Part 25: Heavily Guarded Bridge (to Lansk)

Update 25: Bridge to Lansk

There are a few different ways to get to Lansk. We could just go to the building in the Magan Underworld and take the stairs up. That's probably the shortest way, but I don't think it's really the best way to experience Lansk. Instead, we're going to take the more obvious route of crossing the bridge from the Isle of the Sun (Phoebus) which leads us to Lansk. We could also cross the War Bridge from Quag, but that's harder and basically going backwards.

So let's warp over to Phoebus and make our way over another guarded bridge.



Oh, sorry. Heavily guarded bridge. We're level 8, we have Big Chill and Inferno, and one of us is carrying the goddamn Sword of Freedom. A few guards are nothing to us.



To our left is a guardhouse, and up ahead is the bridge. Let's approach the bridge first.



Sure, go ahead and have a look at the stuff we have in our bags.



Seriously? They took a look at the stuff we're carrying in our bags and decided we'd be a good group to try to extort money from? They must be pretty formidable. Let's take them on!



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So, this is an area you're expected to come by very early in the game, possibly right after leaving Purgatory. The first time I played this game, I think we skipped Phoebus entirely and went straight to from the first Guard Bridge to this bridge. So we're a little overpowered for this area.

Still, three Pikemen. Good grief.



And with that, we can safely cross the bridge and go on to Lansk.

But of course, we're not going to leave without checking the buildings on either side of the bridge. First, let's check out that guardhouse.



Naturally, if we wake the sleeping guards, they'll attack. First we'll have an easy fight, then more guards will wake up from the commotion, giving us a larger easy fight. Walking into a wall, casting a spell, and using an item or skill are all things that can wake up the guards. However, if we don't do any of those things, we can move to the other side of the room without waking the guards.



Normally, using Lockpick here would cause us to wake up the guards.



Lockpick skill level 1 or 2 will trigger the alarm, and even after fighting the guards the box will not open. However, Dolph with his level 3 Lockpick can avoid waking the guards altogether.




Ice Chill is a High Magic spell which is like a worse version of Rage of Mithras. It's terrible and I'll probably never use it. Even if we had somehow picked this up early in the game, it wouldn't have been all that useful.

Radiance is an improved Mage Light. I'm not sure what the improvement is, but since we have infinite Mage Light, we don't have much need for Radiance. The Healing Potion is the regular variety which just casts Heal. Not that exciting. Runed Flail is a decent early weapon but obviously we don't need that now. Spiked Flail is multiple levels better. Grey Arrow is good ammo but arrows don't matter much at this point. So none of this stuff is really necessary, but the bit with the sleeping guards is kind of interesting.

Also, there's another easy way to get the loot without level 3 Lockpick, and I only know this because it's mentioned in the Dragon Wars Cluebook, which is included in the GOG bundle (and is really cool, by the way). Just use Pickpocket to get a key for the box.



I was always wondering what the point of the Pickpocket skill was. Now I know: this is the best use of it. High-level lockpick is better in general, but Louie comes with Pickpocket anyway, so if you don't have a good lockpicker, this is the way to do it.

Let's cross the bridge.



We're going to check out that other building over there.



This kicks us out of the building, and if we try to enter again, we get to face the guards.



There's no tricky way out of this one, just beat 'em up, then walk through the door in the back.



And fall into a trap. Look at everyone's health bar. They were at full HP before we walked in the door! You can actually cast Disarm Trap for 1 MP before walking in to avoid the pit. Or you can just use Bandage, which is free as always, but takes a ton of keystrokes.




Once again: the Holy Mace and Axe of Kalah are great early-game weapons but not useful at this point. The Axe of Kalah is one of my favorite weapons, actually, because it raises accuracy and melees from long distances, but it doesn't do much damage. The Boomerangs are thrown weapons and they don't come back to you. Lame.

The Gem Helm is slightly better than a regular helm (2 AC vs. 1) and Gauntlets are always nice to pick up. The Archer's Bow is slightly better than the Great Bow, but neither Valar nor Dolph has the Dexterity needed to use it. There are better bows to be found soon anyway.

On our way out, we run into more guards. In case you're wondering, Soften Stone doesn't work in this area so we can't sneak out by making a wall disappear.



Yes, actually, I do think this will be easy.




Ooh, that's tricky. Try blocking this!






So yeah, that's all there is for the bridge. Pretty insignificant area with some mostly-insignificant loot to pick up, but I like what they did with it. With nothing left to do in this area, let's continue to head north.





Next update: Lansk!