Rework of scifi story part 2

Naeliim was seldom under my direct observation.  His people called themselves guides though they were in truth vagabonds.  Wanderers who contributed nothing to the various communities and fiefdoms they passed.  Offering use of the passages and back ways they controlled for a price.  Others like Naeliim bound themselves to contracts of service for the right to dwell within a community as they traveled.  It was upon a contracted sojourn that Naeliim came to hold my attention.

Naeliim traveled as guide to a pilgrim from one of the aft hold fiefs.  The first steps of their travels were of little concern and have passed from my mind, as much has.  My memory starts with fire and darkness, where normally there is nothing.  A great darkness that I can not penetrate is held in the center of my perception.  This is different from the black horizons all around, they are dotted with figures and forms.  This central blackness holds those lost and seemingly returned later.  But for a moment all awoke and blazed agape with light.

Here I beheld Naeliim and flame.  Others were seen in their wanderings but only Naeliim and another wrapped my attention.  Fire by which first I saw clasp about the guide but quickly failed away to black.  I figured the dark again held sway but I continued to see.  Some light filtered in from behind.  I first thought it light like any other but it was not right.  Its seemed brown and gold, perhaps ocher ; and sticky.  From the distance it conformed to optics' steadfast rules.  Though in seeing directly it held itself flat as if a plane or region mathematical.  It was horrible though only Naeliim seemed to see and recoil at the approach.

Reworking of scifi story part 1

Memory seems to have failed, can only hold thoughts so long before they dissolve.  I have flashes of light and pain that I recall and phantom sensation which is not meaningful with what I comprehend.  I see with a strange multitude but find only able to focus on small fragments of that whole.  At times I feel jarred by an electric coursing, this often I react with instinctive recoil.  I am unsure but even this seems a conditioned response. 

There is that "I" again, it doesn't fit any way that I know it.  I understand the persons moving through halls and hear their words within my consciousness, they say I and we.  It can be supposed my words come from theirs.  There is no self beyond, no momentary shell I can point to and understand it is me.  I have my guesses but I am unsure of my observations and hesitate to conjecture.  Of those observations I have seen much and and will speak a story that held my interest as it was played out.

Winter Wine

Something comes to me on the evenings. Its like a reprieve in the silencing cold of the muted sun.  A greater moment of still that expands beyond the confines of place and self.  Rapping at the doors and windows for a warm welcome and finding no one's at home.  Then greeting the singular and making peace with being alone. 

The smells are all there! lingered long with memories of youth come with the crisp mulberry leaves scratching down the street.  Scraping out a song as driven in the wind, there are stops and starts and fluttering with the days breath driving it away. 

Come on night, come one winter your almost through the door.  Yet the rain to us, force the birds and bugs from the sky.  Give us our supper, let me go in and sleep. Take down the fetters and send me back from this dream, I'm no longer young, it's not as grand as it seems.  Let me back to my daughter she shrieks joy from inside.  My wife also waits hoping to sleep soon a I return.  Let me leave the evening for warm and nettlesome tamed.

Wheat from the Chaff

Well the vampire stat folks are out in force today, one post after a couple weeks of in activity and bam a ton of extra views show up associated with them.  I don't even visit these sites so I don't know why they are interested in me.  Seriously you guys are the chaff of our society and need to go.  You are the extra weight we need to see die off in the next frost my vampirestat.  Please if you have a moment of weakness and doubt, remember my vote of encouragement and pull the trigger.  That goes for you too 7secretsearch too.

Turning 53

you're choking down the days
like bad medicine
And I'm stumbling around
in the vacuum

Everywhere is the absence
tugging at all of us
Spiraling in low orbits
of a missing planet

lasting yet lashing at me
if I'm not mild and meek
We're both confused
and no one know what to do

IF too much I'll explode
then you scold I implode

Block buster closes with little fanfare

Blockbuster closed completely I guess, today.  It got me thinking about all the video stores I frequented over the years, and one in particular.  In the south bay we had a solid competitor to the Mega video stores called American Video.  This place was huge before stores were huge and the video selection was second to none.

I first came to rent from these folks back when I was living at Park Branham.  They were located in the shopping center at Branham and Almaden Expressway.  I guess this was where the Taco Bell is currently.  The shop was a jumbled maze of racks at this time, with no where near enough space.  Entire sections where hidden away in nooks.  If you wanted Stalker yes they had it you had to nearly get on your hands to find it behind a cash register but it was there.

