Star Trail: The Cruelest Month

Jewel of the Nile (1985) did it first, jackass.

        

It helps to know that although this entry will go live on 4 April, it represents a session that I played three days earlier. 

     

When I left Tjolmar, I was determined to reach Tiefhusen by going south via the westernmost path, the same way I had reached Tjolmar by going west via the northernmost path. It went fine. We soon reached Norhus, a menu town with an inn and a ferry service going down the river. We chose to stay on foot. Forest gnomes continued to ambush us periodically, and one night, there were two of them instead of one, and they didn't flee after attacking. We reluctantly killed them. When I reloaded later, this didn't happen again, and I was glad. By the way, Titus told me why this happens, but I'd rather deal with them than constantly have to equip and unequip Gnomon's axe. When forest gnomes don't attack at night, sometimes orcs do.

       

Negotiating to cross a river.

      

Continuing to follow the river, we came to Hilvalla, another menu town with a ferry. Here, we crossed the river to the west and followed a road going west into some mountains. The path ended at a T-junction on the far western edge of the game map. We went north.

   

"There's a strange smell in the air," the game said, noting that insects had mysteriously fled. We chose to keep going. "All around you , the trees and bushes are dead," the next screen read. The party got sick. We chose to keep going. Finally, at the top of a hill, we noted a desolated area empty of life. "The stinging smell of corruption burns your nostrils," the game said. A character vomited. A black spot in the barren landscape was moving towards us. We chose to move on.

  

We died a scripted death at the fangs of a basilisk.

      

This is true. I died taking this screenshot.

       

We had a saved game from the night before, but I thought maybe we would need mirrors to beat him. (In fairness, the game never said we were turned to stone. I don't know if a basilisk even does that in The Dark Eye. But I figured the shops must sell mirrors for something.) I thus reloaded my save from Tjolmar, bought mirrors for all characters, stuck them in their off hands, and repeated the journey. It had no effect on what happened. Neither did putting the mirrors in the main hand. I experimented with different spells, but I honestly couldn't think of anything that would really help. I had everyone chew Donf sprigs, which supposedly protect against paralysis, and Belmart leaves, which protect against poison and disease. Nothing changed the message. I eventually gave up, and commenters confirmed that there is no way to defeat the basilisk in this version. 

   

We continued south until we were parallel with Tiefhusen and then, having found nothing else on the road, headed for the city. 

      

That's not a good sign.

          

Tiefhusen is a port city with a low wall around it. At first, I thought the orcish-looking figures evenly spaced along the exterior of the north wall were statues, but dialogue in the city made me realize that they're actual orcs. For a while, I thought they might be besieging the city, but I think I was supposed to get the impression that they had in fact conquered and occupied the city. The game is a bit maddening in how obliquely it delivers such information. We got no messages to that effect as we entered; we had to suss it out from the fact that the harbor was blockaded with buoys, the presence of the (non-interactable) orc guards on the borders, and some vague comments from NPCs. A couple of them said something along the lines that Tiefhusen held out longer than most cities, and one told me that the priestess of the temple of Rondra killed the orc leader.

         

No, that's not "enough said." Finish the story!

       

For the dozenth time, I wish the game had done a better job setting up its political situation in the manual, opening cinematic, or even clear NPC dialogue. Commenters on my last entry hinted at lore that is only alluded to in the game, and I had no luck finding a summary when I Googled appropriate terms. You know how much I enjoy history and lore; I'm practically drooling with every foreshadowing in Arena. But the lore of Star Trail seems oddly elusive. It's constantly beneath the surface of the game, but there are a limited number of wells, and they yield only a trickle of water. To be clear, I have no problem with such situations when the lore itself is supposed to be unclear, as in the interpretation of ancient historical events or the true nature of the gods. But the fact that a major city is conquered and occupied by an invading force is something that should have been front-and-center.

      

Bollards—or whatever the nautical form of bollards is called—prevent entry into Tiefhusen's harbor.

       

The occupation didn't seem to have much effect on the availability of goods and services. As I explored the city's shops, inns, and taverns, I asked about both ORCS and STAR TRAIL. Hesindian, the priest at the Temple of Hesinde, told me that Boozy Jandor has a lot to say about the latter, and that I'd probably find him in a tavern. I found him in the first tavern I visited, Pile o' Gold. We had to buy him round after round of drinks and keep returning him to the subject as his narrative went astray, but eventually he told us that they'd know something about it in the Temple of Phex, but that to successfully approach the priests in the temple, we'd need advice from "ole Hensger" who lives near the river.

