Citadel: Prism Break

What does it feel like to be 20% non-imprismed? Somehow that seems more dangerous than being fully enclosed.

       

Guest post by Quirkz:

  

[But a note from Chet first: I broke the last entry in a weird place. Quirkz was in the middle of exploring Level 5 of the dungeon. He was so engrossed in reading plaques on the wall that he missed the fact that he was approaching a key plot element. We pick up with his narration.]

    

After reading 10 walls of plaques, we turn around and realize Lady Synd is right there!

    

I see that the south end of this chamber lines up with the locked door next to the "break glass" pane I couldn't get through earlier. I circle back and discover the door isn't actually locked, it's just buggy. It takes 2-6 clicks to open, sometimes even giving a notice that the character tried and failed to open it, but then on the next attempt it works. It's very annoying.

     
I can approach the queen from three different directions, and for a while I think we will be curing her in stages, once from each direction, but I'm pretty sure I'm mixing that up with another game. [Ed. Maybe Chaos Strikes Back?] I take a look at that skull wand again, and it has a "brandish" button in the interface. I brandish. A chunk of gem dissolves. The wand turns into a "broken item" but the description has a suspicious wording: "This is now junk, or is it?" I keep it in the party stash for now.

     
The only part of the level we haven't explored is a detached chunk, the lower section of the queen's chambers. We go there and find a large room. There are a bunch of arrows and a bow in the corner. There are also new alcoves, which I click out of reflex. One of these also collapses, revealing a cave and confirming one of my three core memories from 1995.

        

I've heard of a wishing well, but a wishing wall?

       

I try to enter but am given a stern warning: "To win her gift or meet your fate only one may pass this gate." It takes me a minute to remember that the manual says it's possible to split the party, and another minute to figure out how to do it. I have to select a character and pick "leave behind" which kicks him out of the party and amusingly leaves him as an icon on the floor.  

        

Taking the advice of strange voices in dark caves is what adventurers do.

      

I send Caltrop in on his own. Because someone else is holding the light source, it's too murky for a screen shot, but I am in a dark square facing off against three opponents who look just like him, except he is invisible and they are not. He finishes them all without taking a hit. Combat ends with 0 XP rewarded, and then I'm kicked out of the cave, but there's now a scroll on the ground next to the icons of the party. It's a scroll of Wish.

      
The game from this point on can be completely broken, if you want, because this fight is repeatable, and with invisibility it's trivial. Without invisibility, it's a lot harder, fighting three of yourself at once, and I think the fight is designed to include a lot of misses and parries (the hint books make it clear there are four mirror images, sharing one mind, aware of each other's actions). 

     
I'm not going to play like a jackass, but I figure "three wishes" is a trope, right? So I collect two more.

       
Back in camp, I invoke one of the scrolls. I'm asked which character to pick and then given a large range of options to improve, including all six character stats, my health status, my hit points, my level, my armor class, and my magic resistance. There's also a grayed out "map" and "teleport to town" option, which I assume would work in the dungeon but not in camp. I'm not sure why "cash" is grayed out, but I'm guessing it results in literal moneybags that only appear on the dungeon floor.  

     

Where's the "more wishes" button?

       

There is a "bank" option. Because I'm desperate for funds, I try that and get 2,000 GP. It's a reasonable sum, but then I sputter in rage when I have Meanie appraise another scroll and it comes in at 10,000. Why does the Wish, the most powerful thing in the universe, give me less gold from its power than people will pay for the unused scroll? Oh, actually that's probably a reasonable valuation. As useful as my wish is to me, someone else might have a different wish that's more valuable to them. Deep.

      
Well, the scroll is gone, and the 2k is at least enough to uncurse the pentacle necklace my cleric has been stuck with. That costs 500 GP. I'm not sure if uncursing will make the item beneficial now or merely unlock it, so I pay to identify it and see it still gives +1 to armor class (which, like classic D&D, is the wrong direction). However, the amulet is very valuable, and Meanie pawns it to the shop for 7,500 GP.

     
I now have enough money to train everyone up to Level 3, and I suspect most of them are barely short of the XP required for Level 4. I also find that once any of the base classes hit Level 3, they're automatically invited to switch to a premium class. I allow Jexica the thief to become a ninja so she can wear better armor and be a stronger fighter. Letting the fighter DV change classes is obligatory (see my novel, The Eight-Bit Bard for a proper explanation) so he becomes a knight and gains access to priest spells. These promotions reset their level to 1. I leave the others at 3. My party is now a fighter, a knight, a cleric, a shaman (that's the cleric-fighter combo), a ninja, and a wizard. That's three prestige classes and three baseline ones—I want to keep the one pure fighter strong and I still really want to get some spells out of Siobhan one of these days.
       

This seems like an offer I should not refuse.

       

Speaking of, I finally figure out what's going on with the wizard spells. I was putting scrolls in my inventory and then checking the spellbook to see if I could memorize them, but they weren't showing as available. What you actually have to do is drag the scroll from your inventory to a special scroll icon on that screen, which loads the scroll into a hidden scroll slot on the character. From there the character can cast the scroll or, as I wanted, transfer it to his spellbook.

      
You can also transcribe spells above your level. Siobhan gathers the Level 2 spell "Divine" (an identify spell, I think); the Level 3 spells "Gestun" (light damage to all foes), "Spice" (conjure random item; I recall this being next to useless and not worth the time), and "Sumos" (summon monster companion); and the Level 4 spells "Fortis Al" (party defense) and "Locatus" (mapping location). I cannot yet memorize any of the Level 4 spells, but they're waiting safely in my book.

      
I realize I had confused "Locatus" earlier with "Levitas" (levitate) but I've got enough money that I can just buy the latter from the shop. It's 2,000, but I know I need it. It goes in the book as well, and I immediately memorize it, twice.

     
Something appears to be up with the wizard spell slots, because after that I can only memorize one "Haelan," which is level one, and previously I'd had two. A little experimenting gets me thinking that wizard spells have a sort of encumbrance component. I think Level 1 spells are small and only take up one slot, but higher-level spells take up several. Later on I'll find, for example, that I can memorize either exactly one Level-4 "Locatus" or 8 Level-1 "Haelans." I guess it's up to me to mix and match. 

