Part 5: Sometimes I Update... About Cheese, Part 1

Update 05: Sometimes I Update... About Cheese, Part 1





Dear diary, the last few weeks of adventuring have taken their toll on our party. When we woke up this morning, Elsbeth declared that she had "died enough for one life," and was leaving. Before we could even say goodbye, Arius was also packing his gear, apparently that adventure through the wasp hive had given him a need to give all of his equipment a deep scrub. Even though we've left the inn, we can still smell the bleach out here, he seems to be taking it seriously.
Oh, oh, oh! Don't forget to write that I'm still here!
Indeed, diary! Ithilgore, my most brave and, apparently, most reliable companion is still with me! And with less people around, we've discovered something new...



Whee!
While Ithilgore couldn't carry an entire adventuring party, he can easily carry one necromancer(and her luggage).




Now, certainly, Jadame still needed saving, but...
Can we go see some cool stuff? And make some more friends? I wanna see another dungeon!
Certainly it could hold out for a few weeks, or perhaps months, while we saw the sights.




While I trusted Ithilgore, however... I felt like perhaps we could use companion, if only to carry our luggage and provide some entertaining banter.





Having just barely slipped across the level 20 barrier, now we can recruit... all the characters that are 5 levels below the party.



Oh, yeah, and this asshole is a Cleric of the Sun... without Light Magic, what the hell, Jon Van Caneghem? The other new recruit in Ravenshore...





Did I mention that almost every single character in the game has a clone, portrait-wise? Yeah, poor Kanarya is gonna get booted back to the adventurers' inn, because otherwise this is going to get extremely confusing.



Tally ho! What a joy it is, to be back on the road! What do we quest for? Perhaps a grail? Saving the innocent? Or the world itself?
Maylander raised a good question! I flipped through my well-organized log of quests we'd accepted... there were quite a few, so I put down my finger at random and...
Oooooooh, we're questing for cheese!
Ah, yes, cheese, the most virtuous of foods.





Did you see that temple from the air? Its outline forms a most sinister glyph... perhaps this cheese will be virtuous.

(if you look at the minimap this Church of Eep is absolutely shaped like Mickey Mouse. )




The three Churches of Eep that contain the cheeses for Fromago in Alvar are all surprisingly easy to handle, since none of them contain anything tougher than the smuggler caverns, enemies that are at this point almost 15 levels below where we could handle them with difficulty... and without a dragon.







Predictably, they've got a little chapel in here, since they're a church, presumably, uh, worshipping... cheese? Rats? It's hard to say.





And a few side rooms with some chests and some enemies. Ah, chests... hmmm... I feel like we're missing... something?




Ahem, much as I hate to promote any sort of iniquity, it feels as though we're lacking someone familiar with the larcenous arts.
You're using a lot of funny words and I don't know what they mean! I think I broke a talon there, though, I miss Elsbeth and Arius.
Maylander and Ithilgore certainly had a point, I had to admit, as Maylander helped put my liver back into its proper location. We were missing someone who knew how to help us acquire souvenirs without blowing us up.

Yeah, I completely forgot I was lacking someone with Disarm Trap here. We'll sort that out as soon as the party's done blowing themselves up on another 7 chests.



To find the cheese, you need to discover that this one wall tile is actually a hidden door and open it, it's very easy to tell because the minimap reveals it unintentionally, as per usual.




Cheeses acquired: 1 of 3. There's also a lore note in there, though these are very easy to miss since most of them use the same sprite as the lowest tier of scrolls, so it's very easy to ignore a lot of them because you think they're Torchlight scrolls or some such trash. At least in MM6 and MM7 every single text scroll had a different sprite so you'd never miss them.



It's a note written by the same vampire as the one in the Ogre Raiding Fort where Arion's daughter was kept. Far as I recall, she never actually occurs in the game, so I think these are just literal fluff. It would also be a bit more interesting if PC vampires had any sort of like... feeding needs. Like how the heck would Elsbeth have gotten her blood drank on? Was she taking a snack off Ithilgore every night? Or did she just snack on the dozens of people the party killed?




Now, time to find us a thief.





Also, speaking of town portal. Turns out the reason it wasn't registering the fountain in Ravenshore was because 50% of the fountain, despite showing up as "fountain" when mouse-overed, doesn't actually react to being clicked, and you have to psychically deduce this or luck out and click the "active" part of the fountain.



