Swords and Serpents: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

        

Swords and Serpents

United States

Interplay (developer); Acclaim (publisher)

Released 1990 for NES

Date Started: 8 October 2024

Date Ended: 26 October 2024

Total Hours: 18

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

 

When I last wrote, my party was halfway through the 16-level dungeon, where our goal is to defeat a dragon. This will apparently involve seven ruby items, five of which we had collected at the close of the last session. We picked up the other two this time. I was wrong in my comment last time that we had all but one spell. I don't know where I got that idea. I was still missing four spells at the end of that entry, and I'm still missing two as I explore Level 13.

     

Level 9, as we saw last time, was called "The End of the Beginning." It consisted of two halves, top and bottom. The bottom half, where the party could enter from two stairways, led to two nearly identical areas, with large rooms and fixed combats. The corridors ringing these areas had traps in every square and required "Flight" to cross safely.

      

The game is not giving me encouragement.

      

The northern half really started to make use of "Passwall," with several areas--and one block of 10 individual rooms--that could only be entered by casting the spell. Fortunately, there were three magic-restoring fountains within this block. A 3 x 3 area was surrounded by teleporters that sent the party to the center square each time. On the first visit, an old man in the center gave us 1,000 experience points. On every subsequent visit, he teleported us to the southern half of the map.

     

This message offered an unwelcome revelation: "Some Zoom Tubes can be entered backwards!" I tried the ones on this level and all the ones I discovered after this level, but I didn't go back up to previous levels. Level 9 had a section of 5 stacked corridors, each of which had the same messages ("There's no telling . . . what's at the end of . . .") before dropping us into a Zoom Tube. One led to Level 13; one led to Level 10; others led to earlier levels or other places on this one; only one took us to a different place walking backwards than forwards.

     

Backing up into a teleporter.

     

We had to use one of the tubes to get to Level 10, as there were no stairs down. Level 10 ("The Beginning of the End") also had two major sections. The northern section had the game's last services, including a temple and an armory. The only new item in the armor was Mithril Shields for 300 gold pieces; I had almost 10,000 when I visited. There was nothing else to spend money on, which I suppose is a good thing since our money rolled over to 0 after 9,999.

 

While we're on the subject of rolling over, we hit the game's maximum experience Level (16) while on this dungeon level. That always annoys me. We kept accumulating experience, but it just disappeared when we hit 6,400, with no new benefits.

     

The last promotion we'll receive.

      

Getting from the lower area to the upper area involved activating a teleporter clued with a message: "Back and forth, forth and back." It refers to two squares labeled "back" and "forth." To activate the teleporter, you have to step on "back," walk to "forth," step off "forth," step on it again, then walk back to "back." Easy, but something tickled me about it.

 

The lower half of Level 10 had areas accessible only by "Passwall" in which we found fire traps. We found a Fire Sword in the southeast corner and a Fire Shield in the southwest. Armor is pretty straightforward in this game when it comes to the relationship between protective value and sale value. I can't say the same thing about weapons. There are four major variables--efficiency (how fast the weapon swings), damage, number of foes hit per turn, and armor class (some weapons have a defensive value). Based on these variables, you'd think there would be some obvious formula that determines the sale value, but there isn't. To take the most obvious example, the Plus Three Sword costs only 320 gold pieces while the Plus Two Sword costs 750. The game insists that a higher efficiency is better, but the "Quickblade" has the lowest efficiency score in the game. The Fire Sword, meanwhile, does more damage than any weapon I've found so far, but it only hits one enemy. The Glow Sword costs a third as much but swings faster and hits two enemies. My confusion isn't just about the cost, but about the location where you find the equipment and the relative rarity. The Fire Sword seems to be unique, and yet it seems statistically worse than the Glow Swords I find everywhere.

      

Perhaps the thing I like most about this game.

      

These issues became important on this level, because combat got a lot harder. Enemies started attacking in packs of seven or eight. Sometimes, the game has enemies surprise you, and some enemies get multiple attacks. When a pack of 8 surprises you, you can literally sit there and watch the screen for two minutes before your characters get a chance to go. I'd like to be able to do more with spells in such situations, but my unwise decision to take only one mage means that I need to save all my spell points for healing and "Passwall."

        

This guy is pretty creepy.

