My CSB journey.

[RogerS]

A few months ago, I started playing DM for the first time. The last thing I did in DM was killing the dragon.

It was a pretty long battle even using Hardcleave and Diamond Edge, and everyone fully buffed up on potions.

I had gotten in a position where I was following the dragon and hitting it in the back, and any time it made a move, I moved behind it. That was working fine until the dragon made a turn into a nook, and consequently quickly spun around and hit me in the face with a fireball.

By that time, my fireshield had expired, so it hit the whole party pretty hard and everyone was limping.

I decided to retreat to the other side of the lair (searching under ashes in the general area I knew that the key would be because I had looked at a map beforehand, and was able to find it) and unlocked the door to the small room where I healed up and recast the fire shields.

Even though my party was severly injured, I was still faster than the dragon, and it didn't follow me. I went back to the other side of the lair and found the dragon again, and continued the square dance with it until it finally succumbed.

By that point, I was pretty tired and my neck was hurting. I was also feeling bad for killing the dragon for some reason, realizing in retrospect that I could have probably just left it alone.

After that, I was burnt out on DM, and didn't come back to it.

Recently, after having a brief go at Conflux, I decided to try CSB, and here's a recap of what I've been up to so far. This is from memory, so I might have forgotten some details or remembering some things incorrectly or in the wrong order.

I imported my party from DM right after having killed the dragon. The party consists of Nabi, Syra, Wu Tse and Elija. The were all Um Master priests and Expert everything else.

All characters were originally reincarnated in DM. I kept their original names and titles though, except Wu Tse whose title I changed to "Daughter of Heaven".

So far, I've gotten the first corbum and returned to the starting area. Here's a recap of my journey so far.

Started off in a dark room with worms on either side, so I moved away from the worms and cast torch spells, then proceeded to blast the worms with fireballs. At one point while dancing around the worms I accidentally stepped on the worm generator causing two additional worms to spawn. I dealt with them all using fireballs.

I then went and picked up everything off the floor, and proceeded to knock on every wall. I found a secret passage with some armor, and I used one of the coins to get the rope and the compass. I left all the other items that were behind coin slots behind.

I found an empty torch holder, and placing a torch in it opened up a passageway to Supplies for the Quick.

I picked up everything from the supplies for the quick area, occasionally killing flying eyes when they spawned, then doubled around and picked up the second flask from the run and jump area and also opened the gate of the starting area from behind.

Since I now had flasks, I wanted to buff my heroes again, but the BuffHeroes function in my AHK script was created when I was playing DM and had more than enough flasks for everyone, and wouldn't work in this scenario. I made some adjustments in my script adding a keyboard shortcut to call the MakeBuffs function directly. This meant that I had to go to each character's inventory manually, and make sure that the right charater spell menu was selected and that they had a flask in the inventory slot closest to their main hand. After buffing the first two a couple of times, I had to move the second flask from my second character to my third character and repeat the process, and then the next one. Still quicker and more convenient than doing it all manually though.

There were a few times when I forgot to change to the correct character's magic tab or forgot to give someone a flask, causing me to waste mana in those cases, especially in the beginning.

After I had buffed up everyone a few times until they all had around 90-100+ in all stats, I went back to the worm room again to farm some more worm rounds. I then went downstairs and picked up all the items there and filled up on water before stepping into the teleporter to the junction.

I decided to try the Neta way first, so I went there (picking up the horn of fear on the way). I soon came to an apparent dead end, and all the walls I knocked on were solid, so I came back and saw that the alchove now contained a key and a scroll that said "Pray for a miracle".

After waiting around a bit, I was then teleported somewhere else, so I proceeded while knocking on wall along the way.

After a while, I came to an open door that had a wall directly behind it, so I went in the doorway to knock on the wall to check if it was false. Big mistake!

The door started shutting and hurting my party, and when I tried to back out of it I couldn't because a vexirk had appear behind me blocking me in.

I proceeded to frantically cast Ee level fireballs at it, pressing 4 4 4 space as fast as I could, but I wasn't able to do enough damage quickly enough to kill him before my party got crushed to death. Afterwards I realized I could have used the Volley function that I had forgotten about in my AHK script. A few full volleys of Mon fireballs might have been enough to kill him. Alternatively I might have been able to cast a poison cloud to get him to move away so that I could get out of there (but don't think I've ever used that spell, so I didn't know the runes), or I could have perhaps scared him away with the horn of fear (actually I think maybe I did actually try blowing the horn at him once, but I'm not 100% sure if I did).

After reloading, I decided to go back to the worm area again to make sure I had as much food as possible. I killed worms with a combination of fireballs and melee attacks (occasionally interrupted by flying eyes coming in from the supplies for the quick area) until every free inventory slot was filled with worm rounds and everyone's food bar was full. I also made sure to buff up again as well.

After filling up on water, I went back to the junction. I left some worm rounds there, then decided to go the Ku route this time.

At the end of the Ku hallway, there was a fake wall. Behind it was a large room, and in the south of that room there was an intersection with a vexirk standing in the corner to the east.

I peeked around the corner and threw a fireball at him, then quickly sidestepped back while preparing my next fireball. I kept repeating this until he was defeated. I then went to the area he had been in and found some buttons that I pushed.

I noticed that a giggler had appeared on the other side (west), so I lobbed an On level fireball at him. The fireball took a sharp turn right, then after a short while the fireball came back and took another sharp right and hit the giggler in the face. It wasn't enough to kill it though, so I cast another fireball which took care of it. It dropped something, but I don't remember exactly what. Another vexirk then appeard where the giggler had been.

The vexirk tried to throw fireballs at me, but they harmlessly veered off at the T-junction. I pressed CTRL+6 a couple of times to throw a few broadsides of Mon level fireballs at him, and I think it took maybe 2 or 3 volleys (8 or 12 fireballs) of Mon fireballs to kill him.

I went over and picked up the items and pressed the button, which opened up a door to the south. There I dealt with with a deth knight, but further progress was blocked by a door I didn't find a button or lock for, so I went back.

Back in the big room, I was attacked by a muncher (that might have been before I found the vexirks though, I'm not 100% sure) so I killed it with a fireball. As the fireball hit, I saw that it was about to veer off to the side right before it exploded. Luckily the muncher was right in front of me, so the fireball didn't have any room to veer off.

I went to an area where there were some doors with pressure plates in front of them that closed the door when stepping on it and opened it again when stepping off it. I quickly went through one of the doors before it had time to close on me.

I found myself in an open room with some deth knights standing around in some niches. When I got close to one, he started moving towards me, so I kited him back to the doors with the pressure plates intending to use the doors to help me kill him. I did the door trick a few times, then messed up at some point by stepping off the pressure plate while he was still in the doorway which resulted in him stepping forward into the room with me.

