Part 5: Silvar
UPDATE 003: Silvar
Sorry, the next few screenshots will show the side of the map window in them. It was my fault as I was playing around with different options for the screen-capture, and I missed this completely.
"Welcome to Silvar! Home of I-don't-know-what, and all sorts of fun and interesting things, I'm sure."
"Thank you for your escort. I shall take my leave of you. Perhaps we may meet again in the local Inn, or some such."
"I gotta say thanks as well. See ya'!"
"Hrm"
"What ails your thoughts, my friend?" "Oh, just long term plans." "Alright. Peregrine actually had an idea. Why don't we split up and do our own things for a while then meet up at the inn."
"What for?" "Ah, spread out and decompress. I understand. If you don't mind, I'll take my leave then?" "Of course. Hopefully there's not more than one inn. I mean, for a 'city', this Silvar looks pretty small." "I shall seek to acquire improved weapons and other sundry supplies. By your leave." "See ya Karmy!" "..." "You're not leaving?" "Why? Besides, I'm still hurting here, and you're the only one with healing powers." "..." "Look, it's not like I'm going to do something stupid. It's hard to keep up that act." "Tell me about it." "Awww... We gonna swap stories now?" "I should hope not. Let's just walk for now. Start by heading right."
"Well, this corner seems business-like."
"Boring." "Agreed. We'll come back later when we can afford things." "Ah, hello there Ma'am." There is a middle-aged woman wearing a huge steel breastplate behind the counter.
"I'm Anastasia. Efram's wife." "I'm offended ma'am! What about me would ever make you say such a thing?" "Sorry. Had a weirdo in here earlier. Put me on edge." "Quite understandable. I saw that your sign advertised Armors." "I deal in armor, yes. You can buy some here, if you have the cash, or sell some, if you don't." "Forgive my impertinence then. I will have to confer with my colleagues as to the disposition of our meagre funds." "That's alright! Sorry to be snippy myself." "Your apology is accepted, and I hope to return soon. What sort of armor would you suggest?" "You'll need it, if you plan to travel around down here. Don't count on getting any iron or steel armor, though. Damn expensive. Hard to make down here. Leather's cheap, though. Bronze is OK. And magic? Forget it." "Magic armor? I would have thought that in lieu of advanced metallrgy, magical enhancement would be an adequate substitute." "The mages down here, such as they are, have a really tough time making magic armor. Potions and scrolls, sure. But armor? Almost never." "I think I can understand the efforts. There is a large difference between permanent enhancement of items and consumables." "Then you've got more brains on you than most." "Once again, I must apologize. I shall return later with appropriate funds for your wares." "Goodbye! See you later!"
"I don't think we're ready for that yet."
"Always fun. We'll come back later." "Agreed" "Hello sir. My name is Rook Ironwill, and I am here to look at your merchandise." "I'm Efram." He shifts his weight so his sword turns towards Rook, and smiles. "Inventory?" "You can buy or sell weapons here. Don't have much of a stock out here - hard to get good metal. But we do our best." Guess who forgot to screencap the purchase screen? I'll get it eventually. "That's two Bronze Rapiers and a decent Club for me. Best to keep the front-liners equipped at least semi-decently." Anyways, I bought those two swords for Karmas and Art, with a Club for Rook. No armor for now, I'll get some later.
"Look! COWS!" "Huh. Well, let Peregrine know. But damn, don't those things looks thin." "SIGN!"
"I guess I know what they use the cows for." "EWWW." "Oh, like you've never eaten a steak before. Actually, better head in to buy some more food. We've been going through what supplies we have a bit too quickly for my tastes." "But... COWS!" "Then stay outside!" There is a pale woman working behind the counter. She has the jitters. "Hey. You look nervous. I'm Art." "I'm Carol, sort of." She smiles nervously. "wow, that's not suspicious at all. "You sell field rations?" "Well, you can buy rations. And I have some cows." "Tell me about that. I've got a friend out there who loves them. The cows, I mean." "Well, I try to take care of the poor dears. I'd love to sell you some milk." She chuckles, for no apparent reason. "But whenever I try to take care of them, I hear noises." "Noises?" "Yes, out behind my shop. Clunking and stuff. Makes me nervous." "Well, maybe some business will calm you down."
Buying food. Food is kinda important. If you run out, you'll start to take damage every so often, and you can't camp out without sufficient food. I buy 20 Gold worth, which should hold me until after I've dealt with everything at Fort Dunvo, including drops from enemies. "Thank you!" "you beast" "Oh, like you're any better." "Beast!" "Oh, it's not that bad." "Monster!" She runs away "why me?" "Oh, like you're any better." "Fine"
"Oh. Hey. Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you." A man in nice, well-cut robes shuffles papers behind a desk. He seems pleased to see you.
"Hello! I'm Mayor Jonathan Stellas. You can just call me Jonathan." "Oh gods! I didn't meant to disturb you, your honour!" "No! No! That's fine! I could use the distraction. New arrival?" "That obvious, huh?" "Skin tone. Don't worry. A few months and you'll fit right in." "I don't plan on being here that long. So, um, what do you do around here, your honour?" "I am the mayor of this fine city, and a member of the Exile Council. Keeps me busy." "So, what does that mean, anyways? Being Mayor and all that." "I settle the odd dispute. I order the troops. If and when we get attacked, I marshal the defenses. And I take care of the records. It's a lot of work." "Records, huh? Sounds like a tiring job, maintaining those." "In the room to the west. Go help yourself. Not very interesting, true, but necessary. I keep track of everybody who comes to Exile I can find. Someday, people will want to know what happened down here, and when they do, our records will be here." "Wow." "There's a man in there right now. New arrival like yourself."
