As I said, my new mission took me to Khemeria, which is a Farland nation, not part of the Pact. Suffice to say, I was not well received. The surprising thing is, it wasn’t hostility that I encountered, but fear. It seems the Pact isn’t as nice as I’d like to think. I explored Dhorl Stead, which is a settlement built near the portal, and tried gathering some information, but no one would talk to me, saying to go and see their leader. The problem is, when I got to the keep of Oghrym’Tor, where the leader resides, I was not allowed entry.
Spiderweb games usually have rich writing. The game over screen shows Avadon is no exception.
His wizard, whose name escapes me right now (as usual), but starts with M said that he was in charge of talking to me and that the leader couldn’t leave the keep due to some disease epidemic. Of course, this was all very suspicious, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so I went back to town. Luckily, I finally got some good info from a clanless runner that lives on the edge of the village. He told me the beast most often roams around Dorla Woods, so that was where I went next.
I met a shaman in the woods who left the city due to a disagreement with the wizard. She seemed to have shared my mistrust towards him. On a side note, her back room was trapped, so being the explorer that I am, I tried to trigger the trap to see what happens and saw my first game over screen. Other than the trap, the room also contains an Incubus (male version of the Succubus) and a bed, so I’m thinking the shaman has some dirty secrets.
I went deeper into the woods and finally found a ruined village. Everyone other than a single villager fled this village, chased away by the beast. The one remaining person told me there was another settlement over the river, which had it even worse. This led me to believe that the beast’s lair might be near that other settlement. On my way there, I encountered and fought the beast several times, but it would always run away once any real damage was dealt to it. I also encountered a woman called Liese, living in a lone hut. She claims to have trained a lot of soldiers, so I asked her to train me, but she said I have to prove myself somehow first.
I finally reached the other village and found the beast’s lair underneath. After a long battle, I finally defeated it,but then it started acting strangely, like it was trying to talk to me. I only understood a few words – “no hurt”, so I decided to spare it and take it to Avadon for examination. Since the lair was an old wizards laboratory, I had good reasons to believe the beast was artificially made. Before I could do this, though, the wizard from Oghrym’Tor arrived and finished it. He gave me some half-assed explanation as to why he did it and left. In any case, my mission was over and I returned to Avadon.
I reported my success to the Heart and also mentioned all the suspicious behavior I experienced. She said she would look into it and assigned me to my next mission. The dragon in Kva has issues again, this time with ogres, who are also attacking the village. This is where I will be going next.
