From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

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 8: Scaling the Gatekeeper Mountain

Lightning strikes as we approach our new destination: the intimidating Gatekeeper Mountain!

The mountain face's near-vertical ascent demoralizes us, and fatigue begins to wear upon our mind and spirit. This is foolish, we think. We're walking to our death! And we start to doubt ourselves and think that we can't defeat Belezsarr. The wisp replies and encourages us by reminding us of the trials we've survived. If we have the energy to complain, it says, then perhaps we have the will to persist.

There's no one to take our place, the wisp tells us, and if we fail, the king, our friends, and our family will perish or suffer an even worse fate. We consider its words and eventually see the wisdom in them. We agree with its sentiment, though we do so in a rather curt manner. "We all have sacrifices we must make, Del," she responds. We notice that her voice has grown weaker, but we don't say anything about it.

So we start by heading north, up the cold, snowy mountain trail.

As we travel along, we come across an abandoned wooden carriage. It must have been carrying supplies, we think. Feeling curious, we open its back doors and start to enter into it. As we do so, we learn that the carriage is hanging perilously on the trail's edge. So we move carefully as we step into it.

And immediately we see three items. The first is a torn piece of parchment. We pick it up and find that it's another piece of the map!

The second item is a mountain-climbing harness. We feel that we might need it, so we take it.

And the third item is an academic tome that speaks of the history of Kal Torlin's commerce and trade routes. We open it and read a circled passage. It says that, according to fables, there were traders who could travel between lands by speaking a word of great power to ferry stones. Those stones are marked with telltale "Xs," and the magically inclined can use them to transport themselves across a kingdom in a flash. We've seen stones like that during the course of our journey.

As we continue inspecting the carriage's interior, we see that three word fragments are carved into the walls: "Yth," "Tach" and "Eos." And being the Shadowgate veterans that we are, we instantly understand what the word fragments' appearance means: If we read them in a certain way, we'll learn a new spell!

This puzzle is a bit different from Shadowgate's Epor puzzle, though. It's not about simply reading all three words a number of times, no. What we have to do, instead, is read them in a specific order. It's a process of permutation. We simply read the fragments in every possible sequence until we stumble upon the correct word! We do this and learn, eventually, that the word we're meant to learn is "Tachytheos." As we expect, it's a secret incantation. And thus we learn a new spell: Tachytheos, which allows us to move with the swiftness of a god by speaking to the aforementioned ferry stones! We'll surely be using it soon.

Having finished out business here, we step out of the carriage. As we do this, the carriage rocks slightly, and we realize that it's about to tumble over the edge of the cliff! We leap out just in time and watch on as the carriage tips over the edge and tumbles down the rockface; it explodes with a loud crash that echoes for miles. And now that the carriage is gone, the path forward is clear, and we can now ascend the mountain.

We travel up a slope that has stairs carved into it. The only items that get our attention are the torn banners that flap wildly in the wind. Their colors indicate that a group of Gwynenthell troops has passed through here. We can't take any of these banners, so we continue climbing.

And we come to a divide that offers us three separate paths. We take the left path first.

It takes us to the Talos Ridge, which looks down upon the land and shows us the course of our entire journey.

We see that a grappling hook is anchored to the rocky ledge. It dangles in the darkness, though it appears to stretch down to an underlying ledge. Rightly fearing that descending down into a dark area is a bad idea, we decide to forgo climbing down the grappling hook and simply take it (of course, we learn that climbing down the grappling hook is foolish only after we attempt to do so and consequently cause the ledge to crumble and drop us to our death). After we take the grappling hook, cracks form in the ledge, and a large portion of it falls away. Luckily, we were a few steps back at the time time.

There's nowhere else to go here, so we head back to the divide and take the northern path.

We come across a wall of ice that used to be a waterfall. A ladder rests against it. We notice that some triangular holes have been chipped into the wall's surface, and they look like holds that can be used for climbing. But because there are no such holds on the wall's upper portion, we can't possibly climb up this way. We're also not keen on the idea of climbing up a rickety-looking ladder (well, actually, we sour on the idea when we climb the ladder and it suddenly falls to pieces right before we reach its top).

For now, there's no way for us to proceed upward, so we head back to the divide and take the rightward path.

Here we come across a decrepit tent. We see something moving around in the tent's shadowy interior, but from our current position, we can't make out what it is. So we move closer to the tent. And as we approach it, hoping to find more valuables, a decomposed body suddenly emerges from it. This zombie, we notice, is wearing the armor of a Gwynenthell soldier. It stands silently before us.

