Star Wars KOTOR #5 The Sewer Level.

Continuing right where we left off last episode, (when my game crashed, but don't worry i think i fixed the problem) our party was actually doing something this time instead of just talking to people for several hours without end.

When we left our party they were being attacked by a survivor of the Endar Spire turned into a Rakghoul.

And then they were ambushed by several other Rakghouls and died a couple of times, but eventually they managed to defeat all of them zombie alien things and started moving on towards their goal.

In the last episode i made a "to-do list" with every single objective the game has put in front of us so far, it goes like this:

1-Find Mission Vao.

1.5-Rescue Zaalbar.

2-Enter Vulkar Base.

3-Find Gadon's thing.

4-Win Race.

5-Get Bastila.

6-Escape Taris.

Right now we're in 1.5 "Rescuing Zaalbar", Missions wookie companion who's been kidnapped by some Gamorreans (they're like fat pig people) so our current objective right now is to make our way towards the sewers they inhabit.

But as always it doesn't take long for our heroes to find themselves in a cutscene, again. This one "triggers" when walking a little bit into the Undercity, in the opposite direction of the area where the party was ambushed.

_{That's Canderous Ordo, we met him two episodes ago I think.}

_{I wonder what they're doing here.}

Canderous and, who i believe to be his men, walk towards the party. As they get closer one of his men says:

"Don't... don't move! I'm... I'm not afraid to use this blaster if I have to!"

Poor guy must think we're infected by Rakghouls or something.

Before he can try anything Canderous interjects:

Yup, his men are definitely traumatized by them Rakghouls. I don't blame them really, those things are the devil in a virtual disguise.

Canderous then addresses Avren:

"Let me give you some advice: forget about it. Do yourself a favor and just head back the way you came."

->"It's because of the Rakghouls, right?"

Canderous nods, "This place is crawling with rakghouls. I've already lost half a dozen men to those monsters."

Then, as if the Rakghouls understand someone is talking about them...

_{Funnily enough they don't really make sounds when running like this, they do when they slap the stuffing out of you.}

Canderous then rallies his men:

And another fight with Rakghouls begins. It wasn't as difficult as the first time the party fought against them because Canderou's men where excellent distractions because with so many NPCs fighting the Rakghouls didn't stand a chance.

After the fight is done Canderous speaks again:

"Okay, boys... we're getting out of here before I lose anyone else. I can't carry all this salvage back by myself!"

He then talks to Avren

"You'd be smart to get out of here as well. Even if you can handle the rakghouls I doubt there's anything worth finding anymore"

Lucky for us, we're not looking for salvage but for dead bodies and sewers.

...

That sounds wrong, terribly wrong.

Canderous continues speaking:

"Davik sent me down here with this motley crew to scavenge whatever we could from the Republic escape pods that crashed during the recent battle overhead. But the Lower City gangs got here first. Anything worthwhile in those Republic pods is probably in their hands now. Davik won't like that."

Since it's been proven that the Undercity isn't the best place to hold a conversation, Avren decides to cut the talk and say his goodbyes to Canderous and his men.

"Come on boys... let's move out!" He says, as his men walk behind him, all of them looking at every direction as if they were expecting Rakghouls to attack at any moment.

The party keeps moving through the Undercity, searching for the entrace to the sewers and Rukil's apprentice. It isn't long until they find a corpse near what seems to be a Rakghoul "village".

Could this be the corpse of Rukil's apprentice?

Before we can inspect the corpses however, one of the rakghouls notices Avren and starts charging towards the party, alerting every other rakghol in the area:

_{Notice all of the white thingies in the background, those are rakghouls.}

The party kills the first rakghoul easily by focusing all of their firepower on it, and then Avren proceeds to charge the entire group of remaining rakghouls like the madman he is.

_{What a hero.}

He dies quickly, but this lets Carth and Mission take out every rakghoul with their blasters.

They're not much of a threat when they're distracted and with all of them dead we can finally inspect the corpses. Unfortunately, these are not the bodies we're looking for, so we keep searching.

I notice that right where Avren was killed (he's knocked out so he'll be fine) there's another corpse.

_{There's also another rakghoul that tries to sneak around, but Mission deals with it quickly}

This corpse however, seems to be Rukil's apprentice.

_{It says "Outcast Corpse" so it must be Rukil's apprentice.}

And it is indeed who the party are looking for because right after looting inspecting the corpse and taking a datapad from it, the quest journal is updated:

We'll return to Rukil and deliver the datapad after we find the sewers. But I have a question, how do these people manage to get datapads? I mean, isn't the whole point of the Undercity and its inhabitants that they're extremely poor and that they have nothing? You'd think they write on actual pieces of paper or something instead of highly advanced tablets.

Anyway, the sewers are actually really easy to find:

They're relatively close to the location we find Mission in. Right after stepping inside, the party finds a mine.

Again they're easy to disable so that doesn't stop the party for long, right behind that is a door that lets us access the first part of the sewers, the entrance if you will.

And right behind door number one we have...

_{You may not see it in this picture, but the fourth rakghoul is hidden behind the wall.}

Four rakghouls that have been alerted to our presence. Yay...

Using every single party member wisely (Putting Avren in front so that he aggroes everyone and Carth and Mission can just shoot them from afar) we're able to clear the room easily.

Don't get cocky though, rakghouls tend to attack in herds and sometimes we won't have the luxury of using Avren to draw the attention of everyone else.

With the room clear I begin to explore the sewers so that I can get as many experience points as possible, so that my characters level up faster. If you look at the pictures you can see a minimap, which covers all of the area that the party has already gone through.

