Betrayal at Krondor: Going in Circles

The game tries, but 1993 graphics aren't quite "there" yet.

          

This session begins with my three characters--Locklear, Owyn, and Gorath--on the road outside LaMut. Locklear and Gorath are bringing word to Krondor about some new devilry with the Moredhel (dark elves), and Owyn is a local boy they swept up in the journey. We've already killed several Moredhel assassins and completed a side quest that involved killing a beast that had taken over the dwarven mines of Mac Mordain Cadal.

    

Encouraged by many commenters not to take the urgency of the main quest too literally, I start this session by announcing (I imagine Locklear saying this) that to avoid being too obvious, and thus falling into an ambush, we're going to take a circuitous route to Krondor, beginning by heading north from our current location. From there, a modest loop will take us to Yabon and Tyr-Sog before heading south to Loriel, Hawk's Hollow, Tanneurs, and finally Krondor--or I could cross west north of Tanneurs and hit Questor's View and Sarth before Krondor.

         

I made a map with everything labeled so you could follow this narrative. Click to enlarge.

     

A more generous path would continue going west from Tyr-Sog through Eldpoint to Highcastle. I can't quite tell from the in-game map whether it's possible to cut south from there, through what in the books is the Dimwood, to Sethanon. If not, it would have to take me through Wolfram, Kenting Rush, Romney, Sliden, and the other cities on the eastern clockwise circuit.

    

Finally, the ridiculous path would take me north from Tyr-Sog through Harlech, Sar-Sargoth, and Raglam before intersecting the previous option north of Kenting Rush. I don't have a strong opinion which path I'll take at this point. I figure I'll evaluate when I get to Tyr-Sog.

         

At this crossroads, a decision will need to be made.

        

The game has taken some liberties with geography, I should add. The shortest of these paths, according to a Midkemia world map that I found online, is about 1,000 miles.

    

After passing a confused Squire Phillip, we come to the city of Yabon, where Owyn advises caution: "I left a wedding party here not too long ago, and it might raise unpleasant questions if I were seen here again." Yabon is a non-menu town, so we have to click on the doors individually, none of which give any indication what they are from the outside (i.e., there are no shingles outside shops). There are a couple of empty houses. Owyn alerts us to his aunt's house: "As much as I would enjoy an opportunity to explain why I'm traveling with a Moredhel, I think we should leave."

         

I need a fantasy version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

        

A shop called the Crossroads sells weapons, armor, and related supplies. I don't have enough money for the weapons and armor that are better than what we already have, but I do buy an armorer's hammer with 30 uses for 26 gold. This will allow me to repair my armor, the same way that whetstones allow me to "repair" my swords and Aventurine lets me "repair" my bows. We try to haggle for it, but the mechanic just pisses off the shopkeeper, and we have to leave and return before the hammer becomes available again.

    

An abandoned building gives us an opportunity to experiment again with lockpicking. When you choose to lockpick, you get an interface that shows all your keys and picks. You drag the one you want to try over to the lock. I guess this world has a lot of generic locks that open to generic keys (e.g., peasant's key, guilder's passkey). If you fail, the key or pick breaks. The game automatically selects the character with the highest skill to try; you can manually select the others if you want to try to build their skill. Locklear gets it on a couple of tries. It turns out to be a laundry shop that's gone out of business, but we find a set of standard kingdom armor.

        

The lockpicking interface.

       

Across the street, we knock on the door. A man answers and tells us that he's been trying to get into the closed laundry shop across the street, as the shopkeeper never returned his armor before it abruptly closed. "If you can get in there, it's all yours," he says, and shuts the door before we can tell him that we already have it.

    

After Yabon, for a while we have nothing but small encounters:

       

• A Moredhel box: "In all the world, none can compare / To this tiny weaver, his deadly cloth so silky and fair." I suspect that like me, you won't even need to spin the tumblers to figure out the six-letter answer (SPIDER). It has a suit of standard armor, 46 silver royals, 4 lockpicks, and a shell. 

• Two pairs of Moredhel assassins. We have no problems dispatching them. They have standard armor and broadswords. Armor takes up so much space that I have to stop collecting it, and drop what I have, before reaching the next shop.

   

Dealing with assassins.

       

• An isolated house occupied by a balding man. We never get his name. He appears to be a researcher/scribe. "Currently, I have accepted a commission on behalf of a traveling merchant to do a survey of all the mercantile boxes in the area," he says. He offers a valuable book if we find out what's in the box just to the west of Hawk's Hollow. 

