Part 123: Dragon Fire

Chapter 29: Dragon Fire


Minos Island

Look familiar? That’s right, the thief is also the only class that gets to infiltrate Minos’s fortress not once, but twice. In this case, breaking in through the front door is difficult but no real trouble. However, we can still sneak in through the same route as before, so why don’t we do that? Aside from a couple extra guards, the stealth route is the same, so I’ll skip over most of it.


At this point, the stationary archer has been replaced with a patrolling goon. The goon is too fast to use the blackjack, and too tough for a thrown magic dagger to take down, but he has just enough health to be taken out by the poisoned dagger from before…sometimes. Even it’s not a guarantee. It also lowers your Honor by about 150, but since when did thieves care about that?


Still, I’d rather hang onto it for now, so I did this the hard way, which involved a good half-dozen guards coming out of the door.


The interior has gained quite a few more guards, including the centaur wizards so easily popped by Trigger.


You need to be careful when taking down goons in this room, because for some odd reason your movement gets reset to walking after you smack a guard.



The grapnel strategy still works up here, even though the two goons by the door will spot you as you climb up. In fact, their AI works so that they’ll try to go to your perceived position on the first floor and walk away from where you actually are.


This gives you just enough time to get to the door before they turn around and start whacking you.


Elsa!
It’s on the table over there! Hurry!
So, you have made it all the way here, despite my guards and protections. You really are a most persistent hero, aren’t you? You would have actually made a good king of Silmaria. Pity you are the very instrument of its destruction. That is, of course, unless you die! Guards, you retards, get in here!


Apparently, Elsa’s toolkit has the same branding as Arestes’s. If you get this toolkit (or Arestes’s, for that matter) to Elsa, she will be able to join you for the fight.



You keep him distracted, Elsa, I’ll just throw enchanted daggers from way over here!
Argh!


So now what, Minos? Your minotaur is dead.
You think you’ve won, don’t you? You are mistaken. I will not be defeated. I will destroy everything, and you both will die!
Do you really think you can control something like the Doom Dragon? He’s going to kill everything, including you! Or did you want to be king of a ruined kingdom?
Of course not, you idiot! No one can control the Dragon of Doom! Do you think I wanted it to come to this? My plan was elegant, cunning, subtle. And it would have worked, too, if you meddling adventurers hadn’t started dismantling the pieces one by one. First, the assassin would kill the king, setting the succession Rites in motion. Then, I introduced my own threats to Silmaria, threats I knew I could counter for the sake of my chosen adventurer. Then I could make her change the laws regarding the Rites, kill her, and take over for myself. When Elsa turned out to be uncontrollable, I arranged the theft of the Destiny Stone and set Bruno to destroy the Dragon Pillars with the blood of the murdered. This way, I could hold all of Silmaria hostage to my demands. But you didn’t listen, and now it appears that my final plans lie in ruins.

But that won’t stop anything. As you can see, I hold the Prophecy Stone in my hands. When it breaks, the Dark Dragon will rise to destroy all of Silmaria. If I cannot rule what is rightfully mine, then I shall destroy it. You cannot stop me. No one can stop me. I am your doom.
Oh yeah? Well, did you ever hear the one about—


Go fuck yourself.




God damn it, what good is an Ultimate Joke if I never get to use it?


And so, the dragon wakes up. As part of their attempt to make Dragon Fire fully accessible between Windows and Macintosh (the same discs will work for both systems), the cutscenes are encoded as QuickTime .mov files, which made this rather easy to upload.

I fear we are in very big trouble now.
You think? So what do we do now?
I have no idea.


Countdown

That heavy drum beat can’t help matters much, either. What happens now is that you have a limited amount of time to act before the Prophecy Stone explodes and kills you and Elsa.


Just so. Waiting around for about ten seconds causes the time to tick forward one degree (the music speeds up), as does taking specific actions. The first such action is to loot Minos’s corpse, which gives us another pair of amulets, extra health potions, and the second of the two poisoned daggers in the game.


The second action that advances the counter is looting the minotaur’s body, which has (aside from the daggers I just pumped into it) the unique Minotaur Axe. It’s too unwieldy to use yourself, but perhaps there’s someone we know who could use it quite well…


Breaking into the gated alcoves also advances the clock, but the one Elsa’s in front of (which had the potions, and is still empty) will turn it off completely. Why, you ask? Because someone shows up who can suppress the spell.


If you chose “no one” earlier in Hades, Fenris will show up to play this part.

