The Past Is Returning Soon

Much has happened since the last time I posted on my game. One major  change in my life is that my wife of 12 years died. She was 43. Without her life is much more grey, not as much fun; her passing left a hole in my heart that will never heal. But there is still life, there is still a future, there is still a lot of life left to live. I'm not even 52!

So just wanted to post this, let people know that I am returning and I am NOT afraid to use pointless and actually somewhat off-putting text sizes and emphasis changes. I SHOULD be, but I am not.

TTFN!

I Might As Well Admit It

For the time being, this blog is on official HIATUS. It's been a month since I have been able to seriously play Pool Of Radiance for the NES. I have played it a few times, but both times I have stupidly lost all my progress. So, just to let everyone know, for the time being, the blog is

C L O S E D  F O R  R E P A I R S

And, while the grass may be growing thick around the posts holding the sign up and the sign itself may be old, the paint peeling, and fading from years of sun, believe me when I say this:

I will be back. This blog is not dead- just sleeping for a while.

Thank you all.

I Swear, I Tell Ya

I either have the worst luck, or I am accursed by God. One or the other. Finally I get me the time and the inclination to fire up POR again (I been busy, I been stressed, I been freaked). I head into East Outdoors so I can head back TO Phlan, head through a gate and start mapping. But as I turn the river head, I find a cave where kobolds ( a large band of them) are sneaking in! So I head in and have some wacky adventures. All in all I got a lot of XP, some gold, and while I didn't clear out the cave complex I figured I better go heal up and come back rather than leave my withered corpses to rot in the darkness forever.

As I head back down to to the boat to head back to New Phlan proper, I am called upon to do some householdly chore. I set down my game controller and get up. The cat leaps onto the table, knocks the game controller onto the keyboard, and the game screen changes to a night time screen with the error message "Game Save Improperly Loaded".

And guess who didn't save the game before getting up, because he didn't feel anything untoward was going to occur? Iffen's y'all guess little ol' me, y'all is correct!

Sigh. Getting closer though. I will finish this game :) I am doing better than another blog I read, where the author's last post was cleaning out Sokal Keep, over two months ago. At least I am trying :)

At least I didn't have to cut down a shrubbery with a herring. That would have sucked.

My Parrot Would Like To Apologise

Life at my house has been a tad busy- haven't had a chance to actually PLAY the game since my last post and I didn't want my one or two readers to wonder what was happening. I'll be back in a day or so, promise ye, me hearties!

It's Been A Lot Of Wandering Open Spaces

There are some right odd fixtures on the landscape tho.

I've been spending the last week and some doing nothing more than wandering the areas outside of Phlan and trying to grind my characters up. Probably pointless to try and do things that way, but shucks. When I went to examine one of the other semi-interesting things outside, I found this block of text:

NEVER is a good time to see this. EVER.

So, not quite sure what I should be doing in the game at this point, I've been in a holding pattern of grinding. Not sure where I should go outside but trying to find a) nomads, and b) a kobold army. Haven't found either. Afraid to go back inside the city because Valhingen is too tough for me... Now, there are areas of Northern Phlan and Southern Phlan gates I could go through and check out... but again, not sure if I'd be wandering into a meat grinder or not.

Over the teeth and over the gums, look out tummy, here I come!

I dunno if I require more hand holding or not. I don't enjoy games where I am being led around by the nose throughout the entire bloody thing, but right now I don't know if I have the concentration powers to keep it together now that I have been booted out the front door and been told "The world is now yours. Take it in your hands and feast!"

This picture would fit in the dictionary under the definition of "swarming".

I think I'll head back into North and South Phlan and try mapping/clearing out those areas. If they are too tough for me, then I'll head back out here in the Wilds again and see if I can find those bloody nomads and kobolds again. Although, badass as I am against a party of 15 kobolds (they fall like wheat under a scythe) I don't think I'm tough enough to disrupt an entire kobold army.

My entire party had an attack of brown trousers when this guy popped up.

