The Return of Werdna: 229 Shades of Gray

 

A Priest of Fung is un-ap-helpful.

       

When you arrive on Level 5, a message greets you: "The creatures of light and darkness await you!" The level fulfills this promise in a couple of ways. First, the level consists of alternating light and dark squares. Dark squares are annoying because you can't see the edges and thus don't know where the walls are. You have to try different directions and see if you conk your head. Across much of the level, the light and dark squares make a checkerboard pattern, but it's imperfect, often interrupted by walls and cul-de-sacs, and ultimately there are more dark squares than light squares: 229 out of 400.

      

What a "dark" square looks like.

     

Second, on 43 of those squares, you face an encounter with either a "light" (good-aligned) enemy, symbolized by a butterfly, or a "dark" (evil-aligned) enemy, symbolized by a moth. Each enemy has a name based on the name of a species of butterfly or moth, and each has a number. Despite the symbolization, though, in practice each enemy is a standard class (fighter, thief, mage, etc.) with the standard abilities of those classes.

 

Each battle is announced by its alignment and number.

   

Light

1. Meleager, fighter
2. Silverstripe, mage
3. Purple Emperor, priest
4. Golden Danaid, bishop
5. Special (see below)

         

I love when master ninjas roll critical hits.

      

Dark

1. Io, fighter
2. Lapper, mage
3. Gaudy Sphinx, priest
4. Emperor Tau, thief
5. Death's Head, ninja

    

Only in a Wizardry game could a moth kill a dragon.

        

Light #5 is a pair of enemies named John Ap Griffin and Mistress Flavia. Googling those names shows that these are pseudonyms for John Griffin Trimble and Betty JoAnne ("Bjo") Trimble, both longtime members of the Society for Creative Anachronisms in California. Either they were Wizardry players and among those who sent in disks or someone at Sir-Tech was paying them homage. They alone among the butterfly/moth encounters have a battle cry ("Upward!"), and they alone drop treasure--a pair of "Winged Boots" that might be the solution to the outside areas of Level 7.

    

As I mentioned, there are 43 such squares, and thus each encounter repeats several times, from a low of two (L-1) to a high of eight (D-5). There are 20 light encounters and 23 dark ones, all assuming that I didn't make a mistake somewhere, or I'm not wrong that the encounters are fixed in their squares. (I'm pretty sure I always encountered the same enemies in the same squares.) There doesn't seem to be any pattern to their distribution, which drove me crazy. Even now, I don't know if I was supposed to kill them all, or kill them in a particular order, or do anything more than I did with them. Except that you probably need those Winged Boots and that you have to pass through at least one D-5 encounter on the way to the stairs, I'm not sure any of them are necessary. I didn't see anything in the hints that would help me with them.

        

My map of Level 5.

     

The butterflies and moths are not the only encounters on the level. You still face the usual assortment of "do-gooders," including the usual two parties. Raiden's Raiders ("Spread out, men!") is the easier of the two. They only have a couple of spellcasters, and everyone's hit points are in the double-digits, some of them low enough to be a guaranteed kill with MAKANITO ("Deadly Air"). Compensating for any ease they offer is the deadly Horin's Holy Rollers ("For God and St. Trebor!"; I didn't know he'd been canonized). With three lords, two priests, and a bishop, they can all cast high-level priest or mage spells, and most of them have hit points in the 100s. The Holy Rollers drop a Magician's Hat, which I equipped in lieu of either my Novice Cap or Initiate's Turban.

        

Horin's Holy Rollers get me.

         

The roster of wandering single enemies is relatively pathetic in contrast, and weighed heavily towards melee classes. The ninjas are the most dangerous because there's always a chance of a lucky decapitation.

  

• Aurelia, an evil priest.
• Chryseis, an evil bishop 
• Daja, a neutral thief.
• Fingers, a neutral thief
• Interface, a neutral mage
• Login, a good mage. I have no idea why they didn't follow these two with Password, an evil mage.
• Mage Marian, a good mage. She can cast TILTOWAIT, an automatic reload if she goes first, so she's the worst of the lot.
• Molyx, an evil thief
• Quilen, a neutral thief
• Saleg, a good priest. 
• Stilgar, a good bishop.
• Sturm, a good ninja.

       

Should have brought your partner, Drang.

     

• Sultan, a good fighter.
• Telima, a neutral thief. Has a Cape of Hide.
• Zandor, a neutral fighter.

    

There's a weird focus on single-word names of 5-7 letters, but I don't know if that means anything.

   

In an earlier entry, I talked about how much of the time you spend mapping the levels of Werdna is wasted because you inevitably die and only have your maps to show your progress. This was particularly true of this level. I didn't find the pentagram until I'd mapped about 90% of the rest of the level, particularly since in an open level like this, my tendency is to work from the edges inward. The wights, bishops, and master ninjas that I brought with me had to sustain me for most of the level (with about a dozen reloads to the entry square). There was even a half hour or so where I managed to hang on through multiple combats with a single wight, which was kind of exhilarating.

