Session 29

"I'm CERTAIN that we'll find a way off this continent over here!" announces Tom, pointing and walking off to the east...

Scuffing their feet and hitting the nettles with sticks, the rest of the team follow unenthusiastically.

"Yes, just down this valley! Oops! Excuse me Mr Krondir!"

"Oh for pities sake!"

A fight ensues and Hoff is slain. But Tom explains that it's not worth resting yet and that they may as well drag him along because he's SURE this path will lead them somewhere interesting.

"Don't you have the map Tom?" asks dirr.

"The map? Oh I had it, but for some reason I threw it in a creek... But I'm SURE it's this way..."

Eventually they reach the coast and, heading north, it briefly seems that Tom will turn out to have been right! A huge door is visible in the cliff face with a small fence outside and a couple of attendants stood welcomingly along side it.

"Look! You see! I bet these people will have a way to get us to move on to the next continent!" cries Tom running on ahead, dragging Hoff by the ankle.

Walking along behind, the rest of the team mutter - "Thank eff! I can't believe we've been wandering around for days since we averted that war an NO ONE cares..."

"You'd've thought people would be falling over themselves to suggest ways to progress from here after all we did! I mean, yeah, we didn't prevent that murder. But we probably stopped a LOT of other killings!"

"Yeah. And one murder's a drop in the ocean really. I mean, it's not a big deal just ONE person getting killed is it?"

"Well... Yes, Sira. I'd say it IS a big deal that someone did a murder..."

"Yeah, but come on... For real? You'd really hold that against someone?"

"Sira. I'm a police officer! Of COURSE I'd hold that against someone!" (this from Dirr)

"oh... Right..."

Just then there is shouting up ahead. Tom, smiling and self-assured, had tried to open the little gate in the fence and had his eye blacked by one of the attendants.

The words "...AND YOU CAN TELL THE REST OF YOUR FRIENDS TO GET LOST TOO!" echo across the scrubland and Tom staggers back to the gang.

"OI! YOU FORGOT THIS!" shouts the other attendant, throwing Hoff after him like a scrumpled up forged note excusing a child from having to do P.E. today.

"Oh this is ridiculous. Let's go back to town and ask around some more. SOMEONE must know something!"

This cliff-face door was apparently the lair of the Kenget Kamulos - but I was surprised that you simply couldn't get in at all! Considering that I've heard they're both a league of assassins AND (I think - although I guess I could be getting mixed up) the only people in the world who're allowed to mine the planet without the Goddess badding them out, so I'd've thought that they'd be involved in the plot some way. Why would they be mentioned all over the place if they weren't going to do anything? Unless it's just a nice little detail in the world - I've witnessed a Kenget Kamulos assassination (back on the first island) so it's neat to be able to come and find the killer's HQ. Mind you, it's a bit of a trek to get here considering that there's nothing to do.

The team's pretty disillusioned now. They gave their all (in various fights and - admittedly unwittingly - in a couple of tough dungeons) and were pivotal in averting a war and slaying a manipulative mad-scientist cult leader. But the world's not very grateful and they've been left with no leads to follow up to progress. Indeed, this is the first time (as I expect I mentioned last time round) that I've been left with no idea where to go to progress. I'm just wandering aimlessly around looking for a boat or house or town that I might've missed. Having found the Kenget Kamulos base but been immediately disappointed to find that wasn't the way forwards, I go back Srimalinar and try some retail therapy to cheer me up. In the magicians' guild I buy "Fungification" and "Blinding Storm" for Sira since they sound pretty awesome. I also check out the Iskai weapons (some of which seem to be incredibly tough, although they don't have the funky names that human weapons do. Presumably humans love to romanticise swords and call them "Danu's light" or whatever - but the more down-to-earth Iskai just call their best killing stick an "Iskai Spear"...)

Retail therapy. Doesn't really work in games. Sure, I can go out and kill more and more krondirs with my new spells, but I'll never earn enough for an Iskai spear from selling slabs of meat, Warniak spheres and the Trii-like face-gems that can be plucked out of the heads of some of my fallen enemies.

It's a little annoying actually that the new monsters introduced on this island don't come with their own "useless except as a money spinner" by-products. Doesn't ANYONE want to buy giant rabbit meat? I LOVE rabbit! It's delicious! Not so sure about dust-buster-faced beetle chops, but maybe their protective shells might've been of value?

Actually, everyone's a little cross about their situation now. It's not right that they should (voluntarily) have saved an entire continent from an interracial war (which had already resulted in demons being released into the world!) and yet the most anyone can say is a casual thanks.

It's not right and it's not on. That's it! We quit! No more do-gooding and arbitrary nice deeds from us. The rest of the world can go hang for all we care! We're going to find the Toronto and get out of here (in ten years time when it's eaten the world and fired it home in little podules).

Oh wait, actually it WON'T be mining the planet (according to Tom and Hoff) because it'll be studying it instead. What a gyp. We'll be stuck here for ever!

