Betrayal at Krondor: Right to Roam, Part 2

Travels last session (yellow) and this session (blue).

         

Well, that was unpleasant. Sorry for the long silence. I'll resist the temptation to let it delay my progress with some kind of "special topics" entry and just get right back into Betrayal at Krondor.    

As the session starts, the party is in Tyr-Sog contemplating roads to the north and east. The northern route makes a greater loop and takes us through Sar-Sargoth, where I figure I might meet Delekhan and put a premature end to this whole thing. (I know that won't actually happen, of course, but I'm curious how a premature visit to the Moredhel leader will play out.) Unfortunately, the game won't let me go in that direction. A soldier named Finn stops us, just as he did in Chapter 1, and tells us the pass is closed by a landslide set off by a Moredhel explosion.

         

Setting out.

       

We thus head east, into a deep valley between two mountain ranges called the High Wold and the Teeth of the World. If none of the northern passes are open, it's a fairly straight shot east through Eldpoint, Highcastle, and Dencamp before turning south to Kenting Rush and our ultimate destination in Cavall Keep.

    

We had tried to go this way in Chapter 1 only to meet certain death at the hands of a party of six Moredhel assassins. The bastards are still there, but they're a lot easier now. We're soon looting their bodies.

       

What am I actually supposed to do with this?

      

In the comments to my last entry, a reader wondered why I was having so much trouble in combat. Combat certainly has been getting easier, but there are four primary reasons that I lose battles:

  

1. Many enemies do not appear in the environment before they pounce on you, so you can't click on them to ambush them first.

          

i.e, this happens.

        

2. Even if I see enemies in the environment and click on them to prepare an ambush, at least half the time the ambush doesn't work.

          

i.e, this happens.

       

3. Even when it does work, all the advantage I ever get is that James gets to go first. The enemies otherwise act before the other two characters can go.

   

4. Enemies invariably target Owyn and chase him around if he tries to evade them, ensuring that he can never cast a spell (he can't cast if an enemy is in an adjacent square). By the time I whittle the enemies down to the point that they leave Owyn alone, I usually don't need him anymore anyway.

   

If any of those points indicate that I've misinterpreted something or am doing something wrong, please let me know.

    

On the way to Eldpoint, we discover:

    

• A barn with a drunk man sleeping it off. 

• The Temple of Dala. High priestess Risa asks us to try to find some bags of grain, as their stores are running low.

     

Once again, the flame in the center of the temple is cold.

     

• Two fairy chests: "Black when bought. Red when used. Grey when thrown away" (COAL). "It is too much for one. Two it is meant for. But it no longer exists when two becomes more." I've heard this one before in other forms: (SECRET). I get most of the answers by thinking about the riddle while fiddling through the knobs to see what combinations I can make. My right brain is exercising creative thinking while my left brain is trying a systematic approach. I rather like it. One of the chests has a couple of Tsurani crossbows. Bows sell well, and I always try to keep extras if I have the room.

     

Cha-ching.

      

• A trap that's a bit easier than the one I encountered last session. I just have to push two spinning diamonds in front of two cannons.

• A woman who asks for our help opening a stuck barn door. We do it, and she gives us some food.

• I notice a pile of dirt that looks out of place. Investigating it, we find a bunch of treasure, including a magical "Goblin Sticker" sword.

       

Coincidentally, we later find some goblins.

       

• An abandoned house occupied by a terrified family of squatters. We leave them be.

• Shortly after this, I find myself so overloaded with equipment that I run back to Tyr Sog to sell some.

        

Just west of Eldpoint, we run into our first of what will turn out to be, conservatively, six thousand battles with trolls. I originally wrote that I didn't even know trolls existed in this setting, but then I remembered Pug defeats a couple of them early in Magician, the first manifestation of his skills. Their strength and speed make them tough opponents, and they soak up a lot of damage before they go down. If there are only three of them, I can usually keep them away from Owyn long enough for him to disable them with "Fetters of Rime" and "Despair Thine Eyes." If there are four, I usually have to reload and buff with potions or weapon enhancements, or summon a couple of hounds with the Horn of Algan Kokoon, before trying again.

     

Using hounds to tie up trolls so that in later rounds, I can cast spells.

     

Eldpoint has a shoe shop where we buy a second pair of Weedwalkers (increases stealth), a general store, and an inn. Owyn's skill is such that he's making about 30 sovereigns each time he plays these days. 

