Part 13: An Eyesore of a Continent

Well, some people wanted me to get rid of the Pikemen and others wanted me to get rid of the Archers, but in the end Pikemen won (or lost) by one vote. The consensus seemed to be to dump them at the next castle Ignatia takes over, so that's what I'll do.

An Eyesore of a Continent



In the meantime, we've got ourselves some Knights. Low speed is a nuisance, but whenever mobility isn't critical, they'll be awesome.



Before we go to Forestria, there are a couple of treasures left in the desert on Continentia. We Town Gate to Xoctan, load up on Time Stop spells, and get ready to brave the desert.



With Ignatia's new spell power, each spell stops time for 100 turns. Not bad, but we still lose our entire counter if we take even one step into desert.



If I just bought 20 Time Stop spells to find a bunch of useless joinable monsters, I am going to be pissed off.



King's Bounty, if that's your idea of a peace offering, fuck you.



We've now blown 4000 gold worth of spells for a total of 10 leadership. This was not really a sensible tradeoff, but I'm a completionist.



Make that 10 leadership and an income boost that will, over the entire course of the game, cover about a quarter of the cost of the spells we used to get here. I'm thrilled beyond words. Wait, did I say "thrilled"? Make that "enraged".



Next stop: Bayside, source of Teleport spells and conveniently located next to some Elves. We stock up on both.



Nothing left to do on this continent, so we may as well move on to the next one.

"Now, there's not much to set on fire while we're at sea. But I can give you the next best thing: sea shanties!"

Oh no.



"Oh, I'll drink whisky when I can, whisky for my Johnny..."

That took a week. A whole week. To add insult to injury, Castle Maximus is the only place in the game we can recruit Militia and it never runs out, so the dwelling repopulation is worthless.

You'll also notice that our army ate up more than half our commission this week. Our leadership will rise faster than our commission from now on, which means that if we buy as many troops as possible they'll consume an increasing fraction of our income and eventually send us broke. It's therefore sensible to use a small army for scouting and only bring out the big guns for attacking castles.



On a lighter note, we arrived right near a town. Let's see what it has to offer us.



Ah, the classic, confusingly-named Turn Undead spell, named for its origins in D&D where clerics could literally make undead turn and run away. In this game, it just does bunches of damage to undead.

"It doesn't quite have the dramatic effect of a fireball, but it does do a lot more damage."



A "multitude" means 500 or more monsters. Looks like we'll be needing some of those Turn Undead spells soon. Let's pull up the file on this Drybone fellow and see what nefarious deeds he's been up to.



Is... is that a tongue in his mouth? Why does he still have his tongue? How is it even attached?

Rinaldus Drybone, the Lich Lord, crossed his arms. Bone, yellowed with age peered from the folds of his robe. His head, a human skull, gazed expressionlessly outward. The burning red embers that were his eyes floated in otherwise empty eye sockets, scanning slowly from first Auric and then to Ragface. He spoke with a hollow voice, "There will be more death during the light than in the dark. The humans will kill more of each other if they can see each other. We will fight during the daylight."

Well, this guy sounds like a real winner, doesn't he? He's partially responsible for wresting the entire continent of Saharia from King Maximus' rule. So why is he living on Forestria now? Who knows?



We keep following the coast to the south. This is one of those signs that's actually somewhat useful, or it would be if I didn't already know where the town of Wood's End is.



This is it. There are a couple of good spells that we haven't seen yet; hopefully this town will sell one.



No such luck. This is the third town so far that sells Time Stop. It's a great spell, but enough is enough.

"Shall we see what the nearest castle has in store for us, then?"



Bargash Eyesore. His army looks substantially less terrifying than Rinaldus's... 's... es... eses.



Gee, I wonder how he got the nickname "Old One Eye?"

The Baron sat mounted upon a dazzling white charger. Bargash stood next to him, towering over the mounted men. Thousands of troops stretched behind them, a motley crew of men and monsters. Raising his gauntleted hand, the Baron signalled the trumpeter to sound the attack. Galloping, he led the charge down to The King's Castle, home to King Maximus.

