The Bard's Tale: The day the music died

I made the decision to bench Sunfall for now. I know this is supposed to be the bard's tale, but her only useful ability has been the AC-lowering Traveler's Tune, and while it's been handy to be able to lower party AC by 2 (which stacks with Scribe's Mystic Shield) before monsters have the chance to attack, an extra spellcaster would be so much better.

I roll three new gnomish conjurers, prioritizing IQ, and then constitution, and have them shadow my fighters for some quick(ish) level gains. Whoever has the most impressive SP and HP at the end of it will receive full-time employment.

After a few trips to the sewers to watch the big boys fight black widows, and four levels gained, the clear winner of this audition is Magic Mike, at 22HP/47MP, and I keep the runner-up Houdini around in case Viila could use a bit of competitive incentive. The loser gets deleted from the disk.

As long as I'm in ruthless manager mode, I roll up a few new monks for tryouts. RedSlayer's been great as a glass cannon, but I'll bet it couldn't hurt to have an alternative who can take a hit too. By the time they reach level 4, it's clear who the best is - Conrad has 40HP, beating out the other two by a large margin, and is already getting close to RedSlayer's 43HP at five levels behind. The losers get deleted, and RedSlayer is on notice.

I also learned something during this training session I wished I learned much sooner. Combat messages can be sped up by using the right arrow key. It's in the quick reference card, but I missed that the first time I read it.

 

This newly reformed party explores the second level of the sewers. It goes by much faster than the first one, now that I realize I can skip most of the combats and speed through the rest, but it's more of the same. There aren't even any new monsters, nor do they appear in greater quantities, apart from a few fixed locations where as many as 13 spiders can appear at once. Sunfall's AC-lowering music is somewhat missed; now we almost always get poisoned in the first round of combat against black widows, but having two people who can cast Flesh Restore almost makes up for it.

Incidentally, the temple fee to cure poison is ridiculous. $3200 per cure - that's almost as much as it cost us to learn the spell to do it ourselves!

There is a special encounter in the southwest corner of the map:

If you recall, a clue in the floor above said "Pass the light at night." Too bad there's no way to check the time in the sewers! So we return to the surface - sure enough, it's only noontime - and wait (in turbo mode) for nightfall before returning.

The light beam isn't there, and beyond the passageway, a clue.

 

As for the rest of the level:

A Stairs up B Message C Combat D Spiders E Trap F Chute down G Light beam H Black Widows I Teleport

Monster XP Magicians 100-512 Conjurors 100-512 Orcs 100 Skeletons 110 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Barbarians 200 Mercenaries 220 Wolves 256 Jade Monks 256 Half-Orcs 256 Zombies 512 Swordsmen 512 Sorcerers 768-1024 Black Widows 1024

• Two big dark areas are a pain to navigate and contain damaging traps, but they don't seem to hurt that much.
• Instead of stairs, there are two chutes down; one concealed in the northwest dark region, and one in the eastern side of the map. The levitate spell lets you ascend back up it.
• There are more clue-like inscriptions here and there:
• Thor is the greatest son of Odin.
• There is no exit until the seven words are said.
• Heed not what is beyond understanding.

The Bard's Tale: Sewers, part one

 

After some training, I've re-evaluated the group's combat skill.

• RedSlayer, at level 7, has improved dramatically. Now he hits twice per round, and as a monk, hits harder than anyone else. His natural armor class is decent too. Unfortunately, his HP just hasn't kept up with the rest.
• Kurisu also gained a second attack, and his damage and HP slightly surpasses Ahab's.
• Ahab, like Kurisu, has two attacks per round, and my HP is much better than it was. Supposedly as a paladin I enjoy protection against evil, but I'm not sure what that even means.
• Grub has fallen. He's still a tank, but only hits once per round. His critical hit ability is neat when it happens, but we'd need to be up against much tougher enemies for it to be worth the tradeoff.
• Sunfall still fights poorly, but has decent HP.
• P-Tux has improved a little bit, but is no better than Sunfall, and has much worse HP.

I checked RedSlayer's stats, and noticed something nasty. His constitution, which I had rolled at 17, fell down to 11! I have no idea how this happened, or when this happened, but it explains why his HP is so poor. Except that Grub, who also has a constitution of 11 (and rolled it that way), has nearly three times as much of it.

For now, I explore the cellars with RedSlayer in the third rank, but he's on probation.

My mages, who now with access to level 3 spells (and are eligible for level 4 but the cost is too high), are much better too. Viila's best combat spell is Magestar, which blinds a group of monsters for one round, making them miss most of their attacks while you beat up their partners, followed by Warstrike which damages them. Scribe is also useful in combat now; Mystic Shield lowers party AC by 2 for the whole trip, Mithril Might by another 4 for a combat duration, and Starflare is pretty good as a group-damaging spell. Spell points are precious, though, and we've got to conserve them for the difficult fights.

Annoyingly, and bafflingly from a design standpoint, there is no way to restore all of your spell points at once! It recharges on its own in town, even when you're in the safety of the adventurers guild, but only one point every several seconds. I wind up using turbo emulation to bypass this wait.

It still takes me a few trips, but I map out the wine cellar without much difficulty fighting the enemies there, who are simply repeats of Skara Brae's denizens in bigger numbers, though I do need to keep an eye on RedSlayer's HP and heal him when it starts to dip.

A Stairs up B Message C Combat D Stairs down E Trap

Monster XP Kobolds 60 Hobbits 70 Gnomes 80 Dwarves 80 Hobgoblins 90 Magicians 100 Conjurors 100 Orcs 100 Thieves 110 Skeletons 110 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Barbarians 200 Mercenaries 220

 

It's a pretty sparse dungeon, but thematic, and easy to navigate. A few fixed encounter spots here and there, no special enemies, and a spiked pit trap in the northeast quadrant. Gold more than pays for the healing, and the XP yields are decent enough for the difficulty and I don't feel like I am mindlessly grinding as I had been in preparation for it. A few more of us reach level 8.

Stairs down lead onward. 

The sewers beneath are mazelike, and hold more difficult (and more rewarding) monsters, but nothing troublesome for the party. Black Widows are particularly rewarding; a short encounter with three yields 512XP/character, and the spots are repeatable.

It's during this level that I realize it's okay to run from fights. There are a lot of fixed combat encounters here, and fighting is slow, boring, and drains SP. From here on, I only fight if the combat will give a decent XP reward, or if the initial attempt to run away fails.

A Stairs up B Message C Combat D Black Widows E Trap F Stairs down G Teleport

Monster XP Magicians 100-512 Conjurors 100-512 Orcs 100 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Barbarians 200 Mercenaries 220 Wolves 256 Jade Monks 256 Half-Orcs 256 Zombies 512 Swordsmen 512 Sorcerers 768 Black Widows 1024

Some notes:

• This area features coordinate wrap-around where walking north from 21N takes you to 0N on the south edge of the map, and east from 21E takes you to 0E on the west edge. Orange line segments on the map border indicate where this is possible.
• One sub-section of the map is isolated from the rest of it and is transposed to the north edge for clarity.
• A few sub-sections are darkened. Your light source, magical or not, is extinguished upon entering, forcing you to navigate blindly.
• There are several messages here. Some are just flavor text, but some wall inscriptions seem like clues:
• Pass the light at night
• IRKM DESMET DAEM
• A large spider etching.