    

I have a couple of screenshots of fairy chests encountered somewhere between Eldpoint and Highcastle:

   

• "Kingdom soldiers will look like it, when the headsman gives them a lop. For then, like it, they'll have a neck but not a head on top." I'm grateful for the second sentence because I wouldn't have gotten (BOTTLE) based on the first alone.

• "What is the thing with fingers long, that grips our deadly swords so strong?" The obvious HAND was impossible because it had eight letters. So it has to be something you wear on the hand (GAUNTLET).

     

That bastard SHUETSEC is always gripping my sword.

        

• "Six legs, two heads, two hands, one long nose. Yet he uses only four legs wherever he goes." It's amazing how often THIS REALLY WEIRD GOAT I FOUND works for these types of riddles. This one took me a while, but I was helped by the fact that the default scrambling of letters had four of the last five set correctly (HORSEMAN).

    

Outside Highcastle, we knock on the door of a house and meet Sara Halfgate. She has a couple of bags of grain (which we need for the Temple of Dala), but she says her husband will be angry if she gives them to us, unless we help her find a present for him: a pair of leather leggings. We say we'll keep an eye out.

       

We reach a major crossroads.

            

Highcastle is at the top of a major crossroads with roads going in all directions and a large loop of buildings and other encounters in the center. The city features prominently in A Darkness at Sethanon, where the inept baron refuses to believe that Moredhel are about to attack, and he consequently loses his life. The city serves as the major bastion against the enemies to the north (Moredhel and goblins), lying south of Cutter's Gap, one of the few passages through the Teeth of the World mountains.

     

I've heard you have a Man up in here.

    

We're exhausted by troll battles when we arrive, so we head right for the city. It has a tavern, fortunately, and a shop that has some excellent weapons and armor, any of which we could afford individually, but it would be the only thing we bought. We do pay a lot of money for a skill book called Chapel's Rmur n Whepuns which, despite its spelling errors, increases "Armorcraft" and "Weaponcraft."

    

There's supposed to be a passage north from the city, but Baron Kevin warns us that a bridge is out. We try anyway, and the game says we have to turn around after three days. I make the mistake of not believing the game when it comes to the passage of time and click on the exit a couple more times to remind myself what the text says, not realizing that I'm running out of rations. The party dies the second we exit the city.

       

Starving isn't pleasant.

     

West of Highcastle is another road to a mountain pass. We fight two battles with trolls (four each) and one with four goblins. I don't think we've fought goblins before. They're not hardy, but they're accurate with their slings. One of the goblins has a note on his body--an unsent letter to Delekhan. The letter indicates that the goblins have been spying on Highcastle at Delekhan's behest. They think they can use the trolls in the area to disrupt supplies. They also report that many of the city's defenders have been wounded in recent raids, and there have been problems with payroll shipments, causing some grumbling within the castle.

      

Intercepted communications. Are "last" and "months" supposed to be emphasized?

      

James refuses to take the road north ("we would be walking straight into the enemy's hands"), so we return to Highcastle to sell our loot, recover from the battles, and see if Baron Kevin has anything to say about the note. Kevin appreciates the intelligence and gives us 200 gold. 

   

The road south from the crossroads goes to the Dimwood Forest. I've been skirting around the perimeters of the forest the entire game, and I think that, despite the title of this pair of entries, I'll leave it for another time. So we head east towards our final destination at Cavall Keep, via Wolfram, Dencamp-on-the-Teeth, Northwarden, and Kenting Rush. Encounters along the way:

    

• A locked chest has a 100% suit of Standard Kingdom Armor, 2 herbal packs, and 5 restoratives.

• A four-troll ambush leaves Owyn near death.

• A couple of violin-playing sisters are looking for a tuning fork. We happen to have one, which we trade for a pair of leather leggings. We take the leggings back to the crossroads and exchange it with Sara for a bag of grain--but that's only one of two that we need. It takes up 4 inventory spaces, so I don't like having to lug it around until we find the second one.

     

Just a reminder that to find all of these things, I have to go back and forth across the road and around every hill. It takes a while.

      

• In a tent south of the road, we find the decomposing body of a man surrounded by mining tools. We loot some gold and a shovel. 

• A dead tree trunk seems to stand out graphically, so I click on it and find a Moredhel brooch inside. How many other tree trunks have I overlooked?

       

That stump just pops.

       

• The village of Wolfram has the usual selection of abandoned houses, villagers of no consequence, and a tavern. Owyn makes 35 sovereigns barding, which we immediately lose to a dwarf in a card game. In the Arms of Dala, we find some Dragon Plate armor at half the cost as it was in Highcastle and buy a set for Gorath.

