RGR009 - Back on Track

With a good night's sleep in us, we ventured back to Romaly and headed north. Our current mission, as directed by the king of Romaly, is to retrieve his Golden Crown, which was stolen by a thief named Kandar. Word among the people is that Kandar is currently hiding out in the Tower of Shanpane, west of the village of Kanave. We also learned of a town to the north of Kanave called Noaniels, where elves used some sort of magic to put everyone to sleep.

Yeah, this looks more like it.

He'd better be.

That works out pretty well then.

NO! I'm in the middle of a quest.

Of course, we just HAD to investigate. So instead of going west toward the tower, we headed north, where we eventually came upon the town of Noaniels. As expected, everyone in the town (except for one old man) was sleeping. Sleeping standing up. It was creepy. Next we went west to search the forest for signs of the elves, which we found in the form of a small patch of brush among the trees. There was a cave nearby as well, but we weren't about to go anywhere near it.

The patch of brush was actually an elven village, where everyone either feared or hated us because we were human. The queen was especially rude, but she at least gave a reason as to why she might hate humans. As the story goes, the queen's daughter, Anne, fell in love with a human, and went to be with him. But for some reason, she took the elves' Dream Ruby with her, which is some sort of sacred treasure to them. So I can probably smooth things over with the elves by returning the Dream Ruby to them. But that'll have to wait.

*sigh* Fine, when I'm done with Kandar.

I really don't have time for this.

I spy some suspicious grass...

WOW RACIST

Having had enough verbal abuse from the elven queen, we turned back and made our way to the Tower of Shanpane. The enemies in the tower were roughly the same as those outside, with one or two new weak ones, so the trek to the top was fairly easy. There was some worry that the enemies would be stronger since we didn't reach the tower until night, but it would seem the night/day cycle doesn't affect towers.

On one of the upper floors, we encountered a very large door, which was a good sign that we were getting close to Kandar. The Thief's Key took care of the door, and we entered a room with statues and an out-of-place diamond patterned rug. Kandar had to be just beyond the stairs.

Finally!

You don't say.

Big door spells trouble.

What a tacky rug!

Well, not quite JUST beyond the stairs; Kandar and his men had set up a little area for sitting and chatting, and two of the henchmen were there. When they saw us, they started talking like movie gangsters from the '50s, and then fled to tell Kandar we were coming. We followed them up to the next floor, where Kandar himself was waiting for us. He continued the lame gangster talk, and then opened a conveniently-placed trap door that sent us back down to the sitting room.

By the time we made it back up, Kandar and his men had fled, though the only way they could've escaped was by jumping down a couple of floors. So we started after them, and found they hadn't gone far. Once we caught up, Kandar finally decided to fight. He and his men were stronger than we expected.

Who talks like that?

Seriously, who talks like that?

Yeah, bring it!

On second thought...

Needless to say, we got clobbered. It didn't help that all of Kandar's henchmen targeted Theron, who was the only one who could injure them all at once (Bang is a wonderful spell), and killed him in the first turn. Within a few turns, we were all done for. I believe we'd have fared better if Theron could have survived the first or even second turn. Maybe next time.