8: Sagaris
In which we meet an old geezer.
Hallo meine Lieben!
Previously on this grimdark and mature dungeon-crawwwling LP, we got our little selves into quite a bit of a pickle. Will we do better this time? Let's find that out!
As you may remember, dear readers, our whole party is at level 3 now. Two of us -- Lord Rocket and Bee the Paladin -- remain poisoned...
...but that doesn't last long:
Now on to that thing kazgar was talking about: a visit to the Circle of Magic and the temples is in order. I mean, spekkio and Kalos can always use new shiny rings, don't they?
spekkio begins mastering a new Arkana now, that of Protection.
The Third Arkana: Protection
The Third Arkana forms a vital part of your skills as a Magician. These Spells and formulae allow you to bend the ethereal forces to deflect the blows and magic of others, and influence their behavior. Do not neglect the powers of this Arkana: they will prove essential if you are to survive for long in hostile areas.
Despite the absence of a message indicating this, spekkio is also granted a more advanced Fire Arkana ring, the copper one:
Major
of spek-kun.
Now onwards to the temple area.
And Kalos is finally awarded a ring by Drutho:
Also, he gets a more potent, copper ring from Golthur:
This means our chances of successfully invoking SIRDHE -- as well as some more advanced prayers to Golthur we haven't tried out yet -- will be improved from now on. Good.
of Kalos.
Our food is running low, so let's stock up on it.
And now we're all set for further exploring the dungeon beyond URMOR. Let's make it to where we stopped last time.
Okey-dokey, let's--
Fuck.
It's four orcs and two scorpions. Shouldn't bee too hard.
Nice.
Ewww, not this shit again.
Now that he's got the copper Fire ring, spekkio casts a new spell, ORLOSMUR:
ORLOSMUR The Copper Flame of the Eye
Orlosmur is the flame major, and it too will scald those impure of heart who raise violence against you. The flame is not a reaching one, for it cannot touch those who stand beyond five feet.
Its area of effect isn't exactly large, but still it manages to kill the scorpion neighbouring on spekkio and greatly damage one of the orcs:
^ Lord Rocket damages another one.
Kalos proves his melee efficacy:
It turns out we're dealing with an Orc Warrior and a Red Orc here:
:/
Kalos recites RALKOR, and then spekkio casts SEHK:
Our enemies' hp gets really low.
Another SEHK by spekkio...
...and the battle is almost won:
Kalos kills the Red Orc, and then the Orc Warrior runs away.
In this battle, Kalos + spekkio >>>>>> Rocket + Bee.
We get 84 coins for loot.
Crossing the hall to the east and then descending some stairs, we enter another many-doored room:
spekkio fails his PER check. :/
Kalos heals our party with SIRDHE:
We enter the northeastern door first.
The next door is guarded by...
...a dungeon worm?
Meet the worm. His name is Sharruk.
Kalos is now pretty good at reciting RALKOR:
Then Bee and Rocket strike at Sharruk for 23 and 28 hp, respectively. During the next turn, the wormie is done for.
Meh, that was easy.
Ooooh, shiny!
In the room behind the door guarded by the worm, we find a small sum of money:
That was ca. 40 coins iirc.
Nothing more of interest here, so we head b--
Bats!
A whole lotta bats -- all killed by a single SEHK.
spekkio's getting good at his magick stuffies. Back in the last multi-doored room, we explore two small compartments, one to the northwest and one to the southeast. Nothing of interest in the first one, and the second one hides a set of stairs going downward.
It's empty, though. :/ So we head back.
In the south of the multi-doored room, there's a secret door.
But just as Lord Rocket has discovered it, our party is ambushed by beasties.
A beastie -- a single scorpion. It's an easy fight, the only rage-inducing thing is that our Lord Rockety gets poisoned:
But finally the monster is slain, and we obtain some experience and 16 coins. Now we need to open the secret door.
Okay. The second try does it:
Inside the secret area we find some kind of potion:
Its purpose remains a mystery for now.
It looks like we've almost fully explored this section of the dungeon. The only not yet taken door that remains is one of the two northern ones:
Let's enter it, then.
Scary. We descend the stairs.
Ewww, I hate bad smells.
We open the door.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Meh, just four rats.
spekkio's SEHK kills two of them outright. Still, one of the rats turns out to be more resistant than the others. That's because it's a...
...Were Rat!
But still, Kalo's RALKOR and Rocket's mighty swing deal with the monster in just a couple of turns. We obtain some exp and 96 coins.
Nothing of interest in this room, however.
So we go back to the very first hall from which we started our exploration today.
Some orcs attack us.
Toothy bastards.
There's just three of them. Lord Rocket kills the first one in two hits. Another one runs away.
Bee slays the remaining foe, and it's over. We get a club for our well-deserved loot:
To the south is a door:
Behind it is the only area in this dungeon we haven't explored yet. Let's brave it, shall we?
...
A couple of empty rooms later, we reach some downward stairs:
It's getting quite chilly as we advance deeper inside the mountain city.
We enter the eastern door and descend yet another set of stairs.
Key shaped?
Oh, I see. A challenge.
An armed man attacks us.
Kalos gets super efficient this time:
The Armed Man damages Bee for 17 hp and is revealed for a dirty Thief he is:
spekkio's AMRAS deals with him. We get a little experience and some pretty-looking loot:
of loot.
Going further east, we reach a strange bas-relief:
Oh-kay, so what do we choose?...
Well, one usually holds whatever one holds by the handle, right? So we go for option number
3.
Yay! (I dunno what happens if you choose another option.)
We enter the door.