I quickly went through the other door, and the knight then proceeded to move between the doors but being unable to get out because the door would slam shut in his face every time. I decided to just leave him there and go deal with the next knight. I aggroed the remaining knights one by one, doing the combat waltz while making sure I didn't go near any of the other ones to accidentally aggro them before I had dealt with the current one.

After all knights had been defeated, I picked up Executioner, and doing so opened up a wall to the north.

I poked around a bit in the now empty room, knocking on walls and looking for buttons or secrets. I saw a small button in one of the niches, but it looked to be already pressed, and clicking on it didn't seem to do anything.

I then dealt with some mummies, and found some stairs down to what appeared to be a dragon's lair.

I searched around, but didn't see a dragon anywhere but encountered a red worm. While I was fighting the worm, I suddenly heard a roar and was hit by a massive fireball from a dragon that had snuck up on me. Monster movement sounds would have been very useful in this situation. I seem to remember Conflux having monster movement sounds, and it's using the same executable, so shouldn't it in theory be possible to give DM and CSB the same treatment?

I limped my way back to the stairs and went up and healed my wounds and cast fireshields, then went back down to deal with the worm and the dragon again. I carefully danced around attacking the worm while trying to avoid being hit by the dragon, trying to keep the worm between me and the dragon at all times until the worm was dead. I then focused my attention on the dragon.

At some point with a bit of quick finger work and fancy maneuvering, I was able to get in position behind it, and from that point on I was able to follow it around and constantly attack it from behind. This made the fight a lot easier, but it still took quite some time to kill it.

Once all threats were dealt with, I walked around the lair knocking on walls, and found a couple of secret passages. One of them had a teleporter that took me back to the junction of the ways when I stepped through it, so I went down the Ku path again back to where I had been.

I also encountered a giggler in the dragon's lair by the way, who dropped an Eye of Time. I don't remember if that was before or after the fight with the dragon. I think it might have been before.

I went back up and found some stairs which led up to a room full of oituses. It was here that I discovered the "spinning stairwell" trick. I would prepare berzerk or melee with the executioner or axe, then spin around and immediately attack before quickly spinning around again and preparing the next attack. Once the herd started thinning out, I would occasionally spin around and attack but there was no enemy there because it had moved, so I started being a bit more patient and waited to see if there actually was an enemy there before attacking.

Next were the antmen, and I repeated the same procedure there. I also tried lobbing some fireballs at them, but none of my fireballs seemed to hit. I also could hear them dropping weapons/items when they died, but I didn't see any, so I thought it might be a bug or an issue because of me standing on the stairwell. Once most of them were dead or running scared and I decided to move forward, I found out the real reason when I was immediately teleported.

I dealt with the few remaining antmen and searched the area and found some hidden items, then moved onwards. I dealt with one or two scorpions the same way, and eventually found my way to the stairs up to DDD.

I cast Mon level fireshields before going up there, then lobbed some fireballs at a demon at the other side of a pit until it was dead, and then dealt with some rockpiles.

To my joy, I found a third flask in an alchove, and let my thirstiest character drink the water in it. Now only my two back row characters had to share a flask between them.

Eventually I found the inscription "Trust me, enter the pit", so I decided to climb down it using the rope. I found myself in a small area that had a pressure plate that had no apparent effect, some stairs up and a locked door. I decided to use a key on the door, and behind it I found Diamond Edge.

I went up the stais and then came to an area called "Dead end". From a CSB video I had watched in the past I knew what was in store. I decided to check if the deth knights were vulnerable to lightning bolts, so I looked up the runes for that spell and tried it on them.

The lightning bolts didn't seem to bother them much, and the knights were hitting pretty hard, so I decided to reload (even though all characters were still alive but hurt) and cast shield spells instead, then attacking and kiting them down the long corridor while backing away. Eventually they died one by one, but they were pretty sturdy. Once they were all dead, I moved all the weapons and armor they had dropped to see if any of them had perhaps dropped something else, but found nothing. I also ran along the entire length of the corridor knocking on walls to see if I had missed any hidden passages, but I didn't find any. Near the end of the hallway there was a button that opened up a wall to reveal some stairs down.

I found a dragon den. I remember someone suggesting in a forum post to throw poison bolts through the gates, then immediately sidestepping before the dragon could destroy the gate with it's fireball. I tried that a few times, but most of the poison bolts were missing because the dragon would move before the bolt hit it. Shortly thereafter the dragon blew the gate open anyway, so that plan didn't work, and I had to kill it the old fashioned way while making sure I didn't get too close to any of the other gates.

I found a fake wall into the next room, and I dealt with that dragon the same way. Luckily these dragons seemed to have less HP than the one in the basement (and the one in DM).

When peeking through the false wall to the middle room, I saw two dragons in there. I pulled one of them with me to the next room to separate them, then into the room where the first dragon had been to get it as far away from the other dragon as possible.

After if had cleared the area of dragons, I picked up all the dragon steaks, eating the remaining worm rounds to make sure I had room. My inventory was now completely full with dragon steaks, so I don't foresee food being an issue going forward.

I used the Powertowers leggings I had found to open up a passageway, then let Nabi wear them for the strength boost to help him wield the Executioner more efficiently.

There were two different stairs in the newly opened passage, so I took one of them. It lead me to an area with lots of pits and a waterskin in a central column. There were stairs further up as well, but the way there was blocked by a skeleton lock so I went all the way down and went up the other stairs.

I encountered a hellhound and a stone golem and took care of them, then went and retrieved the first corbum. A previously closed door now opened up for me, and I went up the stairs there. Upstairs I came to an area with a door surrounded by a pit on either side.

Inside there was a demon who seemed a bit confused. He seemed to run in circles around one of the pillars while I kept following him and hitting him in the back. Occasionally he would turn around an face me, and I would back up around the corner waiting for him, but when I peeked around the corner he had turned around again and continuing in a counter clockwise circle. He was abviously not the brightest kid in demon school

When he died, he dropped a key, and when I used it to open a nearby door, I found a ton of worms there.

I kited the groups of worms one by one back to the door with the pits on either side and used the door to crush them while hitting them with weapons. It took a while, but eventually their numbers were dwindling and I pressed forward until finally there were no worms left.

I found a sword called Dragon Fang and took it with me. I'm not sure if it's better than Diamond Edge though, with it's fast stab attacks that reduce enemy armor by 25% and train ninja skills. As soon as Syra had gained a ninja level, I gave Nabi the Diamond Edge and moved the Executioner and powertowers over to Syra.

There was a locked door in the area that required an onyx key. I saved the game before using the key like I usually do in case I'm disappointed by what's behind the door. I had earlier reloaded after using the onyx key in the dragon's lair and found what was behind that door pretty useless to me.

