Excelsior: Who Has Gone Farthest?

 

Chester reaches the Ninth Circle.

       

My "fixer" has arrived in Lysandia from another universe, tasked with dealing with some kind of threat to the land. He has inhabited the body of a sexless golem paladin (I will never tire of writing that phrase). He has spent the first 12 hours chasing hints to find three magical amulets that allow him to improve his attributes when he levels up. Towards the end of that quest, he learned that there is a Resistance in the dungeon of Intungo, which is on an island.

   

During this session, I:

   

• Acquired means of crossing water.
• Explored the dungeon to find the Resistance.
• Accomplished the Resistance's first mission.
• Made some progress on the Resistance's second mission.

   

The narrative starts in the city of Farborough, where I had previously noted ships for sale. I now have the 5,000 gold pieces necessary to buy one. I talk to everyone first—since NPC dialogue is prompted by plot points, it's a good idea to re-visit everyone when you re-enter a city—and manage to learn both "Swimming" and "Seamanship." 

        

An NPC teaches me how to sail my new ship.

        

These skills allow me to both purchase a ship and sail to a special magic shop accessible only by sea. I think that's half a dozen magic shops I've encountered so far. They sell both wands and spells, and I really need to keep track of which shops offer which spells so I can return when I have more money. I have to leave my horse behind; apparently, the ship is too small to accommodate him.

   

On the high seas, I confirm that the game world is 500 x 500 tiles and that it—hallelujah—does not wrap. The ship has a catapult that does about as much damage as my Retribution Sword, but from any number of squares away. It still confers experience, and land-based enemies still drop treasure.

     

The edge of the world.

      

I spend some time checking out nearby islands but find them mostly empty. A large island to the southeast has a single empty hut and a city called Rondeway. 

   

Eventually, I sail across the southern boundary of the map to visit the island with the city of Heize and the dungeon of Intungo. I find Heize curiously useless except for two pieces of NPC dialogue:

   

• "There is a great chemist living in the Seventh Keep."

• "There is a magic clock which, when wound with a special key, has remarkable powers." This is important, as I later buy a clock for 100 gold pieces in Rondeway.

        

I just need the key.

      

Intungo starts out as a typical maze-like dungeon. I explore the first level for a while, fight a lot of monsters, and take a ladder down. On the second floor, I'm greeted with a sign that says: "SE. W. NW. NE. SE. N. W. SW." At first, I think it's directions to the maze, but it soon becomes clear that doesn't work. None of the corridors go in intercardinal directions.

   

I wander a bit more and find a talking sign that asks for a password. It takes me a few minutes to figure it out. There are certain wall patterns in the dungeon shaped like letters, starting with an "S" southeast of the entry ladder. I go west from there and find a "U." This continues for a while until I piece together the password requested by the sign: SURMOUNT. This opens the way to the next level.

        

Note the first letter in the lower-right.

     

The third level has a walled city, grassy expanses, trees, and gas lamps. A watchman demands a password, but I got it last session from the woodsman Hule: VICTORY. This answer opens a door in the wall. The city is full of Resistance members who proudly proclaim their roles, including both fighters and scholars.

          

I think you're on shaky philosophical ground.

         

Their leader, Sebastian, is found to the west. He asks if I'm willing to aid in the overthrow of King Valkery, and I say yes. Sebastian gives me my first mission: deliver a message to King Valkery's heir, imprisoned somewhere in the Royal Keep.

   

Before I leave the Resistance city, I explore a lower level, which has a training arena and a room that includes every regular weapon and piece of armor in the game. There's also a storeroom with a skull. I pick it up, and the game says that I've acquired Mortimer's Skull. I have no idea who Mortimer is. I hope I didn't do something too early.

      

Be glad there are no shops in this little town.

      

Thanks to previous explorations, I know that the Royal Keep isn't the same thing as Castle Excelsior; it's a tower to the north of the castle, along the coast. I get attacked by guards the moment I enter. The first floor is full of things that look like cells, or perhaps storage rooms, but none of them have a person with them.

         

Nor is there any way to open any of those chests.

