Game 590: Labyrinths (1982)

 

You have to admire a game that gets right down to business.

      

Labyrinths

United States

Progressive Computer Applications (developer and publisher)
Released 1982 for Atari 800
Date Started: 10 September 2026

Date Ended: 10 September 2026

Total Hours: 2

Difficulty:  Easy (2.0/5), not that it means much in this game, since there's no objective

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later) 

     

Any player who has sampled Telengard (1982) or one of the other DND variants knows that the geography of those games is just an illusion; the character can hit (P)ass next to the stairs and receive encounter after encounter. This game does away with the illusion. It's all-text. There is no movement, no sense of any geography. The player enters the dungeon and gets encounter after encounter until he dies.

      

Ads for the game in magazines like Antic and Compute stressed this inherent randomness. "DIFFERENT EVERYTIME [sic] YOU PLAY!" the publisher boasted.

      

I enter a very small office every day.

         

There's no backstory except that the character is going to descend into a network of labyrinths and try to get rich. The player names the character and chooses from fighter, thief, cleric, and magic-user classes. Each character starts with between roughly 1 and 15 hit points (class dependent) and a spear. He immediately starts encountering gnolls, mummies, zombies, giant spiders, dragons, and 30 or so other D&D-style creatures. As in the DND variants, these monsters all have an explicit level between 1 and roughly the player's current level plus 2. There can be multiple monsters, but they attack and die as a unit rather than individually.

        

If the player successfully kills the monsters in combat, he gets experience and finds treasure that can include weapons, armor, scrolls, and gold. Gold is converted directly to experience. The player can find treasures irrespective of monsters, too, and just as in Telengard, it's always fun when a Level 1 player finds treasure worth 5,000 gold pieces and gets to Level 3 immediately. Levels come with extra strength and hit points.

       

This was a good day.

       

So far, this seems like an awfully basic game, and it is, but Labyrinths has some surprises when it comes to combat. It's unexpectedly tactical, and in a way that's class-dependent. Some examples:

   

• Enemies start at range. Some try to maintain a range, others close the gap. The player can also run towards or away from the enemy. He might want to maintain distance from melee enemies, using his own missile weapons, or run towards enemies with breath attacks and kill them in melee combat. If he runs far enough away, he escapes.

• The character can carry several weapons, both melee and missile, and use them as the situation demands.

     

Combat options for a magic-user  character.

       

• Spellcasters get typical D&D spells at appropriate levels, including "Magic Missile," "Shield," "Strength," "Speed," "Lightning Bolt," and "Hold Monster." Clerics get several variations of "Cure," "Teleport," "Hold Person," and "Flame Strike," among others.

• Thieves can hide in shadows and backstab. 

     

I somehow managed to backstab with a bow and arrow.

        

• Characters can find magic weapons and armor in the dungeon or purchase them from an occasional merchant. Magic weapons may have an increased chance to hit, increased damage, or both.

• The game tracks encumbrance, also based on class. 

• All characters can read magic scrolls, though they don't know the effects until they've read them. These scrolls might heal, protect, or strengthen the character.  

• The player can consult battle statistics that show his chances to hit the monster and vice versa.

     

Statistics for the current battle.

      

• Every once in a while, the game gives the player the option to leave the dungeon and go outside. If he takes it, he always a) encounters a merchant and can buy one item, b) rests and heals, and c) immediately encounters a pit that dumps him back into the dungeon. 

     

Do I have to count them out individually?

        

It's too bad that this is all for nothing. The game has no quest. The character can never escape the dungeon or retire. (I've verified this by inspecting the file.) He just keeps fighting until he dies and gets a score.

     

So it goes.

       

Although there are no graphics, the game does offer basic sounds (crunches and such) during combat. The game changes colors of the screen background and text at random, which I could do without. All command prompts are given on-screen, which is handy.

    

Although there are things I like about the game, I think the ad over-sells it a bit.

      

I've often thought that in an all-text game, there isn't any excuse for simple mechanics, since the developer didn't have to spend time or disk space on graphics. By the same token, though, I think that there's no excuse for an all-text game to offer no story or ending. 

