Off the Beaten Star Trail

Star Trail provokes an existential crisis.

     

It would be worth recapping at this point the long road that led us here:

    

• At the beginning of the game, after character creation, we received a quest to recover the Salamander Stone from the Dwarven Pit and bring it to Lowangen. This took place in the city of Kvirasim at the northern edge of the map. We were told only that the Dwarven Pit was to the south.

• We moved south, following clues, stopping to solve a side quest in the city of Gashok. Eventually we reached the mountains in the southeast part of the world map, found the Dwarven Pit, and got the Salamander Stone.

• We moved west to Lowangen in the south-central part of the map, lost the stone, recovered it, and lost it again. The best clues as to where it had gone were to the Blood Peaks on the west side of the map.

• Eager to explore a little, we went far to the north, then west, the south to the Blood Peaks instead of just going west. Along the way, we did a side-quest for the subtitular Star Trail in Tiefhusen (northwest quadrant) that resulted in us not obtaining the weapon.

• It turned out that the entrance—or at least an entrance—to the Blood Peaks was not too far to the west from Tiefhusen. However, in taking this entrance, we ran into a party of orcs who stripped us of all of our items and threw us in a cell.

     

My travels prior to this session.

       

This entry started with a certain amount of eagerness to avoid that fate. I thought I'd avoid the orc encounter and probe at the Blood Peaks to the south and west. I did this before my last entry on Star Trail was published, so I didn't yet have commenter VK's assurances that such an entrance exists. When I didn't find anything, I just kept pushing south.

    

If I was after anything, I guess it was side quests. I had somehow gotten the impression, probably based on my experiences with the first game, that there were a lot more towns and dungeons like Gashok and Tiefhusen, with quests waiting to be completed and corridors waiting to be explored. Accordingly, I moved south, east, and north, trying all of the trails that I hadn't explored on my first pass. I didn't find a single (non-menu) town or a single dungeon, but I did hit a lot of other small miscellaneous encounters, including:

     

• Numerous battles with harpies, orcs, ogres, and wild animals. 

• Somewhere in the southern Blood Peaks, a huntress threatened to shoot us. We got her to talk to us, but she didn't give us any information. However, I did notice that DARK MAGES (presumably, the ones that stole the Salamander Stone from us) was a dialogue option that hadn't existed elsewhere before. 

      

That's a better threat in a world without magical healing.

      

• My explorations to the southwest were stymied by the need for snowshoes, which I'm not even sure exist.

      

I tried snowshoes once. I don't think they made walking in the snow any easier.

      

• An abandoned camp with various sundries.

• A very large party of orcs walking down the road. We refused to hide, got into an impossible battle, and had to reload.

     

We did not win this one.

       

• We spent a long time around Finsterkoppen, mapping all of the routes we hadn't taken, under the theory that if side-dungeons existed, they'd probably be in the mountains. We didn't find any, but we did find the alternate entrance to the Dwarven Pit. It's on the other side of the mountains from the main entrance in Finsterkopp, quite a distance by road.

      

My claustrophobia acted up just reading this description.

      

• I've noticed that Gnomon, my best trapper, has a lot more trouble finding food and water in the mountains than on flat land. I guess that makes a certain amount of sense.

• A mountain road ended with a landslide, which nearly killed us.

• We stopped to help a man whose cart had broken down. It turned out to be a ruse by bandits, and we started the subsequent combat unarmed. 

       

This same thing happens in Red Dead Redemption.

        

• At one point, the game asked: "Say, aren't you the least bit concerned that nothing's happened for so long?" I guess that was a subtle hint to get back on track. 

• We approached a pond and heard a bunch of buzzing. Investigating, we found ourselves attacked by "horseflies of enormous size, and obviously starving." We had an option to act. I'm sure some spells may have helped, but I just tried lighting a torch, which drove some of them off but left us damaged from their stings. 

    

There's no upside to investigating, but we had to know.

     

• On the far eastern side of the map, on a road that looked like it led off the map, we were stopped and threatened by archers. We had an option to attack them, but it ended in our massacre. I think this encounter exists simply to stop the player from trying to leave the map. 

• We encountered a huge brown bear. We decided to run rather than fight. It turned out that the bear was just protecting her cub.

      

I don't like when RPGs (cf. Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, Avowed) make me kill bears. I like bears.

         

• A tinker carrying a heavy load stopped to chat with us, then offered to sell us a copper pot. 

• We followed a blood trail into the woods, found a dead man next to a large, broken hammer, and buried "the poor sod."

     

What was this all about?

     

• A woman rode by on a moose. Later, she rode past us again and said, "You can really ride these beasts, even though I don't think anyone beside me actually does." I wish I knew how. We've been occasionally putting points into the "Ride" skill for nothing. 

           

She's riding side-saddle without a saddle. That's impressive.

