Shadow of Yserbius: The Ghost King

 

Fighting the ghost of King Cleowyn. Oddly, he doesn't seem to do anything once his companion ghosts are dead.

      

I was supposed to give up Shadow of Yserbius for this entry but, for whatever reason, I kept on playing. I kept making maps, hitting deadends, going in other directions, and making more maps. As I wrap up this entry, I'm Level 16 and I've explored various parts of 5 dungeon levels, for 20 total maps.

The dungeon is structured in multiple interconnected levels with multiple maps per level. The dungeon level isn't necessarily indicative of the difficulty of the monsters. I found the Pit Bottom on Level 5 far easier than Cleowyn's Palace on Level 2. Some of this is going to be redundant, but I didn't do much over the last 7 hours except map, fight, die, get kicked out of the dungeon, and enter it again.

        

The structure of the dungeon so far.

       

• The Dungeon Entrance (Level 1) is a half map with no encounters and exits to the Mines, the Hall of Doors, and the Soldiers' Quarters. The only thing undone on the level is a special door that I can only open when I reach Level 20.

• The Mines (Level 1) has some mazelike rooms on the periphery. Cleowyn's various keys are found here. An east door goes to the Vestibule and a pit drops you down to the Pit Bottom on Level 5. Once I hit Level 15, the spirit stopped saving me from falling down the pit. The only thing left to do here is yet a second door that says I have to be Level 20 to enter.

        

The "friendly spirit" seems to have disappeared.

    

• The Vestibule (Level 1) is that puzzle level I told you about last time. I guess the first door you open in the outer ring determines what doors open on the inner rings. The center of the map has four rooms, one with stairs down to the Palace Corridor (Level 2), another with stairs down to the King's Domicile on Level 4, but no combination of doors gets you to this room. I think you can only come up from the King's Domicile. A southern door leaves out of the entire area to the Hall of Doors.

• The Hall of Doors (Level 1) is a half-level with a bunch of doors and teleporters leading to the Basement (Level 2), the Dungeon Entrance, the Mausoleum (Level 3), and the Vestibule. 

        

The appropriately-named Hall of Doors.

       

• The Soldiers' Quarters (Level 1) is a former barracks with many locked doors and exits to the Prison (Level 3), the Treasury, and the Dungeon Entrance.

• The Treasury (Level 1) is a half level with a lot of trap doors dumping you to the Basement. If you can navigate past them, there isn't much of a treasure in the central chamber, just a bunch of combats. A teleporter goes to the Hall of Doors.

• The Basement (Level 2) is the receptacle for all the trap doors from the Treasury, plus stairs from the Hall of Doors and the Soldiers' Quarters. Stairs lead down to the Great Corridor (Level 3). There's a battle with a king hobgoblin in the southwest that I haven't been able to win, but I haven't tried for a few levels.

• The Palace Corridor (Level 2) has large, open hallways leading to Cleowyn's Palace. Much of the level is inaccessible, but an NPC hints that you can get to those areas from other areas. You need the Key to Cleowyn's Palace to take the main corridor; an alternate longer hallway just requires a lockpick.

• Cleowyns Palace (Level 2) is full of ghosts and banshees. I cannot survive banshees; no matter what I do, they kill me in the first round. However, last time I leveled up, I put points in a spell called "Light Shroud" that's supposed to protect against undead. I'll have to test whether it works. The throne room is full of trap doors that dump you to the Prison (Level 3). There's a pit in the center of the throne room that tosses you down to the King's Domicile (Level 4). If you sneak into the throne room via a back hallway, you can avoid the trap doors and fight a battle against the ghost of King Cleowyn and several other ghosts. It took me a few tries to win, but victory gives you the King's Ring.

      

Cleowyn's Palace has a fixed combat I can't get past, and I have no idea how to reach the southwest corner.

        

• Level 2 also has three Secret Rooms, accessible only from the Rune Room (Level 3), which I'll talk about more below.

• The Great Corridor (Level 3) has a wide hallway running around its circumference and maze-like rooms in the center. I've found exits to the Mausoleum, the Rune Room, and the Basement (Level 2). I haven't explored a lot of the interior. There's a guard in front of a door that demands the King's Pass to let you in.

• The Mausoleum (Level 3) is a giant crypt that I've only explored a little of. There's a teleporter here from the Hall of Doors (Level 1) and a southern exit to the Great Corridor. I believe it's the site of a major puzzle that I'll describe below.

• The Rune Room (Level 3) is a puzzle level with a cross-shaped set of rooms in the center. Many of the doors are locked, but they unlock when you exit the central cross in the same direction that the doors are facing. That means you have to go through the central room at least four times to unlock all the doors on the level. NPCs warn that you need the King's Ring to fully explore the level, and I think there are doors that don't appear unless you have it. More on this room below.