     

Is this guy the young priest later? Discuss.

         

Other encounters in Tiefhusen:

   

• At the castle gates, a guard prodded us away. 

• An old man accused us of being part of a gang that's "making trouble at the riverbanks." He wanted 10 ducats not to report us to the guards. We tried to "teach him a lesson," but 20 guards popped up, beat Mahasim unconscious, and warned us that "those who do not respect Peridor will be taught respect by Arnuld." I guess the old man is Peridor and the captain of the guard is Arnuld. Later, a man warned us about the group: "[They] use the situation to extort money from strangers." 

• The Temple of Phex was closed. "Something like this has never been seen before anywhere in Arkania," the game said.

       

That seems unlikely.

       

• I'd like to re-emphasize that to explore any city in the game is to get the same set of rude messages in 90% of the houses that you try to visit: "You blackguards. May Travia forgive you"; "Well, whatta you know. Pity I haven't the time"; "Not bad! I wish I had the time to deal with you"; "Well, if you like housework, here's the place to be..."; "Scoundrels! Get out of my face, you lowlives!"; and so forth. But you have to hit all of them, since one could have a key NPC.

         

I'm going to need an explanation for this one.

       

Hensger was literally sitting under a tree in the north part of town. I think it's the first time that the game has shown an NPC in the environment like that. He presented himself as a rogue willing to fleece us for the information we desired. We agreed to pay him 80 ducats, or about one-third of our current purse, and he told us to meet him again at "dawn." We had to waste a day in the city before returning in the morning.

   

He led us through the streets, stopped at a building, and opened the bulkhead to a cellar. At his prodding, we entered. Naturally, he slammed it shut and locked it behind us.

       

And it's naturally immune to spells, lockpicks, brute force, etc.

      

We were surprised to find ourselves in a dungeon beneath the Temple of Phex. It was a reasonably large level, with multiple secret doors cued with a slightly different wall color. As we explored, we were attacked repeatedly by mummies, priests, skeletons, and skeleton warriors, each providing a reasonably vigorous workout.

           

A battle with some skeletons.

          

One chest offered a golden throwing axe, and for a blissful couple of hours—hilarious in retrospect—I thought we had actually found Star Trail. (My enthusiasm was a bit dampened by the fact that none of my characters are particularly skilled in throwing weapons.) Another chest had Phex's Shield and Phex's Helmet, setting up another comment section where fans of the game could criticize my poor decision-making skills in stealing from a god. I don't care. The game offers so few weapon and armor upgrades that I'm taking what I can get, god or no god.

       

Did we just . . . win?

         

In this case, taking the items caused a poltergeist to materialize in the only corridor out of the area. He didn't attack, but he refused to let me pass, and my characters shouted that he couldn't be destroyed with weapons. I paged through my spells and was successful with "Banish Spirit."

      

I think the game needs to elaborate on "you do not success."

       

A few other encounters in the dungeon:

   

• There were two places where I was offered the opportunity to pick up a parchment on the floor. Both caused me to get attacked by four skeleton warriors. One offered a recipe for a magic potion (brandy, 2 mandrake roots, 2 kairans, and a thonnys); the other had a recipe for a "money crapper": charcoal, an "arch lump," a copper cauldron, a basilisk tongue, a crystal ball, and fire powder. I assume this is the "prank" that Titus Sturmfels was referring to in this comment. I don't know where to get most of these items, so I don't mind if someone just spoils what this is all about.

• There was a memorable moment in which we saw some skeletons hanging on a wall and Toliman must have failed his "Necrophobia" check.

     

That's kind-of how I feel, now that I'm in my 50s.

      

• These were the skeletons, by the way:

      

I guess someone passed his "Paleontology" check.

       

• There was some nice artwork on the walls of the dungeon, including this repeating design:

      

Does this have any special Dark Eye meaning?

      

• And this painting from the box cover of Blade of Destiny:

      

They're just reminding us that we were actually able to find the subtitular weapon in the previous game.

        

• One room had an inscription on the wall that said: "He whose sword slices the silence shall reap Boron's doom." Boron is the god of death, and his "doom" is presumably death, but I don't know what "slices the silence" means. 

       

"Wey oh," indeed.

     

• Gnomon's high "Danger Sense" (or perhaps "Perception") skill saved us from several traps.

• I haven't had any lockpicks since the orcs took them when I entered Lowangen. Fortunately, the doors in the dungeon yielded to brute force. One required a key that we found. 