Stop the alien world! We want to get off!!!

Just then (well, as we step into the pub for some quitters' fuel) a familiar face turns up!

"Ah! I've been tracking you for some time..." It's Frill! Frill the historian from the first island... Apparently he's been following us since the start - secretly! But why?

"I see there's a war you need to avert..."

(aparently Frill's dialogue wasn't designed to cope with the fact I might not come into this pub until AFTER I've already solved the situation)

"Um... Seriously? You've been following us? But you've not noticed that actually we already solved the war?"

"Oh... of course you have... You 'quit' didn't you. I didn't... notice... mwo ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha hahaha ha!"

"What's so funny?"

"Funny? Oh nothing. Just... chortling at my own forgetfulness... Ah ha. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ah ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHA. AHHHH HAH HAH AHAHAAAHAAAAAHAAAHAAAAA"

Arching his fingers and staring boggly-eyed at Tom, Frill laughed manically for some time - drooling a little and shaking his head with his tongue lolling around.

Meanwhile Sira taps Tom on the shoulder.

"Um Tom... Can I have a word..."

"Yeah?"

"Well. It's nothing to do with the mysterious death of my father that I was definitely not involved with. You remember, we proved that he murdered himself? Well it's nothing to do with that (and being subsequently tracked across the globe in secret). BUT - me and Mell are off..."

"Off?"

"Yeah. We've decided we're going to have a little break from adventuring and are just popping off to Srimalinar for a while... maybe forever..."

"Oh but... I thought you wanted to see the world?"

"Yeah... Yeah I DID want that" Sira eyes the still laughing Frill "but I think I've found the bit I like the best and we're off to live there together forever now. I won't bother the team by saying buy and you needn't trouble Frill telling him about all this so err... byeeee!!!"

At which point Sira skips out of the inn, grabbing Mell by the arm as she goes (he was still waiting expectantly for Frill to get to the point and didn't appear to have heard about this plan up to this point...) never to be seen again!

Wait WHAT? She's ditched the team? I just spent a load of money buying her new spells the bitch and she's been using us to help find her a hide-out! Thankfully the game gives me the chance to grab any critical items out of her and Mell's inventories before they slip off; an opertunity I abuse horribly by taking all their belongings including Mell's stupid writing equiptment. That ought to shut him up. All I leave the loving couple is a boiler suit and an old bucket from the Druid's town to remind them of their time with us.

"HA HA HA HA HAAAAA -- ahem. Now Tom... I want you to meet some people who're interested to know why you quit..."

"that's none of your business!"

"Come come Tom. Now you've reached a certain level - you know certain THINGS. You want to quit? People are bound to ask questions... Their bound to want to know what's going through your mind!"

"I'm a free man!"

"AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

At this point the team are gassed, bounced on by weather balloons and bundled into a ship!!!

When they wake up an unspecified time later, they're on a mysterious, lavishly decked out island dotted with weird architecture. The ship they've been turfed off is silently sailing away into the mist surrounding the island - it's silent crew staring eerily back at them. Frill, now dressed in a sports jacket and holding a rainbow coloured umbrella and a "number 2" badge is stood in front of the still-woozy gang.

"AH HA HA HA HA HA HA. Welcome my friend!" (addressing Tom) "Welcome... To THE ISLAND"

!!!!!!!!!

Session 28

I was thinking about the hybrid nature of this game the other day. It's interesting because the dungeon sections would, if they were the whole game on their own, be perfect direct successors to the really ancient Gold Box RPG's like "pools of radience". First person exploration with grid-based turn based combat. Weirdly the combat seems almost LESS sophisticated than the older games - since in the POR engine you had quite large areas for lights to take place in that you could move around in as much as you liked. I guess maybe Albion's is more streamlined and
has a slightly different tactical angle to the D&D combat.


But then the open world wandering and talking sections pick up from Ultima 7 and that crowd - pootling around and exploring in a much freer way than in a dungeon crawl.


I was wondering if the game that Blue Byte made came out of loving Ultima 7 (or something like it) but wishing it had the older-style dungeon craws still in it.


I wonder if they might also've had Zelda in mind when they were making it - that has very distinct wandering and dungeon crawling sections and had already been around a while when Albion came along. Maybe they saw the formula working there and decided it could work with a more western-style RPG...


I'd love to be able to talk to the Dev team now and get an idea of what they were thinking when they made the game - what the context REALLY was and why they went for this crazy fusion of 4 engines (2 top down exploration modes, a first person mode and a turn-based combat mode! That's 4x the work of a regular game!)


Anyway - so maybe you think that events have been unfurling a little slowly of late, yeah? I know I'd been thinking it.

But today the game flipped personalities! It's weird - when there's lots to do (like in dungeons where there's endless puzzles, monsters to fight, paths to explore etc) the story progresses at a snail's pace. But when there's nothing much to do except wander about chatting, the story accelerates so hard that it sometimes seems to slip out from underneath you as it heads off towards the horizon!


