I haven't even been to the inn yet - da Gardi fixed everything in ~2 hours. There's no way to destroy the bridge, and no way to warn the king of Endor, so our only angle is to curry favor from Prince Reed, and hope he can help us somehow.
So we wait until dark, then return to Bonmalmo.
Reed's attendant is understandably running around in a panic Her one job is to look after one guy, and now that guy has gone off on his own.
Luckily for her, this is not a repeat of the Princess Alena situation; Reed is waiting behind the weapon shop, right where he said he'd be. His attendant has not yet progressed past the "running around the courtyard in a blind panic" phase, so we have some time to chat.
: I'd like you to go to Endor as soon as the bridge is repaired.
: And hand this letter to the Princess of Endor.
"Taloon received the letter!"
: I'm counting on you!
Well, that certainly sounds promising! A romance between the scions of the two royal families would solve all our problems in one stroke. Watch it be correspondence chess or some shit.
We could find out right now, but it's impolite to read other peoples' mail.
Endor! Things have changed since we were here last: the tournament has ended, there's been a spate of bridge repair, and we're no longer in charge of the three-headed engine of destruction called 'Team Alena'. On the plus side we have Tov now, so on the whole it's about even.
Job one is to get to the throne room: we have a letter for the princess and a request for the king. We answer this fellow honestly...
: We don't deal with new merchants unless they've got something extraordinary. You should forget it.
...and are insulted for our trouble.
But the King of Endor has a strict open-door policy, so we reach the throne room anyhow:
: I'll think about it. You can leave now.
Unencouraging! But no worries, we still have one card to play.
The prince's letter reads as follows:
"Dear Mia, Princess of Endor:
Many days have passed, yet I haven't been able to tell father about us. Worse still, my father seems to be planning to invade Endor. We must stop him. Please inform your father of this, and..."
: You do not need to worry.
: Taloon is the name, isn't it? Would you take this scroll to the King of Bonmalmo?
"Taloon receives the Royal Scroll!"
: Please hurry.
You can tell that Taloon will be a great merchant by the way people reflexively seem to trust him. You could argue that Reed was short of options and had to grab the first vaguely appropriate courier who happened into his chamber, but the King of Endor has soldiers and diplomats for this sort of thing. But rather than use them, he elects to bet his kingdom's future on a pajama-clad man whom he met thirty seconds ago.
I don't feel like rewarding that kind of decision-making, so even though the King said to hurry we spend some time bumming around the castle:
There's some history around the Zenithians, but Taloon doesn't know it. Even so, if they have swords that let you
fly they are presumably a pretty cool people.
Armies generally take a few days to get into gear, so we have time for a side trip to Santeem.
: Find it and give it to someone with a noble heart to save this world!
That plan leaves out a key part of the whole "merchant" lifestyle, but it seems basically sound. There'll still be a need for weapons even after the world's been saved, after all.
"Plus there's only one bed, and while sharing with you is one thing I just can't picture myself sleeping with a dog"
The transdimensional rift still works perfectly...
...but mortal bureaucracy manages to bollix everything up. Taloon heads back to Bonmalmo, dejected.
Come to think of it, I bet Alena didn't bother to leave a note or a forwarding address or anything before she set off on her quest for revenge. So far as the average person knows, Santeem's entire royal family, and their whole seat of government, vanished overnight. The land beyond this door is probably embroiled in a continent-spanning civil war right this second. Bazaar had all the good weapons, so I guess the people of Surene will be welcoming their new desert overlords.
Could be worse.
But back in Bonmalmo, Taloon makes the King an offer:
"Dear Friend, King of Bonmalmo:
Please listen to what I must say. It appears that my daughter, Mia, and your son, Reed, are in love. They don't have to marry now, but I do look forward to their marriage...
The King of Endor"
Interesting that he felt he had to remind the King of Bonmalmo of his own son's name. I'm guessing he's had dealings with this jerk before.
Anyway, the King of Bonmalmo (I wish these guys had
names I could use) takes the bait:
: If my son, Reed, marries the Princess of Endor, he'll be the next King of Endor.
: I won't have to invade Endor.
: I appreciate what you've done. I'll dispatch a messenger right away. You can go now.
If you went through Chapter 2 thinking "ho-hum, another tomboy princess, whatever", here's a nice stark reminder of the treatment princesses
usually get in Dragon Quest games. She's not in charge of her destiny; it didn't even occur to her to tell her father about their relationship until some stranger intervened - that was her boyfriend's job. Even with regard to her own marriage, the only choice she could imagine was to wait and be rescued. Heck, when we first met her she was being given away as a prize in a fighting tournament!
: I received the message from the King of Bonmalmo.
: Thanks for your help. As promised, I give you permission to own a shop.
Wooo! But we're nowhere near done; we have the King's permission but we still need an actual location, and inventory, and stuff.
Here's step 2, the location. We just need to buy it, and...
...oh.
Even with Chapter 3's crazy drop rates, that's a
lot of grinding. But there's a better way.
: Remember to report to me when you open a shop.
