Part 26: Valley of the Dark Lords
Part 26: Valley of the Dark LordsLast time, we got roped into a double-cross plot involving the masters of the Sith academy, and managed to convince Carth's son that the Sith are in fact evil. We also fought and killed Darth Bandon, Malak's apprentice who had been sent to kill us but thankfully didn't mention anything about us to any of the Sith on Korriban. Our next order of business is to explore the Valley of the Dark Lords, and...
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...uhh, hold on a second. When you play one of these original Xbox games on the Xbox One, your saves are stored on Microsoft's cloud and they apparently don't bother to give you very much space for them (the amount of space remaining seems to constantly fluctuate, though, and towards the end it was actually going up as I was overwriting my older saves so who the fuck even knows what's going on there). Pressing B here throws you right out of the game on the Xbox One, so you actually need to press A and then go to the Load Game menu to delete some files.
On an original Xbox, you would never see this message because the default hard drive has 7 GB/"50,000+ blocks" of space and one KotOR save file is about a couple hundred blocks in size. 50,000+ is also a lot more than 50,000, and in all of my years of owning an Xbox I've never even managed to get it to show any less available space than that 50,000+. But yeah, apparently this is very much not the case with the cloud storage they give you for these games on the Xbox One.
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*ahem* Anyway, now that we've got that slight technical issue out of the way, we can continue with the program. We could head to the Valley of the Dark Lords right now, but I remembered there was one more thing we could do at the academy.
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Namely, we can persuade Lashowe to let us help her find the artifact she mentioned.
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This is actually a really hard Persuade check. I had to try several times before Lashowe would agree to let us help.
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Ah, finally.
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Alright. We'll meet up with Lashowe in a moment, but first there's something else we need to check out.
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The academy's data files mentioned something about a group of renegade students hiding in nearby shyrack caves.
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Force Wave doesn't only damage enemies and knock them back, but also stuns them. As I said last time, once you get this power you probably won't even need your lightsaber for most trash enemies.
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The caves consist of three tunnels leading east, and all of them ultimately take you to the same location.
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The tunnel we're interested in is the southernmost one, so that's where we're headed after a quick detour to the middle tunnel. There are encounters with shyracks and disappointing loot along the way, but you don't need to see that stuff so let's move on.
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Hey, we actually saw one of the mines for once!
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The renegade students, we presume.
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Because if we wanted to kill you, we would've done it by now?
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We'll give it a shot.
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There are more mines in the area, so we'll temporarily put Mission in the party to deal with them. In KotOR II, you can use the Disable/Destroy Droid powers to detonate mines from a distance, but that doesn't seem to work in the first game.
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Mission has leveled up and gains Sneak Attack VII, which boosts her sneak attack damage to 7-42.
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Once we're done taking care of all the mines, we'll switch Mission out for Jolee. I don't usually run an all-Jedi party, but I figured I might as well do it here.
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Jolee has gained a level as well, and learns Force Armor (+6 to DEF and saving throws for 20 seconds) and Destroy Droid.
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All three tunnels lead to this chasm. Before we cross the bridge, let's quickly check out the north tunnel.
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This tunnel is crawling with tuk'ata, also known as Sith hounds. They are known to guard the tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords, so it's no surprise we find some of them in this cave as well. Of course, we also heard from Lashowe that a tuk'ata den mother had eaten the holocron she's looking for, so this is not the last time we'll be seeing these beasts.
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There really isn't much of interest in these tunnels, so let's head back to the bridge.
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These shyracks weren't here before.
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Okay then. If we squint, we can just about see the creature at the other end of the bridge. This is the beast that is preventing the renegade students from leaving the cave, so let's take it out.
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Yep, we've got another terentatek fight on our hands. Should probably activate the melee damage shield just in case, because these creatures hit hard.
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However, I didn't expect them to be this easily stunned. That's just the basic Stun power, not even Stasis.
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I would appreciate it if Jolee or Juhani would put the beast in Stasis again without me having to take control of them, but this works too.
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Okay, that's not so great. Still, we haven't taken any damage yet.
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As we can basically keep the terentatek stunlocked, this fight ends up not being much of a challenge.
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Three shyrack wyrms spawn here after you kill the terentatek, because fuck you. We can see the small opening behind the shyrack, which is the exit the students are going to use once the path is clear.
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We have found the remains of Duron Qel-Droma, one of the three Jedi who were supposed to hunt the terentatek together here on Korriban. We already found the remains of Guun Han Saresh on Kashyyyk, as he had left Duron and Shaela on Korriban after the two had fallen in love (which Saresh thought meant they were heading down the path to the dark side) and died fighting another terentatek on that planet. We know Shaela died as well, but there's no trace of her in the cave.