Again, that reflects the two kinds of games Albion seems to be descended from - Dungeon Crawls traditionally had almost no plot at all, just go through the maze solving the puzzles and collecting the magical doodads or slaying the magical doodad (or one then the other). Meanwhile, Ultima 6, 7 and 8 had more plot than was strictly interesting (you spend a LOT of time walking around asking people questions and investigating which of the prostitues in Fawn - the Serpant Isle's floating sex Venice - is working their oracle like a puppet...) Then in Albion, you learn nothing in the dungeon sections but more than you can take in during the top-down sections. Had developers REALLY not worked out how to get plot development into a first person game yet?


Anyway, having opened the tiny gate outside the cave the team had a brief rest then popped back in to see if they'd missed anything important. Turns out they hadn't - just another fire ring - but in romping around with the last few rabbit monsters they discover the true nature of Hoff's new crystal axe!


"Look out! More rabbits!" shouts Dirr
"Come on then you tykes! I'll wop you now!" exclaims Hoff, charging forwards with his mighty new weapon cleaming in the torchlight as he charges!


The rabbit, transfixed by the blue-green light refracting through the pure cute crystal being waved by this wild-eyed un-skilled professor, stands momentarily stunned! Hoff pushes his advantage - capitalising on the element of surprise by careening headlong into a stalagmite and breaking his own nose.


"Oh god! My nose!" He drops his axe and the torch and clutches his busted face "Tom! My nose! Will I ever be able to wear pince nez again?!?!"


Tom, who has come to ignore the ramblings of this deranged civil servant most of the time, is distracted by Hoff's question


"But you don't ware pince nez at the mome-- OOF!" A rabbit punches him in the ear.


Hoff doesn't notice - he pulls his hands away from his face and cups them to see how much his nose is bleeding. But at that instant the crystal axe - which had skittered across the floor until this point - jumps up from the ground and returns by magic to his hand!


"OH GOD! MY NOSE AGAIN!!!" cries the scientist as the axe spins back into his unwilling grasp with such force as to pull his arm up with the inertia - causing him to club himself in the face with the back of it!


Hurling the axe angrily away again Hoff leans himself against the wall with one hand and wipes his brow with the other. The rabbit he was fighting, hardly able to believe his luck ("this guy's
beating himself up for me!") hops over and rears up in front of his victim.


Gasping for breath and dizzied beyond feeling pain, let alone fear, Hoff looks at his agressor - not even registering the axe's flight bending round behind the beast, curving back from where he chucked it, closing in on them again!


SLAM! Just as the bunny has pulled its fore-paw back to strike the axe zings under it's armpit and back into the hand Hoff was using to prop himself up with.


The hapless scientist's hand is flicked out from below him and he falls flat onto his face on the rock. With no strength left to lift himself, his fizzog slides agonisingly down the cave wall while he can only give muffled cries of "by bose! by bootifle bose!" out of the corner of his mouth.


Yes. It's a boomeranxe! Throw it and it comes back!


Typically Hoff is rubbish with it though. After the fight is over, Tom makes a mental note to get his friend some ranged combat training. This might finally be the thing that makes the scientist a
useful member of the team! The axe is essentially equivalent to a bow with inexhaustible arrows - and since it's inexhaustible I can have him lob it around as much as I like without any panging doubts that I'm wasting some valuable resource!


"Pfft. Not really much in there then..." says Dirr as she steps back into the sunlight having decided that the caves don't have anything much more useful in them after all.


"Let's head up the mountain path all the way and see what's the gossip in that Iskai town then..." replies Sira.


The team set off and, just past Kounos they find the Iskai shrine - surrounded by Fears (the floating demonic hand monsters). There's heaps of them, but thankfully the shrine is just next to the edge of a map divide so the team need only nip a couple of feet south after each fight to drink up healing potions and get ready for the next clash.


We clear all the monsters and move on since we're probably not meant to go into the shrine itself.


Heading north we find Srimalinar - a lovely walled town just like the one on the first island but smaller. It's got a magic guild (doesn't mention if this is the building magic or the "other" magic - maybe in this part of the world the Iskai don't make such a big deal about the distinction...) and there's plenty of folk, eager to tell me things.


"Kritahs?" One man says "Oh they're harmless! But they DO like shiny objects!" (this is presumably to explain where all the treasure comes from in the Kritah dungeon that isn't connected to Kontos's lair).


"Do you like our town?" Another enthusiast pipes up "We all came from Nakiridaani..." (which I THINK is probably the town from the first island - but I've forgotten its name so I can't be sure) "But there wasn't enough room there so we trecked across the world and isolated ourselves in these mountains where there's heaps of space. Mind you, it turns out there's not enough resources or easy hunting to allow us to build a large population here, so in retrospect stranding ourselves half-way along an mountain pass that so few people use that it's fallen into disrepair was perhaps NOT a good idea..." This guy staggers away coughing and wishing that meat for his children didn't cost so much up here...