      

I got a few equipment upgrades in the final half, mostly in terms of armor. Most of my characters never found anything better than regular helms, but I upgraded from chain to plate to Mithril Chain to Mithril Plate. Another Bard's Tale similarity: the game constantly has you automatically pick up items at the end of combat that you have no use for, forcing you to go into the characters' inventories and drop them, lest all your free spaces get filled up with junk.

     

Two staircases led down to Level 11: "The Sword." Both led to small mazes on the east and west sides of the level. In the center, the walls made the shape of a sword with a hilt and pommel. A message back on Level 1 had warned: "The Ruby Sword lays at the point of the sword." When I went down the corridor to the "point," I found nothing. Fortunately, I remembered another message from Level 5: "Seven turns and the sword will appear!" I spun in place for a bit and soon had the Ruby Sword. 

            

I'm just glad they gave the sword a pommel.

       

A staircase led to Level 12: "Black Crystal." This large maze had exactly three things to find: the "Viper" spell, the "Regenerate Spell," and the Black Crystal. "Viper" is an offensive spell that underwhelms me; "Regenerate" heals all hit points, however, and is vital.

        

Perhaps the most useful spell in the game.

       

The Black Crystal was demanded by an NPC back on Level 1, so I took a combination of teleporters to get back there. His "reward" was to send us to a secret area of Level 13; there are otherwise no stairways down from Level 12. Level 13 is called "Secret." The main part is accessible from a teleporter on Level 9, but the part that the NPC on Level 1 sends you to is its own special area, inaccessible from anywhere else, even with "Passwall." The purpose of this area was to find the Ruby Amulet, at the center of a maze of 1 x 1 rooms that I had to cast "Passwall" in the right places to navigate. The spell fails most of the time. Even worse, each room has a mandatory combat with a large party. I reached the center nearly out of hit points and spell points and was thus happy to find the fountain and the Ruby Amulet. A Zoom Tube took us back to Level 10. 

    

Level 13 had no stairs down. The way to Level 14 was by bringing the seven ruby treasures to an old guy on Level 10; he then teleported us.

         

My reward is again transportation.

       

Levels 14 and 15 were called "Over" and "Under," and they consisted of mazes with multiple stairways up and down, plus lots of secret doors, one-way doors, areas that required "Passwall," and teleporters. Combat began to get oppressive in the mazes, with the enemies previously described joined by fleshy skeletons, giant squid brains with teeth, and sorcerers with staves. In a sense they were annoying, but in another sense they were trivial, since full party death just meant resurrection back on Level 10, with no loss of levels or items, any battles I'd already fought still cleared, and a quick trip back down to Level 14 from the Level 10 temple.

        

Level 14

       

The levels delivered the final two spells: "Phalanx" and "Crystallize." Despite its name, "Phalanx" is a lightning bolt spell that hits a couple of characters. "Crystallize" supposedly "freezes the enemies' ability to fight." I didn't find either of them useful. I continued to spend most of my spell points on healing spells and "Passwall."

       

I finally have all the spells.

        

A stairway in the southeast corner of Level 15 led down to the final level, titled "Behemoth is Here!" We started in a large, open area with multiple signs warning us "Welcome to . . . Dragon!" and "Prepare to die!" But one sign, in the upper-right corner, said: "The path to VICTORY begins here!"

   

Throughout the game, I had been collecting messages that told me what to do upon seeing this sign. This started with facing north and ignoring all walls when the instructions said to go forward (i.e., to cast "Passwall"). I thus did not end up mapping the final level. The instructions took me through some traps ("Flight" was a must), solid walls, turns, and one teleporter.

        

I had to back into this.

     

Eventually, I ran out of instructions in an area with a corridor spiraling inward to a central chamber. Signs offered nonsense: "Now comes the tough part"; "Is this it?"; "Sorry. Just a tease"; and finally, "Goodbye, and good luck."

        

Thank you, Edward Murrow.

      

On the other side of that final door was the dragon. He got to attack first and blasted us all with a breath attack. Over the next few rounds, my fighters and thief swiped at him, doing no damage, while my mage kept up with healing and tried to damage him with spells. I think "Crystallize" actually worked to stop his attacks for a few rounds. But I still did no damage to him and started to despair. In desperation, I tried "Deadeye" on Chet, who had the Ruby Sword, and then suddenly I killed him in two hits.

         

Although we've seen several swords, this is the only serpent in the game.

    

The victory screen told me that we received 5000 experience points and 5000 pieces of gold, both of which would have been worthless even if the game wasn't over. After a lot of flashing lights, the game gave me codes to write down, for some reason, and then the victory message at the top of this entry.

