Ambrosia Software Web Board: Ungrateful Undead Undine - Ambrosia Software Web Board

(Thanks Sely for the title)

A while back, I beat Cythera without using any combat. This time I wanted to do kind of the opposite, and see how far I could get without learning/using magic. I knew I wouldn't be able to beat the game, since alchemy is essential for that; but I wanted to get as far as possible. I thought I might even be able to get far enough to use the tainted Crolna on Alaric.

Alas, I didn't make it that far. Although I was able to turn the Timeflux book and the deep-sea kelp in to Charax (at first he refused to have anything to do with me because I didn't know alchemy, but he forgot about that when I brought him a big complicated book to read. He's such a nerd), I wasn't able to complete my Crolna.

I'm stuck at Honor Jinrai. I have the first two Crolna shards, I've learned Seldane, and I've talked to Jhiaxus about his dead wife and how to honor her. I waited for Alastor to make me some gator boots, since I couldn't use Resist Magic or mage's friend potions (I suppose buying the potions from Milcom and using those would have been fine, but I had previously decided "no potions" and I was being stubborn), then I headed to Land's End volcano. I approached the weird altar thing and dropped down a loaf of homemade flatbread. Nothing happened, except a message saying "something feels hollow inside you." I tried several loaves of homemade bread, and just got the same message. No Jinrai. I went back to Jhiaxus to complain, but he just gave me the same instructions. He didn't mention needing to know magic or anything. I made some butter and went back to the volcano, this time offering Jinrai a buttered homemade bread. Still just a hollow feeling! Grr! What more can I give this chick?

Oh a whim, I ran to Pnyx, learned magic (did not learn any spells), ran back to the volcano, dropped down the previously-rejected bread, and boom, Jinrai. My conclusion is that you need to know magic in order for Jinrai to appear. But why? And is there any way for me to get past that? My only idea is to use savefile hacking to teleport across the abyss to get into Maayti, but that would be cheating; and besides, I never learned how to do that.

Overall, playing Cythera without magic was a fun experiment. I had tons of training points to use on combat skills, so I became quite strong very fast even though I wasn't cheating (haven't gotten around to putting Pandora's Box on that computer yet). I had to use the good ol' flax run for income, since I couldn't replicate diamonds, and it was annoying having to walk back to LKH every time I wanted healed, and there was no way to get the treasure in the tyrant's tomb, but I got to do most everything. Once I got the Sword of Heroes, I could defeat magical creatures, and Selinus was happy to give me passwords to the higher-degree magic halls, even though I didn't know the first thing about magic. It was fun, I just wish I could get the rest of the Crolna.

This is really quite strange. Maybe your character is a lousy cook who uses magic to make the bread edible?