Daemonsgate: Miles to Go Before We Sleep

This session involved a lot of travel.

          

I deleted the temporary announcement, but hopefully you all saw the reason I haven't posted in over a week. I went to a conference and forgot to bring the AC adapter for my laptop. "One of my AC adapters," I should say, as I keep one at home and one at work, given that it weighs about seven pounds. Because I don't have to take it back and forth each day, I got accustomed to never having to pack it at all. The upshot is that I now have a third adapter, which will remain permanently in my suitcase. Now that I own more than $200 in adapters, I'll probably have to ensure that I get another computer that uses them when I'm ready to replace this Alienware monstrosity.

      

This entry may be a little clinical, as I'm reconstructing a session that took place nearly two weeks ago. I'll do my best.

     

Travels this session.

         

An army of demons has come boiling out of the southern nation of Elsopea and has surrounded the free city of Tormis. The captain of the guard of Tormis (my lead character, Gustavus) was charged with sneaking out of the city and finding his way to the city of Atteia, where it is rumored that an Elsopean refugee has arrived. The thinking is apparently that this refugee might know something about the source of the demon horde and how to stop them.

    

We learned that the refugee, Alathon, was being held by the city's dictator, Hellast. Working with a revolutionary group, we infiltrated Hellast's palace and killed him. Alathon told us to meet him in Joruli Point and took off. We determined we could only reach Joruli point via a ferry from Dryleaf. The last session ended with us heading there.

          

From a later point in the game, daemons could be either of those things.

          

We were attacked as soon as we entered, by a party led by an assassin named Flea. "You have troubled my master for too long!" he screamed as he attacked. Thanks to all the buffing we did last session, we made short work of them. On Flea's body, we found his orders, signed by "Warmaster Edric," the same person who had been corresponding with Hellast. Edric told Flea that Gustavus had become "a thorn in the side of our mutual cause" and that he should assassinate both Gustavus and Alathon. Later, we were attacked by someone named Brutus who said that, "Flea was weak and failed in his task. I will not." He was incorrect.

     

As usual, Dryleaf had a lot of interesting-sounding buildings, some of which we could enter, some of which we couldn't, none of which seemed to have anything interesting. We stopped by an herb shop but balked at the costs of the herbs. I guess if I really want to explore herb lore, I'll have a perpetual money sink.

    

That's as much as a suit of armor.

        

An NPC named Hank the Tall praised our killing of Hellast and offered to join the party, but I didn't feel like shuffling items around to kick someone out. Plus, I'd spent all that time training them. Hank ended up chasing us all around town and even outside of town, begging to join the group. That made me more suspicious of him and strengthened my resolve to leave him behind. I can't think of any other game that allows NPCs to transition between towns and wilderness like this, though.

        

Boundaries, dude.

       

The people talked about a leader named Ragnik, who recently departed on a voyage to discover a "western passage to the eastlands." They anticipate that if he's successful, it will greatly improve Dryleaf's economy and status among the civilized kingdoms. They also mentioned rumors that "the mines at Cooltags Rest have been closed due to a huge daemon running free around the deep seams." 

      

We found a ship captain named East who agreed to take us to Joruli Point, but I felt that I had to check out Cooltags Rest first. That seemed like a side quest. Side quests are so important to my conception of a good RPG that I figured I couldn't let a hint of one go without at least investigating.  

     

Does "150 gold" look like interactable text to you?

        

From the game map, we found Cooltags Rest and entered. The town was all set up as if it supported the side quest we'd been given. We found the house of Johan Schultsmonger, the manager of the mine. We found the building that stored mine safety equipment, a warehouse (with a locked door we couldn't open), lots of mine tracks, and NPCs who talked about the mine. We followed the tracks to the locked entrance which did not offer "Pick" and "Unlock" options like most doors. We couldn't find a key or anyone who explicitly asked us to clear out the demon.

       

Maybe there is no side quest. Maybe they've already dealt with it on their own.

         

I figure there's an equal chance of three possibilities:

       

• There was a key somewhere that I didn't find.
• The side quest was never finished.
• This is actually part of the main quest and will become relevant later. 

      

I reloaded from Dryleaf, a bit dispirited, and found Captain East again. There, I ran into another problem. I couldn't figure out how to agree to her price (150 gold pieces) and pay her. It turns out that you have to click the words "150 gold" in the dialogue. There's nothing that indicates that. 

          

A nice cut scene on the high seas.

      

We sailed to Joruli Point, a town of magicians and scholars. It consisted of several small islands bisected by canals and connected by bridges. We learned that sailors had reported that all of the cities of Elsopea have been reduced to smoking ruins and that Tormis isn't expected to hold out more than six months. Dean Juliene, ruler of the city and author of the lore section of the manual, gave us an Enchanted Sword and a Dragon's Eye herb. The description of the Enchanted Sword doesn't mention what the enchantment is, and I don't know how it rates against our existing Elemental Blades.

    

We found Alathon in one of the university buildings. In a series of text screens, he filled us in on the origin of the demon problem: His master, Dorovan, head of the Order of the Eye, was experimenting with dimensional travel, hoping to break the monopoly that the Pilots' Guild had on this form of magic. Agents of the Pilots' Guild sabotaged the experiment, causing Dorovan to accidentally open a Daemonsgate (take a shot!) into "the dimension to which Alkat was banished all those aeons ago."

     

Well, I'm standing in a hallway, the eight individuals who make up my party awkwardly fused into one form.