        

That's so useless it's actually insulting.

       

In the end, the game was boring and basic--and I mean "basic" in the pejorative way that the kids use it these days. I enjoyed mapping because I always enjoy mapping, and some of the navigational obstacles were okay, but overall it was a poor showing from a company capable of much better stories and mechanics.

    

In a GIMLET, the game earns:

    

• 1 point for the game world. The framing story is trite and makes little sense. There's nothing special about the dungeon itself as a dungeon.

• 2 points for character creation and development. Attributes and leveling are both simple, with no choices, and with a very low level cap. Because monsters keep pace with their difficulty as you descend levels, you never really feel like you're getting any stronger.

       

Chet's statistics at game's end.

   

• 1 point for NPC Interaction, and it's generous calling those random old men "NPCs." Their messages might as well have been scrawled on the walls.

• 2 points for encounters and foes. The foes are really distinguishable only by portrait. They just hit; they have no special attacks, strengths, or weaknesses. They don't even have names. The points in this category are for the navigational puzzles, which I consider a kind of "encounter."

       

The last new enemy I encountered.

      

• 2 points for magic and combat. Boring, annoying, and too long towards the end, the combat never even rises to the level of an early 1980s RPG. Spells are mostly useless.

• 2 points for equipment. I like that the statistics were plain, even if they sometimes (as above) didn't make any sense. Some usable items would have been nice.

• 1 point for the economy. Utterly worthless except for a few moments on Level 1.

       

The game occasionally has you find gold. Why?

      

• 2 points for having a main quest with no choices, alternate endings, or side quests.

      

A step on the main quest.

      

• 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are only serviceable. The constant music is headache-inducing. I found the controls clunky even for a controller.

• 2 points for gameplay. It gets those for at least not being too hard or too long (although it's also not short enough). It's otherwise linear and not replayable, and the password system is so annoying that I wouldn't have finished the game without save states.

   

That gives us a dismal final score of 17. The Bard's Tale came out for the NES the same year as Swords and Serpents and would have been the better purchase in every way.

   

I wish I could offer some choice quotes from contemporary reviews, but the Internet Archive is still behaving squirrely, and while I can find old magazines, I can't read them. According to MobyGames's review round-up, it rated between 55% and 82%. in its day, with the worst review coming from Electronic Gaming Monthly and the best from Total!! in the U.K. We can turn to more modern coverage by The RPG Consoler, Zenic Reverie, who looked at it in 2013 and apparently concluded the same things that I did. He liked the "puzzles" and praised the equipment statistics but found everything else blah.

       

One of several games for which the cover art is better than anything in the game.

       

Wikipedia offers some uncited facts about the game, including that Paul O'Connor, the lead designer for Dragon Wars (1990) started work on the game, but gave it over to Bruce Schlickbernd after a couple of weeks. According to the summary, Schlickbernd didn't feel comfortable taking sole "designer" credit and thus appears in the credits as the "associate producer." If this is true, it still doesn't explain much, as Schlickbernd, like O'Connor, had been with Interplay for several years and had worked on Wasteland, The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I, and The Bard's Tale III, among others. Surely, he knew what a good RPG looked like. On the other hand, this was programmer Jim Sproul's first game. The company inexplicably went all-out on production elements, including a box cover by Boris Vallejo and a rare television commercial.

According to my master game list, there were only three native NES games from western developers: Eurocom's Magician (1990), Swords and Serpents, and Sculptured Software's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), which I tried a couple of years ago. If anyone was going to compete with the Japanese market, it was going to be Interplay. It's too bad they didn't step up.

BRIEF: Shadow Sorcerer (1991)

 

       

Shadow Sorcerer

United Kingdom

U.S. Gold Ltd. (developer), Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher)
Released 1991 for Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS

Rejected for: No character development

      

Shadow Sorcerer is a maddening game with some elements of a good game. I spent days vacillating between BRIEFing it and giving it an honest try. Every time I seemed to be settling on the latter, I'd fight another baffling, frustrating combat and ragequit for a few hours before sighing and trying it again.

