In Progress [LP] Fear and Hunger

[Endemic]

There's a sequel, by the way: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2171440/Fear__Hunger_2_Termina/

 

[Lord of Riva]

Let me guess, on that sacrificial altar you can kill the girl (for Gro-goroth) or fuck her to gain Sylvian's favor?
Such nice deities!

As lightbane pointed out, trying to uhhh make the love ritual with the girl ends in a premature Bad end.

 

[Egosphere]

Wouldn't Venus be a better comparison, since it said fertility goddess?

Minor point, but I noticed a typo in the second combat encounter "uncomformtable".

In the first encounter we have the awkwardly worded you manage evading its grasp! as well. The dev is ESL. I think this was also partially the reason why the descriptions and the books are the way they are.

 

[Egosphere]

PART II : The Stinger Pulsates

Spoiler

We peruse the tome of alchemy to find some interesting tidbits on the properties of various herbs. To sum up: blue for health, green for dealing with infections, red for .. something. It also includes recipes for combining the various herbs into more potent substances. I'm chagrined in the lack of black + yellow combo. HGH + whey sounds pretty cool.

In the next bookcase we find the lovely tome on Pocketcat. I can't grab the pic quickly enough before the text appears, but you can still see his sketched mug moonlighting above the words.

Merwood

Is Willem really tall or is his father a giga manlet?

There are cats jacking off in the grottos. What is the world coming to. Deeply disturbed by this cat, we rummage through the rest of the bookcases. We fail a coin toss on one, in the other we find a fake book. This is for poseurs who don't read but what to pretend that they do. For shame.

"Death is the answer". Step aside Tony Robbins, truly inspirational stuff.

Back outside the library we find some statues dedicated to the New Gods, of which there are four. They're lined up neatly, and maybe the craftsmanship of the sculptor would have been much more impressive had his work not been marred with bloodstains. Somebody even went to the trouble of writing stuff in their own blood. One of those tropes that I have always found very weird.

I dive back into my inventory and realize we have found a cloth hood, which we use to swaddle our head. Not sure what protection it's supposed to offer, but number go up and number green so I'm happy.

Around the corner is a collapsed passage, with the debris being impassable.

The crates nearby again have some health potions, these ones being pretty weak, healing us for ~25-30 points.

The next crate has a bonesaw, which cannot be wielded as a weapon (but can act as a medical instrument when the situation is truly dire)

We lockpick another door and make our way into a small storage room, where we find another leather vest which we promptly give to the girl.

And then we return outside. With the camera being what it is, we spot an enemy shuffling up and down a nearby hallway. My position is not great, and he spots us peeking from around the corner. He rushes at us, and before we know it we have our very first combat sequence. Prepare yourself!

Yup, this guy has been on a HGH cycle for quite a while it seems.

Ok, so, combat...
Each combat encounter in the game is a mini-puzzle, which involves trial and error and which will not hesitate to end your run in a very brutal manner if you can't guess its quirks. Each enemy will have bodyparts that can be targeted individually. In the case of this guard, he has two arms, two legs, torso, head and the 'stinger'. The way to kill an enemy is either to destroy the torso, or cut off the head. The latter might not work against some types of enemies, making you waste turns on actions which are useless. Cutting off the limbs will curtail the damage output of most enemy types. However, every several turns (and these have to be sussed out through trial and error) the enemy can do a coin flip attack. To avoid it you must Guard on that turn. If you don't, the outcome is a literal coin flip - lose it and 99% of the time it's a one hit kill.

The meat cleaver looks like a menacing instrument, so we hack off the guard's arm. The girl has no weapons and her damage output is 0, for now at least.

Now, having lost to these guys quite a few times, I know the coin flip cycle: on the 2nd turn, then on every 3rd turn thereafter. Now we both use our guard skill. The ogre tries to snatch us, but fails.

Now what do we do? The clue was in the text message - the pulsating stinger. He can use that thing to attack us. If we cut off the stinger AND leave the other arm alone, the ogre will forego all attacks in favour of trying to snatch us every 3rd turn with the coin flip. If we cut off both, then he'll use body slam to deal damage to us. So we go for the stinger and hack it off. Eww.

Now we have 2 turns left till the coin flip. From here on out the fight is a cakewalk, we can either hack away at the torso, or try and go for the head, but with a much higher % of missing. What we can do is use the two turns to hack away at each of his legs, which will make him lose balance and expose the head. Then we guard against he grab attack, and finally kill him on the next turn with a decapitation.

Phew. Well, one down, dozens (hundreds?) to go. And each type will require us to figure out the unique patterns. We can beat the corpse, which makes a squishy noise but does nothing otherwise, search it or leave. This one has an interesting artifact on him.

The passage he was guarding leads us to a small dark room, with a ritual circle hastily scribbled on the floor. A lectern stands in the corner, giving us more clues on the deities.

Note that these are the Old Gods, and there are only three. The four statues were dedicated to the new ones.

...

.......

Ok I'll just stand in the circle and pray to Allmer. Not a fan of worshipping Khorne or Slaanesh. Plus, Allmer doesn't actually require anything from us. We get a little beep sound to signify that our affiliation with a God has increased. And so we turn around and leave.

But we are not long back in the main hall before something rushes us from the east. A ghoul.

A dangerous fight, but once again I am lucky to know the trick, which is to NOT fight and instead talk. Trash talk him. Tell him he's going to die, which turns out is exactly what he wants.

He lowers his arms and we stab him through the heart, killing the poor bastard on the spot. He has no loot on him. Not surprising, he was after all an escaped prisoner.

A small refectory is the room beyond, and we pilfer some rotten meat from the table, brushing away the maggots that try to crawl up our arm. A closed door stands on the other side. We push upon the creaking sheets of metal and step outside, back where we can replenish our Vitamin D.

And yet the air here reeks of death and despair. Join me in part 3, where the suffering begins.

Let me guess, on that sacrificial altar you can kill the girl (for Gro-goroth) or fuck her to gain Sylvian's favor?
Such nice deities!

I thought the same and did not want to test either of those. Good to know that the 2nd one is not an option after all.

 

[lightbane]

IIRC, from what I read the Old Gods are surprisingly chill and it's possible to max out their "favor meters" with all of them, which will bring you bonuses of all kinds. Of course, in order to do that you'll have to do unethical actions.

There's a sequel, by the way: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2171440/Fear__Hunger_2_Termina/

Much more polished, set in the early 20th Century IIRC, and with characters that look straight out of Jojo Bizarre (the later is intentional, the dev stated he likes that show).

 

[Endemic]

I thought the same and did not want to test either of those. Good to know that the 2nd one is not an option after all.

