Part 37: The SFX Budget
Update 37: The SFX Budget
Welcome to the Lifestone caves beneath Sethanon, the final, ultimate challenge of our skills as a gamer. The final, climactic conflict for these characters we've followed through roughly 24 hours of pro gamer gameplay. Walking into the ring today we've got...
Gorath! Formerly of the Ardanien, now of Elvandar. Hates Delekhan, geared out in the sickest armory known to Midkemia, has amazing facial hair.
Owyn Beleforte! Once a mere embezzler of his father's funds, now brimming with enough magical war crimes to kill you with a touch or wipe out entire squads of enemies with a gesture.
Pug conDoin! From kitchen boy to mage's apprentice to royal cousin and now to an awesome wielder of cosmic power. A recent enchanted concussion has knocked a lot of that cosmic power out of him, however, and for today he'll be playing second fiddle to Owyn.However, Pug still wields one superpower that Owyn can't match...
destruction. It was this that the false Murmandamus sought to achieve during the Great Uprising...Exposition!
False Murmandamus? What do you mean? He was not truly moredhel. He was a Pantathian who took on the semblance of a moredhel so he could achieve his goal. The point is irrelevant. What he sought was to activate the Lifestone. If that had happened, the devastation of Timirianya would seem a garden compared to what would be left of Midkemia. If the Valheru are dead, what does it matter? If no one knows how to use it, then it can't be of any danger to us. Not so. The souls of the Valheru are bound to the stone and it may be that tampering with it may allow them to emerge once more, perhaps even to inhabit a living body. Even in a symbiotic state, we have no certain way of knowing what destruction they would be capable of. So Makala wants to destroy everything? He is not mad, but his curiosity may lead to more trouble than he imagines. Hopefully, we can find and stop him before he can do anything catastrophic. But why tell us about any of this? I'm a squire from Tiburn and Gorath is a renegade from the Northlands. Isn't that dangerous? Your stations are unimportant. I was once a kitchen boy in the court of Crydee. I trust you because apparently Macros prefigured your involvement in this and did nothing to warn me before he left Midkemia. For whatever reason, I think he believes it necessary you be involved in these events and he invariably acts for the greater good, however mysterious his reasons may be.Because Gorath doesn't interject here when Pug brings up Murmandamus having been a false Moredhel, I suspect this dialogue wasn't meant to play until a later point in the dungeon. But now, onwards!
I see, they're softening us up with goblins and dogs to keep us on our toes... an odd thing about this encounter is that the goblins here drop a key(the Ward of Ralen-Sheb) which is (bar one door) the key needed for every door in the dungeon, thus making it entirely irrelevant that the doors are locked at all.
BaK posted:
Even without looking at the key, Pug sensed something abnormal about it. "The key is...pulsing," he said. "The inscriptions on the haft have aspects about them that look elven, but parts also appear moredhel. Whatever it is, I have the feeling it predates the Kingdom, the Northlands or even Elvandar itself."
Okay lemme be honest, every single battle in here bar one is trivial as fuck. So far it's been very obvious what the most dangerous type of battle is: battles featuring multiple enemy casters or a combination of enemy casters and blockers. A single caster gets dunked on even if he takes out one party member first, enemies without casters can't do enough damage fast enough to fuck the party up.
And like... we've had those challenges in earlier chapters! We've had some nailbiters, even fights that kicked my ass! So what I'm unsure about is whether Dynamix didn't understand what constituted real difficulty in their own system(stuff like the "climactic" battle against Navon being just a single guy with no real tricks or resistances suggests this may be the case...) or whether they intentionally pulled their punches in Chapter 9 because this would be the second chapter with no shop access and because casual players might get painted into a corner by being short on supplies.
How did they even squeeze giants down here? And why did they bring so many dogs? Ahem, in any case, our first objective is obviously to seek out the Lifestone, which we don't know where is, so all we can really do is wander randomly until we bump into these giants, try to move past their corpses and then...
