Dragonsphere – Beauty and the Beast

 Written by Vetinari

Before getting to the Hightower Mountains, the game subjects me to another cutscene.

Gee, calm down girl!

Lak-Hella reminds Fiona that “before he vanished” Ner-Tom said that the sorcerer would emerge when the dragonsphere had burst apart, and that is not even close to happening. Then suggests that Fiona go to the courtyard and play at javelins to calm her nerves. (Play at javelins? How do you play at javelins exactly? And isn't that an unseemly activity for a lady?)

Anyway, the fact that Ner-Tom has vanished explains why he wasn't there to give me some aid when I left Gran Callahach, and also adds some further mystery to the ones that already have formed on the periphery of the main plot. In any case, after the cutscene is finished, I can proceed to Tyre nak Branwe.

The map also shows the dome under which Sanwe's tower is kept. Nice.

Arriving at the barrier, Callash tests that it is in fact safe for us to cross, and then traverse it very smoothly.

Even if in this screenshot it seems he is doing the Safety Dance.

As we enter, we notice someone hiding behind a large rock. Calling out the classic “who goes there?” reveals them to be Llanie De Summers, one of the King's noble subjects.

And also spunky as all hell.

Llanie tells us that when she heard of our quest to destroy Sanwe, she travelled here to offer the service of her sword to aid us, and she also wants to give us a gift for luck. You can approach this in various ways, but in the end it all boils down to the fact that Callash is honour-bound not to imperil his subject's safety, but he will gratefully accept her gift. Most interestingly, many of the possible responses in this dialogue show these two seemingly flirting with each other?!?

You're a married man, Callash!

Llanie's gift is an amulet from the De Summers family, used mostly as a good luck charm. Since the mage who constructed the amulet said its mystical powers can only be used after the wearer has been pronounced dead, it would seem that any such power is rather useless.

At least it's not some freaking rotten dates.

Leaving Llanie to rest before she gets back to her estate, we explore a little bit the base of the mountain and come to a waterfall, which (in classic adventure game style) conceals a cavern at its back. At the bottom of the waterfall there is also a gold nugget, which I take.

Maybe he just has some very good plumbing.

The cave hosts a hermit, living alone in these mountains. He said that twenty years ago he just woke up and there was a barrier that didn't allow him to exit, so he just stayed here.

For no particular reason, this scene reminded me of the one with Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein.

So, this is obviously suspicious AF, and the game acknowledges it since it allows you to ask a couple of questions like “You wouldn't be the Sorcerer yourself, now would you?” but the hermit just feigns ignorance and this line of questioning hits a brick wall. Also interestingly, when you ask “You look familiar. Have I seen you before?”, his answer is this:

You old fogey.

which obviously doesn't mean anything, since it could just mean that it's the first time that we talked to each other in this here cave. (But having actually finished the game, this is not what he meant at all. Curious? You will just have to wait a little while longer.)

In any case, Callash drops it, because c'mon, it's not like an important member of the King's court who happened to have a long white beard just straight up went and disappeared recently, no? So we pivot to asking him about some information on the sorcerer, and he actually has something useful to say, particularly on the powerstones.

It would seem that there are three powerstones, two in possessions of the rulers of various realms (we already have those, thanks), while the location of the third is unknown (oh, shush!). The prophecies regarding these powerstones seem to be conflicting: some say that you only need one powerstone to defeat Sanwe, while others say that you need all three. Further pushes to get more information out of the hermit turn out nothing.

Okay, this is just rude.

After leaving the cave, I start the grueling ascent of the mountain.

This doesn't trigger my acrophobia at all, no sirree.

After a while, I come to a small bird nest near the ascent path. I grab some of the nearby black feathers, and then, remembering the bird call I constructed before, I make some noise, attracting one of the birdmen residing in the mountains.

I'm selling these fine leather jackets.

