Part 17: BaK on Track, Part 2
Update 17: BaK on Track, Part 2
Continuing towards Romney, there are no more battle encounters on the road, but there's an inn and an odd side passage to a small house...
I remember always thinking there must've been something up with this house, but as far as I can tell, there's no special trigger at any point that allows you to learn more about it. It's just a weird thing, but if you look behind it...
EGGS
In addition to another tier 3 Blessed Rapier, this chest also contain a Fetters of Rime scroll, which is... now that I think about it, probably the only spell that uses Accuracy: Casting to throw a projectile which can miss, alongside Flamecast. It functions like an ice version of Flamecast, doing somewhat less damage, and having no explosion, but having a paralysis effect if it lands. With one exception, it has less enemy types it can affect than Grief of 1000 Nights, but it has a few enemy types that it deals 1.5x or even 2x damage to.
We could just take this side path, cross the river and reach Romney now, but...
But we're going to miss out on exclusive content if we do so.Said exclusive chapter 2 content is well behind us by now, though, and the nearest teleporter temple is all the way back down at the Temple of Lims-Kragma near Malac's Cross. However, if we head north instead, there's another temple just past the town of Prank's Stone. It will, honestly, just be a short detour, unless it leads to another detour(what are the odds!), so let's get it underway.
The Prank's Stone area only features one optional fight at this point(three if you count digging up graves to piss off ghosts), but you can't cross this bridge to reach the town from the south without stumbling into another magical trap.
Simple, though, just march James forward so the fireball thrower disables the zappy rods, then walk on through.
On the north side await four rogues that I initially thought were bugged since I couldn't set up the party for an ambush on them, but then when I approached anyway...
BaK posted:
JAMES: Can we be of some assistance to you fellows? You appear distressed...
MAN: Distressed? Oh aye, we are distressed in the extreme. There's that terrible mess down in Romney and we lot are heading down to lend a hand to the Riverpuller's Guild. What of you? You siding with Mitchel and that bloody Glazer's Guild?
[NO]
"Then you must support Ian?"
[NO]
"Men without commitments, eh? Well, better liars than one of the rabble running Romney at the moment. But I warn you, you best stay clear of all that mess!"
Which is the way to get through without a fight. If we had sided with either group...
BaK posted:
"Mitchel Waylander is a snake and Ian is just as unspeakable! The Riverpullers were granted an exclusive trade agreement by the crown itself and the both of them have called in their own men. Now their fighting brings other guilds in, guilds that undercut our business! How dare you side with them!"
And then you get dropped into a fight with three normal rogues and a rogue archer. Considering that they aren't carrying anything particularly useful and they only want to kick our asses if we're part of a guild war fucking their region up, I opt to let them live and move on to Prank's Stone itself, a town that's easily forgotten but has just about as much dialogue from the locals as Sloop(even the tavern features multiple bits of unique dialogue!), and also a real dick move.
BaK posted:
The man was in a talkative mood.
Taking drinks from an overly large cup of ale between tales about his mercenaries, he wandered eventually into a discourse about how much he hated the followers of the god Kahooli.
"Why do you dislike them so much?" James asked.
Raising a single eyebrow at that, the man shook his head. "Those damn Kahooli priests in the temple up at Kenting Rush aren't natural I tell you. What pleasures a man's got, they want him to give up. All tied up in those damnable codes of piety. What in Tith's name does the mortification of the flesh mean anyway but some sorry sod's got to starve himself down to tooth and bone, and give up wenching and drinking? Not natural at all if you ask me..."
...
The woman stared at James.
Unnerved by the intensity of the woman's gaze, he sought someone else in the tavern to speak to, but when he turned again, he found she was still looking at him, her thin hands gripped tightly around a cloth wrapped bundle in her lap.
"Do I know you, miss?" James asked. "You seem troubled."
"This was to be given to you," she said, her voice breaking as she handed over the package. "I was instructed to bring it to you here."
"Instructed?" James unwrapped the bundle and discovered that a single torch was within. Baffled by the strange present, he peered hard at her, but she had pointed her gaze at the floorboards beneath her feet. Lifting her chin delicately, he saw that someone had struck her across the face. "Who did this to you and why?
"I do not know," she replied, her voice small in the clatter of pans and pots which came from the kitchen. "All I know is that I was to bring this to this tavern and give it over to one who looked as you do."
...
Gorath was about to knock on the door when he heard the shrill voice of a woman calling for help.
"No one can help you now! Ha ha ha ha!" boomed a raucous male voice. "The Goddess of death will --"
Before another word could be uttered, Gorath took several steps back and charged at the door, hitting it with his shoulder. The door gave way with a splintering "crack!" The force of the impact caused him to lose his balance, but he quickly regained it, drawing his sword as he quickly surveyed the room.
He found himself eye to eye with a half dressed man wearing a wig. There was no one else in the room.
