The Search for Freedom: Undistinguished Destruction

Really, he looks just like his statues.

 

Guest Post by Alphabetical Anonymous       

Our Teddy-led crew of adventurers continues to descend to the depths of the Smythetown catacombs in order to defeat the evil wizard Macabath. He is the local representative of the undead lich Kamazol, who reigns in hell and hopes to return to conquer the world through a portal that will open during a triple-lunar conjunction expected to occur in 1000 days. Our party has slowly dithered about as they found their footing in this new region; it’s now time to step up their game and make some serious headway. I therefore vowed to keep pushing down until we found Macabath, slew him, and so moved on toward the main quest.
     
We just discovered a two-handed silver sword, which the manual reports to be the second-best weapon in the game. I give it to my fighter Tyrion, the only one of my party who can wield it due to his strength. With it he deals an average of 17.5 damage per blow, with a maximum of 25. Damage is doubled when any character successfully backstabs an enemy, so this gives Tyrion the chance to kill just about any monster in a single hit. I then give his +1 Longsword to my mage Elphaba; it feels unnatural to have a magic-user wielding this weapon, but (again) she’s the only other party member who can wield it. [Ed. Coincidentally, mages and clerics in Yendorian Tales can also wield any weapon or wear any armor, provided they have sufficient statistics.] Melee weapons have continued to be sufficiently effective that I haven’t done much exploration of ranged weapons or attack spells.

      

Tyrion's two-handed silver sword packs a serious punch.

      

In fact, I’m getting ahead of myself: the first order of business is to spend a bit of time grinding on Level 1 of the catacombs. We fight rats, bats, and other easy foes until all but Elphaba and Durkon can level up. We tromp back up the stairs to the Training Hall. “Do you want to train,” grunts a muscled man every time we enter; that’s consistent, but more disconcerting is when the game follows it by randomly selecting the exit sound effect that says “Goodbye...” in a falsetto. My favorite of these last lot is definitely the stern “Good luck on your quest,” which seems just waiting to be remixed with some hip-hop beats.

In any case, the trainer lets us pay 50-60 gold per character to level up. The game manual includes detailed tables to show what sorts of increases in hit points and magic points should be expected at every level; almost every character statistic is well-explained there. In addition to these automatic improvements, each character can choose two base statistics or skills to increase. The former means the usual strength, intelligence, dexterity, etc.; the latter allows an increase to "Pick Locks," "Spot Traps," "Disarm Traps," or "Critical Hits." I think that each of these also increases by a small amount with each increase in character level, and the amount I can increase these skills seems to be random for each character and at each training session. For example, my Teddy thief, Ruxpin, has the choice to increase Pick Locks by 8%, but Critical Hit chance by only 1%. My party has continued to be clobbered by traps, so I decide to take two increases to "Disarm Traps," bringing him up to 44%. I boost Tyrion’s strength by two so he earns an extra damage bonus. Cleric Becket increases strength (so he can eventually wield a weapon) and wisdom to increase his total magic points. Finally, my mage Kizke increases his dexterity (for extra to-hit and armor bonus) and intelligence (again, for more magic points). At least as important as all these increases is that essentially everyone’s total hip points have doubled. That first leveling-up is so often the sweetest.

     

Every Teddy who's been good is sure of a treat today.

    

Having reached character level 2, we descend again to the second level of the catacombs. The enemies are palpably easier now, and we win our battles without much trouble. In one particularly satisfying bout, Tyrion backstabs a Troglodyte to deal 40 damage. Now we’re talking! The biggest danger continues to be not monsters, but traps. After defeating some ogres, we find a locked chest and have Ruxpin try to pick it. This of course sets off a "Psychic Drain" trap, removing 200 experience points. Luckily he remains at Level 2. This is only karma, though, since I had suffered a previous full-party death after a similar, earlier experience. We stick with it and move on.
      
Though the catacombs are filled mostly with monsters, there are a small number of special squares that typically contain some short message or encounter. Mainly these take the form of cryptic messages, such as “Do not enter” (near the northwest corner), “Watch your step” in a twisty maze to the southwest, and “The third is older than the oldest dragon” at the center of the twisty-passage maze; also a separate pair of messages, first “Choose right over left” and later “but never more than twice.” We also find a “fine weapon” in a glass case, and are asked what we want to do. We’re out to save the world, so we break the glass and find a sturdy longsword +1; unfortunately, the only two characters strong enough to wield it already have equivalent or superior weapons. We’re told that "Surprisingly, no alarm is set off" which seems suspicious, but if there was any consequence I never saw it.    

      

A relatively rare role-playing choice.