I pressed on (making sure I used a different slot for subsequent saves) and found a big open area, which turned out to be pretty confusing and frustrating. I ran around trying to figure out what to do and to try to find a way to progress forward, but was having trouble finding out what to do and also frequently got lost while trying to navigate the area.

There was a coin slot next to a blue mist and a lock. The coin slot removed the blue mist and using an iron key in the lock only caused a fireball to come out of the wall. There was another area where a secret passage opened after a while and lead to a locked door that required two keys of B. After opening it, I only found a Helm of Ra, so it felt like a big waste of my only two keys of B.

I frequently ran into Zytaxes, which were annoying because I only had one Vorpal Blade and they seemed to be constantly spawning. I also encountered the occasional demon, and sometimes fell into concealed pits that I didn't notice in time. I also found a button inside a blue mist which seemed to teleport me to a different place when I pushed it, and I saw some Boots of Speed behind a door that I couldn't figure out how to open.

There was also an area that had a ton of demons which I was not sure how to deal with due to the number of them. At one point I was able to run past them and found a door with a black lock that I didn't have a key for so I reloaded again. Also at some point I went back to the corbum room because I had read that there was supposed to be a false pit there. I tried putting dragon steaks on all the pits to see if they would drop or not, and found that the pit in front of the pressure plate was fake. I didn't know what to do with it though because all the pits surrounding the fake pit seemed to be real.

I tried using the rope to climb down the pit directly in front of the fake pit, but that just took me to what initially appeared to be a single square hole but that had a fake wall in front of me. Behind that wall was a dragon who proceeded to blast me in the face and took about half my health away. Going down that pit didn't seem like a good choice, so I reloaded again.

By now, I had wasted a lot of time while making very little progress. I also realized I had wasted my only onyx key because the door next to where I found Dragon Fang took me to the same area. Also one of my characters was running dangerously low on water and there was not a single fountain in sight, so I decided to reload the earlier save from before I had used the onyx key and proceeded to try to explore the area a little bit more.

After a bit more exploration where I didn't discover anything new, I was completely fed up with this area and decided I wanted to try to head back the way I had come from to see if I could maybe find a way back to the starting area, or at the very least find a fountain. Unfortunately I had saved over the save slot after killing some demons (one which dropped an iron key) in a smaller room, and I was having a bit of trouble finding my way back, but eventually I finally found all the worm rounds from the worms I had slain earlier, and could head back.

I unlocked the door that had closed behind me earlier in the dragon den, and in the long hallway I found that the deth knights had respawned, so I had to take care of those again.

After a while, I was back in the area where I had initially climbed down the "Trust me" pit to get to. I found that when standing on the pressure plate, a wall would open after a few seconds, and behind that wall I saw a dragon. I decided to top up my stats with a few rounds of buffing spells instead of casting fireshields, since I intended to circle strafe the dragon anyway.

I went into the room and started fighting the dragon, but every few steps I heard a click, and I had an ominous feeling about that, so I lead it to the other room instead. In that room, there were clicking sounds as well, and after a few rounds I fell down a pit and landed in a room with some stairs down.

After going down the stairs, I found to my delight a fountain, and realized I was in the area just below supplies for the quick. I filled up on water, then decided to use an iron key to remove the teleporter and head up to the supplies area again.

In supplies for the quick, I found a 4th flask! Finally I could use my the buff and full heal functions of my script properly without juggling flasks around. I also found a topaz key, a full set of dragon armor (which I gave to Nabi), a Side Splitter sword and some pieces of Ra armor.

Out of curiousity, I decided to use an iron key in the lock next to a pit in supplies for the quick, but all it did was close the pit, so I'm wondering if it's worth it. How likely or unlikely am I to ever drop down the pit above it?

I'm trying to decide whether to go back the Ku path again to see if there was anything I missed and maybe pick up some of the items I had to leave behind to make room for other stuff, or whether I should take a different path. I'm also hoping to find some more water skins and/or spare flasks to fill with water, since water seems to be a much bigger issue than food.

These are my current levels and attributes.

Nabi:
Lo master fighter
Expert ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 582
Stamina: 496
Mana: 209

Syra:
Lo master fighter
Lo master ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 609
Stamina: 602
Mana: 199

Wu Tse:
Expert fighter
Expert ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 528
Stamina: 338
Mana: 201

Elija:
Expert fighter
Expert ninja
Um master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 538
Stamina: 394
Mana: 198

[Paul Stevens]

What fun! Level zero is exceedingly complex. Reading your journal is
like being there the first time.

You have a lot left to see. Keep us informed.

[Ameena]

Woo cool...sounds like you achieved a bunch of stuff. But from the sounds of it you never actually finished the original DM, and you were so close! Maybe you should go back and do that some day . Keep us updated on your CSB stuff (the command to auto-buff your party and cast fireballs or whatever sounds kind of cheaty, though) - I could mentally track where your party is and I wondered at first how you'd managed to get past the "Trust Me" pit and yet not have met the dragon who lives down there. There's all sorts of secret passages and stuff - I wouldn't worry too much about using up your keys because pretty much everywhere important has at least a couple of ways by which you can reach it. Keep at it and let us know how you do .

[RogerS]

Quick update.

I took the teleporter to the junction again, and dropped all the dragon steaks except the ones that were in chests, and also dropped some other stuff I didn't need, then went back the Ku way. There was now a mummy in the left hand side of the intersection I had killed the first vexirk, and when I killed it a muncher appeared which I also took care of.

On the other side, there was another mummy, and when I killed him, a deth knight appeared. I decided to try throwing some Mon lightning bolts at him, but I just ended up wasting all my mana. I guess they really are immune to magic.

He wasn't moving anyway, so I killed him walking up to him and hitting him with melee attacks then backing away while my attacks cooled down. It only took a few hits to kill him anyway.

I decided I wanted to try to chop down the black door I didn't find a key or button for before, and it worked. Inside were a whole bunch of vexirks. I killed them by throwing fireballs down the long corridor, and dodging to the side when they were throwing fireballs or poison bolts back at me. The few that made it all the way down I killed with melee attacks.

When no more vexirks were coming down the corridor, I went up and checked, and saw that there was a group of them plus a single one left, so I backed up again. I killed the group with fireballs and the single one with melee attacks when he came to the end of the corridor.

When I went back to the room, I found there was one group left. I circled strafed them to death while attacking them from behind.

I picked up all the stuff the vexirks had dropped, and checked out the room. There was a fountain, and I found a secret passage with a lock. Opening it with an iron key opened another wall to a passage that contained a chest. There were some stairs down that led to a closed door, and the other direction led to the room where I had found the Executioner.

Afterwards, I topped everyone up on water again and went down to the basement and took the teleporter back to the junction.

