Betrayal at Krondor: Para Bellum

 

Prince Arutha strategizes to counter the Moredhel threat.

 

This is the first game I've played with "Chapters." It apparently isn't the first in the RPG genre, although unless some console game did it first, it seems to be the first with a western release. In any event, I can't imagine that the authors of Krondor played Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes in Japanese, so I suspect that to them it was an original idea: An RPG with a story like a novel. It fits well with the thematic basis of the game.

   

I always have a viscerally negative reaction to "chapters" even though at least one of my favorite games, Baldur's Gate, uses them. I don't like gameplay that is overly structured: I prefer open worlds and nonlinear plots. I am aware that many games without chapters still have too much structure and linear plots, and I am aware that many games with chapters actually offer a lot of nonlinearity and player agency--Baldur's Gate again comes to mind--but I still feel like a "chapter" approach signals from the outset that the player's choices are going to be limited.

      

Arutha is a bit rude as the next chapter begins.

     

Chapter 1 of Betrayal at Krondor ends with the party's arrival at the titular capital, and the presentation of the Moredhel fugitive, Gorath, to Prince Arutha. The archmage Puck saves Gorath from an assassin posing as a palace guard. Chapter 2 ("Shadow of the Nighthawks") begins on the heels of this event. The opening narration is told from the perspective of Gorath, who is trying to warn Prince Arutha of the forthcoming Moredhel invasion. Pug's daughter, Gamina, and the Tsurani great one Makala (I believe an original character to the game) read his thoughts to detect any hints of treachery. Arutha bristles at Gorath's warnings and questions why Gorath would betray his own people; Gorath replies that as great a threat as Delekhan (the Moredhel general) is to the Kingdom of the Isles, his rule is even worse for the Moredhel.

     

I suppose that's better than vice versa.

      

Arthura complains that he doesn't know where to send his troops in preparation for the invasion ("Highcastle? Ironpass? Northwarden?"); Gorath replies that he doesn't know, either, but he thinks he can learn Delekhan's plans by intercepting messages sent between the Nighthawks--an assassins' guild that Delekhan is paying to spy for him--and Delekhan. "The messengers [are] always sent to a rendezvous in Romney," Gorath explains, and asks for leave to investigate the city. Arutha grudgingly accedes to Gorath's plans but insists that Seigneur James accompany him ("I know you might have preferred Locklear's company, but he has business elsewhere").

    

As Gorath leaves with Makala and Gamina to take a tour of Krondor, Pug and Arutha discuss strategy. Arutha thinks Highcastle is the most likely target, as it is closer to Delekhan's capital at Sar-Sargoth. Arutha begins drawing up plans to call extra soldiers from other garrisons. 

   

A new quest.

      

After that, I can finally start moving around. I begin with only James and Gorath--no third member--in the palace of Krondor, with Pug's wife Katala. She explains that no one important is around. James is able to enter Locklear's apartments, where we find all of the gold and Locklear's inventory left over from Chapter 1. I was worried we wouldn't be able to carry it forward. I gave Jimmy a few items related to lockpicking, torches, potions, and the picks themselves.

   

I try to have the pair exit the palace the normal way, but James insists that Delekhan might have spies, and that exiting via the sewers (the way we came) is the more strategic choice. Hence, we soon found ourselves back in there. I headed for the exit, finding no new encounters on the way. I should note that Christopher Theofilos's advice to fiddle with the step size and turn size did the trick, and movement was a lot faster and more intuitive, although I still haven't mastered the trick of not getting caught up on corners. You can't cut your turns closely in this game. You have to wait until the adjacent passage is a full 90 degrees to your left or right before you rotate and move forward. There's also no moving and turning at the same time; hitting either of the side arrows stops all forward momentum.

    

Owyn meets up with us as we reach the exit, having discerned through various palace clues that we were heading out on a secret mission. James and Gorath try to convince him that the journey will be too dangerous, but Owyn insists on coming along. 

       

I'm sure that dead animal on your head won't arouse any suspicion.

      

We reach the exit and are able to offload some excess gear in a shop outside the palace gates, bringing our financial total to 651 sovereigns, 9 royals. I briefly ponder whether to save it or to blow it all on either a Keshian Tapir (a weapon) or a suit of Euliliko Armor. I decide to keep it for now but to otherwise not be stingy with spending money on this leg of the adventure.

   

On the road, I take stock of James in comparison to Locklear. He's a little weaker, but faster. His "Melee Accuracy" statistic is 22% worse, but his "Lockpicking" is 32% better and his "Stealth" is 23% better. Other statistics are within 10%. All his equipment is at 100%. I'm sure he'll be fine, but as you might imagine, I don't love that the player has no choice in his characters. James is also more capital-c Canonical than Locklear, limiting any sense of making the character your own. 

