Out Of The Catacombs At Last

Alright, so I admit it. I’ve been putting this entry off. I’ve been putting it off because it’s time to admit that I made some extremely big oversights in this game, and there’s no excuse for it other than laziness. However, the fact is that the oversights were my fault, and I will own up to them. There were a few items in my inventory that I didn’t know what to do with, you see. There was the pair of amber earrings, a magus guard, a ring or two. I read the descriptions of these items and I liked what I saw, but there was no “use” button! So I waited until the time came that using them would become an option. And I waited. And waited. Eventually, after being told the error of my ways, I realized they go in the inventory slots designed for uh, things of that nature. Earring? Ear slot. Ring? Ring slot. Guard? Uh, armor slot. Simple enough, yes. But I missed it, okay? I fucking missed it and have been playing the game all the way up to this point without using those items.

But it gets worse, readers. Ever since I made the conversion to mage, I kept thinking, “Wow, I’ve gotten all these points. I thought I was supposed to be hitting new levels quickly? When’s that gonna happen? How am I supposed to get through the Catacombs with two spells and like, 8 hit points? This sucks!” In my defense, I swear I remember TNO getting new levels on his own when he started the game as a fighter. Long story short, I was on Level 1 Mage with over 30,000 experience points just sitting in the bank because I didn’t go into statistics and click the damn Level Up button. Oh, and I didn’t do it for my NPC’s, either. We were just a trio of walking targets for the beasts in the Catacombs. 

The reason I start with these admissions is because I wasn’t able to truly accomplish anything until I discovered what I was doing wrong; I kept getting slaughtered anytime a ghoul turned on me or a flying beast thing and ten of his friends came at me. I thought that this game must be seriously the hardest game ever, and that I wasn’t going to be able to get through it. Plus, I know it’s the right thing to do to come clean about my idiocy, and I just wanted to get it out of the way. So get it out of the way I have, and now we can concentrate on what I accomplished in the Catacombs. 

We left off last time, several days back, with TNO and his companions at the entrance. After telling the gatekeepers of Pharod’s mission, they let us pass without any trouble, and in we go. 

My (at this point) weak, horribly unskilled trio advances into the dangerous dungeons and explores, quickly learning we’re in some place called Weeping Stone. I run into a few ghouls with a red circle underneath their body, and decide to cast a spell on one before they notice me. Since I’m still Level 1 at this point, the ghoul I hit promptly sneezed, and then turned around to attack. At this point I pause the game, read spell descriptions for an hour, and then send all three of my characters charging in for a melee battle. Thankfully, the ghoul dies in the 3-on-1 battle, but TNO is hurt enough to the point of not wanting to battle the other one. We flee the opposite direction.

Ghouls are mean.

Here we encounter a big, disgusting group of rats! There’s so many of them that they’re powerful enough to unleash a horrific spell that nearly kills Morte. Combined with the hostile zombies that appear on the screen at the same time, these rats are too much. I quickly leave the screen, entering the Dead Nations area. There I’m greeted by Hargrimm the Bleak, who tells me that I’m trespassing and must submit to the Silent King. TNO agrees to be peaceful, and then is informed that he is to remain in the Dead Nations as prisoner for the rest of his life. Not what I expected. 

The game fades to black, and then I’m standing across from a Dustman by the name of Soego, who is living in the Dead Nations as a way to help guide the ghouls and skeletons to the True Death. We talk for a bit, TNO decides to rest, and then I explore this area I’m apparently destined to live in forever.

TNO meets the inhabitants of the Dead Nations.

After wandering about for a bit, my group comes across Hargrimm once again and I question him about this puzzling place. He says it is the will of the Silent King for me to remain here forever, and should I wish to leave, I’ll have to speak to him directly. TNO asks Hargrimm if there’s any chance we could earn our freedom by doing a task instead, whereupon he’s told there are always cranium rats to take care of. Fair enough. 

The problem is, as soon as our group stumbles across a group fo these cranium rats, they shoot another spell at us, this time killing Morte. I charge in with reckless abandon, and not surprisingly end up dead myself. Time to regroup. With Morte back from the dead, his health doesn’t look good, so I find Hargrimm and ask for rest, which he grants. I pay another visit to the cranium rats, and this time I’m able to finish them off, with Dak’kon taking most of the damage. Returning back to Hargrimm results in 3,700 experience points, but curiously enough, he doesn’t have anything to say about the matter of getting me an audience with the Silent King; clicking on the dialogue option to tell him this news just exits the interaction immediately, and then there’s no way to bring up our agreement again. I assume this is some sort of bug.

Morte can only take so many cranium rat spells...

