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Completed Let's play Dark Heart of Uukrul! -- Dead and done!
- Thread starter Crooked Bee
- Start date
Currently at page 35 of the 4 Heroes of Light, so far, so awesome.
What puzzles me is that the town of Invidia was dominated by the Mammon while in italian, invidia means envy.
I thought they were going all foreboding with the town naming.
What puzzles me is that the town of Invidia was dominated by the Mammon while in italian, invidia means envy.
I thought they were going all foreboding with the town naming.
lightbane said:
Beware of what you ask, bro lightbane.
Krraloth said:
Yeah, that didn't make any sense to me either.
20: Dungeons and Dragons, Part 1
In which we start exploring the dungeon of the dragon, fight a lot, and encounter a totally mysterious mirror.
Previously on this LP, we finished exploring the Dungeon Beyond Reason. In the manual, the sanctuary we're currently in, URSHAS, is called the Sanctuary of the Dragon, so I'll be calling the next dungeon just that: the dungeon of the dragon. :twisted:
Sounds familiar? Well, sure thing. That doesn't have anything to do with D&D though. And no, I don't mean the "I want to be a dragon" Bioware-created Codex meme. I mean, as every reader of this LP totally must remember, the last archival passage we were allowed to read at the Circle of Magi:
"A game of his own choosing"? Yay, a dragon's game! Shall we win at it? I wonder...
Not in this update anyway. Too many screenshots to sort through.
For now let's head to Sagaris and have some things identified.
First, a hammer:
Next, the ominous Nastykitchen knife, the one totally covered with blood:
300 coins! FFS. Oh well, okay.
A sentient blade? Well, 'kay, it'll definitely come in handy! I assume it is supposed to deal more damage to enemy spellcasters; that's at least what it sounds like from Sagaris' description.
Let's also have a look at the cross we got for loot after the temple battle:
A cross of silver... Meh, we already bought one for Kalos several updates ago. Money wasted. :/ We'll need to sell this one, then.
We now teleport to the shopping area and visit the Forge to repair Bee's weapons -- the evil Master Monk broke both of them, as you may remember.
That done, we equip Bee with the repaired Broadsword and enter the shop. Let's sell the second silver cross:
We bought one for 2000 coins, but sell one for 629. That's monopoly for ya.
We also buy some Cones of incense, maybe two or three...
...just because I'd like to see just what burning a cone of incense at an altar does.
And in order to see that, we must go to one of the temples:
At an altar, we press B forawesome some incense-burning. Has anything changed, you ask? Yup, it has.
Our dear Kalos now has 49 virtue points, and he had only 34 before burning the incense. Duly noted. *Makes note in her uukrul.txt: burning incense increases virtue points.*
Oh, and we burn two more cones of incense. Just to make sure. I'm wasteful like that.
79 virtue points!
But it sure is a costly way of increasing them. So we'd better not resort to it often.
Oh, and you know what? Remember how we found a Medal of Escape near the MELAS teleporter in the Dungeon Beyond Reason? I suspect you don't, but we teleport to MELAS just in case -- and lo and behold, we find another medal there!
I like checking on places I've already been to, but this is, I think, the first time that strategy of mine has paid off. It looks like new medals appear in this box from time to time, or at least I assume so. I dunno at what intervals or due to what actions they appear, though, so we'll just be returning here from time to time.
Now spekkio's carrying two medals of escape! Yay! (Not that we've needed those medals so far, but I assume there must be a use for them at some point. I hope so, yeah.)
Oh-kay. The time has come. We teleport back to URSHAS and exit it through the eastern, uhm, exit:
The dungeon of the dragon, here we come! A totally awesome group of adventuring codexers! What danger awaits us further inside? What ominous thingies? :twisted: We'll know soon enough...
The very first door we enter hides a nasty encounter with snakes! Ouch.
Three snakes walk into a bar, 1 snake says to another ''why do humans measure us in inches?'' The other snake replies, ''because we don't have any feet!!''
So, uhm, where was I? Oh yeah, snakes!! Three of them.
spekkio casts SELMUR to raise our AC by 8 points. And then...
My, these snakes sure bite hard.
Bee tries doing her collar-grabbing trick...
...but, alas, the snakes don't wear collars. :/
AMRASAKIM!!
spekkio's spell does wound the Death Adder a bit. Rocket and Bee are there to help. First Bee strikes at the adder for 44 hp, then Rocket for 23 hp, and then Bee, again, for 19 hp:
We're almost there!
Oops.
But Rocket strikes back at the adder for 33 hp, and then spekkio's AMRAS finishes the poisonous beastie off!
All's well that ends we--
Err, I mean
Bee's totally dead. Dead as a bee.
Death count: potato.
Reloading the back-up sanctuary save.
Back at the snake's! I mean, I have to take my revenge!!
Here it comes again.
Several turns later, we're still having a pretty hard time...
...and a few turns more, same thing...
(FUUUUUUUU- at everyone being poisoned, and Rocket being stunned, to boot.)
...oooh lordy lord...
We're almost, uhm, there, from the looks of it.
spekkio's AMRASMUR finally brings one of the snakes down, though.
I'm having a déjà vu here... but Bee survives this time! spekkio's SHUMMUR and Kalos' SIRDHE come just in time.
Finally, after a really unforgiving battle, all the snakes lie slain!
This battle totally wasn't for nothing!
Shiny.
There's nothing else of interest in this room, though. Oh well. I guess that means we should get moving further east.
Objection! We should rest at the sanctuary first.
Back at URSHAS, Kalos and spekkio advance to level 7.
Let's have a lookie.
Looking at Kalos' stats, we see that his Strength and Vitality have increased by 1 point.
And spekkio's Intelligence and Piety have gone up by one point, too.
Bee, however, is poisoned and weak...
...so spekkio removes poison with ISO, and then we rest. After that, it's time to be movin' on!
Another door! Bee totally ruins our attempt at stealth. :/
It's just a corridor behind it, though. No snakes or anything. Thankfully.
Ominous and... intriguing? Hmmm.
To the northwest is one more door.
It's empty though, so further east we go.
Oi.
Troglodites aka Cave Dwellers. They all go down in one to two hits though.
A little exp. And 192 coins for loot.
After going further east, the passage bends north, and we descend some kind of stairs. Then the passage bends west.
