Lands of Lore Part 46: Two Strange Creatures

I turn around and head back to the first handprint we originally came across. I open the corridor with our gauntlet, and then make our way back to the two side-by-side handprints leading to the different paths. This time we want to go west, so I use the gauntlet to open that corridor. I head down a fairly straightforward path to a door with a switch next to it and I press the switch to open the door. Before we can go in, though, we’re attacked by two Cabal Warriors. I defeat our two opponents and move through the door I just opened into a large room with several pits. Our goal here is to solve a puzzle-a number of switches on the wall cause specific pits to close, and we’ll need to find the correct sequence to get out of this room. First we need to go to the right and press the switch on the eastern wall, which I do. That causes a pit near the western wall to disappear, enabling us to press a switch there. I do so, which allows us to access another switch on the eastern wall. I head over there, blast a Necrosap with Level 3 Lightning, and press the switch to close a pit right in front of us. I step over where the pit was, press another switch, and one last pit disappears. We can now leave the room.
I have the party rest to recover the mana Michael lost from casting Lightning, then move forward. We promptly encounter two Necrosaps and Paulson gets drained, but Michael is able to destroy them both. I once again rest to restore everyone’s Mana to full and continue down the corridor. Eventually, we come to a side tunnel that takes us to a lower level. There’s nothing important down here-it just gives us somewhere to go if we fall into one of the pit traps-but I decide to take a brief detour and explore it. It’s a fairly small area, and once it’s fully uncovered on the map I return upstairs and move on to the next area. It’s a large room with several pits and pressure plates, and the door out can’t be opened from this side. We need to solve a puzzle to escape and it’s easy to get misdirected in here, but the solution is actually incredibly simple. One particular pressure plate needs to be weighted down for a teleporter to appear, and entering the teleporter causes us to be transported to the other side of the door. I put a rock on the plate in question, and sure enough we’re able to leave. There’s a switch on this side that opens the door and allows us to retrieve our item if we wish, but I decide getting our rock back isn’t necessary.
We enter a corridor, and eventually come to a fork in the road-we can keep going straight or turn right. Going straight will actually take us directly back to the main door we’re trying to unlock, but we don’t have the key for that yet. To get the key, we need to turn right and locate a treasure chest. I duly turn right, and after some looking find the chest we’re looking for. Michael picks it open, and we find quite a few items inside. There’s a Death Stick, some ginseng, a George’s Kite Shield that I give to Baccata, a Bannon’s Reserve, and then the Yellow Key we need. Moreover, there’s also a Mists of Doom scroll in here, and reading it immediately adds that powerful spell to our repertoire. I happily do so, and return to the corridor to make our way back to the main door. There’s another side area we can go to, but I personally don’t think it’s worth it. It has a puzzle that requires the player to push 3 Necrosaps into electrodes with Hand of Fate, and if successful allows one item to be duplicated. It’s a major time investment for an award we can honestly do without, and I prefer to simply blast Necrosaps anyway. I bypass that area and continue on, stopping only to destroy a Necrosap in our way and to rest afterwards to get our mana back.
Soon enough we find ourselves back at the main door, and I use the Yellow Key to open the second lock. The door opens, and I go inside to a very strange cutscene. There are two bizarre creatures waiting for us, a floating head with a beard and a jellyfish-like creature. These are representatives of the Knowles and Xeobs, respectively, and it quickly becomes clear the two races are sworn enemies. Each wants us to intervene in the conflict on their side, and both promise great rewards if we join them. This certainly isn’t what we anticipated, but if we want to get to Scotia we have no choice but to fight in their war and humor one of the sides. First, though, there are some preparations I want to make. I start by dropping all the Oil Flasks in our inventory, since the Catwalk Caverns is the last cave-type area in the game. We won’t be using our lantern anymore, so our Oil Flasks are now a waste of inventory slots. Second, I make sure to remove everyone’s breastplates and shields. That’ll make for tough fighting, since the Knowles and Xeobs are both formidable foes. But they also both have acid attacks, so regardless of which side we choose we’ll need to fight without armor if we don’t want to lose it.