardly a unique reaction; we saw it with HeroQuest, Forest of the Long Shadows, and TSR's own Dungeon!, in addition to many physical games that never had computer counterparts.) His friends liked it enough that he was inspired to shop it to Games Workshop.

    

The tabletop game features a board with three concentric rings of squares and a final center square. The board offers instructions for what to do when landing on each square, which might include drawing adventure cards, finding items, and fighting battles. Many of these encounters require tests of strength or craft (combined with dice rolls), and each of the 10 character types has different levels of each. Characters gain additional points in those attributes, as well as money and equipment, from successful encounters. A player has to find the titular Talisman to enter the Valley of Fire at the center of the board and claim the Crown of Command. My favorite part of the game is that finding the crown does not automatically equal a win. Instead, the player with the crown has to use it round after round, stripping lives from his opponents, until they're all dead. It's possible for them to reach him in time, kill him, and claim the crown for themselves.

    

You technically select the space above the character you want and type your name there. It's a bit weird.

     

The computer game plays basically the same way. As the game begins, you specify a number of players up to 4. You then indicate which characters will be used: elf, priest, assassin, warrior, thief, sorceress, wizard, ghoul, druid, and troll. For each, you type in a name and indicate whether the computer will be controlling the character. During the game, you take turns moving around and resolving encounters. An hourglass times the turn, but I think certain encounters end it automatically no matter how much time you have left.

            

My first turn begins with 4 strength, 4 craft, 4 lives, and 4 gold pieces.

          

You move from square to square by moving the character icon off the edge of the screen. There's no game board or map, but the screens used a fixed layout and I'm sure you could memorize it before long. I tried to map it, but the problem is that when you exit the screen, if there's only one way to go (north, south, east, or west), the game just automatically takes you in that direction without telling you which direction it is.

    

The main screen has symbols indicating your strength, craft, lives, and money. The first two have a space between your original values and additions that you earned during the game. A separate character screen also shows inventory and followers who have agreed to join you. The manual lists them—guide, gremlin, maiden, princess, and so forth—but doesn't really tell what they do. I guess maybe you needed to play the board game.

     

Each screen might have objects, monsters, other characters, or encounters. You can just blast on through or use ENTER to stop and check out the encounter. If there's an item to pick up, a monster always appears to fight you for it. I don't really understand what's happening in combat. You and the monster enter what TV Tropes calls a "Big Ball of Violence." Sometimes a minute or so goes by before anything else happens. Then symbols start appearing next to your strength or craft, whichever is being called into play by the particular battle, as well as the enemy's. I guess maybe they represent the damage you're doing to the enemy. I guess victory is determined by a combination of your original values and the value earned randomly during combat?

      

Chester and a goblin fight in a ball of dust.

     

Whatever the case, if you win, you may gain some attributes, and if you lose, you lose a life. If you lose all your lives, the game is over. If you encounter another player and want to attack, you can choose whether to attack with strength or craft.

     

A gorilla stands victorious over my corpse. I was fighting him for that shield and helmet.

      

Encounters are varied, but they generally end with the player gaining or losing attributes, money, lives, items, spells, or game turns. Sometimes, you get teleported. The outcomes are typically random. Even when you have a choice of more than one thing, there's no particular logic or skill to it, at least not that I can tell.

 

Items include weapons (sword, axe), armor (helmet, shield), and magic items (holy lance, magic belt), all of which add to your combat chances. Spells are usable items and include "Healing," "Teleport," "Megastrength," and "Freeze."

        

My character sheet halfway through a game. I have the shield, axe, sword, and who knows what. I have the "Gold Divining" (gives you gold) and "Negate" (cancels enemy strength) spells. Some follower is with me, but I don't know who.

        

Some examples of encounters: 

      

• I come to the village of Dusuin. I can visit the mystic or healer. Each has a probability of doing something good, neutral, or bad. In at least one game, the mystic gave me a couple of spells.

     

"Ignored" is better than some things.