The door to the left hides another small room. Inside it, there's a book on the ground.
spekkio picks it up, and we return to the main corridor.
In the next (and no less small) room, we're ambushed by a cloaked figure!
Let's proceed ... carefully.
Turns out it's a Master Spy.
He's much weaker than the Master Monk was, though. Lord Rocket slays him.
Meh. Then again, this fight has been really easy.
There's a money stash in this room, which we claim as our reward.
Westward, ho!
Here, rhombus tiles begin instead of the ordinary square ones. Ominous, yay!
Two imps attack us.
We kill 'em quick.
From this room, we take the western door.
We choose to listen at the next door, and it sounds like the ground is shaking!
A single gigantic birdie seems to be causing all this noise!
We kill it no probs.
Rocket gets the most exp, since he was the one to do the bird killing.
Naturally, it's Bee who gets to pick up the gem.
Gosh, a lot of rooms. Also: there are one-way doors in here. We've already encountered them before. In the above screenshot, a one-way door is one square to the north of where we're currently standing. You can go through it, but it disappears right behind your back. Twisted!
Two giant spiders ambush us in one of the next rooms.
Scary!
The battle is a bit tedious, but still we kill the spiders without losing much HP.
The exp is meh, but some 300 coins won't hurt.
The dungeon gets more and more convoluted. Lots of doors, lots of rooms, lots of paths to take.
It looks like every time you reenter the room with spiders you have to fight two more of them. We'd best be careful when exploring. This kind of thing can be draining.
So yeah, we slay the spiders again.
We get some nice loot though, so maybe this battle is worth repeating after all, eh?
I choose to head north. Because why not?
We're pretty far away from the sanctuary, so let's just hope we don't die here.
The rhombus tiles seem to go on and on.
It looks like we're going around some large area in the centre of the map.
Whoops. A beast of ice.
Acid Reptile? Uh-oh. That doesn't bode well. Acid can dissolve armor, so we'd better try slaying the beast with our magic alone, without letting it get too close to our melee fighters. Just in case.
We succeed: two RALKORs and an AMRASAKIM put it to eternal rest.
Kalos and spekkio naturally get more exp. And on to the north we go.
A secret door! Rocket opens it. Forcefully.
It's just an empty one-square room though. of secret areas.
Oh noes! It's those nasty snakes again!
They bite us and they poison us
godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley, but we persevere.
Phew. This was close. And I'd hate to reload the backup sanctuary save. So all's good.
We're low on, well, everything, so we head back to URSHAS to have a rest.
Lord Rocket is level 7 now.
We rest, then teleport to Sagaris to identify the newly-found gems, as well as the book...
...and the piece of chalk:
Then we visit the shop to sell the gems. We try buying a Silver sword for Rocket...
...but naturally he can't use it yet. When oh when will his time come, I wonder?
We buy a pair of steel boots and a studded gauntlet for Bee. As she equips them, her AC goes up from 16 to 19:
Good.
At the Circle of Magicians, spekkio-kun is awarded a new ring:
And Kalos also gets a new one at the temple of Ufthu:
A gold ring, yay!
It looks like I've really been relying on offensive prayers a lot.
And so we're back at URSHAS. Again. We back up our game and then return to the area with the rhombus tiles and continue moving to the north.
First, however, we have to slay the acid reptile again. Which is what we do.
A parchment?
I wonder if it's useful.
But anyway. We finally enter a new area.
North-south, eh? Let's head north, then.
Hmmm.
As we approach the northern wall, something weird happens.
A dream-like image?
Kauri trees? A group? A tower?
A figure in gray?
I sure am troubled by the vision... WTF does it even mean!?
There doesn't seem to be anything of further interest here, though -- except for an inscription at the southern wall:
Uhm, NGOSMUR?
I STAND UPON THE SHOULDERS OF THE HOLDER OF MYSTERIES -- YOU COWER BELOW
:twisted:
Well, that sure is ominous and nasty and stuffies. But what, again, does that even mean!?
Oh well. Let's go further west -- this time to the southwest, just as we got here by going northwest.
Toothy orcs.
Prepare to meet your doom, orcs!
Which is what the orcs do.
Nice. We're free to proceed now.
So, uhm, where do we go next? Let's try this do-
i'm like a fire lizard i make it hot
That fire lizard bastard does indeed make it hot! He breathes flames, which proves quite a devastating thing on his part. The problem is to succeed in getting close to him so as to bring him down in melee, as he seems to be resistant to magic.
Bee barely survives, but Rocket does the job.
Plus 284 coins. That sure was close for poor Bee. Again.
A couple of SIRDHE prayers patch us up, and we proceed.
Hmm, nice view. Things sure are symmetrical, aren't they? Which means there must be a secret room right here!
Indeed! I wonder if there's just an empty room behind it...
Bee picks up the necklace. Naturally.
And further south we g---
Fuck it! This fight is a recurring one, too. No way to avoid this room, alas.
HELAS, quick! But...
Talk about being close...
We get some exp + 142 coins. Gosh, we're almost out of virtue and psychic points. And out of HP. But we just won't make it if we decide to head back to URSHAS. So we must press on.
Healing salve comes in handy. As does SIRDHE.
This must be a bug. :/
Run awaaaay!
Phew.
There's an altar here, but...
FUUUUUUUUUUU- I knew we should've taken a cone of incense with us. Stupid Bee.
So, what else can we do here? Well, we can pray for manna from heaven.
Yeah, this prayer grants us food, even though I really couldn't tell it from the description. But it is clearly a prayer meant to be invoked at an altar, so I decide to see what it brings.
And Kalos does indeed successfully invoke it, surprisingly enough:
At first it seems like nothing has changed. But close investigation reveals that our food supply has increased!
So yeah, we've figured out what one more prayer does. Congrats! There're many even more obscure prayers in the manual though, and I haven't yet mastered them or figured out what they're supposed to do. :/ Oh well.
Further down south, we flee from another group of purple bugs. And then -- surprise, surprise! -- another spider encounter kicks in.
Hmmm, this dungeon's layout is indeed symmetrical. Even the scripted encounters are the same.
So yeah, we slay the spiders. But of course.
A gem.
Gosh, I'm tired. This dungeon is draining. ... But I get a bright idea. If it is indeed totally symmetrical, that means we can (hopefully) reach the next sanctuary by going through the western exit, the one located across the dungeon from the one through which we entered it. Right? Right!?
