Citadel: Meditations in an Emergency

 

The heart of a dead star? Your mom? Pizza?

       

[Chet here. Sorry that I delayed the rest of Quirkz's entries. There are probably two more after this one, which will carry us through most of the coming week, when I will be traveling. I should be back to my own schedule by next weekend (10-11 October). Quirkz has been shy about linking to his non-CRPG Addict material, but given the favor he's doing for us, a little promotion is in order. See Quirkz's web site here, where you can learn about his various projects and publications.]

      

Guest post by Quirkz: 

      

As this session begins, I go use the wand I found last time (the second one) on Lady Synd. Some more of the crystal dissolves. 

    
Now that I have the elevator key, there are new paths in front of me. It will grant me access to several of those previously dead-end locations on six and seven, plus provide entry to every floor below that. I'm feeling pretty buff from my recent level increases.

       
The first ones to get it are those squirrels on the sixth floor, which turn out to be black dragons. Their breath bypasses my invisibility, but only occasionally. Caltrop beats one of them while accidentally dual-wielding one sword and one sack of coins. 900 gold is a sweet reward, but training is now up to 2-4,000 for one character, so I need much more than that.

     
I try the seventh floor next. I've been here before but had not been mapping. The interconnected tangle of corridors sprawls over the entire western half of the floor. Either I've missed a secret door, or the eastern half is detached. Other than maneuvering around a bunch of floor pits and finding one staircase down at the far end, there isn't much to it.

     
There is one unsolved riddle from a talking head. "What was once hot, then cold, serves good and evil alike, and can bestow death and honour?"  I tried IRON and STEEL with no luck. Maybe I should have tried SWORD. 

         

At one point, I am standing by a closed door, looking at the map, when the door bursts open and three cutthroats attack me. I didn't realize monsters could open doors, but clearly they can.

      
I'd rather use the elevator than the stairs for now, so I backtrack and take that to the eighth floor. The elevator gate here is not locked, unlike almost all the other floors, which makes me wary. I know an ominous invitation when I see one.

    
Most of the walls on this floor are see-through, like thick glass. There's a vague haze in the air showing where they are. It's not exactly hard to navigate around them, only slightly disorienting. The map tends to put ceiling holes at junctions, which does help spot them as you move. The main feature is you can see more things in the distance, sometimes tantalizing things you don't know how to reach.

     

There are walls on both sides of the square in front, plus a pit in the ceiling.

          

I find some black platemail and an hourglass. The shopkeeper doesn't offer much (especially for the armor) so I sell it unappraised and see it listed in the shop afterward as a cursed item with a 4 AC penalty. Good riddance. Not sure what to do with the hourglass, I stick it in a backpack. It has the feel of a quest item.

     
I belatedly discover a hidden room in the corner of the sixth floor that seems like a lost armory. It's loaded with gear, most of it low-value, including too many arrows. But it's got a couple of pieces with promising descriptions. For example, of three long swords, two have plain blurbs ("gray iron with leather-bound grip") while the third's info pane reads: "gold filigreed blade, jeweled hilt." We haul it all back to sell but end up keeping a lightly enchanted long sword, a shield +1, and a ring that lowers AC by 2. The ring goes to the wizard, of course, who was walking around at an unimproved AC 10. There's also another suit of plate mail in the shop finally, so I buy that to replace Wort's ring mail, improving his AC by 4.

      
Back at the eighth floor, I am busy prepping a new page of graph paper when we're jumped by enemies. It's a large, mixed group: two vampires, four elementals (earth, air, fire, water), and a giant lizard just for kicks. The vampires attack immediately, triggering some kind of visible and audible alert, but I've missed what it was. I have my invisible characters square off with them while the others spread out and take on the elementals. I get the message window open and see that the earth elemental is trying to suffocate me and the water elemental is trying to drown me. I become more wary, because while these might just be the wording of their attacks, I'm not sure if there's a chance of an insta-kill. It's a long fight with a lot of missed attacks on both sides, and it grants over 3,000 XP, two or three times more than the next largest battle I've seen. When it ends, I confirm DV was level drained, twice, and is now level 1. I check in town but there doesn't seem to be a restore option at the temple, and I don't have the money to mess with this, so I reload.

