Arena: Not Completely Entertained

I could have sworn that "in a flash of blue light" was a song lyric. I can even hear the melody. But Googling gives me nothing.

        

Arena is a good game to play in small chunks. Its predictability makes it ultimately a bit boring, but if you just focus on one quest at a time and take a few days' break in between quests, you don't really start to feel the boredom until the end of each session. That's what I thought going into this session, anyway, although I noticed that my boredom and impatience started to arrive a little bit earlier with each new dungeon, and I'm afraid by the end of this game, "small chunks" is no longer going to do it. 

      

I found two more pieces of the staff during this session, which means I'm halfway through the main quest. The quest for the third piece started when I randomly chose Eldenroot as my destination in Valenwood, home of the Wood Elves (called Bosmer in later games). I arrived about a month later. The city had more greenery, fountains, and open spaces than the cities in the other provinces, but the native Wood Elves didn't look anything like their later appearances in the series, or indeed even anything like elves.

     

A Valenwood city.

         

I immediately started asking about Elden Grove (where Ria told me I'd find the third piece of the staff). NPCs responded that I should ask at the palace.

 

There, Queen Ulandra told me she'd tell me where to find the grove if I first completed a mission for her. Her people have recently been plagued by Selene, "High Priestess of Shagrath, the God of Spiders." Selene has demanded that the Wood Elves surrender Valenwood. "We are not a fighting people," the queen pleaded, "and have no standing army." She asked me to travel to Selene's Web, find the jewel in which Selene had infused her lifeforce, and bring it back to the queen, after which, "She would not dare attack us with her life in the balance." I wondered if maybe "Shagrath" was an early version of Sheogorath, but I don't really see any connections. Also, the Wood Elves not being a "fighting people" was definitely retconned in future games.

       

Based on later Elder Scrolls lore, I think this should be happening in a tree.

        

"The dank, moldy corridor leads to Selene's Web," a message read as we entered the dungeon. "The smell of wet earth lingers in the air." It was a standard stone dungeon of corridors and rooms. Spiders were definitely the default enemy, but there were also a lot of rats, skeletons, and minotaurs. Spiders can paralyze, and I spent a lot of spell points on "Free Action."

 

The dungeon had a curious lake in its center, with multiple rectangular islands. I didn't find anything important there. The stairs to the lower level were protected with a magically-locked door that wanted a gold key. I never found the key; "Passwall" worked fine here.

     

The dungeon was, not surprisingly, full of spiders.

        

The lower level was more of a twisty maze with checkerboard walls. In addition to lots of spiders, I faced ghosts, barbarians, and rogues. The Heart of Selene was behind a door locked with a diamond key, but I found the key first this time. Eventually, I found the Heart of Selene, snatched it, and got out of there.

       

The game has no quest markers, but it does frequently remind you where you have to go.

            

Back at the palace, Queen Ulandra thanked me for the jewel and marked the location of the Elden Grove on my map. I spent a few days in town getting my Ebony Sword repaired (at Legolas's Quality Merchandise), then headed out to the location. 

      

I enjoy these pre-dungeon title cards.

         

The top level of the Elden Grove was outdoors, with fog instead of darkness and hedgerows instead of walls. The level was large and open, patrolled by wolves, ghosts, and wraiths. Wraiths and ghosts have magical attacks, which are really my big problem with this game. Magic missile attacks halve my hit points, so I can stand up to maybe two of them. I don't have enough spell points to go around with a resist magic spell active all the time, so what inevitably happens is that I run into a ghost, get killed, reload, and know to activate the spell the second time. Late in the entry, I found that "Force Bolt" paralyzes them, and I had a Mark of Force Bolt, so that made things a bit easier.

     

In the "corridors" of the Elden Grove.

            

The second level was underground and more like a standard dungeon. The staff piece was behind a locked door with this riddle:

   

My second is performed by my first,

And, it is thought,

A thief by the marks of my whole

Might be caught.

       

The best I could figure was FINGERPRINT (the print is "performed," or left, by the finger), and by leaving fingerprints, thieves are caught. I mean, not in a quasi-medieval world, but still. Anyway, it was wrong. So was FOOTPRINT or SHOE PRINT. Unable to figure it out, I tried "Passwall" and was surprised to find it worked.