Let's just hope it works. There is indeed a similarly-looking exit to the west here.
We find some money along the way.
And...
...a vision of Mara appears! She tells us there's more to the mysterious mirror we encountered than meets the eye.
Oh well. I still don't have a clue just what we are supposed to do with that mirror... "Essential", my ass.
For now, however, the only vital thing is to get to the next sanctuary.
In a familiar manner, the passage bends north and then east.
Some orcs attack us, but we slay them.
Nice.
So, uhm, whaddya think is behind that door to the east?
Freakin' snakes!
I was foolish enough to forget that, since this dungeon is symmetrical, there must be snakes in this room, too! And snakes are tough.
Totally tough. So we run away. Or rather, we try running away...
We do, however, escape. Phew. I would've probably rage-quit had we died here. Just imagine going all this way again!!
We patch ourselves up with ISO (just one, since spekkio is almost out of psychic points) and SIRDHE. And finally...
A sanctuary!
We acti-fuckin'-vate it!
And notice that Bee only needs 102 exp to make level 8!
The dungeon of the dragon, however, is still totally unexplored. And believe me, you haven't even seen the main -- and the most devious -- part of it. Oh, and I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do to that mysterious mirror. Or what the dream-like image means.
So, uhm, stay tuned, I guess?
Next time: you don't even know what you don't know!
In which we start exploring the dungeon of the dragon, fight a lot, and encounter a totally mysterious mirror.
Previously on this LP, we finished exploring the Dungeon Beyond Reason. In the manual, the sanctuary we're currently in, URSHAS, is called the Sanctuary of the Dragon, so I'll be calling the next dungeon just that: the dungeon of the dragon. :twisted:
Sounds familiar? Well, sure thing. That doesn't have anything to do with D&D though. And no, I don't mean the "I want to be a dragon" Bioware-created Codex meme. I mean, as every reader of this LP totally must remember, the last archival passage we were allowed to read at the Circle of Magi:
"A game of his own choosing"? Yay, a dragon's game! Shall we win at it? I wonder...
Not in this update anyway. Too many screenshots to sort through.
For now let's head to Sagaris and have some things identified.First, a hammer:
Next, the ominous Nasty
300 coins! FFS. Oh well, okay.
A sentient blade?
Well, 'kay, it'll definitely come in handy! I assume it is supposed to deal more damage to enemy spellcasters; that's at least what it sounds like from Sagaris' description.Let's also have a look at the cross we got for loot after the temple battle:
A cross of silver... Meh, we already bought one for Kalos several updates ago. Money wasted. :/ We'll need to sell this one, then.
We now teleport to the shopping area and visit the Forge to repair Bee's weapons -- the evil Master Monk broke both of them, as you may remember.
That done, we equip Bee with the repaired Broadsword and enter the shop. Let's sell the second silver cross:
We bought one for 2000 coins, but sell one for 629. That's monopoly for ya.
We also buy some Cones of incense, maybe two or three...
...just because I'd like to see just what burning a cone of incense at an altar does.
And in order to see that, we must go to one of the temples:
At an altar, we press B for
Our dear Kalos now has 49 virtue points, and he had only 34 before burning the incense. Duly noted. *Makes note in her uukrul.txt: burning incense increases virtue points.*
Oh, and we burn two more cones of incense. Just to make sure. I'm wasteful like that.
79 virtue points!
But it sure is a costly way of increasing them. So we'd better not resort to it often.
Oh, and you know what? Remember how we found a Medal of Escape near the MELAS teleporter in the Dungeon Beyond Reason? I suspect you don't, but we teleport to MELAS just in case -- and lo and behold, we find another medal there!
I like checking on places I've already been to, but this is, I think, the first time that strategy of mine has paid off. It looks like new medals appear in this box from time to time, or at least I assume so. I dunno at what intervals or due to what actions they appear, though, so we'll just be returning here from time to time.
Now spekkio's carrying two medals of escape! Yay! (Not that we've needed those medals so far, but I assume there must be a use for them at some point. I hope so, yeah.)
Oh-kay. The time has come. We teleport back to URSHAS and exit it through the eastern, uhm, exit:
The dungeon of the dragon, here we come! A totally awesome group of adventuring codexers! What danger awaits us further inside? What ominous thingies? :twisted: We'll know soon enough...
The very first door we enter hides a nasty encounter with snakes! Ouch.
Three snakes walk into a bar, 1 snake says to another ''why do humans measure us in inches?'' The other snake replies, ''because we don't have any feet!!''
So, uhm, where was I? Oh yeah, snakes!! Three of them.
spekkio casts SELMUR to raise our AC by 8 points. And then...
My, these snakes sure bite hard.
Bee tries doing her collar-grabbing trick...
...but, alas, the snakes don't wear collars. :/
AMRASAKIM!!
spekkio's spell does wound the Death Adder a bit. Rocket and Bee are there to help. First Bee strikes at the adder for 44 hp, then Rocket for 23 hp, and then Bee, again, for 19 hp:
We're almost there!
Oops.
But Rocket strikes back at the adder for 33 hp, and then spekkio's AMRAS finishes the poisonous beastie off!
All's well that ends we--
Err, I mean
Bee's totally dead. Dead as a bee.
Death count: potato.
Reloading the back-up sanctuary save.
Back at the snake's! I mean, I have to take my revenge!!
Here it comes again.
Several turns later, we're still having a pretty hard time...
...and a few turns more, same thing...
(FUUUUUUUU- at everyone being poisoned, and Rocket being stunned, to boot.)
...oooh lordy lord...
We're almost, uhm, there, from the looks of it.
spekkio's AMRASMUR finally brings one of the snakes down, though.
I'm having a déjà vu here... but Bee survives this time! spekkio's SHUMMUR and Kalos' SIRDHE come just in time.
Finally, after a really unforgiving battle, all the snakes lie slain!
This battle totally wasn't for nothing!
Shiny.
There's nothing else of interest in this room, though. Oh well. I guess that means we should get moving further east.
Objection! We should rest at the sanctuary first.
Back at URSHAS, Kalos and spekkio advance to level 7.
Let's have a lookie.
Looking at Kalos' stats, we see that his Strength and Vitality have increased by 1 point.