Can you disassemble it? Not directly. We will have to go to the source of its generation and eliminate the problem there. So if we find Makala, we'll be able to remove it. No. Makala is already within, investigating the Lifestone as we speak. He will have spellweavers scattered through this location to maintain a shield of this power. I don't think he was absolutely certain that I would have found the cup. So he knew you were going to find it? About two years ago, he was absent from Midkemia for a number of months - shortly after I informed him that I would divulge no more about this chamber and the events at the end of the Great Uprising of the moredhel. When he reappeared, he dismissed his absence saying that he had been travelling. So you think he ran across the cup himself? Among other things. It's the only way he could have known about its powers and left it for me to discover. It is also probably about the time he decided to make contact with the moredhel... It's time we found the Six. Delekhan's magical assistants? Not having seen them, I can't be certain whether they are native or not, but I suspect they aren't moredhel spellweavers, despite whatever appearance they may be using. Makala has played your ruler for a fool. Delekhan won't stand to benefit in the slightest from this raid, despite anything Makala might have indicated... Enough speculation... The sooner we find the Six, the sooner we can get this shield down.Now our objective changes, it's time to find, and dunk on, The Six, which we've been hearing about all game.
Inexplicably, one single door, one that we have to pass through to complete the game, is locked by a Virtue Key rather than the Ward of Ralen-Sheb. Considering that one group of enemies on this level also drops a Virtue Key, it seems intentional but also a bit odd.
In addition to the stairs down, this room contains the only chest on the first level that I'll be opening. The remainder are somewhat out of the way, usually contain traps I can't disarm and also contain things I don't need. This one, however, contains something I deeply need.
PIPE
The rope... which is only here in version 1.02, there are a few other sources of rope in the dungeon, but this is the only large one before the pit that needs crossing to complete the dungeon(the only other one before said pit is only two units of rope, and there are other pits on the first level that you don't need to cross and which don't lead to more rope...), meaning that in prior versions it was somewhat possible to softlock yourself by tossing your rope on Timirianya or in the Green Heart.
BaK posted:
Pug searched his memory.
His faculties still clouded by the residual effects of his encounter on Timirianya, he tried to remember the exact sequence of passageways in the ancient Valheru ruins.
Seeing the master magician's dazed expression, Owyn tugged on his sleeve. "Are we going to go down to another level?" he asked.
[YES]
"Of course," Pug replied absently. "I was just thinking about something else."
Without another word, Pug led them down the crumbling steps.
While I neither need or want anything in the chests down here, some of them are code chests, and there will be no puzzle left behind.
PLOW
BULL
Most of the encounters down here feel like placeholders, like this, this is just a single Wind Elemental. Two Strength Drains, boom gone.
I don't even know what to say. It feels like they gave up a bit on the level design at this point.
But here we go, our first member of The Six! Like some other enemies, they get unique combat dialogues.
BaK posted:
Pug snapped his fingers.
Shouting something in Tsurani to the startled spellweaver, he watched hard for a response from the magician and apparently saw what he had expected to see.
"What did you say to him?" Owyn asked.
"I offered peace," Pug said, nodding to the Great One, noting that the magician hadn't recovered from the surprise. "Apparently he isn't interested."
OR
The spellweaver foiled their ambush.
"We were told to expect you, Milamber," the spellweaver said, raising his staff. "And we were instructed you were not to pass into the Lifestone Chamber."
"You cannot win," Pug bluffed, not entirely certain he could match the Great One's power in his present state.
From somewhere, the Tsurani magician found the resolve to continue. "We shall discover the truth of it!"
They're all theoretically very dangerous(except for one who they apparently forgot to give any spells, whoops!), being almost as sturdy as Pantathians and armed with a serious spell loadout that almost always includes Grief. Unfortunately they're A) alone, B) never win initiative against me and C) lack the most important immunity of all.
Touch of Lims-Kragma is the winning move every time. In the book, James and Locklear are still accompanying the party at this point and they help Pug make short work of the Six. As it turns out, the Six expect complete obedience from anyone who isn't a mage(on Kelewan, mages are considered above the law in all ways and can order non-wizards to do anything or give them anything and are almost always obeyed) and thus about half of them die because they're only prepared for sorcerous assaults, not for Locklear just blasting them with a crossbow from across the room. They don't get much characterization, but Pug laments that they all look like younger mages who've been flim-flammed by Makala, dying for no good reason.
