Modern Classics: Beyond Shadowgate (PC)

Chapters 1-3 | Chapters 4 and 5 | Chapters 6 and 7 | Chapters 8-10 | Chapter 11 | Alternate Endings and Closing Thoughts

Ending A

There are, as I said, three other endings you can earn: A, C and D. Ending A is the satisfactory ending. You trigger it by replacing the Talimar's staff with the simple pole (the one that we previously used to impale the harpy).

Belezsarr picks up the pole, not realizing that it isn't the Talimar's staff, and holds it aloft. Then he tries to summon Talimar with it. And he realizes way too late that he's not actually wielding Talimar's staff.

"No! Thisss cannot be! The magicksss cannot be contained with thisss!" he shouts as the dark energies he was attempting to tame begin to overcome him.

The magic tears his body asunder, and bolts of dark energy strike throughout the cavern. One of the unfortunate effects is that a bolt strikes us directly in the chest and knocks us to the ground.

Belezsarr explodes in a binding flash and ceases to exist.

With the spell broken, the portal vanishes and Talimar is once again imprisoned. The day is won and Kal Torlin is saved, but the victory comes at a great cost. We succumb to our wounds and collapse.

Our vision blurs, but still we recognize a familiar sight. It's our pal Colvin the dragon. As the chamber begins to collapse, he approaches us. We try to wave to him, but we can't do so because our arm won't move. Soon our breath becomes ragged and our vision fades.

After we pass, Colvin returns our body to Gwynenthell.

The people of Gwynenthell mourn us and celebrate our victory. They consider us to be their champion. We are forever recognized as a hero, and our tales of sacrifice echo through the ages.

Thus begins the legend of the bravest fenling: Del Thornburrow.

Ending C

This is the bad ending. We trigger it by replacing Talimar's staff with the unmodified Staff of Ages.

After we do this, Belezsarr turns to face us, and then he curiously grabs the staff. "Ssso it was not lossst to time," he says as he realizes that he's holding the Staff of Ages, which he recognizes as a weapon whose power rivals Talimar's staff.

"Thisss will do!" he enthusiastically shouts before thanking us for our service.

Then he moves to eliminate us. He uses the staff, which has become corrupted by his grasp, to conjure a mighty bolt of dark energy, and then he directs it toward us. The destructive magic washes over us like a tidal wave, and when it subsides, not even our bones remain.

Then Belezsarr resurrects Talimar.

As a result of our misguided tactic, Belezsarr completes his scheme. Talimar is released from his prison, and then he begins his evil march. Armies fall and cities burn as his corruption spreads across the land. No one survives his malice.

And thus Kal Torlin plunges into an era of darkness. Thanks to us, the Warlock Lord's long-awaited plan to subjugate the world is complete. So it could be said that our death was an act of mercy.

Ending D

This is the worst, most disastrous ending, and it only becomes available if you screw up in Chapter 6 and incorrectly carry out the phantom's exorcism (by not pouring salt on the phantom's corpse before burying it). As a result of our failure, the phantom lives on and retaliates by killing the imp.

This action, somehow, influences future events and how they play out.

The first thing that happens is that an item called the "censer" appears in Gwynenthell's curio shop, whose door, for whatever reason, was left open after closing time. The censer is a skull hanging from ropes. The residue near the hole at its top smells of burnt incense. And it exudes an evil presence.

We take the censer, but we do so with a sense of apprehension in our gut (note that you can obtain this item as late as Chapter 11).

The second thing that happens is that the armory's spectacularly radiant sun stone is replaced a moon stone, which, alternatively, represents a dead void (there's no explanation for how the failed exorcism causes this seemingly unrelated change).

Having the moonstone in our inventory triggers a unique event in Shadowgate: When we enter (or reenter) the old stone archway with the mirror walls (the "Reflection" room, as it's called), the image of Lakmir appears in the mirrors. He stares daggers at us. Then his voice, which sounds as though it's reaching across countless eons, booms from the mirrors and shakes the entire room.

"Foul being! Hellspawn!" he angrily shouts. "I have watched you defile this land for too long. Here you shall fall!"

What we don't know is that he's reacting to the presence of the censer, with which he's apparently familiar.

We fail to decipher the meaning of his words, and we scream that we don't have the time nor the patience for this kind of sorcery. He responds by telling us that we're a blight and a parasite that will be destroyed.

We still don't know what he's going on about, but we get the sense that something about him is off. We've already encountered a mimic in this place, and thus we suspect that this "Lakmir" is another of its kind. His image is a "fiendish illusion," we determine.

So we decide that the best way to remove him as a threat is to deal with him directly. We do that by using our Educ Spritus to draw him to our location. "Enough of your tricky!" we say while doing so.

At that moment, an acrid smell fills the room and "Lakmir" materializes right in front of us. His eyes widen, betraying his surprise. Then a gentle, comforting voice whispers a single word within our mind: "strike."

Knowing that the real Lakmir would never threaten an innocent, we heed the voice's command. We take advantage of the fact that the imposter is still in a daze and, with great fury in our heart, we attack him with our scythe. With a powerful swing, we lop off the imposter's head and kill him.

After we do this, the music stops and a deathly silence takes hold, and resultantly we feel as though something isn't right. We've felled the imposter, but for some reason, we don't feel good about doing so.

In the following moments, the sounds of chanting echo softly through our mind. They keep getting louder. And soon we feel a weight on our shoulders. Then, suddenly, the chanting stops and all is silent. At that point, we notice that something is moving. The censer comes alive and floats above the imposter's corpse. Purple flames spread across the carcass and flow into the eerie skull's jaw.

We don't understand what any of this means, but we decide that the newly enchanted censer might be of use to us. So we retrieve it, ignoring the sense of revulsion that is growing in our gut. As we do this, the flames fade, and the body's color turns pallid as if its very essence was consumed.

Something about this event enrages our pal Odin, who flies away from us with a loud squawk. "What have you done?" he screams at us. "You've killed Lakmir."

We disagree and coldly reply that we felled "an imposter."

Odin, in his rage, shrieks, "That was no imposter! He was the last guardian, our final hope!" Then he swoops toward us with his talons ready.

Though, before he can make contact with us, we swing our scythe once more and dispatch him. Thereafter, we sigh and discard the scythe. Then we say, absentmindedly, that there's nothing left and no more tricks to stand in our way. Then we head into the great cavern. (The twist is that the person we killed was indeed the real Lakmir. It's a shocking event and one that makes this ending very disturbing. To think that an amazingly powerful, legendary wizard could be killed in such a way.)

So as Belezsarr is busy chanting his resurrection spell, we creep towards the Warlock Lord's staff and take it without him noticing. Then we come up with an idea: What we could do, we think, is use the Warlock Lord's staff against Belezsarr!

Our corrupted thoughts tell us that the best way to do so is to render the staff so highly volatile and unstable that it'll damage him if he tries to go near it. We might be able to do that, we imagine, by crafting a special attachment and placing it on the staff.

We create that attachment by combining the moon stone, which radiates a powerful dark energy, with the soul prison (which is what the censer became after it absorbed Lakmir's life force). We observe with mild confusion as the two objects join together and become the "void conduit"--a skull that pulses with a vile energy. We're a bit dazed by the event.

As we start the process of attaching the conduit, our eyelids become heavy, and we feel as though we're sinking into the depths of sleep. But we've come too far to fade in such a way, so we gather ourselves and attach the skull to the staff. It fits perfectly.

When we open our eyes, we stare at the weapon we've just created: the Void Staff. It's beautiful, we think, failing to realize that we're now doomed. We've created a weapon whose existence is an obscenity. Only a being of true corruption may wield such power.

We trigger the ending sequence by placing the Void Staff in the stone altar's hole.

When we do this, Belezsarr turns to face us. He recognizes us as the fenling from the castle. But he also senses that another being is present. He recognizes who it is, and, in a confused away, he wonders how it returned.

He's also perplexed by the Void Staff and isn't sure how it came to be. He won't stand for it, though. Talimar will return soon, he says, and he won't let the unknown being stand in his way. "You will die again!" he tells it.

At that moment, the Void Staff unleashes all of its dark energy unto Belezsarr. "That this fenling, of all creatures, acted as your vessel..." he shouts as the energy consumes him. "It is comedy."

He is then torn asunder by the dark magic.

With his final words, he says, defiantly, "Though not by my hand, this world is still doomed!"

Seconds later, the Warlock Lord's visage appears in the portal. His return to Kal Torlin is imminent!

"What a gift you have brought me, fenling," he says, his lilting voice carrying across the cavern. "You played your part well. Now die!"

But we don't hear his threat. All he hear, rather, is the voice in our mind. It whispers to us, "Your work is done here, fenling." We react by closing our eyes.

When we reopen them, we find that we're holding the Void Staff high and channeling its energy at the portal and into Talimar. We're no longer Del Thornburrow. Rather, we're now the embodiment of a reborn, corrupted and evil Lakmir the Timeless. And immediately we begin to attack this lesser sorcerer. We do so relentlessly (by repeatedly clicking on him).

As we do this, we repeatedly taunt him and talk down to him.

We shrug off his counterattacks and remain focused on blasting him.

Eventually we overpower him and strike him down, causing him to fade into oblivion.

We've won the battle of mighty sorcerers. We've done it, though, while watching on as a prisoner in our own body.

With this act, Lakmir, Belezsarr and Talimar have been obliterated. No "murderers" remain. We've served our purpose as a puppet, we're told by our possessor, who we learn is the phantom we failed to exorcise earlier.

This phantom was the spirit of an evil sorcerer who was destroyed long ago by the Circle of Twelve. Now he got his revenge, thanks to us. (One of the implications is that he set up the censer and the moon stone while we were off adventuring, and then he caught up with us, silently, and manipulated us into obtaining these items and using them in the aforementioned ways.)

But there is one more task, he tells us--one more act of retribution to carry out.

