Session 23

We need to talk about Hofstedt.

At 45, this unassuming official for a crumbling and ineffectual government was sent on a space ship destined to spend years on a desert planet firing capsules of minerals back to the poor old planet earth which - despite being a wreck and no-longer the only option - is still the home of the human race (or so we thought!)

As a man in his middle years, the prospect of dedicating 3 or 4 more of them to sitting in an (admittedly impressive) automatic planet eating transformer with nothing much to do except read books and go slowly insane must've been pretty crummy. Still, at least he had his chum Snoopy Beagle to keep him company.

At least he did until Snoopy made the foolish error of using the space-phone while they were in space-faster-than-light mode! This was a mistake that cost his buddy his life (or at least, that's what Hofstedt still believes - we know he was probably assassinated instead, but that plot thread hasn't come back round again yet).

Still - Hoff kept a brave face on it and was even quite excited to take the space podule down to the new planet as part of a forward scouting team!

ALAS! On the way down to the planet, the controls go mental (sabotage? No-one's suggested that yet...) and Hoff and the pilot (Tom) crash.

Hoff was probably convinced he was going to die as the shuttle zipped merrily out of the sky and towards the ground miles below. And quite how he survived is anyone's guess. But there he was - given an amazing second chance at life! And this time it was to be an INTERESTING life! No more shuffling around mega-cities on the choking earth for him - he found himself living it up with naked cat people on a beautiful lush jungle planet!

In a slightly manic rush of elation - Hoff abandoned his clothes and since then has been getting used to a weird cycle of wandering into alien towns, swanning about chatting to everyone in sight, performing tasks for dignitaries and moving on. Always with this thought in the back of his head of finding his way back to the Toronto (the space mining vessel he set out on board - already over a year ago).

But to be honest - this long term goal of finding his way back has sort of faded out of focus in his mind. He's become some kind of action explorer - using this long-term-goal as a motivation to adventure across an un-known world! Being the first earthling to meet the strange and magical people of this planet (with the exception of the druids who seem to have got here a couple of thousand years ago). He's gone from a pencil pushing civil servant to a naked Gulliver! Solver of foreign problems - noble passer-through of amazing cities with no time to stop - amazing slayer of fantastical beasts!

Although actually this last part's not as true as he'd like. After his last scrape in a demon filled cavern he came to understand that being a naked scientist (even a level 11 naked scientist) is no use to a band of monster slayers.

Hoff started to question exactly how much more useful he was now than when he was a puppet for impotent governing body. Previously he was paid to tell people off while they had all the fun. Now he just got in the way while his team-mates carved names for themselves in the face of history with the stanley-knives of decisive action.

Finally - here in the city of Belovino - Hoff resolves to buck his ideas up. The first step was to get dressed and now the time has come for the second.

The team are floundering a little directionlessly - they've arrived at a new city, spoken to the Council of the Just and are now not sure what to do next. Do they ditch this town already to follow up the hint of a quest somewhere at a shrine in the mountains, or do they look around and find something to do here first?

Straightening his cap, Hoff coughs

"AHEM"

to get everyone's attention. Then asserts himself.

"RIGHT! I shall take the lead now" he announces.

Everyone looks at him somewhat surprised.

"I won't take no for an answer. We're going to systematically scientifify this whole city before we ditch it just to chase after a possible encounter at a shrine we may never be able to find. It's about time I let you folks have the advantage of my SCIENTIFIC TRAINING!"

Further stunned silence except for the squeaking of Mell's pencil on his pad.

"We're going to start at the north-west corner of the town you see, and move eastward - looking in each building in turn, to assess what's there..."

Mell passes his note to Sira. She glances at it and reads "Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Has he been with us all along?"

As she looks back up she sees that Hoff has marched immediatly out of the building with Tom and Dirr following him - shrugging to each other.

"This is going great!" Hoff's thinking. "This was a brilliant idea!"

He glances at the map and heads to the most north western building.

"Right! You lot note down my findings - I'll dicate the important features. You see, with my trained scientific eye, I'll probably see things the average observer would miss!"

Without waiting for a reply he steps into the first house.

"15:23. Entered first building. Nice wooden floors. Regular human furnature. Ah, hello little girl..."