And spekkio's Intelligence and Piety have gone up by one point, too.
Bee, however, is poisoned and weak...
...so spekkio removes poison with ISO, and then we rest. After that, it's time to be movin' on!
Another door! Bee totally ruins our attempt at stealth. :/
It's just a corridor behind it, though. No snakes or anything. Thankfully.
Ominous and... intriguing?
Hmmm.
To the northwest is one more door.
It's empty though, so further east we go.
Oi.
Troglodites aka Cave Dwellers. They all go down in one to two hits though.
A little exp. And 192 coins for loot.
After going further east, the passage bends north, and we descend some kind of stairs. Then the passage bends west.
The door to the left hides another small room. Inside it, there's a book on the ground.
spekkio picks it up, and we return to the main corridor.
In the next (and no less small) room, we're ambushed by a cloaked figure!
Let's proceed ... carefully.
Turns out it's a Master Spy.
He's much weaker than the Master Monk was, though. Lord Rocket slays him.
Meh. Then again, this fight has been really easy.
There's a money stash in this room, which we claim as our reward.
Westward, ho!
Here, rhombus tiles begin instead of the ordinary square ones. Ominous, yay!
Two imps attack us.
We kill 'em quick.
From this room, we take the western door.
We choose to listen at the next door, and it sounds like the ground is shaking!
A single gigantic birdie seems to be causing all this noise!
We kill it no probs.
Rocket gets the most exp, since he was the one to do the bird killing.
Naturally, it's Bee who gets to pick up the gem.
Gosh, a lot of rooms. Also: there are one-way doors in here. We've already encountered them before. In the above screenshot, a one-way door is one square to the north of where we're currently standing. You can go through it, but it disappears right behind your back. Twisted!
Two giant spiders ambush us in one of the next rooms.
Scary!
The battle is a bit tedious, but still we kill the spiders without losing much HP.
The exp is meh, but some 300 coins won't hurt.
The dungeon gets more and more convoluted. Lots of doors, lots of rooms, lots of paths to take.
It looks like every time you reenter the room with spiders you have to fight two more of them. We'd best be careful when exploring. This kind of thing can be draining.
So yeah, we slay the spiders again.
We get some nice loot though, so maybe this battle is worth repeating after all, eh?
I choose to head north. Because why not?
We're pretty far away from the sanctuary, so let's just hope we don't die here.
The rhombus tiles seem to go on and on.
It looks like we're going around some large area in the centre of the map.
Whoops. A beast of ice.
Acid Reptile? Uh-oh. That doesn't bode well. Acid can dissolve armor, so we'd better try slaying the beast with our magic alone, without letting it get too close to our melee fighters. Just in case.
We succeed: two RALKORs and an AMRASAKIM put it to eternal rest.
Kalos and spekkio naturally get more exp. And on to the north we go.
A secret door! Rocket opens it. Forcefully.
It's just an empty one-square room though.
of secret areas.
Oh noes! It's those nasty snakes again!
They bite us and they poison us
godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley, but we persevere.
Phew. This was close. And I'd hate to reload the backup sanctuary save. So all's good.
We're low on, well, everything, so we head back to URSHAS to have a rest.
Lord Rocket is level 7 now.
We rest, then teleport to Sagaris to identify the newly-found gems, as well as the book...
...and the piece of chalk:
Then we visit the shop to sell the gems. We try buying a Silver sword for Rocket...
...but naturally he can't use it yet. When oh when will his time come, I wonder?
We buy a pair of steel boots and a studded gauntlet for Bee. As she equips them, her AC goes up from 16 to 19:
Good.
At the Circle of Magicians, spekkio-kun is awarded a new ring:
And Kalos also gets a new one at the temple of Ufthu:
A gold ring, yay!
It looks like I've really been relying on offensive prayers a lot.
And so we're back at URSHAS. Again. We back up our game and then return to the area with the rhombus tiles and continue moving to the north.
First, however, we have to slay the acid reptile again. Which is what we do.
A parchment?
I wonder if it's useful.But anyway. We finally enter a new area.
North-south, eh? Let's head north, then.
Hmmm.
As we approach the northern wall, something weird happens.
A dream-like image?
Kauri trees? A group? A tower?
A figure in gray?
I sure am troubled by the vision... WTF does it even mean!?
There doesn't seem to be anything of further interest here, though -- except for an inscription at the southern wall:
Uhm, NGOSMUR?
I STAND UPON THE SHOULDERS OF THE HOLDER OF MYSTERIES -- YOU COWER BELOW
:twisted:
Well, that sure is ominous and nasty and stuffies. But what, again, does that even mean!?
Oh well. Let's go further west -- this time to the southwest, just as we got here by going northwest.
Toothy orcs.
Prepare to meet your doom, orcs!
Which is what the orcs do.
Nice. We're free to proceed now.
So, uhm, where do we go next? Let's try this do-
i'm like a fire lizard i make it hot
That fire lizard bastard does indeed make it hot! He breathes flames, which proves quite a devastating thing on his part. The problem is to succeed in getting close to him so as to bring him down in melee, as he seems to be resistant to magic.
Bee barely survives, but Rocket does the job.
Plus 284 coins. That sure was close for poor Bee. Again.
A couple of SIRDHE prayers patch us up, and we proceed.
Hmm, nice view. Things sure are symmetrical, aren't they? Which means there must be a secret room right here!
Indeed! I wonder if there's just an empty room behind it...
Bee picks up the necklace. Naturally.
And further south we g---
Fuck it! This fight is a recurring one, too. No way to avoid this room, alas.
HELAS, quick! But...
Talk about being close...
We get some exp + 142 coins. Gosh, we're almost out of virtue and psychic points. And out of HP. But we just won't make it if we decide to head back to URSHAS. So we must press on.
Healing salve comes in handy. As does SIRDHE.
This must be a bug. :/
Run awaaaay!
Phew.
There's an altar here, but...
FUUUUUUUUUUU- I knew we should've taken a cone of incense with us. Stupid Bee.
So, what else can we do here? Well, we can pray for manna from heaven.
Yeah, this prayer grants us food, even though I really couldn't tell it from the description. But it is clearly a prayer meant to be invoked at an altar, so I decide to see what it brings.
And Kalos does indeed successfully invoke it, surprisingly enough:
At first it seems like nothing has changed. But close investigation reveals that our food supply has increased!