We turn and begin walking for hours, and eventually we arrive at Kal Torlin. A tide of death follows in our wake.

Then we return to the ever-peaceful fens, the domain of fenling-kind.

As we enter the town, the phantom speaks to us one last time and says, "All who stood idle and allowed the cowardly Twelve to slaughter my brethren will share my sorrow."

We respond by lifting the Void Staff into the air once again and heralding oblivion for the entire world.

Talk about dark and disturbing!

Closing Thoughts

You can probably guess, by looking at how much I've written and seeing how enthusiastic in tone my commentary is, how I feel about Beyond Shadowgate. I'm very pleased with it. I'm excited about what it does and what it contributes to the series. I consider it to be a great video game and a worthy sequel to my all-time-favorite point-and-click adventure.

It gave me everything that I wanted from a Shadowgate sequel: an engaging world, a compelling story, an immersive atmosphere, interesting characters, imagination-stirring imagery and object descriptions, and fun puzzles. It kept me invested the entire time. As I was playing it, my eyes remained glued to the screen and I continued to look upon the game's imagery with wonder and delight, and I was constantly in a state in which I couldn't wait to see what it would do next.

And resultantly, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Honestly, I don't have much to say about the game's visuals and music other than that they're exactly what you expect them to be and they do exactly what's required of them. That's actually a strong compliment. It tells you that they're able to successfully render an authentic-feeling 8-bit point-and-click adventure game and evoke thoughts, feelings and emotions that are very similar in complexion and spirit to the ones you experience when you play the classics. They perform their jobs well.

I don't think that it's fair for me to directly compare Beyond Shadowgate's visuals and music to Shadowgate's because I am, admittedly, strongly biased in favor of the latter's. To me, Shadowgate's visuals and music are legendary and amazingly iconic, and no other Shadowgate game's visuals and music can ever hope to surpass or even approach them. The only thing that they can do is finish a distant second.

But that won't stop me from saying that Beyond Shadowgate's visuals and music are both high-level and worthy of praise. They're not as powerfully haunting or evocative as Shadowgate's, no, but still they're pretty great, and they succeed at rendering a very enchanting and absorbing 8-bit world.

I'm especially fond of the designer's re-renderings of the classic MacVenture areas. They're very respectful and authentic-feeling, and their newly added details give us additional insight into how those places look and give us new way to visualize them.

You could, if you wanted to, levy the criticism that some characters and objects are crudely drawn, but if you did that, you'd be missing the point; they are, of course, drawn that way for authenticity's sake, which is to say that they're very much in line with NES Shadowgate's character and object graphics. They're what they're supposed to be.

The sound effects, too, are also 8-bit-style and made to sound as though they were ripped directly from NES Shadowgate. And they, as much as any other game aspect, help the experience to feel authentic. I especially like the new spell sound effect. It has a striking energy to it, and it makes you feel as though your spells are really impactful and forceful in execution.

From a technical perspective, the game is flawless. It has no observable performance issues. It's not actually an 8-bit game, of course--it only looks and sounds like one--so it doesn't have to deal with the limitations of 8-bit hardware. There's no slowdown or sprite-flickering. The game always runs smoothly and quickly, and it's completely free of graphical glitches.

One of the most important elements of a great Shadowgate game is writing that has the ability to stir the imagination and build an interesting world, and I'm happy to say that Beyond Shadowgate's writing meets that standard. It's very similar to the original Shadowgate's writing: It uses a lot of expressive and evocative language. It hits you with a lot of interesting words and phrases. And it constantly provides vivid descriptions--the type that (a) imbue every object and item with character, (b) help you to visualize what they actually look like, and (c) make you think and wonder about their origins.

There are a couple of noticeable typos (all of which will probably be cleaned up with an update) and some questionable sentence structure, but overall the game is really strong in this area.

I regret to say, though, that Beyond Shadowgate's difficulty doesn't rise to the expected level. It's simply not as challenging as you'd like this type of game to be, and certainly it's nowhere near as challenging as the original Shadowgate. It has some tricky puzzles, sure, and it'll stump you a few times, but it'll never put you in a position in which you have to stop for hours (or even days) to think about a puzzle or figure out how to solve it.

In my play-through, I never felt as though I was being truly challenged. If I got stuck, it was only because I was unobservant or I forgot about one of my items or its actual purpose. Mostly, I was quick to find solutions.

So, to my disappointment, I had no real trouble getting through the game.

I say this, of course, as someone who is accustomed to these types games and their unique brand of logic and arcanity. So your experience may differ.

It doesn't help that the game is hand-holdy as hell. It simply doesn't trust you to solve puzzles on your own. It's always making inferences and allusions, and sometimes it's so explicit in its descriptions that it makes puzzle solutions completely obvious. After a while, the casual intimations start to feel intrusive.

As a veteran of these games, I would obviously prefer to be left to my own devices.

I've since learned that the designer made it a point to tone down the difficulty. I saw him in a Twitch chat. There he explained that the development team, knowing that there was spectrum of puzzle-solving ability, decided to aim toward the median and make the game easier and more accessible. It wanted more people to be able to play through the game and beat it.

And I get it. The more people you reach, the more money you make, and the more likely it becomes that you can create more games of this type. It's an understandable approach. But still I wish that the game contained at least a few sections in which the difficulty spiked and made me feel as though I was overcoming truly big obstacles by solving puzzles. Because that's one of the ways in which I draw satisfaction from point-and-click adventures.

If you're the type who's intimidated by large game worlds and fearful that your failing to notice or pick up obtainable items will cost you later on in the game, you'll be comforted to know that it's usually the case that the items you currently require are in the area you're currently exploring (and in the isolated portal areas, this is the rule). There's only a limited amount of potentiality for situations in which you have to return to earlier areas to find items that you need.

And make no mistake: This is a large game. It's four- or five-times larger than the original Shadowgate. It'll take you nine to ten hours to complete it and probably more if you're not fully accustomed to these types of games.

Keep in mind, though, that I played the game meticulously and took the time to listen to the music, examine every item, and generally savor the experience, so it's probably the case that the game is a bit shorter than I say. But even if that's true, you'll still find that it's far longer than any of the previous four MacVenture games.

On the whole, Beyond Shadowgate moves at an ideal pace and continues to be enchanting and engaging. It starts out nicely--with a uniquely structured, gripping prison-escape sequence--and then it keeps getting better from there. The only slow part of the game is Chapter 2, which is comprised of a series of fetch-quests and basically amounts to an exercise in busywork (and it's even more tedious in subsequent play-throughs, in which you're more inclined to want to quickly get to the good parts).

But thereafter, the action picks up and works to establish and maintain a consistently solid pace.

The only annoying aspect of the game is its endings system. As I've explained: You can't get all four of the endings in a single play-through file, and if you incorrectly solve the Themeire Mansion exorcism puzzle, you lock yourself out of the best ending, and you have to replay the entire game if you want to get the chance to see it.

It's not that replaying Beyond Shadowgate is a bad thing, no. It's that you're likely to miss out on the best ending in your first play-through and then feel the need to start a new file and speed through game, in a disengaged and irritated manner, just so you can see the last of the endings. And you're left feeling sour by that part of the experience. (And if you incorrectly solve the exorcism puzzle, you'll also have to carry a dispiriting burden of guilt for getting the imp killed.)

I'd be fine with endings unlocking under certain conditions if the processes entailed traveling different paths along the way. That type of design choice would add some great replay value and make you want to play through the game multiple times and unlock all of the different endings. The chosen design decision, though, doesn't inspire that kind of enthusiasm. It misses the mark.

But still, there are plenty of other good reasons to want to replay Beyond Shadowgate. You can do it because you want to (a) read all of the item and object descriptions and learn more about Shadowgate's world and its rich lore, (b) read the insightful developer commentary (which unlocks after you earn any of the four endings) and learn about the game's development and the MacVenture series' fascinating history, or (c) try to experience all of the possible deaths (and there are a huge number of fun deaths to discover in this game!).

To me, it's always worth the effort to learn more about a point-and-click game's world and get a greater sense of its history. It is, I say, one of the most fun things you can do if you're a fan of the genre!

One of the most exciting parts of the game is the dimension-hopping. It's especially thrilling that you get to revisit the familiar worlds of Uninvited and Deja Vu and interact with them in new ways. Their presence can really make the game for you if you're a long-time fan of the MacVenture series.

I just wish that there was a little more to them. Sadly, they're condensed versions of the original Uninvited and Deja Vu worlds, and you don't really spend much time in them. I would have liked for them to be more expansive and have more than two or three puzzles connected to them.

Still, though, it's great that we get the chance to see them again and find out more about how they're incorporated into the larger MacVenture universe. Their presence means a lot to the game.

And then there's the most exciting part of the game: the return to Shadowgate! It was my favorite part of the play-through. There was nothing better than revisiting the familiar castle and getting the chance to re-explore it, find out how it changed, and see even more of it.

I was riveted and completely enchanted as I roamed the familiar halls and closely examined all of the visual details to see if they matched up to Shadowgate's. I was intrigued to find out what had changed in the intervening 35-year period. I was eager to see what was waiting for me in each location. I made sure to take my time--to move along slowly and examine every item and object that I could--and savor each moment of the experience.

And along the way, I finally got some answers to questions I've been wondering about since 1990. I was, in the most exhilarating fashion, able to discover what was behind the arrow room's high-up doorway, where the waterfall room's obstructed stairway led, and what was waiting beyond the well room's door. I was thrilled to see, also, that the designer found away to include and reintroduce the hobgoblin room that was originally cut from the NES version of Shadowgate. (seeing it in what was essentially the NES version of Castle Shadowgate was surreal)!

And thanks to the Discitea Mort spell, I now know how certain beings (the skeleton in the lake, the cyclops, and King Dugan) died! Theirs amount to a cool, rewarding lore dump that'll surely help to inform all of my future play-throughs of the original Shadowgate.

