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 

 

Excelsior: IND 203

 

Is it ethical to murder someone to free others from slavery?

      

Things have gotten complicated in Lysandia, so much so that I thought it might help to start mapping out the steps of the main quest. I don't know why I haven't done this in more games. Most titles have been relatively linear, but there are a few (perhaps most notably the Ultima and Might and Magic series) that would benefit from this type of organization.

  

This is where I am at the end of this session:

      

You'll probably want to click to enlarge.

      

This session begins with one of those coincidences that, if I were you, would make me skeptical that I wasn't using cheats. I didn't know where to proceed next on my quest to find the ingredients for the Elixir of Capital Power, save one (the "liquid light" was at the bottom of the Forgotten Pits), so I decided to just explore places that I hadn't explored yet. In the first place I explored, I found exactly the PC I needed. Play enough of these games and those sorts of things just happen.

   

The dungeon in question was on an island in a lake south of Castle Excelsior. I didn't even write down the name. It was only two levels, with no major puzzles. The first level was full of undead enemies and doors.

           

Working my way up.

        

The second level led me to a little arbor and the hut of a chemist named Hugh Windwell-Crumb. He offered to prepare a chemical mixture for me "at no charge, simply because I enjoy my work so much." He asked for the ingredients that I wanted to include. It turned out that he already had the first three: dragon tears, chimney soot, and black ice. He balked at liquid light, though ("one of the most potent and rare substances known"). He told me that to collect it, I would need a spun-diamond goblet. "See Alexis, a glassblower found in Davinhoven."

      

Approaching Davinhoven.

       

I didn't know where Davinhoven was, so I popped by Castle Infinitum and consulted with the cartographer. He said it was a dungeon along the northern coast. I found it without much trouble.

   

Davinhoven was a fairly large, square dungeon. It may have had three or four levels. I didn't write it down. On one level, a sign alerted me that the "D.S.C' was nearby. This turned out to be a "dual-shot crossbow," found behind a secret door. It shoots twice, but not for as much damage as my Retribution Sword.

        

And you have to maintain a quarrel supply.

         

Eventually, I found my way to a forge with an NPC standing nearby. She introduced herself as Alexis and said that to spin the goblet, I'd need to bring her fine sand from the southern tip of the Sandbar near Farborough. 

     

What does "spun-diamond" even mean?

     

Before heading there, I explored a level below Alexis and found a house occupied by an evil wizard named Fevez. "Begone!" he demanded, and I did, but only after looting his house of a couple of potions, a magic wand, and a spell with the code "DF." I have no idea what it does, as it requires more than 60 magic points to cast.

   

Back on the surface, I sailed my boat to Farborough and tried to figure out which of the islands in its vicinity was the "sand bar." I was smart enough to try digging with my shovel instead of just L)ooking or G)etting, and sure enough, I turned up some sand. Back in Davinhoven, I paid Alexis for the goblet.

       

I hasten coastal erosion.

           

With the goblet in hand, I returned to the Forgotten Pit. Since I had already explored down to the fourth level, I just used "Instant Descent" to get there quickly. The "liquid light" was a river that I had previously taken for lava. Perhaps that's what it is.

      

I hope that goblet has a lid.

      

I took the ingredient back to Windwell-Crumb, and he created a potion. "I'm not quite sure what you've got here," he admitted. "Use it sparingly, for the last of my black ice was included in this mixture."

     

I suspect I'll save it for "that one big battle" and never use it at all.

        

With no other leads, I returned to Intungo and the Resistance base beneath it. Ambora was delighted and referred me back to the leader, Sebastian. "We have isolated three items needed to restore the King to his natural self," Sebastian said. To wit:

   

• The Gem of Severance. A geologist in Woodshade named Nargausius knows about it.
• A Crystal Jar. Gnona, "found in the dangerous city of Grethal," knows more.
• An unknown item. They're still researching it.

             

Finally, something that sounds like the main quest.

      

I wasn't sure where to find Grethal, so I went after Nargausius first. He said that the Gem of Severance is "created by the combination of a small stone made of pure good with one of pure evil." To forge it, I have to take the two gems to a statue to an ancient god "deep underground." The worse news is that to create the gems of good and evil, I have to find pure representatives of each alignment and sacrifice them. He pointed me to Xoxiro in Burroughs to learn about the two people. 