[RogerS]

Back at the junction of the ways, I decided to take the Ros path this time.

I came to a place that said "Give up, pull the lever", and there were two holes in the wall that spat daggers, and some pits and moving teleporters.

I tried throwing a dagger over a pit when the teleporter wasn't there, but the teleporter moved back and the dagger hit it, causing me to be teleported to the side and hit in the back with two daggers.

I figured out I had to throw the dagger when the teleporter was in front of me, so that it had moved by the time the dagger reached it. I did the same with a few more pits, occasionally getting the timing wrong and getting teleported again, but soon the way was clear.

I moved forward and killed a couple of deth knights. When I peeked around the corner, there were a couple of rock monsters down the hall with some deth knights behind them. So I decided to try to go a different way first.

I went down some stairs and came to an empty room with just a lever on the wall (similar to various levers I had seen in the area above but hadn't pulled), so I decided to pull it.

When I pulled the lever, a pit opened up so I decided to climb down it. I came to an area riddled with missile weapons on the floor and no apparent way forward except through a false wall that led to a teleporter. Stepping in the teleporter took me back to the junction.

Went down Ros again, and came to area with a door on the other side of a pit and a teleporter appearing and disappearing behind me. When I threw a rock into teleporter, the pit disappeared and I went through the door.

Next I came to an area with some stairs (if I remember correctly) with a torch sconce next to them. Removing the torch opened a wall to a room with mummies in it, and putting the torch back closed it again.

I let out and fought one group of mummies at a time until they were all dead. At some point a giggler also appeared, which dropped a rabbit's foot and an emerald key when it died.

In the room the mummies had been in, there were stairs up but also a secret passage. I found a door with some clothes and a samurai sword in front it, locked by a gold lock. When I unlocked the door, I only found a ful bomb behind it, so I reloaded.

I tried throwing a rock over a pit that was blocking a door in that same area, but nothing happened, so I went up the stairs instead. On the way up, I passed Death Row and came to an area with a fireball launcher.

At the end, there was a pressure plate next to a niche and a lever, and stepping on the pressure plate launched at firebell. The lever briefly turned on a blue mist.

I tried stepping on the plate and pulling the lever at the same time, then stepping back, but the blue mist disappeared again before the fireball reached it. I stepped on pressure plate again and delayed pulling the lever for a bit, and that caused the fireball to turn around and blow open a gate.

There were a few scorpions that came out of of the open gate. I tried to use fireball launcher against them, but only got one or two fireballs to hit them before they cornered me. I killed them one by one using fireballs of my own.

In the room they had been in I pushed a button which activated a blue mist, and around the corner I found a chest with a flask in it, and pushed another button which opened a door somewhere.

Further down in the next room, I killed another scorpion by circle strafing.

I found a green gem on the wall, and taking it permanently activated the fireball launcher. I got hit by one of the fireballs when going back, so had to heal up.

A door opened for me when I came back, to an empty room with some stairs up.

Upstairs was an area full of fake walls. I walked around a little bit, but soon found myself back where I had started. I went a different direction, and eventually saw a dragon behind a pit. Soon it moved to the side though into one of the fake walls in front of me, so I headed back and down the stairs again. I need to either figure out a plan on how to deal with that area and the dragon (and maybe other dragons) there, or try to find somewhere else to go.

[RogerS]

Applied fireshields, went up and did hit and run on the dragon, trying to kite it towards the stairs until it died. It did hit me with fireballs a couple of times, but the fireshields took care of most of the damage. It didn't seem to have much hitpoints anyway, it was fairly easy to kill.

I walked through the fake walls and found a couple of more dragons and found I could actually stand toe to toe with them and that they weren't as big of a threat as I had initially feared.

After a while, I came to an open room with some dragons standing behind pits. I killed most of them with mid level poison clouds. One them sidestepped out of the cloud after a while and came towards me. I waited for it and hit it in the side with a berzerk which killed it. Another one snuck up on me as well while I was distracted, but I easily killed it with melee attacks.

Once all the dragons were dead, I dropped all the dragon steaks in my inventory (except the ones in chests) and the ones in the middle of the room down the pits, since I knew that I was above the starting area (I confirmed that by climbing down one of them, then reloading), and picked up a key that one of the dragons that came to me in the middle of the room dropped. There are also the dragon steaks from the dragons that remained in place and died in the poison clouds, I haven't decided what to do with those yet. At least I need to check if there is something else underneath them that those dragons might have dropped.

That's where I left it for now, in the middle of that room.

[RogerS]

By the way, Elijah leveled up to On master priest back in the Ku section while casting a fireshield, and Nabi has gone up to Um master wizard.

I'm hoping that Syra goes up a wizard level soon too, because at 199 mana, her mana regeneration is noticably slower than the rest of the team who all have just above 200 mana.

It shouldn't be too long now, because I remember the others got their Lo master wizard levels not too long after Nabi did.

[Ameena]

Sounds like you're doing good. Yeah, the Dragons in the "Dragon Maze" are pretty weak - usually one or two Mon Fireballs is enough to finish them off. If you get stuck at any point feel free to ask - we can give hints or suggestions without spoiling things too heavily. But it sounds like you've still got plenty to do and explore and stuff so far .

[RogerS]

Thank you Ameena

[RogerS]

Dropped some more dragon steaks down the pits and explored the area a bit further. I Found another dragon but not much else.

I found a hallway to the south. I walked down it while knocking on the walls, but there were no secrets.

Further down the hallway, there was a gold lock which opened a small passage to an alchove with a gor coin in it. Since I have 12 gor coins and "only" 5 gold keys, it didn't seem like a good trade, so I reloaded.

At the end of the hallway was the Diabolical Demon Director again.

The weird thing is that the worm rounds I had dropped by the stairs up to DDD when going the Ku path were still there, even though I was now coming from the Ros path.

I went up and killed the rockpiles there.

The pit in front of where it said "Fighters charge" was now open. I tried throwing a boulder at the demon that was by the pressure plate at the other side of the pit, but nothing happened, so I killed the demons on the other side of the pit with fireballs.

I had to hack a path through the black flames, which took a little bit of time since I still only have one vorpal blade, but it was quick enough that my fireshields were still active by the the time I was done. Syra gained a wizard level from it.

I decided to take a call it a day after clearing the path through the black flames. To be continued...

[RogerS]

In DDD, I tried throwing rocks/boulders over various pits, but nothing happened. I found out why the pit by "Fighters charge" had closed the first time by the way, so I made sure that it stayed open this time.

I climbed down the "trust me" pit again, and decided that it was time for round two with that dragon. I put on fireshields and went in, standing face to face with it.

It was pretty tough, but the fireshields were helping. I had to drink a few healing potions though to contend with broken bones or to stop one of the back row characters from getting too low on health at some point.

