Temple of Valon
Well. While Kodex is busy training, the other party members would go to Port Avur to stock up on supplies. But first, they'll rest until morning.
Meanwhile, Kodex finished a training session. Another one begins immediately afterwards.
Incidentally, here's a image of our party crossing the rift in Uberion. It's kinda cool, but I didn't take a screenshot the last time we came here.
Kodex finishs another training session.
We're going to dungeon crawl soon, so I had Eflun learn the Walkwater spell during our rest.
WALKWATER congeals portions of underground pools and streams, allowing the caster and his party to walk on them. It is not effective on deeper and swifter bodies of water, such as oceans, lakes and rivers. The distance that can be covered during each walkwater spell depends on the magic skill of the caster. Several walkwater spells may be needed to cross a large pond, so it is important to plan ahead.
The other party stocked up on foods and arrows, spending most of our remaining money.
Now, I could have this party go to Soldain to pick up Kodex, then go to Dermagud together. However, a more efficient use of time would be letting them to rest here, and have Kodex come here himself. Speaking of Kodex, let's see if he's done with his training.
Kodex now has a learning score of 58.
Kodex went north to join the other party. We're ready to go to Dermagud! But where
is Dermagud located in, you may ask?
Well... Here. The lakeside of Lake Brelleht. The entrance was located near the only tile in Uberion that I haven't checked.
The dungeon entrance was locked, and we have to chant the correct magic words to get in.
Fortunately Bordal has told us the words to chant.
Let's go in!
And here comes Dermagud, our first dungeon!
The sign says "ot trar drakka", which means "home belong to dwarves" in dwarvish. Dermagud is full of signs and document written in dwarvish, so it's a good thing we had leant dwarvish from Rabbonkar.
A river. I could've had Eflun cast a Walkwater spell to cross it, but I completely forgot the spell's existence until later.
"Zerbod" means "trap" in dwarvish. Apparently there's a trap in the corridor to the east! Of course, we should avoid it, but I wanted to show you how traps work, so I saved the game and headed east.
It's a time trap! These don't directly damage your party, but advance the game time by one or two days. As there's a time limit in the game, that's pretty bad. Let's reload.
"Inspect elden fountain". Well, we'll be sure to.
In fact, there's a fountain just to the west of the sign. Although we'll have to defeat those monsters first. Wait, what's that guy in grey robe?
JERRAHS: Jerrahs have but recently arrived in Deruvia, and little is known of them in the west. From reports, they are like zorlims--as a gorilla is like a monkey. Their magic spells apparently first paralyze their opponents, then destroy them with balls of fire. I would guess that the forces of Darkness plan for the jerrahs to replace our mayors and princes in the provinces of Deruvia.
Jerrahs are upgraded versions of zorlims, with more stamina and more dangrous spells.
I briefly considered having the fighters charge the jerrah directly, but decided against it.
Ziyx cast a Shatter on the jerrah, but rolled a 2 for damage.
Jerrahs, like zorlims, love to spam fireball spells. Good thing everybody is well-protected.
ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYYX
Finally, a Shatter that did a decent amount of damage.
Here's the jerrahs' unique gimmick: they can paralyze people! Ziyx, as you can see, is now paralyzed for 4 turns. This is pretty bad, as Ziyx is the only guy in our party who can reliably deal damage to the jerrah. Thankfully, jerrahs don't often use this spell.
Those wolvinga and orcs can't damage us through our heavy armor.
A few turns later, Ziyx's paralyzation finally wore off. I wanted his Shatter to kill off the jerrah, but the spell barely just scratched him.
Finally. Took us long enough.
After the jerrah have being slain, the rest of monsters are easily handled. Although this wolvinga somehoe managed to dodge something like 100 attacks from our fighters.
But eventually, the party emerged victorious.
FFS those monsters are even poorer than us.
A magical fountain of strength!
Lolwut?
At first I thought Rexor didn't get anything because his strength is too high, but even Ziyx, who has a grand total of 4 strength, was not able to get any reward for drinking from the fountain. Either the fountain is useless, or we'll have to do something before it becomes functional.
Once a dungeon room has been cleared of monsters, the party would be able to rest inside. So I did exactly this, while having Eflun restoring everyone's shield.
We're ready to go again.
To the north is a strange room, which looks just like the teleportal house in Pheron. Not knowing what to do here, we left.
To the east of the entrance was a room, inside which we found some monsters and a treasure chest. The green monsters are fermigons; the purple ones are bargs.
FERMIGONS: Monsters by any definition, fermigons were created by the forces of Darkness to guard treasures in their strongholds. Also, I think, as a cruel joke. You will recognize a fermigon when you see one--its mouth is bigger than its stomach, and than any other part of its body.