       

Alkat appears in the extensive lore section of the manual. He was the leader of a group of demonic beings who invaded Hestor from another plane when the land was still ruled by reptilian birds called Kzzir. The demons destroyed the Kzzir, took over the world, and their descendants became the progenitors of the Elsopean Empire. Infighting within the ruling houses led to the creation of an enchanted blade that banished Alkat to another plane. The Elsopean Empire later collapsed and humans, their former slaves, replaced them. Alathon believes that Alkat has returned.

     

Part of Alathon's story.

      

"The only hope for this land is to find a way to close the Daemonsgate," he said. He thinks he can accomplish this if he has his master's notes, "which lie in the smoking ruins of Tan-Eldorith," the old Elsopean capital. "If you journey first to the Pilots' Guild and activate their teleportation device," he offered, "you should be able to get straight in and out of Tan-Eldorith without too much trouble."

    

I didn't know what he meant by the latter point, but I assumed we'd have to reach Tan-Eldorith conventionally first. It was a long way to the south, and we still had the same problem where we got attacked nearly every time we tried to rest. I tried to stop at cities and towns along the way to use their inns, but half the time I couldn't find an inn in the vast cities. Even when I found one, it took me longer than simply trying to rest multiple times in the outdoors.

          

You do not want to get "desperately tired" in this game. Then you can't rest at all because you'll have no energy when you're attacked.

       

The problem with resting outdoors is that you have to do it twice—once to rest most of the party, and a second time to rest the guy who had to take watch the first time. If you want to accomplish anything else in camp (hunting, foraging, training, magic), you might have to add a third cycle. With about a 50/50 chance of getting attacked every time you try, the process gets annoying fast.

        

This is a bad idea. If enemies attack, they'll slaughter us.

       

A lot of the enemies that we met dropped expensive loot, including reagents (blackheart, diamond dust, lightning seed), gems, and weapons called Doomblades; again, I don't know how they compare to the Elemental Blades. 

     

Daemons carry Doomblades, which get their power from the imprisoned souls of other daemons. It's like daemons have no ethics at all.

      

At a stop in Vorsai, where we couldn't find an inn, we wandered into the house of a Ludovic Grueber and found a book that teaches the "Spirit Lore" skill. The manual doesn't mention this skill, but I assume it's the same thing as "Daemonology," which will let us make Doom Blades for ourselves.

             

Arion adds "Spirit Lore" to his list of skills.

      

After a long journey, we finally made it to Tan-Eldorith and started exploring its buildings. We got attacked at almost every turn by parties of daemons, but it's a measure of how much difference my training made that even they weren't much of a threat. I soon got lost in the complicated city, full of walls and guarded gates, and I ended this session having not found Dorovan's notes nor the Pilots' Guild portal that will hopefully hasten our return. I'll cover more on the city next time.

         

Time so far: 19 hours 

Ishar 2: New Zach's City

We finally get some backstory.

        

I wanted to start this entry with a recap, and I realized that to write it, I needed to basically go back to the manual and act like I was starting over. Ishar 2 has one of the most obtuse stories of its year. If I were just a player, I'm sure I would end the game utterly confused and reticent about picking up Ishar 3. But my job as a blogger requires me to explain the game to you, which requires me to review notes and materials multiple times, trying to work out the confusion.

   

So far, the specific threat to the islands that make up Arborea is not explained. The titular Ishar is a fortress that the player conquered in the first game, now ruled centuries later by Zubaran, and in the opening cinematic, Zubaran was encouraged to flee his home by "Jon, Alchemist of Arborea," to deal with some unspecified threat.

     

I didn't have any images to go with this recap, so here are some barbarians I fought later on a mountain path.

       

• Question: Who the hell is Jon? Is he ever going to show up again?

• Question: Why do none of the islands in this archipelago seem to hold the castle of Ishar? Or, where is Ishar's island in relation to where the game has been taking place?

• Question: Why is the party called "Messengers of Doom"? We don't seem to be bringing messages to anybody. 

     

Maybe Zubaran knows more about what he's doing than I do. It feels to me like he's just been wandering around. There are, granted, plenty of RPGs in which the player goes a-wandering despite some ostensibly pressing threat, but usually those games give the player some kind of direction that the player is deliberately ignoring. Not here. As far as I can tell, Jon tricked Zubaran out of his castle.

   

The best I can figure, the "big bad" of the game is someone named Shandar. He's mentioned obliquely in the manual. An early tavern rumor talked about "Shandar's mob sneaking about the town." On the first quest, a dying woman talked about "myrmidons of Shandar," perhaps trying to sacrifice her. On Zach's Island, we found some monks sacrificing a young girl to Shandar, "High Priest of Chaos."

     

A giant puts the Theiss Titillation Theory to the test.

      

We also heard on Zach's Island that Zeldy, the mayor's daughter, had gone missing. The commander-in-chief of the city (higher or lower rank than a mayor?) charged us with finding her, but there are rumors that he's behind the disappearance. 

   

A big part of gameplay has just been finding new areas to explore. It looks like there are six islands, but the game requires us to find a map of each island before it will let us visit it. We found the map to Akeer's Island in the library on Zach's Island. We explored it for a while but got stuck when we couldn't pass some kind of invincible undead spirit. Fortunately, at the end of the last session, we found a map to Jon's Island. This happened when we gave 10,000 gold to a mage and he told us to release an eagle we had purchased. I don't know why we had to pay him so much for that.

       

Jon's Island had three landing points. We chose one at random, stepped off the boat, and immediately started taking damage from the cold. It turned out that each of the three landing points went to a different small map on the frozen, mountainous terrain, and in all of them, we needed special gear to survive. So we immediately took the boat back to Zach's Island and went shopping. I remember seeing a fur coat sale at one of the stores. I had to spend 25,000 gold to buy one for every party member.  