"What did you do with her?" Gorath demanded.
The man sputtered a reply, still trying to catch his breath. "Wha-- who-- I-- what did I do with WHOM?"
"The woman. We heard a woman yelling for help. What did you do with her?" Gorath repeated, more with bewilderment than anger this time.
"I haven't done anything with anyone! I'm an actor. I was just preparing for a play I will be performing tonight at The Flying Sow."
Gorath swallowed hard. "A play?" he asked, weakly. "We thought...I mean I thought... Uh, sorry about the door! I'll give you 25 sovereigns, or whatever we have left. That should cover it." The man was still shaking his head when they left.
...
A balding man with an intense gaze answered James's knock.
"Are you looking to stay in Prank's Stone for awhile?" he wondered. "Do I have a house for you -- only 30 sovereigns a month!"
"Sorry, we were just passing through. What can you tell us of the people who live in your houses?" James asked.
"Got a guy who claims he's an actor living in one, and my other place is ABOUT to become unoccupied. That no good dragon lover has cheated me out of my money for the last time! Good day!" The subject obviously angered him, because he put an end to the conversation by slamming the door.
...
A smiling man answered the door.
"Come in, come in!" he said with a large grin. "Have I got something to show you!"
Curious, James followed the man into the house. He lead them to a table upon which there was a bulky object of some kind covered with a cloth. With great flourish the man pulled away the cloth revealing a strange metal machine with a funnel at the top and a wooden crank on one side.
"What is it?" asked Owyn.
"It's a gem converter. Currently it will only convert rubies into emeralds, but I'm working on a formula to convert rubies into diamonds. Say! Perhaps you could help me test it? Would you like to give it a try?"
So, most of this is just flavour text(and a chance to lose a bit of gold), but there's the rubies-to-diamonds guy. On the surface, this is a good move, as BaK diamonds are super rare but also the most valuable gems in the game. However, no matter what type of ruby you "feed" him, it always comes out as a 2% Diamond(which is about equal to an 8% Ruby in value). So, to make a profit here, you would need a steady supply of worthless rubies... The trick in this case is that anything you sell to a store can be bought back any number of times. Thus, you take Makala's 1% Ruby from the Chapter 1 quest, sell it to a store(ideally one with the worst possible prices, so you can buy it back very cheaply), convert those 1% rubies to 2% diamonds, and sell them at a profit. Completely empty inventories and seed money of "only" 500 gold can make you a profit of about 600 gold without even leaving Prank's Stone(in version 1.01 the Prank's Stone store had higher prices so it was a profit of 2500 gold per "full" run. Madness.).
A similar trick, albeit one with a longer setup time but faster payoff once you do it, is to get a high-value crossbow, ideally an elven crossbow, break it completely by repeated combat use(paralyzing enemies, say, and firing bolts at them over and over. I think it takes upwards of 50+ shots to do, however), then selling the resulting 0% crossbow. Now you can buy any number of worthless 0% crossbows, repair them with crossbow strings instantly to 100%, and re-sell them at full price. It's really only something you would do if you want to suit up everyone with Dragon Plate armor and Greatswords in chapter 1 to really break the game over your knee.
Of course, once you're doing stuff like this, you might as well just fire up a hex editor and set your money to an arbitrarily high number, since only your patience and the eventual collapse of the game's code under arbitrarily large integers set the limits.
Anyway, what I've yet to talk about, is how Prank's Stone has a dick move. There's a small path behind it leading to an anonymous-looking stone that you can choose to interact with. Don't do this. In version 1.01 it deletes 100 gold and ALL non-unique keys from the party's inventory. In version 1.02 it mercifully leaves your money alone, but still deletes all non-unique keys. I seem to remember a rumour at some point that anything you lost to the stone would be placed in an in-world container that you could later reclaim, but that doesn't seem to be true.
That's a lot of text for a town that doesn't even appear in the book! And all we're doing is trying to get to a temple on the far side...
Of course, we can't go five steps without someone littering fucking moredhel chests all over the damn place, goddamn.
SILENCE
WRONG
The main score from these two chests is a near-full bundle of Elven Quarrels, which have the second-best to-hit bonus of all quarrels, Flaming Quarrels do more damage but are considerably less accurate, and only Enchanted Quarrels are better in both damage and to-hit bonuses.
Practically right opposite the code chests, on the other side of the road, there's a trapped chest which absolutely does not fuck around. At 150 damage if you trigger it, it may be the most volatile chest in the game and absolutely capable of blasting an entire chapter 1 party to cinders if they came down from the northern route(for context, in chapters 1 through 3, Gorath is the character that starts out the sturdiest with a 125 total Health/Stamina pool). It has low lockpicking requirements, James can always handle it, but if you don't have Scent of Sarig active, or if you come here with a Locklear lacking any lockpicking training and an amulet of the Upright Man, it can very possibly still blow up in your face.