Not the king; he doesn't want anything else to do with us until we're established.
: The soldiers in this Castle are still using Copper Swords. It's a shame....
Not this guy; he'd like to buy some real weapons and armor, but needs a budget authorization that comes from the king.
: Still, we can't use up all our money. He, he, he.
Getting warmer...
: I hear the Silver Statue exists somewhere.
: I want it. I don't care what it costs.
The idle rich to the rescue! What do you want to bet that it's going to wind up costing exactly 35,000 gp?
But "exists somewhere" is not a lot to go on. Can we get an actual clue?
No, no, not a clue about the end of the world. A
useful clue.
No, as it turns out. No we can not. So far as I know, you have to work out the next bit by process of elimination.
All that walking back and forth left us with some extra money, so we take the opportunity to pick up Taloon's best armor of the chapter. It sounds incredibly uncomfortable, but if it works...
We have Iron Shields, Iron Aprons, and Iron Safes with Iron Combination Locks, but Iron Hats are still terra incognita.
Without any direct clues, we go exploring...
...and find a likely-looking cave, a little to the east of Endor Castle.
[img width=400 heightII=374]http://s2.postimage.org/oleps7nz/Drag_War4_395.png[/img]But alas, it is tiny, containing 1 old man and 0 silver statuettes.
...
I don't want to run this joke into the ground, but seriously?
Seriously? You want to get to a port town - a place which, we may presume, is friendly to water transport - and your plan for getting there is to
dig a tunnel and walk.
ATTN PEOPLE OF DRAGON WARRIOR 4: THERE EXIST MODES OF TRANSPORTATION OTHER THAN YOUR FEET. ALSO, PROBLEMS MAY BE UNDERSTOOD IN THEIR BROADER CONTEXTS, WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE PARTICULARS OF THE FIRST SOLUTION YOU HAPPENED TO THINK OF. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER..
Ok, letting it go now.
: But I ran out of money and I'm getting old too.
...
You know, if it were my dream to own a ship, I'd probably just
buy a ship. Then I'd have a ship, and wouldn't be old, broke, and living in a hole.
Letting it go for real now.
60,000gp, eh?
If this were sixty seconds ago, that figure would probably have provoked in me a lot of ranty commentary about the personal qualities of a man who'd stick to an unworkable plan in the face of such a vast obstacle. There'd probably be some discussion of the failings of the society that permitted such a man to exist.
But I have achieved my Serenity Place, and I can permit such things to flow over and through me. Truly, I am at peace. There will be no more discussion of the peculiarities of water transport for the remainder of this update.
If you have a hex editor, or are insane, you can pull together the requisite 60k before buying your shop. But the old man has not grown so desperate as to take a young idealist's seed money; he insists that you place yourself on a firm financial footing before trying to finance his dream. I know I just said and implied a lot of unkind things about this guy, but I think his principles here are admirable, don't you?
Ok, Option 1 was a serenity-destroying bust, let's try Option 2: the windy path in the mountains.
It takes a lot of walking...
...but eventually...
...we reach the Cave of the Silver Statuette.
...
I think the game is taunting me.
We are about to achieve the game's first ship: a nice little double-masted schooner with, apparently, the ability to function
underground and
without wind. The only kinds of ships that work that way at this tech level are muscle powered, typically by slaves. It isn't discussed in-game, but this raises sinister questions as to the identity and goals of whoever set up this dungeon. More on that later.
The stairs don't lead anywhere interesting. Yet.
To proceed, we have to get on the slave ship. Already our ethics have been compromised - how much worse will things get?
Our first water monster! The Elefrover isn't very powerful; his tentacles slide right off the Iron Apron, and his rubbery flesh can't hope to resist the Sword of Malice.
At the end of the tunnel, we find a pit and (presumably) a waterfall.
At the base of said waterfall, we find a pond of fixed size.
Exercise: how did the dungeon's designer achieve this effect? That's really too easy a puzzle for people familiar with DF, I guess.
The theme of this dungeon is "lots and lots of valuable things". There are thousands and thousands of gold pieces worth of stuff to be found here. That's nice, but it would be even nicer if we had more than 3 inventory slots.
We're going to be coming back here early in chapter 5, so the idea is that you can leave some of these treasures behind, and get them on your second time through for a nice early powerup. But none of the weapons or armor here are better than what's for sale in Endor/Bonmalmo, and we need tons of cash
now, so IMO taking them is better.
Treasure is nice, but what we
really want is to find out what's at the bottom of those tastefully-decorated stairs. But we can't climb, or have Tov give us a boost. What to do?
One lucky slime, one lucky crit, and Taloon gained 3 levels. The treasure chest was only leather armor, but still: 3 levels!
3 levels, but 2 hit points, and thanks to the aforementioned inventory space issues we're not carrying any healing herbs. Most encounters down here are cake, but still.
We're not alone, though this guy isn't doing anywhere near as well as Taloon at navigating the place's hazards.
Well, I say that, but at least this fellow isn't at critical hp and dozens of encounters from safety.
