Classic Games Revisited
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands Walkthrough
8. The Arena & Slave Pens
8.1. Leveling Up
The game starts with an order in the name of the king, demanding slaves to fight to the death, and you are ushered into a gladiatorial arena. The order bears the seal of a Templar named Pehtucl. The Announcer tells you that your turn to fight will come soon.
You will witness the first battle between a solitary defiler and some very difficult monsters. One can only imagine that the defiler must have insulted the king in some way. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the defiler will die in a couple of rounds, but on extremely rare occasions you may see the monsters defeated. The outcome of this battle is of no consequence though.
As soon as the opening battle is over, you gain control of your party at 1. You are in a safe area while you remain within the bone walls, but you cannot retreat to the slave pens until you have fought at least one group of monsters. Press 5 to reveal all your characters and have your Cleric cast Bless on everyone. Cast Protection from Evil on at least a couple of party members. You can also use metabolics like Biofeedback to improve your chances of survival. When you are ready, leave the walled area to the south at 2. The gate will close behind you and the first group of monsters will show up from the west (other groups can spawn at the east or west).
Remember that the only Thief in my party for the moment is Bellatrix—everyone else’s Thief component has been disabled. I will try to get in a backstab or two if possible, but for now I am not relying on it. That is also why I will not do more than a couple of fights at a time before going back to the slave pens to rest. For healing, I have access to the Cleric’s Cure Light Wounds.
If you are faced with a spellcasting creature (e.g., a Defiler or Screamer Beetle), go for it first. If you manage to get a hit in, it will not be able to cast spells or psionics for that round. Also, always go for a creature that has not yet acted in that round; why go for a creature that has already hurt you when another one is waiting to cause more pain? Other than that, until you level up enough to use more thieves than just Bellatrix, there are no special tactics. Watch your health and don’t overstretch yourself. It may not be particularly fun to keep going back to the slave pens and returning just to repeat the process all over again, but it is less fun to have a dead party member or two. And yes, Save between fights (F1). For now there is no way to revive dead characters so if anyone dies, reload. If they are not dead but Out Cold they can be healed or they will wake up with 1 HP when the fight is over.
If you wish, you can attack any one creature with a ranged weapon or damaging/disabling psionic as your opening salvo before battle actually begins to try and get in a lucky shot on a spellcaster. However, this will initiate combat so make sure the creatures are close enough so that the rest of the party can reach them to actually do damage, especially since missile weapons have a great tendency to miss at low levels.
Most importantly, watch your XP and level. As soon as Arcturus hits level 2 in Thief, I will dual-class him into a Gladiator. You can do this by right-clicking his portrait on the View Characters or Inventory screens, even in the middle of a fight. If you adopted my strategy and forget to do this, you will end up grinding for a lot longer than you need to. Castor and Dubhe will go on for a bit, until they have 5 levels of Gladiator (which means their Thief component will be active between levels 4 and 5). At that point I will dual-class them into Druid and Preserver, respectively.
After each fight, the Announcer will address you and you have options to reply to him politely, say nothing, insult him or insult the king. Predictably, the first two options will let you return to the slave pens. Insulting the Announcer will result in another group of monsters. Insulting the king will result in an extremely difficult group of monsters. Until you have several levels and a few thieves active, this could mean suicide, maybe even for the whole party.
Depending on how well you performed in a fight, the spectators may throw ceramic pieces at you. Whether they throw any and how generous they are depends on how well or badly you performed (number of rounds the fight lasted). Be sure to pick up all of it, but note that lingering around in the arena after a fight can cause the Announcer to send in more monsters, so collect your winnings quickly. Fortunately, time flows only while you are in exploration mode (the arrow mouse pointer) and not in examination (eye) or attack (weapon) mode. So you can right-click to change to examination mode and pan around the arena at your leisure to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
Retreating to within the bone walls will prevent more monsters from spawning. From there, you will have to go to the slave pens and return if you want to fight more, or get close enough to the Announcer then speak to him by clicking on him with the examination mouse pointer. Again, you’ll have dialogue options to be aggressive, docile or even flattering.
There are a few more things we can do in the arena, but we’ll get around to those in due course. For now, Arcturus has leveled up once so I have dual-classed him and we are going into the slave pens.
