Session 6

As soon as we've finished talking to Frill, a guard runs up and tells us the killer was spotted going into the Dji-Kas building. Those were the other kinds of wizards to the Dji-Fadh who do things like healing, weapons and general sciency stuff.

We're taken there immediatly.

It's interesting how open the world of this game is, but how often I've been immediately taken to places so far. The bits of story I've been doing at the moment have often had moments where a person walks up and says "The answer is over here". The screen fades down, then comes back up with me in the right place.

It's not a BAD things necessarily. But it's an interestingly different take on the process to what other RPG's with well realised worlds do. They normally want to leave you wandering around the place as much as possible so that you are forced to get an eye-full of all the awesome scenic stuff they've put in and get a feel for the geography of the world.

I guess that there were those two days I should've spent wandering around the town but accidently slept through. Maybe I'm getting an unrealistically densly rail-roaded version of the experience because of my skipping that bit.

Anyway, we're met at the Dji-Kas HQ by the daughter of the murder victim. When she's introduced it's rather pointedly mentioned that she "Defected" from the Dji-Fadh, which her dad was boss of, to the Dji-Kas. People don't dwell on this though as she's clearly upset about the murdering.

Fasiir (possibly Fajiir - I can't read my own handwriting) turns up. She's the leader of the Dji-Kas and says she'll help up find the murderer if he's still in the building.

Together we all troupe through the corridor looking for him - only for him to be convniently stood in the corridor with an Isaki!

The Isaki lobs a "glowing seed" (for which read "Flashbang") and the human scarpers. Weirdly the Isaki just stays put - but probably because everyone recognised him already anyway.

The guards grab the Isaki and go chase the murderer. Only, oh no, he's gone out the window. There's DEFINATLY no way anyone would be able to chase him.

Back the Isaki accomplice:

"I know you!" says Fasiir "You're Kriis! We kicked you out of the Dji-Kas ages ago!"

"Of course you know me Fasiir! You hired me to hire that guy to kill Akiir for you!"

"WHA??!?! I did not such thing!!!!"

"Well actually" (This is my police woman friend now) "I can easily believe that you did the murder because your sister used to go out with Akiir. And then when she got killed on a hunt that he'd insisted they go on despite the bad weather, you never forgave him. Guards! Take these two away!"

So guards drag off Fasiir and Kriis - the daughter says she's got to go have lie down after all the excitement and I'm left thinking : I don't own 7 seasons of murder she wrote on DVD so that I can be taken in by the first plausible case against someone in a murder investigation. In fact, if I've learned ANYTHING, then it's DEFINATLY never the person that all the evidence points to... Time to do some investigating!

Everyone in the Dji Kas HQ says that Fasiir would never order a hit on Akiir and I'm enclined to belive it (although I personally suspect Akiir's daughter. If this WAS murder she wrote she'd be that character who's in it for 5 seconds at the start, but who then turned out to be the killer all along).

Other interesting facts - Kas magic requires magic seeds. Everyone's very keen to let me know it's not the seeds that do the magic for them - they're DEFINATLY doing the magic. It's just that they need to have the seeds for it to work. The seeds definatly aren't the things that actually do all the magic for them. Also - the Kas and Fadh guilds don't get on since the people in the Kas guild are pretty snooty about the value of building houses. Aparently it's much more useful to research weapons than to build places to live. Also - just to show the Fadh who's the best, the Kas built their own club-house without fadh help... Maybe the Fadh ARE a little rubbish... In which case, it's unlikely to be professional jealousy from Kas mages that prompted the killing...

Looking around Kas HQ a little more I find a weird black passage to the north of the kitchen. I guess it's a bug since there's nothing to do down there - but it's very like the secret passages in Ultima 7 - so maybe I should come back here later...

Also I found the communal bedroom filled with seperate cots for the young trainee wizards. I can only imagine what goes on in here in the evenings but Tom commented "Wow - the beds look super comfy! Instead of a mattress, they're made out of large coarse grains of sand" - Super Comfy? sounds improbable. And certainly Tom wasn't willing to put his body where his mouth was and take a kip in one of them...

nothing much else to do here so I leave the Dji Kas building. As son as I get into the street another Iskai cop shows up and tells me that I should go to the old Former's (Dji Fadh) guild hall in the north east.

This time I'm not whisked there through the magic of a fade down. I have to walk it. So I wander round the city to go as north east as I can and there's no Fadh guild-hall to be found. Or rather there is, but it's the new one in the north WEST. This stumped me for AGES - I was sure I was missing some alley somewhere that would lead me to the OLD fadh hall. The one that Agrim the mental turned into a crazy-palace 150 years ago (did I mention him before? Turns out he WAS relevant after all..)

Irritated, I decide to go into the new Fadh hall to see what they can tell me.

First thing that happens in the Fadh guild-hall is Aliis the tour guide. Very cheerfully she strolls up as soon as you come in and says "hi! Want a tour?"

"Well ok" I think - thinking that the tour might tell me about the OLD guild-hall too. Y'know, maybe the two buildings are attached and there'll be a secret passage I'll have to break into.

Saddly, Aliice is the single most rubbish tour guide EVER. First stop on the tour are the giant bean bags. These are in the waiting-to-go-on-a-tour area just inside the front door - so far we haven't gone anywhere (although the game did a fade-down to get us here).

"These plants are giant rubber bean-bag style furnature. People love to sit on them"

seriously, these things would be like having a bouncy castle in your living room instead of a sofa. Except they're massive, brown lumpy things with little green ulcers all over them.

"Next we have a cess pool"

This is also just inside the doorway. The game screen doesn't even have to scroll to move on to it. It's just there.

"The poo all goes in here, and then gets purified by the scummy plants"

Awesome eh? Odd that the Dji Fadh would have their cess pool by the front door. All the other places they've built have had their cess pools downstairs where people don't have to look at them all the time. Ironic that the architects' guild would be the one place with the inconcievably baddly placed cess pool.

"And finally..." (Short tour! Only three things to see - and one of them is a pond full of poo. Never mind, this last bit's GOT to be something cool) "...These are the toilets."

What? The toilets are on the tour? And guess what - they too are just by the front door. The characters walk just a little to the left of the cess pool and there they are - clearly visible from the bean-bag waiting area.

This whole first room is just a wide open space with the bogs and sewage in it. These people must HATE tourists. You can imagine the meeting "How can we put people off visiting?" - "Well how about we make it so that when they walk into the building they are just confronted with a cesspit?" - "Awesome, love it, make it so!"

ALSO - Can you imagine coming to visit, sitting down in the waiting area and being able to watch Aliice the rubbish tour-guide come over and give her "tour" to the next group of people. Basically you'd be watching her walk them to the other side of the room pointing at sewage, then at the embarrassed people who're having to poo in plain view of EVERYONE.

And on top of this, toilets on this planet sound terrible! Aparently, because everything is made out of plants, if you use your toilet to much it will grow un-controllably! Can you imagine? If you had people over for a party - the next day your lav will have spread into the hall way and you'll be having to prune it back...

Anyway. After the tour I asked someone ELSE about the OLD guild hall and they explained that it was outside the city.

To get there I have to head out into the wilds. Past the horrible monsters. Into the jungle. Oh, and did we mention? Mad Agrim, because he was so cross about not being allowed to snatch a child's body to live longer, declared that he would achieve immortality in his own way... So this abandoned guild-hall I'm heading to next - in the middle of monster infested jungles - is enfused with Crazy Agrim's conciousness! Basically - I'm off to the haunted pallace of a long dead ghost wizard to catch a murderer!

*gulp!*