So yeah, we've figured out what one more prayer does. Congrats! There're many even more obscure prayers in the manual though, and I haven't yet mastered them or figured out what they're supposed to do. :/ Oh well.
Further down south, we flee from another group of purple bugs. And then -- surprise, surprise! -- another spider encounter kicks in.
Hmmm, this dungeon's layout is indeed symmetrical. Even the scripted encounters are the same.
So yeah, we slay the spiders. But of course.
A gem.
Gosh, I'm tired. This dungeon is draining. ... But I get a bright idea. If it is indeed totally symmetrical, that means we can (hopefully) reach the next sanctuary by going through the western exit, the one located across the dungeon from the one through which we entered it. Right? Right!?
Let's just hope it works. There is indeed a similarly-looking exit to the west here.
We find some money along the way.
And...
...a vision of Mara appears! She tells us there's more to the mysterious mirror we encountered than meets the eye.
Oh well. I still don't have a clue just what we are supposed to do with that mirror... "Essential", my ass.
For now, however, the only vital thing is to get to the next sanctuary.
In a familiar manner, the passage bends north and then east.
Some orcs attack us, but we slay them.
Nice.
So, uhm, whaddya think is behind that door to the east?
Freakin' snakes!
I was foolish enough to forget that, since this dungeon is symmetrical, there must be snakes in this room, too! And snakes are tough.
Totally tough. So we run away. Or rather, we try running away...
We do, however, escape. Phew. I would've probably rage-quit had we died here. Just imagine going all this way again!!
We patch ourselves up with ISO (just one, since spekkio is almost out of psychic points) and SIRDHE. And finally...
A sanctuary!
We acti-fuckin'-vate it!
And notice that Bee only needs 102 exp to make level 8!
The dungeon of the dragon, however, is still totally unexplored. And believe me, you haven't even seen the main -- and the most devious -- part of it.
Oh, and I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do to that mysterious mirror. Or what the dream-like image means. So, uhm, stay tuned, I guess?
Next time: you don't even know what you don't know!
Fowyr
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2009
- Messages
- 7,671
It triggered by activation of another Sanctuary.Crooked Bee said:
Solution is pretty easy if you know what to do. But you don't. You will gain the clue eventually. Maybe several sanctuaries later.Crooked Bee said:
I'm eagerly awaiting next update.
golgepapaz
Augur
eagerly anticipating the next update...
Edward_R_Murrow
Arcane
Smash the mirror; nothing bad could come of that....
And in regards to hints of dragons, are there any "big" critters? Like ones larger than a square unit on the battlefield?
And in regards to hints of dragons, are there any "big" critters? Like ones larger than a square unit on the battlefield?
Fowyr said:Solution is pretty easy if you know what to do. But you don't. You will gain the clue eventually. Maybe several sanctuaries later.Crooked Bee said:
Oh, thanks, okay then. Does the mirror have anything to do with
the crossword puzzle? (Just yes or no, no spoilers plz!)
Kz3r0 said:Great update, please continue little Bee.
lightbane said:Keep with the updates, Bee-kunchan
golgepapaz said:
Edward_R_Murrow said:
Not an option, alas, as far as I'm aware of. The problem is, you aren't given any clearly defined options, so the only way is probably to "solve" the dream-like image somehow or maybe bring something to the mirror or perhaps do something in front of it. Beats me.
Edward_R_Murrow said:
Hmm. Not that I'm aware of, no. At least I haven't encountered any yet. We'll see what the future holds though.
Carlos' Bitch1
Arcane
Ah yes, this place. Lots of fun.
I had a very similar moment of relief when I found that sanctuary. They don't make them like they used to.
I had a very similar moment of relief when I found that sanctuary. They don't make them like they used to.
Yay Easter Update!
...but will it feature party banter?
Keep up the good work Bee
Crooked Bee said:
...but will it feature party banter?
Keep up the good work Bee
Blackadder said:
Yeah, and it's actually paced quite nicely. A bit longer, and I'd collapse with exhaustion.
Fowyr said:
Hmmmm... Yeah, I've been looking through the manual, looking for a clue. I guess I really should pay more attention to the mirror description. Thanks.
Krraloth said:
It ain't that kind of game, you know.
EDIT. Also: hell yeah, Lord Rocket can equip Scimitar now! Finally.
21: Dungeons and Dragons, Part 2
In which I need YOU.
Previously on this LP, we barely made it to the UREAL sanctuary. But the dungeon of the dragon still remains unexplored, and the mystery of the mirror, unsolved. That's why we won't be proceeding further east for now, but rather turn back. Plus, I hate leaving unfinished business behind.
First, however, we teleport to Sagaris to identify the items we recently found. We identify the Gold necklace for 10 coins, the Small gem for 20...
...the Short iron sword for 4, the Book for 8...
...and the Parchment for 2 coins:
:D
Then we pay a visit to the Circle of Magicians, where spekkio receives a new ring:
A gold ring, yay!
Also, now that we've activated a new sanctuary, we get to read a new passage from the archives:
It too reminds us we totally need to solve the mirror puzzle. "Within the diamond" means "in the dungeon of the dragon", since the latter has, as you can guess from the previous update's screenshots, the shape of a diamond/rhombus. Oh well.
Teleporting to the temple area, we obtain a new ring for Kalos from the god Drutho:
Nice.
Fshofth is, as you can see, our least pleased god. That, however, is going to change once we start invoking TULAR (which grants food when invoked at an altar) more frequently, which we indeed are going to be doing since that will help us not waste money on buying food.
Back at UREAL, we rest and then venture ... back. To the west.
As you may remember, Bee only has 102 exp to gain before leveling up. And the tough snake bastards are still not slain -- we ran away from them last time. Dealing with them now should help Bee reach the next level, so yeah.
Scary.
It all goes as expected: we get poisoned, bitten, etc. RALKOR, as always, helps a lot.
One snake is slain!
Still, we are very, very close to being dead. Finally Lord Rocket kills the second snakie, and then spekkio wins the fight with AMRAS.
We hurry back to the sanctuary.
Bee reaches level 7, and spekkio, level 8.
We heal up and rest. And then go check the Circle of Magicians once again.
Yay! Another ring for spekkio-kun.
Also, we see spekkio has gained +1 in Vitality on the level-up.