      

An unnamed scribe gives us a side quest.

       

• We find some minor treasures in holes dug in the ground. They are very easy to miss.

• A Moredhel mage attacks us east of the house. This battle is odd. At the beginning of it, the mage does something that causes pillars to rise out of the ground with a white line connecting them. Crossing the line causes a character to take massive damage (I reload when this happens the first time and try again). Arrows shot over the line act as if they've hit a force field. His spell ensures that only one of my characters can engage him at a time. We still manage to kill him. He has a valuable Moredhel brooch on him.

         

What is going on here?

       

• Another Moredhel box (I'm going to have to devise a keyboard shortcut for "Moredhel"): "Silently he stalks me, running as I run, creeping as I creep / Dressed in black, he disappears at night, only to return with the sun." Again, I found this one easy enough without having to play with the tumblers (SHADOW). Among other treasures, it has a new spell, "Eye of Ishap." This is not one of the spells described in the manual. Owyn memorizes it. There's also a note informing other Moredhel that "Gorath of the Ardanien" may be "accompanied by a seigneur of the Krondorian Court" and may be heading for Krondor.

        

There aren't enough letters for "this really weird dude who lives next door."

        

• And another box! "He gets short when he gets old / He goes out then it gets cold." Clearly, this is referring to some kind of flame, but nothing that I can think of has six letters. I have to study the possible letters on the dial before the answer comes to me (CANDLE), and I think it's a bit unfair. It goes with the first line okay, but is anyone really using one for warmth? Anyway, this one has two new spells: "Flamecast" (an area-damage spell) and "Stardusk" (lights up the night).

      

We found the Death Star plans.

         

• There's a note in this latest chest to any "Nighthawks" in the region. Nighthawks are introduced in Silverthorn. They're a guild of assassins. I don't think they're exclusively Moredhel, but they have Moredhel among them. The note warns these assassins that the magical traps they're carrying may be defective and that the guild is testing new models to the south of Zun and to the west of Tyr-Sog. The new design was "engineered by the Six." The previous note also mentioned "the Six" as the source of intelligence about Gorath. I'm not sure who they are--some kind of Moredhel ruling body?

          

I just noticed that "advised" is oddly emphasized. Is there a clue there?

        

As we continue west to Tyr-Sog, I'm wary about the possibility of a trap, but I don't stumble into one or find anything. We cross a bridge and find a cemetery on the outskirts of the city. Graves are to:

     

• Pul Dudding. "No one knew when he came or when he went."
• Ceilia deBuellen. "Water took her to the deeps."
• Aglus Soggin. "Another helping put him six feet under."
• Iruna. "In the wilds was the Hadati woman."
• David Bouli. "Buried without a word."

           

Just now, looking at that screenshot, I realized there's a chest there. I don't think I got that one.

       

None of these seem to refer to any characters in the books, and none seem to refer to any members of the creative team. The first one sounds a bit like an in-joke, but no one in the credits has a name anything like that.

     

We decline to dig up any of the graves, but in town, we meet an undertaker who tells us that he was talking to the gravedigger in LaMut, and he mentioned that someone surreptitiously dug a new, unmarked grave. Maybe we should have dug that one up to see what was up.

        

Entering Tyr-Sog.

     

Tyr-Sog is another non-menu town, again with several houses where nobody comes to the door. There's a shop that sells Rings of Prandur (light sources, I think; I have two but haven't tried them yet), keys, lockpicks, repair items, a shovel, and a lute. It occurs to me that if I had said "yes" to digging up graves, the game probably would have told me that I need a shovel. Just in case, I buy one, along with a lute. Again, haggling fails.

      

When a humble bard / graced a ride along / with Locklear of Krondor / Along came this song . . .

       

There's a tavern in the town (in the town), but it's not a full tavern. All we can do is buy drinks and food. There's no option to try our barding skills with the new lute.

   

We leave the town headed north, for the very long route, just to see if the game will let us. It does not. We've only gone a few paces when horns blow and a bunch of guards block the way, led by Finn. Locklear clearly came through this pass just before the game began, as Finn is surprised to see him. He says that not far to the north, a snowstorm buried the pass "under five feet of snow." There will be no going that way.

    

I was looking forward to spending the night at the Pontipee house.

     

My inclination is to go south and take a shorter route to Krondor--all this dallying is fun, but I can't do it forever--but I decide to go east a little distance and see if I'm similarly blocked. I am, but not quite in the same way. Instead, we encounter an ambush on the road with six Moredhel. We try, but we're unable to defeat all of them.

     

Owyn gets to try out his new spell.

     

Thus, we head south, although still wondering how far we could have gone if we had defeated the half-dozen assassins. There are assassins on this route, too, but they attack in packs of two.

    

More small encounters:

    

• Nearly hidden around a hill, we come across a Temple of Ishap. The head priest tells us of an oracle statue to the east of Malac's Cross. The priests will bless items, including weapons, but for a high fee that we decline to pay. It also appears that we can fast travel between Temples of Ishap, again for a fee, but we must visit a temple before we can fast travel to it. This is the first one we've seen.

 

I'm trying to figure out what the map is on the back wall. I don't think it's any place in Midkemia.

          

• The city of Loriel is another non-menu town. We offload some items at Kingdom Goods, which among other things offers a book for sale called Strategies of Trading. At first, I think it must be a book that improves a skill, but then I see that it has 100 "uses." I'm not sure what to make of it. It's a little too expensive for us right now.

• There's a gem seller in Loriel named Keifer Alescook. We ask him about the ruby that the Grey Warriors stole from LaMut. He's offended at the idea that he would buy stolen merchandise, and he suggests we talk to someone named Isaac north of Hawk's Hollow.

• A resident of Loriel tells us to beware Michele the Healer. She thinks Michele and this other guy named Orno the Pale have a deal where Orno gives people a disease and Michele heals them with "phony medicine." We find Orno living in an isolated house south of Loriel, but rather than give us his infection, he warns us about it. Nonetheless, the moment we leave the house, we all fall sick. We rush back north to the temple, where they want 20-25 sovereigns per person to cure us. We try Michele the Healer (who didn't come to the door previously) in Loriel, and she cures us all for a single 25-sovereign payment. The cure seems to be authentic. I don't know what to make of the episode or whether I missed any step I could have taken to stop the scam--if there was a scam.

      

The temple's curing options.

      

• More groups of Moredhel assassins. We come across another one with those "electric fences." This time I have Owyn cast "Invitation" to pull the enemy out of his chosen square and into a location where we can all gang up on him.

      

I think I'll be using this a lot with mages.

       

South of Loriel and east of Hawk's Hollow, the map really opens up, and we miss the southeastern road that would take us towards Krondor via Eggley or Tanneurs. Instead, we find ourselves curving west towards Zun, via Hawk's Hollow, and the very real risk of ending this session almost exactly where we started.

This risk is exacerbated when we run into Isaac, whom the gemseller told us about. Locklear clearly knows him; apparently, he used to live in Krondor and was something of a rogue (I don't remember him from the books). He warns us to avoid the road from Eggley to Tanneurs, as there's a festival going on there. Locklear suggests that someone psychic is telling the Moredhel where we are, and Isaac suggests a candidate named Devon in Eggley, who's preternaturally good at gambling.

        

Dialogue options with Isaac.

        

When we ask about "Stolen Gems," he agrees that he bought a ruby from Keifer Alescook, but he didn't know it was stolen. He needs it to pay an armorer, who only deals in gems, to fix his sword. Locklear says, "What if we can repair your sword for you?" I don't think much of Locklear's repair skills, but I decide to give it a try, and it works. Isaac gives us the ruby and heads out.

           

Miscellaneous notes:

    

• I'm not certain of the extent to which the enemies I encounter are fixed or randomly-generated. So far, areas that I've cleared seem to stay clear, although I haven't done that much backtracking. I don't know if there are any random encounters in the game at all.

• The portraits end up not bothering me as much as I expected. I mostly just ignore them. 

• Sound effects are sparse, but relatively high quality.

• Thank you to the commenters who warned me about spoiled rations. Apparently, there are some seriously negative consequences if you eat them. Dumping them freed up some inventory space.

      

I should have questioned why the game shows 13 rations of one type and 4 of another.

       

We sleep shortly after leaving Isaac, and for the first time since probably the game's first battle, we're all at 100% health. I use this opportunity to compare our real attribute gains since the beginning:

• Locklear has gone up 2% in "Defense," 3% in "Melee Accuracy," 1% in "Weaponcraft," 2% in "Barding," 5% in "Lockpick," and 1% in "Stealth." His strength has increased by 2.

• Owyn has gone up 1% in "Defense," 1% in "Melee Accuracy," 2% in "Barding," 5% in "Lockpick," and 1% in "Stealth." I'm surprised his casting accuracy hasn't increased.

• Gorath has increased 1% in "Defense," 2% in "Melee Accuracy," 1% in "Weaponcraft," 2% in "Barding," 5% in "Lockpick," and 31% in "Stealth," although 30% of that is because of some magic shoes.

      

I have to end here, again not having made much progress on the official quest. These first three entries have given me a solid exposure to the game and its conventions. I probably won't literally start over when I return, but I'll be entering a second chapter in which I do things a bit more quickly, I think, and cover more territory with a single entry.

   

Alas, that entry may be some time from now, as I'm about to face the busiest month of my year. I'm not only starting new classes as a professor but also as a student, plus I have a couple of major writing and database projects that I have to finish. Since the beginning of the year, I've kept to a consistent schedule of posting every 2.5 days, which I'm proud of, but I'm afraid September is going to be a little more erratic. Hopefully I'll be stable again by October.

    

Time so far: 8 hours

 

Enchantasy: All Over the Place

I am disinclined to acquiesce to your arrest.

       

To recap the major problems and open quests in the Land of Savallia.

    

• Monsters are roaming the land again, led by evil men. They seem to be searching for the powerful Eternal Grimoire. An old mage named Zedikiah told me that it was hidden ages ago. A map to the burial site has been lost, and in addition to the map, I'll need the Magian Gem to find it. The Magian Gem was last in the hands of the Ransley Family, now led by an old woman named Glenda. Their estate is in western Omphalos. The map is probably the same one that I've been chasing since the beginning of the game, stolen from Duffy in Portsmith by pirates.

• A serial killer is striking the old Mages Council. At the beginning of the game, our boss, Rudimon, was aware of two murders, but we've come across three bodies. We've learned that those killed were part of the Council that, several decades ago, voted to expel one of their members, Conax, for using "evil magic."

• The king is dead, his son the Prince is missing, and there's talk that the less-than-desirable Duke Hawthorne will take the throne. We found a note from the Prince to his friend Jennifer that he has gone to "aid the underground." A note from the Prince's friend Jamall says that no help is coming from the Mage Council and that Jamall should "meet [him] at the mountain." The king's tiara is also missing, and probably in the dungeon, but passage is blocked by fields of fire that we cannot cross or dispel.

• Travel: The world is separated into large islands surrounded by smaller islands. Skiffs can get you to the smaller islands but not between larger ones. Larger ships are not for sale, and it does not appear you can steal them. They travel on fixed routes between only a few cities. We have heard tell of a magical whale that will transport anyone who summons it with a magical fog horn, and we got the fog horn in the last session. There's also the possibility of transport via pirate ship, and we've heard to ask a hermit who lives near Kadaar about pirates.

• Side quests: A thief named Blaze has burgled a jewelry shop in Macino; he's probably hiding in the dungeons, but there are locked doors I can't get past. A man in Aramon wants a copy of something called the Ghost Book. A great hunter living near Tiernan named Rainger can help us somehow. We have leads on the hiding places of the Mystic Bow and Mystic Sword. A guy named Trent went to Duke Hawthorne's keep and never returned.

       

I'll see what I can do.

                 

This was a long, chaotic session in which I bounced from place to place like a leaf on a wind, ultimately accomplishing little. This is a very long entry, so here's the outline of major accomplishments:

     

• Explored the final cities that I hadn't already visited.
• Found three more dead mages, and a fourth was murdered right in front of me.
• Discovered a weird storage facility.
• Blew the fog horn and rode a magic whale, but it didn't take me where I was expecting.
• Visited the Ransley manor and learned a bit more about how to get to the Magian Gem.
• Got a pass necessary to visit the pirate village.
• Foiled the abduction of one of my party members.
• Rescued Trent from Duke Hawthorne's keep.

       

We started the session in Udim, the fog horn newly in our pack, and made our way back to Keldar. I decided to get all the cards on the table by visiting the cities I hadn't already visited. There was only one named one: Sonora, across, on the continent of the same name. But I could see a little cluster of houses in the northeast corner of Meridion.

 

In case you needed a reminder of the game world.

