Ess-Eschas

Hmm, I still can’t quite wangle out the last few names. I don’t think my Geneforge knowledge is quite up to scratch, even given your hints, Slarty! So we might need to do this a little iteratively, if you’re game. Here’s a new partial solution from me. I’ve wedged in one more name, meaning that I’ve produced 16 Geneforge characters and 1 Spiderweb member from the grid. That’s only two missing – not forgetting any I’ve still gotten wrong, of course! For what it’s worth, I can actually get up to 18 names out of 19. But the additional names in that partial solution don’t quite fit the criteria, I think – so I’m not happy with posting that version just yet!

Oh wow. This is really exciting to see! I hadn’t expected you to be releasing this for testing in sections, but that makes a whole lot of sense, especially when working out the general balance for later portions of the game. I’ve already downloaded this, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what you’ve done. I know the scenario is far from being finished, but getting to this form of testing is still a big milestone, I think. So, many congratulations, Kel! You’ve released this just at the point when I’m rather busy, so it might be a few weeks before I get a report to you – depending on how much I find, of course. But you should have something from me relatively soon! Here are some brief comments on your known bugs:

You know, with the way I intended this puzzle to be solved, it’s probably not a bad idea to start with a small list of names and work up from there. After all, since the intent was for a core list of names to suggest further names in the grid, it stands to reason that you’d want to be confident about the more obvious names before going any further! In this new list, you have provided me with 12 names. Out of these 12 names, 9 are correct. I’ve been thinking about this, and my method of solution, and I think I might have expected a few too many intuitive leaps from people in solving this puzzle. So I think it’s only fair that I give you a little more information about what you have right and wrong here – otherwise, generating any further names would probably be far too difficult! I think I should be taking your difficult assessment a little more seriously, Slarty ... There are 3 wrong names on your new list. One name is wrong because that Slith only features in Exile, not in Avernum. Another name is wrong because it does not meet the requirements I mentioned in the first post – that slith, strictly speaking, does not interact with the party. The third name is wrong because they do not meet the rubric requirements for an enemy slith. If you would like any further hints, do let me know! The last thing I want is for this puzzle to be frustrating, unsolvable or, worse, both!

*The slith grins* You see, this is what I think is particularly interesting about this puzzle. The original idea stemmed from a quick, casual comment, one in which I tried to come up with a deliberately obnoxious and unreasonably difficult puzzle concept. And the result certainly sounds like it should be largely impossible. After all, this grid contains a huge number of names, and many of those names are constructed in quite similar ways, using lots of very similar letters. Doing anything with that should be a nightmare. At least, when the puzzle is presented this way ... However, I maintain that this puzzle is more reasonable than it might first appear. I was quite surprised to come to that conclusion, in fact, when I put it together. I would be quite happy to provide further hints. After all, what’s the use of a puzzle like this if no-one is having fun with it? However, I think it might be more interesting if I provided some prompts first, rather than some outright hints. Still, let me say this now: if these prompts aren’t enough, let me know. If you ask me again for hints, Slarty, I shall provide them. I think there are two reasons why this puzzle might come across as more difficult that it actually is. Firstly, this puzzle is presented in a very similar manner to Slarty’s Geneforge puzzle. This implies that the manner of the solution might be the same. However, is there any reason to suppose that this is actually the case? Good riddles, after all, often work by encouraging the audience down lines of reasoning that end in dead-ends, so that they miss a more simple solution. At its core, at least as I understand it, Slarty’s Geneforge puzzle involves selecting a small group of characters from a slightly larger pool of names. The puzzle is, in essence, trying to figure out which elements in a small list to include, and which to discard. In this respect, the grid of letters is vital, since it’s the primary means to tease out which characters have been included, and which have been discounted. But, as Slarty rightly points out, that approach doesn’t seem to work for the Grid o’ Sliths. There are too many names to choose from, and too many of those names are so similar that it’s hard to tell them apart from letter distributions alone. Is this because the puzzle is poorly designed? Or is it, perhaps, because the writer intended the puzzle to be looked at from a different angle? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is a different sort of puzzle. What if the puzzle here is not selecting a small list of characters from a slightly larger list, bur rather determining the properties of the list itself? What if I produced a set of rubrics, one that happened to produce a list of about 30 sliths? The problem then would be to determine what the rubrics are, using the obvious results and what other names can be gleaned from the special letters in the grid. Then the list could be largely generated directly from only a few names. Just a thought. I want to reply to your comments specifically, Slarty. I think you’re casting the net far too widely. In my original post, I mentioned that sliths only qualify if their interactions with the party are important in some way – and I made a point to stress that random shopkeepers and minor bosses don’t qualify. If you remove all these minor sliths, there aren’t that many major ones to choose between. As for what qualifies a ‘minor boss’, here’s an example. I would consider the denizens of Angierach to be ‘important’ figures. The location is an important one from the point of view of the game’s story/lore, and the figures are powerful. But I wouldn’t consider, say, the named soldiers in the Unfinished Fort as being important – the location is a minor one, and the characters are not especially powerful. Also, I think you’re missing a few more obvious names. There is a little more you can do with just the letters. For instance, you’ve got a nice tasty Q sitting there. You’ve not yet included any characters from BoA. And there’s one character from the original trilogy I’m surprised you’ve not touched on, given what I know of how you play. Here’s one more oblique comment. I was quite deliberate in how I described the possible slith names in my first post. There are hints in there, if you look carefully. I suggest you take a look at Encyclopedia Ermarian’s page on the slithzerikai. You might find something there to help you on your way

Despite being a little quiet for a few days, I’m not quite done on this puzzle on my end! When I have moment to sit down and look over this carefully, I have some ideas on how to proceed. Not least with some of your helpful, slightly veiled hints, Slarty. That’s assuming Triumph doesn’t get there first, of course! I think you have more knowledge of the series than I do, and you’ve already mentioned some pretty good names that I missed the first time around. For what it’s worth, I was a little unsure of including Masha in my list. But she is important in the context of the story of Geneforge 1, even if her character might not qualify as inherently important per se, and she uses up some decent letters. Still, there are other names that could potentially take her place. We'll see. It’s too bad there aren’t any Us in this set of letters. Because, if my ‘Phariton’ is likely a mistake, I need another way to use up that troublesome ‘ph’. And Triumph would have been a really nice way to do that.