       

At this point, we were all the way back at Kvirasim, the first town since Tiefhusen. We took the time to check the stores for snowshoes (nada), buy some spare boots, and restock herbs. Unfortunately, Kvirasim doesn't have what we really needed: a smith to repair our broken weapons. Thus, we went down to Gashok and spent a week in town, getting our weapons repaired at a rate of one per day. We were broke at the end of the week, but fortunately the market came to town on the last day, and we were able to sell some excess weapons to get another 20 gold pieces in our pockets. Just as we were getting ready to leave, we saw that the armorer sold—you guessed it—snowshoes.

   

Having bought them, we commenced a long journey back to the southwest. Taking the route that required snowshoes simply brought us to a dead-end, where we were once again mobbed by orcs, forced to surrender, and thrown into a cell in the Blood Peaks. I should have included this episode with the last entry.

      

Shame on me, I guess.

          

Still, the incident gave me hope. The two encounters that got us automatically tossed into an orc prison are relatively far apart from each other. That meant that there could be an alternate entrance anywhere between the two. I started exploring the network of trails here, taking every side path I hadn't already explored, stopping at every inn. I fought a lot of battles with wild cats, harpies, orcs, and ogres during this period, usually relying on computer combat, the accumulation of which finally got my two weakest characters (the ones who had been left behind in Lowangen) to Level 6. I would just point out that if I had kept my imported party, they would have all started at Level 7 and probably would have been Level 9 or 10 by now.

     

At some of the inns, I got hints as to the dark mages who had stolen the Salamander Stone from me—though  not much more than they came from the southwest where the orcs live. 

       

I assume he means that they were planning to return after their mission.

        

Along one side-trail, we came across an armored warrior limping down the road, her face crisscrossed with scars and bandages. The battered woman introduced herself as Korima of Attica. After we exhausted a few keywords with her, getting nowhere, she offered two things: first, to sell us a spare two-handed sword; second, to adventure with us for a daily rate. We enthusiastically chose the latter. 

      

Seeing actual Baid-Aids® on her face spoils the immersion a bit. 

            

Korima is a Level 7 fighter who comes with her own equipment, though we had to give her a spare sleeping bag. She was a great addition to the party, making combat a lot easier. The first night, we cast "Respondami" to get a sense of her true intentions, but it turned out that she was what she seemed to be: "As long as you pay me a piece of silver daily, I'll fight at your side."

       

I'm not always good at this, but Korima's origin was obvious to me immediately (Sorsha, as portrayed by Joanne Whalley in 1988's Willow). .

        

In fact, I soon prized her presence so much that I began to worry about running out of money and losing her. I was down to about 18 gold pieces at this point, which should have kept her in the party for another 180 days, but time can pass quickly in this game. Hence, we made our way back to Tiefhusen and sold a bunch of excess stuff (the snowshoes, weapons we'd looted from the orcs, hand mirrors, etc.) and earned back another couple hundred gold pieces.

      

I feel like we're taking advantage of her.

       

It's worth pausing here to talk a bit about the game's approach to the economy. It models real life in the sense that money is a tool, and you can make about as much of it as you want to spend the time and effort to make. Having a lot of money in the game is useful but not game-breaking. It allows you to rest in suites, dine out, buy extra herbs and potions, obtain premium healthcare, and buy new weapons instead of taking time to repair the worn-out ones—but there are low-cost or free alternatives to all of these things. I like the idea of an RPG in which most of your expenses are for services rather than goods, and I wish the game had continued on this line by offering coach rides between cities (there are some ferry boats) or allowed you to bribe NPCs to narrow down useful keywords.

    

There are a few major money-related plot points in the game, requiring the party to hand over large amounts of cash, but the game gives you the ability to go out and make that money through battle and trade. Since there are no high-value magic items for sale in any of the shops, you're incentivized not to overdo this, but it's nice to have the option when the occasion arises. 

    

The only real "money sink" in the game is in the form of herbs and potions, and even here, it's really about herbs. Since potions don't stack, there's a limited number that you can carry at any one time, especially with all the other survival gear you have to pack. Herbs stack and weigh next to nothing and can be consumed independently of potions, so they're a better use of both money and inventory space.

      

Lyra's current herb inventory. This doesn't count what the other characters have.

     

The other thing that disincentivizes the use of potions is that you need a recipe to make them. In the entire game, I only found one recipe, during the latest session, for a magic potion. It admittedly would be very useful, but it requires brandy, which I was never able to find after getting the recipe. It also doesn't stack, so you wouldn't carry it around just to make potions. You'd make the potion right there, after buying the brandy, in which case you frankly might as well just find an herbalist and buy the potion itself. In general, I don't think that the game gives you a lot of incentive to make potions, which is why I never bothered to replace my alchemy set after the orcs confiscated it in Lowangen.

   

Herbs on their own, however, are still extraordinarily useful, and I have Lyra spend an hour searching for them every time we camp. As you might imagine, I really bulked up my inventory during this session. Whirlweed, dried whirlweed, and four-leaf loneberry can all be chewed for health points, even in the middle of combat. Tarnele can be eaten just before bed to increase the restorative effects of sleeping. Many of the rest are used in various combinations when a healer uses "Treat Illness." I'm probably carrying a few that have no use unless I get that alchemy set back, but it feels like I'm close to the end of the game. If I didn't fully explore that mechanic, I'm at least glad it was there. I just wish I knew where to find more recipes. You'd think the herbalists would sell them.