BARGS: Bargs smell better yet. They smell like clean, fresh mountain air in a thunderstorm. And their touch brings a lightning bolt. Neither armor nor magical shields will protect you from the touch of a barg.
Bargs can ignore armor? Uh, this doesn't sound good. Fortunately none of the monsters here have ranged attack.
I position our guys in the southwestern corner.
Look, those fermigons are pretty tough. Even after Ziyx's spell it still has 55 stamina left.
This might be a tough fight, so I had the fighters use a nift each to protect themselves.
Meanwhile, Ziyx used a gonshi and started spamming Shatter.
One down.
The bargs are not nearly as resilient as the fermigons. Ziyx quickly killed both of them with the help of a few gonshis.
And the battle is finished. I don't think the monsters managed to do any damage at all.
How the
fuck do bargs and fermigons even carry money, anyway?
The chest was locked.
Good thing I'd bought a few picks in Port Avur.
Treasures!
Unfortunately, at this point I hit the wrong key, and the game crashed, forcing me to restart DOSBox. As I hadn't saved the game, this means I have to do the whole battle again.
It actually went better this time, with the combined firepower of Alhan and Ziyx taking down a fermigon in the first round.
Note: the fermigon is (was) surrounded with creatures and corpses. If all four tiles adjacent to a creature is occupied, the creature would have nowhere to dodge, making any attack on it an automatic hit. If you can manage to surround a monster, killing it in melee would be much easier.
At this point, it finally occured to me that I can have Eflun cast Walkwater to cross the small stream we found before.
Three casts of Walkwater was needed to cross this stream. Each cast allows 3 steps of movement; should Walkwater wear off when we're on water, we wouldn't fall in, but we wouldn't be able to move until another Walkwater has been cast.
"Three step north, four step west, dig."
I'm so glad we've learnt dwarvish before coming here.
Oddly, when Rexor tried to walk into the tile in which the emeralds were discovered, he ended up inide a wall nearby. Walking east from here teleports him back again. Not sure if a bug.
A while later, we were ambushed by a bunch of bargs.
Ambushes are extremely obnoxious, as you don't get to prepare before the combat, and monsters would receive a free turn.
We had to burn a few consumables, but eventually we won.
Huh... A mysterious bowl. Denkar in Soldain was supposed to give us a clue about those, but with a bit of luck, we should be able to guess what to do ourselves.
You see, inspecting it dosen't really do anything, so obviously we have to use an item on it. According to the manual, pearls are "rumored to be useful in dungeons", so let's try it!
Using a pearl on the bowl causes a map of the dungeon to appear. Seems like we've already explored half of the dungeon here.
Walking forward, mighty hunter Nazim detected an ambush!
Unfortunately, mighty hunter Nazim did jack shit to warn the rest of party about it. We don't get to prepare for the ambush even if it's detected, so I really don't know what's this for.
Three fermigons are kinda nasty, but we should be able to deal with this.
Mighty hunter Nazim got his ass handed to him by a fermigon. One hit from the fermigon dealed 20 points of damage, and that's after the damage reduction from his armor. These guys are no joke.
Of course, we still emerged victorious in the end.
Mighty hunter Nazim and Rexor had to use some potions to recover stamina.
Entering the room to the south, the party found themselves against more monsters. At least room fights let you draw weapons and position characters before the battle begins.
Moar Shatter spamming.
One annoying thing about weaker monsters is, their attacks, even though they can't deal any damage with your armor, will cause you nift to wear off faster, making you vulnerable against stronger monsters.
Our bros suffered some unnecessary damage because I was too stingy with Shatters.
The chest turned out to be trapped!
Rexor is now ill. Good thing we bought some medicins back in Port Avur.
Gemstones translate into money, and money is just what we need most now.
Rexor then used a medicin to cure himself.
Well well, another fountain. Maybe this one will work?
We're kind of running low on Shatters, so we rested in the room for a while so that Ziyx could learn some more.
A stairs? I wonder where it leads to...
We' ended up in the enclosed area of Uberion which we couldn't access before.
This area has very little of interest, basically, there's a monster group, and there's a special location. Let's deal with the former first.
Uh-oh. Two death knights, and a cyclops? I wasn't expecting to run into those so soon.
CYCLOPS: His Grace, Lord Banas, insists that one cyclop is a cyclops, and that several cyclops are cyclopes, or cyclopides, or some such. I am sure that he is correct. But you and I know that one cyclop is a fearsome one-eyed giant, and several cyclops are a situation to be avoided at all costs. I mentioned monster that throw rocks the size of cattle; those monsters are the cyclops.
