The Fates of Twinion: Nor Any Drop to Drink

 

"Carving?"

       

Over the next few hours, I won the "Gauntlet" quest, consisting of two maps, Gauntlet Droit (to the east of the main entrance) and Gauntlet Gauche (to the west). They were both 16 x 16, densely packed with encounters, messages, teleporters, one-way doors, locked doors, fountains, NPCs, and other special encounters. In fact, I'd venture that Twinion (as well as its predecessor, Yserbius) has more content per map than any tiled game since Might and Magic.

   

Except for a lockpick found in the bats' treasure room in Gauntlet Gauche, most of the core action was in Gauntlet Droit. A message near the entrance set it up: "The gauntlet has been thrown down in the Coil Maze. Now you must return it to its birth place, to solve this quest and complete this most simple phase." Later, another message: "Westward, an ancient foundry, now extinct, lies at the bottom of a shaft. It was here that the Lava Glove was born . . . And here it must return once you've retrieved it."

       

The "Coil Maze"—not really a maze, just a coiling bit of corridor—lay in the southern half of the level, reachable only by teleporter. It had a lot of fixed battles. Amidst the single panthers, duelists, brigands, and so forth were the occasional battle with, say, one master knight and three henchmen, or three wizards of Gnog and two duelists, or three apprentice thieves and two novice thieves. Parties of multiple enemies can often kill me within a few rounds, but I remembered some basic tactics from Yserbius, such as always carry a Scroll of Protection; it has multiple uses and negates all damage for a few rounds. An elixir of health, which restores 125 hit points per sip, is also a necessity. Between these two items, I could outlast most parties of foes.

        

Using a scroll in battle.

        

Some other notes about the Gauntlet:

   

• A lot of my battles started with me missing exactly three times before connecting in the fourth round. I don't know what was about. I missed three times in a row far more often than I missed a single time.

• The game really wanted me to have a crystal that, when used, I guess reveals secret doors? I can't seem to get it to do anything at all. In any event, there were a lot of battles with berzerkers who possessed them.

• I was unable to enter four rooms in the Gauntlet Gauche. Two of them had signs reading: "The door to the west is locked, but no lockpick can help you here! You must learn to use what is at hand in a more creative fashion." I thought the message must be referring to the crystal, but I couldn't get it to work. The other two doors also had a message: "Only a masterful thief can open this door." That one seems more straightforward, and I'm not a thief, masterful or otherwise.

• Several messages just had a series of cross symbols. Maybe I need some kind of skill to translate them?

    

Untranslated or untranslatable? (The top half is left over from previous messages.)

      

The final battle in the Coil Maze rewarded me with the Lava Gauntlet. I returned it to a corridor where messages indicated I should bring it. "You have won the challenge of the gauntlet," a message said. "I shall send you to its end." This turned out to be a single-square room where I got 1,000 experience points, an additional skill ("Intimidate"), an additional spell ("Petrify"), and a regular crossbow, which I already had. I assume the reward is tailored to the class, as there are a bunch of other squares that I cannot enter in the same row.

       

My dubious "reward."

       

When I exited the dungeon, I hit Level 9 and got another spell, "Teleport," and another skill, "Stamina." I haven't made a lot of use of skills or spells so far. "Read Tracks" just seems to tell me that enemies are near, which is always. I don't think I've been poisoned yet, so no need for "Cure." "Teleport" is just a dungeon-exiting spell, which you can achieve easily enough by dying.

    

My current skill list.

     

With the Gauntlet completed, I next ventured into the northern chamber to explore the Queen's Aqueduct. I had explored here initially during the first entry and was unable to get very far. What I failed to appreciate then is that nothing stops you from walking into the water, except that you take damage with every step and cannot heal until you get out. 

          

The two water levels.