     

The game is the third in a series developed by U.S. Gold for SSI, the first two being Heroes of the Lance (1988), which I covered, and Dragons of Flame (1989). (These games are sometimes called the "Silver Box" series, and the designation sometimes includes the SSI-developed strategy game The War of the Lance [1989].) All three games tell stories involving the heroic Companions from the Dungeons & Dragons Dragonlance universe. These stories take place around the War of the Lance, a conflict between various good armies and Draconians led by the evil goddess Takhisis. Sorcerer specifically takes place after the events of the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984), in which the Companions invade the Draconian fortress of Pax Tharkas and free its slaves. I guess that plot was recounted in Dragons of Flame. I probably should have BRIEFed that first.

      

The box was not, in fact, silver.

      

As the game begins, the Companions are marching out of the front gate of the city with 800 slaves behind them. They decide to bring the slaves to the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin. They just have to survive long enough to get there--and keep the slaves alive and marching. 

 

A little backstory.

 

Along with Journal Entry #1.

        

The interface is the culmination of a natural evolution in the series. Heroes of the Lance exclusively used a side-view interface. Dragons of Flame kept the side view for local events but contrasted it with a wide-area, top-down view for moving the party across distances. Sorcerer retains these dual views, but for local events, it abandons the side view for an isometric grid much like those used in Legend (1992) a year later. It's a uniquely British point of view that I think we determined goes back to Knight Lore (1984).

     

The overland map (what the game calls "wilderness view") has 663 hexes, arranged in 34 rows that alternate between 19 and 20 hexes per row. One of the neat parts of the game is simply exploring those hexes. Each one has an underlying "tactical view" that you can access by clicking on the party or hitting "0." Sometimes, if there are enemies in the hex, you're taken to the tactical view automatically. Before transitioning, you're given a brief textual description of what the hex is about, some of them referring you to the manual, which has 21 "journal entries" just like the Gold Box RPGs.

       

Exploring the wilderness map.

     

Once in the tactical view, you might find treasures, monsters, encounters, or entrances to caves and dungeons. Tactical view is also where you can look more closely at your characters, trade equipment, and give them default orders for combats.

     

An example of tactical view.

     

As for those characters, you start with Raistlin Majere, Caramon Majere, Goldmoon, and Tanis Half-Elven. They all have default attributes, levels (4-8), spells, and equipment, and--this is key--they do not gain levels during the game. If this party is wiped out, they'll be replaced by other Companions. If they're wiped out--well, then the original party comes back. I don't really understand this. I don't think it's possible to lose the game by having the characters die. It seems that they'll always be resurrected behind the scenes and return. The only way to "lose" is to let too many of the refugees die, and even then, as we'll see, you don't really lose. 

   

Raistlin's statistics.

      

The refugees themselves follow you as you move across the map, represented by their own icon. Various things will cause that icon to split into multiple groups. You're supposed to scout ahead to find safe places to rest, find food, and keep armies of Draconians from harrying them. It's extremely frustrating because they never move where or when you tell them to move. Moreover, the game is constantly stopping to ask you to meet with the "council" that the ex-slaves have formed, and you have to decide how to deal with them, with options to plead, reason, threaten, or use physical force. There's some science to this that I might figure out if I played a lot more. Whatever you choose, groups of the ex-slaves might decide to turn around and head back, stop where they are (and what? Build a town?), or continue on.

       

I probably shouldn't have chosen "use physical force" every time.

    

I honestly could do without the entire refugee mechanic, but as much as I dislike it, what really ruins the game for me is the combat. The problem is that it takes place in real-time. (So does wilderness movement, for that matter, so a dragon can swoop down on your party when you're trying to make a decision.) The game offers the tactical options of the Gold Box but ruins them by requiring you to engage them with speed--or simply give up and turn on the "quick combat" options. It's possible that I could have gotten good at it, but I would have vastly preferred a turn-based combat system like the ones in the Gold Box or Spelljammer (2021).

   

There are other maddening things about the interface, which primarily uses the mouse, but with a few keyboard backups. Party movement is so horrible that you have to play it to believe it. The tiniest obstacle causes a character to get hung up and refuse to move with the party. When it comes to auto combat, you can set default actions for each character, including melee attack, ranged attack, cast a spell, or flee. You turn these on and off by clicking a box, which changes color, but some of them are on by default, and the manual doesn't bother to tell you which color represents "on" and which represents "off." You'd think you'd be able to tell the answer from experimentation, but the SSI developers must have consulted with their Origin counterparts, because the characters are as good as actually following their default actions as those in the two parts of Ultima VII.

