Yendorian Tales: Keep to the Right

Where I've been lately.

           

Irene and I just returned from a western vacation (thank you, Patreon supporters!). We flew into Denver and drove around to Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park in South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Devil's Tower, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Colorado Springs, ending back in Denver for a visit to some museums. During the trip, I had to laugh a few times, because in both driving and walking (e.g., inside museums), I found myself adopting the same "rightmost" exploration pattern that I use in games.

   

As usual when I do that, I'm reminded that leftmost would make more sense. When you encounter a narrative spread across multiple displays in a museum, for instance, it almost always goes left-to-right. On the other hand, the rightmost path better corresponds with both vehicle and foot traffic. A leftmost approach to a national park, for instance, would have you constantly taking left turns across traffic. In any event, the rightmost method is hard-coded in me from years of experience, so I don't think I'll abandon it even in the face of logical alternatives. I just wish I had a better approach to the whole "island" thing. 

   

As an aside, one of the places we visited was the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum in Colorado Springs. I used to be into coin collecting as a kid, and the visit prompted me to dig my old collection out from the closet and start taking an inventory of what I have. I don't think any of the coins are very valuable, but on the other hand, I've had them for about 50 years, and some of them came from my father, who might have had them for 50 years before that. Anyway, if any of my readers are really into coins and wouldn't mind assessing my list when I'm finished, I would appreciate it.

          

My explorations for most of this session.

        

Let's get back into Yendorian Tales. The land of Yendor is in trouble. Monsters have been invading the mines, threatening the production of Nuore, the reagent necessary to fuel all magic. The great wizard Zamora was struck down by a shadowy figure during a public address; the orb that was supposed to banish all evil was stolen. Our only clues to restoring order are to be found in Zamora's journal, which only members of the Society of Wizards can translate. The first one, the Hermit, told us to seek out the Diplomat. We began this session attempting to do just that.

   

There are 13 cities in the land, and at the beginning of this session, I had only explored five of them. Since I had no specific leads on the Diplomat, I decided to just go in order of the various cities and caves, working my way counter-clockwise around the world., starting with the mines between Helsignor and Mantov. The mines don't have names, so I just numbered them on my map or used other descriptors.

         

A lot of the last seven hours was just this.

        

Here are the highlights:

   

Mine 3

       

Standard mine; two entrances; lots of unprocessed Nuore, silver, platinum. Enemies were of the easy, early-game type, like centipedes, wasps, rats, and a few goblins—which was good because insects and vermin are more likely to carry processed Nuore but less likely to require me to consume it. There were also a few battles with rare but difficult lava beasts, which I mostly fled. In hidden chests, I found a Scroll of Gravity and a Key of Duomin, neither of which I really understood until the end (see below). 

     

I don't know why I took so few screenshots during this section. Here's one of my clerics having reached Level 7.

         

Mine 4

     

Another standard mine, this one with rogues, goblins, and hobgoblins. There were three entrances, one quite far from the others. Ores were Nuore, gold, and platinum. It had a large treasure chamber with 11 chests, including lots of processed Nuore, long bows +2, and battle axes +2. In a buried chest, I found Healing Ointment, which I didn't think anything of at the time.

       

My inventory's starting to get a bit crazy. This is one of several pages.

        

By this point, I had enough experience to go up another level, so I returned to the starting cities to sell my ore and excess goods and level up. Some notes here:

 

• By this time, I was fleeing from most battles just because I didn't want to take the time to fight them. I only bothered to stand my ground if the number of enemies was small.

• After about my ninth time getting arrested for accidentally riding my horse into a building, I decided to give up on horses.

• My positive praise for the economy was a bit premature. After I sold my accumulated items and ore, I had hundreds of thousands of gold pieces. I still had hundreds of thousands after I paid for training to Level 7 and bought the stamina and strength upgrades in Mantov. Even still, the game has plenty of "money sinks" in terms of paying for weapon enchantments, processed Nuore, and potions, so I'm not quite ready to say the economy is "broken."

      

How was I carrying all of these things?

     

After leveling and straightening out my finances, I moved on to:

   

Port Hope 

      

On the southwest peninsula. It had a mining shop, healer, inn, map store (with it, I have all but four), and a guy who will enhance +3 and +4 weapons and armor. The governor gave me a quest to find the amulet belonging to his grandfather, Anatolay, who founded the town that bears his name. 

   

I was in the habit of feeding JOURNAL and DIPLOMAT to everyone I met, not expecting to encounter a new lead for a couple of towns, maybe. To my surprise, the second person I spoke with turned out to be the Diplomat: Paundor, the governor's advisor. He told me to seek out a man named Ian who makes unique weapons. "He should have what you need." I don't see how that helps me translate the journal, but okay.