So one big thing Beyond Shadowgate did was help me to further develop my visualizations of Castle Shadowgate and its habitants and make the even more glorious!

But I realize, as I think about how excited I am for Beyond Shadowgate's nostalgic elements, that it's also my duty to honestly evaluate my feelings and ask myself some tough questions.

Could it be, I have to consider, that Beyond Shadowgate is too heavily reliant on fan-service? Is it overly referential and esoteric? Is it the case that I've been blinded by nostalgia? Did I really need to know where the arrow room's high-up doorway led or what was behind the well room's door? Wouldn't most of this stuff have been better left to my imagination?

The answer, my heart tells me, is that yes--it does go overboard at times. It does tend to lean too heavily into nostalgia. And in some instances, it fills in gaps that really didn't need to be filled.

In all honesty, I'm not completely comfortable with the idea of Del being the "shadowy figure" whose actions caused the events of Uninvited (I prefer for the figure's identity to be a thought-provoking mystery), and I have to admit that Castle Shadowgate's "find the 12 memories" puzzle is, for as much as I like it, so overly referential that it comes off like pandering (and contextually it'll be lost on people who haven't played the original Shadowgate).

I can't ignore that the fan-service is sometimes excessive.

But after thinking about it for a while, I've come to the conclusion that I'm fine with the majority of the fan-service. I can't deny that I get enjoyment from the game's nostalgia-driven elements (especially its powerfully engrossing final chapter) and that I like what they do for the MacVenture universe. They have great appeal to me, and I can't pretend otherwise.

And I wouldn't say that they feel like fan fiction, either, because they come, partly, from the minds of two of the original Shadowgate's creators: Dave Marsh and Karl Roelofs. In fact, a lot of them were based on notes that these guys made back in the 80s! So they have an air of authenticity to them.

And I have to temper my criticisms a bit because I know, also, that the game was designed to be this way. It was intentioned to be a heavily-fan-service-driven project aimed at longtime fans of the MacVenture series (the developers make this very clear in their developer commentary). It was meant to appeal to a very specific audience. So it would be kinda silly for me to criticize it for doing what it was designed to do. (Actual criticism would entail asking whether or not it's a good idea to make games whose referential, esoteric design qualities might potentially limit the amount of people who are interested in playing them; but honestly, I'm not particularly interested in exploring that subject.)

And I should add that the familiar worlds and spaces represent only about 35% of the game (which has a massive 250 screens in total). They're not the central focus, no. They're more or less bonus content--a special gift to those of us who cherish the MacVenture games. The other 65% of the game is perfectly capable of standing on its own. It provides a satisfying amount of content.

So yeah--I'm very pleased with Beyond Shadowgate. I've had a blast playing it and spending time with it. It has provided me one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had.

Beyond Shadowgate is an inspiring game, and this pieces is proof of that. I was, as you can see, really excited to write about the game and tell you how much I enjoy what it does. I've gone way overboard, admittedly, but hey--that's what I genuinely wanted to do. It's what I felt the game deserved.

The true measure of a great game is its ability to make a lasting impression, and I'm happy to say that Beyond Shadowgate has more than proven its power to leave an indelible mark. It still strongly resonates with me months later, and I'm sure that it'll likely continue to resonate with me for decades.

I probably won't return to it as often as I do to the older MacVenture games-- mainly because it's so lengthy and I prefer for my point-and-click-adventure replays to instead hit the ideal 1- to 2-hour sweet spot--but I'm certain that I'll be returning to it with some degree of regularity. Because it's a game that's definitely worth revisiting again and again.

All I can say in closing is that I hope that Beyond Shadowgate represents the start of a resurgence for MacVenture-style games. It's a sad thing that their run ended so abruptly in the 1990s. It shouldn't have. And that's not nostalgia talking, no. These games are really that good! They're really that magical. So I want to see them come back.

I hope that Beyond Shadowgate succeeds and that its creators are so pleased by the sales-total that they feel encouraged to make more MacVenture-style games.

I especially hope that the game comes to other platforms and gets more attention, because, sadly, it seems as though its release has gone largely unnoticed. I'm sure that the old fans (most of whom are likely console players) would gobble it up if they knew that it existed. And their interest would ensure that the series lives on.

And it has to live on because there are, as the game so rightly states, more stories to tell.

The second story's end.

Modern Classics: Beyond Shadowgate (PC)

Chapters 1-3 | Chapters 4 and 5 | Chapters 6 and 7 | Chapters 8-10 | Chapter 11 | Alternate Endings and Closing Thoughts

Chapter 11: Return to Castle Shadowgate

So here we are. This is what I've been waiting to do for 34 years. This is the place that I've long waited to revisit!

In my first play-through, I got goosebumps when I finally arrived at Shadowgate. The game did a beautiful job of building up to that point and making the actual moment feel highly climactic and special, and as the castle-reveal animation played, I could barely contain my excitement. I couldn't wait to see what was waiting for me on the screen beyond!

But I didn't move forward right away, no. I stood at the castle screen for a few minutes and really milked the moment. In that time, I ruminated and wondered, I reflected upon my expectations, and I did everything possible to further intensify my anticipatory energy.

At one point, I went to the kitchen to prepare to bake a pizza, and I could hear the music from there; and in that moment, I felt as though I'd been transported back in time to the mid-80s computer age and an era in which, I've always imagined, people would leave their adventure games on all day and think about ways to solve puzzle as they engaged in other activities like watching TV, cooking or exercising. "This is probably what an old-school point-and-click-adventure experience was like," I thought to myself in an envious way.

And all the while, I couldn't stop thinking about what the castle was going look like. "Is it going to be completely restructured, like it was in the other Shadowgate games?" I kept wondering. "Or is it going to look exactly how I remember it?"

And, well, here's what was waiting for me.

So we pass through the threshold's opening and finally arrive at our destination.

From a distance, we witness a goosebumps-inducing scene in which lightning strikes multiple times and the darkened castle slowly lights up and reveals its form.

And there it is: the castle of legend!

The ancient towers of this magical structure, the game says, rise into the sky as if they were powering the fearsome storm overhead.

We don't know how it all worked out, but still we're proud that we made it here. With great eagerness in our heart, we walk over to the castle's front door.

And there's what we've been waiting to see: the classic castle entrance! We're finally home again!

It's a beautiful sight.

And the game's writer perfectly captures how we're feeling about our return with his description of the entrance. He says, "It's the entrance to Shadowgate. Excitement swells in your heart. You thought this moment would never come."

That's exactly right. We never thought this moment would come--that we'd get the chance to revisit the original Castle Shadowgate and find out what became of it.

Our goal here, aside from taking in the sights, is to hunt down Belezsarr and stop him before he can resurrect the Warlock Lord and thus plunge the world into darkness.

It all starts here, at the castle's entrance

The entrance is now in a dilapidated state. Its walls are covered with overgrown vines, and its stone tiles have crumbled a bit. Its surrounding grass patches are being claimed by fungus. And its heavy wooden door has rusted and decayed and now hangs loosely from its hinges.

The skull above the door is still in a raised position, and it continues to send the same message: "Death lurks inside."

As we observe the conspicuous-looking fungus, we see that a sternute mushroom has grown out of it. We used to use these to play pranks on our fellow fenlings (they caused tremendous sneezing fits), so with a nostalgic energy, we pick up the mushroom. "You never know," we think to ourselves as we pocket it. "Along the way, we might run into a monster that has sensitive nasal tissue."

The music here is quite different in tone from Shadowgate's entrance music. It isn't meant to evoke feelings of fear and concern, no. Rather, it's designed to create a somber, reflective atmosphere and inspire you to think about how long the journey has been (35 years, if we're taking all of our experiences into account) and wonder about what could be waiting for you in this decayed, seemingly lifeless castle. That's its intent, I know, because of what the developer commentary states. It says that Christian Mosley, the game's writer and designer, showed Simon's Quest's Castlevania theme (the somber, quietly ominous Within These Castle Walls) to the composer and told him to create a tune that could evoke the same types of feelings and emotions. And I'm happy to say that the composer met the challenge and delivered an appropriately ruminative, remindful piece of music.

I'm just ecstatic to hear that there's now a connection between Castlevania and Shadowgate. That's a dream marriage for me!

So now we're ready to enter the castle. We grab the door's handle with the intention of pushing the door open, but we're not able to do so because the moment we start applying force, the deteriorated door creaks loudly and falls off of its hinges. At that moment, musty, stale air pours from the castle's hall and causes us to gag and cough.

So we gain entry simply by hopping over the collapsed door.

And here we are, in the the famous mail hall (which the game calls the "antechamber")!

As we enter into it, a sense of dread overwhelms us, and we feel as though a malevolent power is watching us. (This is exactly how we felt when we entered this place in our first Shadowgate adventure. It's an atmospheric touch that burdens us with the idea that the castle isn't quite as lifeless as it appears to be and that unseen evil forces are quietly lurking in the shadows.)

And this hall is just as Jair left it. The torches are gone, leaving only dust-covered torch holders, and both the northern and closet doors are open. (Well, from my personal perspective, it's not in the exact same state because the rug is still there, and I know for certain that I went full pyromaniac and made sure to burn it away. In fact, I made sure to burn away pretty much all of castle's floor coverings and fabric displays!)

The only difference is that there's some debris on the ground. It looks as though it came from the hall's second arch, whose right portion has since crumbled away.

At the moment, we can't do anything here or in the cramped closet, whose shelves are still empty, so we travel through the hall's northern door. (Strangely we don't need torches to illuminate the castle's lightless halls this time around. I guess fenlings have night vision.)

The door takes us to the familiar alcove, which is now in a state of disrepair. It appears as though some poor fool has sprung its weighted-bookstand trap and fallen into the abyss along with the stone hall's entire middle portion. Or it could be that the bookstand simply deteriorated and fell off and subsequently caused the floor to fall away.