       

In battle against some Draconians. I'm not sure why only two of my characters seem to be participating.

        

Despite all of this, most combats are easy, except in the case of the occasional enemy who comes along and kills a character with one blast of a spell. And I swear that enemies who shouldn't even be capable of spells occasionally cast them. A giant spider killed me with a lightning bolt; are they supposed to be able to do that?

    

Other elements of the interface are so unintuitive that it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to pick up a scroll on the first screen. I'm still not sure how to swap out equipment, or if it's even possible.

   

In short, the developers ruined what could otherwise be a fun approach--open exploration of a huge hex grid--with bad mechanics and an endless escort mission. What's particularly unfortunate is that you would never explore anywhere near the total number of hexes in a regular game, which lends it a lot of replayability.

      

Looking for the entrance to Skullcap.

      

Very close to the starting point at Pax Tharkas, you find a tower with a magical viewing device called the Eye of Elar. If you wait until dark and look through it, it will show you which hex in the mountain range at the far south of the valley contains the entrance to Skullcap, the fortress that guards the gates of Thorbardin. This location is randomized for each new game, which again adds to the replayability. 

    

I made it to Skullcap several times--you only have to walk directly there, leaving the refugees behind if you want. I didn't make it far into the fortress, however. The enemies are tough, and defeating them would require some greater expertise in the combat system, or finding useful items along the way, or both. I gather that Skullcap is the home of a wizard named Fistandantilus, the game's "big boss." I thought he was probably the "shadow sorcerer" of the title, but the Dragonlance wiki seems to disagree. I also read something that suggests you need to hit a couple of important encounters in the wilderness map before you can successfully navigate Skullcap.

   

In any event, if you defeat Fistandantilus, you continue on to Thorbardin and get a message that the gates have closed behind you, you've "accomplished a great deed," and the slaves are safe. You're then taken to a screen that shows how many experience points each character earned and how much they all earned in total. This is a "score" that players are encouraged to try to beat.

       

My best attempt.

      

Here's the kicker: You get the victory message no matter how the game ends. If you just stand in place outside Pax Tharkas, letting enemies show up to kill your Companions and all the refugees, you'll still get the message that you "feel safe in the knowledge that you have accomplished a great deed." The only thing that's different is the score. So I guess in that sense, I've "won." I could have given this a number and a GIMLET. But I don't feel like I've really won without defeating Fistandantilus and, more importantly, without really mastering the mechanics.

         

I literally did nothing at all.

       

In a February 1992 Computer Gaming World review, someone named "Todd" mostly agrees with me. I think he liked the game a bit better than I did, but he still complains about the refugee system, the interface, and the combat system. "Some more programming time on the character AI routines would have geometrically improved player satisfaction," he says. It's impossible not to agree with this assessment since a geometric curve can take literally any shape that exists.

     

I understand that some British magazine reviews are rage-inducing, claiming that Sorcerer is an improvement on the Gold Box, but alas with the Internet Archive still offline, our ability to consult old reviews is significantly diminished. I hope that comes back soon. 

   

Finally, it's worth re-reading Jakub Majewski's long and enthusiastic but ultimately accurate comment about the game from 2020. Jakub hasn't posted since 2021, but I hope he's still around and is satisfied that I at least gave it a shot.

Betrayal at Krondor: The Hand and the Cloth

 

Praise to Romney--to the sky!

        

As this session begins, we are still in Chapter 2, still heading for Romney to get more intelligence about where the Moredhel intend to strike the kingdom. Our journey has been delayed by a lot of side quests. And it is about to be delayed by one more, as commenters have alerted me that if I solve Nia's quest on the road between Lyton and Sethanon, I'll have access to a shop where I can sell anything. I've never been so motivated to solve a side quest.

     

It takes us about a day and a half to get back to Lyton, after which we start wandering about and across the roads, looking for anything we missed last time. We find it almost immediately. Heading west into a cornfield from the house where we were ambushed last time, we run across a farmer named Max Feeber. He's rude. He keeps referring to Seigneur James as a "kept boy." He says he's thinking about selling his farm because of the "evil" that remained in the area after the Battle of Sethanon (evil that we've experienced directly, in the form of shades). 

       

Dude, why would you keep this?

       

He's a little suspicious, so we search his house and barn. The barn has only a chest with a whetstone, but in the house we find a burial cloth and shovel.