Ah, I meant to elaborate on that point in my original explanation, but it slipped my mind. Sorry to be forgetful! To be clear about this, all sliths included in the grid appear physically in the games in some way. No sliths that are mentioned solely in history or myth, or only in slith lore more widely, are included. So you’re quite right: the Sss-Thoss mentioned in Avernum 1 is a historical/mythological figure, and therefore does not qualify for inclusion in the grid. All sliths who only appear in the modern remakes of the first trilogy do not appear in this grid. That’s a shame, since it means missing out on some nice characters, but I think it was a practical choice for several reasons. Firstly, there are more online resources relating to the first trilogy, so it’s a little easier to look things up! But, perhaps more importantly, the modern remakes added a large number of named sliths in minor battles. This increases the raw number of slith names in the trilogy quite significantly. Including all of those names as possibilities would, I think, have made this puzzle a little too daunting! Incidentally, you’re not talking about the Kyass of Avernum 1, are you? Because that particular Kyass isn’t actually a slith .... Are you perhaps thinking of Evysss, the slith sage the party meets in the Freehold of Kyass? She’s one figure I would have quite happily included in this grid, not least because the useful spells she sells distinguish her. Unfortunately, she only appears in the modern remakes, and therefore does not qualify for inclusion in this grid. Otherwise, I might well have included her. Sorry, Evysss! So, discounting your inclusion of Kyass – which seems fair – you have provided me with 25 names, Slarty. That’s a pretty good haul! Out of these 25 names, 17 are correct. That’s a great start, and shows that you’re working along the right sorts of lines, I think! If you can weed out the dodgy names, that puts you over 50% of the way there. It’s tempting to provide some more hints, but I’ll hold off for the moment ... I have two more comments. Firstly, if General Zhavress is one of the sliths included in the grid, he would only be listed as ‘Zhavress’. Secondly, besides the potential problem with Kyass, there is another person on your list of sliths who isn’t a slith at all ... Also, ADoS and TriRodent, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t appraise your suggestions! I think it would be a little too easy if I said yay-or-nay to single names. If you provide me with a few more names in a list, I’ll let you know how you’re doing ... Incidentally, here’s a note for anyone reading who is more familiar with Exile! Since some of these names are taken from the early Avernum games, and a fair proportion of the sliths in the first trilogy were simply translated over from Exile, a good chunk of names in this list also appear in the Exile games – that is, Exile 1 to Exile 3 and Blades of Exile. So don’t let a lack of familiarity with Avernum put you off from suggesting names!

Recently, Slarty posted a Geneforge-themed puzzle on this board. It’s a really nice puzzle, and I’d suggest you take a look at it if you haven’t already! I’m having fun grappling with it, and it’s inspired me to put together a puzzle of my own in response. My puzzle, however, is geared towards forums-users who are more familiar with the Avernum series! The grid below is made up of the scrambled names of 30 sliths from the Avernum series and, just to keep things interesting, the name of 1 Spiderweb forums member. Sliths are represented from across the entire series of Avernum games. Names have been taken from each one of the core Avernum games, Avernum 1 through to Avernum 6. In addition, names have also been sampled from Blades of Avernum. Don’t worry, though! Names have only been sampled from the four core Blades of Avernum scenarios written by Jeff Vogel (Valley of Dying Things, A Small Rebellion, The Za-Khazi Run, and Diplomacy with the Dead), although not all of those scenarios are represented in the grid. For the record, I made reference to the original Avernum trilogy when sourcing names for Avernum 1 to Avernum 3 – but the names should be identical to those in the more recent remakes. All sliths listed have some important interaction with the player. This may because they are a powerful adversary, or a strong political figure. Alternatively, they may offer useful quests, or provide particularly important services for the party. Fear not, however! You won’t need to scour every last inch of the caves and the surface to find these sliths. Only those who interact meaningfully with the party have been included – we’re not talking sliths hidden in an isolated fort/town with just a few lines of dialogue, or running a generic shop (as helpful as such shops can be!), or found in minor battles. The slith names have been recorded using letters only. All other markings, such as hyphens and apostrophes, have been removed. Full names have been used, but all titles, ranks and other affiliations have been omitted. So, as it happens, none of the slith names in this grid contain any spaces. Here are some examples of some fake slith names, and how they would appear in this grid: Hss-Kess – HSSKESS Battlemage Thelioss – THELIOSS Krys’Taless of Cotra – KRYSTALESS Those who’ve browsed the comments on Slarty’s puzzle thread may see the comment that inspired this puzzle of mine. I first plucked the idea and the numbers out of thin air, partly as an example of how a puzzle like this could be put together deliberately badly. However, it turns out that this puzzle is much kinder than I had expected – despite the intent of my original comment, this isn’t a horrible puzzle by any means! In fact, it’s actually quite a lot more doable than it might look at first glance! By coincidence, 30 sliths turns out to be a really good number to choose. Remember, we’re sampling from 7 games here – so that’s only a handful of sliths from each game. So, without further ado, here’s the grid! How many names can you find? ESSSGREATGRIDOSLITHS SHHVCESLSTTAYSSAASSS USSIAHAVSSKRSHLSLRSL ASOOSASSSSAAHYSSAOSV QASSHHSDGHSSSSSSSEYR SMSSKNHNAESSTSSSOSSA DTSSSHVHAARSRZCOPSAA ISKRSSHSTNEOTGCSLHVA HASEHEKMEGSSHSSSHOLH HOISISAMTEGRSLSOTKGK YUSESSSSKASSSSSAAAAS SLARTYSTHECAUSEIHEAR ESSSKAZTKAIATAA

Thanks for the confirmation! I hadn’t really expected to get so many names correct, which is really rather encouraging. I have some suspicions as to which names might not be right, too. So, knowing that I’m not too far from the right track, perhaps I’ll be able to make some more of this. I’ll have another rummage around, and see if I can work up anything better! In the meantime, I'd be happy to take any suggestions or prompts from people more familiar with Geneforge than I! Has anyone spotted anyone particularly obvious that I've missed off? Hmm, this has given me a few ideas. I'll have something of a ponder on this, and see where my ideas lead me ...

