I decide to explore the rest of floor 2 before continuing on to floor 3. We can heal Boreale and Jimmious with Treat Wounds, so they are in no danger of dying even though they take 2D6 damage every 24 hours.
In one chest, we find a crank and some cart grease.
We also come across several of these traps, but Jimmious has high Danger Sense and avoids them. It does have an animation of bolts shooting out of those holes, which is nice.
You can go right up to the edge here, but I didn't try what'll happen if you jump in.
After passing by that waterfall, we enter this room and immediately get trapped inside.
"There is just a thin crack between the wall and the stone block. It is set into the floor leaving no crack there. In my opinion, there's no way you'll ever get out through there again."
No one asked for your opinion, "voiceover"- I mean, "narrator" guy.
He's right, though.
Searching for a way out, we find this lever. Well, we've found a crank earlier, so maybe it fits.
"The crank you found fits the bearing perfectly. Jimmious starts turning the crank, first in one direction, then in the other. Even though Jimmious can feel something moving along with the crank inside the wall, it turns much too easily... Also, apart from a metallic tingling noise, there is absolutely no observable effect."
"Go on turning the crank,"
or take a closer look at this whole shebang?
Take a closer look.
"After thinking about it for a while, Jimmious pulls the crank from the bearing and pulls the cover from the wall with one skilled movement, uncovering the whole mechanism."
"The crank apparently turns a number of cogged wheels. There is a piece of broken chain hanging down from above. Another piece of chain is visible between the wheels. The lever is a locking lever that seems to have the purpose of stopping the weight of the stone block from pulling the mechanism in the opposite direction. Obviously, the whole thing needs an intact chain to function as intended."
"Using a rope, Jimmious tries to bridge the gap in the chain. It takes several hours of work until he has the mechanism gerrymandered in a way that it should be able to hold the weight for a short time."
"The room really seems to be completely sealed off. The air is already quite stuffy and it becomes unpleasantly warm."
"Jimmious secures the crank with the lever and gets the heck past that block of stone hanging from the ceiling, followed by everybody else. Pheeow! Jimmious has barely crossed through, when there's a snapping sound from the mechanism. It's almost immediately drowned out by the tremendous rumbling of the massive stone block coming down and the ear-splitting crash of it hitting the floor."
As soon as that event ends, we are automatically moved to this place.
Across that wooden bridge, we find this room. We go to that wardrobe in the corner and step on another loose stone plate. Not sure what they are for.
The wardrobe: "The wardrobe is only a pace and a half high. The doors are not locked. It contains several compartments, all stuffed full with clothing. There is a set of leathers on the bar next to a number of robes and cloaks in various colors. All quite interesting but of no use, as every single piece of clothing in there is several sizes too small for any of you."
Yes, of course, everything in here is free for the taking!
(we actually have to say yes, if we want to progress further)
Unfortunately, there's no picture of the gnome this time.
"Ah well, you have to take your visitors as they come. Unfortunately, I can't pick and choose. And there haven't been many visitors lately anyway."
"Let the gnome continue."
"Interrupt him?"
"Attack the gnome?"
We'll be polite and let him continue.
"Well, I expect some presents for your host. That is the custom..."
"wait?"
"hand over a present?"
Maybe he'll like a nice shield!
"With a loud puff, the Gnome suddenly disappears from the corner and appears right in front of Jimmious holding out his hand. Once he has received the present, he throws it into the open chest without giving it another glance. "Thank you! How very magnanimous!" the Gnome squeals dryly."
"Now then, you boorish louts, if you don't want to introduce yourselves, I'll make a start. Mumpitz of Zappendust-Zwackenpurtz is my name. My friends call me Mumpsy - but don't any of your lot dare address me as Mumpsy!"
"Introduce yourselves?"
"Burst out laughing?"
"Wait?"
Codexians are polite and introduce themselves, obviously. What do you think we are, barbarians or something?
"What strange names you have, but that's ok. You're the ones that have to live with them."
But he isn't very polite. We should teach him some manners but sadly, it seems it's too late for that now.
"Enough small talk. I know two paths, one of which is unavoidable, the other of which is useful. The unavoidable one leads out of this room, for I want my peace and quiet. The useful one you will have to work for." Mumpsy digs through the chest for a bit and uncovers a large, richly decorated key. He holds it up to the light. "The things people carelessly leave lying around, tsk, tsk," the Gnome mumbles to himself.
"Puzzle, puzzle!" the withered, old Gnome suddenly cries out and jumps through the room, waving the key about in front of your faces.
I guess moose antlers look kinda like hands?
Also, it seems this gnome hasn't seen Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies. Thranduil totally rides them! Or atleast something that looks kinda like a moose.
"Bravo! Even an Orc could have gotten that one."
"Time to say goodbye," the Gnome says and starts to move his arms about in circles. You suddenly feel sleepy and unable to keep your eyes open.
We gain a key from this charming encounter, which we can use to leave the dungeon. However, I've only learned about that later on.