This guy died next to a pair of riddle chests for us to have fun with.
BOOK
STAKE
This one was one of the puzzles I had to look up the answer to.
The assortment of enemies down here is odd, like why are there wyverns hanging out? We even encounter a third type of Wyvern down here, purple-bellied "hatchling" wyverns which are weak explicitly to Killian's Rage for some reason.
The only member of the Six who stands out is this guy, who brings a Wind Elemental in lieu of any spells, weirdly enough.
DEATH
PROMISE
In chest-related interesting things down here, there's an insane chest trapped with 200 damage, which requires 90 lockpicking to disarm, and which contains the game's second scroll of Firestorm and also a second Staff of Macros. Despite how OP Firestorm is, at this point it's completely irrelevant.
There's also no prompt or dialogue when you finally clean out the last of the Six, so better hope you're keeping count or at least found that extra rope either in the PIPE chest or on a corpse in a murky corner down here, otherwise you only get to go back up and check once.
Once the last of them is dead, there's just one last oddity to show off down here...
This thing, whatever the hell it is. The game calls it a "Servitor of Lims-Kragma" and it appears to be some sort of three-headed monstrosity that can spit fireballs. Since it is, understandably, immune to Touch of Lims-Kragma, it gets to eat an Evil Seek(which it takes double damage from), and then Gorath puts it down with a crossbow bolt(according to the game site it has 260 total health, but it goes down after only about 160 damage, so not sure what's up with that). It doesn't drop anything, it's not guarding anything, it's not super threatening and it can be entirely avoided. I guess the developers just had one leftover sprite and wanted to cram it in somewhere it wouldn't raise too many weird questions.
Time to head back up and see how Makala's doing. Hope he hasn't ended the world yet or anything.
BaK posted:
The hallway widened.
In a few moments the path turned, opening into a large chamber where a dragon lay curled on the ground.
Makala is reckless, but I do not think he will have crippled you permanently. He must have unearthed some Valheru artifact, likely a product of Lyron-Baktos, the Master of Dragons. While he would be incapable of ruling your mind, he could still command your dragon's flesh.
My inability to know my own future blinded us to the possibility. It's something we will have to attend to later... Gorath, I wish you to stay here and guard the Oracle. Thank you. It pains me that protection is necessary. Pug, you may require my strength when you reach the Tsurani magician... You will have a difficult time in the Lifestone chamber. No Gorath. You have already given too much to this quest and seen what should have been seen by no one other than myself. You would never so much as scratch Makala's skin before he burned you to cinders. He will be more respectful in the presence of magicians and less likely to do anything rash. For now, you have a responsibility to guard the Oracle.This bit is somewhat canonical, though Locklear and James also get left behind to guard the Oracle, and Makala just knocked the Oracle out with sleeping gas rather than some Valheru artifact or another.
BaK posted:
Pug hurried Owyn under an archway.
The corridor angled sharply downward, its rough earthen floor littered with a slippery ceramic material which cracked underfoot with each step taken. In places, the boy glimpsed ancient frescoes of a moredhel-looking race who stared back at him with eyes filled with enigmatic hate, the cause of which had been millions of years dead.
Following a slow bend, they arrived at last at what looked to be a stone wall, but quickly Pug muttered a few words and the door shimmered away into nothingness. Beyond lay a vast chamber, and Makala was waiting for them.
-calculation, but I had thought with us you would grow to gentleness.