Bee, on her part, has gained +1 in Intelligence, +1 in Dexterity, and +1 in Vitality.
Major of Bee.
At an altar in the temple area Kalos successfully invokes TULAR...
...and our food supply is replenished:
Nice.
At Sagaris' place, we identify the Blue crystal for 60 coins:
Kewl, but I think we'll sell it.
So off to the shop we go. There, we sell the Gold necklace for 136 coins, the Flawed diamond for 93 coins, and the Fulminating crystal for 275 coins:
We also sell the Short iron sword for 36 coins, and the piece of Parchment for 2 coins. The Book, however, can't even be sold:
We've got a lot of coins now, so it's time to switch Kalos' silver cross for a golden one. First we sell the silver cross for 629 coins -- and then buy the Cross of gold:
of Kalos' Turn Undead ability.
We also buy three Cones of incense so Kalos can replenish his virtue points at an altar when need be.
Looking at our party's exp levels, we notice that Bee is totally lagging behind.
Oh well. Let's now explore the dungeon of the dragon further.
Having slain two orcs along the way...
...we get back to the dragon dungeon -- or should I call it the diamond/rhombus dungeon now? -- and, in order to proceed, we have to slay the respawning spiders again.
There doesn't seem to be any way around that fight.
So yeah, we slay the nasty thingies.
Now let's explore the unexplored areas of the dungeon.
The door we're facing now, as you can tell from the above screenshot, should lead us right into the central area of the dungeon. Oh well. We take a deep breath and...
Hmm, a corridor leads us to a hole in the ceiling.
Another path is leading east. But let's brave the upper floor first.
Something is moving up above. And my, climbing looks dangerous. It's not like we've got any other options though. There is no levitate spell or prayer in this game as far as I can tell, or at least I haven't been able to discover one.
Rocket is awkward as hell.
Kalos, I am disappoint. :/
Finally!
We find ourselves in a dark corridor, with the pit right in the middle. Naturally, it doesn't take long for us to be attacked.
Unearthly!
Oh-kay, good thing I've bought a gold cross for Kalos.
Oh no, not the plague again! Good thing that, after the last time, we're carrying a Plague antidote with us.
My oh my.
Kalos turns undead, and one of the spectres loses ca. 1/5 of its hp. Not bad I guess, but it could've been better. For 4000 coins, I mean.
One of the spectres flees for some reason, probably at the sight of Kalos' cross, making our life much easier.
Oh no, not the food, not the food!
Finally Bee recovers from being stunned, and after several turns, the apparition is put to an eternal (?) rest:
The exp we get is quite meh. Plus 64 coins, which isn't much either.
We use the Plague antidote to heal Rocket. I wonder how dumb one should be to choose the "Cast it on the ground" option.
This end of the corridor proudly presents...
...a totally illegible inscription!
We apply UMESH and NGOSMUR to it.
Meh. At this point I didn't yet know one thing I know now: UMESH can be applied several times, making the inscription slightly more legible with each application. But, as I said, I'll only get to find that out just a bit later. So yeah, making sense of this inscription will have to wait.
Let's see what the other end of the corridor hides. To reach it, we must jump over the pit.
Which is what we do.
Two more ghastly thingies, ouch.
In a familiar manner, one of them flees after a few turns, and we finish the second one off no probs.
Plus 86 coins.
Reaching the other end of the corridor, we come across...
...another inscription!
Again, we don't quite manage to make sense of it right now.
We can make out some words, but not the whole message. Due to my own stupidity only. I should've tried stacking UMESHes right away.
Nothing more to see here, so we climb back down...
...and immediately get attacked by three nasty skeletons. They all go down in one hit though. The exp we get is negligible.
We also get a mace for loot.
Back at the altar, Kalos burns some incense to replenish some of his virtue points:
And then we head back to the central area of the dragon dungeon.
The path to the east hides another pit, this time one leading downwards:
At least it says "the climb should not be too difficult". We try climbing down.
spekkio slips and falls, but the others are fine.
So, uhm, where are we?
Let's explore this area a bit.
This is one funny area. Every wall is either some kind of message...
...or a secret door -- which is outright revealed as a secret door. I mean, what kind of secret door is that?
Intrigued, we continue exploring. Unfortunately, the random encounter rate is really high in here.
First a group of orcs disturbs our harmless exploration.
We get quite a nice amount of exp for killing them though:
More and more messages and secret doors are revealed on the automap.
A small rhombus means a secret door. Every dead end/wall that doesn't have a secret door gives us another weird message.
Some undead thingies ambush us.
Kalos' golden cross proves its worth.
After Kalos has turned undead, four of the foes lose some of their HP.
One of the undead corpses turns out to be a quite tough Nether Witch, which is a new type of enemy.
The evil witch stuns Rocket and brings him on the verge of death.
The witch also silences both Kalos and spekkio. :godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:
FUUUUUUUUUUU-
I sure don't want to die in here, you know!!
Now Bee is plagued, to boot!
Gosh, if we survive this, we're some totally lucky dungeon-crawling bastards!
But, thankfully, Kalos manages to successfully invoke RALKOR two times in a row, and the Nether Witch goes down. Yay.
Well, at least we get some nice exp for this battle. Kalos gets the most out of it, I guess because he was the one to slay the witch.
For loot, however, we get just a single coif. Meh.
Now we have to use the Plague antidote again (good thing it can be used several times).
So yeah, where were we?
Hmmm, this puzzle area gets more and more intriguing.
Agreed.
Hmmmm...
Within OR inside?
WTF.
Hmmm. It looks like we've fully explored this mysterious area. Let's have a look at the automap:
I wonder, dear readers, if that reminds you of something... I'm pretty sure it does. If not, think again...
...
Yup, it's a crossword puzzle!
My oh my, what do I do. I guess I need your help to solve this one. So let me sum it up.