That was changed from the demo, she just refuses. Given Sylvian's idea of "marriage" I can see why

In the first encounter we have the awkwardly worded you manage evading its grasp! as well. The dev is ESL. I think this was also partially the reason why the descriptions and the books are the way they are.

Not a big deal, just that I figured beta testers would catch those.

 

[Egosphere]

IIRC, from what I read the Old Gods are surprisingly chill and it's possible to max out their "favor meters" with all of them, which will bring you bonuses of all kinds. Of course, in order to do that you'll have to do unethical actions.

There's a sequel, by the way: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2171440/Fear__Hunger_2_Termina/

Much more polished, set in the early 20th Century IIRC, and with characters that look straight out of Jojo Bizarre (the later is intentional, the dev stated he likes that show).

They're all like Gravelord Nito from Dark Souls. He's chill, until he isn't.

 

[Endemic]

At a glance the curse reminds me of Silent Hill (as do a few of the monster designs).

 

[Egosphere]

At a glance the curse reminds me of Silent Hill (as do a few of the monster designs).

Yeah, its another one of the big inspirations. Berserk + Silent Hill + Dark Souls is probably the most apt comparison. Pyramid head is in this in all but name.

 

[perfectslumbers]

One of my favourite games. I avoided it for a long time because I thought it seemed like the kind of a thing only a perverted freak would make, and I thought the subject matter would be too upsetting, but I gave it a chance and it was actually done well. It's edgy yeah but all the graphic content is presented in a really matter-of-fact way, without any titillation or emphasis, and without being coy. It never feels shocking which I find impressive, and I think there's value in presenting the player with something fucked up in a really neutral manner and just letting it happen while the player reflects. I find it artistic in a way, the psychological processes that go through my head while playing. I look forward to the LP

 

[Atlet]

People that I like told me only incredible things about the series and already bought them. After my BG3 playtrus, I'm giving Fear and Hunger 2 a proper look before jumping in the Starfield hype train.

A friend told me it's alright to start immediately with the sequel. What do you think? Should I skip, for the moment, the first one, or is it important to play it before digging the sequel?

PS: if I like the sequel fairly enuff, I'm playing the original anyways.

 

[perfectslumbers]

A friend told me it's alright to start immediately with the sequel. What do you think? Should I skip, for the moment, the first one, or is it important to play it before digging the sequel?

You can start with either, the sequel just has references to the first

 

[Egosphere]

PART III : Basement

Spoiler

We find ourselves outside, where the spores of the mist assail our lungs. Or so the game pretends, anyhow. My sanity is slowly being restored, so there's that.

In the corner of the map we find a stick! Fetch!

And on the other end of this enclosure is a well, which will take us one level below ground. We jump and clamber down the mound of corpses to get to a treasure chest. This one is a coin toss. Heads proves the lucky choice, and the pseudo random number generator rewards me with a pair of bone shears, a two handed weapon that doubles our damage output.

The game comes with an 'Optimize' choice which will auto-choose your equipment for you, and unfortunately I accidentally click it for the girl, who promptly puts on the Ring of the Still Blood. I'm not sure if there are negative side effects for the thing; if there are, well, she has me to thank for them.

In the crafting menu I replenish my stock of torches with a tinderbox, a stick and a cloth.

And we proceed into the next building, the Inner Hall, still on ground level. Here the hall bifurcates into 3 paths, of which we chose forward.

A pair of priests are gathered around a statue that acts as a crucifixion cross for a victim. Gro-goroth worshippers? They pay me absolutely no heed as they chant something in their baritone voices.

As I creep up to the statue, the game offers me to sacrifice the naked guy on the cross. Given that he's already nailed to the statue, I figure that we might as well. Maybe we can wrangle a favour or two from the destroyer of men from all of this. He expires with a scream as we stab him and still his beating heart for good.

The priests do not respond, seemingly in a fugue state. I don't bother disturbing either one from their torpor and quickly proceed to the left. Here's a toilet. A long-drawn out death awaits below if you decide to climb in.

On the right is another chamber with a writhing skein of human flesh and heads - the human hydra.

I'm not giving you anything.

I could attack them, but since they are immobile I chose to excuse myself and leave them in peace. Maybe they have some nasty tricks up their sleeve in combat. I don't feel like chancing it. Back in the main hall and BOOM Combat!
The guard came out as my eyes wandered across the map in search of wall torches to light. Well, no problem, we'll just hack off his left a..

MISS! And the guard capitalizes immediately, counter attacking us with a vicious blow that cleaves our left arm off our body, giving us a bleeding effect AND making us drop our weapon - the bone shears. Now we're unarmed, and have to resort to fighting him with one fist.

The blood loss is also doing a -3 damage to us per turn.

Fortunately, my next attack proves lucky, and the punch manages to wreck the ogre's arm. However, in the heat of battle I've forgotten that the 2nd turn is a coin flip attack..

I choose Heads and toss 2 for good measure. Flawless victory.

The next 4 turns prove lucky, as we leave him without his preferred 'weapon', kick the knees from under him and finally decapitate him after remembering to guard on the 5th turn.

-1 arm, -50% of our health, bleeding, we limp away from the scrap.

I use a cloth to staunch the bleeding. The guard's cleaver is a one arm weapon, and more potent than the scimitar, so we equip it.

And proceed down the hallway..
Past a couple of corners is a torture room, decorated with bodily fluids and a wide assortment of tools for slicing and shearing. Two iron maidens make up the other end.

Flayed corpses are strewn about the hallway as we begin scavenging for loot. A lucky drop gives us a bear trap.

And back outside in the main connecting corridor, we are arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps.

A well dressed man runs out of the darkness, a noble by the looks of it.

"Yeah? I'm quite sane as of yet"

A mutant's howl resonates from behind him.

Another howl, this time closer.

Buckman dives into a cul de sac nearby, and we follow suit. Inside is a bed. First we tear off what little bed cloth is here, in case we're in great need of bandages once again. Then I decide to sleep. Why wouldn't I? I think it's a good time to save the game, even if there is an enemy stalking the halls nearby. So I interact with the bed..

..and realize I have no lucky coins left. This is a 50-50.

Heads? TAILS!

It's over.

Whilst we slumber, a disfigured hunchback that was once a person approaches the room.

Yeah, you tell him Buckman!

I presume he whacks us over the head whilst we sleep, and we awaken in the torture room we'd visited shortly before our nap.

The cleaver takes off our legs one by one at the knees.

Then the arms go as well..

And we finally fade to black at the sight of our crotch turning into a bloody welter. So much for run one, ending on the rack, killed by one of the weakest enemies in the game. There's a great irony that we were ended by this thing after finding the bone shears:


What happened to the girl is a mystery. Maybe she hid under the bed? Maybe Buckman is beating her to death at the ritual circle? We'll never know. Part 4 will see is restart from the very beginning, but we'll give the Merc another chance.