As we examine the zombie, we see that it's holding a pickaxe and that it appears to be more timid than aggressive. Sensing that it's not a threat (and realizing that we can't kill what's already dead), we try talking to it. We ask it what's on its mind. It stammers fearfully as it says, "M... Mo... Monsterrr...," leaving us to wonder what, exactly, is capable of scaring a dead person.

There's only one way to find out: use our Discitea Mort spell, which can show us what went on in a person's final moments! We use the spell on the zombie and discover that he successfully climbed the ice wall, but as soon as he reached the area above, he stumbled upon a winged beast. He was paralyzed with fear as the beast released a hideous roar. The fright left him limp, and soon he was so terrified that he lost consciousness. Then, obviously, the beast killed him.

After seeing this vision, we shake our head and ponder if the zombie still fears the sound that he heard. We test whether or not he is by trying to replicate the sound (specifically by using the "Speak" command on him). And we find out that he still does fear it! He fears it so much, in fact, that he drops the pickaxe and shambles away; he tumbles down the mountain in the process. We pick up his pickaxe and make it our own.

We're not able to enter the collapsed and torn tent, so we head back to the ice wall attempt to find a way to climb it.

We know exactly the way to do it: We use our new pickaxe to carve out sections of the wall and create series of higher-placed holds. We do that and create three additional grips. Then we successfully climb the wall.

As we pull our way up the plateau above, we notice that the temperature has dropped significantly. This is a hint that we need to put on a heavy garment that can protect us against the cold. We happen to have one: the heavy coat that we found back in Gwynenthell Castle's livery. We put it on and feel that we can now safely proceed.

We examine the area and see that a rope has been mounted to the cliff's face; it leads around the ridge. Sensing that it's too dangerous to simply walk along the plateau's narrow ledge, we look for a safer way to travel along the precipice. Fortunately for us, we think, some of those who conquered this mountain left behind their tools. We've obtained one such tool: the harness. We attach it to the rope and then use it to curl our way around the narrow ledge. (Note that if you don't put on the heavy coat beforehand, you freeze to death as you're traveling along. And if you try to travel along the narrow path by simply walking on it rather than using the harness, you'll fall of the mountain and die.)

We inch our way around the precipice's edge and eventually arrive on safe ground. Right as we do so, though, a winged beast clambers over the cliff's edge and creates a terrifying obstruction.

It's the winged beast from Shadowgate--the one that was lurking in the orb room's pit!

It stares at us fiercely with its razor-sharp claws ready to strike (this must be the monster that frightened the zombie!). Not knowing how to fell such a beast, we do the safest thing we can think to do: talk to it. We do so and request that it grant us safe passage. It responds by roaring loudly and grumbling, "Orb... Must protect orb..." So obviously it's still pissed that the orb disappeared from its habitat, and it's been looking for the item ever since; its search has taken it here.

We don't have an orb in our possession, but we do have a similarly shiny, spherical object: the pearl we got from the castle's treasury. We hope that it'll suffice. We toss the pearl toward the beast, and it deftly snatches it from the air. To our relief, it growls with satisfaction, "Orb...," and, having apparently received what it wanted, it takes off down the mountain and leaves a clear path.

The only problem is that the next plateau rests across a lengthy gap, and we don't have any items that can help us cross such a breach. We do, however, know a spell that can apparently create a "bridge of light" when we're "on frozen stone and there's no path in sight." It's the Polykromus spell, which we learned after we drank the dragon tears that Colvin left behind. We hope that it can do what it says. We chant it, and to our great delight, it creates a rainbow bridge that connects the two plateaus. The bridge is firm, we find when we touch it with our boot, so we confidently travel over it.

The bridge carries us over to the other plateau. We step onto it, and the moment we do, we encounter our pal Colvin the dragon! He's resting on a crude nest. We gape in astonishment at this coincidence.

As we stare upon him, we wonder if we have any more sugary treats. We say hello to him with a wave, and he responds by looking up at us and asking, "Small man bring more tempies for Colvin?"

Fortunately we have a few more tempies in our possession. We feed what's left of them to Colvin, and after he finishes the treats, he stands upright and motions us forward as if offering to give us a ride. We take the offer and hop onto his back. We try to settle ourselves as he scoots about and causes us to wildly sway. He asks us where we want to go. We gently nudge him toward the east. So he leaps from the rock face and takes to the skies (and helps us to get a sense of how high the Gatekeeper mountain really is). We don't know where, exactly, we're being taken, so we're going to have to live with whatever choice he makes.

We find out where we're going in the next chapter.

