Part 2: Down!

In which we meet the ones who dig.

Having received our next mission, we're now in the middle of the hyperspace jump to the vicinity of Caldorre...





Fancy special effects!



Arrived there. Pressing B when next to a planet lets us enter the planet spaceport menu. The number of things you can do differs from planet to planet; Caldorre being the main planet of the Caldorre system, no wonder it has more options than the other two, Norjaenn and Ceyjavik. The fourth large white dot you can see whenever you open the world system map is, from what I've gathered, the local sun that, surprisingly enough, doesn't have facilities of any kind and is inaccessible to us.



The Fuel Depot is where we refuel our ship. Our current cash is 925. Our starting cash must've been around 500 credits, as we've already destroyed a few raider ships and the Federation, as you may remember, is supposed to transfer a hundred creds to us for every one of those dealt with and 25 credits for every Fed trader ship protected.



The Dry Dock lets us repair the ship, but we have no need of that at the moment.



The Science Foundation offers to pay us 700 credits per a science delivery mission. 700 is a good sum, but don't forget to subtract the fuel costs: a hyperspace jump costs us 500 fuel, with a bit more to actually get to the specified destination planet; let's say we need 1100 units of fuel for a delivery mission. 1100 fuel costs 220 credits, leaving us with a bit less than 500 credits per science mission. Still, not too bad.

There is no time limit to a delivery mission, so we may as well press 2 to get one right now:



We're asked to delivery a monitor unit to the specified coordinates on Ceyjavik. We'll be sure to. Sometime.



Since we're about to embark on our first real ground mission, it's finally time to visit our ship's Armory and equip the characters with... something. What I personally find surprising is that the Feds don't even have the funds to sponsor a Flight Jacket, the most basic kind of armor, for every one of the five crew members. Yup, there are only three Flight Jackets. One Auto Pistol with two spare clips. One Cryo Cutlass (an edged weapon). One Power Fist (a contact weapon). And one (!) dagger (edged, obviously). The Federation is either piss poor or stingy as hell.

Oh, and there are two more items in the Armory -- Arisian Lens and Holophones -- that seem to serve no specific purpose. You know, like those good-for-nothing items in adventure games, meant to further complicate things. The manual doesn't mention them at all, and I don't remember finding any use for them in my last playthrough of this game. We'll come across more items of this kind along the way. If anyone reading this knows their purpose (except to be sold for some credits), do let me know.



But I digress. We hand the Auto Pistol to Zain, as he's our weakest character and one best kept away from the front line. (Firearms have the range of 4 squares in Sentinel Worlds, whereas contact and edged weapons, of 2.) Naturally, I'll be doing my best to improve Zain's ranged weapon skills, especially projectile, as we'll only get to use blaster weapons a tad later.

I also equip Aleph with a Cryo Cutlass, Beth with a Power Fist, and Gimmel with a dagger. Aleph, Beth and Gimmel are also the ones to receive the Flight Jackets, as they're destined for the front lines. There are, by the way, two front lines in this game: the properly front one (party leader) and the, uhm, back front one, since enemies tend to spawn in the back of your party, too.

The equipping part done, let's now press 3 in the Spaceport menu to orbit the planet. Orbiting a planet is the first step to actually exploring it.



The exploration itself is easy. We choose the coordinates and press ENTER to land. We have our Federation mission beacon at x1151 y769, so that's where we should start, I guess. We can also visit the so-called Caldorre Towers by pressing 1, 2 or 3; we'll definitely visit them later.

The manual contains a detailed description of Caldorre, which I feel like posting here and now.




We use the ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle) to travel planetside. Everything is quite straightforward here. The ATV has fuel, and we must pay attention to the amount of fuel left. It also has a laser turret that lets us target and attack any creature we may encounter. As always, red dots are hostile creatures and blue dots, non-hostile ones. Just as in the Ground Combat Helmet mode, a picture and a description of the area are given in the lower part of the screen. This time, however, the picture and the description are determined not just by the grid square the ATV is occupying, but also by the direction it faces -- or, more specifically, by what it faces -- so that turning the ATV may change them:



Large trees block our movement, but not smaller ones:



And some of the trees are marked:



It looks like we're right near a tribal settlement. Among the huts, there's one we can enter:



Which is what we do by pressing 1.



Inside the hut we come face to face with the Warhaka Leader.



Beasts?! What do you mean?

(Read paragraph 49)


We're unaware of another race besides you and the Tower dwellers.

You have to live here to know. Can you help us?




Duly noted.
First, however, we notice that our characters have enough experience to level up:



We press 3.



We've gone up not one, but two levels already, and since our Comprehend equals 20, we have 8 skill points to distribute.



Zain's Projectile, Recon, Athletics, Observation and Bribery are all improved a bit.



With Beth, we go for Contact, Tactics, and Recon.



We raise Hiroko's Recon and Mining skills since we won't be using her combat skills for now, only her healing ability.



Gimmel is an Engineer, so Mining and ATV repair are obvious (if not really very useful) skills to improve. Tactics and Recon may also come in handy.
(I guess I won't be covering each and every level-up from here. Or should I? I can do that, provided anyone's interested in just what I invest my skill points in, step-by-step.)



Let's exit the Warhakan hut and, now that we've got the coordinates, let's see what those "beasts" are.



Yeah, one more thing. With some animals we encounter (even hostile ones), the "Heal animal" option appears. Healing animals is apparently a good thing to do.



