Part 22: Sunken Ruins

Update 22: Sunken Ruins

We set sail for the Sunken Ruins!

Paragraph 46 posted:

Your journey takes you to the frontier known as the Eastern Isles. This area is unclaimed by any nation, and you experience no encounters with hostile maritime forces.

The Eastern Isles have a rustic quality lacking in the Dilmun Interior. Here things are unfinished and wild, and seem untouched by the corruption of the Interior. This region is the closest thing you've seen to the paradise you expected to find when you arrived in Purgatory, many months ago.

Presently you spot what seems to be a ruined city, half-submerged in the sea. You find a place to land your craft on a stretch of sand southeast of the ruins.

That building off to our right is the Sunken Ruins. We are, in fact, one tile south and one tile east of it. There's actually something else on this isle, but we're not going to explore that because it's not relevant right now and going there would be a Bad Idea(TM).

So for now, let's go in the ruins.





"You decide the ruins are very old," they say. "The elements have not been kind to the ruins," they say. As opposed to all those nice, new, well-maintained ruins out there.

Still, the fact that these are apparently some sort of ancient alien ruins with "fantastic structures" beneath, clearly this is an area where we will learn valuable secrets, interesting lore, and make some shocking discoveries. No, not really.



We follow a short but windy path into the ruins.



Upon reaching the end of the path, we see a door on the right. Let's try to open it.



Well, that's unusual. This happens with Dolph (Lockpick skill 3) or Madrick (1). We could level up Dolph's Lockpick skill to 4, but it's easier to walk through the false wall to the left of the door.



I have no idea why "Beach Bums" are an enemy here. They actually do hit for high damage, so we can't take them too lightly.

We follow this path, and it branches. Follow one branch, and we reach a dead end. Follow the other, reach another dead end. However, looking at the automap tells us where we need to go.



Just keep bumping into the walls around that box in the middle. The wall at the top is the fake one. Punch through it, and...



Naturally, that building right in front of us is where we need to be. But first, we'll walk around it and find an item.




This may look like junk, and indeed the Driftwood and Flotsam are completely useless. (This is the sort of game where you'd expect that somehow the Driftwood was essential to solve some puzzle and the Flotsam gave +3 AC, but no, they're just random junk, at least as far as I know.)

Anyway, the Spiked Flail is one of the first endgame-caliber weapons we find. It does a ton of damage and increases AV by 2. Since Louie has the Barbed Flail, we'll give the Spiked Flail to Kali.

When I say it does a ton of damage, I mean a TON. According to a guide, it does 4d20 damage. The other weapons we have are doing 1d20 or 1d30. It's tough to confirm the exact damage rolls for a weapon without just testing them out a lot, but here's a sample:



Yeah. She's routinely does damage in the 40's with it. Magic is still generally stronger than melee, but having someone who can dish out this kind of damage every turn is going to really reduce the need for Dragon Stones. There are only a few weapons in the same class as the Spiked Flail. We'll be getting one of them in the near future.

On that note, there's another fake wall to go through to get inside the building.



Well, well, well, what have we here?

Obviously you're meant to use the water-breathing potion here, but if we didn't know that, we might have tried using Swim or Climb here:




So, with that bluntly obvious hint out of the way, we'll drink the water potion.



"Imbibe." That's a cool word.



And here's the real Sunken Ruins dungeon. There's not much to it, it's very small. We do need a compass down here, however. The small map wraps around quickly and there is a spinner trap, so it's easy to get lost (but not too lost, since it's a small area).



We go south for a bit and find a couple of rooms.



We need the Lockpick skill here. This is another advanced lock. It will defy Madrick, but Dolph with his level 3 skill can get it.



All right! Let's check out the loot...



Aw, crap. Too bad Exorcism doesn't really work in this game. This fight is actually pretty brutal; the Corpses can one-shot a character with a melee attack and they're tough to hit. I have the front-liners use Block Attack in the second round so nobody dies.



As usual, the Exp/Gold return is terrible, but the treasure they guard is worthwhile.




The Trident does good damage but isn't really useful. It's a thrown weapon -- unlike most thrown weapons, you don't lose it when you throw it, but you have to re-equip it after every attack. Terrible.

The Dragon Sword is a "two-hander" which requires 21 Strength and does the same damage as Spiked Flail. Ulrik has a few leftover skill points, so we'll bump him up to 22 Strength and give him a point in two-handers. He'll probably be carrying the Dragon Sword for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, his Level 3 Axes skill is kind of wasted because there aren't any endgame-caliber axes, and we haven't even found any of the good midgame axes yet. The Dragon Sword raises AV by 3 itself, so that makes up for the misplaced weapon skill.

Piers might be upset about Ulrik getting such a powerful sword, but don't worry. We'll get a new weapon for Piers soon enough.

The Dragon Plate is the strongest armor in the game. It lowers AV by 3, but that's better than the Plate Mail we have on Piers.

So that's three pieces of endgame equipment we've picked up today. But we still have to get what we came for.



Specifically, this. The skull of Roba. Let's grab it and head on out of here!



Yes, of course. Why is it giving us a prompt?



Okay, we'll have Piers carry the skull I guess.



Oh, screw you. Well, now what?



Uh, hmm, I guess we'll have to cast a spell or use a skill here, so I'll say "No" and try something else...



...

Sigh.

All right, get's get out of here.



Yes, of course. So now Piers has Roba's Skull in his inventory.

That's all there is for Sunken Ruins. It's a small, not very memorable area with nothing other than a small handful of items. But those items include two of the best weapons, the best armor, and a key item for getting the best weapon.

Sunken Ruins seems like a rushed dungeon to me. Why is Roba's skull there? What is the significance of the alien structures? And the game's response is, shrug, here are some super-powered items, now shut up.

For our next update, we'll forge a sword out of a skull! Until then, I leave you with this image: