Classic Games Revisited
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands Walkthrough
39. Wyrm School
As you proceed from 1, Balkazar will again appear momentarily to warn you away. Kill the thri-kreen at 2. It drops a +1 Chatkcha (a ranged weapon for thri-kreens) that does additional fire damage. Nice, but I don’t have a thri-kreen in my party. Also, it’s just a +1 weapon and we have been fighting creatures that require +2 enchantment lately.
All dialogue paths with the babau at 3 will lead to hostilities, so grant it a quick, painful death.
Balkazar is currently at 4, along with two babau taunting a magera. They will not notice you enter. Wait and see what happens once, then attack. Balkazar will teleport away, leaving the two babau to deal with you. You can ask the magera to lead you to Balkazar—don’t—we have other things to do first.
39.1. Draketooth
In the southwest corner are a few books that give hints about defeating Balkazar. The Book of Guidance (X) reads:
Every Search, Not Warranted, Earns Naught. — Nilragor
Take the teleporter at 5 and you’ll end up just north of it, where you will have to fight a Styr. They have four attacks per round plus fire damage. If it gets to go before your party members, you may be making a trip to the healing room in the Wyrm Temple before continuing.
The divine spell Abjure is supposed to send extraplanar creatures, including, elementals, back to their plane. Although styrs are from the Earth plane, this spell has never worked for me.
Take the teleporter at 6 to enter a maze. We already know the route through the maze from the book of guidance: east, south, north, west, east, north, north. Or follow the numbers on the map. At 12 you will find Draketooth, a +1 sword that increases the wielder’s strength by 3. Being a heavy weapon, it will replace my remaining +1 axe. On the large island (where teleporter 13 is), you will have to fight four styrs. The teleporter at 13 will bring you out of the maze. Take the one at 14 to return to 5.
If you want to fight an extra babau, speak to the magera at 15. He is waiting for his transformation and is beyond help. He will not listen to any arguments. Speaking to him spawns a babau to the south to take him away for the transformation. You can intercept it before it reaches the room. If you attack the babau while in the magera’s vision, you will have to fight the magera too. If you don’t want to do that, rush to the south after telling him that transformation is a myth. There is nothing more you can do for the magera: he will keep waiting for someone to lead him to his transformation.
39.2. Balkazar
Balkazar himself is at 16. When you enter the room, he will think we are agents of Dagolar. He will want us to join him. If you do that, he will teleport everyone to 2 in the Wyrm Temple and try to summon the Unnamed One, but fail. Four fire elementals will teleport in, mock him, then attack us. You can keep encouraging Balkazar to keep trying, which will always result in the same cycle. Eventually you’ll have to kill him.
I don’t want to go to the temple and return here, so I’ll just threaten Balkazar instead. He will summon a vrock to his aid. Only one person should engage the vrock. The others should go to 17 and attack the mirror. There’s a chance the attacker will take fire damage on doing this. The mirror will need to be attacked thrice before you can harm Balkazar. (If you went to the Wyrm Temple, there is a similar mirror there that you can destroy). The party gets 3,000xp for breaking the mirror.
Before going into the room, Bellatrix cast Resist Fire on everyone, and both Bellatrix and Castor cast Find Traps. I don’t know if the latter actually does anything, but the mirror’s counterattacks manifest in the game as traps.
Balkazar himself is not very strong, but he can cast damaging spells. A single strike on him should be enough to kill him. The party gets another 6,000xp for this. Balkazar’s body has a lemon, two bananas, +1 Balkazar’s Staff, which can slow its targets, and a bottle of Terror Extract.
39.3. Terror Blade
Because we did Notaku’s last quest, we can now create another extremely powerful weapon. If we hadn’t done that quest, the terror extract wouldn’t have been on Balkazar’s body. Balkazar was standing next to a dagger and a pot filled with green goo. First drop the terror extract on the pot, then drop the dagger on it to create the Terror Blade +2, a dagger that does additional poison damage (although it says the target must save vs. poison or die). Being a +2 weapon, I can finally pack away either Bloodwrath or the Hornblade and equip this instead.
Unfortunately, only a dagger can be used in this process. Other weapons don’t work.
There are three vrocks waiting at 18, unless you managed to aggravate them during your escapades with Balkazar. Rest in the temple first if you wish. Kill the vrocks, then look around the rooms for a shower of ceramics. At 19 is a Belt of Might, which sets the wearer’s strength to 24. The chest is empty. At 20 is the Light of Dawn, a ring that lets you cast Dismissal.
When you are done, leave at 1 and return to the Wyrm Temple. Speak to Tanelyv at 4 (you could have done this if you went there to rest after killing Balkazar) and he will gift us his entire armor set before vanishing. The chest and arm pieces give 4 AC, and the leg piece gives 3 AC. I like to distribute it around so that everyone has almost similar AC.
Return to the Wyrm Belly. The ex-slave leaders (if they are alive) will thank you for saving everyone. There is an option to ask them for help in the war against Draj, but they won’t join. Tell them to stop raiding the caravans so that we can get that quest done (if you killed them, the quest is already done, we simply need to collect our reward).
Unfortunately Llod’s Rod doesn’t work on interior maps, so exit at 1 (the Blind One thanks you if you speak to him), then teleport to the Elvish Caravan to collect our 1,000cp fee from the wagon master.
Rest if you need to, and teleport to Gedron. Use the northern exit there (10) to reach the Captured Gladiators.
