Our biggest bane in the game so far has finally fallen. The horrendous kobold cave is no longer an obstacle.It was a meticulous process enough without making any mistakes or being subjected to fluke lucky shots, but often around the time of the second and third waves we'd get a sort of otherworldly "game error."
Even after the third wave (including a beautiful "charming" of one of the magic-wielding envoy guards pictured below) we were annoyed to find it still wasn't over. We left Fatima in the cave and went back to Phlan to recover before our one final battle.
On the way back we bumped into some hippogriffs. I'm embarrassed to say that here's one more creature that I'm only familiar with through Harry Potter. Everyone thinks Rowling created an entire universe. Most people aren't aware that the wizardry universe has been around for quite some time, in more than Forgotten Realms form (like the proper Wizardry).
The demise of the kobold king was extremely anti-climactic.
Some of the kobold treasure was even less fulfilling. We're pretty sure it was all junk, considering the extra pluralization of "bootss." We tried to pick some of it up anyway, but we're still either too burdened to do so or we weren't meant to pick up the junk anyway. The most eye-candy of it all was the 50,000 copper pieces. Getting out our abaci, however, we discovered with the exchange rate that it was only 250 gold pieces.
The last reward we expected to find in the cave was a freaking genie in a bottle. I had no idea that genies hated vampires. Is that sort of like pirates and ninjas or something? Man this Forgotten Realms stuff is all over the place. It's not just sword and sorcery fantasy. It's also kiddie matinee from the 50s with Dracula, the Mummy and Aladdin. Kind of funny in a madhouse sort of way that the hardest battle we've fought is to earn something to help us with the second hardest battle -- which we've already fought. Thanks a lot -- um, programmers.
The genie reminds me of my favorite joke, which I'll go ahead and repeat here. I don't usually tell jokes like these. My mom wouldn't approve. Anyway, a young married couple is golfing on a ritzy golf course with mansions lining both sides of the fairway. The wife slices heavily and they hear the ball crash through a mansion window and then a smaller crash inside. They make their way up to the house, knock and eventually walk into the open door when nobody answers. In the living room, they find a man sitting on the couch with a broken vase sitting next to him on the floor. "Thank you," he says. "I'm a genie. I've been trapped in that container for 5000 years. As thanks, I'll grant you three wishes." The couple huddles together and the husband says, "We'd like a billion dollars, we'd like to live forever and we want no pain in our lives from now on." "Granted!" the genie says. "Your check's in the mail and from now on you'll live forever and won't experience pain." After the couple says thanks the genie hesitates for a moment. "Um, I've done you a great favor, I'm just wondering if you'll do just one last thing for me. I've been cooped up in there for 5000 years and it's been a long time since I've been with a woman. I'm just wondering after all I've done for you, if you wouldn't mind my borrowing your wife for about an hour." Again the couple huddled together and figured that their payment was enough to forgive this one marital impasse. So the wife and the genie went upstairs to the mansion's bedroom. An hour later, they're lying there and the genie says, "Hey, how old is your husband anyway?" The woman answers, "Oh, he's about 30." Then the genie starts laughing and laughing before he says, "Your husband is 30 years old and he still believes in genies?"Anyway, on the way home we went to the cave of Diogenes the dragon, which was very exciting because we hadn't been back since he gave us the kobold cave quest back in entry 5. After all that, the dragon did a lot of nothing. Must be a shut-in and unwilling to do anything terribly interesting. Maybe it's losing its mind. The thing actually spelled "congratulate" wrong. What's with the horrible spelling in the land? Are we hitting the dark ages or what?
Diogenes specifically mentioned using the efreet bottle (genie) against the vampire in Phlan. Fortunately on a return to the graveyard we came across a weakend Dracula inside a cross-shaped tomb. It's true. Genies hate vampires. Hard.
Our new commission is vague enough. Names? Places? Last seen? Direction? Accomplices? This is why bureaucracies do not make good police forces.
In boredom, we hung out at the thieves' mansion in North Phlan. A couple of interesting journal entries were found there including some dirt on our old accomplice Bishop Braccio and a map of "NW castle." Perhaps the castle in the north west area of Phlan?
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