They moved fairly quickly afterwards, going to the shopping center on Almaden near Cherry.  I think it is or was a dollar store now.  This was sort of the stores hayday, back when it was huge and could hold a sea of folks.  They even had pinball machines going!  This being an independent store had some of the more adult titles, this section of the store was the size of most small video stores at the time.  This being the zenith of blockbuster this store dwarfed two or more of their stores.

Next the store just up and disappeared.  A friend finally let me know they moved over to the Cambrian park shopping center.  This was my favorite configuration of the store.  My buddy Andy once described it like an opium den and this description was pretty apt.  There was a big section of new stuff and newish stuff that mouldered into obscurity.  but it was the hidden alleys of Scifi and Horror that really were filled with forgotten gems.

The staff were great two most knew their stuff or could direct you to the horror , foreign or thriller guys.  Westerns were actually a section, that died off long ago at blockbuster.  They closed up a couple of years ago and become a ski place.  I have to say I regret it you don't get the feel when you scroll through Netflix on your roku.   

An Interesting side note:
We used to have a PaPa Murphy near my house, it closed shortly after the Hollywood Video place, it was next to closed down.  I guess it figured people would not visit it without the video store even though there was a Blockbuster in the shopping center less than a mile away.  I just saw a new Papa murphy is going in, back in the shopping center were the first one was.  I guess people wont make an extra stop for pizza if getting a video, but will a single stop if they are downloading and streaming.

Fucking up: Flaming Lanterns

This story of fucking up begins with a lack of power in the battery of our tent trailer.  My cousins and I used to go camping for a week or so in the Santa Cruz mountains when i was a teenager.  This was usually in the Big Basin campground but Henry Cowell the location of this actual story.

If you have read this site in any depth you know I am a nerd and fond of role-playing games.  This was the focal point of all our camping trips.  We would load my parents old Coleman tent trailer full of food and games and spent a week or more with limited supervision.  This was great for us though really we should have had someone a little wiser watching us.  While we were playing dungeons and dragons 90% of the time, it was the remaining 10% that was worrisome.

This particular trip we had my cousin Rick, his cousin Anthony and my friend Keith De Carlo in attendance.  It was fun but early one we realized we had an issue with running the lights inside the tent as there was something going funny with the battery.  It was some years old and may not have been up to snuff to begin with.  This was a problem as we wanted to spend most of the night playing Dungeons and Dragons.  The nature of the game is reading and note taking intensive so you do need full visibility to see.

We had a few candles stored for emergency purposes, by my parents, stashed in the trailer.  This was the best solution we had and quickly we had a glass ash tray configures with a candles to provide light.  This was passable for an evening but really was not great.  I say this until a strange set of events turned the candle stand into an open flame lantern.  The first step in this process was the complete liquidation of the candles into a broth of liquid wax, due to the heat of an enclosed tent and the lit candles themselves. Next there was some sort of wagering about putting things in and out of the flames uncharred.  At some point the outside of a box of matches was played over the flames.  This was almost magical as the cardboard soaked up the wax and served as a wick. 

Circumstances had provided us with the ideal solution to our lighting needs.  Here then the male brain's simplicity befouled our results, If one was good more is better.  The next day we traveled into the little town of Felton to gather supplies to make more of these lanterns.  We didn't really find a cheap solution of the ash tray but assumed the bottom half of coke cans would do the job.  This would be the turning point from novel solution to out right fuck up.

The coke can versions of the lanterns worked all too well.  Providing light for each of us to study our Players Handbooks and read up all the spells we needed so desperately to know.  The continued until the cans reached a certain heating point where the liquid wax was actually drawn up the inner wall of the cans.  The wicks we provided were no longer the point of ignition but rather the entire top of the coke can.  The cans had now become some thing akin to a modest Molotov cocktail, blazing freely at one end the other ended in a heated to scalding hot coke can.

In recognition of our Fuck up the ersatz braziers were quickly hurled out the door, generally at the fire pit the good folks at Henry Cowell had provided in our camp.  The burns were luckily minor to our persons, though the trailers table was burned and I was doomed to catch some level of hell from my parents.

I suppose the lesson was not to experiment with fire upon your parents property or perhaps something with heat and vacuums.  Really i am not sure.

Fearsome Critters

I awoke to a fall of frogs,
and nothings gone right since.
Sasquatch stole my paper
and even kicked my dog.

Thunderbirds are overhead
and I killed an albatross.
It made a decent stew
but the crew want me dead.