The next bloke who turns up explains that "Oh yeah - our ancestors have always been buried here. There's a great shrine to house them just down the road! But don't
go there as it upsets us to think that you'd be disturbing their eternal rest! Bye!" (always been buries here? But how long has this town been here? That last guy talked about you lot moving here like he could remember it!)


The next is a lady who explains "You can head north from here to Kounos" (which is a lie) "east to meet the Kenget Kamuloses and don't go to the shrine. Byeee!". Why would she lie to me about where Kounos is? Stupid Iskai, Kontos was right about them!


In the pub the barman comes over and says "Come closer! I have information for you! Just give me a load of money!"


"Hmmm... unspecified information eh? That sounds EXACTLY like the kind of thing I'll happily fork over arbitrary sums of cash for!"


"Sweet! Ok - here's what I heard! Someone high up is plotting to murder the president of the council of the just! Might not be true though - you should talk to Arrim ab
out it!"


"who's Arrim?"


"Oh he lives in the harvest workers' house..."


"Yeah, but who is he that he'd be able to reliably confirm or deny that there's a murder conspiracy?"


"Oh, he's just some bloke I met in the pub this time... Byeeeee!"


Before we leave we talk to some other chap who talks breathlessly to us at surprising length - without pausing to allow us to talk back at any point!


"Oh hi there! - I think we've met before! Did I tell you about our sancturay? Don't go there, it's tabooed. The rumours that it's an evil magic workshop are nonsense though - just like the demons. Except they're real (as well as being nonsense). No one knows where they come from and no-one's seen them go in or come out of the shrine - Kontos is just spreading rumours. If you know anything about all this come tell me! Then I can tell you some sweet
information in return but make sure you've talked to everyone else first! Especially everyone important in Beloveno and Kounos byeeeeeeeeeeee!"


"HAVE we met before?" Tom finally stammers as the Iskai stops for breath, but it's too late - the guy's buggered off already.


We go talk to Arrim the farm hand but he has nothing useful to say at all. However, whatever it is they talk about reminds Mell that they could go talk to his friend Darios who we met briefly before and who lives in Kounos - maybe he'd have something useful to say?


The team agree to it and Mell discards the card he wrote this message on - tossing it casually away


"BY BLOODY BOSE! BATCH OUT BOR BY BLOODY BOSE BOU BIBIOT!!!!"


When we get to Kounos, Darios tells us


"Cor, this war between Kounos and Srimalinar's a bit of a drag isn't it? You didn't hear it from me by Kontos intends to occupy the shrine!"


War? There's a war started already?


Immediatly we overhear a conversation about how Herras has gone to Beloveno "Probably from his own rows - it's very tradgic". Eh? Wasn't he the head of the Council of the Just? Was he in Kontos? Must've been somewhere if he was going BACK to Beloveno...


We talk to Darios again but all he'll say is "Um... I dunno if you've noticed, but actually we've all left for the shrine now. Kontos has enemies on the council of the just..."


I was a bit confused now. Had I missed something important? How did war break out so abruptly while I was walking from one town to the next?!?


The team goes to Beloveno and talk to Perron from the council


"Oh well there you are then. Herras is dead, Gard and Riko are the suspects and have gone missing and I was right all along. If only you'd believed me we could've avoided all this!"


Herras is dead already? I only found out there was a conspiracy 5 minutes ago!


"Hi there! I'm Zerruma the new president of the council! I'm a bit narked off about the shrine being occupied! Byeeeeeeeeee!"


Seriously? Occupied already??! How is it that all this stuff is suddenly happening whenever I turn my back?


[at this point I take a couple of moments to bankrupt myself in order to buy Siobhan a "Danu's Light" - an awesome looking sword that pumps up her stats and does he
aps of damage too!]


Back at the shrine I find two armies lined up - one of humans and one of Iskai. As soon as I try and talk to one of the groups I trigger a full-screen static image of WAR happening!!!



Ooops! Did I trigger that by saying something at the wrong time?


Oh, no, I didn't. Turns out it's not war - it's a stand off. Kontos isn't about to give the word to charge so I decide to leave and get some dirt together on him to prove to the people of Kounos that this is a fight they don't need to start...


Turns out the barman in Srimalinar has the other half of the document from Kontos's basement but didn't think to mention it earlier. On putting the two bits together I learn there was a pact to split up some mineral deposits three ways between Kontos, Riko and Gard.


On presenting this document to the two armies they grumble and start t
o question whether they might've been being manipulated - at which point Kontos runs out of the shrine (he was in there all along and no one thought to look??)


"Oh right! So you don't believe me now eh? Ok, I'll prove they're doing black magic! I'll go in there and PROVE IT!!!"


Turning round he goes BACK in (although apparently he thinks we'll believe he's going in there for the first time) chased by a handful of Iskai.