     

He's also about 20 years older than in the books.

   

Outside, we're on the same map as in Chapter 1. I don't know if there are new encounters in the old places or if the chapter seeded the areas with new ones. Romney isn't terribly far away to the northeast, I could take one of two paths there, or I could go practically all the way around the world to get there. Part of me wonders what would happen if I went all the way to Sar-Sargoth and tried to find Delekhan right now.

     

Romney is further to the right than I remember.

    

Mindful that we're being stalked by assassins, I adopt the best approach I know to confound someone who is trying to predict your moves: randomization. The first intersection offers three paths. I roll the dice and end up on the southernmost path heading east.

     

I'm just doing what the coin says.

      

As before, I don't stick to the road but rather crisscross it, moving between the maps' edges and around mountains, looking for treasures or random encounters. The first place we come to is a village called Darkmoor. The name sounds familiar; sure enough, it's a dungeon in Might and Magic VI; it also appears in Darkmoor Hold (1985), a game I have absolutely no memory of playing or writing about. I hope that's just a matter of too many RPGs and not that I'm getting old. Anyway, in the town we find:

   

• A closed and locked barn where no one will answer our knocks.

• Three abandoned houses; one with 47 sovereigns and a light crossbow; one with three lockpicks and a shovel; one with a peasant's key.

• A shop offering rations, hammers, ropes, shovels, and torches. I buy a couple of torches.

        

The other items have been plentiful so far.

      

• An inn. Nobody wants to talk. We buy rations and ale.

• A house occupied by a woman named Caroline who tells us that the weird woman who lives down the road only comes out at night.

• A house at which a voice croaks to come back when it's dark, "and I will tell you about the Rusalki." I do as she instructs and meet an old woman who tells me a cryptic story about "innocence lost" and "spring blossoms robbed of carnal bliss." She concludes with: "Find the Magic Touch or you too may feel her icy kiss." I wouldn't be able to piece together her story except I've had some experience with Rusalki. 

         

I wonder if this will pay off later. I don't see any water nearby.

    

We wander into a trap on the way out of town, this one not accompanied by a battle. It's more elaborate than any trap I faced in Chapter 1, with six staves poking out of the ground, a rotating crystal, and what looks like another crystal on its side. The goal is always for at least one character to get to the far side of the zone.

     

Working my way through the trap.

          

I know from experience that walking between two staves will result in the character getting zapped. I think the staves are color-coded with the balls on top, but I can't discern the difference between most of the colors. I just have to guess. With some experimentation, I find that you can push the standing, rotating crystals in the direction opposite that from which you approach them. The crystal on its side shoots a fireball at anyone who enters its path, but these can be blocked with the crystals that you can push. With these rules understood, this particular trap becomes easy: push the standing crystal in front of the horizontal crystal and walk to the other side. I assume that the traps will get more complicated as the game progresses.

    

Our next stop is the Temple of Ruthia, where we unlock another teleporter. The high priestess won't see us. We fight our first battle of the chapter a few clicks along from the temple--with five Nighthawks! I whiff most of my attacks and get slaughtered. I hate how enemies crowd Owyn, leaving him nowhere to back off and cast spells. 

     

Five Nighthawks prepare to massacre us.

       

I don't know if Nighthawks are never visible in the environment or if this is just an inescapable ambush, but on a reload, I can't identify them before they attack. Two more attempts end the same way. Finally, I'm able to avoid the battle completely by skirting around to the south, but I don't like the solution. Surely, I'm supposed to be able to defeat these enemies. I just don't see how. I don't really have any tactics except for spells, and the ambush makes it impossible for Owyn to ever be in a position to cast any. What am I missing? I guess I should have bought that better sword.

   

A cemetery (again, Owyn wants to dig up every grave) precedes a southern spur, which we take, to the city of Malac's Cross. It's a bustling menu city with:

    

• A barrel with a rope.

• A hall where someone demands a "lecture ticket," which we don't have. 

    

I don't believe we ever learn who Malac is.

    

• An inn where we've apparently just missed an epic chess match, described for us in excruciating detail by the innkeeper, Ivan Skaald. James impresses him with his knowledge of the game ("the Prince likes to play"). The NPC offers more keyword options than any in the game so far. Several have to do with chess moves, and the innkeeper offers to play with emeralds for a bet, but we don't have any. He also tells us of a suspicious band of "tax collectors" demanding ridiculous amounts of money in Lyton. An old woman named Petrumh mistakes James for someone named Lysle, insisting that he's James's twin brother. The innkeeper agrees that James looks like Lysle, and he says the man can probably be found in Darkmoor.

      

I assume that at some point, I'll meet an NPC with whom I have 16 keyword options.