 

[Egosphere]

People that I like told me only incredible things about the series and already bought them. After my BG3 playtrus, I'm giving Fear and Hunger 2 a proper look before jumping in the Starfield hype train.

A friend told me it's alright to start immediately with the sequel. What do you think? Should I skip, for the moment, the first one, or is it important to play it before digging the sequel?

PS: if I like the sequel fairly enuff, I'm playing the original anyways.

I've seen ~1 hour of footage of Termina, and didn't watch any more since I don't want to spoil myself like I did for the majority of the first. I think the opening game is the more atmospheric of the two - darker, more oppressive both aesthetically and mechanically, much less forgiving - but I could be misled by Termina's opening. I'm intrigued by the battle royale aspect of the sequel where you have many "contestants" stuck in Silent Hill a small rural town being forced to compete against each other for survival.

Apparently there are a lot of tie-ins between the two, despite being set several centuries apart. Although the endings in the first game are mutually exclusive, for the sequel about half of them are canon.

 

[NecroLord]

PART III : Basement

Spoiler

We find ourselves outside, where the spores of the mist assail our lungs. Or so the game pretends, anyhow. My sanity is slowly being restored, so there's that.

In the corner of the map we find a stick! Fetch!

And on the other end of this enclosure is a well, which will take us one level below ground. We jump and clamber down the mound of corpses to get to a treasure chest. This one is a coin toss. Heads proves the lucky choice, and the pseudo random number generator rewards me with a pair of bone shears, a two handed weapon that doubles our damage output.

The game comes with an 'Optimize' choice which will auto-choose your equipment for you, and unfortunately I accidentally click it for the girl, who promptly puts on the Ring of the Still Blood. I'm not sure if there are negative side effects for the thing; if there are, well, she has me to thank for them.

In the crafting menu I replenish my stock of torches with a tinderbox, a stick and a cloth.

And we proceed into the next building, the Inner Hall, still on ground level. Here the hall bifurcates into 3 paths, of which we chose forward.

A pair of priests are gathered around a statue that acts as a crucifixion cross for a victim. Gro-goroth worshippers? They pay me absolutely no heed as they chant something in their baritone voices.

As I creep up to the statue, the game offers me to sacrifice the naked guy on the cross. Given that he's already nailed to the statue, I figure that we might as well. Maybe we can wrangle a favour or two from the destroyer of men from all of this. He expires with a scream as we stab him and still his beating heart for good.

The priests do not respond, seemingly in a fugue state. I don't bother disturbing either one from their torpor and quickly proceed to the left. Here's a toilet. A long-drawn out death awaits below if you decide to climb in.

On the right is another chamber with a writhing skein of human flesh and heads - the human hydra.

I'm not giving you anything.

I could attack them, but since they are immobile I chose to excuse myself and leave them in peace. Maybe they have some nasty tricks up their sleeve in combat. I don't feel like chancing it. Back in the main hall and BOOM Combat!
The guard came out as my eyes wandered across the map in search of wall torches to light. Well, no problem, we'll just hack off his left a..

MISS! And the guard capitalizes immediately, counter attacking us with a vicious blow that cleaves our left arm off our body, giving us a bleeding effect AND making us drop our weapon - the bone shears. Now we're unarmed, and have to resort to fighting him with one fist.

The blood loss is also doing a -3 damage to us per turn.

Fortunately, my next attack proves lucky, and the punch manages to wreck the ogre's arm. However, in the heat of battle I've forgotten that the 2nd turn is a coin flip attack..

I choose Heads and toss 2 for good measure. Flawless victory.

The next 4 turns prove lucky, as we leave him without his preferred 'weapon', kick the knees from under him and finally decapitate him after remembering to guard on the 5th turn.

-1 arm, -50% of our health, bleeding, we limp away from the scrap.

I use a cloth to staunch the bleeding. The guard's cleaver is a one arm weapon, and more potent than the scimitar, so we equip it.

And proceed down the hallway..
Past a couple of corners is a torture room, decorated with bodily fluids and a wide assortment of tools for slicing and shearing. Two iron maidens make up the other end.

Flayed corpses are strewn about the hallway as we begin scavenging for loot. A lucky drop gives us a bear trap.

And back outside in the main connecting corridor, we are arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps.

A well dressed man runs out of the darkness, a noble by the looks of it.

"Yeah? I'm quite sane as of yet"

A mutant's howl resonates from behind him.

Another howl, this time closer.

Buckman dives into a cul de sac nearby, and we follow suit. Inside is a bed. First we tear off what little bed cloth is here, in case we're in great need of bandages once again. Then I decide to sleep. Why wouldn't I? I think it's a good time to save the game, even if there is an enemy stalking the halls nearby. So I interact with the bed..

..and realize I have no lucky coins left. This is a 50-50.

Heads? TAILS!

It's over.

Whilst we slumber, a disfigured hunchback that was once a person approaches the room.

Yeah, you tell him Buckman!

I presume he whacks us over the head whilst we sleep, and we awaken in the torture room we'd visited shortly before our nap.

The cleaver takes off our legs one by one at the knees.

Then the arms go as well..

And we finally fade to black at the sight of our crotch turning into a bloody welter. So much for run one, ending on the rack, killed by one of the weakest enemies in the game. There's a great irony that we were ended by this thing after finding the bone shears:


What happened to the girl is a mystery. Maybe she hid under the bed? Maybe Buckman is beating her to death at the ritual circle? We'll never know. Part 4 will see is restart from the very beginning, but we'll give the Merc another chance.

Shit, that was brutal...
"We want that fresh girl meat!" and getting your limbs and dick chopped off by a deranged torturer...
What a nice, family game, yeah?

 

[Egosphere]

PART III : Basement

Spoiler

We find ourselves outside, where the spores of the mist assail our lungs. Or so the game pretends, anyhow. My sanity is slowly being restored, so there's that.

In the corner of the map we find a stick! Fetch!

And on the other end of this enclosure is a well, which will take us one level below ground. We jump and clamber down the mound of corpses to get to a treasure chest. This one is a coin toss. Heads proves the lucky choice, and the pseudo random number generator rewards me with a pair of bone shears, a two handed weapon that doubles our damage output.

The game comes with an 'Optimize' choice which will auto-choose your equipment for you, and unfortunately I accidentally click it for the girl, who promptly puts on the Ring of the Still Blood. I'm not sure if there are negative side effects for the thing; if there are, well, she has me to thank for them.

In the crafting menu I replenish my stock of torches with a tinderbox, a stick and a cloth.

And we proceed into the next building, the Inner Hall, still on ground level. Here the hall bifurcates into 3 paths, of which we chose forward.

