Completed Qasir al-Wasat: A Night in-Between

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I've got tired of transcribing conversations, so this update will have more screenshots. Hope you don't mind.

Part 04: Secret passages & The Broken Scimitar

Spoiler

Last time we were following a brave bearded man, who ventured into forbidden rooms (with a bit of our stealthy help) to try and find a way out. Let's see what fate has in store for him, while we cross the Tin door.

This is a kind of a room we'll see more often - just a passage with traps. Setting off a trap means instant death.
In this particular room there's a hidden door on the eastern wall. We'll investigate it before proceeding north, following our bearded friend.

Notice that this room appears as a small rectangular room of our map, yet it is definately bigger and L-shaped. This is not an error, but another manifestation of the castle's extra-dimensional properties.
We won't eat dates here as our poison is currently full.

We're going back to the previous room, and through the north door.

It seems al-Saahir prefers a strong-armed approach to staff management.

The particular of this room is that guards follow a circular pattern, stepping on pressure plates that raise the spikes. It's just a matter of timing to get to the easter door, which we of course do.

This room is nasty due to the fact that the patrolling guard triggers paint spray right after we enter it. A quick dodge allows us to stay invisible.
The pool in the room is bad news for the nearby guards. We dispatch the one in this room, wash up, kill the two in the previous room. After that we go back, clean up, flip the lever to open the gate east but take the north door first. Why? Because that's where our favorite curious arab went! I couldn't catch him on the screenshot though, he's too fast.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Bearded man, don't you know to never, ever rush towards pedestal with tresure? There are bound to be traps!

We, of course, are not so careless. We are also fast, and quickly move towards the corner of the room once we enter, otherwise we're dead. This is one of the few instances when the game can kill us right after we enter a room.

We take the key, and go back, then towards the east door.

Another long corridor with an empty pool. While exploring it, we find something really interesting...

Through a window of the eastern wall we were able to overhear a spell creating some kind of woodden guard. We won't see them in this update, but believe me, they are assholes.

We do have a key, with a symbol of sulphur, and there's a door with the same symbol in this room, in the NW corner.

The guard in this room is as good as dead, what with the pool in the long corridor. This is also a first room that contains timed gates. When we pool the lever, the gate to the west opens, but only for a limited time.

The gate shuts right behind us. This looks like another puzzle room, with one annoying guard. There's a small pool of water on the SW corner of the room, so this is not a problem.

The guard is dead, we're clean. The riddle on the wall is incomplete, but enough for us to frob the pressure plates in this room. Each one lights up in a different color, and sounds a tone. When we step on a correct combination (trial and error or good ear), the eyes of the oryx and the censers on the south gate light up, while the gate itself opens. We'll see what's behind the south gate, before proceeding west.

Just a passage, locked by a gate. Judging from the The Twin Riddle, there will be a symmetrical room with oryx on the other side.
Nothing more to do now, but to go back and proceed to the west, through the gate with water under it.

We enter a large, flooded patio, guarded by four masked women. There are two gates on the south side, one of which may be opened via the lever in this room. Unfortunately, it is a timed gate, and a very fast one to boot. The guards will be killed, although it is rather tricky, with water giving away our position. The key to success is killing them when they are as far apart as possible.

After the guards are dispatched we can proceed through the open east gate.

Our falling out with Marbas must have been a rather big one...

We go through the south door.

Next target. I've seen a small pool of water in the vestibule to the north, which we can use to wash up, so I'm going to flip out and kill every one here.

The second target is dead, we have another part of the poison. We can now hold three doses of poison. We are also covered in blood, and the pool in the vestibule turns out to not be enough to clear us. The gate north, to the large flooded patio is, of course, closed. So we're kind of fucked, and have no choice but to go through the south door in the second target's chamber holding a key and covered in blood.

Initially, the room we enter looks like a long corridor, with only one exit. In stealth mode a door to the west shows up.

But wait, we're at the edge of the map, how can there be a room to the west? Guess we have to go through it and find out.

(Sorry for the lack of screenshot demostrating this.)