   

A trip back to Castle Infinitum's cartographer alerted me that Grethal is a monster city, surrounded by mountains, on a western island. I found it without too much trouble. It is indeed inhabited by gremlins, goblins, and such, but it otherwise offers the same services as a human town. I couldn't understand most of the NPCs and worried that I'd have to find a way to speak with them, but fortunately when I found Gnona, she spoke in my language. She recognized me immediately as a Fixer but said she'd keep my secret. The jar, she said, is behind the magic fire at the edge of the world, but to retrieve it, I'd need a purely mechanical device from Karth Whitlaw.

      

Most of the "dialogue" in this town.

       

Fortunately, I knew where Karth Withlaw was from previous exploration: living on an island north of the continent. He had a solution for me: a mechanical cockatiel, like Bubo in Clash of the Titans. Unfortunately, he'd not only broken the key to the cockatiel, but he'd lost the mold for the key to a gambler in Pibsly. The key, moreover, would have to be made of pure eramel.

   

With a growing number of places to visit, I went to nearby Pibsly, where the gambler sold me the iron mold for 250 gold pieces. Next, I exchanged my ship for my horse and rode south to Keep Flare, where I had long ago heard that pure eramel was kept.

      

Dismounting my horse to enter the keep.

      

Level 1 of Keep Flare just had a bunch of enemies. Level 2 offered a puzzle. A bunch of signs had messages, culminating in this riddle: "How many small sacks can you fill with the gold that you receive between a quarter hour after noon and a quarter hour after midnight?" Individual signs held the clues:

   

• A small sack can carry one short of a dozen and four score gold coins.
• I give you one gold coin the first time the minute hand crosses the hour hand on a thirteen hour clock. 
• I give you twice as many as the previous time thereafter. 

          

This is a tough sentence to parse.

        

So a sack can carry 91 coins. The first time the minute hand crosses the hour hand on a 12-hour clock after 12:15 is around 13:05. I assumed the third clue means that I get twice as many gold coins as the previous time each time the hour hand crosses the minute hand, which on a 12-hour clock would be 11 more times, ending at 00:00. That would give 1*2^11 = 2048 coins, or 2048/91 = 22.5 bags. But that didn't work; neither did 22 or 23. I can't wrap my head around how to tell time on a 13-hour clock, but I assumed it would add one more crossing to the mix, tried 45 bags, and got it right.

     

On Level 3, I found a group of elves living in a small group of rooms. One of them, Oyo, explained that an enchantress named Medrabempo had cursed them with a condition that makes sunlight lethal, then offered them "sanctuary" in her tower as a pretense to enslave them and make them mine eramel. Oyo asked me to kill Medrabempo.

  

I found the sorceress on the next level, surrounded by wyverns, demons, undead, and dragons. She mocked me as I approached, saying that I'd be a good test subject for her new spell, "Medrabempo's Curse of Terminal Sneezing." The game said she hurled spells at me, but if she ever hit me with the spell, I never saw its effects. I killed her in a couple of blows. Her treasure chamber had some nice weapons, but still nothing better than my Retribution Sword.

     

The elves were happy to be freed and, more importantly, opened the way to the chamber with the eramel. 

         

I mean, you could sell it.

      

My next stop was the nearby village of Burroughs, just to the south of Keep Flare. I needed to find Xoxiro, who supposedly had the names of the paragons of good and evil, both of whom I would have to kill to make the Gem of Severance. I wasn't looking forward to that. Xoxiro turned out to be a stuttering ranger. He said the people I was looking for were a friar "who has committed not an evil act in his life"; I could find him in Keep Royal. The paragon of evil is Fevez in Davinhoven. I had already met both of them on my first visits to those towers.

     

I want to know exactly how he stuttered on the "X."

       

Instead of heading directly to either dungeon, I turned my attention to forging the eramel key, now that I had both the mold and chunk of eramel. While I was looking through my notes for something else, I had noted an NPC named Balzan in South Blagsell. "If you ever need anything forged out of any metal," he said, "feel free to stop by." I took him up on that now, and he was able to make an eramel key, but at the cost of the mold. "I should have anticipated this," he said. "Since I did not, I will not charge you for my services."

      

That's a true professional.

      

For whatever reason—because it was closest, I guess—I went to Royal Keep next and visited the "pale-skinned friar" where I had previously found him, sequestered at the end of a long room that looked like a dining hall in the royal prison. "Please do not speak to me," he begged. "News of the outside world can have an evil influence on those devoted to the good." When I explained the need for the gemstone, he seemed to accept it. "It is my life's calling to die before committing a single act of evil, and obviously the longer I live, the more difficult this becomes. Therefore, in a way, I wish to die now, though there is only one purely good and ethical way for me to allow this to happen." This turns out to be with a sacrificial dagger dipped in holy water, wielded by another person. He said a priest "in a dungeon" whose name he couldn't remember could help me with the holy water. Fortunately, I met him in the Forgotten Pit.