     

• An armory.

• The Abbey of Ishap. Again, we unlock a teleporter. Abbot Graves talks to us a bit about the program of study that the abbey offers, including a current lecture on tactics delivered by Guy du Bas-Tyra, who is something of an antagonist during the first two Riftwar books but redeems himself at the Battle of Sethanon. For 20 sovereigns, Graves gives us the lecture ticket we need to enter the hall. 

       

Graves tries to enroll Owyn.

      

• Guy gives his lecture, focusing on battles mentioned in the books. When he sees James with a Moredhel, he knows something odd is afoot, so we're forced to tell him the truth. "The party's abilities have increased," the game says as we leave town, indicating that our "Assessment" skills increased by a few percentage points.

    

I realize I haven't been using "Assessment" in combat, so I return to the Nighthawks and give it a try. It doesn't help and I get slaughtered again.

     

Even one Nighthawk is stronger than anyone in my party.

        

I have to wrap up here, a bit early, as I didn't have much time to play today. Maybe it's time to pick up the pace for the next entry. What do you think--keep going with this level of detail or start eliding more in the name of making quicker progress?

    

Time so far: 15 hours

Enchantasy: Quest Technically Completed

I just hope it's the right one.

       

This final session began in Keldar, where I took a ship to Hazlett and from there to Portsmith, stole a skiff, and rowed around the continent to Sonora. I used my pass to enter the Oasis Club, which turned out to be basically a regular tavern. As I entered, a patron named Sally warned me to show respect to an old man named Erasmus who's "always babbling about some legend."

      

Accessing an exclusive club.

    

As I suspected, the "legend" in question was that of Rotas, the Great Archer, who died in a sandstorm. His ghost is supposedly still around, guarding the Mystic Bow in a dungeon deep beneath the sand, near a mirage. "Go to it and invoke his name," he finished.

   

Pretty much every other NPC in the bar just commented on Erasmus, so we exited the town to find the mirage. We discovered it in a ring of rocks: a square that looked like water from a distance but disappeared as we got close. We stood in the square, invoked ROTAS, and found ourselves in a dungeon.

   

I'm not sure a real mirage would be surrounded by mountains like this.

    

Exploring, we found the ghost of Rotas, who asked us to bring him a golden bow from the southeast room. The room had a maze of corridors in which the wrong turn would dump us down to a level full of fire squares. It was impossible to get out of the level without taking some damage from the fire, and we had to find telegems to use in a teleporter. Since there was a limited supply of telegems, I just started saving and reloading if I fell down a pit. Through trial and error, we found a key that opened a door that led us to the golden bow. It turns out that there was a map through the area in a chest elsewhere in the dungeon, past two very hard battles with elite archers who always surprised us, but I didn't find that until later.

       

I found this after it was helpful.

       

We returned the golden bow to Rotas, who turned it into the Mystic Bow. Like the Mystic Sword, it has the maximum weapon rating of 25.  

       

Yes, I walked around a dungeon.

       

We returned to Keldar, rested, and then walked to the Royal Castle and made our way to the basement and its fields of fire. It turns out that the Flame Scroll is an infinite-use item that destroys one fire square at a time, so we could have saved ourselves a lot of hit points by using it in Rotas's dungeon. Slowly, we minced our way through the flame squares. 

         

Destroying the fire fields one by one.

       

The combats in the dungeon were the hardest I faced so far. Large groups of mages kept attacking, surprising us, and wiping us out in the first round with mass-damage spells. I had to reload frequently and had to retreat to Keldar four times, twice just to rest and heal, once to buy a telegem because the dungeon had one of those damned portals, and once for some dynamite to blast open a wall.

       

A typical dungeon battle.

       

In the middle of our explorations, RICH9000, our robot friend from the alien dungeon, suddenly appeared and alerted us to a destructible wall. I think we could have found it on our own, but it was still nice of him. Behind the weak wall was the king's tiara. I never found the magic sling that was supposed to be hidden in the dungeon despite casting "See Secret" on just about every wall.

       

This game's version of the Adoring Fan.

       

When I returned the tiara to Uriah, the king's advisor, he gave me a mage staff. I never got to see how it performed against other staves because the game crashed as I exited the dialogue. By this time in the game, it was constantly crashing, often when going into combat, often when changing between areas, sometimes in mid-stride. When I reloaded from the dungeon and tried to bring the tiara to Uriah again, the game seemed to think I had already given it to him, as it just had him say "thank you again for your help!" But the tiara was still in my inventory. I continued on, desperately hoping this hadn't caused an unwinnable condition.

       

If I need that staff, I'm screwed.