So, I had a little fun with this earlier. Sadly, I’m not familiar enough with the later games in the Geneforge franchise to get a complete solution, but I’ve gotten part of the way there. I’ve managed to find 15 Geneforge characters and a Spiderweb member in this tangle. For what it’s worth, I have some pretty friendly letters left over, too, but I couldn’t get anyone else out of the mix. I thought I’d post my partial solution here – just in case anyone wanted to use it to get closer to the full solution! Feel free to mention anyone I’ve put on here who you think shouldn’t be there, or anyone you can pick out from my left-over letters! In this solution, I’ve included characters from later in the series who I recall hearing about, but it’s possible they’re not as important as I think they are. And I’m pretty certainly I’ve gone too heavily on the Geneforge 1 references. Here’s what I have so far! and some thoughts on this: Don’t tempt me, Alorael. If you’re not careful, I’ll make an even scarier one of these, just to give Slarty something to get his teeth into. Unscramble these 30 sliths from the Avernum series, perhaps? :)

Also, just as an addendum to Slarty’s comments, can I check something, alhoon? Is the issue one of these two things? 1. The ‘Like’ button isn’t appearing for you. 2. The button appears, but brings up an error when you click on it. If your experience is like statement 2, I may be able to suggest a temporary fix for you.

Fantastic. Good to hear that you found the solution to your problem, aetuzcu! Thank you also for posting clear instructions for the process you used to fix the issue. That may well help other posters who encounter this problem in the future! If you’re interested as to what was causing the problem, here’s what I think was happening. Each outdoor area and town/dungeon in this game is controlled by an individual code file, which we call a ‘script’. These scripts govern events that take place in these areas, such as monsters spawning, people talking and, crucially for your case, gates opening and closing. It looks like your script files were corrupted. The game was unable to load them – it was this that produced those little errors in your console. So the game was unable to load the code that would open the gate for you! Thankfully, Steam has an option of dealing with corrupted files, which is the process you’ve used here. So, now that the integrity of your game files has been secured, your scripts are working again – allowing you to get past the problem gate! Best of luck for your grand adventure seeking the surface world! And, once you’ve made it through, do consider giving the other Avernum games a try. It's a great series of games. If you liked this one, you’re bound to like the others in the series :)

First off, it’s great to see several people contributing constructive ideas to what might be happening in aetuzcu’s game! However, I’m a little concerned that not all of these suggestions directly relate to the problem aetuzcu is experiencing. This could potentially cause a little confusion, both for the discussion right now, and for any users coming across this topic in the future. So I thought it would be a good idea just to step back for a moment, and to take a closer look at aetuzcu’s problem. aetuzcu is stuck at the very first gate heading into the Final Gauntlet. This is the gate leading into the grassy area near the entrance. This gate should be open when the party enters the dungeon – but, in aetuzcu’s case, it’s closed. For what it’s worth, there shouldn’t be any trigger connected to this gate, at least when the party first gets there. It’s not controlled by hidden switches, or knowledge of the password, or anything else that the party does. It should simply be open right from the start. The fact that it isn’t means that something odd is happening with aetuzcu’s game. Your idea is a good one, aetuzcu. If you head back to the Final Gauntlet from an earlier saved game, the gate might be open, and you may be able to proceed. If so, please let us know! It would be good to know if you managed to get through the problem gate just by reloading! However, if you get back to the Final Gauntlet, and the gate is still closed, there may be things we can do to help you. However, it would be useful to know a few things, just to try and track down what the problem is. So, if you experience this problem again, could you answer the following questions? 1. Is this the first time you’ve entered the Final Gauntlet? 2. Do any text boxes appear when you enter the dungeon, or when you approach the problem gate? 3. Did you see any error messages pop up in the text console? (This is the little text box at the bottom of the game window that lists various actions that take place, such as saving, when you discover locations, when you enter dungeons, etc.) 4. Take a look at your junk bag. Does it look alright, or is inexplicably filled with daggers? 5. Have you noticed any other strange things happening with your game? Oh, and please don’t kill Sulfras! It’s extremely unlikely that Sulfras is the cause of your problem. Besides, Sulfras is a nice dragon! (Also, TriRodent, here's a small, polite reminder from the moderator team about the forum’s edit function. Unless it's absolutely necessary, please try to avoid making consecutive posts in the same thread, especially when they are posted just minutes apart. This might seem like a small detail, but it really does help make the forums easier to read for everyone. If you post something, and then immediately think of something to add, don’t forget that you can always just edit your original post!)

This is a topic I don’t think has been touched on in this thread so far, but I think I’ve just stumbled on a name cameo for an item. In Exile/Avernum II, there is a grand altar at the centre of the ground floor of Ornotha Ziggurat. On this altar is a special weapon, which heavily curses the party with negative status effects when they take it. In Exile II, and only in Exile II, this weapon is the ‘Krysknife’. I think it’s very likely that this is a reference to the ‘Crysknives’ from Frank Herbert’s Dune Series. These are knives made from a crystal tooth of a sandworm – hence the ‘crys’– and are the weapon of choice of the Fremen of Dune. One is famously wielded by Paul Muad’Dib himself. Along with the very similar name, there’s a further similarity. The Crysknives of Dune are often laced with poison. In Exile II, the Krysnife is one of the very few weapons that are "always poisoned". The Krysnife is an item unique to Exile II. While the encounter is still there in the remakes, the weapon has been repurposed and renamed. So you only get to see this in the original! This is the second Dune reference I’m aware of in Exile II specifically, along with the background music (which also appears in the 1992 strategy game ‘Dune’, based on the novel). I wonder if there are any others?

The Vahnatai writing on the the Vahnatai map in Avernum 2 was cracked some time ago. It’s actually just a simple substitution cypher into English, with each Vahnatai glyph corresponding to an English letter. In other words, all the text on the map is essentially in English! I don’t think the cypher itself has been posted before, so I had a bit of fun this evening putting together a reference sheet for it. Now, should anyone wish to write in the Vahnatai language in their own fan-created works, or in the Blades engines, they can do so using a set of symbols endorsed by one of Spiderweb’s own games! So, without further ado, here are symbols we know for Spiderweb’s Vahnatai script: Note that the resolution on the map means that not all of the letters resolve very well. I’ve done my best to pick up the shapes, but it’s possible that some of the glyphs are not exactly identical to the original artwork. Thankfully, most of the English words on the map are fairly easy to guess, particularly with the legend provided, so cracking the cypher isn’t too tricky. There is one curiosity, though: in the legend, the words ‘water’ and ‘lava’ are swapped over. It’s not clear why this should be, although it could be an oddity with the Vahnatai language itself (or with the language-comprehension magic placed on the party in this game) – after all, given their location underground, the Vahnatai may actually be more likely to come across lava than water. You’ll also see the ‘E’ glyph written several times around the northeast corner of the map. The implication is that this is a warning of some kind, an indication that these areas are dangerous for travellers. This could be an abbreviation for something (say ‘Evil’), but it could also be something symbolic – much as ‘X’ is symbolic on maps we’re familiar with to represent a goal or location. Interestingly, the words written on the map mean we actually have substitutions for the majority of the letters in the English language, including all the vowels. Although, rather unhelpfully for the Vahnatai language, we’re missing an H! Incidentally, if you’re interested in the Vahnatai language as a whole, you might like to know about an old community effort to compile a Vahnatai language from examples shown in the games. This wasn’t done in a particularly scholarly way, I believe, but the final result is rather appealing. That result is ‘Novah’, the community’s own Vahnatai language! Take a look here for information from Encyclopaedia Ermariana: https://encyclopedia.ermarian.net/wiki/Novah You might also want to take a look at one of the original sources, which is laid out rather nicely: https://web.archive.org/web/20140202140642/http://www.sitemouse.com/users/drakefyre/vahnatai.html