      

But not a real fur coat; that's cruel.

           

For some reason, the southwest dock on the world map led us to the northeast part of the island. We arrived in the dark, so you'll understand how I immediately took a step forward, fell off the mountain path, and died. On a reload, I was more careful. Almost all of the paths on the island are on the edge of mountains.

      

I don't know what kind of special power Khalin has.

        

From the arrival point, we could go east or west. I went east, and it wound its way around the mountain before dead-ending at a square with a cauldron on the ground. I was a little excited at this development, as a cauldron is necessary to make potions, and I was carrying a bunch of reagents for that purpose. If I'm not mistaken, the cauldron in Ishar was in a fixed location, and you had to make your potions there. I assumed that's what the sequel's manual meant when it said there is only one cauldron in the game. But I could pick this one up and take it with us, which was handier. More about potions in a bit.

   

The western path dead-ended at some kind of "snow-triceratops." He lasted a long time, but he didn't hit hard enough to be a serious threat. When he died, he left a horn.

        

Sorry, buddy, but those side horns were going to get you soon anyway.

       

We then tried the northwest dock, which deposited us on the southern part of the island. There were a number of battles with barbarians here, who dropped no money. I'll save myself from repeating this by just saying that no enemies anywhere on Jon's Island dropped any money, joining their counterparts on Akeer's Island. If you need to grind for gold in this game, your only real option is those bandits back on Zach's Island. This was particularly annoying because thanks to the fur purchases, I was down to only a few hundred gold pieces.

      

Anyway, the end of a path that barbarians were guarding was occupied by five pillars, and I intuited immediately that I would be putting those glass-cased skeleton parts on these pillars. I only had two of them at this point, though.

         

There are only 2 pedestals for, like, 149 more bones. 

         

In the other direction, we reached a dead end with an old, white-bearded man sitting cross-legged in the air. He wouldn't talk to us and didn't seem to want anything we had.

       

Levitating is 90% mental. The other half is physical.

       

A couple of large giants blocked the way to a sword floating in the air. It turned out to be a "Living Sword +20," or 5 points better than the magic sword I had most of the characters using.

         

Is it "living" because there are vines wrapped around it? That's weird.

       

The northeast dock brought us to the northwest part of the island. It was the most combat-heavy of the three areas, with multiple parties of frost dwarves (I'm making up these names, of course; the game doesn't tell you your foe's names) and giant vultures. We hit a "cursed" area, which like "Inversion," causes the party members to attack each other. The solution was to cast "Exorcism" in the area—thanks to commenters who helped with that and who figured out the "Inversion" issue last time.

          

You're people! How do you have no money?

        

While we're on the subject of spells, I tried "Change of Timescale" again when the characters got tired. I guess when I tried it in the past, I had become impatient and clicked us out of the spell before it was over. If you're willing to sit and wait a couple of minutes, it legitimately restores all of your hit points (better than a night's rest at the inn) and most of your spell points, including the points necessary to cast the spell in the first place, while no time passes in the real world. You can cast it in the middle of combat, even. It seems way too powerful, at once obviating inns, food, healing spells, and combat difficulty. In fact, if I had been willing to cast it more often, it would have obviated the fur coats, as I could have just restored our hit points whenever I wanted. Knowing that I had this spell in my pocket was responsible for some of my later choices.

    

One path kept going upward, and we eventually reached a point at which the party refused to go any farther. "We're all giddy!" the message said. I correctly guessed that the solution to the problem was a potion, but I didn't know which one. The manual gives you the recipes for potions but gives them all nonsense names (e.g. "Rhumxy," "Arbool," "Flukjl"). While some of the reagents are sold in stores, about half are rare or unique, so you don't want to do a lot of open experimentation.

         

"Mummy"?

      

We had found a bunch of sprigs of Edelweiss in the area—five exactly, in fact—so I figured the answer would have something to do with them. The manual lists only three recipes that use Edelweiss: "Arbool," "Mildong," and "Oklum." "Arbool" requires dandelion, and I had only found one sprig of that, so I ruled it out. I moved on to "Mildong," which requires Edelweiss and gargoyle's claws, the latter of which can be bought in several stores. The game requires you to drink the potion directly from the cauldron, so I had to mix five of them and feed them to my party members before I could see whether it worked. Fortunately, it did. (I had taken a save, of course.) On the other side of this area, we found our third bone-in-a-jar. 

         

Feeding a potion to a character.

      

Now stuck as to what to do next, I did a circuit of the places I hadn't fully explored. Nothing was new on Akeer's Island, but the exercise bore fruit on Zach's Island. On my return visit to the library, I found a book that I don't remember seeing before. It translates the names of the potions to their effects. Some quick notes:

    

• Schlounz (Physical Regeneration): I don't know whether this means health or the "Physical" attribute (which is like a fatigue meter). Either way, the potion is obviated by a party with a scholar capable of casting "Change of Timescale." Even without that spell, mixing all the reagents required seems a lot more effort and expense than just relying on healing spells and/or bread.

• Ghoslam (Psychic Regeneration): This would be more useful without "Change of Timescale." I tend to run out of magic faster than I run out of health.

• Clopatos (Invulnerability): I'll keep it in mind if I encounter a really tough combat. It uses all-purchasable ingredients. If you changed the party formation so that only one character was in front and fed him this potion, it could be the secret to victory. I just wonder how long it lasts.

• Bulkal (Anti-Paralysis): I'll keep it in mind if I ever get paralyzed.

