Betrayal at Krondor: The Hand and the Cloth

 

Praise to Romney--to the sky!

        

As this session begins, we are still in Chapter 2, still heading for Romney to get more intelligence about where the Moredhel intend to strike the kingdom. Our journey has been delayed by a lot of side quests. And it is about to be delayed by one more, as commenters have alerted me that if I solve Nia's quest on the road between Lyton and Sethanon, I'll have access to a shop where I can sell anything. I've never been so motivated to solve a side quest.

     

It takes us about a day and a half to get back to Lyton, after which we start wandering about and across the roads, looking for anything we missed last time. We find it almost immediately. Heading west into a cornfield from the house where we were ambushed last time, we run across a farmer named Max Feeber. He's rude. He keeps referring to Seigneur James as a "kept boy." He says he's thinking about selling his farm because of the "evil" that remained in the area after the Battle of Sethanon (evil that we've experienced directly, in the form of shades). 

       

Dude, why would you keep this?

       

He's a little suspicious, so we search his house and barn. The barn has only a chest with a whetstone, but in the house we find a burial cloth and shovel.

   

We go back out and confront Feeber with the evidence. He admits he dug up Nia's father's grave, hoping to scare her into moving and selling him her store. He admits that in his haste, he may have dropped one of the corpse's hands "when I was near old Hershel's house."

    

I feel like there must have been an easier way to scare her.

       

Leaving him, we go across the street to "old Hershel," who mistakes James for Feeber and accuses him of lurking around the house "a week back." We do look around his house and find nothing. A revisit to the tavern and to the graveyard gives us no new quest leads.

    

I decide to give it up for now and move on to Romney. On our way back through Lyton, we stop at the tavern and meet a group of men laughing about how they sold a dead man's hand to "old Glover" for 300 sovereigns. Glover was apparently convinced it was a magical object called a "glory hand" (I seriously don't want to know). The men don't tell us where "old Glover" lives, but it turns out to be the house  next door to the tavern. He thinks we sold him the hand--why is everyone mistaking us for someone else? James sets him straight and offers to buy the hand back from him. The man demands 150 sovereigns, which we pay. 

       

I don't understand his "near Lyton" comment. We're in Lyton.

      

We spend another day walking back west to the graveyard, where we bury the hand with the original corpse. We return to the tavern, and Nia joyfully tells us that the haunting of the shop has stopped. She gives us the "Galon Griefmaker" sword and agrees to open shop again. The statistics show the sword is particularly suited for elves--we give it to Gorath--and has the best statistics of any weapon I've found in the game so far.

     

I don't know why a sword owned by a human would have an elf racial modification.

      

Even better, Nia opens the shop again and, sure enough, she buys anything. I sell her all my excess stuff and soon bring her a second load from the accumulated chests and bodies in the region.

    

Seriously, though--now it's time to go to Romney. We turn back east and take the road all the way to the River Rom, where we are attacked by four Rusalki. As in most fantasy settings, these are magical creatures capable of some seriously damaging spells. I lose two battles against them, and the third leaves James near-death, Owyn down to his last hit point, and Gorath at about half hit points. I spend a couple of days slowly recovering with healing herbs and restoratives.

       

Proof that the word "female" existed before recently.

      

I realize that when I visited Silden before, I took a route that hugs the mountains and not the route along the river. We find nothing but a house with a few royals, a cache with some rubies and arrows. But having reached Silden again, we decide to take the Mist Dew to the Isle of Eortis just to see what's there. It turns out that the boat takes us directly to the Temple of Killian--there's no opportunity to go anywhere else. In the temple, we have an odd discussion with the high priestess of Eortis, Beyla. Despite the name of the temple, it sounds like Eortis--a sea god--has been usurped by another god named Killian, but some (most?) of the priests still worship Eortis, "a shadow of his former self." The priestess protests that she has no abilities to heal us but says that Eortis might "stir from his slumber" if we do him a favor: defeat the Rusalki along the river. She doesn't acknowledge that we already did that, so I guess there must be more of them.

   

After a night at the inn, we return to Silden and head off to the north, this time passing the crossroads heading back towards Lyton. Owyn and Gorath are doing a lot better, but James is still "near death," though at 32% instead of the 100% he started at. So we groan when we encounter another party of three Rusalki. Fortunately, we're able to defeat them with minimal damage. They don't like to be in melee range, so the trick is to use the two fighters to "herd" them into a configuration where Owyn's "Flamecast" spell will damage them all at once.

       

"Flamecast" damaging them all at once.

