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