• It's my usual practice to fight battles the long way for a while and then let the computer finish them off when it's clear that I have the upper hand. In those moments, the game often shows a "hand" symbol above the character's portrait on the quick-combat screen. The manual suggests that this means the character is disarmed, except all those characters have weapons equipped and have no problem using them in regular combat. Do those symbols mean something else? (Forgot to get a screenshot, sorry.)

           

Gnomon expresses a fetish that I didn't even know existed.

      

Completing the dungeon meant opening several doors that could only be opened by solving some riddles. The first involved a wall plate with a man's face that asked: "When is the Light of Phex alone?" I had a blank to type in the answer. Phex, according to the manual, is the god of merchants, thieves, and the night. Only one of those is a valid answer to "when." I tried NIGHT and was correct.

     

Thought you fooled me with those extra blanks, didn't you?

         

The second encounter was at an altar, where we were asked to donate some money. (We could also steal some, but I'm not dumb enough to steal from an altar in the god's own temple.) I saved and tried various amounts, finally getting a message that something happened off in the distance when we donated 70 gold pieces. That left us with only about 30. I suppose if you get here and you don't have that much, you'd better hope you have a pre-dungeon save. I feel like someone warned me about this in a past comment.

         

I wonder what would have happened if we'd put a big bag of sand in there.

       

The third puzzle was a cute little memory puzzle involving tiles arranged in a 5 x 3 grid. Clicking on any tile revealed an image behind it. The images included snakes, chests, birds, horses, dolphins, lions, lizards, and foxes. Only three tiles remained active at any time, so I figured the puzzle wanted me to find three of one of the creatures. I think that the only symbol repeated three times was the fox, which made it rather easy to figure out. Also, there was fox iconography elsewhere in the dungeon, and a fox makes sense as a symbol for the god of thieves. Plus, "Phex" even sounds like "fox."

      

The symbols are oddly well-drawn for such a brief appearance.

      

I've compared Arena favorably to Star Trail in some areas, but Star Trail is clearly the winner when it comes to the interactivity of its environments. In Arena, I can barely pick up a key. I don't think the engine allows for features like buttons, chains, and switches, let alone memory puzzles embedded in the wall. 

     

Together, these puzzles opened the way to the final area, where in a cutscene we met three priests of Phex including Hensger. I'm going to type the older priest's speech in its entirety because it raises a lot of questions:

      

I assume you want to know where Star Trail is. Put your mind at ease: The axe is safe and secure where it belongs. In the hands of Phex. It has been there all this time. Where exactly is none of your business. But it is in the middle of Orcish Lands and thus impossible to reach. In some ways, we are sorry that you have gone through such strenuous effort. Especially since you shall not receive the reward our young brother mentioned so rashly. You see, all of this has been no more than a test. No, not for you, but for our acolyte here. You weren't slated for any kind of test. Do you really believe the fates would be so unimaginative as to test you twice in allowing you to search for some weapon? As for you, young friend: You failed your test in Historical Research miserably; however, it was a minor subject, and you deserve recommendation for your achievements in building security and motivation of third parties. We shall go easy on you. But you must take care to be more diligent in your research next time. And you, brave heroes, be assured of our eternal gratitude. But for now, I must ask you to leave the temple as the initiation rites are reserved for those who have reached a certain level.

      

At this point, we had options to flee or attack the priests. I chose to attack them, but they got to act first in the subsequent battle, and they just immediately fled. 

       

The first option, while the best one, doesn't accomplish anything.

     

So let's recap:

      

• The subtitle of the game is Star Trail.
• "Star Trail" turns out to be a throwing axe.
• The quest to find the throwing axe isn't the main quest of the game.
• And it can't even be completed.

           

Ooh, I think there's a meme for this.

        

          

It's an audacious approach, I'll give them that. And the reveal came on the perfect day for it. The wink-wink-nudge-nudge part of the speech is in the screenshot at the top of this entry. The subtitle of the first game was Blade of Destiny, and the party actually recovered the Blade of Destiny. "Did you really think we'd do the same thing again?" (It wouldn't surprise me if the three faces were modeled on the three primary developers.) No, I didn't. I wouldn't have imagined for a second that "Star Trail" was a weapon. I would have thought it had to do with the long route through the wilderness that we've had to take between various plot points. It was the game itself that artificially created the parallel just so it could yank the rug out from under us.

        

Where do these seven guys fit into your "test"?

        

The priest was talking to the acolyte in the last few sentences, and I'm not sure why the young man would have failed "Historical Research." All I can say is that he got a lot of his fellow priests killed in the dungeon's battles, which is something that they never address. 

