Session 42

"As a robot, I don't know how much you're aware of what God got up to before your kind came along? Did you ever hear of 'religion'? When God was younger, he and his sister sort of just toyed with mankind. They set people up to think of them as kings/queens above all kings and queens that exist. It was a bit chaotic and inconsistent for a very long time while the two of them got used to working with people - then eventually they fell out and she left the planet. The problem was the God was too clover for her (this is his sister I'm talking about now). He liked to study things - observe the structure of the world. But she was stupid and thought that took the 'magic' out of everything. You know, he even tried to be nice to her. They had a fight, but he called it off because he knew that just killing all her followers wouldn't show her that he was right. Instead he thought he'd show her the power of organisation, of coherent thinking. His highly disciplined Christians set about converting her druids (no two of which ever had the same idea of what they believed really) peacefully through words. But she didn't like it. She had a sulk and just flitted off, leaving the planet and taking a handful of her backwards druid-folk with her."

Phillipe didn't really know what to do with this information. He understood that the holy commission for the development of artificial life had created him all those years ago. But they'd also pretty abruptly replaced him and made him redundant with the next generation of robot. Having to listen to a priest give him the back-story was a bit painful considering how callously he'd been basically scrapped and left to find his own way in the world. And on top of that it was still a long way from clear what any of this had to do with Joe Bernard.

"Is this really important father?"

"I tell it to all of you detectives when you come along. I really feel that it's the least I can do considering. I mean, you can't really find out about Joe's disappearance without learning about the world being over. And that's the sort of thing that I think it's easier for people to take in when put in context."

"You said before that the world had ended. Are you telling me that this wall" (he put his hand through a plaster wall) "is just a trick of my sensors? That I'm just an AI running a complex simulation of the world when in actual fact there's nothing physically here at all?"

"Um... no. I'm not saying the world isn't REAL. That would be idiotic. No, listen to me and I'll explain."

"Well can you just cut the context short?"

"Ugh. Ok. Well, the point is that his sister leaving really REALLY annoyed God and pretty much everything he's been doing in the last 2000 years has been geared towards getting back at her. In that time he played around with religion, trying to make it more workable and scientific, but really he just lost his hold on it. There were too many religions about - after him and his sister had been just larking about with them for so long. Plus, they started to take on lives of their own - people didn't want to re-assess their understanding of the world in the light of new evidence, so you ended up with claims that the earth is flat despite everything..."

"This is still very waffly..."

"*sigh*. Well the long and short of it is that around 1900, God ditched religion altogether and got into science instead. He didn't have to worry about being king-like, he just set up a framework in the world where people got rewarded (by and large) for cataloguing the way the world worked and organising things ('discovering' things and 'inventing' things). Instead of holding onto ideas - he trained people to celebrate throwing them away when a better one came along. Secretly guiding this science driven world has been his little project for the last 300 years and it's worked marvellously for him. With the construction and deployment of the DDT corporation's vessel 'the Toronto' - he can FINALLY get back at his stupid wishy-washy sister."

"I see. And the point is that Joe Bernard signed up to be on the Toronto's maiden voyage, and that's why his disappeared..."

MEANWHILE, ON THE PLANET OF ALBION

Wiping his mouth (did I mention that he'd been drooling?) Nemos gives the bean a little squeeze. Just a tiny little squeeze - like you might give the buttocks of an attractive co-worker who you fancied, had fallen up against and wanted to have a little gropette of but didn't want to get into trouble. Just the lightest little tiny squeeze, just for drama - not so much as it would squash the bean.

Very like an attractive buttock, but bean bulges a little in response to the squeeze. The bean is firm. Perter than you might expect for a bean that's already been put in a salad then on someone's face.

Then, covered in salad dressing, it slips out from between Nemos's fingers and flies into the air.

"Quick! Catch it!" Cries Hoff.