The puzzle works in a quite simple way. Every corridor = a word, plus a corresponding secret door. The door is opened by speaking the correct answer. Which means one square = one letter. All in all there are 12 words to guess. Here are all of them:
1. weak loud backward liar // 5 letters (FRAIL)
2. within or inside itself // 6 letters
3. sounds like bread is being made, want some? // 4 letters
4. mythical monsters become tiresome // 6 letters (DRAGON)
5. the infinite ethereal plane contains many small bones // 5 letters
6. sing out, but keep your mouth closed // 3 letters
7. the avenger is moved to carve two points where the dead lie // 7 letters
8. a keen joint // 4 letters
9. the tree before and after the fire // 3 letters
10. conditions important when walking less than twelve inches // 9 letters
11. gives up a short recess to get a word in // 9 letters
12. covered with cold wet spikes // 7 letters
I've taken the pains of counting the number of letters for each answer. I've even guessed two answers myself: the answer to 4 ("mythical monsters become tiresome") is, quite predictably, DRAGON, and the answer to 1 ("weak loud backward liar") is FRAIL.
Why DRAGON and FRAIL?
Well, dragons are "mythical monsters", and with the overabundance of dragons in video games nowadays, that was the first answer I could think of. Also -- but this became evident to me only after I guessed the right answer -- "become tiresome" is kinda connected to "DRAG ON".
The same principle works for riddle #1. "backward liar" is easy, it's RAIL. Guessing the remaining letter is trickier. Good thing I took music classes. "loud" is F, F + RAIL = FRAIL. Plus, "weak" is also FRAIL. So yeah.
The other riddles give me a headache however. If you don't want another update to take a month or so, I suggest you, dear reader, help me solve this crossword puzzle. I'm totally at a loss myself.
Or, and here's a graphical presentation of the puzzle:
So yeah, I need YOU, reader, for this LP to carry on. BUT -- of course -- I need the help of those of you who haven't beaten the game. And PLEASE don't consult any walkthroughs or guides or whatever. I need assistance, not spoilers. :/
So ... any ideas? Suggestions? Hints?
Next time: will there be a next time, I wonder?
In which I need YOU.
Previously on this LP, we barely made it to the UREAL sanctuary. But the dungeon of the dragon still remains unexplored, and the mystery of the mirror, unsolved. That's why we won't be proceeding further east for now, but rather turn back. Plus, I hate leaving unfinished business behind.
First, however, we teleport to Sagaris to identify the items we recently found. We identify the Gold necklace for 10 coins, the Small gem for 20...
...the Short iron sword for 4, the Book for 8...
...and the Parchment for 2 coins:
:D
Then we pay a visit to the Circle of Magicians, where spekkio receives a new ring:
A gold ring, yay!
Also, now that we've activated a new sanctuary, we get to read a new passage from the archives:
It too reminds us we totally need to solve the mirror puzzle. "Within the diamond" means "in the dungeon of the dragon", since the latter has, as you can guess from the previous update's screenshots, the shape of a diamond/rhombus. Oh well.
Teleporting to the temple area, we obtain a new ring for Kalos from the god Drutho:
Nice.
Fshofth is, as you can see, our least pleased god. That, however, is going to change once we start invoking TULAR (which grants food when invoked at an altar) more frequently, which we indeed are going to be doing since that will help us not waste money on buying food.
Back at UREAL, we rest and then venture ... back. To the west.
As you may remember, Bee only has 102 exp to gain before leveling up. And the tough snake bastards are still not slain -- we ran away from them last time. Dealing with them now should help Bee reach the next level, so yeah.
Scary.
It all goes as expected: we get poisoned, bitten, etc. RALKOR, as always, helps a lot.
One snake is slain!
Still, we are very, very close to being dead. Finally Lord Rocket kills the second snakie, and then spekkio wins the fight with AMRAS.
We hurry back to the sanctuary.
Bee reaches level 7, and spekkio, level 8.
We heal up and rest. And then go check the Circle of Magicians once again.
Yay! Another ring for spekkio-kun.
Also, we see spekkio has gained +1 in Vitality on the level-up.
Bee, on her part, has gained +1 in Intelligence, +1 in Dexterity, and +1 in Vitality.
Major
of Bee.At an altar in the temple area Kalos successfully invokes TULAR...
...and our food supply is replenished:
Nice.
At Sagaris' place, we identify the Blue crystal for 60 coins:
Kewl, but I think we'll sell it.
So off to the shop we go. There, we sell the Gold necklace for 136 coins, the Flawed diamond for 93 coins, and the Fulminating crystal for 275 coins:
We also sell the Short iron sword for 36 coins, and the piece of Parchment for 2 coins. The Book, however, can't even be sold:
We've got a lot of coins now, so it's time to switch Kalos' silver cross for a golden one. First we sell the silver cross for 629 coins -- and then buy the Cross of gold:
of Kalos' Turn Undead ability.We also buy three Cones of incense so Kalos can replenish his virtue points at an altar when need be.
Looking at our party's exp levels, we notice that Bee is totally lagging behind.
Oh well. Let's now explore the dungeon of the dragon further.
Having slain two orcs along the way...
...we get back to the dragon dungeon -- or should I call it the diamond/rhombus dungeon now? -- and, in order to proceed, we have to slay the respawning spiders again.
There doesn't seem to be any way around that fight.
So yeah, we slay the nasty thingies.
Now let's explore the unexplored areas of the dungeon.
The door we're facing now, as you can tell from the above screenshot, should lead us right into the central area of the dungeon. Oh well. We take a deep breath and...
Hmm, a corridor leads us to a hole in the ceiling.
Another path is leading east. But let's brave the upper floor first.
Something is moving up above. And my, climbing looks dangerous. It's not like we've got any other options though. There is no levitate spell or prayer in this game as far as I can tell, or at least I haven't been able to discover one.
Rocket is awkward as hell.
Kalos, I am disappoint. :/
Finally!
We find ourselves in a dark corridor, with the pit right in the middle. Naturally, it doesn't take long for us to be attacked.
Unearthly!
Oh-kay, good thing I've bought a gold cross for Kalos.
Oh no, not the plague again! Good thing that, after the last time, we're carrying a Plague antidote with us.
My oh my.
Kalos turns undead, and one of the spectres loses ca. 1/5 of its hp. Not bad I guess, but it could've been better. For 4000 coins, I mean.
One of the spectres flees for some reason, probably at the sight of Kalos' cross, making our life much easier.
Oh no, not the food, not the food!
Finally Bee recovers from being stunned, and after several turns, the apparition is put to an eternal (?) rest:
The exp we get is quite meh. Plus 64 coins, which isn't much either.
We use the Plague antidote to heal Rocket. I wonder how dumb one should be to choose the "Cast it on the ground" option.
