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Update 7: Interlude 1: Treasures and Training
Last time, we encountered three riddle chests to solve.
Answer: BARROW
The treasure isn't that great, we have a Ring of Prandur, Rope, and Dalatail Milk.
The Ring of Prandur has the exact same function as a torch. The upside is that rings that you find generally have more charges then torches you'd pick up, but otherwise there isn't really a good reason to hold onto Ring of Prandurs while you have torches. They usually sell pretty well with merchants though, so I'll be able to maybe get 10 gold at best for this one?
Our first actual stat increasing potion. Drinking the milk greatly increases a character's defense stat for a limited amount of time. Other potions do this for stats such as combat ability or strength, which are well worth holding in reserve for a particularly difficult fight.The defense milk isn't quite as good, but if I have a lot of people dogpiling Owyn (which tends to happen in most fights where I'm outnumbered) I might have him take a swig and then constantly defense while Locklear and Gorath plink away at Owyn's attackers.
Answer: DRUM
Not much treasure inside this one either. I don't remember because I apparently forgot to screenshot it, but there is one item worth notice.
A pair of shoes, but these aren't any ordinary shoes.
Owyn's stealth was 31. Just having the shoes in his inventory jumps that up 30 points.
Stealth, incidentally, helps in having successful ambushes. As soon as I can, everybody will have a pair of these in their inventory.
Answer: SIEVE
It makes sense now, but hell if I knew what a sieve was when growing up.
We've seen the swords and shell before. The more interesting piece of treasure here is the book.
Similar to the note that I showed that we dug up in the graveyard, the book here is a readable object. This item, however, unlocks a conversation topic.
I referenced Rhuargh briefly in the background update. This would be the golden dragon that gave Tomas the armor of Ashen-Shugar. The journal here suggests that at some point, we might be able to explore more of the chambers of Mac Mordain Cadal and maybe look for these chambers ourselves.
We might want to ask a local about it though.
We have the new conversation topic now that we've read the book, so we let's ask resident local Naddur.
Topic: Rhuargh's Room
"Who or what was Rhuargh and what is his chamber? I overheard someone talking about him...it?"
"Overheard, my toes! You've been poking about, 'aven't you? No harm in it though. Rhuargh was a grand beastie, a dragon! For centuries 'e lived 'ere in the Mac Mordain, but he passed on at last near ten year ago. I've 'eard our King Dolgan say the elven consort Tomas was present when Rhuargh passed on, but I'm scarce to believe it. The chamber is a marvel though, buried somewhere beyond where our digging is at the moment. At one time there was quite a bit of treasure there - an unfortunate large amount of it concealed in chests with moredhel wordlocks - and perhaps there may still be. Come back later and mayhap we'll see it together!"
Topic: Moredhel Wordlocks
"What's a moredhel wordlock?"
"It's a..."
"Shut up, you!"
"A more bastardly lock never there has been crafted, not by dwarf nor man. It's got little wheels what a body turns, each representing a letter of the alphabet. In order to open the chest, you've got to make the letters spell out a word what the lock's designer had in mind to open it up. Most 'ave a clue plate attached to the front what's written in moredhel - in case the lockmaker forgets the word. Of course the clue plate's of no use to the vast majority of Kingdom folk. Written in bloddy moredhel!"
"BYE!"
With our pile of treasure, we head back to LaMut. There was some interest expressed in training with Sumani, so I do so.
"Your will, lord?"
"You said you were a soldier with the Tsurani forces. Would you be interested in teaching us some of your combat techniques?"
"It would be my honor, lord, but I will require a small fee for my services. If my armor were to be damaged, I would be ill prepared otherwise to pay for it's repair. Seventy Five sovereigns should cover any potential harm. Is this fee acceptable?"
"Sounds reasonable enough to me. Deal."
"I shall meet you by the river in five minutes time. I should forewarn you, however, I sometimes seem quite different when I am armored for battle. I apologize in advance for any harm that I should do you."
Now that we've got our asses beaten, we head back to the Inn. Training with Sumani gives a very nice increase to both combat and defense for all characters.
I spend a night in the inn to get everybody back to full health. I'm one point shy for Gorath, and the next morning...
... to give you these and tell you they are a gift from Delekhan."
Locklear froze, his hand clasped over the coins. "Anything else?"
"No, that was it," the man said cheerfully. "Just give them these coins and tell them it was from Delekhan. So how about spending a little of that new found fortune on another night here, eh? That will more than cover the cost."
As far as I know, there is no consequences to staying at the Inn or in the area for a long time. I think this is just in the game to scare the player and give them more a sense of urgency then anything else.
Just about ready to head out of town, let's go pester our other dwarf buddy Dubal. Maybe he can tell us a little bit more about...
Or not. Smoking pipes is serious business so we best leave him alone.
Looks like our next destination is going to be to investigate this whole ruby business. Sumani told in a prior update to seek out one Keifer Alescook in the town of Loriel. We'll do that next time, and I'll be taking the Northern passage to get there.
That's it for this post. See you in Update 8:Interlude 2: Ratings and Skills. Also Locklear's Mustache