Eye of the Beholder: Won!

The rest of the game only took me about 3 hours. Since the fact that Level 12 was the last level was spoiled, I decided to exhaustively document it. This gives you a sense of what it's like to be me, slowly exploring and mapping a level as I go. The narrative below refers to index numbers on this map:

   
1. The teleporter brings me to an area that turns out to be roughly in the center of the level. At first, the 3 x 3 square area (with a pillar in the middle) doesn't seem to have any exit.

2. A nook in the northwest corner has a hole that "reeks faintly of smoke." Given its shape, I think that maybe it accommodates an Orb of Power, but nothing happens when I try to insert one. I try fiddling with a sconce on the north wall, and I immediately get blasted by a fireball. "Reeks faintly of smoke"--I get it now. It does so much damage that Kirath is killed and Marina is knocked unconscious. Rather than reload or return to the dwarves, I have Gaston use a Scroll of Raise Dead on Kirath, then rest for everyone to regain hit points and spells.

The party pays for my lack of deductive reasoning.

        
3. The sconce on the west wall opens a secret door, allowing me to proceed on.

4. A message reads "Turn back; no trespassing." I curse my luck and retreat to an earlier level. I call the SSI tip line and ask them if I'm not allowed to proceed past the sign, how can I possibly get to the end of the game? The SSI tip line tells me that a "chaotic" character needs to convince the others that they can occasionally ignore signs. I role-play as suggested and we all move forward.

"But the sign said!"

5. An "eyeball door" brings us to a message reading "you were warned." Can't argue with that: we were.

6. Another "eyeball door" opens to a north/south corridor, where I encounter my first enemy: a golem. Fortunately, I'm in a square room that wraps around a pillar, so I'm able to do a version of the combat waltz to kill him without injury. No sooner have I done that than two more appear. I don't want to get trapped between them, so I lead one back to a previous room (4) and close the door behind us. After I kill him, I open the door and take care of the third, and a fourth after that. The golems move so slow that no one is injured.

Attacking the golem as I move backwards, round and round a pillar.

7. A door to the north is locked from this side, so I have to turn around and try one to the south. I pass a door to the east, then bend to the east, which opens up into:

8. A 3 x 5 room with three pedestals. It looks like one has a ring and a potion, a second has a key, and a third has a necklace and a potion. It feels like a trap, so I proceed past it for now, intending to explore and map the rest of the area before I commit to anything.

I'm not that stupid.

9. The only way out, a door to the east, is locked, and a keyhole sits next to it. Reluctantly, I take the key from the middle pedestal. Nothing unfortunate seems to happen, and there are no faint "click" sounds that make you wonder what secret door just opened, spewing out a legion of enemies. Still, I continue to ignore the other treasures and put the key in the lock. The door opens.

10. The corridor beyond curves to the south and puts me face to face with two more golems. I make a fighting retreat back to the pedestal room, firing missile weapons and doing the combat waltz on the corners. This works fine, but while I'm in the pedestal room, the keyed door closes. I've wasted a key, and I don't know if there are any more, or how much stuff I missed beyond the area. I contemplate reloading but decide to take heart in the fact I have a backup of the saved game from just before this level. I suck up the misfortune and continue forward. (I never get back and see what was beyond this room, which is why the map is incomplete there.)

Hurling stuff at the golem from afar.

11. The only place left is the previous eastern door, which ends in a 2 x 3 room with three buttons on the east wall. Since I have no other places to go and no other clues on this level (except to take the treasures back in the pedestal room), I figure I'd better push them.

12. The first one just moves me through a secret door back into the pedestal room. The second doesn't seem to do anything at all, except close the west door behind me. Either does the third.

13. Despondent, I turn around and leave the room, but back in the corridors, I soon realize that something is amiss. Where the pedestal room should be is a different corridor instead...