        

Meeting with Paundor.

        

My notes said that Ian was in the tavern in Mantov. He was the one who made me buy a round for the house last time. I returned to Mantov and spoke to him. He said that he had recently sold an "unusual item" to someone in Moloch: a grapnel arrow. "[It] could be used to retrieve an item well out of your reach," he said.

   

Moloch is on the far eastern coast, and I decided to get there organically rather than head directly there, starting with exploring the two mines northwest of Port Hope, then continuing with the two mines west of Mantov.

     

Cave 1 

       

The two entrances northwest of Port Hope turned out to go to the same cave. I didn't call it a "mine" because it had no tracks and it was hard to get anything out of the walls. If I did get anything, it was invariably lead. Enemies were the same rats, bats, insects, and other vermin I was able to defeat at Level 1, which confused me—until the game started mixing some vampires into the battles. These guys hit hard, though they don't have the magic abilities that I was expecting from Dungeons & Dragons. There was another large treasure room with so much more processed Nuore that I was no longer worried about running out. A lot of Ancient Scrolls, too, which I can sell in the Athaneum for a lot of gold.

 

You guys were barely a threat six levels ago.

          

Mine 5

      

So close to Mantov that you can see it from the city. It has three entrances. Two are on either side of the city. I couldn't tell where the third one was, because it was inaccessible from the ground. I don't know whether it's one of the entrances marked on the map or not.

     

One of the mine's buried chests had a map piece showing an island in what I had thought was not part of the game world (the part covered by text in the map above). Ore was iron, nickel, Nuore, gold, and platinum. In addition to magicians, rogues, wizards, gnolls, hobgoblins, and mine trolls, we met a new enemy here: devils. More below.

      

A treasure chamber! No enemies, just a lot of chests.

      

I think that it was in this one that I found the Key of Port Hope. I had previously found a Key of Duomin and the Key of Devon, but I didn't recognize them as cities, as I hadn't been to them. I just figured they were quest items that would come into play later. I noticed that they show up in the (U)se menu, though, and I gave one a try. It turns out that they teleport you to the associated cities!

   

This made me start experimenting with some of the other items I had been accumulating and not using. Some findings:

   

• Scroll of Gravity: Casts a major mass-damage spell in combat, injuring all enemies.
• Healing Ointment: Fully heals one character.
• Dispelling Gem: Does a ton of damage to undead.
• Scroll of Holy Rain: Also does a ton of damage to undead.

       

The Scroll of Holy Rain helps out against some skeletons and mummies.

         

These items can only be cast once per rest, but since there's no real downside to resting (except having to wait about 30 seconds), that's not much of a disadvantage. 

 

     

Mine 6 

 

The relatively easy battles with goblins, hobgoblins, and gnolls didn't prepare me for the fixed battles in caves, which feature demons, devils, and gargoyles—sometimes a dozen or more. (I don't know whether it's a joke or just an homage to Ultima that demons and gargoyles are basically indistinguishable.) On the positive side, these enemies don't have the magic or ranged abilities that you might expect from experience with previous games. On the negative side, they are almost impossible to hit, they're immune to a lot of spells, and they hit so hard that they swipe away a third of a character's hit points. They also have a ton of hit points themselves. I found that I couldn't win battles with more than a few at a time, and even then it was only carefully monitoring and healing my characters round by round.

      

Ah, right. Sometimes they have one or two Princes of Evil with them, too.

       

My first thought in trying to defeat them was to hit them with as many mass-damage spells as I could, including the wizard's "Ice Storm" and the clerics' "Severe Wounds." But since the demons et al. take so little damage from these spells (they "save" or whatever this game's equivalent is), I was just depleting my spell points fast. Eventually, though, I found a strategy that worked most of the time:

    

• Rest before battle. 

• Go into the battle with "Shield Mist" on (you can cast defensive spells before combat, something I didn't realize until this session).

• Immediately soften them with the Scroll of Gravity. 

• Round after round, cast low-level mass damage spells like the clerics' "Minor Wound" and the wizard's "Flying Rocks." Since these spells don't use many magic points, I can cast dozens of them, and the enemies take about as much damage since they were always resisting the higher-level spells.   

           

Casting "Minor Wound" on a bunch of demons. The damage isn't much, but it adds up.

          

This strategy softened them up enough that my fighters could do the rest, at least if the size of the enemy party was manageable. Still, the strategy would be more effective with higher-level  mass-damage spells, which is only possible with plenty of Nuore and purple potions (which restore mana), so you again see why I'm reluctant to call the economy "broken" just yet.

