Star Wars KOTOR #6 The Search for the McGuffin.

Taking over from where we left last episode...

We killed this thing...

Which was "guarding" the entrance to the base of the Black Vulkars, a gang of space bikers or something similar, that are known as the "bad guys" of Taris.

We need to get there because right now we're looking for a Jedi by the name of "Bastila" that has been kidnapped by them, in the case that Bastila's not there then we need to look for a... uh... thing that some guy by the name of "Gadon" wants us to recover from the Vulkars.

However, Gadon believes that Bastila will not be found there simply because she's "too valuable" to be there. There's also a speeder race going on in Taris and the prize for winning said race is, among other things, Bastila. But in order to participate in the race Gadon needs the "thing" that was stolen by the Vulkars, because it's a piece for a speeder or something.

I made a list, in case you're still confused as to what is going on:

1-Find Misson & Rescue Zaalbar.

2-Enter Vulkar Base.

3-Find Gadon's thing.

4-Win Race.

5-Get Bastila.

6-Escape Taris.

First order of business today is to kill some guys who were guarding a door the door to the Vulkar's base, because they're really aggressive and don't like when you simply ask them to let you enter.

_{Pictured here is Avren coming back to the realm of the living and Carth carrying the party.}

These guys drop "Shields" which are little devices that are placed in a character's arms and can be used to reduce damage from certain types of hazards (Like bullets, or in this case blaster bolts) as you can probably imagine these things will be the best friends of Avren and co.

So, with our enemies dead and our pockets filled with their belongings the party enters the Vulkar's base.

_{Apparently, that door in front of the party is missing some health, don't ask me why.}

And then they're greeted with boxes and a closed door (that I opened before I remembered I had to take a screenshot of the place.)

There's no "linear" progression in this area, it's more like a small dungeon that can be explored and if you take your sweet time doing so you find some good stuff.

With this in mind the party decides to explore and steal get as many items from this place as possible.

As soon as they step out of the "box room" they're detected by an enemy.

_{You see that little spec of gray in the distance? That's our enemy.}

Don't worry if you can't see him in that image, I couldn't see him at first. I had to make Avren run towards the direction everyone else was shooting at in order to see what we were supposed to fight.

_{Wait does that robot have a spear on its back?}

It turns out to be a simple droid and Avren gets rid of it quickly, however the battle draws the attention of an actual member of the Vulkars (as in, an actual person and not a droid) and an even larger battle ensues.

And then Avren gets a sudden bout of madness and decides to ignore the battle completely and go somewhere else, to fight some other people and droids.

_{Wasn't this supposed to be a stealth mission or something?}

Eventually, their trail of enemies cuts short and they find this person cowering in fear. (Either because she's afraid of the Vulkars or our heroes, we'll never know)

Avren decides to talk to her:

"Please, don't hurt me!" She says, almost in the verge of tears "I just serve the food here, that's all! I'm not like these others – I'm not even a Black Vulkar. Please don't kill me!"

->"Calm down, I only want to ask you a few questions."

"But I don't know anything! I'm just a prisoner here - a slave! The Vulkars don't tell me anything, they treat me like dirt, they beat me if I screw up their orders."

Carth then decides to intervene:

_{Is that really you Carth? You're usually very confrontational about everything...}

The woman takes a few seconds before answering "Well… alright. I still don't know how much help I can be. But I sure hope you get rid of all the Vulkars. I hate them!"

Since she's just a waitress I don't think she may know anything about Gadon's "thing", so Avren asks about Bastila's whereabouts instead.

->"I'm looking for a prisoner. A woman named Bastila."

" Is she that Republic soldier?" She answers "I heard one of those Vulkar mention her, but she's not here. He said Brejik didn't trust his men around her. I guess she's too important to be a slave here in the kitchens, getting pawed and groped and kicked and spit on like me. Brejik must have take her somewhere safe."

Welp, plan B it is.

->"If I let you go can you find your way out of here?" Says Avren.

"Now that you've killed the guards who were supposed to watch me I think I could find my way out of here."

Without much else to ask this woman, Avren simply lets her leave.

"I… I'm free to go? You're not going to kill me? I… I don't know how I can ever repay you. Thank you! Thank you!"

After talking with this lady, the party keeps exploring and fighting more Vulkars. Eventually they find a somewhat well guarded door with two security droids.

"There must be something good in there..." Thinks Avren, and with the promise of loot they decide to slaughter all of the droids and bust their way inside that little place.

_{Carth and Mission forget they're using blasters and stand right next to their target while shooting.}

It turns out this little place in the middle of the building is the armory. And there's a few boxes of stuff inside:

Along with a new change of clothes for Avren:

He looks like he can actually take a hit now!
_{not really}

Right in front of the armory is a terminal Avren can hack into (or "slice" as they call it here). Inside the terminal he can open all the doors in the compound and check the cameras in various rooms. Doing so lets him see how many Vulkars are gathered in the barracks:

_{Yeah no, we're dying if we fight all of them.}

And in a way similar to the very first episodes...

_{One guy survives this.}

He overloads a power conduit and kills most of the Vulkars with one big explosion.

The party continues exploring and since they opened all doors a random npc jumps on them and fights them to the death, or at least until his health drops to 20% or something. He then pleads for mercy.