A pair of priests are gathered around a statue that acts as a crucifixion cross for a victim. Gro-goroth worshippers? They pay me absolutely no heed as they chant something in their baritone voices.

As I creep up to the statue, the game offers me to sacrifice the naked guy on the cross. Given that he's already nailed to the statue, I figure that we might as well. Maybe we can wrangle a favour or two from the destroyer of men from all of this. He expires with a scream as we stab him and still his beating heart for good.

The priests do not respond, seemingly in a fugue state. I don't bother disturbing either one from their torpor and quickly proceed to the left. Here's a toilet. A long-drawn out death awaits below if you decide to climb in.

On the right is another chamber with a writhing skein of human flesh and heads - the human hydra.

I'm not giving you anything.

I could attack them, but since they are immobile I chose to excuse myself and leave them in peace. Maybe they have some nasty tricks up their sleeve in combat. I don't feel like chancing it. Back in the main hall and BOOM Combat!
The guard came out as my eyes wandered across the map in search of wall torches to light. Well, no problem, we'll just hack off his left a..

MISS! And the guard capitalizes immediately, counter attacking us with a vicious blow that cleaves our left arm off our body, giving us a bleeding effect AND making us drop our weapon - the bone shears. Now we're unarmed, and have to resort to fighting him with one fist.

The blood loss is also doing a -3 damage to us per turn.

Fortunately, my next attack proves lucky, and the punch manages to wreck the ogre's arm. However, in the heat of battle I've forgotten that the 2nd turn is a coin flip attack..

I choose Heads and toss 2 for good measure. Flawless victory.

The next 4 turns prove lucky, as we leave him without his preferred 'weapon', kick the knees from under him and finally decapitate him after remembering to guard on the 5th turn.

-1 arm, -50% of our health, bleeding, we limp away from the scrap.

I use a cloth to staunch the bleeding. The guard's cleaver is a one arm weapon, and more potent than the scimitar, so we equip it.

And proceed down the hallway..
Past a couple of corners is a torture room, decorated with bodily fluids and a wide assortment of tools for slicing and shearing. Two iron maidens make up the other end.

Flayed corpses are strewn about the hallway as we begin scavenging for loot. A lucky drop gives us a bear trap.

And back outside in the main connecting corridor, we are arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps.

A well dressed man runs out of the darkness, a noble by the looks of it.

"Yeah? I'm quite sane as of yet"

A mutant's howl resonates from behind him.

Another howl, this time closer.

Buckman dives into a cul de sac nearby, and we follow suit. Inside is a bed. First we tear off what little bed cloth is here, in case we're in great need of bandages once again. Then I decide to sleep. Why wouldn't I? I think it's a good time to save the game, even if there is an enemy stalking the halls nearby. So I interact with the bed..

..and realize I have no lucky coins left. This is a 50-50.

Heads? TAILS!

It's over.

Whilst we slumber, a disfigured hunchback that was once a person approaches the room.

Yeah, you tell him Buckman!

I presume he whacks us over the head whilst we sleep, and we awaken in the torture room we'd visited shortly before our nap.

The cleaver takes off our legs one by one at the knees.

Then the arms go as well..

And we finally fade to black at the sight of our crotch turning into a bloody welter. So much for run one, ending on the rack, killed by one of the weakest enemies in the game. There's a great irony that we were ended by this thing after finding the bone shears:


What happened to the girl is a mystery. Maybe she hid under the bed? Maybe Buckman is beating her to death at the ritual circle? We'll never know. Part 4 will see is restart from the very beginning, but we'll give the Merc another chance.

Shit, that was brutal...
"We want that fresh girl meat!" and getting your limbs and dick chopped off by a deranged torturer...
What a nice, family game, yeah?

Lol yeah. I'm glad I didn't die to the ogre though. There's 3 different endings to that, and they range from as bad to far worse what Cavarra endured.

 

[NecroLord]

PART III : Basement

Spoiler

We find ourselves outside, where the spores of the mist assail our lungs. Or so the game pretends, anyhow. My sanity is slowly being restored, so there's that.

In the corner of the map we find a stick! Fetch!

And on the other end of this enclosure is a well, which will take us one level below ground. We jump and clamber down the mound of corpses to get to a treasure chest. This one is a coin toss. Heads proves the lucky choice, and the pseudo random number generator rewards me with a pair of bone shears, a two handed weapon that doubles our damage output.

The game comes with an 'Optimize' choice which will auto-choose your equipment for you, and unfortunately I accidentally click it for the girl, who promptly puts on the Ring of the Still Blood. I'm not sure if there are negative side effects for the thing; if there are, well, she has me to thank for them.

In the crafting menu I replenish my stock of torches with a tinderbox, a stick and a cloth.

And we proceed into the next building, the Inner Hall, still on ground level. Here the hall bifurcates into 3 paths, of which we chose forward.

A pair of priests are gathered around a statue that acts as a crucifixion cross for a victim. Gro-goroth worshippers? They pay me absolutely no heed as they chant something in their baritone voices.

As I creep up to the statue, the game offers me to sacrifice the naked guy on the cross. Given that he's already nailed to the statue, I figure that we might as well. Maybe we can wrangle a favour or two from the destroyer of men from all of this. He expires with a scream as we stab him and still his beating heart for good.

The priests do not respond, seemingly in a fugue state. I don't bother disturbing either one from their torpor and quickly proceed to the left. Here's a toilet. A long-drawn out death awaits below if you decide to climb in.

On the right is another chamber with a writhing skein of human flesh and heads - the human hydra.

I'm not giving you anything.

I could attack them, but since they are immobile I chose to excuse myself and leave them in peace. Maybe they have some nasty tricks up their sleeve in combat. I don't feel like chancing it. Back in the main hall and BOOM Combat!
The guard came out as my eyes wandered across the map in search of wall torches to light. Well, no problem, we'll just hack off his left a..

MISS! And the guard capitalizes immediately, counter attacking us with a vicious blow that cleaves our left arm off our body, giving us a bleeding effect AND making us drop our weapon - the bone shears. Now we're unarmed, and have to resort to fighting him with one fist.

The blood loss is also doing a -3 damage to us per turn.

Fortunately, my next attack proves lucky, and the punch manages to wreck the ogre's arm. However, in the heat of battle I've forgotten that the 2nd turn is a coin flip attack..

I choose Heads and toss 2 for good measure. Flawless victory.

The next 4 turns prove lucky, as we leave him without his preferred 'weapon', kick the knees from under him and finally decapitate him after remembering to guard on the 5th turn.

-1 arm, -50% of our health, bleeding, we limp away from the scrap.

I use a cloth to staunch the bleeding. The guard's cleaver is a one arm weapon, and more potent than the scimitar, so we equip it.