• Mildong (Anti-Vertigo): If I hadn't figured it out, this was the obvious clue.

• Jablou (Ent Alarm): That's a bit of a mystery. I haven't met any ents. This one requires dandelion, so it's a one-time thing unless I find more.

• Humbolg ("Turbulent Priest"): That's a pretty oblique description.

       

Some of the potion translations.

      

The book had nothing to say about "Dzarna," "Kloug," "Gato," "Arbool," "Potaic," "Rhumxy," "Oklum," or "Flukjl," which are all given recipes in the book. I later experimented with them. I couldn't make "Arbool" or "Oklum," as they required ingredients I had already used. The others did nothing but poison the character I gave the potion to. I assume they're just red herrings.

       

When you play Ishar, you start to watch out for weird translations. Our discussion about "Change of Timescale" last entry is a good example. The translation doesn't always get things exactly right. "Turbulent priest" got me thinking. You could imagine a process by which "floating" in French might get translated to "turbulent" in English. (I'm very curious what the French version of the book has for "turbulent priest.") So I mixed up a batch of Humbolg, took it back to the floating monk, and found to my delight that I had been right.

      

Yub nub, m@#*(%@s.

              

He didn't do much—just waved his hand—but the game had already taught me what to check when something mysterious happens: the map. Sure enough, Thorm's Island was now open to me.

    

Thorm's Island was a large, maze-like map set in platforms and wooden walkways high up in the island's forest. As in many places, the graphics really took front stage here. Enemies included homicidal Ewoks, griffons, some kind of one-horned monstrosity, and a few armored men. Again, none of them dropped any gold.

        

You could have the courtesy of looking at us while you're fighting us.

          

Special encounters here really propelled the game forward:

       

• We found the fourth skeleton part—a hand in a glass case. 

• We found the body of Zeldy. Yes, the mayor's daughter was dead. That was a reversal of expectations. She wore a key around her neck. A tavern tale that we heard ages ago indicated that Zeldy had taken the "pig of a commander's" key with her. 

      

And here's yet another variation on the game's obsession with "Dw" words.

     

• We ran into a bearded tree. At first I thought it was a statue. Then I realized: "Ent." I fed him the "Jablou" potion, and he woke up long enough to give me a pendant.

      

I'm curious how he's giving us the pendant, and where it was in the first place.

       

• A hut was occupied by some elders sitting around a fire. They told us a tale of twin brother druids, Grimz and Griml, who opposed Shandar. "They succeeded in penetrating his castle, but were conquered by Shandar's power." Griml was turned to stone; Grimz was cut into pieces and his bones scattered over the islands of Arborea. Clearly, it's his bones that we have been finding. "They say an ancestral breeze could re-awaken Griml, and that Grimz could come back to life through his daughter, whom Shandar blinded and imprisoned in his fortress."

• We found the statue of Griml standing on a walkway, although when I first encountered him, I just assumed he was a mute NPC. As for the "ancestral breeze," we figured it out by blowing the horn we had received from the ice triceratops. When he came to life, he thanked us and said, "Give me a shield . . . It will protect you against the dragon's fire." I tried, but he didn't seem to want any of our shields, maybe because they're already enchanted. I'm planning to come back with a plain shield.

          

What dragon?

      

Most important, in another hut, another group of elders finally gave us some backstory on Shandar, and it's just delightful:

    

After the death of Krogh [ed. the villain in the first game], Arborea became a forbidden place for all the agents of chaos. Shandar took advantage of the arrival of great numbers of people from the Northlands and emigrated to Zach's Island. He started an illicit trade in hallucinogenic potions and soon became a rich and important person. Today, he owns the whole town and many worshippers make him the object of a demonic cult. His dream is to overthrow the throne of Ishar and take possession of the fortress.

    

The nebulous threat to Arborea is thus explained: a drug kingpin! 

    

So I have to find Grimz's daughter, then the last piece of Grimz, and then put him together back on top of the mountain. I'm not sure how that will play out, but I at least know where to go next: To the commander-in-chief's office, with the key I looted from Zeldy.

       

It's amazing how much better you feel about a game when the story starts falling into place. But it's still pretty weak on RPG mechanics. Combats have become trivially easy, so much so that I'm not sure it's worth taking the time to grind for the magical equipment (predominantly armor) that I don't already own. My characters are Level 19, but I stopped noticing the effects of leveling ages ago. I wonder if I can wrap it up in one more entry.

        

Time so far: 15 hours

Daemonsgate: Sic Semper Tyrannis

 

I would think that should be C.D.R. or W.J.D.

        

It was really tough getting back into Daemonsgate after (unintentionally) not playing it for a couple of weeks. The disorientation started as soon as I loaded the game. I had ended the last entry saying that I couldn't get past some guards and couldn't find the Laughing Heretic. When I loaded it up this time, I was standing in the Laughing Heretic. I don't remember how I worked it out.

    

So, to remind us all of the plot: An army of demons has come boiling out of the southern nation of Elsopea and has surrounded the free city of Tormis. The captain of the guard of Tormis (my lead character, Gustavus) was charged with sneaking out of the city and finding his way to the city of Atteia, where it is rumored that an Elsopean refugee has arrived. The thinking is apparently that this refugee might know something about the source of the demon horde and how to stop them.

   

Upon arriving in the city, we learned that the refugee, Alathon, is a "guest" of the city's dictator, Hellast. Searching for allies, we learned of a faction called the Warriors of Light. To find his group, we were instructed to go to the Laughing Heretic and say "Incontinence" to the owner, because that's a word that every innkeeper wants to hear.

          

BONK! "Ha! That never gets old!"

