Part 27: The Return of Locklear, Part 1

Update 27: The Return of Locklear, Part 1





Check it out, Locky's back! And we've got another new friend! Let's rush over and check out their cool gear and skills and-




I forgot Locky got a free Greatsword and Patrus started with a Lightning Staff, but otherwise goddamn this is a downgrade from Gorath and Owyn. Also the non-useful gear at least still serves as a store of value since James starts with the sad remnants of the party's treasury at the end of chapter 3. On the bright side, Patrus starts with a decent selection of spells. While he lacks proper asskickers like Skin of the Dragon, Grief of 1000 Nights and River Song, he at least still has Evil Seek, so he can tear holes in enemy formations pretty well. Locklear has also gotten a few stat upgrades to help him keep up with James' two chapters' worth of upgrades, so the party's main weaknesses right now are garbage armor for Patrus, a super shortage of rations and restoratives, and no one but James having Weed Walkers. This latter thing is a really big deal since it means that when we were previously scoring ambush on nine out of ten battles, we're now getting ambush on maybe one out of three.



We spawn a short distance south of Northwarden and our first objective is to get up there, and in this chapter, more than any previous, we're limited in where we can go. We can't go south to the Kenting Rush zone, and we can't farther west than Dencamp, not even far enough past the town to reach the Temple of Tith between it and Wolfram, which sucks since this means we don't get a chance to bless anything good we pick up in this chapter.




Oh and did I mention that the path to either Northwarden or Dencamp involve numerous battles? There are only three between us and Northwarden, so we'll be heading there first rather than over to resupply at Dencamp.



Also almost every battle in this chapter involves enemy mages, and often two or three of them, rather than merely one, which makes the consequences of losing surprise even worse. For instance...




These assholes drop Grief on Patrus and then Hocho's Haven on two of the goblins to make them that much harder to take down. Thankfully the goblin sucks so much that he doesn't manage to take down Patrus before the fight is over.



While these enemies carry very few misc. items and generally poor armor(though there are a few suits of Euliliko and Dragon Plate, no Grey Tower Plate), they have much better swords than usual. Generally Goblin Stickers, Rapiers and Swords of Kinnur, with a few Two-Handed Broadswords on the lower end of the scale. This means that the non-mage enemies are a lot more threatening, too, if they get to act before we can put them down. Also almost every weapon they have is blessed or has a temporary effect like poison or icing on them. If you were religiously following a guide you could probably ameliorate their damage some by knowing what they were going to bring, but if you were religiously following a guide they'd probably also advise you to load James up with two suits of Dragon Plate and two extra pairs of Weed Walkers before coming this far.





This first walk can also very easily get perilous if James doesn't arrive loaded down with rations/restoratives since you won't have a chance to load up again until either Northwarden or Dencamp. You could raid some of the local chests and bushes but, er, I kind of already did that four chapters ago which I'm now realizing has some drawbacks.



This fight would be super easy if the party won surprise, one Evil Seek on the Ogres and this would be over before it finished bouncing, instead...



Patrus gets intercepted by an Ogre and James eats a new and colourful spell we haven't seen before: Drain Strength. For the duration of the battle, it reduces the target's Strength by a number and raises the caster's Strength by that same number. We've had no way to get a hold of it so far, and we won't for a while yet, and it's also rather niche since there are few enemies that live long enough for their drained strength to be relevant, plus your casters don't just have low base strength, their staves also do less base damage than swords, so using drain strength to make them tougher is usually not worth it.



Then they paralyze James and drain his strength again while Locklear is frantically trying to disentangle Patrus from his new buddy.





Thankfully it happens just in time, and a single Evil Seek clears the battlefield.

Haven't you boys ever played an RPG before? You're meant to keep the baddies off the wizard.
Not our fault you keep spawning in the wrong spot.

For whatever reason, while Owyn always spawned in the middle of the formation, Patrus spawns off to the right almost every time, which almost guarantees that at least one melee enemy will bail right for him.