The far wall's secret entrance is still unobstructed, but the hallway that lies around the hall's corner is no longer accessible; it's now blocked off by a large pile of stony debris. (When I first saw the pile of debris, my heart sank because I assumed that its existence was an indication that the greater part of the castle was going to be inaccessible.)

So because part of the floor is missing, there's no easy way to travel across this hall. We can't jump the gap, because it's too wide, and we don't possess an item that can be used as a bridge. So we look around and search for another way. As we're doing so, we notice that the hall's ceiling has collapsed and revealed a structural beam. It looks like a sturdy anchor point, so we get the idea to attach our grappling hook onto it. We swing the hook around and toss it toward the beam. And it connects (barely)! So we proceed to swing our way across the gap (while uttering a feral scream, which is just the standard thing to do when you're engaging in any type of exertive activity in a Shadowgate game).

And we succeed in crossing the gap. Our momentum is so great, in fact, that it caries us through the wall's secret entrance.

And, of course, the secret entrance takes us into the familiar arrow room!

It, too, is in the same state that Jair left it in. The left torch, which is actually a lever, is still in a downward position, and the middle part of the stone support still lies in pieces on the ground (so it's canon that Jair tried to climb up onto the stone support and enter the room's upper doorway).

There are two differences here: The right torch, which was also securely attached to the wall, is missing, and vines have started to grow on the room's far wall. But we're excited to find that the vines, as we hoped upon seeing them, are sturdy enough to hold our weight and grant us access to the upper doorway! So we're finally going to be able to access that dark doorway and find out what's behind it!

Before we do so, though, we decide to head left and check out what's going on in the bridge area.

And, well, this area is in total ruin. And what's worse is that it's now occupied by an odd-looking creature.

The creature stands at the chasm's edge, and when we step forward, it turns around and starts to crawl closer and closer to us. We don't like how it's looking at us, and we wonder if it's hungry for a fenling. As we examine it, we note that it's one of the strangest creatures we've ever laid eyes on; it reminds us of a moon with legs. We observe that it holds a dark blue gemstone in its maw. Also, we hear it breathing heavily through its nose.

(This creature immediately reminded me of the strange floating tomato-like enemy that was guarding the Blothney Gem in Uninvited's stone maze. And the developer commentary confirms that it was designed to do so! Its appearance and attached description were intended to evoke memories of that bizarre tomato enemy.)

Realizing that the creature is currently relying on its olfactory senses to breathe, we decide to throw our nostril-irritating sternute mushroom at it. And our attack is effective! It causes the creature to sneeze with great force and resultantly tumble backward, into the chasm. In the following moments, we hear the undead below shouting intensely, and soon the screams are replaced by loud chomping sounds. Well, that's a rough way to go out.

(Note that if we attempt to attack the creature in any other way, it lunges at us, wraps its tongue around us, and then pulls us into its maw and eats us. It's worth triggering this death to find out if the resulting consequence is what we expect. And it is! The classic Shadowgate Grim Reaper appears and greets us with mocking laughter! It's good to see him again. I hoped, upon entering the castle, that I'd get the chance to do so.)

But the good news is that the creature spit out the blue gem that it was holding in its maw. (It's the blue gem from Shadowgate! Apparently the creature pulled it out of the revolving-wall room's concave polygon.) We pick it up.

After we do so, Odin tells us that Lakmir has spoken of these types of gems. They functioned, he says, as magical keys in Castle Shadowgate. He regrets that Lakmir isn't here to instruct us, but we quickly remind him that Jair is around and may have some advice for us. We decide that it's a good idea to speak with him at some point.

And now that the creature is gone, we have an unobstructed view of the bridge area. We see that the bridges are completely gone and thus there's no way for us to cross over to the "Epor" room. (The rightward rope bridge being gone doesn't matter because, as we're aware, it would have collapsed the moment we tried to walk on it; and we have no hope of entering the rightward alcove, anyway, because we don't possess a liquid that'll allow us to float.)

The only thing that remains consistent about this area is that the moans of the undead are still emanating from the large chasm. So there's still some frightening stuff going on down there!

So now we get the chance to do something that we'd never thought we'd be able to do: find out what's behind the arrow room's upper doorway! We retreat to the arrow room and climb the vines, up to the doorway, and excitedly pass through it.

And we find that the room beyond is a large, elegantly built chamber! Cold air greets us as we enter into it.

Seconds later, we learn, upon hearing a slithering noise, that the chamber serves as a pen for a frightening creature: a basilik! It hasn't yet turned to see us, but we know, as fans of mythology, that if it does and we catch its gaze, we'll be turned to stone! At that moment, time pressure activates, and we have to think of a way to defend ourselves from the basilik, which will surely be turning to face us soon! Thinking quickly, we remember that we still possess an item that can reflect beams: the silver tray. We hold it in front of our face, run toward the basilik, and hope for the best.

And our tactic works: the tray reflects the basilik's gaze and causes it to turn itself into stone! The gaze's searing heat causes us to drop the tray, which is now too damaged to reuse.

Knowing that immobilized foes tend to eventually recover and reemerge as threats, we hurry to finish off the basilik. We strike it with out pickaxe and shatter it to pieces. And as we examine the creature's remains, we notice that its horn has managed to avoid being stoned and hasn't incurred any damage. It's a deadly weapon on its own, we think, so we make sure to pick it up.

Now we're eager to see what lies beyond the room's northeast doorway! Unfortunately it's locked, and there's no keyhole.

As we look around the room, we notice that there's something high up on the wall between the two support pillars: It's a circular button that protrudes from the wall. It's well beyond our reach, and thus we're not able to press it by hand. We try reaching for it and pressing it with our long, ranged items, but that doesn't work; it's too high up. So instead we try shooting it from a distance with an arrow. We load up our crossbow and fire. Surprisingly, this works! The arrow depresses the button and triggers a switch. The switch, to our great joy, unlocks the door! Now we can go through it and see the next never-before-explored castle area!

The door, interestingly, takes us to a narrow, damp descending stairway. It's a clear transitional room. Something catches our eye, though: a word that has been chiseled into one of the stairway's cavernous walls. It's "TMON." We don't know what it means, but we figure that it must have been significant to the Circle of Twelve. We try looking at it multiple times, hoping that our doing so will allow us to learn an Epor-like spell, but nothing of the sort happens. So we decide to move on and climb down the stairs.

(So if you're not aware, this room is actually a reference to a deeply concealed secret room that you can discover in the original Macintosh Shadowgate. In that version, it's actually possible to clear away the landslide, but you can only do so by performing an arcane series of actions. What you have to do is take the silver vial, which you find in the Epor room, and place it on a very specific pixel of the lansdslide. Next you have to heat the vial up by using a torch on it. And then you have to use your sling to fire a stone at it. At that point, the volatile bottle will explode and clear away the landslide and allow you to access the stairway beyond. The stairway takes you to a completely blank room that contains a bottle of wine and the word "TMON." The room is a secret tribute to Tod Zipnick, who was ICOM Simulations' founder and Shadowgate's creator.

The word "TMON" is also referenced in one the library's books, which states that it's the Circle of Twelve's symbol.)

And in a surprising-and-excitement-inducing fashion, we arrive, unexpectedly, in another familiar area: the waterall room!

So that's what the rock landslide was blocking: a stairway that led to a pen and ultimately to the arrow room (and this actually works out spatially)! And thus another ancient mystery is solved.

So as we can see, things have changed in this room: the landslide, obviously, has been cleared away, and the waterfall's flow has, alas, slowed to a gentle trickle (likely because a collapsed castle structure is now partly blocking the fissure through which the water flows). What's also sad is that the secret entrance that used to be obscured by the waterfall is now blocked off by a landslide and thus inaccessible. So as one entrance becomes liberated, another becomes obstructed. What a cruel twist of fate.

We can't do anything here, so we travel south, along the only other available path.

The path leads us to the famous subterranean cavern, which has changed significantly. Mainly, the lake that formed part of this cavern has completely dried up. This happened because the lake was being fed by the previous room's waterfall, whose flow, we learned, has slowed considerably over the years; and resultantly, there's not enough water to fill the lake bed.

The skeleton, which was propped up against the lake wall, is still there, though it now lies on the ground in a deteriorated state; several bits of it are missing. It's now joined by another skeleton: the one belonging to the patrolling shark! Naturally it couldn't survive without the water. We believe that the shark is responsible for the human skeleton's fragmented appearance.

Oh, and because we have the Discitea Mort spell, which can help us to see a deceased person's final moments, we can finally find out who the skeleton belonged to and how it got there (35-year-old lore)!

When we use the spell on the skeleton, we learn that it belongs to a man named Ronlin. His brother, who was appearing before him as a dark figure with eyes like burning coal, put chains around his neck. In this horrifying moment, Ronlin asked, "Why, my brother?" A deep voice with a gentle lint responded by saying, "Calm yourself, young Ronlin. There is much to do. Now close your eyes, dear brother." Ronlin gasped as the chains clamped down tightly on him and forcefully pressed his body against the cold, hard rock.

So he was strangled to death by his own brother and then, presumably, his corpse was placed against the lake wall as a decoration. (We can't learn about how the shark died because the spell only works on humanoid-type beings.)

And now that the lake has dried up, we can walk within the lake bed and access the cavern's eastern area. There isn't going much on there, we learn, but we do see that there's a small piece of parchment resting within the dried lake bed. We pick it up and discover that it's the final piece of our map! There's a note scribbled on its back portion. It says the castle's dark energies have allowed the lake algae to take to the land. The algae subsists on meat and becomes quite ravenous, but because, luckily, it's floral in nature, it's susceptible to known plant magic.

So obviously we're going to have to deal with more dangerous plant life in the near future. That's all that we can do here, so we retreat to the lake bank and then head left.

And we find ourselves in that familiar multi-door hallway! We examine it and note, just as Jair did, that its construction is characteristic of the mountain dwarves who were once enslaved for their fine craftsmanship. (Everyone seems to recognize their work!)

