Let's Play Dark Sun: Shattered Lands - completed

[VentilatorOfDoom]

'cause I don't need any help to save the world from t(y)ranny.

Keep up your noble work, dear Sir.

BTW, these two encounters can be dealt with differently.

The first map with the templar and the archers around the lake - wasn't there a druid on this map too, in the north of the map. I think he gives you a quest to get rid of this templar. Or maybe I don't remember exactly...

 

[Elwro]

Yup, he does. And if you help him, he'd help you when you'd get poisoned by the elves.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XVII: This is madness!

Before we're able to get to Gedron we encounter another small group of Draj troops. Sadly for them, they haven't heard about my party so they believe we can be friends.

We can leave them peacefully or go with them. But there's also a third option to take advantage of their ignorance and naivety...

:twisted:
Well, they were only soldiers and didn't attacked me first so maybe I shouldn't be so cruel... Oh, come on, burning them was fun! I haven't found those reapers so let's move on to Gedron.

There's a strange statue missing head and part of tail in the centre of the village...

...and a well. It's just another way to the underground where we've helped Tynan's ghost.

Let's talk to the authorities first. Something (sixth sense? intuition? the fact that it isn't the first RPG I've played?) tells me there'll be a quest for me.

Dude have some serious problem.

And he asks inane questions!

Twist no. 1!

I doubt he'd really do this because he had to make a huge effort to gain control under them but checking his patience isn't worthy the risk, isn't it?

Twist no.2! - he want to find a peaceful solution for the problem.
Not that I don't believe he doesn't want simply to use us to do what he want and then attack us without releasing the control.

I don't think we'll be able to buy anything worth a damn from one of these crazy men...

Apart from being brought to madness by the defiler, he's also selling some useful... trash. Probably imported from the Netherlands so such price is insanely low!

Do I have to do anything more here? Oh, I almost forgot. I should bring the cure from the Teaquetzl cleric. I hope there's anybody who will be able to use it.

Direction: north!

I don't want to be rude but, man, you really are ugly!

You're not any more handsome.

10 000?

But still, it's a good idea to save some money.

I'll be back when I save the village.

Direction: east!

There are only two roads to the eastern part which may be a problem because both are blocked:

And the western part is occupied by some drummers...

...while the healer's sister is in the northeast part:

You can find the rock on the map to check it easily.

Fireball shot in the centre of previously shown group of drummers should solve my problems. The mageras hit hard but they are rather vulnerable. It should leave only few ones that are scattered around.

But the enemy is blatantly cheating by teleporting a new group! Which means Tank is the only one tough enough to survive the battle. Well, I can reload later and now I'll just check how to help the girl.

Certainly not this way.

But I find a rope with a hook so I'll be able to repair the bridge.

Voilà!

Hmm... tentacles...

Oh, sorry, I've just been lost in a dream for a while. Let's proceed to extermination.

Hey, it doesn't look like tentacles!

Twist no.3!

One part of statue found, another one should be south from there. On the way we encounter...

Actually, there's nothing but two mastyrials (not a problem although their venom may be considered dangerous for less tough party members) and some lizardmen.

Of course the red marked option is not the one I clicked. I think so...

Twist no.4 - not only he releases the control but also offers a chance to fight giving me the first strike.

Twist no.5!

I refuse to wait.

Everything settled, we can talk to the NPCs to hear how awesome heroes we are!

Something to remember: don't plan such long updates. It's quite tiresome to make them.

 

[Elwro]

That safe is important, BTW.

 

[Brother None]

That was indeed a hella long update. But a good one.

God, I love the world design.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XVIII: War preparations

Well, I said next updates should be shorter but the only way I could cut this one into pieces would be to make a very short chapter of the beginning of this one (20 -30 pictures) that would consist only of dialogues with the characters we've already met. I don't like the idea and making it in one chapter means we will see the end of the game faster. Yes, we're moving to the finish! I could visit one more area before but I encountered a stupid bug there that forced me to reload and I wasn't interested in doing the quest again. I can always show it after the end if anybody insist.