   

Because I explored so much with the previous level's allies, I didn't develop the same expertise with the new ones that I did on earlier levels. I was disappointed in most of them. None of them seemed to be as powerful as the paralyzing, level-draining, spell-casting wights available on Level 6, so I kept them in the party for most of the rest of my exploration. (I originally thought ghasts would be the next evolution, but they just seem like wights without the magic and a lesser level drain.) Of the new allies, although most sounded cool, they seemed to have a lame physical attack or some minor status effect like poison that no longer really helps. The one major exception were Priests of Fung. I remember ranting about them in my entries on Wizardry III, so it was nice to have them on my side, slinging BADI ("Death") and LITOKAN ("Flames"). Gas dragons were okay, with a breath attack and the ability to cast Level 3 mage spells. I was disappointed in whatever "Masters/Dragons" are supposed to be. I don't remember them from previous Wizardry games. If they're supposed to be masters of dragons, they don't seem to actually come with their dragons. I suppose it's like composing a party of "lion tamers"--sounds cool until you realize they're not very dangerous without their lions. 

  

A host of substandard allies.

       

I was amused by a couple of them. Komodo dragons are actual animals, and while I'm not saying I'd screw with one lightly if I came across one, I don't like their chances against armored warriors. Seraphim are a class of angels in Christian mythology, so heaven knows why they're helping Werdna. 

   

The pentagram lacks any serious mage weight, but Werdna does pretty well for himself there. In addition to bringing all my attributes to 14, the pentagram gave me LAKANITO ("Vacuum"), MASOPIC ("Crystal"), ZILWAN ("Dispel"), and HAMAN ("Beg"). LAKANITO is a combat-ender if Werdna goes early enough, so effective that I can't imagine using a Level 6 slot for anything else. MASOPIC lowers everyone's armor class, but physical combat isn't the danger in this game. ZILWAN dispels undead, which the enemy parties never have (maybe that changes). HAMAN is a mystery. It's supposed to be a "wish" spell that delivers a variety of potential boons but costs an experience level. That's too high a price to pay in the usual Wizardry game, and as such, I never cast it. But in a game where you can just wander over to the nearest pentagram to get that level back, I'd be more likely to cast it. The problem is, it never seems to work. It just says the gods can't hear me. Maybe that changes on higher levels or particular locations. It would be interesting if the spell was later used to solve puzzles.

   

Now I am become death.

        

It hit me in this entry how slowly Werdna goes from absolutely relying on the protection of his allies to becoming more powerful than any of them. Although the game lacks traditional character development, it still manages to instill a delicious sense of growing power.

   

That leaves the Oracle. I nailed him for six clues during this session, but I think only the first three made it into my saved progress by the end of the level [Ed. I later created a special entry just to record and analyze Oracle hints]:

    

19. "You too can be saved! Repent ye sinner! Wash away thy sins! Repent!" I believe I've heard that there's a potential ending in which Werdna can become "good." This is probably referring to that.

    

20. "Down into the bowels of the Earth." That's where we seem to be right now. Maybe it's a clue about going to the Gates of Hell.

   

21. "Password is your ancient battlecry." I think I had this spoiled for me, but we'll talk about it when I get to it.

       

Too bad "Upward!" is taken. It would fit this game well.

        

22. "To soar the heights, you must first plunge the fiery depths." Well, this suggests that I'm going to need whatever's in the Gates of Hell before I can fly around the ziggurat. Maybe the Winged Boots aren't enough.

    

23. "Career opportunity . . . experienced muezzin needed . . . great fringes!" A muezzin is the guy who calls the daily prayer at a mosque. This might refer to the Initiate's Turban I have, but I don't know where I need it.

      

24. "Cloudy tonight. Chance of rain tomorrow." No idea.

    

Much of the southwest of the level is fenced in. The only exit takes you to a teleporter that moves you back half a dozen squares. To get out of this area, you have to find the teleporter at (13,8), which creates some momentary mapping confusion when it moves you to (16,0). Jeweled Amulets are so plentiful on this level that I just started using them regularly, even when I didn't notice any problems. From the teleport location, the stairs are a fairly straight shot up the east wall and across the north wall. 

     

Along the way, I did have one somewhat confusing encounter:

     

       

The Red Skull? The Red Sonja? The Red Shoe Diaries? And what is the Cosmic Cube? Is it somehow related to the Cosmic Forge? In any event, it continues:

       

"The Silent Screams of Distant Butterflies" would be a great Charlie Kaufman film title.

      

The object around his neck is listed as the "Breath of Life" unidentified. Identified, it is an Oxygen Mask. Either I'm going to end up in a place where I need it to breathe (An underwater level? Space? Hell?) or it's a way to defend myself against someone's can't-miss LAKANITO.

 

I'm tempted to head back down to Level 9 and see if I can complete the bell, book, and candle ritual, or to Level 7 to see if the Winged Boots help me around the ziggurat. But if I can get to the pentagram on Level 4, I should get hold of MALOR ("Teleport"), which should make the return journey easier. For now, I think I'll continue on. I only have two inventory slots left in the Black Box, though. I need to start using some of these items.

      

Just what you want to see when arriving on a new level.

         

As with Level 6, I was surprised that the navigation puzzles on Level 5 weren't even harder. I was so paranoid that it should be harder that I kept checking my coordinates and thus probably saved myself from the couple of places that had a teleporter. (There's also a certain paranoia that comes from turning while in dark squares. Did I accidentally hit the key twice?) If I were Roe Adams, I would have thrown a few spinners into some of those dark squares. Maybe a couple more teleporters. Instead, mapping was time-consuming but not very hard.

       

But I say this while on the threshold of a level that made me "nope" out of the game the moment I saw it on a map. Let's see how it goes when I'm making the map. One square at a time, I have to keep saying. One square at a time.

   

Time so far: 27 hours