      

Screw your riddles.

         

To get out, I had to answer another riddle:

   

Elvish mithril and Argonian silver, crumble I can.

But first, I improve all created by man.

I devour all things,

Bird and beast, serfs and kings.

Though my pace is even, men curse my speed,

Wishing I were lazier in their hour of need.

I can creep and crawl, or rush, even fly.

I am all thou hast. Tell me, who am I?

    

I found this one easy (TIME). On the way out, I rested a couple of times, and again Jagar Tharn appeared to taunt me, and again Ria Silmane appeared to give me the clue to the next piece. It is in the Halls of Colossus, "a structure built to honor a race of giants," located somewhere along the south coast of Tamriel.

      

I didn't get a screenshot of the final riddle, but here's a paralyzed wraith.

         

Because my character is a battlemage, I haven't been doing much with thievery. I open doors and chests with spells and by bashing them. But for characters of that bent (i.e., acrobat, assassin, bard, burglar, rogue, thief), there are real rewards for crime—perhaps more than any game so far in my chronology. These sub-classes make up for limited weapon and magic skills with cold, hard cash. These mechanics are technically available to all classes, but I guess thief classes have an easier time (there are no explicit skills, so it's hard to say exactly what the advantage is).

       

Each of these crimes has a chance of summoning town guards who regard all offenses as capital ones. The player either has to kill them all or reset the town by leaving and returning. 

     

The law arrives as I ineptly try to break into a building.

        

• Burglary: The character can break into any generic building during the day or night, or into any shop or service location during the night. Once inside, he has the run of the place and can often find piles of treasure or chests inside the location. Breaking in can be accomplished by bashing, casting a spell, or using the "pilfer" button on the main interface window.

    

Looting a house. A peasant's house, apparently.

        

• Shoplifting: All shops have a "steal" button that gives the character a chance to lift an item.

     

It just never works for me.

        

• Defrauding an Innkeeper: The character has an option, when staying at an inn, to try to burgle a vacant room and sleep there without paying.

• Pocketpicking: The player can use the "pilfer" button on regular NPCs to try to steal their things.

          

Do you have to look at me while I'm doing it?

         

• Murder: While regular NPCs and shopkeepers cannot be targeted with attacks or spells, the same is not true of guards. They can be killed and looted, either by a high-level character or by using the environmental tricks that I covered in an earlier entry. 

      

In most games that offer criminal options, their attraction is muted by the economy—it's either horribly broken, or it rewards non-criminal adventuring as lucratively as crime. Arena isn't quite like that. Characters that can buy magic items (including marks, crystals, and potions) have a far easier time surviving the dungeons. I don't mean to suggest there aren't any problems or that the system is fully formed. There's no sneaking, for one thing. Characters pickpocket NPCs while staring them right in the face. There are no tools (e.g., lockpicks) or traps, no charming or wheedling. Thievery jars with the heroic nature of the main quest. But the game still offers more authentic options for thieves as thieves than most other games I can think of so far.

       

Healing potions can be an inexhaustible resource if you have enough money.

       

Ria had suggested that the Halls of Colossus would be on the south coast. I was already in Valenwood, so that left Elsweyr and Black Marsh. I went to the adjacent Elsweyr first, home of the Khajit. I picked the city of Orcrest at random, arrived in the middle of the night, and was attacked by rogues. I defeated them and a troll, then found a juggler who directed me to the closest inn, Flying Helm.

   

In the morning, I did my normal round of shops and the Mages Guild. The developers definitely had not figured out Elsewyr and the Khajiit yet. The NPCs don't look any different than the ones in Valenwood, and nothing about the terrain suggested savanna or jungle.

    

Not at all what I had pictured.

        

Rumors said that the location of the Halls of Colossus had been discovered in Corinth, so I was soon in that city. Scuttlebutt pointed me to the Mage's Guild, where Turamane ap' Kolthis gave me essentially the same quest as I got two pieces ago: recover a stone tablet that can decipher part of the Elder Scrolls. This time, it was stolen not by goblins, but warrior-priests from the Temple of Agamanus.

