Session 13

I'm not sure how I feel about grinding. In an RPG where the combat is amazing, grinding's a pleasure! It's an excuse to do the fun bit of the game over and over again (see "Baten Kaitos" or "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door" on the Game Cube).

In other games it's a crushing chore (see "Mazes of Fate" on the GBA-SP).

The best ones are games where side-quests keep you interested, but lead you around the place into the path of monsters. That way it doesn't feel like grinding at all, it feels like side-questing. You get all the levelling up, but don't feel like you had to go out and farm XP off of endless tigers, rats, goblins and spiders.

Albion doesn't seem (so far) to have any side quests. After last time I decided to stock up on food then go out and look for people saying things like "There's a girl I really like. She only likes apples, but I'm too cowardly to get them since they only grow in monster grove. I'd certainly give my magic armour to anyone who could get me one!".

Weirdly there is literally no-one doing this! Despite there being lots of clearly significant places and things dotted about the place (I found a locked door in a basement, a secret passage in a kitchen and a spooky eye on the side of a cliff just for starts) there's no clues or leads to start an investigation of them!

Still, I had a very nice time wandering around looking for secrets. The island is covered in dense jungle and I discovered that you can swan around in amongst it - the paths around the tree-trunks forming a sort of maze you have to navigate blindly. The screen becomes completely filled with the tops of trees as you charge through the heart of the woods which is quite dramatic I thought.

PLUS there's secret groves! openings in the trees that you can't see from the main clear areas you might be expected to stick to. You have to explore the jungles to stumble on them and they're all thick with Triifali bushes.

Now that I have Sira with me I have a better idea of what the seeds of this bush do. She is a level 4 mage when you get her (only 12 years old... Mind you, Dirr's only 16) and so I finally have a magic user on the team.

When she casts a spell she chucks one of the seeds at an enemy. When it gets to them it sets of a dramatic magical effect. So far I've only really used sleep spores and blinding spark - but they're actually quite impressive compared to what I was expecting.

So it turns out the magic system has two ammo sets - mana points (which are a regenerating blue bar under her health bar) and these seeds. Since she uses a seed for every spell cast, I feel I need to stock up on them, so I trawl every inch of the island to find as many as I can - taking in a tour of several hidden groves and a swamp-bridge to a smaller island in the process.

Naturally enough, this quest for seed treasure brings me into a bunch of fights with angry monsters and so ends up functioning as a bit of a grind after all. Not a boring slog of a grind as these things can become, but I wonder if maybe later in the game (when I have enough cash to buy as many seeds as I like) there'll be no need to hunt for bushes and THEN what will make the grinding more interesting?

That's an issue for another time. For now I head back into town, visit the inn one last time (and notice that it only charges rooms on a per concious person basis - so even though unconscious people clearly get a proper rest too, only the ones who've not been nobbled by warniaks have to cough up) and returned to the sebinah.

A heart-warming conversation ensues where the leader of the town who seems to sort of passive-aggressively fish for compliments.

"I'm sad you hate this place so much that you have to leave... I know you'll have a nicer time in other towns on the planet"

"no no, we don't hate it here - we just have to go find our friends who are either destroying your planet or being killed by divine apparitions"

"And you liked the toilet factory? And the haunted house? You didn't have a horrible time?"

"Well to be honest, we were killed quite a few times by nightmarish underground..."

"I knew it! You HATE our island don't you! You've always hated the island! This is because I have fat legs isn't it!"

etc etc etc. Eventually we manage to convince her that we don't hate her, but that we're leaving anyway and it's us not her and there was nothing she could've done better we're just bastards and she's nothing to feel bad about (despite the fact that her hearing this is not going to do her any good in the long run, it'll just give her and excuse not to examine why everyone hates her so much and carry on being a needy manipulative shrew).

Anyway - she gets a boat to come along and as the gang set sail Tom turns to them and gives a motivational speech.

"You know guys, I'm pleased with how well our first ever murder investigation went. But I think it held us up quite a lot. How about from here on out we decide to skip the formalities?"

Skip the formalities? So solving a crime is just a formality for this guy?

It seems to work though - as soon as he says this a text box pops up to tell me

"The rest of the team all agree to skip the formalities".