     

Sonora

I took a ship to Portsmith, on the same continent. Instead of walking across the land, I decided to grab a skiff from the Portsmith docks and circle the island. The first thing I came across was a grave. You occasionally find these in the landscape, and I'm primed to watch for them, as an alternate theory is that Blaze was killed and buried somewhere. The game lets you both read the gravestones and use a shovel to dig up graves. If you do the latter, a ghost momentarily appears, gives at least one character a harsh whack (doing about 15 hit points of damage), and flies off. This grave was to someone named Ogilvie. I don't remember what we found there, but it wasn't important.

     

One of several graves encountered this session.

    

I've also learned to search stumps and drink from wells. A stump gave us a hit point potion, and a well increased my magic points by 5 permanently. This is particularly useful because at some point during this session, I realized that our maximum hit points, spell points, strength, and dexterity were no longer increasing when we leveled up. I'm not sure when that stopped. But after that point, the only benefit to leveling up is the training passes that you can use to increase your skills. I'm a little annoyed with that, because during this session, Chester went from Level 23 to Level 44, but didn't get any greater capacity for spellcasting. The lesson here is probably that I didn't need to fight so many combats and could have afforded to run away from a lot more.

      

Arriving at Sonora.

    

While I'm on the subject of character development and combat, I realized belatedly that I've been neglecting the "First Aid" skill in combat. You can't cast healing spells in combat, but successful use of "First Aid" at even skill level 4 or 5 can heal as many hit points as "Great Heal," and anyone can do it. I put more points into that skill during this session.

        

Oddly, we faced "Satanists" this session. Does Satan exist in this world? "Etarvu" seem to be eagles with bows. That's pretty cool.

      

Eventually, I made my way to the city of Sonora, on the eastern edge of the Sonoran Desert. This of course is a real place, not terribly far from creator Rick Abel's residence in the Phoenix area. Moreover, when we entered one of the houses, we met Savannah Abel, Rick Abel's daughter, who asked if we were having fun playing the game. We said we were, and she said he was working on Enchantasy II.

     

Meeting the author's daughter . . .

    

Savannah mentioned her mother, Jillaine, a waitress at the Oasis Club. This was indeed Rick Abel's wife's name at the time. We found her on an island in the middle of the town, apparently having rowed a skiff there to get some peace and quiet. She didn't have much to offer, though. More about the Oasis Club in the bit.

      

. . . and wife.

       

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As we entered the town and started to explore,  a voice whispered, "Pssst . . . you may be interested in this!" A man walked up to us and told us that his friend Joe lives northwest of the lake and sells special weapons. We just needed to knock on the door.

   

Eventually, we got there, knocked, asked for "Joe," and were admitted. Two steps into the house, we were attacked by a group of six assassins. They were pretty easy. Needless to say, there was no one there selling weapons. 

     

Successful assassins would have more hit points.

       

The Oasis Club is a private, members-only club in town. You can't get in without a pass, and you have to be a resident to get a pass. The manager works in an office next to the club, and you can't fool him into believing that you're a resident. I spent a while searching every building in town for a pass, asking every NPC about it, and feeding every possible keyword to Jillaine. I looked for secret doors, hidden walls, and so forth. The best I could do for now is that one of the residents had recently moved to Kadaar; maybe she still has her pass.

     

Dido Village

     

In the meantime, I returned to Portsmith, dropped off the skiff, took a ship to Hazlett, and walked from there to the small village I could see across the bay from Hazlett, in northern Meridion. It was a quick visit: every building was destroyed and every person killed, including two former Mage Council members named Daumier and Morisot, both on the list of those who expelled Conax. That's five out of nine confirmed dead.

      

I don't think I've even heard of this place before. You'd think it would be on everyone's lips.

     

Some of the bodies had generic keys. One had a poison shield. I'm not sure how to regard that. Does it shield against poison or is it somehow poisonous itself?

    

Northwestern Thule

   

Anxious to try the fog horn and perhaps get a more reliable form of transportation, I took the ship network back to Keldar, healed and trained, and from there took a skiff up the river that bisects the continent. I had reasons to stop in Kadaar and the building to its south, which I believed was the residence of a hermit who had something to say about pirates. I thought I had already visited, in fact.

    

It turned out I had never been to this place. As we entered, a sign proclaimed the enormous building as "Griswold's Storage." Sure enough, it was a huge, multi-leveled structure with multiple rooms, each room with multiple chests. It would have taken forever to open all of them--and more keys and picks than I possessed. A spot check of a few of them showed that they just had "old clothes."

     

This was one of a dozen rooms just like it.

