Classic Games Revisited
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands Walkthrough
41. Korbnor
Korbnor is a city that was buried ages ago under the sand to contain the greed of the Psurlons who had been summoned from the astral plane to help with the city’s troubles. As such, the city’s ruins are inhabited by psurlons and undead mostly. There are multiple ways to deal with situations in this city. For example, you could kill Cragg (who we’ll meet later). I will only describe my preferred route here.
As soon as you arrive at 1, you are greeted by a psurlon. You can listen to its story in full, or be hostile. If you listen to the story without interjecting, it will want you to acquire a genie for the psurlons. If you agree to this, the psurlon will remain non-hostile. I prefer to kill it, as I will do with almost all other psurlons, shadows and greater shadows in the city.
Neither Abjure nor Dismissal works on psurlons.
The shadows at 2 and 3 can give you some story about the city. Another shadow will approach you as you reach 2 to warn you to stay away from the palace. I simply Turn Undead as I keep coming across shadows. The Shadow Guards will turn hostile when I linger in the throne room anyway.
Standing near the throne at 4 is the Shadow King. You can speak to him for the full history of the city (or at least his side of the story). If you approach the throne (i.e., get on the raised platform he is standing on), he will get angry. Try one more time and he will attack. On his dead body (is that what undead leave behind?) you will find chain chest armor (now good only for its monetary value), and a +1 Blackmace, which does additional lightning damage. It is a heavy weapon, so I replace Draketooth with it, since I have other ways to increase strength.
The official cluebook says that Blackmace confers Chill Touch (cold damage) but in fact it confers Shocking Grasp.
At 5 is the Shadow Prince who can give you more story and invites you to play with him later. If you want even more story (this time about Llod), use the Orb of Knowledge at X. It is a tiny black gem on gray rocks, so it can be difficult to spot. It will be destroyed once you use it, so if you already know the story, you can sell it for 10,000cp after the final battle.
41.1. Cragg’s Body
Go to 3, buff up, cast Find Traps on both the cleric and druid (because someone may have to walk forward while in battle mode), and fight your way to 6. The creatures that spawn are random in both species and number. At 6, you will see a body, but it will vanish and will be replaced by a teleporter. Take it to be transported to 7 (the teleporter itself may appear to not work—go north as far as you can and you will eventually be teleported).
The psurlons at 7 will want you to back away, but we don’t take orders from extraplanar creatures. Fight your way to 9. The four psurlons at 8 will summon three mastyrials, so this can get to be a pretty hairy encounter, especially with no means to rest in this city. Take care of the psurlons first as they can use psionics (or at least disable their powers with Synaptic Static or by hitting them at least once).
It is possible to separate the two species into ‘waves’ by force-attacking a psurlon. That puts you into combat with only them before the mastyrials spawn. You will have a second or two (maybe to retreat and heal) between the waves.
The psurlons near 9 are always non-hostile to me, but when I attack them a mastyrial spawns in the room to join them against us. Take the body at 9 (the game says it’s a hero’s body, but if you got the stories from the shadows and psurlon earlier, you can guess that this is Cragg’s body). Take the teleporter at 10 to return to 4.
Wind your way to 11 (you should still have Find Traps active), killing a psurlon on the way. Cragg’s spirit will be very happy that you have retrieved his body, and will want it set in his coffin. Follow him and he will stop next to one of the coffins (the central one) at 12. For placing the body on the coffin, we will be rewarded with an Executioner’s Axe and 4,000xp. The axe is a 2-handed +3 Great Axe, which is a shame because as a +3 weapon it is extremely good, but as a 2-handed one it’s not for me.
41.2. Genie in a Bottle
Cragg’s spirit also leaves behind a Genie Bottle. On picking it up, the genie will address you and will speak of his powers. You can command him to do several things, but he will not comply with most of them. He will grant us three wishes though. Don’t use them yet. I’ll explain the wishes and their implications in a little bit.
A trio of psurlons will have spawned at 4 when you picked up the genie bottle, and will want it from you. Deal with them, then head to the exit at 1, but don’t go out just yet.
41.3. The Wishes
You can use the genie bottle to summon the genie to make up to three wishes. The bottle will not work after the final battle against the Drajian army, so you must decide now how and when you want to spend the wishes.