Chapter 9: Soul Reaver

After a short trip, we land with a stomach-churning lurch in a clearing somewhere inside the mountain. We're so stunned by the flight that we don't even protest when Colvin shrugs us off of his shoulders and flies off. We look around and find that we're at a dirt crossroad that leads to a lone cabin that's flanked by a dark forest. A sense of urgency begins to fill us.

We don't know what our immediate goal is, so we decide to head north and check out the cabin.

We approach the cabin and observe its exterior. Etched in to it, we see, are signs and symbols that we can't decipher. We can make out, though, that the one on the right depicts an ordinary decorative handprint and the one on the left depicts a sorcerer whose arms are held high and towards the heavens. So obviously a sorcerer of some type lives here.

The cabin's door isn't locked, so we open it up and enter the cabin.

The cabin's interior is adorned with even more in the way of celestial symbols, which leads us to believe that its owner is fascinated, or perhaps obsessed, with the passage of time.

There are a lot of things to see here. Most prominently, there are three books. We check them out (lore time!). First there's the yellow book. We open it to a bookmarked page and begin to read. Its text speaks of "The First Assault." It tells us that the Circle of Twelve convened a trial for the outcast, Talimar the Black, who is now known to all as the Warlock Lord. Talimar was charged with accessing forbidden tomes and delving into the black arts, including necromancy and "mind-walking." But Talimar was clever, and the trial was merely a trap to draw the Circle together. Once they all gathered, the trap was sprung. Many of the author's brethren fell on that dark day."

Then there's the red book. We open it to a bookmarked page and begin to read. Its text speaks of "The Second Trap." It tells us that the author, in his folly, convinced his brethren to let Talimar live. They agreed to do so and bound him with runes deep below Shadowgate. But that plan failed. Talimar escaped and murdered the rest of the Circle's members. Only the author remained. This forced the author's hand and prompted him to call forth the seed of prophecy to Shadowgate. His gamble was successful, and Talimar, consequently, was pulled into hell.

During the night's long hours, though, the author fears that this event, too, is another trap. For as Jair vanquished Talimar, he says, the fiend first beheld that which he had long sought: the Staff of Ages.

So obviously these books and this cabin belong to Lakmir the Timeless! This must be where he hangs out as he watches over Shadowgate!

And finally there's the blue book. We open it to a bookmarked page and begin to read. Its text speaks of "The Revenant War." It says that Talimar's war raged against all of Kal Torlin's kings, and cities fell to his hordes as he tore across the lands. Trolls, changelings, goblins and ogres led the attack while Talimar resurrected his foes as armies of shambling corpses. Recognizing that their ends were near, the remaining kings' forces and the Circle of Twelve united and met Talimar's army at Maudslay. On these holy grounds, by more luck than might, Talimar was humbled and captured, and his monsters were either scattered or killed.

So now we have some insightful backstory to the original Shadowgate!

The cabin contains two other notable objects. The first is its very old and very worn desk. We notice that it has a handle, and we use it to lift up the desk top. The desks inner compartment contains a single item: a gold ring that has a symbol of a handprint carved into it. Thinking that this item is as good as a treasure chest, we grab it.

The second notable object is the relief on the northern wall. It has a hexagonal shape and can obviously be filled with something. At the moment, unfortunately, we don't possess any hexagon-shaped items. So we decide that there's nothing else that we can do here at the moment and exit the cabin through its northern exit.

That door takes us to the edge of the forest, whose entrance is obstructed by a wall of thornbush. The bushes' brambles are as thick and as strong as steel cables, and as we approach them, we swear that they move toward us. Since, also, the path into the brush fades to black, we decide against traveling it at this moment. Instead, we head back to the crossroad and take the right path. (If we ignore our gut instinct and attempt to travel the forest path, the vines creep toward us, and then, suddenly, the thicket heaves up and collapses onto us and slices our flesh to ribbons.)

The right path takes us to another conduit. As we approach it, the wisp speaks to us in a soft and weak voice. It tells us that this portal uses a different source of energy. It's powered by life force, it says, and demands a great sacrifice to open. But it has an idea: It thinks that we may be able to borrow some life force from the recently departed. It then tells us to speak to the dead, see their final moments, and find the ones that can lend us their last bit of life.

The wisp realizes that much has been asked of us and that this task won't be easy, but it encourages us to remain resolute, for we have already proven ourselves capable.

Well, we've come across three sets of skeletal remains during our journey, so what we have to do now is remember where we saw them, find them, and then use our Discitea Mort spell on them. That's our new goal.