       

Lyra on her nightly foraging.

      

With enough money to pay Korima for several years, we went back on the road, wandering the mountain trails, looking for an alternate entrance to the Blood Peaks. We might have found it sooner, but a priestess of Tsa threw us off the track by telling us there was a "path going straight into the mountains to the east." She had her "east" and "west" mixed up, we later figured. 

   

But eventually we found it: cave into a sheer rock face. We had to fight some orcs nearby, but I don't know whether that was a random encounter or a fixed one. I think this was meant to be our exit from the dungeon, as the game congratulates us if we turn around and leave.

      

At last!

         

Before I wrap up, I'll recount what happens to a party that does not reload but simply allows itself to be captured by the orcs. Each bullet point here is a different screen or message window:

   

• The party is completely surrounded by orcs.

• An orc captain tells us that we're prisoners of Ugorzzih.

      

Is that pronounced the French way?

       

• We have the option to fight or surrender. Either way, we wake up in a prison cell, but the surrendering way offers more messages in between.

• The orcs march the party across several mountains.

     

Like hiking with Irene.

       

• It's such a long journey that we stop for the night.

• We reach a cave. The orcs blindfold us and lock us in a cell.

• We are in the cell. Orcs bring us meals in the evening. 

     

Also invites an Irene comparison, but one that would end up with my body in a shallow grave.

      

• We are still in the cell. Orcs continue to bring us dinner. We find an obsidian knife behind a loose brick, left by some previous prisoner. 

• We are still in the cell. It has been two days. We've become aware of a knocking in the distance. Someone is repeating the same pattern: 2 long, 2 short, 3 short, 2 long.

     

Part of me is slightly disappointed that I won't get to find out what this is about.

      

• The same message repeated for another day.

• We've noticed prisoners in other cells. On this day, two guards return again to feed us, one standing guard while the other brings in the food.

• Finally, we can't take it anymore. On this day, we overpower the orcs with our hands and strike out, naked and afraid. 

      

What is an "arbach"?

         

This would be a great beginning to a game, but I've had enough of dancing to this game's tune. So when we pick up, remember that I took the alternate entrance that avoided all of this drama.

     

Time so far: 47 hours 

 

Arena: Quarterstaff

The second piece of the Staff of Chaos waits behind a ghost.

         

During this session, I found my first (perhaps only) artifact and found the second piece of the Staff of Chaos. In the process, the game's overall approach to quests became clear, and comments from readers suggest that it will be unvarying over the course of the game.

   

Whether a stage of the main quest or a side quest, the steps are always these:

    

1. Identify the province and city where you will get the location of the quest. This might involve several stages depending on where you start.

        

For instance, I got this clue in High Rock.

        

2. In the correct city, find the quest-giver. This will involve asking the man-on-the-street about the place you're trying to find.

 

3. Go to the quest giver. The first quest you will get will be to the dungeon containing a map to the thing you're actually looking for.

 

4. Explore that dungeon. For the Staff of Chaos quest, the dungeon will be two hand-crafted levels. For side-quests (including artifacts), it will be four small, procedurally-generated levels.

      

I'm glad there were no maps to the maps to the Necromancer's Amulet.

      

5. Bring the map back to the quest-giver, who will interpret it and give you the location of the dungeon holding the actual object.

 

6. Explore that dungeon. For the Staff of Chaos quest, the dungeon will be two hand-crafted levels. For side-quests (including artifacts), it will be four small, procedurally-generated levels. Find the item, and the quest is complete.

         

Finishing this artifact quest.

       

How you feel about this will depend on how much structure you like around your entertainment, I guess. You could describe the basics of football (either one) or basketball using similar rules, but people still watch them for all the variation that occurs within that structure. The same thing is true about an episodic television series like Law and Order or really any situation comedy. But as someone who does not really enjoy sports or overly-structured television shows, I find Arena's approach a little flat, and although I didn't have a bad time during this session, I'm not really looking forward to repeating this another six times.

   

I started this session in High Rock, where I had been told that the map to the dungeon containing the Necromancer's Amulet would be found in the Fortress of Drunora. The best I can figure, the process for creating dungeon levels is based on blocks of around 10 x 10 squares, with six blocks on the horizontal and three on the vertical. The blocks are designed in such a way that there is always enough space to get into them from at least one direction. This creates an openness to the random dungeons that you don't see in the handcrafted ones. The choice of texture for a particular level is randomized independently from the layout; certain textures come with certain furnishings and decorations. 

             

Most of a Drunora level on the automap.

        

The entrance and exit from each level (stairs up and stairs down) are in fixed locations at the intersections of four regular blocks. They are surrounded on three sides by walls which override the walls that the surrounding blocks would have contained, leading to some weird shapes sometimes. I might be wrong about some of these elements; my analysis is based on a relatively small sample.