       

Going through the central switch in the Rune Room.

      

• The Prison (Level 3) has a bunch of old, empty jail cells. There are some locked doors I can't open and some battles with monsters in the cells that I can't win. NPCs that you find in the Prison indicate that they are stuck, but a pit leads down to the King's Domicile (Level 4), and a stair goes up to the Soldiers' Quarters (Level 1).

     

I have no idea what she means by "Rainbow Bridge."

     

• The King's Domicile (Level 4) immediately offers a locked door that doesn't open to any of my keys.

• The Pit Bottom (Level 5) is a small level (8 x 8) with an exit to the Lava Cellar and a door that says it requires the Lava Key. There's a healing fountain at the end of one corridor.

       

This was nice, but I keep plenty of potions with me.

     

• The Lava Cellar is west of the Pit Bottom. I have not begun to explore it.

     

NPCs on the various levels expand upon the story of King Cleowyn. Taken together, the narrative goes something like this: King Cleowyn was a cruel ruler who everyone hated, principally because he over-taxed his subjects. He was also the King of Thieves and thus fond of traps and lockpicks. He created mazes and puzzles to deter invaders, which was kind of a waste of time since Twinion was cut off from the rest of the world, so there was no one to invade. Cleowyn was obsessed with discovering the secrets of the wizard Arnakkian Slowfoot, whose carelessness had caused Yserbius to rise and bury the old castle in lava. Cleowyn built his palace in the mountain so he could search for information about Arnakkian. His search somehow led to his death, which was horrible, and Cleowyn's ghost now haunts the corridors of his own palace.

   

I stumbled on a quest to put Cleowyn's ghost to rest, most of it divulged in the Rune Room. Various messages and NPCs told me that I would need to return Cleowyn's crown, robe, and scepter to the Mausoleum, placing them in that order. The three southern staircases in the Rune Room lead to three separate Secret Rooms on Level 2, each of which has a door that must be opened with one of the three Rune Keys found in the Rune Room. I assume that each Secret Room will have one of the three artifacts. 

        

I use the "Read Runes" skill to decipher a tapestry.

      

After that, I'm not sure if I'll also have to find Cleowyn's bones; an NPC in the Mausoleum says they're "guarded by snow elves," but I'm not sure if they're guarded in place, or if I'll have to find them one place and bring them back to the Mausoleum.

     

As I explored this last session, I fled combats a lot more often than I previously did, which I hate to do--but not as much as I hate restarting from outside the dungeon every 10 minutes. I'd normally rather grind a previous level and get stronger than flee, but that's not really a possibility anymore, now that I have to earn close to 200,000 experience points between levels. (A tough battle might give me 1,300 experience points but most are less than 500.) I've been marking locations where I've had to flee fixed battles, lest I'm missing some particular treasure.

        

I got killed twice from this fixed combat and had to save it for later.

     

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• Skills seem to cap at 12 points. The game won't let me put any more points into those skills, anyway.

• I sure wish there was a way to buff before combat begins. I hate having to waste the first round on "Shield."

• The Rune Room offered the first combats to use four of the six enemy slots. I wonder when I'll meet a party that fills all six of them.

         

These guys weren't very hard.

     

• I rarely use skills in combat. It strikes me that they'd be much more useful in a proper multi-character game.

• It was nice to see so many pillars in Cleowyn's Palace. Games (and films, literature, etc.) that propose vast underground spaces need to address how the load is being borne. 

     

I suspect these pillars are just decorative, though.

      

• Every time I find something that seems like an equipment upgrade, I take it back to the town and find that the stuff I already had is worth more (and it doesn't seem to have any better effect on my statistics). The one exception was a Sword of Radiance that I found this time; it was worth more than my Sword of Flames.

      

I thought maybe the Rainbow Chainmail or the Plate of Iron would be better than the Armor Suit, but wow, not even close.

      

A typical combat still starts with me casting "Shield." It never works the first round, and I still don't know if that's because of initiative or because that's just how the spell works. After that, if there are only a few enemies, I go right into physical attacks. But if there are more than two stacks, or more than two enemies in a stack, I typically cast "Poison Cloud" on them and let it soften them up while I engage the smaller stacks in melee. Sometimes, the spell does its work in just a couple of rounds and kills all of them. 

        

Wyverns showed up as a new enemy in the Secret Rooms.

       

The biggest problems I have in combat are with enemies that cause confusion or paralysis, which often lets them attack me with impunity round after round until I shake it off. None of the spells ("Energy Field," "Aura," "Resist") or skills ("Deflect Magic") that are supposed to help me against these effects ever seem to work.

   

I'm afraid those 1,800 words are the best I can do from the last 7 hours. The game is very slow-going and unrewarding for a solo player. And yet I'm now determined to at least see this quest to the end.

   

Time so far: 20 hours