    

• A graveyard is inhabited by evil creatures who steal one of my lives.

• Lives are restored at a chapel, after I choose to pray.

• At the City of Arnkh, I can visit an enchantress, alchemist, or doctor. 

      

Is this the only CRPG in which a ghoul can cast spells?

     

• A devil shows up and swats one of those lives away again. An angel shows up and gives it back.

• I get lost in the Forest of Fellafin and miss a turn.

• I meet a hermit, who chooses to give me the Talisman.

          

My enemy gets the Talisman first. A lot of good it does him.

       

The Talisman might show up in a lot of these encounters or just be found on the ground. Once you have it, you can head for the endgame, which proceeds in a few steps:

 

• To transition between the outer ring and the inner ring, you either have to fight a sentinel or pay for a boat.

• To enter the central area, you have to test your strength or skill to open a Portal of Power.

• Some test determines whether you pass the Crypt of Capyal.

       

How? I don't even know how I passed the last test!

       

• You meet the giant figure of Death on a landscape and have to defeat him in a random die roll. If you lose, you lose a life, but you can keep trying.

• You have to defeat a werewolf.

• You enter the Valley of Fire, where if you don't have the Talisman, you die instantly. 

    

      

And then you automatically find the Crown of Command. The game then shows you a bunch of the game screens and draws various characters and monsters on each one, all under the command of the crown.

   

The world bows to my power!

    

Each character has an alignment—good, neutral, or evil—and I don't really understand the role this plays in the game. I guess it affects the way some of the encounters go. Frankly, there's a lot I don't understand about the game, but that's par for the course for 1980s British ZX Spectrum games. American games of the period say things like, "Skeleton does 5 damage." British games say, "You need pie" and "Who guards knows."

     

How did this happen? Did I wish to lose a life?

                          

Despite my confusion, I won it twice without much trouble. It helps that there's no AI for computer-controlled characters. (Yes, I realize the system's resources didn't support anything that complex.) As best as I can figure, they act completely randomly during their turns. The random seeds don't seem to ever direct them towards the center of the map even when they have the Talisman. If I set all the characters to computer control, most just scurry around until they all run out of lives; maybe one gets so strong that he keeps winning every combat but still just messes around in the outer areas.

   

Some miscellaneous notes:

   

• The game lingers for about 5 minutes on the startup screen. No key causes anything to happen here, except SPACE, which causes it to crash. You have to be patient. Eventually, it goes to character creation. 

• I don't know what the game wants me to do at the end of some encounters. It shows me the resolution of the encounter and then just sits there. The only way I can get the game to move on is to hit the SPACE bar and go to my character sheet and then hit C)ontinue. This is supposed to be how you skip your turn. But the hourglass shows I still have time left, so I shouldn't have to do that.

• The only sounds are shrill buzzes during some encounters. These are best muted.

     

While I've never played the board game, I have to believe it was more fun than this. My GIMLET adds up to only 16. A couple of contemporary magazines disagreed. The May 1985 Sinclair User gave it 8/10 along with this laughable line: "What the game does provide is a relatively complete translation of D&D motifs to computer." The May 1985 Crash! gave it 7/10 and thought it would be good for multiple players. The July 1985 Computer and Video Games rated it only 1/10 ("a bore to play"), though the reviewer, Paul Coppins, admits, "I have never liked these so-called 'arcade adventures' anyway." Was no one else available?

     

The box gives it a subtitle but the title screen does not.

     

The computer game was programmed by SLUG, a Harlow-based group who had previously written Battlecars (1984), also based on a Games Workshop board game. The same year that the computer game came out, Games Workshop published a second edition of Talisman, followed by several expansion sets. A third edition came out in 1994 and a fourth in 2007. Fantasy Flight Games, a U.S. company, acquired the license to publish additional versions and released a fifth edition last year, plus a number of expansion packs in the 2010s.

