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Update 25: Confronting Issac, and a grainy quest. Before we push on past Tyr-Sog, we rush on down south to see if we can run into our old buddy Issac. If you recall, we found out that he was working with the Moredhel, and that would obviously be of concern to our guys. Now, in the novelization, it is Locklear who confronts Issac and beats him up a little bit too, but here we are going to be having James talk to him, which in my opinion works out a little bit better given the animosity between the two already. So, we'll just pretend that Locklear left James a note.  "Yo Jimmy, remember Issac? Turns out he is a dark brotherhood spy. I'd slap him around a little bit myself but I'm going to gently caress off for a few chapters. Can you deal with it for me? XOXO - Locky"    "No matter, as fortune would have it, I have fallen on perhaps better times than you might imagine. I conduct my own business, go about my own affairs without the concern of the state." "Without the concern or in spite of their concern, Isaac? I have heard grim rumors of you..." "If there are rumors of me they are spread by my competitors. I assure you noble Seigneur that I am entirely at the disposal of the Kingdom. How may I be of service to you?" Might as well confront him and get this over with. HIS SPYING "We met your pokiir playing friend in Eggley and he told us a bit about the match he played with you. He told us about the elven friends that came along with you, but as you pointed out before, elves rarely come out of Elvandar and would be very unlikely to be travelling from town to town playing pokiir. Talk, Isaac. Why are you working with the moredhel, Isaac? What are they doing in the Kingdom?" "I don't seem to be the only one keeping company with them, seigneur..." "I'm not in a mood to be trifled with, Isaac. Talk!" "Seeing as how they've seen fit to dismiss me, I can't see it will hurt matters. They're operating out of a barn near Yellow Mule. I found an old farmer there who wasn't particular about who rented his land and harbored loyalty to neither his lord nor to the Prince. A moredhel named Nago moved in there and has been using it as a base of operations to hire Quegian mercenaries." "Makes sense. Mercenaries would be able to move in the Kingdom without being noticed. What are they planning?" "I made it a policy not to know. Knowledge has a tendency to shorten your life, especially when you're working with lunatics. Think what you like, but this was purely a business transaction. They paid me and I made the pick-ups and drop-offs to the moredhel lockchests. That was all I did for them."CHESTS "If you've picked items up from the moredhel lockchests, then you must know how to open them. I want the passwords, Isaac..." "It would be like nailing the lid shut on my own coffin. They're already looking to silence me. They've got assassins combing the mountains." "Give us the passwords and we will try to clear a way south for you." "Why help me? Aren't you afraid I'll turn around and tell the moredhel where you are?" "You've already taken care of that problem yourself. They might invite you down for a friendly chat with the leader who will forgive all, give you a hefty slap on the back, then lop your head off. Kill the spies. It's always the first step in an invasion." "Invasion? Don't be absurd! The Northlands are in a state of civil war. They would be completely incapable of making an organized assault." "Why the efforts to hire the Quegians? Why so many moredhel assassins placed inside the Kingdom? You're smarter than that, Isaac. Just give us the passwords and I see to it that none of this is ever mentioned to the Prince." "Very well. There were...five? No, six of them. I can't remember which goes to which but they were shadow, candle, stranger...no...die, spider, key and...what? Shadow...candle...stranger...spider...key... I'm sorry, but I can't remember the sixth one. I know one of the moredhel had problems remembering the same one and carved the name onto one of the headstones near LaMut."LAST ORDERS "What were your last orders before Nago released you?" "I released myself. I had the feeling I was coming to the end of my usefulness to the moredhel and I made my plans accordingly. When they asked me to pick up a ruby from Keifer Alescook and deliver it to a specific moredhel lockchest, I realized they were planning to take care of two problems at the same time. The moredhel courier would an assassin. They had planned to kill me and, at the same time, erase any evidence to whom the ruby had been delivered."GOODBYE "It's time we were going. I would tell you to take care of yourself Isaac, but you were always quite good at doing that..." "You never allow your grudges to die, do you?" "Grudges have nothing to do with this. I simply know to trust my bump of trouble when someone is trying to fool me. Goodbye, Isaac. I have a suspicion we may meet again." "Hey, James. May the Force be with you." "RAWRGWAWGGR?" "What're you lookin' at? I know what I'm doin'."Yeah I'm sure we won't see Issac again. You know the type, pure mercenary, always thinking of himself. By the time I get back up to Tyr-Sog, I'm almost out of food, so might as well stock up.   "FRESH FRUIT!"  Yeah, not going to do that joke again. Not until Miketopus comes out of hiding and restarts his Bards Tale 2 LP.   Eldpoint is our next destination. It is a small city though, so might not be that much there. We'll find out soon. You do know that you've entered a harder zone though, because...   The fights include many more Moredhel than before. We can handle them now, but if this was Chapter 1 where Owyn didn't know squat for spells and we had bad equipment and stats, it would be a much more difficult fight. Here I just toss a Skin of the Dragon spell on Gorath and the rest kind of take cares of itself.   Nothing to worry about. Always nice to leave a trail of bodies behind in your wake. We get in a few more fights, and then...  Really? Squire Phillip? Why is the game making it seem like he is somehow important?  Well screw you too, Phil.   "They keep on trying to run away from us. It's exhausting." "I've narrowly avoided some myself. Fortunately they didn't pay much attention to me. I don't think father would have been too pleased if I'd ended up ransomed." "Did you ever find that chest you were looking for?" "A bit of a disappointment. Soon as I had the lid up, I found it was empty. I should have expected that someone else would get there before me. Likely our bandit friends plundered it."  "Yes, our 'bandit friends' did it."HIGHCASTLE "Should uncle and I head on to the east, we might stop by Highcastle for a while and see the sights." "Not much to look at. It's a typical border town and the only thing of interest there is the castle itself. I understand that Prince Arutha paid for some of the newer fortifications there after the Riftwar, but all in all I wasn't much impressed with it. However, I have to admit they had a nice armory there. They keep some of the prettiest swords I've ever seen in stock."And... that's it. Not very helpful.  He does stop us right outside of a temple, so let's check in there and see what's going on.  The Temple of Dala. We check out the Mandala to add that to our collection.  We are starting to get a good collection of them too. Instant teleport from one part of the map to another will be very useful in the future.     We've picked up a new sidequest. Picking up a bag of grain. But where to begin? It's not like there is somebody just outside of the temple that we could ask about it, is there?    "Because, you know. We are adventure game protagonists." Sounds like a hint to me! Let's get moving!
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