You say you're off to raid the Churches of Eep? And you need my expertise to dodge and disarm their lethal traps? Well well... this sounds like an adventure worthy of my time after all. It reminds me of the time I went on an expedition to the Barrier Peaks, fascinating stuff, you wouldn't believe what we found.
Ooooooo, tell me more!
I can't believe you're listening to this old braggart. He's probably just distracting you so he can pick your pockets.
...but I don't have pockets.
And that's a lucky thing! For in the Barrier Peaks, you see, we found this plant...



Jasp isn't a bad recruit, though why he doesn't start with Expert Disarm Trap is beyond me, since if you're rolling with a Dark Elf, you're almost certainly intending for him to be the party's "rogue."

In any case, the next Church of Eep is over in Garrotte Gorge.






Once again on the minimap, this one is literally shaped like a rat.

Once again, it is time to purge another den of sin and corruption from the world. May the gods give me strength.
Ah, I knew a fellow like you once, Maylander. Funny chap.
Gods forbid that any other men of the cloth have ever had to put up with you.
Hahaha, yes! Exactly the sort of thing he'd say. Good fellow in a tight spot, but he never learned to listen to me when I told him something was trapped.
I hadn't exactly missed Elsbeth's acerbic attitude and complaints, and here we were again. I could only hope that Jasp and Maylander would somehow find common ground.




Once again: Rats and rat mans.



Good work, lad, if only we'd had someone like you on our side when we went to that keep on the borderlands, things would have gone much better.
Yes, well, I do try my best t-
Not you, boy, the dragon!
M-me? You think I do good work?
Indeed! Absolutely the sort I'd want watching my back in the caves of chaos.
Arachne! Jasp thinks I'm cool!





The rat-folk of Eep were valiant in the defense of their church, but it didn't get them much. Not that Maylander would likely have given them quarter even if they'd been any less staunch... am I starting to write like he speaks?




Once again, the minimap spoils that there's something hidden behind the pulpit, but there's no obvious way to open it up.




We have slain every brazen heretic, but yet there is no sign of their graven idol.
So what you're saying is that you need an experienced rogue, charmingly aged but by no means over the hill yet, to find the hidden treasure chamber.
I... yes. Please. Do your thing, Thelbourne.



This button is really cruelly hidden, in my opinion. The temple also has a remarkable Perception difficulty of 24 which would, with no boosters(of which I have found none), require a minimum of Master Perception at rank 8 or Expert Perception at rank 12, neither of which is super likely unless you wait a while to come here.




I feel like in most MM6 dungeons, opening this door would have prompted some sort of change in tone. Perhaps slimes, or rat ogres, or skeletons or something would've been living in the caves behind the pulpit, rather than just more of the same. In general I kind of wish I had MM6's dungeons, but MM7/8's tools(especially Invisibility) for dealing with them. I've probably lamented this before, but MM6's dungeons were absolutely more challenging, while most of MM7 and most of MM8 so far have been cake walks.




Having a dragon along sure makes things easier, eh, Maylander?
Sloth is the path to wickedness.
Ah, certainly, wouldn't want to offer you any temptation. I'll just take a load off back here with Arachne while you and the dragon work hard.
I suggested to Jasp that he antagonize Maylander a bit less, they would have to work together for a while.
The boy just needs to calm down, it'll come with age. Or he'll get himself killed, one of the two.





Excelsior, another cheese secured! What's the goal of these, anyway, Arachne old girl? Are we planning a party?
I informed Jasp that we were, in fact, finding them for an eccentric collector so he could complete his life's dream.
Reminds me of the time I travelled to White Plume Mountain, exciting quest, that one, recovering the lost treasures of rich and decadent nobles...





This has been easy so far, where is the last den of sinister heathens that need their... cheese... liberated?
Oh, I know this one. The Church of Eep established their third temple down in the Ravage Roaming, near Balthazar Lair.
Diary, I was ready to give Jasp a hug, even though he kind of smelled like an old man. I'd been afraid it would turn out to merely be on the other side of Garrotte Gorge or hidden in Ravenshore's sewers or some such nonsense, but here we were, with an excuse to visit a new part of the world!





...is it wise to fly a dragon past the encampment of the dragon hunters?
Certainly it is, we'll just tell them that he's a trained dragon. I even taught the kid some tricks in case they stop us and ask. Ithilgore, speak!
Bark! Bark bark!
...
Ithilgore, point!
Jasp, this is the most harebrained-
Ithilgore, roll over!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...



Once we'd collected ourselves, we decided we'd best walk the rest of the way to the Ravage Roaming, just in case Jasp revealed he'd taught Ithilgore to "play dead" in mid-air...
Well, I thought it was funny, at least. You agree, don't you dragon?
Bark!
...I think you can stop pretending, kid, we're out of earshot of the castle.