It's worth cracking open, though, because it contains a ruby and an emerald, which are by themselves quite a nice haul! The ruby gets sold immediately but the emerald... well, it would be nice to own Ivan Skald, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, if we go challenge him now, he'll just laugh at us and take our emerald after beating James like a small child. So we're gonna need some sort of leg up on him... Seems completely impossible we'd get our hands on that, though. Completely implausible.
Finally we're getting to the temple I wanted to get to, to teleport us down to the Temple of Sung near Sarth. Those rogues out front are, like the ones south of Prank's Stone, not actually a real encounter, instead as we get closer...
BaK posted:
They were stopped by two men.
"You will go no further," one of the men commanded. "Before any shall enter the temple of Banath they must strip off all metals."
James scowled, "Under whose authority do you make these demands? We are representatives of Prince Arutha and order you to let us pass."
The men seemed a bit taken aback by this news, but as they departed they continued to speak of their levy. "Metal is base and offensive to our god. He who enters this temple with metal on his person shall be struck dead..." From the other side of the temple, almost out of earshot, James heard, "...by the will of Banath!"
This, if you can believe it, isn't true. Isn't it mad that some folks outside the temple of the god of thieves would attempt to rob us for everything we're worth? Absolutely mental.
Inside, let's have a talk with the local head priest before we take our trip to the west.
BaK posted:
The hour was sounded.
Clapping his hands over his ears, James looked resentfully up at the brass bells as they passed underneath them, mourning the fact that he hadn't a bit of beeswax to block out the clanging noise. If the priest leading them took any notice, he made no sign.
The Lector of the Temple of Banath greeted them at the door to his study, a greying man with rounded features who patted each on the back as they passed inside to his study.
"How may the Servants of Banath be of service?" he asked.
"I'm not certain," James said, taking a seat by the window. "We have a difficult journey ahead and I was hoping that perhaps your god might have some insight into our predicament."
The priest motioned for him to continue. Quickly James related most of their tale, with Gorath breaking in occasionally to correct certain inaccuracies.
When the tale was, at last, finished the lector was squinting at them. "I am not sure of how we could be of assistance to you," he said. "It is the place of the temple to give aid when possible, but it seems as if many of the things you are having difficulty with you have brought on yourselves or are matters that are beyond the reach of what I may do for you. I am sorry."
The divine wisdom of Banath is apparently "stop fucking up and you won't be in so much trouble, you morons."
In any case, we're here to make fun of Brother Marc some more.
[MAGIC]
Actually, I was hoping you might be able to dig up something on magic, a scroll perhaps.
There was a scroll I was cataloging the other day that might be of interest to you. It was titled as Skyfire I believe. I can go and dig it up for you, for a reasonable finder's fee of 100 sovereigns. Shall I run and find it?We already have Skyfire for free, but once again we can earn a small profit by turning around and selling the scroll to the store inside Sarth. Only about 50 gold or so, but still, the principle of the matter.
[NIGHTHAWKS]
Would you have anything up in the Abbey about the Guild of Death? As I recall from when I visited your abbey years ago, your collection of books was quite extensive. I wanted to find out how it is that some of them become Black Slayers. No need to search the vaults. Many of them worship Kahooli, who, occasionally, will grant them a near-deathless state in exchange for total dedication to the god of revenge. It took us a long while to learn the spells that keep a Nighthawk from rising from death. There is a spell? We thought you had to hack the body up and burn it to bits. An unpleasant solution, and time consuming. After the Great Rising was over and the moredhel went home, we were able to work with the priests of Lims-Kragma to create a spell to keep a Nighthawk from becoming a Black Slayer or to keep a Black Slayer down once he was slain. If you would like, I can probably dig the spell up in the Vaults. Are you interested? There will be a hundred sovereign fee.Wrong, wrong, WRONG! This is just so insanely not in line with the lore! Did Feist even look this over? Holy shit. Just... the wrongness of this bit of lore astounds me. The temple of Kahooli doesn't use the Nighthawks, the temple of Lims-Kragma no longer uses assassins and the temple of Guis-Wa, though we know little about them, apparently use their own religious blood hunters for their killings. Secondly, becoming a Black Slayer isn't a near-deathless state or anything caused just by religious fanaticism. It's literally a power granted to the Black Slayers by way of the False Murmandamus, who was getting his(its?) power from the Enemy, the combined souls of all the banished Valheru! It completely cores them out and replaces every part of them with the Enemy's power, when need be, turning them into nigh-indestructible puppets until their hearts are removed and burned or divine magic cuts the Enemy's line of control. Hell, the original Black Slayers weren't even Nighthawks, they were Moredhel, who don't even worship the human gods!
I mean, ahem, [YES], Marc, we would like the spell.