Thinking back, we remember that we came across a skeleton at the start of our journey. It was in one of the prison cells. So we head back to the prison to "speak" with it. We have to do by using our Tachytheos spell on the nearby ferry stone and teleporting back to Castle Gwynenthell (when we use the spell, our map comes up and allows to choose our warp target) because our boat sank and we can no longer return to the Torlin Forest via the sea.

We use the spell on the skeletal prisoner and learn he was the king's advisor. By chance, he came across O'Vyn's journal (after it dropped out of his satchel) and learned of his and Veldar's plot to remove the king. While he was thinking about the king's whereabouts, his attention was drawn to the reflection in the large mirror. At that moment, green, scaly claw-tipped hands reached out from the mirror and covered his face. One hand stifled his screams while the other slid over his neck.

So he was silenced and "betrayed" by Belezsarr--the plan's mastermind.

As we observe the vision, we learn, chillingly, that we're able to grab and obtain the recently departed's souls! So we take the advisor's soul, which is labeled "betrayed soul."

We remember that was also saw a skeleton in the desert. We head there and use the spell on it. And we learn that it belongs to a man who died while he was trying to navigate his way through the vast desert. He trudged forward and did his best to fight the relentless desert winds that were tearing across his face. He wandered aimlessly for days, and eventually thirst and exhaustion got the better of him. "A portal to far-off lands," he whispered to himself as he clutched the hand wheel, "was not worth my life." Those were his final words.

After seeing his story, we take his soul. It's labeled "lost soul."

We also remember seeing a skeleton in Themeire Mansion. It was embedded in one of the basement's walls. So we head back to the basement and use the spell on the skeleton.

We learn that it belongs to the mansion's cook, who, while preparing dinner, unintentionally read the master's notes. Apparently they spoke of a dastardly scheme. The cook felt that it was his responsibility to stop the scheme from proceeding, and he decided that the best course of action was to take the charm (which, we learned earlier, was one of the elements needed to summon creatures of unnatural origins) and dispose of it in the nearby swamp. He planned to do that after dinner.

"Then I will escape to Gwynenthell and tell--" he started to think right before an unnamed person put an abrasive rope around his neck and lifted him into the air. He was thus hanged to death. (If our assumptions about this place are correct, then it was surely the case that the "master" in question was Talimar, who hanged the cook after he learned something that he wasn't supposed to.)

When the story concludes, we take the cook's soul, which is labeled "poor soul."

We need three more souls, but we don't remember seeing any other recently deceased people. (The corpse in the mansion's graveyard, we learn upon using the spell on it, had been lying there a long time, so it has no life force to offer.)

So what we do is retrace our steps and re-explore all of the game's areas in search of skeletons and corpses. Eventually we come across three of them in the Torlin forest.

We find them at the checkpoint.

The two respectfully covered corpses, we're sure, belong to the dead soldiers that we came across in the mine. We start by using our spell on the middle corpse. We learn that this soldier suffered severe injuries while he was in the cave, but he continued to press onward. When he looked ahead and saw a soldier wildly swinging his sword in darkness, he yelled to him and implored him to flee. "Aghh! Run, damn it! It's dire wolves!" he shouted. "Get up the rope." Moments later, though, a wolf tackled him from behind and took a bite out of his neck. That's how he perished.

We take his soul, which is labeled "brave soul."

Then we use our spell on the leftmost corpse. We learn that he slowly died after some creature (presumably one of the wolves that the other soldier was warning him about) took a giant bite out of his thigh. As he searched for someone named "Marovin," the pain was the only thing keeping him awake. But soon he collapsed from exhaustion and bled to death.

We take his soul, which is labeled "valiant soul."

And finally, we use our spell on the fallen guard captain, who was alive the last time we saw him. We learn that he received mortal wounds in the cave while he was slaying the wolves and retrieving the bodies of the two dead soldiers. After he returned to the checkpoint with the bodies, he collapsed from exhaustion and died. We also learn, tragically, that the two soldiers were brothers and that the guard captain was their father. The captain's last words were directed at his fallen children. He said to them, "We're home, boys... I got 'em for ye. Got 'em all." And before fading away, he said, "Be good lads, an' tell your mum I'll see her again..." (So that's really sad. What an awful way for an entire family to go out!)

But our only real concern now is the portal. We travel back to it, then we release all six of our souls into it. Each soul causes one set of the conduit's carvings to emit a gentle red glow and thus infuse the conduit with more energy. When we finish releasing all six souls into the conduit, nothing happens; no portal appears.