I’m afraid I’m not familiar enough with the detail of Geneforge’s definitions to give you much help on this one. However, I think it’s worth pointing something out. If a parameter is only ever defined as 1, that’s a fairly sure sign that it’s a flag, rather than a variable. In other words, the game is just looking to see whether ab_missile_short_range is switched on or not. Either it has value 0, and the flag is off, or it has value 1, and it is on. All other values have no meaning. Think of it like a light switch. Value 0 is the default value – the light is off – and value 1 is the value where something happens – the light turns on. Given the name, my guess would be that ab_missile_short_range reduces the range of a missile to some fixed distance. In other words, it’s talking about a ‘short range’ attack. The best way to know for sure is to do some more experimenting! I’d suggest setting it to 0 for one instance where it’s already set to 1, and seeing what happens. Does the range increase, or does something else happen, for example?

Yes, that’s a known issue. It was actually brought up in the discussions that prompted this thread! For the record, the damage bonuses given for the top tier of the ‘combat’ and ‘magic’ skill trees don’t quite behave as reported. The actual bonus applied to the character is 1 less than the value listed on the training screen. So, for example, if the training screen states that the bonus is +3, the actual bonus applied to your character will be +2. This could be due to a slight mismatch in integer definitions, for example. One figure might start counting from 0, and the other start counting from 1 – hence the difference in 1 between the two values. In any case, Jeff is aware of the problem, but it didn’t quite get reported in time to be fixed for Queen’s Wish 1. However, assuming this sort of perk gets carried over into future games, the problem should be fixed in the sequels!

Hello Alfaerin, I think you might be slightly misunderstanding the issue you’re experiencing with your quest list! From what I can make out, you might have gone through the Jarlswood quests in a slightly unusual order, and I think that might be causing ‘Jennel’s Message’ to remain in your quest list. ‘Jenell’s Message’ is actually only loosely connected to the issues in Jarlswood. It’s a tiny quest, one that's designed just to lead you into the larger Jarlswood quest. For reference, this bigger quest is listed in the quest log as ‘Jennel’s Ideals’, and it’s that quest that involves dealing with the Shaman. Jennel’s Message is actually a really simple quest. If you speak to Polus after Jenell has left Avadon for Jarlswood, he’ll mention that a message has been left for you in Jenell’s quarters – and the quest appears on your quest list. All you need to do to finish the quest is to just head over to those quarters. You’ll read the message, and the quest will clear. You’ll then be told where Jenell has gone, leading you to the first step on the road to completing the larger Jarlswood quest. It’s that simple! Of course, if you guess where Jenell has gone, you can head straight to Khemeria without reading the message. I’m guessing that’s what you did? However, if you don’t deal with the message before finding Jenell in Khemeria, there’s no way to read it later. Unfortunately, that leads to the quest being suck in your quest log. After all, there’s no reason to go hunting for the message after you’ve already dealt with Jenell’s problems! Still, there’s no need to worry. I have a fix for you, and it doesn’t involve script editing. (As a general rule, script editing is very powerful, but also comes with an element of risk. If you’re not careful, it can have unexpected results – so you should only edit the scripts if you’re confident you know what’s going on!) Here’s how you can fix this issue without resorting to script editing! First, make a backup copy of your save file in a different slot – this is just to make sure that you can get back to your original save should anything go wrong. Now, use one of the portals to travel somewhere that isn’t Avadon. This is to make sure that everything loads correctly in Avadon itself. When you’re safely out of Avadon, hold down shift and press ‘d’. A little input box should appear your screen. In this box, type the following, exactly as it’s shown here: sdf 1 61 0 Click the green tick. Hold down shift and press ‘d’ to open the input box again, and enter this: sdf 100 3 2 Click the green tick again. Everything’s now primed for you! Teleport back to Avadon, and head to Jenell’s quarters. With luck, you’ll be able to read her message. This should clear the quest for you! However, you’re not quite done yet. You’ve altered the state of your game, and you need to restore it! Head out of Avadon again. When you’re elsewhere, hold down shift and press ‘d’ again. You’ll need to enter a new code, but this depends on how you approached the mission in Jarlswood. Do you remember a situation in Jarlswood where you were given the option to spare some soldiers by letting them walk away? If you spared the soldiers, enter the following: sdf 100 3 3 However, if you killed the warriors instead, enter this: sdf 100 3 4 This is an important distinction, one that will become apparent a little later in the game! Once you’ve done all this, ‘Jenell’s Message’ should have been removed from your quest list, and the original state of your game should have been restored! Of course, if something goes wrong along the way, and the quest doesn’t clear for some reason, do let me know. I might be able to come up with a slightly different workaround if this one doesn’t work for you! Otherwise, welcome to the forums! It’s always good to see people coming here who enjoy the Avadon series!

Because Crypt Shrooms are an alchemical ingredient, your best bet is to find a spot somewhere in the outdoors where you can harvest them. Thankfully, there’s one in a reasonably convenient spot, although you’ll need to complete a quest to gain access to it!