8.2. Objective
Your primary objective is to find an escape out of slavery. We’ll get to that eventually but there are many more things you can do during your first, fourth, and subsequent visits to the pens, and even during your second and fifth visits to the arena. All the more reason why I don’t mind grinding—as a completionist, I would make all these trips anyway.
As soon as you enter the slave pens, you are addressed by Kurzak, the leader of the guards. You can ask him several questions but the conversation leads nowhere. He will not help you in any way, at least not yet. You can pay him for an Empty Water Pot but don’t bother. Standing north of Kurzak is Legcrusher, who can tell you about upcoming monsters in the arena but is otherwise as useless as Kurzak. His respect for you will grow as you defeat more mobs in the arena.
Once you end the conversation, Kurzak will direct you follow him to the door at 1, and will lock it behind you once you enter. By clicking on this door, you can call out to Kurzak to let you back out into the arena, or you can choose an option to be taken directly to the arena without any pleasantries.
Almost everything from here up to The Great Escape is optional, but you will miss out on a lot of XP and adventure if you skip it. I will go over the non-optional parts again when describing The Great Escape.
Go to the room at 2 and pick up the Empty Water Pot. We’ll need it quite soon. As you go south from here, you will overhear a conversation among Merzol’s gang. Merzol is a potential ally who can help you escape, but we will not be taking his help. If you wish to gain Merzol’s favor, you will need to visit the arena twice more before he is willing to even speak to you. The number of fights you get into while there has no bearing on this count, only the number of times you visit. For now we will ignore Merzol and speak to Gilal at 3.
8.3. Gilal & Dinos
You can ask Gilal about several things, but if you ask her about escaping she will suddenly get a splitting headache. Roaming around the hallway is a man named Trustee. You can speak to him about all the slaves, but you want to talk to him specifically about Dinos and Scar. The information about Scar will help extract some XP out of Semyon later. Say that you would like to meet Dinos and Trustee will agree to leave a key at 4 when he passes by that area. Note that having a Thief speak to Trustee will also give you the option to pickpocket the key (which is what I will do). The thief gets 250xp for pulling it off (it has never failed for me). If you coax Trustee into dropping the key at 4 you will get no XP.
Use the key (hold it on the mouse pointer) to open the door at 4 as well as the door at 5. You can drop the key anywhere once the door is open—nobody will notice or complain. Do not attempt to pick the lock on the door at 5; although you will succeed, it will also sound an alarm that will turn everyone hostile against you. While that is a valid way to escape, we are neither at a level to be able to take on the entire mob, nor are we done with any of the quests in here.
Next to the door at 5 is a wardrobe you can search through several times for random items. I got lucky and found a cheap gem and some black (purple) grapes. But two broken pots also fell on me and hurt me.
Go kill the lone guard at 6. He will try to raise an alarm but nobody can hear him. He is easy enough to take out for a party of four. On his body, you will find an Obsidian Long Sword, Leather Arm Armor that goes to Arcturus, and a Bow and Arrows that go to Dubhe. Slings require no ammunition but bows and arrows do more damage. The Obsidian sword is no different from the Bone kind in terms of damage (the material matters in case of gear restrictions), but hold on to some extra swords until you have enough magical weapons to go around—mundane weapons can break at any time.
Go to the water trough at 7 and use the Empty Water Pot on it to fill it up. The person who does this gets 200xp, so if someone is close to leveling up, set them to be the party leader when you do this. Next to the trough are a few pots. Break any one (stand next to it, change the mouse pointer to a sword, and click) to find a gem. This gem can be acquired when you break the first pot anywhere in the pens. Breaking more pots will yield nothing.
Now speak to Dinos at 8 and tell him about Gilal’s plight. He will want you to escort him to her, so do that. Dinos will ease her pain, for which every party member gets 350xp.
Notice the haystack at 9. You can examine it multiple times to find random items, including ceramic pieces or insects that can bite you for a bit of damage. Usually if you don’t find anything of interest 3-4 times in a row, items will stop spawning. If you are lucky, you can also literally “find a needle in a haystack” for which the game rewards the player with a whopping 10xp. In fact, you can get more needles and 10xp each time you find one! I had to save and reload a few times to get this screenshot because I find this inclusion in the game quite funny and novel.