"What's going on in here... Oh cripes! A bean! I'd better not let it fall!" announces another druid walking into the room at that very instant and grasping at the slippery buttock-like bean only for it to go *pwoit*out of his grabbing fingers like a wet bar of soap and fly back across the room the other way.

"I've got it!" says Dirr trying to grab it too but, again, firing it into the air instead.

Several other Dji Cantoses rush in to see what the commotion is and soon they're all running around catching and accidentally re-launching the bean around the room.

There is a full-screen static image of the chaos that ensues. I love these full-screen images and this is probably the best one from the game so far (apart, possibly, from the weird poking-jesus-in-the-eye from back when that murderous hag and her mute simpleton boyfriend were still part of the team). A crowd of dignified Dji Cantoses are all reaching up trying to grab the oily bean and text describes the palava in full.

Eventually the bean falls into the cupped hands of Tom who wipes the oil off on his shirt and gives the bean a little squeeze himself just to make sure it's stable now.

"Wow... So firm!" He murmers.

"So Nemos..." Hoff starts, turning around to find the sects spiritual leader amongst grumbling intellectual elite of the planet - all rubbing their heads or elbows where they bumped into each other grasping for the bean. All except one who, having been fallen against by one of their co-workers, finds it is only his buttock that is bruised. But only very very gently bruised.

"Byyyeeeeeee!" Nemos cries over his shoulder as he rides out of the main hall on his micro-scooter, texting as he goes: "U wont B-leev who I jus tuched up lol chips ok 4 tea?"

"Oh... I thought we were going to enchant this thing with the secrets..." Tom says, clearly confused.

"Yes, well..." Hoff brushes himself down crossly. "We'll just say that whole rumpus counted shall we? Ok? Good. Well no point shuffling our feet. May as well go save the planet or whatever it is we're doing today."

"Wait!"

It's Joe! He scurries over clutching a VHS cassette.

"Here's the video I've been making. I'd forgotten how much I like documenting stuff! Just as well eh, since that's all I've been doing since you left!"

"Joe! Hi! How's the video going?"

"I... I just told you Tom... Anyway, I've really been getting into it. Y'know, it's given me such a new zest for life! I'd always known I liked discovering and logging stuff - but I'd somehow forgotten about it all--"

"When you took up a career as a flight mechanic on a space ship?"

"...Yes. When that happened. Anyway, the upshoot is I've changed my mind. We SHOULD save the planet after all."

"Joe... We were going to save the planet before... that's always been the--"

"Oh. Yeah. No. Totally. I know... I mean... I mean that... What I mean is that I'd like to come help save the planet after all. Y'know, 'cos previously I thought I'd be no good fighting through to the Toronto's power core, what with me being a mechanic and whatever. Only now that I've made this video I could show everyone so they can learn about all the stuff I've been documenting... I think I'd like to do that first-hand. I'd like to be the one who presses the button to play the tape..."

"I dunno Joe. I mean, we've only got one position available on the team at the moment... I was thinking maybe we should get that harridan murderess back... Or the mute guy..."

Joe fixes Tom with a mysterious stare.

"No, Tom. You think I should come with you. Even though I don't have any combat skills. You never know when you might need a jet engine repaired..."

"Oh stop faffing about and come on you two." Hoff intercedes, speeding the whole thing up. And off they go to save the world.

Joe isn't kidding when he says he's completly useless. To get to the Toronto we first have to go through the tunnels of hoover-attachment-monsters that the Dji Cantos are maintaining on the continent of Umajo. Now, by this time Dirr is pretty much able to smash these beasties to bits on her own (having levelled up quite a lot since last time they were here).

"Hey Siobhan! Isn't this your skin?"

"Oh - thanks Dirr! I've been wondering where that went!"

Dirr pulls the skin out of the defeated monster and Siobhan slips back into it like it was a jump-suit.

"Wait a sec... There's another one in here..."

"Oh, that'll be mine!" Tom pipes up. And he's right - he too hasn't had a skin since last time they were here, but somehow no-one had noticed that it was missing.