Considering I may be running into the Guild of Death soon, I think it would be a wise investment. I will be as quick as possible. Please wait here.Final Rest is a somewhat useful spell, since, as mentioned, it takes out downed Nighthawks/Black Slayers(spoilers, they are in this game and this is why we're getting a spell to deal with them) if you hit them with it before they get up again. We're not quite done with Marc yet, though...
[ABBAR'S TURN]
I don't suppose among those masses of books you have in the Abbey you would have one on chess, would you? I'm looking for information on a chess move called Abbar's Turn. No self-respecting Keshian library would be without one and as the Abbey was founded by Keshian wanderers... ...it stands to reason you have something. Wonderful. If you could dig something up for us, I would be very happy to pay a finders' fee for anything you can find on chess moves. It's a fairly special request so I may have spend a while digging and I do have another project I need to handle this evening. Would you be willing to pay a hundred sovereigns?[YES]
Hmm, well. I think in this case it might be worth the expense. I will see to it your money is well spent. If you will wait here, I will return as soon as I have found something of interest...BaK posted:
The priest returned several hours later.
"So, what did you discover?" James asked, his mood improving with Brother Marc's reappearance. "Anything we can use?"
Marc frowned and burrowed in the folds of his robe. "I found that there appears to be no difference between lin-lan, pashawa, cock-fighting, daerts, pokiir, King's Mountain, dice, shomshone, Four-Hands Down, and chess as far as our cataloging system is concerned. They are all still considered just games at this point."
James shrugged. "Oh well, nice try. I just wish we hadn't wasted our time."
Brother Marc pulled a scroll out of his left sleeve and laid it in James's lap. "It was no waste of time, you haven't seen this particular scroll."
"Pardon?" James blinked at the parchment, then at the priest. "What do you mean?"
"What I mean is that the scroll in your lap is known as the Saaha Bela'hi, the Victor's Soul. It is perhaps the rarest and most valuable writing on the subject of chess ever put to paper. Unfortunately, it is also exceedingly rare. I get chills just thinking what we had to do to get it. This is our only translation available and it was the only work I could find with reference to Abbar's Turn. Read it and quickly, before Brother Anthony finds I've taken it."
James smiled and unrolled the scroll, studying all the details of the move carefully. Once he had absorbed the material, he produced the gold he owed Brother Marc.
"I promise I won't forget your efforts, brother."
The priest nodded, then snatched up the scroll.
"Let's just hope Brother Anthony can."
That was a lot of text! Still, now we can cheat Ivan out of an emerald. That owns. Let's skip ahead to Malac's Cross since nothing interesting happens during the trip there(also I just teleported there from the Temple of Sung. The pro move, income-wise, would have been to walk the entire way, but we're rich and this is more about making a point than making a profit).
[CHALLENGE]
Any chance I can interest you in a game of chess?
I'm not so sure you would want to play against me. I just learned a few new moves from a book I borrowed from the Abbaye... Tell me the stakes, then I'll tell you whether I'm interested or not. Emeralds. Think you're up to it?[YES]
BaK posted:
The barkeep was oblivious.
While pounding James's leftward defensive positions, Ivan hadn't noticed the seigneur's subtle adjustments to his rightward formation of a pawn, a priest and his queen.
Ivan grinned as he tossed a pawn from the board. "Seems I'm inside your line. Ready to surrender yet?"
"Not exactly," James replied, sliding his hunter piece to the opposite side of the board. "Have you ever heard of Abbar's Turn?"
Abruptly the barkeep's face went pale as he studied the pieces. "You couldn't. You did." For the next three moves he made feeble attempts to regain the strength of his position but at last gave it up as vain hope. "I surrender."
Locklear can also come here in Chapter 1 and steal Ivan's lunch, though he needs to learn a special move somewhere other than Brother Marc... we'll get to that part in an update or two. What I'm not sure about is whether its possible to both abuse Ivan with Locklear and then again in chapter 2 or 3 with James. Anyway, the reward is a 100% emerald, which is quite the score! If you track down the best possible shop for the sale, it's worth 1080 gold(though it requires waiting until chapter 3 to sell), which means that if you did the entire thing on foot, ignoring the prices of rations and other supplies, you'd be making a profit of almost 1000 gold after paying Marc for the scroll.
Probably about the single biggest profit you can make in the game so early without abusing anything. The main trick is finding a spare emerald, since there are only 29 of them littered about in the gameworld, without some sort of guide you'd be lucky to find one of them before it's relevant.
This clears up our distraction quota for the update, though, and we can fast-forward back to Romney to actually progress the plot.
Yes. Why is a guild in charge of the city?