The last ambush on the way to Northwarden. I get lucky and score surprise on this one, which trivializes it slightly. Even winning ambush only guarantees the first move, meaning that in many, if not most cases, at least one enemy will get to move before Patrus(it seems to go by order of character Speed).





Thankfully the ogres are slow in this battle, allowing James and Locklear to threaten the Moredhel spellcasters and giving Patrus the chance to blast the entire enemy formation to ashes with a single Evil Seek starting on an ogre.





Something worth noting here, which I completely missed, because I am an absolute moron, are the contents of Northwarden's store.



You open the first page here, and see nothing but high-tier swords and armor. When you do that, you think: "ah, this is a smithy." And assume that like all other smithies in the game, it contains only armor and weapons. But in fact this one also contains antivenom, rations, rope and restoratives. I miss this and assume that I need to get all the way to Dencamp before I can buy rations, this unintentionally made the game much harder for myself as I could barely rest at all.

In the meantime!



What of Duke Martin? I know he was visiting here.

He already is in the field with my rangers. I want you two to work with him to find ways to slow down or stop the oncoming enemy companies. Our scouts have estimated the moredhel have fielded about fifteen hundred men.

You have three hundred men here and a castle! It's far more than you need to stop that many soldiers.

If there are Nighthawks that have infiltrated my troops, we will likely lose more than field captains before this is all over. We have to assume for the moment that the moredhel know something that we don't. If we can stop even half their number, I imagine we can diffuse whatever plan it is they have. So, any questions before you begin?

[DUKE MARTIN]

Where can we find Duke Martin? Is he in the castle somewhere?

I asked him to stay relatively close to the castle so my guards could find him in the instance of an emergency. You will have to search for him yourself. While you are at it, perhaps you can also find what has become of our minstrel, Tamney.

He may have quit the castle. Minstrels are not noted for their staying power through great battles.

It will work against the morale of the men should he remain absent. I want you to find him and use whatever means you have at your disposal to bring him back here, even if you bring him back in chains and rucksack tied over his head. With the battle coming close to hand, I want nothing to divide the men.

So you might wonder, who the hell is Duke Martin? That requires looping back slightly in the timeline. At the start of Magician: Apprentice, the main characters are Pug, Tomas, Arutha and Martin. Arutha and Martin, along with Caroline and Lyam, are sons of the Duke of Crydee and in line to eventually inherit the throne(Lyam ends up being the King at the end of Magician: Master, Arutha in charge of Krondor, Caroline as the Duchess of Salador). Martin becomes the Duke of Crydee. What's special about Martin is that he was the bastard son of the former Duke of Crydee, never officially acknowledged until near the end of Magician: Master, and thus rather than being a pampered noble heir, spent most of his time out in the woods hanging out with elves and being Crydee's huntmaster.

During Darkness at Sethanon, he accompanied Arutha, Jimmy and the other goons to Armengar, where he ended up getting involved with one of the Armengarian commanders, Brianna, who eventually became his wife and the Duchess of Crydee, since she was more or less the only woman in Midkemia happy to both marry him and let him run around still playing with elves and going on stupid adventures all over the place.

This is unique to the game, though, in the book Martin never heads up to Northwarden.

Anyway, let's go meet him!







Fine, when I last saw him. He's outside of the Dimwood with a small force, waiting for my messengers to reach him. What are you doing so far from Crydee anyway? Briana have you hunting rabbits for the ducal stew?

No, but soon we four will be hunting far larger game than that. Seems this small wrinkle developing in the Northlands is about to become a Kingdom problem if what Locklear told me was correct. I'm just glad to have you two here to lend a hand.

Is King Lyam going to join the party?

Doubtful. This engagement isn't serious enough to warrant bringing the King into it and he's got his hands full enough with the Keshian Empire. Seems one of our Kingdom ships accidentally mistook one of her Empress' Imperial frigates as a pirate ship and sunk it with all hands on board. Naturally, Lord Hazra-Khan is having a conniption. We'll have to fight out Northwarden's battle on our own.

