Dark Queen of Krynn: Won!

I think I see Corey Cole off to the left.

          

The final hours of Dark Queen of Krynn began with our arrival at the Tower of Flame, the draconians' secret fortress in the middle of the Lava Sea. We flew there in a gnomish wind-ship; the gnomes were particularly interested in helping us because the Tower was kept aloft by a magic stone called the Grathanich that the gnomes wanted to get their hands on.

    

Dragons attacked as we arrived, and the party had to jump from the wind-ship to an upper-level deck. We were supposed to have the impression that the battle continued to rage outside, and indeed every time we opened a port-hole to look out, we received confirmation of that.

         

They battled for this entire session.

        

We had barely started exploring the level when we were forced to cross a rickety bridge. Crysia, the charmed sister of Captain Daenor, appeared on the other side of the bridge, and he ran to her. She clapped her hands, unleashing some spell that caused the bridge to collapse and dump us down to the bottom level, leaving Daenor behind.

The Tower of Flame ended up consisting of five levels. The bottom was 8 x 12, the next two 16 x 16, and the last two 12 x 12. They were very confusing. There was something to be accomplished on every level, but our progress was hampered by inconsistent ways of moving between levels; a staircase or air shaft available at one point might be closed the next time we arrived. Events conspired to keep dropping us from higher levels to lower ones. A lot of fixed encounters required other encounters to activate, so we'd find them even in areas that we thought we'd cleared. Random encounters never stopped, and resting was difficult. Beholders attacked randomly on all levels and occasioned a lot of reloads.

   

Draconians were everywhere, as both random and fixed encounters. Fire elementals and fire fiends came pouring out of the walls themselves. We also kept encountering troops of gnomes, some of which would join the party and help us out for a few battles until they all died.

       

That seems a little unfair.

        

On the bottom level, we ran into fire giants, salamanders, and other monsters tending "tower engines," and we fought repeated battles with them. We also destroyed a room full of chains and manacles, clearly intended for use during the invasion of Ansalon. Finally, we destroyed the engines that allowed enemies to traverse the tower's shafts at will--elevators, I take it.

   

I can't remember what the key battle was on Level 2, and I didn't take enough screen shots to help. On Level 3, there was a prison, and we freed a woman named Dahmia Sreen Luminar from one of the cells. We could tell at once that she was the mother of Elea, the young woman we met among the Hulderfolk. We got experience for telling her her daughter's name, which was a joke because there was nowhere left in the game to train. She showed us how to get to the next level by jumping on a bed, then disappeared.

      

"Arms that never held me / lips I've never kissed."

        

We found a central room on Level 4, which later turned out to be important, where draconians went through the ritual to change them from regular to "enhanced" versions of their species. The power behind this transformation turned out to be the very Grathanich that the gnomes were seeking. We interrupted the ritual and killed a bunch of draconians.

   

Gnomes helped us to Level 5 by flying a wind-ship up a shaft. We re-met Captain Daenor and Crysia there, and managed to break the draconians' bond on Crysia with "Dispel Magic." Daenor re-joined the party but seemed to have lost all of the equipment that we gave him last time he was with us. He was only with us for one battle before he carried his sister to a wind-ship and accidentally knocked away the anchor. The siblings sailed off into the distance.

        

"Missile" clearly wouldn't have worked. I wonder if the endgame would have changed accordingly.

       

Central to Level 5 was a chamber with a tripod holding the Grathanich. As we approached it, draconians closed in from all sides. This was the first of many battles that I thought might be the "final battle," particularly since Takhisis spoke to us through the mouths of the draconians as the battle began: "I have always intended that my next footsteps upon Krynn would be upon the heads of irksome unbelievers." That was a little inaccurate. Clearly, we believe in Takhisis--she's talking to us, after all--we just don't follow her.

        

"Red carpet" is, I suspect, a metaphor.

     

The ensuing battle pitted us against multiple small groups of beholders, draconians, fire fiends, dark wizards, and fire giant mages. I was able to win only after I fully buffed the party with resistances, bonuses, and "Haste." Practically every enemy was capable of high-level mage spells. Arrows, "Power Word: Kill," and "Monster Summoning" largely saved the day. 