A WARP zone? Al-Saahir really messes with stuff he shouldn't...
This is the first, and definately not the only, warp zone we'll encounter. This one is guarded by two women. Since we're fully visible, it takes some good reflexes to kill them.

We exit in the western pool room, through a previously locked door. As you can see, entrances to the warp zones are marked in purple on our map.

We have a key, that will open one of the doors in the eastern pool room. However, this is not where we'll be going. The northern pool room does have a door, locked by a seal puzzle on its north wall. We'll leave the key next to it and explore there.

We enter another warp zone... This room does require quick reflexes and a bit of thinking. On the north wall there is a gate, that is opened by the lever you can see on the previous screenshot. This gate is, of course, timed. Between the lever, and a gate is a maze of pressure plates that release deadly bolts from the walls. One misstep and we're dead. So we pull the lever and run north...

The gate shut after we crossed it. The lever controls the spikes, either left or right being raised at one time. We run to the left, down the corridor.

We've opened the south east gate, but there are still spikes blocking our way to the east. To lower them we need to pull the timed lever, go back through the corridor and pull the lever there and exit through the timed gate.

After some more lever play, the spikes blocking door to the north are lowered.

Surprisingly, we exit in the south eastern part of the castle. Evidently, orientation and location of the door in warp zones has nothing to do in regards to where they lead in the castle proper.

A gate on the eastern wall of the four pool room is now open.

We enter a long corridor, full of traps. There are floor spikes and pressure plates releasing darts from the walls. Nothing we can't handle. In the blind corridor we find Hematite. Don't know what it's for, but we take it anyway, and then go through the western door.

Al-Saahir doesn't like djinns. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that a djinn was the previous owner of the palace?

Those guys seem pretty nervous. Let's follow them to the south and see what they're up to.

Hmmm, seems al-Saahir is not beyond fucking up. This must have happened quite a long time ago, given that those notes are dusty.

That's right kids, messing with alchemy and magic you don't understand is a bad idea.
With the guards gone, we can explore the lab. As you have probably noticed, this is the very same lab we encountered earlier, the part that was behind a gate.

Nice, Neutralizing Power! With that, we can extinguish the damned firewall in the NW part of the castle.

We pull the lever, and go to the alchemical apparatus to put in the Hematite and part of the digestion filter. With that, we'll be able to create the neutralizing powder.

Since we have the powder, let's extinguish that wall of magical fire.

With the fire gone, we can go through the NE door.

So it is possible that al-Saahir is not even a man, but some demon halfbreed. Also, fucking Northerners, they sound gay.

With that information, we procced north.

Big room, connected to both the flooded patio and the sound corridor. This is the second room of The Twin Riddle.

We made a pattern, using the pressure plates, symmetrical to the one in the room up north. This opens the gate, but not much more. There's nothing new in the corridor. However, keeping the oryxes working is important, so we kill everyone in the second riddle room so that they can't touch the plates and shut it off. After that, we go back to the firewall room, following one of the gossiping guys. Then back to the northern pool room to take the key, then to the east pool room to open the Copper door.

We find ourselves in a small vestibule, with doors west and east.

You'll have to come back another time to find out what's beyond this room.

 

[Gondolin]

Nice to see this updated.

 

[CappenVarra]

Man, this is really moody and suitably demonic. Good stuff.

 

[Suroh]

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Man, this is really moody and suitably demonic. Good stuff.

Gets even better in the next update. I did have some fraps problems so there'll be a couple of screens missing. However, I'll try to describe everything that was not screencapped using my boring, humorless narrative.

 

[CappenVarra]

Man, this is really moody and suitably demonic. Good stuff.

Gets even better in the next update.

cool

 

[lightbane]

Moar!

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Part 05: The Third Guardian & The Outer Castle

Spoiler

When we last left off, we were in a small room, with doors west and east. We'll take the east one.

A new guard type! Wooden guards are blind, so even if you are fully covered in blood they won't notice you. They do have excellent hearing though, and can hear you from much further than normal guards. They also run faster. Since they are from wood, we can kill them without dirtying ourselves without using poison. They do have one nasty trait though - if you kill one it will immediately resurect on the floormark in his patrol route! There is a way to deal with it though...