"Please sir - I haven't any money! I'm not supposed to talk to anyone! Please..."

"Relativly healthy looking human female child (are you getting this all down) looks a little pale - perhaps doesn't get out of the house often..."

"...You've got to leave now! Quick... He's coming..."

"...Nonsense. I'm a scientist. Right - onto the décor. Walls are relatively bare. Some human heads mounted as trophies. Large angry looking half-naked man. Crowds of cowering children behind him. Is that a wrack in the back room? Leave now. Time to leave. EVERYONE OUT!"

The gang run out of the dimly lit house and scurry away around a few corners before stopping to take a breather.

"Ok. Ok. So... the survey didn't get off to a great start. But keep with me gang. After all - science isn't without risks..."

Mell writes Sira another note saying "Shouldn't we go back and help those children?" But the breeze carries it out of his hands before he can pass it to her and then a sparrow swoops down and pecks him in the eye.

Meanwhile, Hoff leads the team around various streets knocking timidly on front doors and declaring "This building must be empty. Let's move on"

"But Hoff, maybe they didn't hear--"

"NO! Definitely empty. We're moving on now..."

Until eventually he bangs on a door and before he can declare there's nothing to see here it opens and a warty, crumbling face peeps round...

"Yeth? Pleath, do come in..."

"Oh... ah... um... ok..."

The stooped and drooling figure becons everyone inside

"we're doing a scientific survey you see..."

"Very good! Very good!"

"Well... so... what sort of place is this then?"

"Yes. I uthed to have it much worthe you know?"

Hoff sweeps his eyes around a the place - it's all one large room filled with beds. Some of them are occupied by withered and gnarled figures

"Sorry... Had what?"

"The cluthterth! Everyone here hath the clusterth..."

"The... clusters..?"

"Oh yeth. But I'm well on the way to recovery now! Look! Hardly any buboleth left!"

Hoff looks into the mess of weeping sores that is the crone's face.

"So... The Clusters is some kind of disease?"

"Why of coarth it ith! Why, who hathn't heard of the thcreaming oothing cluthterth?"

"And... it's the sort of disease where you have to have an entirely separate hospital specifically to deal with just that one ailment?"

"Oh thir! We could hardly have *GURGLE* other folk - ack - in with the cluthter victimth could *GURGLE RUMBLE SPOOT* we?"

"I'm beginning to... um... I see... so... er... tell me... what's through here then?"

Hoff grabs a door handle and steps through to find an even more gnarled and deformed Clusters patient at on the toilet. Rather than leave immediatly - he feels he needs to say something. To make it look like he's walked in on purpose...

"I..."

"LEAVE THITH PLATHE *GURGLE RUMBLE SPLART SPLART* THE CLUTHTERRRRRRRTH!!!!!!!!"

Back out on the street again, Hoff is crumbling inside. So far he doesn't feel like he's inspiring the team quite like he should be.

Quietly the rest of the team slink off to the pub. Everyone's getting really tired - and Hoff's marching around is just getting on their nerves now.

As they walk in the game announces that they're caught up immediately in the hustle and bustle of the bar - but in actual fact there initially only seems to be one person in there.

Walking over to talk to the lone drinker, Tom starts up:

"Hi - we're doing a sort of survey of the town... we're not from round here..."

"I was trapped in a cave once. Take torches with you. Torches and rope. The shadows! The darkness!!"

"What is with this town? Seriously - is this the city of mis-fits that We've stopped off at?"

Walking further through the huge pub I find a small crowd tucked away in one of the far corners.

The first person I speak to gives me a little background on the mountain pass. She explains that the reason its fallen into dis-repair is that none of the towns along it could decide who was responsible for maintaining it. Thus "Because we don't really need to visit them much anyway" no one bothered to keep it from crumbling and becoming over-grown.

This is a bit of a weird bit of back-story and in my opinion strongly hints at this area of the game being looked on as not all that important for the dev team. In other areas they've clearly laced the world with a relatively rich history - there's a hinted-at mythology behind the human arrival on this planet, the tale of ancient wars that left the underground druid-hive plagued by monsters. The whole imaginary culture of the Iskai people and the different factions and their relationships across the planet.