  

As for monsters, the game seems to populate dungeons randomly based on the character level. In Drunora, I faced ghouls, minotaurs, rats, rogues, lizard men, giant spiders, skeletons, mages, orcs, spellswords, and zombies. Their appearance in the random dungeons is much more annoying than in the crafted dungeons because they spawn behind you a lot more often. At least 50% of the time, I first learned about the presence of an enemy when he started swatting at my back.

        

Encountering a rogue in the featureless corridors of Drunora.

        

A few new notes on enemies, combat, and dungeon exploration:

   

• Ghouls remain the most feared creatures. I still haven't gotten to the point at which I can defeat them with any ease. I later met some harder ones (e.g., hell hounds, zombies, ghosts, maybe trolls), but they were rare and ghouls have been common since the second dungeon.

• I like human enemies best because they invariably drop stuff. Rogues and nightblades always have full sets of leather, the only armor a battlemage can wear, so I can replace new pieces for my damaged pieces.

• Giant spiders are capable of paralysis, but I found I can still cast spells and use magic items while paralyzed. Until I spent the money on the "Free Action" spell, I found that a good use of this time was to use an item that cast "Sanctuary," which caused the enemy to stop attacking long enough for the paralysis to wear off.  

      

We're knocking on heaven's door?

         

• Despite my misgivings about where they spawn, I wouldn't have minded if more enemies had spawned in the random dungeons. It would make them a more viable place to grind. As it is, you may as well just wait for night to fall in one of the cities. 

• There are four types of attacks: a left-to-right slash, a right-to-left slash, a top-to-bottom slash, and a thrust. You drag the mouse in the appropriate direction for the attacks. I guess the different types of attacks have different levels of damage and accuracy, but it's not really palpable in combat.

      

I bring back my sword to slash the minotaur in the Fortress of Ice.

             

• In addition to keyboard shortcuts for these attacks, I would give a lot for the ability to hotkey certain spells. Scrolling through the list gets old.

• And while we're talking about wishes, I would love it if any of Morrowind's fast-travel spells made an appearance here, or if the game simply offered you the ability to go directly to the exit after recovering the quest item. 

• Ever since I found the first piece of the Staff of Chaos, Jagar Tharn appears to taunt me when I die. He says that his servants will find my body, and that he will resurrect me as one of his servants, perhaps allowing just enough of my mind to remain intact to know how badly I failed. That's cold. 

          

Nice fingernails, Elvira.

        

As per the system outlined above, in the Fortress of Drunora, I found the map to the location of the Necromancer's Amulet (there was no talk of "robes" this time): the Hole of Annodred on Summurset Isle. That's a long distance, but of course distance means nothing in this game, so 37 days later, I wandered into Cloudrest to identify and sell my items and buy a few new spells.

   

It was dark when I arrived, and I had trouble finding an inn, so I went around killing enemies until dawn broke. Around this time, I decided that I'd occasionally do a random quest when visiting a town. Some random quests involve dungeon exploration and use the template above, but others are just a matter of carrying an item from one location in a town to another location. In this case, I was asked by Sarunar of the House  of Lovimon to go to the Concave of Blood (a temple) and bring a book back to Saurnar at the Howling Goblin. The temple was literally two buildings away, and the whole thing took me less than a minute. For my trouble, I received 190 gold and 500 experience points. I think perhaps all of these fetch quests deliver 500 experience points. It's better than a poke in the eye, as my wife's grandmother would say, but killing a ghoul is worth something like 3,000 experience points, so fetch quests are definitely not the key to leveling up.

      

I encounter my first troll.

        

A quick additional note: In two cities in a row, I was told that the king would have a special quest for me. But in both cases, when I went to visit the king, he just gave me a generic welcome and shooed me out of his throne room. 

      

I'm told that the king has a quest.

 

He did not, in fact, have a quest.

                     

The Hole of Annodred was four more procedurally-generated levels with the same types of enemies as the Fortress of Drunora. On the fourth level, I found the Necromancer's Amulet in a chest.

   

The amulet was worth the trip. It subtracts 9 points from the armor class of every body part when you wear it. When used, it adds 50 points to the maximum number of spell points, absorbs magic attacks, and (slightly) regenerates health. I haven't used it enough to get a sense of how long these benefits last. Unlike other magic items, it doesn't have an explicit number of charges. Its description indicates that it might just decide to disappear on its own someday, but I don't know how seriously to take that. I did note that after I'd used it a couple of times, it became available to "repair" in stores, but I don't know if that process restores the charges.

       

A description of the Necromancer's Amulet. Note the low armor class for my head and right arm in the background.

     

I stopped getting artifact rumors after finding the Amulet, and my understanding from the comments is that the player isn't meant to find more than one. In that case, I'm reasonably happy with the Amulet, although I don't know all the other possibilities. However, a commenter alerted me to a work-around that I might have figured out on my own: If you leave the artifact with a smith to repair, the game no longer reads it in your inventory and thus gives you additional artifact quests. I might do another one later in the game depending on how things go. I'm sure some players use this exploit to acquire all of them, but that would be more Arena than I really need. 

       

Maybe later.