       

In the center of the main floor was a counter and a merchant. He said we could rent four of the chests in the building for 1 gold piece each. Each could store one item. So I guess it's a way to alleviate a bit of the inventory problem? A place to store four items that we may or may not need later? It's cute, but an awfully elaborate way to go about it. I stored the two translated "Archive" books there. I probably should have stored the notes from the Prince and Jamall, too.

       

If we just traded an item for a key, I'm not sure what we would have gained inventory-wise. But the key didn't actually show up in our inventory.

        

So we still had to find that hermit. I continued exploring south and found a cave in the mountains. I spent a while exploring it, fighting multiple enemy parties, but ultimately found only a few patches where I could dig for gold and a chest with a training pass.

       

WTF

      

At length, we went to the dock in the northwest corner and blew the magic fog horn. As promised, a (cartoonish) whale appeared and offered us a ride on its back. Alas, my dreams of being able to explore freely were dashed. It took us on a fixed route to what I later figured was the unnamed island between Thule and Enchantasy Isle. There, we found a single building.

      

Is it going to stay on the surface?

      

We entered and were greeted with a futuristic floor and wall pattern. At the first intersection, we were greeted by a "computer" that looked an awful lot like R2D2. We talked to it, and it introduced itself as a RICH9000. "On my world, computers are commonplace," it said. Upon further questioning, it named its world as Jeena 3 in the Luna System. He said that his masters, the Jeeni, a hostile warrior race, came to this planet many years ago and built this facility. Something caused them to abandon it. "Nothing remains but some computers and possibly weapons."

      

Another game not content to stick with its genre.

      

As intrigued as we were, we weren't in a good position to explore the structure. We were out of arrows, out of magic potions, and relatively low on food. After a couple of tough battles with "vampyr bats," I reloaded from before taking the whale and decided to save this odd place for later. This was certainly the first time I heard about any sci-fi elements in the game.

    

Circling Thule, Omphalos, and Meridon

     

At this point, I grabbed a skiff near Kadaar and started a long route around the three major central continents, which are joined in a northwest-to-southeast chain. Here are some highlights:

    

• On an island west of Kadaar, I found the residence of the former Council mage Waldo. He, of course, had been killed--"only a short time ago." I found no evidence in his place. That's six.

      

What are you talking about? I don't see him anywhere.

       

• On an island west of Kadaar, a fountain that temporarily raised our armor class by 5.

• On an island south of Kadaar, the hermit (Vernon) that I had been trying to find when I found Griswold's Storage. He had spent his life studying pirate culture. He told me they reside on an island southwest of Hazlett called the Cove. You need a pass to enter. Only Seurat will grant one; he's a famous retired pirate living in Aramon, where he frequents the tavern. A book in Vernon's study gave Seurat credit for uniting a bunch of disparate and warring pirate groups into a single Clan.

      

Doesn't sound like he's "retired" if he's still in charge of handing out passes.

       

• On an island between Omphalos and Meridion, we found the Ransley family manor, owned by Miss Glenda. She had a long monologue about how her great-grandfather, a mage, "was in charge of keeping and protecting a very important item for the Mage Council." This is no doubt the Magian Gem. She doesn't know where it is, but his old rooms are magically locked. Shortly before his death, he had a sealed envelope delivered to his best friend, Mage Wilmer, in Kadaar. I should go there and try to find his descendant, Trevor. 

      

He either has the Magian Gem or a stack of porn.

       

• Meanwhile, Glenda's granddaughter lost her doll down in the basement, so I went down there, cleared it of monsters, and retrieved the thing for a little experience.

       

And a little gold.

      

• I found the pirate island, Cove, but didn't have a pass from Seurat.

• On the southwestern coast of Meridion, I found a pirate with a ship, willing to offer passage to Hawthorne Island for 20 gold. I didn't take it, but it was good to know how I could finally visit the island. As we'll see, I got there another way, but the pirate brought me home.
  

• A guy living on an island in a hut. His name was Harmon. I couldn't get anything useful out of him.

      

Then again, I apparently asked about SWOR.

    

• I found graves on small islands to "Horrible Henry" and "Terrible Tim, the Master Thief." So there is a precedent for burying thieves on small islands, just not the one I'm looking for.

• In Tiernan, while looking for Rainger (I missed the part of my note that said he lived in the forest near Tiernan), I met someone I had missed the first time. I failed to write down his name, but he used to live in Sonora and thus had an Oasis Club pass. He was looking for a magic carrot and said he'd give me the pass if I found one for him. I've heard no leads on such a thing.

