Betrayal at Krondor: Assassin's Creed

 

Who is James talking to? Find out in this exciting episode.

       

The position in which we left ourselves at the end of the last session meant that we could come at Cavall Keep from the direction of Romney, which makes the most thematic sense. It's what we would have done if we hadn't gone "roaming" for the last two entries. The journey takes about a week on foot. We stop at Romney just to make sure we haven't overlooked anything there, but it doesn't appear that we have.

    

As we transition to the new area, Owyn mentions his Uncle Corvalis, who owns some estates in Cavall Keep. We're soon ambushed by a party of three Nighthawks who make the mistake of trying to take us out with crossbows, which gives Owyn plenty of time to freeze them with "Fetters of Rime." Someone asked recently if I've been casting "Final Rest" on them, and I said no. It turns out I don't even have it. I'm not sure where I was supposed to get it.

   

We cross a bridge and meet a group of Riverpullers headed south to add their strength to the guild war. They ask if we're supporting Mitchel and the Glazer's Guild. We honestly say no. They then ask if we support Ian. I can't remember who Ian is, but we don't support anybody. They call us "men without commitments" and move on.

      

This is the very definition of "not my circus, not my monkeys."

       

In the town of Prank's Stone:

 

• We meet a man who claims his machine converts rubies to emeralds, and that he's working on a version that converts rubies to diamonds. He wants rubies from us to test it, but we don't have any. 

• At the end of a short path, we find a monolith that seems to be making some kind of humming sound. Owyn says that it's "emitting a very strange energy" and wonders if we should touch it. I reluctantly say yes. We're all startled by a loud bang, but we don't seem to be hurt. Then the name of the town sinks in.

       

The answer to such questions is always "no," but you have to do it anyway.

      

• In the Flying Sow tavern, a trembling woman with a bruise on her face hands us a package that she was told to deliver. She won't or can't answer any other questions. The thing is, when we leave the tavern and I can get into the inventories, there doesn't seem to be any new items. I reload and try again and get the same result. I'm not sure what she was supposed to have delivered. 

      

I have no idea what this was about.

     

• Hearing a commotion in a house, we burst in on an actor running his lines for a play. We have to pay 25 sovereigns to fix his door. 

• A shop called Roots and Herbs. I'm tempted to sell some of my Silverthorn, as I don't think I've been poisoned once, but I don't. We buy a couple of herb packets.

    

The road turns west after Prank's Stone. We defeat four more Nighthawks north of a graveyard. There are two fairy chests in the area:

    

• "The language of men can be mastered. But what Kingdom word is always pronounced wrong?" You never fool me with literal clues. This one has a light crossbow, 20 elven quarrels, a peasant's key, and 2 restoratives.

• "Names give power. Magic to control. But what is broken by naming it?" I've heard this one before in at least three other RPGs (SILENCE). 57 sovereigns and a dragon stone.

   

A regular chest nearby is trapped, but I always have Owyn cast "Scent of Sarig" before opening those. It has a ruby and an emerald, so I reluctantly go back to Prank's Stone just to see what will happen with the machine. It does seem to crank out a diamond, although valued at 2% compared to the ruby's 46%. I suspect the ruby was thus worth more.

        

I don't remember where this was, but I thought it was a nice image.

         

South of the road, we find the Temple of Banath, where two guards try to get us to strip all of our metals before entering: "Metal is base and offensive to our god." They warn that we'll be struck dead if we enter with metal. Motivated less by piety and more by a desire not to have to juggle the inventory, I ignore them. Nothing happens to us, but neither does the temple have anything useful for us. 

     

Along a western spur, three trolls and an easy trap stand between us and a pretty waterfall. Under a pile of leaves on this screen, we find a Ring of the Golden Way, which improves "Scouting" by 15 points. We can also go behind the waterfall, where we find a locked door next to a niche with a chessboard. A knight is missing from the board. There isn't anything else we can do here for now.

        

There's always something behind the waterfall.