        

After obtaining the Necromancer's Amulet, I decided to go for the second piece of the Staff of Chaos at Labyrinthian in Skyrim. I knew exactly where it was, of course, but I had to go through the motions. My first stop was at Whiterun, where the rulers are not yet called "jarls." The city of course looked nothing like it does in Skyrim, although I must say that its size in Arena is more realistic than the half-dozen NPC houses that exist in the newer game. (Here's a sobering thought: if the next Elder Scrolls game is not released by 2028, which frankly seems likely, it will have been longer between Skyrim and its sequel than between Arena and Skyrim.) Anyway, I wasn't in Whiterun long, as the first person I asked about Labyrinthian told me I'd learn more in Winterhold.

         

My brief time in Whiterun.

      

In Winterhold, NPCs directed me to the mage's guild. (There was no hint of the College of Winterhold.) There, I learned that "knights from the Fortress of Ice" recently attacked a caravan and stole a tablet "that would decipher a part of the Elder Scrolls." The tablet also had a map to Labyrinthian. I took the quest and got the location of the Fortress of Ice.

   

The Fortress of Ice was aptly named, with ice walls and occasionally ice floors. The enemies here were mostly new, including snow dogs capable of spitting magical snowballs (I needed to keep magical defenses activated), ice golems, and knights in armor. They were much harder than previous enemies, and I mostly survived them by making use of a Longsword of Life-Stealing with dozens of charges that I had found in some previous dungeon.

     

A wolf waits menacingly around the corner in the Fortress of Ice.

        

The tablet was behind a door with an easy riddle (WIND):

       

MY WIFE'S ITALIAN GRANDMOTHER also would have worked, but she's passed.

     

The tablet was about as hard to pick up as keys elsewhere. I took it back to the mage's guild in Winterhold (presumably it's part of the city that later falls into the sea) and got the location to Labyrinthian.

        

Just where it ought to be.

       

I wasn't really expecting any connection to Skyrim's Labyrinthian, so I was surprised when the cut scene showed multiple buildings on a raised stone platform just like the Labyrinthian "complex" in the later game. 

     

The Labyrinthian complex, looking neither the same nor implausibly unlike its counterpart four games later.

         

When I entered, I was immediately confronted with three gates, something that Skyrim pays homage to by showing three (inoperable) grates shortly after the player enters that version of Labyrinthian—although it would make more sense if the Labyrinthian dungeon in Arena were the Shalidor's Maze dungeon in Skyrim.

     

This shot was from when I was on my way out, with Jagar Tharn's nightblade assassin attacking me.

           

As I approached the three gates, a message told me to go down the center path first. Of course, I was contrary and followed my usual "rightmost wall" pattern for a while. But here, the game isn't lying. The center path has several messages relating the tale of two brothers, Kanen the Elder and Magrus the Dim, who entered Labyrinthian for their own purposes. They ended up dying on two different areas on the second level, each holding one of the keys necessary to enter the area on the first level with the piece of the staff. There's a lot that doesn't make sense chronologically here (even more when you combine this game's lore with Skyrim's), but we'll go with it.

      

Is this written on the walls? Is someone speaking? The game never really tells you.

     

The first level of the dungeon is as maze-like as its name suggests, but it's nothing compared to the two unconnected halves of the second level. They're nightmares of corridors, lakes of lava, and tunnels both raised and sunken. That the automap keeps it all straight is a testimony to its quality. 

          

I found this lucrative treasure room in one of the dungeon's corners. Note the ghost about to attack in the lower-right.

       

Since you can only have one key "active" at a time, I had to find Magrus's first, return to the upper level, unlock the first door, and then go back down for Kanen's. Both keys were in rooms with two cells barred with gates, one cell containing the key and the other containing the ghost of one of the brothers. Each ghost offered a riddle to unlock the gate to his respective key:

    

• Magrus: More beautiful than the face of your God / Yet more wicked than a daemon's forked tongue? / Dead men eat it all the time / Live men who eat it die slow (NOTHING).

• Kanen: Two bodies have I / Though both joined in one. / The more still I stand / The quicker I run (HOURGLASS).

       

The shape of Shalidor's Maze in Skyrim makes reference to this riddle.

    

I had heard variants of these riddles before and thus didn't have any trouble with them. Soon, I had unlocked the doors on Level 1 and had obtained the second piece of the Staff of Chaos.

        

As before, the next time I rested, Jagar Tharn appeared in my dreams to threaten me and sent a nightblade to attack me. The second time I rested, Ria Silmane appeared to tell me that the next piece would be found in the Elden Grove, an ancient home to Elves and location of the sacred First Tree. It must therefore be in one of the provinces in which elves live. This sounds exactly like the type of place you'd find in the forests of Valenwood, so I think I'll head there next.

     

I don't remember hearing about this in any later Elder Scrolls game.

     

I was going to talk more about inventory and the economy, but this entry is already reasonably long, so I'll save it for next time. I gained exactly one level in each dungeon I explored during this session and am now Level 13.