"Wow - you're right Tom! You DON'T have any skin! I just thought you'd... y'know... forgotten to moisturise or something..." Hoff says helpfully.

On their way through the gang pass a sort of grille of stalagmite and stalactites, behind which is a treasure chest with quite a lot of ace booty in it!

"You can carry this lot Joe. You need something to do..."

"soon... sooooon..."

"What'd you say sorry?"

"Um... I said... Yes. Of course I'll carry this for you. A pleasure..."

Outside the caves the game flashes up some text to the effect of: "The gang nip through a tunnel that Tom and Joe noticed when they were escaping the Toronto before. This takes them right into the heart of the ship."

It's a shame they didn't put this tunnel in the game. I'd've loved to have seen how they envisaged the insides of the Toronto's mines and to be honest they could've put this in instead of the rubbish wasteland of east Umajo (where I previously spend hours of my life - WEEKS of the characters' - wandering aimlessly around).

I regain control of the gang inside the Toronto.

This is quite exciting now since I'm finally ACTUALLY on the last step of the journey...

"We should find a video terminal... So I can show everyone my documentary..."

"Remind me why you think that's important?"

"So that all the people on this ship know about the Dji Cantos. They'll all know the specifics of how their magic works. What the various powers they have are. They'll know the names of everything on the planet. The NAMES!!!!"

"Well now Jow. I don't want to put a downer on your documentary. But if we do this then the Toronto will know we're back on board and it's bound to send people to try and kill us off before we can cause it any more problems..."

"Well... Yes... That's true. BUT - the video also tells everyone that we're going to destroy the ship. And if we don't show it, no-one will know to flee the ship and start mingling with the people of Albion."

"Ah - so you're saying that if we don't show the video, everyone'll die when we blow the ship up. Of course. Well there's a terminal..."

As this conversation has been happening, Dirr's been leading the gang down a corridor that is strangely devoid of people. What happened to the continual hubub of people going about their business at the start of the game?

Well never mind. Joe pops the tape on and everyone sits back to watch it.

"It's quite... dry... isn't it." Says Tom after the first half hour (which details the specifics of the Dji Cantos's political structure, magical capabilities, island location and religious observances)

"Well there was a lot to tell people." Mumbles Joe, a little offended.

"Oh no, I'm not saying it's BAD. It's just... Well it's an educational documentary isn't it. And I was just expecting something a little more lively... But probably it wouldn't have been as in-depth..."

A further half hour goes by and the ship is filled with the sound of Joe's monotonous voice saying things like "The ingredients in the magic berries that allow you to cast spells with them are thus: 14 parts menzomagitherine, 11 parts water, 4 parts oxomysticalthiastrichlomine..." and so on.

Eventually Dirr snaps - grabs a microphone that's attached to the video machine they've linked up to the monitor network and says "We're going to blow the ship up. If you don't all get out now, you'll be horribly burned. Horribly burned almost to death! If not to death!"

There's the distant sound of screaming miners and their girlfriends running out of a space craft while the doors down the hall immediately open. A group of guards (some still yawning having only just woken up from a documentary fuelled coma).

It's the first real test of the teams abilities - and it's really tough. The guards (who are probably all AI driven robots) have guns and we've got nothing but sticks and some crummy spells.

However - Siobhan and Dirr manage to plug away at the enemy while Joe is immediately stuck unconscious.

"Damn you, security guards! Damn you for not believing in the sanctity of human life - no matter what planet it's from!" screams Siobhan, using a magical knife to fire-storm a row of their attackers.

The fight is tough. Very tough. But eventually my team come through successfully.

"Look Joe! Guns! Now you won't be so completely useless to us!"

We pick up loads of artillery but soon notice that it's 100% useless.