 

Immediately after the first wave, though, we had to fight a second wave of creatures that included more draconians, dragons, skeletal dragons, efreet, and even a lich or two. They were a bit easier, owing to my ability to destroy dragons nearly instantly with the dragonlances, plus my clerics' abilities to turn undead. Still, it was a tough battle, and you can forgive me for thinking it might be the last.

    

As we contemplated the dead bodies around us, a man's voice spoke over rattling chains and invited us to "come." We were somehow sucked into another plane--the Abyss. We landed on a featureless plain, but a little exploration led us to a stone building full of monsters. They parted to let us approach the man they were torturing, a black-robed figure with dark skin and long blond hair, chained to a wall. He demanded that we kill his tormentors. Magic was useless in the room, and the ensuing battle against draconians, white dragons, and purple worms left all but three of my characters unconscious or dead. Fortunately, I was able to rest soon afterwards.

        

At least someone wants us to feel welcome.

       

After the battle, the chained man revealed himself as Raistlin Majere, "the Dark Queen's deadliest enemy." Gasp, some of you are saying, those who have read the Dragonlance books. Other than he was a playable character in Heroes of the Lance and thus one of the titular heroes, I had no idea who he was or why he was here. I tried to read about him on Wikipedia and got the idea that he was an anti-hero ("soon I will be revered on Krynn once again" kind of gave that away), but I couldn't figure out where we currently were in his long bio.

        

I hate this guy.

       

Raistlin told us that Takhisis had somehow managed to open a portal to Krynn, and all she was waiting for was the perfection of a mortal form to inhabit once she made the passage. Raistlin suggested we escape through the portal and destroy it behind us. As he led us to it, he demonstrated his power by dealing with a company of beholders with a wave of his hand.

   

We reached another building where we found Takhisis sprawled on a throne, meditating on the portal. Trying to attack her led to instant death (I thought we were god-level characters!) Instead, we had to creep to the portal, disturb Takhisis's meditation by throwing a rock at a bell, and watch and wait as she and Raistlin fought each other long enough for the mist in the portal to clear. At one point, she wrapped Raistlin's hands in silver chains, and the episode was clearly the inspiration for the game's cover art.

       

"Attack" was the wrong option with Takhisis.

      

The portal finally cleared, and we leapt through, leaving Raistlin to be eaten by ghouls and serpents. We landed on the other side, bruised and battered, to find a bunch of gnomes worshiping the tripod. Without any time to rest and heal, we investigated the tripod and found it to contain an egg--which promptly hatched (somehow) into a full-grown five-headed dragon. This had been intended as the vessel for Takhisis's return.

         

It apparently was not by just a little bit that Firebreath failed to make the grade.

        

Surely this will be the final battle, we thought as it began. I have to admit, it was pretty cool. The dragon had black, blue, red, white, and green heads, each capable of those dragons' respective breath damage. It also had a very high armor class. To kill it, we had to attack and kill each head independently. Fortunately, it was susceptible to the dragonlance damage, and despite taking some damage from breath attacks, we were able to kill it.

          

This was a pretty cool graphic.

     

With the beast dead, the Grathanich came floating out of the cauldron and floated away down the hall, throngs of gnomes in pursuit. We heard Takhisis's voice speaking to someone named Vlaahg, telling him that she wanted the stone found and taken off Taladas. As we neared the exit to the room, we found the source of the voice: a draconian holding a magic mirror that enabled him to communicate with Takhisis.

     

Surely this will be the final battle, we thought as another huge draconian fight ensued. But when it was over, there were no endgame messages. There was also no indication of where to go and what to do. Wandering through the hallways, we kept glimpsing the Grathanich (also called the "Greystone") as it floated through floors and ceilings and otherwise evaded capture.

       

This nonsense lasted for over an hour.

        

I must have spent 90 minutes wandering all around the five levels again before I finally ran into a group of draconians holding the mirror they had used to communicate with Takhisis. They set it down in front of the party and an image of the Dark Queen appeared. "Raistlin sends his fond regards," she said, and we immediately smashed the mirror. (The game gave me the option to Talk, Smash, or Leave. "Smash" seemed the most satisfying, but I have to admire the party that just sighs, turns around, and walks away.) Nonetheless, Takhisis kept talking.