When he pops back in everyone else works out decides for sure that Konto
s, Riko and Gard had discovered the shrine was built on rich mineral deposits and thus invented the black magic threat to convince people to go to war in order to get access to them. Only they didn't "count on mother earth" (earth? Albion surely?) who sent demons to bad up anyone who wants ore from in the ground (remember? This was mentioned earlier in the game - the gods of the planet REALLY don't like mining and send monsters to kill anyone who wants to dig them up... That's part of why we need to get to the Toronto - to prevent our friends, not to mention Tom's girlfriend, from being mashed to bits by the demons the planet will send to protect its rich ore deposits from the giant mining robot the space ship will turn into...)


"So... WERE there ever any monsters?" asks some naked guy in the crowd


"um... well yes. We saw them... Remember?"


"oh yeah... And... Where did they come from?"


"Kontos summoned them! Come on let's go home!"


"Wait! No! That can't be right! Kontos didn't summon them! We just went through this, it was mother earth who... guys? Hey guys? Come back!"


But it's too late. Everyone seems perfectly happy with their self-contradicting story of what happened here and has left already.


But Kontos is still in the shrine upsetting the spirits's eturnal rest... Better sort that out.


Wandering blasély into the shrine (seems wrong somehow having avoided defiling it up until now - but I guess at this point it's defiled already so a little more won't hurt) we find it's actually rather cosy. Reminds me of the Big Brother House off TV - communal bedrooms, well apointed kitchen, lovely sitting area and even a lavatory! Do spirits really need to poop?


Actually, the only sign of the spirits the Iskai are so keen on not being defiled is a collection of locked doors around the place. If you look at them Dirr says "I don't think we should disturb the spirits back there" suggesting that these are the spirits's private rooms that they've shut themselves up in timidly - so as not to have to meet anyone and have their rest defiled...


There's no sign of Kontos - I even have a "rest" for a few hours in there (lighting up a bonfire if the "resting" image is anything to go by) but it's a no show.


There MUST be a secret passage out of here, but I can't find it! Oh wait! No there's not! Kontos was hiding just outside the front door.


When you go back out of the shrine Kontos jumps out and attacks you!


He's very tough - VERY tough. But he's also pretty stupid. Since he's turned up on his own I can use freezing spells and sleeping spells to stop him getting a chance to zap me! As such, even though he soaks up a lot of damage, this is less a boss fight and more a book-end to the now rather abruptly concluded mystery of the monsters in the shrine. All he manages to do is kill Hoff - and to be honest that doesn't really take very much.


And that's all I had time for! I grab the booty (heaps of treasure) from Kontos's corpse but I'm just too exhausted by the rate everything's happening! I can hardly believe that in one sitting I've triggered a war, missed an assassination, resolved a war and brought a villain to justice! Seriously! It just flew by!


Is that it for this island? I've solved all their problems haven't I? But what do I do now? I don't know how to move on from here... For the firs time the game's just left me hanging...!

Session 27

Tom reaches forwards to open the creaking chest. It must contain answers - it's at the heart of a dungeon. You don't put things in the heart of a dungeon unless it contains answers...

As the lid comes up, Hoff shines the light from his torch into the old box to reveal...

Half a scrap of paper.

That was disappointing. There's no way to read it (although when you try, the game tells you that you'll have to find the other half first, so there's hope in the long term). And Kontos just says "That old scrap of parchment? Why would that interest me OR you? You can't read it without the other half..." Which I figure is quite an unusually calm reaction considering that in order to have that old scrap of parchment I must've broken into his monster infested lab and stolen it. Isn't he worried I may also have stolen all his amulets? Or seen the rotting remains of his test victims in their chambers? Or collected up a load of teeth?

Or maybe this strange response is his way of attempting to still deny any involvement or knowledge of the horrible science secrets in the cellars of the Kounos inn. Perhaps what I need to do is further prove his underhandedness in a way he can't possible deny so that he finally breaks down and explains what's so significant about this scrap of parchment. It MUST be pretty significant - at some point he decided to store it more securely than his collection of magical amulets. A collection he was so fond of that he used deadly lava traps and genetically engineered monsters to guard it.

We stroll out of the village eastwards, just to wander about while we think of what move to make next. Clearly Kontos wants us to go to the Iskai village up the road and be disgusted by their voodoo practices. But I'm just not convinced we can't get a little more out of him before we move on...

As the team saunter to the edge of the plateaux that Kounos sits on, Mell starts hopping up and down and pointing!

"What is it Mellthas my dear?" asks Sira

Mell whips out one of his pieces of card to write on, but instead of taking his pencil to it, he pokes a pair of eye holes in it and holds it in the air at a specific angle - beckoning someone to look through...

Sira steps up to the challenge and, putting her eyes to the holes gasps - finding that her view is being directed towards a cave in the cliff-face below!

"That cave!" she cries out "it looks like it leads into the cliff just below Kounos! I wager there's a good chance it connects with Kontos's gene labs!"