 

There have been further computer versions, too, all from Cheshire-based Nomad Games: Talisman: Prologue (2012), Talisman: Digital Edition (2014), Talisman: Origins (2019), and an update of Talisman: Digital Edition to accompany the fifth edition of the board game (2024). The board game looks like a lot of fun, and I think I'll buy it for me and Irene. MobyGames tags some of the computer versions as RPGs, so we may see it again.

 

Warriors of Legend: Everybody's a Comedian

In this session, everyone has a laugh at our expense.

    

As this second session begins, I have explored one of four quarters of Illandria, the opening city. The city has four quarters, accessible from four gates, although "quarters" isn't quite the right word. Once you're inside each gate, the walls head off in irregular directions, creating odd shapes for each quarter. The "north" quarter, for instance, extends pretty far to the southeast while the "west" quarter touches both the north and south walls (I think). It really isn't possible to map, at least not without spending more time than I'm willing, but the diagram below gives you the concept.

      

A conceptual map of the city's four quarters.

     

I start this session by entering the west quarter, which an NPC we met last time called the "Thieves' Quarter." The experience is dominated by two themes. The first, as you might expect, is thievery. We routinely get drawn into conversations with NPCs who ultimately pick our pockets. These include shady characters on the street who pretend to give us "jobs" and courtesans in a couple of taverns. There's also a "thieve's [sic] guild," but there's no one there, and I can't figure out anything to do.

     

What I thought was a "side quest" just ended with my pocket picked.

     

The second theme, unexpectedly, is jokes. Numerous street NPCs and merchants have no dialogue except to tell jokes about barbarians. This is true no matter which character is leading the party. Some of the joke-tellers are running shops—shops where I'd maybe like to buy something—but all they do is tell jokes. Some of them are a little funny. Samples:

 

Q: How many barbarians does it take to open a door?

A: Five to study the door knob and one to set up the battering ram.

 

Q: Why was the barbarian arrested for throwing a party?

A: Because he threw it off a cliff.

 

Q: Why didn't the barbarians take their son to the zoo?

A: If the zoo wanted him, they'd have come and got him.

     

"When he is trying to improve himself" is the answer.

     

The joke database appears to be damned near inexhaustible. I kept clicking on one NPC, a guard named Krand, and got 30 jokes in a row with no repeats. I never saw any repeats among the other NPCs, either. The authors must have spent as much time on barbarian jokes as the rest of the game's dialogue combined.

    

Numerous swordsmen attack as we enter various buildings, but we make short work of them, even when we're attacked two at a time. We loot some spell reagents and another Thor's Hammer. We find a third Thor's Hammer in a house. Later, we find a bow, a bow +1, and some arrows, but the bow has an attack strength of 7 versus a Thor's Hammer strength of 30. Given the tight combat space, one wonders why we'd ever use a bow at all, which raises the question of why we'd bother to make one of the characters an archer.

    

These feel too valuable to just find randomly.

      

Other findings in the Thieves' Quarter:  

 

• An old woman named Maryam on the street complains about her aches and pains and her children never visiting her. If we sympathize with her complaints, she tells us that Moc Madure lives in the catacombs under his castle on Mt. Gurdernbad (which I swear was "Gunderbad" in previous dialogues). This is one of the few places where dialogue options seem to matter.

• Loot from various houses (other than as described above): Mana Ring, knife, mana potions, healing potions, a leather shield. One building is called The City Treasury and has images of chests overflowing with gold and jewels, but we can't take anything from them.

    

How is it possible that there's nothing to steal here?

      

• There are several alchemy shops, each selling reagents: Al Kour Alchemy, Akam's Reagents, Kaubayz and Sons Reagents.

     

A reagent shop.

      

• A couple of scroll shops: Jompra's Scrolls and Khraty's Scrolls. Some of their offerings are "Cure Poison," "Plank," "Unlock," "Detect," and "Stone Speak." I need more money before I can afford them.

• The same with Saayghy's Amulets. If I ever make enough, I can buy an Armor Amulet or an Undead Amulet for 2,000 gold.