   

I'm not feeling as positively about Arena as at the end of the last session, but it still works reasonably well in juxtaposition with Star Trail: low complexity versus high-complexity, action-oriented versus tactical, can-play-it-while-watching-a-lecture-series versus requires-full-attention. If I had to put down Arena for a couple of months, I could pick it up again without having to re-orient myself. I don't mean that as high praise, but there is a place for such games, and Arena fills that niche well.

   

Time so far: 14 hours 

   

Star Trail: The Cruelest Month

Jewel of the Nile (1985) did it first, jackass.

        

It helps to know that although this entry will go live on 4 April, it represents a session that I played three days earlier. 

     

When I left Tjolmar, I was determined to reach Tiefhusen by going south via the westernmost path, the same way I had reached Tjolmar by going west via the northernmost path. It went fine. We soon reached Norhus, a menu town with an inn and a ferry service going down the river. We chose to stay on foot. Forest gnomes continued to ambush us periodically, and one night, there were two of them instead of one, and they didn't flee after attacking. We reluctantly killed them. When I reloaded later, this didn't happen again, and I was glad. By the way, Titus told me why this happens, but I'd rather deal with them than constantly have to equip and unequip Gnomon's axe. When forest gnomes don't attack at night, sometimes orcs do.

       

Negotiating to cross a river.

      

Continuing to follow the river, we came to Hilvalla, another menu town with a ferry. Here, we crossed the river to the west and followed a road going west into some mountains. The path ended at a T-junction on the far western edge of the game map. We went north.

   

"There's a strange smell in the air," the game said, noting that insects had mysteriously fled. We chose to keep going. "All around you , the trees and bushes are dead," the next screen read. The party got sick. We chose to keep going. Finally, at the top of a hill, we noted a desolated area empty of life. "The stinging smell of corruption burns your nostrils," the game said. A character vomited. A black spot in the barren landscape was moving towards us. We chose to move on.

  

We died a scripted death at the fangs of a basilisk.

      

This is true. I died taking this screenshot.

       

We had a saved game from the night before, but I thought maybe we would need mirrors to beat him. (In fairness, the game never said we were turned to stone. I don't know if a basilisk even does that in The Dark Eye. But I figured the shops must sell mirrors for something.) I thus reloaded my save from Tjolmar, bought mirrors for all characters, stuck them in their off hands, and repeated the journey. It had no effect on what happened. Neither did putting the mirrors in the main hand. I experimented with different spells, but I honestly couldn't think of anything that would really help. I had everyone chew Donf sprigs, which supposedly protect against paralysis, and Belmart leaves, which protect against poison and disease. Nothing changed the message. I eventually gave up, and commenters confirmed that there is no way to defeat the basilisk in this version. 

   

We continued south until we were parallel with Tiefhusen and then, having found nothing else on the road, headed for the city. 

      

That's not a good sign.

          

Tiefhusen is a port city with a low wall around it. At first, I thought the orcish-looking figures evenly spaced along the exterior of the north wall were statues, but dialogue in the city made me realize that they're actual orcs. For a while, I thought they might be besieging the city, but I think I was supposed to get the impression that they had in fact conquered and occupied the city. The game is a bit maddening in how obliquely it delivers such information. We got no messages to that effect as we entered; we had to suss it out from the fact that the harbor was blockaded with buoys, the presence of the (non-interactable) orc guards on the borders, and some vague comments from NPCs. A couple of them said something along the lines that Tiefhusen held out longer than most cities, and one told me that the priestess of the temple of Rondra killed the orc leader.

         

No, that's not "enough said." Finish the story!

       

For the dozenth time, I wish the game had done a better job setting up its political situation in the manual, opening cinematic, or even clear NPC dialogue. Commenters on my last entry hinted at lore that is only alluded to in the game, and I had no luck finding a summary when I Googled appropriate terms. You know how much I enjoy history and lore; I'm practically drooling with every foreshadowing in Arena. But the lore of Star Trail seems oddly elusive. It's constantly beneath the surface of the game, but there are a limited number of wells, and they yield only a trickle of water. To be clear, I have no problem with such situations when the lore itself is supposed to be unclear, as in the interpretation of ancient historical events or the true nature of the gods. But the fact that a major city is conquered and occupied by an invading force is something that should have been front-and-center.

      

Bollards—or whatever the nautical form of bollards is called—prevent entry into Tiefhusen's harbor.

       

The occupation didn't seem to have much effect on the availability of goods and services. As I explored the city's shops, inns, and taverns, I asked about both ORCS and STAR TRAIL. Hesindian, the priest at the Temple of Hesinde, told me that Boozy Jandor has a lot to say about the latter, and that I'd probably find him in a tavern. I found him in the first tavern I visited, Pile o' Gold. We had to buy him round after round of drinks and keep returning him to the subject as his narrative went astray, but eventually he told us that they'd know something about it in the Temple of Phex, but that to successfully approach the priests in the temple, we'd need advice from "ole Hensger" who lives near the river.

     

Is this guy the young priest later? Discuss.

         

Other encounters in Tiefhusen:

   

• At the castle gates, a guard prodded us away. 

