RGR009 - Finally, a Key

As per the suggestion of the creepy dwarf in Lancel, we bought ourselves an Invisibility Herb and sailed northward past Jipang (yeah, still not ready for that one) and around the continent until we reached Eginbear Castle on a nearby island. The guard just inside the castle wouldn't let us in (he called us yokels... the nerve!), and would move along with us to continually block our entry. So we used the Invisibility Herb in whatever way one might use an Invisibility Herb, and were then able to walk right by the guard unseen.

No one else in the castle seemed to mind our presence, though most of them went out of their way to identify us as rural in some way, not that their castle seemed any fancier than Aliahan Castle. Even the king noted that we "hail from the provinces", but he was generally nice about it, which was surprising since the guards all seemed to think we were going to whip out banjos and start do-si-doing around the throne.

We pieced together a series of clues as to the actual location of the Final Key, in a shrine in the northern sea which had sunken below the surface, and which now only appeared to be some rocky shoals. Funnily enough, we passed some shoals on the way here that I'm pretty sure mark that very spot. A masked man in the courtyard told us about some boulders in the castle's basement that needed to be arranged in order to make something happen; we figured that would be the next step in our search for the Vase of Drought, so we finished exploring the ground level of the castle and went down the first set of stairs we found.

The basement was an oddly arranged room with three boulders and an area for those boulders to be placed. The whole thing was strongly reminiscent of a simple level of Sokoban, which was a nice touch. When the last boulder was placed, a passage opened up that led directly to a small room with a single chest, and in that chest was the Vase of Drought!

Ooh, a new place to save!

But we've got some swords and shields!

Should we be offended?

I think I know those shoals...

Yeah, but we called first dibs!

Somewhere? That's not helpful.

What if it hurts?

Like spitting when we talk?

It's not REALLY a new continent.

How kind of ye.

SOKOBAN!

Wow, what a prize!

Needless to say, we were pretty excited about our find, so we immediately set sail for the rocky shoals. We reached them early in the night, and when we opened up the Vase of Drought, it sucked up enough water to expose a few small mountains and a shrine nestled among them. Inside the shrine was the Final Key, along with a throne and a talking skeleton. The skeleton told us about a pit in the Necrogond called the Pit of Giaga, which is apparently a bad bad place.

Works as advertised.

What if we'd found this key first?

Sounds like a depressing pit.

Hey, be nice!

If you ask me, it sounds like nothing good comes out of this Necrogond place at all. Not even its name.