Let's explor the room to the north of this one.

A strange door with purple glow under it (so most likely entrance to a warp zone), six golden censers and a wooden guard. One of the censers lights up when the guard dies, but extinguishes when he resurects. Something tells me that there are six of those dudes, and that we'll have to kill them in particular order.

Back through our small room, to the west side.

Two more wooden guys, that makes 4 so far. No point in killing them now, so we'll go north.

This room is a "trick" room. The three doors (currently ESW) change places every time we enter the room. This is sometimes annoying. We go east, again. Although, in retrospect, west was probably a better choice.

This room is full of traps that are hard to detect. The upper part, which contains the glowing pressure plate, has a trap in the doorway working in such way that if you rush through it you'll be impaled on a flying dart. The middle part has a trap in the doorway working in such way that if you don't rush through it and hide in the corner you'll be implaed on a flying dart.

The note about Jackal Guards is important. We won't see any in this updated though.

Once we've cleared this room by grabbing the ruby and reading the notes, we go back to the trick room, and proceed north.

This little corridor has a secret door on the east wall. We'll investigate immediately.

More letters from S. I wonder who he is? Rekib'Neerg seems some kind of maticore to me. I would love Agassi input on this though, especially on that seal.

Notice the diagram in the middle left of the Notes on Rekib'Neerg. It looks awfully familiar to the castle layout, with 4 corridors with water running through the middle of the square, four square pools in the corners and a more elaborate pool in the middle.

Anyway, leaving Bismuth Stone for now, we continue our exploration.

Once again into the warp. Since the map doesn't show the layout there, I'll post more screens to give you the feel of the shape of the room.

This zone has a pretty simple "light all" puzzle. After solving it, we gain access to Aqua Fortis, which we'll need a bit later. Going further south we cross a door that takes us to anothr of the al-Saahir labs. Notice that the lab is in castle proper but is only accessible via warp zone. It is also marked by the symbol of Tin.

This confirms my suspcions that the guards need to be killed in a particular order if we want them to stay dead.

We can use this to create a solution that will burn the glass barrier. We'll need Bismuth Stone and Aqua Fortis for it, and can use the alchemical set present in this very room to prepare the solution.

Unfortunately FRAPS broke when taking next couple of screens, so there's no solution on how to connect the apparatus (it's easy though), nor any screens of melting glass. There is a lot of proof of me fucking up though.

Here's what I've fucked up: the gate with 3 blood drops above it. To open it you need to kill the three guards on the other side. How? By going through the copper and gold door in the six golden censer room. Unfortunately, me being impatient, I went close to the gate and killed the guard next to it. A second guard came and I've killed him too. Hence all the blood on Subtle. The third guard won't come close though.

Fortunately, this area only provides a shortcut and is not essential to the gameplay. It doesn't contain any secrets or interesting stuff.

Side note: if the codex wasn't in a such a terrible decline I would go back and replay the entire game up to that point to fix this. Or I would make an effort to open the save data (it looks like a .net assembly, which is logical since the game is made using Unity3D) and bring those guards back to life. But no, a place that gives so many brofists for a gif of a fucking dung beetle rolling down a hill, and pays so much attention to a LP of a cool obscure game, does not deserve such effort.
All of you who follow this LP - you're massive and awesome bros, keep on inclining!

And now back to our normal programming.

Did you notice that the star in the second-to-last screenshot looks pretty much the same as the one in the north part of the central pool room? They are indeed very similar, with one subtle difference. This one works! So we step on it and find ourselves...

...visible! And in an altogether different part of the castle! This actually is the Outer Castle (OC), the part that as-Saahir is banned from. As you may remember from the previous updates, there were hints that access to it is limited to non-humans, as it isn't exactly in our plane.

The last screenshot is how map looks like in this part of the castle. It is beautiful but useless.

