Part 9: Shadar the Cruel
Jason Depard wants us to resolve the conflict between the Ranchers and the Farmers, so we're on it.
A new dialogue segment, "Depard Mission", is now available.
Just arrived. Any news?
Hasn't rained in a month. Keeps the bugs down. The Ranchers war with the Farmers? We have not ever got along. How long have you fought? Who cares how long it has gone. Will the conflict ever end? It will continue until the last rancher is dead.
Ever see a Rancher destroy your crops? Farmers don't bring this on ourselves. It's them!It's T-H-E-M!
What else have they done? Many of our grain shipments have been lost. Have you seen Ranchers do this? They laugh about it. And now the future is in danger!
Grayper's son has been kidnapped, and naturally the farmers blame the ranchers.
Are you sure it is the Ranchers? I have lost many harvests because of them. Where are your leaders? Grayper, our leader, has formed a posse.
Where are these canyons? Striker Rift is the most likely location. And where is Striker Rift? (Read Paragraph 49.)It says we should read paragraph 49, but that must be a typo or something. It should say paragraph 53.
EDIT: A correction from ulmont:
ulmont posted:
They told you back in paragraph 49 that the next time you saw a reference to 49 you should actually go and read paragraph 53:
Paragraph 49 posted:
"One final word of caution: Remember, the next 49 is 53..."
It's a trick! Nasty. But anyway, let's see what paragraph 53 has to say.
Paragraph 53 posted:
"Striker Rift is one of the canyons that some thought was loaded with Kokodite. Lemme see now, that wall chart should show it...Yeah, right here. Norajaenn 1169,677. That's where Grayper and his boys were headed."
We have the coordinates, but let's see what the Ranchers are up to first and listen to their side of the story.
Now they are kidnapping people!Hmm. Something's not right... Let's begin from the beginning.
How is the local situation? It's rough, and getting rougher. The Ranchers war with the Farmers? Yes. Our hatred for the farmers runs deep. What have the farmers done? They have rustled our cattle. What else have they done? We have lost many of our cattle hauls. And what else have they done? Some of us have lost family.
How long have you fought? (Read Paragraph 10.)Paragraph 10 posted:
The rancher scratches his chin and gives you a long hard look.
"Well I reckon we been fightin' ever since I was a boy... Norjaenn was settled nigh unto a hundred years ago, and the two sides been fightin' at least a third of that time. When the almighty Federation, in its infinite wisdom, decided that this was the place to be, it decided it was the place for both farmers and ranchers. So they plopped us down in the same spot, maybe twenty families of each persuasion, and waited to see who survived. Sort of an evolution thing, I reckon.
Only problem was both sides survived and now they're fightin' over the same piece of land. Farmers can just up and plant their crops wherever they please, whereas we ranchers have to stake out a piece of grazing land well-suited to our critters. Farmers won't move and we can't move, so I reckon we'll just have to fight it out until they either move or we move 'em."
What could end this conflict? I do not know how this will end.
Where are your leaders? Robert Kann is our leader. He is away in the hills.There are also a number of general questions we can ask this good rancher.
First time here. Is this a fun town? Some nights a drunk will take a pot shot at Wilson's Saloon. Isn't that dangerous? Depends on how drunk them Farmers are.
What families? The Kanns are the biggest outfit hereabouts. Do they keep things quiet? Robert keeps things under control.
Alright, that was a bit stupid of us to ask. But anyway, it looks like both leaders, Kann and Grayper, have gone to Striker Rift. Let's follow them before there is bloodshed.
x1169 y677 are the coordinates the farmer gave us.
In a manner typical for this game, we must follow the canyon to reach our destination.
The path is really, really long.
But finally we reach a cave entrance.
It's dark and scary. But we're brave enough to enter it.
Poetic!
We enter a dark dry passage.
Spooky! Acid breath sounds bad, but it really isn't. In contrast to more hardcore games, in this game acid doesn't harm your armour or anything.
Apart from Spooks, we also have to fight lots of Dark Gorillas.
It's damp and dirty in here. As usual, we find some ammo scattered around.
Fire Cats are, again, not as dangerous as their name might imply.
It's getting colder and... less stable.
In the next section of the cave, we come across some kind of living rooms.
A rancher camp, hey! We've found Robert Kann's group.
And here's Kann himself.
Why are you in these caves?
I am here to get my son.
He is here, in these caves? (Read Paragraph 26.)Paragraph 26 posted:
"I'm pretty sure he's in these caves," Kann explains. "We were on a three-day drive a week ago, camped out at night when he disappeared. Two of my men saw the kidnappers carry him off, and swear that the bunch that got him were Farmers. Recognized 'em by the way they ran. Next morning we checked out the tracks, what was left of them, and sure enough the prints weren't from any boots a rancher would wear. I heard a bunch of Farmers, even old Grayper himself, were heading for Striker Rift, so I put two and two together and figured that's where they were hiding my boy."