   

The state of the party. Mulk is finally getting some HP, but Siobhan's health is concerning.

      

Back in the dungeon, characters now sometimes attack twice per round. This isn't just Caltrop, the Level 3 fighter, but also Jexica the ninja and DV the knight, both of whom reset to Level 1. I finally discover a hidden combat message window, which shows me the monster names and damage amounts I've been missing all this time. That's handy, but because it lies directly on top of the combat window and takes up a ton of space, it's impractical, and I mostly leave it closed unless I want to see what a new monster is called. In this case, it also helps me realize Jexica is dual wielding, attacking with a sword and then ineffectively with an empty bow right after. I unequip the bow, but she then begins attacking with her bare left hand. I eventually stick another sword in there and solve the problem.

     
I also start to rethink strategy, because I see now that my characters can successfully mob enemies. For instance, three of them might be able to attack in sequence before the enemy retaliates once. I'm not sure whether it's the added levels, the premium classes, or something else going on in the background. I try to keep an eye on it from fight to fight, adding or removing members from the mob depending on how the pacing seems to work. The Level 1 characters miss a lot more than they used to against tougher foes, and I know I need to level them up again, fast.

     
With "Levitas" in mind, I return to the pit with the Venus flytraps, hungering for the piles of easy experience and gold and especially that elevator key, which will be much more convenient than dashing through the twisty passages every time. I mop up on XP. I grab bags of gold until my inventory is bursting, plus a golden flute I'd forgotten about. I drop one more level, snag that elevator key, and backtrack to the portal in the ceiling. I cast "Levitas" and . . . nothing happens. I flip through all the menus and icons. Surely there's a "go up" button, right? Even The Bard's Tale had that! I try jumping. I try stepping away and back. But no, there's no way to ascend. "Levitas" keeps you from falling but does not make you fly.

     
Crud.

    

Quirkz's map of Level 6.

    
I roam Level 7, looking for another way out, but the problem is I still don't know anything about the sixth floor, either, so I don't know what I'm looking for. I turn the corner, bump into a pack of eight monks all casting some kind of area damage spell, and before I know it my party is dead. I guess all this loot will need to wait a bit longer.

     

It occurs to me a "Wish" spell might be necessary here to do the run and make a clean exit, but I don't want to resort to that yet.

      
I still have one obvious path forward: a set of stairs near the main landing on Level 5 that takes me to unexplored territory on Level 6. The landing offers a trio of doors facing east, each one into a different hallway. In front of each door is a pit. I can jump forward into the hallway but the door will close behind me, so "Levitas" will be mandatory if I want to return. Sneaky.
       

I take the southern branch and see in the distance a magic mouth, speaking, "Come closer, I can't hear you." At this point I find a menu item for "far sight" that a couple of my characters apparently have, and I discover that it slightly magnifies things in the distance. Huh. I step up again and the mouth begs me to come closer. This has "trap" written all over it, and indeed when I approach the mouth gives a giant windy breath, like it's blowing out birthday candles, and then wraps up with a toothy smirk. Except I'm carrying a glowing orb, not the torch, so I am totally unaffected. Take that, mouth! 

     

Could you BE any more obvious?

          

I have a fight with an arch devil, a mummy, and a medusa. The medusa appears directly in the middle of my party and I move everyone away in a reflexive panic. I'm not sure if petrification or paralysis are a thing in this game, but I'm not in the mood to find out. I let an invisible character take her down, hoping maybe if she can't see them she can't stone them, and it doesn't take long for her to fall. The arch devil holds out for a long time, though, mostly because my characters miss so much. Maybe it wasn't smart to make the two invisible fighters Level 1 at the same time. Eventually we win out.

      
The path leads down to Level 7. This is potentially scary stuff considering what those monks did to me, but I chance it. I find a big empty room, full of nothing.

     
In one far corner there's a coat rack with a key on it. Picking up the key closes off an open wall to my right and opens up a closed wall to my left. I worry at first I've been teleported, but putting the key back reverses the walls again. It's just a secret passage.

      
In this next room, there are a trio of jail cells, all unlocked, with skeletons shackled against the far walls, padlocks visible on their wrists. The interface makes this unintuitive again, because clicking on them, even with the character holding the key, does not work like it does on doors. Eventually I hit on the right combo, selecting the key in the inventory, clicking a "use" button, and then clicking on the padlock. In two cases, there's a flash and I find myself in combat with a cave wight and a masked figure. The wight makes me nervous (level drain? paralysis?) but goes down easy. The masked figure is hard to hit and takes a while.

      
In the middle cell, instead of a fight, a "body" appears on the ground. I kick DV out for a minute and add it to the party. Despite appearances, it's not dead: it's a living character, a dwarven clerk named Burliman. Out of the kindness of my heart, I decide to rescue him. I have to put the key back on the rack to get out of the room.
       

The key bone's connected to the . . . lock bone. The lock bone's connected to the . . . wrist bone.

       

Back in town there's no real recognition of the event or anything. He goes into the tavern and is a recruitable character, but is only Level 1 with bad stats. He has 300 gold on him and I assume he's grateful enough to give that to my party in thanks. According to the hint book, he can identify items for the party, but I missed that. Then I return and claim DV, who waited patiently in the jail cell. (The bartender in the tavern did indeed know about the missing DV, and guessed he was still alive, BTW.)

     
Past the jail cells there's one more door, this one locked, and none of our keys work. I'll have to leave it for later, and in fact never figure this one out. The cluebook suggests I missed a way of unlocking it, and I might have had free rein of Level 7 much sooner.

      
Back up on 6, I try the middle path, to the Buddha's delight. It is a short jump to a loooooooong hallway, 10 steps east and 18 north, expanding into a large, irregular room. There's a door to the north, and when I peek inside I see a book on the floor and a vaguely grim-reaper-looking monster moving around. It attacks when I step inside for the book.

      
According to the window, I am literally fighting Death, or at least a death. He hits hard and often, even invisible characters. None of mine hit him even once. I give it 20 rounds, but this seems like a foolish battle, so I pull my characters back to the edge of the screen and activate my second of three core memories about this game from 1995. I withdraw from a fight, which works as advertised, playing a short clip of "Run away!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I probably should have tried it sooner, but I was looking in the wrong pull-down menu for the wrong words, and also failed to remember the character had to be disengaged from combat and at the screen edge.  

