The Fates of Twinion: A Bunch of Filler

 

These are the most terrifying-looking dark elves in any game so far.

           

At least once every long game, I like to do an extensive walkthrough for at least one map or level. As I sat down to this session of Fates of Twinion, I decided that this was going to be that session. It turned out to be the laughably wrong map for this kind of approach, as we'll see, but by the time I figured it out, I had already typed so much that I don't want to go back and re-write it.

      

We open with the hero, a Level 13 male orc ranger of chaotic alignment, entering the keep. I need 11,995 experience points for my next level. I have already defeated the queen's proving grounds and have been tasked with finding the four pieces of a map, at least one of which will be found in the Kingdom of the Night Elves. I carry a silver bow, a war-hat, a breastplate, and a blood shield. In my backpack, I have four scrolls of protection, four elixirs of health, and a mana elixir. I have 52,972 gold, but not much to spend it on.

            

This is the map that I start out discussing here.

        

From the "Main Entrance" (L1), I turn right and enter a door with the Queen's Key. "Find your fate in the portal east of here," a message suggests as I pass by. In the hallway beyond the door is another message: "Destiny awaits. It will be here for you when you are ready." One step away is a portal with yet another message: "Enter the Kingdom of the Night Elves . . . and beware."

       

Aren't the "night elves" the fairies that helped the shoemaker?

      

On the other side of the portal, I find myself on map L4: "Night Elf Ingress." From here, I'll switch to coordinate-based annotation, with coordinates from A1 (southwest square) to P16 (northeast).

 

A1: Arrival. Nothing special for a few squares, as I follow my usual "hug the right wall" pattern. Speaking of wall patterns, the textures suggest mortared stone.

 

C2: My first battle of the map, with 2 wraiths. They kill me. On a reload, they kill me again. They can do up to 250 damage per round, less if I can get "Energy Field" (through my Scroll of Protection) cast, but they typically go first. They also have their own "Aura" spell, which reduces my attacks to 0 for a few rounds. (I'm convinced there's a bug by which this spell sometimes never wears off. I've had a few battles where I went round after round and couldn't do any damage at all until I just quit the game.)

        

It's nice for the wraiths to bring a torch.

           

Fortunately, on my third reload, there's only one of them, and I'm able to kill him in three rounds. 

     

D1: A locked door. None of my keys work. (Technically, lockpicks, but they look like keys.) This means I have to go back through the wraiths. They get me this time.

   

F7: Starting here is a long east-west chasm on the north side of the passage. Falling into the chasm means instant death (I had to try once). I don't believe the game offers any kind of jumping ability or spell, so I suppose I'll have to come at this area from the other side. Meanwhile, on my side of the chasm are a number of single-square cells.

         

I think the artists could have been clearer that this is a chasm and not a carpet, canal, or trackbed.

        

G6: An "old seafarer" occupies this cell. "Beware of Lake Despair," he warns me. "Many a foolhardy adventurer has sunk into its treacherous depths. A special jacket helped me cross the lake once, but I lost it somewhere in the dungeon." I guess I'll have to find that. 

     

As I continue to move forward, I note that this dungeon is mercifully free of battles. I've only fought the one against the wraiths so far.

   

N6: A thief named "Snicker" tells me that he has two brothers. "Courtesy is very important to all of them. One will show you the true path to what you seek. But all are fond of red gems." When I enter this square again, Snicker steals a few hundred gold from me but gives me a Ring of Thieves, which he says will show paths that I "might have missed without its magic."

        

My first ring of the game!

       

P6: The path ends at a teleporter that takes me to L5: "The Enclave." I'm immediately attacked by a night elf monk, which has a lot of hit points. When I finally kill him, I get 150 gold and 800 experience points. That's a lot more experience than enemies on the previous levels, so perhaps leveling up won't slow to a crawl. Anyway, it's too early to be here—I want to finish the previous map first—so I "Teleport" back to town and re-enter the dungeon.

   

There were no other obvious ways to go in "Night Elf Ingress," so I hope that the Ring of Thieves opens some new options.

   

C4: There's a message that I didn't get the first time: "A few walls in this area seem to have been altered by construction." The ring finds a secret door in the adjacent wall space, at D4.

   

You have to watch carefully for this. If you don't go forward immediately, you have to do the search again.

      

Three "illusions" (they look like ghosts) attack while I'm fiddling around. They hit hard with "Lightning," "Confusion," and "Fireball" spells, but I'm able to kill them.

    

C6: Past the hidden door, my next encounter is with a wraith and 3 brown bats. Of the two, only the wraith is dangerous, and I make short work of them. More on combat in a bit.

   

D7: On the other side of a door, the view shows no wall to my right, but there was a wall on the other side when I was there previously. Sure enough, it's a one-way wall. I have to wind my way back to this position after testing it out.

   

D8: A message on a wall plaque reads: "SRAHMC," which anagrams to CHARMS. 

 

D9: A message on a wall plaque reads: "LALF." That anagrams to FALL.

        

Or ALLF.