At that moment, the wisp floats before us and speaks gently. It gives us its thoughts on our journey. It tells us that it foresaw us rotting in a cell, but that, surprisingly, didn't happen; we escaped, rather, and freed a king. It foresaw us being slain by Torlin Forest's numerous beasts, but instead we bested each one. We traveled across time and space, it says, and made our way home and closer to stopping the coming cataclysm. We've surprised it and have proven ourselves to be a worthy ally in the battle against darkness. But now, it informs us, we must proceed alone.

The wisp explains that the portal requires one more soul and makes it clear that it's going so sacrifice its own soul for the cause. It implores us to be brave and clever and never submit to the evil we're going to face, and then, sadly, it bids us farewell. It then releases itself into the conduit. Reacting to this sacrifice, the conduit reaches full power and generates a portal. No image displays on the portal, so we don't know where it's going to take us.

And that's how the chapter ends. Our wisp ally departs in a depressing way, and we're left to figure out the next step on our own. We honor her final request and step through the portal.

Chapter 10: The Mines of Mythrok

We exit the portal and find ourselves in an unknown location. Though, in observing our surroundings, we recognize that we're standing on a cold stone mountain.

This area is taken from Shadowgate VR: The Mines of Mythrok, which released three years ago. I haven't played it, but I have seen video of it. So I know that this area closely emulates the look, structure and theme of of that game.

Our goal here is unclear. All we can do is explore the mines and hope to find something that can help us to enter the forest.

From this starting area, we can travel in two directions: forward and back. We head forward, to the entrance in the distance. We do this by passing through an elaborate platform whose spires look like giant fangs.

And soon we come upon a stone door. According to the runes that are etched onto it, we've arrived at the entrance to the famous mines of Mythrok. We find that it's not possible to break through the door by force, so we have to find another way to open it. While thinking of ways to do so, we retreat to the starting area.

And when we move to the south, we look up towards the unsettlingly large moon and notice that a steel cage is hanging from the ceiling. It's imprisoning a red-eyed raven. Upon seeing us, the raven greets us and tells us that his name is Odin; then he welcomes us to the mines of Mythrok. Subsequently he requests that we release him from the case. If we do this, he says, he'll lend us his knowledge and guide us through the land. He finishes his speech by motioning his wing toward the handle below the cage.

We grant his request and release him. He thanks us and does so with a hint of gratitude. After we introduce ourselves to him, he decides to join us as a guide. He flies over to us and perches on our shouder, then he advises us, with a cheerful squawk, to move forward, into the mine. (Basically he's our new "hint" character, who, of course, we're going to ignore. Because like I said: Us true adventurin' types don't need no stupid hints!)

As we reenter the starting area, we pause as we witness something remarkable: glass shards floating off of the ground and assembling themselves into a mirror!

When the mirror finishes taking form, the visage of an old man appears in it and says, "Listen to me, sorcerer, for time is fleet." We're not a sorcerer, so we wonder what this is all about. Odin explains that this isn't a direct communication. It's only a recording, he says, but we should pay attention to it anyway. The old man continues and reveals that he's Lakmir the Timeless, the warder of Castle Shadowgate. He says that the great drums of the mountain dwarves have gone silent, but we shouldn't fret, for he will not leave us unarmed. He presents to us Odin, his raven, who will guide us to our destination. Then he wishes us luck.

As soon as he's done speaking the glass falls away. And at that moment, Odin formally offers his services and tells us to hurry over to the stone door. We follow his command.

As we approach the door, Odin perks up and says, "Ahem, open sesame," and this causes the door to slide open (as MacVenture fans, we remember that we learned this same spell in Uninvited and used it for a similar purpose). We're astonished by this occurrence. Odin looks at quizzically and wonders why we didn't try doing this. We must be amateurs, he thinks.

We pass through the door and find ourselves standing in the main hallway. To our surprise, it's dead silent in here. We look around and notice that a small green tablet is resting on a nearby mounting. We recall reading that dwarves use these types of objects to power various mechanisms. Feeling that we might need such an item, we take it.

We survey the hallway and see that two paths are available: the next part of the long hallway, which leads to a doorway, and a rightward path, which leads to an alcove. We decide to go to the alcove first.

The small alcove, as we spied from the previous room, contains a small red chest. It's not locked, surprisingly, so we open it and look inside of it. It contains a blue orb. We take it, and as we do so, Odin offers us some insight. He tells us that these mines are covered in glamour spells and that the orb will help us see through the facade and illuminate the truth where things seem to be missing.

We notice that one of the bricks in the left wall is loose, which is odd to us because we expect dwarven structures to be flawless in construction. We look closely at it and find that it has no handles or notches, so we do what we always do when we see a loose brick in these games: we punch it! When we do this, the stone crumbles away and reveals a metal key. We make sure to pocket it.