   

We go back out and confront Feeber with the evidence. He admits he dug up Nia's father's grave, hoping to scare her until moving and selling him her store. He admits that in his haste, he may have dropped one of the corpse's hands "when I was near old Hershel's house."

    

I feel like there must have been an easier way to scare her.

       

Leaving him, we go across the street to "old Hershel," who mistakes James for Feeber and accuses him of lurking around the house "a week back." We do look around his house and find nothing. A revisit to the tavern and to the graveyard gives us no new quest leads.

    

I decide to give it up for now and move on to Romney. On our way back through Lyton, we stop at the tavern and meet a group of men laughing about how they sold a dead man's hand to "old Glover" for 300 sovereigns. Glover was apparently convinced it was a magical object called a "glory hand" (I seriously don't want to know). The men don't tell us where "old Glover" lives, but it turns out to be the house  next door to the tavern. He thinks we sold him the hand--why is everyone mistake us for someone else? James sets him straight and offers to buy the hand back from him. The man demands 150 sovereigns, which we pay. 

       

I don't understand his "near Lyton" comment. We're in Lyton.

      

We spend another day walking back west to the graveyard, where we bury the hand with the original corpse. We return to the tavern, and Nia joyfully tells us that the haunting of the shop has stopped. She gives us the "Galon Griefmaker" sword and agrees to open shop again. The statistics show the sword is particularly suited for elves--we give it to Gorath--and has the best statistics of any weapon I've found in the game so far.

     

I don't know why a sword owned by a human would have an elf racial modification.

      

Even better, Nia opens the shop again and, sure enough, she buys anything. I sell her all my excess stuff and soon bring her a second load from the accumulated chests and bodies in the region.

    

Seriously, though--now it's time to go to Romney. We turn back east and take the road all the way to the River Rom, where we are attacked by four Rusalki. As in most fantasy settings, these are magical creatures capable of some seriously damaging spells. I lose two battles against them, and the third leaves James near-death, Owyn down to his last hit point, and Gorath at about half hit points. I spend a couple of days slowly recovering with healing herbs and restoratives.

       

Proof that the word "female" existed before recently.

      

I realize that when I visited Silden before, I took a route that hugs the mountains and not the route along the river. We find nothing but a house with a few royals, a cache with some rubies and arrows. But having reached Silden again, we decide to take the Mist Dew to the Isle of Eortis just to see what's there. It turns out that the boat takes us directly to the Temple of Killian--there's no opportunity to go anywhere else. In the temple, we have an odd discussion with the high priestess of Eortis, Beyla. Despite the name of the temple, it sounds like Eortis--a sea god--has been usurped by another god named Killian, but some (most?) of the priests still worship Eortis, "a shadow of his former self." The priestess protests that she has no abilities to heal us but says that Eortis might "stir from his slumber" if we do him a favor: defeat the Rusalki along the river. She doesn't acknowledge that we already did that, so I guess there must be more of them.

   

After a night at the inn, we return to Silden and head off to the north, this time passing the crossroads heading back towards Lyton. Owyn and Gorath are doing a lot better, but James is still "near death," though at 32% instead of the 100% he started at. So we groan when we encounter another party of three Rusalki. Fortunately, we're able to defeat them with minimal damage. They don't like to be in melee range, so the trick is to use the two fighters to "herd" them into a configuration where Owyn's "Flamecast" spell will damage them all at once.

       

"Flamecast" damaging them all at once.

      

Up the road, we find a group of men guarding something. James wants to avoid them, so we skirt around to the west and come upon a couple of buildings. One turns out to be the Rapid Rooks Inn, where Owyn blushes at the scantily-dressed women. There's not much else to do there except sleep, drink, and gamble. The second building also turns out to be a tavern, the River Pilot's Folly. There, we find some intelligence about the guards and the Rusalki. An unnamed man tells us that the innkeeper pays someone named Crenard to guard the place where the Rusalki are "hemmed in" during the day, preventing anyone from killing them. He does this so scared travelers stay at the inn at night. Sure enough, the usurious innkeeper wants 25 sovereigns for a night's lodging. 

    

We return to the crossroads, where Crenard attacks us with two other men. James is knocked out again, but we manage to defeat them with "Despair Thine Eyes" and Gorath's new sword. 

   

After the battle, I don't find anything related to the Rusalki in the area, so we continue north, again pumping James full of herbs and tonics. Just past a house where a man sells rations, shovels, and torches, we're attacked by a single rogue, who we dispatch with no trouble. A road looping to the west has a sign that reads "KEEP OUT!," so naturally we have to investigate--but it just leads to a vacant house next to a cornfield with a couple of wells out back.