The 8 portals and the central portal lead to different parts of the castle. Active portals have a small stream of water around them.
Portals on the cardinal directions take us to big puzzle rooms. Their corresponding long pools must be filled before we can use them. Due to this fact only the south portal is usable.
Portals on the corners are transport portals between different parts of the castle. Some of them are active now, some are activated in other rooms, some are activated by going through the corresponding "incoming" portal (like the one we came through).
The central portal takes us to the central pool room in the Inner Castle (IC). We'll step through it now, wash up, and then proceed back to the corridor with the secret door to the lab, and then north.

We'll go back for the treasure later and swap it for the ruby. First we'll go to the west to find out what does that star symbol on our map means.

This room is initially guarded by two guys, with the bored third one rushing in couple of seconds after we enter. We quickly dispatched the guards, getting dirty in the process. That actually solved the riddle and allows us to use our second star portal.

That portal allows us to reach SE portal in the transporter room. We quickly pop back to central pool to wash up, then we go back to the treasure room.

As you can see, there are portals inside paths in the OC too. We'll investigate some of them in the next update, as this one is devoted to uncovering the whole map of the IC.

SUDOKU, SRSLY?

Now we go through the northern door. As you may have guessed from the castle layout, this should be the way to the final corner pool room.

This is an excellent opprotunity to train our poisoning skills. At this point we have 3 doses, so 3 guards will go to sleep peacefully, while one will be maimed to death. Theoretically, we could just pull the lever and then run very fast up through the gate, but I prefer killing those bearded dudes. You never know if they aren't terrorists!

Anyway, after dispatching the guards, we proceed north.

The one-eyed guardian periodically swings his sword, se we have to watch out he doesn't kill us. His ranting mentions an empire that craves our minds. I wonder wether he means demons or Northerners?

Subtle, of course, is right about not wanting to kill the dude right away, we have much more to do. So we just swipe the golden key to open the door on the other side of the corridor we just came through. It will open passage to the northern long pool room.

Not much more left to explore in the IC. We need to go back to the "trick" room with three moving doors and see what's behind the W door.

Silly people, I've already snatched the ruby! There's another wood guard here, that makes 5 we've found. We go through the western door.

Nothing here really, except the final wood guard. Now that we know where they are it's time to figure out in what order we should kill them.

The answer is simple - the number of their eyes! Each guard has 1-6 eyes. Below you can see where each guard is. Following this plan we kill them in order and go to the six golden censer room.

This takes us to the area I've managed to fuck up previously, so we'll skip it. Instead we'll go to the portal we skipped in the OC and explore that.

You know what, this update is long enough as it is. Let's leave something for the next update (or five).

During this update we have fully explored the NW part of the castle, which makes our exploration of the Inner Castle complete! That doesn't mean there isn't anything more to do there, but it means that we've now got a complete map.

See you next update!

 

[Cool name]

More letters from S. I wonder who he is? Rekib'Neerg seems some kind of maticore to me. I would love Agassi input on this though, especially on that seal.

*Poof*

Spoiler

I do not think he is a real demon but if I am not mistaken the seal in the letter does seem to be a variation of Abigor's own, which may be not too far from the truth as he is said to belong to his Legion. He is also known as Eligor, as Abigos, as Eligos, and by a few less known names. He is one of my favorite Lords even he is totally not the kind I would usually summon or otherwise call myself. He is also either the favorite, or one of the favorites, of most occultists and sorcerers I do know about. He is about as cool, in, and popular as an infernal lord can be.

This is his seal.

Eligos is a Duke, thus his planet is Venus and his metal copper. He is the diurnal lord of Netzah in, uhm... Atziluth? I think so. Yes, Atziluth. That's the third decan of Leo, and the card he is usually considered to be represented the closest by is the Seven of Wands, the 'lord of valour' in Thelemic circles. The offices usually given to him are the knowledge of the future and of secret things, and all things related to war. Some say his knowledge of the future and of secret things are limited to those related in some way to war and its consequences but I do not know so myself. He does also hold office over the love and respect of important people and notable individuals even he is related in some way to defiance itself: He is the kind of infernal lord who does never retreat, never surrender, and does turn even the bleakest and most desperate situation into victory by means of being awesome and manly. He does have a love for lost causes as well, and for people who is not going to renounce to their desires and beliefs just because they are truly impossible to reach or live up to. Or, say, to people who is not going to give in just because only pansies do give in. The three hundred spartans? That's Eligor. He does also possess a vast knowledge of tactics, strategy, and all similar thingies, as well as able to make the summoner be loved and respected by her soldiers.