       

Most of this game occurs on relatively linear paths between mountains, which I explore by bouncing back and forth like a ball. It's always a bit startling when the world opens up into a large clearing, which happens here.

      

The game world opens up.

    

I probably miss some things, but I find:

    

• A recently-dug hole containing a blessed broadsword in 100% condition.

• A big barn where we're ambushed by six Moredhel warriors. It's a measure of how far we've come that even in an ambush, they don't stand a chance. One of them has a note from someone named "Narab" commanding that they capture or kill Gorath. "Slay him before he discovers our connection to the Nighthawks."

• Three trolls.

• A shop called Dabeh's Fanciful Trinkets. Among other things, it sells wyvern eggs, so I'm not sure why I've been lugging around two of them. I keep one, reasoning that I can return here if I need another. More important, the shop sells a bunch of spells I don't have: "Dragon's Breath," "Skyfire," "The Unseen," "Nacre Cicatrix," "Unfortunate Flux," "Thoughts Like Clouds," and "Final Rest." I buy "Final Rest" for now, plus a skill book called Dorcas' Treatise which increases Owyn's "Casting Accuracy" skill to 100%. That's nice because he accidentally nailed James with "Fetters of Rime" in a recent troll battle.

      

Owyn's current spells.

      

• A field of tree stumps containing gold, potions, and minor treasures.

• An inn called Lapping Meadows. 

• A trap guarding three fairy chests, two of which I'm still mulling. The one I get: "We don't need wine, we don't need meat, we have sharp teeth, but cannot eat" (SAWS). The other two: "It can move over water, but cannot fly. It can move under water but stays quite dry." I would say SOUND or SOUNDWAVE, but it has six letters. "Has tongue but cannot talk. Runs but cannot walk." Five letters. Other than an animal, which doesn't go with the second part, I can't think of anything that has a tongue but a shoe.

      

A complex trap.

       

• As I walk through an area, the game dings and says "the party's abilities have increased" several times. What seems to have increased is "Stealth." I assume that means I avoided an ambush?

• A house selling herbal packs, restoratives, Flame Root oil, and Killian's Root oil. I haven't heard of that latter one. It's very expensive (192 sovereigns for 6 doses), but it supposedly increases weapon effectiveness. James haggles them down to 154 and buys one pack.

• A farm with a house and barn. The farmer warns us about "spinners," or giant spiders, found in the area.

      

One more thing happens before we get to Corvall keep: We find a chest on the side of the road with 240 sovereigns and a note from Count Geoffrey Corvalis to the High Priest of Kahooli: "I request that Navon du Sandau be driven mad for his attacks on my person and my family." Is this Owyn's uncle?

           

Finally, we approach Cavall Keep. When I started this entry, I thought we'd be there by the third paragraph. Cavall Keep is a menu town with a weapon shop, a tavern, and Count Geoffrey's manor. North of the city is another large, open area, ending in the town of Kenting Rush. Things get confusing at this point, so I'm going to summarize instead of going in a linear order, but the story comes from a combination of talking to the very unpleasant Geoffrey, Owyn's cousin Ugyne (Geoffrey's daughter), and the slick Navon du Sandau, who is hanging around outdoors in Kenting Rush. We have to go back and forth among these people a number of times to get all the keywords.

      

Count Geoffrey gives me another great phrase to use on students who visit during office hours.

      

Geoffrey's unpleasantness--he barely acknowledges Owyn--comes from a series of misfortunes. Years ago, at his keep outside of the city, he sent his son Neville downstairs for a bottle of wine, and the wine cellar collapsed. The boy's body was never recovered. Then, a few years after that, the keep burned down, killing the count's wife and a maid, forcing the family to relocate to the city.

      

Ugyne.

