Preserving adventure video game history one pixel at a time.
Playthroughs of classic adventure games with commentary. Sierra, Lucasarts and other classic games included.
We're close now. So close we can almost smell it - literally. Marcus starts off in the Breath Chamber, where he reads the ritual and its instructions for performing a little ditty on the altar/organ. Marcus gets it right the first time (which is good, since he'd be croaked if he didn't) and after another adventure in pixel-hunting is back in the main chamber. One last sphincter (heh) is pulsating. We step through and into..
Nothing.
At least that's what it appears to be. We wouldn't know. Marcus has completely lost his senses. Not in a 'he needs to spend some time in a padded room' sort of way, but in a 'he can't smell, taste, hear, touch, or see' sort of way. A brief wander around the room brings the senses back, and Marcus reads the appropriate ritual. And then leaves by the way he came.
There is one last ritual left - the Heart Ritual. Standing in this rounded chamber with its four stone valves, it becomes obvious what needs to be done. Soon Avoozl's evil stone heart is beating, and Marcus steps forward towards the altar - and his destiny.
Which we'll cover in the next update, when we complete Quest for Glory 4. See you then!
In Which Our Hero finds himself temporarily working for the wrong side.
So this is it. Helping Katrina and Ad Avis to summon Avoozl and cover the world in Darkness. At least a hero's life is never dull, eh?
We join Marcus in the Dark One's cave. There's a glowing, pulsing sphincter (heh) to his right, which he enters - and he's back in the bone chamber where we started the game. It's time to start the rituals.
The bone ritual isn't so bad: just light the torches, chant a few lines and then break out of the bone cage when it snaps shut around us. Marcus smash indeed.
The next chamber is the blood room. There's a lot of platforms which means pixel-hunting and hopping around, and after pricking our finger (really, is this such a good idea?) the chamber fills with a vile liquid that is.. yup. Avoozl's blood. Gross.
Back to the middle and on to the breath chamber, which is where we pick up next time.
Pay particular attention to John Rhys-Davies' awesome narration in the ending bit. He certainly hams it up but still manages to keep things within the realm of the game - no mean feat. You never get the sense that he's just doing it for a paycheck (and I'd like to think he was having fun with it!)
In Which Our Hero meets an old enemy and meets Katrina for real, gets smacked around a little, and defeats a really ugly monster.
Katrina called and it's time to answer. Her note said to meet her outside of the castle at dusk, so we'd better go see what she wants. After all, we don't want to piss off a vampire wizard any more than we already have.
Except, what's this? It's not Katrina at all! Ad Avis! Hey, we killed you once (sorry!) and we can do it again! Oh GOD please not the hounds.
Marcus wakes up in Katrina's dungeon - not the first time he's ended up in the slammer thanks to Ad Avis. Prick. Luckily the chains aren't hard for MARCUS SMASH to break and after grabbing a handy wooden stake and listening to some goons, Marcus locates the secret passage out of the dungeon which dumps him right at..
Katrina's bedroom.
Oh my.
She looks so peaceful when she's passed out and her hair isn't flying everywhere. Too bad that doesn't last, as Marcus hesitates Katrina wakes up and it's back to the dungeon where Dominatrix Katrina whips Marcus and smacks him around for a while until he is Geas-ed to locate the five lost rituals. Well, they aren't lost, because we already did that - so he can just turn around and go back inside.
Then it's off to the Dark One's cave, where we're going to summon Avoozl - but not before Marcus goes toe-to-toe with the pit horror, which turns out to be the last remaining Borgov. Talk about ugly inbred nobility...
Back in the basement Marcus takes a look through that large, ominous desk and finds some large, ominous plot points. Inside are the papers of Amon Tillado, the Mad Monk. Amon Tillado was a few cards short of a deck - or had a few cards too many in his deck. But the desk contains some important clues about where to find each of the rituals. Odd, the Mouth ritual was supposed to be hidden beneath the Dark One sign on the arch, but we didn't see it.
There's a reference to one of the rituals being in the monastery and can be found by those 'willing to seek dark visions.' Isn't that what the Amon Tillado wine is supposedly for? Might as well have a bit.
Hic.
Hic.
BARF.
WHAT. THE. HELL. WAS. THAT????
It's time to get out of here. Out of town even. Supposedly there's a castle to the west of town, maybe we should go check that out.
It's beautiful out here. They're even playing Marcus' song! We grab some corn and head to the castle, where we meet Boris Stovich who seems to be channeling every major horror movie stereotype in one, and has a strange nervous tic with his fingers. Everything he says is sinister-sounding. Good guy or bad guy? Our Paladin Sense isn't tingling, but it's been wrong before...