   

As we exited the dungeon, four of my characters leveled up. Lilii had become paralyzed in some combat, a condition that supposedly goes away with a few days' rest, so we went to an inn to rest and recover our hit points. For some dumb reason, I didn't save. After we went to sleep, the game narrated that a band of orcs burst into our room. "An informer has supplied us with evidence about subversive activities by you," they said. The orc captain ordered his soldiers to execute us, and then they did! Each one of the characters died in turn, with the game giving us no chance to defend ourselves.

     

Articulate for an orc.

       

On a reload (from before Lilii was paralyzed, fortunately), I finished the dungeon again, went through the long leveling-up process, and got out of the city immediately. I continued working my way through the mountains, stepped on a stick, and was surrounded by an army of orcs. They grabbed us, stripped us of all of our items, including our magic items this time, and threw us into a dungeon cell. An interminable series of messages relaying the passage of days followed, but I'll relate those (if I have to) at a later date.

     

You wouldn't want to give me any kind of role-playing choice here.

         

For now, I'm going to stop, because nothing else the game has to offer can top the perfect series of events that it inflicted upon me on this memorable April day.

    

Time so far: 43 hours

    

Arena: Thou Hast Gained an Eighth

Dude, we worked together for years. You've been to my house. I introduced you to your wife!

            

When we ended the first entry, I had just arrived in Riverpoint, a small town in Hammerfell. At least, it looked like a small town on the map. It seemed to occupy about as much territory, and to have about as many NPCs and shops, as the large city I had just left. It also had a palace and a king, and NPC dialogue talked about tensions between Riverpoint and nearby Roseguard. This dialogue suggests a certain amount of regional factionalism and warfare that wasn't present, at least not to this degree, in The Elder Scrolls III-V. 

    

But even if there's no distinction between a city and a town visually, the game and its NPCs make such distinctions. I was told to seek answers about Fang Lair in the cities of Hammerfell, and thus none of the NPCs in Riverpoint could help me. They simply repeated what I already heard in Shornhelm. It thus was not long before I was in Taneth, a proper Hammerfellian city, and then Rihad.

   

I owe the game an apology: I assumed the nature of its procedural generation would mean that the buildings and people were all the same. Not so. There was a lot of Arabian/Persian influence in Hammerfell, including dark-skinned residents wearing turbans, kufis, shalwars, and so forth. They had names like Cikam, Mison, and Nakim. The cities were sunnier, with sandy pathways, palm trees, and enormous cacti. The procedurally-generated business names reflected the new setting, at least in the sense that so many of them had the word djinn.

     

A street scene in Hammerfell. Those are some tall cacti.

       

In both Riverpoint and Taneth, I asked a lot of NPCs about rumors, and I got some leads on the artifact quests that commenters have told me about. Other comments just filled in bits of the lore. Some notes:

   

• There's a man at the Howling Djinn who will take money to reveal the location of the Key of Arrovan, a master thief. I don't believe the series uses Arrovan again.

• "The Elder Gods are coming, and Black Marsh will burn for its sins." Who are the Elder Gods?

•  "Some friends of mine went out searching for the Staff of Magnus." We will hear plenty about Magnus, and his staff, in the future.

• Someone else is selling the location of the Ring of Phynaster. Phynaster will also appear again.  

• "My prophet says Summurset [sic] Isle is doomed to sink beneath the sea." Either that happens in The Elder Scrolls VI or the prophet was wrong.

• The Afterdark Society, "nonhuman heathen," meets nightly in front of the Brotherhood of Mercy. I meant to follow up on this and did not.

• Multiple rumors that Prince Khajun of Riverpoint is possessed by the devil and/or an imposter, and possibly a cannibal, too. I visited the prince in the palace, but he just dismissed me. I don't know if there was another way to follow up on this rumor. I don't think that later Elder Scrolls lore has a concept of "the devil."

       

No signs of possession or cannibalism in our brief interaction.

        

The artifact quest that I decided to investigate further involved the Necromancer's Amulet. Two men were recently trying to buy information about it from someone at the Howling Djinn, but they didn't have enough money. I made my way to the location (asking locals for directions, slowly narrowing it down, finally getting someone to mark it on the map), wondering if I'd learn about the Necromancer's Amulet or the Key of Arrovan. I guess the game prioritizes the last rumor you heard, although what the informant told me about was not the Necromancer's Amulet but the Necromancer's Robes. The necromancer in question was none other than Mannimarco, who is at least mentioned in every Elder Scrolls game after this. Here, he's just a name, at least so far.