I’m pleased you brought this up, googoogjoob, since this was one of my principal reactions on thinking about some of the posts in this thread! In narrative, mystery is sometimes present for its own sake and, when used well, can enhance a work merely by its presence. Yes, mystery can be used when the author has a definite answer in mind – detective fiction often thrives on the resolution of mystery like this, after all. And mystery can also serve a distinct specific narrative function, too. Think of the barriers at the beginning of Avernum 2, for example. The party initially knows nothing of why these barriers appear, and this mystery gives the player a reason to start exploring Avernum, leading them to the discovery that introduces the primary plot of the game. But mystery can also be an extremely powerful tool when there is no solution provided, or even intended. Such mystery can enhance the atmosphere of a work. It can encourage the reader to think more about what they’re reading, to engage with it beyond the words written on the page. And it can sometimes provide realism – after all, out in the real world, there are very many situations where we simply don’t have all the facts handed to us. For a typical example of this sort of mystery, think of Blade Runner. This is a film about androids that are (almost) indistinguishable from humans. The question arises as to whether the main protagonist is one of these androids or not. In the film, it’s never answered; the evidence points both ways. This ambiguity only serves to enhance the narrative – prompting discussions about this mystery to the present day. It’s almost a defining characteristic of the film these days. Or, for other examples, think of the timeline and mechanism for the events that take place in Donnie Darko. Or the film A Matter of Life and Death, in which it is never revealed whether the main character is actually experiencing scenes of the afterlife, or hallucinating after an accident. These ambiguities only serve to enhance these works, I think. The identity of the protagonist in Geneforge 5 is another example of this. Evidence in the game is sparse and at times contradictory, and it supports a bunch of possible solutions. I’m sure that’s intentional! As you can see, this mystery enhances the player’s interaction with the game – so that people are still talking about this mystery over a decade after the game’s release! I’m afraid you might not entirely be doing justice to Limoncelli, here. The quotation you’ve provided is rather shaky ground, at least to my mind, and I’m not sure it says as much as you claim it does. To put this in context, that second line is stated by the party when they first see Limoncelli. The key phrase here is ‘as if’, I think. To my reading, that just means that the party is making an analogy – nothing more. To their first impression, it simply looks to the party like Limoncelli might have received multiple haste spells. But they certainly don’t know that to be the case. The cause could still, arguably, be anything. I mean, one could easily have used a similar turn of phrase to describe something that obviously isn’t true: “He moves as if he’s just drunk an ocean of espresso!” You mentioned multiple mentions of haste. In the original source material, Exile II, there are in fact only two, at least that I could find. You’ve mentioned one. Here’s the other one, taken from Captain Schnitzius in Fort Emerald: “He moves faster than a hasted person, and is that way all the time!” This seems to imply something rather different from your interpretation, I think. For it says that Limoncelli’s speed cannot arise from simple Haste spells. Limoncelli is simply too fast for that. Could his speed arise from some sort of staking of Haste spells and wards? Perhaps, but the game doesn’t seem to say anything concrete on that point. Nor does the game give any examples of situations where Haste can stack, or of people using wards to increase their speed beyond that of conventional Haste – at least in Exile, at any rate. So, I think there is a mystery about Limoncelli’s speed. By my reading, I don’t think the game has much to say about it. We can extrapolate to our heart’s content, of course, but then that simply leads to one interpretation among many. And that’s hardly a solid position to take, is it?

Of course! Load up your save file, and then hold ‘shift’ and press ‘d’. A little input box should appear on the screen. Type the following input into this box, exactly as I’ve written it here: sdf 163 12 0 Then click the tick. You won’t notice anything happen, but something will have changed inside the game’s innards! Now, go back and talk to Obro. You should now have to option to buy a Glitterstone from him! Of course, if that doesn’t work, do let me know – I might be able to come up with another solution for you! Otherwise, I wouldn’t worry too much about what happened to those original stones. Queen’s Wish is a big game, and it’s easy to lose track of things if you sell them, or put them down in a chest or container somewhere – particularly with something like the stones, where it’s not obvious that you’ll need them until much later in the game. So I wouldn’t think it’s your memory at fault. This is just a big game! By the way, it is worth experimenting with new party members. People from the vassal states are more powerful than your original party, in that they give you a few new interesting abilities! When you’re in a fort, just select the little button that looks like four board-game tokens, third from the left on the bottom bar. Then, to add a new member to your party, go to one of the empty lines in the box that appears, and select the same little ‘board-game token’ icon. You’ll be guided through character creation, which is nice and easy! To switch party members out, click the ‘slashed circle’ icon next to the party member you want to remove. Hey presto! They’re gone from your party! Then, to add a new character to your party, just press the ‘plus’ icon next to them. By the way, party members take their inventory with them when they leave the party. If you want to move these items over easily, just put them all into a chest first before switching party members. Then, just take them out of the chest when you’ve subbed in your new character! That’s it – it really is nice and easy!

Hello lucabar, Sorry to hear that you’ve been having problems! There have been a few pieces of information posted in this thread that are either incorrect, or a little misleading. To avoid the spread of urban rumours, I think it’s important we clear these up! Firstly, that Glitterstone in the chest in Ysbal’s smithy is always there. The player doesn’t give Ybsal stones one by one, and no items you give her end up in that chest. So don’t worry too much about that chest’s contents – they're not important! To complete the quest, you need to have four different types of stones in your active inventory at the same time. Secondly, unless you’re exploiting an old bug, Obro only sells one Glitterstone. If Obro is not selling you a Glitterstone, there is really only one reason: you’ve already bought it. We can say this with some confidence, since the code for this particular transaction can be freely checked in the game’s files. It’s a very straightforward piece of code, and there isn’t really much of a way it can break! Likewise, the way Queen’s Wish handles items in chests is very simple, and there isn’t much room for it to break. If the Nullrock is not present in the chest in the Vol Gates, that is because you’ve already picked it up. There isn’t really any other reason why the item should have disappeared. I notice that you’re missing the Glitterstone and the Nullrock, both items that you can pick up very early in the game. I think by far the most likely explanation for what you are experiencing is that you’ve already obtained these items, and have simply forgotten about them. I suggest that you check the chests in your personal quarters in all your forts, or in any other places you think you may have stored items in the past. My guess, though, is that these items might be being carried by some of your previous party members. To check this, go to a fort, and switch out some of your current party members with any old ones you might have lying around. Don’t worry – you don’t lose party members by simply switching them around, so you can always get them back! Have a check through the inventories of these old party members. You may well find that the rocks are there! If you’re really stuck, I can give you a code to get the Glitterstone manually. But it might be more satisfying if you had a look and tried to find it yourself. You never know – you might find a few other items that you’ve stored that might come in useful, too!