And proceed down the hallway..
Past a couple of corners is a torture room, decorated with bodily fluids and a wide assortment of tools for slicing and shearing. Two iron maidens make up the other end.

Flayed corpses are strewn about the hallway as we begin scavenging for loot. A lucky drop gives us a bear trap.

And back outside in the main connecting corridor, we are arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps.

A well dressed man runs out of the darkness, a noble by the looks of it.

"Yeah? I'm quite sane as of yet"

A mutant's howl resonates from behind him.

Another howl, this time closer.

Buckman dives into a cul de sac nearby, and we follow suit. Inside is a bed. First we tear off what little bed cloth is here, in case we're in great need of bandages once again. Then I decide to sleep. Why wouldn't I? I think it's a good time to save the game, even if there is an enemy stalking the halls nearby. So I interact with the bed..

..and realize I have no lucky coins left. This is a 50-50.

Heads? TAILS!

It's over.

Whilst we slumber, a disfigured hunchback that was once a person approaches the room.

Yeah, you tell him Buckman!

I presume he whacks us over the head whilst we sleep, and we awaken in the torture room we'd visited shortly before our nap.

The cleaver takes off our legs one by one at the knees.

Then the arms go as well..

And we finally fade to black at the sight of our crotch turning into a bloody welter. So much for run one, ending on the rack, killed by one of the weakest enemies in the game. There's a great irony that we were ended by this thing after finding the bone shears:


What happened to the girl is a mystery. Maybe she hid under the bed? Maybe Buckman is beating her to death at the ritual circle? We'll never know. Part 4 will see is restart from the very beginning, but we'll give the Merc another chance.

Shit, that was brutal...
"We want that fresh girl meat!" and getting your limbs and dick chopped off by a deranged torturer...
What a nice, family game, yeah?

Lol yeah. I'm glad I didn't die to the ogre though. There's 3 different endings to that, and they range from as bad to far worse what Cavarra endured.

Hmmm, let me guess, it involves the Stinger and him using it on you in a very "special" way, right?

 

[Egosphere]

PART III : Basement

Spoiler

We find ourselves outside, where the spores of the mist assail our lungs. Or so the game pretends, anyhow. My sanity is slowly being restored, so there's that.

In the corner of the map we find a stick! Fetch!

And on the other end of this enclosure is a well, which will take us one level below ground. We jump and clamber down the mound of corpses to get to a treasure chest. This one is a coin toss. Heads proves the lucky choice, and the pseudo random number generator rewards me with a pair of bone shears, a two handed weapon that doubles our damage output.

The game comes with an 'Optimize' choice which will auto-choose your equipment for you, and unfortunately I accidentally click it for the girl, who promptly puts on the Ring of the Still Blood. I'm not sure if there are negative side effects for the thing; if there are, well, she has me to thank for them.

In the crafting menu I replenish my stock of torches with a tinderbox, a stick and a cloth.

And we proceed into the next building, the Inner Hall, still on ground level. Here the hall bifurcates into 3 paths, of which we chose forward.

A pair of priests are gathered around a statue that acts as a crucifixion cross for a victim. Gro-goroth worshippers? They pay me absolutely no heed as they chant something in their baritone voices.

As I creep up to the statue, the game offers me to sacrifice the naked guy on the cross. Given that he's already nailed to the statue, I figure that we might as well. Maybe we can wrangle a favour or two from the destroyer of men from all of this. He expires with a scream as we stab him and still his beating heart for good.

The priests do not respond, seemingly in a fugue state. I don't bother disturbing either one from their torpor and quickly proceed to the left. Here's a toilet. A long-drawn out death awaits below if you decide to climb in.

On the right is another chamber with a writhing skein of human flesh and heads - the human hydra.

I'm not giving you anything.

I could attack them, but since they are immobile I chose to excuse myself and leave them in peace. Maybe they have some nasty tricks up their sleeve in combat. I don't feel like chancing it. Back in the main hall and BOOM Combat!
The guard came out as my eyes wandered across the map in search of wall torches to light. Well, no problem, we'll just hack off his left a..

MISS! And the guard capitalizes immediately, counter attacking us with a vicious blow that cleaves our left arm off our body, giving us a bleeding effect AND making us drop our weapon - the bone shears. Now we're unarmed, and have to resort to fighting him with one fist.

The blood loss is also doing a -3 damage to us per turn.

Fortunately, my next attack proves lucky, and the punch manages to wreck the ogre's arm. However, in the heat of battle I've forgotten that the 2nd turn is a coin flip attack..

I choose Heads and toss 2 for good measure. Flawless victory.

The next 4 turns prove lucky, as we leave him without his preferred 'weapon', kick the knees from under him and finally decapitate him after remembering to guard on the 5th turn.

-1 arm, -50% of our health, bleeding, we limp away from the scrap.

I use a cloth to staunch the bleeding. The guard's cleaver is a one arm weapon, and more potent than the scimitar, so we equip it.

And proceed down the hallway..
Past a couple of corners is a torture room, decorated with bodily fluids and a wide assortment of tools for slicing and shearing. Two iron maidens make up the other end.

Flayed corpses are strewn about the hallway as we begin scavenging for loot. A lucky drop gives us a bear trap.

And back outside in the main connecting corridor, we are arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps.

A well dressed man runs out of the darkness, a noble by the looks of it.

"Yeah? I'm quite sane as of yet"

A mutant's howl resonates from behind him.

Another howl, this time closer.

Buckman dives into a cul de sac nearby, and we follow suit. Inside is a bed. First we tear off what little bed cloth is here, in case we're in great need of bandages once again. Then I decide to sleep. Why wouldn't I? I think it's a good time to save the game, even if there is an enemy stalking the halls nearby. So I interact with the bed..

..and realize I have no lucky coins left. This is a 50-50.

Heads? TAILS!

It's over.

Whilst we slumber, a disfigured hunchback that was once a person approaches the room.

Yeah, you tell him Buckman!

I presume he whacks us over the head whilst we sleep, and we awaken in the torture room we'd visited shortly before our nap.

The cleaver takes off our legs one by one at the knees.

Then the arms go as well..

And we finally fade to black at the sight of our crotch turning into a bloody welter. So much for run one, ending on the rack, killed by one of the weakest enemies in the game. There's a great irony that we were ended by this thing after finding the bone shears:


What happened to the girl is a mystery. Maybe she hid under the bed? Maybe Buckman is beating her to death at the ritual circle? We'll never know. Part 4 will see is restart from the very beginning, but we'll give the Merc another chance.

Shit, that was brutal...
"We want that fresh girl meat!" and getting your limbs and dick chopped off by a deranged torturer...
What a nice, family game, yeah?

