Faery Tale Adventure: Back on the Quest

Yes, with the entire kingdom at stake, this is a good time to be cryptic

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Many more breaks like that, and I'll have to re-title my blog "The Occasional CRPG Enthusiast." It took me a while to get back into the swing of Faery Tale Adventure, but I fought the urge to move on to First Expedition and got back on the trail of the elusive main quest, with the help of maps offered by Acrin1 and Andy, and with a clue offered by Jason Dyer. Even before Jason spoke, the crypt had been nagging me. The first steps on the main quest are probably near the beginning town of Tambry, the graveyard is near Tambry, so what are the odds that nothing happens in the crypt? I figured I should visit at night, and sure enough I encountered a spectre who tasked me with retrieving the bones of the Ancient King in exchange for his help destroying the evil necromancer.

Although the pronoun is confusing, I assume he means he'll help me destroy the necromancer, not the Ancient King.

I had no idea where to find these bones, so I decided to adopt a plan of just following the road network using the "always choose the right path" system and seeing where it took me. The path from Tambry bent from the south to the west to the north, across a river, past the beggar mentioned in my previous posting, and to an inn where I found food and rest but no help. Back on the road, this time heading west for a long while. There is simply no excuse for the size of the game world. It takes a good 20 minutes of real time to walk between towns, and there's nothing interesting in between except the occasional battle or bit of treasure. It would be one thing if the enormous world was peppered with caves and ruins and such, like Morrowind, but Faery Tale Adventure is big just to be big. I encountered an old man on the side of the road who said, "Kind deeds could gain thee a friend from the sea." At length, I came across another inn, which I would have sworn was the same one I just left except I had been walking west for a quarter of an hour. I backtracked to the last branch in the path and, after another long trek, came to the Tombs of Hemsath. That sounded promising for my quest to retrieve a set of bones. This gave me my first look at a Faery Tale Adventure dungeon, and I'm sure I will surprise no one to report that it is huge and boring and empty, except for the same types of creatures I found outside. After almost half an hour in the tomb's interminable, featureless hallways, I began to reflect that Weevil and Logan have a lot more similarities than differences. This is because I was watching Veronica Mars on my other monitor. Friends, it's generally a bad sign when you feel compelled to watch TV in order to break the monotony of your game, although I'm not particularly disappointed because it turns out that Veronica Mars is a very cool show. After a maze of endless doors, in which I used most of my accumulated keys... ...I found a tomb containing my prize: a single bone. Returning it to the crypt, I was rewarded with a crystal shard. I assume this will help me win the game in some way, although it still leaves me a bit clueless as to how to continue the main quest. But with the maps provided by my commenters, I can see the location of some other towns to explore. Part of the adventure in this game is figuring out the uses for the various objects that you find. I have quite a few of them. The game is similar to Ultima II in which slaying various creatures rewarded you with skeleton keys and blue tassels and such. In this game, the various objects, with their associated uses, from left to right in the screenshot, are:

• Four types of weapons: daggers, maces, swords, and bows
• Arrows for the bow
• Blue stones. I have no idea what they do; the game won't let me use them.
• Green jewels. They create light when it's dark.
• Glass vials. Restore hit points.
• Crystal orbs. Not sure.
• Bird totems. They give you a map of the surrounding area and usually create a video corruption so bad I have to quit DOSBox and restart.
• Gold rings. Unknown.
• Jade skulls. They kill every enemy on the visible screen--sort of like the skull of Mondain but without losing eighths. Very handy.
• Keys of various colors. They open corresponding doors.

I got a hint about how to use the totems from a guy on the side of the road, so I suspect the orbs, blue stones, and gold rings will be subjects of similar hints. Aside from lacking much direction, my main problem now is a certain lack of challenge. My "bravery" is almost 350 and my vitality about a third of that, and it's been ages since I died. The game keeps throwing hosts of easily-defeated foes at me. Here's hoping I find some more clues and challenges in Marheim, my next stop. A lot of you seem to want me to finish this one, so I'll stick with it as long as I can. Thanks for your patience during my absence. As I said in my last post, I'm off from work until January 10, so I hope to provide a posting a day until then (excepting Christmas, perhaps). Video to come tomorrow.