     

Combat with a wight, some bat-men, and some skeletons. Monsters turn into tombstones when you kill them.

       

Running away pulls you out of combat, but leaves the opponent a square away. If you're slow, they can re-engage. I grabbed the book and backtracked through the door as if death were literally on the doorstep.

The book turns out to be a second spellbook. This one even has several spells already saved into it, though Siobhan also has them all. 10 hours feels too long for the chance to bring a second useful magician into the game, but considering we're all still only level 3, going on 4, maybe not? I'm tempted to add a magus (the fighter-wizard) to the mix, but for now things are working well enough I don't want to mess with party composition.

To the west of us there's a narrow passage and then another 3x4 chamber. It seems empty, but as I circle it checking for invisible walls there's a sound like something grating or moving. At first I'm not sure what's happened and worry I was teleported. The room looks the same, but the exit is missing. As I panic about being trapped I'm attacked by a wight and some critters. The fight is easy, but afterward I'm still confused about my location and since I appear to be trapped I keep checking for secrets. It turns out the entryway is still there, just covered by an illusion now. It's really confusing for a minute, but after some thought I have to give the developers credit for making it exciting.

I find myself impressed by the variety of mechanics and interactions I've seen lately. There's been a teleport, a false teleport with a deceptive illusion, the on/off secret passage from the keys, some illusionary walls, and a body to rescue with a split party. While some of the interface choices have been hard to figure out, it's got me using items in several different ways to find surprising outcomes. Honestly, not bad.

Back in camp I heal up and take stock. Money is the problem again. All of my characters can go up at least one level, but I can only afford to train the level 1 folks and one more. I pick Siobhan the wizard because I know I need more mage spell slots, and also because her HP are by far the worst. I'm pleasantly surprised when she goes from 10 to 14 HP, and also happy to see Jexica and DV get modest gains. I wasn't sure if they'd gain health while rehashing levels they'd already gone through once. I really hope being level 2 again helps with their accuracy.

Siobhan is only 200 XP from level 5, but I'm nearly broke. I don't even bother checking the others.
     

On the sixth floor there's only one path left, so I take it along a snaking, non-branching tour of the entire northern half of the level. A note on the wall gives me the recipes for a couple of cleric spells, "Faer" (fear, basically, weakens attackers) and "Fortis Al" (party defense). At the end I find stairs up, which lead through short stints on each floor before ascending again, all the way to the top. All told, it's probably 100 steps from the door to the final room.
       

A mage cannot cast spells while wearing armor. Despite some hints at other restrictions, this is the only one I've observed in-game.

      

I approach a skeleton, and as I do a wall in front of me disappears when I'm two steps away and reappears when I get one step closer. It takes me a minute to realize this is a basic pressure plate. Gear is not enough, though; I have to leave a party member behind. First I poke at the skeleton, which exposes a helmet and another skull wand. Sweet! I leave the shaman behind and step forward. The secret door slams shut behind me. I find myself facing the gate to the elevator shaft.

     
Uh, something was supposed to be here, right? Looking at the hint book, I see that this is how you're supposed to reclaim the elevator if you take it up to the first floor and then fall through the trap door. Except I didn't bother doing that because Chet had documented it in his walkthrough. So I've got no elevator to retrieve, and I've just locked a party member at the wrong end of an infinite corridor for nothing. Adding injury to the insult, I have to talk to the giant head and let the trap door send me down a floor because that's the only way out.

     

Chet's screenshot of this moment, for reference.

      

I always feel a little rushed and nervous with a split party, so selling some extra gear or using the wand isn't an option; it's an all-out sprint down through levels 2-6, taking the normal route. Critically, there's an interruption in the real world. I save and quit, take care of things, and come back—still antsy to make the party whole before I mess up.

       
Back through the north door, jump over the pit. 80 steps of snake tunnels to the stairs, climb 5 flights. There's Mulk, just waiting for me. I turn around and reverse the process. Stairs, stairs, stairs. Serpentine, serpentine. The hall straightens and the door is in front of me. I've been clicking fast to get through all of this and I run straight up to the door and smack into it.

      
And then I fall. Because these are the doors with the pits in front of them, the ones you need "Levitas" to make it back the other way. In my hurry, I've forgotten, and now I'm back on the seventh floor, in the same dead-end zone where two other valuable runs have already led to party wipes and full resets. I still don't know how to get out of here. It may not be possible. And of course because of that brief save, I'm not sure how far back my prior save goes. Probably just to when Siobhan leveled up. Without the need for mapping, it's probably only 10 minutes of game time to redo it. But crud, how annoying.

      

Rather than immediately reloading, I push on, hoping that since I'm stronger I can find an exit. I am not mapping. I'm being pretty sloppy, really. And it's a big level, so I'm running around kind of lost. I find the elevator key and figure why not take it a third time before I die? I hit the same battle with the 8 monks (wizards, actually) and this time I don't have much problem. My three spellcasters have picked up "Gestun" (light damage to all foes) and this seems a perfect time to try it out. It damages about three quarters of them on each cast; I assume the others resist. Gestun doesn't kill anyone, but the invisible characters mop up. I take a little damage, but not much.

      
I roam long hallways, occasionally getting into fights which all end well and give great XP and some bags of gold. I find a golden apple, which is clearly going to be valuable one way or another. There's a rapier, and the description says it's mithril, which has to be a good thing. We are running low on health, not so much from the fights but because we've run into a couple of traps or scripted events where a wizard—the villain Nequilar, presumably—teleports into the square in front of us, laughs, and blasts us all with fire. I've run all over the place and have found no stairs at all. Nothing but floor pits, if I want to go down to the eighth floor. From there I'd still need to find a way back up to 7 to get out.

      
I'm starting to think I'm doomed, but then I remember I'd picked up one more Wish scroll for testing purposes. I also started thinking, I've been down here so many times now, and I've been told there's no exit, and I can't find one. It might actually be true. I consult my maps and realize I have exhausted every path I know on the higher levels. Maybe I've missed some hidden walls or something, but my only next step is to jump right back down here anyway and map until I die or find my way out. As cheesy as it is, maybe the Wish scrolls are the intended way back?