The constabulary were all killed in the uprising by the Riverpullers Guild and no one else in any authority was left alive to administrate. When I was approached to take command, I decided that I would use my men in the Guild to help maintain order until such a time the Duke was able to arrive from his estates. Makes some sort of sense. Where can we find the King's men from Bas-Tyra? They'll be holding up in the Black Sheep Tavern for a celebration of some kind. I believe I heard one of them say they've found something they were looking for. I'm not sure what it's all about. I think that may mean good news for us as well. Good night, reeve. We're on into Romney...Obviously, things go somewhat differently if we hadn't already looted the seals from Max Feeber's barn. In that case...
BaK posted:
The way ahead was blocked.
From among the men who were guarding the bridge, a man stepped forward to confront them.
MITCHEL: Do you have a Glazer's Guild Seal? I'll have to see one before I can let you across the bridge.
We're trying to prevent a full scale guild war here and we have to make sure that no unfavorables show up. It's just a formality until we can get things settled down here again.
JAMES: Guild war? What do you mean?
MITCHEL: There was an uprising here. Lasted for several months. The Riverpuller's Guild took charge of the other labor guilds and surrounded Romney. The crafts guilds tried to fight their way out and it seemed a losing battle until the King's men came up from Bas-Tyra. They managed to pacify the Riverpullers' leader. The Duke of Romney's kept it from getting worse, but I can't guarantee how much longer he'll be able. It will probably be a while though before we open up the roads to the general populace.
JAMES: Can the townspeople come and go at will?
MITCHEL: We've restricted visitors from the outside, not imprisoned the citizens. Any townsperson can come and go at their leisure.
JAMES: I assume the same may be said of your guests? May the men of the King's company come out and play? We have business with them.
MITCHEL: I would be happy to help you but I'm not entirely certain I would know how to contact them. They are hard to get into one place and I'm not sure that I've met their leader. They are a rather untrusting pack of men.
JAMES: They would have to be. When you're tracking assassins, you have to be craftier and a little less moral than your prey... So, where would I go to get one of these seals?
MITCHEL: It's not that easy. There's a group near Silden that have been petitioning for membership for some time now. But they're an unruly bunch and can't find anyone to sponsor them.
JAMES: But if I present a seal you will step aside with no questions asked?
MITCHEL: Well, not with no questions asked, but it would show that someone from the guild was vouching for you.
JAMES: Enough, reeve. We will come back. In the interim, please deliver a message to the King's men from Bas-Tyra that three men will be here soon to visit with them concerning a nocturnal bird that kills at night. They will understand what the message means.
One thing that I find funny is that Mitchell never goes: "Hang on, you've got a seal so you're one of us, why don't you know what's going on?" And gets suspicious, only really caring about the seal being possessed or not.
The other thing is that obviously this isn't how it goes in the book. In the book, James and the rest of the gang troop up, find the bridge blocked by tradesmen, and beat up the leader and are about to threaten the rest with royal authority to get across, when the troops from Bas-Tyra show up to help reinforce order. It's not that the local guards have all been killed, but simply that they, being locals, are embroiled in the factional fighting, so it takes an impartial core of fighting men to organize them without them taking sides.
We can also come here in chapter 1 where Mitchell will give you a haggling lesson, you can also get into Romney at this point still, as far as I can parse the guide, you don't even need a guild seal for it at this point. There's actually an absurd amount of text for it, considering how unlikely most players are to ever see it.
BaK posted:
The way ahead was blocked.
From among the men who were guarding the bridge, a man stepped forward to confront them.
MITCHEL: I wouldn't advise venturing any closer to Romney. She' s a city besieged.
LOCKLEAR: What's happened here?
MITCHEL: Guild war, uprising, chaos, the whole of Romney's lost its senses. I'm surprised you haven't heard, but then again, a child scraping his knee in Romney seems more important here than does a coronation in Rillanon. It all started when the Guild of the Riverpullers was pushed out of Silden by a splinter guild, the Guild of the Romney. When the Riverpullers tried to recoup their losses by raising fees in Romney, the Glazer's and Dyer's Guilds refused to take the brunt and we contracted the splinter guild to bring in goods. Unfortunately the Riverpullers asserted they had royal grant of exclusivity to the river and burned two Romney Guild rafts. Three members of the Glazer's Guild were killed in the fire as was the chief reeve of the Dyer's Guild. We've been fighting for access to Romney ever since.
LOCKLEAR: Who seems to have the upper hand at the moment?
MITCHEL: Neither side. It's a stalemate with the labor guilds occupying the North bank of the Ursine Ford and the crafters on the South. I was trapped on this side before the Riverpullers ordered the blockade. Oh, and by the way, I'm Mitchel Waylander, Local Chief Reeve of the Glazer's Guild.
LOCKLEAR: Nice to meet you. What do you think it's going to take to bring this fight to an end?