He is however a hard lord to call: To summon a demon is not just to draw some weird bleep, chant in Enochian, and participate in some theatrics. The caller and the called do have to be as close as possible in essence to resonate and attract each other, so to summon Abigor one would need to be, well, faced by a desperate and hopeless situation yet completely willingly to say 'bleep it' and go on no matter what happens. It is not about the desire of victory as much as the knowledge that only pathetic little bleeps do even consider retreat or surrender and you want to hurt the other guy as much as you can and neither are you going to give in to the slightest condition nor are not going to stop until one of you is in a coffin. If he were to play MMOs he would always be the tank.

He is also HOT. All mentions of him do pay some attention at how handsome and how much of a perfect gentleman he is, the very model of a perfect knight in shining armor. If you are willing to read too much into it he can be seen as one of the most idealistic infernal lords: His correspondences do make him quite the good guy who did join the rebelion either just because it was an impossible battle to win (On this side, a third of the heavenly host. On this other side, GOD. And, well, the two other thirds.) or because he did actually believe God was a jerk and had it coming, and he was not one to just stand around and take it.

And he does have a pet snake as well. :3

Fun fact: I do sometimes mix him up with Berith, aka Baalberith. That did never happen until I did play Shin Megami Tensei for the first time, in which the fools did mix up their graphics/descriptions.

Another fun fact: The name of the demon in the letter is 'Green Biker' read backwards. Now I am sure he is not a real demon, because if he were the guys from SMT would have totally add him as a demon bōsōzoku in bright green clothes.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

More letters from S. I wonder who he is? Rekib'Neerg seems some kind of maticore to me. I would love Agassi input on this though, especially on that seal.

*Poof*

Spoiler

If I am not mistaken the seal in the letter does seem to be a variation of Abigor's own, which may be not too far from the truth as he is said to belong to his Legion. He is also known as Eligor, as Abigos, as Eligos, and by a few less known names. He is one of my favorite Lords even he is totally not the kind I would usually summon or otherwise call myself. He is also either the favorite, or one of the favorites, of most occultists and sorcerers I do know about. He is about as cool, in, and popular as an infernal lord can be.

This is his seal.

Eligos is a Duke, thus his planet is Venus and his metal copper. He is the diurnal lord of Netzah in, uhm... Atziluth? I think so. Yes, Atziluth. That's the third decan of Leo, and the card he is usually considered to be represented the closest by is the Seven of Wands, the 'lord of valour' in Thelemic circles. The offices usually given to him are the knowledge of the future and of secret things, and all things related to war. Some say his knowledge of the future and of secret things are limited to those related in some way to war and its consequences but I do not know so myself. He does also hold office over the love and respect of important people and notable individuals even he is related in some way to defiance itself: He is the kind of infernal lord who does never retreat, never surrender, and does turn even the bleakest and most desperate situation into victory by means of being awesome and manly. He does have a love for lost causes as well, and for people who is not going to renounce to their desires and beliefs just because they are truly impossible to reach or live up to. Or, say, to people who is not going to give in just because only pansies do give in. The three hundred spartans? That's Eligor. He does also possess a vast knowledge of tactics, strategy, and all similar thingies, as well as able to make the summoner be loved and respected by her soldiers.

He is however a hard lord to call: To summon a demon is not just to draw some weird bleep, chant in Enochian, and participate in some theatrics. The caller and the called do have to be as close as possible in essence to resonate and attract each other, so to summon Abigor one would need to be, well, faced by a desperate and hopeless situation yet completely willingly to say 'bleep it' and go on no matter what happens. It is not about the desire of victory as much as the knowledge that only pathetic little bleeps do even consider retreat or surrender and you want to hurt the other guy as much as you can and neither are you going to give in to the slightest condition nor are not going to stop until one of you is in a coffin. If he were to play MMOs he would always be the tank.

