Let's Play Wizardry 6, part 6

Previously, on Bane of the Cosmic Forge, our party of adventurers got collectively concussed and raided a queen's boudoir. Also, they found a hidden passage leading into the back of the castle.

And so it came to pass that in the castle of the Bane King, having passed beyond the chambers of royalty and their servants, the party now find themselves in an altar-room open to the sky.

A great stone altar rises up from the floor, graven with runes and demonic figurines. Grotesque caricatures play in some bizarre ritual, and stains of deep red colour the surface. Ghoulish acts depict a story of horror, giving cold sobriety to its unholy purpose. These images brutally dispel any ideas of gaelic charm the castle once held, an innocence consumed by the shocking nightmare of its reality.

To be fair we killed more than 160 creatures to get here, so half the castle is now stained red.

"Oh god..."

"This is grim indeed."

Examining the altar provides us with a number of buttons to push. Carved into each button in turn is an orb, a goat's head and a staff.

"Rather than playing with the unholy altar, why don't we search for more clues first?"

[Nods emphatically.]

In the altar room there are two fountains. One dispenses poison, but the other heals the drinker.

"We should be wary of accepting the bounty of such a foul place."

"Our alchemist has detected nothing untoward, and we cannot afford to ignore such a useful resource."

[Darkly.] "As you wish."

With no obvious way to proceed, the party returns to the corridor just outside the King's chambers and consults their map.

"Aside from that altar-room, we've mostly explored this floor. There's some stairs leading further upwards just around from where we came up originally..."

"The belfry I believe. Yes, let us take a look."

The party proceed to the belfry tower, ignoring the admonishment of a sign telling them to keep the belfry closed, and take a look up the central shaft into the darkness above...

Looking up the large well to the top, you see only darkness. On the floor, however, you find the remains of many small rodents and some bits of blood, and what appears to be excrement that fell from above.

"Something lives above us."

[To Konata] "I bet it's bats again."

"I think it's some kind of giant grub with razor sharp teeth that's nesting in the old bell."

[Goes a little pale.]

At the top of the tower is the well over which the castle bell hangs.

A large blackened bell hangs silently within the top of the belfry, covered with sooty molds and splotches of bat droppings, a a long thick rope descends from the bell down into the well, and is used to ring it by holding on and jumping in. It also appears to be the only way across the well.

The bell tolls for adventurers who play with rope.

We are given the choice of either holding the rope and jumping into the belfry, attempting to swing across the belfry, and leaving the rope and bell alone. Guess which we're going to do?

"Wheee!"

Swinging across the well by rope rings the bell, which has the effect of disturbing the denizens of the belfry—not giant grubs, but yet more bats. The bats (in this case three groups: two vampire bats, two giant bats and four vanilla-flavoured bats) are no longer the threat they once were. The party exterminates them, with only Alva getting bitten in the shoulder at one point. Having crossed the well of the belfry, a door is encountered. It's locked.

"I've got this!" [Clunk.] "Ah. No I don't have this."

Some doors cannot be picked; these doors start jammed, and the only way through is to find the correct key.

"Heh. I bet one of these keys will do the trick!" [Jangling of keys and muffled swearing.] "Nope. We're stuck."

Their progress scuppered, the party attempt to swing back over the belfry well, disturbing yet more bats, which they have to fight of course. Having acquired a light dusting of bat guano, the party regroup at their base camp in the great hall of the castle.

"...what about the stairs behind the fountain? I didn't see where they came up on the upper floor."

There are two unexplored stairways to the back of the hall. One leads almost immediately to a sealed portcullis:

A cold air rushes through the bars of the gate, as if the wind were blowing into the castle from somewhere beyond the gate. You hear a rather haunting kind of bleat echoing from far away, but that is probably just the wind as well.

Thwarted.

Nothing to be done here (yet). The other stairway however continues far up above the rest of the castle, to a locked door in the castle spire, which is unfortunately jammed.

The door is solid black, and looks to be quite heavy. Bolted to the centre of its face is a black iron spade.

Please don't cry Shaana.

"Did we not find keys marked with the symbol of a spade?"

"Oh? Oh!" [Fumbles for her keyring.]

Using one of the party's spade keys, they manage to open the door, only to be met by its one inhabitant.

Whoops, wrong room. I'll just show myself out.

The zombie in the tower is potentially the most dangerous foe the party has yet faced, capable of paralysing victims by touch and breathing noxious gas that can nauseate the party's frontliners. Even more worrying, the zombie is completely unaffected by Shaana's lute. I'm able to defeat the zombie only by going all out with magic: Whisker casts all of his offensive magic in quick succession while Konata concentrates on healing the damage inflicted on Wrath and Alva by the zombie's swinging hits. Unable to help with her musical ability, Shaana joins Motoko in trying to launch a sneak attack. Due in part to some lucky hits and Whisker's fire magic, the zombie goes down with relatively little fuss.

"We did it!"

[Pokes at Wrath curiously.]

Inside the castle spire, the contents of abed, table and chair still remain intact after all these years. Bits of old hair and rotted flesh are evident upon the bed, probably from the corpse which you have recently put to rest.

Wrath is not quite able to celebrate the party's victory.

Though now destroyed, the zombie did manage to paralyse and nauseate Wrath. The nausea will pass quickly enough (and technically Konata can heal it with a cure minor condition spell), but the paralysis won't go away so easily.

[Picking up Wrath by the legs.] "I am a scholar and a sage! Why do I have to help carry around the dracon?!"

"Because Motoko and I need to be ready in case we get attacked."

[Hauling Wrath up by the arms.] "Hey, Konata! Don't sit on Wrath's chest—you're making him heavier to carry!"

In the room is a (locked, trapped) chest.

"Oops, I better deal with this." [Lets go of Wrath.]