Well at least this means I can look forward to getting on with the juicy main plot without having to do piddly fetch-and-solve quests for miserable progress-withholding officials any more!

The boat ride lasts a couple of days, during which time Dirr teaches us all to speak the native tongue of the next place perfectly. To the point where it will seem like they're all speaking English too!

I'm looking forward to the next island - I honestly haven't the first idea what to expect since I've never seen screen shots of the game past the opening sections! Will it be more of the same, or some totally new style of landscape?

It doesn't take long for my questions to be answered. As land comes into sight I'm treated to another full-screen image (like when Mandy Bapsout woke me up back after the crash). This time it's of the shore-line of the next island which is dotted (as Hofstedt points out) with celtic round houses!

Large circular straw huts make up a settlement on the shore! I certainly didn't see THAT coming... And neither did Hofstedt it seems:

"Celtic round houses!!! But this can't be! It doesn't make sense! It suggests that these people came from earth!!!"

Tom, however, doesn't seem bothered. "I'm not surprised by this sort of thing any more Hofstedt. This planet is clearly mental. My mum could turn up and say she's been the god-queen of this world for the last two thousand years and I'd probably not bat an eye-lid. I wonder if I died in the crash - or am in some kind of coma. This might be a fantasy world I'm dreaming..."

"Hmm, you're right. Maybe, as a natural scientist, I need to expand my horizons a bit. I mean, we have cat people with us who can do magic... there's clearly SOMETHING fishy going on..."

"Let's just go find the king, or whatever, and see if the Toronto's been seen anywhere round here. If not, we'll move on to the next island..."

Wishful thinking Tom. I mean, has there ever been an RPG where your time on an island is as simple as asking if your goal is here and moving on? Doubtless the prince won't tell you about the Toronto until you've fetched him a lemon from the tree at the bottom of demon gorge so he can woo the ambassador's daughter.

Anyway - I explore the town looking for the king.

Interestingly the Celtic village isn't a 3D first person section. The game stays in the zoomed out map-view that was used for outside the city on the first island. I guess this is because it's only a few little houses and not a particularly dramatic location. But it's a funny sort of inconsistency in the game...

I to imagine how the people who made this game must've thought up the setting. "We sort of want to make a space-based RPG... we like Sci Fi a lot. HOWEVER - we also love straight-up standard RPG fantasy settings. We need to come up with a way to get both at once..."

The result is that when you end up coming to the celtic town it feels a little like Lost on TV when they find the pirate ship. This very familiar environment is just dropped into the middle of the mad other-world you've been exploring for the last few hours.

I wander around talking to the occasional random person (none of them have much to say for themselves apart from "King Tharnos is sad" - which doesn't bode well). The insides of the huts are beautfilly rendered though. Honestly, you wouldn't know this game was futuristic with space ships and guns and aliens from the way it looks now. It could easily be some kind of Elder Scrolls precursor!

I find the king and his wife milling about in their hut. There are guards but they don't seem bothered to talk to me - let alone try and stop me. Clearly intimidated by the fact that Hofstedt is naked (this isn't reflected in his character sprite mercifully! However, since his armour got damaged a while back and I've not got round to replacing it, his inventory lists him as nude).

It's funny that the game doesn't update characters' sprites when you change their equipment. Ultima 7 managed it two or three years earlier. I guess it will have been a development budget thing. It's easy to forget that although all these old games seem to be at an equal disadvantage now that so much time has passed - Ultima 7 was a triple-A title of the time where as Albion, alas, was not. It's nice to feel, however, that coming back to these games when they're both considered "retro" means you can view them as basically equals. Back in 1995 you might've said "Albion's engine is lame compared to Ultima 7's and that was TWO YEARS AGO! No way am I playing it" but now that small difference in technology isn't enough to poison you against the inferior title.

"Ah, king Tharnos, have you noticed a giant metal ship descend from heaven and transform into an indestructible world-eating organism lately? It's just that I left all my stuff on board when I left, and I was half-way through the latest Terry Pratchett"

"HA HA HA HA HA - such stories! I've never heard the like! You crazy guys and your jokes and naked old man!"

At which point Tom replies (rather sarcastically I thought) "In that case we shall leave and head straight for Maini, Oh Tharnos"

Clearly I'm not the only one who thought our hero was pushing his luck getting satirical - "Oh no you don't! No one may leave this island without MY say so."