      

I can't find that the Burtonsville, Maryland-based PCA ever made or marketed any other games; they must have blown their budget on full-page ads. Labyrinths sold for $28.95 on disk, or about $100 even today, which is pretty crazy. Still, for a game that isn't very good (GIMLET of 15), it isn't half bad.

   

For further reading:

• My "Index of Games by Lineage" has the titles in the DND line. 
• El Explorador de RPG's coverage of Labyrinth. As usual, he gets into more details about statistics and mechanics than I did. 

****

    

That's all I accomplished this week. How pathetic is that? Less than 1,000 words. I wanted to couple this with one or two other short games, but I ran out of time, and I knew that if I allowed myself to break my regular posting schedule, which has been intact since April, I'd end up taking a long hiatus. I might anyway; this month is killing me. But cross your fingers for another Ravenloft entry on Sunday.

 

Pagan: The Necromancer's Apprentice

So is anyone going to come along and move him?

       

The Guardian has marooned the Avatar on the world of Pagan, which is dominated by four titans, each with its own school of magic. The Avatar has learned that if he wants to escape, he's going to have to master the different magical systems. Let's get that organized:

       

Realm	Titan	Magic  School	Founder	Current Rep
Earth	Lithos	Necromancy	Moriens: Made a deal with Lithos to stop earthquakes in exchange for Pagans serving Lithos in death.	Lothian/Vividos
Water	Hydros	Tempestry	Kalen, a Necromancer: Imprisoned Hydros when the titan would not return his dead girlfriend, stole water magic from Hyrdos.	Mordea
Air	Stratos	Theurgy	Stellos: Caused the titan to breathe life into Kalen's beloved, lost his sight as a result.	????
Fire	Pyros	Sorcery	Four unnamed theurgists who used blackrock to imprison Pyros and thus stop a volcano from destroying the world.	????
????	None	Thaumaturgy	Unknown.	Mythran

     

The backstory of the game has a Guardian whispering dissent to the old followers (Zealans) of the three emotional gods, turning them to the worship of elemental titans as a way to defend against a coming Destroyer. A suggestion has been made in the comments that the Guardian (the evil being) was both the Guardian and Destroyer of Pagan and essentially the creator of the elemental titans. (Joshua's rot-13'd comment in that thread is worth reading.) It's an inspired idea, that the Guardian is uniquely good at identifying a world's weaknesses and exploiting them, much as he did with the Fellowship on Britannia—and that he has done so across multiple worlds (we have hints of a few other cases in Ultima Underworld II). I can't help but lament what could have been if someone at Origin had ever created some kind of governing document for the entire Ultima universe, outlining the true nature of these multiple worlds, the true nature of the Guardian, and the reason that magic works differently from place to place. This is exactly the sort of thing that Brandon Sanderson would do with his Cosmere in another decade.

       

The magical assignments seem a bit dubious to me. The link between water and tempestry is the most solid, but I believe that the term was invented for this game. As for the others . . . I don't see why necromancy should be concerned primarily with earth (yes, yes, interment, but still) or healing with air. "Pyromancy" would make sense with fire, but "sorcery" in general? The Ultima series likes to create neat little packages of its themes (8 virtues, 8 classes, 8 towns), but they don't always hold together well. The associations between elements and magic are, to me, the "bards = compassion" of Pagan.

      

I take some time to finally organize my backpack.

                

(You didn't ask, but writing "tempestry" several times made me think of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which I think is his most autobiographical play and thus one of the most interesting to study, but it's my least favorite to see performed. There's virtually no conflict in it at all.) 

       

But back to the present game. The Avatar has agreed to be the apprentice for Vividos, the new Necromancer Supreme, which of course begins with a fetch quest. I have to head to Western Tenebrae for some "fallen sticks from the place where spirits roam." This would be a good time to introduce the map I've been working on for the world as a whole:

     

I haven't visited much so far.

           

I'm not sure whether "West Tenebrae" means the area I've already explored (and found no sticks) or the map even further west than that, which I have not yet visited.