     
Well, screw it. I'm stuck and this doesn't feel fun. I zap home.
      

The golden apple sells for over 9,000. I don't see a way to use it, and decide it's probably intended to be treasure rather than a quest item. I really don't need to start a 10-year war in Asia Minor right now.

      
I appraise the rapier and realize it is the best weapon in the game. It does 5-15 damage and confers 20% magic resistance. Very nice. I give it to Jexica, who dual wields it with another sword.

     
With the money, I can train my ninja and knight up to 3, get the others to level 4, and Siobhan, who was already 4, goes to 5. That should help tremendously. Everyone has enough XP to go at least one level higher, maybe more, but there's no more gold. Back into the breach.

     

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

09/27/2026 

 

Citadel: Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Mocked for an especially stupid death.

       

Guest post by Quirkz: 

     

[Ed. We pick up after Quirkz's disastrous previous session in which he made almost no progress except for his hand-drawn maps.] 

     

On my next reload, I try a different path and immediately find a pile of treasure which includes four scrolls and a spellbook! For the last two hours, this repository has been only nine steps away from the room with the Tasmanian devils. That's what I get for following the right-hand path instead of the left-hand path, I guess. I sprint back to town to see what I can do with it. The book has "Haelan" in it—I thought this was a cleric-only spell, but I guess both classes do get it. I can only seem to memorize one copy. There's supposed to be a way to transfer scrolls into the spellbook—a concept familiar from Dungeons & Dragons—but I'm not seeing it in the interface. The scrolls are higher level, so maybe that's the issue? There is a "Levitate" scroll, plus some other promising spells, but for now I put them in the stash and figure I'll come back once I'm more experienced.

      
I learn to become more tactical in combat. There is an impulse to mob one enemy with all your characters, pick them off, and then move on to the next. This works great in the Gold Box games and many others, but the combat engine here is weird. I'm starting to realize that it almost always alternates one friendly attack with one enemy attack. If you have four heroes around one foe, they will each attack once in rotation while the enemy gets to attack four times. Once I pick up on this, I start strategically placing my fighter against the lead enemy and letting them go toe-to-toe, alternating attacks, while my healers stay back and provide support. Sometimes the enemies are all on one side, and I can work my way through the pack one at a time. Sometimes they try to maneuver around us, and I need two fighters making a front line. (Occasionally, combat begins with total chaos and everyone is in the thick of it from the start, but that's unavoidable.) The trick, of course, is that anyone who doesn't attack or cast a spell at least once gets no XP, so I also learn to move the others up, let them get in one swipe, and then back off, giving them a stake in the rewards.

     

I explore more of the fifth floor, mapping a long hallway and some side branches. In one large and suspiciously empty room, I accidentally stumble on my first illusory wall of the game. I guess that is a thing here. In a small room behind, there's a whole bunch of items, including two scrolls, several sheets of vellum (for creating scrolls from memorized spells, I think), and a nice shiny diamond ring. At first I think this is probably just for the resale value, but it's equippable. When my fighter wears it, there's a whooshing sound and his icon on the screen disappears and turns into a little starburst shape. I've just become invisible, and ancient memories resurface, suggesting this is an extremely valuable combat benefit.

      
I am pretty sure that I've got enough XP now for five of the characters to level up, but I'd like to finish mapping this long hallway. I find one locked door with monsters lurking behind it. I am content to leave that alone. Down at the end, I find a second locked door with more monsters. There is one empty square to the side, and for mapping thoroughness I step into it, expecting nothing. I'm surprised when there's a big white burst on the screen, a whooshing noise, and suddenly my surroundings have been changed. It's a fiendish teleport trap, at exactly the wrong time.

        

The teleport trap in action. There's a neat swirling animation that this freeze-frame only partly conveys.

         
I have no idea where I am. I can't save now, because I could be walking dead. Did I save when I found the ring? Maybe. I'm not sure how dire my circumstances are. I appear to be at the far end of a long, narrow room. As I walk in the only available direction, I see monsters lurking. Mummies. I try to pass but they attack me. When combat starts, there are two mummies on one side of the screen and four lesser critters near my party. Crud. The only other time I faced mummies, just two of them alone, they slaughtered my entire party.

      
But I didn't have the ring then. I rush my invisible fighter to engage one mummy. The second mummy charges and I have to put my other fighter in front of him. My other characters target the small creatures. The ring makes a huge difference, because that mummy either doesn't attack at all or never hits. The trash mobs clean up quickly, and I spend the rest of the time trying to keep the second mummy engaged with my healthiest character, healing until I run out of spells. The first mummy finally dies, and now my invisible fighter is free to take on the second mummy while the rest of my crew cower in the corner. This technique succeeds quickly. When combat ends, I find a key on the ground. A step away, there is a locked door at the end of the room. Stepping through, I'm right next to the teleport trap again. Phew! There are few feelings like the relief of being lost in a dungeon and then figuring out where you are.

     
From the mummies I also got a map book, an in-game editable scratch pad you can fill in yourself, but I would rather work from graph paper. Among other things, to get to the map you need to do a ton of clicking, and more to swap between levels, and more to edit anything. Mostly, though, because it pops up in a large window that covers everything else, it's just in the way. The graph paper is superior for other chronological reasons: it's an Ameritech-branded pad I picked up while on a job in 1998 and have been carrying with me since, so it's nearly as old as the game.

     

The in-game map book. Advanced, but inconvenient.

       
I save and rush home. Five of my characters are eligible for leveling up, but I only have enough money for two of them. I strategically choose my head fighter and my cleric; I really want the second level spell "Haelan Al," which cures light wounds on the whole party. [Ed. That was not a typo; the name of the spell in-game only has one l.] This will get some use in the dungeon but will also greatly speed up recovery at camp while in town, which is ridiculously fiddly—an average of 10–12 mouse clicks for every 2 HP restored. This should cut that effort by 80%.