What can Locklear and I do?

I have most of Baron Gabot's rangers out checking up on the movements of the enemy, so I'll need you three to give me a hand with various missions. I hope you three are in the mood for a bit of running about...

[CROSSBOWS]

Prince Arutha has told me on several occasions you're about the finest archer he knows.

Arutha also used to tell his sister Carline that his father was going to rope her to the mainmast of Krondor's Glory so the Quegians could have target practice when they passed her in the harbor. Doesn't mean it was true.

And I wasn't Jimmy the Hand. You're being modest, Duke.

So I might be handy with a bow, why the interest?

I was hoping you could give Locky and I a few pointers. We both could stand to learn a little about how to use the crossbow more effectively.

Well, as the moredhel don't seem to be charging down our throats this very minute, I suppose I might be able to teach you a little bit...


Two things of note here is that, firstly, this provides another ten points of Accuracy: Crossbow to James and Locklear(or 15 if the skill is tagged), which is very nice since it's free. The second thing is that Martin is called Martin Longbow for a reason, dude never canonically uses a crossbow, always a longbow. Him as a crossbow teacher seems a bit off.

[BARON GABOT]

So... Baron Gabot told us we were to report to you until the siege begins. Where do you want us?

I was just planning a little fun. Patrus, how's your moredhel?

Which 'un you talkin' about, Duke? The one I gots under my bed or the one what makes me breakfast in the morning?

Amazing. Jimmy, is it just me or does Patrus remind you of a certain Admiral we both know?

I think he and Amos Trask would either love each other or hang one another from a gibbet.

I think the Duke meant, how well do you speak moredhel, Patrus?

I knew perfect well what he was a'sayin' you court rat. I can read it, but don't ask me to pronounce any that dog-howlin' yewhaw.

You won't have to for what I have in mind. There are some boxes near here that have moredhel plates on them. I want you to crack the codes on them. I imagine those boxes will have supplies of rations for the moredhel once they begin the siege, but I doubt they'll suspect we've tampered with them. If there are any rations, find a way to poison them, then replace them in the boxes. Come back and find me once you're done.

Amos Trask is the admiral of the king's fleets, also a former pirate who got recruited into the conflict during the Riftwar when Arutha saved him from Tsurani that ambushed his ship while he loitered too close to the coast. He's mostly notable for A) being almost impossible to kill(dude gets a major wound of some sort in almost every book he's in) and B) refusing to ever take any situation particularly seriously and never really respecting authority, not even the royals even when he's working for them.



So, we now have the task of poisoning the Moredhel rations we stole back in chapter 1 from several coded chests west of Northwarden. Before we do that, though, I have to fight my way through like... four ambushes on the way to Dencamp, with barely any rations, a single stack of herbal packs and two stacks of restoratives from James' inventory. I frankly thought I was going to have to cheat to make it.





Of course I get two battles in before some prick moredhel knocks a poisoned quarrel into Patrus, and it would consume all my restoratives to un-poison him, since while I have herbal packs, I don't have enough rations to actually rest it out. Patrus is just going to have to be dying for a while.





And now, of course, one of these ogre fucks has a poisoned sword! And Locklear's poisoned now, too!

Y'gonna join us, James? You don't want to be the odd one out.
I'll pass, I'm happier not dying from silverthorn.
Spoilsport.






Five battles, no resting. And now this.



I'm so lucky, Patrus has just enough health left for a full-power Evil Seek which knocks down or damages the enemies enough that James(and to a lesser extent Locklear) can clear the rest of the formation.





Even when I finally reach Dencamp, there's still a fucking fight there. Goddamn.




We're absolutely taking a week's break here while we heal.
Agreed.