    

Level 2 is dark. Neither my magic lantern, nor my regular lantern, nor "Dark Eyes" allows me to see more than one square in radius. I circle the place forever before I realize I'm just walking in circles. I have to spend about 30 minutes searching every single wall space for secret doors. I finally find one mere steps from the arrival ladder. Boo.

     

This will not be the only time this session that I start searching in the wrong place.

     

Level 3 has more rooms and cells. There's an area with a door maze in which I have to move diagonally through doors and search diagonally for secret doors, followed by an area in which I have to move diagonally through trees and find secret doors. I don't happen to have my external numberpad at this point, so I have to use the on-screen keyboard app to get me through it. 

        

I'm not sure I understand how trees have secret doors embedded in them.

             

On the final level, I'm greeted by a guard who asks me if I know the name of a "murderer who fled from the continent." I actually do—a guy named Cope in Heize confessed to me that he committed murder—but I forget it at the time. I say YOU, and the guard pretends he doesn't get the joke. He leaves me alone to wander around. Again, I find plenty of cells and prisoners, but most of them are behind doors I cannot open. There's a large area to the north that I can't find a way to access despite searching every potential wall for secret doors. I can even see a guy in there who is probably the target of my quest.

   

Eventually, I speak to the guard again and try confessing to the murder myself. He tosses me in an otherwise inaccessible cell, and I find my way to the prisoner through a series of secret doors.

        

I like his reaction.

       

The prisoner introduces himself as Prince Williamson, son of King Valkery, and he has a long story to tell. He knows why King Valkery has undergone such a severe change in personality: A few months ago, he was in the throne room with his father when a "dirty old man" entered and offered the king a gift. When the king accepted, the old man shouted an incantation and broke a glass rod above his head. This act caused a brief electrical storm, from which "some sort of ethereal demon" emerged and entered the king's body. Valkery immediately changed from the wise, compassionate king he had once been to the tyrant we know today. He ordered everyone in the throne room executed except for Williamson, whom he had imprisoned.

   

The prince is delighted to hear about the growing Resistance. He thinks he has a way to restore the king, which he writes down and asks me to bring back to Sebastian. He bravely volunteers to stay behind "so as not to arouse any suspicion with the authorities."

      

Part of the Prince's story.

     

I use the "Instant Descent" spells to get out of the keep quickly and make the long return to Sebastian. Once I get to Intungo, I can use "Instant Descent" to get to the Resistance city quickly, but it takes a long time to cross the map, and I find myself wishing for some kind of fast travel mechanism. Later, I buy "Mesmer's Flying Feet" from a magic shop, as it promises to move the character great distances with each casting. The joke's on me, because it only moves the character about 20 squares, and he has to leave his horse behind. Not worth it (although it might allow access to some of the islands without having to buy a ship).

   

Sebastian receives Williamson's information gratefully and says he'll need to consult with his advisors. In the meantime, he wants me to speak to Ambora, the antiquarian, about a "powerful elixir which may prove useful in our efforts." Ambora tells me about the Elixir of Capital Power, which grants "near immortality." He thinks its secret is in the Almanac, a collection of arcane knowledge written by the sage Varbel, who did the majority of his research on Zzoborf Isle.  

      

Alas, the Almanac will cease publication next year.

          

Thanks to the map that Matt Engle gave me, I know that Zzoborf Isle is off the southeast coast of the continent. But I also know that I've been there, and there is nothing there. On the way there, I stop at a bit of land in the far northeast corner of the map and find magical fire that I can E)nter. It leads to a cave full of fire—some kind of underworld, I guess. I don't find anything to do there just yet, but I suspect I'll be back later.

          

After confirming my previous finding that Zzoborf Isle has no towns, keeps, or other things of note, I set about searching literally every square before finding the book 30 minutes later in a pool of water. Boo.

          

 I wish I'd started at the south end of the island.

      

The book is waterlogged and unreadable, but I have notes that Yohan in Roaldia repairs damaged books. I take the book to him and pay him 1,250 gold pieces to restore what he can. It turns out to contain a series of numbers.