MITCHEL: We've sat down to negotiate with them, but the Riverpullers' leader is a hard old crat and frankly, I don't think he wants to end it. They've laid claim to all the goods that weren't shipped as duty for breech of agreement. The local solicitor informed him that it went outside of Kingdom custom, but the Riverpullers asserted it was also part of their royal charter. We still don't even know if such a document exists...
LOCKLEAR: Is there any other way into Romney?
MITCHEL: There was a time when you could have hired someone to boat you in, but there's not a soul on the river who'd be fool enough to try to run the river blockade. River's nearly deserted because of it. Only people who are still around are the one's who can talk a blue streak.
LOCKLEAR: Really? And why is that?
MITCHEL: Unless you can haggle with the best of them, you'll not get even a fair price on any of the goods here on the river. Might as well try to buy King Lyam's crown as a packet of rations around here.
LOCKLEAR: Perhaps you could give us a few of the finer points of haggling since you're in the trade...
MITCHEL: Perhaps I could, but...I really have to get to some of my associates in Sloop. I stand to lose quite a bit of money the longer I wait.
LOCKLEAR: We might be prepared to renumerate you for lost time if you could help.
MITCHEL: Really? Well, I suppose I might be persuaded to give you a hand for oh, fifty sovereigns. That's my proposal. What do you say?
[YES]
LOCKLEAR: I say you're mad as old King Rodric, but I can't blame you for wanting to make an honest sovereign. You have your deal.
MITCHEL: First thing, don't cross your arms when you talk. I know as a noble you have been taught to look as imposing as possible, but that won't wash when you're trying to buy a bolt of cloth. Look vulnerable or at the very least unimposing. Once you're human, it's a lot easier to believe that you're in need of a break.
LOCKLEAR: Sounds reasonable. What else?
MITCHEL: Look a man in the eye when he's talking to you. It makes him believe that you share interests with him and will usually lull him into a charitable mood. He's much more malleable when he believes he's the authority on the matter.
LOCKLEAR: But what if he isn't?
MITCHEL: Lesson three, never interrupt the man whom you're trying to buy from. Lesson four, right and wrong lose their meaning in a bargaining atmosphere. It doesn't really matter if the sword that the shopkeeper presents to you isn't the finest blade in the land. You are either interested in the blade at the price he quotes or you aren't. Insulting the integrity of his good will only earn you his scorn. Disinterest will more often lead you to better bargains...
LOCKLEAR: Hmmm. A few things to think about and I daresay we may find uses for your wisdom elsewhere...
MITCHEL: My pleasure. I'd love to stay and chat some more, but I have finances to attend to. Farewell.
LOCKLEAR: Thank you, Mitchel. Farewell.
Seriously, tell me that's not a hell of a lot of work for an easily-missed side path.
In any case, let's walk into Romney and see if we can find some Clues.
Romney has no special attributes as such, at this time. It's got a shop, an inn and a single non-store location to interact with. There's nothing unusual about the store for now(though I do pop by to upgrade Gorath to Grey Tower Plate), so let's invite ourselves into the house.
BaK posted:
The meeting hall was full.
Assembled in the room were a dozen grizzled looking men, all seated around a long table at the head of which sat a young man sporting a goatee. As the entered, a servant quickly pointed them to a bench off to the side, indicating that a meeting of some import was underway.
"I don't care what Mitchel Waylander may or may not be doing," the bearded man said sternly." I am the Duke of Romney and you will do as I request, else I will call up others from Bas-Tyra. Do you really wish to call King Lyam's attention to this matter?"
Unsettled by the vigor with which the young Duke made his point, the various guild leaders shifted in their seats. One, a tremendously overweight man whose clothes tested their seams, leaned forward, careful not to spark too much of a response. "It is entirely possible that the leader of the Riverpullers was assassinated by the leader of one of the other guilds here. It's even possible he sits in this room with us..."
"If you have someone in mind, Botho, why don't you simply come out with a name!" another man replied, leaning across the table to grab the obese guild master's shirt. "Talk, you overweight cat's innard!"
"Enough!" Slamming down the tankard of ale which sat at his right hand, the Duke turned his piercing blue eyes on all who assembled. "I want peace on the Romney, and I wish it today! The fact that the Ironmonger's Guild will not come to a negotiations table is irrelevant. If I hear another word of a possible uprising in Romney, I swear to you, I shall make each and every one of you pay for it..."
Having heard enough of the heated words in the chamber, James turned and whispered to his companions. "If Arutha were here, he'd have this lot at the gibbet for even thinking of open rebellion..."
"The fact of the matter is that Prince Arutha is not here," the Duke replied tersely, evidently having overheard the whispering. "And I will not deal so cavalierly with those who are as much my family as my serfs."
Snapping his fingers, he motioned to a pair of guards who stood mute behind him. "Sergeant Yearly, see to it that these gentlemen are let out, seeing as how they yearn to get to a part of the world where Prince Arutha rules..."