Yes, my ‘explanation’ of Seletine’s actions does get a little convoluted there. I tried to come up with something that was as clean as I could make it, but I couldn’t quite iron out all the wrinkles. As you said, Kel, it’s hard to make sense of the oddities of the Za-Khazi Run without things getting messy! Still, from what you’ve said here, I think I may not have expressed this portion of my explanation very well. The idea wasn’t that there were teleportation coordinates only near Fort Goodling, and not Fort Cavalier – but rather that neither Fort could be accessed by the Great Portal. Instead, the Tower has coordinates for a major settlement in the area, one relatively close to Fort Cavalier. My thinking was that this would be roughly one outdoor section to the west or east of the Fort. By way of analogy, think of the position of Blosk relative to Fort Emerald. In other words, Seletine travels only a short journey from Fort Cavalier – say a day’s journey at most – a much shorter journey that the equivalent one from the Castle. As for why the Tower would have coordinates for this settlement, rather than the Forts, I think that could arise from practical considerations. When searching for teleportation coordinates, I would expect the Tower to focus more on settlements. After all, if the Tower is still using the Portal to send settlers to different locations, as it did to Upper Exile, then it would make sense to send settlers directly to a major civic centre. Likewise for supplies. Generally speaking, I would expect more civilian traffic than military traffic in peacetime – and this area seems to have been settled during a time of peace, with little or no indication of the darklings being nearby. After all, of the coordinates we see in Avernum 2, the majority are for civic or private use (while the others arise directly as a result of the war, it seems). There are no coordinates for any of Avernum’s Forts. Invoking this settlement allowed me to place Seletine near Fort Cavalier, with the full intent of delivering the wands himself. I felt that was important, since it would provide an indication that he was acting in good faith – simpler explanations would place him as being lazy, or thoughtless, or cowardly, and those seemed a little unfair on the man. Unfortunately, the downside was that I needed to invoke the collapsing tunnels, blocking this settlement off from Fort Cavalier. It’s messy, but I had to provide a reason for Seletine to start off close to Cavalier, only to be forced to travel to Fort Goodling instead. It’s worth pointing out that the scenario talks about the darklings blocking tunnels, so there’s at least some precedent for using the idea. Whatever path Seletine took to get from the settlement all the way to Fort Goodling, I’m assuming it would be parallel to the Run, and safer, but still a long journey. Hence everyone’s constant stressing of the time crunch in Fort Goodling – the delivery is working to a much tighter schedule than the Tower had originally been planning, since a good portion of that time had been taken up by Seletine's unexpected journey! So, I hope that explains why that business with the tunnels is in there. It’s hardly an ideal plot device, but it’s a necessary one for my explanation to carry weight, I think. But of course it’s invention! I had intended that little phrase you quoted to indicate as much, so I’m sorry it didn’t across that way. I’m certainly not trying to suggest that this explanation of mine is in any way true, or representative of what Jeff had in mind. I’d just come up with an explanation after thinking about the situation, both when playing through the scenario and as part of this thread, and I thought I’d share it as a bit of fun. All I meant by referring to ‘logic and extrapolation’ was that I wanted to come up with something that was self-consistent, and at least had some basis in information gleaned from the scenario and from the lore of Avernum in general – even if I built a tower of invention on top of it! I'm not trying to say anything broader than that. I think there are two issues here. Firstly, I was being inaccurate when talking about ‘scrying’. Of course, scrying is only a means of acquiring information, rather than sending it – so it’s not particularly helpful in this specific instance. I was, actually, thinking of astral travel, so I’m pleased you brought that up! Just so that I’ve said this first, I think astral travel is probably unnecessary in this case, but for slightly different reasons than the ones you give. Seletine mentions that the Tower has been observing Fort Cavalier, presumably through scrying. If they’ve done so previously, I assume they can do so again – and it would make sense for them to watch the Fort over the critical period to see if it fell to the darklings. And if it did, the Tower could just send people to the Castle and other places using the Great Portal – so there’s no reason for Patrick to get involved! However, I do want to talk about astral travel, even if there are better approaches that would probably be used. Even if astral travel is slow and demanding, I would think that Patrick would be able to do so usefully in this case, at least in principle. After all, if Patrick really were living in the back garden of the darkling army, I imagine he would give some serious thought about what to do should the army break through. The darkling army besieges Fort Cavalier for the best part of a month, so that would give him plenty of time to prepare for whatever needed doing. Moreover, if the darklings did break Fort Cavalier, I imagine that would be a disaster of sufficient magnitude to do something difficult and draining in order to try and dampen the effects. And even is astral travel is inefficient, my instinctive feeling would be that incorporeal travel would be quicker than travel by conventional means – although, as you say, the games don’t have much to say on this issue. So, I think Patrick would have plenty of time and incentive to try relaying information by astral travel, and it could still be an efficient approach, at least compared to the alternative of corporeal travel. And even if the Tower were watching, perhaps Patrick would do it anyway? It would be a good way to make sure that as much as possible got through about the current situation, after all! On your point about scrying, I don’t think it’s as difficult as you make out here. Teleportion I will certainly buy as being difficult. But scrying seems a slightly different matter, at least to me. We don’t see too many magic-users self-teleporting in the main series games, at least that I can remember. But there are quite a few instances of scrying. Yes, this is done by some of the more powerful magic-users in the games – Erika, Athron, Patrick, etc. – but it’s also done by people with far fewer resources, and who are much less powerful. For instance, members of the Scimitar obtain information through scrying, and specifically use scrying to monitor the progress of the party in Avernum 1. For another example from Avernum 1, Commander Novak of Fort Saffron is more an alchemist than a mage, but it’s implied that he’s able to scry. And the party even has its own scrying spell in Exile! Also, in Exile I – and only in Exile I – there’s an example of Patrick himself scrying at a drop of a hat, and without any perceptible cost. When you ask him about the password to the Gauntlet, the response is: “He looks about, eyes unfocused, scrying the room. Then, satisfied, he turns to you. “"Yes. We, almost accidentally, discovered a part of the password to the outer world.”” At least to me, this implies that scrying isn’t too demanding, at least in comparison to some other disciplines. Of course, the key thing here may be distance. Perhaps scrying a room is easy, but scrying from Patrick’s Tower to the Castle is a much harder issue?