      

Up the road, we find a group of men guarding something. James wants to avoid them, so we skirt around to the west and come upon a couple of buildings. One turns out to be the Rapid Rooks Inn, where Owyn blushes at the scantily-dressed women. There's not much else to do there except sleep, drink, and gamble. The second building also turns out to be a tavern, the River Pilot's Folly. There, we find some intelligence about the guards and the Rusalki. An unnamed man tells us that the innkeeper pays someone named Crenard to guard the place where the Rusalki are "hemmed in" during the day, preventing anyone from killing them. He does this so scared travelers stay at the inn at night. Sure enough, the usurious innkeeper wants 25 sovereigns for a night's lodging. 

    

We return to the crossroads, where Crenard attacks us with two other men. James is knocked out again, but we manage to defeat them with "Despair Thine Eyes" and Gorath's new sword. 

   

After the battle, I don't find anything related to the Rusalki in the area, so we continue north, again pumping James full of herbs and tonics. Just past a house where a man sells rations, shovels, and torches, we're attacked by a single rogue, who we dispatch with no trouble. A road looping to the west has a sign that reads "KEEP OUT!," so naturally we have to investigate--but it just leads to a vacant house next to a cornfield with a couple of wells out back.

      

No.

      

Further along, we defeat three rogues guarding three chests. One is a fairy chest with the riddle: "A barrel of rainwater weighs twenty pounds. What must you add to make it weigh fifteen?" The answer is five letters. I figure it out without much trouble (HOLES) and collect 50 sovereigns and a "Steelfire" spell. It's going to be time soon to experiment with magic more than I already have.

    

The second chest asks: "Kingdom fools are born without a lot of this, there is no doubt." The answer is four letters, so I'm able to brute-force it (remember, there are only 4 possibilities for each letter), which is a good thing because the answer (HAIR) makes no sense to me. The chest has 19 sovereigns, a Ring of Prandur (I already have two). The final chest is a regular locked chest, and I'm unable to pick it.

   

Moments later, the weak party fights a battle with a shade guarding a house. The house is the residence of a fortune teller named Madam Haphra, who wants 50 gold to read our fortunes. Her husband begs us to treat her kindly, as they recently lost their daughter, and it has "shaken Haphra's belief in some of her abilities." We pay the 50 sovereigns. She tells us first not to believe lies about the Rusalki ("They are of no harm to anyone!"). She tells James that although he will "find the soul that is kin to [his] own," he will "lose [his] closest friend to passion in a foreign land." When we ask about contacting the dead, she says only that "Lims-Kragma holds those you wish too tightly." 

    

This was a cute but useless encounter.

     

Next, the village of Sloop has a jewelry store, a couple of residents, a brewery, and an abandoned house with a whopping 127 sovereigns. A junk store operator ominously has a discarded Nighthawk medallion. A temple is abandoned. We pass some other vacant houses on the way north. We spend the night in an inn called the Nameless Hideaway, where Owyn earns a couple dozen sovereigns with the lute. 

   

Finally, we reach the bridge to the city of Romney. We find it guarded by several men, one of whom, Mitchel Waylander, approaches and says that the city is closed to all but citizens and members of the Glazers Guild. Fortunately, we found seals to pretend that we're members of the latter. Waylander explains that the constabulary was all killed in the Riverpullers Guild uprising, so the Glazers Guild is keeping order until their duke returns from his estates. 

     

What do the Riverpullers actually do?

            

Romney is a menu city with options to visit a shop, meeting hall, and tavern. I try the meeting hall first and am surprised to find the duke, apparently freshly returned from his estates, hosting a meeting of the guilds, which for some reason have been at each other's throats. The duke is trying to restore order. James makes an unwise mark about what Prince Arutha would do if he were here, and the duke throws us out of the hall.

    

So we move on to the tavern, where we expect to finally get some intelligence about the Moredhel plans--except that no intelligence is forthcoming. The tavern is full of dead soldiers, dismembered, draped across tables, heads stuck on walls. It's a massacre.

      

Why bite back the impulse? You think a little vomit is going to make this worse?

     

And all at once, we've transitioned to Chapter 3: "The Spyglass and the Spider." That came out of nowhere. I figured we'd learn something in Romney and then have to follow up at other locations along the river.

     

This doesn't really feel like a new chapter.

     

The narrative picks up a short time later, with Gorath hypothesizing that the Nighthawks are behind the slaughter and James demanding answers from Gorath. James has apparently learned that a Moredhel by the name of Gorath, who looks just like Gorath, was seen in Romney six months ago, having a conversation with Nighthawks. Gorath protests that he's never been south of Inclindel Gap until recently and "Gorath" is a common name among Moredhel. James remains suspicious. Gorath suggests that our next step ought to be infiltrating the Nighthawks' stronghold, if we can find it. Gorath looks over the evidence we've collected from the tavern and announces cryptically that "we begin our hunt for the Nighthawks with a spider and a spyglass." I guess the murderers left a silver spider and a glass spyglass behind. We need to coin a term for when an intriguing title becomes banally literal (c.f., Lords of Midnight, Pagan).