DEATH KNIGHTS: The so-called "death knights" are, of course, not knights. The forces of Darkness have no trace of honor or nobility, and can therefore not have the concept of knighthood. Death knights are no more than dead bodies, magically animated and equipped with a mockery of knightly gear. Their swords are endowed with a deadly magic, allowing them to inflict severe damage over any obstacle and against any opponent. I admit to a personal prejudice against the "death knights." I suppose that our priestly brethren would have a similar prejudice against zorlims and jerrahs because of their monkish garb.
Basically, cyclopes are upgraded domugs, and death knights are spellcasters who have an attack that ignores obstacles. They sounds pretty nasty.
The plan: Ziyx will kill the cyclops ASAP, and the fighters will make a beeline for the death knights.
Ziyx killed the cyclops in the first round with the help of a gonshi.
Meanwhile, the fighters ate some gonshis and rushed to the death knights.
I... had expected these guys to be a bit stronger. Not complaining, of course.
Even the loot was pretty unimpressive.
Look, it's the temple of Valon there!
It took me a while to figure out how to enter the temple. Turned out you have to "knock" on the temple from one tile away, rather than inspecting or walking into the temple tile.
Well, so that's why the monks told us to bring a lens to the temple.
There -- we now know the words to chant to awaken Valon! Unfortunately, we don't even know where Valon is.
Maybe we should chant the words at the gate of Dermagud?
Nope, dosen't work. Well, guess we'll have to find Valon in the dungeon, then.
According to the map, we haven't explored the southern part of Dermagud yet.
Nothing particularly noteworthy about this fight, other than the green\red thingy there.
HRAFFELS: Hraffels do not smell quite so bad as slimes, but hraffels are much more sharp. The hraffel's quills carry deadly diseases, and serve as arms, legs and piercing weapons. Keep your distance.
Ziyx took out the hraffel and the jerrah with Shatter, and the battle was easily won.
I sure hope this chest isn't trapped.
It wasn't, but it didn't exactly contain great treasure either. Sermins are pretty cheap. Still, lame loot is better than no loot.
Some rooms, like this one, has multiple exits. We entered from north, but we'll leave from the southern exit. This is the only way to get to the southern parts of Dermagud.
A few steps ahead, and we were ambushed by slimes!
SLIMES: The sanguineous cephalopld, or "slime," is a thoroughly disgusting creature. It has filthy habits, it emits a terrible stench, and it carries hideous diseases on its pustular tentacles. Slimes live in moist, dark, filthy and disgusting places. The fit quite well into the armies of Darkness.
Slimes are actually pretty nasty, as their attacks ignore armor and can inflict disease. We'll have to kill them ASAP.
We had to burn a few consumables, but fortunately none of the slimes managed to damage us.
Isn't it just weird that slimes and fermigons carry money, but zorlims and death knights don't?
"Snakes ahead".
Some of the chests are located in small corridors. As only one character is able to enter the corridor, I had to split the party.
"Three cubes to Yberton"? Hmm. I wonder if this is related to the teleportals.
Anyway, more monsters for us to beat on!
MINOTAURS: Minotaurs are at least as intelligent as trolls. However, I am forced to classify them as beasts, since they shun weapons and simply tear travelers to bits with their heads and hands. A minotaur's head resembles a bull's, with horns hardened and honed. Its body resembles...well, you have met Sir Rexor. Imagine a body half again as large and strong.
Note that there's also a zorlim here, although you can't see him in the screenshot.
Ziyx starts the battle by one-shoting the zorlim.
Minotaurs are resilient motherfuckers.
After some lucky and unlucky rolls with Shatter, Ziyx managed to kill a minotaur and severely wounded the other.
Then Eflun died.
Yes, that happened as abruptly as I wrote it. Eflun's nift only had one use left, and the minotaur's high dexterity allowed it to attack twice in a round, hitting both times. The first hit was nullified by Eflun's nift, but the second hit did 34 damage. As Eflun had a grand total of 30 stamina, he immediately dropped dead.
The worst part about this is,
Eflun is the only one in our party who is capable of casting the Resurrect spell. Since Resurrect is the only way (that I'm aware of) to revive someone who has died, Eflun is pretty much dead for good.
Let's pretend that never happened.
I started the battle again, and this time I had Ziyx bombard the crap out of the minotaurs.
And the rest of monsters were easily dispatched.
Time to claim our hard-earned loot!
Oh I wonder what would this fountain do to us!
Raise your hand if you saw this coming. Actually, no, raise you hand if you
didn't.
The previous battles almost depleted Ziyx's magical reserve, so we were forced to rest for a day and half.
This room also has two exits. Let's check out the one to west.
Another chest that is impossible to reach without dividing party.
"Two step south, four step west, six step south, dig." Another treasure message! Also, note that there's a typo; "gotrag" should be "gotra".
Shiny!
Ah, so this is what the previous sign was talking about.
