Part 8: Dim Adventurers In The Woods, Part 01

Update 08: Dim Adventurers in the Woods, Part 1



Finally, we're here!
Thank the gods, it's been over a week and... where is here?



It's exactly where we need to be going.
...Gorath?
Considering that we turned south off the road to Highcastle, we could only be heading for what you call the Dimwood.





So that answers where, but why?
Simple logic, my dear Owyn. So far every ambush we've suffered has been within sight of a road, and in the Dimwood, there are no roads. By logical exclusion, we should be safe until we come out the other side.
...
He has a point, every ambush by Moredhel so far has been near a road.

On the road south from Highcastle to the Dimwood, there are a few code chests off to the side in a thicket.



HORSEMAN



GAUNTLET



BOTTLE

The only interesting thing in them is a new spell for Owyn, Steelfire, which is an in-combat spell that replicates the effect of a sword buffing item(Naphtha) for the duration of the fight. The effect of Steelfire is the same as the Clerical Oilcloth we used against the Brak Nurr, doubling damage for the fight, but it's countered by a different armor buffing item.




See? Even Gorath agrees with me. Onwards!
...so why did you emphasize Moredhel, Gorath?
There's worse than my people in the Dimwood.




Welcome to the Dimwood. As hinted at by the name, it has a lot of trees and, unlike the rest of the Kingdom which is somewhat corridor-esque, with most roads bounded by uncrossable mountains or hills on either side(little side-nooks and crannies aside), it's mostly open. The two rivers that intersect within it split it into three sections that are connected by bridges(the northern and eastern section do not connect, but the south-western section has bridges to both), and it has a northern exit(Highcastle), a western exit(Hawk's Hollow) and a southern exit(Sethanon).

It's worth occasionally revisiting since it has one setup during Chapter 1 and gets refreshed during Chapter 3. In general, most later-chapter encounters are additive, meaning they get dropped on top of existing stuff, rather than existing stuff getting wiped, with the exception being chapter 4 which nukes a lot of early encounters off the map and gives it almost a complete refresh in terms of enemy population.





And we're off the road again, of course we are.
No safer place! Who ever heard of an elf hiding among the trees?




In fairness to Locklear, these aren't moredhel.

Giant scorpions are unique to the Dimwood and probably one of the crustiest .jpg's used in this game, even at the original resolution.



They hit reasonably hard, but are actually more fragile than any enemy we've fought so far, despite their huge bulk. The most annoying thing about them is that since their sprite is already "flat," sometimes it can be hard to spot whether they're alive or dead. The sprites jiggle a little bit while alive, but it's even more subtle with the scorpions than it is with humanoid enemies.




Look at how miniscule that change is! In any case, three of them are not a major threat to the party.



What part of this is "safer than the roads" to you?!
They don't have swords, the moredhel do.



Indeed, it'd be a shame if my people were around, leaving their coded chests everywhere.
A scorpion could have dragged it here.



MOUSER



A couple of new items in this one, Silverthorn(the plant) and Silverthorn Anti-Venom(the blue globules, and yes, I know what the different between venom and poison are, the developers apparently did not. ), both of which are, for a couple of reasons, funny things to find. Firstly, Silverthorn is so rare in the Midkemia world that from the Kingdom it's really only in reach at one lake that's regularly guarded by the Moredhel. It's also always fatal without the antidote, in fact it's so fatal that Feist wrote an entire book about it, called Silverthorn, more or less entirely about the quest to find said antidote(which can only be produced from more Silverthorn berries), which makes it hilarious that we're going to find shitloads of Silverthorn antidote littered around the gameworld, and even in stores.

Gameplay-wise, silverthorn doesn't boost basic damage, but instead makes enemies take damage over time(and, for the players, also damage-over-time outside of combat), so it's more useful on quarrels where it can be used to poison some enemies on the first round of combat, rather than on swords.