     
I take a look at the party's armor status and realize Mulk in the back just got all the upgrades and is -1, while DV up front is 3 and Jexica 5. Invisibility has been helping so far, but it's not everything. Knowing I'm likely to run right back into the same group of enemies in a minute, I retool and give DV the best stuff, hoping that will get him through the next fight unscathed. I also have the clerics memorize a "Faer" and a "Fortis Al" for combat benefits along with some "Gestuns" for damage. I haven't needed to rely on spells other than healing so far, but this seems like the time to get prepared.

    
Naturally, the next time I visit, that group is nowhere to be seen. I fight battles with some other common monsters and earn about 900 gold. This is enough to level Caltrop the fighter to 5.

     
On another outing, I have a disastrous mis-click in what should be an easy fight. Two characters are overlapping each other, and while trying to move one I instead end up activating Jexica's weapon and dragging it away from her, which in the game interface causes it to be thrown. You can throw almost anything, but in this case it hurls the +4 rapier in the direction of Siobhan and kills her in one hit. Sheesh. That's a reload. (It's also the second time this has happened.)

      
There's a plaque that lists the symbol-words for three fifth-level cleric spells, "Cural" (improved party heal), "Sanctifis" (extended bless), and "Freosan" (freeze foes). The manual only gave the words for the first three levels, but plaques have now provided the next two levels of spells for me. (The hintbook has them, too, but I'm ignoring that for now.)

   

Exactly twice, we will face these enormous white dragons. It seems like an under-utilized capability of the game. The big ones don't turn into tombstones when they die. They just sit there, which is confusing.

          

While I'm on the subject, this is my third core memory from the past. The game will eventually give me most of the other cleric rune combos, but it will confusingly leave out a couple that are in the hint book, plus there's an upcoming event that will make me think even the clue book is incomplete. So I set out to discover the secret spells on my own. I methodically made a list of every combination, starting with all the 2-letter words, and working up to every possible 7-letter word in the game (EEEEEEE, EEEEEEA, EEEEEEF, EEEEEEW, etc.). The short words were easy to do on the fly, but I kept losing count on the long words. So during a tornado warning, while we crouched in the dorm's basement hallway for an hour, I wrote out by hand the entire list. Then I went back to the game later and tried every single combination. Just memorizing that many elemental runes took decades of in-game time, and my characters aged tremendously. (I don't remember if this did anything.) What I do remember is I didn't find a single new spell.

       
I have wasted time doing more misguided things in my life, but this one is pretty well up there.

     

One locked door has a circle on the ground in front of it, like that fire trap from earlier. Wise to its ways, I fire an arrow at it, but nothing happens. Maybe I did it wrong? I shoot another arrow across the square to the door, and then one aimed at the circle's edge. Nothing. Gritting my teeth I step forward and it still doesn't trigger. What gives? I don't have the right key for the door and have to leave it for now.

      
In one corner I see foes lurking through the glass. More dragons. They're hazy but far sight pulls them up in sharp detail. I never find a way to get to them, though. 

      

Dragons, like undead, are best seen from afar.

       

Fights come along at a decent pace. Not frequent, but you can't let your guard down. Post-combat looting averages 400 gold pieces these days—an improvement, but managing the inventory is challenging. I no longer run home for healing, but now I have to run home every 3-4 fights to offload gear. Sadly, 900 cash won't even cover a third of a training session. One fight with four elementals (but no vampires this time) delivers 3,300 XP. Everyone might be ready to go up 2-3 levels; they just need gold. Very frustrating.

     
On the north side of the floor there's one 3 x 3 block of solid rock, with stairs going up on all four sides. One of these leads up to the down stairwell I found on 6 but didn't use before. I'm guessing the others lead to fragmented sections covering the remaining half of the seventh floor. I skip them for now.

      
The second half of the floor goes quickly, and again finding ways to carry gold is the only obstacle. I decide I'm going to leave helms and gloves back at camp, because they don't give much protection and take up a full inventory slot that could be a bag of gold. I get firebombed by the same laughing magician a couple of times. 