We Tsurani are of course bereft of that quality. Save your prating for the Assembly! You have returned my friendship with cold contempt, treated with my daughter as a wolf to his prey and have defied my interdict to visit Sethanon. Assume nothing between us now other than the respect due between practitioners. Why has the Assembly of Magicians seen fit to interpose itself into Midkemian affairs? As a whole, the Assembly was unable to reach consensus on this matter; they hesitate to dabble in matters that might arouse your ire. Otherwise disposed with a small problem concerning House Acoma they decided those who felt this investigation necessary could conduct it of their own volition. I undertook that responsibility. I should be careful taking such weight upon your shoulders. It may yet crush you. Ten years ago you engaged in a battle to bar the Valheru entrance to your world, a battle in which you requested the service of several companies of Tsurani foot soldiers. As such, the battle became a matter of imperial interest and fell within the jurisdiction of the Assembly. You, however, have thwarted all our efforts to gather information about that battle and have forbade our investigation of Sethanon. Many sons of great houses fell but their bodies were never recovered for the proper rites. Your attempts at evasion are execrable, Makala! Never has the Assembly concerned itself with the souls of the dead and I don't believe they are practicing a new found piety. You wished to learn how I defeated the Valheru. Indeed. How could we not? The Valheru were a race of unspeakable evil and dread power who once nearly destroyed our world. Although my brothers harbor you the greatest respect Pug, you would be incapable of turning aside such monstrous power unaided. Judging by the numerous defenses that ringed this abandoned town, we assumed the only possible solution. You concealed a thing of power in the caverns here. I cannot fault your fears, but your methodology has been despicable. The Lifestone was created in the darkest days of the Mad God's Rage, a war in which the Valheru strove to destroy the gods of Midkemia. With it they believed they could conquer every corner of the universe, and in all likelihood, they could have. It must be eternally locked away here and its existence must die out with that small handful of us that have looked upon it. You will speak to none of the Assembly about what you have found here or you shall answer to me. I cannot in good conscience keep such a secret. What if such a weapon were wielded against the Empire? Could not such a weapon lay waste to all her children? We cannot simply bury such a weapon. It must be destroyed for the good of all future generations of the Empire and the Kingdom. Impossible. We have no way to know what would happen if we attempted to destroy it. It may not be tested without potentially disturbing the Valheru whose souls now occupy the stone. As I suspected. You have done nothing to study it. Great though your power may be, you haven't an inkling what secrets lie within that stone. It's very existence is obscene! It must not fall into the hands of a hostile power. Makala, do not tamper with the stone. It must be left untouched for the good of all! I judge now as is my right as a Great One of the Assembly of Magicians. It must be destroyed, Pug ... for the good of the Empire!So, Makala's motivations are at last revealed and they're not very different from in the book, with one notable difference which is that in the book Makala doesn't acknowledge the Lifestone as the product of evil Valheru sorcery, but instead he simply assumes it to be some sort of weapon that can be copied and decides that the Empire of Tsuranuanni needs its own version once he's thoroughly analyzed it. That big sword in the top, by the way, is Tomas', one that he inherited from the Valheru lord Ashen-Shugar. When the False Murmandamus called upon the Valheru at the end of Darkness At Sethanon, they manifested in the chamber and tried to activate the Lifestone, at which point Tomas stabbed through them and into the stone, which left his magic sword stuck there and drained the essence of the Valheru into the stone.
It also made everyone for miles around insanely buzzed and summoned a swarm of dragons to Midkemia which someone comments is going to cause some chaos but which I don't think ever actually get brought up again. This is also where the Oracle gets set to stand guard over the Lifestone, since prior to that her body was just a normal dragon's, but in a fight with an ally of the False Murmandamus, her brain got deleted, so Pug skipped a couple of planets over and fetched the mind of the Oracle from her doomed world and slotted it into the dragon's body. He also brought along her vaguely defined humanoid servants who, I think, are never relevant again.
In any case, it's fighting time.
Oh, looks like Makala's-
-not alone after all. Damn. In the book he summons a pair of Wind Elementals instead, which Pug and Owyn melt easily. Then while they do that, he tosses Pug around with some magic, during which Owyn snags up the Horn of Algon-Kokoon(found elsewhere in the Sethanon caverns) and summons two huge dogs which harry Makala, preventing him from casting any spells. He puts up a barrier to keep them away, but Pug disables it and Makala is literally owned by a pair of dogs, after which Owyn muses on what a VAST RESPONSIBILITY it is to be able to summon dogs with a horn. It's a kind of weird squence.
Here, though, we gotta do it the hard way.
The Dreads are very tanky and can shit about 100 damage per turn, at range, even after moving, and Makala is obviously a wizard, but a SUPER buff one(260 total health) and can cast Grief. We do not want to let him do that, ever.