Let's hope that increases our light side points or karma or something.  And the funniest thing is, I'm only half-kidding there. 



At x1012 y622 we beam down to a rocky area. No sight of the mysterious people we're after yet.



One new kind of animal we encounter here is mountain snake.



Many gorillas around, too. They're all non-hostile, however. One of them is wounded, so we heal the poor animal.



Trying to find our way amidst pine trees...



...we stumble upon our first mineral deposit. Elionium?


Ah yes, Elionium.
We'll be sure to sell whatever minerals we've mined at the Space Miner's Guild later. That won't land us a fortune, though, alas.



After a bit of wandering around, we locate a cave entrance. I wonder if this is what we've been looking for.



And here we are in the Ground Combat Helmet mode again... but this time with some actual enemies to fight! The "5% crycut (4-8)" message is in green, meaning our current party leader's (Aleph's) Cryo Cutlass is ready to strike the enemy for 4 to 8 points of damage with... well, the 5% to-hit probability. And yes, that is as bad as it sounds, making you only hit once per around 20 strikes and turning the combat into an exercise in tedium. The best tactics is to grab a cup of tea or coffee or maybe read a book while holding down ENTER. That's going to change later, but for now, patience is the key.
After each strike the weapon message turns from green to red for a certain period, meaning the character can't attack right now. The weapon cooldown periods depend on the character's dexterity.



Cave Bears are appropriately easy to kill for a low-level party, but oh my gosh, we miss a lot. The enemies, however, hit us often and spawn behind as well as in front of our party, and here the solution is to assign our Medic to the third party slot, so that she can, with her dexterity of 20, quickly heal whoever is wounded both in the front and in the back line of the party.

Also, re: the constantly spawning and respawning enemies appearing out of nowhere, even out of the previously cleared areas, this game definitely feels like a precursor to Dragon Age 2. Just sayin'.



Gimmel is enthusiastic for more combat, but well, I think he's alone in his enthusiasm.



Dust covers us as we slowly explore one cave area after another.



I just hope the ceiling doesn't collapse on us. That'd be too ridiculous an end for our courageous Federation crew.



Isn't Gimmel a bit, uhm, too trigger-happy for an engineer?



At first I thought "A nasty cut" refers to a critical hit or something, but this...



...made me reconsider. And no, it's not a fatality thing either, as the message seems to appear randomly, not necessarily at an enemy's death.



Torches? Someone or something must be living here.



The cave opens up into a series of stone rooms, with blue non-hostile creatures. Those must be the "beasts" we're looking for.

We interview the Koshols, 'cause that's what the "beasts" are called, one by one. They look nasty, but don't seem to mean any harm.



The... Chosen One?

I have no time to talk. The Chosen One speaks for us all.

We are the followers of the Chosen One. You must speak with Him.

But... who's the Chosen One?

I follow the one who dreams, speak to him.

So, the Chosen One is the one who dreams. Fair enough.



I only dig. Leave me in peace.

These guys looks like a busy bunch. I wonder what they're digging for.



Things are starting to get a bit weird. Let's find that Chosen One they speak of.



In some of the Koshol rooms, we come across different kinds of items. This is an RPG, so we're supposed to grab the Koshol items without a second thought. Truth be told, I've no idea what a "knarlybar" is.



We also find a mysterious "szart needle". Don't even ask.



The Koshols (or should I say "the Koshol"?) are diggers, so no wonder they have a lot of tools lying around.



Again, I don't really know what a "tesselator" is, but they sell for a hefty sum of 600 credits, so finding one is a treat.



Some kind of ancient story (most probably of ancient evil) is engraved on the wall, but there is no Ancient Languages skill in this game, unfortunately.



"Strange" must mean "useful" to Zain.



Suprisingly enough, we find an actual weapon in one of the rooms, a Sonic Mace -- a contact weapon slightly more powerful than Power Fist. To Beth it goes.



Sometimes we find chests, and -- as every RPG player knows -- a chest means treasure.



Hyperuzi is a projectile weapon and it's definitely better than the Auto Pistol Zain currently has equipped. No spare clips for it, though. Laser Reflector is a pretty powerful anti-blaster armour; that's a nice find. And no, of course I don't have a clue as to what "mark v teng" or "cyberdisk" are for.



Light-blue blips are plot-relevant NPCs. This must be the Chosen One. In a temple, appropriately. Naturally, we let Zain communicate with him.



Why do you dig?

We dig because of a vision.





Do you know that you dig on another's land?

Land is land. We dig here.

What do you dig for?

(Read paragraph 52)


Naturally, neither "light" nor "evil" will be important later. By no means, no no.



Can you not dig elsewhere?

No. We must dig here. Down.

Others live here. Can you not dig in another place?

We not take room. We dig down. We want no other's land.

How much land must you occupy?

Only what you see. It is only here we must dig.

Well, let's hope that satisfies the Warhaka. Time to make our way back to the cave exit.



With Beth as leader, equipped with a Sonic Mace (contact, not edged, in contrast to Aleph's Cutlass), we get a "Ugh! What a blow!" message instead of "A nasty cut". Just a minor detail.



Having killed even more bears and levelled up again, we exit the cave. And back to Warhaka Leader we go.



They do not mean harm. They only dig one hole.

Where do they dig to?



If you shun the place, can they not dig there?

Certainly, if they wish only to dig there.



Just a minor tribal conflict. Done with.
Mission accomplished! I wonder if we get a cookie.