      

No.

      

Further along, we defeat three rogues guarding three chests. One is a fairy chest with the riddle: "A barrel of rainwater weighs twenty pounds. What must you add to make it weigh fifteen?" The answer is five letters. I figure it out without much trouble (HOLES) and collect 50 sovereigns and a "Steelfire" spell. It's going to be time soon to experiment with magic more than I already have.

    

The second chest asks: "Kingdom fools are born without a lot of this, there is no doubt." The answer is four letters, so I'm able to brute-force it (remember, there are only 4 possibilities for each letter), which is a good thing because the answer (HAIR) makes no sense to me. The chest has 19 sovereigns, a Ring of Prandur (I already have two). The final chest is a regular locked chest, and I'm unable to pick it.

   

Moments later, the weak party fights a battle with a shade guarding a house. The house is the residence of a fortune teller named Madam Haphra, who wants 50 gold to read our fortunes. Her husband begs us to treat her kindly, as they recently lost their daughter, and it has "shaken Haphra's belief in some of her abilities." We pay the 50 sovereigns. She tells us first not to believe lies about the Rusalki ("They are of no harm to anyone!"). She tells James that although he will "find the soul that is kin to [his] own," he will "lose [his] closest friend to passion in a foreign land." When we ask about contacting the dead, she says only that "Lims-Kragma holds those you wish too tightly." 

    

This was a cute but useless encounter.

     

Next, the village of Sloop has a jewelry store, a couple of residents, a brewery, and an abandoned house with a whopping 127 sovereigns. A junk store operator ominously has a discarded Nighthawk medallion. A temple is abandoned. We pass some other vacant houses on the way north. We spend the night in an inn called the Nameless Hideaway, where Owyn earns a couple dozen sovereigns with the lute. 

   

Finally, we reach the bridge to the city of Romney. We find it guarded by several men, one of whom, Mitchel Waylander, approaches and says that the city is closed to all but citizens and members of the Glazers Guild. Fortunately, we found seals to pretend that we're members of the latter. Waylander explains that the constabulary was all killed in the Riverpullers Guild uprising, so the Glazers Guild is keeping order until their duke returns from his estates. 

     

What do the Riverpullers actually do?

            

Romney is a menu city with options to visit a shop, meeting hall, and tavern. I try the meeting hall first and am surprised to find the duke, apparently freshly returned from his estates, hosting a meeting of the guilds, which for some reason have been at each other's throats. The duke is trying to restore order. James makes an unwise mark about what Prince Arutha would do if he were here, and the duke throws us out of the hall.

    

So we move on to the tavern, where we expect to finally get some intelligence about the Moredhel plans--except that no intelligence is forthcoming. The tavern is full of dead soldiers, dismembered, draped across tables, heads stuck on walls. It's a massacre.

      

Why bite back the impulse? You think a little vomit is going to make this worse?

     

And all at once, we've transitioned to Chapter 3: "The Spyglass and the Spider." That came out of nowhere. I figured we'd learn something in Romney and then have to follow up at other locations along the river.

     

This doesn't really feel like a new chapter.

     

The narrative picks up a short time later, with Gorath hypothesizing that the Nighthawks are behind the slaughter and James demanding answers from Gorath. James has apparently learned that a Moredhel by the name of Gorath, who looks just like Gorath, was seen in Romney six months ago, having a conversation with Nighthawks. Gorath protests that he's never been south of Inclindel Gap until recently and "Gorath" is a common name among Moredhel. James remains suspicious. Gorath suggests that our next step ought to be infiltrating the Nighthawks' stronghold, if we can find it. Gorath looks over the evidence we've collected from the tavern and announces cryptically that "we begin our hunt for the Nighthawks with a spider and a spyglass." I guess the murderers left a silver spider and a glass spyglass behind. We need to coin a term for when an intriguing title becomes banally literal (c.f., Lords of Midnight, Pagan).

        

If it turns out that the "betrayal" is Gorath turning on us, that's going to be pretty weak.

       

We visit the tavern, which has been cleaned up. There's a terrified boy named Jason working there who confirms that the murderers--who ordered him to leave--wore Nighthawks outfits. He says that one of the king's soldiers had the spyglass and talked about having gotten it in Sliden. He also says that before the massacre, a special keg of wine was delivered from the Upside Down Keg.

