Once more into the deep, my friends!
Newly leveled-up, we proceed past the known extents of the dungeon without issue. Shortly past the old hallway, we pass into a door with a large chamber at the end. I decide to cast MILWA for the first time to get us a better view, and also capture some screenshots that aren't totally identical. Man, we can see a lot farther now! I'm not sure what that checkered bit represents.
What?
Shoulda listened. We're now in... fog, or blinding light, or something. I manage to find my way back to where I started blind- I guess we'll save that area for later. At the end of a long westward hallway, I find the stairs down to the next level of the dungeon. We'll leave them alone for now.
I wander north into a series of more complicated rooms, and we have another encounter against 4 humanoids and 4 kobolds- luckily we get a surprise attack. Using one sleep spell, we dispatch them without taking a single blow- two of them even ran away. There's a chest afterwards- Birdviggins doesn't think it has a trap (the fool) and Broken sets off a poison needle when he inspects it himself, prompting another run out of the dungeon.
So far, we've explored this.
Not to be deterred by our third poisoning, I return the party to the dungeon. The maze gets more complicated in the northwest quarter, including a room which is one tile and four doors.
We get ambushed by a large party of three slimes and four orcs. During the surprise round, everybody in the front row takes a small amount of damage, and one of the monsters even runs away! Neotetsu sets another damage record of 20 in a single blow. When we're inspecting the chest afterwards, Tawarochir sets off a crossbow bolt on himself and takes three damage.
In another room, we encounter a new enemy type- two rogues.
That guy sure looks like a barbarian to me, but I guess I'll just have to take the game's word for it. We kill one, and the other runs for it. We explore several more rooms including a couple behind a secret door- I only know it was a secret door because it turned into a regular wall after the light spell ran out (they look just like normal doors when you've got your spell up, which is annoying. If you try to find secret doors without the light spell, you're going to be looking at this message a lot:
We encounter another party of orcs and defeat them without a single injury. The encounters on the first floor are beginning to look easy (though I suppose I shouldn't get cocky). After chewing through some more monsters, we find a chest that Birdviggins thinks is armed with a "priest blaster". Sounds hardcore. I'm really wary of setting off traps by inspecting them, so I only ask Neotetsu for second opinion, since he still has 15 health. He thinks it's a teleporter.
God dammit, I am beginning to hate chests.
I'll have Birdviggins disarm it on the notion that it's a priest blaster...
OOPS! POISON NEEDLE.
I'm beginning to think that you guys are incompetent. Ah well, nothing to do but cast a heal spell and run for it. It's not long before we're in another ambush!
You know what, I'm beginning the think the monsters are incompetent. On the next round of battle, the remaining kobold runs away as well. That's kind of annoying because we don't get any experience for monsters that run away, but at least we come out with 60 more gold.
Shortly before the stairs, we get attacked one more time- 5 orcs. Birdviggins is now down to 3 HP, so I lay into the orcs while trying to heal him, and order him to parry. After the surprise round I go all out on spells, with Broken healing, Hanzoku casting a KATINO to sleep the enemies and Tawarochir casting a HALITO to blast them.
When we finally escape the dungeon, Birdviggins has 4 HP and we're all our of healing spells. But, we made it! Together the party has 513 gold, and they're all ready to level up.
Above is my level up. I've finally got some HP to fall back on!
Neotetsu had a crappy level this time- he gained 1 HP and an Agility, but lost IQ, Piety and Vitality.
Birdviggins gained 1 HP, gained Strength and Luck, and lost Piety.
Broken had a much better level. He gained 12 HP, Strength, IQ, Piety, and Agility, but he lost Vitality and Luck.
Hanzoku gained IQ, Luck, and 1 HP, but lost Strength, Piety and Agility. Can I just go out on a limb and say this level up system is terribad?
Tawarochir gained 1 HP, Strength, Vitality, Agility, and Luck, but lost Piety. Lucky he's not a priest.
Broken gained 3 2nd-level Priest spell points. He learned MATU, MANIFO and MONTINO. MATU reduces the party's AC by 2, MANIFO turns monsters to stone for a round (so it's like KATINO but works on sleep-immune monsters) and MONTINO prevents enemies from casting spells.
Hanzoku doesn't seem to have gained any spells or spell points, which sucks.
Tawarochir gained 2 2nd-level Mage spell points. He learned DILTO and SOPIC. DILTO puts an enemy group of monsters in darkness, which makes them easier to hit somehow. SOPIC reduces the caster's AC by 4 for an encounter.
Lastly, here's what we mapped out so far:
I've marked the secret door with an S, and the foggy (or whatever) area with a question mark. I also recorded the locations of the staircases with little arrows.
So yeah, some of those level-ups have been
miserable. I wonder if we'll want to replace some characters with fresh ones at some point. Also, should I continue to map out the first floor, or begin exploring the second one?
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Topic: Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981): Second Level (Read 10771 times)