The exact details of who's been killed yet also vary a bit from book to game, in the book it's "only" been a few apprentices and journeymen who've died so far, not any guild leaders or major factors.
Anyway, let's go to the inn and see what those cool cats form Bas-Tyra have found, maybe they've already solved the mystery for us!
Welcome to the chapter that confused everyone who tried to play this game as a kid because god, damn. I'll explain more in the next update, but for now, consider this: both the titular spyglass and the titular spider are completely irrelevant to the plot.
BaK posted:
The coppery smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Embers leapt from the funeral pyre into the growing dusk, joined the winking points of light that would later become a blaze of crystalline stars. Around the flames villagers gathered in dark clots, their faces overwritten with blank, unreadable expressions. Like moths to a candle they drifted near and mourned and thought and sniffed. They had come to watch the flames feed.
Gorath's fathomless green eyes nictitated in the firelight as he turned and gazed at Owyn who flinched uncomfortably at his side.
"There can be no uneasier sleep than a warrior murdered in his cups," Gorath said, his voice only slightly louder than the spitting hiss of scorched bone. "They nipped at the heels of the Nighthawks, be certain of that."
"So you think we're getting close?" Owyn asked.
Gorath began to speak, but his words congealed on his lips as his eyes locked with the burning gaze of Seigneur James.
The fire in the background there is "animated" at one whole frame per line of dialogue.
The only explanation, Seigneur, is that you are mistaken. I have never been south of the Inclindel... While we carried the dead from the Black Sheep Tavern, a tavern boy informed me that a man answering to your description called on three unwholesomes dressed in black, all of whom wore the trademark silver rings of the Nighthawks. He heard them refer to the moredhel as Gorath. It seems that this moredhel paid a sizeable sum of money to those Nighthawks before departing, enough perhaps to arrange the death of a company of the King's soldiers? He may well have paid a king's death, but I know nothing of it. I realize it may impress little upon you, but Gorath is a passing common name in the Northlands and oft as not your Kingdom fellow folk have mistaken me for an elf! The barkeeper was likely deceived by enemies of mine. If I had cause to mislead you or your Prince, I would have found a far less convoluted means of confusing the royal sanity. Look elsewhere for your enemies, James. While we may not be friends, I mean you no harm. I shall look where I wish until you are no longer my responsibility. We may not be able to strike at the Nighthawk stronghold, but if we can locate it, we may still be able to get inside and find the information Prince Arutha needs. The Nighthawks will shun Romney for a time. However bold they may be in their murderous nights, they flee when daylight breaks. No one walks without leaving footprints and these men are no different. However skilled they may be at assassination, they have never been any good at covering their tracks. Let me see those things you found in the tavern. They are here. Good. Those are our footprints. Of all the items we found on the dead company, both those items seemed conspicuously out of place and may be related in some way to our elusive murderers. We begin our hunt for the Nighthawks with a spider and a spyglass.This whole thing also plays out somewhat differently in the book, but mostly only in that at no point here is there any attempt at casting any sort of doubt on Gorath's truthfulness. James still doesn't wholly "get" him, but they get along and have some degree of respect for each other except when Gorath comes out with some tone-deaf racist comment about what a shame it is that all humans are like roaches or other vermin.
In any case, next time, we're going to get distracted hugely as Chapter 3 has a whole new swathe of sidequests that opens up and is the first big map repopulation in terms of combat encounters. Also we might accidentally solve some mystery or another. Possibly.
Bonus Update 17.5: The Spellbook
BLACK NIMBUS
Rating: 1/5
Black Nimbus is the spell that lets you shortcircuit magic traps you can't figure out. Since almost all of them are trivially simple to puzzle out, this spell gets extremely little screentime.
CANDLE GLOW
Rating: 3/5
A replacement for using torches indoors. Decently worthwhile since it frees up more spell for ammo and drugs.
DANNON'S DELUSIONS
Rating: 2/5
It's like River Song except the distractions it creates can't also shoot at people. Funny if you want to cover the entire battlefield in Owyns, though.
DESPAIR THY EYES
Rating: 4/5
Extremely cheap, easily accessible, works on almost any enemy and knocks them out of the fight for two rounds. The only downsides is that it can't be charged to knock them out for longer and there's no visual indicator of when they return to the fray.
DRAGON'S BREATH
Rating: 2/5
If you REALLY want to make sure you miss as many combat encounters as possible, cast this. Generally you want to run into fights, though. But it can be have a fringe use or two if you manage to paint yourself into a corner that you have to fight your way out of.
EYES OF ISHAP
Rating: 2/5
This would be a 5/5 spell because some containers are rather well-hidden but... well... you know the Spyglass? That you get at the start of chapter 3? It casts Eyes of Ishap for free. Any time. Any where.
