Xanadu: Magic

 

The pit underneath town is a confusing, seemingly infinitely-repeating maze, and I'm not sure how I got out, but eventually I stumbled into a ladder I hadn't seen before and took it down to a passage, leading to a cave into Xanadu's first "level."

 

There are a whole bunch of enemies wandering around here, and touching them switches the main view into an overhead battle screen.

For now, my "needle" spell makes simple work of anything I come across - it's ranged, it's free, it kills just about anything in two hits, and it can be steered mid-flight. I just have to be careful not to let it hit treasure because that destroys it.

Unclaimed treasure also serves as monster barriers which works to my advantage

 

So for now, combat is pretty easy, but there's an unpleasant realization - monster spawns are finite! Which on one hand is actually great; I can clear a level and explore it unharassed, unlike Dragon Slayer where killing anything just means something tougher spawns in its place, and uncontrolled slaughter means you eventually get overwhelmed. But it also means opportunities to gain XP, gold, and treasure have an absolute limit, and the XP part worries me - XP either goes to weapon or magic ability, and if I rely solely on spells, then my weapons don't get any better. What happens if I encounter something nasty and magic resistant?

My magic spectacles reveal that giant bees are fairly weak and I make it a point to train my swordsmanship skills on them. Some damage is unavoidable - you attack by "bumping" them and staying behind them so they can't hit you back seems impossible, but it heals on its own as long as you've got food.

Chest drops help prevent them from surrounding me.

One odd thing I notice is that whenever I kill the last monster in a group with my sword, it leaves a red chest. But if I kill it with magic, it leaves a white chest. Why? The red chests' contents don't seem to be special.

Skeletons are particularly dangerous

 

I clear the majority of the monsters from this level and map it out using my EF1941 mapper, now enhanced for chunky sidescrollers like this one.

 

Some notes:

• Temples aren't performing any function right now. The manual says you level up here, and I have a combined 3360 XP right now, but the priests just go "good luck" and send me out.
• Healers and Inns both restore HP - healers charge a flat fee for a full restoration, inns charge by the point. Right now, Inns are more economical for any amount up to 1,440HP, and considering HP maxes out at 1,500 and heals on its own (albeit slowly), inns are definitely the way to go.
• Most of the other stores are just too expensive to shop at right now. Weapons, shields, magic, etc. costs hundreds or thousands of coins, and encounters are dropping tens. I've got to save them for the necessities, like food and health.
• The Thieves' Guild sells keys at $120/per. Important? Perhaps, and I've already seen four locked doors in this level, and opened one of them with a key dropped by a monster. But right now it's a bit expensive.
• A number of buildings can be entered and explored, though building interiors use the overhead battle mode perspective and controls. All of them are dark, though.
• A lone door in an alcove near the bottom of the map leads to level 2. I'm probably not ready for that yet! 

A few of the items dropped by monsters:

• Red Potion - Consumable for a modest HP boost
• Lamp - Illuminates dark interiors
• Pendant - Opens magic doors
• Candle - Turns you into a skeleton. I'm not sure what the purpose of this is. 

 

Next, I check out the buildings. Items are more plentiful here, but so are locked doors, and monsters are stronger. The lamps are, unfortunately, consumed on use, and expire when leaving, so each trip needs to count.

My progress is gated by fire elementals, immune to my magic needle and devastating up close, so I retreat to heal up and buy myself a Deluge spell - a cost of $2400 which is most of my savings, and I spend the rest on keys.

Haven't I see this before? Yes. Yes I have!

 

'Deluge' will one-shot those flames. It's also a decent general damage spell!

  

A fire burns outside a larger building. And there are multitudes of fire elementals within. Actually, fighting them gets boring really fast.

Surprise! I'm not ready for this yet.

I reload, and do the other dungeons. There are four in this level including the deferred fire dungeon.

Free shield! Buying things is for suckers.

 

Super goblins at a choke point. A good place to use the temporary invisibility of the Demons Ring.

Eventually, there's nowhere left to go but the fire dungeon. I spend what I've got left on keys - they've doubled in price now that I'm at level 2, and then I level up again at the temple before going in.

There's a free short sword in here too, but it does absolutely pitiful damage compared to the dagger. Against the snakes surrounding it, it's doing 1-2 damage per hit when my dagger was doing 70-110 or so. This isn't because it's a worse weapon - it's because my character is completely inexperienced with it! Thankfully, weapons improve with each hit, and poor damage means lots of hits. At least the snakes don't hit back too hard. Before long, I'm doing okay damage with it.

Lots of fire guarding the final exit

I defeated the kraken! No strategy, just tanktics.

My reward for this is a hammer. I'm not completely sure what it does, and it doesn't show in my inventory, but my stats show that STR, INT, and WIS have all gone up from their initial values of 40 to 50, and MGR to 45.

Onward to level 2! Hope I don't get curb-stomped.