We retreat to the main hallway and head over to the door at its far end. The door, which leads into the mine, is locked. Our new metal key ("Key 1," as it's called), as we correctly guessed, fits into its lock and allows us to open it. We pass through it and enter the mine.

We stand in another strangely quiet corridor. It, like the one before it, offers us two paths: the next part of the hallway and a side path on the left. We take the side path first.

It leads to a heavily mined area that's comprised mostly of a deep pit. Several narrow stone platforms create a pathway to the stone pedestal at the area's end. As we survey the the pedestal from afar, we see that a large, glowing sigil is positioned above it. Odin tells us not to worry about the magical symbol; it is, he says, merely a defense mechanism that's there to sense threats, and we, being the diminutive fool that we are, couldn't possibly be considered a threat! He finishes his thought with a snicker.

So we travel over the bridge and approach the stone pedestal. It contains a workbench whose ornate mirror casts a stunning reflection of our surroundings.

A number of objects rests upon the workbench. The first is an ancient scroll. We open it up and read its scribbled text. It was written by a dwarf named "Borin," and it's addresses a person named "Hedrog," to whom he brings news. He tells Hedrog that he hasn't heard anything from "Firgrin" since his crew entered the western tunnel. This is uncharacteristic of Firgrin, Borin notes. He's activating the defenses because he believes that Firgrin accidentally unleashed something that was hidden in this mine long ago. He hasn't seen anyone since then. He wants Hedrog to raise the alarm and send word to King Thurmor at Dragonfel.

So that explains why this mine is empty.

The second item is a morbid skull candle, whose flame never flickers (thanks, we think, to another ingenious dwarven power source). It's obtainable, so we add it to our collection.

The third item is another small green tablet. We add it, too, to our collection.

The fourth item is a strange red book. When we turn our attention to it, Odin says, in a gravely manner, "If you could see what I can, you wouldn't touch that book, fenling." We take his advice and avoid messing with the book (if we open it, an apparition emerges from it and then floats over to us and touches our face; this causes all of the skin to melt off our body).

There's nothing else to do here, so we return the corridor.

Note that there's a random event that can occur as you're exploring the mine's corridors. At any point, a large, silly-looking red spider (which basically looks like a cotton ball with legs) can hop down from the ceiling and obstruct us. Odin, who is afraid of spiders, tells us to "squash" it, which is a hint that we can only repel it with a physical attack. If we do anything other than hit the spider, it leaps onto our back, pierces our neck with its fangs, and injects us with venom, which quickly paralyzes us. The last thing we see is the spider extruding sticky threads and wrapping us up in them. And if we die in this place, we get a look at its exclusive grim reaper. (I'm guessing that it's the one that appears in Shadowgate VR: Mines of Mythrok.)

We move to the corridor's next section, which also has two paths: one that leads further into the mine, and another that leads to the side path. We take the side path first.

This one is another heavily mined area that's comprised mostly of a deep pit. This time, though, the narrow stone steps are pushed off to the side, so there's no path to the pit's far end.

While surveying our immediate surroundings, we notice that one of the area's torches is unlit, and this strikes us as odd. We know that we can't take torches in this game, but we sense, still, that we can do something with this torch. (We're sure that we can because we've seen something like this before: the interactable torch in Shadowgate's arrow room. It, too, had a conspicuous-sounding description attached to it.) So we decide to "Use" the torch. When we do so, it flips down, like a lever, and the attached mechanism causes the stone steps to snap to the room's center and form a bridge! "Aren't we clever?" we think. (We're not, Odin tells us. Being that this was the mine's only unlit torch, it was obvious that we needed to interact with it. Oh well.)

So we travel over the bridge and approach the stone pedestal and its workbench.

What's immediately strange to us is that the workbench's mirror doesn't cast a reflection. Rather, it displays only darkness. "Curious," we think. We have no guess as to why the mirror is displaying darkness, so we instead turn our attention to the books that are resting upon the workbench. Unfortunately, they're all written in a language we don't understand, and we'd rather not ask Odin about them. So we retreat back to the pit's starting area and re-examine our surroundings, looking for answers.

As we do this, we notice that the area's vigil is unlit. It's almost, we think, like the symbol is being obscured by sorcery. We have an item that might help us here: the orb of sight. Remembering what Odin told us about the orb, we hold it aloft, and when we do this, energy pulsates from the orb and dispels the darkness that was shading the vigil. At that moment, the vigil lights up and begins to emit a warm glow. The orb's energy, we notice, also dispelled the darkness that was shading the workbench's mirror, so we return to the mirror and find out what it's displaying.