    
We find another magical shield and a "boomerang axe." Damage is listed as only 1-6, which is low for a weapon, but if it's reusable and can replace a bow (which consumes arrows, a limited resource that also takes up too much inventory space) it might be worth it. When I test in combat, the axe is consistently doing 6 and hitting often, while a few tests with bows do 0 damage. I'm not sure if some monsters are simply immune, but Siobhan is still using her starting dagger and doesn't have enough spell slots to be effective as a caster yet, so I give her the axe. Her aim isn't great (the line jiggles like crazy) but since it boomerangs she can do this repeatedly from outside melee range as long as no party members are too close to her.

     
I pop back up to 7 and try the riddle door one more time. It was SWORD after all. A secret door slides open.

     
Beyond it, I'm charged by some vaguely salamander-looking creatures with a weird name like "lermenysty." Nobody can seem to hit them, and it's 30 rounds before one lucky strike kills one. I start having characters try to throw their axes, and that seems to work better. I have a fuzzy memory of doing this in tight spots back in the 90s. I think there's something weird in the differences between melee and ranged combat, and for whatever reason missile weapons connect more often.

     

$10 for anyone who can figure out the etymology of "lermenysty."

            
If I had to speculate, I would guess that melee combat uses a typical D&D-style to-hit table, and my low-level characters are mostly whiffing against tough foes. But when it comes to throwing objects, since the game interface provides a visual interpretation of bad aim (low level and low dexterity make the throw line jump all over the place) I think that stands in for the to-hit calculation. If you miss a throw, it's because you literally missed the correct angle, but if your line of sight is true, it hits, regardless of your level or ability. That said, thrown axes do miss some of the time, but it's less than 25%, whereas melee attacks might only hit 5% of the time.

     
I return to 8 and try the other three stairwells back up to 7. I think what's going on here is on the 8th floor, the stairs are separate, but on the 7th it's one square that behaves differently depending on which direction you approach it from. (Looking at the hint book much later, it talks about a weird pyramidical staircase, which I guess is supposed to represent this, but I can't figure out how that's morphologically possible.)

      
I explored the north side before, so I go up from the west and end up in the east. It's a compact, zig-zaggy zone with a lot of mirror symmetry and floor pits laid out like the five pips of a die in one spot and a diamond in another. You need "Levitas" to hit all the squares, but you can loop through most of them with checkers-style jumping.

       
Fights seem tougher, even though I trained recently and have also done the other half of this level already. They hit me a little more often. I miss about 80% of the time. But it's still a slow bleed, easily fixed by a "Haelan" or its full-party version. As I've leveled up, it's started doing 4-6 per casting more often (rather than 2), and in a few more levels it will be healing 8 or 10 HP on some castings.

     
After a fight with a bunch of air elementals or dervishes, I get a scimitar called Defender, which conveys -4 AC and 10% magic resistance in addition to doing 2-10 damage. Pretty good. I give that to Jexica, who needs the armor boost, and move the +4 rapier to DV.

     
The section traces a long, winding path and ends in a floor pit, with not much else to show for it. Suspicious. I check the map for the floor below, and this pit lines up with an unexplored box, probably a single square. I don't like it, but I save and jump in.

    
On the ground is a skull wand, so this is clearly a necessary visit. But I can't get out! I try Levitas and check every command and option three more times, also scouring the game manual for any other suggestion, like a higher-level flying spell, but there's nothing. Maybe there's an item that will let me fly? I know I could "Wish" myself back home, but then the elevator would be trapped on the wrong floor. I think I could probably get back down via pits, but the whole idea feels both risky and unnatural. I have to be missing something. For now, it's a reload. I mark the spot for a future return.

    
I try the other stairwells. One takes me to a single empty square. Huh.
       

The fourth set leads to a winding zone with lots of pits to jump. The far end is a 7 x 7 section filled with pits. Far sight shows me something lurking in the middle of one solid square. I "Levitas" over and find two scrolls of "Levitas" (think you're funny, do you?), a statue, and a spell book. This is my third. It has a lot of spells filled in, including spells from levels 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Powerful stuff, if I can ever gain the levels to use it.