Now I'm not sure if this was a bug or my own failure to understand something. But the guns come with "Cylinders" (which I assume is ammo). Only if you equip a gun, no-matter how many cylinders you have about your person it ALWAYS says it's out of ammo. There's no way to use the cylinders on the guns to load them. There's no way to equip the cylinders like you might expect to equip a quiver of arrows. I am completely stumped on how to get the guns to work at all! In the end I give up, imagining it must just be a decision the developers made - you're not allowed the guns since they'd probably be too powerful. How exceedingly annoying.

No one seems too bothered that we've just killed something like 8 (potentially) human ship-mates and the crew set off down into the first-person ventilation system.

"Oh, after you Siobhan" Joe says - indicating the way down the ladder ahead of him. "After all - ladies first!"

Siobhan steps past, but Joe was just a little bit in the way and they bump up against each other for a moment.

"Oh, I am sorry" Joe says. But secretly he thinks "So firm... So very firm"

Which is surprising since her skin's been languishing in a monster's tract for a good few weeks.

Down in the vents we must solve puzzles to progress. This is no surprise and I'm not going to go into any detail on most of them since it's sort of pointless trying to get you to visualise a load of trigger plates and imagine how satisfying it would be to manage to bypass some lazer gates or what-have-you.

However - puzzles and traps aren't the only things lurking in the vents now...

"Oh look, Joe! It's one of thoe cuddle-bots from before! Aww... Look at it coming towards us... Isn't it sweet! Opening up it's top hatch... revealing a robotic arm with a... What's that thing that's attached to it? ARRRRRRGGGG!!!!"

Turns out that it's a cattle prod. The cuddle bots have turned nasty! As it wanders up to us - just like the ones we saw before when we had to get them to land on pressure plates - this trundling mush-room shaped automaton whips out an electrified baton and clouts the intrepid pilot round the chops with it.

Dirr springs into action and clobbers the machine as hard as she can - but it doesn't make a great deal of impact.

Siobhan joins in but really they're only taking a sliver of health off at a time.

Then suddenly KABOOOOM

Oh yeah - I forgot about Khunag.

Stepping out of a wardrobe he hurls a fire-ball at the over-amorous killing maintainance droid - deactivating it in pretty short order.

"Take THAT!" He proclaims - releasing a load of doves from his sleeves and into the confined space of the below-stairs space-vents and trying not to notice the smell of burned feathers as they almost all just stray into the criss-cross lasers of a heat-ray security gate. It's ok because they're mostly carried through an airconditioning fan near by. Only that just pulverises them and leaves the air hanging with feather dust.

Everyone would be grateful except that they're too busy sneezing.

So the hug-bots are evil now are they? That's a bit of a pain in the bum since this area is crawling with them.

Thankfully though, they're really REALLY slow in combat and always take their turns last. This, combined with the fact that they only ever really turn up in 2s or 3s means that Khunag can dispatch with them by and large.

Only then we find a huge glass wall.

A huge glass wall with LITERALLY hundreds of hug-bots behind it.

My stomach sinks. There's a big button on the wall begging to be pressed and I know that if I do it I'll be asking for more hugging than I can possibly cope with. 3 at a time is fine - I can let them kill Tom and Joe while my resident ex-Kenget flames them to bits. But hundreds? No chance.

I want to make it clear too that this is LITERALLY hundreds. Shuffling around behind the glass barrier are more mushroom shaped hug-bots than I can count. It's mental! I've not seen this many enemies at once in the game EVER. Let alone surprisingly-tough robo-enemies!

But this is a great example of why Albion is a fantastic game. I've not been grinding at all. I've not been power playing and my characters are (I'm pretty sure) many-many levels less experienced than they could be by this point.

Obviously opening the door and killing a billion robots is one of the super tough last-dungeon challanges that've been put in place for power-house players. BUT there's another way!

When I decided to take on Joe instead of going back to fetch a decent character (that was a choice by the way - Joe says he'll come with you, but he also lets you know he's going to be no use in any fights. You CAN ditch him and go fetch one of the other characters you've had on your team at other times if you want to have a super-tanked squad for the final push) I was doing exactly the right thing.