He is also HOT. All mentions of him do pay some attention at how handsome and how much of a perfect gentleman he is, the very model of a perfect knight in shining armor. If you are willing to read too much into it he can be seen as one of the most idealistic infernal lords: His correspondences do make him quite the good guy who did join the rebelion either just because it was an impossible battle to win (On this side, a third of the heavenly host. On this other side, GOD. And, well, the two other thirds.) or because he did actually believe God was a jerk and had it coming, and he was not one to just stand around and take it.

And he does have a pet snake as well. :3

Fun fact: I do sometimes mix him up with Berith, aka Baalberith. That did never happen until I did play Shin Megami Tensei for the first time, in which the fools did mix up their graphics/descriptions.

Thanks for the input! From your description of the demon's seal it seems that al-Saahir is both desperate and stubborn. Hopefully you'll all like what the game will reveal about him in later updates.

 

[CappenVarra]

Man, the gratuitous display of octagonal shapes in the outer castle is giving me a weird symmetry boner...

Also seeing Subtle after so much time spent invisible was a bit of a surprise.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Man, the gratuitous display of octagonal shapes in the outer castle is giving me a weird symmetry boner...

Also seeing Subtle after so much time spent invisible was a bit of a surprise.

Well, the whole castle WAS symmetrical, before al-Saahir started messing with it. You can still see the cross-shape formed by the long corridors and the four corners with pool rooms. While IC has a 4-symmetry, the OC has 8-symmetry. It will be kind of hard to get from the screenshots only, but as you move through the OC you really get the feeling that you are walking through a star-shaped structure.

The OC is also very different in feel to IC. The color scheme is different, the puzzles and environmental challenges are harder and the guards are much bigger assholes. To help following the LP I'll try to make a map of the OC as we go. The next update will also include a map of the portals in the transporter room to their corresponding location in the IC.

 

[CappenVarra]

a subtle bump (as of some one gently rapping, rapping at your chamber door)

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Thanks for the bump, next update will be on Tuesday on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll do more frequent updates after that, albeit a bit shorter.

 

[Lorica]

Hey, great read so far. I did have a quick question. What exactly went wrong with the three drops of blood door? You have to kill all three at once in order for it to work...?

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Hey, great read so far. I did have a quick question. What exactly went wrong with the three drops of blood door? You have to kill all three at once in order for it to work...?

Spoiler

Yeah, you have to kill all three, and it's impossible from the side I was on. You first have to kill the 6 wooden guards, cross gold and copper door, and kill them then.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Part 06: The arrival

Spoiler

We were supposed to start investigating inner portals of the OC. However, I've totally forgot that there is one more portal in the IC that I haven't shown you. It is in the Twin Riddle corridor. It turns out I've set it good enough to open the gates, but not good enough to reveal the big secret. So we go back to one of the oryx rooms of the Twin Riddle...

We take the portal and found ourselves in another part of the OC...

The jackal guards! Those guys have very good senses of sight and hearing. They can see us from afar, since we're totally visible here, and can hear as from a considerable distance too. They are also fast, making them quite deadly.
Fortunately, they can't see through the blue mist walls, and we can hide inside those. We'll dispatch all of the guards in this room, although it is possible to sneak around them.

By now, we know very well that those aren't natural beings, since we've already read al-Saahir notes on this. We'll continue to investigate the room, especially that writing, and then we'll take the portal on the west side of the room.

We land in a big, important looking room...

Al-Saahir wanted to buy himself viewing rights of the Angel's Gift, but the Djinn didn't want anything the sorcerr had. He was able to worm his way into living into the castle though, and we know that he eventually bacame its master. Sly fucker.
Anyway, we take the portal on the east side of the room, and find ourselves in the central portal room. Quick jump to the central pool to wash up and we're ready to explore further.

That's all for this short update, some interesting stuff happened so I hope you're not disappointed.

 

[CappenVarra]

Yay for an early update!

Shorter but more frequent updates are quite all right.