"Oh balls."

"Now while you're waiting for me to give you my permission, there's a multi-part quest I want you to go on for me."

"oh" (pipes up Sira the probably-a-murderess who I'm pretty sure killed her own dad) "But Tom - didn't we say we were going to forget the formalities? You remember? You said we were going to forget them? The formalities?" (looks like sarcasm's catching)

"Basically" (continues Tharnos) "my wife and I's... Intimate relationships aren't everything they used to be. After all, I'm not getting any younger. Since you're not from round here it won't compromise me for you to know this. Anyway, because of this I need you to nip over to Bero the chemist and fetch some viagra"

(ok - so actually instead of "Bero the chemist" he says "Brother Bero the druid". And instead of "some viagra" it's "A virility amulet". But I wanted to highlight the menial nature of this quest. He may as well be sending us Superdrug to pick him up some condoms because he's too anxious that the bar-code won't scan and the girl on the till will have to shout to her supervisor "How much for a 10 pack of fruit flavoured?")

"So go to the chemist for viagra... That doesn't sound very multi-stage to me..?"

"Mwo ha ha ha ha! You just wait! Now off you go! You'll find the chemists' HQ easily enough - just follow the river north from here! Toodle-oo!"

On my way out of the hut I bump into the king's wife, Firina. She's not got time to talk at length because she's "Off to make an offer to the gods on a... personal matter".

Yeah yeah, we know what THAT is.

"Still, while you're here. Why not tell us about these gods?"

"Oh... ok. I guess I'm in no rush. There's two main gods. Lugh is the god of business. Then there's Danu who is the she-planet we live on. There's a load of other little ones too, but they're only really worshipped by people on a local level."

I love this - Business and THE WHOLE WORLD are placed at an equal level of importance by these people! It's like modern capitalism but a bit more explicit.

I ask a few more questions and learn that I'm on the island of gratogel. The druids live at a place called Arjano and in local news there's Umajo folk about.

These are the people who can mine without being badded up by the goddess. I assume they're going to be important because Firina goes into quite some depth about their current doings.

Aparently it is only possible to learn how to do weapon smithing from a member of the Umajo guild. When you've learned, you become a member of the guild too.

Recently there was a war with the Umajo, but since then they've dropped their prices a load. Although they still persecute non-guild weapon smiths.

This is a strange collection of facts. A war is mentioned, but it's not explained who won (if anyone). Certainly it seems as though the Umajo must've been beaten since they've been driven to lower their prices. But on the other hand, how could the guild that makes all the metal weapons in the world be beaten? Why would they not just refuse to sell anyone any weapons then use their own weapons to kill everyone with? Also, how can they persecute non-guild weapon smiths when all weapon smiths become part of the guild?

Anyway - I'll have to remember this stuff as it's BOUND to come in handy later.

I leave Firina to go make her offerings (although to be honest, she needn't bother since I'm off to get a wang-amulet which will do the trick for her husband anyway). On the way out I notice that the dining table is strewn with a LOT of empty tankards and wonder if perhaps the personal issue is the result of over-indulging... But you can't really say that to the king of a magical celtic space colony.

Oh yeah - didn't I mention? Space druids can do magic aparently! No-one's explained how yet though. They don't have Triis (the "magic organ" that the Iskai have) so there must be some other way they channel it... I'll be interested to find out what it is! I wonder if maybe naked Hofstedt could learn it. It'd give him something to do other than flee at least...

Additionally, someone along the line (I didn't note down who) told me that it is the space druid/chemists who can read and write. The suggestion is that no-one else does. HOWEVER - there's pleanty of sign posts about the place. PLUS, apparently these people revere poets as highly as warriors. So presumably the druids come round and put the signs up for their own benefit only and poets just remember their poems and say them to people instead of producing anthologies?

Anyway, off I go, wandering up the river. I wonder how these humans got to this planet! It's odd how Tom and co don't see fit to ask anyone yet... I suppose they don't expect anyone to be able to answer. Clearly these people've been on this planet for longer than this generation would be able to remember - so I guess I'll have to hunt out some historians to work it out... Even then, it's probably going to be a crazy creation myth... I'm GENUINELY intrigued by this!

