Game:

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993)

Duration: 11:50

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I have the party step into the entrance, and we’re sent to a cutscene with the Draracle. He’s a massive figure, far taller than a human, and also has a rather frightening appearance. He’s got red scaly skin and a horn in the middle of his head, which is actually how he got the name Draracle—it’s a portmanteau of “dragon” and “oracle”, and he does indeed have a dragon-like appearance. He’s seated on a throne in a large room, and when we enter a mysterious hooded figure appears next to him. This hooded figure, revealed by the sequels to be named Jakel, acts as the Draracle’s assistant and orders us to place an offering before we can ask our question. I click on an altar in the background and place the Silver Goblet on there, causing it to disappear forever. It’s too bad—that Goblet was a fantastic asset—but the Draracle can now answer our question.

Despite his physical appearance, the Draracle has a gentle and benevolent demeanor. He’s already aware of King Richard’s poisoning, and tells us that he can only be cured by the “Elixir of Tybal” which needs to be prepared in a white tower. We don’t know anything about this Elixir, and Baccata asks for more specifics. Jakel demands we offer a second gift if we want to ask another question, but the Draracle says that’s not necessary. He gives us a scroll with four ingredients we’ll need for this Elixir, although they’re given to us in riddles. We’ll need to “butcher the creature whose flesh has never lived”, we’ll need to “see the sweetness of our enemy”, we’ll need to get a third ingredient “from the deadly depths”, and our final ingredient is “powders taken from the heart of our mother”. I’ve played the game before so I already know what each ingredient is, but for a first-time player there’s very little indication of what any of those riddles mean so far. We’ll have to figure that out later.

Per Jakel’s instructions, Lora stays with the Draracle and leaves our party while Michael and Baccata vacate the throne room. We now have what we came for, and we now need to return to Gladstone with the recipe. Fortunately, leaving the cavern isn’t difficult since we don’t have to backtrack the way we came in. A special route takes us pretty much right back to the upper level of the cave, so we only have to travel through there. There are still plenty of Ratmen lurking around and we get into a few scrapes, but we’re able to do fine. Michael’s Bezel Ring is great here because it makes him immune to getting poisoned, although Baccata’s not so lucky. He gets poisoned by the first Ratman we encounter, forcing me to give him a piece of ginseng to cure him. From there, though, we’re able to make it through the caves and several other Ratmen with no poisonings, and we finally make it out of the cave—only to be attacked by Orcs! There are several of them outside the cave, and they promptly engage us. We defeat them and even loot several maces, but we also find Timothy’s coin sack. That’s not a good sign, and in a cutscene we find a badly wounded Timothy on the verge of dying.

Timothy gives us shocking news—while we were in the Draracle’s cave, the Dark Army already came through here. Gladstone Keep has fallen to the enemy and King Richard’s body has been captured. He’s still protected by the magic shroud, though, and with his dying breath Timothy urges us to find the Council of Dawn, Geron, Paulson and Nathaniel. It was their magic that created the shroud, and so we’ll need their four keys to remove it and apply the Elixir. Inconveniently, since Gladstone Keep has been destroyed they’ve gone into hiding, so it’ll be a major challenge to find them. Baccata believes that they would have gone to Opinwood, a forested region across Lake Dread. We can’t get there via the Marina—the Dark Army destroyed it—but it turns out there’s an alternate way there. As we approach Lake Dread, we find Victor nearby and he tells us that Dawn’s boat just returned from taking her to Opinwood. We can take it ourselves, and Victor helpfully gives us a Long Sword, although I decide not to equip it for now. After a brief cutscene, we disembark in the Opinwood Forest. We’re on the right track, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.

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