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Reaching Vabbi
Progression:
*
Missions: Rilohn Refuge, Pogahn Passage, Moddok Crevice
Wyrm
- 30 Jun 2007We
seem to have misplaced Ginger and Jenova. Nobody is sure where they are exactly.
We hope they didn't fall into a ravine or something. For now, we have to go on
without them. Since we have extra space, we bring Zhed along. Not really sure
we thought that one through since he can't disguise himself as a Kournan. Oh well,
we're good at thinking on our feet. As we walk towards the fortress, there are
some manacles lying on the ground, so we make Zhed wear them and say he's a prisoner
being moved to Gandara. He's not very thrilled at the concept, but accepts it. Amazingly
enough, the guard buys it. Not only that, but he gives us the entry code to get
into the prison section. The disguises work better than anticipated. As we go
into the fortress, there's a guard nearby that has us take some prisoners off
his hands. Sunspear prisoners. We tell him we'd be glad to take them to the prison
for him. Idiot. A bit further on there's a demon attacking some Kournans and they
ask for help, which we give partly because we don't want to ruin our disguise,
but also because as much as we dislike the Kournans, we dislike demons even more. From
here, we head to the treasure vault and Margrid tricks the guard into giving her
the diadem. I'm amazed at the lack of security here. A bit further on I spot a
guard complaining about having to work a double shift or something like that and
see a golden opportunity. I walk over to him and say I'll handle the shift for
him and that he can head off to wherever. He thanks me and leaves. This place
is fun. I
rejoin the others and we keep following Margrid's map, which takes us directly
to the prison where we find Kormir and another corsair, Shahai, who winds up being
Margrid's sister. At this point there's not really any use in pretending to be
Kournans anymore since, in order to free Kormir, we have to kill a jailer and
his guards. It was fun while it lasted, but now they've sounded the alarm and
it's time for us to clear out of here. We
can't go back the way we came, so we don't have any choice but to escape via the
docks. It seems everything has come full circle with this place. The first time
we came we arrived at the docks and left on foot, this time we came on foot and
are leaving at the docks. And, once again, the only thing that stands between
us and freedom is a really large number of Kournan troops. They're still not much
of a challenge, but what they lack in skill they make up for in numbers. After
quite a long time of fighting, and a few res sigs later, we find ourselves at
the outer courtyard. Luckily, that guard I took the shift for hasn't returned,
which makes things easier. As
we move through the courtyard and fight the guards, things are looking up. Those
sunspear prisoners we were told to escort are more than happy to lend us a hand
in the fighting. When we finally make it to the docks, we only have one obstacle
left to get past. A Kournan captain that can inflict quite a lot of pain with
his fire spells. We do what we can to keep Kormir and Shahai back while Wirr takes
the brunt of the damage. Needless to say, a few sigs are burned up. Eventually
though, the captain goes down and we're in the clear, sailing away from Gandara. That
hardly takes us any time at all, so we decide to head over and help Whispers destroy
his demon while Shahai takes Kormir back to the sanctuary. Along the way, we run
into Ginger and Jenova. We're still not exactly sure what happened to them because
they say they were at some super secret meeting of some sort. In any case, we're
back to full strength again so we send Zhed trotting back to the sanctuary. We
head to the Mahnkelon Waterworks to meet up with Whispers and his djinn friend.
While he's somewhat surprised to see us, he just accepts it and we move forward,
fighting through drakes and Kournan patrols to get inside. Whispers
tells us that we can weaken the Drought, that is, the demon he wants us to kill,
by activating pump control levers or something like that, but that it will take
us a lot of extra time. We decide to skip the things and save time, as we're already
in a hurry. As a result, we're just about face to face with the monster in less
than five minutes. That was easy. We decide to clean out his little droughtlings
nearby so they don't get in our way when we take the thing on. That proves to
be a very smart idea. This guy hurts. A lot. More than any other foe we've fought
before. Maybe we should have taken the time to weaken him, but it's too late for
that now. All I have to say is, thank goodness for Rebirth. Our
rag-tag armor from back in Lahtenda Bog hardly offers any protection at all. We're
nearly wiped out several times before we're finally able to send him back to wherever
demons come from. Kali's armor is starting to show a little wear and tear, that's
going to get distracting if she doesn't mend it or something. It's a good thing
the little droughtlings aren't anywhere near as tough as the big guy. In any case,
with the demon dead, Whispers shows us a hidden passage behind where the demon
was that leads to a network of caves that leads to Vabbi. We move on and prepare
for what comes next. I don't like demons. Determined
to at least make it to Vabbi before we collapse, we get ready to head through
the caverns. Dunkeroo shows up and insists on coming along, saying we need to
be cautious. Whatever. That Whispers guy is also still following us around and
Zayisha lets us know that she made a deal with him that he would join our team
if we killed the demon for him. Whatever. We
head into the caves and some corsair captain says he's been sent to lead us through.
He seems somewhat suspicious and Dunkeroo warns us not to trust him, not that
we were going to anyway. The corsair captain then attacks us, upset that we didn't
fall for his blatant deception. He dies just as easily as his entourage. Looks
like we're going to have to make it through this area on our own. Not that that's
a problem, but it might make things move a bit slower. We're
in a sort of underground pond and there are a lot of Mandragors in here with us.
These things are annoying. We'll usually be able to avoid having to fight them,
but in this case they're right in our way; that is, they're everywhere. Once we've
cleared the area of them, we move on a bit further, but Dunkeroo warns us to stay
back, something about the path not looking safe. Whatever. We've learned by now
that if we don't listen to him he'll do nothing but nag us about it later on,
so it saves us from a headache to just do what he says. We go to the other path
and once again Dunkeroo gets jumpy and wants us to hide behind a waterfall. Well,
at least it saves us from having to fight a Kournan patrol. After
the patrol passes we go up the path and fight insects that are easily squashed.
There are corsair camps somewhere in the distance but Dunk wants us to be extra
cautious and hug a wall to avoid them. I think he's just paranoid at this point.
A little ways further and we spot two scout runners. They could be trouble if
they raise an alarm, so we decide to take them out before that can happen. Oh
yeah, Dunk thinks that's a good idea as well. Kali hits them with a Deep Freeze
and they get both surprised and chilled, making them easy prey. With
them out of the way we move on, taking out more insects. Dunk has been silent,
making the journey much more comfortable and stress free. Unfortunately, that
peace is short-lived as we come face to face with General Bayel and Varesh's pet
pooch, the Hunger. As luck would have it, these two don't get along very well
so when we start picking on Bayel, Hunger just sits there and watches. Bayel turns
out to be a creampuff and, as such, goes down rather easily. As we move in to
take on the Hunger, we prepare for another really big pain fest like the Drought
was. Then we start fighting and realize he's not really doing much of anything
to us. All we have to do is keep people clean of conditions and he's a total breeze.
And, on top of that, after we start beating on him for a while, he starts running
away, but in circles. Talk about your bark being worse than your bite. Oh well,
he's easily dispatched and we're finally in Vabbi.
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