Session 11

So, time to just clean up the loose ends in this dungeon. First I carry on into the antechamber behind Agrim's brain.

There's a couple more mouths in the floor and a couple of monsters - but basically it's loot central! I find a new axe for Tom (is it safe to give an axe to an intoxicated pilot?) Plenty of human armour and something called a "Red Sword". It looks to be pretty rubbish, but it has some kind of enchantment - I just can't tell what it is... I didn't realise there were going to be magical items!

A quick check of everything else I'm carrying reveals that the antique dagger the assassin had is somehow magical too... The only way to see what the magic does appears to be using it - and I'm not sure I want to just start doing that. What if it's single use? What if it's some kind of booby-trap? When I get a chance I'll take them back to the magicians in town and see what they can tell me.

Back to the matter at hand - I've finally reached the farthest depth of this dungeon. The treasure chest with the sword in marks as far as it's possible to go in the Former's guild. Looks like it's time to turn round and head out.

The place is spookily quiet on the way back. Looks like I'd actually killed everyone in here after all - there's not one monster to deal with (although there's loads of those walking drip-catcher plants shuffling around - and the occasional glowing bug).

Heading back through the light-up-floor room it becomes obviously clear what Agrim's mysterious words about connecting points of light meant - there's two rainbow plants in there and sure enough, once I walk between the two and leave a trail of glowing footprints connecting them a door opens up in the wall.

It's a narrow passage and the team has to squeeze in between more roaming plants and tightly packed mossy columns. The winding corrirdor finally leads us into a room brilliantly lit by more columns of lasers - but this time they're yellow and stuck in position.

"Lights of the goddess!" says Dirr "These are magical phenomena that only appear in places most blessed by the goddess!"

"wow... so, on your planet, secret cupboards are the most sacred places?" says Tom

"Well... no... not really..."

"Oh... So it's more to do with Agrim the abomination who famously threw a massive hissy fit when he wasn't allowed to be immortal then cataclysmed the Dji-Fadh's club house turning it into a deady psychadelic haunted cavern?"

"That doesn't sound like it can be right either... Listen, never mind."

I don't mind, because hard though it is to understand the goddesses reasoning the blessings are actually pretty damned sweet! Stepping into the first one grants everyone in the party the gift of increased endurance! Stepping into the other gives everyone improved speed!

This kind of direct tinkering with players stats is an ace reward for an RPG - and not one that you see very often. Most RPG's - that stem from the D&D traditions at least - are pretty coy about going directly into your stat screen and saying "have some more of THAT". And you can see why - it sort of damages your suspended disbelief. You do sometimes see games giving you special tomes you can pick up that'll boost the reader in a particular area - but it's pretty rare.

I love it though. I think it's a really neat idea! To my mind it provides another set of collectables (along side collectables-for-money and collectables-for-fighting) AND serves as a parallel avenue of character developing (you don't just get better by levelling up, you can hunt down these sweet short cuts too!)

And I think it has a sort of satisfying fusing effect on the games mechanics. This is something that's hard to measure, but I think that game systems feel more satisfying the more interconnected they are.

If you imagine all the elements of a game laid out on a table with sherbet bootlaces linking them together where they connect you'd usually find that they form sets of clusters. The mechanics fall into separate sets, and the sets are only linked to each other at one or two points.

So for example, the stats, XP and combat are all closely interlinked - they are all closely related and affect each other in a variety of ways. They form a little cluster.

Elsewhere on the table you've got the exploration mechanics and environment interactions. These are a totally separate part of the game that form another little cluster.

My theory is that the more you can mesh these separate clusters together, the more satisfying and coherent your game will feel. That's how I explain WHY it's cool to have things like these "Lights of the goddess" that you find and activate to directly influence your stats. It strings a bootlace between the environment cluster and the abstract numbers cluster -making them feel more connected.

It's the same as having a story that genuinely connects to something practical in a game. So, for example, if you were playing an RPG and your lead warrior had his arm broken in a cut-scene - then in game his move set had changed to reflect it, that would be awesome! That would be a bootlace directly connecting the story layer and the combat-mechanics, making the game feel more satisfying...