Dear diary, on first arrival the Ravage Roaming was somewhat underwhelming, in fact, Jasp immediately called it-
The Ravage Browning.
Wow! That's so clever and funny, because it's brown!
-which, while neither clever nor funny, was descriptive. It was the brownest place I'd ever seen. It seemed like the path would take us to Balthazar Lair, probably, so I decided we'd take a trip off road for a small picnic and perhaps to see a bit more of the countryside.




Behold! Winged creatures of darkness hover upon the horizon! We must gird ourselves for battle!
Settle down, boy, maybe they're more dragons, just some of Ithilgore's relatives and he'll explain they're just over for lunch.
Oh, no, those aren't dragons, they're...



Wyverns!


Wyverns are an MM8 oddity in that they're practically copypasted from MM7, even using the same sprites and being, I think, the only enemies in the game to do so. Even ogres, which occur in more than one game, have a facelift for MM8. The only thing about them that's not copypasted from their MM7 incarnation(including that the Ancient Wyverns can cause Death ), is that their resistances are somewhat lower across the board, in some case even being reduced to zero.




I was a bit surprised to see Ithilgore's antipathy for the wyverns, and I really had to ask him what was up. In between blasts of searing dragonfire, I got an explanation.
Mom said they're the part of the family we don't talk about like ummmm... imagine if you guys had a really racist uncle that only ever talked about killing elves. That's what wyverns are like, except with, um, everything that's not a wyvern.
Mmmmm... I certainly know what it's like to have a black sheep in the family. Can you believe my sister hasn't accepted that being an adventurer is a respectable job yet? I even invited her on our journey to the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and she merely made fun of me! The nerve of her.





The northern Ravage Roaming has a shitload of wyverns, they're easily avoidable as long as you stay on the road, but what kind of adventurer stays on the road? Eventually, though, I manage to finish off the wyvern genocide, even though it takes me I wanna say 20 minutes of dodging to do. I do not want to tangle with an Ancient Wyvern and have it cave in Maylander's empty head on me.




Soaring through the skies on Ithilgore's back, we spotted something down below in the lake... which didn't happen to feature on any maps of the area. Presumably this was the result of one of the elemental catastrophes the Alvar merchants had warned us of.
Do you see that curious structure on the island below? It must be the final stronghold of those Eep heretics! Let them be smote!

So yes, the Eep church designs are: Mickey Mouse, a literal rat, and a cartoony wheel of cheese.




Let the smiting begin!



So while the other Eep dungeons were a bit straightforward, this one is just a short, mean puzzle dungeon. The trick is that every room has an exit door that opens when you're at the entrance, but usually has a bunch of locations where it'll close on you. For instance...



Note the "E" as the entrance, every red section of floor will close the exit door(s) to the room you enter, so in this case, you need to psychically gauge where the closing zone starts and jump or Jump across it.





It's absolutely the least enemy-heavy of the three Eep dungeons, though.



Welcome to the second room where any floor contact will close the exit and entrance doors, except... for standing on top of that crate. Sadly, it's impossible(even with Jump) to leap from the crate to the exit door.



So you might think there's some sort of clever way to circumvent this but...




Actually you just push a button and the crate just sort of walks across the floor to lessen the distance that needs to be jumped, but I'll note that even so, it's still real janky as you usually need to slip through the doorways before they start closing as the floor immediately in front of the door will also close it.





The heretics and their traps were no challenge for us.
And the chest is just over there! We could just walk over and grab it! It must have the final cheese!
Oh, it's never this simple, there's certain to be some sort of final challenge... it's always the idol on the altar, or the wizard's treasure, or the king's diadem that has the most dreadful trap attached to it.

And Jasp is right, or, well, he's right that it has the most annoying one. Because since there's no door to close on us, instead this room has a fucking teleporter floor, and once again you need to just brute-force your way to which parts you're allowed to touch.




But if you sort of walk to the left wall at a kind-of diagonal and hug it all the way to the end, that's the easiest way to get across. Now let's pop that chest.



Having acquired the final cheese, I had to wonder if these would live up to Fromago's dreams, after all, entirely aside from their quality, they had apparently been left lying around, unrefrigerated, in dungeon chests for who knows how long. Still, as I suppose Elsbeth would have put it: It is not ours to wonder why, simply to get paid. Or in this case, to enjoy the trip.




Does the old lungs good to get out of there, awful dusty. Think I might have a rat allergy, too.
I thought you were an adventurer, old man, shouldn't you have done this sort of thing thousands of times?
Damn straight I did. Doesn't mean it was a good idea, makes for good stories, but it's an awful way to make a living.