FETTERS OF RIME
Rating: 4/5
Damage AND paralyzing enemies? The only thing that leaves it short of a 5/5 is that it can miss and potentially hit your own idiots if they're too close to the target.
FINAL REST
Rating: 3/5
When killed, Black Slayers and Nighthawks with the potential to rise again as Black Slayers are down for 8 rounds before they get up again. Most battles barely last ten rounds total, so you generally have plenty of time to just take them all out and then let the party burn the corpses off-stage.
FLAMECAST
Rating: 3/5
It hits things that Skyfire won't, but it also has the potential for just plain missing targets and it's bad after, say, round two of any fight where the splash is almost certain to hit your own guys.
GAMBIT OF THE EIGHT
Rating: 2/5
Highest damage potential in the game, but since no battle maps have any choke points, it requires messing about with subsequential casts of Invitation and the like, or a lot of luck, to actually get an enemy that walks into it.
GIFT OF SUNG
Rating: 2/5
An in-battle heal requires either casting this spell or sacrificing the character's turn to drink Restoratives. Both cost a turn, but this one doesn't actually restore any health, it just transfers it, and the turn it loses is your spellcaster's, your spellcaster who could be casting River Song or Skyfire or any number of spells that kill or distract enemies.
GRIEF OF 1000 NIGHTS
Rating: 5/5
It's practically an instant kill. It works on almost anything and can take them out of the fight for over 30 rounds, has no chance of missing, etc. it just rules. Top-tier combat spell.
HOCHO'S HAVEN
Rating: 2/5
Ablative HP is sometimes useful. But usually not as useful as just casting an attack spell.
INVITATION
Rating: 2/5
It has a couple of fringe uses where it's really good(like that one trap where you can haul a Moredhel caster right into lightning land), but in a game without more "environmental" traps and effects, it's not that great.
MIND MELT
Rating: ?/5
Sir Not Appearing In This Version. Otherwise it's a very cost-effective way to destroy goblins because they take a ton more damage than anyone else, and in general it's just a slightly better version of Skyfire because it does slightly more damage and can hit a lot more things(literally only two enemies in the entire game are immune to it).
MIRRORWALL
Rating: 1/5
Another way to waste your time setting up a projectile-reflecting wall rather than just hitting the caster/shooter with Grief or spawning a Rusalki next to him.
NACRE CICATRIX
Rating: 1/5
Detects magical items, but since all items are in containers, and Eyes of Ishap already detects all items... useless.
NIGHTFINGERS
Rating: -5/5
Lets you waste an inventory slot to carry an item that lets your caster magically loot an item from an enemy mid-battle that you will get anyway post-battle. There are a very few exceptions, like there are a few enemies with disappearing corpses that technically contain items you could steal this way, but as far as I'm aware they're all stuff like a bit of spare change or a single use of a consumable, not diamonds or other gemstones that would in some way make it worth it. Just bring more drugs.
RIVER SONG
Rating: 5/5
Absolutely kickass spell. Rusalkis can interrupt enemy casters/shooters, provide fire support, attract enemy fire. They're gorgeous, GORGEOUS. One of the best spells in the game.
SCENT OF SARIG
Rating: 5/5
Since it lets you loot some very good chests without getting everyone's faces exploded off, this gets a 5/5 from me.
SKIN OF THE DRAGON
Rating: 5/5
I don't tend to use it much, but it makes the target invincible for up to 20 turns. Technically I guess it's better than, say, River Song, but I tend to prefer the offensive approach over the defensive approach. Getting enemies whittled down and distracted fast tends to be more important.
SKYFIRE
Rating: 4/5
Deals heavy, consistent damage and never misses, but unfortunately in some parts of the game there are a lot of enemies around(like trolls and animals), that it can't target. It looks super cool when you're 12, though, and since it can't miss I prefer it over Flamecast.
STARDUSK
Rating: 1/5
Outdoors version of Candle Glow, but outdoors you can just take a nap and it turns to day anyway, plus it's never dark enough that you might miss stuff like it can be in dungeons.
STEELFIRE
Rating: 3/5
Provides a +50% damage boost to the melee attacker of choice for the rest of the battle. In some cases it can make a big difference, especially against very hardy enemies like the Shades, but once you have spells like Grief and River Song, it starts to be hard to justify casting it.
THE UNSEEN
Rating: 1/5
Detects containers that contain food. See my feelings on Nacre Cicatrix above.
THOUGHTS LIKE CLOUDS
Rating: 2/5
Prevents a target spellcaster from casting spells but not from doing anything else. It would be a decent spell except that there's only one type of spellcaster in the game it works on that Grief doesn't, and even then I'd rather just drop a Rusalki next to them to panic them.
WINDS OF EORTIS
Rating: 3/5
Slightly more useful than Invitation since it can be used to buy your mage some breathing room, but it would still be a much better spell in a game with more environmental stuff, like the Divinity games or some such.