       

Moving on, I turned my attention next to Ransley Manor and the Magian Gem. Last session, I had spent a lot of time tracking down a piece of paper that gave a code: "YELLOW, BLUE, WHITE." I had written down: "Use the code to enter the locked room at Ransley Manor." I don't really know what I meant by that, since there's no place in Ransley Manor that offers the ability to use a letter code. The door I need to enter is simply locked. Yelling "YELLOW" outside the door didn't accomplish anything.

      

I imagine I looked like an idiot.

     

I went back to Trevor's house in Kadaar and realized in talking to him that I'd misunderstood some of the earlier dialogue. His father, Trevelyan, isn't in the house: he plays piano in the tavern downstairs. I visited the father and asked about his CHEST. He said he put it in storage at Griswold's, but he lost the claim ticket. At this point, I should have gone to Griswold's and just searched every chest (although I'm not sure that would have worked). Instead, I followed a very long quest chain--one of the many ways the game has of sending you on a long diversion--that started with Trevelyan's friend Somerton, who told me that his best friend, Kirk, has been missing since he went on an expedition for the Archaeological Society in Dalia.

      

Again the use of quotes instead of bold to annotate keywords creates some amusing dialogue.

       

In Dalia, the society told me that Kirk had gone on an expedition to a cave on Hesperios, but only Archaeological Society members have the password needed to enter. They forced me to join the Archaeological Society (this time, the membership director, Herbert, would speak with me), which involved going to a different cave, on an island in a lake in Meridion, and finding a dinosaur fossil. Kudos to this pseudo-medieval society for knowing what dinosaurs are; it took us until the cusp of the Industrial Age. 

   

The fossil dungeon wasn't terribly long, but I'm getting sick of combat at this point, so I groan every time I have to explore a dungeon, as combats are not avoidable there. Still, it only took me about 20 minutes to find the fossil.

      

I wonder if this medieval society has the same kinds of dinosaurs as we do.

     

I joined the Society and learned the password (KRATA) to the cave on Hesperios. I sailed to Aramon, on the same island, and walked north until I found the cave. It was a bit longer than the fossil cave, with about double the battles, and I had to retreat to Aramon once for healing, mana restoration, arrows, and potions. In the end, I found Kirk's mangled body in a corner. A piece of paper in his pocket directed me to the right area (Section J, Area 13) at Griswold's Storage. 

    

There's no particular indication how he died.

       

That chest contained a "Ransley Map," which depicted nine chairs, facing different directions, with different colored dots next to them. At this point, I was stuck on this quest. I couldn't figure out any place in Ransley Manor or otherwise in which I could do anything with different configurations of chairs. Fortunately, commenter RandomGamer reminded me of the "Magic Unlock" spell, which hasn't been used anywhere else in the game. It was the key to getting in the room, which had the same configuration of chairs.

      

The Ransley Map . . .

. . . and the room behind the door. I wonder if the game would have let me figure this one out through trial and error.

      

Sitting on the chairs in the right order opened a secret door, which led to a dungeon. I groaned, but fortunately there were no battles--just a corridor, another magically-locked door, a study, a book talking about the Magian Gem, and a chest with the gem itself. It seems to cast a kind of version of "See Secret" when used. This requires the user to be near the buried Grimoire.

      

Ransley's diary.

     

So all that was left at this point was to find the map to the Grimoire itself. For that, the game had a long scavenger hunt in store. It started with my visit to Pirate's Cove (the game has it that way, with the apostrophe in what I think is the wrong place), where two guards demanded the pass from the pirate boss, Seurat, which I had achieved several entries ago.

   

The underboss of the pirate clan, Bryce, said he knew of the treasure map, but he wanted me to kill Seurat for the knowledge. I knew there was no way I could do this, as the game has no mechanism for attacking NPCs, so I kept looking. As I wandered the village, a pirate approached with a warning message for me to bring to Seurat. 

    

Technically, I had to go retrieve it from under his bed.

      

I returned the skiff to Haslett and hopped a ship for Aramon, where I found Seurat still in the tavern. He appreciated my loyalty, gave me 100 gold, and told me to talk to Jonah next to him. Jonah said he'd see what he could find out about the map. As I wondered how to operationalize that, he said, "Maybe I'll see you in Pirate's Cove!" This was a clue to take the ship back to Hazlett, steal the skiff again, and row to Pirate's Cove.

   

As I approached Bryce's headquarters, I heard "a scream coming from inside." Inside, Jonah was standing over Bryce's corpse. Jonah had asked around about the treasure map. "Charlie remembered seeing it," he said. It was sold in Kadaar to someone named Sisley. Jonah called the map "worthless," as "the area shown on the map doesn't even exist!"

      

This, alas, turns out to be accurate.