   

I was going to do a town quest, but no one had any leads on work, so I went directly to the temple. The first level was a standard dungeon of white-gray walls. Enemies were armored knights, spiders, and hellhounds. The second level was much the same, with hellhounds definitely taking the lead. They often kill themselves with their own "Fireball" attacks, but they kill me often enough, too—especially if I don't see them in time to cast "Resist Fire."

    

One down, one to go.

         

The level had lots of jail cells with treasure. I was dismayed when I found another stairway down. I had thought all the handcrafted dungeons were two levels, but this one and the Halls of Colossus bucked the trend by offering three. 

       

Level 3 offered numerous battles with skeletons, ghosts, and wraiths, plus parts of the level connected by rivers. The tablet was in a room blocked by a door with a riddle:

   

I daily am in Elsweyr, and in Skyrim,

At times do all the world explore,

Since time began I've held my reign,

And shall till time is never more.

I never in my life have strolled

In garden, field or park,

Yet all of these things are sad and cold

If I'm not there and it is dark . . .

   

I had this one on the second line (SUN). Very obvious.  

          

The tablet and a pile of gold.

         

Some other notes on the game that occurred to me this session:

    

• The importance of resting on an elevated surface cannot be overstated. You hardly ever get interrupted, whereas on a regular dungeon floor, you almost always get interrupted. It's worth noting furniture on the map for this reason, as some dungeons have precious little of it.

     

A bed at last!

        

• Treasure in dungeons is weird. Most of the time, it's a couple dozen gold pieces and/or some regular equipment. Every once in a while, you find a magic item worth several thousand gold pieces. Almost all wealth comes from reselling these magic items rather than from finding literal gold. I guess, come to think of it, a lot of RPGs are like that.

• I only leveled up twice during this session. While leveling up does make the character stronger, the fact that your only choice is how to allocate 3-6 attribute points makes it a little unexciting.

• The dungeons have offered a recurring problem (this was particularly annoying on Levels 2 and 3 of the Temple of Agamanus) in which I'm unable to progress from a water square because I'm blocked by an enemy above me. I guess a character and an enemy cannot occupy the same square, even on different planes, so one floating in an empty space above the water is enough to prohibit forward momentum. A couple of times, I had to use "Passwall" to cut holes around the obstacle, often from some distance away (requiring multiple castings). 

             

I cannot move forward because of a ghost floating above me.

         

• I kept wondering why my spells wouldn't cast sometimes. It appears you cannot cast while moving. 

• The dungeons often have what we might call "set pieces" with no payoff. For instance, the Temple of Agamanus had a lake of lava with islands on the surface and nothing,  not even treasure, on the islands. Other examples include a square room with a large pit in the middle, and lakes of regular water with different island patterns.

         

Clearly some kind of importance was planned for this screenshot.

         

• I don't know how I didn't notice this before (probably because of my exploration pattern), but levels completely respawn when you leave and return, including treasure. 

• Trying to back away from enemies while swinging straight-up doesn't work. If they initiate their attacks while you're in range, the attack connects. They close the gap too fast for missile weapons to be any kind of real option. Missile weapons are solely for when they can't reach you. 

• Secret doors are nearly impossible to detect visually, but are annotated like regular doors on the automap. I realized towards the end of this session that there are sometimes carpets in front of them. 

• I didn't get a single equipment upgrade this session. My battlemage can only wear leather armor, and I guess there isn't any enchanted leather. Rather than worry about its condition, I've been selling my entire suit (plus my round shield) after each dungeon and purchasing a new set. I was briefly excited by an Adamantium Sword, but it turned out to be worse than my existing Ebony Sword. I'll talk more about equipment next time, but it appears that like Might and Magic III-V, equipment can either be a) made of a durable material like mithril or ebony, or b) enchanted, but not both. So magic weapons always under-perform regular weapons made of tough material. However, sometimes their spell is worth it. Late in this session, I found a long sword with 1,667 castings of "Firestorm." That's a pretty powerful spell. The store will buy it for nearly 20,000 gold pieces.

    

Even if I use it for every attack in every battle, it will probably still be here at the end of the game.