When I say that I have come to defeat Sanwe, the Shak says that the powerstones are the key to do that, and that even if I already have one, I would also need the one that Sanwe himself is guarding inside his castle. However when I ask for some advice on how to get that, the Shak says that I am a fool since if I have come this far without any plan, I am doomed to fail. He then flutters away. Well, thanks for nothing. We resume our ascent and come to a ledge, where someone is waiting for us.

I already know the answer to that: “I know a shortcut”, right?

Llanie, hard-headed as she is, tells us that she is sure that we will need her help in our quest, and, no sooner said than done, a hideous beast comes out from behind the waterfall to attack us!

A wild Gengar appears!

I try to fight it with my sword, the creature throws me like a damp squid against the rock wall, and then Llaine jumps at it, tackling it and plunging with it over the edge of the cliff, to certain death. (As usual, all the screenshots I managed to take of the action scene were awful, you have to trust me that it was a really cool sequence).

Surely.

Since I am a regular doubting Thomas, I climb back down the mountain to investigate and, sure enough, the corpse of the hideous beast is there at the bottom of the cliff.

Where indeed.

Entering the cave again, the “hermit” has been taking care of Llanie, who is on the verge of death. He loses no time in accusing me of her state being my handiwork.

Hey, what have you done apart from imprisoning an all-powerful evil sorcerer and preventing him from ravaging – okay you actually have done something useful.

In any case the fake hermit here just says that the only way I can save Llanie is to defeat the sorcerer and bring back everything I manage to recover from his tower, so that we can employ it to save the young maiden. He will keep her alive until then.

Scorned, I climb back up to the ledge and explore the path beyond the waterfall, where I manage to find something interesting: another Shak who guards the passage towards their mountain home. Unfortunately, they say that, as an enemy of the Shak, I am not allowed inside. Why am I an enemy of the Shak, you say?

Well, he is not wrong.

Trying to pacify the birdman by saying that I am actually on a quest to slay Sanwe and so I could be the one that lets them be free again does not work, as he says that he will believe it when he sees it. So, it seems that I have to just get back to my quest and scale the mountain up to the top.

But first, I see some mud behind the waterfall, which I take because... well, obviously I take it! There is some mud on the ground, why wouldn't I want to take some mud? As in real life, have you ever seen a good old puddle of mud and said: “this is just what I need”?

Adventure game logic at its finest, folks.

With my new scoopful of mud in hand, I resume climbing the mountain cliffs.

How f***ing tall is this mountain, anyway?

I finally get to the top of the mountain, where Tyre nak Branwe is.

Which, let me remind you, is to slay Sanwe. We are practically a fantasy hitman.

I approach the tower door, but before I can do it, in an animated sequence that is both genuinely scary and side-splittingly funny, I am grabbed by the magical vines guarding the tower.

Since the sorcerer is still asleep and cannot answer their query if I am friend or foe, they decide to ask some questions to ascertain just that.

I swear, if it is another quiz on the Soptus language I'll scream.

This is actually the game copy protection at work, since all the answers to the vines questions can be found in the Examination Paper. It is pretty interesting however that they don't spell out the correct answer for you, you have to do a (very) little reasoning first.

What colour are the sorcerer's eyes? Red (okay, this is actually written down).

Where does the sorcerer carry a scar? His leg (Callash's ancestor, Claxas, struck a sword-blow on Sanwe's leg but it was not enough to defeat him).

What human food does the sorcerer prize above all other? This is not written explicitly anywhere, but the copy protection paper goes into a whole song and dance on how the tribute for Sanwe strangely consisted not only of precious metals and ores, but also of various foodstuffs among which beef, vegetables, grains and fruits, and which, between the options presented, can only mean that they are used to cook beef stew (which is the correct answer).

Having solved the copy protection, the vines let me go and I can enter the tower proper, where an antechamber is waiting for me just behind the door.

Hey that's a dragon on the floor! Now we're talking.

Session Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time: 6 hours 10 minutes