Ishar 2: Silver Bells Hanging on a String

My current obstacle.

          

I already knew Ishar 2 was going to be a longer game than its predecessor, but that didn't really hit home until this session, in which I spent about four hours trying to get anywhere with Akeer's Island. It's been a long time since I lost so much progress so consistently.

    

I did a few things before leaving Zach's Island:

   

• I reloaded and returned to the scene of the sacrifice. The purpose of the scene was not to save the girl but to snag the keys from the robe of a priest whose back was turned. I suppose the screen really did put them front-and-center, but I wasn't used to these screens being interactive.

• Bought every animal in the pet shop. I gave them all to Karorn. I enjoy thinking about him having to find a way to take care of a baboon, a mouse, a man-eating plant, and three birds.

        

Karorn's job just got a lot harder.

        

• Bought everyone a Helmet of Chaos. I didn't have enough money for the more expensive armor, but at least I could do this.

• Followed an anonymous commenter's directions to Four Towers Alley and met a shadowed figure there between 02:00 and 04:00. He said, "Have you got the money?" I tried giving him escalating amounts of gold, only to have him say, "Are you joking?!" after each attempt. Finally, when I got to about 23,000, he gave me a skeletal hand in a jar. I assume that it somehow goes with the skeletal head in a jar back on Irvan's Island.

     

Just like the first time I tried to buy marijuana.

       

Having no more leads on the various quests on Zach's Island, I hopped the boat again for Akeer's Island.

          

Down came the storm, and smote amain . . .

        

Akeer's Island appears to be a large dungeon with no outside areas. It also has no inns, nor any other places to rest, so we had to repeatedly go back to Zach's Island to restore our health, magic, and strength.

       

Almost immediately, we got attacked by parties of skeletons. They were not too hard for us, but they do a lot of damage and thus require a lot of resources in spell points (from healing) and physical energy to kill. There are about half a dozen parties near the beginning of the dungeon. Most importantly, they respawn, so you have to deal with them on the way back. Three times this session, I fought past them and then over-extended myself on the other side, not saving enough resources to get past them again on the way back. I lost a ton of experience and a couple of hours' playing time. Fortunately, I kept a saved game back on Zach's Island; if not, I also would have been in a "walking dead" situation.

       

These are not simple D&D skeletons.

           

As the dungeon of Akeer's Island snaked along, there were a number of encounters and puzzles:

      

• Throwing daggers and skulls on the floor everywhere. I dutifully picked them all up.

• Levers on the walls that opened certain locked doors. Until I found the levers, I thought the doors were just locked, but they didn't respond to my "Unlock" spell. It occurred to me that although "Lock-Picking" is a character skill, I have no idea how to invoke it. 

     

The top requirement of any Dungeon Master clone.

      

• Traps that caused spears to shoot out of walls. They didn't hurt so badly. 

• A few secret doors clued with a message about a "draught." At least one place had the message, but I couldn't find a secret door.

     

I'm more of a bottle guy.

       

A doorway led to a deeper part of the dungeon. It was flooded, and weird aquatic creatures lurked behind sewer grates on the walls. When I left the area and returned, these creatures were in the watery dungeon corridors, and they attacked me.

     

Well, that's unsettling.

          

Navigating through this area involved finding various pipes that led to new sections of the dungeon. One of these pipes was under water. To drain the water, there was a curious puzzle involving three scales in three adjacent alcoves. One of the scales had 3,550 gold coins in it when I clicked on it.

   

None of the scales would budge until I put at least that many coins in them. I'm not sure whether it was necessary to put exactly that many coins in the scales or not. All I know is, I fiddled with them for a while, and when I returned to the sewers, the water was gone and a new passage was opened. I was able to reclaim the gold.

   

This new area led to some much harder encounters, including groups of mummies and some kind of floating spirit that absolutely destroyed me. The enemies in this dungeon don't even have the decency to drop gold, by the way, so any grinding has to be done back on Zach's Island.