As an example of my earlier comment about the recursive eight-fold symmetry doing strange things to my brain I submit you this:

 

[Lorica]

Awesome, I was wondering if we were going to get more of an explanation of the sorcerer's past. Thanks for answering my question, too.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

There will be even more exposition on the sorcerer and djinn relationship in the next updates.

Next update should be late Tuesday, then a bit of a break for SC2: HotS.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Here comes another late update. SC2:HotS campaing occupied me for a bit. Unfortunately, it was not worth the time away from Qasir!

Part 07: The Prison

Spoiler

There are a lot of portals we need to investigate, a lot of mysteries await us. Here's the map of the portal hub, with portals numbered for easy reference:

The portal [4] is the first one we used to came to the hub. Not sure if you remember, but there was a portal behind that one that we just waltz on by. Today, we'll explore it! So back through [4] and...

This area looks like some kind of a prison. The SE cells are empty. If we pull the lever next to the cell door it will activate the trap inside, be it gas, spikes, bolts or anyting else. This will also kill the occupant, if there is any.
Let's continue checking other cells, SW first.

Seems those guys have been here for a long time. But why? Let's check NW block and see if we can get any answers there.

Just empty cells. Only NE remains.

So al-Saahir was able to convince the Djinn not to trust his servants and put them into dungeon. Sly bastard.
Anyway, nothing to do here really, except to kill the prisoners. I don't feel like it though, I'll let them live.
We go back to the place where we warped in, and take the other portal which takes us to...

More jackals! We could sneak or we could kill them, being extra careful. It took me several tries but I did kill all of them, did a quick jump back to the pool to wash up, and went back up to this room.

Finally a use for the damn sudoku stone we've been carrying! By the sound of the columns lowering, I could tell that the ones around me aren't the only one that retracted.
Let's take that portal!

We find ourselves in a big room with three portals: the central one through which we came; the lower one, unobstructed; and the upper one, formerly blocked by columns that retracted when we placed the stone on the pedestal.
The lower portal is obviously less important, so I've decided to check it first. It leads back to the hub room, portal [2].
With nothing more to do here, we're taking the upper portal.

That's what I call a Prince of Persia room. The spikes in the floor are in two groups, and they alternate. The safe-looking plates are actually pressure triggers for the bolts in the walls. The way through is to walk on the retracted spikes, and make sure we are not on the ones that will come up and impale us during the next cycle. Some timing and reflexes required. It took me like 10 tries to get past it .
The gate protects something important, so we need to figure out a way to get it open.

Just next to the gate there was some tapestry on the wall and a pressure plate that didn't kill us instantly, but opened the gate!
The wine and grapes have already been mentioned - in one of the strange mechanisms of the portal hub.
After we get the wine, we proceed further south pass the spikes.

So al-Saahir can't lie, but he's smart enough to overcome this handicap. The Djinn does seem a bit dumb though, allowing some sorcerer to imprison him.
Now we know for sure that the sorcerrer wants the gift of the Northerners and that neither he, nor any mortal, may access it. The true purpose behind our summoning could not be clearer.
Let's continue our exploration.

A portal back in the Banishment Circle room took us back to the hub, to portal [3]. We poured the wine through the strange mechanism and sound of a lot of water moving, almost, but not quite, entirely unlike that of a flushing toilet, reverbrated through the entire castle. It has probably something to do with the water pools in the IC, so let's check it out.

So the big pools take their water from the central pool, and filling a side pool lights up Oryx's head. I wonder what will happen once we fill all four pools?
We still have more portals to explore, but this will happen in another update. On a final note, here's the list of all portal hubs and what we know about them:

Portal 1:
- UNEXPLORED
Portal 2:
-> to [4]
Portal 3:
-> to [4]
Portal 4:
- Prison: Portal 4-01 -> Guard Room + SUDOKU Stone ->
-> Lower Portal to [2]
-> Upper Portal -> Spike Room, Locked Gate -> Banishment Circle -> [3]

Portal 5:
- UNEXPLORED

Portal 6:
- NOTHING

Portal 7:
- Throne Room
- UNEXPLORED: Portal with riddle 7-01

Portal 8:
- UNEXPLORED

 

[CappenVarra]

So, djinn have a weakness to copper? That'll be useful to know if I ever visit Pakistan :D

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Good news for everyone who follows this: I've completed the game today, finding every single codex entry. I also have already written all the updates so there wont be any long pauses between them. Next one tomorrow!