      
Training also requires time. Both of my characters disappear from the party for three days. I have nothing better to do after healing, so I end up needing to pay good gold to pass the time in the hostel. My characters still don't show up, so I go looking for them. They're not in the tavern, either, so I spend a couple extra days resting, and only then do I find them in the tavern. (I later realize there's a bug or display issue; after leveling up I have to go to the tavern, leave, and then re-enter and they're available. It's annoying and weird.) The fighter has gone from 8 HP to 13, and the cleric from 7 to 12. Nice gains! 
         

Invisible me. And best of all, more torches!

       

Out of curiosity I give Meanie the diamond ring. I wouldn't consider selling it, but I want to know the appraised value. But in the shop when I try to click the "sell" button, the screen just flickers. Back at camp, Meanie's inventory is empty, several items just missing. This seems like a bug, so I quit and re-open, but it's in the same state. I'm not about to face the whole game without My Precious, so I have to roll back to my previous save.

     
That restores the ring, thank goodness, but when I re-level my characters, they only have 10 HP instead of 12 and 13. That's just unacceptable. I mean, I'm not inclined to start save-scumming just for a couple extra HP every time I level up, but in this case a bug stole them from me, and I feel like I'm owed. So I reload a couple of times, trying to get my proper stats back, and in the process nearly commit the same file management sin, tainting all but one of my recent save slots before I realize with horror what's about to happen. On my last try, I get an even better 13 and 13, and then make three extra saves, to be safe. Then I quit and make duplicate copies of all the important saves and move them to a separate folder, just in case. I'm not messing around now.

     
Now that I'm tougher, I go back to the fourth floor to clean up some loose ends. First, I get revenge on the trio with the minotaur. They're practically helpless against an invisible enemy. I think Caltrop takes 2 damage total, even though the fight runs 20 or more rounds. The sorceress, though, appears in the middle of the party and immediately poisons my thief. Jexica's health trickles down slowly over the course of a few minutes, both in and out of combat. It's not too hard to keep topped off with spells, but we're quick to grab the equipment and head home. The pile includes four pieces of armor, most of which go to the cleric to finally give him reasonable protection.

     
Poison can be cured at the temple. It takes both money and time. While being tended to, Jex's icon moves into the box on the right, with a timer displayed counting down the time until the penalty box opens. 

    

This is almost all our remaining gold.

       

I had picked up a throwing axe at some point, and when I go to sell it for cash I'm offered nearly 7,000 gold. That would be nice, but that price is far too good. I check the guidebook and the axe (which can also be a melee weapon) is listed as "magical," although the only real perk it offers is 3-10 damage, making it roughly a +2 weapon. I give it to Caltrop as my lead fighter.

      
I backtrack to that other locked gate with the lurking monsters on Level 4. The same key that let me out of the mummy room lets me into this one. There's a banner over the archway reading "Camera a Cwen" a phrase that I'm guessing is half Latin (camera=room/chamber) and half Welsh (cwen=queen) and thus likely the queen's chambers.
      

Skeletons to the left of me, mummies to the right. Here I am . . .

       

The fight isn't hard. In the reward pile, there's some money and a different kind of shield than I've seen. When I pull it into the thief's inventory, she also turns invisible. That is a very pleasant surprise. There are stairs down that I don't take yet and stairs up that I do. This leads to a small cross-shaped piece of Level 3, detached from the rest, with nothing in it. I spend a lot of time being suspicious and poking things, but I can't make anything happen.

  
I skip the queen's downstairs for now, feeling like I'm wandering too far from the central route, and backtrack to the unexplored parts of the fifth floor's central section. It's been generous to me so far, and it continues to pay off well. Near one locked door I find a display case marked "In Emergency Break Glass." A skull wand is inside. I shoot an arrow at the glass and gaffle the wand. 

       

A rare anachronism in the dungeon. Along with the elevator. And the Tasmanian devils.

        

Behind another secret door, I find a room with some shadowy figures lurking. When the fight loads, it's a batch of undead. One of them maybe looks like a wight, plus a couple of mummies and a couple of maybe-wraiths. We start out surrounded and it's a bit of a scramble to put my two invisible characters up against the scariest looking foes while the others try to hide, but it ends up being an easy fight. Wort, my cleric, straight-up kills a mummy in one hit. I guess rising to Level 2 did something for his combat ability.  The invisible characters take down the rest with almost no loss of health. It really is an extraordinary benefit.

       
After the fight, I find some gold, and then scattered around the room are so many bags I can barely fit them all in my inventory. I think I walk away with 950 GP total. This is a tremendous haul, enough to level up two more characters. I pick my other fighter, DV, and my wizard mostly because she needs HP, but I'm also hoping for new spells. DV goes from 8 to 15 HP, a great boost. Siobhan gets 3 more HP, moving up to 7. Not great, but better. She also gets one more spell slot, but I still can't figure out how to learn any new spells. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I leave it for now.
       

Four of them are now Level 2. Everyone but the shaman has enough experience to go to Level 3, but I don't have enough money.

       

On the fourth floor, I'd come across a square room with a skeleton in the middle. Directly between me and it was a circle on the ground, an obvious trap. I debated saving and stepping into it to see what would happen, but decided to play it safe and jump over it instead. The trap went off anyway, with everyone taking a few points of fire damage. Touching the skeleton revealed a book and a dagger. The book was a journal entry from the captain of the guard, talking about the tower being swarmed. It didn't seem to have anything valuable in it. Past the skeleton was a bardiche, which also looked normal.

    
Now, while cleaning up the inventory, I try to pawn both and am shocked to be offered 1,000 for the book and 500 for the bardiche. Confused, I spend 20 gold to properly identify the bardiche, only to have it confirmed it's totally unmagical, doing 1-8 damage just like the ones the shop sells for 15 GP. The description does say it's "blue steel" and has a fancy wood handle, where the base models are just iron. I don't know whether there's a hidden quality variable, or if this is just a nice way to give me some money, but I take it. Trouble arrives when I go to sell the book. I'd said no to the first pass and then tried a few more times, getting lowball offers in the 600s to 800s. While I'm waiting for 1,000 to come around again, the shopkeeper loses his temper and kicks me out for 10 days. I guess there are consequences to haggling after all!
       

But you were the one driving the hard bargain! You'd already offered me more gold the first time.