After I while, I made sure to refresh my fireshields to make sure they wouldn't run out. Near the end, the dragon had it's back turned to me most of the time, like it was trying to run away, and I stood next to the closed wall and hitting the dragon (in its back most of the time) any time it moved in front of me.

Nabi gained a ninja level while fighting the dragon, so now he has been given the Executioner and Powertowers again, while Syra has Diamond Edge.

Afterwards, I went up some stairs and fought some more black flames and picked up an emerald key, then went up another set of stairs and fought some hellhounds.

I opened one of the doors there with a gold key, and killed the stone golem that was there. It led to a set of mithril armor which I gave to one my rear characters.

Other than that, there was not much else besides some pits, and a green freeze life box that I didn't bother with behind a locked door. I climbed down to DDD again through the pit that was visible.

I don't know what to do next on DDD, so I'm thinking of just dropping down the "trust me" pit again and going through "dead end" and the dragon den up to the corbum tower again, and using the fake pit to get to the Ros side of the tower.

[RogerS]

I decided to go down the "Trust" pit again, and went down the long corridor and to the dragon den, where two of the dragons had respawned again in the middle room.

I separated them from each other and fought them one at a time, they were more durable than the ones in the "fake walls section" for sure. Nabi leveled up to Um master fighter while I was fighting them.

I went up the stairs and came to the fake pit. By the way, I realize I had misremembered in my initial post when I said that I had dropped down the pit in front of the fake pit and ended up in the fake walls section with a dragon, when in fact I ended up there when entering a pit from the floor below that after I had climbed down the pit in front of the fake one.

On the floor below, there was a Poleyn of Ra and a dragon steak in the central pillar. I left the steak behind because I had more than enough.

I went up some stairs, climbed down a pit, went up the next set of stairs, climbed down another pit then up a final set of stairs.

I pushed the button inside a fake wall, then made my over the blinking pits to the 2nd corbum and picked it up.

There were some stairs up, so I decided to check out what was upstairs. There was a room with some pillars.

Next to one one the pillars was a fake wall and I saw a demon on the other side. I lured the demon into the room with the pillars, and proceeded to move around the pillar while fighting him. At some point in the beginning of the fight he managed to hit with a fireball, which broke Elija's hand. Good thing I had fireshields up.

When he was dead, I peeked into the room and pulled the next one. There seemed to be a few of them, and at some point another one came into the room while there was already another there, so I retreated to the stairs and did the stair trick.

When I peeked through the fake wall again, there seemed to be even more of them, and after fighting a few more there was once again a point where there were more than one demon in the room with me. I figured they must be respawning, so I decided to leave them be for now and headed back down.

I dropped down a pit to the starting area and picked up as many of the dragon steaks there that I could carry. I checked Supplies for the Quick again, but there was nothing new, so I climbed down a pit to the room below and filled up on water, then teleported to the junction and did some inventory management and dropped off some excess items.

Current stats:

Nabi:
Um master fighter
Lo master ninja
On master priest
Um master wizard
Health: 656
Stamina: 593
Mana: 228

Syra:
Lo master fighter
Lo master ninja
On master priest
Um master wizard
Health: 624
Stamina: 627
Mana: 215

Wu Tse:
Expert fighter
Expert ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 528
Stamina: 338
Mana: 201

Elija:
Expert fighter
Expert ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 560
Stamina: 410
Mana: 210

[Paul Stevens]

Lots of interesting places remain to be seen. I don't think you have mentioned the Couatls, for example.

[RogerS]

Yes, I've certainly found this dungeon more interesting than the DM dungeon so far.

[Ameena]

Yeah, have fun in the Dain sections...

[RogerS]

I'm sure I will Ameena

Anyway, the journey continues.

I decided to go down the Ros way again to check out areas I hadn't been.

I came to the "Give up, pull the lever" place again. Since Nabi had recently gained a fighter level, I decided to switch the weapons around again.

I dealt with a lot of rockpiles and some deth knights, and Syra gained a fighter level during the process. Hidden under the pile of junk the deth knights left behind, there was an onyx key.

Found a secret passage in the hallway where all the rockpiles and deth knights had been in. In the hidden passage there was nothing, except a couple of fake walls that didn't lead anywhere.

Went down the stairs to the room with the pit I had climbed down on my first visit to Ros. I opened the black door with an onyx key, and behind it were some mummies and some boots of Speed. Sweet!

The other door opened with an iron key and led to the area I had been the second time I went down the Ros path. I reloaded again, because I didn't feel like wasting a key on a shortcut in an area I'd likely never visit again in this playthrough.

I climbed down the pit again instead, and looked around a bit more than I had the first time. I found a secret wall with some stairs up behind it, and I also encountered some worms that I didn't run into the first time I was here. I killed the worms and snacked on some worm rounds.

Upstairs I found a Vi altar with an iron key to the left, and a door straight ahead. Right next to the door was a fake wall (which made the door redundant), and it led to the room where I had dropped down the pit. I was once again in the section I had been the second time I ever entered the Ros path. I don't know how I had missed that fake wall earlier, because thought I had already knocked on all the walls in that room. Is it possible for a solid wall to turn into a fake wall in this game?

I'll leave it there for now and explore more later.

[RogerS]

I went up the stairs from the blinking teleporter again, then went right this time. There was an area that had a lot of fake walls, a spinner and a concealed pit. I also found some stairs up.

I went up the stairs, and at the end of a hallway there, I found a third key of B in a Vi altar.

I went back down and decided to try climbing down the concealed pit, which led me to the empty hallway I had found earlier that was concealed behind the fake wall where I had fought the rock piles and deth knights earlier.

I went back down to the room with the pit, went through the fake wall, went up the stairs again, and took a left and went through the fake wall. I decided to climb down the pit in front of the door there, and that took me back to the junction.

I went back to the Ku section to fill up on water. I also made sure to fill my spare flask with water, something I had forgotten to do the last time.

When I checked out the "No fireballs" room a little more thoroughly, I found a passage behind a fake wall. It led to another Vi altar with another iron key in it.

I then headed for the basement and the teleporter to the junction. I actually fell through a concealed pit on my way there, which was fine because it actually saved me a little bit of time

[RogerS]

I took the Neta path (picking up the horn of fear on the way), and it almost immediately had a left turn. I came to an area with a lot of doors, and one keyhole in one of the central columns.

I encountered a vexirk, and when I blew the horn at him he started running away, and I lost sight of him for a moment.

I only found him again when I started heading back to the Vi altar, he was hanging out in the hallway I had initially come from. I blew the horn again and once I had him cornered by the altar, he suddenly died and dropped a water skin, a cape, a green box, a square key and a mirror of dawn. In the altar there was also an iron key.