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This is not Shaela, this is just some random dude. The Massassi Ceremonial Armor is a set of light armor that makes the wearer immune to critical hits. Speaking of armor, we also found the Qel-Droma robes on Duron's remains and they're somehow still intact.
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Since the description gets cut off, here it is in full:
Qel-Droma Robes posted:
The Force is strong in the Qel-Droma blood, and many of the family have joined the Jedi Order over the centuries. These robes were created as a gift for Cay Qel-Droma during the war against Exar Kun, and it is said that only one who truly walks the path of the light can wear them. Cay himself wore the robes in his duel against Ulic Qel-Droma, his brother who had fallen to the dark side. Cay was slain in the battle, but his death at his brothers hand would eventually lead to Ulics redemption. These powerful robes then passed down to Duron Qel-Droma, Cays cousin, when he joined the Jedi. But Duron disappeared shortly after the time of the Great Hunt, and the robes were lost with him.
Hey, watch it with the Tales of the Jedi spoilers! I didn't finish reading those comics yet! By the way, the "Max Dexterity Bonus: +8" part of the description is false; none of the Jedi robes in the game actually limit your DEX bonus at all.
We also found Duron's datapad, so let's check that out as well:
Duron's Journal posted:
This data pad appears to be the personal journal of the Jedi Duron Qel-Droma. The last entry reveals what he was doing on this world:
Korriban is everything I imagined - and feared. I can feel the power of the dark side here, I can sense the terentatek hiding in this evil place.
Shaela and I have decided to venture forth into the Valley of the Sith Lords in search of the creatures. I only wish Guun Han was still with us.
Why couldn't he just accept that Shaela and I are in love? He claims our passion for each other will lead us down the dark side, but he can't even see how his own pride and arrogance are leading him away from the light.
Maybe it is good that he left, after all. Even as dangerous as the terentatek are, I'm certain Shaela and I can defeat one without his help.
I don't know, I kinda still blame Saresh for the trio's fate. Even if he genuinely thought Shaela and Duron were going to fall to the dark side because of their passion for each other and it wasn't simply because of jealousy, he could've waited to confront the two about it after the terentatek were dealt with rather than storm off on his own to die horribly and ensure the other two wouldn't fare much better.
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At any rate, we've cleared the path for the renegade students now.
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Please don't default to the dark side option, game.
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It's worth a shot, isn't it?
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With that, we're done in the shyrack caves, so let's head back out.
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Welcome to the Valley of the Dark Lords, the final resting place of the ancient Sith Lords. As we can see, there's plenty of excavation work going on around here, and we'll also be able to enter some of the tombs.
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But first, let's talk to this guy.
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Dak only appears here if Juhani is in your party.
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Clearly, there's some sort of history between the two of them.
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We should ask Juhani about their history when we have time. It's not too difficult to figure out what might have transpired in their past, but we'll hear Juhani explain it soon enough.
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I mean, we know the Star Map is in Naga Sadow's tomb. Yuthura said as much.
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Gotta weed out the weak candidates, I suppose.
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Wait. Marko Ragnos?
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It's supposed to be Marka Ragnos, and the mistake is corrected in the PC version. Presumably the mobile release too, but I haven't played it far enough to be sure.
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Dak doesn't seem like a bad guy. I wonder why he joined the Sith.
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Anyway, we have better things to do than worry about Dak. We can just about see Lashowe waiting for us near the rocks to the right, so let's meet up and find this holocron.
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And she brought some of her family with her.
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The tuk'ata can resist Force powers quite well, which makes sense considering their purpose as the guardians of the Sith tombs. In the Star Wars Legends canon, tuk'ata are actually Force-sensitive, intelligent and even able to speak the Sith language. Not that KotOR treats them as much more than mindless beasts, of course, which is also pretty much how they are in the current canon. Well, Lashowe said she was communicating with the tuk'ata mother, but in terms of gameplay they're just generic monsters.
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Let's just take care of this queen and find the holocron.
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Naturally.
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Somehow, we get the idea she just might forget to mention our part in this little task to Master Uthar.
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No, we're taking it back together. This shouldn't be that difficult.
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Ah. Well. That can be arranged.
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Lashowe isn't a particularly tough opponent. She will use Drain Life occasionally, but that doesn't help her for very long.
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This could all have been avoided if she had just accepted our offer to take the holocron back to Master Uthar together. Well, we could also have just allowed her to take the holocron to Uthar, in which case she of course gets all the credit herself.
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As Dak mentioned, the tuk'ata have a nest in the tomb of Tulak Hord, and because of that the Sith don't really know what else is in there. Only one way to find out, I guess.
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Since we can expect to run into a lot of tuk'ata, we'll repair this droid to assist us.