     

I get a lead.

         

The informant wanted 680 gold pieces, which I handed over. In return, he gave me not the location of the robes, but rather the location of a map to the robes. The map is supposed to be in the Fortress of Drunorath in High Rock, which appeared on my map after I got the rumor.

   

I  continued with the Staff of Chaos for now. In the city of Taneth, asking about FANG LAIR directed me to the city of Rihad, so I jumped there almost immediately. The last time I wrote about Arena, I contrasted the ease of travel in this game with the survivalist simulation element of Star Trail. I think that Arena makes it maybe a bit too easy. The game tells you the distance and time it will take to make each trip, but I don't think either variable has any meaning in this game. Perhaps it ought to have at least cost something, which would have incentivized the player to do local quests in between jumps. I don't know; maybe if it had, I would have felt that the game was too padded.

         

The game estimates my travel time while not attaching any significance to travel time.

        

It's worth noting that Arena invents the calendar system for The Elder Scrolls, in which the months are Morning Star, Sun's Dawn, First Seed, Rain's Hand, Second Seed, Midyear, Sun's Height, Last Seed, Hearthfire, Frostfall, Sun's Dusk, and Evening Star. Days of the week are Sundas, Mondays, Tirdas, Middas, Turdas, Fredas, and Loredas. Despite having played various titles in the series for years, I wouldn't have been able to give either list from memory, as knowing the specific time and day has never been necessary. Skyrim doesn't even vary the weather based on the time of year, which ought to be trivially easy.

   

In Rihad, the first NPC I spoke with told me that "some of the stuff recently uncovered in a keep outside the city showed the location of Fang Lair." He recommended that I check at the Palace. I visited Queen Blubamka there, and she agreed to tell me about Fang Lair if I did her a favor. The palace was recently plundered by a band of goblins led by Golthog the Dark. Among the loot that they stole was a parchment with "clues to decipher the part of the Elder Scrolls which spoke of the location of the legendary Fang Lair." This is the first appearance of the Elder Scrolls as a tangible artifact. Anyway, Golthog fled to an ancient fortress called Stonekeep, which she marked on my map.

    

And here's the first reference to the Underking. If Ultima's developers had planted so many seeds in the first game, they wouldn't have had to do so much retconning later.

        

Now I have to ask: Is this the way every quest goes in Arena? They're all two dungeons, the first necessary to find the way to the second? I really hope that's not the case. I've written before about the best ways to handle such "Disassembulet of Yendor" quests. I always prefer that the difficulty and effort associated with finding the pieces is varied. Some should be easy, some hard; none should ever be predictable. Amberstar and Ultima VI did it well.

         

A goblin attacks in Stonekeep's throne room.

       

I traveled to Stonekeep. It was a single-level dungeon, but very large, at least in comparison to the imperial dungeon. It had lakes within the indoor keep. I mentioned during the last entry that I didn't think the player had to explore every inch of the dungeon, but owing to my exploration pattern (follow the right wall, then fill in the middle), I ended up doing so anyway. The parchment was in one of the last places that I looked.

     

The first enemies I faced were rats, which barely do any damage and die in one hit. Goblins came next, but they're hardly any more difficult. Just as I started thinking the game was too easy, I met skeletons and wolves, who were deadly at first but easier as I leveled up. So were orcs. They were followed by ghouls, which never got easy at all. Neither did the giant spiders. Minotaurs and lizard men looked tough but died fast.

        

My first encounter with skeletons.

      

I have long argued that RPGs with action-based combat (and without a separate combat interface) often offer more tactics than the casual user appreciates. For instance, anyone who thinks of Skyrim as just a bunch of swinging and blocking isn't considering the use of sneaking, spells, NPC allies, summoned allies, shouts, potions, poisons, leading enemies into traps, knocking them off high areas, and making effective use of terrain (I have also often argued that you need to play on the hardest difficulty to really appreciate these things). Arena doesn't have all those options, but it's definitely a start.

        

The dead bodies are a bit gory.

        

I would particularly highlight the "terrain" issue, which is really half-tactic, half-exploit. I got through a lot of the battles in Stonekeep (principally with ghouls and spiders, also skeletons and orcs at the beginning) by doing things that start off fine and end ethically squidgy. Examples:

   

• Shooting at enemies from across a body of water, which they cannot enter. I used my "Fire Dart" spell when I had it, my Sword of Lightning until it broke, and two short bows until they broke. 