       

• By the end of this session, it was clear to me that the great "money sink" of the game (and the way to break it) is with potions. They have no weight, and they stack, so you can buy as many as you can afford. If you've been selling most of the looted magic items, by this time in the game, that's a lot of potions. 

               

Are these giants ever mentioned again?

       

The Halls of Colossus, like the Temple of Agamanus, had three levels, but Levels 2 and 3 were relatively small. As might be guessed by the name, the authors were clearly inspired by the Colosseum. Level 1 contained the gladiators' cells, complete with iron gates and chains hanging from the ceilings. Monsters included orcs, ghouls, zombies, lizard men, hell hounds, and a couple of ghosts.

   

Level 2 consisted mostly of a huge central hall with tall Doric columns. There were seven separate stairways from Level 1 down to that hall. The hall was swarming with rats, the only enemy on this level. At its far end were a series of doors that had to be unlocked with six different keys found on Level 1. So although the entire dungeon had less physical space than the typical two-level dungeons, it took longer because I had to exhaustively explore every corner of the first level. I think I actually could have bypassed all or most of the doors with "Passwall," but I figured if I resorted to that too often, I'd be under-leveled at some point.

     

The Halls of Colossus.

        

The first level required a lot of swimming. One long channel in the southeast took me to a large, open area with the only hard enemies (a couple of ghosts). A statue of a dragon in the middle of this area had a name: "Theodorus." This turned out to be the answer to a riddle that followed all of the locked doors:

   

I am the architect of this hell,

whose name is forgot in the dust of time.

Yet, where there is no dust,

where the river would speak,

there is my name.

        

Note that I have four keys at this point.

           

The third level soon brought me up against a door with another riddle:

    

I am twice as old as three times the age of

the Sphinx of Gazia, Agamamnus,

divided by one-ninth the age of the Sphinx of Canus, Igon,

who left this world twenty-six years ago.

What then is my age?   

          

The absurd riddle.

          

I couldn't figure it out at all. Knowing that Igon died 26 years ago doesn't help at all with how old he was when he died. I assumed the answer must depend on a clue I had missed somewhere. "Passwall" wouldn't get me around the door. I nearly ended the session here asking for a hint, but I figured that maybe I could narrow it down by just trying multiples of six. I thus started plugging in multiples of 6 starting at 30. (I figured the speaker had to be at least 26.) The first time I got it wrong, a secret door opened next to me and a skeleton attacked, but every time after that, I was fine. I was just about to give up when I got the answer correct at 108.

   

That was a bit lucky on my part, as I later realized that the "divided by one-ninth the age of the Sphinx of Canus, Igon" part meant that the actual factor multiplied against Agamamnus's age could be literally anything. For instance, if Igon was 54, the two multipliers would cancel each other out, and the speaker's age could thus be any positive integer. By that time, I was done and had looked up the solution online, which is to add up the positional values of the letters in the names "Agamamnus" and "Igon":

 

A=1

G=7

A=1

M=13

etc.

 

This gives us 90 for Agamamnus and 45 for Igon. 90*6/(45/9) = 108. How the hell was anyone supposed to figure that out in 1994? Did I, in fact, miss a clue somewhere? Also, is "Agamamnus" supposed to be the same person as "Agamanus"?

   

The door opened into a large area with floating platforms and a new enemy: homonculuses. (I realize the plural of homunculus is homunculi, but I don't see any reason to apply the same logic to the game's misspelling.) These are floating imps that shoot spells. I mostly took care of them by charging into melee range and then casting "Firestorm" from my sword a couple of times.

      

Blasting a "homonculus."

       

With all the floating platforms, I thought there would be a final jumping puzzle, but the fourth piece of the staff was just hanging in the air at ground level. I grabbed it and made my way out. Jagar Tharn didn't appear in my dreams this time (or, at least, not yet), but Ria Silmane made her usual appearance and said that the fifth piece would be in the Crystal Tower. More about that location next time.

      

What was this about?

                

Even though I'm eager to get on with it, I'll make an effort next time to try some side quests and to more thoroughly explore village life.

   

Time so far: 20 hours