"Girl, what are you—"

[Thunk.]

Inside the chest are three chrome keys (taken by Shaana), a skullcap (taken by Whisker), ten sparklers and four sneeze powders. The sparklers and powders go to the resident alchemist and artefacts expert, Konata. The sparklers can be equipped as throwing weapons, doing modest damage, but can also be 'used' as items (much like Shaana's lute)—doing this is just like wielding them as weapons, but counts as practice for the artefacts skill, so we'll do that. The sneeze powders cause irritation to a group of enemies, decreasing their combat skill.

The rest of the party dracon-handles Wrath down the steps of the castle spire and takes him to the basement in the hope that maybe Queequeg has something that can be used to fix him up.

"I'm afraid not. But I hear sudden shocks can break spells of paralysis—ask the fellows in the room opposite mine."

"Thanks!"

The party then go to the room across the corridor from Queequeg's, a room previously ignored. Within, we see a number of lizardmen strewn haphazardly around, looking very much like dead bodies...

Suddenly the door slams shut!

"Hey you! Get offa my foot!!"

Goddammit Queequeg.

The party then falls into immediate conflict with a group of pirates. Generally a bit tougher than rogues, they're still not too much of a threat to a well-prepared party. Admittedly, they are perhaps a little more dangerous to a party that has had one of their main fighters recently paralysed...

[Heroically throw Wrath at the enemy.]

Despite the handicap, Alva, Motoko and the others manage to defeat their overly-aggressive over-sleeping foes, and Wrath only gets stabbed twice in the fracas. This immediately leads to more pirates and rogues bursting through from a nearby side-room.

"How many of them are there?!"

[Blinks, flicks out his katana to slice open a lizardman, and plunges his wakizashi into the nearest rogue's gut.] "Not enough."

Having cleared the local environment, the party turns its attention to what the pirates were guarding.

Armament racks used to line the walls of this small chamber, but have since fallen away and turned to rot. There is a pile of debris lying up against the facing wall.

"Look, we're sorry we threw you at those lizards. We just sort of panicked—"

"Actually—"

[Glowers.] "You dropped me on my head."

In the corner of the adjoining chamber, the party find an old armoury dummy, with some equipment miraculously unlooted (up until this moment, that is).

Inspecting the equipment, you salvage a fine set of chainmail armour, along with a crested shield.

They find a chainmail hauberk and a heraldic shield. This is very good news for Alva. The heraldic shield can be 'invoked' to give a permanent boost to strength (at the cost of destroying the shield). At this time however, I'd rather just use the shield as a shield.

[Eyes gleaming.] "Real armour! Like a real knight!"

[Cheerfully.] "You won't need to wear that weird get-up from the Queen's boudoir any more!"

"Right. You better take it."

[Blanches.] "Wh-wh-what?!"

Naturally, given that Alva has new equipment, her previous equipment is redistributed to ensure maximum defensive potential throughout the entire party.

"Oh it's fine. I wore it, didn't I? And you need better protection than just a cloth shirt."

[Stammering.] "B-b-but, what about Motoko?"

[Grins evilly and shakes her head.]

[To Wrath.] "We should probably give the ladies some space."

[Nods solemnly.]

[Floating upside-down, bored] "Oh look, killer plants."

Right on cue, the party gets attacked by more vines. They die (the vines, that is). The party finishes re-equipping its arsenal. Over the course of the last several battles (and maybe some grinding of bats into fine paste in the belfry that I didn't mention), the entire party has now attained level 5.

Map, Castle first floor

Party review, level 5

The party is now finding their feet as adventurers, and many of our heroes are now almost adequately equipped!

Sword 46, Oratory 11, Ninjutsu 23, Mythology 8, Thaumaturgy 14, Kirijutsu 6

Wrath has learned the armour shield spell, which increases a character's defence in battle. Not one of the better spells in my opinion (most combats don't afford Wrath the luxury of spending a round slightly improving his or someone else's defence), but with only a low level of Thaumaturgy, his options are few.

Sword 31, Scouting 3, Oratory 8, Ninjutsu 22, Mythology 6, Theology 25, Kirijutsu 5

Alva has learned the slow spell, which unsurprisingly slows a number of enemies, delaying their attacks and making them easier to hit. Alva is also now quite well-equipped (though she could do with better leggings and boots).

Hands & Feet 32, Scouting 2, Oratory 8, Ninjutsu 21, Mythology 6, Theosophy 22, Kirijutsu 10

Motoko can now identify items.

[Gestures to Alva's sword.]

"Hmm?"

Yes, it turns out that Alva's sword of striking is good at striking things. This may have not been the best use of magic, Motoko.

Unfortunately, her mana regeneration is rather slow, so it will take a while before we can examine the rest of the more interesting loot we've acquired, like the Dagger of Ramm or Alva's heraldic shield.

Sword 13, Music 38, Oratory 11, Skulduggery 35, Ninjutsu 20, Mythology 4, Thaumaturgy 14

Shaana has also learned armour shield, and her armour class has improved notably.

[Angrily] "How can it have improved?!" [Hugs herself.] "I'm cold."

Mace & Flail 22, Oratory 30, Mythology 6, Scribe 5, Thaumaturgy 46

Whisker now has mana in all spell pools, having learnt detect secret, a spell that can be used in place of the scouting skill to detect points of interest in the environment. He has also put aside his sling to wield the bullwhip he had picked up earlier (which has extended reach, allowing him to strike the enemy from the back).

"All the better to guide the party forwards."

Bow 40, Artifacts 12, Mythology 5, Alchemy 39

Konata has also acquired mana in all six spell pools, having learned blinding flash, a fire spell that can blind groups of opponents. Konata has also managed to fill her inventory with various alchemical preparations that can be thrown at enemies for various amusing effects (amusing to her that is).