This time, the stone hallway offers us only three paths: the one to the right, which takes us to the previously visited subterranean cavern, and two others whose doors lead to expected places. We can't travel south, to the alcove with the collapsed floor, because the path, as we're well aware, is blocked off by a landslide.

We start by heading left.

And now we're in the familiar pedestal room, which is still as cold ever.

It's almost the same as Jair left it. The only difference is that the white crystal is no longer resting in the door-adjacent hole. It has since shattered, and its now lies on the floor in pieces. We pick up the crystal pieces, hoping that they'll still be able to serve us in some way. (Upon examining the room's lower-right portion, we learn that Jair, canonically, never messed with the trap door. Apparently he saw it for what it was and didn't touch it.)

The room's iron-braced door isn't locked, so we open it up and head into the next room.

And now we're in the familiar treasure hall! Its atmosphere has changed: It's darker than before, and it's no longer super-heated. Resultantly, it's uncomfortably cool and quiet.

(This room previously had eight obtainable items--a torch, a shield, a spear, a hammer, a helmet, two skulls and a bone--and we know that Jair was required to take three of them. But the other five items are gone, too, so it's safe to say that Jair, canonically, cleaned this room out. So he was a hoarder and thus our perfect avatar!)

The large pile of melted gold is still there, as is the treasure chest, which is still locked. "Could it be possible," we feel inclined to think, "that we'll finally be able to find a way to open the chest?"

The only other things that are missing are the two eyes that were watching us from the dark doorway in the north. The creature to whom the eyes belonged is no longer standing guard, so, to our great excitement, we're free to travel to the northern room and see what it is.

And, well, it's what we imagined it might be: a dragon's nest!

The eyes, as we guessed, belonged to a dragon, and that dragon is now long dead. When we examine it, we find that its bones are petrified and its wings are shattered, which suggests that it engaged in an intense battle with the basilik and suffered a terrible defeat. That's great news for us because it means that we can't get roasted!

We notice, also, that the skeleton has a chain around its neck and that a steel key is attached to it. We take the key from the chain, and we do so slowly and carefully (because we never know if slain Shadowgate enemies are truly dead). And of course, all we can think is, "Will this key open the treasure hall's chest?!" We hurry to find out.

And we're elated to discover that it does! So we finally get to see what's inside the chest!

There are two items in there: The first is an old scroll. We take it and read it. It says that stone devil skin is impervious to physical and magical attack, but it's susceptible to chemical degradation. The author explains that he made such a concoction and locked it away for use in only the most dire circumstances. The concoction in question is contained within the chest's second item: bottle 6! (Now that's some brilliant continuity! There were five bottle types in Shadowgate, and here's the one that we never found: bottle 6. It was hidden in the treasure-hall chest the whole time! Just beautiful, I say.)

And now that we're finally done looting this area, we retreat back to the multi-door hallway and head north.

Now we're in the familiar crypt, whose sides (as we recall them being) are lined with coffins.

The room is in a somewhat-similar state to how Jair left it. The lower-right coffin is still open, and a pile of ashes lies at its bottom (they're the remains of the mummy that Jair burned with his torch). Though, the middle-right coffin, which contained the bag of copper coins, is closed (which makes sense considering that the coins were useless). The blob of obstructive slime is emerging from the middle-left coffin, but it's not doing so because Jair opened it, no (apparently he never disturbed it); it's doing so, rather, because it eventually ate through the coffin's cover and spilled onto the floor.

"So there's no getting by here," we think as we reflect upon our experiences in Shadowgate. But we're wrong. When we examine the slime, we discover that it's actually an algae formation. It's plant life, and we happen to have a spell that clears away aggressive plants: Herbicidia! When we chant it, the slime shudders and quakes for a moment, and then it rapidly dissolves (if we try to walk past the slime or attack it, it engulfs us and immediately dissolves our body)! So now we can freely pass through this corridor!

We do so and walk through the room's corner-left coffin, which functions as a doorway. (Sadly, we can't open the bottom-left coffin. When we'd do so in Shadowgate, a banshee would emerge from it and emit an ear-shattering scream. But since this coffin no longer opens, we don't get to see the banshee again.)

And now we're in the familiar mirror hall!

Its mirrors, as they did for Jair, remind us of the fun house at King Otto's fair, which must've been a popular exhibition (the mirrors also remind us of how short we are).

So a few things have changed here.

The left mirror has shattered, and its broken pieces are now scattered across the ground. (Whoever shattered it probably didn't strike it with a hammer, because doing so, we remember from our experiences with Shadowgate, causes the glass shards to fly into you and slice you to pieces. The person probably threw something at it from a long distance.)

The middle door, which was once obscured by a mirror, can no longer be opened because it has been fused to the wall frame by intense heat (the heat that was being generated by the inferno-like bridge room that rests beyond it). So we're not going to be able to travel to the bridge room.

The broom is missing, which means that Jair definitely took it. And we can't safely drop down into the floor hole because the rope from the Epor room is no longer extending upward (if we try to enter the hole now, we drop a long distance, shatter our legs, and eventually perish).

"So there's nowhere to go from here," we start to think. But when we inspect the rightmost mirror, we notice that it has an unusual shimmer to it, and then we remember that we have a spell that always has some type of effect on mirrors that possess a shimmering quality: Tar Gwynthal! When we direct the spell as the mirror, it fades from existence and reveals a secret path.

So we get to go to a new place! (If we strike the mirror, instead, it shatters, and, as it did in Shadowgate, it reveals a magic portal into deep space. We get sucked into the portal and into the unfathomable vastness of space. Our unprotected body freezes and our saliva boils, and then we quickly lose consciousness and die. Lovely.)

The mirror door leads to a circular chamber. We recognize that it was once the meeting place of a council. The scars of battle are etched throughout it. (This is obviously where the Circle of Twelve used to meet. And all we can think is, "What an odd place to hold meetings--in a cramped chamber that's hidden behind one of the unassuming mirror hall's three narrow mirrors." Conventional architecture ain't their thing, I guess.)

We walk down the stairs, into the circle. There we see a scroll lying unassumingly on the ground. We take it, and then we read it. It says that the truth of the Twelve can only be revealed to the one that finds the pieces of memory left behind by the Twelve. One who possesses the power to summon phantoms can make these memories visible and subsequently obtain them. It warns us that if we perform a summoning in the wrong place, a wraith will surely appear and steal our soul. Then it lists the twelve memories and gives us clues as to which rooms and places contain them.

We know that we can't complete our quest without solving this riddle.

So our goal now is to revisit the rooms in question and make their contained memories visible by chanting our Educ Spritus spell. From this point to the one in which we finish obtaining the memories, the game puts a penalty system in place. If we use the spell in a room that doesn't contain a memory, the wraith will appear and rip out our soul. So we have to be careful. (Note that you don't have to direct the spell at the exact spot in which a memory is located. All we have to do is use the spell in the room in which the memory is contained.)

The wraith, by the way, is the one that we remember from Shadowgate. It's the one that one that appears in the alcove beyond the bridge room! It's more spectral in appearance (and now completely blue), and because we don't possess a special torch, we can't do anything to repel it. All we can do is die.

The "memories" represent objects and items that appeared in the original Shadowgate (veterans of Shadowgate will immediately know what the scroll's clues are referring to and thus have a head start on this puzzle).

Starting from the castle's entrance, the memories are: (1) Key 1, which is found at the entrance, in the hold above the door. (2) Talimar's evil, watchful eyes, which are found in the antechamber (I assume that Circle members "remember" events like this one because they have the ability to witness events from afar). (3 and 4) The sword and the sling, both of which are found in the closet. (5) The ancient tome, which is found in the alcove. (6) The arrow, which, of course, is found in the arrow room. (7) The tattered wooden bridge, which is found in the undead chasm (colloquially known as the "bridge room"). (8) The wine bottle, which is found in the damp stairway/"TMON" room (what a cool way to make the Macintosh-version secret canonical!). (9) The icy fear, which is found in the cold room. (10) The shield, which is found in the treasure hall. (11) The scepter, which is found in the crypt. And (12) the broom, which is found in the mirror hall. (I love that the memory visions are pixel-perfect recreations of the original Shadowgate item sprites.)

After we finish collecting all 12 memories, the "Truth of 12" scroll disintegrates in our hand. Our task is complete. So we head back to the circle chamber's center point.

Having gathered the memories, we enter the circle chamber and pause midstep. At that moment, our mind becomes flooded with visions from an event that took place long ago in this room. In the vision, a booming voice speaks and tells Talimar, a Circle of Twelve member, that he is condemned to imprisonment for delving into the dark arts. We hear a soft chuckle and Talimar's response. He says that it's good to see all of the members gathered here ... like the fools that they are!

Suddenly, the sounds of chains snapping and a hiss of lightning echo through the chamber as Talimar rises up. He channels immense energies and summons powerful magic, and then he launches a devastating attack. Bodies are ripped apart and flesh is destroyed by its might. (This was the event that we read about in the cabin's yellow book.)

As we rub our eyes, the vision passes from our mind. Though, we're left shaken by Talimar's immense display of power. Odin speaks to us and says that this is why Lakmir fears Talimar's return. The world, he warns, can't endure the might of such an evil. He tells us that we're approaching the end and that we need to tread carefully.

As we descend down to the circle, we see that a blue portal has formed. It beckons us to enter. We do so bravely.

Moments later, we tumble out of the portal and into the cool night air. The moon hangs high overhead in the calm night sky (we've heard this description somewhere before, so naturally we become filled with a certain expectation). While fear clutches every fiber of our heart and our stomach is in shambles, but we know that there's no going back. There is no stopping what we have started.

The music here is subdued but also slightly optimistic in tone. It tells us that we're going to face difficult trials in this part of the castle, yes, but we're ready to do so and we're feeling hopeful and confident.

So we're standing beside ancient-looking stone gazebo. It houses the portal (which allows us to return to the circle room). We travel south of it, and...