14. ...leading to a small 4 x 4 room with nothing in it. I soon realize that the buttons didn't close the door behind me; they teleported me to other rooms of the same dimensions. There are several 2 x 3 rooms with three buttons each, each of which teleports me to a different area. By leaving various junk items on the floor, I soon work out a pattern to the buttons, and start to map where I'm being teleported to, but unfortunately I don't know where the rooms are relative to each other. That doesn't become clear until a little later in the level, when I'm finally able to piece everything together.

Pretty sneaky, SSI.

15. When I'm done with my teleporter mapping experiments, I'm in this room.

16. In the next area to the north, a button opens a niche in the south wall and reveals a wand, which I give to Marina. It later turns out to be a Wand of Fireballs. Both my mages now have powerful wands.

If everything on this level wasn't immune to magic, this would be sweet.

        
17. Bending west and then north from there, I come to a room with three empty pedestals and a giant eye above them. I experiment with putting items on the pedestals. Three Orbs of Power do the trick, removing the pedestals and opening access to a door beyond. But the Orbs disappear, leaving me with only 1 left. I hope this is the only place that requires them!

"I....see...you."

        
18. The next room branches east and west, and via the west branch, I eventually make my way back to the starting area, alowing me to connect a couple of maps that were otherwise independent.

19. But on the way is ANOTHER room of pedestals with three signs opposite them: "Sphere for animation," "Potion for Strength," "Stone for Substance." Sighing, I suck it up and put my last Orb, a rock, and a random potion on the three pedestals and push the button. A buzz sounds.

20. Out of an alcove near the room comes a golem! "Cool!" I say. "My own golem!"--right before he attacks me and kills Bugsy in one blow. No way am I losing my last Orb of Power and another resurrection scroll. I reload. My last save is at 11, so I do everything again back through 18.

What the hell?! I made you!

21. The east exit from the area leads to a room with six Orbs of Power on a pedestal, so maybe I was freaking out for nothing, but I still can't see any reason to create a golem that just attacks me. I wonder if maybe I'll need him later for a puzzle, but this turns out not to be the case. My best guess is that the purpose of this area is to generate enemies in case you want to do some final grinding before the end. Or else there's a way I didn't see to bring the golems under your control; otherwise, the Orbs of Power are kind of stupid.

22. Continuing east, I find another golem behind a door, lead him back to the previous room, and waltz him to death. Except when that one sucker-punched me, golems are turning out to be a pathetic foe for the final level.

23. A door beyond that requires a key, which I don't have--at least, not the kind that it wants. I have a billion "jeweled keys" and a couple of "ruby keys." Lockpicks don't seem to work.

Lockpicks work on about five locks in the entire game.

 
24. Further east, a group of alcoves has a bunch of iron rations, which I long ago stopped needing thanks to "Create Food and Water."

I take them anyway, of course.

25. Bending to the west, I find myself on the other side of that locked door, so I guess it's a good thing that I didn't waste a key.

26. The east exit from a 2 x 2 room suddenly puts me face-to-face with Xanathar! This isn't telegraphed at all, and I'm not exactly ready for it. The beholder confesses that he's planning to wrest control of Waterdeep and plans to kill me unless I surrender.

Talkative bastard.

           
Since I just saved, I decide to have some fun and see what happens if I surrender. What happens is the beholder's gaze causes me to drop all my equipment, and then he blasts all of my characters to death with his eyestalks. That's no fun.

Xanathar kills me while I try to pick up my stuff.

             
27. I reload and finish mapping the area south of the encounter with Xanathar before engaging him again. Another room of three buttons. One gives me a Potion of Speed, a second provides yet another Orb of Power, and the third creates a fireball that blasts Bugsy to death and injures everyone else. Even though I should suck it up and heal, I reload.

Nothing to do now but take on Xanathar, I guess! I park myself outside his door, heal my injured characters, and buff the living hell out of my party. Starling and Bugsy quaff Potions of Giant Strength. Gaston goes wild with "Aid," "Prayer," "Bless," and "Protection from Evil." Marina uses "Invisibility" and Kirath casts "Shield." I equip the Wand of Slivias in Marina's weapon slot, save, and open the door.