Yeah, speaking of that. Most things in this dungeon don't hit hard enough to get through the iron apron, but Sand Masters? Can.
When you run out of living PCs, this happens. The speaker is never explicitly identified, but there's a fairly obvious candidate whom we'll meet in late Chapter 5.
And then your lead character - and only your lead character - is revived at the last House of Healing you saved at. In my case that's in Lakanaba; thanks to rampant savestate abuse I touch the game's built-in save mechanism about once per chapter.
So death carries three penalties in DW4: you have to pay to revive your fellow PCs, you have to walk back to wherever you died, and if you don't have the Iron Safe, you lose half your gold.
Taloon's only companion is Tov (who is immune to death), so the first penalty doesn't apply. Taloon
does have the Iron Safe, so the half-your-gold thing doesn't happen either. And nothing in this chapter is very far away from anything else.
In other words, death is completely meaningless to Taloon. If anything it's a benefit, a way of fast-traveling out of the current dungeon. I've said many unkind things about Taloon's mechanical effectiveness, but you have to admire a guy for whom death is not only inconsequential but
actively helpful, like he's thumbing rides from the Grim Reaper.
There is one open question, though: who brought us back to Lakanaba? It could have been the treasure hunter we met, but if so he's awfully coy about it.
So most likely, Tov did it. Tov dragged our corpse across the continent, to the healer in his hometown.
Good dog.
So, ok. We can keep doing cave dives until we reach the Statuette; Taloon's pretty tough and we have as many tries as we want to get this right. But that's grindy and unfun, and we have an alternative:
Meet Strom.
Strom is the chapter's Ragnar, more or less: good hp, good defenses, good damage, good nothing else whatsoever but who needs it? He'll double our damage per round and the size of our hit point pool, all for a modest fee of 400gp. We'll make that back in, like, 3 encounters, so there's really no reason not to
Well fuck you too then.
Let's see if we can find a better class of help.
This came as a complete surprise to me; as a child I always gave Tov back when I was supposed to. Sometimes when I contemplate all the special-case hacking the developers did, I find myself forgetting that this was an NES game. Then I look at the screen and instantly remember again, but still.
We find our man on the second floor of the inn.
Meet Laurent, this chapter's Healie. He comes equipped with a decent physical attack through his Venomous Dagger...
...and some attack magic to supplement his Heal spell.
This is not really a good thing. Laurent's attack spells are MP-intensive, and although they're very effective against groups he's perfectly happy to cast them against single targets, even when he could deal better damage with his dagger. The end result is that he gets off maybe two or three Heals per day before he burns himself out throwing fireballs. Still, an extra body is an extra body, and just having twice as many people around to get hit is a big help. Also he appears to be wearing a bathrobe, and so suits the sleepware theme Taloon has established.
Back to action.
I only killed one of these, and only gained two levels. Laurent got the kill, so good for him. Note also that we've barely taken three steps into the dungeon and half his MP is already gone.
A flight of stairs leads us upward, into an area with a bunch of water.
Water that obstructs our access to treasure. This will not stand!
Also, a bunch of things on the level below us were on inaccessible raised platforms.
I wonder if it's possible to solve both problems at once?
If you're a better man than me, you've just realized what's wrong with this plan.
As I am not a better man than me, I press the button.
As you probably predicted, a bunch of the water on this level just poured down to level below. If we can just find a boat, we'll be set.
(Not pictured: me doubling back to Endor for a nap. Laurent's contract runs for five days, which is about enough for three trips)
Draining water reveals treasure! This one was a Broad Sword, worth 1500gp on the open market.
Back down on the previous level, we find...a boat! Fantastic. Let's gather up all the treasures we missed on those platforms we couldn't reach, and
...oh, right. Oops.
What's interesting to me is the sliding scale of degeneracy that this dungeon put us through. To gain access to it at all, and obtain the first set of treasures, you need to accept the fruits of (probable) slave labor. To partake in the second level, you have to drown a man. Admittedly he survived, but that certainly wasn't due to any action of ours.
He took the treasure that was on the island he washed up on. I think we can agree that that's fair.
It's just lucky for us that he didn't wash up here.
The stairs lead to more stairs lead to...
...this.
We've already done slavery and attempted manslaughter so far this dungeon - what are we going to have to do to win the big prize?
That's right!
We're being forced to
throw away treasure.
The rest of the trip is uneventful. On our way back to Endor we run into this fine fellow. He's like the random-encounter-item-shop from earlier, but he lets you take a nap.
Aw hell ye...uh, actually, wait a sec. Didn't the old man with the shop want
35000 gold pieces?
I won't hold you in suspense: he did. The game makes you come up with the other 10k on your own.
That isn't hard if you've been planning for it, though, since valuable goods fall from the sky after more or less every battle. We are completely ok, and even have some seed money left to buy inventory.
Yes.
Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes.
Yes
Yes!
Next time on Let's Play Dragon Warrior 4: The life of a shopkeeper, the genius of Taloon's wife, and more!
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