12: Faith
In which we solve the riddle of the secret door and obtain Sagaris' wand.
Previously on this LP, we started exploring the northern part of the High Vault Ceilings area, defeated various kinds of enemies, and Lord Rocket leveled up. This time -- well, this time we'll continue doing the exploration. Let's see where the dungeon leads us!
We exit the URLUSAM sanctuary, turn north and then continue east:
Suddenly, enemies appear!
Hmm, four regular skeleton and two stronger ones.
Kalos the priest turns undead -- follow the little red light, yay!
Oh wow. One skeleton killed straight away, and three more severely wounded. The stronger ones aren't damaged though.
Bee finishes one of the regular skeletons off:
Another one runs away:
Kalos tries turning undead again, but only slightly wounds one of the Armed Skeletons. Another one hits at Lord Rocket for 8 hp, and is revealed for what he is: a Skeletal Phantom.
We politely ask spekkio to cast AMRASMUR since fire seems to be pretty efficient against all things undead. It does indeed damage the Phantom, and then Rocket attacks it for 12 hp:
The remaining regular Skeleton runs away.
Only two Phantoms left.
Oops, wrong. Only one Phantom left.
Kalos turns undead yet again:
Hmmm, not bad. Lord Rocket misses though.
Bee strikes at the Skeletal Phantom for 5 hp. And then...
...Rocket is stunned.
Kalos' turn undead and spekkio's AMRASMUR are the only really efficient attacks in this fight, so we continue using them. The Phantom doesn't quite like that though:
I tried to position Kalos farther away from the Phantom, but failed.
spekkio casts SEL to boost our armour now that the Phantom is too close to our weakest characters. After that, however...
...the Phantom flees.
Still, we earn lots of experience:
The amount of experience we get is sometimes totally disproportionate to the diffuculty of the battle, I must say. This fight hasn't been particularly challenging, and the stronger enemies have all run away, and yet we get a lot of experience. Why? It is a mystery.
We also obtain an Axe for loot:
Lord Rocket picks it up.
And we're movin' on.
We approach the eastern door.
Let's enter it.
It looks like this section isn't often visited these days.
To the south is a door. We approach it.
Footsteps, you say?
Oh, an evil wizard!
spekkio casts SEL to improve our defense, and Rocket hits the Robed Man hard. The Robed Man tries hitting Rocket in return, but misses.
Kalos recites RALKOR:
And the poor Wizard is almost done for.
We obtain some experience:
As well as some coins and a chrome key:
Good.
There's nothing of further interest in this room, so we continue east and then turn south:
At the end of this corridor, there's yet another door:
We enter it.
Scary!
There's a secret door here:
We try looking for a secret device to open it, but to no avail. Then Lord Rocket attempts barging into the door -- but it won't budge. It looks like HOYAMOQ is our only option:
Next HOYAMOQ doesn't quite go as planned, however:
We quickly heal Kalos up with SHUMMUR and recite HOYAMOQ again. After two successful prayers, the secret door finally opens:
Behind it is a corridor and an inscription:
Let's
Read it, then!
A hint, eh?
A teleporter is down the corridor:
Pushing different letters teleports you to different locations.
I had a randomness fit and so didn't write down just which buttons I pressed. Whoever uses this LP as a walkthrough, now or in the future, won’t find this bit particularly helpful, I’m afraid.
Oh well.
First we find ourselves in a small room...
...with an inscription:
spekkio casts NGOSMUR to translate it:
"My second of the aftermath -- the cooling of the kill". Hmmm.
This room has a similar teleporter. We press "A" (screenshot captured this time)...
...only to find ourselves in another small room with another inscription that we translate with NGOSMUR:
"My first was of the forming -- and lies forever still".
Back at the teleporter, we press some other random buttons.
And yes, find ourselves in yet another inscription room:
spekkio uses NGOSMUR again:
Not perfect, yet mostly readable.
"My fourth is an elixir -- as the parting of the ways (?)".
There's also a key here:
Lord Rocket, being our party's keymaster, picks it up.
We also locate a secret door in here:
Neither forcing the door nor searching for a device helps. HOYAMOQ to the rescue!
We go through.
Sagaris, our favourite old geezer, is waiting for us here.
As you may remember, he asked for our -- or rather, Kalos' -- help earlier. Well, it looks like we've accidentally wandered right into the quest area. Nice.
We go north.
It'd be logical if only Kalos would be allowed to proceed further west, but in fact our whole party is.
An inscription is here as well:
We translate it with NGOSMUR:
A riddle, yay!
But what is it for? For the nearby secret door, it seems:
Not even HOYAMOQ works on it, so that's what the "Speak a word" option is for. First, however, we must solve the riddle. Let's see what hints we've collected so far:
1.
"My first was of the forming -- and lies forever still".
2.
"My second of the aftermath -- the cooling of the kill".
3.
"My fourth is an elixir -- as the parting of the ways (?)".
4. And finally,
"Fear alone is the hangman":
I'm not really sure what hints 1-3 are for. The last one suffices to solve this riddle: there are five letters above the "Fear alone is the hangman", and conveniently enough the phrase itself has five words in it, the first letters of which form the word "Faith". Now that we've guessed the word, phrases 1-3 also make sense (kind of). "My first was of the
forming" = the first letter is F. "My second of the
aftermath" = the second letter is A. "My fourth is an elixir" doesn't quite fit the bill, but my guess is that, in all the hint phrases, only the words that follow the first "the" matter, i.e., in this case, "the parting of the ways" = letter T. We must've missed out on two more inscriptions hinting at the letters I and H, but whatever. It's FAITH.
We enter the secret door.
Kalos
reaches into the pool.
What is he waiting for?
We turn around.
Oh, okay. A wand is better than nothing.
spekkio picks up Sagaris' wand. Mission accomplished.
Jumping a bit ahead of myself, I should say that Sagaris' wand is used for translating hardcore inscriptions.
We return to the teleporter -- which has only one button now, that for teleporting back to where we started from ---
--- we make it back to URLUSAM:
Our whole party is level 5 now!
Let's visit the Circle of Magicians to see if spekkio can obtain any new rings.
A new frost ring, yay!
And now we should pay a visit to the temples to get new rings for Kalos.
, pure and simple.
From the temple area, we teleport to the shops to stock up on food:
And then get back to URLUSAM:
We still have a long way to go to level 6. So stay tuned, yay!
Next time: to the east!