In fact there are a ton of chests in the Dimwood, most of them coded, and not locked, and thus openable at any stage of the game where you care to either brute force them or do a bit of riddle-solving. In chapter 1, each of the forest's three "sections" also only have about two or three fights each, which is not to say that some of them aren't absolute asskickers at this stage, but it means that if you have a bit of an idea of what you're doing(or frankly even if you don't), you can open most of them very early on.



THISTLE



This one contains two things, a scroll of Black Nimbus, which disables lightning poles in traps, allowing you to trivialize them(though no trap ever requires use of the spell and I always like to solve the traps without it, if I can) and yet another crossbow upgrade. It may look like the Tsurani crossbows we already have, but this one has a more rifle-like stock rather than a pistol grip, being a Tsurani Heavy Crossbow, which absolutely kicks ass. Now we just need some good quarrels to go with it.



FLEAS

This one just contains some decent-quality emeralds, almost 200 gold worth of them.



Like the other areas, some number of the encounters in the Dimwood are ambushes. For instance, this is me just about to walk into one.



Containing a new enemy type! Quegans! Quegans are a bit odd in that they get constantly mentioned in the books, but rarely have a major role, in fact I think the Midkemia story they have the biggest role in is in fact Betrayal at Krondor. They're a pirate nation who considers themselves to be the true inheritors of Kesh's ancient mandate of rulership over both Kesh itself and their old colonial province of Bosania(what's now the Kingdom of the Isles), which is what they consider to give them a right to raid shipping and ports on all sides of the Bitter Sea.

In BaK they're largely just Moredhel sprite swaps, used to explain opposition that pops up in the south of the Kingdom in places where moredhel would have a lot of trouble moving around subtly, it's explained that they've instead paid a bunch of Quegans to hang out and try to dunk on the party. There are no quegan mages, as I remember it, but they do have archers and their stats tend to be around the same tier as Moredhel.





Squire, explain to me why your genius plan hasn't saved me from being chased around by Moredhel with swords.
It's passing strange that my people would be here in the Dimwood as well, they may have simply predicted we'd attempt this route.




Then why have they spent the time setting up all these supply drops?
Obviously we've stumbled upon an unrelated moredhel conspiracy and Arutha will reward us all for it.




WATER

This one just contains a few generic supplies and I can't open the other one because it's one of the rare ones that is locked, and in this case with an absurdly strong lock.

If you're quite done rooting through my people's spare clothes and rations, we should follow the river to find a way across.





Do you guys hear something? Like a faint moaning sound?



Meet the Rusalki. Or, not the, but a, since they're disconcertingly common in some regions of the game world. They're ghosts who have only one attack, a ranged frost blast that does 20 damage and more or less always hits. However, for inexplicable reasons it's considered a magic attack, and thus can't be used in melee. So if there's only one, like here, they're easily dealt with by rushing up to them and making sure they can't do anything.





When killed, they slowly fade downwards into the ground which, combined with the overhead hack animation of many melee attacks makes it look like Locklear and Gorath are playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole.



This adventure is getting too strange. First moredhel, then trolls and giant scorpions, now ghosts?
Cool, the ghost is gone. Now let's start digging up her grave.


This is one grave you abso-fucking-lutely WANT to dig into, though.



Firstly, it contains a rapier with a tier 3 bless. Rapiers in BaK are, oddly enough, elf-typed weapons, despite the fact that the two canonical rapier-users in the books(Jimmy the Hand and Arutha) are both human. Doesn't matter, though, this is gonna be Gorath's mainstay for a while since while it loses a little bit of damage, it almost guarantees hits when making Thrust attacks.

Secondly, it contains River Song, one of the best spells in the game.


Well, what's so great about it?

It allows you to summon allied rusalki in combat, up to four per battle. They don't hit super hard, and they're not super durable, but they can be summoned next to enemy casters to disrupt them or behind the enemy where they either split up the formation(if not ignored) or provide fire support(if ignored). Almost every battle where the option is given, starting off with a cast of River Song is a good move. At only 20 Stamina/Health per cast, it's not even an expensive spell, either. I'd definitely argue that it is, in fact, undercosted for how supremely useful it is.