Guardian snakes are obstacles (or traps, whatever) commonly found in dungeons. If a character is bitten by one of these, he'll become poisoned, and his stamina and energy will be reduced to 0. This is a very bad thing, but a spell in the book of Sabano can deal with these treacherous reptiles:
REPEL is the only way to resolve conflicts with the poisonous snakes that infest some dungeon corridors. Each Repel spell clears a path for one person to take one more step. You may need to cast several to clear a path for your entire part.
Basically, the Repel spell clears one tile of the snakes in it. Unfortunately, Ziyx only has three copies of Repel in his memory, and we need six to clear the corridor. So we had to retreat to the previous room to rest.
We have finally made it through the snakes! This is the last room in Dermagud that we haven't checked. I wonder what lies inside.
Whoa, this room looks pretty similiar to the temple we visited before! And the white thing there must be...
It's Valon! Time to chant the words to awaken him.
It worked!
Valon boosted the stats of everyone in the party. Very nice, especially since these attributes can't be boosted with training.
He then went back to sleep. Apparently this is all that gods do, sleeping and boosting the attributes of random adventurers who awakens them. But who gives shit, we have gained POWER!
Valon only boosted the maximum value of each attribute, though, and what really matters is the current attribute. Of course, current stamina can be boosted to the maximum just by sleeping, but how about the other three attributes?
I have an idea. Let's check out the fountains again.
Aha! Just like I had expected, the fountains boosted the respective current attibute value to the maximum value possible.
Incidentally, there's also a portal in the dungeon, which teleports us back to near the entrance.
Anyway, everybody drank from the fountains.
So ends our first dungeon crawl. What shall we do next? I think we'll head back to Port Avur, sell the gems we found in Dermagud, then take a trip to Keof and then Bondell. See you next time!
Bonus content: Deruvian Geography, Part Three
The Manual said:
Northeast of the double continent of Deruvia is the large island known as Upper Deruvia. Civilization in Upper Deruvia is limited to the port town of Knessos, which manages to exist by shipping timber and ore to the settled areas on the Deruvian mainland. (There are also legends of a small community of wizards--a village called Shiran--somewhere in western Upper Deruvia.) Upper Deruvia is divided into six regions. Down the east coast are Fiztraz, a mountainous area with Knessos at its southern border; Seldarad, a large forest that may not have been completely abandoned by elves; and Khiriss, a cold and wind-swept marsh. Down the west coast are Dakland, another mountainous area noted for its glaciers; Darvale, where Shiran probably is, if it actuallyexists; and the Rosus peninsula, surrounded by Kraken Bay, the Bay of Meric, and the Strait of Sungur. Beyond Upper Deruvia--sometimes visible from Knessos--is a rockbound island that is called by some "The Forbidden Isle" and by others "Wizard's Isle." Still others (those who know best) refuse to mention it at all. This island has no known inhabitants other than the creatures of Darkness that are rumored to dwell in Thakass Keep, a large stone tower in the very center of the island.
King Rebnard rules also over several islands to the southwest of Deruvia, although his rule has little effect on the southernmost isles. Shendy, the westernmost of the island, is also the least bothered by the forces of Darkness. Its port town, Keof, is a trade center for shipments sailing to and from western Deruvia. Fubernel is the largest of the island, and formerly rivaled Shendy as a trade center. However, Darkness has made severe inroads into the safety of Fubernel, and ships' captains have become reluctant to sail into the Fubernian port of Delkona. The plight of Fubernel distresses the Children of Light, because Fubernel is the home of the halflings. If their village of Bondell were to fall to Darkness, grief would flood all the Deruvias. Several other islands are located near the Deruvian coast. Kuskunn is a desert island between Shendy and Fubernel. It has no fresh water, and therefore no inhabitants. Heavenly lies just south of Kuskunn, and is a complete contrast. It is so fertile that it is completely covered by the heavy forest. Sailors pass Heavenly by, and believe that its huge fir trees are the home of races of Faery. South of Sumruna is the island of Vo. Vo has no ports of call, but sailors are grateful for its shelter from the westerlies as they make the southern passage from Sumruna to Merg and Knessos. The western winds and ocean currents have had harsh effects on the southernmost Deruvian islands. The Isles of Ice are high mountains thrust up from the depths of the ocean, covered by frost, ice fields and glacieers. Minions of Darkness are reported to live on the ice, and rumored to live beneath it. The Isle of Giants, to the east, receives shelter from the Isles of Ice: rather than ice fields and glaciers, it consists mostly of tidal marshes. In the center of the Isle of Giants is a ring of high mountain peaks surrounding a rain-fed lake known as The Dark. And, in the middle of The Dark is a huge spire known as the Tower of Shadrum or the tower of Ogres. It cannot be considered a tourist attraction.
"Advice?"