Our expectations are met as we arrive in the courtyard, which, as the game reminds us, is the place in which a battle between hero and monster once took place! (So we do get to explore the castle's second half!)

The courtyard looks the same, though parts of its surfaces have since been claimed by overgrown foliage (the left wall has vines growing on it, and grass now covers most of the ground). The slain cyclops is still there, but decomposition has left him in skeleton form. His scythe still lies over him (though his shield is curiously missing). And the rock that felled him lies on the ground in front of his skeleton.

What excites us further is that we now have the opportunity to use our Discitea Mort spell on the cyclops and see his final moments from his perspective. When we chant the spell on him, we find that he was very confident about his chances of victory. What he saw was a puny human standing across the moonlit courtyard and looking like a fool as he twirled an unidentifiable object overhead. He heard the humans shout words at him, but he understood none of them (so the legendary "Philistine" insult was sadly lost on him). Moments later, he felt a sudden sharp pain his eye. (His memory ends there, so apparently he was too dazed to feel the sensation of a sword being plunged into his back.)

The well is there, too, but because its crank handle has broken due to decades to decades of neglect, there's nothing we can do with it.

There's only one thing that we can do here--something that we wish we could have done in Shadowgate: take the fallen cyclops' scythe! Its intensely sharp, we observe, so it'll definitely be a valuable weapon!

So we can travel in two directions from here: eastward, back to the gazebo, or north, into the castle proper. (The southern path, which led to the troll bridge, simply doesn't exist in this game. So we can't find out if our old lower-extremities-lacking troll pal is still hanging out there.)

We head north, back into Castle Shadowgate.

And we're in the familiar grand hallway!

It's in a somewhat-deteriorated state: A section of its left wall has crumbled away, parts of its steps are chipped, and its rug is rippled and generally unkempt.

The hallway has three doors, but only two of them are accessible (the middle door is completely blocked by rubble, so, sadly, we won't be able to revisit the places to which it leads: the lab and the small garden).

Observing the damaged left wall, we see that a mechanism built of connected gears is now exposed; the mechanism continues up toward the torch holder.

If only we had a torch! There used to be many of them in this castle, as evidenced by all of the empty torch holders, but Jair apparently took them all. Well, all except one, we remember: the metal torch/lever in the arrow room! We assumed that it was firmly fastened in place and simply left it there. So we go back and grab it, and then we return here and place it in the holder; subsequently we flip it upwards. When we do this, something happens across the hall: stones slide away to reveal a doorway! (I knew, as soon as I saw the mechanism, that it was going to open a door on the room's right side and allow me entry to that place. I was excited about the very prospect of this event occurring, and I couldn't wait to see how it was going to be pulled off.)

We decide to enter the secret room first.

And would you look at that: It's the goblin room--the one that was cut from the NES version of Shadowgate due to cart-space limitations! (These clever devils found a way to smuggle it into the Beyond Shadowgate's NES-consistent world and do so in a natural and logical way. They can say that this room was always there and it was just that Jair never thought to treat the hallway's torch as a lever and flip it down and back up again! I'm so happy to see this room!)

So here's the goblin room as it was in all of the computer versions of Shadowgate. It's more barren-looking than it was before. There are no goblins hanging around the room (so we get to live!), and all of the weapons and items that were once hanging from its walls are gone (the goblins probably took them all when they left).

The only difference is that a luxurious velvet runner is now draped over the table. We notice that there's a small bump behind the part that hangs over the table's edge. So we lift up the hanging part, and we find that there's a hidden switch lever attached to the table's bottom portion! We flip the lever, and when we do so, the northern wall slides open and reveals a secret passage! We promptly pass through it.

The passage leads to an old, dilapidated chapel whose centerpiece is a statue of The One. We can tell by looking at what's left of the statue that it was built from the same stone as the statue that we saw back on Gwynenthell's temple.

We notice, also, that its base contains a mold that's slightly larger than our fist; it's similar in size to the holes we've seen in walls throughout Shadowgate. Our blue gem doesn't fit into it, so we decide that's there's nothing that we can do with this statue currently. So we head back to the grand hallway and travel through the lower-left doorway.

That doorway, as we expect, takes us to the library.

It's largely how Jair left it. The map and the skull are gone (so Jair must've felt that he'd need each of them for some purpose) as is the old book that taught him the Motari spell. The desk is there, and it's still in good-enough shape to be fit for a king. And the right bookcase is still in a slid-open position, and consequently the secret entrance is still accessible.

One thing has changed, though: The red crystal is no longer resting in the bookcase-adjacent hole. It has since shattered, and it now lies on the floor in pieces. We pick up the crystal pieces, hoping that they, too, will still be able to serve us in some way.

We can't open the desk (and we probably wouldn't want to, anyway, since we know that Jair cleaned it out).

What we can do, though, is get some fresh new lore! We're now allowed to pull out and read some of the books that we weren't able to read in Shadowgate (and it's in our interest to do so because they provide us some useful tips).

The bottom shelf contains the entire set of Encylopedia Druidica, and it contains an interesting book called A Study in Apotheosis. It says that the excavation of ruins, whose builders are long lost to time, has yielded drawings and tales of one who became a god. The tales point to combining artifacts--or, rather, potent amplifiers--with a staff of incalculable power. Their unity generates essentially infinite amounts of energy that can be freely harnessed by whoever could survive such a force. Thus far, the book's author says, attempts to create such a unified item have failed spectacularly.

Below the text, we're told, there's a crude image of a man holding a sphere-topped staff (so the book is obviously talking about the process that creates weapons like the Staff or Ages).

The middle book talks about the war started by "Talimar the Starless." After he betrayed the Circle of Twelve and decimated their ranks, it says, he set his eyes on the great kings of Kal Torlin. He besieged many castles, though the combined might of the kings and the remaining Circle members drove him back. He was then captured, tried, and imprisoned beneath Shadowgate. King Dugan, the war hero, has resided there henceforth (we've heard his name before). (These are likely the events that directly preceded Shadowgate.)

And the top shelf contains a book titled Magickal Beings. We open it and turn to a section on "mimics." We learn that mimics are conjured by sorcery and given form through a remnant of the subject that's being imitated. While mimics have self-awareness, their motivations are not their own, and they do the bidding of their creators. They're resilient to physical attack, the text says, but they're susceptible to any form of petrification (this is useful information).

Those, sadly, are the only three books that we can read.

There's nothing else that we can do here, so we pass through the secret entrance.

It takes us to the familiar parlor.

It's partly how Jair left it. The mounted globe is still open and empty, and the bellows are gone, but the pewter goblet and the poker are still there. The goblet, though, is now lying on the ground, whereas it was previously positioned atop the fireplace frame (it must've fallen over when the Staff of Ages' mighty blast struck the Behemoth and shook the castle).

So it's either that Jair was very selective in how he collected items, or he came across the sphynx before coming to these places and took only the exact items that were needed to answer the riddles. Since these items are here, we think, we melt as well take them. We do so. Then we head back to the grand hall and travel through its northern doorway.

That doorway takes us to familiar large banquet hall.

And it's looking pretty rough these days. The stone balcony's middle portion has collapsed (as a result of an event that shook the castle violently--most likely the aforementioned Staff of Ages blast), and there's now a large crack in the wall above it. Resultantly, there's rubble lying all over the floor. And part of the rug is burned away (that was of course Jair's doing).

The good news is that the silk tapestry still hangs from the right wall! Future castle-exploring pyromaniacs will be very happy about that.

Because the balcony has collapsed, we can no longer access the top-left door and chamber with the two braziers. We can't enter the top-right door, either, because collapsed stones are blocking it off; so, unfortunately we're not going to be revisiting the sphynx room, the observatory, or the turret. Only the bottom level's doorway is accessible. So we pass through it.

It takes us to the small corridor with the two arched doorways (the "victory hallway," as I call it).

We notice, immediately, that the left doorway is now boarded up, and our heart sinks because we're certain that consequently we won't be able to access the balcony and see if anything has changed out there! But we become filled with renewed giddiness when we actually examine the boards and learn that they've been hastily nailed to the doorway and are quite loose! With the right tool, we think, we may be able to tear the boards away. Luckily, we have such a tool: the ol' poker, which, we sense, is strong enough to pry heavy objects! We use it to successfully remove the boards.

Then we head through the now-unobstructed archway.

And it takes us out to the familiar balcony!

As we step onto the balcony, we're surprised to see a lone person standing on its far side. It's Lord Jair (whose size relative to the balcony informs us that the balcony is much smaller than we thought)! "Hello, fenling," he says to us with a smile.

We wonder about what he's doing in such a place and decide to ask him about his presence here. Before we can speak, though, he tells us to come closer and inform him of our journey. We'd like to do that, but we're hesitant to converse with him because something about him bothers us.

As we're assessing the situation, he moves closer to us and asks us what's wrong. "You needn't look so nervous," he says.

We think back to our earlier conversation with Jair and remember what he told us: He said that people were speaking of him in places that he hasn't been, and he suspected that someone was impersonating him. And we conclude that this oddly cold- and rough-looking Jair is the impersonator he was talking about. This is obviously a mimic!

And because we read the library's Magickal Beings book, we know exactly how to deal with one of their kind: strike it with a petrification-inducing item! We have one of those: the basilik's red horn! We yell "Begone, foul devil!" and swiftly plunge the horn's tip into the mimic's neck. And our suspicion is confirmed as the mimic lets loose an inhuman shriek as it turns to stone. Seconds later, a flash of lightning strikes the stoned mimic and reduces it to mere dust. It leaves behind an empty suit of armor. We pick it up. (If we try to attack the mimic with any other item or walk away from it, it'll rush up on us and sink its dagger into our ribs, over and over again, and slice through our lung. Resultantly, our chest will fill with blood and we'll die.)

So now we have an unobstructed view of the balcony. And we find that it sill offers us a beautiful view of the distant Gatekeeper Mountain and the castle, itself. The only thing different about it is that its surface now has a few cracks in it (presumably the aforementioned violent event caused their appearance).