        

If it turns out that the "betrayal" is Gorath turning on us, that's going to be pretty weak.

       

We visit the tavern, which has been cleaned up. There's a terrified boy named Jason working there who confirms that the murderers--who ordered him to leave--wore Nighthawks outfits. He says that one of the king's soldiers had the spyglass and talked about having gotten it in Sliden. He also says that before the massacre, a special keg of wine was delivered from the Upturned Keg.

     

Inside the meeting hall, the duke is dealing with yet another murder committed in the guild war. I guess this is unrelated to the Nighthawks' slaughter of the king's guards. The duke says we can help stop the guild war by finding Arlie Steelsoul, head of the Ironmongers' Guild, and convincing him to go to the negotiating table. He lives to the southwest, and from the description of his house, I gather it's the one with the "Keep Out!" sign.

      

The duke explains why his problems are our problems.

         

We finally leave the city. From either the passage of time or the change in chapters, James is healed. This is good because not three steps down the road, we're attacked by two Nighthawks. 

        

Just a check of the latest statistics. James looks like he's pissed that I'm checking out his character sheet.

       

We stop at the wrong house on our way back south--no one is home, and there's something odd about the house. I find a fairy chest out back that I missed on the way up. Its riddle: "They go up white but come down yellow and white." The answer (EGGS) is easy to guess from the letters. The chest has a blessed rapier with an elf modification. While good, it's not as good as the Galon Griefmaker. There's also 100 sovereigns and a spell that I accidentally have Owyn learn before seeing what it is. I think it's "Steelfire," which enhances weapons for battle.

        

Before we reach Steelsoul's house, we stop at the Upturned Keg in Sloop. The owner says that the keg he sent was paid for in rubies by Mitchel Waylander, and further that Waylander ordered him to add black tarweed to the wine, which induces thirst and makes people order more to drink. James assumes Waylander was working for the Nighthawks, deliberately getting the soldiers extra drunk so they couldn't fight back effectively.

      

Just a reminder that the game has a lot of text, and I'm summarizing it for you. LPs of this game must take forever.

        

Five Nighthawks ambush us farther into the town. This time, it's Owyn's turn to end up "near death," although I am able to defeat them. 

   

If it's not clear by now, things apparently respawn between chapters. We face a tough battle with a couple of shades outside Madame Haphra's house again. We are correct about which house is Arlie Steelsoul's, but we have to pass through a trap that wasn't there before. I can't figure it out and Gorath takes a ton of damage. Fortunately, Steelsoul turns out to be a reasonable guy who agrees to go to Romney to negotiate. He even gives us a book that improves "Armorcraft" skill. 

      

Adventuring at night even makes combat difficult.

       

A few more nights and battles later, we make it to Silden. In the tavern, we overhear a conversation that suggests the Mockers are at war with another faction led by someone called The Crawler. The Mockers are a thieves' guild whose leader, the Upright Man, is probably James's father. Anyway, the rumor is that the Upright Man was killed and some key belonging to the Crawler was dropped in the Krondor sewers.

     

The tavernkeeper, Joftaz, promises us information about the spider and spyglass if we'll raid the Crawler's house ("near here") and retrieve a bag of powder that the Crawler stole from Joftaz. 

         

I wonder what happens if you say "no."

         

I search a bunch of houses in the area, but none of them seems to be the right one. As I head west, we run into a man named Abuk on the road, and James accuses him of selling the spyglass to Joftaz, so I guess we missed a quest step. Abuk has a long story about how 20 years ago, he purchased a magical chest in Silden. The magic causes lost items to appear in the chest, and the spyglass was one of those items. He says he left the chest near Silden, and the password to open it is THORN.

     

Looks like something went awry with the flagging system.

      

Well, we got that chest a while ago, and inside was a receipt written to Isunatus of Cavall Keep. I check the map, and that's a little way to the north from Romney.This seems like a good place to pause, but I am thinking about taking the long way around. I've already started, in fact, as I went pretty far west to Nia's Shop to sell some excess stuff.

      

I didn't have any other outdoor shots in this entry, so here's a house amidst some trees.

       

I haven't been mentioning small skill increases, but they've been occurring at regular intervals as I fight, cast, pick locks, repair equipment, and so forth. But I'm confused about two skill books I have. Each character has read both books and received a skill increase when he did. But the books have an insane number of uses--like 100--and using them additional times doesn't seem to confer any additional benefit. It also makes time pass very fast. Meanwhile, Nia will buy the books for a lot of money. Is there any reason not to just sell them?

       

I think I'll use Chapter 3 to explore the boundaries of the "open world" concept, but I probably won't do it in as much detail as I've been writing in the past. We'll see what happens next time.

Time so far: 24 hours