      

I returned the skiff to Hazlett, took a ship to Keldar, stole another skiff, and rowed it around the continent to Kadaar. Sisley was behind a locked door that I had to knock on. Of course, he didn't have the map. He had given it to his girlfriend, Acacia, who was visiting relatives in Sonora. I rowed back to Keldar, took a ship to Portsmith, stole a skiff, and rowed it to Sonora. Acacia was in her sister's place. I remember talking to her before. She had the map and didn't like it. She offered to trade it for an ancient scroll--if I could get one from Halstead in Dalia.

     

Or maybe you just give it to me and help me save the world?

        

I rowed back to Portsmith, took a ship to Hazlett, stole the same skiff I've stolen 50 times previously, and rowed it to Dalia. Wouldn't you know, Halstead had just sold his last ancient scroll to Thorley, who lives northeast of Keldar. I rowed the skiff to Keldar, disembarked, and walked to Thorley's hut. Thorley had the scroll but wasn't interested in selling it. "I just put it away," he said. We looted it from the dresser in his room. If the game was going to make me resort to crime, I don't know why I couldn't have just strongarmed Acacia into giving us the map.

       

Using "See Secret" to find the map in Thorley's house.

     

Back we went to Sonora, where Acacia finally traded us the ancient map. As we were warned by Jonah, it didn't seem to depict any place in Savallia. There are only two places in the game world that have an east-west bridge crossing a river, and neither have a peninsula that comes to that sharp a point, particularly with mountains northwest of a city or building. I spent a long time trying to find the most likely place, investigating in particular the areas around the Forest of No Return and southern Hesperios. I considered the possibility that the map was rotated, mirrored, or depicted a land with more water than in the present. I couldn't find anything.

            

Here's the map . . .

And here's the area of the world map that it's supposed to be depicting.

                   

I went through my screenshots and discovered that Mage Zedikiah, living near Shaaran, had wanted to speak to me when I obtained the map. I took it to him. He snatched it from me and interpreted it to be depicting an island to the west of Enchantasy and south of Hesperios. That turned out to be true. The bit jutting from the east is the western end of Enchantasy. The map is a pretty rough sketch, then, because the actual shape of the land formation isn't anything like the southern coast of Hesperios.

        

Could I have that back? What if I hadn't taken a screenshot?

     

Zedikiah gave me a note to take to Mage Lucien in Shaaran: "Provide this trusted apprentice of Master Rudimon with the ancient scroll you've guarded these many years." Lucien gave me a scroll. It told me to seek out the Mystical Pond, stand on the eastern dock, and invoke the word HOYAM. I would then learn two new words. "Proceed to the location shown on the map," it continued, and invoke the first word "between the rocks" and the second to "reveal a hidden chamber in [the] cave."

   

The Mystical Pond was easy to find, and invoking the word caused bolts to come from the sky and write two more words in the middle of the pond. That was cool.

        

On the other hand, this is a good way to get the attention of the FBI.

        

The hard part was following the instructions to "proceed to the location shown on the map," since it was an island, and I had no way to reach the island. It turns out by "the location," he meant the western end of Enchantasy, where two rocks flanked the westernmost square of land. Invoking QADIA there caused a bridge to the island to appear.

      

Is it a magic bridge, or just an invisible bridge?

          

I walked to the ring of mountains depicted on the map and entered the cave. The cave had a few combats, but it wasn't too bad. A few minutes into my exploration, my old friend RICH9000 appeared and said the cave wall three paces to my south was emitting a strange energy. I walked back there and invoked TEILA, which opened a secret corridor. This led to a chamber where the Magian Gem depicted something in the corner.

      

You again!?

       

I dug, and at last had the Eternal Grimoire!

   

But you know what else showed something in the corner? The "See Secret" spell. I also probably could have figured it out by trial and error. So I'm not sure what the whole Magian Gem part of the quest is actually for. I wonder if you could win without it. 

        

I think I could have figured that out.

        

The Grimoire is pretty cool. It equips as a spellbook except that all spells are cast at three times their regular power. "Thunderbolt" wipes out most entire parties with the Grimoire equipped. "Major Heal" can get everyone to full health in just a couple of castings.

    

Grimoire in hand, I went to the secret Underground hideout on Sonora. Seeing that I had the tome, the lookout gave me the password to enter the mountain cavern. A short cavern led to a valley with several buildings, one of which held the Underground leader, Jamall, and his lieutenant, Raymond. They told me stuff I already knew: Xanoc was originally Conax, expelled from the Mage Council for evil magic. He is behind the death of the 9 council members who expelled him. Xanoc plans to use Duke Hawthorne as his puppet, and he has kidnapped the Prince to ensure that Hawthorne gets the throne. The only thing new that they told me is that Xanoc's castle is on the Isle of the Dead in northeastern Savallia. 

       

At last, the elusive Jamall.

       

Jamall had made a deal with the pirate king, Seurat, to give me passage to the island. Seurat was lurking in a nearby house and told me to find a ship waiting on the eastern coast of Sonora.

       

And I did!

      

I hate to break here, I won't be able to finish the narrative, plus offer the GIMLET, without making this the longest entry I've ever written. So we'll pick up next time with the assault on Conax's castle and the endgame.

   

Time so far: 46 hours

    

Betrayal a Bit North of Krondor

 

Locklear name-drops half the title.

      

All right, in previous entries, we had our fun, but now it's time to get to Krondor. The Moredhel is up to something and Prince Arutha needs to know about it. 

   

I saved the last game in the village of Hawk's Hollow. I guess I didn't explore the buildings because the encounters are new to me this time. A man named Lucan invites us into his house and tries to pick Locklear's pocket, but Locklear catches him and forces him to teach the trio about picking locks, which increases our abilities. A paranoid resident demands to examine our hands before telling us to be alert for scrolls. It's late, so we stay at the Dusty Dwarf Inn, which otherwise has the usual services. After this night, we're finally back to full health and stamina.

    

We head west along the main road, looking for the road south that will lead us to Krondor. We're soon attacked by two Moredhel warriors, who we dispatch while taking a little damage.

         

And our statistics improve!

      

Further along, we come to a shop where Locklear mistakes the pieces of armor hanging from the rafters for body parts. We all (I assume) have a good laugh at his expense. It turns out to be a repair shop run by a gnome named Joseph the Animal. I'm not sure what use he is. He won't repair weapons, and we're capable of getting armor to around 85% on our own. Even though we're doing pretty well with money these days, we leave without getting any help.

      

Locklear is kind of an idiot.

      

A few observations about travel as we move on:

    

• Nighttime comes fast, especially if you're frequently pausing to, say, write blog notes.

• It would be nice if the game didn't decide on its own to spin me around so often.

• There's something off about the speed of turning or the visual feedback associated with turning. I routinely turn what appears from the view window to be 90 degrees but which registers on the compass as only half that.

• The button that has you automatically follow the main road is useful, but I worry it discourages exploration, like most "fast travel" systems.

• It's a lot faster and easier to move in the map view, but you miss things.

           

Cruising along using the automap.

       

We next encounter the Temple of Killian on the north side of the road. Like I guess all temples, it has a teleporter. We can take it to the only other temple we've visited, the Temple of Ishap, which would cost 85 sovereigns. That seems like a lot to go up the road, but I like the idea of having to pay for fast travel in general.

    

Three more Moredhel attack before we come to the southern turn, where we have to carefully navigate a trap. Locklear concludes from the complexity of the trap that Delekhan, the Moredhel general, is mobilizing spies already placed within the kingdom (rather than simply following us from the north). Gorath objects that word of his escape could only have traveled as fast as we have, to which Owyn suggests the possibility that Delekhan is using "mind speech" to communicate over long distances. Gorath replies that Owyn's hypothesis would fit with what he heard about some of the magicians surrounding Delekhan, including one named Nago.

    

I'm mostly able to ignore the graphics, but every so often it hits me all over again how ridiculous Owyn looks.

      

The Bitter Sea appears to our west as we continue south. We soon find yet another Moredhel box: "The light one breaks but never falls. His brother falls but never breaks." I figure this out partly by the riddle and partly by the available letters. (DAY) breaks but never falls and (NIGHT) falls but never breaks. It's cute. I've never heard it before, but I guess it's an old one, as plenty of web sites offer it with no reference to Krondor. The chest has a "Flamecast" scroll, 57 royals, and a torch.

      

Ocean in view. Oh, the joy.

     

On the way southeast, we encounter:

   

• A party of three Moredhel.

• A guy named Chanty living in a house alone. Although he talks with us at first, he becomes suspicious, slams the door, and won't answer it again.

• An empty house

• Another party of three Moredhel. We get the jump on them, and Owyn softens them up with "Flamecast."

• Another Moredhel chest: "A precious gift, this, yet it has no end or beginning, and in the middle, nothing." I want it to be DONUT, but it only has four letters. (RING), clearly. It has a couple of shells and 28 royals.

• "Though easy to spot, when allowed to plume, it is hard to see, when held in a room." I get it (SMOKE) mostly from the letters. 

    

We come to the town of Questor's View just as night is falling. I'm hoping for an inn, as we're pretty beat up again, and it fortunately has one: Babon's Hostel. I pay for some food and drink and we talk to some non-consequential NPCs before going to bed. The next morning, we explore the rest of the town. A resident gives us some rations for the road, and we decline to pay a sword trainer's fee of 75 sovereigns.