• An old man accused us of being part of a gang that's "making trouble at the riverbanks." He wanted 10 ducats not to report us to the guards. We tried to "teach him a lesson," but 20 guards popped up, beat Mahasim unconscious, and warned us that "those who do not respect Peridor will be taught respect by Arnuld." I guess the old man is Peridor and the captain of the guard is Arnuld. Later, a man warned us about the group: "[They] use the situation to extort money from strangers." 

• The Temple of Phex was closed. "Something like this has never been seen before anywhere in Arkania," the game said.

       

That seems unlikely.

       

• I'd like to re-emphasize that to explore any city in the game is to get the same set of rude messages in 90% of the houses that you try to visit: "You blackguards. May Travia forgive you"; "Well, whatta you know. Pity I haven't the time"; "Not bad! I wish I had the time to deal with you"; "Well, if you like housework, here's the place to be..."; "Scoundrels! Get out of my face, you lowlives!"; and so forth. But you have to hit all of them, since one could have a key NPC.

         

I'm going to need an explanation for this one.

       

Hensger was literally sitting under a tree in the north part of town. I think it's the first time that the game has shown an NPC in the environment like that. He presented himself as a rogue willing to fleece us for the information we desired. We agreed to pay him 80 ducats, or about one-third of our current purse, and he told us to meet him again at "dawn." We had to waste a day in the city before returning in the morning.

   

He led us through the streets, stopped at a building, and opened the bulkhead to a cellar. At his prodding, we entered. Naturally, he slammed it shut and locked it behind us.

       

And it's naturally immune to spells, lockpicks, brute force, etc.

      

We were surprised to find ourselves in a dungeon beneath the Temple of Phex. It was a reasonably large level, with multiple secret doors cued with a slightly different wall color. As we explored, we were attacked repeatedly by mummies, priests, skeletons, and skeleton warriors, each providing a reasonably vigorous workout.

           

A battle with some skeletons.

          

One chest offered a golden throwing axe, and for a blissful couple of hours—hilarious in retrospect—I thought we had actually found Star Trail. (My enthusiasm was a bit dampened by the fact that none of my characters are particularly skilled in throwing weapons.) Another chest had Phex's Shield and Phex's Helmet, setting up another comment section where fans of the game could criticize my poor decision-making skills in stealing from a god. I don't care. The game offers so few weapon and armor upgrades that I'm taking what I can get, god or no god.

       

Did we just . . . win?

         

In this case, taking the items caused a poltergeist to materialize in the only corridor out of the area. He didn't attack, but he refused to let me pass, and my characters shouted that he couldn't be destroyed with weapons. I paged through my spells and was successful with "Banish Spirit."

      

I think the game needs to elaborate on "you do not success."

       

A few other encounters in the dungeon:

   

• There were two places where I was offered the opportunity to pick up a parchment on the floor. Both caused me to get attacked by four skeleton warriors. One offered a recipe for a magic potion (brandy, 2 mandrake roots, 2 kairans, and a thonnys); the other had a recipe for a "money crapper": charcoal, an "arch lump," a copper cauldron, a basilisk tongue, a crystal ball, and fire powder. I assume this is the "prank" that Titus Sturmfels was referring to in this comment. I don't know where to get most of these items, so I don't mind if someone just spoils what this is all about.

• There was a memorable moment in which we saw some skeletons hanging on a wall and Toliman must have failed his "Necrophobia" check.

     

That's kind-of how I feel, now that I'm in my 50s.

      

• These were the skeletons, by the way:

      

I guess someone passed his "Paleontology" check.

       

• There was some nice artwork on the walls of the dungeon, including this repeating design:

      

Does this have any special Dark Eye meaning?

      

• And this painting from the box cover of Blade of Destiny:

      

They're just reminding us that we were actually able to find the subtitular weapon in the previous game.

        

• One room had an inscription on the wall that said: "He whose sword slices the silence shall reap Boron's doom." Boron is the god of death, and his "doom" is presumably death, but I don't know what "slices the silence" means. 

       

"Wey oh," indeed.

     

• Gnomon's high "Danger Sense" (or perhaps "Perception") skill saved us from several traps.

• I haven't had any lockpicks since the orcs took them when I entered Lowangen. Fortunately, the doors in the dungeon yielded to brute force. One required a key that we found. 

• It's my usual practice to fight battles the long way for a while and then let the computer finish them off when it's clear that I have the upper hand. In those moments, the game often shows a "hand" symbol above the character's portrait on the quick-combat screen. The manual suggests that this means the character is disarmed, except all those characters have weapons equipped and have no problem using them in regular combat. Do those symbols mean something else? (Forgot to get a screenshot, sorry.)

           

Gnomon expresses a fetish that I didn't even know existed.

      

Completing the dungeon meant opening several doors that could only be opened by solving some riddles. The first involved a wall plate with a man's face that asked: "When is the Light of Phex alone?" I had a blank to type in the answer. Phex, according to the manual, is the god of merchants, thieves, and the night. Only one of those is a valid answer to "when." I tried NIGHT and was correct.