      

Jazz hands!

     

I started to question at this point whether I had the optimal party, and in particular whether I should keep Yornh the priest. When I picked him up, I figured he would continue to earn spells, but he's never progressed beyond his original two: "Healing" and "Physic Protection." Karorn the knight has the same two spells and hits hard in melee combat besides. Eliandr the scholar also has those spells, plus more. Granted, you can't have too many "Healing" spells, but I started to wonder if I shouldn't seek someone with more diversity for that slot. But while I was poking around taverns, finding no one compatible, some comments came through that made me think I probably shouldn't get attached to any particular party composition anyway.

      

This is the guy in the upper-right, by the way. "Human."

      

Investing in archery was another possibility. A lot of enemies won't travel past certain squares, so you can shoot them from a distance with impunity—if you don't mind buying tons of arrows. I didn't have any archery-oriented characters and I didn't feel like having to constantly restock on arrows, so I rejected this path. It was probably a stupid decision, but I've been ornery lately for no particular reason.

   

My third thought was making sure I was getting full use of the spells I already had. Leveling up takes place instantly once the experience threshold is crossed, and I often overlook the message. New spells keep showing up in at least two characters' spellbooks, and I don't always investigate them right away, preferring to rely on old favorites. Thus, let's take a quick tour of what I have. Eliandr is the scholar, Khalin is the magician, Yornh is the priest, and Karorn is the knight.

    

• Healing (Eliandr, Yornh, Karorn). Vital, obviously. The only other way to heal (so far) has been resting at inns, which restores less than the spell. Yornh is almost worth it for this spell alone.

• Physic Protection (Eliandr, Khalin, Yornh, Karorn). Note that this is "physic" (physical), not "psychic." It supposedly helps one character's defense, but I barely see a difference. 

• Global Physic Protection (Eliandr, Khalin). Same as above, but for all party members. I've tried casting it before a few battles, and it helps a little. The game has no indicator for this or other buffing spells, so I don't know how long it lasts, but if it saves one healing spell, it's technically worth it. 

• Psychic Protection (Khalin). I'm not sure I understand what types of attacks it defends against.

• Global Psychic Protection (Khalin). Ditto.

• Metamorphosys (Khalin). Turns the entire party into some kind of creepy image and maybe makes them more effective in combat? Lasts a while.

       

What, by Dwilgelindildong, is happening here?

        

• Restore Vision (Eliandr). Nothing has blinded me yet.

• Anti-Poison (Eliandr). Ditto.

• Paranormal Detection (Eliandr). I'm not sure what it's supposed to do. If I try casting it, it just says, "The air is cool."

• Exorcism (Eliandr). Also not sure what it's supposed to do. When cast, it says, "Dwiglongligli, all is purified!" 

• Telepathie Reconnaissance (Eliandr). Tells you the enemy's statistics. I don't find it particularly helpful, since it shows the max statistics, not the current ones. You thus can't use it to tell how much damage a spell does.

• Inversion (Eliandr, Khalin). Kind of a cool damage spell that I guess creates a vortex around a single enemy, and keeps damaging him round after round. Relatively cheap to cast.

• Spiritual Hammer (Eliandr). Creates a magic hammer that the caster then flings at an enemy. Decent early spell, but soon outclassed by better damage spells.

• Blinding (Eliandr). Blinds one enemy, but you get no feedback with it, so I'm never satisfied that it works.

• Paralysis (Eliandr, Khalin). Paralyzes an enemy for a while. Very useful for the occasional boss. Doesn't work on undead.

• Turn Undead (Khalin). I'm so confused why a mage has this spell but not a priest. In any event, it didn't seem to have much effect on any of the undead I tried it on.

• Memo-Telep (Khalin). A "Mark" spell to go with the later "Teleport."