       

Ugyne is coming of age, and a Navon du Sandau, a merchant from Kenting Rush, has been courting her. Geoffrey doesn't like him because it was a Sandau who designed the faulty wine cellar, although Navon denies that he's related. (In this kind of setting, that seems unlikely.) Navon has been prying into Corvalis business, including the layout of the dungeon (called Cavall Run) beneath the old estate, the amount of gold that might still be found there, and the fate of a legendary magical sword called Guarda Revanche that used to be owned by the family. Increasingly annoyed by the man's attentions ("he brings up memories and feelings I wish to leave buried"), Geoffrey has been trying to hire the Temple of Kahooli to deal with him, but they haven't been coming around lately to collect contracts and payments from their dead-drops. 

        

Navon.

          

Meanwhile, Ugyne drops a bomb: The spyglass in our possession came from the old Corvalis keep, but it disappeared around the time of Neville's death.

 

Our first encounter with Navon is preceded by James reacting to the smell of jasmine in the air, which he also smelled at the Black Sheep Tavern, where the massacre that prompted our current quest took place. Navon explains that he deals in spices, but James is still troubled. Navon expresses surprise that Geoffrey hasn't asked the Nighthawks to assassinate him: "He is surrounded by Nighthawks. They guard his house, his lands, Cavall Keep . . . though they never wear their guild clothing while working for the Count." James also learns a chess move from Navon, as "Ivan Skaald in Malac's Cross tells us you are quite a chess player." I don't remember this conversation.

       

A battle with three Nighthawks and two black slayers. Their obsession with crossbows (and thus staying at a distance) means I can blast four of them with fire.

       

Near the Temple of Kahooli, we meet the prelate that the lector told us about last session. The lector promised to tell us where to find the Nighthawks if we could become initiates of the temple. For a 50-gold-piece donation, he tells us the three codes of Kahooli and the tasks needed to demonstrate piety:

• Subjugation of the Will: Renounce all ties to king and country.
• Mortification of the Flesh: Clean oneself of all appetites of the flesh.
• Subordination of Service: Go through the "water curtain" and pray to Kahooli for a full year.

   

The lector insists that we have to do at least one of these things, but the first and third are clearly out (unless Gorath could do the first alone), and I don't know how to demonstrate the second even if it were possible.

        

Bribing the prelate to learn the tenets of the faith.

        

The large area between Cavall Keep and Kenting Rush is full of treasure chests, fairy and otherwise, and we end up loaded with gems, which we sell at a shop in Kenting Rush called Jewels, Keys, Rings. We have well over 2,000 sovereigns by the time we're done, so I guess there's no need to skimp on anything. I'm going to omit a few other encounters in the area, including James getting beat up by the husband of a former lover and a visit to a sorcerer that nets us a Lighting Staff we don't have room for.

     

I enjoy the shop screens.

      

There are a few encounters with Nighthawks in the area, and after the battle, I try to cast "Final Rest" on them only to find it's a combat spell. Why would I cast it in combat? I'm more confused than ever.

      

We also find the knight chess piece in a well in the town, locked behind a grate that we need a virtue key to open. James has a long speech about how this type of lock used to be found on chastity belts.

      

How do we know this background?

     

I suspect that Navon is lying about Geoffrey and that in fact Navon is the leader of the Nighthawks. He's just a little too smooth, and there's the jasmine thing. Plus, if Geoffrey really were so embedded with the Nighthawks, who are allied with the Temple of Kahooli, why would he have so much trouble getting the services of the temple? However, I don't know how to prove it just yet, so in the meantime, I head back to the waterfall. Placing the knight piece on the chessboard causes the door to open.

            

Is that supposed to be some kind of pun?

      

The resulting map is quite large--easily the largest of the four dungeons we've explored so far in the game. As I noted last time, I like dungeon exploration in this interface. It works better than outdoor exploration with its weird, impassable hills that blend in with the landscape and force you to constantly switch between first-person view and map view. It also feels very module-like.

        

A bit of the dungeon.

      

By exploring with  my usual "follow the right wall" approach, we encounter the following:

    

• A battle with four giant spiders. Very easy.

• A battle with two giant spiders and a Black Slayer. Still easy.

       

The graphics for the spiders could be a little better. They just look like blobs.