      

I met a cryptographer named Wipfel in Rondeway, so I take the book to him. He says he's sure that "each set of three numbers represents a single letter," but he wants 5,000 gold to offer more than that. I start grinding for it, but I soon decide it will take less time to decode the cipher myself.

         

Was this the only page?

            

Since each grouping has three numbers from 1-3, that gives 27 possibilities, or one more than the alphabet requires. Since the book has both 111 and 333, I figure it's not as simple as putting them in order and assigning "A" to the first one and "Z" to the last. But eight combinations are unused (no SPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ in this message), so I can still assign a random letter to each number set to simplify the cryptogram. I get:

   

CSFAVM QLFSH XIRDMLB HVVQ OYFXP RXL YRJZRC YRAIQ

 

I like to think that I'm good at cryptograms, but I can't get anywhere with this one. There are no obvious As, THEs, or NOTs, no repeated words, and only one set of double letters. Finally, I fire up my Microsoft Access database of English words (what, you don't have one?!) and start messing around with combinations. I start by assuming that the "V" in HVVQ is either O or E—more likely O since E is the most common letter in English and yet the V occurs in only one other place in the entire phrase. That limits the first word to only 106 possibilities, two of which are DAEMON and DRAGON. I work with DRAGON, which turns out to be a fortunate choice, and soon have:

   

DRAGON ??AR? ????N?? ?OO? ??A?? ??? ?????D ????? 

   

I then start working on the ?OO? word, the first letter of which has to be the last letter of the second word. It's not BOOK, since nothing ends in ??ARB. I think I'm getting somewhere by assuming it's MOON and the second word is CHARM, but that ultimately leads to dead ends. SOOT doesn't seem likely at first, but it would mean that the second word ends in S, which makes sense, and then a flashback to goddamned Ishar gives me the answer:

   

DRAGON TEARS ????NE? SOOT ??A?? ??E ?????D ????T

       

I'm literally trying to save the world.

       

That word before SOOT has to be CHIMNEY, right? Now we're off:

 

DRAGON TEARS CHIMNEY SOOT ??AC? ?CE ?I??ID ?I?HT 

    

It's nearly winter in Maine, and I see BLACK ICE immediately for words five and six. The final phrase is easy from there:

 

DRAGON TEARS CHIMNEY SOOT BLACK ICE LIQUID LIGHT

   

Whew. That only took about 90 minutes. I should have grinded instead.

    

Is that a recipe list? If so, I'm not sure how to find those items. It occurs to me at the end of all of this that I probably have to grind for the money and pay Wipfel anyway, as it's probably necessary to trigger the next bit of dialogue. Neither Ambora nor Sebastian has anything new for me in the meantime.

        

At least I didn't cheat by using the map. He would have told me.

      

I try to clean up some minor "to do" items before closing this entry:

   

Another unexplored northern island has a single hut. Outside the hut is a sign that reads: "Karth Whitlaw and His Barbilious Inventions." There's a guy in the hut, but he doesn't seem to have anything to say to me. I can only assume he's important later.

       

"I was hoping to solve a quest before someone gave it to me."

      

I spend some time chasing Jad Merlings, the renowned bard who can supposedly teach me "Music." Every time I visit a city where he supposedly last went, it turns out he's moved on to the next city. I visit South Blagsell, Burroughs, Hollow, and Woodshade, hearing at the last city that he's moved on to Roaldia, where I got the first clue about him. I give up. I hope "Music" isn't important.

      

Fool me five times . . .

        

The only skill I don't have besides "Music" is "Lockpicking," and it doesn't seem to stop me from picking locks.

I still have a couple of towers to explore, which I might do as an alternative to grinding outside Castle Excelsior.  

No new weapon or armor upgrades this session, but I do visit Castle Excelsior at the end of it and go from Level 6 to Level 8. Dragons start appearing in the countryside.

           

Ow. Stop.

      

Combat remains frequent as I move from place to place, but it's become a trivial annoyance rather than any kind of challenge. That's too bad. It appears that the character development part of the game is largely over (save perhaps some additional spell acquisition). The good news is that the authors have shown a certain talent for puzzles that enliven what would otherwise be standard fetch quests. 

    

Time so far: 19 hours