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..!