But this city doesn't seem very thought though - and the result is that it's an exceedingly weird feeling place. Apparently it's a big centre of commerce - a thriving and important port town. But at the same time it's almost completely cut off from the world with only trade ships coming in and out of port (someone earlier told me that passenger ships were INCREDIBLY rare - so it would actually be easier to leave via the dangerous and intermittently non-existent mountain pass).

At some point, someone has built a big and difficult to construct mountain pass connecting this town with the two un-friendly local religious retreat villages (and, presumably, via them the rest of the world). But whoever built this road must've been from somewhere else entirely since other-wise it would surly be them who was expected to look after the road wouldn't it? And why make the effort to build a pass in the first place if no-one wants to visit the other towns?

To be honest though - before I became a games developer I would never have started thinking about the settings like this. Previously I'd've never thought "this place is weird because the developers didn't put as much effort into it as they did the wider setting". I'd've just thought "this place is weird!"

It's sort of like a spooky isolated Silent Hill city - people go and trade there by boat, but no-one ever gets out to visit. And if you DO get out to visit, you become immediately stranded there with no way to get out except over a perilous mountain pass. Not only that, but it's peopled by mis-fits - human-head collectors, "Cluster" infected patients, husks of former explorers and the grandly titled (but difficult to find a function for) Council of the Just.

The team chat to a few more of the patrons. A child amongst them tells us about "Gato Mork" (an Albionian comic book character who I've LOVE to hear more about, but am aware I never will since it's only a throw-away reference... But how could would that be? what kind of comic would druids on another planet develop intendant of earth pop-culture) while someone else tells me I simply MUST visit "Kariah" and get her to tell me some of her wild stories. She apparently lives with a hunky rouge assassin monk called Khumag.

ALSO - we excitingly find out that maybe the Council of the Just isn't as just as it might seem! One chap tells us:

"I had a dispute with my neighbour about a patch of land. We went to the council to sort it out and they just took that land off us! That's not right is it?"

"Hmm... it doesn't sound it... tell me about this patch of land..."

"The land is immaterial!!!!!" cries the man and stomps off leaving the whiff of suggested conspiracy hanging in the air...

At this point, Hoff stomps over - riled up that his leadership's been undermined. But before he can give everyone a piece of his mind EVERYONE is suddenly overtaken by so much exhaustion that they can't even move from the spot. Suddenly the weight of all the stuff their carrying is more than any of them can manage!

I've never had the guys get this tired before! I actually can't move off the spot and have to throw away food in order to stagger to the inn for the night.

In the morning, Hoff re-asserts himself. After a brief chat with the inn proprietress about how Kariah (the crazy story lady) works there but is always causing trouble by making the guests too excited(?!?!?!) we leave (actually, we look around for exciting Kariah - but she's not about, possibly because it's 3am).

"Onwards with the survey!" declares Hoff and before anyone can complain he's swanned into stranger's a house, recruited a blond warrior called Siobhan, accepted the challenge of clearing a basement of warniaks from a child and then been promptly killed by them.

Session 22

I am so SO glad to be back on albion after having been on holiday. I've honestly missed the characters and the landscape - how crazy is that!!?? Especially having been to ACTUAL Scotland where there's ACTUAL landscape to look at!

I've been thinking about how games are more and more being crowbarred into line with movies or books or (sometimes) music. I think it's a shame that people look to compare games to other entertainments so much as they do in the magazines and on-line. I know that there's heaps you can pinch from other entertainments when you want to make a great game - I mean, I love how action movies influence FPSs. But always talking about games in terms of how they can be like other things tricks you into forgetting that some of the things you can do in games that would ruin a film are total delight on a plate.

For example - for most of this session I was just idly wandering around the next town (more of this below). An hour of wandering around a town looking at all the doors and trying to get a feel for the place would make for staggeringly dull viewing on film, staggeringly dull reading in a book and staggeringly dull looking at as an art installation. But in an RPG like this one - the exploration is delicious! I love every second of it!

Anyway - I'll pick up where I left off.

We wander casually back to the main town on the island of the Celts and hand in the amulet to the king. He's terribly grateful and issues us papers allowing us to leave the island. We set off to visit the fisherman but he's had a change of heart since last time I talked to him.