The local store, despite being called the Grumbling Magician, has no spells that I want to purchase for Patrus, but what it has is restoratives, anti-venom, herbal packs and other necessary supplies. The team also stops by the tavern to stock up on tons of rations.

In any case, we have a couple of options for poisoning the non-existent moredhel rations back in those coded chests. We can either buy actual rations and toss Coltari Poison on them(it can be found in a couple of places up here, or bought at Northwarden), we can find poisoned rations on a few of the enemies we've killed or...





South of Northwarden, almost as far south as you can go before James starts complaining that you should turn back, there are a couple of bushes full of poisoned rations. Not a lot, but we only need one for each chest.




We already cracked these chests in chapter 1, so I'm not showing off their puzzles, but I do want to show off that, obviously, since no one in this chapter reads Moredhel(yes, I know Patrus said he does, we'll get there. ), they read as gibberish to everyone. If we want to fuck with a code chest with a party not featuring Gorath, Patrus has to cast a spell unique to him, Union, which briefly allows him to read Moredhel.

Anyway! Now that we've committed yet another war crime, let's get back to Martin.




[POISONING]

We've poisoned the food in all the moredhel lockchests we could find. There weren't many of them out there.

You probably found the majority of them, so I wouldn't worry about it. I have something else I need you to do... There was a minstrel that the Baron employed here at Northwarden by the name of Tamney. When we got word that the moredhel were beginning to move down from Raglam to Northwarden Pass, he picked up all his things and disappeared in the middle of the night. The baron is insistent he brought back.

The Baron mentioned this Tamney to us as well, but why is it so imperative he come back? Surely, the men might feel a little betrayed, but if their morale is that shaky...

The Baron sent word a short while ago that a Nighthawk was discovered within the confines of the castle this morning and there is evidence there may be others. Naturally word has spread and the men are edgy about the whole matter. It doesn't help matters Tamney was never administered an oath of loyalty.

And it's possible he was connected with the Nighthawks. I understand.

Find him and get him back to Northwarden if you can, but don't let him know you're suspicious. He might bolt... One of Gabot's scouts has told me there may be goblin activity in the north, so hurry back when you're finished. I may need your help.

Alright, after war crimes, we need to ensure that civilians don't get to stay out of the fight. Now, theoretically finding Tamney might be difficult, but literally the only town we can reach is Dencamp, and Tamney can't have reached somewhere we can't drag him back, so off to Dencamp we go.




There's nothing new in the town itself, but there is this barn on the outskirts where the barn door sticks and requires a character with 30 Strength to open. Our best at the moment is Locklear's 26, so this means he gets to chug some Fadamor's Formula to strongthen him up and open the door. This can be bought at the Grumbling Magician in Dencamp if you're not already carrying a full supply of combat drugs.




...come after ya! Pah! I shoulda' known it. You come a prancin' into Northwarden with that little twanging box of yours and you sing a blue streak about honor and glory, but when it comes down to it, you ain't got the picture. Instead you got's this yella streak - ya never stand and eyeball your problems face ta face, ya let other folks run you around. One day somebody's gonna run your life right off a cliff.

I'm the one telling me to leave Northwarden. Me. That's Tamney the Minstrel's decision, not someone else's. I'm making the decision to live.

The moredhel done run you off an they ain't even got here yet. They done a better job on you than any duke or baron you crossed swords with before. I'd not be in a castle with a coward like you anyway.

That isn't fair. I'm a minstrel! What good would I be...I don't know how to use a sword, I don't know how to heal wounds or direct a battle...I'd just be in the way. What good would I be? I'm just...one...insignificant...man.

Not so insignificant, Tamney. Before I went to serve in Krondor, my father used to advise me: When you have earned your title, make sure your minstrel is well paid. I hadn't a clue what that meant until I saw the battles at Armengar and Highcastle and Sethanon and others since. When men sit and listen to songs about great battles, they remember men like themselves have faced terrible dangers and emerged alive and that gives them hope. Sometimes that's the only thing that an army needs.