     

I know where there are spirits in West Tenebrae, though I don't remember any sticks there. I revisit just to be sure. I kill the ghost and his ghouls again, and yes, there are a couple of poles on the ground, but I don't think that's what Vividos was talking about. I'm just about to leave the area when I click on some sticks that look like a part of the background texture, and it turns out that they're what I'm looking for: Dead Man's Elbow.

    

The "elbows" are the items to the left and right of the tree in the upper-left corner.

       

I'm a bit disappointed because I was hoping to explore the area west of West Tenebrae. Even though I have only a Willie Suttonesque reason for doing so, I decide to go there before heading back to Vividos. While trying to find the western exit, I accidentally jump into the river and thus have to repeat everything from the beginning. [Ed. That should have said "George Malloryesque," i.e., "because it's there." Ridiculous mistake.]

         

I end up calling the area "West Valley." It's a truncated map, about as long as a regular map north-south but only about as third as wide east-west. Encounters:

    

• A guardhouse. Inside a barrel, I find an abacus, which automatically counts up my various piles of obsidian pieces. Barrels on the roof include a hallucinogenic mushroom (the screen changes colors for a few seconds) and a hurricane, which does indeed seem to be the New Orleans drink, as after I drink it, the Avatar starts moving around in random directions. Hurricanes suck, by the way. Be a man and order a Sazerac.

    

Of course, just clicking on the pile of obsidian pieces accomplishes the same thing.

         

• There's a waterfall at the north end of the map with some nice water effects. 

     

Contrasting with the absolutely banal depiction of water immediately to the right.

      

• A cave that I nearly miss behind a tree is occupied by a kith. I kill it. Among the skeletons in the cave, I find half a dozen obsidian coins, some spell reagents, and a Scroll of Trap Destruction.

      

It's hard to take screenshots while moving. All my screenshots look like the Avatar is just standing around.

           

• A shack on the western edge is occupied by a woman and a little girl. The woman yells at me to go away, and the girl has the same dialogue options as the inquisitive little girl in Eastern Tenebrae. 

• A house with a roof deck has another one of these girls. They're annoying because you have to go through the whole dialogue before you can move on. 

    

Argh. Not again.

       

• There are a couple of large houses side by side in the southwestern part of the area. One seems to be a store, but nobody is manning the counter. I wait through several time periods.

• The other house is occupied by a fisherwoman named Kilandra. She stays away from town because Mordea "is a selfish, black-hearted woman." She recounts how she brought her sick daughter, Elaina, to the palace steps for healing, but Salkind (the seneschal) insisted that Mordea was taking a bath and couldn't be disturbed, "especially to help a filthy gutter snipe." The girl later died. The name seems familiar, and a quick search reveals she's the author of What the Fish Tell Me, a silly poem for children.

     

Kilandra, this world isn't big enough to have dialects.

        

• A ghost and a pack of ghouls.

• An unoccupied hut. There's a kith in a fenced-in back yard, but I can't figure out how to get to it.

• A changeling. A mandril.

• A dead fisherman on a bedroll next to his rope and basket.

     

Not a bad way to go in this world.

        

• A two-story stone house. It is well-kept and fairly opulent, but no one is living there. It does contribute the humorous My Rival, My Love to the "Books of Pagan" entry. 

        

Does no one live here?

       

That is all I can find, so I gird myself for the long walk back to Vividos. (Couldn't he have invested in a teleportation pad?) A guard stops me as I enter the Eastern Shore area and demands to know what I know of the scholar Bentic. I refuse to answer his questions, so he attacks me, and I actually manage to kill him. A nearby guard says "no fighting" but otherwise doesn't seem perturbed that I've just murdered his compatriot.

   

I decide I'd better see what this is about, so I reload and say, "We have spoken." The guard says that Mordea has executed Bentic for "conducting forbidden research." He then asks about the fisherman, Devon, who of course I also know. He has been arrested and imprisoned. Man, Mordea really has to go.

     

Can't you just say "killed"?

