Welcome back to Let's Play Tales of Maj'Eyal!
We find a trap door in an unlikely place. Let's check it out.
This quest/dungeon pops up randomly when you are at a high enough level.
The Unknown Tunnels (a.k.a Assassin's Lair) is a dungeon filled with rogues and bandits. Urist has killed hundreds of them by now, so they're not much of a threat.
The 2nd level replaces the corridors with a more open environment. It appears largely empty, except for 2 NPCs. However, there are several neutral enemies hiding in stealth.
I spoke to the merchant cowering next to the assassin lord. You can speak to the boss as well, which is new. He'll just threaten you into working for him.
You can't actually do missions for him, which sucks, but you can leave without killing him.
If you side with the assassin lord you unlock a poison talent tree (if you're a rogue), get an achievement, and fulfill one of the requirements for a prodigy.
I punched the boss in the face without talking to him. As you can see everyone is pissed at me, including the merchant.
I think I poisoned the merchant with my gloves. Thankfully, he's a weakling and he'll forget all about it when we leave. The two guys in the black outfits are shadowblades. They are rogues that can use shadow magic.
I didn't like being surrounded with a boss nearby, so I teleported away and killed his minions. The assassin lord eventually found me, and I stun-locked him with impunity now that he's alone. He didn't put up much of a fight.
The exit appeared where the boss died. And we gained a level!
level 16 - DEX, CUN, CUN / I put 2 points in Backstab, 1 point Slow Motion, and 2 points in Unflinching Resolve. Unflinching Resolve is a passive ability that has a chance per turn to remove status effects.
The lost merchant gave me 5 gold, which is not a good reward. He also mentioned opening a shop in Last Hope. It has somewhat better stuff than most shops. It gets a very useful feature later in the game.
These are the dungeons we will be going to next. There are several optional dungeons that I'll be visiting as well.
Let's start with the annoying dungeons first. The Maze is a boring, excessively large labyrinth. It used to have 5 levels. Now, it has 2 levels. The 1st level is gigantic and the 2nd level is small.
The enemies are dungeon trash with a few minotaurs sprinkled in. I just skipped most of the level.
The 2nd level is small enough that you'll run into the boss very quickly. Minotaurs have stunning blow and warshout, which can stun and confuse you respectively.
Confusion is a dangerous status effect. It can cause you to act randomly, instead of preforming the intended action. Talents with "instant" activation can still be used reliably. We have a wild infusion that cures physical effects, but confusion is a mental effect.
The boss hits hard and his status effects last over a dozen turns. Wetchlings are puny demons that spam damage-over-time acid attacks. They come in 3s.
I got overwhelmed by several status effects, so I teleported away and waited until the effects wore off. After that, I lured the Minotaur to this blighted soil, which allowed me to inflict diseases on him. My gloves are starting to lose their effectiveness.
Still, it doesn't matter if our punches are kinda weak, since we can keep bosses stun-locked for the entire fight.
Our reward is one of the best helmets in the game. We'll find out a lot about Garkul later on.
Time for boring dungeon #2: The Sandworm Lair. The 1st time you do this place is somewhat fun. Then, it loses its novelty and becomes tedious.
You have to follow these sand burrowers to get anywhere. And they're
slow. The tunnels they create collapse after a several turns and deal massive damage if it collapses on you. And it suffocates you.
If your air meter reaches zero, then you die. It got changed recently, so now you lose health rapidly, then die. I highly recommend having some form of teleport to escape being trapped by the sand.
This place isn't hard, just slow and gimmicky.
Rooms don't collapse, so you can rest in them. The main enemies here are oozes and sand worms. The most dangerous enemies are sand drakes whose sand breath deals heavy physical damage and blinds you, and gravity worms that can pin you.
The Sandworm Queen is a summoner boss. She summons several sand worms to help her. She can also blind us. In the older versions of the game you could lure her in a tunnel let it collapse on her, which would kill her.
We're going to kill it the old fashion way: with our fists!
We get a large defense boost from being surrounded, so none of her summons can hit us.
A gravity worm stole my kill. At least we gained a level.
nomnomnom
The heart is basically a free level up. And you get a new (locked) talent tree. Best snack ever!
level 17 + heart - CUN, CUN, CUN, CUN, CON, CON / 2 points in Power is Money, 1 point in Set Up, and 1 point in Exploit Weakness.
Power is Money is one of the main reason to play a dwarf. The more money you have the higher your saves will be. It caps at +35 to all saves. It's very noticeable, especially if you stack save boosting equipment. You can shrug off most status effects with high saves.
Well, that is it for today. See you next time.
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Topic: Let's Play Tales of Maj'Eyal (Read 18588 times)