Sceptic said:
I think this is the reason why I never replay DQ.
I can't blame you. Though I've played the game to its end several times, there have been many more times when I started playing it and then gave up after the undersea part because I couldn't stand entering that lighthouse again.
Let's resume our climbing !
Level 7
We've barely taken a few steps when we're faced with something rather threatening :
Well, since none of us are Thieves, I suppose we have no choice but to go through this thing.
The party moves forward :
But, despite what many movies would have you think, elaborate traps set in long-forgotten places are unlikely to survive decades of neglect. This one is so rusted that it doesn't work anymore.
There's a fight and we're not invited ? Woohoo ! Let's sit down and watch while eating popcorn !
Go red-brown !
Tan beholders for the win !
Why are we never allowed any fun ?
Three beholders is a lot to deal with. I had to reload 3-4 times because one of my PCs would always get killed or turned to stone. In the end, however, I was able to use an effective strategy.
See, while the powers of beholders are lethal, they have a fairly short range. And the beholders are ridiculously slow. So I pulled all of my PCs away from them.
Some of my PCs got slowed. Annoying, but they remain much faster than the beholders.
The mages couldn't do much against the beholders. However, a few fireballs were more than enough to deal with the gorgons and umber hulks.
And once the whole party is far enough from the beholders :
Let the sniping begin !
Wait ! I... I don't have a bow !
For fuck's sake... I know your starting equipment didn't include ranged weapons, but couldn't you have found the time to buy one during the previous two games ?
Melandris, Kundry and Faerlin keep shooting at the beholders, slowly retreating so as to remain out of enemy range :
Silivrin remains closer to the beholders, but out of their line of sight. Once a beholder has been sufficiently wounded, she can close in and finish it :
This strategy requires a lot of time, but we eventually kill the last beholder and resume exploring this level of the lighthouse.
Not again ! I hate monsters that are immune to magic.
Luck isn't on the side of these two beholders, however, and the party slaughters them quickly.
Behind them is a lever and, painted on the wall, the word "teleporter".
For a lever to be in the right position when we find it would completely violate the tradition of computer games. I have no idea what teleporter this is about, but let's switch it off !
(There are, in fact, quite a few teleporters spread throughout the lighthouse. They'll usually try to confuse the player by moving the party to a similar-looking part of the same level. Changing this lever's position deactivates all of them. Most of the teleporters aren't much trouble, even if you don't avoid them, but there's one very annoying exception.)
Shortly after, we reach the next stairs :
Level 8
The fire elementals have surprise on their side, which allows them to close in and inflict some damage on the party.
However, they're not nearly numerous enough to be a real problem.
After the fight, the party uses a few healing spells, then resume its exploration.
I'm not interested in the content of this chest, but these guys happen to also be blocking the way. Let's send them back to their elemental plane.
That's... a lot of elementals. Better start spamming Ice Storms, I guess.
Ice Storms are supposed to inflict 3-30 points of damage, but I don't think any of the 5-6 Ice Storms I used during this fight did more than 15 points of damage.
Elorin cast a Stinking Cloud out of nostalgia, but as it turns out, Fire Elementals don't actually need to breathe.
Fire elementals don't have any special powers, but they're fairly tough and their immunity to fire spells makes it harder to kill them.
Despite their fairly limited efficiency, the Ice Storms have severely wounded many of the elementals. The warriors of the party finish them off, with the help of a few more spells.
The treasure is ours ! As it turns out, it consists of two scrolls for mages, each containing three spells.
Speaking of spells, we don't have many left. Things may get tough if there's a big fight waiting for us at the top of this tower.
The next stairs aren't very far :
Level 9
Yeah, yeah...
Gorgons have a special attack that can turn their targets to stone, but their low HP mean that two normal fireballs are enough to kill almost all of them. The warriors of the team slaughter the few survivors.
The beholder is too far away to use its powers at the beginning of the fight. Using the sniping strategy again, we have no trouble killing him :
A bit later, we find more stairs :
Level 10
As it turns out, the tenth floor is divided into a lot of tiny rooms.
While exploring them, the party is attacked by a few gorgons, but the mages have enough spells left to slaughter them before they have a chance to petrify anybody.
Smells like the last battle of this dungeon !
Or the next to last one, if the wizard we're looking for turns out to be evil and insane.
After climbing all those stairs, having a reason to kill him would almost be worth not getting any useful information out of him. Anyway, let's take care of these tin men.
Iron golems have no special ability, but they're fairly tough. Weapons have to be +3 or better to hurt them ; not a problem for us, but a party not imported from the previous game might not have any weapon powerful enough to do damage except for the dragonlance !
Also, the iron golems are immune to all spells, with two exceptions : fire spells actually heal them...
FFFFFFFF.....
...and lightning spells, while not inflicting any damage, slow them down :
The golems have a single attack per round, but most of them, having been slowed, can no longer attack every round.
Our warriors have good enough AC that the iron golems aren't often able to hit them anyway. Iron golems, on the other hand, are not especially hard to hit :
The golems inflict a lot of damage when they do hit, but it doesn't happen often enough to pose a real threat to the party.
Once the golems have been turned to scrap metal, we go through the door they were guarding and find...
...new stairs.
Level 11
At the top of the stairs, the party finds a locked door :
All right, princess of power, bash it open !
Just one good kick and... ow ! I hurt my foot !
C'mon, opening locked things with your magically-improved strength of 23 is the thing you do best, so get to it. Chop chop.
Well maybe I should combine my strength of 23 with your intelligence of 18 by using your head as a battering ram !
Let's all calm down. Does anyone have a Knock spell ?
Don't look at me, we white mages aren't allowed to use alteration spells.
Maybe there's some sort of secret mechanism somewhere...
The party tries everything in its power, but the door seems absolutely impossible to open.
That's great ! That's just great ! We've gone up eleven fucking floors and fought scores of monsters just to be stopped at the last moment by a locked door ! Why didn't I become a milkmaid like my mother told me to ?!
Let's... Let's just rest for a while. We need to memorize our spells again and it'll give us the time to think about the situation.
Regaining all the spells used by the party since the last time it rested takes almost an entire day. Fortunately, this place seems to be safe from random encounters. Once the party is at full strength again, it's time to find how we can take care of this obstacle.
It's clear that we must have missed something. Perhaps there's a lever somewhere that can open this door. Let's go back to the previous level and explore it more fully.
Back to level 10
As the party explores the many tiny rooms, it discovers something :
Silivrin heaves aside the heavy statue.
Fastillion ? Is that the name of the wizard ? What should we tell him ?
Porch ? What porch ?
Good thing we have four people in the team who're able to use healing spells. Think of all the tragic deaths we would otherwise be unable to prevent !
It's not my fault if the game will let a NPC give us her dying words, but won't let me cast Heal on her !
Anyway, let's take her stuff.
The woman's possessions turn out to be a long sword +4 and bracers granting AC2.
Not bad.
So, what do we do now ? There's nothing else to be found on this floor and I'm pretty sure there's nothing important we've missed on the lower ones.
I think that... we should...
What should our heroic party do ? Have you figured it out ?