But half of our party arrived somewhere else then the other half and we have to spend some time to reunite them and merge them. One half arrived in front of that room we were trapped in, the other half appeared in front of that door you can't interact with from the previous update.
After merging the party, we venture forth to floor 3.
At floor 3, I've decided to try out Tranversalis, so I've set camp and had Morkar cast it to transport us to Floor 1. I think I've wanted to pick up some torches there.
The spell succeeded, as I could tell by the sound effect, yet when I exited the camping screen, I've found myself in this lovely place. And this time, our map couldn't get us out of this mess!
Thanfully, Tranversalis got us out of the mess it caused, as it functioned perfectly when cast while not camping.
Note to self - don't cast Tranversalis while camping.
Nothing of interest here. Most of our characters are now Dirty and thus have -2 Charisma for 24 hours.
There's a bunch of these here, but we don't have a shovel and as such can't remove them.
Maybe we'll find one in the dungeon?
We can repair that cart to go for a ride, but we leave it alone for now and check back later.
We also find this Forge area. Let's examine the utensils, hopefully we'll find something valuable!
"The tools are tongs of varying sizes. They are, however, almost completely rusted through and thus totally worthless."
Damn, no moniez. Well, that morningstar sounds kinda sweet. Let's take it with us!
"Sorry, folks! That sweeper is too big for your backpacks!"
Hey, if 10 battleaxes fit inside our backpacks, then surely we can fit that thing inside!
Also, Jimmous randomly decides to crawl into the chimney, most likely due to his high Curiosity.
"Working as a team, you finally manage to pull Jimmious free again."
Now we have to get across this pit. Not sure what skill or attribute is actually used...
"With a graceful leap, Jimmious clears the obstacle."
...but our dwarf passes with flying colors! Dwarves can jump, who knew?
"While Jimmious ties the rope to the doorframe, you find a spot to tie it to on this side. Now, you can simply climb across the pit hand over hand along the rope."
On the other side, we find a lever that closes that hole and allows us to move back and forth normally.
Sure, why not!
"Jimmious keeps fingering the construction somewhat helplessly, then he suddenly grins and starts climbing up the frame. With a whooping laugh, he slides down the chute, arriving at the other end with a dull thud. You can still hear Jimmious laughing from the next room."
Ok, seems Jimmious went insane from that traumatic fever. Poor guy
. Still, atleast he has fun on that slide!
You can't just climb back up the ore chute, as there's an invisible wall blocking you, so Jimmious has to take the long way around. And once he does, the even pops up again, I accidentaly click yes and have to do it all over again
.
Next, we arrive at some kind of graveyard.
An
altar: "The altar contains a slab with words in a some sort of runic writing. Do you want to try to decipher the writing?"
Yes, that's why we're here!
"Morkar cannot totally make out what the inscription says, but he is sure that it includes a dedication to one Tordol, who founded the Pit, and also a remembrance of the victims of some sort of mining disaster."
We can try to rob the graves, but the priest told us that it's a bad idea and we aren't stupid enough to disregard his advice! Plus it's not nice to steal from dead people. We have to draw a line somewhere. And our group has definitely NEVER done that! EVER!
(if you rob the graves, the ground shakes for a bit and then you are attacked by undead dwarves, so screw that).
Let's return to that cart we saw here earlier.
"The dump car is filled halfway with charcoal. The body of the car is rotted through, and the mechanical parts are covered in rust, but even so, with a bit of grease, you should be able to get the old thing back in working condition."
"Do you want to grease the dram?"
Might as well. We send our dwarf to take care of it.
"Do you want to ride the dump car?"
After some hot dwarven cart-greasing action, Jimmious deserves to go on a ride!
"...and the others start pushing. The dump car's wheels screech and grate on the tracks."
"At first, the car is resisting..."
"...but once you manage to give it enough momentum, it flies off like a rollercoaster!"
Note that the cart doesn't actually "move" in game. You sort of just get teleported from place to place along the tracks and the game asks you if you want to jump off. Lame! I wanted to ride it ffs, not teleport!
"The cart goes faster and faster. Does Jimmious jump off?"
Jimmious is no coward, he stays right where he is!
"The dram slams into a bunch of bags on the tracks with a loud blast."
Uh oh.
Jimmious is unconcious and can't move, weirdly I also can't bring up the radial menu no matter how hard I click, so I can't switch to the rest of the group or rest to get him concious again. Ican just stare at the screen and wait.
I leave the game running for a few minutes, but he still doesn't wake up. It would probably take another five or so in-game hours, but I wasn't about to stare at this for another five minutes, so I just realoaded, had him ride the cart again and this time had him jump off.
"That was pretty worthless! The leap turns into a series of quite painful tumbles."
"The dram slams into a bunch of bags on the tracks with a loud blast."
Ok, it seems there's no real point in this. Thankfully, this time Jimmious doesn't get unconcious.
Floor 4!
(Also known as hell)
"Examine the skeleton."
Fortunately, we have two lockpicks, so we can carry on!