       

A villager of no consequence.

      

• A Moredhel/goblin ambush is waiting when we enter one house. This turns out to be illusions conjured by a magician named Patrus to protect his house. He apologizes, in his own surly way, and gives us 200 gold to get our wounds tended at a nearby temple. 

      

This is like settling with an insurance company for a lot more than you were willing to accept.

       

• The Temple of Tith is just outside of town. Tith is the god of war. The patriarch is more informed about the movement of armies in distant Kesh than about the Moredhel plans just to his north: "All the messengers I have dispatched to check have been killed."

• A ransacked house where Gorath surmises the family was killed by trolls.

• Dencamp-on-the-Teeth has the usual selection of abandoned houses, villagers of no consequence, and a tavern. There is a magic shop called the Grumbling Magician. It sells numerous intriguing items with nebulous descriptions whose prices discourage experimentation. It also sells three spell scrolls I don't have: "Dannon's Delusions," "Bane of the Black Slayers," "Nightfingers." I buy all three.

      

I know what a few of these things are.

       

• A spur road leads to a house occupied by a group of armed men. They demand a password that we do not have.

• Three goblins attack outside of town. They're standing over a body with a flask of Coltari Poison, which the game tells us cannot be applied to weapons but must be secreted in something the victim will eat or drink. I can't even imagine a mechanic for doing that in this game.

          

Now I'm hearing Dean Martin.

       

• Six trolls attack in a loop off the main road. It takes everything I have--buffs, hounds, spells--to defeat them, and even then it's with most of them fleeing (as opposed to being killed), Owyn at near-death, and the other two at half-health. I use a bunch of restoratives and herbal packs on Owyn and hope for the best.

• A widow named Halfgate is trying to impress a soldier at Northwarden and wants to learn how to repair weapons. We show her a few things in exchange for a crossbow.

• There's a cave in the hills between Dencamp and Northwarden, giving us a reason to use a torch for the first time since the Krondor sewers. I'm wary about exploring it with Owyn in such bad shape, so I leave it for after we visit Northwarden.

       

Haven't seen one of these in a while.

      

• We run into a trap outside the cave and another just east of there. I'm coming to enjoy these a bit. Each one is a logic puzzle that requires you to do a combination of blocking cannons, using cannons to destroy pylons, and stepping in the right places. Once you understand how the pieces work, they tend towards the easy side.

     

This one just required me to push the hollow crystal (prompts cannon fire but does not block it) in front of the cannon, causing it to destroy the gem on the pylon you can't see in front of Owyn, then walk between the pylons.

      

• The second trap is blocking three fairy chests: "It doesn't live within a house, nor does it live without. Most will use it when they come in and again when they go out." Easy: (DOOR). 28 rations. "This side of a wolfhound has the most hair." Seven letters. I immediately see that it's a joke (OUTSIDE). 21 rations, a rope with 10 uses, and 8 restoratives. "She has tasteful friends and tasteless enemies. Tears are often shed on her behalf, yet never has she broken a heart." (ONION). It takes me a minute. Didn't we just have a riddle with that answer? 35 rations. I won't be needing rations for a while. 

The party now has 141 rations. I feed Owyn herb packs and camp until he loses his "near death" status, then head back to the cavern. We get over a pit with our rope (though it takes me a while to figure out how), defeat two trolls, and find two fairy chests in a large cavern.

         

From later in the dungeon. I could not defeat this party.

       

The first: "Neck, but no head. Arms, but no hands. Waist, but no legs." We just had a neck-but-no-head riddle; except for the second part, BOTTLE would work again. I get it by fiddling with the letters (JACKET). That was clever. It has a wyvern's egg, which seems like a quest item, though not to any quest I've been given yet.

The second: "A carpenter left some wood, would not take it back. I saw some dust where he left it, but couldn't find his stack." What is this even asking? I have to leave without opening this one.

We find some dead bodies, one with another wyvern's egg, behind a locked door. The final room has six trolls. I make one attempt to fight them, die, reload, and leave the dungeon for whatever chapter it's actually relevant in. As I leave, I reflect that it's too bad that more of the game doesn't take place in dungeons, though. The engine seems better for dungeons than for outdoor areas, which it basically treats as dungeons.

       

Maneuvering through dungeons feels a more natural use of the engine.