At first the battle went well. The Baron withdrew to a hill overlooking the field of battle, surrounded by his entourage. His troops slaughtered the surprised garrison that met them on the field. Bargash Eyesore was especially impressive, laying waste to all about him. He pulverized friend and foe alike with his deadly spiked club.

Then, Maximus appeared on the castle parapet. He was adorned in mirrored armor, a beacon of blazing light reflecting the mid-morning sun. He held the Scepter of Order high, so all could see it. Suddenly, pikemen rushed from the hastily opened castle gates, clearing a path for the charging cavalry and knights.

The Baron's troops hesitated, surprised by the ferocity of the counterattack. Within minutes, it was clear that Maximus had won the day. On his hilltop, the Baron watched in sorrow as Bargash was captured. It was time to flee.

Bargash and Baron Johnno Makahl led a failed attack on Castle Maximus. They were both captured, and are two of the prisoners Murray and Dread Pirate Rob helped to break out of Maximus' dungeons.



I don't really want to keep paying for my army, so I had Ignatia cast a bunch of Time Stop spells. Their effects stack almost indefinitely, so if I wanted to spend the money I could just sit outside town buying up spells and casting them until I had 20000 turns of Time Stop. But I'm not going to do that... yet.



First treasure of the new continent!

"... that's a little underwhelming, isn't it?"

Better luck next time, I guess. Income boosts are never really impressive, especially when we're using Time Stop to keep the weeks from passing.





"Score."

We just got the map of the entire continent after exploring less than 10% of it. This is a pretty awesome stroke of luck.



Here's what the full map of Forestria looks like. If you squint, the continent looks sort of like a tree.



That map was literally the second treasure we found, and it's going to make exploring the rest of the continent quite a bit easier. Nothing can ruin my mood now.



I bet you thought the next screenshot was going to show something ruining my mood, didn't you? Shows what you know. Once we get rid of our Pikemen, we can cast one of these and see what it gets us now that Ignatia's had her second promotion.



Two monster lairs right next to each other? I didn't know they celebrated Christmas in the Land of the Four Continents!



Okay, one tunnel and one monster lair. At least I don't have to go tromping into the desert later to find out what treasure lies within.



Okay, one tunnel and one monster lair full of useless monsters. Zombies are similar in strength to Gnomes, except that they'll lower the morale of most of the other units in your army. We don't want them.



The monster lairs may not be impressive so far, but the first actual gold cache we find on this continent is more than 3 times the size of the best treasures on Continentia. I'm going to enjoy exploring this continent.

Thanks to our Time Stop spell, we can explore unmolested by monsters: they'll fight us if we attack them, but they won't chase us. They're not any threat to us, of course, but I'm trying to keep some wandering encounters on earlier continents alive for reasons which will become clear later in the game.



We follow a long spiralling path into the forest, and at the end we find a monster lair and... a shield?



First things first: every elf we add to our army makes us just that little bit deadlier.



What's all this Dark Knight bullshit? We didn't do any of that stuff! It was just lying there!

"And George Washington didn't chop down the cherry tree. What exactly is your point? You want us to become legendary heroes, don't you? Legendary heroes need legends! If we say we defeated the dread Dark Knight, then we defeated the dread Dark Knight. I don't see any witnesses who can say otherwise."

Uh, we've got a whole army of archers, pikemen, elves, cavalry and knights following us around.

"They won't talk, will they?"

_{"No, ma'am."}

Anyway, the Shield of Protection significantly reduces all damage received by our army, making it one of the better artifacts in the game. Since we just found another piece of the map to the Sceptre, let's end the update here and check Ignatia's stats.



The map piece revealed a little more of the coastline in the north. It's not all that hard to find the Sceptre with only about half the map, but what fun would that be? This LP won't be over until every villain is safely locked away in the dungeons of King Maximus.



Here's our army. Those Pikemen are officially on borrowed time.



We spent a bunch of gold on troops and spells this update, but we still have plenty left. The question now, as always, is what to do next? We can either fight Rinaldus Drybone, fight Bargash Eyesore, or keep exploring Forestria.

"Let's fight someone! I want to see if Forestria's villains can give me more of a challenge than Continentia's."