And, well, it's now a normal mirror. We think as much until we look closer and observe something truly bizarre: The mirror is reflecting images of two items that don't actually appear on our side! We wonder if it's possible to obtain these items. We try doing that by selecting the "Take" command and pointing at bench areas whose spaces correlate to the mirror images. And when we do this, we're able to take the two items: the key and the small green tablet! They become visible as we take possession of them.

Feeling that we've done all that we can do here, we return to the corridor and then head further into it.

And we come to yet another deep pit. This one contains four stone pedestals, one of which has a small green tablet resting in its indentation. We sense that they're not here for decoration.

We take the tablet from corner-left pedestal. Though, we have a problem: There's nowhere else to go in this mine, and we have no way of crossing this long pit and reaching the door on the room's far side. But then we remember how this room looked when we first entered into it: There was a tablet on one of the pedestals. So maybe, we think, it's possible to place tablets onto all of these pedestals. We find that it is! We note, also, that three of the pedestals radiate energy when tablets are placed into their indentations. So we place tablets atop only these three pedestals. When we do this, a rumbling sound echoes through the chamber, and moments later, the door on the far side opens, and stone steps rise from the darkness and form a bridge.

So we solved two problems at once!

We head through the door, to the mine proper.

There are two ways to travel here: forward, through a wooden door, and a side path that leads to an alcove. We head into the alcove first and come across a large orb that sits atop some type of control mechanism. We recognize it as a device for storing messages. We notice, also, that there's an empty slot below the orb and believe that it probably controls the orb.

And since we know that the small green tablets are what dwarves use to power their devices, we insert our remaining tablet into the slot. When we do this, the orb comes to life and an image begins to form. A dwarf's face appears within the orb, and his concern is obvious.

Suddenly, a voice comes emits the orb. It belongs to the dwarf, who wonders about the whereabouts of King Thurmor's legion. He tells the message's target, Hedrog, that the defenses are failing and the shadows are lengthening. "Do not forsake me here!" he pleads. He says that signs of destruction are growing with each step. Also, what was released was no mere beast, no. Rather, it was nothing less than the dark wizard. "Do you hear him?" he asks Hedrog. "A lilting aria pulls at my will even as I ready the few last defenses."

He has done all that he could. The dark wizard calls to him, but he shall not answer. The wizard will not have his soul, he defiantly states. He will deny him this with his last breath.

As soon as the message ends, the orb powers down, and we hear the distinctive sound of a minecraft slowing to a halt. Odin chimes in and tells us that these are dark times, indeed, but the only thing that matters to us at this moment is that the minecart is ready for us. There is nothing we could have done to save these dwarves, he says. (My first instinct is to think that the dark wizard in question is Talimar, but obviously he hasn't been resurrected yet. So I don't know who, exactly, the dwarf was talking about. I have only ideas.)

So we retreat to the stone path and prepare to move forward. We can't do so easily, though, because the door is locked. We try opening it with the key that we found on the second workbench, and thankfully the key works. The door opens. We move through it and enter into a mine shaft.

The halted minecart is waiting at its docking station. We quickly hop into it.

The minecart doesn't operate when we pull its lever, so we know that something's missing. We inspect the vehicle and find that it has a traditional coal furnace. Though, there's no soot in it, which suggests that it runs on a different source of heat. We have only one item that possesses the abilities to emit heat and act as a power source: the skull candle that we found on the first workbench. We place it in the furnace and get the desired result: The furnace ignites and rumbles to life! And now that the minecart is powered, we pull its lever and begin our trip through the mine!

It's a long trip, and as the cart travels faster and deeper into the mine's quiet darkness, we fill the time by conversing with Odin. We hear Odin's story about how he became trapped in the cage. We argue about the true nature of an odd creature--a giant fire-spitting mouth with wings, which Odin somehow mistook for a sorcerer (this, I learned, is a reference to a creature encountered in the Shadowgate VR game). And we try to convince Odin that the crime we committed earlier (the act of theft that got us thrown in the castle dungeon) was, in reality, a simple attempt to safekeep the dutchess' bauble.

Eventually the cart approaches an empty platform and begins to slow, and soon it stops at a mine station. Odin wastes no time in pushing us to jump off of the cart (mostly because he has become motion sick). We do what he says and then move forward.

We arrive at the mine's exit point, which is blocked off by an ominous stone door. The door's inscription says that "only the master of the endless circle of time may pass through this door." And, well, because we're not Lakmir, we're likely screwed.

