Part 31: Kingshome Not-Dungeon

Part 31: This Is a Short Update, Deal With It

After our encounter with Namtar, we walk through a door, and it disappears behind us. In case you're wondering: yes, we can just cast Soften Stone to go back into the room. It doesn't really accomplish anything, but we can do it, and in doing so we can mess with the game's scripting a bit. You see, if we go back and step on the tile for the stairs back into the dungeon, it triggers the event to make the vanishing door appear, and we can go back and walk through it again, and it becomes a wall again. But if we go back to the tile and create the door again, then Soften Stone our way around to the other side of the door, we can trigger the script to make the door vanish from the other side, without actually going through the door at all, because you see the script actually doesn't trigger on the action of going through the door, but on the action of stepping on the tile on the other side of the door, and that means...

Oh, wait, nobody else actually cares about this. Moving along.

Paragraph 130 posted:

Formerly the imperial court of King Drake, this hall retains none of the splendor of ages past. Where once hung brilliant tapestries, the walls are now bare. Empty pedestals mark where renowned sculptures formerly stood. Blocks of marble are missing in several places where materials have been removed to construct fortresses for Kingshome's campaign army. This is not the court of a king in residence.

We can explore the castle, but there is nothing of any real importance here.




There's an infinite supply of Pilgrim Garbs here, but we already have one and our inventory is pretty full right now.



It's interesting how the castle is almost completely abandoned (there aren't even enemy encounters!) despite the dungeon clearly being fully operational. Well, it was operational before we slaughtered every one of the guards, but still.



This is of course right in character for Namtar. He's already conquered the world (or at least Dilmun) and now he's just kind of bored. You know that one Twilight Zone episode where the guy is the sole survivor of a nuclear war, and then he has all those books, but then he breaks his glasses and can't read any of them? Namtar is kind of like that guy, except he's also the guy who caused the nuclear war. Or something like that.




Most of this stuff is useless (fine mid-game gear, but we have the best stuff already), but an extra pair of Lucky Boots are always good to have. This Magic Chain doesn't cast Zak's Speed like the other one does.

That's really all there is to do in the castle. But we have something more important to take care of.



We still have a bunch of Lanac'toor's body parts clogging up our inventory. Let's return them to their rightful place.









The game seems to be confused about whether this is a statue of Lanac'toor, or the real guy. In any case, Lanac'toor doesn't magically come back to life or anything. Paragraph 54 is a lie, it is never actually used in the game, but here it is anyway:

Paragraph 54 posted:

"Thanks for putting me back together - I feel swell!" Lanac'toor grins. "I was a little nervous when you put my arms on backwards, but I guess I'll get used to it. Having my elbows bend the wrong way will make it easier for me to scratch my back!"

That said, these stairs will lead us to Lanac'toor's Lab, which is one of the few remaining areas to explore before heading for Nisir. There are a couple of other places we could go right now, but I'm going to save them until after the Lab.

Next up: Lanac'toor's Lab!