Picking up here next time, when we'll meet a lovely young lass who wants to send us to our doom.
In Which Our Hero learns more of the Dark One and ignores the warnings of the locals.
Now things start to get interesting. We finish questioning Dr. Cranium and head back to the monastery at the north end of town. Ignoring Igor, we try to open the door, only to be eaten by the sculpture hanging there! Oh no! Good thing we saved our game.
A quick restore later and we use the Dark One sign on the door, gaining access to the monastery. It's not so bad inside - if you can get over the evil symbols everywhere and the creepy, dried-out Domovoi statue in the cabinet. There's another Hexapod over the fireplace and some telltale scratches inside. Could this be another door? It could!
Give Hector the Hexapod (I didn't make it up, sorry) some garlic and we have access to the monastery basement. Now this is clearly where the monastic order invested most of their creepyness. It's cold, and damp, and moldy, and smells like rotting flesh. Not unlike my refrigerator.
We have a quick look around, including as the massive Cask of Amon Tillado, and will pick up in the basement next time - when Marcus is going to go on a little 'trip.'
In Which Our Hero learns of the Paladin Piotyr and the battle against the Chernovy Cult.
The last couple of updates have danced around the backstory a bit. This one has it in spades.
Marcus is still in the Guild, where he takes a gander at the logbook. The recent entries talk about the Paladin Piotyr and his struggles against the Dark One or Chernovy cult. The cult has been operating out of a cave, which he and Erana lead an army to attack. The cultists turned into horrible monsters and Erana seems to have died in the cave while trying to banish - something - to - somewhere. Piotyr seems to have made it back to Mordavia to tell the story, and mentions that he is going to go in search of various Dark One rituals and destroy them. That's the last entry.
It seems that perhaps we have a Quest.
We do a little light reading, learning the Climb skill among other things and then buff up on the stairstepper. There's still more of the town to explore, so we're off and find an old man called Nikolai wandering around, looking for someone named 'Anna.' He's in front of a building that belongs to one Dr. Cranium, where we solve (after a little difficulty) a very simple puzzle and gain entry. The inside looks like a wonderous place full of cunning marvels - which we will explore in further detail in the next update.
In Which Our Hero is Imported to Mordavia, escapes a gross cave and meets a new friend.
It's time to get our Mordavia on! Quest for Glory 4 picks up right where 3 left off: with Marcus doing the boogie down as he's snatched by Dark Magic. After a brief Sierra flourish and introduction, we go to Mordavia:
Note that John Rhys-Davies, the narrator of the game, even narrates the intro process. Aubrey Hodges' awesome score overlays everything so enjoy the kickass music while Marcus comes aboard.
If you look carefully at his character sheet, his official name has been shortened to Marcus Warwick the Pur. I guess the Mordavia DMV only has 22 spaces on their licensing forms. Oh well.
Without further ado, let's get down to the game:
Quest for Glory IV opens in a cave that appears to be made at least in part of the bones of some giant creature. There's a horrid altar made of bones, and human skeletons that have half-melted into the cave.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we aren't in Tarna anymore. Or Spielburg. Or Shapeir. Or even Raseir. This is the real deal. We're alone in a very dangerous place.
Our first item of business is what anyone in our situation would do: loot the fuck out of the corpses. Doing so yields some money (crowns and kopecks, the coins of the realm), a dagger, some flint, and not a hell of a lot else. We use the flint to light the torch by the altar, which glows a horrible green and doesn't seem to have any source of fuel.
Passing through the sphincter (heh heh) into the next room we find the corpse of a Warrior and take his sword and shield. The poor fucker doesn't need them anymore so we take them. On the way out of this place we're beset by Badders, which we dispatch by the power of our mighty chin.
Outside of the cave we meet a lovely young peasant woman named Katrina who tells us how dangerous it is to be out after dark, informs us that we're in Mordavia and the town is 'due north' of our present location and wishes us luck before she runs off to avoid the dangerous things lurking around. Good on her. Apparently we're in Eastern Europe. Man, Russian chicks have sexy accents.
Before we leave, there's something called a 'Dark One Sign' that we pry off an archway and take with us. It's almost like it's alive. Perhaps it will come in handy. Afterwards we slide down a gooey path and head into the swamp, noting the disembodied hands reaching up to grab at us. Mordavia looks like it will be an interesting place to spend some time.