     
Another branch in this section leads to a single pit. This one, like the wand pit above, seems to be positioned over an unexplored square.  

      

I reconnoiter from the eighth floor. Peering through clear walls into this spot, I can see waiting treasure.

          

I feel like this is going to be another waste of time, but I have to check. In the hole there is an ivory gargoyle and three scrolls: "Cista" (magic chest), and two "Risans."

     
What the hell is a "Risan"? It's not in the manual, which is weird. Based on the name, it sounds an awful lot like it might be a flying spell. Is this what I've been looking for the whole time? I curse at the game for making this so obscure, and for the bad luck in jumping into the wrong pit first.

     
Like D&D, you can cast a scroll one time, which consumes it, or use the scroll to scribe it in the book, whence you can memorize it as many times as you like. Only a fool would allow a limited-edition, secret item to be destroyed. 

      
Siobhan studies "Risan." As the hours tick by, we get attacked by vampires. During the fight, DV is level-drained twice again, putting him back to first level. Worse, in the aftermath we find that the spell didn't make it into the book but the scroll is gone. It was destroyed by the interruption.

      
The manual told me there'd be days like this. You better believe that's a reload.

     
Back in the pit, I think smart and try to thin out the wandering monsters by having my clerics memorize some spells first. I'm interrupted three times in a row. They are tough fights, but no vampires. I'm seeing mind flayers and scanners—beholder ripoffs—along with other repeat enemies. The mix does seem partly randomized. After three interruptions, I try to scribe "Risan" again—it takes more hours than expected, like half a day—and I'm done! Now to memorize it.

     
Well, it's level 9. Siobhan is only level 5. She can't learn it. What the heck?

     
I guess that's why they gave me two of these scrolls. I invoke the remaining one, get out of the pit, and step clear. Two humanoid figures called "mantrees" attack. I've fought off some before, and they're dangerous because they sometimes cast a damaging area spell, "Flaming Hands." This time the two spam it so quickly and consistently half the party is dead before I know what's going on.
     

When the game has you cursing at it four times in ten minutes, it's time to step away for a while.

    

After a reload I ascend again without getting attacked this time, and rush home to save.

    
In camp, the gargoyle burns Meanie when he tries to take it for appraisal. I think this is an alignment thing. It's the first time I've seen it applied.

     
I sell the other statue for 2,900. I have to give the gargoyle to a neutral character to sell. It appraises for 8,000 but I can only sell it for less than 6,000 due to lower mien. Still, this is the most money I've seen in about three floors and three game hours. Everyone is so far behind on training it's not funny.

     
I have enough money to train either three base classes (cleric, fighter, wizard) from 5-6 or to get two premium class characters from Levels 3-4. I'm starting to regret the premium classes. I figured the greater XP requirements would slow them down but didn't imagine cash would be such a bottleneck. I pick the larger group.

     
Caltrop goes from 33 to 42 HP, Wort from 21 to 26. Siobhan gains a single point, up to 17. I'm worried her health is going to be a real problem. I confirm all three could go to Level 7 already if I had the money, and I'm guessing it's really 8, maybe close to 9, which is the level I need to be to memorize "Risan."

     
It's time to review my to-do list. With a few minor exceptions, I think I have explored all of floors 7 and 8 now. The remaining items include one locked door I can't get past and the pit with the wand. It bothers me that I still have roughly a third of the sixth floor remaining—the part with easy fights, lots of gold, and a magic dagger—but I can't get back out of that section without "Risan" or a "Wish."

     
It starts to dawn on me what the game probably intended for the order of my exploration. I was supposed to lose access to the elevator early. Doing the first five floors more or less in order was correct. As I ventured into floor 6, I would have regained access to the elevator. Then, because 6 and 7 were blocked, I was supposed to use the elevator to skip them and investigate floor 8 and proceed through it, climbing back up into 7 from there, only getting the elevator key right about now. The elevator grate being unlocked on 8 wasn't a trap: it was a feature. None of this requires a "Wish," either, and it flows fairly naturally, other than it offends my sensibilities to be doing things out of order. I guess that's how I know the big bad Nequilar is evil.
    

****

   

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10/07/2026