Before I open the chamber of hugging I scurry around the dungeon looking for any "chests" (they're not chests here, they're funky little supplies cupboards, but it amounts to the same thing) with supplies in. Only I discover a series of panels that Joe can "repair". They don't seem to be doing anything but since I've found a couple I look for more.

In all there's something like 4 and... yes! When I've repaired enough a different door opens! I'm able to walk AROUND the room of robots!

"In your FACE hug-bots!!!" Shouts Hoff - excited because she was sure she was going to die.

"I could've taken them you know..." Khunag boasts, now safe in the knolage that he's not going to have to prove it. He pretends not to notice the teams sceptical, knowing glances by suddenly being engrossed in holding a red ball between his fingers, rubbing it and turning it into two red balls. Then rubbing it again and it turning into three etc etc etc.

Everyone's in high spirits and we skip through several further laser-puzzles pressure plate traps.

Only then we round the corner and BLAM.

A big gang of Hug-Bots "jumps" us. Shuffling into us and brushing up against the team.

I'm not worried at first but then they take out Khunag straight away - almost like they knew he was their main threat.

That's pretty bad! My front line - Dirr, Tom and Siobhan - do their best to clobber some of the pushy mushroomputers but they only manage to pick one off. Then Dirr's taken down. Then Siobhan's taken down. And Tom...

Joe's completly useless and to be honest he might as-well flee. He makes a move to but is zapped to bits before he can get away.

"It's down to me" thinks Hoff. "This is my moment. It's now or never."

Rummaging in his pockets Hoff looks for something he can use. It's ridiculous - but the team was scraping by on Khunag's fireballs before. He knew it was stupid to rely so heavily on one man.

"Lightning trap eh?" It's a scroll. Looks like the only useful thing to hand. Casting it, it places a small, seemingly innocuous white circle in one of the squares of the battle grid. Now it's the Hug-Bots' turn and they've apparently never seen anything like this before. It looks like... YES! One of the stupid cyber-sex-offenders blunders straight onto the thing. It's zapped and thrown into the air by the force! As it falls down it takes 3 points of damage!

Wait... Three points? That's rubbish! Oh no!!! It's got to be all over now hasn't it?

Well maybe... or maybe not!

"I can move faster than these things..." thinks Hoff. "And they're not too sharp... They seem happy enough to walk onto that thing... I wonder if..."

And so he starts running back and forth across the battle grid. The lightning trap remains in the environment even after it's been triggered and as he scampers too and fro our intrepid, aged scientist lures the machines over and over again onto it's electrifying trigger - chucking his almost completly ineffectual boomerang crystal axe at them all the while. It might not do much, but even the mightiest rock will eventually be warn away by rain...

"Ha!" he cries out "Suck science!! Suck science you stupid robots!" Elated, Hoff dashes back and forth and - slow it might be - but the process is successful! One after another the robots take so much damage from repeated zapping that they crumble! It's amazing! Hoff can't help laughing!

Pretty soon there's only one of the things left! It's taken probably 15 minutes of my real-time life and I'm not completely sure I'm proud to admit it. It's one of those times when I often thought "it'd probably be quicker to quit out, re-load and then kill these guys the proper way... But I've started now...

Only then, somehow, I'm cornered. Maybe Hoff forgot to move - maybe he got too carried away lobbing his axe about... There's only one robot left and it's taken a pretty prolonged beating from that trap...

Sitting at my desk I think "Seriously? Can I have messed this up after spending so long on it? I found a way to move around so that the slow-poke cuddle-bots could never get me and it was working! I can't've invested all this time only to mess the whole thing up by forgetting to move one turn?"

There's only one thing for it. I'll just have to chuck my boomeraxe at the thing and hope for the - OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! The axe actually killed that thing!!!

Stunned silence!

Hoff actually fought off 5 Hug-Bots on his own! Hoff! Rubbish Hoff who hasn't done a thing right for the entire game so far!

If I could high-five the dirty little sprite person I would've! It's amazing!