"Oh, right. You got the papers. So I guess you really DO want to leave... Well, see, the thing is - since last time you spoke to me the not-a-fish tax has gone up."

"The not-a-fish tax?"

"Yeah... Anything I take in my boat that's not a fish - I get taxed on..."

"Wow... what a strange thing to tax!"

"Yeah. Kings a bit nutty. Wotcha gonna do. 150 gold pieces please"

"(make it 200! We need a new set of tankards!)" (this from the kitchen)

"Ahem - I mean 200 gold pieces."

Alas, we don't have the gold right away so I spend a little more time ambling about selling all the junk I got from the bandits I killed coming through the pass. And it's pretty good that I did since, while I'm in the local "useful items" shop I pick up a natty "fire ring". Seriously, I made a packet on all the old bandit rubbish - the ring cost 800 gold on its own!

Actually, by "A packet" I mean pretty much exactly 1000 gold. So in a way it's a bit frivolous of me to be splurging on magical niceties. But then I did say recently that I was going to give Hoff something for him to be good at - so I reckon he can be my new magical item wielder. Pretty much useless - except for an expensive to maintain but seriously over-powered arsenal of mystical pendants.

I especially like the idea of setting him up like that 'cos it sort of makes him Gordon Freeman in space - a weakling scientists who gets seriously kitted out and kicks ass.

So with my 200 gold change, I swan back to the fisherman - wait for his boat to come in (he's out at sea most of the day - at first I thought I'd got the place where his boat lands wrong, but when dusk fell he turn up again and everything was fine) and cough up for my ride.

Off we go! Garris (the fisherman) is taking us to Beloveno - the "Great harbour city" on the island (continent) of Maini.

One thing I miss in this game from other RPGs is a world map so I could see how all these islands are positioned relative to each other. I guess it wouldn't have any use in the game and that's almost certainly why it's not there - but it would've made a great desktop backdrop!

On the way, Dirr teaches everyone the Maini language and then lo-and-behold we catch our first full-screen-image sighting of the next continent! It's a lovely long-shot of a thin line of buildings perched on the shore in front of a cloud covered stack of mountains! For a huge important city it looks surprisingly cut off from the world - but then Albion works differently to other planets...

This Full screen picture's followed immediately by another - this time it's from the harbour-side looking out at all the boats coming and going.

"Excellent - we've all got off the boat and the boat we were on has sailed away again and we're all fine. What an eventful voyage that wasn't!" (or something like that). "Let's get on and find out if anyone round here has heard anything of the Toronto!"

I click to clear the speech text but the full-screen image doesn't go away. And that's because I've been bamboozled! It ISN'T a full screen image! It's in-game graphics and I'm in first-person mode looking out to sea! It's like one of those moments in modern games where they show off how good their in-game graphics are by swapping into them from a cut-scene and you don't even know it's happened!

I turn around and directly behind me is Beloveno - the Constantinople-like hub of trading in this part of the world.

The town has a sort of slightly eastern-european / mediteranian feel about it. It's mostly built out of light-coloured bricks - but with an odd pirate-shanty-town angle on top. There's large wooden spikes sticking out of the ground all over the place and picnic benches laying around the place (in one area the game tells me "This is where goods are inspected as they arrive from sea" - I assume this will be important later.)

As I walk about a sort of dancing conquistador body-pops up to me like MC hammer. He busts a move right up to the gang and stops in front of us - pumping the air continuously with his arms while showing off some sort of moon-walking-on-the-spot fancy footwork. I assume he's a busker, but I just spent the last of my money paying Garris's not-a-fish tax.

"Excuse me - I'm impressed by your moves, but I'm afraid we don't have any gold to give you--" Tom starts. But the dancing conquistador's not interested "I can't TALK to you mate! But ask around about the mountain pass!" And with a wink the man dances backwards away from us - always keeping his eyes on us to make sure we don't try and talk to him again until he reaches the shore where he just stops and busts moves until we eventually go away.

Mountain pass eh? I wonder what that could be about...