As I walk up-stream I get into a couple of fights. The monsters are so far the same as the ones on the last island, except that the Warniaks hunt in much bigger groups now!

The trees are much less dense here than in the jungles earlier. And the trees seem less exotic. I think this island is quite a bit bigger too. One of the people I was talking to in the town was boasting about how her food supplies came from various places all round the place: Fruit from Aballon (just south of the great mountain) and bread from Vanello (near to Arjano).

I walk past a bridge. The river carries on and I decide that I should keep on along it rather than cross over.

However this quickly turns out to have been the wrong thing to do. The river goes up a water-fall a little further along - up onto a raised plateaux that I can't access. I'm not concerned initially and I follow the cliffs around, curving off to the east.

I follow the line of the cliff for a while thinking all the time "I should turn back and find that bridge again". Only then disaster strikes! Krondirs and some Warniaks attack together!

Krondirs are the big bear like beasties that I first met in the old Former's guild hall. They're tough, but I'm usually ok to take down a couple without sustaining too much damage. This time round there's two at once and I get through with only Dirr taking much of a beating.

Only problem is, there's LOADS of Warniaks. Something like 4 regular ones, but more importantly there's 2 level 2s and a level 3! This is going to get tough!

The level 1 Warniaks go down pretty swiftly and Sira starts putting the others to sleep.

Sira's magic is not 100% reliable, if you tell her to target a creature that moves before she gets the chance to do her spell she'll miss. As such, you usually have to wait for the monster to get right up close enough before it's worth trying to lob a mystical seed at it! That means that if two horrible monsters get to you at the same time, you can put one to sleep straight away, but the other will have a whole turn to stab you up before you can get round to knocking it out too.

Since there's three horrible monsters at once this time round things go pretty baddly. We kill the level 1 Warniaks, and one of the two level 2 ones. But then Dirr and Tom are struck down. The level 3 Warniak is able to strike 3 or 4 times in one turn - so it makes short work of my top fighters!

The situation looks bad - only Sira the untrustworthy and Hofstedt the naked left! Neither are going to be able to do much physical damage - certainly not enough to kill one of the remaining enemies before it kills them.

Thankfully both the remaining Warniaks are asleep. It's a tricky predicament. If I flee, the monsters will just attack me again and I won't be able to rest because they'll be right next to me!

I'm safe for now, but if I attack the monsters it'll wake them up and they'll kill me before I even make a dent in them.

My two weediest characters assess their options. None of my spells seem likely to be useful. I certainly can't just run up and slap them. But wait! What's this?

Desperately looking for options I click on "use magical item" and it brings up a list of everything my character is carrying. Since this is Sira I've selected one of the items is the stiletto I gave her (which I stole from the I-thought-at-the-time cold dead hands of her probable accomplice in her father's murder).

It turns out that the stiletto has an awesome ice power! I select the row of the tactical grid that the two Warniaks are sat on and set it off! They both take massive ice damage killing the level 2 monster outright!

Even better - the level 3 beastie doesn't seem to wake up! Whether that's because this is a ranged magical attack, or if it's PART of the magical attack to put victims to sleep after I don't stop and consider. I just keep blatting this flapping horror with more and more bursts of frosty magic, hoping it won't run out before the beast is dead!

Thankfully, however many shots I get with the sword, it's more than the Krondir can take! Amazingly I've survived!

Naked Hofstedt turns to probably treacherous Sira over the slumped bodies of unconscious Dirr and Tom. I imagine they exchange a look of "We did it! And we've discovered and amazing secret power in that sword!"

But the victory elation will've been short lived. Soon the reality that they're in the middle of no-where, a LONG way past the last sign of habitation in a monster infested swamp will've come rushing back to them. They only survival aid is a magical sword that may at any time simply stop working (I don't know if they'd be thinking that, but I'M certainly thinking it - it's pretty rare you get infinite ammo of such badass weapons in this sort of game) and it's getting dark...

They huddle up close for warmth, hoping to protect the bodies of their comrades in the mud. And as the evening choir of howling nasties echoes out from amongst the near by trees they tried to get some sleep... Only to find that no-one in the team was tired... Looks like they'll have to stay up all night out here!