So the first thing we do is clog up the battlefield. The Lifestone also functions as an impassable object, so it blocks both spells and movement, which is really annoying.
Oh, yeah, and the Dread projectiles count as Flamecasts so they also have splash damage. They can REALLY fuck your day up. Additionally, both the Dreads and Makala have a laundry list of spells they're either wholly resistant to or which they take half damage from.
Thankfully everyone's full up on Restoratives, so I just have Owyn keep spamming out more summons while he recovers. Dogs are good ablative armor.
Also the Dreads aren't immune to Touch of Lims-Kragma, a poor decision on their part, and also slightly odd since Dreads are supposed to be like, hyper-undead, from a literally negative universe and whenever they're present in the normal universe they're practically just holes in creation itself that exist only to consume life and warmth. Like entropy elementals. Seems strange that the goddess of death should have any hold over them. Still, it makes them go down fast.
Also neither they or Makala are immune to Fetters of Rime. I'd have started off with that if the fucking Lifestone hadn't blocked Owyn's line of fire.
Plus it was kind of funny to swarm the end boss with angry dogs.
Appropriately enough, the finishing blow is Pug smashing in Makala's huge head with his staff, and then...
BaK posted:
It was over.
Pug stared at Makala's lifeless form as it lay silently on the hard stone floor. Hiding from the grief that threatened to overcome his pain and exhaustion, he turned to Owyn; saw the boy was on his knees. Pug was about to help the boy to his feet when he noticed a strange light filling the chamber.
...
The Lifestone pulsed warmth.
Rays of emerald light touched Owyn's solemn features, deepening the hollows of his face as he approached the blasted turf occupied moments before by Makala's towering rage. Nearby, Pug spoke softly, his voice diffusing off the cavern walls into a thousand bouncing whispers.
"It may be difficult," Pug said, "but don't judge him too harshly, Owyn. I have performed acts nearly as monstrous in the name of common good."
"I find that hard to believe," Owyn replied. "You're a good man."
"So was he, in his own way. Loyalty can sometimes misguide even the finest of men..."
Both magicians flinched in unison as muted sword strikes erupted in the corridors outside the chamber. With startling rapidity the sounds approached, dissolved into pattering desperate footfalls and howling half-screamed oaths.
"Watch yourself!" Pug shouted across the cavern. "Someone's coming!"
Harried by a shadowy assailant Gorath backed into the chamber, his sword flying in a defensive arc before him. Repeatedly, razor-like fists flashed out of the darkness to challenge him, but he skillfully turned the attacks to his advantage. Finding the rhythm of his opponent, he feinted right when he was expected to move left and a warrior barreled past him.
"Delekhan!" Owyn exclaimed.
Tripped up by Gorath, the moredhel leader crashed to the ground, snarling all the while in slavering fury. Attempting to rise, he slashed upward with his gauntleted fist but brutally Gorath stepped inside his guard and delivered a rain of heavy kicks until the older warrior fell quiet.
"I suggest you lie still," Gorath snapped, wiping rivulets of blood from his face. "I may decide to kill you yet."
"I hear you," Delekhan croaked, his voice weak. For a long moment he remained curled in a ball, his breath tearing raggedly from his throat as he clenched and unclenched his fists. With extreme effort he turned his head and looked upon the mesmerizing light of the Lifestone and froze.
"No!" Pug shook his head, apprehension welling within him like a black lake as he caught the moredhel's expression. Stumbling forward he tried to interpose himself in the way but his failing strength abandoned him. "No!"
Swatting Gorath effortlessly aside as he rose, Delekhan's eyes flashed with reflected radiance. Like a puppet on a string, he began to stagger forward, his steps almost childish in their plodding. Undoubtedly something had control of his mind...
Dazed but alive, Gorath leapt to the attack and jolted hard into the moredhel leader, his miscalculated blow carrying the both of them not down but forward, forward into the Lifestone...
Together they reached for the sword.
Ah, yes, the gold standard for showing how magical something is, drawing some spiky purple wiggles around it.