Round the corner we meet another local - this time it's a huge blond man with an exceedingly luxuriant moustache. His sprite is much higher res than everyone else's suggesting he's going to be important. He has a tartan shawl over one shoulder and when spoken to declares in thick accent:

"Ye must nae walk throo the grrain! Thank ye forr being condierrate to yon local farrmerrs! 25% ae crrops arrrrre rruined baa pipple trrapsin' through them roond herrrre!"

Crops eh? I'll have to keep my eyes peeled and try to avoid any if I see them. But it doesn't look like they're going to be in this first-person section. All I can find is paved streets and a large market area (currently empty).

Near a strangly out-of-place Iskai building (multi-culturalism! No doubt brought on by this being a trading hot-spot...) I chat to another peasant about the Toronto and his not mentioning it leaves the team a bit dissapointed.

"No one's heard any thing about it!"

"That must mean that it's not landed anywhere round here..."

"For real?!?! How can this be? It's been absolutely MONTHS since we crashed on this planet! And we've visited half the continents already and no-one's heard ANYTHING? Oh man - what if it's been blown up??!! What if the aliens have over-run it and killed everyone on board!??"

"Woah there Tom - Aliens? In case you haven't noticed, half the people on this planet are humans just like you..."

"That's a thought Tom - I've never stopped to consider how that'll change the earth-people we arrived with's reaction to this place. I mean - if they touched down and met just aliens, that's one thing. But think of how confusing it'll be for them all to touch down and find they're amongst people who're somehow from our own history!"

Mell - who's never had Tom and Hoff's funny clothes and mission properly explained to him holds up a card with "WE'RE something to do with YOUR history? Um - other way round I think!" But Tom idly knocks this into a ditch and stamps on it.

"Well" he decides "We'd better keep moving I guess. Let's ditch the boats and see if we can explore this new land-mass on foot."

We finish mapping the whole town - creeping round every nook and cranny - exploring the inner court-yards of the huge building in the middle of town, poking around by the tiny houses in the northern corners, even looking at the town gate leading away to who-knows where. Then we're left with the decision of what to do first...

We try and have a nose outside the city wall (just to see how hard a job it's going to be to walk to wherever's next... maybe get a glimpse of the mysterious "mountain pass") but the guard stops us: "Skeima Din" (this means hello here - presumably this island's language is quite similar to the last) "But you should certainly go and learn about our town at the council house before you leave..."

"but we don't want to... we want to go and--"

"LEARN ABOUT IT!"

"woah - ok ok!"

Off we go to the council house where we're promptly greeted by a woman who bad mouthes our clothes. "Don't you think you could've dressed a little nicer for the Council of the Just? I mean - look at yourselves!"

I didn't think we were that dowdy actually. Tom's sporting a lovely chain-mail, studded cap and silver necklace look. Dirr's naked except for a hat with a big crystal on the top (and some blingy rings) - but naked is normal for an Iskai.

Sira's got a sort of sexy-harness on and Mell's got one of the main chaps' Toronto jump-suits on.

"Oh Hoff! You plonker!" Tom mutters and he works out which of them is letting the side sown. Hoffstedt's not naked any more - he decided that he'd rocked that look long enough and was tired of getting prickled round the U-bend as the gang traipses through forest and jungle undergrowth. Only instead of putting his overalls back on (possibly my fault since I did sell them a while back) he's dressed up as a bandit from the mountain pass on the last island.

The outfit he's put on is equivalent to low-slung jeans, a vest top and a bandanna in his gang's colours. Only it looks even more ridiculous on him since he's a doddering old man clasping an heap of crystal knick-knacks.

Never mind - we walk on into the grand meeting room of the Council of the Just. No-one's told me what they do yet, but we soon corner someone who ought to know.

His name is Gard and he is one of the Just Councillors.

"Tell us about the Council of the Just"

"I'd love to. The Council of the just is made up of just three men - me, Riko and Perron. Ricko is miserable old git and Perron is sensative to ghosts so you can see why we make such a good team. Oh, also there's the president Therras."

"But... what do you DO as a council?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand that"

"What is the council for?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand that"

In case you hadn't guessed, "I'm sorry I don't understand that" is the generic response all characters give you if you ask them something the designers didn't prepare them for. Stupid councillor doesn't even know what his job is! Bah.