You came!
It seems I was not able to let you remain out and in danger, either. The Dark Dragon has risen, and it will breathe the flames of destruction throughout the land. I may have tried to avoid it, but this time I too must play the hero’s role.
That’s great, but what can we do from here?
Nothing, which is why I must summon us to the dragon’s lair.
By the power of magic that lies within Nike’s soul, I call to thee.
By the power of magic that once bound the dragon, I bind thee to me.
By the power of magic that I have mastered, I summon thee to me.



God damn it, that’s lava, not dragon blood!
The distinction is lost when the dragon is a being made of fire. If the dragon gets free, it will destroy everything it can. We must stop it before it can fly.
How? Even with the three of us, we can’t stop it.
Do you know anyone else who would be willing to face the dragon?
Toro. Toro would face anything with me. I don’t want him to die, but I don’t see any way to win without him.

By the magic that flows within these cavern walls,
By the destruction that seeks the death of all,
I summon another to this place of death.
I summon Toro to face the Dragon of Doom.


Where Toro?
I’m sorry, friend, but we need your strength to face the dragon.
Toro not have axe, but Toro fight.



Gort? How did you get here?
I…fight…the dragon. I…be hero…too.
Great, well, at least the gang’s all here now. So now what?
According to the Sybil, there needs to be a willing sacrifice before the Dragon of Doom can die. But who…
I—
I have already died for—
Toro—
NO! No more deaths! No more sacrifices!
But the prophecy—
Fuck prophecy! And fuck the Sybil while I’m at it! I swear, by the gods of Silmaria, by the river Styx, by the souls of Erana and Toby, the only one who dies here tonight will be the dragon!
Nike…
Look over there, Bruno never finished the job! As long as that Dragon Pillar stands, the dragon is mortal, and that means we can kill it!
But it’s not even standing up properly! The magic will have faded!
We can fix that, now can’t we? Toro, Gort, get over here and help me push this upright. Elsa, Katrina, go keep the dragon busy.


As of this point, dying or taking too long to kill the dragon will show you this cutscene before the death screen.


Whatever your plan of attack is, the first step needs to be to right the Dragon Pillar, which (I believe) stops the dragon from regenerating. You’ll need to get Gort and Toro to help you.


The next step is to hand out weapons and potions (getting Toro the Minotaur Axe is a must). In spite of Nike’s heroic vow, just about anyone can die here, especially Gort and Toro. However, you can hand them healing potions, which helps their survivability immensely. Elsa has her own supply, but even she can run out if she gets hit too often. I’m not sure if the wizard helper (whether Katrina, Erana, or Fenris) can die, but if you’re down to just her, you’re already in pretty bad shape.

The role of the wizard will change dramatically depending on who you pulled out of Hades. Erana is (obviously) quite good at healing the other combatants, while Katrina will use a rather powerful (and effective!) form of Frostbite against the dragon. And if you didn’t rescue anyone earlier, Fenris…well, he’s not particularly good at anything. You dick.


There are several strategies you can use against the dragon. Although Nike ruled it out, asking someone to sacrifice him/herself will take a giant chunk off of the dragon’s hit points, potentially killing it. If the hero feels up to sacrificing himself, it is an option, and one that wins the game (posthumously). Along similar lines, wizards finally have an excuse to use Thermonuclear Blast, although he may want to warn his friends to evacuate before setting himself off. Of course, heroic sacrifice is the sissy’s way out. Real men whittle down the dragon’s hit points the hard way.


Once the dragon’s Health hits 50%, it takes off from the temple. Don’t worry, though; it’s just decided to move the arena to somewhere nearby.


At this point, the dragon will fly around until it takes a bit more damage, usually from the wizard, or it’ll just land after a while.


Now is also a good time to remember about those poison daggers. You do remember I’ve got two, right? They can take off about a third of the dragon’s health. Each. Fuck dishonor, I just killed a doomsday dragon!

One last video for the road. I have to wonder about how much damage those sparks flying out of the cone caused, though.


We did it! The Dragon of Doom is dead!
Told you no one would die.
I think I understand the prophecy now…the dragon threw itself into the lava when it couldn’t take the pain from its wounds any more—the dragon was the willing sacrifice!
Heh. Figures it’d be something like that. Now let’s get back to Silmaria. I believe there’s a coronation in order.


This screen can get awfully lonely if you never do anything about the characters. Also, just as the first game started with the Hero’s Theme, the last game ends with it playing here. I can’t link to the music, though, since it’s still protected, but I can link to this, a special arrangement that was created for Quest Studios by Christoph Sachal. Enjoy.