8.4. Haunted House
Go to the door at 10. Bellatrix will have to pick the lock on it to open it. If Trustee is nearby, he will warn you against opening it but will not otherwise object to you doing so. You need to be standing quite close to the door to be able to do this, and you may need to try more than once; keep at it, the door will eventually open. You’ll be attacked by a Zombie from the adjoining room once you enter. If the Cleric gets to go first, she will Turn Undead; anyone else will just hack away at it.
The door you entered from will have closed behind you. On getting close to the western wall, the game will inform you of a button on the northern wall at 11. Set the party leader to whoever should get the next chunk of XP and press the button to open the gap that the Zombie came through. The party leader will get 250xp.
Take the chest at 12. It has four Arrows +3 and Bone Scale Armor. Arcturus gets the armor as it is an upgrade to his Leather Armor. I’m mostly interested in the chest itself though, to increase the number of inventory slots I can have. Now examine the sarcophagus at 13 to find 50cp and an expensive gem. To leave, stand next to the door at 10, examine it, and take the hinges off.
South of this room is Mirlon at 14. Speak to him about escaping and he will demand a gem to be able to bribe the guards. We already found this gem at 7, but don’t hand it over to Mirlon yet. We only need to know about the gem’s existence for a dialogue option to be available later. Just find out from Mirlon that the gem is with Semyon and agree to his deal. To the south of Mirlon is Scar who can also help you escape, but he is not interested in speaking to you until you’ve visited the arena at least three more times.
Go to the campfire at 15 and rest. The large haystack in this room can be searched for items too, but if you searched the haystack at 9 and Dinos’ wardrobe enough times, chances are this one will be empty. We didn’t rest until now because while in the pens you are always on a timer, after which Kurzak will call you out to the arena. The timer is generous, but not overly so. Resting significantly speeds it up. Kurzak will send Legcrusher to fetch you if you fail to appear before him quickly enough. If you still fail to go to the door at 1, he will sound an alarm and everyone will start hunting you down. So any time you hear him calling for you, hastily make your way to the door at 1.
8.5. Freeing Semyon
After resting, Kurzak announced my name immediately, so off to the arena we go for our second visit. My Cleric now has more spells such as Barkskin, Spiritual Hammer and Hold Person. I have only 3 casts of Level 2 spells though, so I will have to be selective about which ones I want to use. If you wish, you can ask Legcrusher about the next group of monsters before leaving the pens.
Get the battle out of the way, then speak to the tied-up prisoner at 3 and untie him. He will drop to the ground from exhaustion. Give him the Pot of Water (pick it from your inventory and drop it on him) and he will stand up and go to the safe area (1) of the arena. Each party member gets 750xp. Follow him and speak to him once he parks himself at the northwest corner. Don’t rush to the holding area—let him enter first before the gate closes behind you! You can drop the empty water pot as there is no further use for it.
When you speak to Semyon, you will have to choose the irritated option, begrudgingly accepting that you are from the Veiled Alliance. Then ‘make him a member’ of the Alliance (you will not be able to do this if you did not talk to Trustee about Scar). Whoever is doing the talking will get 250xp. You also have the option to ask him about the gem since we spoke to Mirlon at 14 in the pens. That doesn’t get you anything (we already have the gem) but the dialogue option would not have been available if we hadn’t learnt about the gem earlier.
There is another person hung up at 4, but if you free him he will just die. You can attack the vulture next to him to knock its feathers off, and then pick thedead vultureoff the ground. You can then place the dead vulture on the campfire in the slave pens to cook it. This doesn’t amount to anything useful.
Other dead bodies around the arena have a pair ofshoes(useless), aWooden Club, and aBone Gythka. It is a two-handed weapon so you don’t get as many APR as when dual-wielding, so I just leave it there. Some enemies will also drop gear.
Arcturus is now a level 3 Gladiator, and Castor and Dubhe are both level 4 Gladiators, which means already everyone’s Thief component is active. Arcturus needs one more level for his Preserver to be active. He doesn’t know the Enlarge spell yet, but his two casts of Magic Missile will already be useful. However, in one more level Castor and Dubhe’s Thief (and Gladiator) will again become inactive when I dual them into Druid and Preserver, respectively.