Still, I ask him about the mountain pass and he lights up!

"Oh I know of the mountain pass all right! It's tough to follow - a winding an vague route through the otherwise impenetrable hills that surround our city! It's the only way in of out of our huge trading city that has somehow grown to this size despite the fact no-one can get here..."

"Right... anything else we should know about it? This disco Spaniard shuffled up to us specially to tell us to ask about it - so there's got to be more to it than it just existing..."

"Well, along the pass you'll find the towns of Kounos and Srimalinar. Kounos is a very religious human town while Srimalinar is a very religious Iskai town. There's a shrine there that it's taboo to visit, so don't bother. But it's very pretty so maybe you should. But it's quite hard to find - you have to put in a little exertion to get up onto the plateaux. But the towns people will kill you if they catch you looking at their shrine so maybe don't bother..."

We walk slowly away from Gard: Councillor of nothing then bump into Perron.

I try to ask him about ghosts - perhaps his being sensitive to them is something to do with the function of the Council. But he doesn't seem to understand about them so either they're a red herring or will only turn out to be important later. He feeds me a few more facts about the town (there was a plague a couple of years ago, but it's gone away now. The locals drink something called Sugo which is exceptionally hardcore and is liable to flatten you after only one glass - presumably helping you forget you're trapped in a city that dedicates the majority of its building space to a palace housing a redundant cabal of "the Just") but has nothing much to say for himself.

Rikko's not much help either but then I meet Therras the president.

When you speak to him he fills the screen with text - an uninterrupted tirade of a sales-pitch explaining why everyone should love to visit the beautiful and powerful and rich city of Beloveno. It's a really ace and great town with a huge port and a lovely view of the impenetrable mountain range! You can just see the team's eyes glazing over during this since there's no gaps for them to ask questions or even say "Uh-huh" or "Is that so, how interesting".

But it's not a total waste of time. Although most of what he tells me is stuff I've heard before - the climax of his speach contains at least a HINT of a quest to follow up while I'm in the district. Alas, as soon as he finishes talking he rushes off busy with his Council duties so I couldn't pester him for details - but the last thing he says to you is:

"...so you really should go visit the inn, it's brill - you can have a room to stay the night and everything. It's a great place to base your holiday here, easy access to the local amenities and a great spot to come back to after exploring the impenetrable mountains or taking a pedalo round the bay. Monsters have overrun the shrine at Srimalinar byeeeeeeeee *scuttle scuttle scuttle disappear round corner*"

Session 21

We stumble into the chamber where Brother Bero, the missing chemist, has been sat.

Quite what he was doing in here (or how he got here) is a bit mystifying - there's no way out of the room he's in and he must've fought his way down here on his own making him SERIOUSLY badass! I wonder if I can recruit him for my team?

On seeing his adopted dad, Mell rushes forwards to check he's ok - but then it turns out he can't speak and so just has to gesture and nod his head in a way to suggest "Are you ok? You're lucky to be alive you know! I'm so relieved to find you at last! These are strangers from far away who have helped to rescue you!"

Alas, Bero doesn't get the message and says "Ah excellent! My adopted moron has found me - presumably with the help of you good folk" (indicating Tom and the gang) "Well let's be off then!"

These aren't his exact words I grant you - but Bero seems exceedingly chipper considering his recent predicament, and it slightly feels like he's taking his rescue for granted.

But there's no time to dwell on it - the game pops up a message that the team "Hurries back as quick as possible" (which I estimate to have taken several days of in-game time considering the numerous monsters and assorted perils that I left active on my way down, not to mention the resting time and the waiting-to-be-allowed-to-rest-again time...) and cuts back to Nemo's office.

The team are all stood on one side of the room with Nemo (leader of the druids) and Bero on the other.

Nemo explains:

"I can't be bothered to tell you off for going down the catacombs Bero. Just go into the hall and give yourself a smacked bottom until you understand what a pain in the balls this whole thing has been" (Bero leaves the room)

"HANG ON!"

"Yes sir?" (Bero, sticking his head back round the door)

"This man" (Nemo points at Tom) "Needs one of your patented Can'tGetItUp amulets - I think it's the least you can do to hand one over?"