         

The innkeeper, a hooded man named Erina, told us to walk through an illusory wall in the inn's northwest corner. There was a guy standing on the other side, and he confirmed that Alathon was being held captive in "Hellast's private quarters." But before I could enter the dialogue screen, a guard, identifying himself as a member of the sacrepolitz, arrived to arrest us. He knocked us out with smoke (this was narrated in text form, along with the screen at the top of this entry), and we woke up in jail with most of our inventory items, including weapons, missing.

      

That's an interesting mix of languages.

           

Fortunately, there were some thieves' tools on one of the beds in the cell, so we were soon out of the cell and creeping through the complex. This was the first of many situations this session in which I was trying to avoid getting into a fight. It's not too hard. Combat is triggered by some combination of the enemy's proximity and his facing direction, so as long as the party moves far enough away, or behind him, we're usually all set. Walls and furniture can conceal enemies, though, so there's no perfect method.

           

But who left the tools?

       

There were dozens of other cells in the prison, mostly empty, and the ones that weren't had generic NPCs. I will now go into one of several diatribes that I imagine will occupy most of the text in this entry. There's nothing wrong with generic NPCs if they're in generic places. Whether I'm playing Ultima IV or Skyrim, when a guy standing by a town's gate with a pike turns out to be a generic guard, I have nothing to complain about. I don't expect everyone milling around the town square to be unique. When a guy is in a prison cell, on the other hand, there should be a reason for it. Otherwise, what's the point of NPCs? Ultima established the rules here: If you find a druid hanging out in the middle of a dark forest, or a mage at the bottom of a dungeon, or a bard locked behind six consecutive doors, they all turn out to be interesting (sometimes vital) NPCs with something to explain their presence.

            

Then you have games like Morrowind, which I otherwise love, where you encounter an orc in the middle of a Daedric ruin, and he has nothing to say except generic orc stuff. When you're exploring a remote or unusual place and you realize, "By Grabthar's hammer! There's someone else here!," he ought to have a story. I'm not saying he has to spill it; he can be secretive, or cagey, or even hostile. But he shouldn't be generic. This is not a mistake that the Infinity Engine games ever made—nor, for that matter, Oblivion or Skyrim, but that nonsense is all over the place in Starfield, so Bethesda clearly hasn't learned its lesson.

        

Just a reminder of what combat looks like.

         

We found our items in an office in the northwest corner and had to maddeningly pick them up one by one (the game offers no other option) and redistribute them among party members. I had to fight two battles on the way out. I got past the first one but had to flee from the second (which fortunately removes the enemy from the screen). When I got back to the Laughing Heretic, the leader of the Warriors of Light was gone, and I never heard another word about the organization.

        

I don't know who that guy was, but he just watched us pick up our things.

      

I then set about trying to find the entrance to Hellast's palace, which took a while. The city is realistically large, but realism isn't a virtue when you're exploring a top-down city with a limited view window and no map. It's worse than Disciples of Steel, which had a similar problem. There are multiple nested sets of walls, lots of generic buildings that you can't even enter, narrow alleyways, and places where it's easy to trap yourself without realizing there's only one entrance or exit. More important, and related to the issue I discussed above, you run into all kinds of interesting-sounding locations—embassies, moneylenders, banks, guilds, a city council chambers, a courthouse, city archives—and yet none of them have anything interesting happening or anyone interesting to talk with. The author worked awfully hard to create a large world and then populate it with mostly nothing, excepting the few NPCs and locations that propel you to the next quest.

     

You wouldn't know it to look inside.

        

I got attacked frequently as I walked around and almost always lost a party member in the subsequent battle. I suppose I could roll with that, but I've been reloading instead, since the game doesn't seem to offer copious NPC replacements nor any method of resurrection. ("If the character is dead," the manual helpfully explains, "it is assumed that the rest of the group dump his or her body in a ditch.") Eventually, I was fed up.

   

I returned to the Laughing Heretic and spent about two months there. I had the party spend 18 hours a day practicing their skills and 6 hours resting. Most of them started with specialties in one-handed edged weapons, but a couple of them didn't have that, so as soon as Gustavus reached "Master" rank, I had him train the others. This is because so far, the only weapons I found that can be enchanted are one-handed edged weapons. Eventually, I got everyone to "Master" in that plus some ancillary skills like Cyless's "Scouting" and "Survival," although I don't know how important either are. I had some characters reach "Master" level in skills like "Throwing" and "Brawling" just because I needed something for them to do while other characters caught up. 

     

 I just want to know how Gustavus managed to practice "Leadership" in a hotel room.

         

I got Arion to "Master" in both "Herb Lore" and "Elemental Lore" and then began to explore the magic system. The game offers three forms of magic: herbalism, elementalism, and daemonology. None of them allow you to cast traditional spells in battle. Herbalism is about making potions, and I only explored it long enough to realize I didn't have enough reagents. Elementalism allows the mage to enchant weapons with various effects. Daemonology, which none of my characters have, also allows for enchanting weapons, but also amulets, which can be broken in combat to release the demon.

    

If you spend 6 hours on elementalism, you get to choose the elemental bound to the weapon. First, you choose the type: light, darkness, air, earth, fire, or water. Then you choose the level: minor, small, weak, average, powerful, and gargantuan. The manual doesn't bother to tell the player what earth enchantments do. Water increases the chance of corroding the opponent's armor. Air weapons "reduce the chance that [the] weapon has of being fumbled," which has not been a problem so far. Darkness weapons inflict both regular damage and fatigue damage. Light weapons are effective against undead, which I have yet to face. Fire weapons simply increase damage. 