Oh, and if you want to know what was hidden in defiler's room: a magic gem activating nearby teleport and quite a good sword adding some additional damage. I remember there must have been something else but I can't tell what.

We're back in Teaquetzl to talk about our plans with the village leaders.

That's the fighting spirit!

You can count on me!

OK, where is my teleporting staff? Not that I'm trying to weasel out but you see, there's whole army against us...

Hey, what are you doing!? You must prove you're heroes of the Athas by stopping the army and bringing peace to this land!

If you say so. Let's meet our destiny.

What are these ruins? The prophet will tell us.

If it was that easy. Any attempt to go to the city is quickly stopped by the guards. They only warn me first but if they see me again, they will attack. And if psurlon is close to me, he'll fight me too. So we have to be very careful to avoid the guards.

At least some of the ghosts are nice to me:

Beheading? Sounds like fun!

Oh, sweet ignorance... Better not to tell him.

After uncountable tries we finally manage to get to the king to find out that he's more concious of the state of the city.

BTW I've got at least one powerful artefact created by Llod - a wand that allows me to teleport to certain places.

On my way I was caught by the guards again and wasn't desperate enough to reload and start the location again so I "killed" them. I was fully supporting the idea of bringing them back to life but they were asking for some serious ass kicking from the beginning.

See the gem on the floor?

Not the most scariest thing to be afraid of.

Does it mean I shouldn't believe psurlongs?

That's not true considering my doubts but that's something he certainly want to hear.

Oh, and btw, the fact that there's so many of them trapped in the room I can't access, full of dead bodies is another prove they can lie to me.

There's amazing diversity among the options!

Even more diverse!

A little lie won't hurt.

Let's change subject...

Now I understand where the legends about these creatures' legendary cunning came from. Oh, wait...

If you day so. Nothing worth mention on the way to the body: only a few monsters and some traps.

And reveals a teleport.

Let's proceed to the diplomatic part of the game. Supported by dual wielding of course.

They are big, they are fast, they are strong. But after a while, they are all dead.

These two are much less aggressive.

It seems a body is a normal item I can take to a backpack.

Where it looks quite strange, like cut in half.

Hmm, you can't really see it precisely with a picture of such quality. It's the item in the highest row.

Prepare for the end of the game! I promise I'll be raped hard during the last battle!

 

[Elwro]

Hope you have someone who can cast Haste.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

This final battle is not that difficult.

Just Web the area and then let your Casters litter the area with spells like Wall of Flames and the like. Equip your best fighter with the leather armor that grants Freedom of Movement, don a magic shield for better AC and equip El's Drinker.
Let him take out the enemies one after another, the HP he loses he will gain back thru El's Drinker, the others should just use ranged weapons.

 

[Elwro]

If you had a Psionicist, you could also Mass Dominate some of the enemy's elite forces.

The HP restoration is the reason why it's best to duplicate El's Drinker, it really helps in the final battle.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Yes, I think I spent all 3 wishes on duplicating El's Drinker...
The first wave in the final fight was the most dangerous... a lot of highlevel Monsters...

 

[Jim Cojones]

Too late for advices, I had finished the game before posting the most recent update.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter XIX: The end

Now that we have a genie's lamp the only thing we need id to tell him to destroy the evil army and we'll be able to live happily.

Well, it's not that simple.

Unfortunately, I wasn't careful enough in the ruins and some of my men are almost dying (damn traps!) so one wish must be used for stupid healing. Another one allows me to duplicate a weapon and the last one:

We're ready for the final fight.

And we're not alone.

Can you see the three dots in the northeast? That's my party and my allies. The rest is the first wave of Draj's troops. Shit.

Actually, they aren't that hard. The only important thing is to prevent defilers and psionicists (not visible on the screen) from casting. A precisely thrown fireball, or even better - iceball, that isn't restricted by the amount of remembered spells (I use a ring to cast it), and few arrows do the trick.

And then the commander attacks with his best warriors.

Yes, even more of them.

The green robed troops are on 12 level and the defilers on 10. The maximum for me is 9. I will feel the difference between these warriors and the pussies from the first attack.

Here's the commander, the dude with an axe.