Having wandered around Dead Nations for a while, I decide to take another crack at the Weeping Stone area, where the two hostile zombies I left behind a while ago are still waiting for me. I cast a spell and then hack away, taking no damage in the process of killing them both. Advancing forward, a small group of angry flying things comes at us, but after looking at the map for points of interest I’m in search of Glyve, the face in stone, and I’m able to get into a conversation with him before the combat starts. Glyve seems to know something about TNO, and wants to warn him the Catacombs hold a lot of danger for him (as if it wasn’t obvious). Glyve then shares with me his curse, which is to remain on the wall until water from a magical flask passes his lips. Apparently, it’s somewhere in the Drowned Nations, which I can get to through the Dead Nations or the Warrens of Thought. 

Immediately after this conversation, my group quickly runs away from the flying demons, and then winds up in the Mosaic Crypt, where nothing seems to happen aside from getting hurt when standing in a specific location. Dak’kon takes most of the damage and is almost dead when I give up and leave the room with nothing accomplished. Back outside, the Vargouilles are waiting for us again, and I’m so tired of them I decide to take them on. I die very quickly and end up at the beginning of Weeping Stone once again, chasing a solitary cranium rat until we catch it and kill it. Then I figure it’s probably best to just head back to the Dead Nations, since there appears to be nothing in Weeping Stone aside from a few small crypts.

These are the Lesser Vargouilles? I'd hate to see the Greater ones, then.

After more wandering then I care to admit, I finally come across the entrance to the Drowned Nations, where I found myself thoroughly overwhelmed by the opponents present there and gave up on getting through the Catacombs for the previous blog entry. In good news, at least I was able to learn how to talk to the zombies after a failed conversation with Stale Mary opened up a new dialogue option with Hargrimm. I also got some points for helping a zombie come up with a new name, and traded a ghoul a bunch of rat tails for Uhir’s knife. 

Although I played much of the Drowned Nations on Level 1, I was able to frantically run away from enemies in a successful enough manner to find the items I was in search of, namely the magic water flask and Pharod’s golden spear (that was on purpose this time). I’m happy to report that after leaving the area in fear and wandering around some more, I discovered the art of leveling up and then returned triumphantly, wiping out much of the area even though I’d already found what needed to be found. 

It’s also worth noting TNO stumbled across a very interesting area at the end of the Drowned Nations that he had to go inside alone. This area proved to be a portal maze of sorts, and after many intentional deaths, I was able to obtain all the keys as well as appear in the middle room with the walls that were full of what looked like old TNO journal entries. I read them all carefully, but ultimately it didn’t seem like quite the breakthrough I hoped, and even after the sarcophagus I had to push all the panels to open only held another portal key, which took me back out to my companions. I’m not sure if I’m missing some key themes here or not, but I’m still very confused as to what’s going on with TNO.

"Don't let it end like this."

Afterwards I returned to the Dead Nations, and no matter what I tried with Hargrimm, I couldn’t get him to get me an audience with the Silent King (I still think it’s a bug), so I just decided to leave. I did pay a visit to the crypts in the Weeping Stone area, and was again able to make some tough kills I couldn’t earlier, although it didn’t give me much aside from some good loot. 

Since I was able to make it back to the Buried Village unharmed, I assume that the game did not punish me for leaving without getting consent from the Silent King. I quickly make a stop at Uhir to return the knife and claim the experience points, and then it’s time to visit Pharod and seek out some answers! 

Unfortunately, Pharod is still cryptic, even with his damned golden spear in hand. I do learn, however, that it was his “daughter” Annah who found TNO’s dead body in the first place and turned him in, where he would of course go on to wake up in The Mortuary and enter my life as it were. Pharod instructs Annah to bring me back to the place she found me, but as I’ve been so concerned with Pharod during this trip the Buried Village, I haven’t really gotten the chance to fully explore, and I tell him to hold on first. Annah agrees to join my party while I finish searching through the village. 

And that’s where my progress is as we speak, readers (what’s left of you, that is). I intend to see what other items of importance await me in the Buried Village, and then I shall follow Annah to this mysterious place she found me. More answers to TNO’s dark past appear to be coming, although not by any means at a fast pace. 

As for me, well, it’s obvious I haven’t taken well to this game. I’ve made some pretty critical mistakes, overlooked some obvious points, and continue to play the game the wrong way, especially in regard to combat tactics. This mage thing is new to me, and in my defense it’s tempting to just say fuck it and attack when you can only cast two worthless spells. Since I finally figured out it was my own fault I wasn’t more powerful yet, the spells have been more effective, and perhaps I’ll be able to handle myself better from this point on. I will be going through the remainder of the game as efficiently as possible, as this one just hasn’t been my preferred style. I look to have this game beaten by the end of the month; if not, then I will have to surrender and call myself not worthy, moving on to the next game in the process (no spoilers will be given here). But I think you should know that I don’t have any intention of allowing the latter to happen.