         

E10: In front of a door, a battle with one "sinister wizard" and two "recluses." I believe both enemies are new for me. Since I'm not sure what they can do, I start off the battle using a Scroll of Protection, which casts "Energy Field," which protects against most attacks.  The recluses pound away 120 hit points and try to paralyze me, which fails. The sinister wizard casts "Death Darts" for 15 damage. I'm down to 372 from 565 hit points.

    

My ranger's default is a physical attack. I sometimes get somewhere with my own "Petrify" spell, but it's clear I can withstand at least a couple of rounds, so I doubt I'll need it. I attack the recluses first, and kill them both within two rounds. I'm down to 235. The wizard takes another two hits. I get 700 gold pieces and 1,200 experience, plus a Shaman Scroll, which I believe casts an offensive spell. It's my first of the game.

    

E9: In a room, a bard says, "Music will open new doors for you," and gives me a "Key of C." A wizard and a recluse are waiting for me again outside the room. I really wish that the game let you clear levels. I wouldn't mind if it re-stocked them after I left and returned, but I would like to not hit the same encounters repeatedly if I have to backtrack.

 

G10: At the end of a corridor, a plaque says "OT." I guess that's TO. Since it's a dead-end, I have to turn around, and guess what I have to fight again?

   

B8: There's a door here. "The entrance to Sneer's Pawn Shop" is locked, it says. None of my keys, including the "Key of C," open it.

     

A7: A "friendly but puzzled" ranger is trying to piece together the same clues I have, but he thinks a wizard has been tampering with them. He shows me a piece of paper on which he's written "SPAS." Maybe ASPS? Or PASS? PASS CHARMS TO FALL? CHARMS FALL TO ASPS? 

   

A3: Oh, here's another one: "EPRY." That's probably PREY, not PYRE, but either way it doesn't fit well into the sentence. 

   

F10: Searching for secret doors in the area, I find one here, next to the sinister wizard/recluse battle. The corridor on the other side has a teleporter that goes to "The Enclave" again.

    

D1: The Key of C doesn't open this door. I get killed by the wraiths nearby.

   

Back in the guild, I rise to Level 14. I add one point to "Defense" and one to "Agility." I started with "Strength" and "Defense" significantly higher than "Agility" and "Initiative," and I've basically kept the starting variance. Eight new spell points get evenly distributed. With 5 new skill points, I maximize "Stamina" and then pour the rest into "Intimidate." "Furtiveness," which allows a melee character to attack any rank, seems redundant with my bow. I don't find "Read Tracks" helpful, and I don't understand "Reverie." 

    

I need about 120,000 more experience points for Level 15. I re-stock on Scrolls of Protection, mana potions, and Elixirs of Health. I should note that potions are good for 10 sips each, so a backpack full of them lasts a long time. Eventually, I hope to be able to keep at least one Heal-All Potion with me at all times, since some enemies do more than 125 damage per round (which is what the Elixir of Health heals), but at 20,000 gold pieces, I can't quite afford it yet.

    

Unfortunately, this is where my plan breaks down, as I have nowhere else to go on Level 4, so I cannot complete my blow-by-blow account of the entire map. Through later exploration, I come to realize that the various maps on Levels 4, 5, and 6 are interrelated and probably cannot be solved in a linear order. 

         

As much as I mapped of "The Enclave."

       

Leaving behind two locked doors for which I do not have keys, I head towards L5: "The Enclave." I have three ways to get there from Level 4, and each dumps me in a different part of the lower map. I end up exploring three areas of "The Enclave" while only filling in about half of it:

   

• A southwest region of windy corridors. NPCs here are seeking a skeleton key and an emerald lockpick. There are a number of statutes to various gods, one unfinished ("perhaps you can come back later and see it completed"). A teleporter goes back up to Level 4, but not to "Night Elf Ingress." It goes to a different map: "aMAZEing."

      

One of the god statutes. En-Li-Kil was the final boss of Shadows of Yserbius.

         

• A middle-north region that has a bunch of single-square rooms surrounded by pits and lava. The series of rooms ends in a vault where a safe is secured with a diamond-shaped lock. A teleporter leads down to Level 6, as do several of the pits.

    

That was predictable.

         

• The Lake of Despair in the northwest corner. Despite the fisherman's warning not to navigate it without the special lifejacket, I do my best to map the entire thing, taking damage from every water square and dying from about half of the "land" squares. The "safe" land squares indicate that they're not "land" but rather the backs of underwater creatures. Anyway, I need to come back here when I have the jacket.

         

Exploring this area was a mistake.

       

Enemies on the level include gray oozes, ghouls, clay golems, flesh golems, druids, Mindarian zealots, and acolytes of Luapia. The golems, which usually attack in parties of three, give me a little trouble. Overall, though, my basic approach to combat hasn't changed for hours:

   

1. If I know from experience I can kill the enemies with regular attacks before they kill me, I just attack them until they're dead and then use my potions to heal.

   

2. If I can't kill them before they kill me, but they do less than 125 damage per round on average, I do #1 but stop to take a sip from an Elixir of Health (which heals 125 damage) every other round. 