     

I still don't think time has any significance in the game, and I've discovered you can pass a day for free with the "carouse" button in the tavern. Much better than paying 2 GP per person at the hostel, if you don't need healing. But I feel guilty about unknowingly insulting the shopkeeper, so I reload to stay on his good side and sell the gear for reasonable amounts after two or three rounds of haggling. This is enough to let Mulk the shaman and Jexica the thief level to 2, and also Caltrop to 3. 

       

Seeing what condition my condition is in.

       

Caltrop gains a whopping 8 HP, jumping to 21 (and also takes 900 GP and 6 days to do it; I'm sensing an increasingly expensive pattern here). Jexica goes from 8 to 14. Very nice! Mulk only gets 3 HP, leaving him barely ahead of the wizard. I'm questioning whether he's going to thrive here. I also remember to check the before and after stats on a few characters, and leveling up does not provide any boost. The other four are ready to go up, but I don't have the funds.

      
The empty alcoves in the Level 3 queen's chambers are really bothering me. I'm sure I've missed something, so I consult the hint book, which is written as a narrative of other people attempting my quest. It suggests that messing with the rocks in one of the cluttered-up window alcoves (this is a sunken tower; the windows are now looking out onto rubble) should reveal a secret chamber with an orb. It's not always clear how to interact with things in this game. I have clicked on doors, and I triggered the one magic mouth pressing a button with the mouse. Other times you need to have something selected in inventory, and then a button becomes available there. It's frustratingly inconsistent.

     
I'm not seeing anything now, so I click around erratically on all three windows, with no results. I try shooting them with arrows. I try walking through them, and jumping at them. Nothing. I reread the hint book, taking closer note that it specifies pulling at one rock on the western alcove, toward the bottom. Visually I compare the alcoves and see no difference, but since it's in the hint book I start clicking on individual pebbles, one by one. Eventually one does trigger an animation and the sound of tumbling rocks, and inside the alcove is the promised orb, which is supposed to glow when activated.

      
It takes me a while to realize the hint book is very literal here. I have to equip the orb, view it, and then click and wave my mouse back and forth to mimic "rubbing" it before it lights up. You can't just hold it and don't get a button to use it. I don't know how anyone would ever figure that out. [Ed. I think Quirkz is underselling it here. This is absolutely enraging. No player should ever be required to consult a hintbook, and no player would ever come upon this solution organically.] It makes me glad I have the hint book—even though I'm trying to avoid checking it, and mostly only do so muddling along for a good while—because there's very little online for this game. But it also doesn't bode well for future riddles. The benefit of the orb is a perpetual light source, by the way. No need for all those torches.
        

I get light, but the evil wizard now gets to spy on me in exchange. Also note that the orb has both "Inspect" and "Examine" buttons. One gives you the usual description; the other gives you the window where you "rub" it.

           

About the alcoves, in the hint book one of the characters says, "Wow! We should be checking all of these things!" This I remember from 1995, because there is another, more important one of these out there, but I didn't recall the details for how to activate it until now. I run back through the dungeon checking every alcove I can find, but nothing shows up yet. It must be deeper. I will need to click every one from now on, though.

     
I start working on the northern section of Level 5, which has a large room labeled Templum Regalis. There's a fight with mummies, and in a back room there's a pentacle amulet that auto-equips when I pick it up, immediately announcing that my character is unwilling to take it off. Curses! Literally.

      
Through a door in the northeast, we're confronted by the figure of a man shouting, "Stay back lest ye meet your end!" I'm not sure whether this is a trick, so I approach, which initiates a fight with a lone man. He casts a "Confusion" spell on us immediately, and suddenly every time I try to move my characters, they run mostly in the opposite but sometimes random directions. I have a heck of a time getting one into combat range, but once I do it ends quickly. The hall stops in a suspiciously empty dead end, and at the back we find an illusionary wall, with entrances to two sides of a larger chamber. The walls are decorated with writing, telling the story of the man we slew, cleric Fra Elsof, a devoted servant of the queen. I check the hint book later and it seems that he might have joined our party if we had an empty slot.

    

Facing down the Fra.

          
As a test, much later on I'll load an early save and try walking in with only five characters, but we get the same warning. Approaching him still initiates combat. I figure I should at least try to withdraw—tricky, with confused characters running the wrong direction—but I get someone to the edge and run away. When the second combat ends, the Fra's icon is on the floor, looking like a lost party member. Aha! I can pick him up and have him join. He's a level 3 cleric with 18 HP and average stats. This might not be a bad way to improve the party. There is a minor inventory problem, though, because he is wearing a robe, a flail, and a necklace, and he refuses to take any of them off. This means you lose a couple of slots and can't ever improve his weapon.
      

Next time, we'll see some movement on the main plot.

    

****

   

Previous entry in this series

    

Next entry in this series 

 09/27/2026

Citadel: Save Me From Myself

 

Props to the other bloggers who remember to take enough screenshots. I can go two hours before I realize I haven't captured anything, and when the game gets interesting, like a tough fight, I immediately focus on playing. Here's one where I accidentally discover the bartender is interactive. Maybe this is a lost party indicator?

           

Guest post by Quirkz: 

       

I ended the last entry looking at the hint guide, as it was the only source for information about experience and leveling. It's also the only source for weapon and armor statistics. The weapons list isn't huge, maybe 40 items, half of them available in the shop from the start. It also seems deeply redundant: two thirds of the items are non-magical and do either 1–6, 2–7, or 2–8 damage. There might be a couple of spoilers on the magic items side, but there are less than a dozen of those. On average, they do one whole point of extra damage, and maybe provide a tiny amount of magical protection. The body armor list is even more brief. It's weird that it's not in the regular manual, though you can see these stats in-game by identifying items. Not even the hint book has information about the other equipment, including helmets, gloves, shields, and accessories.

    
I'm down on the fourth level now. Here, the walls are filled with sconces, and in every sconce is a torch. I pull them all out until my inventory is overflowing, and then I throw the rest on the floor to help remind me to collect them later. While I'm messing with that, I'm brought into combat.