  

The encounter with the friar raises all kinds of philosophical issues. In Lysandian ethics, or at least this friar's, "good" is purely an absence of evil. This friar has earned the designation of "most good" by sequestering himself in a tower and refusing to interact with the rest of the world. If you've seen The Good Place, he's the equivalent of Doug Forcett, living off the grid and holding himself as inert as possible, walking slowly and carefully to avoid even stepping on an insect. An alternate take (e.g., Ultima's with its "Valor" requirement) is that the "most good" person would have to be an active agent in the world, even if it meant that some "evil" might result from mistakes or unforeseeable consequences.

     

I'm not sure that I understand the difference.

      

His avoidance of "sin" is also interesting. Is consenting to homicide so much different from suicide? And what difference in either case does holy water on the dagger make?

      

I hoped that Fevez would be a bit more straightforward. Since he's evil, I figured, I can just kill him. Unfortunately, the game wanted me to do a quest first here, too. Fevez said he would consent to the murder only if I first took care of his "bucket list" item to kill Lady Jasmine, leader of the Order of the Crescent. I've never met nor heard of her, so that's going to take a while. In the meantime, I tried just killing Fevez, but he didn't leave anything behind. I had to reload.

         

I wonder what "deal" I was going to offer him. "On one hand, I kill you; on the other . . ."

      

I next returned to the underworld via the magic fire on the island in the far northeast corner. Here, I maneuvered between flames to an obvious place to use the mechanical cockatiel and retrieve the Crystal Jar. I then returned the cockatiel and key to Karth, who rewarded me by telling me about his dual-shot crossbow, which I've already found.

           

A plank would have been too obvious?

     

Some other notes:

   

• I've found a variety of wands—magic, fire, and lightning—in various dungeons. They work well as ranged weapons, and I have to assume that they never run out of charges. The Retribution Sword still seems better for melee work, though.

• Combat continues to be annoying rather than dangerous. Even when enemies completely surround me, I can withstand them long enough to kill them and heal. A character with no spell points would have a difficult time with the game.

• I hit Level 9 just as I closed this entry. The magical orbs stopped increasing my attributes when they got to 50, which was a couple of levels ago.

         

My current character.

       

I'll also remark that it's unusual for a game to re-use its dungeons so many times. Usually, dungeons are good for a single quest and then you never return. Excelsior has brought me to several dungeons two or three times, each time going deeper or making use of some NPC who just had generic dialogue the first time. I find value in Excelsior's approach without necessarily committing to saying that it's "better."

 

This has been a decent game, but I really hope I can finish in one more entry.

 

Time so far: 25 hours  

The Fates of Twinion: Proven

 

I cannot tell from this image what shoulder she's looking over. It's a bit disconcerting.

         

As this session began, I had defeated the two maps of the Gauntlet and (almost) the three maps that make up the aqueduct/reservoir area. These areas together comprise Levels 1 and 2 out of heaven knows how many. 

    

The third aqueduct map was called Twinion's Falls. The area had a lot of spinners and illusory doors (i.e., doors that disappeared when I actually approached them). The purpose of the map was to find a switch that unlocked not only doors in this area, but also a pair of doors back in the Queen's Aqueduct that led to Level 3.

     

The development team does what it can, graphically.

           

Other encounters:

    

• Queen's guards blocked two corridors and attacked after I encountered them repeatedly. 

• A female NPC who I'd previously met in the reservoir area kept showing up. 

      

A better game would let her join my party.

      

• A male NPC who was confused by all the spinners. 

     

You just keep walking, my friend.

      

• A female wizard confused by a message on the wall that was obviously meant to confuse her.

• A series of prison cells. When approached from the north, they showed their occupants behind a force field. When approached from the east or west, I could enter and kill them. One of them, a "coelus," was set up as a major adversary, but he died quickly. 

      

All bark and no bite.

        

• A fountain conferred upon me the "Heal" spell.

• A cleric gave me an Elixir of Healing when I gave him directions to a ranger.

• A battle with two ruffians and a rogue leader earned me a Cross Key.

• I get several messages that suggest that thieves have picked my pocket before attacking me, but I don't notice a significant drop in gold.

        

Level 3 began with my arrival in "The Coliseum," via a teleporter from the Queen's Aqueduct. I started in a small central area with four teleporters, each leading to a different "arena." I eventually explored all four and didn't notice that any of them were more difficult than the others. Early in the first arena, I met a wizard who said: "She said I would get great rewards for doing all four, but I know that only one would suffice." "She" in this case must be the Queen—we're in her proving grounds, after all—so I resolved to complete all four arenas before meeting her.