We remember seeing a leftward path in the mine station and decide to head there. That path takes us to another messaging device. This one is shaped differently, and its panel contains a button rather than a slot (we note that the device looks like a safe). When we press the button, an image appears on the orb.

It's Lakmir! His familiar voice booms in the small alcove. It welcomes the "sorcerer" and asks a task of him. Hidden within this safe, he says, is his talisman. He wants the message's target to take this object and travel to his cabin. It, he says, will reveal the final path for this subject. He warns the subject that as he proceeds, he'll come to understand the danger that he faces. He trusts that Odin has served the subject faithfully.

We glare at Odin and mumble, "He's been talkative, yes."

Lakmir concludes his speech by telling the subject to make haste, for an evil stirs in a place long forgotten.

As the echo of his voice fades, the orb face slides away and reveals a hidden compartment. It contains a blue and red hexagonal talisman (incidentally, we remember seeing a hexagon-shaped relief in Lakmir's cabin). We take it and then head back to the stone door. As we walk toward it, the door responds to the talisman and quickly rises, revealing a path forward.

The path takes us up to the mountain peak, on which rests a portal. Thinking "What's one more portal," we hop into it. It takes us back to the crossroad. As we step upon it, Odin makes sure to remind us that he's still with us. He's going to see us through this adventure until the very end, he says, so we have no need to worry.

We head back into the cabin and promptly place the talisman into the hexagonal relief. It fits perfectly! But nothing happens. Something isn't right. So we take the talisman back.

Upon examining the cabin further, we finally notice that its northern doorway has a furled tapestry above it. We unfurl the the richly woven tapestry and cover the door with it. We see that it depicts the image of an aimless path that leads nowhere. Thinking that the tapestry's depiction has something to do with the puzzle, we try placing the talisman in the relief while the tapestry is unfurled. And our instinct is correct. When the talisman is placed, a sudden burst of light flashes and temporarily blinds us. Something has changed, we suspect--perhaps something in the area behind the cabin. So we exit the cabin through its northern door.

And this time, we don't see a dark void in the distance. Rather, we see a magical stone archway. Its opening emits an otherworldly glow, so we believe that it must lead somewhere far beyond. So we push through the brambles and make our way into the passage.

We emerge to find ourselves face to face with a terrifying creature! We're paralyzed with fear as the creature gazes upon us. We can tell that it's thinking as it looks us over.

It's the creature that appears on the box covers of the PC versions of Shadowgate! The most notable thing about it, Beyond Shadowgate's creators remind us, is that it never actually appeared in the game (at the time, they tell us, it was common for box art to be disconnected from the in-game art). So they decided to finally canonize it and make it an important character.

At this moment, the music stops and a deathly silence takes hold.

We're not sure what to make of this bizarre-looking creature, but by looking at it, we can see that its eyes radiate power and intelligence beyond anything we have ever encountered. So we decide that the best thing to do is try to speak to it. As we do this, its eyes focus on us, yet it appears as though its staring through us. Soon it begins to speak. "Welcome, savior," it says in a raspy voice. We try to tell it who we actually are, but it interrupts us and continues to deliver its message.

As it speaks, its gaze lingers on our form for a moment but settles past us. It knows our name and our pet's name, it says, but it's not here to address us. Odin objects to being called a "pet," but the creature ignores him and continues.

35 years ago, it says, the saviors and their champions came. The champions had names: Jair, Erik and Del. The saviors were all brave souls, but in truth, they were all fools. Their battles raged across all reality. Champions fell and rose again, both in monochrome realms and lands that were ripe with color. The war repeated across multiple dimensions. The story that spoke of it was warped, retold, and replayed infinitely, and the truth was misunderstood. Kal Torlin celebrated each story's end as the true victor was banished.

At this moment, the creature's voice becomes grave. It says that the stage is set and the final act begins. "Will you deliver this land from evil?" it asks. "Or will you plunge it into darkness?" The story ends with us (the player), it declares, so we must steel ourselves and lead our young fenling and raven into battle.

After it speaks its final words, it vanishes and leaves behind an opening. As foretold, a great unknown lies beyond this threshold.

And with that, the chapter ends.

This weird creature's speech was absolutely fascinating and surreal. What it did, essentially, was break the fourth wall and reconcile the fact that there are so many Shadowgate versions and sequels but no solid canon. It does this by explaining that all of the games we played were mere interpretations or erroneous retellings of one single story. And thus it ties everything together. And while we don't know how the story's first act actually played out, we're assured that we're about to experience the events that represent the story's true ending.

Heavy stuff, man.