That’s a very neat catch, Slarty! I’ve just done a sanity check, and this text is indeed still present in the BoA scenario. Relating it to the distance scales we see in the main series is a good touch, and it’s nice to see that the end result comes out in such a pleasing way. As you say, if the Run is 3-5 outdoor sections long with respect to the dimensions of the main series games, that would fit in really rather nicely with Kel’s suggestion. Actually, your suggestion of the location Fort Goodling ties in with another idea I was toying with, but hadn’t written about yet – I was thinking that one possible route to Fort Goodling might be reached by climbing down the crevasses near the site of Gremlin’s Gold. That would at least allow for a route to the Fort that didn’t involve a secret passage! Also, the Blazing Blade still exists! Gosh, I hadn’t realised that. It would have made thinking about this a whole lot easier, haha. Hmm, I see your point there. I’d been thinking that Almaria would be an excellent staging post for the darklings to launch on attack on the Castle, but of course that goes both ways. Almaria is exposed, which means taking it would be easier than some other locations – but holding it would be extremely tricky. Troops from the Castle could probably get to Almaria while the darklings were taking it, so they’d be fighting against a siege quite quickly. Before long, they’d be dealing with troops from Dharmon and Blosk, and forces from the Tower on the other side. That sounds messy. I can see why that might be such a good idea now! Incidentally, I’m liking your general strategic ideas for the darkling war. It’s making me wonder what an Avernum game in that alternate timeline might look like – a more war-centred Avernum 6, perhaps! Oh, I wasn’t thinking so much in terms of Patrick fighting the army. I was thinking more in terms of him sending information to other mages to inform them of the situation, and to call in troops. After all, Patrick is shown to be an accomplished scryer in Avernum 1. Yes, this is a fairly serious issue. It’s not an unreasonable question to be asked by the player, given the ending, so it’s unfortunate that the scenario doesn’t have anything to say on the matter. I can come up with a way around the issue at least, which is based on an idea I had when trying to make sense of the overall plot. However, since this idea is only really based on logic and extrapolation – without really making much reference to the information given in the scenario itself – it’s probably getting out of the world of speculation and into the world of fan fiction. Still, for the curious: When discussing the wands with Seletine in Fort Goodling, he says that the Tower of the Magi were observing the fight at Fort Cavalier. Concerned by the battle, Seletine and the other mages in the Tower combined their magical powers to create the wands. The implication here is that Seletine was in the Tower when the wands were created. Given the seriousness of the situation, and the time pressure caused by the siege, the Tower would presumably want to get the wands to Fort Cavalier as quickly as feasibly possible. The fastest mode of travel probably wouldn’t be to send Seletine from the Tower by conventional means, to travel through the Great Cave to Dharmon by foot, or using horses or other animals. Referring to Slarty’s comments about distances in the Great Cave, this would be a journey of hundreds of miles, and would probably take weeks. But the Tower has another mode of travel: the Great Portal. Selentine comments that the Tower has been “rebuilt to be stronger and lovelier than ever”, so I assume the Portal has also been rebuilt by this time, and is once again active. However, I’m assuming that the Portal still uses the old coordinate system described in Avernum 2, and most of the original destinations. Those destinations had to be discovered manually, through scrying or other means. Unfortunately, Dharmon doesn’t appear in the list from Avernum 2. About the closest you can get to Dharmon is either the Castle, which is on the other side of the Great Cave, and Angierach – which sounds like a bad idea. But what if the Tower had previously found a set of coordinates for a settlement near Fort Cavalier? If there’s a new Avernite colony in the area, it would make sense that the mages would have been looking for coordinates there, after all. So, taking the bundle of wands, Seletine uses the Portal to teleport close to his destination, fully expecting to ride in to Fort Cavalier himself to deliver the wands. The only problem is that the darklings have powerful mages monitoring the nearby caves. They detect the powerful magic of the Portal, and collapse whatever tunnels Seletine would have used to reach Fort Cavalier. So Seletine finds himself stuck with no easy route to his destination, and no easy way around to get to Dharmon. And he can’t teleport back to the Tower and try again – the Great Portal is a one-way trip in the (original) original trilogy. So, cut off from his destination, Seletine finds himself presented with only one option – the Za-Kahzi Run. At least, this assumes the darklings collapse most of the tunnels leading to Fort Cavalier to prevent it being resupplied. Conveniently, while heading to Fort Goodling, Seletine hears of adventurers in the area, and sends word to them to meet him at the Fort. Despite Seletine’s power, a group of adventurers would probably be more likely to survive the Run. Cue the scenario. It’s perhaps not the most elegant solution, but it’s one interpretation. And it could easily have been included in the scenario in a line or two – just a little mention from Seletine that he got trapped by the darklings collapsing tunnels would do it, I think.

Ah, but it’s also worth quoting the ending text if you fail to reach Fort Cavalier on time, since this gives a little more information: I think the interesting point here is that the darklings attack Dharmon. They don’t do so immediately, but they get there within a few weeks of the party’s arrival there. If the darklings had to push through defensive positions like Fort Saffron and Fort Emerald, I’d expect that to take a little longer, even with huge numbers. After all, the Fort Saffron pass held out against the forces of the Empire army for at least several months during the events of Avernum 2, and possibly longer – it’s hard really to gauge timescales there. And if there were other targets in the way, I’d expect the darklings to focus on them first, and so take longer to reach Dharmon. Also, note that this text only says “nearest city”, rather than “nearest Avernite city”. I suppose the Avernite qualifier could be implied there, rather than being stated, but I’d take “city” in this case to also refer to cities not part of Avernum – and Spire and Bargha are both referred to as cities in Avernum canon. Besides, if you were fleeing from an army of darklings, and travelled close by a settlement – any settlement, even one hostile to you – wouldn’t you at least consider stopping by for a few minutes to warn them? There’s no indication of anything of that sort happening here. My feeling is that this indicates that there are no forts or settlements of any significance between Dharmon and Fort Cavalier, wherever it actually is. Although I may be reading too much into this! That’s a rather nice idea, and it certainly makes sense from the perspective of the darklings. Once they’ve made it up into the caves we know from the games, I can certainly see the army heading to the subterranean sea around Sss-Thsss’s old fortress. There are remnants of the sliths living there even during the occupation in Exile II, and I imagine the army would be able to pick up extra numbers from those sliths – either from the darklings who stayed in the upper caves, or from sliths damaged by the Empire, and wanting revenge against humans in a broad sense. And I imagine there would probably still be a few supplies they could pick up from their old forts, too, or from hidden caches in the area. The problem I have with this is what happens next. If the darkling army heads to the subterranean sea, why do they then move on to Dharmon? That doesn’t seem to make much strategic sense. If they move into the Great Cave, they have to pass through Fort Emerald, and thereby reach Gnass and Blosk – not Dharmon. But I’m not sure that would be the best decision either. My feeling is that a much better way into the Great Cave would be to head east from the sea, and to travel down the river to Almaria. Almaria is relatively undefended compared to other routes into the Great Cave, since it’s not defended by a large fortress. Alternatively, if the darklings wanted to whittle down Avernum’s defences slowly before on the heartlands, they could head further east, and attack Fort Dralon, with which there’s an historic enmity. Or perhaps they could do what the darklings do in Avernum 6, and head north to Fort Draco and Formello – dealing with the outlying settlements before moving on to better defended positions. To me, for an army based in the subterrean sea, all these seem to make more sense than initial targets than Dharmon. Hmm, that’s a fair point. I imagine Patrick would have had some things to say about it, if nothing else. After all, despite the intervening years of peace, the war in Avernum 6 seems to be essentially a continuation of the second slith war seen in the ZKR. And, in any case, my reasoning above still applies. If the party was fleeing the darkling army, why would they walk right past Patrick’s Tower on the way? Wouldn’t they at least tell Patrick, who could probably do something to help? So, I’m not sure my suggestion of the Patrick’s Tower river really stands up under scrutiny! Yes, I’m coming around to this way of thinking too. Originally, I wasn’t sure. I was trying to make an analogy to the main series, and my memory well telling me that forts didn’t give out or receive reports about many major quests. However, checking that, I find that’s not true at all. There are plenty of major quests given out at forts (Kill Limoncelli, Slay Elderan, etc.). So that line of argument doesn’t stand. If the party needs to report about a military matter, it would make sense that they reported to a fort with a military presence – even if that fort just passed to buck to somewhere else. So, if there’s a nearby fort, wouldn’t they go there, instead of Dharmon? I think they probably would. Right now, there’s only one way I can think of to make sense out of all of this. This would be to have the route out of Fort Cavalier take you up a series of tunnels that eventually bring you to the western wall of the Great Cave, right next to Dharmon. So maybe through that little river immediately to its west? Perhaps the tunnels wind south, parallel to the run for some significant distance, to avoid Slarty's distance issue regarding Fort Goodling? It’s not an ideal suggestion, but it’s the best one I can think of right now. And it's not a great response to the distance issue, I think. I suppose there’s always the “a cave quake opened up a passage somewhere after Avernum 2 and closed it again by Avernum 4” explanation, but that seems a bit cheap ...