"What cave?" everyone else cries out, rushing forwards to look.

"Just down there - see where I'm pointing? Just up from that bush..."

Everyone squints or closes one eye and looks down Sira's extended finger and lo and behold! A cave mouth!

"Wow Sira! However did you spot THAT?" asks Tom

"Good work Sira! I'm glad that I didn't arrest you for being obviously involved in your father's murder at the start of the game - cunning murderess you may be, but you're also a sharp eyed clue finder!" says Dirr (the police woman who can't be bothered to do police work and would rather go on a round-the-world jaunt to find what everyone else seems to think is almost certainly an imaginary giant planet eating organism from space).

"Indeed! This is sure to advance our investigations! Let us move out!" announces Siobhan.

The whole team does as they're told except Mell who was scribbling FURIOUSLY on a piece of card while everyone was talking, but who is now being swarmed by a flock of doves pecking at him and slapping him with their olive branches!

He slumps to the ground - desperately trying to call out to the team but still un-able to speak! The doves knock his piece of card away, one of them thieves his pencil and the rest scratch at his clothes and skin until he slumps into panicking unconsciousness! At which point they roll him over the ledge - plummeting! plummeting to the trail below!

The cave mouth has actually been quite cunningly hidden. The developers have made the Kounos plateaux reach down to very slightly cross a map-divide. This is where the map-level out-doors world stops scrolling and you walk into a whole new area when you walk off the edge of the screen.

If you're following the path you Kounos from Beloveno, you'll cross the screen divide heading left - following the loosely visible trail of the pass, but there is a ledge heading to the right around the projected cliff faces below Kounos. Tip-toe along that and you'll be able to head up into the next map-area further east than you're meant to, bringing you out just in front of the secret cave below the town!

"Oh look! It's Mellthas!" cries Hoff as the team arrives. "I wonder how he got down here so quickly..."

Mell, scarred and bruised, had just regained conciousness and pulls out another piece of card to write a caustic remark on. But finding an olive branch in his hand instead of his pencil, throws it aside dejectedly and pokes himself in the eye.

And so we enter the mysterious cave mouth.

On the inside the game is, once again, returned to first person view. But the environment is amazing - not like any of the ones I've visited so far! It's almost completely choked with stalagmites and stalactites. The stone walls are rich reds and greys.

Finding your way around is tricky since you have to constantly side-step around the amazing protuberances - but I still manage to get a gimps of a treasure chest. It's more of a treasure trough actually - it appears to have been carved into the wall of the cave, then had a lid attached. This is certainly a sign that this cave has been inhabited by humans - and that in turn bolsters my theory that Kontos's dungeons extend to connect with this network.

Before I can get to the chest I'm attacked... in a manner of speaking.

As Tom saunters forwards he bumps into what he previously thought was a rock.

"Oh god! Get ready to fight everyone!"

Springing into combat positions the team square up to this new foe in a panic, only to turn and find that what they've assaulted is in fact just a load of rabbits.

Big rabbits, don't get me wrong, but rabbits all the same. As soon as the fight starts they run away and despondantly Sira freezes one on the spot - just 'cos it seems like the thing to do.

"Hmm... how interesting... a new species of monster we've not met before" ponders Tom as he drives his sword through the brain of the creature as it's frozen in a position of desperate retreat.

"Ah - these are Kritahs, they're pretty common round here" Siobhan chips in. But Tom turns to look at her un-impressed.

"Clearly these are just rabbits."

"Oh no, they're much more fearsome than just rabbits! Why, look at this cave! These rabbits have built these amazing tunnels!"

"Rabbits build tunnels all the time. Big rabbit, big tunnel."

"But the carrots! All the carrots they eat! Oh, the horror! The salad horror!!"

"Listen love, this planet is home to some impressive beasts. I mean you have poisonous amphibi-birds, hoover-attachment faced death cats, actual demons. But seriously - rabbits?"

"You'll be sorry..!"

"Yeah yeah yeah..."

Snooping about we open the chest to gain some moderate treasure. I'll admit that I was a little sad to find rabbits in here. It sort of suggested the tunnel was nothing to do with Evil Kontos and his mad-science, propaganda, anti-Iskai plans. But then being reminded that someone obviously still uses these passages to store treasure re-enthuses me towards my investigations. Probably Kontos keeps the really VALUABLE booty here where the REALLY deadly WILD monsters will guard it for him... Although the really deadly monsters are just rabbits so maybe it's not QUITE like that...

The cave is quite small but contains pits that the team identify as leading into "the void"

"The void you say" murmers Tom, cupping his chin in thought...

"Yep. I recon so. But y'know, never mind - we'll probably be able to just get down there with a rope..."

"Yeah, come on Tom" pipes up Sira "We cat people with knight vision love rapelling into oblvion! It'll be fine!"