     

• A fairy chest in an alcove: "You tie these things before you go and untie them after you stop." It's not LACES or REINS. There are only five letters, though, and the last is clearly an "S," so I get it through brute force and do a face-palm when I get the answer (SHOES). A crossbow, a ruby, and 121 royals.

• A battle with three Nighthawks and one Black Slayer. They could be tough, but they make the mistake of thinking that archery is the key to success, which allows Owyn to nail them from afar with spells. However, one of them does manage to poison Owyn. Good thing I kept those berries. They're guarding a chest with an elven crossbow.

       

The game narrates everything, even a simple status effect.

      

• Three more giant spiders in a hallway.

• A couple of pits that we have to swing across on a rope.

      

I keep forgetting to take a video of the little animation that accompanies this.

        

• Several locked doors that James manages to pick. As he does, I can't help but notice he has a lot fewer keys than he did before. A screenshot I showed in the last entry has him with 9 peasant's keys, 3 virtue keys, 1 noble's passkey, 9 guilder's passkeys, 1 Guildis Thorn, and 1 Royal Key of Krondor. Since then, he somehow lost 6 peasant's keys, all 9 guilder's passkeys, the noble's passkey, and the Guildis Thorn. I'm sure I didn't use them.

• A room in which a Nighthawk is guarding two chests. The moment he sees us, he swallows poison and dies, which confuses the party. The chests just have a rope and a sword. There's a locked door that James cannot open on the south wall.

      

That seems like an extreme reaction.

      

• Fairy chest: "This sparkling globe can float on water and weighs not more than a feather. Yet despite its weight, ten giants could never pick it up" (BUBBLE). I probably would have gotten it anyway but half the correct letters are already in place. A crossbow, 158 royals, a Moredhel brooch, and a torch.

• Fairy chest: "Ten troll's strength, ten troll's length, one troll can pick it up, no troll can stand it up" (ROPE). No four-letter answer is hard since each dial has only four possible letters. This chest has the journal of an abbot from Malac's Cross who, on the edge of Elvandar Forest, saw someone open a fairy chest with the password GLAMREDHEL and reveal the Guarda Revanche. I'm not sure it's possible to get that far west in this game, so I'm not sure how that helps. This is the first time that a plot-specific item has been in a fairy chest, I think. Now I'm paranoid about the ones I didn't open.

    

I've heard of this book before, though I don't know it.

       

• A room with a locked, trapped chest containing a blessed broadsword and a medium crossbow.

• An impassable stairwell choked with collapsed stones.

      

This is another hint I should have picked up on.

       

• A room with three Nighthawks. One of them has a noble's passkey, so at least I got that back.

• A room with four black slayers guarding a fairy chest that opens to MUSIC. (I don't feel like typing out those riddles anymore.) It has a blessed Moredhel lamprey and 3 doses of Killian's Root Oil. At this point, I have so much stuff to rub on my weapons before battle that I've started doing it before literally every battle.

  

My inventory is getting out of control.

       

• One Nighthawk, three black slayers.

• Two Nighthawks in a corridor. Really? Two?!

• A black slayer leading four Nighthawks. Harder. Owyn goes down, which means days of resting and healing to remove his "near-death" status. Fortunately, I have plenty of herbal packs and rations, or I could just pay to have him healed at a temple. The dungeon is almost over.

• Another battle with four Nighthawks leaves Owyn unconscious and near-death again. "Near-death" means that he doesn't gain much health or stamina until the effect is removed. Even with herbal packs active, it decreases only a few percentage points a day. I think it matters where you sleep. The dungeon must be the worst place because it barely budges.

         

"Fetters of Rime" continues to do its job.

       

At this point, having decimated the Nighthawks, we're still no closer to the solution to the quest. I resolve to go back to the Temple of Kahooli, get Owyn healed, and figure out how to complete one of the tasks of piety. I stop at Cavall Keep on the way, but Count Geoffrey has gone hunting. Ugyne has nothing new.

