[TheChosen]

Thanks Pex. Thankfully I have two copied versions of each disk so in case something goes wrong, I can try these for alternative. Also, thanks for the tips. This is exactly what I want to know.

Lets boot this quest up! Here is the first report.

We start out at the harbor of the city of Phlan. Before we can do anything, we meet a person who says he will be our tour guide, named Rolf, apparently appointed by council. After saying that, he takes us around the city. First he takes us to temple area, where there is temples to Tyr, Sune and Tempus, as well as Bishop Braccio's house. Next up is the docks (where we came from) and Rolf mentions about possible ships taking to dangerous places (sounds like a quest!). He then takes us to town centre and shows us the training school, council building (which lists proclamations, which are pretty much available quests which have rewards) and city park. Finally, he shows us the gate to parts of the old city, which he describes as "monster ridden areas". He also mentions that there is a reward for those who clear the area of monsters. He then unceremoniously dumps us and urges us to check the council and city clerks for quests.

But before we rush into the buildings of bureaucracy, we head to shopping district (which Rolf failed to mention us) to look for weapons. We have 1000 gold pieces, but not a single weapon or armor in anyone's inventory. Thank goodness we dont have to buy any spells. After mistakenly barging into a item shop, we finally find one that sells all things combat.

Im not sure If TheChosen can backstab with a broadsword, but I still decided to give him one. At least he can defend himself. He also gets a leather armor.

Bulubane will be going all combat with a two-handed bastard sword, since it kills easily. For protection, a hardy banded mail.

Since Tomekk relies on spellcasting, I hesitated to give him an armor in case it would hamper is spellcasting abilities. Still, we buy him a bow and bunch of arrows.

Professor Oak gets a scale mail, flail and a shield.

Hunvagy gets a scale mail, battle axe and a shield.

TotalAnarchy gets a stick Bo-staff. No armor or anything else. I could have bought him some darts like manual suggested, but maybe next time.

After thats done, its time to find a place where we can rest and memorize spells. I look around and accidentally stumble into a tavern. We could have option to gamble, but I think we have better things to do. We also overhear tavern tale number 10.

Now, this is what happens quite a lot in this game. We hear numbered tavern tales, read numbered proclamations and gets events that are called like "Journal Entry 5". This is the games main copy protection. Whenever games says something like this, I have to look up in the journal to see whats happening or what kind of information I have learned. Its efficient copy protection, but also efficient way to save space. Reading journal before the game tells you isnt really useful, because A. I have probably no idea what that entry or info means. B. It wont do me any good. C. Some of these are fakes or false rumors, which might lead to dead end....or dead.

In any case, tavern tale number 10 goes like this:

To the west lives a tribe of insect-men who worship normal men and give valuable gifts to all who visit them.

Interesting. If we get out of this city, it might be worthwhile to check it out. If it turns out false, then maybe we'll get to fight some ant-men!

I'l quicky leave the tavern because it has a bad habit of suddenly generating a tavern brawl. Its a combat where there's lots of members of the city guard and lots of drunks, meaning a possible death.

I stumble around and finally found a house. It costs 10 gold pieces. Oak, Tomekk and TA take time to memorize spells.

In D&D system, players have to memorize spells before they can use it. This means they choose which spells they want to memorize, then rest for 4 hours. When they use the spell....WOOSH. Its gone and they have to memorize it again. Oh, and did I mention there's a limit on how many spells you can memorize?

Tomekk and TA memorize sleep spells while Oak memorizes cure light wounds 3 times. Both will be useful later on.

Now to city hall. We check the proclamations at the front door and we find out the following proclamations.

Proclamation LIX
Be it known that the council is interested in reclaiming the remaining
blocks of the city of New Phlan. To reclaim said blocks they must be
first cleared of monsters, vermin, and other uncivilized inhabitants.
To this end the council is offering a reward to any person or group
who is responsible for clearing any block of the old city.

Proclamation LXIV
Be it known that the council is interested in acquiring information as
to the disposition of various formerly-living entities rumored to be
harassing honest citizens in the vicinity of Valhigen Graveyard. A
reward is offered to any person who shall travel to said graveyard and
return an eye-witness account.

Proclamation LXXVIII
Be it known that the council is offering a reward to any person or
persons who can provide information as to the disposition of several
council agents who have been sent to investigate the unseemly
happenings in the vicinity of Valhigen Graveyard.

Proclamation CIX
Be it known that the council is offering an inducement to any
individual who shall serve in the rescue force for the mercenary band
of Taimalg-the-Invincible which has disappeared inside Valhigen
Graveyard.