The team take a few jaunts down pits but find that most lead to small chambers that don't go anywhere. Finally we find one that contains two more holes leading further down. It looks like this is going to be one of those mazes where you're constantly changing floors and having to keep an eye on the map to remember which pits go to which areas on the floors above and below. Sort of like one of those 3D marble mazes I had when I was kid (if you've not encountered them, they're kind of like the cave maze below Kounos in the PC RPG "Albion" from 1995).

Dropping down one of the holes we meet another bunch of the rabbits.

"Swords away chaps" Tom mutters. "There's no point wasting energy on these Kritahs..."

"Bah, I was hoping to get some practice throwing stones" grumbles Hoff.

Sheathing their weapons the gang step forward to push past the rabbits - everyone except Siobhan that is who stays poised ready for what she knows is inevitable!

THWACK!

Tom staggers backwards! What was that?

The rabbits are sitting docile, sniffing in the air and twitching their fluffy little tails.

"What... just happened??" cries a startled Tom

"I told you! I warned you! But ooooh no!" chides Siobhan readying herself for a fight.

Looking round alarmed, but not yet sure what's going on, the rest of the team draw their weapons looking around for Tom's assailant.

"Is... Is it the rabbits?" stammers Sira

"Do you see anything else it could've been... I told you - these are no ordinary rabbits! They're Kritah's and they'll bad you up like nobody's business if you don't keep your wits about you... Look out!"

At this point one of the rabbits stands up on it's hind legs revealing it's rippling muscular six pack (yeah - y'know, rabbits with ripped abs. Y'know how rabbits all have ripped abs yeah? 'Cos of all the crunches and sit-ups you see them doing...)

Mell's jaw slackens in amazement - hardly able to comprehend how this can be happening he stands agog as the rabbit balls its fist and punches him in the jaw before dropping down to all fours again looking innocent.

"ATTACK!!!"

A vicious pub-brawl style encounter ensues. The rabbits are mean fist fighters and play dirty - one backs Dirr into a corner

"Oh god! My guts! He's just punching me in the guts! Why! Why isn't anyone helping me"

"You love it. HUH! Shut your mouth! HUH!"

"Please! Just take the rocks! I don't want any trouble!"

"Hah! Shut it old man!" The rabbit takes the fag out of the corner of its mouth and breaks its pool cue across Hoff's cowering shoulders.

Mell desperatly tries to make some kind of mark on a piece of card while a level 2 Kritah slams his head in the door.

It's a tough fight, but towards the end the team manage to get the upper hand at which point the strong but essentially cowardly rabbits turn tail and flee. We freeze and slay a couple of them but the rest get away.

Startled and exhausted, Siobhan goes up a level - takes some naff treasure out of the chest and discovers that the passage is a dead end.

Hoisting themselves back up to the previous floor and then down the other hole again, the team find themselves in a tiny self-contained room - the only way to progress to go down AGAIN - this place seems to be incredibly deep! Irritatingly no one's tired so when we drop down again and find we've caught up with those thug rabbits (newly regrouped with their chums) we take a SERIOUS pasting.

"Oi mate! You're gonna pay for what you did to bazza and kieth!"

SMACK.

Seriously, these things go from looking like rabbits to looking like football hooligans lamping you in the face. It's a really weird monster and I wonder how common it's going to become for the rest of the game. I've not seen any of those demons again since I saw them in the catacombs below Druid Central - so it could be that these bad boys will never show up again.

In a way I sort of hope that's the case. They're pretty lame compared to the other monsters I've seen. Weirdly anthropomorphic animals don't really fit in with the whole alien-world vibe of the rest of the game. It feels like when in old Sci-Fi films the aliens are just cat people or giant insects (see "Cat women of the moon" with cat women and a giant spider). Alien monsters should be totally alien, not just cop-out things from earth - so entertaining as thug rabbits are, I hope they're just a novelty that I won't be seeing too much of.

We kill all the bunnies this time. I take special care to prevent any of them getting away - Sira putting them each to sleep so that we can take our time killing them one at a time.

After the fight everyone's exhausted and settle down to rest up. Only as they do so they find the room they're in is strewn with human skeletons!

Could this be the work of the Rabbits? Are these victims of Kontos', confined to this maze with no hope of escape? It's not a good sign whatever the reasons behind it are - and it's not like the developers to just put bones in for decoration.

Still, the monster eye says it's safe to have a nap so we do. It's interesting that already (doesn't feel like I've been playing for very long) one rest isn't enough to get all one of my wizards's magic up! That's useful to remember since it means that I really do need to start seeking out inns before I go out on proper quests.

A little way along the passage we climb up to a different area of the floor above and what? WHAT?

There's a horrible plant! A sort of flesh-tube with flowers that squirt out of it then are sucked back up again! As I look at it in horror the plants splodge in and out like a disgusting and strangly sexually... Hypnotically... I reach out to touch it, but I can't interact with it and the suddenly everything goes dark!!!!

Oh god!

What's happened???