Right next to the Rusalki encounter is another cluster of chests. Two of them are almost overlapping, so it's easy to miss that there are four of them.



SNAIL.

This one actually puzzled me for a bit since I was casting around for stuff like BOOTS or SHOES or an inanimate object of some sort that people brought with them, because of the "bloodless" part. Are snails actually bloodless? I mean, they gotta have some sort of blood analogue, at least.



STOVE

This one contains a new spell called Nightfingers which is the second spell in the game that requires a material component. It lets you nick an item from an enemy's inventory in combat, but not something they're equipped with. However, you also get these items if you just stab said enemy and take it off their corpse, so really the only use would be some sort of weird speedrun strat to try and get an important consumable or key from an enemy that you're not expecting to be able to beat(or don't want to waste time fighting). If it let you steal from stores or something it'd be a lot more useful. Secondly, the material component is a gross thing to haul around.



BELL



SHOE



Said material component is in the last chest, this fucking severed hand. Which is the third issue with Nightfingers, actually being able to use it requires sacrificing some of your already-at-a-premium inventory space that could instead be used for rations, quarrels, healing items or for picking up gems and other things you can sell to exchange for godos and services.




Well, looks like there's no crossing upstream. Time to head downstream.
Please don't let there be any more ghosts.





Enemies ahead.
More ghosts? More scorpions?
Just moredhel, but some of them are wearing fancy cloaks...



Meet the Witch Hag, they're the second kind of Moredhel spellcaster in the game, and are more annoying than the yellow-cloaked mages because you can never rely on them to carry anything worth selling, while the yellow-cloaked mages reliably at least have a sword and maybe some rations. Their other special trait is that, alongside goblins, they take double damage from Mind Melt if you're either playing version 1.01 or you adjust the game's code to unfuck the 1.02 patch.



Owyn blinds her and then runs up to harass her to keep her from casting anything because witch hags usually have a very "fuck you for existing" spell loadout. This one isn't too bad, but she still knows Skyfire(40 damage, always hits) and Mind Melt(45 damage max, and the AI loves to cast their spells maxed out, likewise always hits), which is more guaranteed damage in one turn of getting to act than either of her bodyguards is likely to be able to apply across the entirety of the fight.



It's not too challenging a fight, which contributes to me feeling somewhat cocky as the party continues into the Dimwood.




Thankfully the next encounter is just a magical trap out in the middle of nowhere.



The main danger in this one is the terrible perspective which might prevent you from realizing that there are actually three turrets forming a T-shape, but once you've got that spotted, it's easy to solve.



Transparent crystal to bust the lightning spitter, solid crystal to block the leftmost fireball cannon, then bail. Or you could just let someone eat the 30 damage and sprint for the end line right off the bat if you're lazy.



Like most magical traps, it guards chests, three of them! The Dimwood probably accounts for close to half the moredhel wordchests in the game.



MATTRESS



This one contains some money and Mirrorwall, which crates a static obstacle on the battlefield which, if hit, will return projectile spells to the sender. Probably the best use is to plug holes so enemies have trouble approaching your casters, or to just cast a spell that kills enemies instead.



SQUARE



The big haul here is some blessed armor, +10% defense is pretty great.



SNOWFLAKE



And here the big deal is that now both Gorath and Locklear have Tsurani Heavy Crossbows. This means that now their bolts, if they're not just bog standard quarrels, will often do more damage than their sword swings for a while. The downside is that quarrels have an easier time missing and might in some cases be dangerous to allies if they miss. Still, how bad can it go?




Poking through the woods for the way out, the party runs into a few more scorpions. Four of them means that one actually goes for Owyn and he has to drink some steroids(Fadamor's Formula, the yellow potion in his inventory) to fight it off. It's a very useful consumable as it increases strength(and therefore damage) by 10 for the duration of the fight. It means that his anemic 6-damage staff pokes are now 16-damage staff bonks which actually help kill enemies faster for the duration.