I hope you like this gif, I couldn't fucking stop laughing as I was making it. WHO EVEN THOUGHT THIS LOOKED GOOD. JUST KEEP IT IN TEXT IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT LOOK BETTER.
BaK posted:
Owyn stared blankly at the Lifestone.
"We killed him," Owyn said, a bitter hurt in his words. "He came to the Kingdom to warn us and we killed him."
"Don't be petulant, Owyn. This isn't a time for it."
Glaring at Pug with shock, Owyn opened his mouth to reply, but found that adequate words failed him. Angered, he turned as if to leave, but felt the master magician's hand on his shoulder.
"Wait," Pug said, his voice more gentle than it had been. Meeting the boy's hateful gaze, he motioned for him to stay. "You must understand. Gorath was dead the minute he touched the sword. If we had hesitated another moment longer, both he and Delekhan would be dead and an unspeakable evil would be loose on our world. When Delekhan began to change you could see the valheru were attempting to mold them into a form they could use. Do you remember the terrible devastation we saw on Timirianya? That would be a paradise compared to the lives we would lead under their dominion. I'm telling you this because you now have knowledge and abilities which come with terrible responsibilities. You will have to make decisions far worse than this someday if you continue down the path you are on. You are going to have to learn to think before you act, but never to regret your decisions, right or wrong. Otherwise, you will slowly begin to not make decisions at all."
"But how can I know which are the right decisions?" Owyn asked. "How can I be sure?"
Pug squeezed his shoulder. "You need to live to a ripe old age to know that and I am not nearly old enough to have an answer. All I know is what Macros the Black once told me. He said to train those around me well, to make them powerful, but also to make them loving and generous. I see those things in you."
...
The battle was against them.
Enraged, Warleader Moraeulf growled orders to his terror stricken lieutenants as he reviewed their weakening lines from the safety of an elm shaded hill, watched with fury as his forward ranks of pikemen retreated under an unexpectedly heavy rain of Kingdom longbow fire. In a short while, the combined mass of Prince Arutha's relief forces and the garrison at Sethanon would be in a position to push them into the only quarter of the city where they would be unable to retreat, and then it would only be a matter of hours before they would be forced to surrender or die in a blaze set to flush them out.
"Warleader Moraeulf, you must come quickly!" Hearing a commotion to his left, he muttered a silent curse on Delekhan's head for leading them on this fool's errand, then snapped his attention to a small group of moredhel who were advancing towards him, faces flushed with excitement. Their leader, a scar faced whelp of twenty summers, knelt reverently at his feet before breathlessly delivering his message. "At the Keep! Your father has taken Prince Arutha! And I believe the marked one is with him! The tide of the battle turns!"
Stalking skeptically after his messengers, he progressed through a ruined avenue and into a cobbled central square filled with conversing moredhel warriors. Above them, Delekhan mounted the fire blackened parapet walk of the keep, preceded by a mysterious robed figure and the Prince of Krondor, the later bound hand and foot, unable to do anything but follow where he was lead.
"Brethren!" Silence fell over the square as the robe clad figure stepped past Arutha and Delekhan and into an archer's turret, a hand placed over his right breast. Ripping open his white garment, he revealed a body made gaunt with hunger, but bearing an unmistakable curling purple birth mark which resembled a dragon and was the mark of legend. Instantly, a chant rose among the moredhel warriors, many of them falling to their knees in ecstatic reverence.
"I have returned, O my children!" Murmandamus shouted from the battlements, revealing a glittering sword of gold, its hilt set with stones of lapis. "Hidden deep in the chambers of earth below our feet, Prince Arutha sought to keep this sword from me, from us, the key to our future! For ten years he imprisoned me in the bowels of this hell against my will, but you have freed me," he said, sweeping the air with the sword. "Ten years ago I promised you the dawning of a new age. I was repaid with abandonment. But today I am free, because you who followed Delekhan believed in our dream. You have demonstrated your worthiness and loyalty, and as a reward you shall all bear witness to the death of the Lord of the West and the final fulfillment of the Prophesy!"
A dark cheer rippled through the crowd as Murmandamus held the sword aloft and faced Arutha, his lips curled back in a wicked smile as he advanced on the dazed prince. Considering the things that had been done to him, the crowd thought it likely their former leader would execute Arutha slowly, and they were ripe for the spectacle.