The squonk took one look
and laughed at me.
My dropsy running bad
aint no cure in any book.

Snakes climbing out the throne
and spiders infest my home.
Found dead sparrows on my lawn
twelve or thirteen long gone.

A red moon on the morning!
That means things are looking up?

Fucking Up: Blood Blood Everywhere

I have become worried about my daughter over the last couple of days.  She is still young now but with our current environment there is the expectation that she will always be under parental supervision.  I have her in the morning and drop her off to teachers at school, they have her until the evening when my wife gets her and she is with us until bed.  She hangs out with us on weekends and everything is very safe.  She wont be snatched away!  But also she won't fuck up and that worries me more than you can know.

A mistake you understand is better than a success you don't is sort of a motto for me.  Mistakes are great!  Fucking up is something at which I excel.  Largely fucking up is where my life shaping epiphanies and foundational lessons were learned.  So my kid never fucking up is a thought with some concern for me.

Blood Blood Everywhere (The big forearm slide of 84)
This incident happened back when I was living in North San Jose.  My friends and I were pretty fascinated by the creek that ran through our little neighborhood.  From my house with a short walk you could cross over the freeway from Capewood over to Trimble, near Northwood school.  Right off of the overpass you could go around the fence and walk into the creek.  From there you had an entire world you could play in.  There was even a field full of abandoned chimneys in one direction.  Heading the other way you would quickly pass under the 680 freeway, this was like magic to us kids, and further up toward the foothills. 

One day I had put it into my head that I needed to walk up to Majestic School all via the creek.  I walked from my house, alone as I often worried that my little journeys would end up sucking.  I liked to go solo before inviting anyone.  I passed over the freeway, into the creek and back under.  So far everything was good I was up on the far side walking along the top of the now concrete creek the sun was shining, even the birds were not mocking me... for now.

Reaching the gate near Cropley I was left perplexed.  how do I get down the creek had dropped from a few feet deep to a decent little drop.  I attempted climbing down but being fat, offish and clumsy that quickly proved a poor idea.   My solution was far poorer.  I would slide down, but not on my butt.  I would use my forearms so my pants would not get harmed.  I am not sure of why I thought my pants were so important, they may have been my prized Levi's, the only pair of pants my grandma had not sewn.  The slide while painless at the time ground down the flesh on my forearms leaving both bloody in wide channels.  This was one of those moment I realized, I fucked up!

Learning
Well that was dumb.  I was not in the bottom of a creek I had no real idea how to get out of being concrete and I slow and fat.  Quickly I reasoned I could just walk to the dirt sections up by the townhouses where my cousin's lived.  It was a little further and I bled profusely but it appeared the best option.  My wounds stopped bleeding after a few minutes of walking.  There was another section that ducked under the street but I was already in the creek so no worry there.  

The earliest point that allowed me to leave the creek would put me directly on path toward my cousins house.  Somehow I just wanted to be alone and not reminded of my stupidity so I continued walking.  I was aware that I should wash out the scrapes as the creek was essentially a large open gutter and not clean.  Almost there I finished walking to Majestic school.  Washing off my arms in the open drinking fountain, I was relieved.  I had done what I set out to do, blood and all.

My arms healed, I never even had a scar just some gross scabs that healed before I knew it.  The pain was annoying not bad and truly nothing compared to dialysis.  I did what I set out to, stupidity didn't stop me.  This was dumb and completely my own fault but I overcame the crap that came my way and I finished what I set out to do.

I will probably write a few more of these, I fucked up a lot as a kid.  
 

Movie Review: Zodiac

I watched Zodiac on Netflix the other night.  I liked it, it wasn't as scary and gory as I expected, others may disagree with that but the poster got me thinking it was full on horror rather than a psychological thriller.  So if you are wuss and on the fence like I was don't worry about the scare factor.

One negative for traditional thriller fans is this will not resolve itself.  Zodiac was never caught and may have died at this point.  The nice wrapped up package you get in most movies is not here.  You are left with your own thoughts and opinions on the possible killers.  They focus on two possible suspects in this film, Arthur Leigh Allen and Rick Marshal.  There were others considered like the uni-bomber that do not make it into the film.

I am really not knowledgeable about the case and was often left with several questions.  Who was Bob Vaughn, he seemed awful creepy in the movie.  Why is there no new case using the modern forensics we see weekly in Criminal Minds?  Why were the police departments so concerned with jurisdiction?