          

An intersection has roads leading south to Cavall Keep and north to Northwarden and points beyond. Naturally, we head north. There are corpses of Moredhel on both sides of the road as we approach the city, a mystery we never solve. It's a good thing we didn't wait to get to the fortress to heal Owyn, as it offers no services, just the palace and an odd encounter in which we find 2 sovereigns in a hole. Baron Gabot tells James about the "secret projects" they have going on, including an explosive powder made in part from pig's urine. Delekhan's forces have learned of the weapon and have kidnapped a few dozen pigs. Gabot's spies have seen siege weapons under construction and have reported Quegian mercenaries passing through the town.

Gabot also tells us that both Locklear and Duke Martin (a major character in the Riftwar trilogy) are in the area, scouting the hills. Gabot's magician, Patrus, "is off working on a few tricks of his own to counter any Moredhel spellcraft," he notes, explaining our earlier encounter. James serves a shift on guard duty and uses it to observe the behavior of the guards; afterwards, he tells Gabot that the guard schedules and assignments are far too predictable, leading to instances of note-passing and theft. In reward, Gabot gives us a suit of Euliliko Armor, which we give to Owyn.

       

James outlines the keep's weaknesses.

      

A road leads north to a pass, but James predictably wants nothing to do with it, so we turn and head south, our open exploration coming to an end. We fight five Moredhel, including two spellcasters. We defeat them, but not before one of the spellcasters nails Gorath with something that wipes away half his health and Owyn sacrifices much of his regained health for a couple of "Flamecast" spells. 

     

Look at that clustering. It was too tempting.

      

North of Cavall Keep, we come to the Temple of Kahooli, the god of Justice. The lector has a lot to say about the Nighthawks and our main quest. Apparently, in the quest for justice, the Temple often hires Nighthawks as assassins, but the lector (the head of the temple) has become disgusted with the Nighthawks' recent actions. Still, he can't betray their identities because of a holy oath that he swore when he allied with them. We'd have to become members of the temple by first studying with a prelate who lives nearby.

This seems like main quest stuff, so instead we use the teleportation system (for the first time) to go back to the Temple of Dala, figuring we'll look around the area more for that second sack of grain. It turns out that one sack is fine. The priestess offers us a blessing that will increase the defensive abilities of the person we choose, and we choose Owyn.

        

For 128 sovereigns, we probably should have just walked.

      

We then walk west and south, spending three or four nights on the road, plus multiple days traveling between screens, just to go back to Questor's View, enter Babon's Hostel, and tell the Tsurani joke we'd learned to Grimm. (See "Part 1" from a few weeks ago.) He cracks up laughing and his companions give us 80 sovereigns. It was not quite worth the trip.

        

Guess we'll have to call him something else.

              

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• Why do so many enemies carry spoiled or poisoned rations? Are they trying to get revenge on anyone who kills them? Did the rations somehow become spoiled during battle? 

• Crossbows seem to have the highest resale value of any looted weapons and armor.

• Trolls almost never drop anything, which is a mixed blessing: no overloaded inventory vs. skill increases being the only benefit of combat.

• I have a lot of specialized keys that never seem to open anything.

        

What are these all for?

       

• Sometimes when I attack and miss, the sound effects play a "Ching!" sound. What does that mean? Something to do with enemy armor?
  

• The most annoying thing about the game is the way some enemies become obsessed with Owyn and chase him all over the battle map, never letting him get a spell off.

• I got a note at one point that Gorath's "Strength" had increased. I think this might be the first time that I've been notified of an attribute increase (as opposed to a skill increase).

            

Cool. Why?

       

Speaking of skill increases, time to do a little accounting and see what we got from all of this wandering. The figures below show, for each character, the score they had at the end of my "Hand and the Cloth" post from 22 October, and the score they have now after nearly 12 hours of roaming. These are from both regular increases and equipment.

        

FYI, this is the "Aptos" font. It is my new favorite font.

           

So the exercise was both valuable mechanically and thematically, although leaving me with plenty of room to grow.

   

At this point, I've explored all of the game world except for the northernmost loop, Dimwood Forest, and the area immediately around Cavall Keep. I always enjoy (for a while) the part of a game after I've explored most of the world, and I know that the rest of the game will mostly involve filling in the details. It's akin to finally visiting all of the major cities in Skyrim or talking to all the obvious NPCs in an Ultima game. You know the pace is going to pick up from here. I'm looking forward to seeing what this betrayal is all about.

   

Time so far: 36 hours