"Um! Well! It's not for me!" Splutters Tom "It's for a friend! But I'm not allowed to say who it is! Honestly, I don't have any trouble in that area..."

Bero hands him an amulet of SexualStamina +1 and shuffles out of the room

"Of course it's not for you young man. No one EVER comes here to get one for themselves... Now let me just have a word with Mellthas..."

turning to Mell he shouts slowly and clearly

"WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT? HMMM? WHAT'S ALL THIS?" (he points back and forth between Mell and Sira and it is understood he's refurring to their trans-species relationship) "YOU REALLY THINK THAT'S A GOOD IDEA DO YOU? HMMM? MAYBE YOU SHOULD SPEND SOME TIME AWAY FROM THE OTHER DRUIDS YOUNG MAN. I THINK MAYBE THIS SORT OF THING" (he does hand gestures to represent human-on-cat relations) "IS MORE THAN WE NEED TO SUBJECT PEOPLE WHO'RE ACTUALLY TRYING TO STUDY TO DON'T YOU?"

There's a brief awkward silence while Mell and Sira scuff their feet on the floor.

"YOU GO OFF WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND MAYBE YOU CAN COME BACK WHEN YOU'VE WORKED THIS OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM OK?"

Ok, so this conversation didn't happen EXACTLY like this. But during the real version I did jot down that Nemo does say to Mell and Sira : "Not everyone will understand your bond, so it's probably best you leave".

Whatever the specifics of what was said, the upshot is that Mell joins the team permanently so that his love for Sira doesn't get him beaten up by the other druids - that's it! We stroll out of Nemo's office, past Bero whos busy dishing out his corporal auto-punishment, past the healer (who refuses to give us free help now - even though the wounds the team's all suffering from were received in the course of rescuing stupid Bero) and off out through the door back into the daylight for the first time since we bought all that food.

Awesome! I'd almost completly forgotten what this game is like when you're just wandering around the islands. I've been in that dungeon for so long it feels like an age since I took a moment to swan around looking for seeds or secrets or the like.

I know that really I ought to go directly back to the king and give him his sex jewellery then head off to the next land (I'm really looking forward to that! I've enjoyed my time on Ancient Druid Island, but it has felt a lot like the plot has floundered since we got here - like how you have to take time out in Bioshock to do the stupid "Fort Frolick" level. It's ok in itself, but since it has no baring on the actual plot you could be forgiven for just wanting to get through it as quick as you can).

But today I feel like kicking back and just going for a wander. The gameplay in the dungeon is quite stressful and it's nice in an RPG to switch between stressful and ambling. Sometimes you just want to swan about looking at the scenery...

So I cruise around the place for a while - I love trying to get a feel for the shape of the island, so I head down the east coast until I hit a line of cliffs.

I can follow these along to the west (back towards the town I'm meant to be going towards anyway) and the line of the rock face starts to get distinctly curvy. There are numerous secluded indents into the mountains and I keep thinking I'm going to find a path round or through them - I really want to get a proper sense for the coast of this place and don't like thinking there's more of a landmass beyond these mountains that it's impossible to explore...

Eventually the cliffs lead me back to the starting town and I'm just about to give up on my desire to map the place when lo and behold! There IS a passage! A proper passage through the mountains!

Following one of the indents in the cliffs I find it genuinely forms a winding pass heading directly south - away from any civilisation!

I'm VERY excited by this! IT's a secret area I'm SURE of it! And it seems to go on for ages! In fact, this wiggly windy route takes me right off the bottom of the map!

I don't think I've encountered this anywhere else in the game so far - the environment scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, but then it's like I've hit the furthest extremes of it and as I walk off the bottom the game cuts to a totally new area. I guess this doesn't sound like a big deal - but it suggests there's a LOT more to this secret than just a treasure chest hidden out of sight!

As I creep further along the pass it winds left and right. This means that for a couple of seconds at a time the isometric view point puts me out of sight behind a bit of scenery. I don't think anything about it at first, but it soon becomes clear that danger lurks in the shadows of these protruding rock faces!

As a mountain passes between the camera and my team of heroes I'm abruptly told "ATTACK!!!"