Everyone rests up and we're back in the game!

"I killed them everyone! I saved the day! Look! Look at all the destroyed robots! That was me! And I used science to do it! ME! Using science! And all I suffered was some very very very slight buttock bruising! Could you ARRRRGGGGGGGGGG"

Hoff drops lifeless to the ground with a smoking laser hole through his boob. Oh no! It's the AI's Bearded Body!

"Ha ha ha Tom Driscoll. You thought you could stop us mining the planet to bits? Don't you realise that the DDT corporation NEEDS all the minerals in this planet? Don't you realise how EXPENSIVE getting here was? This whole trip was a massive risk to the masters. A risk I intend to make sure pays off for them!"

"You're going to stop me? You remember this little guy?" Tom holds up his flame-marble which was so effective against the robo-body last time round.

"HA! You don't think I can adapt? Stupid human! You won't find this body so easy to destroy!!!"

However, we do.

I was surprised actually how easy the AI turned out to be. Really we just rushed him and hacked him to bits (while those who has ranged flame-attacks used them).

It's mad that it's all over so suddenly. I guess the AI is the main baddy - so that fight will've been the final boss really... weird.

Actually... even weirder is the fact that there's a colour-coded pressure plate puzzle to solve AFTER the final boss.

That's odd. I guess it's to allow me access to the engine room to let me throw the seed into it. But it's quite uncommon for games to put puzzles after their climactic encounters.

We wander around for a while gathering fragments of a code which - when combined in the right order - open a large bulkhead into what I assume will be the engine room. Then we have a quick rest so Hoff can recover from his victory killing.

"Here goes then guys!" says Tom, leaning over to press the button to open the doors "Looks like we did it!"

Beep.

Gaswooooooosh.

The doors open.

Funny... Doesn't LOOK like the engine room... And... Who're all those people?

The chamber ahead is dark - filled with back-lit alcoves. And standing in each alcove is a human figure... More than one... as I creep confusedly forwards I can make out that stood in each of the alcoves are two or three human figures. Eerily still - statue like...

As the team tentativly walk into the room a voice declares

"Ok. So maybe THAT body you could deal with... But how about... ALL OF THESE!!!!!"

OH CRAP!!!

THE ROOM IS FULL OF AI ROBO-BODIES!!!

AND THEY'RE ALL RANK 2 AI BODIES!!!!

There is absolutely no fighting. Tom and co are immediately set upon by the Toronto's super-human cybernetic avatars and they pummel us.

The avatars all have guns and all move first. Within one turn Tom, Khunag, Dirr and Siobhan are struck down with laser bolts...

There's just nothing I can do! They outnumber us by so much! Maybe if it was jut one, I could wangle something like with the hug bots - but the gang's down before they can even flee! And this is just the first set! They attack in groups of five - but there's something like 10 groups of these guys to deal with!

Laying on the ground - a cyber-avatar's boot on his neck - Tom looks over to Dirr. As his vision fades and the blood drains from his body he manages to gurgle...

"Looks like we should've levelled up some more after all..." He's right. Now we'll actually never be able to complete the game since, with the team at the relativly low levels I've left them at, this final battle is actually just impossible...

I can hardly believe it! Seriously?! After all that? The game lets me squeeze through this far - then nails me with a brick-wall of indestructible robo-nemesises?

There's no point re-loading since the doors are all locked behind us - there's no way we could grind from this point even if we wanted to...

Dirr turns her mangled face towards her human companion. She's followed him right into the bowels of a gigantic metal monster, the likes of which she'd never imagined in her whole life. And now she lies dying - knowing that her failure dooms the entire planet too. There's just one thing she feels she needs to do...

"Tom... I should've told you ages ago... I just didn't know how to bring it up... I'm... not... a female... ughhh" and with that, Dirr, the turns-out-not-to-be-a-woman-after-all, breaths his last.

"Oh yeah" Thinks Tom. "I should've noticed the lack of boobs..."

Then he dies too.

THE END