    

You think you have defeated me, but of course you are quite wrong. You are mortals; do not dare to think more than mortal thoughts, lest you join Raistlin. One day you will grow old, and weak, or foolish. Meanwhile my malice goes on and on, growing stronger, deeper, more subtle. Which is why I propose this bargain to you. I enjoy a good opponent, and you are too talented to be sacrificed to old age.

      

We never heard the bargain because we chose "Smash" again, this time grinding the pieces of the mirror to dust. For the record, I never thought we "defeated" Takhisis. I just thought we escaped her.

        

I may try to reload and explore the other options for the final entry.

       

As we turned to leave, a horde of draconians attacked us from behind. Ah, the final battle!, I thought as it began. But the battle was relatively easy, and the draconians were soon dead. The mirror pieces briefly coalesced into an angry whirlwind, but "the queen's rage is impotent against your valor."

     

We had some more wandering around to do before we encountered the real final battle--that is, before the technical one. On Level 3, we stumbled into a room full of draconians staring at the Grathanich with awe. A machine they had constructed was slowly attempting to encircle and seize the magic stone. "Soon, the queen will possess it once again," the draconians said. "Open the shafts! And summon the dragons to bear our prize away!"

        

Here's the game's description of what's happening, in case mine didn't make any sense.

         

I was in bad shape at this point, so I just killed the emulator, restarted from my last save, and re-entered the room, fully buffed this time. Thus commenced four unskippable battles, with no opportunity to rest in between. I think this is a Gold Box record. Sensing this was the case, I took the time to cast healing spells at the end of each combat, even if it meant going into extra rounds.

        

A fully buffed party.

     

Wave 1 had a large batch of draconians. I did the usual: summoned a couple of fire giants to serve as a buffer between us and them, then picked away at the exploding draconians with arrows and other missile weapons. Unfortunately, our arrows were almost out at the end of the battle. We had long exhausted all the magic arrows I purchased in the gnome citadel, and we were even running low on the non-magic arrows I held in reserve.

The second battle involved draconians and several red, green, and blue dragons. It's been a long time since dragons were a real threat: Dutch and Midsummer, both hastened with dragonlances, can kill as many as eight per round by themselves. Dragons are all susceptible to "Delayed Blast Fireball," even (oddly) red ones, not to mention "Magic Missile" and "Lightning Bolt." Even without those spells, my other characters can easily melee one or two dragons to death. 

         

I love that "Leave" is still an option, as if the game's going to let us just turn around and walk out.

         

Making it even easier, however, was a horde of about 20 gnomes who joined the party for the final three fights. They had something that my regular characters didn't: arrows. They were only regular arrows, shot by regular short bows, but the sheer number of them was enough to take care of the exploding Baaz, Aurak, and Sivak draconians.

   

After the second fight, we watched as the draconians' device finished snaring the Grathanich. Dragons prepared to fly the artifact away, so we had no choice but to attack. (At least, we felt we had no choice; I'm curious what happens if we had chosen "Wait" or "Leave" at this moment.) Thus commenced the third battle, which was about the same as the second one, but with the inclusion of skeletal dragons. They die at the tips of dragonlances just as easy as regular ones, and again we had the gnomes as meat shields and to help with the exploding draconians. Piece of cake.

        

A gnome takes aim at an enchanted Bozak.

         

As the third battle wrapped up, the gnome pilot Hrumbishnog showed up in his wind-ship and tried to grapple the device holding the Grathanich. To distract the draconians from him, we had to attack again, this time facing a couple of enchanted Auraks and a large number of black, blue, green, white, and red dragons. We had "Resist Fire" and "Resist Cold" activated, so we prioritized the blues, greens, and blacks, and they went down pretty fast. A couple of "Delayed Blast Fireballs" devastates them, and the knights can mop up the rest.

    

This looks like a perfect place for a fireball.

       

Hrumbishnog couldn't steal the device--it was too heavy--but he did snag it and pull it to the edge of a shaft. As we watched and the draconians howled in horror, he toppled the device into the shaft, down several stories, out the bottom of the Tower, and into the depths of the Lava Sea. He was nearly dragged with it, but we had Squirrel fire off a "Magic Missile" that severed his cord. 

       

"Shoot an arrow" was one of the options, but we were out of them.

         

"You can hear the Queen shriek all the way from the Abyss," the game said. "She vents her fury on the minions that have failed her. It is terrible to behold." We jumped aboard a wind-ship and at last escaped the Tower of Flame. 

        

"Grunschka, stop singing about evisceration!"

           

On the way back, we learned that Daenor and Crysia had been rescued and taken to the gnome fortress, and that Dahmia had flown off on a dragon. The mood among the gnomes as we arrived back in the citadel was triumphant. A band greeted us on the flight deck, and Tasslehoff Burfoot . . . was there. As we strolled the hallways, gnomes shouted, shook our hands, threw confetti, bought us drinks in the bar, and otherwise celebrated. I assumed this was the endgame but still took time to level up, deal with excess equipment, and otherwise make a tidy party. 

        

This is how every game should end.

        

When we were done with logistics, we headed up to the king's throne room. Daenor and Crysia greeted us as we entered the palace. There were messages almost every step. Gnomes feasted at a banquet. Firebreath gave rides to children. The king gave a speech and unveiled a "royal cheese nutball," at which mice immediately started gnawing. We got a wide shot of the hallway with all of the NPCs and celebrants; it looked like it could have been inspired by Quest for Glory.

     

You got the bigger image up above, so here's a close-up of some mice eating the cheese.

       

The celebrations ended abruptly as a fireball hit the palace and dragons swarmed through the windows. These were not minions of Takhisis, but rather Tremor and his allies, deciding to fill the power vacuum our victory had left. Baldric, the silver dragon, scolded Tremor, morphed into his dragon form, and began fighting the red dragon while we turned and faced Tremor's allies.

           

History has not been kind to those who call us "fools."

         

The ensuing battle must have involved about 50 dragons--black, blue, white, red, and green--but as I've already covered, dragons are nothing to this party. I could kill eight at a time with "Delayed Blast Fireball" and at least another five or six with melee attacks. That's without even bothering to buff and "Haste." Plus, we had a bunch of gnome allies during the battle. Not only were we victorious, I'm not sure we even took any damage. The only problem we had was that a bunch of the dragons spawned on behind a section of walls that made them unreachable. I finally ended up setting the computer to auto-combat and letting it make everyone dither while I wrote sections of this entry. The battle eventually timed out and victory was declared in our favor.

         

One of several screens full of dragons.

         

After our victory, the game related that Baldric won his fight with Tremor, ripping the iron dragon scale from his chest and sending Tremor plummeting to the earth. Baldric announced that with the iron scale removed, the evil dragons would cower in their lairs once again. With a promise of a second victory celebration to come, the game ended with a "THE END," but then allowed us to keep playing and return to the overworld map. "Now you can explore places you haven't seen yet," it even offered.

              

"Well, guys. I guess we live here now."

        

I had mixed feelings about this session. I spent far too much time walking around the Tower of Flame than I would have liked, and there were far too many things that felt like the final battle. I really had no interest in the "confrontation" with Takhisis or the appearance of Raistlin Majere. (I suppose one of my major issues with all three of the Dragonlance games is that I've just never cared anything about the setting.) On the other hand, the real final battle--the sequence of four sequential combats--was fun and satisfying. I didn't find it terribly hard, but that's because I had so much experience fighting dragons and draconians by then that I knew precisely how to handle them. Although I beat them in one try, it felt less like the game was soft-serving me and more like it was allowing me to demonstrate my accumulated tactical mastery. I suppose maybe it could have been more challenging with fewer allies.

    

The dragon battle at the gnome citadel occurred after the major victory screens and was clearly intended as a fun coda--something that allowed the party to feel insanely powerful against an enemy that would have been insurmountable back in the early hours of Champions of Krynn.

         

We will? Is Baldric setting up a fourth Krynn game?

        

As for the rest of the victory, I would have liked a little callback to the origin of our quest (General Lauralanthalasa) or some discussion about how we were going to get back to Ansalon. But beyond that, it was fun and satisfying--one of the more elaborate of the Gold Box endings.

   

I'm not aware of any post-game challenge dungeons for this one, but let me know if I'm wrong. Otherwise, we'll have the "Summary and Rating" in a few days, and then we'll finally open up a couple of new RPGs for the first time in over a month.

    

Final time: 36 hours