But why do they all have to depend on me? Why did fate arrange it that I was the minstrel who happened to be at Northwarden?

We aren't going to force you to go, Tamney. It's your life, your decision. If you choose to leave...that's your own business.

Could I request a favor of you before I make a final decision?

Anything, if it will set your feet back on the road to Northwarden.

There is a cave not too far from here that is known as the Diviner's Halls. Within, there are several small stones - called pattern stones by geomancers - which can foretell a man's future. If you return with one, I will make my decision.

Geomancy! Shoulda figured you'd go in for that hozum-pozum... Just another way for somethin else to make your hard decisions for you!

Quiet, Patrus. We will see what we can do, Tamney.

I feel like if Locklear wasn't along, Patrus would just whap Tamney with a Fetters of Rime, truss him up and have some peasants haul him over to Northwarden whether he wanted it or not. Since Locklear is along, however, Tamney gets the easy treatment.






We've already visited the Diviner's Halls way back in chapter 1 when we first came up here, where it was a reasonably profitable and unchallenging venture. The main change is that now it's received a few new enemy spawns and a new chest has spawned in here as well.





The new spawns are kind of baffling. Like, to even get here you have to fight your way through several six-enemy squads packed full of spellcasters, and now they toss just a couple of ogres at you? Admittedly ogres with fucking poisoned swords, but still just a couple of ogres.






The new chest at the end contains the desired geomancy stones as well as a single emerald, which is nice enough, I suppose. All the gear we're stripping off the dead enemies outside makes up far more value than this, but I shall never look a gift high-quality gemstone in its non-existent mouth.





Did you go to the Diviner's Halls? Did you bring back a pattern stone?

Don't get yourself into a tiz, Tamney. We got your silly rocks... Now you walkin' back to Northwarden or are we draggin' you?

I will walk back myself after...I've studied the rock. Tell Baron Gabot that I will be there soon. I think he will be rather more relieved than you might imagine.

Oh? And why is that?

Before I was off from the castle, I had it in mind I wasn't to leave until I had at least made some provisions that I could survive. Even assuming I slipped out of the castle without notice, there was still the issue of how I would pay my way until I reached a safe haven. So, after a bit of investigation, I found the treasury. It was being guarded by a fellow by the name of Corbi, a fellow whose tryst with a certain girl by the name of Thea I have had the vicarious pleasure of orchestrating over the past several months. Once I had convinced him that she was awaiting him, it was a simple matter of slipping inside and grabbing up a pouch.

Not as if the Baron's missed a few golden sovereigns. I think he's involved with other things at the moment...

Exactly as I was thinking, but it seems that what I picked up in the dark was worth rather more than a few dozen sovereigns. Several hundreds more... Once I realized what I'd done, I became terrified of going back.

I could see why, but when the Baron told us to come and get you, he made no mention of missing money. It's entirely possible that no one has noticed the missing funds as yet. You can take them back to him.

I can't. Even if I return them, the Baron will be aware that Corbi left his post open for me to plunder. Though I can't say I've behaved much like a friend to him, I don't wish to betray him twice with the same crime... Actually, I have something of an admission to make. He is the reason why I asked you to retrieve the geomancy stones for me. They aren't worth much, even to a gem's dealer, but they can be used to make an attractive stone for a wedding band.

For Corbi. Of course. So you've been considering returning all this time, but you wanted to wait until you could cover all possibilities...

All but one. I was wondering if you would take the pouch of diamonds and hold on to it until after the battle was over. This way, no one gets hurt and we can all do what we need to do. Tell him you took them off a dead Nighthawk or something.

When you go back to the castle, its a possibility they will search you since your behavior has been a little odd. I'll take the diamonds, but I'll worry about how I will tell him later. My only concern is that you return immediately. We have other things we need to be doing for Duke Martin.

Done. I'll see you all back at the castle.

Don't be too happy about this, Tamney. You and I will have a big score to settle on later.

