Let's Play Wizardry 6, part 4

Previously on Bane of the Cosmic Forge, our heroes wandered around the castle of the Bane King a bit, failed to die, and thus ascended to the lofty heights of level 2 (that's character level 2, not the upper floor of the castle—but they went there as well).

"As I keep saying, we need to clear out the ground floor properly."

"Right. Shaana, you're up."

[Anxious.] "Hmm..? Yes. Right. Um. Sure. So... now?"

"That would be good, yes..."

There are still plenty of locked doors on the ground floor, and Shaana is the party's master of locks.

She isn't actually that good at it. On the other hand, thieves, bards and other rogues who get access to the skulduggery skill can get better with actual practice—the main difficulty is that you need around 10 points in the skill to have a realistic chance of picking any locks in the first place. In this case, I needed Shaana to reach level 2 in her class before it was worth bothering to try.

"Let us start in the front antechamber, yes? Why not this door here?"

"Y—yes... um..." [Fiddles with lockpicks for a minute.]

Coincidentally, this is what the lockpicking mini-game for doors looks like:

If this looks more involved than random button pressing, then I've not explained it right.

Basically, when you try to open a locked door, you get the choice to use a key, force the lock or pick the lock. Some doors require a specific key (and indeed may be impossible to get through by any other means), but minor locks will yield to generic keys of iron or copper, which are consumed in the process (due to brittle key syndrome). Forcing the lock tests the strength of a selected character—but I prefer not to do this since none of my characters are really built for raw strength, and there's no reward for success other than getting through the door. Picking the lock requires a character with the skulduggery skill, who can learn from the experience if successful. Upon selecting such a character to pick the lock, an array of rapidly-changing numbers below tumblers cycling between red and green will appear. The goal is to hit enter when all tumblers are simultaneously green. In practice, at least on modern machines, this is almost impossible to do by sight (even with Dosbox), so you basically hit enter whenever and keep trying until you happen to hit on a complete green streak. The role of skulduggery is to increase the likelihood at any point in time that any given tumbler is green—early in the game, a rogue like Shaana may see nary a green flicker in a sea of red, but after a while most tumblers are as likely to be green as red, making this mini-game reasonably practical to succeed at, albeit possibly still requiring multiple attempts. In principle, if you fail too many times, tumblers will jam, making lockpicking impossible. In practice, you simply reload when that happens. Every time you do succeed in picking a lock, the relevant character's skill has a chance of increasing, which helps you with the next lock. Onwards!

[Flits around Shaana's head.] "What's wrong Shaana?"

[Sweating.] "Nothing, nothing! It's just, uh..." [Click.] "Holy Werdna! It worked!"

[Frowns.] "Well why wouldn't it?"

Shaana has picked her first lock! Access has been gained into a small parlour-room adjoining the front antechamber of the castle. The party take a look:

A few remnants of broken chairs lie clumped in this once dainty parlour.

"Well this is disappointing."

[Hums to herself happily.]

Inside, the party encounters nothing but a few rats, quickly dispatched. On the south side of the antechamber are two more rooms...

"I'm on it!"

Shaana picks her second lock. Peering inside:

Rotted wood is all that remains of the broken furnishings scattered about the room.

And more rats and vines to crush.

"Next!"

The next room finally yields something interesting.

Piles of rotted furniture lie strewn around the room. In the centre rests the remains of a massive wood table, suggesting a former meeting chamber.

No not the rotted furniture, but a chest. Not all chests are conveniently left unlocked however. Some are trapped. The first thing to do is inspect the chest.

Of course it's trapped.

Trapped chests, when inspected, produce a dialog like that shown above. Inspecting a chest using a character with sufficient skulduggery will produce a selection of red and green letters in the field to the right. Each green letter represents a character in the name of the trap that the chest is rigged with. Each red letter represents a character that might be in the name of the trap that the chest is rigged with. Traps include such delights as 'vorpal blades' and 'phantasmal hand'. Guess the trap right, and you can try to disarm it—depending on the disarmer's skill, this may succeed or fail, even triggering the trap, but it will certainly trigger if you guess wrong.

"Here we go..." [Click, click.] "Wow. That would have decapitated me. Um."

Shaana finds the vorpal blades trap and actually manages to disarm it. She then pops it open, and finds some knives, a scroll of magic missile, some stamina potions, a spellbook and one hundred experience points for everyone. Spellbooks can be used by spellcasters to teach themselves spells—however spells learnt this way don't actually increase the number of spell points in the appropriate spell pool.

[Reading through the book.] "Hmm... yes..."

"So... can you cast it?"

This book teaches the direction spell, which is of the element of earth. The only spellcaster in the party who can really take advantage of this is Whisker, but he has no points in the earth pool yet. On the other hand, all the spell does is tell you which cardinal direction you're facing, and if you're mapping the world as you go (like I am), you generally don't need it, unless you get turned around and lose track. I'll have Whisker learn it regardless. He'll probably learn an earth spell via levelling soon enough.

"No."

"So... can I have a look at it?"

"No."

The final room off of the antechamber contained nothing of interest. Beyond in the main hall however were two further doors, just past the fountain. Through the door on the west side:

The majestic splendor faded long ago from this grand hall. The corpse of a decaying dining table, long enough for half a hundred people, now rests crumbling upon the floor.

"This would appear to be some sort of feast-hall."