• Teleport (Khalin). Teleports the party to the last "Mark." It's extremely valuable, partly dealing with my problems on Akeer's Island. 

• Change of Timescale (Khalin). I don't quite understand it. When I cast it, the view changes to a stormy sky. Several characters heal, as if they're resting, but spell points do not get restored. 

          

Change of timescale, change of dimension.

      

• Magic Key (Khalin). Unlocks doors. Useful except when the door requires a specific key, which is usually.

• Sleep (Khalin). If it has an effect, it's brief.

• Flaming Hand (Khalin). Okay single-enemy offensive spell.

• Fireball (Khalin). Okay single-enemy offensive spell.

• Lightning (Khalin). Indispensable multi-enemy spell until you get "Firestorm.".  

• Firestorm (Khalin) Next-level indispensable multi-enemy spell.

• Ice Storm (Khalin). Haven't used it much since more enemies seem like the types that would be susceptible to "Firestorm."

      

The only spells I don't have, according to the manual, are "Fireproofing," "Anti-Paralysis," "Spirit of Flame," and "Poisoning." I don't know whether these will appear at higher levels or whether I need one of the other spellcasting classes. The manual is pretty miserable when it comes to explaining the spell system, I should say. It tells you the names of spells but nothing about them, and it gives no indication of what spells belong to what classes.

   

The exercise was mostly useless. "Teleport" solves the problem of getting trapped on the other side of randomly-spawning enemies, but it's a costly spell. It takes all of the mage's remaining points and reduces her to 1 in physical and spirit energy. She has to sleep immediately or the slightest nudge kills her. No spell would allow me to defeat the floating spirit on the other side of the sewers.

   

Instead of moving forward, I moved backwards for a while. I returned to Irvan's Island, the starting island, where I finally defeated those stone golems ("Paralyze" did the trick, but they still took a long time to die) and looted the skull-in-a-jar. 

        

These guys have been on my list for a while.

      

I then went over to the east side of the island to see if I could figure out what the mage gave me for 10,000 gold pieces. This time, he said: "Launch the eagle. It will travel for you." I did as he instructed, and the eagle flew off, which seemed to have no effect. I soon realized, however, that I had a map of a new island, a frozen one to the north of Irvan's. 

        

Well, there goes $12,000.

      

I'll explore that as I get back into the swing of blogging. In the meantime, can anyone think of a reason why one of my other party members gets hit every time Khalin swings a weapon? It seems to happen no matter what weapon she wields and no matter where she is in the party formation, although what character gets hit changes by position in the formation. 

     

Finally, let's try to puzzle through this ding-dong-ding thing. Here's what we know:

 

• In the opening cinematic, when Jon, Alchemist of Arborea, contacts Zubaran, he greets him with: "Warm Tear, and Dwilgelindildong."

• When the woman near the beginning of the game dies, as part of her rant, she says, "Dwilgelindil."

• A man in a tavern on Zach's Island says, "The mayor's daughter has disappeared! Dwigdinl, it's a disgrace!"

• When we explored the library on Zach's Island and found the map of Akeer's Island, someone said: "Come on, Dwigelindong, let's borrow it!" 

• When we were arrested, the guard said: "Dingdong, off to prison."

• During the ritual we observed, with the woman being sacrificed, part of the ritualistic chant was: "Dwidongdingue! Shandar! Dwidongdingue!" 

• When we cast "Exorcism," the message says: "Dwiglongligli, all is purified!" 

• The manual has this page, labeled: "Counting rhyme, for use by the clever but ambitious adventurer."

          

      

The manual page is clearly trying to evoke the "One Ring" poem, but what does "Dwilgelidildog" mean? Except for the poem, the uses seem to be part-curse, part-blessing, the way we would say, "for Christ's sake" or "for the love of God." But the poem makes it sound like they're physical objects. And then either the roots of the word can be modified and recombined in different ways, or the people of Arborea are just really bad at spelling.

       

Time so far: 10 hours