Star Trail: Midnight Mass

 

"Star Trail" is a throwing axe!? "Banallure" strikes again.

                

Of the various experiences common to multiple RPGs, one that I almost never fail to enjoy is arriving at a new city and making the rounds. A new city generally offers some combination of new clues, new equipment, new quests, and the resolution (or at least the next stage) of existing quests. It's a time to rest, heal, and restock. I particularly like games in which resting in a proper bed and/or eating a hot, full meal makes a big difference (e.g., Betrayal at Krondor, Star Trail, Pillars of Eternity). It engages the role-playing imagination more than just camping anywhere and getting all your hit points back. Skyrim is a game that could have done more with all its taverns and beds.

       

My party arrives in Gashok at night, wounded and exhausted from the road, so we immediately seek a place to stay. We find a bar first, called Second Home. "It doesn't seem to be one of the more high-class establishments in town," the game warns. It's all the more surprising, then, when the bartender tells us that they don't serve alcohol. We order a pot of tea and meals, but there are spiders in the food, so our trip isn't off to a good start.

     

It's protein-enhanced.

      

The bartender, Menchegal the Older, has nothing to offer about any subject, including whoever fired a crossbow bolt at us when we arrived. At a table, Eilif Windorn suggests that it was an "accident." We leave the bar having not accomplished much.

         

"We intended to kill you."

       

We keep exploring and find an inn called All Roads run by Elliane Sevenstones. She offers nothing in response to the keywords we ask. We try again with a meal and get a much better one, then splurge on a suite for a day. Commenters were right: the amount of time you choose to sleep is separate from the length of the stay that you pay for. We rest for 8 hours and heal nicely. The next morning, we set about our typical circuit of the town.

   

• From the comments on my last entry, I guess the house frames are not houses under construction but empty market stalls. They're empty here, too, but there's a pile of white ash nearby. When I ask anyone about it, they cancel conversation immediately.

• A woman named Gerlanje runs a potion and herb shop in a tent. We don't buy anything just yet.

• As we walk down the street, some sort of weird procession of moaning people walks by. 

      

This town has problems.

     

• A woman named Praiadne Oldenstein runs an equipment shop. As commenters suggested, I buy a sleeping bag for everyone.

• An NPC named Dietgel Fridgard offers that "the bright things of life" are "often not too far away."

       

Eric Idle, I hope you have a pencil.

      

• Another equipment shop run by Raoul Zumendick. Like everyone else, he clams up immediately when I ask about the ashes.

• Moria the Wise (NPC in a house) suggests I stay off the streets at night. "You'll meet some doubtful guys."

• A Temple of Boron. 

• Urja Naloth (NPC in a house): "If Elvish blood runs through your veins, get out of here. Otherwise, you'll suffer the same fate as our miller, in the south of town." Aha! That crossbow bolt was fired at Toliman. This is a sundown town for elves. This was around the same time that I remembered Toliman is supposed to be my leader in towns.

• Heroja Inhar (NPC in house): Gashok used to be quiet, but there have been strange incidents since strangers arrived.

      

Exploring the city.

        

• Another potion and herb shop, run by Ginya Ingborn.

• An old woman approaches us on the street and offers an amulet "which will protect you from evil magic" for 10 ducats. We decline.

• In the southwest corner of town, we find the charred remains of a mill. We spend some time searching the building but find nothing. Lyra figures the fire didn't start inside. 

      

I feel like the game is trying to influence my choice.

      

• Erhild Hesindel (NPC in house): "There are a lot of odd people here at Gashok. Not for long. There's a lot rumored. Watch your step." Well, that's ominous.

• Tronde Ismanson (NPC in house): The herb woman in the market (Gerlanje) is a witch.

     

I mean, yeah, it's a fantasy setting. There are lots of witches.

       

• A Temple of Praios. We ask about elves: "A godforsaken lot; one day, they will disappear from the face of Threa." That doesn't sound very clerical.

• Rogullf the Obese runs an inn called Safe Harbor. He tells us that the mill was owned by someone named Artherion, and he suggests we ask Gerlanje. We rent another room (it's dark already). Around midnight, we're awakened by voices. "Something is going on in the market square." We come across a meeting of figures in tan robes and armbands showing the symbol of the sun. They start a bonfire, which roars for a while before scattering white ash everywhere. That explains the ash that we found earlier. 

       

I don't know what the symbol on their robes is, but it doesn't look like the sun.

       

• We go back to bed and are treated to a cinematic of a man in a black robe creeping into our chambers. We awaken. "I wish to propose a business arrangement," he says. He tells us that the "famous throwing axe," Star Trail, was stolen from the temple of the God of Thieves and is being held in an Orcish fortress. He offers us our choice of temple treasure if we return it. 

       

I could have sworn I paid for individual rooms.

        

• We get more elf racism at the smithy, where Rowena Pauspiarken "won't work for prickears." We temporarily split Toliman off into a new party so that she'll talk to us, but she kicks us out when we ask about the "shrouded figures."

    

This town has a lot of taboo subjects.

       

• A tavern called Night and Day.

• An old woman stumbles into Toliman's arms, then pretends that her blindness has been cured. I suspect she pickpocketed us, but the game doesn't explicitly say so.

     

On the other hand, Toliman does have some healing skills.

       

• Back at Gerlanje's tent, she confirms that Artherion owned the mill and that it burned down. "He left town to the east and now lives in a small wood near town." 

         

People in this game could stand to get better at directions.

     

For the second city in a row, I haven't found a place selling weapons or armor. Commenters suggested that the market buildings occasionally host traveling merchants, so I decide to stick around the area until one appears there. I think maybe I'll look around for Artherion. Unfortunately, the nature of the outdoor map doesn't really let you "stick around in the area." Once you leave town, you can't even change your mind and re-enter; you have to march off in some direction, and even turning around the next point means multiple days on the road. 

   

There's also no going east from Gashok. The best I can do is north, then east, or south, then east. I save the game and try the former. Each night, I have Mahasim hunt for food and water (to avoid spending my rations) and have Lyra hunt for herbs. I don't have any recipes, nor an alchemy set, but herbs are useful on their own. Many are poisons, which can be rubbed on weapons. Some heal; some increase skills. More on this subject later. I also have Lilii perform a "wand ritual" to get her wand to Level 2, which causes it to act as a permanent torch (but saps all her magic points for the time being). A couple of lions attack one night.

         

 I skipped right over Number 1.

       

We eventually find a trail heading east. We're attacked by goblins on the second day, which again saps our hit points and spell points. We barely make any progress day to day as we travel east and then south until we're practically back at Gashok again. Almost everyone takes some damage tumbling down a hill as we try to negotiate a landslide, and everyone loses 2 charisma for a day after we're attacked by some dragonflies. A couple of forest gnomes attack outside Gashok.

        

That was deliberate.

       

Soon we're back at the city, having spent a couple of weeks on the road doing nothing more than making a giant loop. After we enter the city, I figure out the problem. Apparently, it makes a difference which signpost you choose when you want to leave the city. I had chosen the one on the north side, so my only option was to go north. Lesson learned. Probably re-learned, because I think it must have been the same way in Blade of Destiny.

   

We head out again on the eastern road, poke around for a bit, fight a battle against a couple of spiders, and eventually find Artherion's cabin. Artherion greets us with an arrow pointed at us. "We're friends!" we announce. He relates how he woke up one night with his mill on fire. When he tried to escape, cloaked figures shoved him back inside his burning property. He frightened them with magic and escaped. He says that Gerlanje is the only decent person in town.

       

Got some bad news for you, Artherion.

       

"The whole trouble started when two men came to Gashok. One of them seems to be the leader." He asks us to kill that man, "so all folks will again be able to live together in peace."

      

Atherion has a harrowing story.

        

We return to town and ask Gerlanje about the strangers. She says that two of them moved to town in the same spring. One of them, Valpor of Kuslik, lives two houses away from Night and Day tavern.

   

As we prepare to head for that location, we see that the market buildings have been converted from wooden frames to tents. Hallelujah. But no sooner have we entered the arms shop than the 19:00 hour rolls around and the market closes. 

    

Goddamn it.

        

Several places could plausibly be "two houses" from Night and Day. We knock on a few and meet Valpor. He claims he's not a murderer, but he tells us of two other strangers:: Erholt of Tiefhusen (northeast of market square) and Deregorn of Thunderbrook (next to the temple of Praios).

  

We make it to Deregorn's house first and fight a six-on-one battle against a "warrior." He dies quickly. Afterwards, we have the opportunity to search his house. We find documents linking Deregorn to an "order" that has eight members in Gashok. I assume this order is the same group of shrouded figures we found in the market at night. Maybe they're performing some kind of ritual that makes everyone else in town hostile? 

        

If it doesn't give names or addresses, in what way is it a "list"?

      

An old man answers our knock at a house northeast of market square. We have several options to accuse him or attack him, but we leave it for now. When we can't find anyone else in the area, we return, and the man thanks us for "sending Deregorn of Thunderbrook to Boron's realm." So I'm not sure whether we found Erholt of Tiefhusen or not, or even whether we needed to.

    

I take a save and the party heads back out on the road to return to Artherion. We defeat some goblins on the way, but Lyra is killed, so I have to reload. We reach Artherion, and I guess we did the right thing, as he thanks us and invites us into his place. Unlike most NPCs I've encountered so far, he has a lot to say, although I don't understand some of it. He thinks the Salamander Stone belongs to Ingerimm, which I thought was originally a corruption of "Ingramosch," the dwarf I'm supposed to take it to, but turns out to be the god of smiths in this universe. He doesn't know where the Dwarven Pit (where we're supposed to search for the stone) is, but he says the dwarves have a bunch of mines around Finsterkamm.

       

You don't need to tell me, buddy. I'm from Maine.

     

He ends the visit by giving us a Sword of Artherion and a Bow of Artherion, both of which I'm going to assume are better than our starting gear. I give the sword to Xamidimura the warrior and the bow to Toliman the elf.

   

I return to Gashok, this time determined to stay until the weapon-seller is in the market, even if I have to rest multiple days away. On our first night in the inn, an angry mob breaks in and hauls us out to the street (this is told in a cinematic), accusing us of murder. When we're able to produce evidence that Deregorn was the "leader of the Anathematizers," they let us go, but with a warning not to show our faces in Gashok again.

      

Okay, you're going on my list.

      

Despite the warning, we don't seem to have any problem resuming our stay at the inn. We note the passing of the days: Windsday, Earthday, Marketday (oddly, the market isn't open), Praiosday. Finally, the market is back. Unfortunately, the weapon/armor shop has no metal armor, but I get leather harnesses for Gnomon and Toliman (who had no armor), replace everyone's shoes with leather boots, replace Gnomon's mace with an axe (his preferred weapon), and get shields for my two warriors.

     

My party leader at the end of this session.

         

After that, I guess it's time to move on. I'm not sure we really solved the city's problems, but I can't figure anything else to do. I have two major quests now: find the Salamander Stone in the Dwarven Pit, and find Star Trail (I still haven't come to terms with that yet) from an orc fortress. I have no real leads on either location except a vague hint that there are dwarves around Finsterkamm. I check the game map, and Finsterkamm turns out to be an enormous mountain range stretching across half the map, from the southwest to the northeast. Not only is it going to be a huge pain to search, but it's also pretty far away from Kvirasim, where I was told that the Dwarven Pits were "not too far" to the south.

     

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• When I created the characters, I could have sworn I made Mahasim as a Thorwallian, but he's a warrior instead. I guess it probably doesn't matter.

• When characters change their footwear, the game marks the occasion with a little animation. It doesn't do this for any other change of equipment. That's . . . weird. 

       

Those are some nice calves.

       

• As commenters in my last entry pointed out, if you take off a character's pants, it has some consequences. It doesn't seem to affect interactions in shops or with scripted NPCs, but there's an escalating series of random encounters. First, someone simply points it out and calls you a "sicko." Then, some creep molests the party member in question. Finally, the townspeople start attacking the party (including those that are fully dressed), doing roughly 1-10 hit points of damage each time. That third encounter keeps repeating until you get dressed.

      

Wow, they hate nudists even worse than elves.

      

• Am I crazy, or is there no way, when buying items, to specify which character is receiving the items? They just seem to always go to the character who has the first available room.

• I'm a bit confused about whether it's important for certain characters to carry certain items. For instance, is it enough that the party possesses six sleeping bags, or does each character need to have the sleeping bag in his inventory? If I send Gnomon out to look for food, does he need the fishing hook in his inventory if he hopes to employ it?

• I do wish the authors had enlisted the help of better translators. The misplaced open quotation bothers me a lot more than one would think, as do the over-use of ellipses and misplaced commas. There are many times, particularly in what is supposed to be PC dialogue options, where the writing is bizarre or amateur. The developers did a decent job creating a realistic world in which the player must carefully watch conditions and manage resources; it's jarring to be taken out of it with juvenile or slangy responses.

        

I don't want to say any of those things.

      

I head out to start doing some open exploration, but in my first battle, I realize that Toliman is out of arrows, so I need to reload back in Gashok and get some more. I guess I'll wrap up here. I have two primary questions at this stage, and I almost hesitate to write them down, as I want to find the answers for myself, but I suppose I can just not read comments for a few days. The two questions are:

   

• Does the game reward open exploration? Will I find interesting encounters and side quests if I just wander the roads?

• Should I already know where to go next from in-game resources?

     

Hopefully, by the next entry, I'll have my own answers.

   

Time so far: 10 hours