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Force Wave causes this ripple effect that can occasionally make your character look like a weird mutant in screenshots. When we fight in the tomb, debris sometimes falls from the ceiling, including what looks to be a large vase of some sort. This is all cosmetic and doesn't actually hurt you as far as I can tell.
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We'll check the south corridor first. This one has several shyracks waiting for us, but Force Wave makes quick work of the winged critters.
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The corridor just leads to a dead end with some crappy loot and a gas mine on the floor.
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Everyone in the party also levels up. Zila gets an extra WIS point, another Persuade point to get her up to 13, the Implant Level 1 feat (which doesn't do much on its own because level 1 implants only tend to give +1 attribute bonuses, but combined with some late-game items it actually helps us get to 20 DEX and that +5 modifier eventually), and the Master Valor (+5 to all attributes for 20 seconds, meaning we can now increase our Repair to 11 and complete the next set of repairs on HK-47), and Force Immunity powers. Force Immunity is one of those powers you absolutely must get on every playthrough or you're fucked in the last boss fight (even more so than usual).
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We are at maximum light side points and have actually been for a while, but there's no indication of any kind of light mastery bonus. Well, I did some research, and guess what? The Xbox version is bugged and the mastery bonuses don't actually work at all!
After this LP, I am never playing the Xbox version again. Frankly, I'm not sure I'll ever play KotOR again in general, but I definitely won't play this version because fucking hell.
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Jolee gets Advanced Throw Lightsaber because the game recommended it and at level 14 he hasn't unlocked the really good stuff yet.
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Juhani gets Force Shield.
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As we make our way to the northern part of the tomb, we run into many more tuk'ata. At the end of this hallway is a room with a locked door, an ancient computer and a corpse with Mandalorian battle armor and a Verpine prototype ion blaster.
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Let's check the computer.
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That's it? No puzzle or anything? Well, I won't complain.
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We're pretty deep inside the tomb now. If there are any Sith artifacts around here, we'd probably be quite close to them by now.
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Gah! What now?
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This might be bad.
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Whoever this is, we walked right into his trap and never saw it coming. That sounds about right considering our Awareness rank, to be quite honest.
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I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess this crazy old kook probably is not Tulak Hord himself, so let's see if he'll introduce himself.
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Yes, we know who Mekel is.
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That said, Mekel isn't doing so well at the moment.
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I don't think we ever actually learned about any hermit at any point, so I'm not sure why this option is even available. You can get one of the students to tell you about a crazy hermit hiding in one of the tombs, but we didn't talk to them that much.
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Jorak pronounces Mekel as "Mekuuulllll" and generally sounds like the Green Goblin.
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Mekel is a dick, but we don't want him to die horribly either. What to do?
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One feature of this game I haven't pointed out is that when you play a dark side character, you eventually end up looking like a gross zombie person much like old Jorak here. I'm guessing that's because the Emperor looked all creepy in Return of the Jedi and BioWare figured all dark side users should just do the Monster Mash and have a big old graveyard smash.
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Despite his injuries, Mekel seems to think we could fight Jorak together.
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Jorak is very jazzed about all this. He's even more of a Saturday morning cartoon villain than the rest of the Sith in this game, but in his case it kinda makes sense because he is actually supposed to be a crazy old weirdo.
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Fuck you, Jorak.
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We know the correct answer, we're just not going to give it to him.
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For each wrong answer or refusal to answer, you get zapped and lose some health. He can't actually kill you, and you can also mitigate the effects with something like Energy Resistance as long as you remember to activate it before entering Jorak's trap.
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Another zap for us.
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We don't actually have to answer all of the questions wrong to save Mekel (he can take two correct answers, a third one will be too much and he dies), but we will anyway because this test sucks.
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Yeah, yeah. Get on with it, old man.
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We're still not playing along with this bullshit.
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Looks like Jorak is starting to get a bit annoyed of our continuing refusal to take his little test.
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You know the drill.
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This question is a bit different from the others. While there is a correct answer, it'll only appear if you're at least 80% dark side.
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If you pick either of the other answers, Jorak will gleefully inform you that it was a trick question because a true Sith never dies!
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Despite Mekel using Drain Life to heal us in the cutscene, we are still very low on health so you'll probably want to either drop a couple of heals or use a life support pack before you engage Jorak.
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If you're unlucky, your companions may get stuck in the hallway and won't be in the burial chamber to help you in the fight until they manage to slowly make their way there. Fortunately, both Jolee and Juhani made it this time.
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Mekel can still die during this fight as well, which is why you'll probably want to take all the Force lightning yourself during the test. At this point, though, we've managed to stun Jorak and from here it's just a matter of whacking him with lightsabers for a couple of turns.
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Mekel, he didn't say that line this time. You're not making sense.
