When I first entered it, I was able to quickly locate the lost medallion in the mines, and use it to get access to the goblin guarded areas in the west of the level. Eventually I worked my way to the prison, and got promptly locked up in it, even after bribing the guard generously (fucking gobs!) As I didn't have any keys for the prison doors, nor lockpicking skill, I proceeded to bash all the wooden ones down with my trusty Sword of Justice (the fortunately unbreakable Talisman), and speak with the prisoners, which not only got me a bunch of new quests, but an escape route out of the prison as well.
At that point though, I was completely stuck (the first time for the level). From the scrolls/notes I found on the level, I knew there was some maze to get to the wizard, and that there were shortcuts to it through the lava pit and the mines. But the lava pits had a door on the other side which I could not open, and despite raising my skill in Search to 30, and combing the mine walls for secret doors, I could not find it.
So as mentioned before, the way I got through that was by leveling up mana/casting skills and precasting Resist Fire prior to entering the level. Using this defense, I then walked along the lava river in the center of the level, and made my way to the locked door, which I opened with a key I found in the spider caves earlier. From there, I made my way to the Thief Imp and was able to find the Crown of Maze Navigation, even though I still had no clue where the actual maze was. I also worked my way further down the lava river, and found what looked like a green maze, but the crown didn't seem to show me any way through it, so I went back.
This is when I was stuck for the second time. Then at some point as I was looking over the map, a lightbulb went off as I saw what looked like a second bridge over the lava stream further down and high up, which was just barely revealed from my earlier explorations. So I went back to my storage space on level 3, and went through all the sacks and boxes there, finally finding a potion of flying. Went back, pre-applied resist fire (for those pesky fire elementals that shoot fireballs at you even in the air), gulped down the potion and went floating over the river. This finally allowed me to make my way to the maze, and the crown revealed the yellow road, just as the Imp said. The rest was fairly arbitrary, Tyball stands no chance against a melee warrior, and now I am going onwards for the Slasher of Veils.
But what's crazy is how much active thinking and effort went into "solving" this level. Using items (potions), using items in secondary ways (weapons for bashing doors), reading maps and hint notes, precasting spells to avoid restrictions, tons of active exploration, etc , etc. This is just so different from modern RPGs, it's essentially different genres.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring similar progress, as this playthrough I have not used any online guides/hints, so I am hoping to continue that.
