Shadows over Riva - Completed!

Last time I was tasked by the three mages to question the cook because he might have more information.

In the centre of the castle level I found the cooks quarters and questioned him. He mentioned that he have had an love affair with Bosporan. At some point he noticed Bosporan moved a chest across his room to reveal a secret passage but since the cook discovered it he was casted out. The cook did not give me much more useful information. I actually didn´t know where to go. I tried the gate with the portcullis but after five or six fights with soldiers in each and every one without any hint of making progress, I quit. I thought I might return to some officers room. I was right. The so called officers room was in fact Bosporans room and I moved the chest and behind it I found the three urns. The urns the mages talked about.

I returned to the secret Guild quarters in the sewers and was told the whole story. Allegedly there was a demon who spawned worms that infected their victims. After that the victim could be controlled. One of those worms had infected Bosporan and the demon had tried to infect the orcs as well. I was tasked to defeat this demon once and for all but in order to do so I had to retrieve some sort of item in the undersea. I had no choice but to comply and so I started out under the water.

Fighting underwater

I was quickly assulted by some creatures but it was later discovered those creatures belonged to a group much disliked by the real underwater creatures. In order to get help to get my item I had to help them get rid of the bad guys.

In the rebellious camp

I started to explore the full undersea area but found only one place of interest. A nix that dissappeared in a square room. I searched around and found a trapdoor leading to an undersea cellar. I followed. There I met some more nixes and mermaids but I never understood I was actually fighting the rebel nixes since there was no end fight at all. I just destroyed all wine bottles in the last room and returned above, not sure wether this was a distraction area or not. But when I returned to the nixes king he said I´ve fulfilled my mission and gave me the wand needed to open the dorr in the shipwreck.
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This was the last battle with the rebels

I returned with the wand to the shipwreck and now I could get into the ship. It took some while for me to figure out (or actually I had to check) to get out of the first room. The door out of the up-side-down ship was up in the roof and we had no way to reach it. Unless we removed our lead shoes that is. Then we floated up and entered the ship. After looking around the ship we stumbled upon a lot of water elementals guarding a chest and some sort of boss fight occurred. This was no ordinary fight though. The elementals kept reoccurring every time I killed them and there was a maze in the combat screen with a chest in the middle so I figured I have to move there and destroy every elemental encountered while also protecting my back. So I did. I led the maze with one of my fighters and the other fighter, Rennard, guarded our back. The elementals was not that hard by themselves and after around 15 minutes I reached the center and the combat ended. To my surprise the chest was empty. I didn´t know if I was tricked and this was not the real fight at all but I could not find any other way to go in the ship and so I exited the ship. Then my nixes companion Zorka, told me we should return to her father so I understood I had actually done everything I could.

Entrance to the Nixes king

The king thanked me and rewarded me with......the very wand I was looking for in the ship! He have had it all along. Well, at least I´ve got it. I returned back to suface by removing my lead shoes once again and the I was back at the Guild HQ. The mages examined the wand but understood nothing of their runes so I had to bring it to the witch in town while also trying to evade the guards. I am wanted and if they spot us the game is over.....

When we returned to the HQ most of the men was out attacking the pirates to make an distraction. The mages, meanwhile, studied the translated runes the witch came up with. After a while they came up with a plan. They have found out that the Queens nest is located under the city halls and the guild have dug a long tunnel to reach it. But I cannot enter as I am. The Hive is very small and so my brave group of adventures will be shrinken and the put into the Hive to look for the queen and destroy her. The problem is that we will not be able to bring any equipment, weapons or armour.

The Hive

While down there we had to fight some worms to make progress and soon found a few small weapons to equip ourselves with. Ironically, it turned out that my mages was best at unarmed combat at first since I´ve never put any skill points for my warriors in it. Anyway, the problem is that there are a lot of heavy fights with worms and you are slowly drained of both hitpoints and astral points without any way to return or rest.

I know the queen is here somewhere. I want to save as much astral points as possible for my mages to the end fight but at the same time I have to survive until then. Very, very hard. As if that isn´t enough there is some sort of poison some worms spit at you and the hive is full of illusions put forth by the queen.

My group is now very weak and I am not sure I will have much strength left when reaching the queen, if I ever find her. I am however sure that next post will be the last one for this game because both my score and the story line suggests this will be the end battle.

[Updated 2011-09-18]

I was able to avoid some really tough battles. What really helped was finding a stalactite with lumps. Each lumped healed around 20 hitpoints and 40 astral points. I could harvest 8 of these I think. That was enough to get my group back in shape again. I was really, really needing it. I found a myself in front of a huge labyrinth set forth by the demon queen.

Trying to get out of this maze

 It is a huge maze and the automap does not remember where you have been so you just have the radius around you and nothing more. I struggled for a while to find any kind of path and by avoiding having to map out this section but then I felt kind of stressed and check a hint saying that the exit where somewhere in the southwest so I struggled on and finally found a place that looked different. Fortunately there are no random combats in this area.

In the end there was an exit leading to the core chamber of the queen. But we only took one step until this games most difficult combat begin. A combat in which you have to fight yourselves in form of your duplicates. Arghhh! I hate those battles. I had trouble with them in Drakensang and in Dragon Age. The problem is not to defeat your counterparts. The problem is that if you don´t disable/kill or make them helpless in less than say 20 rounds. They will respawn and that will be your doom. I think I tried this battle for at least 7 times until I succeeded. In this combat you really need the Paralysis spell since you can cast it from a distance. Horrophobus is also very good but you have to be close to the target. If you fail a few times with your spells you will not make it in time. I hade to use some magic in the form of Fulminctus just to destroy Rennards duplicate in order to win. Several times I was just one round from winning the combat. Anyway....after this combat the way is open to the queen herself.

This is the final boss, the Demon Queen, responsible for all evil

I lost one or two times which maked this boss battle harder than most but it was still somewhat dissappointedly easy. You just have to shoot enough fulminctus to destroy her (perhaps 150-200 hit points). The only difference from other boss figths is that she can block spells sometimes, cast evil eye spells, attack two times and sometimes even suck up your damage as a healing. Still, she was defeated!

We used our amulet to call for outside help and let the magicians enlarge us to normal size again. The worms that had infected their victims where dying and the victims former will would slowly regenerate. They would have no memory of what had happened whatsoever. I would still be looked for by the guard. To our honor, the god himself spoke to us about this. The orcs would not survive long without a strong leadership and so turned to fight themselves. The ending sequence opens up for a follow up game but none has been released as far as I know.

End score

I finally made it!!! I completed the game! My end score was 902 out of 1.000 points. In my next post I will review this game.

The evil gods now hate me