PoR: entry 8 (roll the bones)

So I'm in an interesting blogging situation now. It's been so long since I've written (and played for that matter), that I can't be certain about the facts from these screen grabs. We'll make do. Or maybe make up.

So in my Phlan travels I happened to walk into a buccaneer's den of some sort. It just had a bunch of bad guys chillin' and drinkin.' Great place to pick a fight, which I did when I opened the door into some guy's face. After I dueled him (and won, yay!) I had the curious option of actually hanging out with the "monsters." I'm still finding it weird that instead of going off to some other country to fight a war with a distinctive enemy, I'm actually beating up on my neighbors who are either a) another race b) of a poorer class or c) a and b. It just doesn't sit right. I seriously swear sometimes I think I was put on this earth just to make the people close to me miserable.

Okay, so I decided to hit the graveyard for some serious skeletal experience points. I decided it might be a good idea to bring along another cleric just for this purpose. Since I was going to be using this character in the short term I figured I may as well split his/her class to make him/her more rounded. He/she would probably never level up since it takes so much longer for split classes to earn the necessary experience for all the classes. Apparently you can't create more than six characters when you have a party of six organized. It automatically deletes the new character. Very frustrating. So after much tribulation in the character creating department I finally created a new temporary cleric/figher/magic-user. In these dark times, I needed him/her to be a guiding light to my party. For this reason I decided to name him "Pilgrim." Not only is he a religious trailblazer, but I also named him after Simeon Pilgrim, who has been a terrific guide to me thusfar through succinct, spoiler-free comments to this very blog. I guess Simeon celebrated a birthday this month. Happy birthday Simeon!

On to the graveyard. We encountered a couple of armies of skeletons and even though skeletons seem to be slightly tougher than standard orcs and goblins, they were easier to dispatch thanks to Chlorine and Pilgrim's one-two punch of turning the undead.

The really big battle came with the slaying of the giant skeleton. So far the giant skeleton is the coolest of all the iconed monsters. The giant icon looks like a malnourished stormtrooper from Star Wars. The first time we encountered this thing, it dispatched most of the party, but this time we really slugged it out. Pilgrim is really showing his stuff in battle. He may be stuck with lower experience, but he can already perform nearly any task any other member of the party performs. How cool is it to fight a giant skeleton? How come this is the first time in any medium that I've come across such a thing? So is it like Goliath's ancient re-animated corpse or something?

Although Dead Goliath was a pretty tough stale cookie, I'm amazed at how much experience we all received. I'm guessing this is a point in the game where the programmers' kind of decided to throw us a really huge bone. Quite literally. I swear as I typed that first sentence I didn't realize there would be such a perfect groan-inducing pun.

In the crypt we also found a unique marble chest. The prompt came up on the screen asking whether or not to open the box. It's like, hell yeah, like any box will ever hurt us! I'm sure I'll be eating those words when in the future some box eats one of the party members. Anyway, this sucker was packed with 10 gems and 12 pieces of jewelry. I sold much of it, but am keeping the rest close to me for emergencies and for when I better figure out how to get swell appraisals for my goods.

After getting back to town we also yielded incredible level-ups! Chlorine is now a level five! ("Take it to level five." "Level five?" "Level five!" Name that movie!) Silver the Enchantress and Rexbasior are level fours. Disposo raised up as well. Tragically, Disposa missed out on the fun in order to make room for Pilgrim. Even Derfindor finally upped both his fighter and thief class. Hey, even Pilgrim raised levels on two of his classes.

So really quickly, we hit the countryside again looking for the mysterious "kobolds far to the east." I've said it before: the east is pretty big. Presently we are holed up in a strange nomad camp in the middle of the countryside. The chief has been pretty darn friendly. They've already made us the guests of honor at the village feast! We may hold out for him to offer up his daughters as well. He's also been warning us of kobolds in the area. Ha! Kobolds! When have they ever bothered us (besides a month ago or so)? We've freaking killed Goliath again! Bring it.

Tomorrow, we wander aimlessly toward Koboldtown!