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Part 08: Following in the footsteps of those who came before

Spoiler

We still have to explore a portal with a riddle behind [7], the south portal [5], and the NW portal [8]. In this update we'll visit [7] and [5], beggining with the former.

If I've remembered that this room was so small, I would have explored it long time ago... Anyway, with the milk we activate the west pool in the IC. Nothing really exciting happens so I'll skip verifying it.
With another pool active, let's visit [5], which must correspond to the southern pool, which was already full when we came into the palac.

Very interesting gallery. Murals I-III show what we already know - that the Djinn has been a sovereign of the palace and welcomed human guests, that Northerners (called Angels by humans) gave something really valuable to the Djinn, and that al-Saahir was an ass and made the Djinn banish a lot of humans from his castle (and imprisone some too).
The fourth one is the most interesting, since it shows Subtle looking at the fresco of Subtle looking at the fresco, etc. ad infinituum. It could be that this whole thing was planned by the Northern fuckers.
After viewing those pictures we take the south portal.

We find ourselves in another Jar Room, this one with timed traps. Bolts shoot out from the walls at regular intervals, so we need to time our run to avoid them.
There should be a jar of some liquid in the arms of that statue, but something apparantely came before us and took it. My bet is on Rekib'Neerg, the manticore mentioned in a letter we've found in Part 5.
We continue through the south portal.

Al-Saahir's meddling has destroyed this portal so we can't use it to get back to the IC. No other option but to backtrack to the hub room.

That's it for this update!

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Another short update, for your viewing pleasure.

Part 09: The last pool

Spoiler

We still have one portal to explore, [8], as [1] is inactive. Let's get to work!

We arrive in one of those turn-tile labirynths. If we go wrong way, the thing will wrap around itself (with a small "glitch" visible) and we'll end up back on the portal. You can tell you're going the right way by some artifacts present, besides endless forest of blue columns.
I didn't find any way to tell the right sequence besides trial and error. Here you'll see each "waypoint" of the sequence, which is

Spoiler

E, N, E, N, W, W, S

That's it for the labyrinth, let's see what's on the other side of that portal.

Another timed spikes. Since those raise in groups of 4, we don't need as much precission as with the other traps of this kind we've encountered before.

A corpse of some big thing, a gate with three symbols above it, and a 3x3 grid of pressure plates on the floor. It is only logical that the pressure plates are tied to the gate. Let's see what that corpse is first, before we try to unlock the gate.

So this is where Rekib'Neerg met his demise. Stupid. Now to unlock the door...
In case you are curious, the combination is (layout as on a phone):

Spoiler

1,3,9,7,5,2,6,8,4,1,3,9,7,5

The spikes you can see retract and extend in a wave, so we have to run very fast to outrun it. I must admit I was never able to do this with the flask in hand, so instead I've backtracked, installed the flask, and came back to see what's on the other side of those spikes. Unsurprisingly it is a portal. I don't think that screens of that trip are needed.
Instead I'll post what's on the other side of that portal

So now we know the whole story of The Sorcerrer and The Djinn. Al-Saahir wanted the Heaven's Jewel, so he wormed his way in to the Djinn's palace, where it is kept. He then became a trusted advisor to the Djinn, while secretely poisoning with copper. Without uttering a single lie, he was able to convince the Djinn to move to a "safe" place, effectively imprisoning the supernatural. Sly fucker.
Onwards with our exploration!

We exit on portal [1] finally activating it. This means that we have explored everything in the OC! And since we know that all pools are now full, let's see what the central court yard looks like.

With the central pool drained, and all oryxes having their blue halos, a green, pulsating portal has appeared over the central courtyard. My bet is that it will lead us to the place where the jewel is hidden, possibly along with treasure more intersting to us.

However, you'll have to wait for the next update to find out. See you soon!