Abruptly Murmandamus halted. Beneath him, the stones of the keep began to tremble, as if the entirety of the structure were being shaken by an invisible hand. His look of proud defiance suddenly turned to outrage.
"What treachery is this?" Murmandamus screamed. "Who meddles with the Prophesy?"
As if in answer, thunder pealed overhead, announcing the arrival of a great dragon and rider, the pair seemingly having formed from the very air itself. Floating down from dizzying heights, they descended to a point level with the keep's rooftops, the dragon's wings beating great gales of wind against the crowd.
"The Prophesy is false, Murmandamus, as are you!" Pug shouted from the dragon's back. "You have betrayed the folk of the Kingdom and those of your own people for a lie! It is time for your terror to come to an end!"
At Pug's command Arutha ducked, narrowly averting death as the dragon skimmed low overhead, lashing the battlements with its titanic whip-like tail, hurling both Murmandamus and Delekhan, screaming like babes, into the horrified hordes who watched far below. Fanning away from the impact of the two, bystanders hastened to escape, fearing a possible second attack from the flying dragon and its equally menacing rider.
Standing in the midst of the crowd, Moraeulf looked on, void of pain or fear, his voice calm and clear as he addressed a goblin lieutenant who stood near him. "Gather your kin and call the retreat."
"Lord Moraeulf, we may still win! Lead us!"
Collaring the green skinned creature, Moraeulf lifted him off his feet. "I now lead the Nations of the North and my first command is that I shall lead us home."
"Call the retreat," Moraeulf spat, hurling the goblin backwards. "The day is theirs, but I must see to something first."
Disregarding the panicked warriors who sought egress from the square, Moraeulf picked his way over the burning rubble to where his father lay dead, his wolfish eyes reflecting only the clouds of smoke which drifted through Sethanon. For all his father's grand schemes, for all the things he had thought to accomplish, he was nothing now, nothing but a hulk of dead flesh. He had been a fool to trust the Tsurani magician.
Leaning over the dead body, Moraeulf snatched up the golden sword which Murmandamus had retrieved from the caverns below. Although he knew very little of the Prophesy which had inspired both his father and Murmandamus to their deaths, he had no intention of wasting what little they had gained in the battle. Perhaps when he returned to the Northlands he could still find a way to harness the power of the artifact, assuming it had any powers at all...
"Moraeulf!"
Turning, the moredhel Warleader had no time to react before the lightning-quick assassin was upon him, driving a knife skillfully through his left eye and deep into his brain, killing him instantly. Without a sound, he crumpled to the ground across his dead father, dropping the sword even before he could raise it.
Smiling coldly, Narab withdrew his knife and wiped clean the grey flesh from its bone blade, then snatched Murmandamus' prized sword from where it lay abandoned on the ground. One by one he had borne witness to the destruction of his rivals; Gorath of the Ardanien, his own brother Nago, Delekhan and his son Moraeulf, all destroyed by their own greed or inaction. Now there would be the matter of dealing with the bitch Liallan who had been Delekhan's mate, and then he might even claim the throne of Sar-Sargoth for himself, assuming no bastard get of the former warleader claimed the right. It would be of small consequence, however, for now he possessed what they had all sought. Assuming he lived, he would learn to exploit his new found advantage.
Resheathing his knife in his boot, he spotted a slow moving band of moredhel limping towards the Dimwood, and he hurried to join them, blending in with the crowd in the same manner in which he had come to Sethanon, as an unrecognizable face in a mob of the beaten and the angry.
Arutha watched with mild wonder as Pug conjured the Prince's duplicate into nonexistence, then just as quickly eliminated the remarkably life-like illusions of Delekhan and Murmandamus who lay crumpled on the ground below the Keep. The corpse of Delekhan's son would have to be removed later by less arcane means.
"A shame we didn't have you with us at Armengar, cousin Pug," Arutha said. "A performance such as that before Murmandamus' troops might have won us the battle."