Lord Rocket picks up the key.
Nothing more to see here. Movin' on -- that is, back to the previous area.
We take the southern door this time.
To the southwest is a set of stairs that we descend. Going through a large empty room, we reach another downward passage:
It leads into a long corridor:
The door to the south leads to yet another empty room with an advert for Thurgood Inc Iron Rations, so we continue heading east:
We enter some kind of mausoleum. Creepy.
The layout of this area is more or less intricate. Luckily, it's mappable:
Some orcs ambush us:
Bee kills one of them, and Rocket heavily wounds another one.
Then something hilarious happens:
:D
spekkio's AMRAS + Bee's melee attack slays yet another orc (a Red Orc). Kalos tries invoking SIRHDE but fails epically:
Still, his next attempt at SIRDHE succeeds, and our party's HP is fully restored. After that, it doesn't take long for us to bring this battle to its end.
Bee was TEH POWAR in this one, apparently.
And Lord Rocket claims his club back.
Exploring further to the east now:
Rats!
Or rather, four rats, a skeleton, and a shapeless mass.
spekkio's SEHK surely comes in handy:
Good.
Surpisingly enough, spekkio rocks even in melee for once:
In a few turns, we kill all the foes. Our loot is 30 coins and a dagger:
A couple of steps further, another random encounter happens.
This time, it's an advanced purple poison slime thingie. It poisons our poor Bee:
Good thing Kalos is now proficient at RALKOR:
of Kalos.
Wow, not bad. Moving on.
Killing another group of four orcs -- who manage to stun our dear spek-kun as well as Lord Rocket --
-- and then reduce spekkio's HP to a quite dangerous level --
-- we enter the next room:
The encounter rate in this area goes through the roof, really.
As soon as we enter the room, we are attacked by yet another orc gang, under the command of an Orc Chieftain. The fucker is strong -- and thievish:
He also hits us very hard:
Still, Kalos manages to invoke SIRDHE, and then RALKOR, and we finally slay the foes.
Another encounter---
--- from which we run away.
We don't need to waste our psychic and virtue points further.
Let's approach the sarcophagus, then.
This doesn't bode well, of course, but still we choose to take the necklace. Being a girl, Bee just can't resist a gold necklace, you know.
spekkio, however, fails to remove the necklace. :/ Looks like it was a trap, folks.
Oh my.
Now this battle was LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. There was nothing particularly interesting or tactical in it, though, but that skeleton guardian sure was a tough one.
He hits us hard, and he poisons us:
We, on our part, can only damage him a teeny-weeny bit.
Kalos heals everyone up with SIRDHE, and then the Armed Skeleton strikes at Rocket for 31 hp.
Lol. Bee also hits the skeleton for 3 hp. :/
A LOT of turns later, the skeleton's HP is still very high:
Now what the fuck was that!?
Then I finally realize spekkio can casts the Arkana of Protection spells now:
2 TEI The Iron Shield
This Spell will strengthen the armor of you and your companions by a moderate amount. Leather will harden and metal become more resilient: even cloth is strengthened by this Spell. The Spell is long-lived, but its powers are modest.
Thanks to TEI, our party's armor stats go up a bit:
The Skeleton touches Kalos and rots some of his food.
It's time to change our tactics. spekkio casts AMRASMUR:
4 AMRASMUR The Copper Snake of Fire
The copper snake has more strength. Its venom will burn a lesser foe unto ashes, and will course through the veins of stronger foes like fiery sparks.
It does deal more damage than our melee attacks did:
Kalos tries turning undead, but he ain't got no cross yet. Lord Rocket strikes the skeleton for 5 hp; Bee, for 2 hp. A couple of turns later, spekkio casts AMRAS:
Another AMRAS -- and the mausoleum guardian is finally slain!
We get out of the mausoleum as fast as we can.
And then enter the door to the west, go south, and then turn north:
A winding corridor --
-- leads us to an altar of some sort:
There are also Altars throughout the Mountain City, places where the power of the gods is stronger. These Altars serve all the gods; within these your Prayers will be heard more favorably, and you may offer supplication to any of the gods.
We ain't got no reason to use the Altar right now, so we head back -- and then explore further west, coming across a scroll:
Kalos picks it up.
Okay, it looks like this area is fully explored. Let's head south now.
At Kalos? Old men like you, Kalos-kun.
We turn around the corner.
Yes, we're the one sent by the Council. (See the Prologue in the first post of this LP.) And yes, we can be trusted. Remember what a vision of Mara told us in the last update? "Trust the old man", she said!
We tell him the truth. "Yes".
It looks like we chose the right option.
So that's the reason for the old man's interest in Kalos.
And a fetch quest, eh? Well, okay, we're on it.
We enter the door.
There's an inscription here:
And a teleporter:
SAGARIS is the old man's name, by the way.
The mausoleum skeleton guard spoiled almost all our food, so we teleport to BORASAL to stock up on some more:
And then teleport back to SAGARIS.
Let's enter Sagaris' office now.
More.
Our ... check book?
But anyway. Let's identify something.
Yup.
As a result of this rather peculiar, uhm, examination procedure, the sword is revealed as a Broadsword. Now for the club.
Yup.
This game's got some ... interesting sense of humour.
Yup.
A Fulminating crystal, yay.
Yup.
A simple gold necklace.
Yup.
Yep.
A short iron sword, the basic one.
Yup.
We pay.
This may come in handy. Nice.
Yup.
Yup.
Some items are too expensive to identify, so we leave them for later -- and then teleport back to the URMOR sanctuary:
Will we be able to make it to level 4 next time? Stay tuned to find out!