Don't let yourself get killed getting back there.

So, this is where you get the chance to softlock yourself in chapter 5. Sell those diamonds you got from Tamney, they're worth almost 4k gold if you hock them at the Grumbling Magician and then, and this is the important part, do not indulge your impulses and kit out the team in, say, Dragon Plate. Keep the fucking money. Also while keeping it, chuckle about how funny it is that James just stole a small fortune from the government he's ostensibly loyal to.

Like he had a choice, I woulda turned him into a lizard if he handed those back.

Now, while we're flush with cash, it's time to pop back to Martin for our next mission. I'm honestly a bit disappointed they handled it this linearly, it would've been better if like... they just gave you free run of the region and had Martin hand out hints, then depending on how much you did to weaken the moredhel, it would vary what sort of final fight you got for the chapter, whether it was wall-to-wall goblins and wizards or just a couple of starving, poisoned moredhel.





It also feels a bit silly that Martin's greeting is the same no matter what stage of the chapter you're on. He could at least have escalated his worries slightly.

[GOBLINS]

I'm beginning to get wistful for the days when we were running the billets in Krondor for Master deLacy. I haven't had this much exercise in a long time... So, where are these goblins you told us about?

What about Tamney? Did you find him?

Yes, though it took a little extra work to get him heading back to Northwarden. He promised dutifully he would return and I believe he will. We had a long talk...

I can see now why Arutha values you so much. I personally wouldn't have believed it possible. But, as things stand, we still have a long row to hoe, as they say. A goblin company of archers has already moved into the pass and is trying to entrench itself there. If they get a foothold, they may be impossible to root out once the moredhel roll in. We need to find out what their deployment is going to be when the battle begins.

Okay, so we grab their leader and give him the hot poker treatment in the dungeon under Northwarden. Tell us where to find him and he's yours.

No good. As soon as they discover he's missing, they'll change their tactics. No, what I need is the big plan and I'll be willing to bet that it's still in Raglam.

How many scouts has the Baron lent you?

I have about twenty men out at the moment. Why?

Then you won't miss the three of us much. We're going to Raglam and we'll find a way to get that plan for you.

You plan to march through a company of goblin archers to the city where the moredhel are massing, walk right up to leader of the enemy and say, "Excuse me, may I just borrow your warplans, please?"

As I recall, I snuck the future Duke of Crydee, Prince and Princess, and the Admiral of the Western Fleet out of Krondor while it was under siege of Jocko Radburn and Guy du Bas-Tyra. I think I can snatch a silly piece of paper.

I think if Prince Arutha didn't want to make you the Duke of Krondor some day, he would probably have you killed as a madman. All right then, get me that paper but be careful. I'll be waiting for you...

I haven't commented much on the "canonicity" of this chapter so far, but that's because everything up to this point has been non-canon. James and Locklear run into Patrus while out on patrol and then wander off into this quest more or less on their own initiative.




The road northwards towards Raglam is absolutely flooded with goblins(in the book they're trolls and Patrus is already up here, he gets away from the Moredhel force when they have a falling out with the trolls who cut their Moredhel commanders to pieces), and there isn't even an option to fight them. Let's say we approach them, though...


This is why you need to keep at least 2k gold from selling those diamonds by the time you get this far, in the book James just has Locklear hand over his own gold pouch to the goblins(because if that was enough, he wouldn't want to hand over his own either, Locklear is very salty about this and Patrus very amused by it), but this super owns. Like, I hate to repeat myself, but this game is so much better at humanizing the "monsters" than Feist's actual books ever were. I love the idea that the goblins aren't murderous psychopaths, they just want to get paid. If James pays up, then hell yeah, they'll fight for James. They don't really have an ideological stake or genetic evil at play in this conflict.

Though I do feel like it would have been better if there was an option to fight them and that paying them off came with some other benefit(like maybe they neutralized some nearby Moredhel spawns or made a final battle easier or something.). But for the time this was made, the concept of getting around enemies without killing them was honestly still kind of wild.