The iron rod is still resting on the stone mount. There's no storm brewing at the moment, so there's no lightning for the rod to channel. Thus there's no danger in getting close to it. Feeling that it might have a second use, we take it. Then we move left, down the stairs.

And now we're standing on the classic watch tower! It still offers the same spectacular view of the entire countryside.

It's not exactly as Jair left it. There's a conspicuous change: The lookout point's right side, upon which the pot of gold rests, has an outline running across it and looks as though it has been repaired with mortar. So it collapsed recently (likely when some fool fell for the original trap and tried to obtain the pot of gold). As we examine the surface, we conclude that too much weight will collapse it a second time. However, since we're short in stature and not very heavy, we decide that it's safe for us to walk onto the lookout point's right portion and pick up the pot of gold. We step onto the cracked floor and grab down to reach the pot, and luckily the patch job is strong enough to hold us.

So we finally get to obtain the pot of gold and use it in some way! (Disappointingly, we can't open it up and see what's inside of it.)

At this point, we decide that it's a good idea to travel back to Gwynenthell and update Jair on the situation. We should, we think, tell him about the mimic and then show him the armor and ask him about the blue crystal. And that's what we do. Using the ferry stone near the gazebo, we teleport over to Gwynenthell and consult with Jair in the temple.

We start by handing him the blue gem and asking him about its purpose. He looks it over, and with a faint smile, he explains what Lakmir told him about the gems: There were four gems originally, but for safety, only three were allowed to exist in the open; the fourth was a key to a long-buried cell. Jair never found such a cell in Shadowgate (he ran into a lockless door and had to float down a well instead, he says with a laugh).

After pausing for a moment, he mumbles, in a pondering manner, that only three stones existed, and then he permits us to ask the blacksmith the shatter the blue gem. This will allow us to build something "new." He trusts that we'll find a way to succeed, and, with a smile, he wishes us luck.

Then we show him the armor. He smiles warmly and tells us that this is the armor he wore while he was traversing his way through Shadowgate. He thought it had been lost. He says that we don't cease to amaze, and then he tells us to take the armor to his chamber in the castle tower. Subsequently he hands us the tower-chamber key.

So we have two tasks now.

We start with the blue gem. We head over to smithy and ask him to crush it for us. He agrees to do so and smashes it with his hammer (we agree with him that it was a shame to destroy such a beautiful gem). He's nice enough not to charge us for the labor.

We pick up the blue gem's remnants, hoping that they'll serve a good purpose. When we show them to Jair, he reiterates that gems were used as keys in Shadowgate and that, according to Lakmir, there were four gems in total: the red, white and blue gems, all of which he found, and a "lavender" gem that went undiscovered. Magic flows freely through the castle, he says, so with the right components and conditions, we might be able to generate the lavender gem.

Then we head to castle tower and to the only room we haven't accessed. We use our chamber key to open its locked door.

It turns out to be Jair's room ("the guest room of Jair Cuthegar, high lord of the Westland," the game says)! And we're greeted with what I can only call "a fan-service motherload." Many of the items that he obtained during his Shadowgate adventure are lying about the room: the ancient gnome war hammer, the hobgoblin helmet, the heavy shield, some ancient scrolls, the silver gauntlet (which, in a really great nod, is designed to resemble the pointer that you controlled in Shadowgate!), an unlit torch, the platinum horn, the magical glasses, and the unbecoming cloak. (You actually get an achievement for examining all of these items.)

His bed's headboard even displays an etching of the same sword symbol that was carved into the vault's stone slab (the one in which he needed to place the talisman)!

We're not going to take any of these items, though, because we'd never think to steal from the honorable Lord Jair (and because, well, the game won't let us). What we do instead is honor his wish: We open up the glass container, place the armor upon its rack, and then close the container's door.

After we do this, we step back to observe the beautiful display. And to our surprise, the case lifts into the ceiling and exposes a hidden compartment containing a tall wooden staff! We recognize that it's the legendary Staff of Ages!

We know that this powerful weapon will be useful to us, but when we try to take it, its orb begins to glow, and suddenly we're struck by a large electrical current; its charge knocks us across the room and sends us to the ground. So we now know that the stories are true--that only the seed of prophecy can hold the staff barehanded.

"But what if it were covered?" we think. That's when we get the idea to drape our empty flour sack over the staff. This, we're certain, will allow us to handle it without directly touching it. And our idea works: We place the sack over the staff and then safely take it (and then we smile smugly at our own cleverness).

When we try to hand the staff to Jair, he declines to take it and says that his time to wield the weapon has long passed. It's now our turn to determine how it shall be used. He tells us that he has faith in us.

After finishing these tasks, we ferry-stone our way back to Shadowgate, then we return to the small corridor and travel through the right archway.

That archway, of course, takes us to the castle's throne room.

As we enter into it, we're startled by the skeletal figure that sits on its throne. It's our old pal King Dugan! He's still there! Though, he, much like the castle, has decayed with time. As we examine his remains, we feel as though we're being watched.

The greatest indignity that he has suffered is that his skull has fallen off and his crown now lies on the ground! It's such a sad thing to see. And what's worse is that the poor guy even dropped the scepter that Jair placed in his hand (though, at the least, he managed to hold on to his long poleaxe)! Also, his room's carpet is all torn up! It's a tragic scene.

On the bright side, the ring is still firmly stuck in the right pillar, and resultantly the secret tunnel is still open.

We decide against trying to pick up any of his remains or belongings (after we pick one of them up and get attacked by Dugan's reanimated skeleton, which, despite not having eyes, is able to use its poleaxe to behead us). (So we were right to think that we were being watched.)

But we're happy to take advantage of the opportunity to use our Discitea Mort spell on Dugan and finally get an answer to something we've long been wondering: "How did he die?"

When we use the spell on him, we see his final moments. He was breathing deeply and collecting his thoughts as he tried to imagine an event that was violent enough to cause the earth to quake so vigorously. Just then, suddenly, a large fireball appeared before him and prompted him to shield his eyes.

When he opened his eyes, a dark figure loomed over him. "Talimar! You fiend! I'll kill--" he started to shout before his words got caught in his throat. In that moment, he felt as though he was being crushed by the ocean. That's when the figure responded to him. In a calm, deep voice, he said, "Shh, my king. Sit and endure your throne for all eternity." Then the figure walked away, laughing softly as he exited.

So it sounds as though he was attacked and killed by Talimar, who probably carried out the deed soon after he eliminated most of the Circle of Twelve members.

After we finish peering into Dugan's past, we drop down into the secret tunnel.

And we land in the familiar stone passageway. Its walls, just as they were in Shadowgate, are lined with massive granite slabs.

Previously there was a leftward path in this room--a narrow tunnel--but it was of course a trap. If you tried to access it, the large granite slab above it would drop onto you and crush you to death. And obviously someone or something has since triggered the trap and suffered the consequences of doing so (so to our great disappointment, we now have one less way to have fun killing ourselves!).

Now all that remains is the northern path. We take that path.

It leads to the familiar gargoyle cave.

Things have changed here. Most noticeable is the lack of finely constructed gargoyles! The one on the left has shattered to pieces, and the one on the right is gone completely! Previously the gargoyle statues served as a deadly obstruction and blocked off the room's leftmost passage (if Jair went near it, they'd come alive and tear him to pieces), but now that they're essentially absent, we can freely access this passage!

We can't, however, enter the cave's right passage because it's no longer there (the game doesn't say anything specific when you examine the area in which the passage was previously located, so it's either that the passage is now blocked by rubble or the camera is shifted over a bit and the passage simply isn't in view). So, sadly, we're not going to be able to visit the Motari-statue room or the orb room.

All we can do is head north, through the now-unguarded passage.

And that passage of course takes us to the well room.

It's not in the best shape: Part of the right wall has collapsed, leaving a large pile of rubble. Also, the well's gear mechanism no longer functions correctly. If you flip the connected switch, nothing happens; the cover doesn't lift up. So that can only mean one thing: To progress past this room, we're going to have to find a way to open the lockless door on the left--the one whose existence has been a mystery to us for 35 years!

We've spent decades wondering what's behind that door. And now, after all that time, we're finally going to find out!

As we examine the door, we note that time has degraded its paneling and that it looks as though it could be toppled with a good push. So naturally we decide to "Hit" it. We strike it with a strong kick and smash through its paneling, tearing several planks down in the process. Thus we create an opening large enough to squeeze through.

And here it is: the moment we've long been waiting for! We travel the opening, and what we find is...

...a simple holding cell.

We're not able to stop and think about what we're seeing (or think about whether or not we're disappointed with what we've found), because as as soon as we enter the room, a metallic "thunk" sounds and the floor shakes as iron bars slam down and seal us in with a monstrous gargoyle statue (so that's where the other gargoyle statue went).

At that moment, the statue begins to shudder, and large cracks begin to creep along its frame. It's coming to life! We have to think quickly to stop it from doing so! Time pressure activates, and we only have a limited amount of time to find a way to dispose of the creature before it fully sheds its stony shell.

We search our mind and remember reading about a situation like this. We recall a passage from the ancient scroll that we found in the treasure hall. It told us that stone devil skin is susceptible to chemical degradation, and it referenced the accompanying chest item: bottle 6, which contains a highly acidic substance.

Trusting the scroll's words, we throw the liquid onto the awakening gargoyle. The fluid ignites and burns as it covers the gargoyle's frame. The creature screams in agony as its body bubbles and swells and ultimately explodes. "Disgusting," we mutter as we pick pieces of stone and meat out of our hair.

The explosion, conveniently, blows open a hole in the barred gate, so now we have a way forward. (If we fail to properly deal with the gargoyle, it'll completely free itself and then spring forth and rip us to pieces. There won't even be enough of us left to feed the mice. And this death description is another nice little throwback.)