And that's not all the troops. Here is some more:

And the game uses one of the lamest tricks of the game designers: it's teleporting me close to the enemies so I can't use the narrowing to protect from the outnumbering forces of Draj.

So let's use the tactic that worked before: quickly dispose of magicians and the combat will become easy.

Wrong! As I said, the guys are far more powerful than the standard guards. They rape me fast...

But I attack the commander to be able to summon a genie. Only one member of my party left but I have a chance!

Yes!

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

So the troops must be stopped too. I think hold person/hold monster might be useful.

No, not really. But you can see how I stand against this number of enemies. Have fun of me watching!

if not the hold spell then it must be web. I didn't use that spell before because when I cast it first some time ago, I found it bugged in the way I couldn't attack anybody in the area of effect. But I don't have much choice so let's hope it works.

I can't attack everybody but I can hope the fire that starts to burn after using a magic thrown weapon I have will be enough to kill the others. Notice I didn't remember I had armour that allows a free movement. It wasn't useful before so how could I know?

No, I wasn't able to kill the mastyrial but when all the other enemies are dead, the combat ends and it allows the creature to approach me!

Yes! It's the end! And now I will take the screenshots of the final movie...

Fuuuck! When I press the keys the movie ends and the only thing I've captured is this:

Just a while ago, I was forced to watch the face of the army commander for about five seconds because it was unskippable and now all I got is this?

I have to relax, nothing really happened, no need to rage. I just kill them again and capture the ending for you. Here it is. Nothing to be excited about, I was hoping for something more. But there's something more to see...

 

[ghostdog]

I like dark and gritty endings. It seems the sun finally went dark.

congrats for finishing this !

 

[someone else]

Congrats.
Don't you get a friendly mastyrial (buying it with salt) in the final battle?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

So, thanks Jim for a fine LP of an awesome game.
Not a bad game, eh? You should replay sometime with a triple classed party for more fun, with a lot of Psi. Fighter/Mage/Psi, Fighter/Cleric/Psi etc.

If you don't wish for help vs Draj, you'll face an additional wave of enemies (you hadn't to fight the first wave actually). Only composed of monsters.
3 of all elementals, 3 of all demons (babau,vrock etc), 3 of those mastyrials (but the lvl15 ones not the weaker ones), 3 rampagers, and some others I don't remember. This was actually the most lethal wave. However, web is the key to this battle.

 

[Elwro]

Congrats! I always understood the Genie's "help me during the battle" wish as the reason for which I fought 2, and not 3 waves of enemies... I didn't even try to contact him during the fight.

 

[Brother None]

Awesome, Jim, thanks for a great LP.

Man that ending is kind of lame. But that was the nature of endings back in the days of yore.

 

[Elwro]

I heard some stories that DS 1 and DS 2 were originally to be one game, so that'd explain why it feels like DS 1 is just cut off after the fight (even though you can continue to play)... the story should continue in DS 2.

 

[Erebus]

Thanks a lot for this LP. I really had no idea how interesting this game is !

 

[dolio]

How screwed is the sequel (assuming you can find it)? Just about every mention I've seen of it talks about how it has game-breaking bugs. Is their occurrence likely enough to make the game worthless?

 

[Jim Cojones]

Epilogue

I can now go everywhere back and hear some congratulations from villagers. It's not the most exciting part of the game but I see no reason not to post it. There's not much to comment for me.

That's how the story of our heroes ends. Or maybe it doesn't?

You'll see them again!

 

[Brother None]

You'll see them again!

Yes, please.

We wantz Wake of the Ravager! Epic!

 

[Turok]

I really thank you for this LP, i try to play this game soo many times but my english and my computer was not updated for run it.

Now i know i miss a great RPG, too sad that this kind of reward system is lost for the "replayability" that all new games put on the ADs.

Waiting forward for the next LP.

Thanks.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

You'll see them again!

 

[TheWorstBanana]

Wait I have questions! What happens to Aposs? I could never do anything with him.
and does anyone know where i can get the music from this game?
btw the sequel kinda sucked; they made the graphics ugly and its so buggy you may not but able to finish it- to finish it I actually had to hack the freakin game