     

He's talking about a bird. This is somehow the only screenshot I took between the Temple of Killian and Questor's View. Either something went wrong with my CTRL key or I just got really immersed in the game.

     

Roads go north and south from Questor's View. The north road will take us back up to our starting point or let us reach Krondor through a clockwise trip through Eggley and Tanneurs. An NPC had previously suggested we avoid this road, but Locklear had also suspected that a psychic named Devon in Eggley might be the one communicating with the Moredhel general through mind magic. It's a tough call, but I decide to head directly south. In some later chapter, I'll exhaustively explore everything there is to do. For now, I want to get on with the plot.

      

Not all NPCs are useful.

     

We get attacked again by Moredhel. They tend to have archers these days, which adds a new challenge--one I usually negate with Owyn's "Despair Thy Eyes" spell. A farmer named Rowe meets us on the road and tells us of a terrible storm on its way; he offers to let us wait it out in his barn, though without Gorath ("I don't take in elves"). Locklear negotiates a rate of 10 gold pieces plus milking his cows in the morning. I'm annoyed by the offer, and the game hasn't shown any signs of having a weather system so far, so I decline. No inclement weather appears as we head south, even when we rest for a couple of days, so he was either trying to scam us or kill us. 

        

This is exactly how I pictured it in the book.

       

After another battle, we reach the city of Sarth, a menu fortress that I remember from Silverthorn. Unfortunately, the place offers no services, only a library where we can read several books that offer hints as to the mechanics of the game. There's no one to talk with in the fortress, but on the way out of town, we run into Brother Marc tending a field. He offers to train Owyn in magic for 50 sovereigns, which we accept. He also confirms there is no storm in the forecast, and he says that Rowe has been acting weird since his wife died. Marc also says he's been getting "dream sendings" with Gorath's face from an unknown source that must be close by.

    

The guy playing Brother Marc looks exactly like Dave Barry.

      

We are agonizingly close to Krondor, but I feel now like I'm meant to solve this "dream sending" quest, so we reluctantly turn around and head back north. On the way, we encounter Rowe again but have no new dialogue options. Now I'm curious what he's all about, so I accept his offer. He tells us his barn is pretty far to the south. "Knock on the door and my wife will fix you up." We already know his wife is dead, and his barn is now in the opposite direction that I want to travel. After some more dithering, I decide to see this encounter through and then reach Eggley by looping around from the south rather than continuing north.

    

On the way, we find a Moredhel chest (I forgot to write down the riddle) with 32 sovereigns, a shell, a suit of armor in near perfect condition, and an Amulet of the Upright Man, which adds 12% to my "Lockpick" skill. We stop at the Temple of Sung after that and unlock another teleporter. The priests are unable to sleep because of the "dream sending," which they think is "very close by."

         

My growing fast-travel options.

      

As we move south, we keep getting attacked by pirates, who Marc had warned us recently landed on the coast. Eventually, we reach Rowe's barn. As we enter, four Moredhel assassins apparate in front of our very eyes. One of them is a sorcerer, Nago, the very "dream sender" that Gorath told us about. 

      

It sounds like the other chapters' bosses will be anti-climactic.

         

There's no way to avoid surprise in the ensuing battle, which features three warriors and a mage who relentlessly blasts Owyn with "Flamecast" spells. After dying the first time, I buff with what limited potions I have and try again, this time concentrating on the mage first. I'm able to win, but with a lot of damage. The reward is 50 sovereigns, a two-handed broadsword, five "icers" that let you magically treat blades to do ice damage, and a note suggesting that the Moredhel have been placing fake notes concerning an attack to the south of Tanneurs in various chests.

 

I prepare to blind Nago.

            

In the aftermath, the party discusses whether Rowe had anything to do with the attack. "I think that bastard farmer set us up," Locklear opines. "He'd best have been paid well for his betrayal." The betrayal has happened! In the first chapter!

       

Funny how I haven't noticed anything while camping at night.

        

If Nago was the "dream sender," that means that the information I got about him being in Eggley were false or, more likely, I confused two different things. Just to be sure, I head back to the Temple of Sung. The priests confirm that the dreams have stopped. When the high priest credits this to the power of prayer, Gorath and Owyn bristle and inform the priest that in fact we solved the problem. As a reward, the priest teaches Owyn . . . well, I'm not sure. When I check my spells, he has "Gift of Sung" and "Hocho's Haven," neither of which I remember having before. Either he taught both or I picked up one somewhere else. Obviously, the "Gift of Sung" makes the most sense. 