       

I teleport back to the palace. Just for fun, I try to kill Mordea, but the game isn't having it. With the first blow, a sorcerer appears and executes me. Actually, the sorcerer appears, and while Mordea is explaining to him what crime I've committed, she executes me.

      

Down in the dusty basement I previously visited, I find Devon in a locked room. I'm able to speak to him through the door. He asks me to help figure out what is happening and suggests I talk to Salkind. (In any conversation with Mordea, she asks where I'm from and refuses to talk anymore after I give the answer.) I find him in the throne room at mid-day. He is unapologetic about Bentic's execution (though he won't tell me what constitutes "forbidden research") and he says that Devon will be executed soon.

          

At least they gave you a decent bed.

     

Salkind mentions his logbook of executions a couple of times, which is back at his house in East Tenebrae. I head there, and sure enough, it has been updated to include Bentic's execution. It notes that: "The confiscated research is secured in the dungeon evidence chamber for further review to determine the presence of additional conspirators." Does the game really want me to find out the specific reason Bentic was executed? It strikes me that Mordea and Salkind aren't above just executing people on any old trumped-up charge.

     

I find a book in his desk that I missed the first time (or else it wasn't there before). It's called "Enemies of Tenebrae" and lists nearly everyone in Tenebrae.

      

These people seem more like victims of Tenebrae.

      

I toss the place, looking for a key to the dungeon. I'm almost surprised when I find a key under a pot. I find another one under a cloth in his bedroom. Unfortunately, they seem to open a door and chest within his house. The chest has several scrolls and 300 obsidian coins.

       

Damn. I really do need to move everything in this game, don't I?

          

I return to the dungeon and verify that the keys have nothing to do with those doors. I waste a lot of time tossing the dungeon and the palace, looking for the appropriate key. I do find the key to the armory (under a pillow in the barracks), but there's nothing I really want there. I wish I had found it earlier.

         

I think I prefer when the Avatar spoke in keywords rather than questions.

       

Determined to accomplish something this session, I return to Vividos. (Lothian's body is still just lying on the altar.) "I have found your reagents," I say. Vividos praises me and gives me the "Key of the Caretaker." which despite its name is a fairly large staff. He says my next task is to visit the Catacombs, which will require the "Open Rock" spell, cast on the rock face to the north of the Tomb of Moriens. He outlines the process for casting spells as such:

      

You must place the proper reagents in a bag, close the bag, and then invoke the power of the Key [of the Caretaker] on the closed bag. When you open the bag, you will find a magic talisman within. When you invoke the magic of the talisman, you cast the spell.

       

That's a little convoluted, and it requires a free bag. I had hoped to just keep all my reagents in one bag, but I guess that's not going to be possible. "Open Ground" requires Blood and Blackmoor, according to Earthen Magic, and I have both from Vividos's own office. I empty out one of my bags, give it a try, and soon I have an "Open Ground" talisman. Now I want to know whether the system really requires a bag, or whether any container works. In a pinch, could I just hold the reagents in my hand and use the Key on it?

      

Casting the spell on the reagent bag.

      

Vividos also says that I'll need to learn from the ancient necromancers buried in the Catacombs, and for this, I'll need "Death Speak," which requires Blood and Bone. I have two vials of Blood and two piles of Bone shards, but I suspect I'll need more. Hoping I'll find more in the Catacombs themselves (which in retrospect is probably stupid), I move on.

       

North of the Tomb of Moriens, I thought a ghost was blocking the exit to a new area. I see now that he's just blocking the gate to a building. I manage to kill the ghost this time; my strength and dexterity both hit their max of 25 during this battle. 

   

I enter the building and use the talisman on the stone wall, which opens to reveal a cavernous entrance.

        

I guess I should have assumed it would open at the end of the middle path flanked by busts of Lithos.

        

I start exploring the Catacombs. Encounters:

   

• Skeletons and ghouls. The skeletons are remarkably persistent here, following me from room to room, and rising even if I'm nowhere near their corpses. It would be nice if I were taught some kind of spell to kill them permanently.  

     

Slain by the undead.