    

This guy needs to come to his senses.

       

3. If I can't keep up with the damage from elixirs, I start off the battle with a Scroll of Protection to cast "Energy Field." I may need to refresh this during the battle.

 

4. If that isn't enough, I cast "Petrify" on the enemy stacks during the first couple rounds, then go to #1 or #2.

    

Trading spells with a wizard.

        

These four options cover 95% of the battles in the game, at least so far. Where I have trouble is when I meet enemies for which it doesn't work. Then I have to experiment with the more expensive items in the shop, like Shaman Scrolls, Scrolls of the Sun, Cursed Scrolls, Crystal Scrolls, and what have you. Sovereign Scrolls (18,000 gold) and Heal-All Potions (20,000) are too expensive for regular use right now, but that probably won't always be the case.

     

From "The Enclave," I choose to go back up to "aMAZEing," which is the last time that I'm going to spell it that way. True to its name, the level is a complicated maze of several branches. As with the previous two maps, I wasn't able to explore all of it during this session, but I got about 3/4 of it finished. 

          

That was forced.

        

New enemies include desperadoes, vampire sorceresses, Salosian zealots, winged pythons, winged asps, and knaves. Golems remained common enemies. Golems and vampire sorceresses were by far the worst, seemingly immune to any of my protection spells, highly resistant to "Petrify," and easily able to do more than 125 damage per round. When I faced more than one of either enemy, I only had a few rounds to do some serious damage. If they could get me down to 300 hit points or less, there was no way I could keep up with healing faster than they could deliver the damage. I fled a lot and died a lot. 

        

They're pretty, at least.

        

These were the encounters I faced in the order I encountered them: 

    

• An NPC who was trying to find the ballroom. "If I ever find myself there, I'll make sure I have the musical key ready." I assume this is another reference to the Key of C.

• A section of the maze where loose bricks kept falling on me and mists kept sapping my mana.

• An NPC thief with a black-and-white shield: "It's aMAZEing how this shield guards against the dangers of this maze." 

• A whirlpool that increased health and mana. 

       

This guy is not pretty.

        

• A square had a message that said "West: Chaos Only" and "North: Harmony Only," referring to two adjacent doors. My character was chaotic. I took a save and tried going north; I was punished by a loss of experience. Reloading, I went west (my character is chaotic) into a very hard battle with three vampire sorceresses. At the conclusion of the battle, I got a Chaos Guardian shield (which has a black-and-white pattern). There was also a secret message: "Do not enter the gardener's shed." By the time it was relevant, I forgot it.

• I guess maybe the Chaos Guardian lets me see some secret doors. I found one where there was a blank wall before, went through it, and discovered 25,000 gold pieces and a Glass Bow, the first weapon upgrade in many hours. There was also a Lance of Darkness, but I have no skill for that.

• An NPC Knight: "I have traversed the Night Elves' Domain and have found the locations of Snicker's three brothers. Now off to find the item they desire!" I assume that's the red gems I was previously told about.

      

A candy bar?

         

• Inside a bag, a scribbled note to another adventurer: "Rumor has it that the treasure might still be hidden in a safe." I suspect this relates to the vault in "The Enclave."

• An aging NPC magician: "Be sure to open all doors in the dungeon. I have learned many a spell by being curious."

• A worn journal suggesting I could become more skilled by scaling cliffs.

• Several teleporters that took me to inconvenient parts of the maze or to "Night Elves' Ingress."  

• A knight searching for a stone that will allow him to "detect what is otherwise undetectable." 

       

Sounds like something I need.

      

• A group of adventurers lugging ropes.

• A message in a room: "Some rooms should be accessed only by certain guilds, races, or alignments. Oft times you could lose something of value by not heeding a warning."

• A gardener's shed. I am "jumped by harmonic adventurers who steal 2,000 gold pieces."

           

Should have re-read my notes before starting this session.

      

• A series of messages on the walls written in different languages. The only one I can translate (I assume because it's in orcish) is "Use Coral before Topaz." 

• A locked door, "Manufactured by Aeowyn's Slateworks. Zembolinee Bromerique, Esquire." 

            

Note that it spells MAZE down the side.

        

I've almost finished this level when another teleporter sends me back to the beginning and saps any remaining energy I have to continue. I hit Level 15 about this point. It's been a while since I got any new spells or skills while leveling up, and that doesn't change now.

        

At an average of about 800 experience per battle, it will be a long while for the next one.

        

I'm aware this is a disjointed, boring entry that brings no resolution to any of its puzzles and serves more to help me track my notes than to entertain my readers. I apologize. I knew that if I didn't get something out there related to my progress with this game, my blog would continue to stagnate. 

      

Since my playing over the last couple of weeks has been so scattered, I really can't say whether I like the game or not. Several commenters have encouraged me to abandon it. While that's tempting, when I only have 15-30 minutes at a time to play, it's easier to fire up Twinion and map a dozen squares than to learn a new game from scratch. Final exams are next week; after that, I'll be able to take better stock.

   

Time so far: 25 hours