Adjoining the dining room is a kitchen and a pantry:

An old stone oven and fallen shelves tell of a kitchen where royal feasts were once prepared. Now it is 'time' who is the chef, and the kitchen has become the meal.

Some of the descriptions in this game are somewhat...overwrought. In any case, both rooms are empty of anything over than a few rats and bats. On the east wing of the main hall however is the throne room.

[Wearily.] "Yes, yes, give me a moment to pop the lock..."

This room has a rather elaborate description, complete with philosophical musing:

Fibrous shreads of stained rot cling to the walls where colourful tapestry once proclaimed sovereignty in this official chamber. With grim mockery, the sweeter taste of a mighty throne perched high above the room has long turned sour, as it sits condemned to languish in its own final sentence. If there is to be any last judgement to be decreed upon this fallen chamber and tarnished throne, it must be gleaned from the decay that it laps upon its own dais as itself festers and rots, bearing witness to emptiness, filth and stench, silently weeping tears of its own despoiled substance.

[Solemnly.] "It makes you think, does it not?"

[Wrinkles nose.] "I think this room smells funny."

Presumably weighed down by thoughts of the inevitable decay of all mortal glory, the party investigates the rest of this wing of the castle. To the north, a room which seems to have been invaded by something...sticky.

Although this small chamber seems as dilapidated as the others, peculiar obtrusions up through the floor show signs of a more recent invasion made be entities unknown.

Probably cockroaches. Giant cockroaches with drills. Examination of the far corner reveals dried olive goo around the obtrusions. To the south of the throne room, one final locked door remains on this floor.

"Shall I?"

[Nods.]

Going through the door, the party gets ambushed by bats yet again. But these bats are a little nastier than usual, insofar as they manage to poison Alva.

These bats may not have been sterilised before entering combat.

[Pale.] "I'm okay. I'm okay..." [Stumbles.]

Poison early on can be quite nasty—a character can easily die if not cured quickly or periodically healed until the poison runs its course. Resting can be effectively suicide if the poison has more damage left to do than would be restored by sleep. Fortunately, the party still has that antidote that was picked up from one of the chests in the main hall right at the beginning.

"You are not okay. Drink, girl." [Makes Alva drink the potion.]

[Searches room.]

A fallen desk and several chairs lie crumpled on the floor of this regal private chamber, no doubt a place of counsel and costly bargaining.

In one corner of the room is an interesting document, unfortunately in a state of advanced decay. It reads:

Summons of the vicar and mistress, to be paid 100 gold pieces for the sale of the daughter Rebecca...

"That's terrible..."

[Grimly.] "That's reality."

"That's only half market value. They got conned."

[Both stare at Konata.]

[Assumes cherubic expression and slowly drifts out of the room.]

Having explored all the accessible places on the ground floor of the castle, the party visits Queequeg to trade, allowing Wrath to pick up a proper katana. By this point, all of the party members have ascended to level 3. This is good, because that allows many of the party to unlock their nascent magical abilities, and will also give them the durability to withstand a number of threats that would otherwise have stymied progress.

Next time, the party explore the former royal chambers in search of more secrets...

Map, Castle ground floor

Party review, level 3

Sword 16, Ninjutsu 11, Mythology 4, Thaumaturgy 5, Kirijutsu 5

Wrath finally has his daito (katana and wakizashi), which should make him a little happier and quite a bit more deadly. His critical strike skill (kirijutsu) is also starting to get to the point where it might actually make a difference in battle. Wrath's spellcasting ability has been unlocked, and so he can now cast chilling touch (but probably won't, because he's a frontline fighter with two swords and the ability to launch deadly sneak attacks).

Sword 9, Ninjutsu 12, Mythology 5, Theology 10, Kirijutsu 2

Alva is getting a little more powerful as well. Most notable however is her ability to now cast heal wounds (which she most certainly will use).

Hands & Feet 14, Ninjutsu 9, Theosophy 10, Kirijutsu 5

Motoko can also now cast heal wounds (there's no real reason not to take healing magic for as many party members as possible if it's available after all).

Music 25, Skulduggery 24, Ninjutsu 9, Thaumaturgy 5

Shaana's nascent talent as a musical prodigy is expressing itself nicely. Equally importantly, so is her skulduggery—the fourteen point increase since level 2 is purely from practice on the locks of the castle, making the skill essentially self-managing. This is good, because Shaana needs a lot more thaumaturgy now if she is to be able to learn the more useful mage spells in future. On the other hand, she does so many other things that it might not be such a big deal after all. Nevertheless, she now knows energy blast.

Sling 13, Oratory 14, Mythology 5, Scribe 4, Thaumaturgy 30

Whisker is quietly becoming the most competent mage he can be. In support of this, he has learnt missile shield, an air spell that protects the entire party from incoming missiles, including arrows and thrown knives.

Bows 19, Artifacts 10, Alchemy 20

Konata has little time for distractions—she's getting better with bows, the use of artifacts (allowing her to do things like throw the stink bomb in her inventory without it going off in her hand) and alchemy. She's learnt cure minor condition, which will allow her to remove a number of minor irritating statuses that the party's enemies will soon be able to inflict (though unfortunately not yet any of the major ones, like paralysis or poison). Konata is also becoming surprisingly strong physically.

"I have to use the entire length of my body to draw this bow you know."