     

The elementalism screen.

      

The only mechanic that I actually trusted to be implemented was fire, so I had Arion enchant the two Adamantine Swords with gargantuan fire elementals. I tried to enchant the "Enchanting Sword," but the game just said that Arion didn't possess anything that could be enchanted. Once enchanted, the Adamantine Swords became "Elemental Blades"; you have to examine them to see the specific type of enchantment. 

      

I feel bad for the fire elemental.

      

In terms of skill development, it's possible that I'm done for the game. "Master" is the highest level you can get, and you can only get it by doing stuff in camp (reading, practicing, or learning from a master). It doesn't increase during combat. It was very artificial for me to do it all at once like this, but it was going to be artificial no matter what. In a game with no time limit, why not do it all at once at the beginning? Still, this is about the dozenth British game that fundamentally misunderstands how character development is supposed to work in an RPG. Frankly, only Anthony Crowther (Captive) and Anthony Taglione (Bloodwych, Legend) have gotten it correct.

       

After all of this skill-building, combat did become noticeably easier, although I still had to be careful to remove characters from the fracas once their hit points got too low.

   

I finally found the entrance to Hellast's palace and had to fight several parties of guards on the way in. Hellast was in a chamber in the southwest. "May I ask what you interlopers are doing?" he demanded before calling his guards. The resulting battle was relatively easy.

      

This session is just full of 1989 references.

       

From his corpse, we looted a letter that suggested a larger conspiracy, with Hellast promised a reward by the minions of someone named "Alkat." The note was signed by "Warmaster Edric."

    

Alathon was imprisoned in a pentagram in the next cell. "We cannot stay here and talk," he said. "Meet me in Joruli Point, and I will explain all." Then he disappeared. I should note that the game called him "Alathon" on one screen and then "Dorovan" on the next. This is notable because the back of the box gives the subtitle of the game as Dorovan's Key.

      

Could I just meet you at the bar down the street?

      

We fought our way out of the palace, rested for the night at the Laughing Heretic, and then left the city. The game map shows Joruli Point on an island quite far to the north. The city of Trade Town was just across a channel, and I figured there would be some kind of transport there. But before heading up the coast, I returned to Tormis to sell looted equipment and buy more Adamantine Swords so that all of the characters could have Elemental Blades. I ended up having to buy several more than I needed, because apparently there's about a 20% chance, even at "Master" level, that the mage screws up and breaks the sword while trying to imprison a gargantuan fire elemental in it. This left me without much money. I bought some food and a little bit of armor, but I had to save most armor upgrades, as well as reagents for potions, for later.

 

A couple of miles to the north or south would have been less effort.

             

We left Tormis and headed north. I had to go pretty far east to ford a river, and I mis-guessed the distance to the coast on the other side, resulting in my running into the far northern Wall before reaching the coast. I had to return to the southwest to find Trade Town. There, I learned from an innkeeper named Ari that there are three towns near the Wall, collectively called the Campps: Hajak, Rowche, and Slime. Hajak is the unofficial capital of the area, ruled by an unofficial king named Svien McDoogal, who keeps a fragile peace between the Clans. The game is best when it's building lore like this, but so far it's done a poor job integrating that lore into meaningful gameplay.

      

Again, the comparison to A Song of Ice and Fire is uncanny.

      

I also learned that there's no transport to Joruli Point from Trade Town; instead, I have to go to Dryleaf to the south.  

   

I poked around Trade Town a little. As usual, it was far larger than it needed to be and had intriguing-sounding buildings (the headquarters for the Northern Rangers, the gaol) turned out to have nothing interesting but a few things to loot.  

       

Miscellaneous notes:

     

• Among things that don't seem to have actually been implemented is equipment damage. If you look at any piece of armor, for instance, it tells you that it's in "good condition." You can buy an armorer's kit, ostensibly to repair armor. But there's no mechanism (unless I'm missing something) to do so.

• And while we're on that subject, a "fletcher's kit" is also something that you can find or buy, but there is again no way to invoke it.

        

Aron's current skill levels.

        

• There are two skills that Arion has, "Meditation" and "Magic Sense," that the manual doesn't even mention. 

• I trained everyone in "Missile Weapons" and gave everyone a bow, but arrows cost so much money (1 gold piece each) that it might be a while before I avail myself of the skill. It's also a pain to swap melee and missile weapons in combat. 

• When you pay for lodgings at an inn, an inventory item called "Lodgings" appears in your backpack. It disappears when you camp at an inn. It's kind of an awkward way to do things, but I suppose you can regard the physical item as the room key or something. 

• The game crashes frequently when exiting dialogue screens. 

• If I place the characters under computer control in combat, Anvil flees every time.

• It took me a while to realize that when you want to buy something in a shop, you're not interacting with the NPC at the counter; you're interacting with the shop itself. Thus, you can access the "Buy/Sell" menu even when no NPC is visible.

• The combat icons are primitive and pixelated, but the author did take the time to program blood spurting from the little icons when they die. I'll try to capture it next time.

    

The resting and practicing turned this session into a lot of gameplay hours but without a lot of plot progress. Hopefully, now that I've made the investment, things will happen faster.

    

Time so far: 14 hours 

Ishar 2: Silver Bells Hanging on a String

My current obstacle.

          

I already knew Ishar 2 was going to be a longer game than its predecessor, but that didn't really hit home until this session, in which I spent about four hours trying to get anywhere with Akeer's Island. It's been a long time since I lost so much progress so consistently.