AAAAAAANYWAY : Sorry about that. I got WAY more side-tracked into talking about design than I meant to.

Back to the game:

I snagged my two Lights of the Goddess and was just sauntering back out of the secret passage when I noticed a funny looking texture on the wall... Looks like the loose caved-in moss I saw in the basement back in town...

Clicking on it I find I can use an item on it - and just as I suspected the pickaxe does the job! I smash my way through into a sub-chamber! Nested secrets!!! I love nested secrets! (although I'm not going to go on about them right now as I've only just finished one design rant!)

Tucked away behind this secret wall is a third light... And this time it gives everyone improved strength! Awesome!

Now it's time to get out of this horrible dungeon. It's dark and there's nothing else for me in here. Time to step back into the light of the outside world!

It's around 4 or 5 AM when I stagger out. I feel like a bunch of revellers on the morning after the Glastonbury festival. Everything's over, it's cold and we're wandering around trying to find a burger van that's not packed up and left yet so we can line our stomachs.

Tom and Hofstedt are still intoxicated - so I decide to get some fresh air before going home. I've not properly explored the wider world yet and don't even know how big this country is - whether it's totally surrounded by sea or if there's land borders between this and the next areas...

I figure that taking time to have a proper explore will give the laser-drunkenness that's afflicting the boys a chance worn off. Plus the teams starting to become quite un-even in the XP department.

Since Dirr has been the one to consistently survive fights, she's been getting much more XP than the humans on the team - as far as I can tell, if you're unconscious when the battle finishes, you get nothing. She's level 9 where as Tom's still only 7 and Hofstedt's a pretty measly 6.

I figure that maybe a little good old-fashioned "grinding" is in order. And if I can double up the time as useful exploration that's even better!

We decide to head to the beach, then stroll south - following the coast around as far as it'll take up.

"Hey guys! Look at this" - we've found some Triifali bushes! These are the plants where the magical seeds grow that the Dji-Kas use to cast spells. That's a nice start to our exploring! As the sun comes up we clean out the two bushes we've stumbled across - doubling our supply of the seeds. We've not found a use for them yet, but since mages need them and I'm hoping we'll get a mage on the team some time it seems like a good idea to stockpile! Certainly they don't weigh much so there's not much harm in taking them along.

It's starting to get to a reasonable time of day now. The beach carries on southwards, curving eastwards.

There's an abundance of wildlife in the woods of Albion. Most of it seems to be benign I think - there's little froggy things and birds flying around. There's also flocks of butterflies - most of which I'm pretty sure are safe to touch. However the pink ones defiantly bite - one set took 11 hit points off Dirr as she was admiring a glowing mushroom.

We're actually pretty lucky in terms of aggressive monsters though. We take down the occasional rat but it isn't until we get to the southern tip of the island that we meet something new : Warniaks!

These are horrible flapping scorpion bird creatures! They have MASSIVE stingers and racks of eyes! I was pretty alarmed when they first attacked since I had no idea how tough the fight was going to be!

Turns out it was dead easy though! Even Hofstedt managed to take one down with his crummy sword! And I'd forgotten - but these are the creatures from which you can harvest Mineral Orbs.

It's getting towards afternoon now so I cut northwards towards where I expect the city is. On my way I have to cross a weird grid of roots... No one in the party will examine or comment on it, but I'm sure this will turn out to be an important location later. There's a tree stood in the middle and a huge lattice work of evenly gridded roots spreading out for quite a sizeable distance around it.

Further along we come to the crash site!

That's pretty cool - there's nothing much to see except for the scorched ground where the ship landed. It's already starting to be over-grown again now - and all the metal has been gathered up by the Iskai.

"Weird - this must be the crash site" says Tom

"Yeah - but there nothing much left to show for it..." mumbles Hofstedt...

"Come on you two, you're getting maudlin - I can't believe you're STILL laser-drunk! I'm taking you back to town where we can get you dried out and carry on with our important mission. I think you're forgetting that we have to solve this murder mystery so that we can leave the island so that we can find the Toronto so we can let them know not to mine for minerals because of the horrible things that happen to miners..." interrupts Dirr.