    

The arenas offered the first legitimately hard battles in a while. Enemies included packs of wizards, giants, archers, thieves, knights, skeletal knights, and skeletal wizards. I found that my usual strategy for tough battles—use a Scroll of Protection at the outset; chug an Elixir of Health whenever my hit points drop below 100—got me killed more often than I would have liked. I experimented with other spells and skills and occasionally had some luck with "Petrify" or "Intimidate." A lot of it came down to luck. I continued to grow annoyed at the game's insistence on never clearing a square, so that if you (for instance) hit a dead end, you have to fight every battle again on the way back.

        

I like the artwork here, but I think I've seen it somewhere before.

         

One technique that occurred to me embarrassingly late is to always attack the group of enemies with the most enemies. Occasionally, you get a critical hit that wipes out three or four enemies at once, and you don't want to waste that on a single foe. 

      

The enemy parties are getting larger and tougher.

       

When I had mapped as much of the Coliseum as I could, I still had a bunch of unexplored areas surrounded by pillars. Is there some mechanism that I'm overlooking to get through these pillars?

   

All arenas eventually led to the same area of the Coliseum, where teleporters could carry me backwards to the Queen's Aqueduct or forward to the only other Level 3 map: The Queen's Palace.  

         

Moving on, or at least contemplating it.

       

Some other encounters in the Coliseum:

   

• A couple of rosters "listing various guilds and names." The game noted that "your name does not appear on the list!" This was true even after I completed all the arenas. I don't know whether I should make anything of this.

• A fountain gave me the "Reverie" skill, which lets you gain mana at the cost of initiative. I don't see using it in a single-character game. 

         

My current skill list. I've been favoring the passive skills.

       

One step into the Queen's Palace was a message: "There are short and long pathways to the Queen's chambers. Each has its own reward. Only one need be solved to continue, but more explored, the greater the rewards." The Palace level was hard; I still haven't mapped it all. It's full of one-way doors, illusory doors, spinners, bottomless pits (instant death), and the most difficult battles in the game so far.

   

I guess there are, in fact, multiple pathways. The first one I tried led me to battles with slimes that I could not defeat. They kept killing me in the first round. The second one led to an area with no exit except to throw yourself down a bottomless pit. There's a message next to this pit that I don't understand: "Perhaps you can send some light across the chasm to see if any burning clues are visible." Whatever it's suggesting, it doesn't correspond with any item, spell, or other game action that I can figure out.

           

Which command lets me "send light"?

        

Eventually, I found a pathway that had me wind past bottomless pits with spinners next to them, so moving too quickly led to instant death. There were also a few tough battles in this area. Beyond that was a room full of poison traps; fortunately, I have "Cure." At the exit to this room, Queen Aeowyn appeared. "Impressive, how you managed to pass through the arena!" she said. "Now, to my throne room. I will wait for you there!"

       

The queen's just hanging out in this room full of poison.

       

Aeowyn's throne room had a couple of pools of water and lots of statues. As I approached, the game noted: "A magnificent queen stands before you. Her beauty and strength awe all who see her, woman and man alike." When she saw me, she had a long speech:

       

My champions, a key awaits you at the palace exit. Use it at the ancient gateway east of the main entrance. Another portal will lead you to the depths of this volcano, where none has dared yet visit. I require four pieces of an ancient map! I enjoin you with this task as a test of your loyalty. Reveal your purpose to no one! Go now! Seek the kingdom of the Night Elves. I will meet you at your quest's end, that we may piece together the maps' meaning.

         

The approach to the throne.

        

I was indeed handed a Queen's Key as I exited. I left a lot of the map unexplored, blocked by enemies I couldn't defeat. But I guess I defeated the "proving grounds" part of the game.

 

The next couple of hours were nothing but frustration. I couldn't defeat the fixed battles with wraiths on Level 4, nor the ones in the Queen's Palace, nor just about anywhere else I went. The game is long and large enough that the last thing I want to do is waste time grinding, but it looks like I may have to if I want to progress. At the very least, I may need to experiment with some of the scrolls the shop offers.

 

These guys are harder than two of anything ought to be.

     

Speaking along those lines, I didn't get a single equipment upgrade this session. I've already bought the best bow, armor, and helmet the shop offers. Leveling has also slowed; I gained two levels (to Level 13) during the first half of this session and none in the second half. I don't know, maybe it's time to call this one. I barely got 1,000 words out of 7 hours of playing time.

   

Time so far: 16 hours