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Mekel has been a total dick for as long as we've known him, but this experience has made him rethink his life choices somewhat.
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Maybe we can convince him to leave all this behind and start over.
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Farewell, Mekel. Even if he doesn't join the Jedi, we've at least given him the opportunity to think things over and atone for his deeds.
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Ancient Sith Tablet posted:
This thick stone tablet is covered with ancient runes of an unknown language. It is extremely cold to the touch and has almost a sinister aura about it.
Recently carved into the side of the tablet appears to be a primer... no doubt intended to provide a means to translate the runes.
Not really something we'd have any use for, but of course we can give it to Uthar for some more prestige.
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The clay urns behind the three locked doors in the burial chamber contain lightsaber crystals. The Firkrann crystal (Attack +2, Energy +2-12 vs. Droid) is the only new one.
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The real prize is in the tomb itself. The tomb door is locked but can be bashed if you lack the Security skill, so you won't be locked out of obtaining Tulak Hord's mask.
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The mask itself isn't a great item by any means, and we don't have anyone who would have any use for it anyway. It can also be given to Uthar for extra prestige.
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Let's see... what's next?
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It *is* the tomb of Ajunta Pall. Dak already told us so. I'm not sure why Galon isn't certain, but maybe he's just not very good at his job.
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Sounds like another important Sith artifact!
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Prestige, you say?
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I have no idea why the game gives you the option to ask about gaining prestige here. If you're in the Valley of the Dark Lords, you know you need to earn prestige to impress Master Uthar, and finding ancient Sith artifacts is a great way to do that.
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Come on, it's right there! What's the worst that could happen?
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Fair enough. We'll enter Ajunta Pall's tomb next time because it's the most elaborate one of the three we can access.
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Marka Ragnos' tomb on the opposite side is much more straightforward, so we'll finish this update by exploring that one.
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Assassin droid? What, like HK-47?
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The problem with that suggestion is that we don't have any sound suppressors, nor do we know where to get them.
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I'm sure we can deal with this droid of yours. Wanna join us?
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I'm not used to these Sith being so nice and polite to us.
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How did nobody notice the naming error? Sure, it's just one letter off, but it's not like Marka Ragnos was never mentioned in Tales of the Jedi which is where all of this game's background lore comes from.
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The tomb itself is just one big corridor leading up to the burial chamber, with a small army of war droids for you to turn into scrap. The Destroy Droid power is a lot of fun here.
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There's also some mines along the way, but nothing too dangerous.
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There's the sound suppressor we need. It doesn't matter how much noise you make in this corridor, as long as you remember to equip this before entering the door at the top.
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You don't actually have to activate stealth mode or anything, just make sure the dampener is equipped.
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There's our rogue droid. If you come in here without equipping the sound dampener, this droid will attack and three other war droids will enter the chamber through the three doors.
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Somehow, the droid locks the door behind us.
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Since we're not making a huge racket, the droid doesn't attack and simply talks to us.
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It is odd that an assassin droid would not attack us at all.
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If you bring HK-47 along (which, in hindsight, I probably should've done), he'll offer his sincerest condolences.
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Okay. That sounds far too easy.
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I think we can manage that.
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Don't screw up. Got it.
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Right, that's a lot of systems. Guessing is not going to get us anywhere, so we're gonna need some guidance.
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Alright, so if you ask for assistance a bunch of times, you really want to make sure you don't fuck up.
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Let's see what he can tell us.
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We have to do this a bunch of times and it'll repeat the same dialogue every time, so I'll just cut the repetitive stuff out.
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That's all the assistance you can get from the droid. Unless you've got a guide handy or your memory is really, really good, you'll want to write this stuff down because that is a lot of information to take in.
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You shouldn't have any trouble if you wrote everything down.
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The first system to shut down started with C and it can't be the Core or Cognitive Systems, so it's got to be Combat Matrix.
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Motor functions must be shut down within the first three systems, and since sensory and memory functions are in the first four and have to be shut down consecutively, the motor functions can only be the second system to shut down.
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Sensory before memory.
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That'll do it for the first half.
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The Emotional Construct Matrix and the Creative Simulation Matrix must be shut down consecutively in that order, and Cognitive Systems has to be shut down before either of them.
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Emotional before Creative.
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And we're done.
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Not a difficult puzzle unless you're trying to do the whole thing from memory. The droid will repeat the advice if you need it, but it's a lot simpler to just write it down.
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Don't accidentally blow the droid up at this point.
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Good luck, buddy.
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Again, not really something we'd have any use for since we don't have any dark side lightsaber users.
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We'll see. Also, we literally just came out of the tomb, so how could we possibly have already told Master Uthar about the droid?
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Next time, we uncover the rest of the secrets of the Valley of the Dark Lords.