    

But when we encounter Navon in Kenting Rush again, there's a new dialogue option: "Sword." Ugyne told us that she had loaned a book about the Guarda Revanche to Navon, but he insists he left it at home. "Some place like Cavall Run?" James says, putting two and two together faster than I did. Apparently, the dungeon under the waterfall is the same as the one that used to be under Count Geoffrey's keep; hence, the stairway blocked by debris. The book that Ugyne loaned Navon is the abbot's journal.

    

James calls him out: "I have always wondered what the leader of the Nighthawks might be like and now it seems we meet face to face." He goes on to deduce that not only is Navon the leader of the Nighthawks, he is also Neville, Count Geoffrey's lost son. ("As I recall, the body was never found and you have displayed an unerring interest in the Corvalis family.") Navon confesses that James is correct. Geoffrey isn't his father, however; his mother had an affair. The business with the wine cellar was Geoffrey's botched attempt to kill him. The Nighthawks (still bloodied from their war with Arutha in Silverthorn) ended up kidnapping Neville for ransom, but he used the magic spyglass to convince them that he had magic powers. He eventually took charge of the organization, set up in Geoffrey's old dungeon, and began tormenting his former "father" and courting Ugyne: "Not that I would have conjugated the marriage, Ishap forbid. She would have died some unpleasant death on our wedding night." He mentions something about Geoffrey's servant, Isunatus, accepting money from Delekhan and somehow funneling it to Navon. I'm confused about this bit.

     

He's speaking to James, not me. I'm an idiot.

       

James demands the key to the locked door in the dungeon, and Navon challenges him to take it from him. Combat begins. Navon starts some distance away and nails Owyn with an arrow, sending him to the mat. Owyn would have been useless anyway. Navon doesn't stand up more than a couple of rounds to James and Gorath. On his body, we loot a suit of Dragon Plate armor, a poisoned greatsword, 38 sovereigns, 9 enchanted quarrels, a diamond, some Silverthorn poison, a cellar key, and a note. The note just clues us in about the cave behind the waterfall, so I'm guessing there was another way to expose Navon through the temple.

  

Double-teaming the Nighthawk leader.

     

Another visit to Jewels, Keys, Rings leaves us with over 4,400 sovereigns (the diamond that we took from Navon sells for 1,300 alone). We buy a couple of the keys that we mysteriously lost. We head up the road to the Temple of Kahooli--where the lector will no longer see us--and get Owyn healed. Finally, we head back south to the waterfall. On the way, we stop at Cavall Keep, but there are no new dialogues with Ugyne or Geoffrey. 

     

"Only?!"

     

In the dungeon, the key opens the way to a single room with a single fairy chest. "This engulfing thing is strange indeed. The greater it grows, the less you see." At least it's an easy one (DARKNESS).

    

The chest has a scroll detailing Delekhan's plans to attack Northwarden, which we visited last session. James is concerned because the plan calls for too few Moredhel troops to possibly capture the city, suggesting that Delekhan has a secret weapon or other advantage. "Maybe the Nighthawks have infiltrated the castle," Owyn suggests. James scribbles a warning letter to Prince Arutha and gives it to Gorath and Owyn to take to him outside Dimwood Forest, near Sethanon. James himself plans to go to Northwarden to warn Baron Gabot. A cut scene relates that Owyn and Gorath are captured by Delekhan's lieutenant, Narab, before they can reach Arutha. And with that, we transition to Chapter 4: "Marked for Death."

      

Chapter 3 ends.

      

I may have to reload and replay a bit, since now that I know that I'm going to be starting the next session with no money and only Owyn and Gorath, I may want to buy some stuff and shuffle some equipment around.

       

Great artistic choice to silhouette the horned helmet against the full moon. Was it made by the same person who did the character portraits?

     

This was a very long session, but I wanted to get to the end of Chapter 3. This is a very dense game, and not one that I would recommend taking long breaks (which I've done twice) while playing. It's hard to keep track of all the plot developments and allusions when you play it bit by bit. But I hope that now that I've explored most of the game world, the rest of the chapters will go a bit faster. Then again, I said that last time.

    

Time so far: 43 hours