       

An early message in the Aqueduct said: "Seek the protector of this aqueduct in the west. His magic blocks your forward pass." This was a clue to explore a map to the west called The Reservoir. It consisted of a central pool of water, with a river running to the east (to the Aqueduct). The area was ruled by a giant named Lord Aqueus, and his giant minions were frequent encounters across the map.

   

As I entered the area, an NPC told me to be on the lookout for a helpful thief and giant. The giant was named Sartiq. He opposed Aqueus and gave me a chant to help me get past the waters protecting Aqueus's throne room. I guess he didn't fully trust me because he held something back. Later, I met a thief named Malik who carved a mark in my arm and told me to show it to Sartiq for the rest of the chant. When I returned to Sartiq, he taught me a rhyme to actually enter the throne room, then died.

      

"Sartiq" sounds like he would be a Belle Époque playwright.

       

The rest of the level had various encounters. There were a lot of one-way doors, locked doors (I found a red lockpick somewhere, which worked on most of them), fountains, messages, and NPCs. I used a rope I found in the Aqueduct to save some adventurers who were about to get swept away by the currents, earning a silver ingot for my trouble. There was a central island in the Reservoir with four pillars, and if there was any way to move one to reach the central square, I couldn't figure it out.

       

Yo momma so fat . . .

        

Eventually, I came face-to-face with Aqueus. It took me a couple of tries to win the battle. Even with a Scroll of Protection active, he was capable of hitting hard enough to destroy my hit points in three rounds, far more quickly than drinking a healing potion could restore. I finally got him with "Petrify," although it took several attempts. He left a silver bow, a Blood Shield, and 2500 gold. 

     

Did he pick his name before or after taking over an aqueduct?

       

After Aqueus died, the waters mostly stopped damaging me when I walked in them. A couple of squares in the Aqueduct still had an "undertow" that killed me instantly. Nonetheless, I was able to explore the rest of it and to find an eastern passage to a new map called Twinion's Falls. There's still a door I cannot pass in the Aqueduct; it bears the message: "Return here once you've completed what must be done elsewhere." I assume I have another puzzle to solve in Twinion's Falls.

 

Arriving in a new area.

      

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• The annoying thing about fixed encounters in this game is that they never clear. Kill an enemy party, walk one square away, return, and you'll face them again. The only exception is boss-level foes. Clearly, the game has a way to remember that you've defeated those, so why not the battle that you just fought?

       

Not to mention locked doors.

      

• An encounter with a wet elf that I didn't understand: "Her majesty's idea of draining the River of Eternity is a good one, albeit a bit late for my brother." Maybe it'll become clearer later.

• I didn't mention it last time, but the early game plot, in which the queen is using the first few dungeon levels to test the mettle of would-be heroes, is clearly cribbed from Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981).

• It was very late in this session that I figured out how secret doors work. You get a message like "there are scratches in the stone here." This is your clue to use the crystal ball or an equivalent spell (which I don't have). Then you get a notice that you've found a secret door, although nothing is shown in the window. You have one turn to then walk through the illusory wall. I was able to explore the other maps without knowing this (coming at the same areas another way), but the Queen's Aqueduct had a few areas only discoverable by this method.

       

It takes me a while to get the hint.

        

• My archery-based character is able to equip a shield along with his bow. 

• About 25% of the game's battles have some kind of flavor text to put the battle in context. I applaud this. 

         

For instance.

        

Twinion continues to be a perfectly serviceable single-character game in the Wizardry tradition. Unfortunately, what I enjoy most about the games in the Wizardry line is the tactics associated with party-based combat. Twinion is a bit boring in that regard, and thus I find I have to have something else going—an audiobook or a television show—as I play.

   

At the same time, I can only imagine it was excruciating as a multi-player game (not multi-character, mind you, but multi-player). Joining a party that someone else controlled, only being able to occasionally act in combat, must have been excruciating. Maybe a lively conversation system made up for it, but I suspect the novelty of online play was doing much of the heavy lifting. 

   

Time so far: 8 hours