Still tho, even tho I am kind of in a confused muddle right now, it's still a moderately enjoyable confused muddle. Moderately enjoying myself stomping on monsters at the moment. I need to get back on track pretty quick however, because if I can't get a break, I'm going to start losing interest and THAT, my fine furry friends, would suck.

It's a pueblo! Run For Cover!

I still dunno what a quickling is, except for one thing about them: they are very very deadly.

HERE would have been an EXCELLENT time to have the control snakes spell.

Oh my God, the minotaurs HAVE US SURROUNDED

You should be able to tell from the last couple screen shots that the flora and fauna around Phlan is totally ridiculous- there is no way all these various types of animals, both intelligent and non, would live around each other. It's crazy. But then, most of these settings are and I guess that's part of the fun, isn't it? I'll see you in the next couple of days with an update on the gates into Northern and Southern Phlan.

Oh my good LORD- this is insane.

"I found another one!" yelled Fimu.

She was standing on a "mountain" of broken rocks, roughly 20 feet tall, looking out over the broken plain around them. She was pointing to a circle of vultures. "I can't say for certain, but with as many as we've found, I bet it's another party."

Figtle ran stubby fingers through his thick, coarse beard. Of course it would be. And so far that made seven they'd found and that was way too strange to be normal.

It's started yesterday afternoon- they'd stumbled upon vultures and wild dogs tearing apart a kill. But it wasn't some unfortunate beast they'd slaughtered and were eating. It'd been a party of five adventurers, the poor bastards. Two half elven males, a half elf female, a dead dwarf, and a gnome, all mostly torn to pieces and eaten.  Figtle and Ficle had talked it over whil examining the corpses. There wasn't much left to determine if it had been foul play or bad luck that had done them in but they'd all pitched in and buried what was left. It had thrown a pall over the evening, but that wasn't the worst- before the sun started to fall in earnest and they'd been looking for a campsite, they found another bunch.

Another five adventurers, same as the last. Two half elf males, a half elf female, a dwarf and a gnome. Cause of death was unknown but cause of making a nasty mess of their remains was obvious- Figtle and the rest had angrily killed a band of wild boars that had been messily and noisily eating the corpses.

It had been Fimu that had brought up what they'd all been thinking- She and her two brothers were half-elven, Figtle was dwarven and Thiffling was a gnome. Coming across one party of such odd makeup was odd, but twice was too strange to be a coincidence. What and who had killed them all?

Throughout the rest of the next day they'd discovered another five sites of dead adventurers- each of them containing two dead and partially consumed half elf males, a dead and half eaten half elf female, and a dwarf and gnome, both dead and mostly eaten. They understood the half-eaten state- the wilds around the city of New Phlan were untamed at best and filled to the brim with meat eating beasts. Anything dead and made of meat would be torn apart and devoured if left unguarded. But for each party to made up of the same types and numbers as their own bunch...

"If we didn't have to find those damned nomads I'd say we head back to Phlan," said Ficle, next to Figtle and looking just as worried. "This is all wrong."

Figtle agreed with Ficle, whom he was finding to be a very smart man under his half-elven foolishness. It was badly wrong.

It's A Vast Empty New World (Albiet Filled With Horrible Beasts)

He's very sharp- and I don't mean as in bright.

Well, I took Dirten and the gang out into the wild. And it's a pretty wild wild. It sure looks empty...

 

I'm a horsie on a boat!

But oh trust me- everything is hungry and wants to feast on Our Gang.

Even the piggies are carnivorous!

And let me tell you about the bloody piggies. I dunno if they do this trick in the PC version, but in the NES version, the Boars are like trolls on steroids. You can take down a piggy and it'll be dying and vanish- and then it gets back up! And the pic comes back and the Boar is now pissed that you made it die!

For the past 2 days Blogger has not been working correctly- I don't know why. I can't upload pictures, and the text formatting has been weird. I'm going to try re-blogging again in a day or two. Until thenm, Our Gang will be fighting horrid beasts in the forests around Phlan. See yez soon!