"SO! MUCH! INFORMATION!" "SO! MUCH! POWER!" "Best not to disturb them, then. If you've got six copies of those new arrival forms, I'll pass them amongst my group." "Sure! And thank you!" He quickly gives a few sheets of parchmet to Art. "Thank you." "You mentioned something about a Council?" "Yes. Exile has six large cities, and this is one of them. The mayors of each form a council, which co-rules with King Micah. It works very well, actually, and I'm proud to be a member." "I think you're doing a wonderful job."
"Damn it Ember, where did you run off too?" Sometimes you'll see white dots on the ground. These are optional event flags you can stand on to trigger events. There are non optional ones that don't show up.However, they aren't triggered when in combat mode. This can be abused.
Not that I would ever do that.
"What the hell? No one's here...." "Except for the statues." "Hello?" "Hello?" "north-west corner?"
"So... Mime? What's your name?"
"No. Don't have one." "What do you do?" "I just stand here. Watch. Listen." "What do you mean by that?" "..." "Oh, I'll remember you."
"Sign says it's a weapons shop, but the door's locked. Ah well, I'll come back later." Not pictured: Quite a few attempts to have Ember cast "Unlock" on this door. And miserably failing. I'll come back later to get the loot therein.
"What do we have here?"
"Makes sense. Wouldn't have a large body of water without some sort of transportation." "Heelo? Name's Duncan. Anyone home?" "Ah! Nice to see a new face. I'm Krantz. Pleased ta' meet ya'" "Ta' same here! Ya goots yerself some bootes?" "Aye! Whatcha be needin?" "Makin' plans I am. Unsafe wahters?" He spits. "Damnedable Sliths. Beed raid'n up an' down from Contra like. Least the Kitties ain' outta dere hidy-holes." "Iffen say I wanna fish, how much?" "Fer a cousin? 350." "I'll hold ye t' yer word." "You too! Sun still shines?" "Gleamin' like the edge o'a' scimitar." "Ah, still lovely as ever, I see." "I be back fer a boot. But not tod'y." "Inn must be up here. Of course, it would be the last place I'd check."
"..." "Where's Ember to tell me to read a sign?" "Get a hold of yourself! You just met these people? Why are you missing them?" "Anyways..."
"That's awfully convenient."
"Hey, Barkeep?" The barkeep busily polishes the counter. He's tall, and has a very ambitious beard. "Hello. I'm Gary." "Hey, you seen a black haired girl come in? New arrival, like myself?" "O'er there." "What are the prices like?" "I sell drinks. One gold. You can also get a room for the night. Five gold. We have a nice room available." He polishes for a bit. "Oh! And for 10 gold, I can help you with item storage." "Storage?" "Sure, I'll watch your extra stuff for you. Put it in the room down the hall, the one with the crate in it. I'll guard it with my employee's lives." He grimaces. "Make sure you leave the stuff inside the room, though. Anywhere else, and I can't watch it!" Storage is important. Vital even. The party members have limited inventory, so you'll need places to drop items where the game won't remove them to keep the size of the save file down. Here in Silvar is the first such location. As long as we're in this room:
Anything we dump here won't vanish after a while. Nice, huh? I'll be using it a bit, usually to store spare consumables.
Nor is this the only storage location. I'll cover the rest when we find them.
"Thanks. I think I might have to take you up on that." "Not on your life. 10 gold for indefinite storage? Something's fishy." "Ah! Art! Ember! Good to see you two!" "Rookie! Art was being mean to me! She bought COW MEAT!" "Come again?" "More food supplies for longer journeys." "A sensible precaution. But Cows?" "Actually, I did some research on that. It seems that Cows are husbanded for the dairy products. The primary source of meat are local lizards." "So the Cows aren't horribly butchered?" "No." "What, did everyone wait until I arrived to come in?" "Yes." "You kill me, you know that. Alright. Someone order food, we'll grab a bench and lay out our next.... Wait. Peregrine. Duncan." "Yes?" "I thought you two were done with us?" "I thought that your future explorations as head of the Committee would provide a wealth of information for me to use and exploit. Therefore, I have chosen to grace you with my presence until such time as you are no longer needed." "I'm bored." "Hey! I know that one!" "Alright. Food. Seat. Planning."- - - - -
There are two more NPC's in the Inn that I couldn't narrate talking too. They are both in the Inn. Here are there conversation trees: Assume these conversations happened off screen if you must.LOOK: This is a young, well built man. He is weighed down with two heavy duffel bags.
NAME: "I'm Jay." He puts down one of the bags to shake your hands.
JOB: "None, now. I'm kind of a refugee."
REFUGEE: "Well, I was a farmhand at Fort Duvno. That's some 20 miles to the north. But then the nephilim started coming south, and I decided to move to more hospitable territory."
NEPHILIM:"Yeah, the cat-heads are starting trouble again. They're building sort of a fort at the north end of this huge cave. It's small now, but nobody's doing anything about it, and it'll be big soon. Then, watch out!"
"Hmm. You could find out a lot more about it at Fort Duvno. Go east to Fort Exile, then north."
LOOK: A man in battered armor seems to be drinking himself into a stupor.
NAME: "I'm Chuck." His words are slurred, and vomit seems to be soon in coming.
JOB: "Mercenary."
MERCENARY: "Yeah. Fighting the cat-heads. Then the sliths. Then the cat heads. Then the sliths. Hell, I've been beat up by everybody. I'm on vacation now. Go away."
And here is the current Map of Silvar.