    

I did a few things before leaving Zach's Island:

   

• I reloaded and returned to the scene of the sacrifice. The purpose of the scene was not to save the girl but to snag the keys from the robe of a priest whose back was turned. I suppose the screen really did put them front-and-center, but I wasn't used to these screens being interactive.

• Bought every animal in the pet shop. I gave them all to Karorn. I enjoy thinking about him having to find a way to take care of a baboon, a mouse, a man-eating plant, and three birds.

        

Karorn's job just got a lot harder.

        

• Bought everyone a Helmet of Chaos. I didn't have enough money for the more expensive armor, but at least I could do this.

• Followed an anonymous commenter's directions to Four Towers Alley and met a shadowed figure there between 02:00 and 04:00. He said, "Have you got the money?" I tried giving him escalating amounts of gold, only to have him say, "Are you joking?!" after each attempt. Finally, when I got to about 23,000, he gave me a skeletal hand in a jar. I assume that it somehow goes with the skeletal head in a jar back on Irvan's Island.

     

Just like the first time I tried to buy marijuana.

       

Having no more leads on the various quests on Zach's Island, I hopped the boat again for Akeer's Island.

          

Down came the storm, and smote amain . . .

        

Akeer's Island appears to be a large dungeon with no outside areas. It also has no inns, nor any other places to rest, so we had to repeatedly go back to Zach's Island to restore our health, magic, and strength.

       

Almost immediately, we got attacked by parties of skeletons. They were not too hard for us, but they do a lot of damage and thus require a lot of resources in spell points (from healing) and physical energy to kill. There are about half a dozen parties near the beginning of the dungeon. Most importantly, they respawn, so you have to deal with them on the way back. Three times this session, I fought past them and then over-extended myself on the other side, not saving enough resources to get past them again on the way back. I lost a ton of experience and a couple of hours' playing time. Fortunately, I kept a saved game back on Zach's Island; if not, I also would have been in a "walking dead" situation.

       

These are not simple D&D skeletons.

           

As the dungeon of Akeer's Island snaked along, there were a number of encounters and puzzles:

      

• Throwing daggers and skulls on the floor everywhere. I dutifully picked them all up.

• Levers on the walls that opened certain locked doors. Until I found the levers, I thought the doors were just locked, but they didn't respond to my "Unlock" spell. It occurred to me that although "Lock-Picking" is a character skill, I have no idea how to invoke it. 

     

The top requirement of any Dungeon Master clone.

      

• Traps that caused spears to shoot out of walls. They didn't hurt so badly. 

• A few secret doors clued with a message about a "draught." At least one place had the message, but I couldn't find a secret door.

     

I'm more of a bottle guy.

       

A doorway led to a deeper part of the dungeon. It was flooded, and weird aquatic creatures lurked behind sewer grates on the walls. When I left the area and returned, these creatures were in the watery dungeon corridors, and they attacked me.

     

Well, that's unsettling.

          

Navigating through this area involved finding various pipes that led to new sections of the dungeon. One of these pipes was under water. To drain the water, there was a curious puzzle involving three scales in three adjacent alcoves. One of the scales had 3,550 gold coins in it when I clicked on it.

   

None of the scales would budge until I put at least that many coins in them. I'm not sure whether it was necessary to put exactly that many coins in the scales or not. All I know is, I fiddled with them for a while, and when I returned to the sewers, the water was gone and a new passage was opened. I was able to reclaim the gold.

   

This new area led to some much harder encounters, including groups of mummies and some kind of floating spirit that absolutely destroyed me. The enemies in this dungeon don't even have the decency to drop gold, by the way, so any grinding has to be done back on Zach's Island.

      

Jazz hands!

     

I started to question at this point whether I had the optimal party, and in particular whether I should keep Yornh the priest. When I picked him up, I figured he would continue to earn spells, but he's never progressed beyond his original two: "Healing" and "Physic Protection." Karorn the knight has the same two spells and hits hard in melee combat besides. Eliandr the scholar also has those spells, plus more. Granted, you can't have too many "Healing" spells, but I started to wonder if I shouldn't seek someone with more diversity for that slot. But while I was poking around taverns, finding no one compatible, some comments came through that made me think I probably shouldn't get attached to any particular party composition anyway.

      

This is the guy in the upper-right, by the way. "Human."

      

Investing in archery was another possibility. A lot of enemies won't travel past certain squares, so you can shoot them from a distance with impunity—if you don't mind buying tons of arrows. I didn't have any archery-oriented characters and I didn't feel like having to constantly restock on arrows, so I rejected this path. It was probably a stupid decision, but I've been ornery lately for no particular reason.

   

My third thought was making sure I was getting full use of the spells I already had. Leveling up takes place instantly once the experience threshold is crossed, and I often overlook the message. New spells keep showing up in at least two characters' spellbooks, and I don't always investigate them right away, preferring to rely on old favorites. Thus, let's take a quick tour of what I have. Eliandr is the scholar, Khalin is the magician, Yornh is the priest, and Karorn is the knight.

    

• Healing (Eliandr, Yornh, Karorn). Vital, obviously. The only other way to heal (so far) has been resting at inns, which restores less than the spell. Yornh is almost worth it for this spell alone.

• Physic Protection (Eliandr, Khalin, Yornh, Karorn). Note that this is "physic" (physical), not "psychic." It supposedly helps one character's defense, but I barely see a difference. 

• Global Physic Protection (Eliandr, Khalin). Same as above, but for all party members. I've tried casting it before a few battles, and it helps a little. The game has no indicator for this or other buffing spells, so I don't know how long it lasts, but if it saves one healing spell, it's technically worth it. 

• Psychic Protection (Khalin). I'm not sure I understand what types of attacks it defends against.