      

We also encounter a higher density of squares with various negative effects. First are trap squares; these have a chance to be detected upon entering the square. If detected, a character can attempt to disarm the trap or the party can simply retreat to the preceding square. Ruxpin continues to spring traps right and left, either without detecting them or when attempting to disarm them. Some of these have a chance to be dodged, such as crossbow bolts or darts. Some affect only a single character, such as the "Psychic Drain" trap. Others affect everyone in the party, sometimes quite severely: falling into a pit of spikes, being choked by a gas cloud, or setting off a bomb trap. Through trial and error, I discover the immense power of the "Trap Zap" spell, which removes any traps in the three squares directly ahead of the party. Not only that, but the spell updates the automap to show the location of the zapped traps—even if a closed door is between us and the trap. In one case the spell even alerted me to the presence of a one-way door that I wouldn’t have been able to re-enter.

We had also already encountered magical darkness; this causes any magical "Light" spells to cease, and it temporarily blocks the effect of any lanterns or torches. The automap still fills in automatically though, so there’s not too much danger of getting lost. Then there are Magic Drain squares. These sound simple enough: every party member loses one magic point in the square. Not too bad. The trick is that the one-point loss is incurred by almost every action in the square: turning, looking at the automap, viewing a character’s inventory or statistics, etc. It’s still not any sort of deal-breaker, but one has to be alert. After more mis-steps than I care to enumerate, we discover that the “right before left” clue applies to a set of trapped one-way corridors on the eastern side of the level, and we descend to Level 3 of the catacombs.
     

I forgot that I meant to go and explore those black squares.

    

Down the stairs, I encounter the first new monster types in over ten hours of gameplay. As before, the same two types always appear together but in variable numbers. These include trolls and orcs, goblins and kapich (suggestions welcome on this one!), and crocodiles and gremlins. Many of these enemies hit significantly harder, have more hit points (up to 45 or so for trolls), and have up to three armor points apiece—but even fairly large packs still don’t tend to do much damage. In particular, Tyrion's two-handed silver sword starts to really prove its worth against larger enemies. The spoils of victory also increase, with up to 15–20 experience points per character, and 150 gold, per battle.
        
We also meet our first undead: zombies and skeletons, who are always found in the company of an evil mage. Poor Becket finally proves his worth: between him and Durkon, their first ten invocations of “Turn Undead” banish the undead, one by one, without fail. With each invocation, a scratchy voice calls out “Begone, creature of evil.” The evil mages are potentially dangerous: they can cast "Armor Enhance," “Magic Missile,” and even “Sleep.” But as with all monsters so far, the AI is relatively dim, so the battles aren’t as strategic as they might otherwise be. At first I worry that I need silver weapons to physically harm the undead (we received a hint about this), but it doesn’t seem to be a problem with skeletons or zombies. These enemies ultimately don’t pose much of a threat. That’s just as well, because there are lots of combats and I often find myself fleeing whenever given the chance, which usually succeeds. By this point some enemies drop chain mail when defeated. It offers the same armor bonus as leather +1, but requires more strength to wear. I’m not sure of the tradeoffs involved, but we stick with the leather. Eventually our inventories all filled (each item takes up the same space; only arrows stack) and we just start dropping torches, cloth armors, daggers, and knives behind us. I could be wrong, but it starts to feel that after the initial 5–10 hours the economy has started to break.   

           

Turning undead rarely fails to satisfy.

      

The third floor is also chock-a-block with traps and message squares. We trip a gas trap, which knocks us all pretty low; shortly thereafter we stumble unexpectedly into a BOMB trap, which knocks out everyone but Becket and Tyrion. We spend a quarter-day healing and resting to recover magic points. So far the 1000-day time limit doesn’t seem too oppressive; I hope that I won’t later find that I’ve been resting too liberally. Also near the stairs, we learn that "The final must be found, to reach the Other Side" and that "There is more than one way to skin a cat." Then we are told that "A magic mouth on the door demands 'Speak the words in sequence to enter.'" Alas, Tolkien leads me astray because THE WORDS IN SEQUENCE and variants thereof fail to open the door. We keep exploring and find several additional messages: "The second is wide as a river," "The first is not closed," and "There is always a safest route." 

    

You'll have to use your imagination; graphical special encounters are rare.