Next thing I know I'm looking at 4 burly, blond Viking bandits! Bandits hiding on the mountain pass! This can't be a secret - these are new enemies being introduced, this must be the right way. Maybe I have to come down here after I've handed in my quest to the king...

The bandits are tough - they have a mage with them - but thankfully I can just zap him to sleep. I'm not looking forward to when enemies start being able to deflect this spell - I use it all the time to give me the upper hand!

I dispatch the bandits and carry on through the gorge until eventually I come out the other side of the mountain range! Seriously - this CAN'T be a secret can it? A whole new area of jungle lies in front of me. I should definitely turn back - I can explore this place when the plot needs me to.

But on the other hand, I could just have a little look around. So far I've spotted an eye in the rocks here (just like the one near the haunted mansion on the first island) and a sign post to Aballon. I could check out Aballon couldn't I?

I cross a bridge over a huge river and walk through the jungle for (in game) hours. This island is so much bigger than I thought - There must be half again at least on top of what I'd seen before.

Eventually I come across some weird people just wandering around in the trees. They're sort of like a strange folk who lurk in the swamps north of the Arjano - only not as rude when I talk to them. Instead of telling me to push off they're all "Good morning! How are you?" And "How lovely to have visitors in the area!" Considering they're wandering around in monster infested jungles they're surprisingly cheery!

Soon after I find the town of Aballon. Now I'm sure this can't be a secret. They wouldn't just put a whole town in through a windy mountain pass if they weren't expecting everyone to find it. I mean, putting a town in is quite big job - it'd be madness to just bung one in for the 50% or less of people who'll blunder across the passage through the cliffs... Wouldn't it?

I stop in to chat to the queen of the town who, when I ask her about the Toronto says "Are you SERIOUS?"

She doesn't actually have much to talk about beyond that. In fact, no one round here does... I wander about and notice that there's no round out of the town other than the one I came in on then step into the local shop.

WOW. The shop is AMAZINGLY well stocked! There's heaps of awesome treasures on offer - butter than anywhere I've been so far before! It's just a shame I can't afford to buy much of it - but I quickly sell off all my junk and then agonise over which of the (probably) unique items I should buy.

In the end I pick the "Monster Eye" (because it was very expensive and I don't know what it does - suggesting that it's going to be really cool) and an amulet of strength (which I give to Dirr immediately).

Stepping out of the shop I "activate" the monster eye and it appears on the screen along side the clock. It's sort of like a little owl's face with big eyes on it - but I can't tell what it would be for. I doesn't have any obvious read-outs and it's not something I've ever heard of from other games - so really it's anyone's guess what it might be about...

I explore some more in the area. And weirdly this seems to be a dead-end. South of the town are more cliffs and a little bit of exploration reveals there's no passage through them this time. In one of the other buildings in the town I meet a bolshy training lady who gives everyone some combat tips but after that, there's just nothing else to do here.

I'm starting to wonder if this town really WAS a secret? The only thing to do is turn back now - there's no other avenues to explore, no mission stuff to do or characters who're obviously waiting for the story to progress before they give me any missions... I feel like this is some kind of weird other-world - like a we-don't-speak-of-that-place neighbouring town on the island. They're cut off from the rest of their fellow space-celts by a bandit infested mountain pass and they've settled in the actual heard of an infested forest...

I think I'm going to decide for now that it was a secret. I love the idea that it was. I love the idea that at the time this game was made it was ok to put in this kind of enormous area just on the off chance of someone finding it. I love to think that someone thought "Instead of a chest, I'm going to have an amazing shop full of treasure. And I'm going to build this mad extra town to put it in and hide it down a secluded train inhabited by unique enemies (I guess they're not likely to be unique - they'll probably show up again elsewhere - but they're new to me for now!)

I love that this game has something like this hidden town in it to reward exploring. I simply can't imagine something like Oblivion having a secret area this big in it - not to mention having a secret town.

After I'd explored as much as there was to explore of the surrounding woodlands and satisfied myself that I'd mapped the furthest possible extremes of this island I set off back up the pass to carry on with my quest.

This game is just brilliant. What a fantastic surprise extra to find just tucked away on the map. I can't wait to get to the next environment and see what THAT has hidden away in it...