Lol yeah. I'm glad I didn't die to the ogre though. There's 3 different endings to that, and they range from as bad to far worse what Cavarra endured.

Hmmm, let me guess, it involves the Stinger and him using it on you in a very "special" way, right?

Yes, 2.5% chance of that. Otherwise you can get teleported to level 3 without your legs, or into the dungeon cell with their captain who likes bashing skulls in.

 

[Endemic]

Do we get to vote which class\character you pick this time?

 

[lightbane]

I think it's actually possible to survive that mutilation scene, but then you're a few seconds away from death anyway...

 

[Endemic]

I think it's actually possible to survive that mutilation scene, but then you're a few seconds away from death anyway...

You can get items that prevent bleeding, but you wouldn't be in a condition to do much with no extremities

 

[Egosphere]

Do we get to vote which class\character you pick this time?

The screenshots for run 2 are already taken, but yes you can leave a vote for the class for run 3 and I'll tally them up

 

[Egosphere]

Should I condense the posts, btw? I'm at ~200 images per run which seems overkill. Have cropped the lore book screenshots so that they take up far less space. Are people interested in the world or just seeing how bad things get?

 

[NecroLord]

Are people interested in the world or just seeing how bad things get?

I know I am.

 

[Egosphere]

PART IV : Blueberry Thickets

I returned to the game with a vengeance. Trortur had pissed me off, so I intended to lash out by taking a riskier approach to things. Although the payoff was not quite what I expected, my 2nd run still ended up being an interesting adventure. Full run below.

As per Endemic's request, run 3's class will be determined by you, the readers. So leave a comment which one of Merc, Knight, Priest or Outlander you wish to see for run 3 and 4.

Spoiler

We are back outside the main gates. Preliminary apologies for the mouse in the screen, I didn't know the default settings captured it as well. It will be moved aside about ~1/3rd of the way through this. Also, imgbox has decided to fuck up the order of the uploaded images, so if something doesn't look right and out of chronological order - its because it is.

We pay little heed to the horse and dash our way to the barrels to strip them dry of anything valuable. Stick, flour and wormjuice (which is this world's vermox)

Instead of diving into the main dungeon, instead we take a hard left and run into the side building.

We find some dirt in the nearby barrel, which looks to be sheep shit. Great.

But the upside of this damp, dank cellar is that its a treasure trove of fungi and plants. The floors are scattered with dried mushrooms, which can serve as edible snack to keep hunger at bay.

We proceed through the door into the basement proper. There's another ritual circle here. Do note that these ritual circles have different pictures. The previous one that we found had the same pattern as the Tails on our lucky coins. This one is a backward runic R. Я.

The game hints at this in the description - an older, more obscure god. If Gro-goroth, Sylvian and Allmer are well known, then can we presume the old pantheon holds others?

Around this place are more green herbs, blue herbs and mushrooms. Green herbs are much needed to fight infections, so it's good to stock up.

In a nearby crate we discover an explosive vial. Very important item that can be employed to clear away debris from collapsed corridors.
Around the corner in the next room we discover a new enemy - maneba. The thing is a grinning, toothy, bulbous head on six tendrils, which act as its support. It's slow, and generally will not try and catch you if you are not sufficiently close enough.

We bypass it with ease and pick up some rotten meat from the table.

In the storage area is Nitroglycerin powder. Iirc the explosive was employed to shake loose oil wells and extract more crude in the 19th century. What use it will bring us - I'm not sure.

The leather helmet is a welcome addition. Now I feel much safer against cleavers and maces
The metallic door here is locked. You might recognize that room - it's the one we reached when we jumped down the well in the previous run.
I can't lockpick it since it's 'fastened shut from the other side'.

We step away from the door and continue to..

Cavarra gets pulled into some sort of vortex that appears spontaneously underneath him.

And lands in a weird dream world. The rooms here are surrounded by an impenetrable darkness, whilst a distorting after effect gives the edges of our screen an uncanny look.

As we proceed through the area, running from one room to the next, a figure appears to float beside us, circling us as she cackles with an inhuman voice.

She appears two times. Before the third, I reach a door filled with uniform white light, which spits me back out. Crisis averted.

The coin toss in the next room when searching the weapon rack is unsuccessful

And I am eventually cornered by one of the manebas, which despite its slowness manages to take up enough room near the door to make an exit impossible. Time to fight.

I go for the fat head, and of course I miss. The thing replies with 3 attacks in quick succession, injecting me with something, and then utilizing its tendrils as whips. 33 damage. Not great.

I didn't realize what that affliction was throughout the run - its a worm infection. I could have cured it with the wormjuice, but the image did not give me the idea to try it out. I thought it was some sort of toxin. This proved to be incredibly annoying since worms means your hunger rises twice as fast.

My next attack managed to connect, which was enough to sink the maneba

The door behind him echoes a voice. We stop to listen.

But attempts at unlocking it fail. Perhaps this is the witch which we saw in our little detour.

So we take another set of stairs down to reach Level 3 - the basement. I was in fact wrong when I called the previous part the basement. That would still be level 1 if my mental map of the world is right. This is however level 3. We're in deep!

Beyond the sandy graveyard stand the catacombs

And we duck into the darkness just in time as a giant clad in metal armour comes stomping into view. He has maces for arms. Judging by the size alone, I don't want to tango with this one.

To the north west of the map is a little room where we can light a bonfire and rest. I light the fire, but decide to forego saving the game for now since the run has just started.

Interacting with the statue will simply print something about the maiden and the crow. Perhaps significant lore wise, but I didn't pay much heed to it.
To the north east of the map are blood splatters and the corpse of some weird thing. Looks like a humanoid rabbit on LSD. He's seen things you people wouldn't believe. We pick up all of the shrooms and herbs.

Iron Shakespeare, which is the name of the giant enemy, comes out to check that wing of the map, but we remain safely out of his view.

And inside the next room is another living person!

"Yes I am"

With that, the conversation ends and we will have to restart it manually. Before we do that, we have two tables to loot, both of which are coin tosses. Tails proves very lucky for both.

Armed with an iron cuirass and a morning star, we get back to the knight.

"What are you doing here?"

Buckman! We met him in the previous run, shortly before expiring. Now, interestingly enough, we were sent here to retrieve a mercenary band leader - Le'Garde. So it seems that the kingdom did first send in its own knights, hell its own prince, to do the mission, but once they went MIA decided to throw money at us as a stopgap measure, probably before regrouping another company to brave the depths.

"What's happening to this place?"

"You seem hurt?"

It's not clear what he's referring to. I think it's the rabbit creature that is already dead, and not the Iron Shakespeare stalking the hallway.

We sneak back out and around the patrolling mountain of metal and go north. Here's a door which we fail to lockpick, for whatever reason.

