Classic Games Revisited
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands Walkthrough
20. Elven Slavers
A Templar is looking to buy some slaves from a bunch of elves. We have a few choices here. We can fight them all and slaughter the whole lot, we can ourselves get captured as slaves and then slaughter everyone or ourselves purchase slaves, or we can get captured into slavery and turn the elves against the Templar, and eventually against Draj itself. The first choice is very straightforward—just head over to 3 and pick a fight.
We’ll go with the last option though, as that will win us over some allies for Teaquetzl. However, this route involves a significant bug that has a chance to cause you to permanently lose all items you are carrying in chests and bags, including quest items like the ranike pith extract, the wand of metal detection, the stone pick, rope, A’Poss’s heart, the shell, and maybe even sand howler eyes, fire eel tongues or butterfly wings if you have any! So, find an empty space on the map (I like 2), and empty out all containers there. I like to make four columns of items (one for each player), with a pile each of items from one container. Drop all your containers too.
Leave your equipped items on. They’ll be taken away from you during captivity, but we’ll get them back (and will need them in an upcoming fight). If you want, make a note of who is wielding which weapons so that you can re-equip them accordingly.
20.1. Getting Captured
When you are ready, walk to 3 and the guards will inquire about your business. Ask to speak to their leader and declare you are a gladiator. The guard will claim that someone will come around to take you to the leader, but the escort is just going to lead us into the slave pen at 4. Depending on your positioning, either a third guard will come from inside to fetch you, or the one you are speaking to himself will lead on (despite what he says). Accede to his demands and follow him to 4.
He’ll insist that you drop everything and get into the pen. This is another chance to pick a fight or submit. We shall submit. All your gear will be dropped at 5.
20.2. Release
There is yet another mini bug that can cause everyone to go hostile. To liberate yourself, you need to speak to the guards barricading the pen’s exit, but if you do it from far away, you will be so far from the guard who agrees to free you that he will assume you are rebelling and cause everyone to go hostile. So click to move somewhere far outside the pens on the route to 5 (around X should be fine). The guard will order you to get back; say that you must speak to the leader.
The guard will lead you to 5. Go ahead of him and before you reach the elf and Templar at 5, pick up and equip your items from a safe distance. If they initiate dialogue then it will lead to a fight, either with one or both groups, so better to equip yourself now. Buffing is not necessary because of a third bug that I’ll describe soon.
20.3. Second Allies
Finally, approach 5 and witness the Templar and elf in a heated argument about the price of slaves. The elf leader will ask you who you are and you will have an option to make an offer to purchase the slaves. Say you want him to join you against Draj. He will express reluctance, but after an interjection by the Templar, you can convince him by insisting that he kill the Templar and join you against Draj. Though not shown on screen, the party will get around 3,000xp.
If you don’t have enough Charisma, the elves will let you fight the Templar and her troops, but will not intervene. If you have low Charisma, the elves will side with the Templar and you’ll have to take on a substantial army.
The Templar will summon some reinforcements and go hostile. The Templar herself is easy to take out, especially with the elves helping. The reinforcements will spawn at 3. Kill the Templar then go after her guards, but do not leave the fenced area. This is a third bug where if you leave the fenced area then there is a chance that everyone will assume you are escaping slaves and go hostile.
Instead, use a summon, spells and missile damage to take out all the guards in blue (that’s why buffs aren’t required). Be careful to not hit anyone in brown uniforms. Spells like Fireball are very effective, but use them only if you can be sure they won’t hit any of the elves in brown. Castor will summon a Water Elemental because Bellatrix can only summon lesser elementals at this point. Dubhe will cast his remaining fireball. Arcturus will go after the Templar first, then expend both his magic missiles before switching to firing arrows. In all her rounds, Bellatrix will cast Hold Person on as many as she can.
After the fight, the elf leader will commend you on your bravery, and reward you with a +1 Bone Gythka. You’ll then have a few dialogue options. First ask him to release the slaves, then to join the alliance against Draj. Send him on to Teaquetzl when you get the option to do so. Again, although not shown on screen, each party member will receive 1,000xp.
Turn animations off and watch the elves leave the region. The slaves will not seem to be going anywhere, but once the elves leave, they’ll vanish.
There is a fourth possible bug: if you follow the elves out, there’s a chance they’ll get stuck at some point and stop moving.
20.4. Retrieval
First, loot the Templar. She drops some fruits and a chain arm armor, that actually provides better AC than the bone or leather ones. Loot the dead bodies of the Templar’s guards if you want to (if any elves died, they drop axes which can sell for some good coin), then go retrieve all your chests and bags.
There’s a chance that all or some of the containers will have respawned with their original items! This would have caused us to lose any different item we stored in them. Our workaround means that (depending on which chests, if any, respawned), we could have a lot of junk to sell (if you wish to lug it all to a merchant), but also duplicates of some very expensive things like a metal long sword, some gems, and a wand of missiles. Selling just the wand will let me clean out Maris’ shop in Nazca Lines.
When you are done sorting all your gear, leave at 6 to arrive at the Elvish Caravan.