Hmmm....I dont actually know where the graveyard is, so I guess thats out of the question for now. We know where the slums are, so that sounds like a good start quest.

I decide to check with the clerk inside the building. She mentions that the slums should be cleaned with monsters, but also mention a Sokal Keep, which needs to be retaken. He mentions that reward will be given in maps, tomes, books et cetera. Any money?

Now, we will definitely pick the slums. We could get to the Sokal Keep by boat via at the harbor, but its an undead paradise right now and were all still on level one. Even if Oak's turn undead is quite powerful stuff, I dont have enough confidence yet.

In any case, we head to the slums!

When we enter the slums, we must have triggered some sort of alarm because "In the distance, an alarm sounds". Rest assured, when we enter our first room, we find a bunch of orcs!

Orc (I): These are evil, pig-faced humanoids.


Well, what can I say really? Orcs are the standard RPG fodder. These one's are pig-skinned rather than standard green skinned ones.

We immediately start our first fight and it wont take long until we win! Well, that was easy. TheChosen got hit once but nothing serious. Moving on.

Rest assured, we move bit farther and find yet another encounter. This time a pack of Kobolds.


Kobold (I): These are small, cowardly humanoids who delight in
killing and torture.

Whelps. They're easier than the orcs. And hairier.

I decide to take a different approach and try parlaying, which is talking to creatures. TheChosen talks, since he's got the highest charisma. The Kobolds warn us about textile house, and we should stay away. When they turned to leave, I decided to attack them after all and they proclaim "How dare you interfere the boss's business!". No matter, they're dead in minutes.

Next up exploring we encounter yet another group of foe's; Goblings.

Goblin (I): These are small humanoids common in the Realms.

I think Goblings are bit tougher than Orcs, which sounds bit weird. Still, not by much.

Another easy slaughter. This time even TotalAnarchy joined in the fight with his staff and actually managed to kill some! Groovy. For some reason, I decided to take their short swords and sell them later (Not gonna do that to every loot enemy drops, since almost all of them drop loot). I also decided to give Tomekk one sword and a studded leather armor, so he wont have to spend every arrow on these weaklings.

We bust into yet another gobling group. This time however, TheChosen and TotalAnarchy go down!

Now for some game mechanics. Whenever a character loses all his hit points, he is out of the combat. He's not dead yet, but he's lying on the ground, bleeding slowly to dead. Other PC's can bandage his wounds during their turn or quickly get the battle over. If not....well, its a trip to priest then. Resurrections cost quite a lot of money.

After battle is over, we set up a camp and let Oak heal. TC and TA are back on their feet. He re-memorizes the spells, rests and we continue on.

Now as you can see, this is what the game will be mostly like. Combat after combat after combat. I will stop listing all the times we get into combat and only mention specific ones. Rest assured, between the text there is more combat, healing and resting.

We explore the room near the gobling slaughter and we find some orcs arguing over papers. Sounds important and then game whisks us straight into battle. This time I decided to bring in sleep spell to the game, for a quick, easy match.

Sleep spell is deadly effective early in the game. It works on 3x3 area and puts everyone in that area to sleep for couple of turns. During those turns, they're helpless and cant do anything. These can be killed with a single hit and it never misses. Overpowered maybe, but Im not pulling any punches with this game.

We kill them all and find out that there were two cure light wounds scrolls. These will be useful, in case Oak himself is unavailable and we need to cure someone.

As we battle, we purge the room of monsters one by one. This makes the rooms safe for resting, but also for searching.

When you turn on search, you move slower, look around the details and try to look for secrets and traps. Normally this would not be really that helpful since were moving slowing, it makes us more vulnerable to random encounters. In any case, after clearing rooms, I check for any secrets.

We eventually find a hallway with three doors: One on right, one on left and one at the end of hallway. We try the one on right but its locked. Okay, we try to pick the lock, but somehow its not working, no matter what I do (Perhaps I need to get some tools first). But since we have some strong men and a women in our party, we bash to door and enter in a room full of goblings who are apparently having a training session.

Combat is a bit different, since there's lots of them, plus couple of Gobling leaders, which I guess are bit stronger than your average gobling. We pull no punches this time: Tomekk and TA put them to sleep and then we slaughter all of them.

Otherwise, there's nothing interesting in the room, so we head out and try the one on right. We find some rooms, but still nothing useful. One door takes outside, so we return to hallway to try the final door....

...which we will get to in our next update! Stay tuned and remember, if you want to write some silly fiction into this, now's a good time.