     

We also discover what seems to be the roughly one unique encounter per level. We enter a new square and are suddenly told: "A scantily-clad woman is bound and gagged in this corner of the room. She looks up and sees that you are not Kamazol's evil minions, come to do what dastardly deeds they might desire. She motions for you to free her. Do it? (Y/N)." We think about it, eventually deciding that in a game written by a teenage boy such an encounter can only have a positive end. So:
        

You untie the woman and remove the gag. She smiles, and begins to open her mouth, as if to thank you. It is then that you catch a glimpse of her wicked fangs. You have fallen into the trap of the Pennagalan, a vampiress. You have but moments to react before she is upon you.

       

Playing in 1994, I would have thought this was just a strange, made-up name and moved on. In 2025, I learn that this is a type of Malay undead—a witch who meditates in vinegar and learns to float her head off of the body, trailing the organs behind. Wow, what a Halloween costume that would make! In any case, we immediately start combat. With 68 HP and 2 Armor Points, she’s the single toughest enemy we’ve faced to date. But she’s alone, and though Magic Missiles seems to do only 2 damage per casting, Tyrion critically hits her and we defeat her. 

      

The killing blow. I'm not sure why Tyrion "hits 2 times."

       

After exploring the rest of the floor, we’re forced to confront the magic-mouth doorway again. I don’t do a good job of consulting my notes, because I forget that we had heard on the second floor that "The third is older than the oldest dragon" and I don’t even recognize that "The final must be found, to reach the Other Side" is part of the clue. Without realizing that the answer is four words, we’re doomed: Open wide, open sesame, open sky; none of these work. Thankfully, a quick text search suggests that the main program file contains all dialogue as plain text; that could be handy to know, for later! It shows me that the answer is (OPEN WIDE ANCIENT PORTAL), and we are told that "You may pass. Enter at your own risk." 

   

We enter, but it isn’t particularly more risky than other regions we’ve already explored. It’s yet another large room filled with traps, darkness, and magic-loss squares. Liberal casting of "Trap Zap" lets us make easy and relatively safe heady, now that I understand how it works. We pick a final lock to find that we have gone through a one-way door, and are told that "There is no turning back now." 
    

The magic  mouth is a special square just  about in the center.

     

A few steps beyond, and through another one-way door, we see the screen at the top of this posting: "You have reached the living quarters of the evil Macabath himself. Foul potions line the walls of the room, and body parts sit in vials, no doubt for future experimentation . . ." Macabath then surprises me by propositioning us: "Welcome, brave ones. I am impressed that you have outwitted all my traps and puzzles." He takes a step back. "How would you like to join me? With your strength and wisdom, and my magic, we could rule Smythetown forever!" I was excited and hoped for a real role-playing choice here. But alas, with no chance for user input the game forces words into our mouths: "Never, vile wizard. Your curse on this city shall be removed, by your death." We then find ourselves in combat with six orcs (~10 HP and 3 armor), six kapich, (~15 HP and 2 armor), and Macabath himself (100 HP and 3 armor). We whittle away most of the little green minions, surround Macabath, and start up some solid backstabs . . . and then crash back to DOS, with "Sound Card Error #210."  

     

The full battle map that I stitched together.

       

Irritating, but luckily we had of course saved right outside of Macabath’s quarters. This time, enemies start in somewhat different locations; there are only 10 minions instead of 12; and best of all there are no crashes. The trick is not to get mobbed by the little green guys, who can otherwise prevent access to Macabath while he casts spell after spell. In this case, the combat is surprisingly straightforward. We make short work of them all, and Tyrion again delivers the killing blow: a backstab with a two-handed silver sword that does 68 damage. But amusingly, the battle isn't over until we mop up one last orc, who was hopelessly stuck marching up and down in the easternmost corridor. We receive 145 experience each and 1206 gold pieces.
     
We are told:

       

Congratulations on defeating the evil wizard Macabath. Now the curse on Smythetown has been lifted, and you may leave the city to begin your true quest (once you register of course). If you haven't registered yet, you must do so now in order to leave the city.

         

We can’t backtrack, so we step forward: "You feel a sudden, jerky motion and before you can comprehend what has happened, it is over. You find yourself back at the entrance to the catacombs." That was handy!
       
Life it good. It has taken our party 21 days of game-time to defeat three levels of dungeon. The manual says that the game has 22 dungeon levels, so if we can keep this pace up, clearing them all before the 1000-day deadline should be no trouble. Everyone has enough experience to level up; we have over 4000 gold and nothing to spend it on; and the citizens even pulled down Macabath’s ridiculous statue in the town square. Although I’m excited to head out and explore the world, I recall that we learned in the catacombs that "An evil Wizard can only truly be slain with a magic spell." Have we forgotten something? 

     

A world that responds to our actions is always welcome.

     

Time played: 22 hours. 5 party deaths. 2 reloads, 2 crashes. 

    

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