So, last time we finally found Lagran! it was a very awkward reunion and also we killed him.

We’re now in the Abyss, the place where the exiles exile their own exiles to. We’re basically in double-Avernum. We’ve actually been here before, as Bargah is part of the abyss, but this time we’re coming in through the front entrance rather than sneaking in through the back. There’s a bit to explore as we make our way northwardsNear the entrance is the town of Spire. As we’ve learned eariler, there’s two towns in the Abyss: Bargah, which is the nicer of two towns and somewhat friendly to us,and this place which well… That about sums it up I think.This town isn’t all that useful compared to pretty much anywhere else we could go. The locals hate us, the stores all have insane markups on their prices so it’s better to buy and sell stuff elsewhere. I didn’t even see a job board.

I did however, find a fellow Scimitar, though she doesn’t offer much. someone named Meena here has a magic circlet the Scimitar wants, though getting at it might be a problem. someone named Scab would know more.Eustice here also has a job for us, namely he’ll buy any ale we find off us a 10 coins a bottle. It’s a source of coin if I need it but with where I am in game not that big a deal.This building might be the most useful thing here. Welcome to the arena, enter the back, say you want to join.You fight some monsters and get rewarded with coins when you’re done.I run thorough the arena twice when this happens. apparently fight number 3 is against the champions.I give it a shot but it turns out they’re a bit too much for me, maybe later.

Poking around a bit more I find this hidden spot in hte back of town, full of hostiles.It leads to a box I can’t open. I’d suspect it has to do with the circlet mentioned earlier. again, something for later maybe.Meena you might recall is hte person who’s been sending bandits into Avernum.Calling her on it doesn’t do anything of major interest, and I don’t feel like picking a fight with an entire town again. There might be something to do with her later on.That’s basically it for Spire. A couple things I could maybe follow up on, but that’s really it.My exploring has me headed west, then south.There’s not much of major interest out here, aside from maybe this group of bandits, 100 coins would be nothing at this point, but then again, fighting them isn’t much harder and it’s free.I also find a witch who wants me to gather herbs for her. I’ll probably stumble across that stuff eventually. right past her though is something far more important.We’re in Skarragath, We’re close to where Grah-Hoth is imprisoned.This place is full of undead, undead who aren’t trying to kill me, curious.Both the books here give the same message. The implications of this are a bit alarming: Grah-Hoth apparently killed enough people to fill two books before he was finally imprisioned. This sentinel will actually talk to use. He’s a wizard and his job is to basically keep Grah-Hoth in and everyone else out. He’s very serious about this. Even the fact that Grah-Hoth is already causing trouble won’t move him to let us through because letting him out would be just that much worse. Still, he’ll open the maintenance gate guarding the controls for the main one for us, so long as we don’t mess with it. he will attack if we do so.We don’t have a choice in this. I throw open the gate and fight off the local guards.The sentinel doesn’t die in this fight, when he was supposed to, instead this happened and he vanished on me.Turns out his throne was across the hallway, so he’s here now, fully healed and with more backup.In the middle of the fight, I find this thing.kneeling gets us this. Apparently I didn’t need to fight? Sadly it’s too late for that now.with the sentinel dead, we can open the other gate blocking us from Grah-Hoth’s prison.Here goes…The prison is surprisingly tiny. a square building with some golems and hellhounds acting as guards around it.Our goal is that room in the back, but the door is locked. How do we get in? The answer is this crystal hiding in a small cave near the prison, touch it……and you open a secret path in the back of the prison that leads to a series of teleports.Find the switch hidden among them to approach the barriers, dispel those and you’ll reach… A vat? As bad an idea as this sounds, we need to free Grah-Hoth to kill him. Cut the seal.He got away, we might be in a bit of trouble here. Let’s go back.Hoo boy…Skarragath is in ruins, and this guy rules over the remains. outside of a handful of imps to fight, the only other thing for us here is a message: Grah-Hoth has a new fort to the north west, over a lake of lava, he’s waiting for us to come fight him.Heading out and getting back to exploring, I find what I believe to be Erika’s tower. Sadly at the time I didn’t think to try using the orb to hop the river. Still, I think I’d rather get this part of the abyss managed first.At this point there’s not much of interest left over here. I head north until I’ve gone up past Bargah, where I encounter these ghosts that I was supposed to kill for a questThey don’t last very long.With that done I head back to Bargah to hand in the quest.At this point we’ve explored a lot of the caves. The waters to the north and east, and the chunk of land that rests beyond them is all we have left, I’m betting Grah-Hoth’s fort is somehere in he very northeast corner of the map. but I think next time I should go back north to explore the water ways, winding my way down to that tower.