Avernum Crystal Souls 8: Navigating the Dark Waters

Started the day thinking I could spend most of the time playing, then got caught up in errands driven by whim, and wound up not starting the game until the evening.

Still, I managed to finish the journey to the Vahnatai lands, which is quite a trek through their so-called Dark Waters. These consist of a series of waterfalls that drown all your food (not really a problem, as the stuff only helps a little with healing). But there were some really fun puzzles and fights along the way. And Jeff has provided us with camping areas where we can rest and restore all our action and spell points, because there are no friendly towns to enter. Also, once or twice you find basins of magical water that restore points. So, you can use your spellcasters without worry.

The Vahnatai, starting with this game in the Avernum series of six games, become major characters in the series. They are a strange race of (mostly) wise alien-types who have always lived in the deep caves. When the prisoners got sent down to Avernum and set up their own civilization there, they began to deplete the precious resources of the Vahnatai. Hence, there is tension. Sometimes they are allies and sometimes they are enemies. This game sets it all up.

Beginning Chapter 2, the Voyage to the Vahnati Lands

(Click to embiggen)

Almost got stopped at the beginning. I remember this from the earlier games. Sometimes Jeff throws in a really good puzzle to solve. You have to row through a narrow passageway that is guarded by two locked gates. You can only get out of the boat on one side of the island. There you have a pretty good fight, and find some bent hexagonal bars. Problem is, these don't work in the mechanism that you need to operate to raise the gate, and there is no straight hexagonal bar anywhere--I mean anywhere--on that island. The only solution is to go somewhere else and look.

Then I faced a real problem. In order to get into the place with the mechanism, you have to shatter a wall. But when you leave, the wall goes back to normal (just as all gates and doors revert to shut when you leave an area and come back). I had a stone shatter scroll, and Jeff thoughtfully placed another one in the fighting area for you to pick up. However, I used that looking around that island. Ergo, when I found my hexagonal bar and returned, I couldn't get in. I'd used up both my scrolls. BUT! Before I left Formello, I had bought Cordelia (my priest) all the available spells. I looked in them to see just how many more levels I needed to get "move mountains," and saw that I had it! Hah! It was one of the last two spells I'd bought. So all was well. (Notice how well the game is planned. If you finish the demo area, you will have the spell you need. Plus, I think that you can still get back to Formello from that island, a trip that becomes impossible once you go down all the waterfalls later on. So you ought to be able to get back and build up your strength if you choose to enter this phase of the game too soon. Update: oh deary me, no you can't. Once you hit that first waterfall there's no going back, and there are several waterfalls before you reach this area. Players who get on that boat too soon could easily get stuck and will have to revert to an earlier saved game.)

Of course, after you get through the first half of the puzzle, you have to go over to the other side of the island for more fights to raise the second gate. Plenty of good loot there too!

So far my fears that I didn't have enough skills to deal with the "normal" level have proven to be unfounded. I can fight just fine. Now I'm concentrating on beefing up my fighting skills, and of course, increasing the magic levels for my spellcasters. I must say that the "normal" level is significantly more challenging but actually more fun. I haven't been overwhelmed yet, but have had some tough fights. And, for the first time in my RPG experience, I'm starting to use my consumables. It's one of my major failings as a player. Now that I'm using them, I'm having even more fun. 

One of the puzzles in the journey was figuring out how to operate another mechanism on another island. Jeff gives you the bottom half of a scroll that describes it, and you have to win a major battle against chitrachs (nasty insects that infect all his games) to get to the top half. Included in the fight are a bunch of greater shades, which normally are pretty tough. That's where I used a buncha fire wands, and to good effect. 

So far this game seems a bit easier than Escape from the Pit (its predecessor). Jeff has piled loot all over the place, and I love love love finding loot! When I sent Aldous alone into a portal to navigate the "test" of a dead Vahnatai, he did fine. But that's because Jeff scattered a buncha healing potions and curing potions around. At the very last I looted a fantastic chest with some fabulous stuff, but I had to fight a "revenant," and I couldn't make a dent in him. No way could I have killed it. Finally I just grabbed the loot during three or four combat turns and then gulped down a speed potion. I was able to outrun the thing and got back to the portal with all the loot intact. Most satisfying.

So I have at last reached the Vahnatai town that was the original goal of the trip. I saved just before I had to start three tests that will enable me to see the Vahnatai Council and convince them not to slaughter all the Avernites. I know that I will accomplish these tasks, but not tonight!

Fun!

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