The sex flowers! What did they do?

...

"oh my bad" someone pipes up in the darkness.

A few moments later Hoff lights another torch and everyone, shaken, decends down a couple more holes - down as deep as we've ever been here before! The maze is seriously elaborate - on each floor you can see all the various different un-connected rooms and chambers you've dropped in and out of before.

In this deep, drippin chasm room we find a whole field of sex plants - all squirting and sucking up their flowers out of synch. Big ones, little ones and huge ones all planted in rows. Is someone farming these slimy funnel flowers? Could it be Kontos? Are these somehow related to his dark sciences? I step up the nearest one and find that I can harvest "herbs" from them...

"That the heck you you fink YOU'RE doing?" someone says as they shove sira flat on her face in the slimy floor of the cave.

It's more rabbits. A veritable street gang of the things! This time one of them has knuckle dusters, another has a broom handle and the leader's got a half-brick in a sock. These guys are mean.

The fight is really tough. Tom gets thrown along the length of a bar and is out of the fight almost immediatly. Sira gets her front teeth knocked out when a rabbit throws a bottle of stella across the room at her. Mell, rushing over to check if she's ok gets picked up by a level 2 bunny with blood-shot eyes

"you beating up a girl eh?"

Mell gesticulates in terrified confusion

"why don't you pick on someone your own size..."

Mell can only stare at the beasts horrifying full height - at least twice as tall as a man and built out of the kind of amphetamine fuelled muscle that says "I've spent all my money on my body and need almost no excuse to use it"

SLAM. The rabbit drops mell on his knee, puches him in the eye and sends him flying over into the corner of the room. Stomping over it then just kicks and kicks him swearing and shouting "Picking on a girl eh? Picking on a girl is it?!!!"

Meanwhile Sira crawls over and grabs the bunny, begging him to stop! "You're killing him! You're killing him!!!"

"Shut your mouth you stupid bitch!" The rabbit breaks 3 of Siras ribs as he smacks her away.

Seriously, these bunnies aren't nice guys. This is a really tough fight - it's like being in the wrong part of Glasgow on the wrong night.

Thank heavens for Dirr and Siobhan. It takes this horrific situation to give them the kick-start they need to get working together. Finally they get to working as an all girl leading kick-squad. Time to get serious!

"Hey you? Picking on a girl is it?" Dirr remembers her police training and shows no fear.

The crazy thug looks up, his eyes almost unable to focus because of the chemically fuelled rage he's worked himself into.

"Why not come over here and try that on us" shouts Siobhan - using her hair to dramatic advantage as she steps up next to her Iskai team mate.

The idiot runs at them and finds that these feisty ladies are a lot more than he can handle! Like a martial arts tag team the front-line ladies duck and weave his flailing attacks then run him through the heart as he carries on past them - dumbfounded by their swift maneuvers.

The rest of the gang look on in shock as their top hitman is put down swiftly and effectivly.

They charge en masse, but it's no use - their raggle-taggle blunt-instrument tactics are doomed to fail as Dirr and Siobhan work together to take them out one at a time, starting with the weakest and working through to the strongest. It's an awesome performance and one they manage to pull off just at the right time! Without magic support the team would usually have been wiped out at this point but somehow the melee guys have pulled it out of the bag in their hour of greatest need! Honestly! These rabbits are SERIOUSLY tough customers!

Thankfully, video game injouries are quickly recovered from - so while Mell, Tom and Sira were horribly beaten up, they just have to rest and everything's fine again (although I did read in the manual that if your stats get nobbled - so, for example, if your strength was sapped - the effect is permanent! Something to be careful of!)

When everyone's recovered, we scour the rest of the cave and nick a nice crystal axe and a fire ring for Hoff.

Up, down, up and down. From here on out there's no more rabbits in the caves - just a maze of brancing chambers with holes leading between the floors. Pretty quickly I feel completly lost - I'm fairly sure I've missed some passages but by this time I'm about ready to leave this place. Cute looking but actually horrifically tough monsters are more than I could cope with much more of.

Thankfully the ordial turns out to be pretty much over. As I stagger around what appears to be a dead end I find I fall through the floor and end up outside the cave mouth at the bottom of the pass. Remember the tiny fence that prevented me entering the cave previously? Just before I was lead to climb the vines up and over the mountains? Well now I've come out of the mouth of that cave on the other side of that fence!

"Oh look" cries Dirr (and this is ACTUALLY what she literally says now) "from this side I can see the latch holding the gate shut!"

Seriously? You couldn't have leaned over the fence from the other side and worked the latch before?

Well there you are. Turns out the whole cave was some kind of red-herring. It was just the collapsed remains of the old tunnel through the hills. I've harvested some herbs and picked up a neat axe - but I'm no closer to finding the truth about Kontos, the half-parchment OR the corrupt members of the council of the just!

I've already done 2 dungeons on this island and it seems there's still heaps to do before I can move on to search for the Toronto..!