Yeah, I was working on the assumption that ‘city’ was being used in the Avernite sense, rather than in a more general way. As far as I understand it, locations in Avernum class as cities if they have a representative on the Council. I believe this gives six cities in all: Dharmon, Blosk, Almaria, Silvar, Formello and Cotra. Personally, I’m not sure I would classify the Castle as a city. It’s the heart of the Avernite government, certainly, and the seat of the Council itself – but at least to me, it has a slightly different feel from the other cities. Places like Formello and Silvar are full of normal citizens going about their lives. We see plenty of homes, merchants, businesses, bits of civic infrastructure, and so on. But the Castle is a fortress, and one that stands apart. There are people living there, but these mainly seem to be people directly involved with the government and the military. I get the feeling that there are far fewer permanent residents in the Castle than most of the other towns/cities of Avernum. After all, there doesn’t seem to be the infrastructure to support very large numbers of residents. And, at least in Avernum 1, the Castle doesn’t even let in normal citizens without a good reason! To my mind, the Castle fulfills a similar role to something like Windsor Castle. It’s big, and it’s important, but there might be fewer permanent residents than a small village. So I’m not sure I would classify it as a city, per se. If we assume the definition of city I’ve used here, there are two cities close to the river I was suggesting: Dharmon and Almaria. The river is actually about halfway between them, although I think Dharmon might be fractionally closer. So I think Dharmon might be the closest ‘city’ to this river using my definition, even if only just. It’s worth pointing out that Patrick’s tower is actually noticeably closer to the Castle than it is to Dharmon. While I suppose the Za-Khazi adventurers could report to the Castle, I’m not sure that would be in keeping with what’s shown in the main series of the games. After all, in the main series, we’re shown that only missions of the most crucial important to the nation of Avernum are given at the Castle. I don’t think ferrying important military supplies is quite up to the level of ‘Kill Garzahd’, but it’s hard to make effective comparisons for something like this! If the adventurers were going to report to a military commander, and arrived up that river, I think Dharmon would be a reasonable place to go. It has a heavy military presence, after all, which Almaria does not. That’s my reasoning, in any case. Actually, there’s a potential flaw I’ve come up with – but more on that in a moment. Hmm, that’s a very nice idea. It has a real advantage over my suggestion, in that the river flowing past Erika’s Tower is a big, broad river. That’s in keeping with the river we see in the Run. The river I was pointing to is quite small by comparison, which makes it a poorer potential candidate. And it works with the location of the cities, too. To explain a slightly odd comment I made in the previous post, I tend to think of Blosk as being slightly further west than it actually is – the result of the compressed distances in the second trilogy. In the first trilogy, it’s actually a fair way towards the centre of the Great Cave. Dharmon and Blosk are about equidistant from Fort Saffron – so Dharmon could quite reasonably be called the ‘closest’ city the Abyss. I have two potential issues with your suggestion, though. Firstly, Fort Cavalier is described by Commander Yale of Fort Goodling as being: “the last defense between the slith forces and the rich central caves of Avernum.” To me, this implies that there are no defensive sites between the entrance to the Run and the Great Cave. But, if the darklings emerged from the Run into the Abyss, the routes to the Great Cave are all blocked by defensive positions: Fort Spire and Fort Saffron on the one hand, and Fort Emerald on the other. There seems to be no route from the Abyss to Dharmon without getting stuck in well-entrenched positions. After all, the Empire couldn’t punch through the Fort Saffron route into the Great Cave, at least not on a small timescale. While I’m sure the darklings could, I imagine the potential battle there would at least have been mentioned. Of course, the easy solution to this is just to have a land entrance to the Run, one that comes out somewhere else – say in the tunnels west of Fort Remote. You could easily have this entrance down one of the many pits in the area, for example. Still, if we’re trying to connect rivers to the river of the Run, there’s another rather serious problem. This affects my suggestion, too. The river in the Run flows from south to north. We know this because of the position of waterfalls on the river, and because Commander Yale in Fort Goodling explicitly mentions that the Run extends northwards from her fort. But all the major rivers in the west/southwest of Avernum flow in the other direction. They flow from north to south. This is indicated by waterfalls. So the river I suggested flows in this direction. As does yours (although this is indicated only by waterfalls that appear in Avernum 2). Actually, pretty well all the rivers in that portion of the map flow this way. So, for the Patrick’s Tower river or the Erika’s Tower river to connect to the Run river, they’d have to do a sharp turn at some point. That’s by no means infeasible for a natural river, but it does make the geography a little less elegant. Taking all this together, I find myself less sure of my original suggestion. I think I'm coming around to one of yours, in fact. Maybe one of the other little patches of water in western Avernum could connect to the Run river, one that doesn't have waterfalls to constrain its direction of flow? That little stretch of water near the ruins of the unnamed city above Fort Remote looks like a good candidate, although there are a few others!