• In Abdul's Fine Merchandise, I can buy a +2 sword—which has a damage value of 8 compared to 30 for Thor's Hammer. Am I misinterpreting these attack values?

   

Eventually, we find Ulg, the Crippled Sage, to whom an NPC directed us last time. He certainly is crippled: he not only lacks legs but also any torso below his sternum. The top half of his body sits on a table, somehow alive. He tells us that Moc Madure is "deep within the lava tunnels . . . guarded by many powerful creatures." To get to him, we'll have to cross a "crumbling bridge," which he has made seem normal using illusion magic. 

     

This guy could use a friend like Palpatine.

     

As we exit the western gate, I start to wonder if I haven't misinterpreted the game. Maybe I'm not supposed to exhaustively explore the city before exploring anything else. Maybe I should take the intelligence I have and go find Moc Madure. I thus leave the city and check out some of the other areas. Findings:

   

• The ruins southeast of the city seem to offer a classical maze, but almost immediately I run afoul of a keyhole on which my lockpicks do nothing.

    

Not much to do here.

     

• At the palace east of the city, there's a single screen with a colorful mosaic on the wall. The only door requires something called a "Dead Man's Key."

      

It even has skulls for the bits.

      

• After clicking on the pyramid in the northwest corner, we arrive at the Canyon of the Ancients. We click on several screens, navigating through the canyon, before we dead-end in a cave with a coffin. A skeleton comes out of the coffin and kills us all with fireballs before we have the slightest chance to respond.

     

That did not go well.

     

That leaves Mount Gunderbad—and yes, that's definitely how it's spelled despite some NPC giving it to us as "Gurdenbad." We find ourselves in some canyons. We're attacked by two guards but make short work of them. The canyons are a maze; most screens let you click on any of the edges to exit. I can't figure any good way to map it, since items that you leave on the ground disappear as you change between screens. 

     

A choice of paths.

      

I keep clicking randomly until we come to a waterfall. By then, we've defeated around eight guards and have a lot of equipment to sell back in Illandria. Behind the waterfall is an entrance to a series of tunnels. The tunnels occasionally have entrances to caverns, and in them we find an ankh (which we can equip like a shield), a Dragon Sword (still not as good as the Thor's Hammer), something called Heart of Stone, a scroll of "Freeze," and a scroll of "Armageddon." 

       

An ankh and an "Armageddon" spell. What franchise is this again?

       

We get attacked by giant spiders a couple of times and don't have much trouble defeating them, but we have no luck against red dragons (yes, we try the Dragon Sword) with fireballs and some kind of giant trolls with huge hammers. Eventually, they kill us enough times that we decide to head back to town and check out the Merchants' Quarter for better armor and/or protection spells. Outside, we find that the ineffectual guards seem to respawn, so we can grind for experience and treasure if necessary. Incidentally, I note for the first time that when you kill enemies, gold gets added to your total automatically.

       

Not doing very well against a red dragon.

Or a whatever this is.

       

It's clear by now that whatever the manual says about levels and classes, character development occurs through increases in attributes, which are tied to the actions that the character takes in combat. Since the beginning of the game, everyone has increased 2 points of strength. Brand has gone up 2 points of stealth, for some reason. Ataris, the only one whom I've had shooting a bow, has increased 2 points of agility.

     

Ataris has grown a little since the beginning of the game.

     

We take the east gate to the Merchants' Quarter. We soon find that all merchants buy all items, and the price doesn't seem to vary. By the time we finish selling our excess stuff, we have 1,656 gold. 

  

My primary goal is to find scrolls and understand the magic system. But I have to prioritize. The Scrivener sells "Heal," "Stone Speak," and "Resurrect." I buy "Heal." The Scrollmaker has "Armageddon," "Flaming Death," "Invisibility," "Fireball," and "Freeze." I try "Flaming Death."

   

It appears that spell scrolls tell you the recipe for spells—not with words, which would be too easy. You have to memorize the sequence of pictures and match them to your reagents. Each character gets 10 reagent slots, where the reagents stack, but there are more reagents than that. Non-spellcasting characters have to help with the storage.