       

• Holes in the walls shooting fireballs.

• Levers that open gates.

• A lever that flips the entire world upside down; I consider playing like this for as long as it will let me, but it gets annoying fast.

     

I need to test the limits of this.

       

• Pits that suddenly open up in the floor, requiring me to climb out. Some of these open into pools of lava or acid or something, which means I'm trying to climb out, which is hard enough, while taking damage. I die repeatedly from these.

      

I think I like it better in here.

         

• Gates that shoot electricity between them.

• An enormous pile of skeletons, not to mention all the ones in loculi on the walls. None of them seem to have anything. Eventually, I stop checking.

• I bypass a closed gate by climbing over a pillar.  

      

I just realized I probably could have jumped up on that roof from here. I'll have to go back and try it.

       

• I reach a plaque that reads "Hegland Hegwood." I think this might be one of the ancient necromancers, but when I cast "Death Speak" on any of the bodies in the area, nothing happens. Ditto with "John of Garland."

• A plaque reads, "Danger, do not enter." I enter anyway. The room beyond has "strange holes" in the floor that spout jets of flame if I get too close. I skirt them and grab a bag from the floor, which I really need.

• A two-story building has a chest on the top. Getting up there takes some real effort (I have to climb some nearby ruins). It has a Scroll of Trap Detection and several fire gems. I still don't really know whether they're spell reagents or valuables. I have a lot.

     

A great leap forward.

       

I really wanted to finish the Catacombs before posting, but alas, I ran out of time, and I wanted to keep my normal schedule. If I break the pattern, before you know it, I'll be on "hiatus." Thus, we'll have to resolve these plot points next time. 

    

I did find myself enjoying the game a bit more this time around. In my most recent entry on Ravenloft, VK noted some similarities between it and Pagan. It's an apt comparison. Both feature depopulated, depressing worlds run by tyrants and full of undead. Both have vacant houses and a general sense that the world's best days are behind them. I think the problem that I have with Pagan is that I've lost faith in the development team when it comes to the integrity of their storytelling. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to regard all the empty mansions as a sign of a society that keeps executing its citizens or whether I'm to regard them as a sign that Origin ran out of time before it fully populated the world with NPCs.

      

This session, I had more fun as I realized I was giving Origin the benefit of the doubt. It does make sense if you compare Salkind's execution logbook with the vacant manors, for instance. It would just make more sense if more NPCs seemed to realize that their society is past the point of recovery. Anyway, I'll try to keep on in this more positive vein.

   

Time so far: 18 hours

   

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

   09/08/2026  

Ravenloft: Town Without Pity

Summer is a bit slow on the uptake.

       

Last session, the servants of Lord Dhelt of Elturel chased a burglar into a forest to retrieve a holy symbol that he stole. They killed him, but shortly after they retrieved the symbol, they were transported through a mist to the Svalich Woods in an alternate dimension. There, they started to hear about the enigmatic ruler of the place, Count Strahd von Zarovich. They found a couple of companions, but the ranger Quill was poisoned in a fight, prompting the adventurers to cut short their exploration of the Old Svalich Road South and head directly to the village of Barovia, hoping to find a cleric, temple, or potion that would cure the condition.

      

It becomes clear quite quickly that this isn't the kind of friendly "service town" of many RPGs. It is depressed and deserted. Most of the buildings are deserted; some are boarded up; the few people on the street refuse to talk with us. Sound effects include shrieking cats, crying babies, and howling beasts. Summer compares it to towns in the Forgotten Realms that had been ravaged by war.

       

This man has nothing to say to us.

        

We explore in east-west strips (despite Summer's suggestion below). Encounters:

   

• As we enter, the paladin Summer suggests we try to find "its first citizen, a mayor, burgomaster, or such," maybe in a large, prominent building near the edge of town.

• There are four "Strahd skeletons" (skeletons on poles with notes pinned to their chests advising the reader to follow Strahd's laws) clustered right at the entrance. Jeez, man, we get it. And how did you duplicate the same exact handwriting on so many notes? 

     

The desolate streets of Barovia.