I will go into the slave pens and return to the arena at least two more times, as that is what is required to trigger a dialogue with Scar. While still in the holding area, you can ask Semyon to help you out with a fight, since you made him a member of the Veiled Alliance. He will join you for one battle, after which he will go into the slave pens (rather, he will seem to go into the pens but is nowhere to be found).
8.6. Merzol
After returning to the slave pens the third time and any time after that you can speak to Merzol at 16. He will come up with a half-cocked plan that involves fighting all the guards when Kurzak opens the door to let you into the arena. Respond whichever way you like, because I am going to cut down his whole gang right here. Nobody will mind if you kill them.
You could have killed them on your first trip too.
Once they are dead, search the haystack in the room for 100cp.
8.7. King of the Pens
After you have been to the arena four times (including the opening sequence), when you speak to Scar at 17, he will come up with a plan for you to escape by arranging a fight between your party and his gang. I will describe what happens but I will not be doing this myself, as it locks me out of the Mirlon route. There is also no additional XP to gain by becoming the King of the Pens, so you won’t be missing out on anything by not doing this.
The official cluebook incorrectly claims that Scar will only speak to you after you’ve been to the arena five times. If you went to the arena a fifth time without speaking to Scar, his gang will appear there for a fight anyway. You can still ask to work together in which case he will join you for an escape via the western exit at 5.
If you return to the arena after having spoken to Scar, you will have the opportunity to escape with Scar or kill him and his gang (they appear anyway on your fifth visit but the dialogue changes a little if you didn’t speak to Scar). Whoever kills Scar in the arena gets the title of King of the Pens. Mirlon will refuse to speak to you after that. The so-called escape involves going through the gate at 5, which only leads back into the slave pens, but to the western side (which was supposedly inaccessible because of the gates at 1 and 5). Had you chosen to escape, you would have to fight all the guards and Templar in the pens, so in reality it was no better than Merzol’s plan.
Instead, just like I did with Merzol, I will kill Scar and his gang right here within the slave pens, getting the same amount of XP I would have gotten by fighting them in the arena. We could have killed both gangs much earlier, but I did say this is a completionist walkthrough and I will try to cover everything the game has to offer. Attacking Scar at 17 will attract his goons from 18 and vice versa.
I will have to return to the arena several times to get my party to where I want them. Not too much longer though. Arcturus is already at level 5 so in a few more trips my Druid and Preserver will also be at level 4 or 5.
Castor as a Druid will not be able to wear any armor. I will have to be doubly careful with Dubhe: until he gets to level 4 in Preserver, he will not be able to use any equipment except slings (we don’t have a Quarterstaff). At level 4 his Thief component will be active so he will be back to fully functional with the gear available to us.
8.8. Mirlon & Pehtucl
Arcturus is now a level 5 Gladiator, Bellatrix is 4/5/4 Psionicist/Thief/Cleric, Castor has achieved level 5 in Druid and Dubhe is stuck at level 4 Preserver. He will catch up soon enough. Everyone has a Thief component active and can equip most gear. Whenever you feel ready, go to Mirlon at 14.
Don’t talk to him yet. First, drop your most expensive gems, leaving only Semyon’s Gem in your inventory, otherwise Mirlon will take the one with the highest value. Insist that Mirlon comes with you. Go with him to the door at 1 and announce that Mirlon sent you. Kurzak will open the door at 19. Go through, and Mirlon will take the lead, so follow him until you reach the Templar, Pehtucl, at 20.
The Templar will make you an incredible offer and you will be rich beyond your dreams if you follow his instructions. Sounds like a lovely proposition. Agree to his terms. He will start walking to the east, but before following him take the chest in his room. Wait for Pehtucl to go away (not entirely out of your vision but at least east enough so that he has no direct vision of Mirlon) and murder Mirlon. Unfortunately you cannot get the gem back, but at least you got a tiny amount of XP for killing this backstabbing agent of the Templar.
You could have gotten to Pehtucl (by walking via 6) without involving Mirlon and/or the gem, but this is the completionist way to do it.