When I went back, I encountered another vexirk. I tried to do the same trick with him, but had some trouble getting him to run where I wanted. He hit me with some fireballs at some point while I was doing this, so I applied some fireshields and drank some potions to heal my broken bones and third degree burns.

At one point I had him going in the right direction, but then he made a right turn and somehow magically teleported right through a closed door. I gave up at that point and just killed him the normal way using weapons. I guess I must have just gotten lucky the first time. He dropped some food when he died.

I tried some of the doors, but they only seemed to open into other parts of the same area. When I opened the door opposite the keyhole, it had a wall right behind it, and I realized I was in the same place where I had died earlier in my journey on my first excursion from the junction of the ways. When I used the square key in the lock, it opened up the wall.

On the other side of that wall, there was a small room with a fountain, a blue mist and no fake walls. I took the opportunity to top up my water and refresh my buffs, then stepped into the teleporter which took me to a room with some screamers.

I killed the first group of screamers easily, and ate all the screamer slices, then explored the rest of the room while ignoring the rest of the screamers. I found a fake wall with some stairs down behind it.

It's getting kind of late now, so I'll explore some more the next time.

[RogerS]

I went down the stairs, then another set of stairs and came to what looked like it might be a dragon's lair.

In the room I saw a chest, and when I went there, walls appeared around me. I tried backing up and saw that I could get out, so I went back in to pick up the chest, a gor coin and an iron key.

Suddenly I started getting attacked by what sounded to be worms, but all the walls I knocked on all appeared to be solid.

This started a very long fight. I was stabbing and chopping, and the worms appeared to be attacking from all kinds of directions. I was using the way my characters were facing as an indicator of where I needed to turn and attack next. Sometimes there were brief periods without attacks, where I thought it might be over, but then the onslaught continued again. During the middle of this ordeal, Nabi gained a ninja level.

Occasionally I stopped to cast shield spells, make healing potions or refresh my buffs, and a couple of times I had to have Syra make and drink a stamina potion.

It just kept going on and on, and I had been saving in a new save slot in case I had actually gotten stuck. In the end, I paused and looked up a hint, and it said "All of the walls that are there are solid. Not all of the walls are there. To escape, back up."

I turned around in each direction and tried to back up, and in one of directions I was actually able to back out of there.

I escaped up the stairs and cast a couple of rounds of buffing potions, healed up those who needed it and drank some stamina potions, then cast shield spells again. I swapped the Diamond Edge over to Syra and the Executioner and Powertowers over to Nabi, then went back down.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs while fighting the rest of the worms, and also blowing the horn to scare them away and get free attacks (especially if the retreating worms were blocked in by other worms).

During spare moments, I picked up and ate worm rounds because my characters had started to get really hungry through all of this, and Syra also needed a sip of water.

Eventually there were only a few left, until finally managed to kill them all off.

I explored the rest of the area, and found a fake wall that led to a corridor with a teleporter at the end that took me back to the junction of the ways.

[Ameena]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the endless worm flood is triggered by an action taken elsewhere, an action you've previously mentioned doing and which I was trying to remember where the worm flood was triggered .

The action in question was...

Spoiler

picking up Dragon Fang

...if you're curious .

[RogerS]

It's interesting how seemingly innocent actions can have consequences somewhere else in this game.

"My basement's flooded."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. It's completely filled with water?"

"No, it's filled with giant flesh eating worms."

[RogerS]

I went down the Neta path again, filled my water in the teleporter room, then teleported to the screamer room. I decided I wanted to try to train Wu Tse and Elija up a bit in fighter and ninja, since they were lagging behind at only expert levels.

I moved them to the front, then proceeded to punch screamers to death and use weapons against the oituses that spawned to revenge them, but there were only two groups of screamers left and I couldn't find a way to make them respawn.

I tried moving around all over the room, but no new screamers spawned. Then I tried opening one door and taking a few steps outside of it, but nothing happened.

I tried the other door and moved around in the squares nearest to it, but nothing appeared in the room.

Then a giggler appeared in the open door while I was standing right in front of it. I clicked the button to close the door, and it started closing on the giggler. I stepped back and let the giggler into the room, then trapped it in a 4x4 area in the corner of the room, with my party blocking the exit, and attacked the giggler whenever it stepped in front of me. The giggler dropped a skeleton key when it died.

I gave up on the idea of grinding a fighter and a ninja level for my back row characters, so I moved Nabi and Syra to the front again.

I tried the door to the north, but it only led to a dead end passage with an empty Vi altar at the end and no fake walls along the wall.

I tried the other door and saw a maze like area with pillars, and also spotted a concealed pit.

I went left from the door of the screamer room, and saw some munchers flying around in the distance in an rectangle shaped room.

When I took a step closer, some more appeared and they came flying towards me, so I took a step back to avoid being attacked on multiple sides. Some of them flew around the pillar though and started attacking me from behind.

I started attacking them with fireballs, and at some point while I moved around there, I accidentally backed into the concealed pit and dropped down to the room where the worm flood had occurred.

After healing up Wu Tse and Elija who had gotten injured in the fall, I went up the stairs again, and killed some more munchers in the doorway. I found that an Um level fireball was sufficient to kill one, and didn't need to use the On level fireballs that I had initially used on them.

I discovered that every step I took in that room would spawn one or two munchers, and also that a single Lo level fireball was enough to kill them when I tried it. Soon I was on the other side of the room with some stairs going up.

To be continued...

[RogerS]

Went up the stairs and came to a familiar area I remember seeing in videos a while back, where I needed to trap some mummies on some pressure plates behind some doors. Using the horn of fear, I was able to do so without any issues, and the door opened. I also found a button which opened a niche containing the Cross of Neta when I pushed it.

The door opened into a passage with a fountain (where I took the opportunity for a quick top up of my water), a couple of pits and some stairs at the end. There was also a fake wall that revealed an empty flask and a ful bomb. I created a spare Mon level Vi potion for Syra, so now both characters in front have an emergency full heal potion each, just in case.

I went up the stairs again and came to a room where there was a scroll and a key flying around. They both hit me for minor damage, and I picked them up. The scroll said "Holy one step forward with purpose and trust that I will guide you through the purgatory that awaits". Sounds foreboding.

I was also approached by a giggler which dropped an Eye of Time when it died.

I came to a large open room, and I was hugging the walls and knocking on them, but only came to a niche that didn't lead anywhere. When I continued hugging the walls, I came back to the room I came from.

I fought a couple of slime devils there by the way. One of them hit me with a green blob that only did 5 damage. They were pretty easy to defeat.

I decided to try to go through the middle of the room, and noticed being occasionally teleported or spun around. When I went forward from the room I had started in, I was spun around a couple of times and eventually ended up in a new room. I guess this is what the scroll was alluding to.