       

Are you sure that it even exists?

    

• There was a dungeon in a mountain. I think it's the one I have to take to get to the Mystic Bow. I was low on supplies and energy, though, so I left it for later.

     

We sailed the skiff down the river that cuts through Meridion and found a house occupied by Sigwald, a member of the old Mage Council. More importantly, he was still alive. He mentioned once having to expel a member for evil magic, but he didn't remember his name. When I said CONAX, he just said, "that sounds familiar."

      

So we've heard.

      

The moment I left his house, the game said, "You hear screams coming from within the house!" I rushed back to find Sigwald dead, and I was attacked by another group of six assassins. Just like the previous group, they had only 8 hit points and were thus easy to kill.

      

If only I'd waited a few minutes.

       

Having completed my circuit, I rowed the skiff back to Keldar and jumped another ship.

     

Hesperios

    

I visited the city of Aramon to find the pirate Seurat and get the pass, though I'm not sure why I thought I needed to do that next. I was still hung up on not being able to openly explore the world, I guess. I found him in the tavern in the city. He said he'd help me out if I would rescue his friend, Jonah, from the jail in Riisa. That's a city to the south of Aramon. I had never heard of it and was frankly surprised to find yet another city. "The jail walls aren't sturdy," he said.

    

Given that you're an acknowledged pirate, complete with eyepatch and pegleg, I'm not sure you're the best judge of character.

      

We traveled there, picked our way into the sheriff's office, and used "See Secrets" to determine which wall we could dynamite open to free Jonah from the cell. He gratefully took off and joined Seurat in the tavern.

       

In a manner of speaking.

    

The only other encounter of note was with a man named Culley who asked if I was looking for Margaret. I said yes for some reason, and he said that Margaret had moved to Shaaran after the death of her husband, Leo, a famous scientist. In the basement, in Margaret's old lab, I found notes about potions that increase strength, weapon skill, language skill, first aid skill, and bow skill. I've never heard of or seen any of these elixirs. I thought if I found Margaret, she might sell them or at least explain them, but when I later looked her up in Sharaan, she had nothing to say in response to obvious keywords.

    

These all sound cool. Do they exist?

    

Back in Aramon, Seurat gave me the pirate pass. As was my custom this session, I then stole a skiff and circled the island to see if there was anything else in the area. I found yet another grave on an island, "Shadow Jack," but not anything else I was looking for.

    

Except for this.

      

From Aramon, I took a ship to the next city.

     

Sharaan and Hawthorne Isle

    

I went to Sharaan first to see Margaret, which was a bust, but second to buy the weapons and armor that I was too weak to equip last time. This time, there was no such issue. I bought chain mail, a spiked robe, great swords, and great bows. I think these are the best normal weapons that the world offers.

     

Perhaps my last major purchases in the game.

      

The last time I was in Sharaan, NPCs had talked about evil men in the town, but I hadn't found any. This time, as I was walking down one of the streets, an NPC approached and said he'd seen some evil men coming and going from the house to the east. "You should stay clear of that place," he said.

    

Of course, we immediately went to investigate. The moment we entered, something knocked us out and put us to sleep. When the party woke up, they found that Shyra was missing.

         

Oh, come on. This is such a cliché.

     

As we staggered out of the house, an NPC ran up and said that he saw a woman being carried out of the house. "My father might be able to help you," he said. He lived in a locked house and answered to MARIO. We knocked on the door.

   

Mario purported to be a member of the "underground," a secret organization that wants us to complete the quest to find the Grimoire. I had encountered mention of them before, in the missing Prince's note, but I forgot while I was actually talking to a member. He thought Shyra had been abducted to get information out of her about our quest for the Grimoire. He suspected they took her to their hideout, a cave on Hawthorne Island. Further, he said, there's a secret underground passage from Enchantasy Isle to Hawthorne Isle. To find it, I would need to row out into the middle of the lake in a boat.

     

She is just a friend. What are you implying, Mario?

      

I had to see a guy named Perry in the tavern, then another guy named Gorman at the inn, to arrange the boat. Gorman said the boat would take us to the island, but there was a password needed to enter their hideout, which he didn't know.

