So last time, we escaped from the Arrival Caves to be welcomed by the locals. and then promptly told to go away because this fort’s full.

At this point the leash is starting to come off, at least a little. We’re low level and poorly equipped, so wandering too far from Fort Avernum will result in our teeth getting kicked in. but exploring the immediate area should be safe, and going by the map, there’s a couple areas nearby we could check out.

One of the cool things about the overworld here is you’re not the only thing on it. wandering around you can find stuff like military patrols and herds of cattle. There’s also stuff that’s not marked on the map screen, for example, see that bonfire hiding among the trees?

Depressed goblins. surprisingly, deciding to try and say ‘hi’ doesn’t get you attacked, they just sort of sniff at the party before deciding we don’t have what they want and going back to being depressed. Maybe this will make sense later.

Anyway, the game has been not-so-subtly poking us towards Silvar, which is actually pretty close to Fort Avernum, I have stuff that needs selling and could use some supplies, so why not?Silvar is… not much of a city. a small collection of buildings set near a river. But that’s OK, we just need a few things.A trainer sounds nice. He basically sells free skill points in certain skills, the catch being you can only buy 2 free points per person per skill, and at over 1,000 coins per point, I’m not likely going to be using this any time soon. Maybe later.

There’s also a smith nearby selling weapons, There’s nothing super exciting there, and his stock very limited, but I can offload my valuables for some coin, and he’s selling bows and bronze short swords. I grab the sword for Marion and the crude bow for Mycroft. He’s not really the best with it, but it’s something to use when not throwing spells around, and unlike throwing weapons, bows have unlimited arrows so it’s not a big deal if he doesn’t hit that often. A job board! I quickly accept all the available quests here. They seem to be pointing me North towards Fort Duvno, As it’s the only other mage location nearby, We’ll likely want to head there soon anyway.Right past the board is the Mayor, who we we’re told to go talk to. He already knew we were coming, It seems Avernum is kind of hurting for capable fighters and our little scrap with Lagran has gotten us some notoriety. He asks what I plan to do down here, assuring me that escape is impossible, but still offers that job if I’m looking for some work. not one to turn down potential look and exp, I’m all for it.

The job’s a simple one: The town is digging a sewer, but has run into a problem with giant worms. Our job is to go kill them and figure out where they’re coming from. sounds easy enough.

Geared up and ready to roll, we take the northwest entrance into the sewers.

We go underground in the underground city. We are now double underground. We’re more underground then that one garage band that your trendy friend that majored in art back in college really likes but keeps refusing to talk about. Anyway…

Compared to the arrival cave, the fights here are actually dangerous. While the various worms and weird crawly enemies don’t have any real tricks to throw at you, they do significant damage and Mycroft spends a lot of time on healing duty.

Now, those of us who have played a lot of RPGs might be thinking. “Going into the sewer? That’s a pretty typical early game quest, but worms? Where are the giant rats?” No need to worry, Spiderweb hasn’t forgotten to throw some giant sewer rats at us. they’re on the other side of the sewers,  away from where the worm infestation is.There’s even a frothing mad diseased one, has a lot of health too, the whole party had to back him into a corner and beat on him for a good few turns to bring him down. But as fun as that is, we’re not here for rats. Where are those worms coming from?

This looks promising.Droknarr here has been summing the the things, attempting to row a swarm large enough to drive the human population away.

Wait a sec…

“Swarm? isn’t the technical term for a group of worms a ‘bed’?”

“Hrrrarrr! Yes! You can also call a group of worms a ‘clew! however, neither of those words carries the right level of menace! no human will tremble at the thought of being devoured by a ‘bed’ of monsters! Rrrarrr!”

This all seems rather silly, but I’ll give fuzzball has a point.

Anyway we’ll just beat this guy up and…..or I can get my party slaughtered. Let’s try that again.

The trick with this boss is he’s a spell caster, namely he’ll back into a corner away from you and summon random beasts to fight for him. He can only have one beast out at a time,but the beasts are tough and readily replaced when killed.

The real problem is when the fight starts, he calls in his worm buddies to rush you from behind. fortunately, we have a few things to help even the odds. on top of Cordelia’s Cloak of Curses. Mycroft has has a protection spell to boost everyone’s defense for a few turns. Cordelia also has a summon beast spell, allowing her to summon random beasts to fight for us just like Droknarr can. with Marion and Cordelia’s summons guarding the rear. Aldous can go to town on Droknarr and his summons. once his health is low enough he’ll summon another wave of worms behind you, but if you can survive that, the worst is over.

Anyway, with Droknarr dead, we run back up to the surface to relay the news. The ring grants cold resist, as for our advice? He mentions we should head to the great cave, but we’ll need a crown token to get there. you can earn one of those off a mayor at one of Avernum’s cities. sadly he doesn’t have one to give us, but he notes we might have more luck up north, at the city of Formello. Fort Duvno’s that way so we might as well take a look.

The other thing he mentions is a pylon in the sewers. Some people have the ability to use then and there’s a bunch scattered across Avernum. He unlocked the door for us so we can go look at it. Basically it’s this game’s quick travel system.

With that done there’s not much left to Silvar. there’s a supply shop, and some place selling boats, though we can’t afford one. might as well go back downstairs to see the pylon.

Yep, it’s a pylon. The stone servants around it are inactive, There’s another one up above, but outside of telling us it just stands there and listens to things, there’s not much to be had from it. the game notes they’re often used in The Empire for manual labor, and often left to stand there and rot once the job is done.

In a move that surprises no one, complaining about the plight of the stone servant is a great way to get yourself exiled.

Anyway, with the possibilities in this town dried up, we head out once more..we’ve got a few more scraps of equipment for everyone now, of note both of spellcasters have bows and everyone has a cloak for a little extra defense. The game seems to be point us north now, so that’s likely where we’ll head next.