     

I found the Key of Stachus and a couple of Healing Stones that don't seem to have any use. Maybe they're quest items. If they are, the interesting thing about them is that I found them in random battles. It would be nice if I could find keys to any one of the starting cities. Maybe I missed them in the first few mines, before I really knew what I was doing.

    

Stachus 

   

This town in the center of the continent offered wizard training, a weapon shop, a mine store, an inn, and a barracks for miners. My question about the Healing Stone was answered almost immediately when a miner named Louis told me that some monsters had stolen it from the town (leaving aside the fact that I found three of them). I finally met a man named Murray who gave me the quest, which I immediately turned in for 4,500 gold pieces and enough experience points to reach Level 8.

      

This kind of thing never happens when I'm in town.

      

A guy named Artemus, working for the archivist at the Athaneum, offered me 10,000 gold pieces for the city keys I'd found. I didn't sell them. They seem too useful.

    

I started seeing giants in the wilderness when I left the city. I avoided them.

 

Maybe later.

         

Mine 7

   

A small but standard Nuore/iron/silver mine, though the ore came in paltry amounts. Enemies were sparse; there was one fixed battle with undead; I didn't find anything interesting. I entered southeast of Stachus, but a second exit brought me within spitting distance of Moloch.

       

Moloch    

     

Moloch styles itself as a "Holy Town of Moloch," which I find amusing given that in Paradise Lost, Moloch is a child-eating demon. I think he's also a villain in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Also ironic is that the dead won't stay dead in Moloch's graveyard. A warrior named Vance, charged with keeping them under control, was fighting a losing battle until we showed up. We fought four difficult battles with skeletons, zombies, ghosts, and vampires, hard enough that I had to rest a couple of times in between to recharge my spell points and items.

     

Using the Dispelling Gem on the ghosts.

           

Once we defeated the undead, a cleric offered us a choice between a gold reward and a holy reward. I chose the latter, and we got 25 added to our maximum hit points. That's an increase of between 25 and 40%. Nice. 

     

Although having an NPC refer to "hit points" literally breaks the illusion a bit.

            

The town has a large concentration of clerics, including a healer and a cleric trainer (wouldn't it make more sense if the Healing Stone had been here?). Almost immediately, I found the Grapnel Arrow in a guild shop. The potion shop  sold both processed Nuore and purple potions, so I can see returning here a lot. Hopefully, I'll find its key somewhere.

      

In a chapel, Terence, who used to be a cartographer, cleared up the map issue: there is an island in the southeast quadrant, but it is surrounded by mist. He suggested that I ask Alexander about the mist. My notes say that he owns the weapon and armor shops in Saccate.

       

I remember that guy!

       

A guy named Bysette, wandering around the town well, responded to JOURNAL, but he wanted to know who sent me. Since I didn't have a name, he wouldn't offer anything yet.

     

Finishing Up

 

I attacked a random NPC in Moloch so I'd get arrested when I left the city and get transported to Mantov. There, I got my fighters trained and sold my excess armor. 

  

I walked to Saccate, where Alexander told me that the island in the mists "has long been used as a prison for the most feared criminal in the history of Yendor," but he wouldn't tell me anything more about him. He said that the mist surrounding the island seems to be the same mist now encroaching on the main island of Yendor.

   

I walked to Thieves' Guild, got my thief leveled up, and then used the Key of Port Hope to warp there. I returned to Paundor, prompted him with ARROW, and got this in reply: "Explore deep into the Northern Caves and return to me the Great Red Gem that is guarded by the black winged beasts."

        

So is it just an arrow with a hook? That's not exactly a groundbreaking invention.

              

The "Northern Caves" could be the ones just north of Port Hope. One of them had a lot of bats, so that would fit—except that I already explored those caves, and didn't find a Great Red Gem. On the other hand, my method of "exploration" has been to just follow the right wall (except when I can obviously see something that I wouldn't reach by doing that), so it's possible I missed parts of all of the caverns and mines I've explored.

   

Other possibilities are that the Northern Caves are the ones I already explored north of Saccate, or that they're the ones in the far northeast part of the map. I guess I'll try Cave 1 again before I go elsewhere. 

      

There were some moments when I wasn't enjoying the game, mostly due to all the walking and combat, but it came around again with some of the spell and travel shortcuts that we discussed. I have four more towns and 10 more cave entrances to explore on the main continent, and after that, I imagine it will move a lot more quickly.

       

Time so far: 21 hours 

    

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