Firstly, you can ask for the genie’s help in the upcoming war. This wish can only be made while still in the temple. He will give you the Quicksilver Glove, which does extra damage to the target by casting Detonate on each hit. He will also have the shadows from the city take care of the first wave of the battle (we’ve left no shadows alive, but this still works). I always use this wish. The gloves will just go into one of my bags, but not having an entire wave is huge.
Secondly, you can ask the genie to duplicate one of the weapons you are carrying. El’s Drinker, Terror Blade, and Dark Flame are all good candidates, but you can duplicate items by using the Multiplying Items exploit. Also, keep in mind that you cannot dual-wield heavy weapons. If you want to be strictly legal about this, you may still find it worthwhile to expend one wish on this.
Critical: The portrait in the inventory is facing you, so the right hand of the character is actually on the left. Choose the correct hand when you are duplicating weapons through the wish! If you want to be absolutely sure, unequip the weapon you don’t want duplicated.
Regarding duplicating weapons (even legally), one consideration now should be which weapons we want to use in Wake of the Ravager. Many items behave very differently in that game. For example, El’s Drinker still leeches life from enemies in Wake of the Ravager, but it disappears after (seemingly) several charges are expended. So you might think it’s a good idea to carry a lot of El’s Drinkers. But there is a plot device in Wake of the Ravager where all El’s Drinkers disappear forever from the game.
The powers of Blackmace and Dark Flame also turn into charges. Not to mention that Blackmace is only a +1 weapon, they will also disappear after their charges are used up. In my playthrough, I will use one wish to duplicate the Terror Blade to replace the Hornblade, so that I have only one +1 weapon equipped, the Blackmace. The Terror Blade becomes a plain +2 Dagger in Wake of the Ravager.
You can use all three wishes to duplicate El’s Drinker, which is the ultimate power move, because with everyone wielding El’s Drinker, everyone can continuously heal (and possibly raise HP beyond max) on several hits, so your chances of dying are lowered. With this, you will probably not require the Healing wish at all, but this could cause some of your allies to die (which has no real consequence, just something that may weigh on your mind).
Thirdly, the genie can also grant your wish to be rich, in which case you will get 1 million ceramic pieces. Clearly the worst of the wishes. You must already be quite rich by now, and you will be insanely rich in Wake of the Ravager if you import this party with all its belongings.
Lastly, the genie can grant your wish to be healed. Everyone, including your allies in the final war (should you choose to use it there) will be fully rested (full HP and spells), and any dead party members will be resurrected (including elves and half-elves) without -1 Constitution. However, dead allies will not be raised. This is very useful, especially since sources of healing are limited and, despite our high stats, we only have so many spells to go around.
41.4. Final Preparations
Now is the time to properly buff up. Consume any fruits you may have been saving up. Apples, bananas (if someone is not already strengthened) and oranges are quite useful, and will help save up spell slots.
As for spells, you should already be strengthened and enlarged. The preserver should also cast Blink and Haste (both level 3, assuming you learnt them). If you learnt Slow instead of Blink, that is also a good spell to cast after enemies spawn. That leaves Dubhe with 1 cast of fireball (and I also have the Iron Necklace and Storm Ring). He also has two level 4 slots, so during the final battle he will cast two Walls of Fire to virtually fill the area with flames. Wall of Fire is a lingering spell that can stretch across the entire battlefield. It can be cast before combat begins and even though it will hurt a lot of enemies, it does not put you into combat mode, so you can immediately follow up with another wall and finally (when enemies are close enough) a Fireball, which will put you in combat.
Wall of Fire is extremely dangerous to our allies. The AI is not smart enough to wait for enemies to come to them (us). They will happily walk into the flames and take a lot of damage.
The divine casters should cast Resist Fire on everyone (mostly to resist our own firewalls), and Aid if there are not enough oranges for everyone. Once on the battlefield (after your allies show up), they can also cast Bless, Prayer, and Protection from Evil 10’ Radius. Note that the last one is a level 4 druid spell, which means one less cast of Cure Serious Wounds, so it’s your choice whether you want to improve your chance to avoid physical hits or to possibly take the hits and heal up.