     

The recipe for "Flaming Death."

     

When you're ready to mix a spell, you toss the appropriate reagents into the cauldron. I wasn't able to mix very many with my "found" reagents, but now that I know what I need, I can buy them in the Thieves' Quarter. One open question is whether I even need the scrolls once I know the recipes. Stores will buy them back for half of what I paid. That's a non-trivial amount of money.

    

Tossing reagents into the cauldron.

      

More things in the Merchants' Quarter:

     

• A seer tells us that the Black Witch is in our future. "You must use her name in a spell. You will either defeat her or become her faithful companion."

• A seer named Kavab advises us to ignore Moc Madure and just collect the treasure in the lava tunnels. But he also predicts: "You will spend the next forty years dying in Moc Madure's torture chambers." Yikes.

• In vacant houses, some with battles with fighters, we find: a cure poison potion, 2 rocks, a suit of leather armor, a fluffy pillow, a +1 mace, a bow.

• The Poison Dart Tavern doesn't serve my type. Neither does the Smuggler's Inn. What type is that? 

• There are a lot of shops. I stop bothering to write them down. In one, Miriz the Tool Maker, a giant, sells a "fluffy pillow." I've also found several after battle. What in the world are they for? The game doesn't have a resting system.

     

Also, the fluffy pillow uses the same icon as the rock.

     

• Another mystery: In Sahm's Trinkets and Stuff, I can buy an ankh or Book of Sorcery for 1,000 gold. It feels like they would be necessary to cast cleric and mage spells, respectively, but they're not. I don't know what they're for. Sahm also has Demon Amulets, Undead Amulets, Armor Amulets, and a Staff of Might.

• The proprietor of the Bleating Lamb Tavern has more barbarian jokes. Not this again. 

• A place called Fine Used Armor sells mithril mail, shields, and helms. Now we're talking. I can't afford it all right now, but I buy helms. They alone raise my defense from 21 to 27.

• Turghil's Armory sells Hearts of Stone. It would be nice to know what they're for. It appears they can be held like shields but do not have any shield value. 

   

Figuring we've come this far, I decide to just finish up the city with a visit to the Residential Quarter through the north gate. Aside from redundant shops and more houses to loot, the only thing I find is a guy named Zayneb who tells me that: "In a few short months, the owners of the six pieces of the Chaos Key will reassemble it. Tis best we all be dead and buried when that happens." I guess Moc Madure is just one of several villains we'll have to beat.

     

It's nice that no one's expecting much of us.

     

Elsewhere, Sahhar the sage tells me to bring him what I find in a hidden room in Moc Madure's treasure room. He'll reward me greatly.

  

Curiously, I find my way to both the Thieves' Quarter and the Merchants' Quarter from the Residential Quarter, although I didn't find those passages from the other side. I don't know whether new areas opened or whether I just perceived passages as solid walls. It can be very difficult to figure out exactly where you can walk in this city.

    

With Illandria now explored, we head back to Mount Gunderbad. I figure if I can grind for about 20 minutes, I can collect enough stuff to make enough money to afford the rest of the mithril armor. This is particularly true because those warriors could have anything. Sometimes, they have a rock and a bat wing; sometimes, they have a Mana Ring and a Thor's Hammer. I get lucky with both of the latter and return to town. I miscalculated a bit, and I only have enough to buy everyone the mail, not the shields, but the mail alone raises my defense from 27 to 42. 

    

A couple of random mooks in the Canyonlands.

     

Next time, I'll head back to Moc Madure's place. I didn't accomplish a lot this session, but I had a busy weekend for other reasons. Incidentally, I never did solve the saving issue. I tried three different downloads of the game and two installations of DOSBox. I don't know why no one could replicate the issue. Nonetheless, the save states appear to be holding for now, so we'll hope that they get me to the end.

   

Time so far: 5 hours