       
This one is a larger group with three monster types, including a couple of spiders. I know there's poison in the game because there's a level 8 "Cure Poison" spell, but these spiders don't seem to be poisonous. They are harder to hit and seem to do more damage, though. I get through the fight okay, with a couple of strategic maneuvers to pull back an ailing character for healing in the middle. There are two more bags of gold. Everyone is mostly healed, but I'm out of spells, so I return to town to stock up.

    
While in town, I offload half a dozen torches to the party stash. I remember that I picked up a dagger on the first floor and take a moment to investigate selling items at the shop. The manual notes a high mien characteristic helps with bargaining. Most of mine range from 6-10, but during my creation phase, I held onto one character whose mien ended up at 14. The rest of his stats were terrible so I'm not adventuring with him. He just hangs out in the tavern. Let's pretend he's the band manager. I named him Meanie, because I was plum out of creativity juice at the time.

   
As an experiment, I have Meanie and one of my low-mien characters approach the shop. It's quickly clear that mien doesn't affect the purchase price of anything. That dancing sword is 20,000 for both of them. But when it comes to selling, the ugly duckling is offered only 1 GP, while Meanie is offered 3 GP, which is equal to the purchase price of the dagger. That's a much better exchange ratio! I think I remember from my 1995 replay that if you have high enough mien, you can exploit an infinite money glitch, selling for more than the purchase price. For now, that's not an issue, but having a dedicated haggler is going to be valuable.

     

It pays to be charming. With high enough mien, you can sell bags of gold for more than their literal value.

       
Back underground, I find my first key on the floor, and shortly after that a locked door on which the key works. You can edit item names in this game so I change the label on the key to reference the floor. With the key, you have to select the character who is holding it, have the key in inventory (not a pocket), and then have them click the door. The icon does change to show the key in hand, but it's easy to forget and try with the wrong character first. Doors are weird in this game, too. They take up a full square on the map, but you automatically move into them when you open the door. I've already had to redo maps twice because I don't properly count that space.

     
On the other side of the door, I find a large talking head in one nook, which asks the riddle the Addict already documented. This gives me two separate stairs down from this floor, once I'm ready. Since this one was being gate-kept, I'll probably explore the other first as the more natural path. There's another door and a long hallway with free unlit torches in every square. A bonanza! Except that at the end of the hall there's a bend and a dead end. If this were Skyrim, you'd need to do something like light every torch on the hall to open a secret door. As I'm testing that theory, I drop my torch on the floor and find myself in darkness once again.

     

Speaking of darkness, I once stayed at a VRBO that had a little basket full of finger puppet characters. Most of them were normal, and then in the mix there was one labeled "Darkness." I can't fathom why, but I've been wondering about it for 10 years and I need more people to share my bemusement.

        

Here I discover how night vision works. The actively selected character controls the view screen. Thus far, I must have been keeping the humans active. But when I click on a hobbit, the murk brightens a little, and when I switch to a dwarf character it's only barely dim. Do I really need all these torches? 

        
Yes. Yes I do: Mostly in case of character loss, in case I only have humans left. But also because I'm not sure if they help me find things like hidden buttons and secret doors. I honestly don't know if there are many of those, but one of my three clear memories from 30 years ago is that there's at least one very important secret door.

     
I'm attacked again by monsters, another mixed group, this one with more spiders and some kind of worm, plus the crab-blobs.

     

Fighting a pair of executioners.

       

The difficulty ramps up steeply on the fifth floor. While exploring a small waffle grid, we see what looks like the imprismed queen, but turns out to be an illusion. We're attacked by three shirtless men wearing executioner hoods. Now that's a fashion choice. It's a tough fight, but we scrape through. Afterward, the reward is a chalice full of some kind of sticky liquid, plus a nearby sword. There are two floor pits in this area, and I don't remember exactly how they work, so I take a save and jump in one to see.

       
There's an animation of falling to the next floor. I take minimal damage, which seems nice, and even sweeter are the four 100-gold piece bags sitting at my feet. Problem is, I've got a locked door to my back and in front of me there's a prowling monster that is either a feisty squirrel or a dragon. With only one direction to go, we step into a fight and are immediately slaughtered by what I'm assuming were not squirrels. It's my first full-party death. I'm sent back to the tavern but all my heroes are either totally gone or left behind in the dungeon—I'm not sure which, but I won't find out because I reload instead.
      

The first but far from the last.

       

I backtrack and then take the stairs behind where the talking head used to be. This dumps me into a perfectly symmetrical 3 x 3 room with doors in the middle of each side. I take a few steps before I realize I don't have a compass and could get turned around here easily. The answer comes to me in a minute, which is to drop a used torch on the floor by the entrance door. While I'm trying to do that I'm attacked by a pack of 6 Tasmanian devils. They hit me more often and seem a little harder to hit, but I get through with some healing. Then as I try to high-tail it out of there, I'm attacked by a second group and moitalized, as the Looney Tunes say.

      
This is when I realize I've been making a mistake with the save files. If you launch the game from the main app, it runs off the main save file, but when you restore a game by launching from a backup file, the game then continues writing to that backup file. To be fair, the manual warns you that this is how it works and tells you to immediately back up again if you restore from one of these files, but my instincts are all wrong and I keep forgetting to do it. For me, saving in an old blobber like this is for towns. You don't want to trap yourself in a walking dead scenario. Save files are supposed to be re-usable, and only a madman (or a mad god) would save immediately after restoring.

       

Enough treasure to make a gamer forget to save first, even when it's an obvious trap.

        

In this case, I'd also saved just before hitting this floor, so I lose a little progress and have to redo the fight with the executioners, but it's not a big deal until I get sloppy and my lead fighter dies. I've just tainted all three of my rolling save files, so I suck it up, roll up six new fighters to get one with more than 5 hit points, and dive back in.

       
The next time through that square room, I don't see any Tasmanian devils at all, but I do find a stairwell up to a different part of the previous level. Thinking this will be safer, I start exploring, mapping a large and twisting room uneventfully. In the back of the room I detect a gleam of treasure, what looks like a full set of armor. I rush to grab it but am jumped by a trio comprising a sorceress, an executioner, and a minotaur. The minotaur is very tough, seeming to get twice as many attacks as everyone else. We only barely win the fight, but it's worth a ton of XP—over 400. One more fight and a couple of my base class characters will go up a level. 