The room was small and empty, and there was a hallway leading to some stairs up. The stairs took me to a room with a few stairs up and down, some rows of pits, and some spinners. In the middle of one of the lanes between two rows of pits there was some Flamebain armor which I picked up. There were also some wall holes that started constantly spitting out green spores when I stepped into the room, but the spores didn't seem to do any damage.

I'm undecided on which stairs to take next, so I'll leave it there for now.

[RogerS]

I first tried the stairs down in the north end of the room, but further progress was blocked by a gate.

The stairs up took me to the DDD area, so I went back down and tried the stairs up next to the stairs I had initially come from. Further progress there was blocked by a solid iron door as well, so I went back to DDD.

After mucking around a bit up in DDD, trying to throw rocks/boulders various places etc., I realized I still have no idea how to progress further there, so I'm stuck for now and unable to get to the third corbum.

[RogerS]

I decided to give it another try after using the CSBWin hint function on my savegame.

I found a secret button which closed the pit in front of the alchove where I had found the third flask, and the rock piles had respawned as well as another demon.

I dealt with the demon and lured the rock piles on to a pressure plate which closed a pit. I went and killed a black flame in the new area, but the way further there was blocked by a gate with a black flame spawner on the other side.

There was a pressure plate that closed a pit, and and I saw some stairs up, but when I stepped towards the stairs a pit opened underneath me and I fell down.

I went back up and lured the rock piles to stand on the pressure plate again. I left a rock on the other pressure plate and saw that the pit remained open when I stepped off it, so I went up the stairs.

In this area, a pit opened up in front of me when I was standing in the entrance to another room, and there was also a pressure plate in the corner and when I stepped on it I was teleported and attacked by some hellhounds.

I was circle strafing the hellhounds, but then another pair of hellhounds appeared and I had to stand and fight them. I cast fireshields, but the hellhounds were still hitting pretty hard. Some of my characters were almost down to half health when I was done with them.

There was a door with a button to open it, and also a button on the wall next to the door, but I decided to explore the rest of the area first.

When I was exploring the hallway, I was cornered by another hellhound while I was in a niche checking for fake walls, so I had to deal with it toe to toe.

At the end of that hallway there were some holes in the wall that luckily didn't shoot anything at me, and some stairs down.

The stairs down led to another short hallway with another set of stairs down, and I saw the DDD area next to the hallway separated by a pit. There was also a button at the bottom of one of the walls next to the pit. I expected the pit to close when I pushed it, but it had no apparent effect. The hallway also had a rock in it which I presume is one of the rocks I had tried throwing earlier.

I went down the stairs and came to another room that had a pit, a door with a gold lock, and a gate with a button next to it. When I pushed the button, a blue mist appeared in front of the gate, but nothing happened when I stepped into it.

Skeletons started spawning behind me, so started killing them. I then tried to scare one of them to go in front of the gate using the horn and warcry, but they seemed to be immune to fear.

Finally after killing a few more skeletons, one of them finally gave in to fear and turned around and stepped in front of the gate. When I pushed the button, it was teleported to the other side of the gate and hit by a fireball, and the gate opened after it's weapon and shield dropped.

I checked what was behind the gold key lock, but it was only a chest with food in it, so I reloaded.

On the other side of the gate there was a blue lock and an eye on the other wall. I tried the mirror of dawn on the eye, and I heard a click.

I cast some fireshields just in case (considering what had happened to that poor skeleton), then unlocked the door with the turquoise key.

In the room that opened, there was a skeleton that seemed to be a bit sturdier than the other, but soon enough it was dealt with. There was some stairs up next to an inscription that said "Neta", and in the other room I saw a hallway with some shooter holes in the wall where the hallway turned left.

To be continued...

[RogerS]

I decided to go to the hallway in the other end of the room. I stepped in front of the holes in the wall and quickly stepped back, but nothing came out of the holes so I proceeded down the hall.

There was a door with a gold lock, and while I was in my inventory looking for a gold key, I suddenly heard a giggler.

Before I could properly react, he went into the adjacent room that had suddenly opened and into the teleporter on the right hand side. I followed him through the teleporter and killed him with a few swings and an EE fireball, and recovered the rope that he had stolen.

I realized I was in the big room from earlier with the teleporters and spinners, so I followed the path in the middle of the room once again, then ran back up to DDD.

In DDD, there was now a group of 4 rock piles as well as a single one, and behind it were two demons. I killed the single rock pile (while the group of 4 rock piles were hitting me from the side and taking Wu Tse's health down to half. I also cast fireshields to protect me from the fireballs from the demons.

After I had killed the rock pile, I stepped forward and one of the demons also stepped forward on to the pressure plate. I quickly dashed over the closed pit while he was standing there and up the stairs.

I decided to try opening the door I had left behind earlier, and also try to press the button (which didn't seem to do anything).

Behind the door there was a closed door to the left, and to the right there was an area with some corridors and fake walls. At first glance it seemed very similar to an area I had explored before, so I initially presumed that it was that area and went back.

I noticed that fireballs were now being fired down the hall, perhaps caused by me hitting that button. I tried quickly clicking the button between the fireballs, but the button was no longer clickable. I put on some fireshields and went towards the stairs down, getting hit by fireballs for a bit of damage on the way.

I stopped by the stairs though and had second thoughts. I had a feeling that perhaps the area with the fake walls was a different area from the one I was thinking about that I had visited earlier, considering I was about 95% sure that was back at Ros.

I went to this thread on the forum and searched in my browser for the term "fake walls". I found a mention of the area that I had thought of and saw that it was indeed found back when I was going through Ros and that it was slightly different from the one here.

The fireballs had now stopped firing, and I went back through the door to the corridors and fake walls area.

One of the corridors seemed endless, so I realized I probably was getting teleported. I went through another fake wall instead, and here I was getting teleported again with no fake walls this time when going left, but with a fake wall when going right. After I went through there I found an alchove with a dragon steak in it and there was a skeleton lock there as well.

I unlocked the skeleton lock, and came to the area that had the green box behind a door locked with a gold lock. I peeked down the stairs there, which confirmed where I was because they took me down to DDD again.

I went back to where I had come from and back down the stairs. In the short hallway between the stairs I noticed that the pit had now closed, but I continued down the next stairs to the skeleton area again.

The gate had closed again, so I had to wait for another skeleton and scare it in front of the gate and teleport it again.

I went down the hallway where I had encountered the giggler, and noticed that the wall would sometimes open for a split second. I used a gold key on the lock, and behind it I found a water skin and a gor coin.

The wall didn't seem to open any more, and at some point I heard a fireball explosion somewhere nearby.