All in all pretty fun and intriguing.  The Zodiac case is just good material really, the unsolved nature and the police taunting cryptograms make it powerful and engrossing

Video Game Console Review: Retron 5

For my money there is only one console coming out this year and it will surprise you that its not and Xbox, PlayStation nor anything by Nintendo.  What I speak of brothers and sisters is the Retron 5!  An entire retro gaming experience in a box.  This isn't going to play a few systems or even five but rather you get nine systems of gaming play. 

http://hyperkin.com/blog/2013/03/retron-5-details-revealed-from-the-midwest-gaming-classic/

Yes now all your game boy games have a new system to thrive upon.  Rejoice.

Now all this would be cool but not fantastic, you see retro games look like crap on modern TV's, but no more.  They have addressed the problem with special clean up that will make your games look fantastic even on a new system and all through an HDMI cable.  This is great as it give use an easy to use modern connection for our old school games.

Now there could be more, obviously you don't see Atari anywhere in that chart or even Turbo Grafx but what are you going to do?

De Profundis: Dinner in the Shanty

My Fellow Gentlemen

The structure which meet my arrival was as fantastic as farcical.  My mind raced until I murmurs "A Ship" incredulously.  The establishment was once a tall sailed ship now a fixed resident of murky fens upon one face and the paved city cobblestones upon the other.  A stone approach was laid upon the murk to provide egress and entrance.  This itself was no petty task as it appeared the muck swallowed up the stones again and again, forming successive strata until satiated finally allowed for this walk.

I will deem the inward establishment quaint though it was at best rustic and less kindly a shanty.  The walls all reclaimed wood and nautical ornament, recalled the age of sail.  The seaside suspiciously absent from the locale, I avoided the creole lobster stew and contented myself with a phosphate whilst I awaited my hosts.

My detention was short as I was greeted by Crowley's approach.  He descended a stair draped in some fantastically appointed robe.  Its collar radiated the arcs of the sun and lowly glass beads were stitched into the bodice.  He wore a turban upon his head like some wild sultans' crown.  It was all too much for my composure and I regretfully let out a chuckle! This drew an anger of nonesuch fury, I even recoiled within my chair fearing violence to my person.  The many words were sharp and acid tongued oft falling into verses and languages I dreamed only desert insects may understand.

The man calmed some after many minutes of attack, perhaps remembering he had some purpose for me.  The words then were soft almost sibilant and always pushing.  He desired my help in attending one of his many congregants.  I am to attend a society function as a paramore, or some such foolishness.  I agreed if only to escape.  Even now I prepare for the eve with his dame. 

Yours very truly
J.L. Reich

Toy Review: Storm Shadow for GI Joe

Storm shadow was the coolest of the Cobra force, sort of the G.I. Joe equivalent of Boba Fett.  I don't know where the whole ninja thing came in during the 80's but it hit my friends and I hard.  They were dressing up with sweats and flee market ninja shoes before I had even heard of the ninja.  It's like I missed an assembly at school where they said everyone here is the new cool thing, and when I got home everyone was sneaking around the neighborhood in costume.

Storm Shadow was such a nonconformist though, a white ninja.  No not like Michael Dudikoff but a cool Japanese guy dressed for a ski vacation or something.  He had swords and a backpack that appeared like a bow and arrow set.  Sure that is ludicrous when starring down someone with a heavy machine-gun but GI Joe never hit anyway.

In the movie he sort of goes all good and Snakes takes a turn for the ninja himself. I never liked that.  It almost seemed like the bandwagon jumped over the shark at that point.

Game Review: Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginners Game

I was run through the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginners Game of the last month.  While some of the rules ended up being a bit nebulous at times It was a fun game and an awfully good intro to gaming product.  I am going to say without qualification if you are a gamer parent with kids say 10 to 15 this is a fantastic introductory product.

So this is Star Wars minus Jedi, just to let you know right now. The setting seems to be the fridge of the empire with the setting taking place sometime post episode VI.  The only Jedi are Yoda and Luke in this setting with Vader and the emperor as the only sith.  There is supposed to be a new book coming out that introduces force sensitivity.  This will flavor your class but not make you a Jedi, is the thought.

Some of the big cool points were all the fiddly prop bits that came with the basic game.  The character sheets are huge multi-page affairs, sort of like the old twilight 2K character creations worksheets. they guide you through experience gains and help you understand your characters abilities.  Also they each have a nice write up that connects you to your fellow players.  I am being nice the writing is shatneresq at times and laughable.  That aside you also have loads of maps along with character and enemy tokens for combat.  It really was cool for a intro product as it gave you everything you needed in one box.  Even the Dice!