Why are there so many Moredhel chests in the Dimwood?!
You think too much about the small details, Owyn, instead you should think about how we're dismantling the Moredhel supply chain. We're going to be famous! Heroes!



BROOM

More blessed armor and some flaming quarrels for Gorath.



SURF

Gold and steroids.



PATH

Contains an overworld spell, The Unseen which is... a bit odd. For instance, Eyes of Ishap is a spell which for the same cost as The Unseen spots all containers. Then you've got The Unseen, which only spots containers specifically containing food. I'm not sure why you'd ever cast this.



Also lying around the Dimwood is the occasional dead deer, usually killed by traps. The party, being idiots, will happily saunter over and pick the meat off an animal that's been lying dead in a trap for who knows how long, and something like 2/3rds of the time, predictably, these animals provide Spoiled or Poisoned rations.




A graveyard in the middle of the Dimwood?
Well, there WAS that big battle here some years ago...
That was down south, near Sethanon, this is clearly another moredhel plot. Perhaps they think we're too scrupulous to defile a few graves to find their hidden supplies, but they're about to learn how wrong they are! Owyn, hand me the shovel.




Shades are like spookier Rusalki, they function in much the same way except that they look like fart clouds and can still do their ranged 20-damage attack in melee rather than being neutered if you violate their personal space. They can actually be reasonably scary in groups, but just this one alone can't cause too much damage.




Squire! Promise me we're done digging up graves! I didn't know ghosts were real!
Just a bit of bracing exercise, Owyn, now, where were we?



Without moving backwards or forwards, I turn a few degrees to look at a moredhel wordlock chest. The astute reader might, however, notice that the background behind the graves has changed, this is because "event" battles, like shades and traps, are programmed to dump the player at a specific location and facing after the fight.

This will shortly become very relevant.



HASTE



This chest is mostly noteworthy for having a blessed Tapir, which is a great find. In any case, I grab what I can and then instantly move again, except...



When I was facing the graves from the other side, there were enemies in the background. Getting teleported by the shade fight put me inside their aggression range, and since I didn't scout them, they automatically win initiative and...



This is not a good fight to lose initiative on.





The three hags initiate hostilities by blasting Gorath for 85 damage(all of his stamina gone instantly) and then hitting him with Grief of 1000 Nights which paralyzes him(same effect as the powder bags Owyn is hauling around, since enemies always seem to cast spells at max cost if able, Gorath is now paralyzed for 32 rounds. This sucks! Oh and Owyn can't summon up rusalki or anything since he's being dogpiled by two fighters.




If I'd been smart, I would've had Owyn use said powder on the two warriors, but I think of getting him clear to tackle a caster first and he eats shit for his trouble while Locklear manages to take down one Witch Hag. The one saving grace of the fight is that the hags have low health/stamina and their initial casting means they're a couple of whacks from death or retreating and can't cast much more as it is. The cube spell there is Hocho's Haven, i.e. that one hag has ablative HP to prevent Locklear from killing her quite as easily.



Gorath is somehow still alive, because being completely paralyzed in no way impacts his defensive stats and this idiot moredhel is having one hell of a time shoving a sword through his brain.



In the end it's down to one epic duel which...


So, uh, let's try that again, shall we?



This time we reload, actually face the enemy and see if we can't get surprise on them.







Locklear still starts out the battle getting to be a lightning rod as one of the hags tags him with Skyfire, but Owyn spends every turn casting River Song and cluttering up the hags' vicinity with rusalki, distracting them from casting spells.



Owyn dusts the moredhel that tries to interrupt him, and Gorath and Locklear can freely go in and start swinging at the witches while they're busy running from the ghosts. It does a lot to make the whole fight easier.



We have to be more careful in the future, that could easily have gone badly for us.
Pf, perhaps in some alternate timeline that didn't actually happen we got owned, but not in this one. We are still the undefeated champions of Dimwood.

This clears out the immediate area and the party can now go do more moredhel crosswords.