_{It takes him like 42 different sentences in his language to say all of those words. I'm not kidding.}

Avren doesn't believe him "Okay, what the hell? First you jump at us from nowhere with the intent to kill us and then decide to call it quits because you're losing?"

"...Yes?"

"And i'm supposed to just believe you're not going to stab us in the back or something?"

"Well when you put it that way it sounds unbelievable." He says "B-but I assure you that I won't try to attack you again! Just let me go, please!"

"'Aight get outta here, before I change my mind..."

"Thanks...! Thanks a lot!."

What a weird conversation.

I suppose this is where that guy came from, there's a footlocker in a corner but it doesn't have much inside.

The party keeps exploring...

They find some more stuff...

They find some turrets in the next room and then the entire party dies because i forgot to turn off the turrets that have an "instakill" attack.

And I also forgot to save, so I have to do everything again. Yay.

_{They don't look so menacing when they're turned off.}

It doesn't take long to get back to where I was, and this time I actually deactivate the turrets so that the party can proceed. They take an elevator to the Vulkar's garage, which is where i suppose Gadon's "thing" is located.

_{This is how the garage looks.}

And it doesn't take long for the party to find trouble:

_{This was a bad decision...}

Unfortunately our party is filled with wimps that die very quickly, so this "Garage Head" kills Avren and Mission and leaves Carth alone against three enemies.

_{Spoiler: Carth wins.}

What surprises me more about this encounter is that Carth actually manages to kill not two, but all three enemies on his own. What a guy.

The Garage Head drops some more armor so i guess Mission is getting an upgrade too.

The rest of the dungeon is pretty straightforward, there's only like to different paths so most of the party's time is wasted fighting against whatever finds the party. There's also some extreme jumps in "difficulty" and by that i mean that sometimes enemies won't die and other times it's really hard for them not to die, so it makes me really confused since i don't know if i have to prepare the party for a big confrontation or not.

Anyway, our heroes keep looting and pillaging in their search for the "thing". Until eventually...

_{I can't believe they don't start firing at Mission through the glass.}

_{Hey look! Another Cutscene!}

_{Are we really having this discussion right now?}

"Instead of stealing the prototype for the Beks, why don't you come work for us? The Black Vulkars could use someone like you."

->"Yeah right, so that you can send me into yet another fetch quest? Not happening."

The Twi'lek sighs "I can see there's not much chance of convincing you to come work for us after all. Most unfortunate."

And then the fight starts.

Right now the party is outnumbered, so the best thing to do is try and thin the numbers of the enemy. We do that by targeting the weakest enemies in the room and getting rid of them first.

_{Pictured here is Avren, running towards the weaker enemies.}

Avren does a good job of that while Mission and Carth distract the two more powerful targets, they also managed to kill the female Twi'lek while Avren was busy. The male Twi'lek is a little smarter however, and uses a shield that absorbs a lot of the damage that the party is dealing.

_{Pictured here is Avren, dying like usual.}

It doesn't take him long to deal with Mission after that, finishing her off after a couple of shots.
Carth however gets his shield to run out of energy and manages to kill the "boss" on his own.
_{Notice how the boss had almost all of his HP on the pictures, Carth really carried the party here.}

This lets the party check the room for Gadon's "thing".

Which is... on the floor... for some reason...

Whatever, the party takes it and loots the bodies. The Male Twi'lek drops some Cyberpunk style glasses that Avren picks up immediately.

_{He looks great with those.}

_{Here's a close up of his face with them glasses.}

Without much else to do in here, the party leaves the Vulkar's base and heads over to Gadon to deliver the swoop accelera- I mean, the thing.

The party is attacked right after leaving the base...

But they manage to get back to Gadon in one piece.

" You have returned. Do you have the thing with you?"

->"Yup, right here."

"Good. I was beginning to wonder if you would make it. The race is tomorrow, and my mechanics need time to install the prototype into the swoop engine of our bike."

->"Okay. I got you your stuff, now it's your turn."

"Don't worry, I'm a man of my word. I promised you could ride in the swoop race under the Hidden Bek banner, and I'm still going to let you do that." He says.

_{wait what}

"Gadon! You can't be serious!" Exclaims Zaerdra, his Twi'lek guard. "We need one of our best riders on that bike! We can't let some rookie take the prototype engine into the race!"

->"Yeah she's right Gadon." Says Avren "I don't even know how to drive one!"

->"Excuse me, what?"

->"I'm not so sure about this anymore..."

"You have to, the plot demands it."

->"Son of a..."

"You can stay here tonight. The mechanics need time to install the accelerator on the engine, so you won't be able to practice your riding. But I've got good instincts, and you have the look of a racer about you. Just try to relax and in the morning we'll take you to the swoop track."

---

I'll end the episode here, next time I'll cover the race and Bastila's rescue. One more episode and we'll finally be able to rescue Bastila, thus bringing us closer to the end of the nightmare that is Taris.

Can't believe it's been 6 episodes or something and we're still in the "tutorial level". We're almost finished though. Almost there... Just a little bit more....

Like always, I hope you all have a fantastic day and I'll see you later!

The List:

1-Find Misson & Rescue Zaalbar.

2-Enter Vulkar Base.

3-Find Gadon's thing.

4-Win Race.

5-Get Bastila.

6-Escape Taris.

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BONUS: