Part 58

Update 38:


It wasn't actually a choice as such. As I said, we'll be doing "all these things and more" this update. Thanks for all the replies, though!



It's time for the party to travel to Mt. Doom, find out who's being held prisoner there, and maybe even rescue them!



"Hey, who turned out the lights?"
"There is evil magic at work here, but the light of my faith shall pierce the darkness!"



"I still can't see anything."
"That's because you're blind, you idiot."
"Oh, right. Whoops."



Behind the glacier, the party encountered a group of monsters. Once, they would have been a serious threat. Now, if it weren't for the red dragon, the party could use autocombat on them.



Their treasure is as good as ever, though.

"Ah, just the weapon I've been looking for. It's a pity I'm so close to the front line that I almost never get a chance to use a bow."



"Wait a minute. How can there be a pool of liquid water in the middle of a glacier?"
"It's a magic pool."

Unfortunately, it's not a very useful magic pool. Increasing Endurance doesn't cause HP gains from past levelups to be recalculated, and the party isn't going to gain too many more levels at this point. It would have been great about 20 updates ago, if the party could survive the monsters to get to it.



"Well, I've had enough of the glacier. Time to explore the Dark Forest. Maybe there'll be fewer things trying to kill us here."



"It's about time we ran into someone who likes a good fight. You want a duel? You've got it."



"Uh, isn't a duel supposed to be one-on-one?"



"Is that the best you can do, fiend?"



"Well, it's all he's going to do now. Oh, Disintegration, where would I be without you?"



The party continued on through the forest and up into the mountains. Normally this would be a long and arduous trek through hostile, monster-infested terrain, but, well, it's a lot easier if you already know where you're going and use Etherealise to get there.



"Hmm... nah. We should probably go in through the front gate first. We wouldn't want whoever's inside to think we're trying to loot the place."
"Aren't we trying to loot the place?"
"Sure we are. That's exactly why we don't want anyone to think we are."



"I really have to question the wisdom of going to a place called Castle Doom."



"I understand your concern, Successhands, but we must find and rescue whoever has been unjustly imprisoned here. Besides, it seems a pleasant enough place so far. Perhaps the name was merely an attempt to keep unwanted visitors away."



"Pleasant enough apart from the hordes of demons and dragons, you mean?"
"Well, yes."



"We've found a silver message in every castle we've been to, which means that we probably have the complete set now. If only we knew how to decode them..."
"Hey, Preacher, I don't wanna tell you how to do your job or anything, but shouldn't you resurrect Successhands?"
"I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually."



"We've never paid attention to a warning sign before. I don't see why we should start now."



"Bah. Child's play."

As you've probably noticed by now, the monsters in Castle Doom are among the strongest found anywhere in Varn. Fortunately, the party is so unreasonably badass at this point that careful tactics (by which I mostly mean "spamming Disintegration spells") can see them through with little real danger. One of the Invisible Things stole Drewjitsu's backpack during the fight, but it was empty anyway.



"We fought our way to the end of the monster breeding pit only to read the ravings of a madman? I can't say I'm not disappointed. I had thought for sure that there would be some clue to the secret of the Inner Sanctum here."



"At least we can rescue this child, although somehow I don't think that he is the prisoner Og told us about."



"I admit I'm no expert in moral philosophy, but I'm not sure how letting a small child run around unescorted in a monster-infested castle counts as a good deed. Well, he's not our problem any more. Let's move on."



"What? But... we already did that. How would we even have gotten here if we didn't do that? I mean, I guess we could use that portal in Wizard Ranaloo's cave or something. I dunno."



"Wait, is that supposed to mean the gold key we got from the dog statue in the minotaur's lair way back when we were starting out on our adventure? I guess it's a good thing we hung on to it for all this time."



"Hmm. If we take all of the silver messages we've collected, and arrange them in the order of the interleave... and read from top to bottom..."
"To raise statistics visit: A-1, 12-1; E-1, 9-13; E-2, 3-13; D-2, 10-12; Under Dusk, 15-15; 14-5; Dragadune, 1-1; Under Portsmith, 0-12."
"Well, that's just great. Why couldn't we have decoded that before we already found all the places to raise statistics on our own?"



"Another interleave! This one must be for decoding our gold messages. Jostiband, will you do the honours again?"
"The scoop: for successful completion of book one, these are the tasks that must be done. Riddles and quests, discoveries and training, each has a value that increases your rating. The king's true self you must identify, to be worthy of knowledge that you can apply. Return from the Astral Plane from 5 different locations, the 6th visit with a key card shall end your frustrations! Yet 9th level you must have attained, for the inner sanctum to be claimed. From my dreams to reality, and reality to dreams, a sequel is in order, wondrous it seems. JVC."
"At last, a mention of the Inner Sanctum! But what a cryptic clue..."
"Well, we've got a key card, and Jostiband can send us to the Astral Plane, but what's all this about the king's true self? I guess we might have to pay King Alamar another visit after we're done here."



"Ah, another endless hallway. Looks like we'll be using lots of Jump spells to get past the hidden teleport traps again."

This is where the party would have entered Castle Doom if they'd used the secret passage. The catch is that for the secret passage to appear, you actually have to walk to it from outdoors (hence the statue's advice). If you enter and leave Castle Doom, the secret passage disappears. Of course, we just got in by Etherealising from the other section of the castle instead.



"Well, that wasn't so endless."



"Demonic and alien? Like Nyarlathotep or something?"
"Well, no. 'Demonic' was more of a figure of speech. The point is he's really, really evil."
"So it's true: King Alamar has been replaced by the escaped alien prisoner, and it has fallen upon us to set right this terrible wrong."



"Who or what is a Goros and where did you get its eye?"
"That's not important. All you need to know is that it will reveal the false king for what he is."
"Wait, why is any of this our problem? We're the strongest fighters on Varn and I'm sick of being treated like an errand boy."
"The false King Alamar wants to launch Varn into the sun."
"Ah. We should probably do something about that, then."
"Um, would you like us to try and free you or something?"
"Oh, don't mind me. I've been imprisoned in this stasis field for years now, I'm sure I can wait a few weeks longer. Take your sweet time."
"As you wish, my liege. Our greatest quest is at hand! We shall confront the false King and put a stop to his evil plans! Surely Radaso (may his light shine eternally) will reward this great deed by opening the path to the Inner Sanctum for us!"



"That sounds like a great plan. But first, I need a drink."



"I'm starting to miss my old sword. Sure, I can use a shield now, but there's just something missing in my life that only a weapon bigger than I am can provide."



"Wait, why am I 65 years old? Oh, right, all those times I got killed and resurrected."

Side note: it seems that despite what the manual says, Resurrection does not permanently lower Endurance, at least in this version of the game. I don't mind bugs so much when they work to my advantage.



"And why does it say that I'm 6?"
"Well, if we're going by mental age rather than chronological age..."

It also turns out that Rejuvenation doesn't fail as I thought it did when you try to cast it on someone who's too young.



"So this key card is good for something after all. And we only had to kill a god to get it."



"We have everything we need to defeat the impostor and restore the true King Alamar to power. Think of the glory that shall soon be ours!"



"I still haven't found a new set of bracers."

Next time: well, we can either tie up various loose ends and visit some interesting places we haven't been yet, or confront the false King Alamar right away and do the other stuff later. It's up to you. Vote now!