    

Now able to smell Krondor, we run south and blunder into three more pirates, then two more, then three pirates and two Moredhel. I don't know why these pirates are involved, but they really don't want us to reach Krondor. I have plenty of rations, so I'm resting liberally between battles to restore health and stamina. We're able to surprise them in the last battle, fortunately, and I have Owyn start with a full-powered "Flamecast," which kills one of them right away and damages three others. Fortunately, they don't reach us during their turn that round, and I'm able to hit them with "Flamecast" a second time.

       

"Flamecast" damages everyone within two squares, so if I hit that center guy, it should damage everyone except the guy to the far right.

        

Finally, we reach the final approach to the city. Although the game suggests that there might be more assassins ahead, we're able to reach it without another battle. 

       

It's odd how I'm narrating this game in the present tense but the game insists on using the past tense.

     

Before heading to the palace, we unload some of our excess items in shops and visit the Rainbow Parrot Inn. Finally, we go to enter the palace and find that we can't because the gate mechanism is broken. Even worse, the guard that we're able to talk to through the broken portcullis refuses to go fetch anyone who will be helpful. Prince Arutha is in a meeting with Pug and Makala. Seigneur James is missing. The guard says the only way to enter is to go through the sewers beneath the city. This seems awfully contrived.

        

No. I'm ready to go back and climb over the fence or wait until the prince's meeting with Pug is over. It's not going to last multiple days, is it?

        

No sooner have we entered the sewers than a boy named Limm (who the gate guard mentioned) appears and warns us against walking the "thieves' road." When he understands we're friends with people he knows, he offers to sell us lockpicks for 25 gold pieces. I have several sets, though, so I decline.

  

Hugging the right wall, it's a while before we reach the next encounter--a chest that blows up in our faces when we try to open it. It damages us so badly that I reload rather than trying to recover from it. I can't remember how to search for traps, or if indeed there's even a way to choose to search for them, but in investigating my new spells, I discover that "Scent of Sarig" allows you to see trapped chests for 12 hours. It works, and we're able to deactivate it, earning 21 sovereigns and 88 royals.

       

Some thieves guard a ladder.

     

After several battles with groups of 2 or 3 thieves, we come to a ladder heading up. We try to take it, but the grate at the top is locked and I can't pick it. This happens in a couple more places.

       

Maybe I should have gotten more training.

     

A battle with three black-clad figures leaves us badly wounded. Shortly afterwards, we meet Seigneur James, a main character from the novels. Originally a street thief known as "Jimmy the Hand," he moves up in the world after he helps Prince Arutha on a few missions. He's part of the party who finds the Silverthorn in the second book, and one sequence from that novel is one of the better narratives I've read told from a thief's point of view. In the following dialogue, Locklear mentions that the group of black-clad figures were "Nighthawks," an assassin's guild, but James says that they're impostors: "Someone has been trying to convince Prince Arutha that the Guild of Death has reestablished operations here in Krondor," possibly to incite the city guard to clear the thieves out of the sewers. Locklear fills James in on our adventures and quest, and James gives us a key to the grates.

     

Your "bump of trouble"?

      

The key doesn't fit the first grate we try it on, so we have to keep exploring. We fight a few more thief battles (it would have been nice if Jimmy had spread the word that we were cool) before we finally find the "correct" ladder and head up to the palace.

      

Prince Arutha and Pug greet the weary trio.

       

Chapter 1 ends with the characters complaining about their noxious experience in the sewers as they blunder into Prince Arutha and Pug. After an exchange of pleasantries, Locklear explains to the prince what we've discovered about the Moredhel and their activities. In a lightly-animated sequence, Gorath drops his hood to the prince's astonishment. Before Locklear can explain, a Moredhel assassin appears in the chamber and fires an arrow, which Pug destroys in-flight with a fireball. The fireball continues past the arrow and slays the assassin, and suddenly we're in Chapter 2: "Shadow of the Nighthawks."

       

The exciting end to the first chapter.

         

At the end of the first chapter, I find myself liking the game but not quite understanding why it's so many commenters' favorite. The story and text are good, sure, but the way that they're narrated in the past tense enhances the perception that the player is just ferrying the characters between plot points rather than actively participating in the story's development. The lack of options during dialogues and encounters also feeds this perception. It annoyed me, for instance, that I couldn't avoid the obvious ambush even though I, as a player, figured it out long before I entered the barn. The combat system is fine, but only fine, and the equipment system feels a little under-developed.

   

Perhaps the best part of the game is the open game world. I took advantage of part of it, but I certainly could have explored more, earned more money, perhaps found better gear, paid for more training, and earned more experience. Since I have a saved game from the bottom of the ladder: Do you think I've accomplished enough for Chapter 1, or should I head back outside and see what adventures await in some of the eastern cities?

     

Time so far: 13 hours