• Putting a piece of furniture or low wall between me and the enemy, and attacking them over it. Enemy pathfinding isn't great in the game. They get hung up on lots of stuff. Sometimes, if the furniture is small enough, you don't even need missile weapons to attack "over" it. The distance at which they'll start swinging is shorter than the distance at which the player can swing and hit.

      

Attacking a ghoul across a wall.

       

• Attacking from around a corner. The same issue with pathfinding applies to regular corners, too. If you approach from just the right angle, they'll get hung up at the corner and never quite round it, allowing the player free attacks until they die.

     

Trapping an orc at a corner.

      

I think you could make a case for the first and second options mirroring real-life tactics, but the third one is 100% exploiting the limited technology of the era. I'm not proud of it, but I don't think I would have beaten the ghouls any other way that didn't involve me leaving to go grind somewhere else.

     

The dungeon was about as atmospheric as Ultima Underworld. We're still a long way from RPGs offering completely immersive environments in which you'd gladly explore a dungeon just for its visuals, but we've definitely progressed beyond the "textures" era. Stonekeep has a logical layout with recognizable jail cells, bedchambers, storage rooms, kitchens, and a throne room. There are fun environmental touches like statues, benches, barrels, tapestries, carpets, coffins, fountains, iron maidens, altars, and remains of the former inhabitants. Alas, none of this stuff is in any way interactive.

     

The people of Stonekeep worshipped a freaky god.

           

Some other notes:

   

• I think I noted last time that although the music has a volume slider, you cannot turn it off. Even at the lowest setting, it plays faintly in the background—and I don't mind it. It provides a little atmosphere to dungeon exploration. So maybe the solution all along was not to turn the music off, but rather just to turn it way down.

• A couple of tapestries had Ultima-style Futhark runes, but they don't seem to mean anything. I don't think the one in the lower left is even a valid rune.

      

UNG? TSF.

       

• The game's use of sound effects—doors opening, monsters growling, swords clanging against armor, the character's echoing footsteps—is effective. Among other things, it helps determine if your attack hits the enemy. However, the game cannot play more than one sound effect at the same time, and it seems to favor monster sounds over other effects. That means that monsters are always moaning and growling in combat and thus obscuring feedback on whether your attacks are connecting.

• Many of the doors were locked, but they gave way to bashing. I didn't find any correlation between whether a door was locked and the value of what lay behind it.

         

It did not.

       

• There was an island in the middle of some water and a key on the island. I could not pick up the key for the life of me. 

         

Fortunately, I didn't need it.

       

• The game clearly doesn't spawn some enemies until you've crossed an invisible tripwire. I had them spawn behind me in completely empty rooms. 

• I went from Level 3 to Level 9 in Stonekeep. Experience is roughly doubling between levels. I have no idea if the game has level caps.

     

I forgot what this was about.

     

• Back when I was in town with a mage's guild, my attitude was that if I couldn't afford all the spells I wanted, I just wouldn't buy any of them until I could. That was a bad choice. I probably wouldn't have needed to use quite so many combat exploits if I'd expanded beyond "Light Heal" and "Fire Dart."

• I would pay real money for keyboard shortcuts for slashing and stabbing. The targeting in this game is not precise enough that it should have required the mouse, and the rest of the environment isn't as interactive as, say, Ultima Underworld.  

• I picked up everything. I did run out of inventory space at some point and had to start dropping less-valuable items.

• Every once in a while, while exploring, you suddenly hear a sequence of about a dozen drumbeats or chimes, as if a clock is striking 12 somewhere—except that it can happen at any time of day. Does anyone know what this effect is signaling?

        

About as much of Stonekeep as I explored. 

      

The dungeon had atmospheric messages left by the previous inhabitants of the castle describing the goblin invasion and their response. I thought at first that they were just atmospheric, but I realized later that they lead the player to the quest item: south through a bunch of tunnels, then north to a lake. On an island in the middle of the lake, now swarming with ghouls, the inhabitants made their "last stand."

       

One of several messages leading me to the right place.

      

It took me a while to clear the ghouls, but once I did, I was able to loot the central treasure chamber for some gold, items, and the parchment. I don't know whether it's possible to meet Golthog in the dungeon. I didn't, unless he was one of the many unnamed goblins I killed.

       

Seven hours into the first game, and I'm already dealing with an Elder Scroll.

       

I got the heck out of there as fast as I could, fast-traveled back to Rihad, arrived at night, and was immediately killed by a minotaur roaming the street.

    

On a reload, I made it to an inn, rested the night, and visited Queen Blubamka the next day. She studied the parchment and marked the location of Fang Lair on my map. It was in Hammerfell, near the border with Skyrim.