This time, I attack Xanathar. He's able to blast me once before I can react, but I hit him with the Wand of Slivias. Expecting it to kill him, I'm surprised when all it does is knock him back a square.

28. Curious what good that's going to do, I abandon the battle and run past the beholder and into the rooms beyond. Treasure gleams in a small alcove. I enter and trigger a stake trap which kills several of my characters. Before I can figure out what the treasures are in front of me, Xanathar blasts me from behind with a "Death" ray and kills everyone else.

My least favorite way to die.

As I reload, a plan forms. Clearly, the goal is to use the wand to drive Xanathar into either the golem area (perhaps the hostile golems will attack Xanathar) or the stake trap. The stake trap is much closer, so I try that first. My attempt doesn't go so well. I don't keep clicking the wand furiously enough, and Xanathar gets enough shots in to kill everyone before I can drive him down the corridor.

     
The reload is still no good. He gets enough "Death Spells" in between my wand attacks that I can't keep up. On a fourth reload, it occurs to me to grab that Potion of Speed first. I give it to Marina and put her in the lead. Still no good.

This is getting old.

      
Fifth reload. It occurs to me that it's a waste of time to push him all the way down the hall. I just need to run past him, lure him to the room, get into position, and push him into the trap. Bugsy still gets killed during this process, but it works!

Based on what everyone has already spoiled for me, I expect to get dumped directly to the DOS prompt as soon as Xanathar dies. It's not quite that bad. There's at least some endgame text:

As the party picks through the remains of Xanathar's shattered body, a teleporter triggers about them. As Xanathar's lair fades from view, everyone prepares for battle and thinks, "What now?" A stately marbled room fades in around the party. Two stone columns flank a large throne. Sunlight streams in through the windows. Clean air blows in from an open door. This is Piergeiron's public hall! At last, the party is free from the dungeons under Waterdeep.

"You have killed Xanathar and saved Waterdeep from his evil!" Piergeiron Paladinson exclaims. "We were wise to pick such talented and resourceful adventurers as our agents. For today, let thee be proclaimed the heroes of Waterdeep and let all know of your brave deeds! Congratulations on your successful quest!"

Then we go to the DOS prompt.

Afterwards, I wonder if I could have used the combat waltz to just kill Xanathar the normal way. He's pretty fast and it takes a while, but to my surprise, it works, with no characters dead. For a minute, I congratulate myself that I'll have a final save without any dead characters, but then I realize that the game doesn't actually save after you kill Xanathar. So I guess if I'm importing my characters to Eye of the Beholder II, there's no way to tell from the import that they were victorious. I just bring over their attributes and items.
   
A few more notes on the endgame:

• The Amiga version not only had a video ending that you can see on YouTube, but the text of the ending is different. It has a party member hacking off Xanathar's eyestalk and taking it as a "souvenir for the lords of Waterdeep." They get teleported not to Piergeiron Paladinson's "public hall" but the chamber of the Lords of Waterdeep, who demand to know who the party members are and how they got there (who the hell teleported them?) and insult the party before someone hurls Xanathar's eyestalk in front of them. One of the lords (not named) apologizes, shakes hands with the party leader, and asks to hear their story. The game fades out on the words "thus begins a legend."

The Amiga ending tries to be smugly melodramatic, but in a way that makes no sense.

• The brief ending only serves to remind me that the exact threat posed by Xanathar, 12 levels deep in a dungeon, is never precisely explained.

• In a third reload before the endgame, I manage to lure and trap Xanathar in an outer room, allowing me to explore his chambers at my leisure. The treasure in his trap alcove consists solely of duplicates of all the stone teleporter items that I've been collecting the entire game. None of them is a gem, which was the last item (judging by the iconography on the stone doors) that I needed. From comments, I gather that it doesn't actually exist.

What kind of treasure is this?! I already have all this stuff!

  

• No one leveled up after the last post, meaning everyone had 2-3 levels to go before hitting their max for the game. While this is the way it should be--any level caps should be very hard to achieve--man did leveling slow down after the game's halfway point.

GIMLET coming up as I work on my German for the next game.