      

The game's first very difficult battle.

      

On the way back, we pass through the square room and get eaten by those Tasmanian devils. Four dead. Might as well reload. I'd saved just before the trio, so I try again for the treasure, but this time the odds go badly and the minotaur kills two of my characters in the opening round and eventually the whole party falls. I reload again, don't see the trio in the room with the treasure anymore and think maybe I can just grab the loot and run, but they jump me a third time, killing me swiftly again. At this point I realize I've just done the same thing with the save files I had 30 minutes before. When I finally locate a good save file, it's my starting party, from before I had entered the dungeon even once.

     

Sigh. 

      

I'm starting to see why Chet quit this one. I also don't understand why I'm not saving right. I have plenty of space and zero reason not to save before risky moves, other than it feels wrong. Starting over is rough, but at least I have some maps.

     
I've also learned a couple of things. One, mien is a little erratic when it comes to sales prices. I considered selling the sticky chalice, and was offered 2,000 GP. A nice haul, but I wasn't sure if this was a valuable item, so I declined. When I checked later the same character was only offered 1,400 GP. Then on successive inquiries it bounced between 1,600 and 1,800, before giving me an all-time high of 2,040. I said yes, and when I looked in the shop I could buy it back for 2,000. Honestly, it's a little weird and annoying that I would need to try to sell items a handful of times, take down the best price, and then maybe keep trying for a while to get or beat it.

      
I also was reminded that when a character dies, you can't move or do anything while the dead characters are "unsupported." In the party window, you need to drag the icon of a dead character onto that of a living character, to indicate who's carrying whom. Also, whenever you select a dead character, the screen goes black, because you're seeing what they're seeing. Every time this happens, I think the game has crashed or we've all died before I remember to click back.

      
I decide to ditch my magus, who hasn't been very effective as a fighter, has only 5 HP, and will require 50% more XP to level up in the long run. I don't need two magicians without spellbooks. I make a second pure fighter instead, DV, this one with 8 HP, so I have a stronger front line. If or when I find a second spellbook, I'll consider swapping him out.

     
As frustrating as it feels to lose progress, it only takes me 15 minutes to get back to the same spot I was in before. More of the time is spent mapping and dealing with unfamiliar territory. Once you know what you're doing, it's easy to repeat.
         

My map of Level 5.

        

Back on the fifth floor, I enter a cycle of grim deaths. Six times in a row, I earn enough XP from fights for most of my characters to level up, but then die trying to exit the dungeon. I really don't want to save after every single fight, but I'm clearly still not saving often enough. Part of the problem is the difficulty level ramping up here. My characters have made literally zero tangible progress. They're all still level 1. One of my clerics has an armor class of 8 because the shop still hasn't restocked with armor, and he only has a helm and shield. There have been no weapon upgrades and barely any gold. Meanwhile, opponents are showing up in groups of 4-8, often of multiple types, many of them tougher than the early monsters. Some of the strongest, like minotaurs and mummies, attack twice per turn, and usually hit both times. That's only 2 HP per round, but when your fighters have 8 HP and a Haelan generally only heals 2-3, fights are deadly. This game was clearly influenced by Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, or the like, where merely reaching second level is designed to be a tremendous accomplishment.

      
On the fifth floor, the map has really opened up, and I have multiple unexplored paths, including what seems to be most of a 28 x 28 grid (this game works with the "worm tunnels" model, with a solid square of rock surrounding the explorable space) plus multiple up and down stairwells. I keep trying different paths and make good progress on the map, even if my characters aren't getting any benefit. I find so many torches that my party stash in town actually fills up, and I stop collecting them. I have burned through exactly two so far. I don't know why I'm being so paranoid.

     
It becomes clear some areas have fixed combats, but there are also a decent number of random encounters. This implies there isn't a fixed limit on XP or gold in the game. I've seen at least a dozen different types of monsters, though as far as I can tell all attacks so far are physical. I still don't have monster names and all combat gives is hit/miss sounds; there's no way to tell how much HP they have or how much damage I'm doing. Some combats drop multiple weapons, a few drop gold sacks in amounts varying from 50 to 200. 

      

Four game hours from now, I will find this combat message window and be forced to retract my complaints. Instead, I'll complain that this window covers too much of the screen.

    

Because I'm feeling stuck, I keep trying different paths, seeing if maybe there's an easier zone I've been missing. In one case, I try dropping down a different floor pit to the sixth floor. I'm rewarded with some armor and a magic dagger called Sting. Since I'm not immediately devoured by dragons, I go in search of a stairwell and get pretty far before running into a fight with a couple of what looks like a combination Venus flytraps and hydras. I survive and get 400 GP and 500 XP. Good stuff, if only I can get out. There's a long, bending tunnel, another pair of flytraps that knock everyone down to a 1 or 2 HP and use up my healing spells. There's a sign on the wall with a worrying message, "Once fallen you must rise again or forever join my evil reign," which does not bode well because I don't have the level 3 "Levitate" spell, but for now I continue. I find a room with some pits and more flytraps that lurk in the corner but don't come after me. I enter a very large room that has a "Templus" something sign overhead. It appears to be mostly empty, but there's an altar at the back. I don't mess with it for now. But there's also no way out.

       

Not an encouraging sign when you don't know how to levitate.

         

I backtrack and take my chances with the path left open to me: falling down another pit. One character dies, but the rest surprisingly survive. I've earned so much XP my characters should be nearly to level 3, and I've got more gold than I've ever seen, so I don't want to give up yet. I come to a dead end at the locked door to the elevator shaft. Shoot. But when I turn around there's a key ring on the wall. I take it and confirm this is the key to the elevator. Excellent! Except when I unlock the grate I'm staring at an empty pit. The elevator is up on level 2, and there doesn't seem to be a way to call it. Crud. Figuring I'm doomed, I jump down the elevator shaft, which prompts scenes of falling several floors and provides a unique death message. I'm back to where I started. 

    

[Ed. Quirkz may object to my using this as a breaking point, but I couldn't otherwise find a natural one in this area. Suffice to say that things start to look up from here.] 

   

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series 

 09/25/2026