This end of the corridor proudly presents...
...a totally illegible inscription!
We apply UMESH and NGOSMUR to it.
Meh. At this point I didn't yet know one thing I know now: UMESH can be applied several times, making the inscription slightly more legible with each application. But, as I said, I'll only get to find that out just a bit later.
So yeah, making sense of this inscription will have to wait.Let's see what the other end of the corridor hides. To reach it, we must jump over the pit.
Which is what we do.
Two more ghastly thingies, ouch.
In a familiar manner, one of them flees after a few turns, and we finish the second one off no probs.
Plus 86 coins.
Reaching the other end of the corridor, we come across...
...another inscription!
Again, we don't quite manage to make sense of it right now.
We can make out some words, but not the whole message. Due to my own stupidity only. I should've tried stacking UMESHes right away.
Nothing more to see here, so we climb back down...
...and immediately get attacked by three nasty skeletons. They all go down in one hit though. The exp we get is negligible.
We also get a mace for loot.
Back at the altar, Kalos burns some incense to replenish some of his virtue points:
And then we head back to the central area of the dragon dungeon.
The path to the east hides another pit, this time one leading downwards:
At least it says "the climb should not be too difficult".
We try climbing down.
spekkio slips and falls, but the others are fine.
So, uhm, where are we?
Let's explore this area a bit.
This is one funny area. Every wall is either some kind of message...
...or a secret door -- which is outright revealed as a secret door.
I mean, what kind of secret door is that?Intrigued, we continue exploring. Unfortunately, the random encounter rate is really high in here.
First a group of orcs disturbs our harmless exploration.
We get quite a nice amount of exp for killing them though:
More and more messages and secret doors are revealed on the automap.
A small rhombus means a secret door. Every dead end/wall that doesn't have a secret door gives us another weird message.
Some undead thingies ambush us.
Kalos' golden cross proves its worth.
After Kalos has turned undead, four of the foes lose some of their HP.
One of the undead corpses turns out to be a quite tough Nether Witch, which is a new type of enemy.
The evil witch stuns Rocket and brings him on the verge of death.
The witch also silences both Kalos and spekkio. :godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:
FUUUUUUUUUUU-
I sure don't want to die in here, you know!!
Now Bee is plagued, to boot!
Gosh, if we survive this, we're some totally lucky dungeon-crawling bastards!
But, thankfully, Kalos manages to successfully invoke RALKOR two times in a row, and the Nether Witch goes down. Yay.
Well, at least we get some nice exp for this battle. Kalos gets the most out of it, I guess because he was the one to slay the witch.
For loot, however, we get just a single coif. Meh.
Now we have to use the Plague antidote again (good thing it can be used several times).
So yeah, where were we?
Hmmm, this puzzle area gets more and more intriguing.
Agreed.
Hmmmm...
Within OR inside?
WTF.
Hmmm. It looks like we've fully explored this mysterious area. Let's have a look at the automap:
I wonder, dear readers, if that reminds you of something... I'm pretty sure it does. If not, think again...
...
Yup, it's a crossword puzzle!
My oh my, what do I do. I guess I need your help to solve this one. So let me sum it up.
The puzzle works in a quite simple way. Every corridor = a word, plus a corresponding secret door. The door is opened by speaking the correct answer. Which means one square = one letter. All in all there are 12 words to guess. Here are all of them:
1. weak loud backward liar // 5 letters (FRAIL)
2. within or inside itself // 6 letters
3. sounds like bread is being made, want some? // 4 letters
4. mythical monsters become tiresome // 6 letters (DRAGON)
5. the infinite ethereal plane contains many small bones // 5 letters
6. sing out, but keep your mouth closed // 3 letters
7. the avenger is moved to carve two points where the dead lie // 7 letters
8. a keen joint // 4 letters
9. the tree before and after the fire // 3 letters
10. conditions important when walking less than twelve inches // 9 letters
11. gives up a short recess to get a word in // 9 letters
12. covered with cold wet spikes // 7 letters
I've taken the pains of counting the number of letters for each answer. I've even guessed two answers myself: the answer to 4 ("mythical monsters become tiresome") is, quite predictably, DRAGON, and the answer to 1 ("weak loud backward liar") is FRAIL.
Why DRAGON and FRAIL?
Well, dragons are "mythical monsters", and with the overabundance of dragons in video games nowadays, that was the first answer I could think of. Also -- but this became evident to me only after I guessed the right answer -- "become tiresome" is kinda connected to "DRAG ON".
The same principle works for riddle #1. "backward liar" is easy, it's RAIL. Guessing the remaining letter is trickier. Good thing I took music classes. "loud" is F, F + RAIL = FRAIL. Plus, "weak" is also FRAIL. So yeah.
The other riddles give me a headache however. If you don't want another update to take a month or so, I suggest you, dear reader, help me solve this crossword puzzle. I'm totally at a loss myself.
Or, and here's a graphical presentation of the puzzle:
So yeah, I need YOU, reader, for this LP to carry on. BUT -- of course -- I need the help of those of you who haven't beaten the game. And PLEASE don't consult any walkthroughs or guides or whatever. I need assistance, not spoilers. :/
So ... any ideas? Suggestions? Hints?
Next time: will there be a next time, I wonder?
Pussycat669
Liturgist
Pretty sure that 6 is 'Hum' unless this riddle is supposed to be a complete brain twister. The others I'm not really sure.
2 could be 'Letter' since you find a letter within it's own word but I suspect it's more of a a jar/ ajar kind of thing. 3 could be 'Oven'. 7 sounds like a reference to some kind of game but I wouldn't know which one. 'Ash' or 'Fry' would fit to 9 although it doesn't make any sense in context. 10 might be something about measurement units, dunno.
2 could be 'Letter' since you find a letter within it's own word but I suspect it's more of a a jar/ ajar kind of thing. 3 could be 'Oven'. 7 sounds like a reference to some kind of game but I wouldn't know which one. 'Ash' or 'Fry' would fit to 9 although it doesn't make any sense in context. 10 might be something about measurement units, dunno.
Pussycat669
Liturgist
On second thought on 7, the dead lie in a graveyard. Yard already fits and the avenger needs to cut two letters from grave to get the answer, probably.
Pussycat669
Liturgist
Yeah, sounds about right. Got caught up with yard when it was the other way around.
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