   

We found the boat waiting in a nearby lake and rowed it to the center, where "powerful forces gripped" us and dragged us to an underground river. This dungeon was mostly river, but it had a few corridors and rooms we could explore on foot, fighting combats and finding treasures like magic potions and training passes. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but there are several levels of magic potions in this game, annotated A-D, plus one called "MP Manna," which restores all magic. I load up on these potions every time I visit a city that sells them, with as much inventory space as I can spare. This makes it possible to blast enemies with spells like "Lighting Bolt" instead of fighting long battles.

       

The sequence that follows is neither hydrologically nor geologically possible.

     

At the end of the dungeon, more powerful forces disgorged us in a lake on Hawthorne Island. At that point, I completely forgot that I was supposed to be finding a "hideout" and instead went directly for Duke Hawthorne's Castle. 

       

Interesting bit of trivia: The Hawthorne and the Oasis are both apartment complexes in Phoenix. I don't know if they were there in the 1990s, though.

     

The episode from here was clearly an homage to exploring Blackthorn's castle in Ultima V. It had a bunch of guards that seemed ready to pounce on me at any second, a dungeon, and a lot of places that I couldn't go because I didn't have a thief. The first level had shops and services, including stores that sold arrows and potions, both of which kept me alive during the session. There was also a tavern, where NPCs talked about the probability of Duke Hawthorne becoming the new king.

     

I don't know. Ellington and Oliver really have different styles.

     

Eventually, we were grabbed by some guards and tossed into the dungeon.

       

After a while, an NPC named Roger showed up. He claimed to be with the Underground (note the similarities to Ultima V's Resistance) and said they'd hidden a key in a crack in the cell floor. He told us to see John in Aramon when we got out.

      

I just met the Underground! We're going in circles.

       

We used the key to escape the dungeon. On the way out, we freed Trent, the son of Tormey in Portsmith.

       

All in a day's work.

     

We kept exploring the castle, but most of the doors were locked. By now, we'd realized that Shyra was in a different location. We explored the rest of the island and found a dungeon in the northern mountains. It was blocked by a boulder, so we hid in some nearby bushes until someone showed up and invoked the word MORDA to move the boulder and gain entry. 

       

The author continues to do fun scripted things with the engine.

   

Inside, we naturally fought a bunch of battles against guards and assassins. We had to pass through a teleporter before we finally found Shyra in a cell. We didn't have any gems for the return trip, so I had to cast "Seek Exit" to get us out.

     

Again, the use of quotes to emphasize keywords creates some odd dialogue.

      

After this, we quite stupidly returned to Hawthorne Castle, because I thought that with Shyra and her lockpicking ability, we might be able to explore the rest of it, and perhaps meet Hawthorne himself. It turned out that most of the doors were unpickable. We were blocked from entering an area on the second floor for lack of a "visitor's pass," which we found nowhere.

 

A typical guard battle in Hawthorne Keep.

     

In a basement room with three doors, guards yelled that we were in a "restricted area." I stubbornly insisted on pushing through the room, which offered a battle with 10 tough guards in every square. I had to retreat for more magic potions and arrows about 10 times as I insisted on clearing the entire room so I could get to the doors--all of which were unopenable.

     

That's just the message you want to see after killing 300 guards.

      

Chester gained 15 levels on Hawthorne Island alone, which tells you how absurd the whole thing was, not that I can fully blame the game's design. Anyway, a pirate on the east coast of the island took us back to the coast of Meridion, where I ended the session. 

     

My stats at the end of this session.

        

Unfortunately, I'm starting to have a lot of performance issues with the game. It crashes a lot, usually while transitioning to combat or to a shop's inventory. I have to save nearly constantly to ensure I keep my progress. If I try to quit and go to DOS, it never works--it just freezes. I have to kill the emulator. I also discovered comparatively late in the game that it saves the position of skiffs and horses independent of the saved game. That's not a problem as long as you save the game before quitting a session, but if you kill the emulator without saving after you've moved a skiff or a horse, you'll find that it's in the destination location and not the original location. This could potentially create a "walking dead" scenario where you don't have a skiff where you need one.

           

I still have a lot of leads, and I hope they come together next time and I can wrap the game up in a couple more entries. I did like the kidnapping episode, though it's unclear what I got out of it. It was a nice riff on what happens in Ultima V without duplicating it exactly. I don't think I need any more character development, so I'll be retreating from all wilderness encounters from now on. Maybe we'll start the next session by trying to figure out what the heck is going on with the aliens.

    

Time so far: 35 hours