My first task was to set out and make some gunpowder – I already had all the ingredients except sulphur. There are sulphur pools in the volanic area at the SE of the valley. Using a metal cage from the lab, I soon get all the sulphur I need. I’ve found everything else I need walking around the valley before except for I need to get some cloth strips and impregnate them with tar and I’ve not seen any cloth.

While I’m here I seek out another tribe. This one is a tribe of Neanderthals – they want me to kill some spiders and retrieve a shield. Apparently, I will need a torch to burn their webs which rules this quest out for now.

So its back to hunting for some cloth. I look all over and get nowhere so resort to making some myself. I get a load of flax from a yukka plant, and find using a lom I found in the stone city make my own cloth in no time.

Their are a load of tar pits south of the Karak tribe and I have a stock of fuses.

I head for the waterfall blocked cave first. Attacking the boulder with a grenade pushes it over the water fall and stops the flow of water altogether it seems. Not very realistic but at least I’m in.

The silverback is on the other side of the cave but we make short work of him.

We find Halisa just below this and she makes her way back to the village.

And thats the Barako on board as well. Now to deal with the Sakhra’s T-Rex.

The T-Rex just stands stationary all the time next to a conveniently placed boulder. Another grenade later…

and its an ex-rex.

That gets the Sakhra joined up. Next I’ll try and find the Urali tribe using the instructions from Topuro.

I find the series of caves – figuring out which is second from the north is harder than just exploring every one. Denis Loubet is hiding in one cave drawing on the walls but he doesn’t have anything useful to offer.

The right cave is pretty obvious when I find it as its about 20 times bigger than any of the others. There are a few bears in here which are fairly tough.

but we get to the other side in no time.

A trickier problem is getting to the Urali village from here. There is a T-Rex patrolling the only route there who can kill any of us off with a single bite.

My first strategy here is to try the turtle bait I got from Topuru. This requires going into solo mode and riding the turtle around. This didn’t work too well. All the Urali keep attacking me from the cliffs and I get poisoned as they use blow darts. I can’t cure this as Triolo is my only spellcaster. I try just sneaking my party around 1 by 1 on foot – with a bit of careful loading and saving this works ok.

The only person who will talk to me in the village in the shaman who is more than helpful. Apparently Darden has enslaved the tribes god by putting it in a cave to the north – if I restore this then no one will follow Darden.

After seeing off a few Urali along the way we find the giant stone head.

And it speaks! Apparently it wants light.

I’ve been carrying around Jimmy’s camera for the whole game so I try taking a photo.

And sure enough the head teleports itself back to the village and gives me a bit of info. Apparently the head controlled the T-Rex so that won’t attack me on the way out and neither with the Urali any more. Aiela is in a cave south of the village.

This cave takes a bit of finding but sure enough we find Aiela caged up.

A brief cutscene later and Darden finally shows up. After a big buildup this fight is really easy and over in seconds.

Back at the village the shaman is now head of the tribe and agrees to unite. I’m running out of tribes to help now. I decide to have a go for the Tichiticatl tribe again. I need to figure out how to turn off the forcefield protecting the king.

After walking around the city again I find the old shaman locked up in the prison who gives me a load of information. All the tribes were brought to the valley by some sort of advanced beings who lived in the underground city but eventually left. They did leave some sort of key to get back into this city.

I need to find the correct location and place a giant gem into it to open the city up. As luck would have it Darden presented Aiela with a giant gem which was in her inventory when I rescued her.

I will also need a golden head, which I’m informed the king will probably have in his treasury.

I find the head just where its supposed to be and grab it.

Next, I attempt to find the location to place this gem. First off I wander around in the north of the map for ages. I find a very likely looking spot with skulls on sticks and another tree conveniently growing on the far side of a gap. This time I have to use a grenade to blow it over as I can’t reach with an axe.

The gem holder turns out to be at the other end of the map completely but I get there in the end.

The entrance opens up somewhere in the north.

A lot of wandering later I find the entrance, its about 5 square SE of the main teleporter hub.

Inside the city is a small room, a door blocked by a force field and a couple of robots.

I use the head on one of the robots and it springs into life.

I also supply its brain that Fritz gave me.

The robot has quite a bit of backstory….

And also lets me into the city when I ask.

Just inside the city is a hologram of one of the beings. He gives me a whole ream of backstory. To summarize – he is a member of the Kotl race who using the power of a giant moonstone created this city and ran their automatons. The stone didn’t supply enough power so they created the Myrmidex from ants to serve them. At some point the Myrmidex rebelled, took the stone with them. The stone still powered the city from a distance so they left them alone and instead brought in human volunteers from all over the globe as servents instead. The humans also left eventually, the Myrmidex kept attacking and the Kotl left although I don’t know where to. Whether the Kotl are advanced dinosaurs or an alien race I’m not sure – presumably aliens that flew off to some other planet?

It all ties together anyway in a sort of sci-fi B movie type of way and explains why the valley is the way it is (to some extent).

The underground city is dark and spralling. I’ve wandered around a little but not really got anywhere yet. There are robosaurus around who are pretty nasty so it looks like its going to take a bit of effort to explore. Its big enough to have its own set of teleporters at the entrance so I’m expecting something thats the equivalent of the Ultima 5 underworld. On that basis, I’ll leave it for tommorow.