Welcome to that little tongue of the Northlands above Northwarden that Gorath and Owyn couldn't get to, for the simple reason that it would complicate the timeline all to hell and back since chapters 4 and 5 are technically happening at roughly the same time(in the book it hops back and forth between the two rather than having them as two clearly segregated chapters). As soon as we arrive, we can also see that Delekhan's troops have gotten busy building siege towers, and if we go poke at one of them...




They're full of mostly-outdated gear, though I can upgrade Locklear to an elven crossbow. It would've been nice if they were full of more consumables instead, but I suppose from a verisimillitude perspective this is also perfectly fitting. Also if nothing else I can pick up all Delekhan's expensive crossbows and turn them into gold that I can then trade for combat drugs, like a genius.





The encounters up here are also a bit odd in that they're actually easier, right near Delekhan's nearest army headquarters, than they are on the Kingdom side of the border. These blue giants are the same as the giants Owyn and Gorath met, except that being Rime Giants, they take double damage from Flamecast... a spell that Patrus can't acquire unless you buy a scroll in Chapters 1, 2 or 3, haul it up to Northwarden, and then leave it in one of the chests there. I also don't believe Owyn and Gorath ever have any way of meeting a Rime Giant.





Until you reach Raglam, there's nothing along the road, no bushes, no hidden chests, no mounds of dirt, no corpses, except for the lootable siege engines.



This fight also almost goes very poorly.



I fail to get ambush and then Patrus gets mobbed, at which point the Witch Hags start letting loose with magic before James or Locklear can disrupt them.





Two max-power Flamecasts(one of which thankfully turns into friendly fire), and Locklear paralyzed by Grief. The splash damage from the second Flamecast, which sadly slams dead-on into James, kills the last Moredhel Warrior near Patrus, allowing him to bust out an Evil Seek right at the most important possible time.




Seeing which way the wind blows, the last Moredhel Warrior turns to flee, but James puts a quarrel into his spine, making good use of Duke Martin's archery lessons.




Just before we reach Raglam, there's an interesting contraption in the trees off to the road... and of course it's guarded by a magic trap.



Once again, they're trying to trick you. Pushing up a transparent crystal to blast the zap poles will open you up to fire from the Blaster on the right. So instead shove up the non-transparent crystal, then walk around it on the right side so it shields you from the leftwards Blaster, while the zap poles intercept any fireballs from the rightmost Blaster.



Nice catapult, wonder what the crew have to say about it.




Perhaps, but it's of no use to them now unless someone fixed it in order to lob stones at Raglam.

Now, that's peculiar now that you mention it. Tell me Locky, if you were just going to leave something like this lying around in a field, even if you didn't have it working, would you leave it pointed at your home?

What are you getting at?

The only reason this thing won't function is because one of the torsion gears is broken, not something all that complicated to fix. Now suppose the gear didn't break of its own accord. Gorath told me that many of the moredhel clans had reservations about fighting under the old battle colors of Murmandamus. Now if you were one of those clans and wanted a backup plan in case you wanted to back out of the strike, it would simply be a matter of installing a replacement gear...

...and pulling the release lever! It even has a payload in the basket! Of course, assuming we could find the part ourselves, we could stir up some trouble. Maybe find a way to get to the plans Duke Martin needs in the confusion.

Perhaps, but we'll need to find a replacement catapult part first. I doubt there is one lying about here somewhere, but let's check around...


In the book, the trolls early on are a hint that there's some discord in the moredhel forces around Raglam, but this confirms it. Everyone fucking hates the local commander as a gibbering incompetent, and the crew just decides to set off the catapult then and there (it's not missing any parts and the engineers are passed out drunk near it) to trigger some infighting that they can make use of, ripping some stones through the roof of a nearby inn. Here, however, we have to head into Raglam first(or, I guess we don't need to, but it's funnier if we do).