Something fishy's going on, that's for sure.
Stay here. I will go ahead and search. We are waiting for supplies. You have some time. I will return with the boy. I wish you success.
What, so this is, or was, a laboratory, too?
The game keeps throwing supply chests at us.
A Gauss Rifle, hell yeah!
Next we stumble on the Farmers' camp. Let's have a chat with Grayper.
What are you doing here?
I've come to get my son back from the Rancher scum that took him!Uh-oh. Talk about
The Ranchers have no children with them.. They have him hidden. We'll force them to show us where he is. What if the Ranchers do not know where your son is? They know where he is. They kidnapped him.
We're trained soldiers. Prepared to force your way past us?Yeah, that's the attitude!
Well. Okay we'll wait. But just for one night. And we aren't moving.Now that Grayper has chickened out a bit, let's explore deeper into the cave to hopefully find the source of all the troubles.
We now enter the dark below!
Wherever we go, we always encounter weird alien temples.
Hey, a temple armoury!
More goodies. And if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time we've come across a blaster weapon. Hand Lasers are the weakest of them, though.
Shadar Thugs? We must be approaching a (mid-)boss, I guess.
And here we are, boys and girls. It's time to meet Shadar the Cruel.
Shadar is scary. And he keeps doing scary faces at us!
No can frighten us, though. Let's interrogate him!
Why do you hold their sons? They have caused you no harm.
It is all according to the grand design.. A master plan you could not possibly understand! Have you caused the other trouble on this world? Are you behind the raids? I have burned the fields, killed the cattle, but I have not been involved in the raids.Who has, then?..
Who is responsible for the raids? You talk too much! Now I must kill you. My power is strong and you are weak.With that, Shadar attacks. Our interrogation attempt has been kind of short-lived.
It is now, I guess, that I should explain the "energy" stat to you. You can see it in the Shadar screenshot as well as the exploration ones. Basically it is the power of light within you.
The more energy you have, the more powerful your inner self is, or something like that. That isn't really important for the most part of the game, but this battle against Shadar is our first energy battle, so it is important here.
Yup, you got it right. This is a special sort of mini-game, a duel of a kind. An energy duel. And by the way, the only way we can increase our Light energy is by... healing wounded animals.
WTF indeed. Talk about a Karma meter being important in a cRPG.Shadar has way more energy than we do, which doesn't bode well.
During the energy battle, you should hold down the right arrow button to defend, and the left arrow button to attack -- whenever the ATT thingy appears on-screen.
"The Federation is legion"? That's one ambiguous line.
We don't really stand a chance in this fight...
...that is, until...
Phew! Good thing that was only a tutorial energy battle. :P
But... what's Jason Depard doing here, all of a sudden?
He said his name was Shadar..
That is the name his evil master gave him. So who is Shadar? He is my brother, Paul Depard.What a twist.
He seems quite powerful. How did you manage to scare him off? He is not prepared to face me. That's all I have to say about it. Will you meet him again someday? (Read Paragraph 20.)Paragraph 20 posted:
"Our paths will cross again someday. It is our destiny. When it does, I hope to be ready for him. For now, he fears me greatly although with his knowledge of the dark arts his evil master has taught him he could surely kill me. Yet he fears me. He tried to get me to go with him, to talk to this 'Master' of his, but I didn't. He said I had the Light or some such mumbo jumbo, but I told him I wasn't interested in hearing about it. All I know is that someday he's going to have to face up to the mischief he's created or face up to me, his brother."
Where are the Sentinels? (Read Paragraph 30.)Paragraph 30 posted:
"They live in the lost hills. I ran across them when I was a youngster. I was hiking in along a ledge and lost my footing. When I woke up, I was lying down in a dark cave, with a bunch of old men in blue robes standing around and muttering in some foreign language. My leg hurt something awful, and my head didn't feel much better. One of the guys, his name was Kedro, made me lie down and started chanting over me. Before I knew it my leg stopped hurting, and my head stopped trying to explode.
"I've been back twice, but each time Kedro stopped me and told me to go home. He said something about the light being bright in me, but that he could not teach me. Hell I never asked him to. But that was all he would ever say. So I stopped going back there."
Where do I find the boys? The boys returned to their parents while you fought.
Well, at least the local conflict seems to be resolved. And now that we've got the Sentinels' coordinates, I think we should finally pay them a visit. If only to see what all the fuss is about.