I put that at the end because dice are weird, in Star Wars.  I have never seen anything like them.  They work in opposing pairs that have a cancelling effect between themselves.  So you basically have green 8 sided and yellow 12 sided dice as skills for your characters actions.  If you roll something opposed by another character they give you anti success dice that are purple 8 sided and red 12 sided.  These dice return six values successes, advantages, triumphs, failures, defeats and despair.  These work out to cancel each other Successes for failures, Advantages for defeats and finally triumph for despair.  Once you have canceled you have the results.  This ends up being weird as you sometimes have failed and have a bunch of advantages or succeeded and many defeats or a despair.  These are more for the GM to add flavor i guess.  Its interesting as you can use the trump and successes if you succeed to do extra things.

There are extra characters you can find online at the fantasy flight games site.  This was handy as we had an extra large group.  I played Tray'essek a trandoshan which was cool but didn't

This along with the tons of Star Wars resources out there make for a very good introductory experience.  You can have pictures up for all the races in a few seconds along with music.  Our GM even created a scroll for us.  This really would create a special experience for newcomers.
have the full character booklet.  It was a little odd as some of the stuff the other characters had written out we had to figure out for my character.

Ear Tube Surgery

I wanted to talk a bit about the ear tubes I had installed yesterday, yep I am bionic!  This is my tenth go around with these fucking things.  The experience was a bunch easier than my last time as a kid. 

Everything was done in the office right in the chair.  There was a little poke and pop, some vacuuming and I was done. 

Its amazing how much better i hear but also how weirdly I hear.  Everything was very full toned on the radio before also having a nice tube sound before, now I need to turn up the bass.  I told the doctor to play some Rush to check my hearing.  I know every sound on those records it would be a great test.  Gosh my car is noisy now.

For those of us traumatized as kids don't worry its not bad, don't worry about it like i did.  I damaged my anvil waiting so long on this.   If you are in san jose give Camino Ear Nose and Throat a try the doctors are nice and they can fit you in very easily.

A Look at the Bones 2 Kickstarter

This is going to be one of those no skin in the game reviews.  I actually backed a kickstarter a few weeks ago and didn't mention it here because it seems shifty.  I don't want to be telling you about stuff for my own gain.  That said I am really thinking about this bones 2 miniatures kickstarter.  Please go check it out here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1513061270/reaper-miniatures-bones-ii-the-return-of-mr-bones?ref=live

They are dishing out a barrel of minis for 100 bucks.  It seems like they are getting near 1 mini for 1 dollar at this point which is incredibly cheap.  Yes they are plastic but I was paying 3 bucks for a blind shot at a goblin miniatures. I think their scheme is to get an extra 50 here and there for add on sales.  That said they are giving like 24 minis for that 50 USD. 

For gamers wanting to start a miniatures collection this is a great way to get going.  Its very cost effective and gives you a large amount of basics.  You have heroes and villains.  Large minis and small ones.  Undead and monstrous vermin.  This really will take you a long way.  It would be great if they tried to cover specific modules and say hey the tomb of horrors is completely covered with our minis.  It may well be now. 

Money is flowing into this at a crazy rate.  I don't think you want to skip this one, its going to go down as legendary kickstarter campaign

Toy Review: Elecnco Electronic Playground 130

This thing was awesome!  A home electronics kit that was easy to use.  It had all sort's of experiments you could follow from the book that did cool stuff.  All were fairly simple circuits, some lite a light, others made noise in the speaker.  I think there was one that actually created a radio you could listen to.

I had some trouble with the more complicated lessons as a kid and didn't always have the intended results but all in all it was cool.  There were a couple of points I will complain about though.  I didn't learn much about the individual components I was using and had very little idea what everything was contributing to the circuit. The second issue was there really wasn't much of a growth path if you really got into it. 

I loved the kit so much my parents got me a special airport frequency radio kit.  That was cool and it seemed like there would be room to grow but it was a fairly big jump in skills.  I was never good with my hands and the spring connectors were gone, I think i needed to do something with soldering!

This is a very fun toy for an inquisitive kid that is easy to use even if they are not at all handy.  just realize you may have to steer them through the internet to figure out what they are learning about if this is something not taught in their school.