After waiting a while to see if the wall would perhaps open again, I went back to the stairs next to the "Neta" inscription. I buffed up a couple of times, and just as I was about to go up the stairs, I heard another explosion.

Upstairs there was a pit, a pressure plate and some stairs up. When I stepped on the pressure plate, the pit closed, and it opened again when I stepped off it. I tried placing a rock on the plate, and that closed the pit as well.

I checked for fake walls when standing on the closed pit, but there wasn't any, so I went up the next stairs.

There was a long hallway without any fake walls, which lead to an area with an empty gem slot in the wall, and an inscription in front of a floor trigger that said "None shall pass the corridor of fire".

I had moved back to the square to the right of the gem slot, and when a fireball came barrelling down I thought I was safe, but it somehow hit me.

Went back to the floor trigger (so that I could read the inscription again and write it down in this journal), and I found out that even turning around on that square created a clicking sound. When I stepped off the floor trigger, a couple of fireballs came flying by, and I saw that they made a turn in the corner by the empty gem slot.

After a round of buffing spells and casting fireshields, I went down the corridor. I came to another floor trigger with a niche next to it, and I ducked into the niche right after stepping on the trigger.

No fireball came though, but when I stepped on the trigger again, I saw a fireball coming towards me so I stepped into the niche again.

When I stepped back on the trigger, no fireball came, so I went forward. I figured I might as well push on since I did have 4 Mon level fireshields up.

I was hit by a couple of fireballs, even when I stepped through some blue mists on the side of a 9x9 room. The fireshields blocked most of the damage though. Then suddenly I dropped down a pit.

At the bottom of the pit, I was confronted with a series of gigglers (one of which dropped down a pit that kept occasionally opening for a brief moment), but luckily I was able to kill them without any of them being able to steal anything.

Out of curiousity, I wanted to go down the pit to see what was there. I stepped on it, then stepped back and readied the "Climb down" action with the rope, but the pit kept closing again before I was able to climb down, and I just ended up standing on the closed pit again. In the end I decided to just stand there and let my party fall down.

In the pit there was just a skeleton in front of me and a locked gate behind me. Once I killed the skeleton, a giggler appeared in front of me but he had nowhere to run so I easily killed him. He managed to steal my compass before he died though.

The skeleton dropped a square key which I used to unlock the gate. After going through the gate, I ended up in the area with the rows of pits and the harmless green spore spitters.

Instead of running all the way back, I decided to just reload to just before I had jumped in that pit.

From the delayed briefly opening pit, there was a corridor to the side where there was a blue mist and some stairs next to it. Stepping in the blue mist teleported me to just in front of those stairs, and it wouldn't let me go back.

I went up the stairs, and there was a fake wall and on the other side was another blue mist with a room on the other side of it. I suspect it might be the room I went through when going through the hallway of fire just before dropping down the pit, but I'll keep exploring that area the next time I play CSB.

[Ameena]

Sounds cool - seems like you're getting closer to acquiring your third corbum . Then just Dain to go, blergh .

[RogerS]

I went into the room, and it was indeed the room I had been in before filled with blue mists. I found a blue gem there which I picked up.

I went further, and there was a trigger on the floor, and when I stepped forward I fell down the pit again. Before I could properly react, I fell down another pit down to the skeleton again, so I decided to reload.

I discovered that a wall opened briefly when I stood on the trigger. The first time I was too slow to react and the wall closed before I could step into it. I went back in a corner of the blue mist room, but a fireball hit me anyway.

I stepped on the trigger again, then quickly stepped into the niche when it opened.

I healed up, cast fireshields, clicked the button on the wall in the niched, then moved on.

I still fell down the pit despite clicking this button, so I reloaded again.

I tried again a bit quicker this time, and was able to bypass the pit. I ducked into another niche, then continued.

The next niche I couldn't duck into, because it was blocked by a mummy, so I moved on. I was hit with fireballs a couple of times but luckily I had fireshields.

I took a left, and at the end of the hallway there was a fake wall. After going through the fake wall, I found another blue gem.

I continued onwards, and when I came to another gem slot in the wall, a door opened to my left with some stairs up.

Upstairs I found an iron key, and there were some spinners when I went left from the stairs.

I came to a door with a lock, and the hallway continued further down. I put on some fireshields and decided to investigate the hallway first. It led to what looked like a somewhat large room, so I decided to go back and try the door before investigating the room further. I did notice a couple of firing holes in the wall in the corner of that room.

The door opened with an iron key, but it didn't swallow the key. Inside I found a Sceptre of Lyf next to another door. This door opened with an iron key as well, but this one swallowed the key like normal.

The door opened into the large room again. I went exploring, and after a while I came to the large pile of worm rounds on the floor and I realized I was on the top floor again. I had some trouble finding my way back. I fell into a concealed pit once (but luckily there were stairs up nearby), and at some point I encountered and fought a worm. Eventually I found my way back without running into anything more nasty or getting hopelessly lost.

I went back down the stairs, and buffed up and put on some fireshield and continued onwards.

When I put a blue gem in the gem slot, a niche with a Vi altar opened up. I quickly dipped into there (but still got hit with a fireball because they were firing so quickly). In the niche, I spotted some stairs down to the right on the opposite side, so I quickly went down those (getting hit with yet another fireball just before going down).

Downstairs, I found the central corbum pillar with a dragon steak in the alchove, and nothing else, so I went back up. I dashed to the left and came to a room where I saw the third corbum in the central pillar, a pressure plate, a pit opening and closing, and fireballs being constantly fired on the pillar with the corbum.

I went and stood on the pressure plate, and saw that the pit in front of the corbum closed. I waited and timed it so that I dashed over the blinking pit when it was closed, then quickly grabbed the corbum. Then the pit beneath me opened again and I dropped down to the floor below.

I climbed down the pit to the left of the pillar, and I fell down another pit underneath it to the starting room.

3 corbums retrieved, only 1 to go

[RogerS]

No progress to report today. Was feeling tired and therefore not motivated to tackle what everyone is saying is the worst part.

I did briefly launch up the game just now to grind some buffing potions in the starting room, since I have plenty of water, and lots of dragon steaks strewn around in the starting room from when I dropped them down the pits earlier.

I was hoping they would perhaps gain another priest level from doing this, but I called it a night before they gained any. Not sure if I want to spend any more time trying to get them up to Ee master priests.

I can cast 3 rounds of 5 buffing potions (2 Ku potions and one of each of the other ones) on a full bar of mana, and after the third round of buffing potions before having a quick sleep, most of my characters' attributes cap out at around 155-160.

[Ameena]

Sounds cool. I dont even bother with training, I just kind of tear around the place killing stuff with fireballs and trying not get cornered and stuff . At least you're nearly done. Now imagine how it was for us back in the day when we didn't have the Internet to just easily look stuff up if we got stuck .