         

• A house with a skeleton. It has a broadsword, shield, and two throwing daggers.

• Some warehouses in the southwest are empty except for barrels and boxes that I can't interact with. Fhalken explains: "Trade has become a forgotten art in Barovia. Few travel, and fewer still can afford to transport valuables from place to place."

    

What could possibly be after "contact manager at"? A phone number?

        

• Three broken ones (a grotesque, humanoid enemy) attack as we enter a deserted building. I try a few times, but I can't kill them without losing someone. We leave it for later.

• Several houses have people sitting in chairs, but they refuse to say anything to us.

• One old woman does speak with us, but only to make mad rantings.  

      

Someone's off her medication.

        

Summer notes that we're committing burglary when we enter some of the buildings. I wonder if these comments are tied to her class (paladin) or alignment. 

      

Summer rationalizes our trespasses.

        

• We're attacked by a brigand as we enter one house. We kill him and find a stairway down to a lower level behind him. The map shows us in the "Lesser Catacombs Beneath Barovia." However, we soon run into a locked door and cannot continue. 

• Items found in miscellaneous houses: battle axe, spear, Potion of Speed, Scroll of Raise Dead, broadsword, Potions of Extra Healing, Scroll of Negative Plane Protection, Scroll of Fortify, Scroll of Fireball, Scroll of Neutralize Poison, dagger, Oil of Fiery Burning, Keoghtom's Ointment, chain coif, chainmail, Wand of Fireballs, white robe, bow and a bunch of arrows, shield, warhammer, footman's pick, lots of stones. I slowly identify them with "Improved Identify"; when finished, I have several swords +1 and a warhammer +2.

• There are a lot of cats curled up in the vacant houses.

• An attractive, noble-looking woman in a vacant house offers to join the party. Her name is Tatian. She's a Level 4 neutral good half-elf fighter. As we don't really need another fighter, we leave her there.

      

An unnecessary fighter.

         

• The party members frequently comment on how bleak everything is.

        

I want to know what evil party members have to say.

           

Brigands and darklings attack as soon as night falls. They're not hard to kill, but their sheer number threatens to overwhelm us. It becomes clear that we're going to need to rest at night. We can't sleep while Quill is poisoned, but a commenter alerts me that Keoghtom's Ointment cures poison. I waste it on that purpose, continue on, and then Quill gets poisoned again by a broken one. Of course, I accidentally save while he's poisoned, forcing me to reload from almost the beginning of this session. 

      

Bandits roam the night.

        

True to what the manual promised, Fhalken and Velika cannot attack the moment we enter an indoor area. That limits Fhalken's utility considerably. I hope I'll meet a cleric or another mage soon.

   

Velika can at least cast her spells. The game freezes during spellcasting, allowing accurate targeting. "Magic Missile" is as useful as always.

   

Continuing on:

      

• A large house crawling with broken ones has something I can't quite identify in one of the squares. It looks like wriggling green vines descending from the ceiling.

 

What the hell is this?

        

• An old man with an eyepatch sitting in front of his fire. In poetic language, he introduces himself as a fallen paladin facing an impending death. We ask what we can do to help, and he asks us to find a holy symbol he abandoned in chambers beneath the village—presumably the Lesser Catacombs we found earlier. He tells us to take the footman's pick (which we've already found) and use it to dig west of a stump to find the key. He promises us multiple magical items if we return with the symbol. We later find the stump and the key.

     

I think if I were a paladin trapped in a pocket dimension, ruled by an immortal vampire, I'd lose faith, too.

      

• A tavern seems to be open. It offers several NPCs. The first is a woman with a masked face and an unmasked chest. She rebuffs our attempts to get to know her, saying only that she wants to get out of Ravenloft.

    

So that's why this town is so desolate: COVID.

        

• A Vistani—presumably the one we met earlier—offers to sell a potion that will allow us to escape the fog for 15 coins. Since I don't have a single coin, I have to decline. He suggests he'll take us to his camp if we allow ourselves to be blindfolded. I leave this for later.