Video Game Review: Might and Magic II

Might and magic is the sort of RPG i like. With full control of a party and abstracted turn based combat.  There were a few fun puzzles to solve and loads of dungeons to delve.  While the series opener was very good it is Might and Magic 2 that really was fantastic.  It was in this second game were gifted with the joy of auto mapping. 

This version of the game seemed to have an almost correct way to play which I am going to admit was a bit rail roading.  The party could buy skills ended up giving you full mapping and travel over the land but only if the skills were assigned correctly.  Some had stat requirements and others had to be possessed by two member of the party to kick in.  It worked out so that your pregenerated starter party plus the barbarian drog you found and the ninja H.K. Phoey were sort of the correct group.

I am not going to say I remember all the quests and areas of this game.  I haven't even had my commodore 64 set up for years.  One area I do remember was a group of monsters called quizenarts that were hidden in a mount near one of the roads.  These guys were weird as they were super hard to kill, but if you won with at least one guy, that character leveled like twenty levels.  Then you could go back and it would be easier so that maybe another guy lived.  This process repeated allowed all your characters to become bad-asses.  But it had a downside.  The game used to generate additional enemies based off the parties level.  This added and extra thousand peon monsters to every fight and slowed down the game incredibly.

All in all a great addition to the might and magic game world.  Certainly better than the current online trading card game.  I hope this new might and magic X kicks some butt.

Toy Review: Rom the Space Knight

Thanks to The super hero satelite

This was a weird one of a relatives toys.  I guess the comic book was very cool but the toy was lame beyond belief.  This is one even a kid like I was thought goofy.  I dont know about being a space knight but stilted plastic robot you did that Rom. 

Back in the 70's this was sort of the way toys were marketed.  You had a company produce not a line of toys but a single toy and market it.  There were GI Joes which were a line of toys as were Star Wars, but most did not have the line of toys idea.  You were buying some toy by some company back in those days.  The might man and monster maker kit by Tomy or in this case Rom by Parker Brothers.  They were tied in with comics so I guess that was the start of the cross pollination but nothing like the required cartoon / toy line you had in the 80's.

I am guessing this was easier on parents as you didn't have the villains and vehicles to buy, making it a one time purchase rather than constantly being hounded for more toys. 

I have seen talk that Rom may be making a return, I am not sure about that he seems a bit out of touch for today's kids.  In taking my daughter to Toys R Us yesterday I was amazed how different that place is from my memory.  There are no models at all, those used to be a thing.  Many of the toys I liked best were the True Legends I would have loved those as a kid, sad as those were the cheaper toys r us marketed toys.  The Star Wars and Gi Joes did little to nothing for me. 

Video Game Review: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Secret of the Silver Blades by SSI

Long time readers will know of my dislike for this game, but if you are new it sucks crap.  This was the first misstep in the gold box series for me.  I think it was something I had a ton of expectation for and not liking what I got curdled into hatred over the years. 

So we are dealing with gold box AD&D games here in first edition.  This had a couple of new classes the ranger and paladin, not sure if they were in azure bonds.  The big thing about it was they expanding the map beyond the 16x16 limits they had previously used.  From there it seemed the same game as all the rest, with a bit of a level cap increase.

The storyline is the party has been magically transported to the a city in danger, to help the towns folks.  They have no equipment at first but are quickly given some gear by the town elders.  That all is pretty standard for this time of game.  It's worth noting equipment never transfers over even if the party members have been leveled through Pools, hillsfair and secrets.  From there they are asked to stop the "Evil".  I really cant remember the evil though it was something about a frozen army and possibly a lich.

The party are sent out to explore and ostensibly power up.  this is where they enter the massive area of exploration that is the game.  You can just kill and kill and sometimes hit the locations you need to travel to.  Which would seem interesting but ends up being pointless as you never need to travel once you reach the portal zone.  I did find a +6 set of leather armor in a drawer once but after that nothing really of interest.  Once you reach the portal room you have a fight of decent difficulty for control of the portals.  After this you can travel back and forth.  There is a portal to the city you started in and eventually portals start opening that lead you were you need to go.  One is to a old dwarf fortress that is taken over.  Once you clear it you find an old dwarf that will heal and raise you for free, with no chance of con reduction.  That sort of breaks the game as well as you are always near a portal and then the fortress and can just use him whenever you are in trouble.

The last fight of the game is the only one where you really have a challenge.  I tried a couple of times only to die again and again.  The third attempt I actually buffed for the first time in the game, and it was cake.  One note give the ranger the giant slaying sword they have bonuses against them and he will kill a giant a round.