First Meditation, First Stone and a Journey to Tinker Towne

My plan today was to visit a shrine as suggested by Hawkwind and try to get my first stone from a dungeon. Before that I nipped into LB's castle to talk to folks in the jail that I had missed because I did not have keys during my first visit to get past the locked doors. The nameless prisoners didn't tell me anything of use, but the hungry reaper told me that knowledge of an evil thing that kills many (i.e., the Skull of Mondain) can be found at Buccaneer's Den. As a bonus I found Zorin the mage in the southwest corner of Level 2 (I had forgotten he was there). He told me what to ask the Antos family when I find them at the three castles I had yet to visit.

The shrine of compassion was the closest; I had overshot it last time but I knew roughly where it was having seen the second bridge. (I had not wanted to go into the marshes.) I decided to use the "Blink" spell to get myself into the area without getting poisoned but I slightly misjudged my position and Iolo and Jaana got poisoned anyway. The shrine was not too far away. I decided to meditate for just one cycle and was granted a vision. I am supposed to "kill not the non-evil beasts of the land and do not
attack the fair people." I had already figured this out. I tried to go back in and meditate for two cycles instead, but apparently was too tired and needed my mind to recovered from that first round of meditation. Oh, well. I might go back at a later time. In any case Hawkwind does not think I am compassionate enough yet to warrant the three-cycle shebang.

My next goal was to visit a dungeon and get a stone. The nearest one was Despise and I don't know how I still remember the stone was on Level 5. I don't really remember anything else about the dungeon. I roughly knew where the dungeon was, and did not have too much trouble finding the entrance. Just in case I messed up, I remembered to "quit & save" before entering. Actually I do this regularly as a habit because, back in the old days, instability might cause your game to quit at unexpected times. It's not a bad practice.

Before entering the dungeon I mixed several "Light" spells. Yesterday, after my visit to Vesper where I bought 25 torches, I realized that it's cheaper to buy sulphurous ash (at 2gp each) and mix a Light spell than to use a torch. I suppose the torches might come in handy if there was a Zorn or some other circumstance that would result in a negation of magic. I do not have any nightshade yet to mix "View" spells so I will have to use the gems that I bought.

I had a vague memory of what the dungeons were like because we did not need to go down them often back in the day. We had easily accumulated experience and Gold exploring and mapping Britannia. In any case, I "enjoyed" meeting the dungeon denizens again. One of the early rooms had a group of Headless. (What is the plural of Headless anyway? Headlesses? That sounds clumsy.) It is really interesting to see the colours. The Headless have a pink torso! I dispatched them easily only to then discover the Mimics. You can see that the center treasure chest on the north and south ends now "peek" open.

After eliminating the Mimics I grabbed the loot. Then I proceeded to work my way down the dungeon, picking up more treasure on the way. The Level 4 "hidden crossroads" room was where I encountered a large group of Gremlins. Not having any mandrake root, I did not have any "Tremor" spells. As a result, some of the combat was in close quarters and the evil creatures stole some of my food in the process. How annoying! They did not even leave me any Gold. We found a magic ball and I had Jaana touch it to increase her dexterity. After a few more battles I though it would be good to make camp rather than use up Heal spells only to be rudely interrupted by a party of rogues. Only Katrina (who could not cast any Awaken spells) woke up immediately so the party took even more damage, particularly sleepyhead Iolo. How he could sleep even when the rogues were beating up on him amazed me! The rogues also stole some of our treasure, but we more than made up for it after defeating them and finding more treasure back up on Level 3.

Eventually we did make it down Level 5. I had to pass a number of traps and I forgot to take a snapshot before going through them so here's the aftermath. As I proceeded north from the ladder (the "up and down arrow" symbol) the winds (labeled "T" for trap" blew out my light). I had forgotten what the "^" symbols meant, and quickly found out they were fields. The first was a poison field. I was the only one in the party to get poisoned. The next was an electric field that I quickly dispelled (and hence you see only two of the three fields remaining in each corridor. The final trap was falling rocks. The ankh symbol is where the stone is located so I made my way down the hallway to it. (My location is indicated by the red dot.) Just one more room to get through.

This intervening room illustrates a feature of dungeon rooms I was reacquainted with during my journey down dungeon Despise. Sometimes you need to step on certain squares to open up new passageways in the room. As you can see from this room, there is no passageway to the north where the stone is located. Our party of four lined up in the best possible way to kill the Serpents and minimize our damage. Earlier I had reordered my party so that Katrina would be in the rear to reduce her chances of getting hit in battle. If you look carefully, you can see a glint on one of the walls indicating a "secret passage". After defeating the Serpents, I stepped into it, opening another secret passage wall. Katrina stepped into it and the passageway north was opened. Several other rooms in this dungeon had similar "tricks". This is why it is very important to Peer at a Gem at each level so that one knows where to expect them.

We finally make it to the "altar" and I found the yellow stone. The graphics in the dungeon passageways are less impressive in my opinion. I didn't really like the green walls, covered with slime perhaps - not to mention that I ran into two groups of slime in Level 5. Maybe slime green is the appropriate description, even though the walls look lime green to me; the actual colour of the slime (in battle) was a darker shade of green. The wall in front of the altar is blue though. I don't remember whether there was a noticeable difference on the monochrome screen way back then. I decided to take the quick way out and cast an X-it spell. I always have one habitually ready before I enter a dungeon.

With our newly gained experience, we marched back to Castle Britannia to receive our just reward. Lord British raised me to Level 5, Jaana to Level 4, and Katrina to Level 3. I did not visit Seer Hawkwind on this trip.

After loading up on more reagents and food, it was now time to find a fifth for our party. I decided to make the trip to Minoc, home of the tinkers. Perhaps I needed to learn more about sacrifice. (I did donate blood again at the Healer's just before the trip.) After being welcomed to Minoc by Shentis and informed about the virtue of self-sacrifice, I ran into the ranger Mike Ward who told me the rune of Skara Brae is missing. I haven't properly visited Skara Brae yet to talk to the inhabitants so I expect to learn more later. In the meantime, Azure (who carves runes) told me to ask his sister Mischief about the rune of Sacrifice. I did so, and she told me to ask Alkerion of the stone after I found the rune.

I found Alkerion in the poor house. He told me the stone's colour and where it should be used. Jude also told me the location of the skull of Mondain and the one and only place it should be used. I do not have a ship nor do I know of the sextant for navigating yet. I also found Julia at the poor house and she was happy to join my party. Exploring further I was able to learn the location of the shrine. (This was the shrine near Vesper that I could not enter at the time because I did not have the rune.) I also learned the mantra of Sacrifice by listening to the bard's song.

The rune was in the Forge (I had remembered this but did not go looking until I had talked to the appropriate people.) The first time around we walked into the fires of the forge to get to the rune taking a lot of damage in the process. This time around I decided just to dispel the fiery fields. I am starting to run low on black pearl so maybe I should be judicious in how many fields I dispel until I find Buccaneer's Den for its cheap supply. I vaguely remembered that the rune was at the far corner, but I decided to search the spots I walked through just in case. At the Forge, I also remembered to ask Zircon about the mystic arms. Apparently he was the forger of said arms and has told me to ask Sir Simon and Lady Tessa. Now I have another reason to visit the castles.

I took the moongate to the Trinsic portal. Then it was back to Lord British's castle the slow way north. I tried to stay as close as possible to the shore in case a pirate ship would show up. No luck. But I did meet a few denizens to increase our party's purse.

9583 moves. Cumulative playing time = 6.5 hours