     

Thought you fooled me with those extra blanks, didn't you?

         

The second encounter was at an altar, where we were asked to donate some money. (We could also steal some, but I'm not dumb enough to steal from an altar in the god's own temple.) I saved and tried various amounts, finally getting a message that something happened off in the distance when we donated 70 gold pieces. That left us with only about 30. I suppose if you get here and you don't have that much, you'd better hope you have a pre-dungeon save. I feel like someone warned me about this in a past comment.

         

I wonder what would have happened if we'd put a big bag of sand in there.

       

The third puzzle was a cute little memory puzzle involving tiles arranged in a 5 x 3 grid. Clicking on any tile revealed an image behind it. The images included snakes, chests, birds, horses, dolphins, lions, lizards, and foxes. Only three tiles remained active at any time, so I figured the puzzle wanted me to find three of one of the creatures. I think that the only symbol repeated three times was the fox, which made it rather easy to figure out. Also, there was fox iconography elsewhere in the dungeon, and a fox makes sense as a symbol for the god of thieves. Plus, "Phex" even sounds like "fox."

      

The symbols are oddly well-drawn for such a brief appearance.

      

I've compared Arena favorably to Star Trail in some areas, but Star Trail is clearly the winner when it comes to the interactivity of its environments. In Arena, I can barely pick up a key. I don't think the engine allows for features like buttons, chains, and switches, let alone memory puzzles embedded in the wall. 

     

Together, these puzzles opened the way to the final area, where in a cutscene we met three priests of Phex including Hensger. I'm going to type the older priest's speech in its entirety because it raises a lot of questions:

      

I assume you want to know where Star Trail is. Put your mind at ease: The axe is safe and secure where it belongs. In the hands of Phex. It has been there all this time. Where exactly is none of your business. But it is in the middle of Orcish Lands and thus impossible to reach. In some ways, we are sorry that you have gone through such strenuous effort. Especially since you shall not receive the reward our young brother mentioned so rashly. You see, all of this has been no more than a test. No, not for you, but for our acolyte here. You weren't slated for any kind of test. Do you really believe the fates would be so unimaginative as to test you twice in allowing you to search for some weapon? As for you, young friend: You failed your test in Historical Research miserably; however, it was a minor subject, and you deserve recommendation for your achievements in building security and motivation of third parties. We shall go easy on you. But you must take care to be more diligent in your research next time. And you, brave heroes, be assured of our eternal gratitude. But for now, I must ask you to leave the temple as the initiation rites are reserved for those who have reached a certain level.

      

At this point, we had options to flee or attack the priests. I chose to attack them, but they got to act first in the subsequent battle, and they just immediately fled. 

       

The first option, while the best one, doesn't accomplish anything.

     

So let's recap:

      

• The subtitle of the game is Star Trail.
• "Star Trail" turns out to be a throwing axe.
• The quest to find the throwing axe isn't the main quest of the game.
• And it can't even be completed.

           

Ooh, I think there's a meme for this.

        

          

It's an audacious approach, I'll give them that. And the reveal came on the perfect day for it. The wink-wink-nudge-nudge part of the speech is in the screenshot at the top of this entry. The subtitle of the first game was Blade of Destiny, and the party actually recovered the Blade of Destiny. "Did you really think we'd do the same thing again?" (It wouldn't surprise me if the three faces were modeled on the three primary developers.) No, I didn't. I wouldn't have imagined for a second that "Star Trail" was a weapon. I would have thought it had to do with the long route through the wilderness that we've had to take between various plot points. It was the game itself that artificially created the parallel just so it could yank the rug out from under us.

        

Where do these seven guys fit into your "test"?

        

The priest was talking to the acolyte in the last few sentences, and I'm not sure why the young man would have failed "Historical Research." All I can say is that he got a lot of his fellow priests killed in the dungeon's battles, which is something that they never address. 

   

As we exited the dungeon, four of my characters leveled up. Lilii had become paralyzed in some combat, a condition that supposedly goes away with a few days' rest, so we went to an inn to rest and recover our hit points. For some dumb reason, I didn't save. After we went to sleep, the game narrated that a band of orcs burst into our room. "An informer has supplied us with evidence about subversive activities by you," they said. The orc captain ordered his soldiers to execute us, and then they did! Each one of the characters died in turn, with the game giving us no chance to defend ourselves.

     

Articulate for an orc.

       

On a reload (from before Lilii was paralyzed, fortunately), I finished the dungeon again, went through the long leveling-up process, and got out of the city immediately. I continued working my way through the mountains, stepped on a stick, and was surrounded by an army of orcs. They grabbed us, stripped us of all of our items, including our magic items this time, and threw us into a dungeon cell. An interminable series of messages relaying the passage of days followed, but I'll relate those (if I have to) at a later date.

     

You wouldn't want to give me any kind of role-playing choice here.

         

For now, I'm going to stop, because nothing else the game has to offer can top the perfect series of events that it inflicted upon me on this memorable April day.

    

Time so far: 43 hours