• Global Psychic Protection (Khalin). Ditto.

• Metamorphosys (Khalin). Turns the entire party into some kind of creepy image and maybe makes them more effective in combat? Lasts a while.

       

What, by Dwilgelindildong, is happening here?

        

• Restore Vision (Eliandr). Nothing has blinded me yet.

• Anti-Poison (Eliandr). Ditto.

• Paranormal Detection (Eliandr). I'm not sure what it's supposed to do. If I try casting it, it just says, "The air is cool."

• Exorcism (Eliandr). Also not sure what it's supposed to do. When cast, it says, "Dwiglongligli, all is purified!" 

• Telepathie Reconnaissance (Eliandr). Tells you the enemy's statistics. I don't find it particularly helpful, since it shows the max statistics, not the current ones. You thus can't use it to tell how much damage a spell does.

• Inversion (Eliandr, Khalin). Kind of a cool damage spell that I guess creates a vortex around a single enemy, and keeps damaging him round after round. Relatively cheap to cast.

• Spiritual Hammer (Eliandr). Creates a magic hammer that the caster then flings at an enemy. Decent early spell, but soon outclassed by better damage spells.

• Blinding (Eliandr). Blinds one enemy, but you get no feedback with it, so I'm never satisfied that it works.

• Paralysis (Eliandr, Khalin). Paralyzes an enemy for a while. Very useful for the occasional boss. Doesn't work on undead.

• Turn Undead (Khalin). I'm so confused why a mage has this spell but not a priest. In any event, it didn't seem to have much effect on any of the undead I tried it on.

• Memo-Telep (Khalin). A "Mark" spell to go with the later "Teleport."

• Teleport (Khalin). Teleports the party to the last "Mark." It's extremely valuable, partly dealing with my problems on Akeer's Island. 

• Change of Timescale (Khalin). I don't quite understand it. When I cast it, the view changes to a stormy sky. Several characters heal, as if they're resting, but spell points do not get restored. 

          

Change of timescale, change of dimension.

      

• Magic Key (Khalin). Unlocks doors. Useful except when the door requires a specific key, which is usually.

• Sleep (Khalin). If it has an effect, it's brief.

• Flaming Hand (Khalin). Okay single-enemy offensive spell.

• Fireball (Khalin). Okay single-enemy offensive spell.

• Lightning (Khalin). Indispensable multi-enemy spell until you get "Firestorm.".  

• Firestorm (Khalin) Next-level indispensable multi-enemy spell.

• Ice Storm (Khalin). Haven't used it much since more enemies seem like the types that would be susceptible to "Firestorm."

      

The only spells I don't have, according to the manual, are "Fireproofing," "Anti-Paralysis," "Spirit of Flame," and "Poisoning." I don't know whether these will appear at higher levels or whether I need one of the other spellcasting classes. The manual is pretty miserable when it comes to explaining the spell system, I should say. It tells you the names of spells but nothing about them, and it gives no indication of what spells belong to what classes.

   

The exercise was mostly useless. "Teleport" solves the problem of getting trapped on the other side of randomly-spawning enemies, but it's a costly spell. It takes all of the mage's remaining points and reduces her to 1 in physical and spirit energy. She has to sleep immediately or the slightest nudge kills her. No spell would allow me to defeat the floating spirit on the other side of the sewers.

   

Instead of moving forward, I moved backwards for a while. I returned to Irvan's Island, the starting island, where I finally defeated those stone golems ("Paralyze" did the trick, but they still took a long time to die) and looted the skull-in-a-jar. 

        

These guys have been on my list for a while.

      

I then went over to the east side of the island to see if I could figure out what the mage gave me for 10,000 gold pieces. This time, he said: "Launch the eagle. It will travel for you." I did as he instructed, and the eagle flew off, which seemed to have no effect. I soon realized, however, that I had a map of a new island, a frozen one to the north of Irvan's. 

        

Well, there goes $12,000.

      

I'll explore that as I get back into the swing of blogging. In the meantime, can anyone think of a reason why one of my other party members gets hit every time Khalin swings a weapon? It seems to happen no matter what weapon she wields and no matter where she is in the party formation, although what character gets hit changes by position in the formation. 

     

Finally, let's try to puzzle through this ding-dong-ding thing. Here's what we know:

 

• In the opening cinematic, when Jon, Alchemist of Arborea, contacts Zubaran, he greets him with: "Warm Tear, and Dwilgelindildong."

• When the woman near the beginning of the game dies, as part of her rant, she says, "Dwilgelindil."

• A man in a tavern on Zach's Island says, "The mayor's daughter has disappeared! Dwigdinl, it's a disgrace!"

• When we explored the library on Zach's Island and found the map of Akeer's Island, someone said: "Come on, Dwigelindong, let's borrow it!" 

• When we were arrested, the guard said: "Dingdong, off to prison."

• During the ritual we observed, with the woman being sacrificed, part of the ritualistic chant was: "Dwidongdingue! Shandar! Dwidongdingue!" 

• When we cast "Exorcism," the message says: "Dwiglongligli, all is purified!" 

• The manual has this page, labeled: "Counting rhyme, for use by the clever but ambitious adventurer."

          

      

The manual page is clearly trying to evoke the "One Ring" poem, but what does "Dwilgelidildog" mean? Except for the poem, the uses seem to be part-curse, part-blessing, the way we would say, "for Christ's sake" or "for the love of God." But the poem makes it sound like they're physical objects. And then either the roots of the word can be modified and recombined in different ways, or the people of Arborea are just really bad at spelling.

       

Time so far: 10 hours