And fighting it proves futile, even without the mace. So we leave and delve down the stairs. Still at level 3, we enter the Prisons, or the other-world of Silent Hill, since the aesthetic is lifted directly from SH1/3.

The prison cells hold a lot of beds, so that it's possible to use this room as a giant save room, but you need to bash down the doors. For now we cannot do that. Whilst we're inspecting the bars, a creature approaches us from the darkness. Looking somewhat like a "stone elemental", the thing pursues us with sporadic gusts of speed as it beats its wings. We prove faster, however, and put some distance between us.

The next cell to the east has its door already missing, but a ghoul guards the bed. I'm not sure if the talking trick will work on this one, so I leave him be.

As I travel along a stretch of metal grating, admiring the gigantic snakeman statue that rises from the abysall depths, I hear a twang and am greeted with a message that I am bleeding.

The culprit is a guard with a ... ballista. I don't know whether to be pissed off at the cheap trick, or be thankful that the ballista does only minor damage. By right I should have been cut in half.

We retreat, heal and visit a few cells to the very north.

In one is a lucky coin, which can be spotted by the small glimmer it gives off (much easier in real time since the glimmer pulsates)

And in the next cell over is a doll, which elicits a creepy feeling in Cavarra. Why? Something about this doll is not quite right. Whilst we inspect it, the little stone golem flies through the door and starts approaching. We grab the doll and deftly dance around to avoid an encounter, slipping out of the door

Another golem appears, and I dash back into the previous cell. Well, here's a bed. I figure I might save the game here.

Tails, and tossing tw...

Are you fucking shitting me?

Of course. Because of course. Why wouldn't the guard lift up the ballista and go pay me a visit whilst I'm sleeping? How nice of him.

What's that supposed to mean?

Anyhow what's done is done. We'll have to fight our way out, and forego saving the game. At least it's not insta-kill game over like last time. Unlike the cleaver-guard, this one has both of its arms counting as one, so just one attack can cleave off both.

We hack off the arms and then hack off the stinger

And since he's missing both arms, he reverts to the slam attack, slamming 32 points of HP out of us.

But my next blow to the torso proves fatal, and we live to see another day, or level.

We escape back out and backtrack all the way to the maiden-crow statue room. The guard dropped a purifying talisman, which we study on our way back.

Thankfully this room does not ask for a coin toss, and we get a solid hour of sleep.

Who could it be now? Caw caw caw caw caaaaaaaw

Back outside proper, I encounter a new character that has appeared outside the main gate - a whiskey nosed merchant. The conditions for his appearance are a mystery to me. Perhaps reaching level 3 was enough.

For now we do not have the money to buy any of his wares, but they do look good. Potion of life sounds intriguing, provided it actually works. Maybe he's a charlatan.

Back in the main building I begin to speedrun. The girl is on the left, just like the previous time, and we bust her out with out lockpicking skills.

Instead of trying to avoid the guard, we attack him instead. Luckily we do not miss and the fight is a cakewalk.

This one had the ring of still blood, which we make sure not to put on this time around

We tear down the ingerland rondon flag

And in the next room we find some bone-shars.

They're better than the morning star, so thats what we go for.

The tinderbox can be used to light the stove upon which we can prepare raw meat and convert it into esculent provisions.

In the nearby mini library we go on a lucky spree of findings

Black orb!

Fellowship chapter 2

And the book of enlightenment, which we promptly read. I had no idea that this was a portable saving mechanism at the time, so yes I wasted the book.

Terrible. Whilst we're here we decide to read the

THE FELLOWSHIP : CHAPTER 2

(note that we find Chapter 1 a little later, so you can read them in order if you wish - look for the long list of textboxes that comes not long after this)

Back in the inventory I check out the black orb spell

20, I think, is the Mind? Maybe, maybe, we'll have to test this in the future, provided we remember to.

Do note that I was oblivious to the fact that my character was hungry AND had worms.
We return to the main network of corridors and find the collapsed tunnel which we encountered in our previous run. With our explosive vial, we can now clear it.

The path leads to a side safe area with a couple of items to loot and a bed.

The alchemilla we already read in the previous part. The helmet goes onto the head. Saving the game goes without a hitch this time. Really no need in it since we've just saved with the book of enlightenment, but oh well.

I browse the stuff we've uncovered so far. The bonesaw has an amusing description.

Back outside, we also find a use for purifying talisman, which is capable of removing a hex from a closed door.

This layout is new, this door wasnt here on our previous run. Since the maps constantly change in subtle ways between runs there's always a nagging feeling of being lost.

Inside we find a tablet held up by stone statues.

And this explains what the meaning of the Soul is in the introduction. As I recall, we have the Soul of the Endless, which gives us an affinity with one of the new gods.
The hexen, just as described, is a skill tree with a total of 8 branches - 4 for the new gods and 4 for the old. Interesting, since we were led to believe that the old gods were only 3. The inverted R is also present here, as is the two overlapping circles that we find on the lucky coins. Each god, then, has a symbol, but we as of yet do not have the info to figure out which is which.

I decide to test out the black orb on the prisoner ghoul enemy instead of talking to him. This proves to be an unwise choice.

Although it does plenty of damage, it fails to kill him, and he responds with a scratch that takes away even more of our health and infects our arm.

The next attack flatlines him and I go into the inventory to pop blue pills for the HP, and a green herb for the infection. The worm status effect for whatever reason does not perturb me, even though the hunger messages are coming in thick and fast.

We return to the courtyard. Just as before the well gives us with the opportunity to gather some loot.

The bone shears are cool but I decide to go back to the mace and equip the shield in the other arm

And we climb the mound of dead bodies and proceed forward.

Maybe.

Here we sacrifice the bald dude once more, and once again we forego any interactions with the priests.

But instead of the library, to the west we stumble upon one of the playable characters - Enki, the Dark Priest.

"Who are you?"

The name of the sumerian God of knowledge

Since he's so impolite, but not yet hostile, I decide not to press my luck and disengage from the conversation. The surrounding library proves a veritable treasure trove for lore.

Steady now. I wouldn't curse Gro-goroth in a building that's standing above satanic lizardmen statues and interminable voids.

*they

The pocketcat book I've already posted in the previous run.
The mockup book which I've found once more serves as a key to unlocking a hidden exit.

But before we leave we return to looting the library and reading up on the lore.

I actually missed this and forgot to use it, I think.

This scroll here gives us a big clue on how to cheat in this game in a very roundabout way. You need an empty scroll and a quill, which you can then use to write messages like the above to get items or spells for free.

So lets catch up with the reading. For those not interested in the lore, feel free to skip the small cutout texts.

CAPTAIN'S DIARY

So why didn't you?