• The innkeeper is named Bray Martikova. He welcomes us to the tavern and has quite a lot to say. Strahd's laws are to pay taxes and anything else Strahd wants; Strahd's castle is to the north, but hardly anyone sees him; we should talk to the burgomaster. We do not, curiously, have any options to order a drink or a room.

     

Wait. Helm is a deity in this setting, too?

         

• There are rooms where we can rest, though since we can rest anywhere, that's not much of a boon. The inn has an entire second floor with nothing of value that we can find. 

• A resident is mourning his dead son. I think he might be the same guy we already encountered in the forest. 

• The buildings have a fun set of decorations, like statutes and paintings. The image below gives some examples of this environmental art. On the negative side, hardly anything is interactive. 

         

Some of the game's environmental graphics.

       

Summer feels a dark premonition before we enter a house. We're confronted by the ghost of a jeweler named Strobel. A gang of thieves entered his house one night looking for jewels. Although he handed them over, the leader of the gang, Grymig, killed Strobel and his family. Later, Grymig somehow escaped death and lives in the cemetery as the Lord of Ghouls. He demands that we avenge him and possesses Summer to ensure that we do so.

     

The once-humble jeweler possesses Summer.

        

This seems like something we'd better resolve, so we discontinue our explorations of the town and try to figure out where this cemetery is.

   

We leave town via the north gate and find ourselves in the Old Church Grounds, which seems to be promising. The large map has a large church on it and one exit, maybe to the cemetery, but it seems to be locked. Seeking the key, we enter the church. Strobel warns us that if we dally too long, he'll tear Summer apart. 

      

Note how the game depicts possession.

        

"Cherish and obey the land but defy it not," reads a message on the wall of the church entrance. Unfortunately, that's as far as we can go. The door beyond is locked. We don't have the key. We look around the area a bit, trusting that the automap will show us if we've missed something, but we don't find anything.

      

That doesn't seem like a "but."

       

I generally like to deal with what happens to me, but I don't want to be another three hours into the game and suddenly have Strobel lose his patience, so I reluctantly reload from before his possession and skip his house.

   

With the paladin's key, we open the door in the Lesser Catacombs. Immediately on the other side of the door, we run into a living wall: a grotesque, undulating assemblage of faces and limbs. (Summer: "By Helm and Lathander both! What is this thing?") Fortunately, it's static. After it wallops us in melee range, we stand back and use the old "throw the dagger and pick it up again" trick to kill it slowly, but with no damage to us. A fireball roars down the corridor towards us from a distant source on the other side, but we manage to dodge it.

     

The old "picking up the same knife and throwing it repeatedly" trick works on this living wall.

       

It takes me a couple of hours to clear the dungeon, which is swarming with wererats and plenty more of those living walls, blocking access to rooms until I destroy them. Fireballs shoot down corridors frequently, requiring me to dodge or suck up the damage. 

     

Wererats attack as I enter this room.

        

Fhalken is useless in the rear rank, so I reluctantly give Quill a composite longbow and quiver, then have him switch places with Fhalken. This allows everyone to participate in battle (Velika has throwing daggers), but picking up all the items afterwards is no fun. 

 

I ultimately have to find two keys, which open the way to a central chamber where the holy symbol resides.

     

What do you suppose a "winged" holy symbol depicts?

        

Back on the surface, the old paladin is grateful for the artifact. True to his word, he opens an adjacent room, in which I find a paladin's sword +3, a paladin's dagger +2, an adamantite chain helm, and an Arrow of Slay Undead. I'm glad I took a paladin. 

      

The reward room. Note how everything in the game is on the floor. Although the buildings have shelves and tables, it does not appear they're capable of holding objects the player can pick up.

    

I have to wrap up this session early. I had meant to talk to the burgomaster. I guess that will wait for next time. Ravenloft  is growing on me, certainly more so than Pagan. I still don't like the controls, but it has a solid atmosphere, with a Dantean sense of talking to people who are already dead but perhaps don't know it. I look forward to seeing where the plot goes.

   

Time so far: 7 hours
   

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

  09/05/2026