   

I spent a lot of time between the Mage's Guild and one of the equipment shops sorting through my accumulated gear. You have to pay at the Mage's Guild to identify equipment. (If there's any other way, please give me a hint, because it's annoying as hell.) You can tell by how much he wants to charge. If he only quotes a few gold pieces, you know it's not magical. Similarly, the shop will offer a sale price based on that item's real value, if identified, so if the armorer offers a large price, it's a hint to go have it identified. Unfortunately, the fee to identify some of my items (primarily crystals) was so high that I just sold them instead, as I wanted enough money for spells.

      

This one is probably magical.

          

The last time I visited a Mage's Guild, I only had about 1,500 gold pieces. This time, I had 7,285. I bought "Light," "Heal," "Invisibility," "Levitate," "Fireball," "Open," "Passwall," and "Lifesteal." I also experimented with the "Create Spell" option and ended up creating a custom "Shrug Off Spell" spell for 1,100 gold. To make a custom spell, you specify the effects, the target, the chance of success, the power, and the duration. All effects are available at the outset of the game, not just ones attached to spells you already own.

     

That casting cost is high now, but I figure it will be fine in a few levels.

       

Better equipped, I warped out of the city and straight to Fang Lair, apparently an old dwarven fortress. I prepared for steam pipes and automatons, but I guess those elements of dwarven culture hadn't yet been invented, nor did the term "dwemer" ever appear. The game portrayed the dwarves as typical miners, and their abandoned fortress had tracks, mining carts, and mine shafts.

      

Despite appearances, I found no upper levels to this fortress.

        

Some of the rooms in Fang Lair were connected by regular hallways, but to reach others, I had to drop down into a network of mine shafts that ran just under the surface. At first, I was worried how I would get out of these shafts, but apparently all you have to do to get out of a pit is face one of its walls and press forward, and the character slowly inches out. I'd already been doing it while swimming.

     

Skeletons, minotaurs, and giant spiders made up most of the enemies, the latter difficult enough that I continued to have to use tricks. The ones outlined previously were joined by another, common enough in games like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder: Attacking while backing away down a long corridor. That wasn't really possible in the tight rooms of the first two dungeons, but this one had a lot of long, wide spaces. What it did not have (at least on the first level) was a lot of "raised" squares, so there weren't as many places to try the "over the table" trick or even to safely rest.

      

A couple of minotaurs attack me on a cart track.

       

My exploration pattern brought me swiftly to the southwest part of the first level, where I encountered a series of six locked cell doors, impervious to my bashing. There were giant spiders behind most of them. At the base of the room were another three doors, these labeled "Cell 1," "Cell 2," and "Cell 3." To their east was a locked steel door with a message that I would have to "prove [my] worthiness" to open the cell containing the gold key, which would unlock the steel door. 

      

How do you tell that a spider is hungry?

       

The door then gave me a riddle with the following clauses, noting that not all of them could not be true:

   

1. If Cell 3 holds worthless brass, Cell 2 holds the gold key.
2. If Cell 1 holds the gold key, Cell 3 holds worthless brass.
3. If Cell 2 holds worthless brass, Cell 1 holds the gold key.

      

The phrase "all that is said cannot be true" tripped me up. I spent a long time trying to logically work out which statements are lying. #1 and #3 are in conflict, as are #1 and #2. The problem is that if you decide that any one, two, or three statements are false, you're still left with conditional outcomes that seem obvious on the surface. If there is only one gold key and it is in one cell, it cannot be in any other cells.

        

I hope someone's writing this down.

     

The issue isn't that any statement is untrue so much as that if they're all true, then the key being in certain cells makes a paradox. To wit, if it's in Cell 1, then Cell 3 has worthless brass, but if Cell 3 has worthless brass, the key is supposed to be in Cell 2. Thus, it cannot be Cell 1. Similarly, if the key is in Cell 3, Cell 2 has worthless brass, but if Cell 2 has worthless brass, Cell 1 is supposed to have the key. Only by assuming that the key is in Cell 2 do we not reach any paradoxes. If Cell 2 has the gold key, both Cell 1 and Cell 3 have worthless brass. Statement 1 says that if Cell 3 has worthless brass, the key is in Cell 2. No statement says anything about what happens if Cell 1 has worthless brass. No paradox.

    

The riddle is made a bit easier by the fact that only the door to Cell 2 specifies that it is "magically locked"; the other two don't.