THE FELLOWSHIP: CHAPTER 1

So now we have the names of the new gods, and as such we know that it is Nilvan who is the God that grants us our skills.

Interesting. Forgotten 5th new God on top of the reclusive 4th old god.

BLOOD & FLOWER MAGIC 1:

Like Siamese twins?

STUDIES OF ALLLMER: CHAPTER 1

So the priests sacrificing the bald guy are alllmer worshippers, since he's crucified

Ma'habre, Mahavre - whatever that place is, it's important. Both the place of ascension of Alllmer, and the subsequent ascension of the new pantheon, after their meeting with the Old Gods somewhere within its main temple. This is also the one who is named our saviour in the Fellowship book. So the ascension of the new pantheon occurred 809 years after Alllmer's birth.

STUDIES OF GRO-GOROTH : CHAPTER 1

My take away from the picture is that Gro-goroth is thicc and likes to twerk as he bites your head off

Based.

As in he looks like a man/woman, or he peels people and then drapes their skins over himself?

With all that out of the way, we go back to the secret exit we uncovered with the mockup book. Lots of ACK-ers in here. We take a step forward when somebody fires an arrow that falls just shy of our boots. And from the shrubs, another playable character appears - the Outlander.

"No, I am not"

Why is that?

"Are you familiar with it?"

Vinland, is that where we are now? Rondon being the kingdom and Vinland being the continent?

Since the outlander is playable, plying him with questions is far inferior to an actual playthrough with that character, so I let him be. We find a small dagger just a little to the north and the game prompts me to give it to my companion.

Do you want to give it to the girl? YES | NO ?
Yes.

Well, cool. Now we get another 20-30 damage output per turn, per limb.

Beside this is an interesting scene. In the centre stands the statue of Alllmer, and beside it some sort of thing with a nose not too dissimilar to the merchant's stands around and rubs its hands.

It does not attack us. As we approach, it tells us to get lost.

Cool! That's smart! That way you can simply fly out of here without having to go through the dungeon parts. I wish him all the best with his endeavour and carry on. At the statue we are offered to pray. I go for Alllmer once more.

Past the statue is another .. interesting scene. A naked woman in a bunny mask stands under a wooden archway.

Oh yeah?

I hunger..

The rabbits are living up to their archetype, completely lost in the act. I presume this is the Sylvain worshipping wing. We excuse ourselves and promptly leave.
By the dagger was another collapsed path, which requires an explosive vial.

fortunately, as we return to the dungeon we find just the item by the hydra room.

And going back allows us to explode the passage and persist forward

We're barely out of the door when a vicious pair of hounds accosts us. There's no chance of escape, even with dash we cannot outrun a hungry dog.

For whatever reason I've forgotten to heal, it seems, so the fight is a nail-biting affair at 19HP. I luckily kill one dog on first turn with a blow to the head with the mace.

Coin flip attack!

Two tails prove enough and we avoid its attempt to lunge at our throat. The girl is less lucky and is bleeding after getting attacked.

The next turn wraps up the fight and we stop to heal and staunch the bleeding.

By the side of this opening is an anthill of sorts.

I do NOT put my hand inside anything, resorting to simply eyeballing it.

To the north is a giant tree, intertwined with the remains of humans. There appears to be a human head at the end of the tree trunk, with a mesh of vines emanating from the scalp. A body on the left up in the branches appears to be wearing a mask - maybe a bunny mask.

We step inside the tree and enter the thickets. The sound is almost entirely muffled, but we are greeted with an ominous tone.

Terrible. At this point I'm low on health items and not all that well equipped to brave unknown areas, but I press onwards.

We find more people stuck in the vines here, and discover a torch in a clay urn. A new enemy patrols the area - the mumbler. Humanoid thing with a bouquet of purple welts for a head. I kill it in one hit, but it explodes and sprays acid onto the girl. Not cool .

I have no clue how to heal the acid status effect, so I'm afraid we're gonna do our best by trying to avoid these enemies rather than engage them.

The area in fact appears a dead end, but the astute player will notice that there is a corridor to the north which we cant reach. In a video I've seen players find the path there via a secret opening in the wall, so we hug the northern wall and try to interact with it until we find the patch that gives way.

But this is where the run takes a turn for the worst, and quickly lands us in circumstances beyond our control. As I walk through the corridor, I step on a piece of ground that gives way - presenting me with a coin toss. I fail the toss and we both collapse to Level 4.

And then it happens again. And then it happens AGAIN. We are now in level 6, and it's still the Thicket. Here we see some mumbler variation walk beyond veiny root-walls with a green lamp in hand. Reminiscent of Tower of Latria.

There are more mumblers here. At this stage I've lost hope of salvaging the run and am simply dashing back and forth along the tunnels, avoiding the mumblers and trying to take stock of the surroundings for the subsequent runs.

But here we discover giant organisms - purple in appearance, and criss crossed with binding webs. We find two of them, and on each one we are prompted to either leave or cut it open. I cut open both, which stops their beating, but does not affect anything else otherwise.

Whatever is connected to this thing? Interesting. So something still draws life from the roots and the vines, and has more than the two hearts we've destroyed. Mumblers, then, are akin to white blood cells that want to expunge us from its tunnel-arteries.

But as we explore level 6, yep, another coin toss. And we fail once more. Level 7 here we goooo

Even the game gives us a sardonic message. We've delved too deep, and we know it. I checked the wiki, and the Dungeon of Fear and Hunger has 9 levels, so we are brushing against the most chthonic of depths on offer. Resigned to our fate, we poke around for a bit before discovering another mini library, with Enki inside no less.

Damn, he gets around a lot.

"How are you?"

Ok, have it your way. In the ritual circle room we find another book of enlightenment, which I didnt read this time (and really, I saw no need in saving at level 7 with no decent gear or party)

The wall murals are of Mahabre.
And the ritual circle here is the two intersecting circles with the 4 lines on the outside.

Back outside we are pounced on by a new enemy, a thing that looks like it's crawling on its hands and legs. The Night Lurch.
He has a flower growing out of its skull, the same flowers which we saw poking out the vines in the thickets above us.

He trembles with excitement. Our attacks take off the flower and the horn, but its not enough. His claws slash and slash and slash.

Until we keel over and die in the darkness of level 7.

I hope he kills Enki next, the goth nerd.

He falls right on top of me after death I presume. Sounds about right.

And we're back in the main menu. So, we've learned of Mahabre, the secretive old God (Я), the names of the new pantheon, and the 5th new God that is now forgotten. We've learned to avoid the mumblers in the thickets, and not to go deeper than level 4-5 unprepared. Next time we'll stay on the well trodden path and try to grind up some good gear and a party. Leave a comment which class you want to see next.

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