BRIDGE



TROLLS

I wonder if the misspellings here are intentional, like this is a goblin wordchest rather than a moredhel wordchest. In any case, it contains Gambit of the Eight which is a terrible spell that's also the most powerful spell in the game. It places a mine that does 10x the cost worth of damage, and loses one point of damage power every round(this making the damage done double as duration). It's terrible because it needs to be combined with a luckily placed enemy that you can move on to the mine with Invitation or Winds of Eortis, but it's powerful because no other damage-dealing spell in the game offers that much potential damage done(to a single target, anyway).



SNARE

I don't get this one. Where do bones feature in a snare? As the bait?

This one contains a nice, expensive emerald which is a decent haul.



MIRROR



Out of this cluster of chests, this one is ABSOLUTELY the big score. While it looks superficially like a suit of the starter Kingdom armor, that's actually a suit of Grey Tower Plate, which is three tiers above(sadly optimized for dwarves which are unavailable as PC's in the game) and it also has a level three bless. This goes on Owyn and will almost certainly be staying on him for a while, since he's now got a big enough suite of gamebreaking spells that he's almost set for the rest of the game, and thus no longer dead weight(I kid, Owyn's always very useful). Bit of a cruel plant for new players, mind you, since the only real difference, graphically, between basic Kingdom armor and Grey Tower armor is the horns on the helmet, so a new player might miss what a great score it is.



SPURS



Just for the armor reference, LOOK how similar that is!



GALLOWS

This one contains a blessed two-handed broadsword, which is frankly a bit odd since so many other chests in the Dimwood contain better weapons.






I thought you'd never find the bridge, human.
Feel free to step in with your superior pathfinding skills any time.

At this point, Owyn pipes up and points out that it's weird there are so many Moredhel in the Dimwood...


Probably just videogame logic, though. Likely no deeper point to them being there. In any case, the party's now navigated most of the trip from the northern entrance to the western exit, which requires them to go almost all the way around the Dimwood clockwise, and the remainder is just a few traps, a few trivial fights and Locklear getting owned by a couple of scorpions in one battle.





WEARY





LAKE

One of the chests in this cluster is just normally locked, rather than being passworded.



It contains a pack of enchanted quarrels, the best crossbow ammo in the game, and a Winds of Eortis scroll, which is the reverse of Invitation, shoving enemies away rather than pulling them close.



ADVICE

The other chests just contain generic, useful but unexciting supplies like whetstones and rations. As I move away from the cluster, though, I pilot the party right into yet another magical trap.



My first move is to have Owyn "powder" the pirate right next to him. Gorath and Locklear can't hop over and help because that would require getting shot in the head by fireballs, so instead I have them bring out their new crossbows!



Gorath massively whiffs and plunks a flaming crossbow bolt right into Owyn's forehead like the champion warrior he is.



Thankfully the next couple of shots hit and Owyn is able to abscond from the fight with no more scars.





ORANGE



ASHES



BLADE

I like it when some of these play with the basic formula, like the SQUARE chest, throwing you for a loop in a fun way.



BOOK



ICICLE



GRAVE



EYES




Gorath, how long have we been in these woods?
Two weeks.
And how long would it have taken us just to walk down the road from LaMut to Krondor?
Three days.
If Locklear leads us on another detour I'll... I'll...
Complain about it and do nothing?
...yes.




FARRIER

This one I feel is pretty rough because who the fuck these days knows what a farrier is?

This chest contains Grief of 1000 Nights, which replaces Despair Thy Eyes for most applications. You get more stunned turns for the price, it has the same (short) list of immune enemies and you can actually tell when and for how long an enemy is affected.



LOGS




Is that a road...? It's a road! Gods above, we're saved!




No shit.






This doesn't matter. None of this matters.

Simple solutions here, solid crystal goes in the lightning trap to shatter it(so it gets out of the way), transparent crystal above trips a fireball to disable the zapper.



Then the second transparent crystal triggers the lower cannon, allowing Owyn to block the rightmost cannon with the remaining solid crystal.



And once that's done, we can get the fuck out of the Dimwood... for now.

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