Beyond the gate is a prison area. Its lone cell is barred shut, and there's no obvious mechanism for opening it.

The passage to the left is unobstructed, but we're hesitant to move near it because the overlying orb is making an unease-inducing thrumming noise (if we try to move through the passage, the orb blasts us with lightning and fries us instantly). So at first glance, there's nowhere for us to go here.

Though, as we further examine the room, we focus closer on the passages' adjacent receptacles and notice that they're similar in size to the ones we've encountered in other parts of the castle. Thus we recognize that they're actually lock mechanisms that can be activated with gems! Unfortunately, we don't have any gems; all we've got are gem shards.

As we wonder about what to do next, we recall two events: our recent meeting with Jair, who told us that shattering the gems will allow us to build something "new," and our experience in enchanting and repurposing the lens that we found in Lakmir's castle study. We did the former by placing a lens on the altar in front of the temple's The One statue and subsequently (a) setting a gold item in the statue's left hand and (b) saying a prayer. Then we remember that we came across a similar statue in Shadowgate's old chapel!

We hurry over to it. Then we place our red, white and blue crystal shards in its altar's mold. We're in luck, also, because we happen to possess the other two necessary items: a gold artifact (the pot of gold that we picked up on the watch tower) and a rod (the one that we took from the exterior balcony).

So we set the gold pot and the rod in the statue's left and right hands, respectively, and then we kneel down and recite the prayer of The One. We shield our eyes until the light dims and we hear a loud crack, and when we uncover our eyes, we see that the statue has been destroyed. Also, the shards in the mold are no more; they have combined to form a bright and sparkling lavender gemstone! This stone, we think, will allow us to operate the door mechanisms in the prison area!

We head back there and try our new key.

And it works! The lavender gem fits perfectly into the receptacles!

First we use it to open the barred door.

Before entering the cell, we read the plaque that rests above it. It instructs wardens on how to deal with a powerful prisoner. It warns them that the sealed cell contains a rogue druid who is bound by the runes that have been etched onto his prison until the end of time. It instructs them, also, not to speak with the druid, for he is powerful and cunning beyond measure. Should the runes fail, it says, the druid will escape and bring untold ruin to the world. It closes by telling the wardens to unlock this armory and withdraw a celestial stone from it it. "Be prepared to fight," it encourages. "Do not falter." This message is signed by Lakmir.

Following his instructions, we enter the cell. There's no prisoner within it, but there is a celestial stone. It rests upon a lone stand. We reach towards the stone, and as we grasp it, we see the outline of the bones in our hand. This must be a truly powerful relic, we feel (the game identifies it as "sun stone").

After taking the stone, we exit the cell, then we remove the lavender gem from the prison's receptacle and place it in the receptacle near the left door. Doing this causes the overlying orb to deactivate. Now we can safely pass through the door.

It takes us to a stone bridge whose platforms are supported by mere branches and nothing more. Cold air flows down the steps and makes us shiver. The cave's malevolent atmosphere seems to originate from the pillar up ahead.

This is where the game introduces my favorite tune: the emotionally complex, incredibly gripping Ominously Exigent. It's ominous-sounding, as its name implies, but it's also a bewitching combination of mysterious, chilling, and melancholic. If makes you feel uneasy but also reflective. It induces you think about what you've been through and imagine that the events that are about occur will evoke feelings of triumph but also regret and sadness. And later on, it takes on the quality of "disturbing" because of how it becomes associated with a highly unsettling event that occurs in the bad ending.

We walk up the stairs and find ourselves standing before a pillar of warding. We've only heard tales about obelisks such as these. They're made to constrain prisoners' magical abilities.

This one, we can tell, was made to constrain a powerful magic-user, but it seems as though it failed to hold its prisoner.

There's nothing that we can do with it, so we head left, into the next room.

Now we stand in a old stone archway whose walls are comprised of large mirrors. Its northern door is locked tightly. As we reach out to touch it, we feel as though our hand is slowing down.

We notice that there's a hole in the center of its engraving. The accompanying inscription says that only the might of time itself may open this passage. That sounds like a power that only Lamkir the Timeless can wield. "If only we could call upon his magic," we think.

Then we realize that we actually can! We possess his ring, which we found in his cabin. It has, as we recall, the symbol of a handprint carved into it, so it must be the key to this door. We place it into the door's hole.

When we do this, the door, like magic, rises into the air and grants us passage. So we move forward.

(There's a cool secret here: If you use the Tar Gwynthal spell on the room's mirrors, you create a portal to an unknown location. You discover that the location in question is the Gwynenthell castle's noble's study, of which we got a glimpse much earlier when we looked through the peephole in the king's secret passage. It's the place in which Belezsarr was hanging out. He was obviously using its mirror to swiftly travel between Gwynenthell and Shadowgate.

The only thing that we can do here is read one of the books: Destructive Magicks, which was authored by Gwyenthell's royal sorcerers. It says that they investigated the dark arts not to employ them but rather to understand them and safeguard themselves from them. At one point, they read from a scroll that was delivered from a land they dared not mention. The scroll described an artifact that opposed all that they held dear; it was an "anti-life" conduit. When the assembled artifact is activated, the authors say, it destroys the barrier separating realms and melds them together.

Strangely, the book's next page was torn out.

This book is basically explaining how to initiate one of the bad endings--an ending that we're unable to trigger because of a certain action that we made earlier.)

The arched doorway takes us to a very familiar place: the great cavern in which Jair fought the mighty Behemoth! We've found an alternate entrance into it! (This one takes us in from the west, so we're seeing the cavern from a side view.)

We observe that the southern wall, like its opposite side (which we saw in Shadowgate's vault room), also has a frame that resembles a large skull. The same five braziers are still there, though they're now unlit and a bit warped. And the stairs, as we remember, lead up to a stone altar (the altar, I have to say, is much closer to the door than I thought).

As we enter the cavern, a huge tremor occurs, and we're knocked to our knees. The stale smell of sulfur and wet earth overwhelms us. The chanting has grown much louder, and it's now accompanied by the sounds of howling and the cracking of thunder.

Our stomach knots as we realize that our journey is nearing its end. It's time for us to confront the evil that has been plaguing this land!

We approach the altar.

As we climb the stone stairs, we witness a horrifying scene: Hellfire crawls across every surface, and flames leap through the air. A lone figure hovers before a magic portal. "Lord Talimar!" he shouts. "Follow the voice of your ssservant! Return from purgatory and retake thisss world as your own! Your ssstaff is ready, massster!"

After making this request, he returns his focus to completing the spell.

As we inspect the altar, we see that Talimar's dark staff is planted into the altar's center hole. With Belezsarr distracted, we creep towards the staff and take it without him noticing. And we figure that our only chance to stop him is to replace Talimar's staff with some other item, like, maybe, the Staff of Ages. But if we do only that, we'll simply be handing him one of the most powerful weapons in existence.

What we could do, rather, is render the staff so highly volatile and unstable that it'll injure Beleszarr if he tries to hold it. We might be able to do that, we think, by taking the sun stone, which Lakmir's plaque spoke of as an item that should be used against "the druid" (Talimar), and combine it with the staff.

As we place the stone near the staff, it flies from our hand and proceeds to overlap and engulf the orb attachment. The silver disperses through the stone and emits glimmers of light. It's a magnificent sight and much like viewing a beautiful sunset. And at that moment, the Staff of Ages transforms into the Divine Staff, whose existence is a beacon of hope; one who is righteous enough to use it wields the power of a god.

We place the Divine Staff in the altar's hole, hoping that Beleszarr, who is far from righteous, will mistake it for Talimar's staff, take hold of it, and suffer some type of consequence for doing so.

Our gamble works: When we place the staff in the hole, it radiates a magical energy that gets Belezsarr's attention. "What trickery isss thisss?" he asks.

His gaze remains fixated on the staff.

He says that there can't possibly be a power that rivals his master's, and yet he senses that the Divine Staff's surpasses even Talimar's. At that moment, a bolt of brilliant light shoots out from the Divine Staff and strikes Belezsarr. "Nooooooo! My massster's dessstiny!" he shouts as the light engulfs him.

Belezsarr is obliterated by the staff, and all that remains is the portal that acts as Talimar's doorway into this world.

Seconds later, the Warlock Lord's visage appears in the portal. His return to Kal Torlin is imminent!

"What have you brought me, fenling?" he asks, his lilting voice carrying across the cavern. "You played your part well. Now die!"

Reacting to his threat, we take hold of the Divine Staff high and channel its energy toward the portal and into Talimar. Searing pain crosses our face and palms as the staff unleashes its power. We feel our skin being torn to shreds.

It's now time to make our final stand!

We go on the offensive and begin blasting Talimar relentlessly (by repeatedly clicking on him). As we do this, we hear the voices of friends (including King Aronde, Jair, the wisp, and even Ace Harding). We remain focused and attack with all of our might, and we do our best to withstand Talimar's counterattacks.

Eventually we overpower Talimar and strike him down, causing him to fade into oblivion.

We win! The world is saved!

Ultimately, we proved ourselves worthy of wielding the Divine Staff. We used its power to destroy Belezsarr and thwart his evil machinations.

The battle has taken its toll on the ancient castle, whose foundation shudders and begins to collapse. As rubble falls all around us and all hope seems lost, our dragon friend, Colvin, swoops in and picks us up, and then he transports us back to Gwynenthell.

We are received as a hero, and King Aronde proclaims us "Protector of Kal Torlin."

Having vanquished Talimar for good and earned all of the riches we could ever want, we exit the throne room and begin a life of peace. But, of course, the bards will need new legends to sing of and new tales to tell, so it's a certainty that more adventures await.

The game then displays a summary screen that lists a couple of statistics. It tells us which ending we earned (the one described above is Ending B, which is considered the best ending), how long it took us to complete the adventure, how many times we died, how much of the world we explored, and how many hints we asked for.

And thus Beyond Shadowgate comes to an end. (Now all that's left to do is unlock the other three endings.)