Pehtucl is leading you into an ambush near 6. He will attack with four human guards and one half-giant guard. If you didn’t already kill the guard at 6, he will join in too. Slaughter them all, but be careful to kill them all near the fountain so that nobody can hear them squeal. If you follow closely behind the Templar, they will all spawn at 6. Otherwise they could spawn more to the west or even to the north, depending on your position relative to Pehtucl. If they spawn too far from the fountain, draw them to the water before killing them. Unfortunately the human guards carry missile weapons so drawing them to you can be a pain.
The Templar drops an Obsidian Bloodwrath +1 sword, your first magical weapon, and some other goodies. The key he carries is useless. Among the dead bodies you may be lucky enough to find a Shovel and a Stone Pick. Definitely take those (if you don’t find any now, take one of each as soon as you find them). Also take all the bows and arrows you can find, so that everyone can now wield a bow. Don’t worry about ammunition, there are lots of arrows available in the game.
If you notice more guards approaching you from elsewhere but have not received a notification of an alarm being raised, all is not lost yet. Wait by the fountain to let them approach and kill them while still near the fountain.
8.9. The Great Escape
We have already covered a few ways to begin your escape from the slave pens. I’ll cover all possible methods here and you can pick whichever suits you. Your objective is to reach 26, open the drain cover and escape into the sewers.
You can always knock on the door at 1 to summon Kurzak, fight your way through the guards (or attempt to run past them), optionally going around the map to slaughter everyone that is hostile, and make a dash for 26.
Any time after returning for the third time from the arena, you can accept Merzol’s proposal to do the same. Merzol and his gang will help you fight the guards. One advantage of both these approaches is that after making the guards hostile, you can retreat to the campfire and let the guards come to you, so you will have the option of resting as long as you are not in combat (i.e., while some guards are still far away).
At any time after returning for the fourth time from the arena, you can accept Scar’s proposal, go to the arena to supposedly fight him, agree to leave with him (or you can ask him to join you when you face his gang in the arena even if you didn’t speak to him in the slave pens), and take the exit at 5 from the arena. You will end up at the spot marked X in the slave pens and will have to fight through any guards in your way, optionally going around the map to kill everyone that is hostile, to reach 26. Scar and his gang will help you fight the guards, and they are tougher than Merzol’s gang.
If you kill Scar in the arena to become King of the Pens and Merzol is still alive, Merzol will beg you to let them help you.
The sneaky way requires a little bit of agility. It requires fighting one guard and one Mountain Stalker (quite a difficult creature so you need to have at least a few levels to pull it off). Pick the key off Trustee or get him to deposit it at 4 for you by declaring that you would like to meet Dinos. Use the key to open the doors at 4 and 5, and kill the guard at 6. Now walk to 21, stay behind the wall and shoot the pot at 22. A nearby guard will go there to investigate the noise; wait for him to go around the corner. You have to be quick now because people may start noticing your absence and this guard may come after you to investigate all the noise you will be making. Make your way to 23, have a thief pick the lock on the door, defeat the Mountain Stalker and press a button at 24 to open a wall on the left. Whoever presses the button receives 250xp. There are no hurdles between you and 26 now, but you still need to be quick.
If you’ve been following the walkthrough, we have opened the doors at 4 and 5 using Trustee’s key, killed the guard at 6, and killed the Templar. Now go to 21 and shoot the pot at 22 to distract the nearby guard (if you try to kill him he will raise an alarm). Again we need to be quick to take the same path noted above: pick the lock at 23, defeat the Mountain Stalker, press the button at 24 (party leader receives 250xp) and reach 26.
You can optionally stop along the way at 25 to pick up sacks of grain but remember, we are in a hurry and the sacks of grain will not earn you much. For that heavy load you will only get 5cp or some leather armor per sack.
Once you get to the sewer drain cover, your thief can try to pick the lock on it, which may take a few tries, or you can try to force it open. Choose to go into the Sewers. If you managed to sneak out without an alarm being raised, EACH party member gets a whopping 8,000xp! Woohoo. This route of escaping earns you the most XP, plus we got a magical sword along the way. Castor has completed his dual-classes so he will now be able to wear heavier armor when we find any. Dubhe is still at level 5 so he is some way away from being able to wear heavy armor, but he can cast 3x Enlarge, 2x Strength and a Fireball (all learnt while leveling up).
Don’t worry about the potential XP and items we left behind by not killing everyone. We will return in a bit for the ultimate massacre.