      

Since I got it right the first time, I didn't have to fight the spiders (a previous message warned that if I got it wrong, their doors would open). I wanted to fight them anyway for the experience, and also to explore their cells (which turned out to be smart, as two of the cells had a lot of treasure). Since I couldn't open the doors, I got past them with my new "Passwall" spell. This might be the best spell I've ever encountered in any game. When I bought it, I thought it would turn the character incorporeal and allow him to literally walk through walls. Instead, it allows you to permanently remove three wall "chunks" every time you cast it. I suppose it's inevitable that the spell would stop being available when designers stopped designing their environments in square blocks, but man would it be nice to have this spell in later Elder Scrolls games.

     

The "gate" squares even have gates on the sides.

    

It took a good bit of time to pick up the key in Cell 2. If anyone has any tips for that, I would appreciate it. I think maybe the trick is to click and hold the mouse button down for a couple of seconds. That seemed to finally work with this key, but perhaps it was just a fluke. I haven't run into any more keys since then.

      

Anyway, the key opened the way down to a second level, which was much more open than the first. A wide hallway led to a huge room with a big center island surrounded by lava. (I had to take a dip to see what happened and, of course, I rapidly died.) Skeletons popped up all over the island as I explored. There was a central chamber with a door and another riddle: "What is neither fish nor flesh, feathers nor bone, but still has fingers, and thumbs of its own." I've heard this one before (GLOVE), but I like to think I would have gotten it anyway.

     

The moment the door opened, two hellhounds on the other side roasted me. Fortunately, I had taken a recent save. When I reloaded, I cast my new "Shrug Off Spell" spell, hoping that the game would treat their breath as magic. It worked. Oddly, they died immediately after breathing. The first piece of the Staff of Chaos was floating in the air beyond. I went up and grabbed it.

     

Is it really a "staff" if it has a spearhead?

       

The first time I rested after gaining the piece, Ria Silmane again appeared in my dreams to congratulate me and give me the location of the second piece: Labyrinthian, built by Archmagus Shalidor in the frozen north. Again, I'm surprised by how much lore was right here in the first game.

     

Despite knowing exactly where it is, I suspect I won't be able to go directly there.

      

The second time I rested after gaining the piece, Jagar Tharn appeared in my dreams. "I don't know who you are, but you have made a fatal mistake," he threatened. "Ria Silmane and her feeble powers are no protection for you." He sent a couple of minions to attack me, but I made short work of them, mostly because I was able to attack them over elevated terrain. Enemies in this game have a real problem with stairs.

       

I  didn't even notice what they were called.

       

As I was preparing to leave, I noticed a river of lava disappearing beneath the wall. If it had been water, I would have been able to follow its path by swimming. I tried "Levitate," but the wall was low enough that I needed to be beneath it, in the lava, not walking on top of it. I wonder if the "Resist Fire" spell, which I didn't buy, would have helped.

     

Only an RPG player would say, "I have to see where that goes."

       

Instead, I used "Passwall" to carve out a path parallel to the lava river. It took me three or four castings, and I had to rest in between each one (which is why I got those messages from Silmane and Tharn so quickly), but the lava tunnel eventually led me to a treasure chamber with about half a dozen piles and at least one chest. It still didn't amount to much. Looted weapons and armor sell for more than you get from a typical pile.

      

The end of the lava tunnels.

       

It's worth noting that I didn't level up once in Fang Lair despite having leveled up six times in the previous dungeon. I found an Elven Sword but nothing else in the way of equipment upgrades.

       

I made some half-hearted efforts to explore the rest of the first level, but I eventually abandoned it before finishing everything. My last screenshot shows me arriving at the village of Markwasten Moor High Rock, so I imagine I planned to go for the Necromancer's Amulet or Robes before continuing with the main quest.

      

A pit stop to sell and identify equipment before taking on the next dungeon.

                 

I find myself enjoying the game quite a lot so far. As a game with a lot of procedural generation, it's hard not to compare it to Dungeon Hack (1993), where despite the lack of role-playing opportunities or tactical satisfaction in combat, I still had fun (for a while) charging through corridors, laying enemies low, and looting their corpses. While mechanically the games are very different, it still feels like Arena delivers what I was asking for at the end of that game: an action-oriented title that keeps the benefits of procedural generation but within the context of an evolving story with at least some handcrafted spaces. In the end, I suspect I'll conclude that Arena has too little handcrafted content (it would have been nice if some of the cities and NPCs were deliberately designed), but for now I like the relative briskness of the gameplay.

     

Time so far: 9 hours