Pug shook his head. "Spectacle won't win your battles, but at least it may prevent the Dark Brothers from plotting another attack against Sethanon. With the dozen or more moredhel witnesses you've left alive on the battlefield, most of them should return alive to the Northlands. Having seen their leaders die and possessing the object Murmandamus sought, they'll have little reason to return here."
"Let us hope," Arutha said. I have little desire to do this again."
"What about the artifact?" Owyn asked.
"A useless sword," Pug replied with a grin. "The Oracle of Aal indicated a hidden room where I might find it when I asked for assistance with the plan. Shortly after that moredhel gentleman who picked it up returns to Sar-Sargoth, he will discover it useless and curse the names of both of them for having spilled so much moredhel blood on false prophesies."
Seeing James and Locklear poking about in the ruins near the keep, Arutha scowled. "I have a feeling those two are going to keep me busy for months with their questions about this place. Fortunately they're loyal - if I tell them the subject is closed, they'll both trust me enough to leave the issue alone."
"You can always tell them the sword was truly what was buried here," Owyn suggested. "The answer is good enough for the moredhel."
Arutha shook his head. "Locklear will probably forget the matter once he sees a pretty young face in Krondor, but Jimmy is different. He won't accept it, though he will never ask anything more. I don't like that I will have to lie to him. He's as loyal a subject as I've ever had."
"What about the Tsurani?" Owyn asked. Nodding, Arutha seemed equally concerned with Pug's answer.
"I shall have to talk with them. A well-respected member of the Assembly of Magicians named Hochopeppa already knows something of the event and he will help me assuage their fears," Pug said. "Thankfully they have their hands tied with another bothersome individual at the moment."
Satisfied, Arutha said his farewells and moved off to be of assistance in evacuating the remaining soldiers from the area, fearing that some might become too curious and discover things best left unfound. While watching the Prince depart, Pug smiled quietly to himself, gaining Owyn's attention.
"You seem pleased about something," Owyn said." What is it?"
"You will note that the Prince said nothing about your silence," Pug said. "You know the secret of Sethanon. In all of Midkemia, only Prince Arutha, King Lyam, Duke Martin, Tomas of Elvandar and myself truly know what lies beneath our feet." As if to reinforce the point, Pug tapped his staff at Owyn's feet.
"What are you saying?"
Smiling, Pug began to lead him down the winding path towards the city's smashed southern gate. "What that means is the Prince expects me to guarantee your silence. That will be difficult to do. With you in Tiburn and me at my Academy of Magicians at Stardock, it will require that I make a number of long and tiresome journeys for the sole purpose of ensuring you keep your silence. It seems a waste of time." Stopping to look into the sunset, Pug seemed lost in thought. "Of course, it is possible I could take you on as a student of magic, your living expenses paid in full by Prince Arutha. Are you interested in becoming a true magician, Owyn?"
Laughing for the first time in a great while, Owyn twirled his staff in his hands. "I've never wanted anything else..."
Phew! That was quite the damn novel at the end there. Once again, the ending of the book and the game are quite similar, with the main difference being that James, Locklear and Gorath all come stumbling into the chamber at the end, fighting Delekhan's closest bodyguards, and that at the very end, Narab stabbing the hell out of Delekhan is orchestrated with the Kingdom forces, since he's promised to rally the remaining Moredhel and bring them back north without starting any further trouble. Narab, like Liallan, have a brief cameo in a later book where it turns out that the two of them are struggling for control of the Northlands.
And... that's Betrayal at Krondor. One of the first games I really got into as a kid. As an adult, and especially with a guide, it's kind of effortlessly broken over your knee, and so many things about it are dated, even for the time but... it has a special place in my heart.
The next game in the series, which I will also LP barring any technical issues, is Return to Krondor, not made by Dynamix. Instead, Dynamix sold the license back to Feist after the game did poorly on floppy, but then after it released on CD and sold much better, they decided to make an intentionally BaK-esque game: Betrayal in Antara, which will be somewhat wilder to LP since it's in no way as well-documented as BaK or even RtK, and also doesn't rely on any pre-existing setting for its lore and background.
So the big question is, do people want to see an LP of Betrayal in Antara or are we skipping straight to Return to Krondor?