The Rites of Rulership are over. Here are the heroes who have saved Silmaria. They have freed our fishing villages, and driven the invaders off Marete. They have defeated the General of the mercenaries, and made certain that they will never return to Silmaria’s shores. They have dared the depths of Hades, and proved their courage and valor. They have brought us peace with Atlantis, and made the sea safe for boats and travel. They have brought the unjust to justice, and made the murderers pay for their crimes. They defeated the Dragon of Doom, and the prophecy of Silmaria’s destruction will not come to pass. These are the ones who averted this dire fate. These are the Heroes of Silmaria!

*Cheers*

One person proved himself beyond others. He has shown again and again the true meaning of heroism. He has earned the title of hero in four lands, and again in ours. Silmaria has never had someone more fitting to sit upon her throne. Prince Nike von Slartibartfast, Hero of Spielburg, Shapeir, Tarna, Mordavia, and Silmaria, will you bear the burden of our crown? Will you become the next king of Silmaria?
You know, when I first heard of the Rites of Rulership, I doubted their effectiveness. What does being a hero have to do with being a leader, after all? But as I went through each Rite in turn, I learned something important. In the Rite of Freedom, I learned the importance of discretion. By avoiding the regular soldiers, I was still fresh and ready to tackle the lieutenants, who were all I needed to fight in order to free the villages. In the Rite of Conquest, I learned subtlety, as I crept past each soldier on my way to defeat General Claudius. In the Rite of Valor, I discovered the importance of teamwork, as the Hydra has not and cannot be defeated by one man acting alone. In the Rite of Destiny, I found the importance of foresight, with which to understand and prepare for the future. In the Rite of Courage, I discovered Katrina and brought her back, an act that measured my willingness to sacrifice myself for others. In the Rite of Peace, I learned of diplomacy, which I used to avoid bloodshed and bring about a peaceful resolution with the tritons. And in the Rite of Justice, I ended the final threat to Silmaria, and led this group of heroes to a victory without death!

And so, with Freedom, Conquest, Valor, Destiny, Courage, Peace, and Justice; with Discretion, Subtlety, Teamwork, Foresight, Sacrifice, Diplomacy, and Leadership, I finally understand that there can be only one answer to your question, Logos.









































Hell no!
What? Why? Why have you gone through so much for us, risked your life for Silmaria? Why do you not want the reward of the rulership of this kingdom?
Do you have any idea how much pressure is on a monarch? To have everything you say carry meaning, to have every decision affect the lives of people you’ve never even met? More importantly, to have everyone waiting on your every word, and demanding that you make a choice before such and such happens? That’s not for me. And to do that stuff until I die? Hell no. Elsa was raised as a leader, and she’s got no problem with that kind of pressure. Let her be queen instead.
Very well, there is one other who has proven that she deserves the throne of Silmaria. Elsa von Spielburg, will you be the next queen of Silmaria?
Yes, I will serve this kingdom gladly. I shall be the next ruler of Silmaria!

*Cheers*

However, what Nike has neglected to mention is that he and I shall be getting married. I may be the monarch, but we shall rule this kingdom together.
Then Silmaria will have the finest rulers in all the world. Congratulations, and I wish you both great happiness. Long live the queen!

*Cheers*


…Now chief thief, that’s a much more low-key job. I’m fine with taking that post.
You may have trouble achieving that goal, dear boy, seeing as you gave the Blackbird to me.
Drop yer anchor, me bucko. There’s more than one Blackbird here, and only the real one will do.
I have the real one. I made certain of that personally.
Oh, did ye now? Then I think ya should be checkin’ yer bird again.
What are you talking about? This is…no. No! It can’t be! This can’t be a fake! How?
Here, Arestes. Check mine.
Aye, this be the real one.
Heh. Heh heh. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! It seems that you’ve really gotten the better of me this time. I must remember not to underestimate you the next time we deal with one another.
You outwitted Ferrari? You clever man.


More evidence that Nawar is supposed to be the thief’s girl.

Come on, Nawar, I’m getting married soon.
I know. Consider that a wedding present. I’m glad you finally figured out the right words to say, but I’m a little sad you didn’t say them to me.
Then you really did…
Shh. Just one more kiss, and then I’ll go.




Ooh, new high score. I also secretly earned more than a thousand Puzzle Points thanks to saving the other four villages for Freedom, but it maxes out at 1k.


At the end of the game, in addition to seeing the deeds that got you points, you can see the deeds you didn’t do. Some of it is just minor stuff like getting the Blackbird to Wolfie so he can make a copy and buying healing and stamina pills for the first time, while other stuff like “sacrificing yourself to save others” can’t be done in the same run as, say, becoming king. Surprisingly, polygamy can actually work; you can buy more than one Hera’s Ring in the unpatched game, and even after the 1.2 update you can get extras by hiding your current ring in the storage chest. Aside from the points, though, nothing much happens, since only the first woman you propose to acknowledges your act in the ending.