I’m getting close to the end now, I can feel it.
Continuing on from yesterday I step through the portal. This doesn’t follow the traditional practice of loading a new level, the transition is immediate.
Chapter 8 cont’d
Upon stepping through I find myself at the end of a corridor, at the other end I can see a soldier. Yesterday I upgraded my strength once again, this increases the amount of damage attacks do, I can now kill a soldier with a single power strike, add to that the first skill I acquired, the ability to do power strikes while running, and I can now easily carve my way through their ranks. I make excellent progress, no-one breaks my stride, that is until I reach these cages:
This is where the evil goblins are kept, and sadly not even my improved weapon and attack strength can help me against them. According to the tips on the loading screen these goblins come under demonic creatures, along with orcs and cyclops (what is the plural for cyclops anyway? Cyclopi? buh dum tssh), and are not susceptible to fire, only lightening. The guard of the cages snuck up behind me just as I had dealt with the two evil goblins, dead. It takes some effort but I soon clear the area and move on. The necromancers lair (“lair” 
) can be quite sprawling, once or twice I became disoriented and lost my way. 
I enter the library and find it’s multi-levelled and has a series of wooden staircases leading down. It is here that I notice a new type of soldier, the two on the top floor were the old kind and fell very quickly, these new ones however are much tougher. 
One-on-one they are no challenge, however they are often in pairs, this means they can easily out-flank me if I stick to my traditional static block\attack\block\attack, I need to be more mobile which makes power strikes harder to perform. 
At the bottom a corridor leads to a training room, the corpse of a wizard is used for target practice. Once I’ve cleared the room I find this strange object in a connecting room:
The black orb is actually a key to the entire complex. There was a door a short way back so I give it a try. The next section is one of the most disturbing in the entire game, the word necromancer refers to the dead and this is where they practice. 
Mutilated bodies hang from the walls, some are even still moving… One of the necromancers must have been more powerful than the others because he managed to blast me with a freeze spell:
Searching the room I find a metal grate which uncovers a ladder, I head down and find the place is flooded by blood. 
I wade through, trying not to notice the corpse floating by, I reach another ladder and find that this underground blood bath doesn’t really lead anywhere. Nearby are some more cages, this time containing people, I set them free only to find that they have been turned into zombies. They shuffle towards me and I swing my blade. 
With this Earthfire sword bodies are set alight once the person is dead, it doesn’t work like that with these zombies, they still get up whilst on fire. In the various corridors slaves are busy working, when I get near they run off in a panic. I soon reach this large chamber, it’s then that I hear a familiar voice. 
Leanna is alive! A guard starts pushing her to the end of a precipice, I suddenly get the idea to pull out my bow. I fire a shot and hit him, but he keeps going, I fire again and hit him again, but it’s too late, Leanna falls. I wonder what would have happened if I had killed him..? I try to work my way up to where she was, when I get there I find the soldier that pushed her off is limping, it seems I almost got him. 
I look off the edge and see a bundle of cobwebs, oh no, more spiders… I try following her down but I die, guess I’ll have to find a better way. After a bit of searching I find a lift, that takes me down, but not all the way. I come out level with the opening that Leanna fell down, I try dropping once again and die this time as well. How is she supposed to have survived? A corridor leads down into the cobwebs, there are some spiders but they’re easily dealt with. 
I enter a large cavern, down from the opening comes a huge spider. Xana comments that no matter how many you kill there are always more hiding somewhere. Without any skill in ranged or magical combat I have no other choice but to wade in, I repeatedly hit what looks like a soft spot on it’s underside. 
Despite it’s attempts to body-slam me I win. 
I climb up onto a ledge where I find Leanna strung up on the wall, she’s happy to see me and almost says ‘my love’. She nearly says this many times throughout the game, when will she admit it? She leads the way and we start heading back, unfortunately there is a slight mishap, I land on her head. She takes this as a personal slight and begins attacking me, my voice then says he’s going to kill her…but it was only an accident! Xana also encourages me to kill her (as she’s been saying all along), despite Leanna’s desperate pleas there is no way to stop this, so I kill her. 
It was so easy. This isn’t how I wanted to the game to go though, it was just a mistake of the game so I reload and save her again, sadly the last save was before I killed the giant spider… This time when I set her free from the webbing I make sure to quick save in case things go wrong again, fortunately they don’t. 
We get into another lift which takes us back up into the necromancer’s lair. This is the point that confused me last time I played, and it did again this time. If you haven’t explored Arantir’s room before saving Leanna (surely the latter is the most urgent?) then she will wait at the bottom of some stairs, she doesn’t tell you however that these stairs lead out and not to Arantir’s room. 
I went up and couldn’t find where I needed to go, I did eventually remember that it was back down where Leanna was waiting and after that it didn’t take long to get there. 
Inside he has journal open on a book stand, a quick read shows that he as gone back to Stonekeep (the city from Part One). I head back to Leanna and we go back up to the portal. Apparently there was some secret way of activating it, and the clue was in Arantir’s journal, but I just clicked on it out of habit and it worked. Nevermind. Leanna says she has to stay behind to seal the portal, so I step through. 
I find myself back in the sewers, time to head back to ground level.
Then, due to the huge stress and lack of food, my character suffers a heart attack and dies…
Or maybe not. To be continued…