_{This place sure has many doors.}

The sewer is made of several corridors that connect to medium or large rooms usually separated with these doors, so that when the player opens them the first thing they see is a pop up saying that combat has started.

_{Pictured here is a Gamorrean, an alien species in this universe that looks like ganondorf pigs.}

These guys are Gamorreans, the kidnappers of Zaalbar and easier to fight against than the rakghouls so it's less stressing and requires less constant saving and reloading.

After clearing the room i continue searching the sewers to see if there's any loot to be found.

Sadly, there's only corpses, corpses with loot but corpses nonetheless. I mean, they have stuff inside but it's not the same thing as a chest or something.

So, the party keeps going deep into the sewers...

And they find more rakghouls...

Really tough rakghouls.

It's around this part that Avren decides to defy the laws of the universe and proceed to kill most rakghouls whilst being swarmed by them and having 1 HP left.

This happens several times through the exploration of the sewers.

I'm not kidding.

There's also more corpses. These ones actually have some good stuff on them.

Eventually, the party finds a room with several Gamorreans inside, so they prepare for another battle.

Avren is knocked at the end of the fight but manages to take out quite a lot of the Gamorreans. In the end it's up to Carth and Mission to clear up the rest.

There's actually a chest in this room:

_{It's actually a footlocker but whatever, it serves the same purpose in this game.}

Exploring the room that the Gamorreans where in triggers a cutscene...

In which we finally rescue Zaalbar!

_{How is it that i take two episodes to rescue one wookiee but it takes me more than five to rescue a Jedi?}

_{Yes, he does make the "Wookiee" sound.}

"I'm glad to see you too, Big Z! You didn't think I'd forget about you – Mission and Zaalbar, together forever!" Says Mission.

Zaalbar's gaze moves towards Carth and Avren "Who's that with you?" He asks.

->"Good to meet you Zaalbar. I'm Avren and this is Carth."

What is a lifedebt for a wookiee you ask? well, Zaalbar's here to explain:

"I am sure, Mission." Says Zaalbar.

"This is an issue of great importance to me. Because of our great physical strength, Wookiees are being used as slave labor on our own homeworld. They see us as brutes and animals to be exploited. Over the years slavers have taken many of my people; we must always be on guard against raids against our villages. When the Gamorreans captured me, I thought I was doomed to a life of servitude. I have been saved from such a fate, and the only way I can repay that is through a lifedebt."

"So if I understand this right..." Says Carth "By rescuing you from a life of servitude you decided to pledge yourself into a life of servitude?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Makes sense to me."

With this, Zaalbar joins the party and Mission decides to stick with Avren and Carth because Zaalbar decided to become Avren's slave make a lifedebt to Avren.

"The Vulkars put up a force field to keep the sewer dwellers out. I'm one of the only non-Vulkars on Taris who can get you past it. I can't remember exactly how to get there, but I know it was somewhere here in the sewers. Over to the northeast, if I remember right. I just hope the rancor monster isn't still there."

"Wait, hold on. Did you just say rancor?"

"Yup."

"The giant ass monsters that eat people whole?"

"Yeees?"

"And one of them is living in the sewers, specifically, the path we're supposed to take?"

"Yeah, where are you going with this?"

"HOW are we supposed to get past that!?"

"Don't worry fam, the plot will show you a way!"

I hope it does. I really do.

The party keeps exploring and looking for more stuff in the sewers, here's some of the highlights:

_{Some corpses.}

_{Hold on, did Rukil send more people to their deaths?}

_{Pictured here is Avren defying death.}

_{Pictured here is Avren running away from death.}

_{Dang son, Rukil was really busy sending these people to their deaths.}

_{Pictured here is the party before dying.}

_{Pictured here is the party after ten or so reloads. Also a perfectly placed severed arm.}

This is where we're supposed to be right now, the room before we see the rancor.

That is his bed, and this-

-This, is the rancor.

"Okay guys" Says Avren "What do we do now?"

"Did you read the datapad the severed arm had?" Asks Carth.

"What?- No! I'm not grabbing a severed arm!"

"Well why not?" Asks Mission.

"Why no- It's a SEVERED arm! It's all mangled and disgusting!"

Carth and Mission then convince Avren to just grab the datapad that the arm seems to be holding despite being a limp, cold, severed arm.

The datapad explains that some Hidden Beks were developing a vial with the smell of the rancor's favorite prey, so that they could then lure it towards a trap and kill it in order to recover the piece that the Vulkar's stole, I think. As you can see, it failed horribly.

It wasn't in vain though, as the arm seems to be holding not only a datapad but several vials with the odor inside. So Avren decides to dump the three vials completely in the pile of bones.

_{Pictured here is the rancor, running towards his bone pile thanks to the smell inside the vials.}

The smell seems to be enough to make the rancor eat his leftovers, thus providing the perfect distraction for the party to slip by.

He also seemed to eat the five or so grenades that Avren mixed with the bones, just in case he wasn't distracted for long.

"See? I told you the plot makes a way!" Says Mission.

And with the beast finally dead, our heroes proceed to infiltrate the base of the Black Vulkars!

---

List of To-Do things:

1-Find Mission Vao.

1.5-Rescue Zaalbar.

2-Enter Vulkar Base. (<--- We're here)

3-Find Gadon's thing.

4-Win Race.

5-Get Bastila.

6-Escape Taris.

I find this to be the best place to end the episode, since behind the next set of doors the entrance to the Vulkar's base is found. I didn't experience any crashes this time, which probably means that my games stopped crashing randomly (or so i hope)

Like I always say, I hope you all have a fantastic day and all criticism is accepted.

Oh and before I forget, have a bonus conversation between the party members:

---

_{Yup, that's Carth. Talk until it escalates and then just drop the subject entirely.}