     

Inside the meeting hall, the duke is dealing with yet another murder committed in the guild war. I guess this is unrelated to the Nighthawks' slaughter of the king's guards. The duke says we can help stop the guild war by finding Arlie Steelsoul, head of the Ironmongers' Guild, and convincing him to go to the negotiating table. He lives to the southwest, and from the description of his house, I gather it's the one with the "Keep Out!" sign.

      

The duke explains why his problems are our problems.

         

We finally leave the city. From either the passage of time or the change in chapters, James is healed. This is good because not three steps down the road, we're attacked by two Nighthawks. 

        

Just a check of the latest statistics. James looks like he's pissed that I'm checking out his character sheet.

       

We stop at the wrong house on our way back south--no one is home, and there's something odd about the house. I find a fairy chest out back that I missed on the way up. Its riddle: "They go up white but come down yellow and white." The answer (EGGS) is easy to guess from the letters. The chest has a blessed rapier with an elf modification. While good, it's not as good as the Galon Griefmaker. There's also 100 sovereigns and a spell that I accidentally have Owyn learn before seeing what it is. I think it's "Steelfire," which enhances weapons for battle.

        

Before we reach Steelsoul's house, we stop at the Upturned Keg in Sloop. The owner says that the keg he sent was paid for in rubies by Mitchel Waylander, and further that Waylander ordered him to add black tarweed to the wine, which induces thirst and makes people order more to drink. James assumes Waylander was working for the Nighthawks, deliberately getting the soldiers extra drunk so they couldn't fight back effectively.

      

Just a reminder that the game has a lot of text, and I'm summarizing it for you. LPs of this game must take forever.

        

Five Nighthawks ambush us farther into the town. This time, it's Owyn's turn to end up "near death," although I am able to defeat them. 

   

If it's not clear by now, things apparently respawn between chapters. We face a tough battle with a couple of shades outside Madame Haphra's house again. We are correct about which house is Arlie Steelsoul's, but we have to pass through a trap that wasn't there before. I can't figure it out and Gorath takes a ton of damage. Fortunately, Steelsoul turns out to be a reasonable guy who agrees to go to Romney to negotiate. He even gives us a book that improves "Armorcraft" skill. 

      

Adventuring at night even makes combat difficult.

       

A few more nights and battles later, we make it to Silden. In the tavern, we overhear a conversation that suggests the Mockers are at war with another faction led by someone called The Crawler. The Mockers are a thieves' guild whose leader, the Upright Man, is probably James's father. Anyway, the rumor is that the Upright Man was killed and some key belonging to the Crawler was dropped in the Krondor sewers.

     

The tavernkeeper, Joftaz, promises us information about the spider and spyglass if we'll raid the Crawler's house ("near here") and retrieve a bag of powder that the Crawler stole from Joftaz. 

         

I wonder what happens if you say "no."

         

I search a bunch of houses in the area, but none of them seems to be the right one. As I head west, we run into a man named Abuk on the road, and James accuses him of selling the spyglass to Joftaz, so I guess we missed a quest step. Abuk has a long story about how 20 years ago, he purchased a magical chest in Silden. The magic causes lost items to appear in the chest, and the spyglass was one of those items. He says he left the chest near Silden, and the password to open it is THORN.

     

Looks like something went awry with the flagging system.

      

Well, we got that chest a while ago, and inside was a receipt written to Isunatus of Cavall Keep. I check the map, and that's a little way to the north from Romney.This seems like a good place to pause, but I am thinking about taking the long way around. I've already started, in fact, as I went pretty far west to Nia's Shop to sell some excess stuff.

      

I didn't have any other outdoor shots in this entry, so here's a house amidst some trees.

       

I haven't been mentioning small skill increases, but they've been occurring at regular intervals as I fight, cast, pick locks, repair equipment, and so forth. But I'm confused about two skill books I have. Each character has read both books and received a skill increase when he did. But the books have an insane number of uses--like 100--and using them additional times doesn't seem to confer any additional benefit. It also makes time pass very fast. Meanwhile, Nia will buy the books for a lot of money. Is there any reason not to just sell them?

       

I think I'll use Chapter 3 to explore the boundaries of the "open world" concept, but I probably won't do it in as much detail as I've been writing in the past. We'll see what happens next time.

Time so far: 24 hours