So, last time we traveled through a large, confusing mage to kill an annoying gremlin.

As it stands Fort Remote should be our next stop. It’s in the southwest corner of the map might as well get that area cleared out before we start exploring the northwest. Besides, it’s part of the main quest and we’ve been delaying that long enough as is.

on the way back to the fort I stumble across this camp. turns out the guy there delivers messages between forts, and lost an important message to  some gremlins. you might ecall we got an important looking message from Gremlin’s gold. turns out that’s it.A simple hand in, sadly the gauntlets just give a Tool Use bonus and I have all the Tool Use I could ever want.Welcome to Fort Remote. It’s seen better days.The fort is surprisingly quiet. There’s nothing here save for a demon in a circle of runes, and this ghost.The ghost begs for your help, screaming about how terrible the attack was. She also claims before disappearing that she managed to stay safe by hiding and killing herself before the demons could get her.

Yikes.Meet Grah-Hoth, or at least a projection of him. We’ve heard the name a few times already. He’s the demon that was here before Avernum was founded, and a lot of avernum’s founders, including some big names like the triad of mages, they were only able to seal him into Akhronath which is in Skarragath, places we haven’t been yet.

It’s worth noting his mention of Sss-Thsss, the slith leader we killed awhile back. It’s likely Sss-Thss’ and his darkling crew are this guys fault. I’d guess it’s also possible his antics go as far back as Sss-Thoss and thus the entire exile from Bahssikava is his doing. but if that’s the case, the game hasn’t said anything to cement that.

The projection vanishes, leaving me with a bunch of demons to fight.Aside form the Balor, who took a good beating, it’s not much to talk about.What’s really interesting right here is this. This is an exit at the back of Fort remote.This is somewhat unexpected, because while you could always see some cave past the fort. Avernum’s world map ends at the fort. A good chunk of the southwest corner of the map is empty.

We’re actually off the map. Where in the empty, undefined area marked with images of monsters and the words “Here be dragons”. Cool!A small outpost has some runes to look at.Trying to do so gets us attacked by arena.

With that done, we can try again, and learn Dispell Barrier. Sadly this isn’t a free level of the spell, as this will only teach the spell if you didn’t know it already. Oh well.It’s worth noting the random encounters here are actually dangerous. Most places we’ve been on the overword have few random encounters and what few exist I can readily opt out of fighting. out here I don’t get that option and actually need to fight.Huh…

This is getting more and more curious by the moment. Something might be hunting me, and the empire was fought off here by… we don’t know.There’s a shop run by a slith up here.There’s a few useful items, namely herbs and those purging and battle crystals. also, the Arena fangs, I could buy them here to sell for a profit at Fort Draco if I really wanted, though even with fast travel that’s a bit of a walk.There’s what was chasing after me from earlierIt’s actually a.tricky fight and a actually lose a couple people.Huh…I find a drake cave, but decide not to explore it just yet.Huh…Well now! This is interesting, it seems the empire wants me dead, and sent someone own specifically to do that.

This curious part is I don’t actually know why. It could be because I looked into the empire orb. Or maybe they somehow knew I joined the Scimitar. It could be because I have a high reputation, or maybe this is jsut a scripted event. I have no way of knowing for sure.I also find the Tower of Sulfras, but decide not to poke at it yet. Instead I should report back to the castle.He doesn’t take it well, and Want’s us to go kill Grah-hoth. He can also tell us a bit more about him, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard already.While I’m at it, it occurs to me: We met Thantria awhile back, she’s hiding out under Formello and is an envoy from the surface. She doesn’t seem to have any dialogue about the assassination attempt, but while I’m here…I said I wanted to cause a diplomatic incident, so let’s do it!  She makes a deal of keeping out of this room, so going in should set her off. Sadly however, I forgot to screenshot the message form before she attacks.

For the most part this fight wouldn’t be too big deal. Thantria is a mage who can cast twice a turn. mostly it’s to fire off various damaging spells, and occasionally summon a weak enemy.

Sadly, those golems aren’t just for show.The more you hit her, the more golems activate, and each one is nastier than the last.The trick to beating her is to switch targets. Beat her up untill a golem activates, than focus the golem. you’ll have to endure her spells which hit hard, but it’s better than being swarmed. In hindsight having Ward of elements would of made this a lot easier for me.

As you can see in the screenshot above I actually lucked out. She ran into the room, meaning she could only hit my priest, while everyone else was free to handle the golem. Made keeping everyone healed a lot easier.

Eventually it’s just her and one golem left.There we go! Any golems that are left die instantly when she does. In theory a strong enough party you could probably just ignore the golems and rush her down.Interestingly, nobody seems to make mentions of the event besides Evelyn. The king, the scimitars, neither one makes reference to it, I checked. With that done, I’m calling it an update for now. We did one of my major goals in killing Thantria, we explored fort remote, and found a couple places of interest to look at behind it. At this point we’re starting to run out of unexplored map. mostly just eastern part of Avernum remains.